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Subscribers to Bari Weiss’s Free Press can register to attend this forum with Jay Bhattacharya. It begins today at 8:00pm EST.

This letter in today’s Wall Street Journal is wise:

Ms. Finley accurately sums up the Covid discussions we’ve had at our own table since 2019. We have no consensus at this point on who should get a Covid shot, when or why, because it doesn’t prevent infection, as President Biden had said. It lessens the effects of the symptoms, but shot reactions for certain people can be as terrible as the virus itself. We learned about Covid from our own experiences, so officials on TV “informing” us with contrary information has lost all credibility.

Patricia Morrison
Mukilteo, Wash.

Justin Hart supplies evidence that, at least for 2021, the number of covid deaths in the U.S. is inflated.

Guy Gin reports on the damage and tyranny unleashed in Japan by Covid Derangement Syndrome – damage and tyranny the effects of which will not soon disappear. Here’s his conclusion:

And during Covid, Japanese politicians haven’t just stretched the meaning of least infringement; they’ve bent the meaning of “emergency” completely out of shape too.

Jennifer Sey tweets: (HT Jay Bhattacharya)

I’m gathering photos & videos of kids in zoom school & during closures & lockdowns.

The photos might show up in a documentary film so don’t send if you’re not ok with that possibility. Please send to [email protected].

Caroline Breashears correctly observes that “the majority of politicians have one-track minds. They identify problems, pass legislation, and send the consequences down the line.” A slice:

The “Unleashing American Innovators Act of 2022,” for instance, amends existing legislation to enable the Undersecretary of Commerce for Intellectual Property and Director of the US Patent and Trademark Office to encourage innovation and new patents among particular groups. It ends the preferred list with “any geographic group of innovators that the Director may determine to be underrepresented in patent filings.” The Director may spend your tax dollars based less on the quality of invention than on who innovates and where.

No, recycling will not save the environment.

Writing in the Wall Street Journal, Jeb Hensarling warns of the dangers posed by the U.S. government’s fiscal recklessness. A slice:

In any deficit-reduction deal, Democrats are likely to demand tax increases. Republicans should say no unless dramatic entitlement reforms are offered in exchange. There are too many examples of laws whose promised tax increases are realized and promised spending reductions aren’t. In 2001, the budget was balanced between less spending and more growth, not less spending and higher taxes. Further, at 20% of GDP for fiscal 2022, tax revenue is already near a multidecade high.

David Boaz argues that the American west needs water markets.

Wall Street Journal columnist Holman Jenkins rightly decries the increasing lawlessness of antitrust during Biden’s reign. A slice:

Elsewhere Ms. [FTC Chairwoman Lina] Khan has cited a “special obligation to bring hard cases,” confusing herself with criminal prosecutors who sometimes must go after obviously guilty people (Al Capone) with imperfect evidence. Antitrust seldom lacks for evidence—companies hand over reams of documents and data. But too often the evidence is distorted to create a crime, a classic being the FTC’s 2003 insistence that, for antitrust purposes, “superpremium” ice cream doesn’t compete with ice cream.

By now the degradation of antitrust into Washington’s least purposeful and public-spirited activity is a long-running story, resting on exactly such “market definition” games, which are the modern trustbuster’s main stock in trade. The Trump case was built on laughably pretending cable TV doesn’t compete with streaming. Ms. Khan’s case is built on the fantasy that a single game franchise, “Call of Duty,” would enable Microsoft to monopolize the industry.

It’s useful to put in plainer words what previous analysts and reporters have said: The FTC is lying to have a case.