Do We Need the CDC?

Plus, why are there cryptocurrency rules in the new infrastructure bill?

1x 1.1x 1.25x 1.5x 2x 3x

:15 :15

Download

Do We Need the CDC?

With two Reason Roundtable regulars on vacation, Reason's Liz Wolfe and Stephanie Slade join Katherine Mangu-Ward and Peter Suderman to discuss the latest disastrous moves in COVID-19 regulations and infrastructure talks.

Discussed in the show:

2:22: COVID-19 messaging from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) and government leaders is all over the place. Do we need any of it?

34:22: Is bipartisanship hindering infrastructure?

47:03: Weekly Listener Question: Is it unfair to claim anarchists are just cynics trying to be cool?

52:09: Weekly media recommendations.

This week's links:

• "It's Time to Rethink What the 'End' of the Pandemic Looks Like," by Jack Shafer
• "A Confusing Message," by David Leonhardt
• "Why Are There New Crypto Rules in the Infrastructure Bill?" by Elizabeth Nolan Brown

Send your questions to [e-mail]. Be sure to include your social media handle and the correct pronunciation of your name.

Today's sponsors:

• Living in a digital age where your personal data is always under attack, your online privacy seems to be a thing of the past. Did you know there is a way to protect your information and privacy without worrying about Big Tech mining and stealing your private data? Introducing Sekur—an encrypted instant messaging and secure email service hosted in Switzerland, where the world's strictest data privacy laws are applied. Take back your privacy and online security with Sekur by going to Sekur.com.
• Imagine an app where you can get unlocked access to reliable news sites. An app that filters out fake news and clickbait but still shows you every story from multiple perspectives to counter bias. Where good news, as in positive stories, is highlighted—so you don't become despondent. And where journalists dig through news from around the world to find stories you wouldn't normally see. That's what an innovative Australian startup called Inkl has come up with. The service unlocks more than $12,000 of premium news for $100 a year. If you go now to inkl.com/podcast, they'll give you an additional 25 percent discount, so you can get a whole year's worth of headache-free news for just $75.

Audio production by Ian Keyser
Assistant production by Regan Taylor
Music: "Angeline," by The Brothers Steve

What are we consuming this week?

Katherine Mangu-Ward

• The Wreckage of My Presence: Essays, by Casey Wilson

Liz Wolfe

• White Lotus

Peter Suderman

• Billie Eilish: Happier Than Ever

Stephanie Slade

• Suni Lee at the 2021 Olympics

---

Comments

[damikesc]

Why are there cryptocurrency rules?

Because there CAN be, that is why.

You didn't expect a Dem WH to leave that alone, did you?

[Overt]

To be fair, there is pretty bipartisan support on hating crypto currencies.

[Reba D. Ward]

Fantastic work-from-home opportunity for everyone… Work for three to eight a day and start getting paid inSd the range of 17,000-19,000 dollars a month… Weekly payments Learn More details Good luck…

See……………VISIT HERE

[Mother's Lament]

Because there CAN"

I came to say this.
But hey! No more mean tweets, amirite libertarians?

[AlexandraTayler]

I made over $700 per day using my mobile in part time. I recently got my 5th paycheck of $19632 and all i was doing is to copy and paste work online. this home work makes me able to generate more cash daily easily.FTc simple to do work and regular income from this are just superb. Here what i am doing. Try now.........

Click Below Webpage…........... VISIT HERE

[VendicarD]

Cripto is Organized Crime's greatest gift.

[Dillinger]

>>Is bipartisanship hindering infrastructure?

two-party system premise fail.

[Rachel Gresham]

I made over $700 per day using my mobile in part time. I recently got my 5th paycheck of $19632 and all i was doing is to copy and paste work online. this home work makes me able to generate more cash daily easily.BVz simple to do work and regular income from this are just superb. Here what i am doing. Try now.........

GOOD LUCK.......... VISIT HERE

[Eeyore]

No.

[Kungpowderfinger]

Do We Need the CDC?

Pfizer, Moderna, and Johnson & Johnson would like to think so

[Thufir Hawat]

We certainly don't need the CDC to encourage people to get vaccinated. The only people that haven't been vaccinated yet are inbred yokel bible thumping Trumptards. It's good that these people don't get vaccinated catch covid and die, it's Darwinian, survival of the fittest. The CDC wants you right wing nut jobs to get vaccinated and live, that's a mistake. The less of you anti-science Trumptards are alive to vote, the better off our country will be.

[Zeb]

This has to be parody, right?

[sarcasmic]

The name is a character from Dune, so my guess is yes. It's not already muted, so if it's an existing troll they created a new email address.

[Dillinger]

reads just like SB2. is he parody?

[Longtobefree]

What difference, at this point, does it make?

[Claptrap]

Inbred bible-toting Trumptards like... 40% of NYC schoolteachers?

You people really have a tough time dealing with reality.

As of [7/26], 41 percent of New York City residents were not vaccinated. Trump won 22 percent of the vote in NYC.

-In Chicago, 43 percent of residents are not vaccinated. Trump carried 24 percent of the vote in Cook County.
-In the city of San Francisco, about a quarter of residents are not vaccinated. Trump carried about 12 percent of the vote in the city last year.
-In Los Angeles County, just under 30 percent of residents are not vaccinated; Trump won 26.8 percent in 2020.
-In Maricopa County, Arizona, which includes Phoenix, 52 percent of residents are not vaccinated; Trump won 48 percent of the vote there in 2020.
-In Harris County, Texas, which includes Houston, about 48 percent are not vaccinated; Trump won 43 percent in that county in 2020.
-In Philadelphia, Pa., about 37 percent of residents are unvaccinated. Trump won 17.9 percent of the vote there in 2020.
-In Multnomah County, which includes Portland, Ore., just under 63 percent have at least one dose, meaning that 37 percent are unvaccinated. Trump won under 18 percent in that county in 2020.
-In Milwaukee County in Wisconsin, 61.6 percent have at least one dose, meaning 38.4 percent are unvaccinated. Trump won 29.4 percent of the vote in 2020.
-Detroit has vaccinated just under 40 percent of its residents; Trump carried 5 percent of the vote in that city.

[Set Us Up The Chipper]

About 40% of Cleveland Clinic employees as well...a very prestigious medical facility.

[Thufir Hawat]

Many of the unvaccinated in the areas you mention are probably blue dog democrats. We can do without them as well.

[JFree]

They have actually polled the unvax to try to figure out who they are. afaics, they are divided into three main groups:
1. poor and non-white. These are hesitant and have questions. In many cases, they got a real case of covid (vs the bogus case of covid by many commenters here) last year. In other cases, the outreach just hasn't either provided answers to their questions or hasn't been convenient re work/access.
2. the young - 18-34. These are generally not paying attention and are basing their unvax on what covid outcomes were last year. If delta variant is different re local hospitalization, they may change their mind. Or remain oblivious.
3. White R - These are resistant. Nothing will change their mind. Nothing will change their behavior. They are immune to all facts from any different source. They will resist all mandates by govts - and all mandates by private sector. They generally are also more concentrated geographically than the others so they dominate the low vax counties. Those are the places that will blow up their medical systems the soonest. But again, there is absolutely nothing that anyone can do.

In any case, vax at an individual level is now too late for the low-vax counties/states where delta is already starting to bite hospitals

[Nardz]

If covid is as prevalent and contagious as you've been saying, how can you assume "bogus" cases for "many commenter here"?

[Mother's Lament]

Because JFree is making shit up again as usual.

Also; "White R – These are resistant. Nothing will change their mind. Nothing will change their behavior. They are immune to all facts from any different source."

This is a great example of the establishment left's approach to changing hearts and minds. Anger, rage and pure unadulterated hatred.
Because they don't actually want to convince people to become vaccinated. They want to demonize and unperson them instead. Inoculation isn't their goal. They're manufacturing reasons to kill dissenters and dissidents.

[Salted Nuts]

Yep. Pure culture war ideologue. JSlave wants everyone in matching collars for equality.

[Kungpowderfinger]

“it’s Darwinian, survival of the fittest. The CDC wants you right wing nut jobs to get vaccinated and live, that’s a mistake. The less of you anti-science Trumptards are alive to vote, the better off our country will be.“

You’re no mentat.

[Echospinner]

The CDC for decades did a great job assembling data on infectious and other disease. The MMWR was on every doctors desk.

The organization should walk away from politics and go back to where it was. This week for example there is one article on sexually transmitted infection and one on hepatitis B. The rest is flooded with Covid.

Enough already.

[Nardz]

Huh, so every living inbred yokel bible thumping Trumptard proves your belief system false.

[VendicarD]

"The only people that haven’t been vaccinated yet are inbred yokel bible thumping Trumptards"

Correct.

[Salted Nuts]

Is this KAR? Are you tired of being ignored and in need of attention?

There are healthier ways.

[VendicarD]

"Pfizer, Moderna, and Johnson & Johnson would like to think so"

As do all rational, thinking people.

[Chumby]

Fo we need the Center for Disease Control and Private Housing? They are making it difficult for us to say yes.

[n00bdragon]

Mask on. Mask off. Fauci is like a shittier Mr. Miyagi.

[MT-Man]

good one

[VendicarD]

"Mask on. Mask off." - Noobdragon

You just can't figure it out can you?

Very low IQ.

[Moonrocks]

How else are we going to tackle infectious diseases like gun crime and gender dysphoria?

[Eeyore]

Lol

[JFree]

CDC should be reformed into a interstate compact. It became quite clear in 2020 that:
a) states have the only valid mandating authority
b) they need info during a pandemic
c) that info does not reside within that state but requires cooperation among the states and info from overseas
d)CDC at federal level is a real politicized clusterfuck and possibly corrupted by pharma.

The constitutional authorization is No State shall, without the Consent of Congress,... enter into any Agreement or Compact with another State, or with a foreign Power

Pull it out of the executive branch and have it organized - and mainly funded - by the states-in-compact.

[JFree]

As an idiotic aside - 2020 and covid resulted in three new interstate compacts - regional ones focused supposedly on lifting economic restrictions from covid

Rather than get rid of much of the executive branch via interstate compacts, we keep the exec branch and use interstate compacts only for temporary functions.

[Salted Nuts]

Every time you talk it's an idiotic aside, you don't need the warnings any more.

[Claptrap]

I fully support this idea.

[Zeb]

Not a bad idea. If we could figure out how to keep it dormant when there isn't anything it really needs to be doing that would help too. Having a bunch of federal employees looking for something to justify their existence doesn't help.

[JesseAz]

There are plenty of schools and journals to do a lot of what the CDC does. Their latest mask mandate is based on these types of studies anyways. It would be more cost effective to just fund peer reviewed databases for these papers.

The CDC budget is out of control, which is why they are bringing in gun control and racism as part of their studies and what they can research.

The CDC is largely unneeded. Their models are shit, their guidance is political, and they confuse more people than help.

[sarcasmic]

When real threats don't exist they must be invented.

[VendicarD]

When real threats exist, they must be denied - Republican.

[VendicarD]

"The CDC is largely unneeded. Their models are shit, their guidance is political, and they confuse more people than help."

The only people who are confused are those who have very low IQ's and very polluted minds.

If you can't figure it out then there is no place for you in any logical, thinking society.

Snuff yourself.

[icandrive,nigga]

Do We Need the CDC?

NO

We've got the malaria and yellow fever under control.
The CDC was originally the Bureau of Mosquito Control and funded by a foundation. They employed civil engineers and entomologists not doctors.. Whatever foundation it was wanted to offload it to the government. Uncle Sam renamed it the Communicable Disease Center and it metastasized into what we have today

[VendicarD]

"We’ve got the malaria and yellow fever under control." - icandrive
And those are the only diseases that need to be controlled.
All others should be allowed to run rampant as Republicans demand.

[Commenter_XY]

In a future podcast, I really hope the group can discuss Judge Ho's 5th circuit court opinion in Rollerson that was decided this week. It discussed CRT at length.

[Ken Shultz]

"Do We Need the CDC?"

Yes.

If government agencies weren't there to tell social media companies what is and isn't acceptable speech, how would they know?

The government telling social media companies what they can and can't tolerate on their platforms--that's what private property and the First Amendment are all about!

What would we do without it?

[Moonrocks]

The rare Sarcasm variant of Ken Shultz. Remarkable.

[Diane Reynolds (Paul.)]

Ken Shultz Briefs! See what's inside!

[Overt]

As I noted in the morning links, if you are at all interested in the advent of crypto currency as a mechanism of freeing us from fiat-based rule, it is time to buy some bitcoin and start moving it around on the block chain. Don't go to coinbase or binance and buy the bitcoin. Or if you did do that, get it out of those exchanges NOW.

Then start moving the money around. Swap bitcoin with friends. Use bisq or hodlhodl to setup trades with others. Move the bitcoin around. Afterwords, move that money into a lightning node and start paying friends for dinner with bitcoin via a lightning network wallet.

Right now 100% of the government's actions (including the recent legislation) are to try and identify who has the bitcoin. They do this with sophisticated blockchain analysis tools that attempt to identify "tainted" coins (i.e. BTC that was used by iran or on Silk Road) and then force exchanges to refuse to accept these transfers. By increasing liquidity and moving BTC around, pretty much all bitcoins will become tainted and no one will be able to block them.

You may not be a big believer in crypto or BTC right now, but even putting a small amount of money into crypto and pushing it through the eco system is a way to wrest more and more power away from the governments and big institutions that are trying to take it over.

[VendicarD]

Crypto is the best thing that ever happened to organized crime.

[sarcasmic]

Let's see. When people get sick they get other people sick. Some of these other people might go and cross state lines or infect someone who might cross state lines or infect someone who might cross state lines....

So this is obviously something that might result in a virus crossing state borders, which is interstate commerce, which means the federal government has like total jurisdiction and stuff. Don't like it go as the captain of the Enterprise. Oh, wait, he didn't spell it that way..

[CE]

No one is selling the virus though, as far as I've heard.

[sarcasmic]

Sick people call into work, they go to the hospital, the have a huge effect on what is already clearly recognized interstate commerce.

shorter version: COMMERCE CLAUSE SMASH!

[NOYB2]

Plus, why are there cryptocurrency rules in the new infrastructure bill?

Because progressives and mainstream politicians are in charge again, and their pay masters in Wall St and Silicon Valley wanted it.

Don't complain, Reason, you're part of this system.

[buckleup]

Given how they bungled the entire response I'd say put em down.

Instead they will get a budget increase for failing.

[Chumby]

Too big to fail.

[Longtobefree]

To quote those great philosophers, The Myth Busters;
"Failure is Always an Option".

[VendicarD]

Failure, thy name is Republican.

[VendicarD]

" I’d say put em down." = Cancel Culture.

[Gaear Grimsrud]

Hundreds of thousands are taking to the streets in Paris, Nice, Montpellier, Nantes, Strasbourg, Reims, Toulouse, Marseille, and many more cities across France to protest vaccine passports and mandatory vaccinations.

https://twitter.com/disclosetv/status/1421462935717781514

CORRECTION: Millions, based on the videos we have seen so far from across France.

[Longtobefree]

"des millions"

aux barricades!

[VendicarD]

"Hundreds of thousands are taking to the streets in Paris, Nice, Montpellier, Nantes, Strasbourg, Reims, Toulouse, Marseille, and many more cities across France to protest vaccine passports and mandatory vaccinations."

Tens of thousands.

Stupid people exist in every country. But you are right. Most stupid people are concentrated in the U.S.

[ADL]

We don't need the CDC.

[VendicarD]

"We don’t need the CDC." - ADL

National Problems require National Solutions and hence National Organization.

Global Problems require Global Solutions and hence Global organization.

You are a fool.

[buckleup]

Meanwhile, Psaki shit decides to go on the attack, and gets flamed by DeSantis for her lies. Of course she's just a collaborator, no intelligence, a useful idiot, and will be gone with the rest of the commies in 2025 after BidenHarris gets removed from office for their colossal fuckups.

[VendicarD]

Psaki - lies - buckleup

What lies? Has she been claiming that Trump's inauguration crowd size was the largest ever?

LOL!

[CE]

The CDC has exceeded its health mandate by preventing landlords from collecting agreed-upon rents from tenants and starting eviction proceedings when the tenants fail to comply with the agreements they signed. The agency should be shut down as a rogue agency, and it's officers arrested and tried.

[TJJ2000]

^This

[VendicarD]

I don't see anyone suing the CDC for for it's regulation barring evictions during the pandemic.

Perhaps it hasn't exceeded it's authority as you dishonestly claim.

You be a stupid boy.

[Nardz]

We don't.
You leftist lemmings do.

[TJJ2000]

^This; If the 'left' wasn't *all* about armed-robbery and armed-dictation they could -easily- put down the Gov-Gun-Forces (legislation) and start their co-op voluntary utopia...

It's not about creating for the left - it's about stealing/dictating others.

[TJJ2000]

Strip back the surface layers of the UN-Constitutional CDC agency and what's left?
A Nazi-Government propaganda mill.

On a free market their 'news' would get about as much respect as the National Enquirer if not less; because they really are THAT STUPID.

[VendicarD]

"Strip back the surface layers of the UN-Constitutional CDC agency and what’s left? A Nazi-Government propaganda mill."

LOL. Did you eat Stupid flakes for breakfast?

[TJJ2000]

You did -- Webster dictionary definition of Nazism.
.................is...... wait for it .... acronym for "National Socialism".

Therefore; This country has a political party with about 80% of them full on Nazi supporters by its very definition and self-proclamations of Democratic Politicians.

[Anastasia Beaverhausen]

Transcript please!

[ady77]

Looking for best distance learning courses in uk for your better future ? best distance learning courses in uk

[dada]

here everything u wanna know about

here everything u wanna know about

[Salted Nuts]

If the CDC was doing its job, sure. Good to have a national-level coordination and information sharing on ailments.

But the only science involved is political lately, and they're doing vastly more harm than good. Shut down and prosecute.