Source: Brownstone Institute
by Ian Miller

“As the Covid vaccines failed spectacularly to stop the spread of infections and did nothing to lessen all-cause mortality or even decrease population level Covid-associated deaths in highly vaccinated countries, Pfizer saw another opportunity. Sure, their signature product failed to perform as expected. So why not create another one as an antidote? Enter Paxlovid. Paxlovid, an antiviral drug, was supposed to help individuals with symptomatic Covid, who’d already been infected, recover more quickly and lessen the risk of severe illness. Sounds great right? … A newly released study on Paxlovid on randomized adults with symptomatic Covid; one subset was given Paxlovid (nirmatrelvir-ritonavir) or a placebo every 12 hours for five days, with the intent of determining how effective it was at ‘sustained alleviation’ of Covid-19 symptoms. Spoiler alert: it wasn’t effective at all.” (04/17/24)

https://brownstone.org/articles/pfizer-lied-to-us-again/

Source: Eunomia
by Daniel Larison

“The president published another strange op-ed tying the wars in Ukraine and Gaza together. His immediate goal was to urge Congress to pass a bill funding more military aid for Ukraine and Israel, but to do that he insists on linking the two wars together as if they are comparable and equally worthy of support. This is the same line he has been pushing for months ever since he decided to try to use Congressional support for Israel to get more funding for Ukraine last year. It was a strained and unpersuasive argument six months ago, and now it is just insulting.” (04/18/24)

https://daniellarison.substack.com/p/bidens-moment-of-truth

Source: Beat The Press
by Dean Baker

“I am not ordinarily a celebrant for the state of the economy, but the media have been so over the top in pushing the economic doom story during the Biden presidency, that I feel the need to put some reality into the picture. One of the central lines among the doomsayers is that we are spending a larger share of income on housing and that for many it has become altogether unaffordable. I will agree that housing is a serious problem. … but a big part of that story is that we are spending a much smaller share on other things. … In 1947 we spent 23.0 percent of our income on store-bought food. This had fallen to just 7.1 percent last year. The share of income going to buy clothes fell from 10.3 percent to 2.6 percent. The share for buying household furnishings dropped from 5.5 percent to 2.5 percent.” (04/17/24)

https://cepr.net/in-the-good-old-days-one-fourth-of-income-went-to-food/

Source: Libertarian Institute
by Ted Snider

“Iran’s chosen response to the fatal strike on its embassy seems not to have been about retaliation nor escalation. If it had been, they would have fired more missiles than drones, and they would not have announced the drones as soon as they were launched nor declared the operation ‘concluded’ before they arrived. They would not have shared in advance the details and timing of the operation with Saudi Arabia, other Gulf countries, and Turkey, a member of NATO, who then, predictably, shared it with the United States. The chosen response was about re-establishing deterrence.” (04/17/24)

https://libertarianinstitute.org/articles/this-weekend-iran-changed-everything