U.S. CDC travel mask mandate no longer in force

 USA ditches mask mandate on aircraft and in airports | FlightGlobal - Pilar Wolfsteller:

April 18, 2022 - "The Transportation Security Administration (TSA) will no longer enforce the federal face mask mandate, in place since January 2021, after a US judge struck down the order. The mandate had been imposed by the US public health agency Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) to mitigate the spread of highly-contagious Covid-19 before vaccines were widely available. TSA had had a similar order in place for airports and on board aircraft, upon CDC’s recommendation.

"'The agencies are reviewing the decision and assessing potential next steps,' a US government official says on 18 April in response to the court ruling. 'In the meantime, today’s court decision means that the CDC’s public transportation masking order is not in effect at this time. Therefore TSA will not enforce its security directives requiring mask use on public transportation and transportation hubs at this time.... CDC recommends that people continue to wear masks in indoor public transportation settings,' the official adds."
Read more: https://www.flightglobal.com/safety/usa-ditches-mask-mandate-on-aircraft-and-in-airports/148302.article

Major U.S. Airlines Announce Masks Policies Are Lifted, Effective as of April 18, 2022 | Just Jared: 

April 18, 2022 - "All of the major airlines in the United States have announced that masks are no longer required to be worn during flights, effective immediately.

"The mask mandate on public transportation will no longer be enforced after a federal judge in Florida, who was appointed by former President Donald Trump, ruled that the White House’s 14-month-old directive was unlawful. Reuters reports that the judge 'said the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) had exceeded its authority with the mandate, had not sought public comment and did not adequately explain its decisions.'

"United Airlines, Alaska Airlines, JetBlue, American Airlines, and Delta Air Lines have all lifted their mask requirements. Amtrak, the national train line, did the same.

"Read what each airline announced" at https://www.justjared.com/2022/04/18/major-u-s-airlines-announce-masks-policies-are-lifted-effective-as-of-april-18-2022/.

Walter E. Williams (1936-2020)

 'I Just Do My Own Thing': Walter Williams, RIP | Reason - Nick Gillespie:

December 2, 2020 - "I'm saddened to write of the death of libertarian economist Walter E. Williams. He passed away Wednesday morning at the age of 84, less than a day after teaching a class at George Mason University, where he worked for 40 years and helped transform his department into a highly respected center of free market scholars. A popular syndicated columnist whose work appeared in over a hundred newspapers on a weekly basis, he was a long-time contributor to Reason and served as an emeritus trustee of Reason Foundation....

"Born in Philadelphia in 1936, Williams grew up as a neighbor to Bill Cosby in the city's racially segregated housing projects and was drafted into the peacetime Army during the Cold War. A self-described 'crazy-ass man who insisted on talking about liberty in America' long before he was a public intellectual, the racist violence and abuse he suffered at the hands of police, military officers, and other authorities informed much of his work. In his powerful, evocative 2010 memoir, Up From the Projects, he recounts the time when, as a cab driver in the City of Brotherly Love, he was ordered out of his cab by a white officer, beaten up, and then charged with disorderly conduct."

Read more: https://reason.com/2020/12/02/i-just-do-my-own-thing-walter-williams-rip/

Walter Williams, RIP | Cato@Liberty - David Boaz:

"After early stints as a cab driver, a soldier in Korea, and a probation officer, Walter focused on education and got a Ph.D. in economics from UCLA in 1972. From 1973 to 1980 he taught at Temple University in Philadelphia before moving to George Mason University for the rest of his career.

"In 1982 he published a book of original research and provocative ideas, The State Against Blacks, which Don Boudreaux describes in today’s Wall Street Journal as 'an eloquent, data‐​rich broadside against occupational licensing, taxicab regulations, labor‐​union privileges and other fine‐​sounding government measures that inflict disproportionate harm on blacks by restricting the employment options and by driving up the costs of goods and services'. His work in these areas and his outgoing, engaging, effective style of communications brought him broader public attention. He appeared in Milton Friedman’s PBS series “Free to Choose” in 1980. He became a frequent guest host on the Rush Limbaugh Show.... 

"In 1989 the Cato Institute and Praeger published Walter’s book South Africa’s War against Capitalism. In it he showed, with detailed economic and historical analysis, that ... 'South Africa’s apartheid is not the corollary of free‐​market or capitalist forces. Apartheid is the result of anticapitalistic or socialistic efforts to subvert the operation of market (capitalistic) forces.'"

Read more: https://www.cato.org/blog/walter-williams-rip

In Memoriam: Walter E. Williams, 1936-2020 | Forbes - Art Carden: 

December 3, 2020 - "Williams’s work and commentary was informed by a deep understanding of how free people in free markets find ways to help one another. Howard Baetjer explains the 'Invisible Hand Principle' in his short book Economics and Free Markets. He quotes Williams, who said 'In a free market, you get more for yourself by serving your fellow man. You don’t have to care about him! Just serve him.'

"We get, as Adam Smith explained, what we want by helping other people get what they want. Importantly, this requires us to respect their right to say 'no.' Free markets rest on a profound respect for others’ dignity. A free market is possible and productive when we recognize that other people are not merely means to our ends, created to serve us or created to live as we want them to. If we want to secure their cooperation, we have to give them what they want rather than what we think is best for them. Few people understood this better than Walter Williams."

Read more: https://www.forbes.com/sites/artcarden/2020/12/03/in-memoriam-walter-e-williams-1936-2020/?sh=5fbe44b18fe4

Government incompetence unmasked

Governments Have Screwed Up Mask Purchase and Distribution. Maybe Everyone Should Be a Libertarian in a Pandemic | Reason - Brian Doherty:

May 8, 2020 - "As of mid-April, The Wall Street Journal reports, the federal government had for whatever reason dedicated millions in contracts, involving at least 80 percent of the 20 million N95 masks it was trying to procure, from 'suppliers that either had never done business with the federal government or had only taken on small prior contracts that didn't include medical supplies.' Predictably, some of those vendors 'missed delivery deadlines or have backed out because of supply problems'.... At least one would-be contractor has now been nabbed for fraud on such a mask deal.

"ProPublica tagged along with what the Journal called the 'largest N95 mask contract given out by the VA [Veterans Administration], for an initial $35.4 million ... with potential for ... a total of $64.9 million, according to federal contracting data'.... The fiasco ended with no masks delivered — ... Despite months of scrambling, the Veterans Administration was not prepared to keep its hospitals equipped with masks. As of now over 2,000 V.A. employees have tested positive....

"The feds aren't the only ones making bad mask decisions. California is currently trying to get a refund on a $456.9 million wire transfer it sent as a down payment on a $600 million contract for 110 million N95 masks .... to a firm called Blue Flame Medical, which, The Wall Street Journal informs us, was 'founded days earlier by former Republican fundraiser Mike Gula'.... Meanwhile, the Los Angeles Times reports that Gov. Gavin Newsom of California is refusing 'to reveal the contents of a $990-million contract for purchasing protective masks from a Chinese electric car manufacturer'.... Even the state's legislators are being blocked from learning details of the deal....

"The Transportation Security Agency decided to hoard more than 1.3 million N95 respirator masks (which it received from Customs and Border Protection) rather than distribute them to hospitals or agencies or people who might lack them — even, as ProPublica reported, 'as the number of people coming through U.S. airports dropped by 95% and the TSA instructed many employees to stay home to avoid being infected.'

"Other wasteful, clumsy, or even macabre stories have arisen from government attempts to help with or procure medical equipment. In Seattle, the county Public Health Department sent a Native American community health board body bags instead of requested medical supplies....

"Before COVID-19 hit, certain pundits were promoting 'state capacity libertarianism'.... The idea was, at best, an attempt to turn libertarian energies toward making government better at what it does. But these not-at-all-shocking snafus show no obvious way the concept could help, other than hand-waving calls to have better people making better decisions.

"Mask procurement is not going awry because government lacks the capacity to do anything. They have plenty of money, essentially as much as they want to have, and they have plenty of staff. It's not because they don't have professional experts and bureaucrats trying to manage things, and it's not because Republicans hate government and want it to fail.

"Even in a relatively free market, fraud and incompetence exist. The government in its mask decisions ha[s] shown a keen ability to find market actors who are very bad (deliberately or not) at what they do and offer them ungodly amounts of money. But government's unique combination of endless money and impunity for messing things up mean that the state is going to get things more wrong, more often. And that's true even, or perhaps especially, when it's urgent that the state get things right. The evidence is in the news every day, even if ideological blinders prevent non-libertarians from acknowledging it."

Read more: https://reason.com/2020/05/08/governments-have-screwed-up-mask-purchase-and-distribution-maybe-everyone-should-be-a-libertarian-in-a-pandemic/

Lessons from the government shutdown

John Stossel: Government shutdown lessons -- We could take a chainsaw to so much of government | Fox News:

January 17, 2019 - "This government shutdown is now longer than any in history. The media keep using the word 'crisis.' But ... I see people going about their business -- families eating in restaurants, employees going to work, children playing in playgrounds, etc. I have to ask: Where’s the crisis?...

"We need some government, limited government. But most of life, the best of life, goes on without government, many of the best parts in spite of government....

"Columnist Paul Krugman calls this shutdown, 'Trump’s big libertarian experiment.' But it’s not libertarian. Government’s excessive rules are still in effect, and eventually government workers will be paid for not working. That makes this a most un-libertarian experiment. But there are lessons to be learned.

"During a shutdown when Barack Obama was president, government officials were so eager to make a point by inconveniencing people that they even stopped visitors from entering public parks. Trump’s administration isn’t doing that, so PBS found a new crisis: 'Trash cans spilling … (P)ark services can’t clean up the mess until Congress and the president reach a spending deal,' reported NewsHour. But volunteers appeared to pick up some of the trash. Given a chance, private citizens often step in to do things government says only government can do.

"The Washington Post ran a front-page headline about farmers 'reeling … because they aren’t receiving government support checks.' But why do farmers even get 'support checks'?... Most fruit and vegetable farmers get no subsidies, yet there are no shortages of peaches, plums, green beans, etc. Subsidies are a scam created by politicians who get money from wheat, cotton, corn and soybean agribusinesses. Those farmers should suck it up and live without subsidies, too.

"During shutdowns, government tells 'nonessential workers' not to come to work. But if they’re nonessential, then why do we pay 400,000 of them?...  We could take a chainsaw to so much of government.

The New York Times shrieks, 'Shutdown Curtails FDA Food Inspections!' Only if you read on do you learn that meat and poultry inspection is done by the Department of Agriculture. They’re still working.... More important, meat is usually safe not because of government -- but because of competition. Food sellers worry about their reputations ... so they take many more safety measures than government requires. One meat producer told me that they employ 2,000 more safety inspectors than the law demands....

"Even security work is done better by the private sector. At San Francisco’s airport, security lines move faster. Passengers told me, 'The screeners are nicer!' The TSA even acknowledged that those screeners are better at finding contraband. That’s because San Francisco (Kansas City, Seattle and a dozen smaller airports) privatized the screening process....

"Private contractors are better because they must compete. Perform badly, and they get fired. But government never fires itself."

Read more: https://www.foxnews.com/opinion/john-stossel-government-shutdown-lessons-we-could-take-a-chainsaw-to-so-much-of-government

'via Blog this'

The libertarian way to improve airports

A libertarian plan to improve our airports | Rare - Jillian Lane Wyant:

January 25, 2017 - "President Trump has promised to add a plan to improve American airports to his infrastructure proposal. Libertarian minded citizens are looking to Washington to both improve our airports by decentralizing control of airports, relying more on user fees and respecting travelers’ privacy rights....

"Americans have felt helpless as we’ve watched the Transportation Security Administration (TSA) physically and clumsily invade our personal privacy at the airport and the privacy of those around us. All while they continue to miss glaring red flags....

"Just last month, while in the Fort Lauderdale airport — two days before the terrorist attack on the airport, killing five people — the TSA stopped me due to the fact that the book in my purse was 'too thick and needed further inspection.' The man behind me in line laughed, as he overheard, and informed me he was carrying fireworks in his bag that the TSA had not detected. The self-righteous libertarian in me nearly imploded. This is not an isolated incident, this is a daily and possible deadly occurrence....

"Currently, libertarians are concerned with the amount that taxpayers are going be forced to foot the bill of when it comes to Trump’s infrastructure plan to rebuild America’s airports, roads, and bridges. The fiscally-conservative libertarian favors user-fees, as well as devolving the federal responsibilities over the airports and roads to local control.

"While of course, the first thing that Congress should undertake to fix when dealing with the airports is fixing the overzealous and egregiously expensive screening administered by TSA.... Over the last eight years, we have heard time and time again that the TSA is not doing an exemplary job of screening passengers, yet they continue to employ over 44,000 security officers. The TSA’s sole job is to intercept items that could cause a security threat, yet ... anybody who has traveled in the past few months feels violated every time they pass through security as attacks on airports continue to occur.

"As for the funding of infrastructure improvements, the Cato Institute is promoting the libertarian idea of 'Privatizing U.S. Airports.' Robert W. Poole Jr. and Chris Edwards make the case for a reduction in 'federal intervention' and a push toward a 'greater reliance on the private sector to fund, own, and operate the nation’s infrastructure." These are consistent with libertarian ideas that promote safety and peace-of-mind for travelers alike. Libertarians would like to dismantle the high federal taxes imposed on air travel that is used to improve airports; and allow local airports to collect fees to improve infrastructure on their own.

"Libertarians need to look to the members of the House Transportation Committee like Reps. Thomas Massie (R-KY) and Mark Sanford (R-SC) who can guide the legislation in the direction of decentralization and to get the federal government out of the business of treating all Americans as if they are terrorists.... Liberty based ideas that promoted decentralization and a less invasive taxes and security checks could make air travel great again."

Read more: http://rare.us/rare-politics/rare-liberty/a-libertarian-plan-to-improve-our-airports/
'via Blog this'

Ron Paul family detained by TSA. Again

Ron Paul Family Detained by TSA Again - Raven Clabough, New American:

August 30, 2012 - "Ron Paul, his wife, and granddaughter were stopped by eight TSA [Transportation Security Agency] workers at a small airport in Clearwater, Florida, and told they must be screened. According to the agents, the screening was necessary because Mitt Romney 'might be nearby'.... The agents inspected Paul’s credentials and demanded to check the airplane for explosives.

"The entire incident came to an end once Ron Paul’s wife, Carol, refused to be screened by TSA personnel, asserting that she wore a pacemaker, and a Paul aide began taking video of the ordeal on his cell phone....

Earlier this year, Ron Paul’s son, Rand, was detained by the TSA in Nashville, causing him to miss his appearance at the March for Life rally in Washington, D.C."

Read more: http://www.thenewamerican.com/usnews/constitution/item/12663-ron-paul-family-detained-by-tsa-again
'via Blog this'

Ron Paul-like anti-TSA bills in NJ Senate

EXCLUSIVE: Ron Paul-like anti-TSA bills in NJ Senate - Newark Essex County Conservative | Examiner.com: "Senator Doherty's bills actually amend New Jersey's current statutes specifically to bring the actions of individual Transportation Security Administration agents under those statutes, and also create a brand-new statute. Specifically:

• Bill TSA-1 provides that touching the genitals or the breasts (the 'junk') during a body search is a third-degree sexual assault unless the subject of the search is under arrest or in prison, or the actor has a lawful warrant....
• Bill TSA-2 is a brand-new statute that directly forbids the TSA to use any sort of body-image scanner, including the terahertz ('millimeter-wave') scanner(s) in use at Newark Liberty International, to screen any passenger, flight officer, or flight attendant.... The fine for operating such a scanner would be $1000 each instance.
• Bill TSA-3 provides that creating or viewing a body-scan image that includes the "junk" will be a pornography offense, unless the person involved is under arrest, or an inmate, or the TSA has a warrant, or the subject (or the parent or guardian if the subject is a minor) has provided written permission....

"Andrew L. Schlafly, a local attorney who has lately argued several constitutional cases, told this Examiner very briefly that these statutes could precipitate a constitutional crisis on the basis of federal supremacy."

Right-wing media promote private airport security

Right-wing media promote call for private security at airports | Media Matters for America - Justin Berrier, Eric Schroeck, & Melody Johnson:

November 17, 2010 - "On the November 16 edition of Fox Business' Freedom Watch, Andrew Napolitano hosted former New Mexico Gov. Gary Johnson (R) to criticize TSA. Napolitano asked Johnson, 'Does government even keep us safe? Or would private industry -- that obviously has a strong financial interest in keeping the planes flying and keeping us safe -- do a better job than the government does, and let us choose the level of scrutiny that we want depending on the plane we ride?' Johnson replied that 'they would definitely do a more effective job ... and probably [be] a lot more safe.' Napolitano later asked Johnson, 'Would you abolish the TSA?' Johnson said that 'abolishing the TSA' is something that 'ought to be looked into.' "

Read more: https://www.mediamatters.org/research/2010/11/17/right-wing-media-promote-call-for-private-secur/173442