Seeks to silence white lab coats that don’t agree with them

July 28, 2020, Fairfax, Va.—Americans for Limited Government President Rick Manning today issued the following statement blasting Facebook, Twitter and Google for removing a press conference video by frontline doctors featuring U.S. Rep. Ralph Norman (R-S.C.) and organized by Tea Party Patriots:

“Facebook, Twitter and Google (through YouTube) have all colluded to suppress a discussion by doctors about studies and their clinical experiences which show that the medicine Hydroxychloroquine when used with zinc and arithromycin may be helpful when it is used either prophylactically or in the early stages of the Chinese-originated COVID-19 virus.  The efficacy of HCQ is not a surprise to those who have been paying attention as more doctors around the world who treat the virus have ranked it as the most effective treatment than any other medicine, and very recent, honest study from Henry Ford Health Systems showed that the use of the drug cut the death rate among COVID patient users ‘significantly.’

“So the question is simple. Why would the three social media giants collude to ban doctors from discussing scientific studies as well as their own clinical experiences from the public?  And the only conclusion is that they have decided that they don’t want alternative experiences to be discussed on their platforms even when it comes to scientific debate and public inquiry over treatments for the COVID virus.  There can no longer be any doubt that these three platforms are effectively joined at the hip, apparently acting in concert in actions counter to our nation’s antitrust laws. It is time to break up big tech, before it breaks America.”

Interview Availability: Please contact Americans for Limited Government at 703-383-0880 ext. 1 or at media@limitgov.org.

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July 23, 2020, Fairfax, Va.—Americans for Limited Government President Rick Manning today issued the following statement praising HUD Secretary Ben Carson and President Donald Trump for ending the Obama-era Affirmatively Furthering Fair Housing regulation and protecting local zoning with a new rule that states “It must be local governments, not HUD, that exercise control of administering local housing policies, including zoning and development policies that are unique to a particular community”:

“Secretary Ben Carson and President Donald Trump have rightly chosen to terminate an Obama era rule that federalized local zoning under the guise of fair housing along income and racial guidelines. This important decision will take federal bureaucrats out of the zoning process as Congress clearly intended when they defunded the zoning portion of the Obama rule in the 2017 omnibus, the 2018 omnibus, the 2019 omnibus, and the Consolidated Appropriations Act of 2020.

“Americans for Limited Government has always urged aggressive enforcement against individual cases of proven racial housing discrimination. However, the Obama administration Affirmatively Furthering Fair Housing regulation created an unfair presumption of discrimination based on zoning without any proof beyond Census maps. This was an absurd expansion of federal power and put the most important local government decisions in the hands of those with no stake in the outcome.

“Secretary Ben Carson today has ended one of the primary tools that former Vice President Joe Biden was looking to use in his war to abolish the suburbs. Every American owes Secretary Carson and President Trump a great big thank you for standing up both against discrimination and for our local ability to govern our communities.”

Interview Availability: Please contact Americans for Limited Government at 703-383-0880 ext. 1 or at media@limitgov.org.

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July 23, 2020, Fairfax, Va.—Americans for Limited Government President Rick Manning today issued the following statement urging President Donald Trump not to issue an executive order on drug pricing for the International Price Index:

“The White House is considering an Executive Order on drug pricing which would be a disaster for future generations.  The proposal being considered is known as IPI (International Price Index) and it would tie U.S. drug prices to those paid in foreign, socialist countries.  What the heck are they thinking?

“One of the hallmarks of the Trump administration is to create an America First policy, and now on drug pricing, the White House is considering tying the prices Americans pay for medicines to foreign government dictates? Beyond the obvious destruction of innovation by drug companies that will harm today’s seniors and generations to come, one of the prime lessons from the Chinese-originated virus crisis has been that America needs to bring the drug manufacturing sector home.  Foreign fixed pricing incentivizes pharmaceutical companies to skirt U.S. safety and cleanliness standards in favor of cheap foreign manufacturing because if they are price controlled on one end, they will need to cut costs on the other.  Rather than decreasing our dependency on foreign-made drugs, this will dramatically increase it. Just exactly the opposite of what the President is hoping to accomplish with this critical supply chain.

“What’s more, if you ever wanted to create a pathway to socialized medicine then offshoring domestic drug prices to foreign governments will certainly take the market out of a major part of the health equation.  When combined with the Democrats attempt to create one-sized fits all health care rates across the nation under the guise of ‘Surprise Medical Billing’ the impediments to a complete federal takeover of our nation’s health care system will have been paved.

“If the Trump administration wants to actually help flatten or lower prescription drug costs, they should engage in a full review of the Food and Drug Administration regulations which empower bureaucrats to impose millions of dollars of costs on prospective new drugs simply because they can.  In 2014, Tufts University found that the average cost of bringing a new drug to market is $2.6 billion.  With patent lengths of approximately twenty years, the long, drawn out FDA approval process eats up approximately twelve years from the laboratory to the pharmacy shelf, and once the patent life starts ticking, the drug developer is in a race against the clock to be able to recoup their costs and make a profit. While this is a little bit apples to oranges, a twenty year patent life and a twelve year timeline to get to market provide less than a decade for the drug inventor to make it worthwhile to have spent a lifetime developing a cure.

“To cut drug costs, the administration should mandate a comprehensive review of FDA approval requirements with a focus on those that drive the cost of bringing drugs to the market through the roof. Small, innovative drug manufacturers simply cannot compete when there is a regulatory-driven $2.6 billion cost to bring their cures and treatments to market. The answer to high drug prices is not found in foreign socialist government pricing models but instead in making the cost for new drug development dramatically lower so there will be more competition in the marketplace.”

Interview Availability: Please contact Americans for Limited Government at 703-383-0880 ext. 1 or at media@limitgov.org.

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July 21, 2020, Fairfax, Va.—Americans for Limited Government President Rick Manning today sent the following letter and comments to U.S. Rep. Peter DeFazio (D-Oreg.), U.S Rep. Jared Huffman (D-Calif.), U.S. Rep. Alan Lowenthal (D-Calif.) and U.S. Rep. Mike Levin (D-Calif.) urging reconsideration of objections to the Pebble Mine project in Alaska:

“The tundra wasteland that is the site for the proposed Pebble Mine was originally federal government property.  However, the federal government decided to swap this less valuable land with the state of Alaska for the acreage that subsequently became Lake Clark National Park and Preserve via the Cook Inlet Land Exchange. The land was fine to give away when it had zero value for land that was suitable to be declared a national park, and it takes an incredible amount of hubris for the federal government to put additional restrictions on the use of the barren wasteland after more than hundreds of millions of dollars has been spent by private companies to create a plan to responsibly extract the strategic minerals that the federal government chose to trade to the State of Alaska.

“No one is urging that the NEPA process not be followed to ensure that the mine meets federal requirements, and once it does, then turn the decision over to the authorities in the state of Alaska.  However, your complaints amount to little more than grandstanding as you want the goal posts to be moved in an obvious effort to renege on the original agreement when the land for Lake Clark National Park was obtained.

“After almost a decade, it is time to allow the owners of Pebble deposit to have their opportunity to present their engineering studies and mining plans for fair and honest federal scrutiny.  When, and if, the NEPA process is successfully completed, the decision will lie where it rightfully should – with the state of Alaska which traded for this land and zoned it for mining in the first place.”

Attachments:

Letter and Comments to  U.S. Rep. Peter DeFazio, U.S Rep. Jared Huffman, U.S. Rep. Alan Lowenthal and U.S. Rep. Mike Levin, July 21, 2020 at https://getliberty.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/07/PebbleMineLetter7-21-20.pdf

Interview Availability: Please contact Americans for Limited Government at 703-383-0880 ext. 1 or at media@limitgov.org.

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July 21, 2020, Fairfax, VA.—Americans for Limited Government President Rick Manning today issued the following statement praising President Donald Trump executive memorandum to Secretary of Commerce Wilbur Ross to discount illegal aliens who are subject to legal removal from the U.S. Census:

“The constitutional concept of one person, one vote and the basic rights of citizenship are shredded when states like California create policies that encourage residence by illegal aliens who are otherwise subject to legal removal. The apportionment of members of the House of Representatives is unfairly skewed toward illegal alien sanctuary states and away from those states that follow the laws of the United States. That is why the President is absolutely right to attempt to create equity for all states and protection of the rights of all legal residents.”

Interview Availability: Please contact Americans for Limited Government at 703-383-0880 ext. 1 or at media@limitgov.org.

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July 16, 2020, Fairfax, Va.—Americans for Limited Government President Rick Manning today issued the following statement praising President Donald Trump’s record of deregulation:

“President Donald Trump has been the greatest cutter of federal government red tape and regulations in the history of our country. His record of streamlining a still overly burdened federal government has been one of the keys along with cutting taxes and smarter trade policy to the rejuvenation of the U.S. economy and will play a large role in helping the nation to recover from the Chinese originated virus downturn.”

Interview Availability: Please contact Americans for Limited Government at 703-383-0880 ext. 1 or at media@limitgov.org.

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July 15, 2020, Fairfax, Va.—Americans for Limited Government President Rick Manning today issued the following statement praising the Trump administration’s new rule from the White House-based Council on Environmental Quality streamlining environmental reviews under the National Environmental Policy Act so that infrastructure can be built in a timely manner:

“Environmental reviews are meant to make certain that environmental concerns about an infrastructure project are heard and in many cases mitigated. But these environmental reviews were never supposed to be never-ending death sentences for infrastructure and other projects that our nation needs. The Trump administration’s announcement today of the final rule modernizing and accelerating environmental reviews under the National Environmental Policy Act creates balance between valid environmental concerns and our nation’s growth. As America’s economy rebounds from the Chinese-originated virus downturn, streamlined regulatory approval processes will pave the way for investment in rebuilding our nation’s infrastructure and finally allow shovel-ready jobs to be created in a timely manner.”

Interview Availability: Please contact Americans for Limited Government at 703-383-0880 ext. 1 or at media@limitgov.org.

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July 15, 2020, Fairfax, Va.—Americans for Limited Government President Rick Manning today issued the following statement urging the Trump administration Labor Department to block private pension investment in Chinese securities following the blocking of federal employee pension investment in China:

“The President, National Security Advisor, Director of the National Economic Council and the Department of Labor Secretary have all made it clear that investments in non-transparent, Chinese state-owned company securities are too risky and dangerous for federal employee retirement investing. The President’s statement yesterday effectively ending the Obama-Biden China exemption to investment transparency rules on U.S. exchanges is an important step to protecting American investors from Chinese vapor companies. Now, the administration and state governments need to take a series of simple but important steps to protect retirement investors and pensions from foreign investments that do not conform to basic auditing standards.

“First, the Labor Department should immediately begin by imposing these transparency rules on private pensions and investments. Second, the Labor Department should also divest all funds in non-transparent investments under the Pension Benefit Guaranty Corporation. Third, federal employee defined benefit plans should be directed to divest from non-transparent assets as well. Fourth, state governors and financial officers should take immediate action to divest state employee pension funds from these same unsuitable assets.

“If an individual investor wishes to put their money into Chinese state-owned companies on the Shanghai Composite Index, that is a choice with all the risks that choice entails. However, retirement funds are held to a higher standard under the law and given the administration’s recognition that Chinese assets do not conform to that standard it would be irresponsible for state officials to not follow suit to protect their employees’ future financial security, too.

“Let me be clear, this is not only a fiduciarily sound approach but a morally necessary one as well as investing in Chinese companies that engage in child and slave labor effectively makes our nation’s pensioners involuntary slave owners. This is repugnant and it must end.”

Attachments:

“If risky Chinese investments are unsuitable for federal pensioners, they’re unsuitable for private pensioners, too.” By Rick Manning, July 10, 2020 at http://dailytorch.com/2020/07/if-risky-chinese-investments-are-unsuitable-for-federal-pensioners-theyre-unsuitable-for-private-pensioners-too/

Interview Availability: Please contact Americans for Limited Government at 703-383-0880 ext. 1 or at media@limitgov.org.

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July 13, 2020, Fairfax, Va.—Americans for Limited Government President Rick Manning today issued the following statement endorsing Jeff Sessions for U.S. Senate in the state of Alabama:

“Tomorrow is election day in Alabama and the decision for the U.S. Senate is a choice between Jeff Sessions, a genteel man who has spent his legislative career fighting for Alabama’s workers by opposing illegal immigration, opposing bad trade deals and opposing the kind of get out of jail lunacy that afflicts our nation.  His opponent is a football coach who would be the first to kneel if it meant the difference between getting a 5-star recruit or not.  While doing what it takes to get top players on your team is fine in the SEC, it is not okay to put short-term interests ahead of America in the U.S. Senate.  Jeff Sessions holds tightly to his and your principles, and as the left foments revolution in the streets, America needs people like Senator Sessions in the Senate now more than ever. If you receive this and don’t live in Alabama, please forward it to someone you know who does.”

Interview Availability: Please contact Americans for Limited Government at 703-383-0880 ext. 1 or at media@limitgov.org.

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July 8, 2020, Fairfax, Va.—Americans for Limited Government President Rick Manning today issued the following statement urging the Department of Labor to block U.S. private pension plans from investing in China after FBI Director Christopher Wray called China “The greatest long-term threat to our nation’s information and intellectual property”:

“Yesterday, FBI Director Christopher Wray called China’s counter-intelligence and economic espionage, ‘The greatest long-term threat to our nation’s information and intellectual property’ of our nation, a statement which was tweeted out by former CIA Director and current Secretary of State Mike Pompeo.

“Given this, why are U.S. private pension funds still investing in Chinese assets?  The U.S. Labor Department has a legal responsibility under the Employee Retirement Income Security Act (ERISA) to make certain that pension funds are only invested in fiduciarily sound investments. What most people don’t know, perhaps the Labor Department included, is that in 2013 the Obama-Biden administration issued a Memorandum of Understanding waiving the transparency requirements that U.S. companies must comply with to be traded on the stock exchanges for Chinese companies and bonds.  This fact alone makes every Chinese asset that does not have annual audits and open books to be unsuitable for U.S. private pension fund investment.  What’s more, ten days ago, the Pentagon named twenty Chinese companies as owned and controlled by the Chinese Communist Party. These companies, which include Huawei and China Telecomm are little more than Chinese spy agency extensions and yet, the Labor Department is ignoring their responsibility to require the divestment of the pensions of millions of Americans’ pensions from these dangerous firms.

“In May, the Senate acted to require transparency for Chinese firms listed on American exchanges, and hopefully that becomes law, but right now the Labor Department is seeking comments on a regulation defining the suitability of certain investments for private pension portfolios, and the simple addition requiring pension investment assets to be subject to the same transparency requirements that every U.S. investment must meet, is a bare minimum standard.  The Labor Department has been doing yeoman’s work on many issues and indeed the regulation defining suitable pension investments is a needed and welcome change, but it would be a shame if my good friends at Labor didn’t take this opportunity to join with the Senate, the Secretary of State, FBI Director and the President by specifically amending the suitable investment language to include a requirement that basic transparency requirements be followed.

“It is time for American pensions to stop capitalizing Chinese companies seeking to destroy us, and forcing transparency in pension investments will effectively end our nation’s private pensioners from providing the money needed for China to continue its long war against the United States of America.”

Interview Availability: Please contact Americans for Limited Government at 703-383-0880 ext. 1 or at media@limitgov.org.

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