Commentary: Tennessee’s Certificate of Need Laws Stifle Competition and Allow Harmful Healthcare Monopolies

In today’s healthcare landscape, access to affordable and high-quality health care services remains a pressing concern for individuals and families. It is especially important during these economically turbulent times that the government spend taxpayer dollars wisely and on programs that actually offer real value to taxpayers. 

Tennessee offers a cautionary tale about wasting taxpayer money on ineffective and harmful bureaucracy. In the Volunteer State, Certificate of Need (CON) laws play a significant factor in preventing free-market competition. In the worst cases, it allows entrenched interests to operate as monopolies. CON laws erodes patient choice by eliminating affordable options in the marketplace and patients suffer the consequences. 

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Commentary: Women’s Opportunities Are Being Taken Away by ‘Womxn’

In celebration of Women’s History Month, colleges and universities are hosting events to celebrate womxn, not women.

In an effort to become more inclusive of those that deny biological reality, higher education is in fact erasing women’s opportunities to excel in academics, athletics, and career tracks.

I am proud to be a woman. Women have been pivotal to our society. But making women compete with men undermines females’ ability to achieve success.

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Commentary: The FDA’s Power over Food and Drug Approval

Competition tends to bring about a better product or service, at a lower price, than does monopoly. This is a basic premise held by virtually all economists, disputed by pretty much no one in the profession. The entire antitrust edifice of the American system is built upon this foundational aspect of the dismal science.

And yet when push comes to shove, our society jettisons this insight, at least when it comes to assuring the quality of our food and drugs.

The Food and Drug Administration is a monopoly agency entrusted with this task. Its word is final concerning such matters. No competition is allowed. If a private agency set itself up as an alternative, it would first be subjected to raucous laughter, and then its creators jailed.

The FDA is a licensing agency. If it does not approve of a food or drug, it is illegal to offer it for sale. What is the non-monopolistic alternative to this sad state of affairs? This is called certification. How, pray tell, does this work? It is simple. Different firms set themselves up as evaluators of the quality of food and drugs, and each of them subjects these products to their examinations. They certify some as approved, and list others as not approved.

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After Testing Positive for COVID, Olympic Athletes Summarily Expelled

Olympics ring logo in dark in Tokyo

Five U.S. athletes have tested positive for coronavirus prior to the start of the Tokyo Olympics, crushing their dreams of competing in the world’s largest sporting event.

U.S. men’s basketball player Bradley Beal tested positive on July 15 which made him unable to travel to Tokyo, USA basketball announced in a tweet.

U.S women’s tennis star Coco Gauff announced on twitter that she tested positive for COVID on July 18. Gauff, 17, received her positive test in Tokyo, and has been barred from competing in the Olympic games, according to the tweet.

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Biden’s Executive Order Targets Big Tech, Urges FCC to Restore Net Neutrality

Joe Biden

President Joe Biden is taking aim at Big Tech and Big Telecom’s growing power with a new executive order that will add regulations and facilitate competition within the industries.

The order, which Biden is expected to sign Friday, includes over 70 provisions, all aimed at promoting competition within tech and telecom, both of which have become more monopolistic in recent years.

It encourages the Federal Trade Commission to overhaul its rules regarding personal data collection and bans unfair competition practices online, according to a White House fact sheet. It also calls for more scrutiny when examining potential corporate mergers, especially when a larger corporation acquires a smaller one or when it could affect customers’ privacy or competition within the sector.

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Commentary: The Pandemic-Inspired Economic Shutdown Likely to Increase US Corporate Consolidation

This writer and others who for decades railed against outsourcing industries to the People’s Republic of China were long dismissed as crackpots and Luddites. Now many of those who were doing the dismissing have been forced to admit the true cost of cheap goods is very high.

The Chinese Communist Party virus has exposed many of our nation’s infirmities.

The most glaring is our dependence on Communist China for medicine, medical equipment, and so many other essential goods.

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Registration Is Open for the 2020 Tennessee Star Constitution Bee, Which Will Be Held on April 25

Constitution Bee April, 2018

  The 2020 Tennessee Star Constitution Bee is open for registration!   If you have a secondary school-level student enrolled in a public or private school, or an accredited home school program, they are eligible to participate in the 2020 Tennessee Star Constitution Bee, a one-day event to be held Saturday, April 25, 2020 at Metro Christian Academy in Goodlettsville, Tennessee. The top three finishers will earn college scholarships of $3,000, $1,000, and $500 respectively. In addition, they will win a free trip to Washington, D.C. for themselves and a parent to participate in the inaugural 2020 National Constitution Bee, where the winner will earn a $25,000 college scholarship! The questions in the 2020 Tennessee Star Constitution Bee will be based on the 2019 edition of The Star News Digital Media Guide to the Constitution and the Bill of Rights for Secondary School Students, which is now available for purchase at a price of $30 here. The guide is written at the level for 11th and 12th grade students who are taking the half semester course in Government, but can also be used as a self-study guide by any student in grades 8 through 12. Students in grades 8 through 12 are eligible to participate. The questions and…

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Amazon: The World’s Most Dangerous Crony Capitalist

by Rick Manning   The bedrock of American commerce – and of the broader capitalist experiment – has always been competition.  If you can build a better mousetrap, invent a longer-lasting light bulb or more efficiently churn out widgets (or in this case, clichés), odds are your endeavor will encounter success. It doesn’t matter who you are, where you come from, what you look like or what you believe – what matters is what you can produce. Competition fuels all of the forces that drive our free market – inspiration, innovation, efficiency, accessibility, profitability and prosperity.  It is what cures diseases, crosses continents, crushes despots, cradles civilizations and – just to make sure we aren’t forgetting the point here – creates wealth. Capitalism is the great invention that makes all other inventions possible – which is precisely why it must be protected from crony capitalist companies like Amazon. Amazon is not operating on a level playing field.  Not only that, it is rigging many once-level commercial playing fields in favor of larger retailers – secure in the knowledge that it will get a larger slice of profits if it picks winners and losers based on volume. It is also picking up government subsidies at a bargain basement price.  Since…

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