Jan 19

Today’s News 19th January 2024

  • The Silent Epidemic Eating Away Americans' Minds
    The Silent Epidemic Eating Away Americans’ Minds

    Authored by Marina Zhang via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours),

    Billy was a bright 10-year-old boy with two Ivy-League-educated parents. He was book smart—got straight A’s in school—but lacked street smarts.

    (Illustration by The Epoch Times, Shutterstock)

    He was also a poor sport. Billy would frequently lie and cheat when playing board games or participating in team activities and have full-blown meltdowns when he lost. His friends, who had been with him since kindergarten, began losing patience. His parents recognized that something had to be done.

    So Billy’s parents brought him to Dr. Victoria Dunckley, a pediatric psychiatrist specializing in screen use.

    After a four-week “screen fast” prescribed by Dr. Dunckley, which eliminated all TVs, phones, and video games, Billy’s problems miraculously cleared up. His parents were so pleased that they decided to maintain the fast.

    Six months passed, and Billy’s friends were no longer avoiding him, and his sportsmanship had improved markedly. Billy decided to run for class president and delivered a speech, something that would have previously terrified him.

    Billy is one of Dr. Dunckley’s many patients whose mental and behavioral problems disappeared once they eliminated or significantly reduced screen time.

    Excessive use of screens has become an epidemic silently eroding lives with little resistance. Gallup’s 2012 survey found that around 60 percent of young adults admit to spending too much of their time on the internet; a subsequent survey estimated that 83 percent of smartphone users say they keep their phone near them “almost all the time during their waking hours.”

    Screens can overstimulate our brains, resulting in a perpetual, highly stressed, fight-or-flight state. This then makes us prone to meltdowns, depression, and anxiety when even minor changes in the environment occur.

    Rising Problem

    The initial link between screen time and poor mental health was spotted through generational studies by Jean Twenge, who has a doctorate in psychology and is a professor of psychology at San Diego State University.

    “I got used to changes that would grow slowly and steadily over time,“ but then after 2010, ”I started to see some changes that were much more sudden—I had really never seen anything like it,” Ms. Twenge said in a TEDx talk.

    Around 2010, social media and internet use saw a dramatic increase, followed by an increase in major depression. (The Epoch Times)

    Between 2005 and 2012, the change in rates of depressive episodes in teens aged 12 to 17 barely exceeded 1 percent. However, between 2012 and 2017, there was an almost 4 percent increase.

    Additionally, fewer teenagers are going outside or reading books, while their time on social media and the internet is dramatically surging.

    In 2008, psychotherapist Tom Kersting, who worked as a school counselor for 25 years, saw a rise in attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) diagnoses in children over age 8.

    ADHD tends to be detected in early childhood after a child starts school. However, he has witnessed increasingly delayed diagnoses in teenagers and adults. While it could be possible that some of these teens were missed by clinicians when they were young, Mr. Kersting suspects that some developed symptoms of ADHD due to screen use.

    ADHD diagnosis has been on the rise. (The Epoch Times)

    Around 2012, when 30 percent of teenagers had a smartphone, he started to see rebellious behavior and anxiety disorders becoming more common among children. Young adults and teenagers growing up now also tend to be more antisocial and have reduced emotional resilience, which may be related to insufficient in-person socializing due to spending most of their time behind screens.

    “It’s not just the amount of time spent in the cyber world,” Mr. Kersting told The Epoch Times, “but also what they missed out on: outside play and social learning.”

    During the pandemic, adolescents’ screen time doubled.

    Few studies investigated internet addiction in children during the pandemic, but a large study done in adults in 2021 showed that adults who were considered at risk of internet addiction were 2.3 times more likely to have depression and 1.9 times more likely to have anxiety than the general population. Furthermore, people with definite or severe addiction were 13 times more likely to have both depression and anxiety.

    Fast forward to post-pandemic times, with teachers reporting that the latest generation—Gen Alpha, also known as “iPad kids”—is aggressive, undisciplined, and regulates emotions poorly in the classroom.

    Dr. Clifford Sussman, a psychiatrist specializing in screen addiction, has focused his practice on treating this condition due to increasing need. Especially after the pandemic, “demand for help with this issue exploded,” he told The Epoch Times.

    How Screens Hook You

    Screen activities—whether they include video games, social media, internet scrolling, or video streaming—offer an escape. These activities are also highly stimulating for the brain due to their bright colors and seamless integration into the virtual world, professor and psychotherapist David Rosenfeld at Buenos Aires University told The Epoch Times.

    When presented with anything new and exciting, the brain releases dopamine, and anything that induces dopamine release can be addictive. Dopamine produces a feeling of pleasure, while a drop in it is linked to irritability and poor mood.

    Dopamine produces a feeling of pleasure, while a drop in it is linked to irritability and poor mood. (Illustration by The Epoch Times, Shutterstock)

    Screen activities have been designed to capture our attention by feeding us regular doses of dopamine. Like playing an immersive video game, giving you a thrill when you level up, defeat a boss, or find a new item, screens entice you to spend more time in the virtual world.

    “Video games are governed by microscopic rules,” Bennett Foddy, who teaches game design at New York University’s Game Center, said in the book “Irresistible: The Rise of Addictive Technology and the Business of Keeping Us Hooked” by Adam Alter, as excerpted by The Guardian.

    These micro-rules can be a “ding” sound or a white flash whenever a character moves over a particular square and are synced to the player’s actions so they feel they were the one who caused it. This micro-feedback generates a sense of reward, hooking people into continuously playing the game.

    This system may also explain why interactive screen activities may be more problematic for children than passive screen activities, like watching TV.

    Dr. Dunckley has observed that while two hours of TV is linked to signs of dysregulation in children, only 30 minutes of interactive screen activities is stimulating enough for signs to occur.

    Many video games also employ strategies used in gambling, such as loot-box rewards, where players are rewarded at random intervals throughout the game. Since players do not know when the next reward drop will come, they are further compelled to play the game—even if they are not enjoying it.

    This strategy came from the works of psychologist Burrhus Frederic Skinner. Skinner put pigeons in a box with a button, rewarding them with food whenever they pressed it. He found that the pigeons rewarded irregularly were more compelled to press the button than those rewarded with every button press.

    This compulsion also exists in humans.

    Read more here…

    Tyler Durden
    Thu, 01/18/2024 – 23:40

  • "Food Deserts" Rise In Democrat Run Cities As Grocers Leave In Droves
    “Food Deserts” Rise In Democrat Run Cities As Grocers Leave In Droves

    The panic is palpable.  Democrat controlled cities across the nation are experiencing something they might never have experienced before:  Consequences for their terrible criminal prosecution policies.  And, they don’t like.  Not one bit.

    Democrats have argued for the past couple years that crime rates are actually falling in the US compared to previous decades, but this does not seem to be represented on the streets as retailers in numerous metro areas are closing up shop after many years of operations due to increasing theft.  If crime rates are falling, why are so many businesses leaving blue areas?

    Boston, for example, has been bleeding retailers in recent months, with companies like Walgreens closing down four stores in the area in a single year.  Residents and officials are “outraged”, arguing that these companies have a civic duty to stay and service communities in need.  It’s estimated that Massachusetts retailers are losing more than $2 billion per year to criminal theft.  Maybe if the community stopped robbing them on a daily basis, these companies wouldn’t feel the need to shut down.

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    The series of closures in Boston is similar to what is happening in San Francisco, with some neighborhoods slowly but surely losing nearby access to grocers.  Companies have in some cases tried to hide the reason for shutting down (high crime) by suggesting that they are “improving” the area by opening land up for development, but locals know the real cause.

    Conclusion – Crime is not falling at all in leftist run cities.  Crime rates rely on reports and arrests.  If leftist officials are making policies which discourage arrests and reporting, then crime rates go down – It’s like magic.

    Due to changes in the way data is being collated by the FBI during the covid years, many major cities are not actually required to provide full crime rate information until 2024-2025, and quite a few are taking advantage (at least 30%).  San Francisco will not be reporting complete crime stats until 2025.   

    This means that when Democrats argue that crime is going down (ostensibly because of their leadership), this is based on a false and incomplete picture of the data.  Lack of data, as mentioned, is also coupled with lack of arrests, lack of prosecution, and the consistent release of repeat offenders in blue cities.  Lack of arrests and convictions does not mean there’s less crime.  

    Again, using San Francisco as an example, the police department’s closure rate on cases remains dismal because the city’s District Attorney refused to prosecute; for every 100 suspects arrested, three are charged and one is convicted.  Until he was recalled in a July 8, 2022, election, San Francisco’s DA was Soros-backed radical leftist Chesa Boudin.  The Soros connection is widely considered one of the prime indicators of crooked DA’s and prosecutors, as well as high crime rates for a city.

    Soros DAs run several other major prosecutorial offices, including Los Angeles, Chicago, Philadelphia, Austin, Dallas, San Antonio, St. Louis, New York, Baltimore, Albuquerque, Orlando, and three urban counties in Northern Virginia.  In Massachusetts, Soros-backed federal prosecutor Rachael Rollins was forced to resign after the Department of Justice’s Office of the Inspector General and the Office of Special Counsel released devastating reports outlining her serious ethical lapses and partisan political activity.  It’s not surprising that wherever Soros influenced DAs and prosecutors run things, food deserts seem to follow.        

    Once this dynamic of corruption is understood, it becomes clear why so many grocers and retailers are uprooting their stores and leaving.  It’s no longer profitable to stay because Democrat city governments have chosen criminals over businesses.     

    Tyler Durden
    Thu, 01/18/2024 – 23:20

  • Adverse Events More Likely With Some COVID-19 Vaccine Batches: Data
    Adverse Events More Likely With Some COVID-19 Vaccine Batches: Data

    Authored by Zachary Stieber via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours),

    Some lots of COVID-19 vaccines caused significantly more adverse events than others, according to newly published information.

    The Pfizer-BioNTech COVID-19 vaccine is prepared for administration at a vaccination clinic on Sept. 22, 2021. (Frederic J. Brown/AFP via Getty Images)

    Some batches were linked to as many as 1,650 serious problems, while some produced zero reported issues, according to the data, which was obtained by the Informed Consent Action Network and presented on the website OpenVAERS.

    The network received the data through Freedom of Information Act requests from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).

    “Certain lots had an unusually high number of adverse reactions,” the network said in a statement.

    The data undercut a 2022 statement from the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) to Sen. Ron Johnson (R-Wis.). The department said at the time that an analysis by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) showed “no unusual concentration of reports with a single lot or small group of lots.”

    The HHS is the parent agency of the CDC and the FDA.

    Mr. Johnson told Dr. Mandy Cohen, the CDC’s director, and Dr. Robert Califf, the FDA’s commissioner, in a new letter that the newly disclosed data “paint a very concerning picture.”

    “As a former manufacturer, this data provides strong evidence that the vaccine manufacturing process was not in control,” Mr. Johnson wrote. If the data are accurate, “then your agencies have kept this vital information hidden from Congress and the American people for years, despite my requests for this data beginning in December 2021,” he added.

    Spokespersons for the CDC and FDA said the agencies received the letter. The spokespersons said the agencies would respond at a later time to Mr. Johnson.

    The HHS did not respond to a request for comment.

    According to independent research reviewed by Mr. Johnson in 2021, as many as 5,297 adverse event reports were linked to certain vaccine batches, while other lots had as few as one reported adverse event.

    The reports were made to the Vaccine Adverse Event Reporting System (VAERS), which is co-run by the FDA and CDC. The system accepts reports from anybody but studies have shown most reporters are health care workers. Reporters face penalties if they enter information later found to be false, and many reports have been verified by health authorities.

    Melanie Anne Egorin, the assistant HHS secretary for legislation, made the 2022 statement to Mr. Johnson before adding that the number of reported events may vary by lot due to “important factors such as the lot size and the length of time a lot has been in use.”

    She said that COVID-19 vaccine lots are backed by certificates from manufacturers and that the FDA has visited sites to ensure quality, safety, and effectiveness.

    More on New Data

    The Informed Consent Action Network submitted multiple FOIA requests for lot information, and eventually sued when the data was not released.

    Updated datasets were provided on Dec. 13, 2023, the network said.

    The nonprofit shared the data with OpenVAERS, which describes itself as a project “developed by a small team of people with vaccine injuries or who have children with vaccine injuries.”

    Before receiving the data, “it was impossible to determine the Serious Adverse Event (SAE) rate by lot number because we did not know the total number of doses in the lot,” OpenVAERS said on its site. With the new data, “we can now confirm that some batches of Covid-19 vaccines are significantly more dangerous than others.”

    The project linked the lot information with VAERS reports that included batch data to produce the total number of reported serious adverse events, and rates of serious adverse events, per batch.

    Serious adverse events were defined by the definition used by VAERS, which is an event that leads to an emergency room visit, a hospitalization, permanent disability, or death, or is life-threatening or results in a birth defect.

    Many lots had between 10 and 500 reported serious adverse events linked to them, according to OpenVAERS. Twenty-two had between zero and nine reported adverse events. Forty-five had 501 or more adverse events.

    Reported deaths following vaccination were also higher for certain lots, particularly for some Moderna batches.

    The data cover the Pfizer-BioNTech and Moderna vaccines.

    Pfizer and Moderna did not respond to requests for comment.

    Some lots were flagged by Pfizer for deviation from quality standards, according to FDA documents recently produced under court order, but still released to the public.

    Mr. Johnson urged the FDA and CDC to provide responses to questions by Jan. 26. He asked for the analysis the FDA allegedly performed to look into whether certain lots were associated with unusual concentrations of reported adverse events, whether the agency took any issue with the OpenVAERS’ analyses, and what steps the agency would take if it did determine any COVID-19 vaccine lots were associated with higher rates of adverse events.

    HHS says in a guide that VAERS “is used to continually monitor reports to determine whether any vaccine or vaccine lot has a higher than expected rate of events.”

    Danish researchers reported in 2023 that they examined rates of serious adverse events across batches of the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine and found that certain batches were linked to many more events than others. They noted that leaked data showed there was a “significant difference” between the amount of modified messenger RNA between batches of the Pfizer vaccine.

    Tyler Durden
    Thu, 01/18/2024 – 23:00

  • Lavrov Says West Is Aware Zelensky Getting 'Out Of Control'
    Lavrov Says West Is Aware Zelensky Getting ‘Out Of Control’

    Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov in fresh Thursday statements says the West is trying to reign in Ukrainian President Vladimir Zelensky as he’s doing everything possible to stamp out dissent and cling to power, including canceling an expected presidential election this year.

    Lavrov characterized the situation as one wherein America’s man in Kiev is increasingly “out of control” but that his Western backers “would have liked to have more flexibility,” according to state media translation of the new remarks.

    Image source: PassBlue

    The Russian top diplomat further said that all the latest rhetoric coming from the Ukrainian presidency’s office “only reflects the wish of that individual and his associates… to keep power as much as they can.”

    That’s when Lavrov asserted that having Zelensky run a re-election campaign “would put him more in line with Western interests, because he has been increasingly getting out of control.”

    However, this claim is uncertain given that all commentary on this matter by the Biden administration as well as US mainstream media has focused on justifying the election cancelation based on there being martial law and a state of war in the country. Biden officials have previously stated that it would not be practical, and even logistically impossible, to have fair elections. 

    Thus the US has defended these anti-democratic moves of Zelensky at every turn. It’s also an open question of whether there will even be parliamentary elections, which was due to change over this year. However, US officials do seem open to entering serious negotiations to end the war, behind the scenes at least, given Ukraine’s mounting battlefield losses.

    Lavrov’s critique came as Zelensky is seeking to push an unrealistic peace plan at the World Economic Forum (WEF) in Davos. To review: 

    Zelensky’s plan requires a full Russian withdrawal from the territory it has captured since February 2022, Russia giving up Crimea, war crimes tribunals, and Russia paying reparations to Ukraine. Kyiv has no shot at implementing any aspect of the Peace Formula since its counteroffensive failed, and Ukrainian forces are now focused on defense and facing manpower shortages.

    Despite the reality on the ground, Zelensky’s “Peace Formula” has received backing from the US and other Western nations. “There was the most representative meeting of national security advisors regarding the implementation of the Peace Formula. More than 80 countries and international institutions were represented,” Zelensky said in Davos.

    Given these latest words of Zelensky, it remains clear that Kiev’s plan is a non-starter for Moscow, and for the war to end Ukraine will have to at the very least recognize Russian possession of Crimea, and likely the four annexed territories as well. 

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    Meanwhile, Zelensky has continued pushing hard for the Western allies to give his forces more advanced weapons, including longer range missiles and advanced fighter jets. Yet public opinion polls in the West have continued to show Zelensky’s popularity is slipping.

    Tyler Durden
    Thu, 01/18/2024 – 22:40

  • Supreme Court Conservatives Appear Open To Rolling Back Power Of Federal Agencies
    Supreme Court Conservatives Appear Open To Rolling Back Power Of Federal Agencies

    Authored by Matthew Vadum via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours),

    A bureaucracy-empowering judicial doctrine that critics blame for the explosive growth of the U.S. government in recent decades should be overturned, the Supreme Court heard on Jan. 17.

    Associate Supreme Court Justice Samuel Alito poses for the official photo at the Supreme Court in Washington on Oct. 7, 2022. (Olivier Douliery/AFP via Getty Images)

    The court may overturn the so-called Chevron deference doctrine that the Supreme Court enunciated in 1984, or narrow its application. “Chevron deference,” as lawyers call it, holds that an agency’s interpretation of a statute it administers is entitled to deference unless Congress has said otherwise.

    The court’s ultimate ruling might alter the current balance of power among Congress, executive agencies, and the nation’s judiciary by curbing the legal underpinnings of the modern administrative state, which critics deride as an illegitimate fourth branch of government.

    In the landmark ruling in Chevron v. Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC), the court held that while courts “must give effect to the unambiguously expressed intent of Congress,” where courts find “Congress has not directly addressed the precise question at issue” and “the statute is silent or ambiguous with respect to the specific issue, the question for the court is whether the agency’s answer is based on a permissible construction of the statute.”

    Conservatives and Republican policymakers have long been critical of the doctrine, saying it has contributed to the dramatic growth of government and gives unelected regulators far too much power to make policy by going beyond what Congress intended when it approved various laws. The authority of regulatory agencies has been increasingly questioned in recent years as the conservative majority on the Supreme Court has grown.

    Conservative Justices Clarence Thomas, Samuel Alito, and Neil Gorsuch have expressed skepticism of the Chevron doctrine.

    Those on the other side say the Chevron doctrine empowers an activist federal government to serve the public interest in an increasingly complicated world without having to seek specific congressional authorization for everything that needs to be done.

    The court heard two related cases: Relentless Inc. v. Department of Commerce and Loper Bright Enterprises v. Raimondo.

    In the cases at hand, in 2020, the U.S. Department of Commerce’s National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration and its National Marine Fisheries Service implemented a final rule to compel fishing companies to pay for human monitors aboard their vessels.

    The companies say the burden of paying for the monitors is a hardship that significantly reduces their profit margins.

    Relentless Inc. attorney Roman Martinez told the justices that Chevron deference must be overruled.

    “For too long, Chevron has distorted the judicial process and undermined statutory interpretation,” he said.

    “Chevron violates the Constitution. Article III empowers judges to say what the law is … [and] to interpret federal statutes using their best and independent judgment. Chevron undermines that duty. It reallocates interpretive authority from courts to agencies, and it forces courts to adopt inferior agency constructions that are issued for political or policy reasons.

    “In doing so, Chevron blocks judges from serving as faithful agents of Congress. It mandates judicial bias and encourages agency overreach, and by removing key checks on executive power, it threatens individual liberty. Chevron also violates the APA,” referring to the Administrative Procedure Act.

    The APA “contemplates that courts, not agencies will authoritatively resolve ambiguities in statutes,” Mr. Martinez said.

    “This court’s only justification for Chevron is the implied delegation theory, but that theory is a fiction. There’s no reason to think that Congress intends every ambiguity and every agency statute to give agencies an ongoing power to interpret and reinterpret federal law in ways that override its best meaning.

    “In this case, the agency misinterpreted the MSA [i.e., Magnuson–Stevens Fishery Conservation and Management Act] to force struggling fishermen to pay up to 20 percent of their annual profits to federal agents.”

    The government is arguing that “even if all nine of you agree with us that the agency’s construction is worse than ours, you should nonetheless defer to that construction and uphold their program under Chevron.

    “That’s not consistent with the rule of law. If we have the best view of the statute, we should win this case,” the lawyer said.

    Justice Clarence Thomas told Mr. Martinez, “Your argument is that Chevron deference is problematic.”

    “How do we know where the line is?” he said.

    Justice Elena Kagan offered a hypothetical to show the difficulty that lawmakers could face if deference to agencies were overruled.

    The justice asked how lawmakers would decide if a product aimed at alleviating bad cholesterol was a dietary supplement or a drug. Having specialized agencies staffed with experts who understand these things can be helpful, she said.

    Along similar lines, Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson said she saw Chevron as “doing the very important work of helping courts stay away from policymaking.”

    “I’m worried about the courts becoming uber-legislators,” the justice said.

    Justice Samuel Alito suggested that Chevron became popular because it was viewed as a way of discouraging judges from imposing their own views in a case.

    Justice Alito asked Mr. Martinez if he agreed “that one of the reasons why Chevron was originally so popular was concern that judges were allowing their policy views consciously or unconsciously, to influence their interpretation of the statutes in question.”

    Mr. Martinez replied, “yes.”

    That fear has diminished over time because nowadays courts rely less “on legislative history and on more free-form analysis that I think made it easier for policy considerations to infect the judicial decision-making process,” the attorney said.

    But the Supreme Court has “now made clear that, really, we should be text-focused, we should be focused on faithful agency to Congress.”

    The late Justice Antonin Scalia backed away from his initial enthusiasm about Chevron deference after he realized the APA “had text that actually bore on this question,” he said.

    “When you’re enforcing that text, you come to the same place as our Article III argument, which is that courts have to exercise independent judgment.”

    Justice Alito suggested Mr. Martinez was arguing that courts decide cases arbitrarily.

    “Do you think that the canons of interpretation that we have now and all of the other tools that we have in our statutory interpretation toolkit are like the enigma machine? And so we have these statutes and they’re sort of written in code and we run them through the enigma machine and –abracadabra—we have the best interpretation? Do you really think that’s how it works?”

    Mr. Martinez said the problem with Chevron is that “you’re not trying to find the best interpretation anymore. You’re, in fact, agreeing that you have to impose the not-best interpretation because you have to defer.”

    This means that Chevron is the only canon “that says to courts, ‘you can stop doing your normal interpretive function and we’re going to allocate that interpretive function outside of Article III,’” the attorney said.

    Responding to Justice Sonia Sotomayor, Mr. Martinez said the Supreme Court “has tried to rein in Chevron in numerous ways, but I think that what all of those efforts show is that you kind of need a secret decoder ring to figure out what the law means under this court’s approach.”

    Loper Bright attorney Paul Clement said Chevron deference hurts small businesses.

    “Commercial fishing is hard,” he said. Space on vessels “is tight, and margins are tighter still.”

    For his clients to have “to carry federal observers on board is a burden, but having to pay their salaries is a crippling blow.”

    Chevron deference “is unworkable as its critical threshold question of ambiguity is hopelessly ambiguous. It is also … a reliance-destroying doctrine because it facilitates agency flip-flopping.”

    U.S. Solicitor General Elizabeth Prelogar told the court that Chevron deference should be affirmed.

    “The Chevron framework is a bedrock principle of administrative law with deep roots in this court’s jurisprudence,” she said.

    “Overruling a precedent is never a small matter. But overruling a precedent as foundational as Chevron should require a truly extraordinary justification. And petitioners don’t have one.”

    The other side argues that Article III “requires de novo review of all statutory interpretation questions.”

    De novo review is when a court rules on an issue without giving deference to a previous decision, as if the case were being heard for the first time.

    “But that’s flatly inconsistent with precedent going back” to the early days of the American republic, she said.

    They are wrong to argue that Chevron violates due process because “the application of deferential standards of review doesn’t constitute impermissible bias.”

    And the contention that the APA requires de novo review is “inconsistent with the statute’s history and the way it’s been understood ever since its enactment, including in the more than 70 cases in which this court has relied on Chevron to sustain an agency’s interpretation.”

    Overturning Chevron deference would cause upheaval and lead to “endless litigation,” Ms. Prelogar said.

    “Thousands of judicial decisions sustaining an agency’s rulemaking or adjudication as reasonable would be open to challenge, and that profound disruption is especially unwarranted because Congress could modify or overrule the Chevron framework at any time.

    “Congress has many times considered proposals to do so, but it’s never taken that step,” she added.

    Justice Neil Gorsuch told the top government lawyer that, “Maybe a dozen or more circuit judges have written asking us to overrule Chevron. And … it also may be why one of your colleagues last year said I don’t know what ambiguity means at this lectern.”

    “And should that be a clue that something needs to be fixed here, that even the federal government at the podium can’t answer the question what triggers ambiguity?”

    Even “here in this rather prosaic case,” lower court judges “can’t figure out what Chevron means,” the justice said.

    Justice Amy Coney Barrett said, “Most scholars of statutory interpretation consider Chevron to be an interpretive canon, much like clear statement rules, rule of lenity, judicially created.”

    Ms. Prelogar said she didn’t think of it as “a canon,” but instead regards it as “fundamentally rooted … in kind of setting the ground rules for how all three branches of the government are operating together.”

    The Supreme Court has been “recognizing that there are legitimate reasons why Congress cannot answer every question itself and why it will want to go hand-in-hand with an agency by charging that agency with administering the statute.”

    Tyler Durden
    Thu, 01/18/2024 – 22:20

  • DoorDash To Raise NYC Delivery Fees After New Minimum Wage Law
    DoorDash To Raise NYC Delivery Fees After New Minimum Wage Law

    A new law in December guarantees fair compensation for 65,000 gig workers in New York City, who are essential for food delivery services. The minimum wage law forces food-delivery apps, like DoorDash, Grubhub, and Uber Eats, to pay gig workers at least $17.96 an hour.

    As a result of higher hourly wages, The New York Post obtained a memo from DoorDash informing NYC restaurants about new delivery fee hikes. 

    The memo explained customer fees will rise “to help offset the increased costs.” However, there was no mention of how much. 

    Food-industry insiders told NYPost that DoorDash could add between $2 to $4 per order:

    The result: A typical dinner that’s delivered in New York City — whether it’s a burger, a chicken burrito or a plain cheese pizza — is likely to get $4 pricier, on average.

    A DoorDash spokesperson confirmed to the newspaper about the increase in delivery fees but declined to comment on a specific amount: 

    “We have made clear from the start that we planned to introduce fees when the new minimum pay rate was first introduced.” 

    The spokesperson said the fees will be introduced in the “coming weeks.” 

    The memo also stated that DoorDash’s maximum commission per order will be raised from 20% to 23% for delivery orders and 5% to 8% for pick-up orders. 

    Uber Eats and Grubhub have also warned that the minimum wage law will result in higher prices for consumers. 

    “All options are being considered, including changes that may negatively impact small restaurants, as we try and adapt to the city’s poorly thought out rule,” an UberEats spokesman told NYPost. 

    NYC is one of many places where minimum-wage laws are being introduced and about to increase takeout food prices. 

    In Los Angeles, the owner of four Fatburger franchises said menu prices will have to be hiked and employee hours trimmed in anticipation of a new minimum wage of $20 per hour in April. 

    And two large Pizza Hut operators in the Golden State laid off all their delivery drivers ahead of a new minimum-wage law.

    Food inflation is here to stay. 

    Tyler Durden
    Thu, 01/18/2024 – 22:00

  • Washington Democrats Want To Make Armed Self-Defense Illegal At Dangerous Bus Stops
    Washington Democrats Want To Make Armed Self-Defense Illegal At Dangerous Bus Stops

    While violent criminals in Seattle have no compunction about carrying weapons wherever they go, Washington Democrats want to strip law abiding citizens of the ability to match force in self-defense in various public places.

    As journalist Jason Rantz notes;

    Their newest bill bans weapons, including legally purchased guns and knives, at bus stops and transit centers.

    SB 5444 isn’t just an overreach; it’s a direct attack on law-abiding citizens. And it disproportionately affects those demographics the Democrats always claim to champion. The irony is as thick as it is infuriating.

    While current law prohibits weapons in courtrooms, bars, and other restricted areas, the new bill adds several new categories of prohibited areas, such as public libraries, zoos, aquariums, parks, community centers, and other public buildings – which emboldened criminals will promptly ignore as they prey on victims.

    The bill prohibits full-time mass transit users from carrying weapons for self-defense, depriving low-income residents of their right to bear arms.

    According to Rantz, western Washington saw a spate of high-profile violent crimes in 2023 – many of which occurred in places that SB 5444 would rob law-abiding citizens of the ability to match force with assailants.

    https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.jsIn November, a 21-year-old man was murdered on the metro – shot dead as he was apparently sleeping. That same month, a 64-year-old man was stabbed after getting off a Metro bus in Seattle. In the Parkland area of Seattle, two young men were shot dead last year at a bus stop across the street from an elementary school.

    Rantz further notes that Seattle mass transit is unsafe, period – and Democrats want to eliminate ‘reasonable means of defending ourselves.’

    Washington Democrats routinely push legislation making it easier for criminals to suffer fewer — if any — consequences for their crimes. But at least the rest of us have been left with means to protect ourselves and our families from the criminals Democrats keep out of jail. But if this bill passes, we’ll again be sitting ducks.

    It’s unclear what bill sponsor State Senator Javier Valdez (D-Seattle) hopes to accomplish. He did not respond to a request for comment. It’s safe to say the intent is not to add more jail time to criminals caught with weapons because that’s already against the law, and Democrats are pushing legislation that lessens punishment for gun-related crimes. This specifically targets law-abiding citizens, disproportionately impacting low-income communities that rely on mass transit. -mynorthwest

    According to King County Metro data, law-abiding black residents will be most disadvantaged by the new bill, as they are more likely than white people to ride the bus.

    Tyler Durden
    Thu, 01/18/2024 – 21:20

  • TIA Warns Congress Of Rampant Fraud In Trucking
    TIA Warns Congress Of Rampant Fraud In Trucking

    By John Gallagher of OilPrice.com

    Rampant fraud in trucking has become an $800 million problem and the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration is not addressing the problem, according to the lobby representing 3PLs and brokerage firms.

    “There’s a surge of malicious actors engaging in illegal activity, registering with FMCSA as carriers and perpetrating fraud, theft and holding freight hostage in situations without any legal consequences,” said Jeffrey Tucker, testifying on behalf of the Transportation Intermediaries Association at a hearing before the U.S. House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee on Wednesday.

    “While this is obviously an economic problem, hurting consumers and businesses alike, it also raises safety and security concerns. Unfortunately, FMCSA is failing to enforce the law or investigate the tens of thousands of fraud complaints lodged with it.”

    Asked during the hearing the types of fraud he sees being committed, Tucker, who is also CEO of Tucker Company Worldwide, a New Jersey-based freight brokerage, said the problem is criminals masquerading as brokers as well as trucking companies.

    “It shouldn’t be seen as either carrier fraud or broker fraud. These are just criminals,” Tucker said.

    Tucker testifying on Wednesday. Credit: House T&I Committee

    He pointed to similar cases of fraud involving dispatch services that are often based in another country but are not required by FMCSA to obtain a license or registration, as is the case with U.S.-based services.

    “FMCSA must stop dabbling in non-safety commercial considerations like what dollar amount a performance bond should be or what commercial terms are included inside a private contract between two parties. Until there are effective measures to address and enforce solutions for this issue, the continued dysfunctionality of the supply chain and its adverse impact on the broader economy will persist.”

    Driver shortage?

    In addition to freight fraud, Tucker addressed the contention made by sectors within the trucking industry as well as within the Biden administration that there is a driver shortage.

    “There is no driver shortage nor has there been one,” Tucker testified. “That is a false narrative that may lead to unintended consolidation in the industry and to weakening America’s supply chain. A more than doubling of American carriers and an increase of 1 million drivers has occurred over the last 10 years. We must have a more nuanced conversation about this.”

    U.S. Rep. Mike Bost, R-Ill., a former trucking company owner, challenged Tucker.

    “If you’re out there dealing with it every day, there is” a driver shortage, Bost said, adding that the increasing legalization of marijuana among individual states is exacerbating the problem.

    “You may have a lot of people who may be good drivers, but they prefer to smoke dope on the weekend and they can’t get clean by Monday. It’s not like having a beer on Sunday during a football game.”

    Red Sea supply chain costs

    Lawmakers were also concerned about the recent attacks on cargo vessels in the Red Sea by Houthi rebels and the ripple effect on the global supply chain.

    “The initial impact is the delay of vessels arriving both in Asia and coming back to the United States,” testified Stephen Edwards, CEO of the Virginia Port Authority.

    “So ocean carriers are rescheduling all of those ships and detouring around Africa” instead of going through the Suez Canal, he said, which will settle into a pattern of ships bound for the U.S. East Coast taking an extra seven days in transit.

    “You can take the view … that the extra seven days could be offset by the loss of the Suez Canal fees. But that is not true for [vessels moving from] Asia to the Mediterranean or Asia to North Europe.”

    Tucker added that another concern is special fees related to the disruption and delays that the U.S. Federal Maritime Commission is allowing ocean carriers to charge their customers.

    “There is concern that maybe those fees are not applicable to the situation, and shippers would like to see more oversight on it,” Tucker said. 

    Tyler Durden
    Thu, 01/18/2024 – 21:00

  • "End Of The World Bunker" Listed On Zillow: 10,000SqFt, Blast-Doors, & EMP Shielding
    “End Of The World Bunker” Listed On Zillow: 10,000SqFt, Blast-Doors, & EMP Shielding

    Elites have spent the last decade building and or purchasing underground doomsday bunkers. Whether it’s to survive the next global conflict, civil war in America, a tyrannical government that locks down the economy because of a virus, out-of-control BLM riots, and or possibly a solar storm that zaps that nation’s power and communications grid, bunker demand has been smokin’ hot.

    X account “Zillow Gone Wild” posted Thursday about a 10,000 sqft bunker hidden in Polo, Missouri, that was recently listed. 

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    “In an era where even technology titans are grabbing headlines for their investments in personal safety, such as his end-of-the-world bunker, this property emerges as a true testament to visionary planning,” the Zillow listing said. 

    The bunker offers 10,007 sqft of modernized underground space and is located just 35 minutes away from Kansas City. 

    “It has 2.5 foot thick concrete walls, EMP-resistant copper shielding, and 2 3,000 pound blast doors,” Zillow Gone Wild said. 

    The bunker’s price is $2 million – and that’s affordable compared with other bunkers listed for tens of millions of dollars. 

    And in the world of bunker-building news, corporate media recently shined a spotlight on Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg’s underground bunker being built in Kauai, Hawaii. Almost as if he knows something…

    Tyler Durden
    Thu, 01/18/2024 – 20:40

  • "We've Memory-Holed How Awful Things Were" – Axios Beclowns Itself In Anti-Trump Rant
    “We’ve Memory-Holed How Awful Things Were” – Axios Beclowns Itself In Anti-Trump Rant

    Establishment friendly news outlet Axios has gone full BuzzFeed in a ham-handed ‘gotcha’ – suggesting that Trump supporters are ‘selectively’ touting the former president’s pre-pandemic economic record, whilst ignoring a once-in-a-century exogenous event that no reasonable person would ever blame any sitting president for.

    According to Axios, “[Trump’s] economic record is only good if you leave off what happened from March 2020 to the end of his administration.“

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    Yes, idiots, and what could have happened during that time period that was completely outside of his control? Perhaps the same mysterious event that Biden ignores while taking credit for ‘record job creation’ since entering office?

    Buried within the article, Axios notes that it was only after the pandemic hit that unemployment spiked to 14.8%. They also undermine themselves by citing Paul Krugman, who noted that giving Trump a pass on the pandemic economy is ‘understandable’ since “Countries around the world faced similar struggles to the U.S. at the time.”

    “We may have memory-holed just how awful things were back in 2020,” Axios author Emily Peck writes.

    No Emily, Trump supporters – well, any rational person – are giving Trump a pass on something that was completely outside of his control, and focusing on what he actually did before the pandemic.

    The replies, as usual, are hilarious.

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    Tyler Durden
    Thu, 01/18/2024 – 20:20

  • 3 Gun Rights Cases Before the Supreme Court You Should Know About
    3 Gun Rights Cases Before the Supreme Court You Should Know About

    Authored by Michael Clements via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours),

    (Illustration by The Epoch Times, Getty Images, Shutterstock)

    Both sides of the Second Amendment debate will be watching the U.S. Supreme Court closely in 2024 as it applies the standards from previous decisions to new high-profile cases.

    In the 2022 New York State Rifle and Pistol Association v. Bruen decision, the Supreme Court ruled that, to be constitutional, new gun laws must match the plain text of the Constitution and the “history and tradition” of the United States.

    “The test that … applies today requires courts to assess whether modern firearms regulations are consistent with the Second Amendment’s text and historical understanding,” Justice Clarence Thomas wrote for the majority in June 2022.

    One of the first major post-Bruen cases, United States v. Rahimi has court watchers curious about how Bruen will be applied. The high court heard oral arguments on Rahimi on Nov. 7, 2023.

    Federal law currently bars those who are under domestic violence restraining orders from possessing guns. The Supreme Court in the Rahimi case will decide if it stays or goes.

    Gun control advocates say the “text and tradition” standard of the Bruen decision, if applied in Rahimi, would allow violent abusers access to guns, resulting in the deaths of domestic violence victims.

    “The Supreme Court must reverse this dangerous [Bruen] ruling,” Janet Carter, senior director of issues and appeals at Everytown Law, wrote on the Everytown for Gun Safety website. “Domestic abusers do not have—and should not have—the constitutional right to possess a firearm.”

    Gun rights advocates say the Rahimi case has been mischaracterized as an attempt to arm violent criminals when it’s really about protecting society without preemptively suspending constitutional rights.

    Members of the public shoot a variety of rifles and other weapons at a shooting range during the Rod of Iron Freedom Festival in Greeley, Pa., on Oct. 9, 2022. (Spencer Platt/Getty Images)

    “It’s going to answer one issue, which is, do we as a country have a historical tradition of disarming people that we believe to be dangerous?” William Kirk, a Washington state-based lawyer who specializes in the Second Amendment, told The Epoch Times.

    “And the answer is, ‘Yes, we do.’”

    Second Amendment lawyers predict that the Supreme Court will uphold the federal domestic violence law in Rahimi. They hope that the court will also ensure that due process rights are protected and an avenue for returning confiscated firearms is preserved.

    “The real issue being decided goes far beyond the narrow question,” Tom Grieve, a Wisconsin criminal defense lawyer, told The Epoch Times.

    Mark Smith, a constitutional attorney and author, agreed. He said it’s vital that the court protect the due process rights of gun owners.

    “The most important thing Second Amendment supporters should want the Supreme Court to state in the Rahimi case is that the government may not disarm any American citizen unless there is first and foremost a court finding that a person is violently dangerous, after a robust evidentiary hearing with counsel, live witnesses, and ample due process,” he wrote in an email to The Epoch Times.

    According to court records, Zackey Rahimi is a drug dealer based in Arlington, Texas, who abused his girlfriend and had a penchant for shooting at people when he was angry.

    In 2019, he was placed under a domestic violence restraining order that barred him from possessing or purchasing firearms. Mr. Rahimi reportedly agreed to the order during a court hearing. He later assaulted a different woman and was involved in at least five more shootings, court records show.

    He was indicted by a federal grand jury in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Texas for violating the restraining order after police found guns, drugs, and cash in his home.

    He asked the Court of Appeals for the 5th Circuit, which covers Texas, Louisiana, and Mississippi, to toss the indictment because the restraining order was issued before he was convicted of any of the crimes for which the order was issued.

    The court upheld the indictment. He pleaded guilty to violating the restraining order and was sentenced to 73 months in prison.

    After the Bruen decision, the 5th Circuit reversed its decision, according to a petition filed by the Department of Justice (DOJ).

    The Department of Justice in Washington on Jan. 4, 2024. (Madalina Vasiliu/The Epoch Times)

    “The Fifth Circuit at first affirmed [the indictment], reasoning that its decision in McGinnis foreclosed Rahimi’s Second Amendment challenge. But after this Court decided New York State Rifle & Pistol Association v. Bruen, the Fifth Circuit withdrew its opinion. After receiving supplemental briefing on Bruen, the court reversed,” the petition reads.

    The 5th Circuit ruled that, under the Bruen standard, 18 USC 922 (g) (8), which relates to unlawful possession of a firearm, didn’t align with the text of the Second Amendment and that there was no historical analog to indicate that the law was in line with the United States’ history and tradition of firearms regulation.

    The court ruled that Mr. Rahimi had been deprived of his Second Amendment rights.

    Define ‘Dangerous’

    DOJ lawyers told the court that the 5th Circuit had misread the Bruen decision.

    At that time, Republican-appointed Chief Justice John Roberts asked Mr. Rahimi’s lawyer, J. Matthew Wright, “You don’t have any doubt that your client is a dangerous person, do you?”

    When Mr. Wright said it depends on what was meant by ‘dangerous person,’ the chief justice responded with, “Well, it means someone who’s shooting, you know, at people. That’s a good start,” according to The Associated Press.

    However, Justice Samuel Alito, a Bush appointee, expressed concern that someone could receive a domestic violence restraining order without “any finding of dangerousness” before losing their Second Amendment rights.

    “Now, suppose someone is later prosecuted for violating that provision. Would it be a defense for that person to say that the state law in question did not require such a finding and, in fact, there was no such finding in my case?” he asked U.S. Solicitor General Elizabeth Prelogar.

    Mr. Kirk, who also hosts a YouTube channel focused on Second Amendment issues, expects the court to be particular in its decision.

    “It’s going to be a narrow, tailored opinion, and it’s going to answer one issue, which is, do we as a country have a historical tradition of disarming people that we believe to be dangerous? And the answer to that question is, ‘yes, we do,’” Mr. Kirk told The Epoch Times.

    Supreme Court Chief Justice John Roberts arrives at the Senate chamber for impeachment proceedings at the U.S. Capitol in Washington on Jan. 16, 2020. (Drew Angerer/Getty Images)

    While he agrees with Mr. Kirk on what the court will likely decide, Mr. Grieve said that the bigger question is how the justices will come to their conclusions.

    “There’s a lot of ways this can go, right and wrong. And I think we may see a mixture of both,” he said.

    Mr. Grieve pointed out that under Bruen’s text requirement, the justices will need to determine the definition of “the people.”

    “What are the limits of the phrase ‘the right of the people?’ Is it just law-abiding citizens? Is it everyone?” he said.

    The justices will also have to determine what constitutes “tradition.” How far back do they have to trace a law’s lineage before it can be considered a tradition?

    Conflicting Ideas on Tradition

    According to Mr. Grieve, many gun control advocates point out that the Second Amendment was incorporated into the states under the Constitution’s 14th Amendment, which guarantees equal protection under the law.

    But most gun rights activists say tradition requires the court to consider the law in the context of the year that the Constitution was ratified, 1791. At that time, there were far fewer gun regulations.

    “There is seemingly no end to the directions this could be going,” Mr. Grieve said.

    And while it’s not as significant in the Rahimi case, some gun rights advocates expect due process to be a factor.

    This was evidenced by Justice Alito’s question about whether “a finding of dangerousness” should be required before firearms are confiscated.

    Aidan Johnston, director of federal affairs for Gun Owners of America, said this is crucial since many state red flag laws don’t have any due process requirements. He said this could result in the disarming of people who need protection during contentious divorce proceedings.

    “Often, an innocent victim is deprived of the right to defend themselves. The Second Amendment is actually about empowering the victims,” Mr. Johnston told The Epoch Times.

    Read more here…

    Tyler Durden
    Thu, 01/18/2024 – 20:20

  • Netanyahu In Blistering Rebuke Of US Post-War Plans: "Israel Will Control Entire Area From The River To The Sea"
    Netanyahu In Blistering Rebuke Of US Post-War Plans: “Israel Will Control Entire Area From The River To The Sea”

    Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has announced that he informed the White House that he firmly opposes the establishment of a Palestinian state in any postwar scenario, after also saying that the operation to eliminate Hamas could continue all the way into 2025.

    In statements that run directly counter to what the US has expressed (namely a desire for a two state solution), Netanyahu said, according to the widely circulated Hebrew translator’s words, “In any future arrangement … Israel needs security control all territory west of the Jordan. This collides with the idea of sovereignty. What can you do?”

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    The Israeli leader added that he had “told this to the Americans” and then stressed, “The prime minister needs to be capable of saying no to our friends.” 

    He also said Israel seeks a “decisive victory” over Hamas and that war is “not about the lack of a Palestinian state but the existence of a Jewish one.”

    “Every area that we evacuate, we receive terrible terror against us. It happened in south Lebanon, in Gaza, and also Judea and Samaria… and therefore I clarify that in any other arrangement in the future the state of Israel has to control the entire area from the river to the sea.”

    “This truth I say to my American friends.” He emphasized that questions of Israeli sovereignty can’t be “imposed” from the outside, even from the “best of friends” – in a reference to Washington.

    The prime minister’s word choice of “from the river to the sea” is interesting given that this is the very phrase often used by groups opposed to the state of Israel and pro-Palestine supporters. Critics have called it a pro-Hamas, antisemitic and pro-genocidal slogan when shouted at pro-Palestine demonstrations. Netanyahu without doubt used the phrase specifically to show that Israel doesn’t plan to give even an inch of statehood to the Palestinians.

    It has for weeks been clear that Israeli and US officials have been clashing on a vision for the Hamas “day after”. The US has called for the Palestinian Authority (PA) to eventually resume control of the Gaza Strip, but the Netanyahu government has firmly rejected this, calling the PA terror sympathizers, and saying this won’t solve Israel’s security problems.

    ABC News/Google Earth

    Tel Aviv’s resistance to the United States’ more “moderate” stance has been deeply awkward for the Biden administration, given it is the US that has given the weaponry and support Israel needs to execute the war in the first place, which has taken a reported over 24,000 Palestinian lives, with the majority of these being civilians.

    Tyler Durden
    Thu, 01/18/2024 – 20:00

  • At Least 9 Killed In Suspected Jordanian Airstrikes On Syria
    At Least 9 Killed In Suspected Jordanian Airstrikes On Syria

    Via The Cradle,

    Airstrikes, believed to have been carried out by the Jordanian air force, have killed at least nine civilians in the southern Syrian city of Suwayda on Thursday. 

    “Jordanian warplanes carried out airstrikes targeting residential areas and a warehouse in the southeastern province of Suwayda, killing at least nine people, including two girls and four women,” the opposition-linked war monitor, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights (SOHR) has reported. 

    Unconfirmed image: ETV Baharat National

    “The death toll is likely to increase due to people [trapped] under the rubble and information about other victims, in addition to massive destruction to houses” in the area, SOHR added. 

    Local news outlet Suwayda24 said the strikes were likely carried out by Amman, and killed at least ten.

    SOHR director Rami Abdel Rahman said that Jordan regularly attacks Syria under the “pretext of combatting drug smuggling.” He said in this case that it remained unclear whether or not those killed in the strikes were involved in the drug trade. 

    However, Rayan Maarouf from the Suwayda24 news website said that the casualties were likely drug traffickers. On January 5, Amman confirmed via state media that its air force had launched two air raids on Syria while “in pursuit” of drug smugglers. 

    Alleged Jordanian airstrikes reportedly killed a number of civilians in Syria on December 18. On the same day, a Jordanian army statement said that a smuggling operation on their northern border with Syria had been foiled, but officials denied that any airstrikes had taken place at the time. 

    In May 2023, the Jordanian Army conducted an airstrike in southern Syria that allegedly led to the killing of a well-known Syrian drug trafficker, Marai al-Ramthan, along with his wife and children. 

    Drug smuggling has surged on the Syrian-Jordanian border, despite a recent boost in border security measures between Amman and Damascus.

    Jordan has accused the Syrian state of taking the drug smuggling threat lightly. Narcotics, quite commonly Captagon amphetamine pills, are smuggled into Jordan via Syria regularly.

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    The drug trade, among other political issues, has resulted in tensions in the already turbulent Syrian governorate of Deraa, which lies in close proximity to the Jordanian border.

    The Minister of Government Communications in Jordan and spokesman for the Council of Ministers, Muhannad Mubaydeen, said on December 19 that Amman is interested in further coordination with Damascus to combat the drug smuggling problem. 

    On Wednesday, Suwayda-based Syrian Druze leader Hikmat al-Hijri expressed support for Jordanian efforts to combat smuggling, but called on Amman to avoid harming civilians. 

    Tyler Durden
    Thu, 01/18/2024 – 19:40

  • Dem Rep. Doesn't Understand 'Legal' Vs. 'Illegal' Immigration – Wants To Remove Statue Of Liberty
    Dem Rep. Doesn’t Understand ‘Legal’ Vs. ‘Illegal’ Immigration – Wants To Remove Statue Of Liberty

    They aren’t sending their best…

    On Wednesday, while the House Oversight and Accountability Committee discussed H.R.2, the House GOP’s Secure the Border Act, Freshman Rep. Maxwell Frost (D-FL) revealed himself to be a complete moron.

    While several Democrats attacked the bill, Frost decided to perform a dramatic diatribe which included a mock bill to remove the Statue of Liberty.

    “My colleagues from the other side of the aisle, let’s be honest with immigrants who deserve better than what you’re offering them. Don’t welcome immigrants if you plan to reject them. If you keep pushing your bigoted H.R. 2 bill, then also pass this bill. I’ve taken the liberty of drafting it for you,” Frost said, holding up the draft.

    “It removes the Statue of Liberty, our largest symbol that tells people to come here,” he continued – apparently unaware that there is a legal immigration process currently being subverted by the those H.R. 2 is aimed at stopping.

    “This is who you are, removing the fabric of America. So, I want to know which Republican, who supports and voted for H.R.2, will introduce this bill,” Maxwell continued. “If you’re gonna support H.R.2 and these bigoted measures, the least you can do is not be a damn liar,” Fox News reports.

    The replies were priceless:

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    Meanwhile…

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    Tyler Durden
    Thu, 01/18/2024 – 19:20

  • Legal Blow: Hunter's Defense Hammered By Discovery Of Cocaine On Gun Pouch
    Legal Blow: Hunter’s Defense Hammered By Discovery Of Cocaine On Gun Pouch

    Authored by Jonathan Turley,

    Attorney Abbe Lowell has faced a series of legal blows in his defense of Hunter Biden, but not quite as literal or lethal as what came this week in his client’s gun prosecution.

    After Lowell sought to dismiss the federal indictment as a trumped-up political prosecution, the Justice Department lowered the boom and revealed that Hunter’s gun was found in a pouch covered in cocaine.

    The disclosure is devastating for a defense that Lowell just rolled out late last year.

    In October, Lowell argued that Hunter had not lied on ATF Form 4473 when he indicated he was not an unlawful user of, or addicted to, narcotics.

    “At the time that he purchased this gun, I don’t think there’s evidence that that’s when he was suffering,” he said.

    It was a curious shift, since Hunter, President Biden and the media have repeatedly used his addiction to forgive everything from corruption to influence-peddling.

    Hunter released a book that had laid the foundation of that defense, and “Beautiful Things” was heralded by many in the press.

    Reviews gushed about “an astonishingly candid and brave book about loss, human frailty, wayward souls, and hard-fought redemption.”

    The image of a clean, redemptive soul is strikingly out of sync with a gun pouch that was reportedly covered in coke.

    What is clear is that the sobriety defense now seems as risky as it is implausible.

    In the special counsel’s filing, the court was informed that “an FBI chemist subsequently analyzed the residue and determined that it was cocaine. To be clear, investigators literally found drugs on the pouch where the defendant had kept his gun.”

    Hunter bought and possessed the Colt Cobra 38SPL revolver for 11 days between Oct. 12 and Oct. 23, 2018.

    That possession ended when his sister-in-law Hallie Biden tossed the firearm into a dumpster in Wilmington, Delaware.

    Hallie, the widow of Hunter’s deceased brother, had begun a sexual relationship with him and she apparently became concerned about what he might do with the gun.

    According to Hunter’s own memoir, that would make the window of sobriety a mere blink in time for a defense.

    The defense will likely challenge the admissibility of police testing due to the gun being tossed into the dumpster.

    Of course, Lowell can now argue that Wilmington dumpsters are so saturated with cocaine that any item would come out covered in coke.

    It is more likely that they will cite the break in the chain of custody as making the test unreliable and prejudicial.

    What is clear is that the sobriety defense now may be as risky as it is implausible.

    The government could argue that it should be able to use the testing as circumstantial evidence to rebut the claim or even impeach Hunter if he takes the stand (which seems unlikely).

    Hunter wrote about being a crack addict and alcoholic throughout this period, writing in his book that at some points he was “drinking a quart of vodka a day by yourself in a room is absolutely, completely debilitating” as was “smoking crack around the clock.”

    The most pressing problem is not the government portraying Hunter as Tony Montana from “Scarface,” it’s Hunter himself.

    He’ll have a tough time changing that story now.

    Tyler Durden
    Thu, 01/18/2024 – 19:00

  • Baltimore-Philadelphia In "Hammer Zone" Of Next Winter Storm
    Baltimore-Philadelphia In “Hammer Zone” Of Next Winter Storm

    A winter storm earlier this week ended a nearly two-year snow drought in cities including Washington, DC, Baltimore, and New York City. Another storm threatens metro areas along the I-95 Corridor on Friday morning. 

    Private weather forecaster NY NJ PA Weather wrote on social media platform X that a “winter storm is developing from Philadelphia to the New Jersey coast.” 

    “Tranquil and cold conditions today will give way to a significant winter storm by tomorrow for the Philadelphia metropolitan areas to the New Jersey Coast,” the weather firm said. 

    The forecast calls for the bulk of the snow just north of Baltimore City to Philadelphia to Trenton; those areas are labeled in different zones with corresponding snowfall estimates. 

    In a separate forecast, meteorologist Mike Masco expects intense snowfall rates between Baltimore and Philadelphia. 

    FRIDAY’S STORM WILL HAVE 3 ZONES TO CONSIDER… ONE ZONE WILL GET NEAR NOTHING WHILE THE OTHER GETS DUMPED ON WITH SNOW..

    The dynamics of this system will dictate the forecast outcome. I’ve highlighted 3 zones as it relates to what the upper air pattern will be doing Friday- Friday Night and how it develops our #Norlun trough — which will be responsible for “Intense” snow rates. If you’ve been following me.. I’ve been very specific that I like an area around #Philadephia esp it’s NJ suburbs and northern DE into central NJ (mostly south of #NYC and the Driscoll Bridge).

    Here’s my 3 zones I’ll be focusing in on.

    Zone 1 (Lehigh Valley, NNJ, Northern Philly Suburbs): Is in the left front quadrant of the jetstreak allowing for enough lifting to produce light to moderate zone. This area will high MUCH higher snow ratios (nearing 20:1) during the event which will yield 2-4″ (possibly localized more) as the area will work off limited moisture .15-.20″ of QPF

    Zone 2 (Central NJ, Southern NJ, Northern DE): Is the Hammer zone! It’s the area that will see focused lifting at 700mb and 800mb, located in the left front quadrant of the jet streak, and have maximum moisture .20-.40″ of QPF

    Zone 3 (DMV/Baltimore): Is the “screw zone”. This area is underneath the 500mb vorticity lobe but in the right front quad of the jetstreak thus sinking air will be prominent. The other factor is the intense snowrates and lifting over SNJ/DE/PA will lead to sinking air in another area and I do feel that will be over #Baltimore # DC area. I may need to revise my totals here a couple times once we get into now casting.

    Another cold blast is expected this weekend for parts of the Lower 48. 

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    After more than a week of most Americans freezing… 

    …global warming returns early next week across the nation. 

    Tyler Durden
    Thu, 01/18/2024 – 18:40

  • The World's Coal-Fired Power-Generation Hit A Record High In 2023
    The World’s Coal-Fired Power-Generation Hit A Record High In 2023

    By Charles Kennedy of OilPrice.com

    Global coal-fired power generation reached a record-high level in 2023, per data from environmental think tank Ember reported by Reuters columnist Gavin Maguire.

    As countries, especially in Asia, looked to meet growing electricity demand and ensure their energy security, coal use in power generation hit record highs.

    Per Ember data, global electricity generation from coal was 8,295 terawatt hours (TWh) between January and October, up by 1% compared to the same period in 2022.

    Meanwhile, global coal exports also rose last year to more than 1 billion metric tons for the first time ever, per cargo tracking data by Kpler, cited by Reuters’s Maguire. In 2023, worldwide thermal coal exports hit 1.004 billion metric tons, rising by 6.6% from the prior year.

    Global coal demand likely rose by 1.4% in 2023 and surpassed a record-high level of 8.5 billion tons for the first time, the International Energy Agency (IEA) said in a report in December.

    Moreover, the three top coal producers in the world – China, India, and Indonesia – are boosting production, which is reaching new highs, the IEA said in its Coal 2023 annual report.

    While coal demand in the United States and the EU was set for a 20% record decline in 2023, coal use in emerging economies “remains very strong, increasing by 8% in India and by 5% in China in 2023 due to rising demand for electricity and weak hydropower output,” the IEA said.

    China’s coal demand is expected to drop in 2024 and plateau through 2026, and global demand is set to decline to 2026, “but China will have the last word,” the IEA noted.

    The outlook for coal in China will be significantly affected in the coming years by the pace of its clean energy deployment, weather conditions, and structural shifts in the Chinese economy, according to the agency.

    Tyler Durden
    Thu, 01/18/2024 – 18:20

  • Chinese Lab Sequenced COVID-19 Weeks Before Beijing Disclosed Data
    Chinese Lab Sequenced COVID-19 Weeks Before Beijing Disclosed Data

    Once again the timeline surrounding the COVID-19 pandemic has shifted – this time with the revelation that a researcher based in Beijing had already mapped the COVID-19 sequence two weeks before the CCP revealed its details to the world, raising questions over what other critical information China may have obscured from view – and why.

    The sequence came from a 65-year-old Chinese deliveryman who was hospitalized with high fever and coughing on Dec. 18, and became critically ill four days later.

    According to documents released by the House Energy and Commerce Committee, Ren Lili – a current Beijing-based recipient of US federal grants via US nonprofit group EcoHealth Alliance, uploaded the COVID-19 sequence into an NIH US government genetic database on Dec. 28, 2019 – when Chinese official were still calling the disease an unknown pneumonia, and ordered health workers not to spread any information about the disease or face harsh penalties.

    Over two weeks later on Jan. 12, Beijing shared the genetic sequence with the World Health Organization. Two days later, the CCP acknowledged that the disease could spread between humans.

    The NIH’s GenBank repository to which the sequence was uploaded by Ms. Ren subsequently notified her that the submission was “incomplete” and “lacked the necessary information required for publication,” according to the Department of Health and Human Services. Ren – who works at the state-run Institute of Pathogen Biology – was asked by the NIH for more information, but the agency never heard back, resulting in the removal of the sequence from the database on Jan. 16, 2020. During the same period, GenBank received a near-identical COVID-19 genetic sequence from a different researcher, which was published Jan. 12, 2020, according to a letter released by the Energy and Commerce Committee on Wednesday.

    The newly unearthed information points to yet more evidence of the CCP’s lack of transparency on the origins of COVID-19.

    “This significant discovery further underscores why we cannot trust any of the so-called ‘facts’ or data provided by the CCP (Chinese Communist Party) and calls into serious question the legitimacy of any scientific theories based on such information,” said committee chair McMorris Rodgers (R-WA), Subcommittee on Health chair Brett Guthrie (R-KY), and Subcommittee on Oversight and Investigations chair Morgan Griffith (R-VA), in a joint letter, the Epoch Times reports.

    Rep. Cathy McMorris Rodgers (R-Wash.) testifies during a Republican-led forum on the origins of the COVID-19 virus at the U.S. Capitol in Washington, D.C., on June 29, 2021. (Kevin Dietsch/Getty Images)

    “The American people deserve to know the truth about the origins of SARS-CoV-2, and our investigation has uncovered numerous causes for concern, including how taxpayers’ dollars are spent, how our government’s public health agencies operate, and the need for more oversight into research grants to foreign scientists.”

    As the Epoch Times‘ Eva Fu notes further;

    Mike Gallagher (R-Wis.), chairman of the House Select Committee on the Chinese Communist Party, praised the House committee for the findings and criticized the Biden administration for “lack of interest in understanding the basic facts of how this pandemic originated.” The declassified COVID origin report, compelled by a 2023 law, “obscured more than it illuminated,” and the Energy and Commerce Committee only received information after threatening subpoena, he noted.

    The virus genome data that Ms. Ren submitted, the earliest kind known by far, appears to have come from a 65-year-old Chinese deliveryman, who was hospitalized with high fever and coughing on Dec. 18 and became critically ill four days later.

    A Chinese microblogger said their private firm in the southern Chinese city Guangzhou had analyzed the virus samples on Dec. 26, 2019. Deeming the findings too sensitive, their company decided to withhold making them public and shared the findings with Ms. Ren’s institute the following day after they pieced a “nearly complete genetic sequence” together.

    “In terms of how I see this whole incident, most of all is disappointment, pain, and anger. We had been so timely on this, how come it’s still not under control?” the person wrote on Chinese social media. “It has less to do with science or technology, and more with policy and media.” A Chinese media report citing the incident has been deleted.

    Ms. Ren has led the discovery of several emerging viruses in China, including human rhinovirus A21 subvariant, and, like other prominent Chinese virology researchers, has come out in defense of the CCP on the virus origin issue.

    In correspondence from September 2021, now published in the medical journal Lancet, Ms. Ren and over a dozen other Chinese medical researchers dismissed the chances that the virus may have leaked from Wuhan Institute of Virology—another EcoHealth subgrantee that had, for years, been working on dangerous bat coronaviruses—demanding instead that the origins of COVID-19 would best be “investigated worldwide.”

    Chinese media have lauded her role in isolating and synthesizing the virus genome, citing approving statements from the World Health Organization that lent her credence. Ms. Ren’s work was recognized by the Chinese Academy of Medical Sciences—the highest state-level Chinese medical research institute that her research center is affiliated with—as one of 40 “major national medical developments of the year.”

    Scrutiny has increased over the lab leak possibility.

    Dr. Francis Collins, director of the NIH until late 2021, said in recent closed-door congressional testimony that the theory that COVID-19 could have come out of a lab in Wuhan “is not a conspiracy theory.”
    National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases’s former head Dr. Anthony Fauci made a similar statement when questioned days earlier by the same House panel investigating the COVID pandemic.

    Tyler Durden
    Thu, 01/18/2024 – 18:00

  • The Biggest, New Reporting Law For Business That You Probably Never Heard Of Is Ripe For Political Abuse
    The Biggest, New Reporting Law For Business That You Probably Never Heard Of Is Ripe For Political Abuse

    By Mark Glennon of Wirepoints

    Ownership of almost all small businesses has always been private. If their stock isn’t publicly traded, most companies haven’t needed to disclose the identify of owners anywhere.

    That’s over for most U.S. companies.

    The Corporate Transparency Act (CTA) went into effect January 1, requiring most businesses to identify their beneficial owners (someone who owns at least 25% of the company or who has “substantial control” over it) to the U.S. Treasury Department’s Financial Crimes Enforcement Network (FinCEN).And there’s certainly a high risk of political abuse.

    Just yesterday, news came of evidence that the FinCen is flagging for attention transactions that include words like “MAGA” or Trump. And who trusts the federal government not to leak what are supposed to be confidential reports? Even Trumps tax returns were leaked.

    The new law applies to U.S. corporations, limited liability companies and any other entities created by the filing of a document with a secretary of state or any similar office in the U.S. It also applies to companies formed under the law of a foreign country that have registered to do business in the U.S.

    Exemptions are described here, but they generally are narrow. Also, the law does not apply to companies (a) with at least 20 full-time employees in the U.S.; (b) that file a U.S. federal income tax or information return showing more than $5,000,000 in U.S. gross receipts or sales for the prior fiscal year; and (c) have an operating presence at a physical office in the U.S.

    It’s a dramatic change and will be a headache for many small companies. An estimated 30 million U.S. businesses will now have to file. The filed disclosures do not become public but may be used for law enforcement and national security. The law is intended to help stop and prosecute things like money laundering, tax fraud, terrorist funding and other illegal activities.

    Penalties for non-compliance can be harsh. The CTA establishes civil penalties ($500 per day, up to a total of $10,000) and criminal penalties (up to two years of imprisonment) for individuals who willfully fail to file

    The Illinois Secretary of State office will be taking on the task of notifying Illinois businesses about the law and developing materials to help explain it, which the Chicago Sun-Times wrote about here. Salute to both of them for that. Secretary of State Giannoulias and the state are not responsible for the new federal law in any way, so his office’s assistance will no doubt welcome to many unaware or perplexed small business owners.

    The law enforcement reasoning behind the CTA is no doubt valid, but it’s also true that many law-abiding businesses and their owners have valid reasons for privacy. They won’t be happy with the new law.

    Based on over thirty years earlier practicing corporate law and making venture capital investments, I can attest to many instances where privacy of ownership was important for a variety of business or personal reasons. I am not now a practicing lawyer, so please obtain your own legal advice.

    The law passed in 2021 as part of related legislation with bipartisan support, overriding a veto by President Trump. It also had substantial support in the financial community and with some business groups, such as the U.S. Chamber of Commerce.

    You won’t find many news reports on the CTA but plenty of good law firms have published advisories about the new law, which you can find by searching “Corporate Transparency Act.” Filing is done online at FinCEN’s website, which also links to FAQs and further information.

    Tyler Durden
    Thu, 01/18/2024 – 17:40

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