May 04

Today’s News 4th May 2021

  • World's Most Powerful Tidal Turbine Deployed Off Scotland's Coast 
    World’s Most Powerful Tidal Turbine Deployed Off Scotland’s Coast 

    Bank of America equity strategist Haim Israel recently told clients by 2030, Europe will generate about 85% of its electricity from renewable sources. Solar and wind have stolen the spotlight in the green energy transition. But there’s one Scottish company called Orbital Marine Power (OMP) that is creating a lot of buzz in tidal turbines. 

    https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js

    OMP has designed the world’s most powerful Tidal Turbine, called Orbital O2, measuring 236ft-long and weighing 680 tons. The tidal turbine was assembled at the port of Dundee in the United Kingdom over the last 18 months. 

    Orbital O2 has been towed to the Orkney Islands, where it will undergo commissioning before being connected to the European Marine Energy Centre (EMEC). The 2MW tidal turbine will produce enough electricity to power more than 2,000 homes. 

    Tidal turbines are essentially an underwater version of wind turbines, operating the same way. Instead of wind turning the turbine, the propellers turn with tidal shifts and generate power. 

     Here’s how it works:

    As climate transition to a low-carbon economy heats up, Israel provides BofA clients with a chart explaining net-zero emissions targets for the US, China, and Europe. So far, the US doesn’t have specific data, but China is around 2060, and Europe is 2050. 

    Countries worldwide are racing to deploy renewable energy, such as hydrogen, wind, solar, battery, nuclear, and now tidal. 

    … and how attainable are the net-zero targets really? 

    Well, as Europe admits, it can’t go net-zero without natural gas… 

    Tyler Durden
    Tue, 05/04/2021 – 02:45

  • China Is Trying To Break Up The Five Eyes Intelligence Network
    China Is Trying To Break Up The Five Eyes Intelligence Network

    Authored by Con Coughlin via The Gatestone Institute,

    China is making a deliberate attempt to create divisions within the elite “Five Eyes” intelligence-sharing alliance by forging closer relations with the left-wing government of New Zealand premier Jacinda Ardern.

    The Five Eyes alliance, comprising the US, Canada, Britain, Australia and New Zealand, dates back to the Second World War, when a number of key allies decided to share intelligence in their bid to defeat Nazi Germany and Japan.

    Today, maintaining intelligence-sharing cooperation between the five Anglophone nations is deemed essential to combating the threat posed by autocratic states, such as Russia and Communist China.

    The survival of the alliance in its current form, though, is under threat after Ms Ardern’s administration announced that it was making improved trade relations with Beijing its priority, rather than maintaining its support for Five Eyes.

    Announcing the decision to seek improved trade ties with Beijing earlier this month, Nanaia Mahuta, New Zealand’s foreign minister, declared that her country was “uncomfortable” with the Five Eyes alliance pressuring China over its appalling human rights record, and wanted instead to pursue its own bilateral relationship.

    Ms Mahuta, 50, was responding to a decision taken last year by the defence ministers of Britain, America, Canada, Australia and New Zealand to endorse an expanded role for the alliance, with a public commitment not only to meet shared security challenges but “to advance their shared values of democracy, freedom and respect for human rights”.

    In this context, the alliance has issued communiqués criticising China’s brutal suppression of the pro-democracy movement in Hong Kong, as well as Beijing’s repression of its Uyghur Muslim minority.

    The statement prompted a fierce response from Beijing, which warned the alliance against involving itself in Hong Kong’s affairs.

    Zhao Lijian, the spokesman for China’s foreign minister, said:

    “No matter if they have five eyes or ten eyes, as soon as they dare to harm China’s sovereignty, security or development interests, they should be careful lest their eyes be poked blind.”

    On the other hand, China praised Ms Mahuta and played up possible cracks in the Five Eyes’ bond. The Global Times, a Communist Party mouthpiece, wrote:

    “In sharp contrast with Australia, which tied itself to the U.S.’ chariot, New Zealand has maintained a relatively independent approach on foreign policies, paving the way for the country to pursue policies that benefit its own economy and citizens.”

    Despite signing up to the new Five Eyes diplomatic initiative, New Zealand, which relies heavily on its trade links with Beijing, has now decided that it no longer wants to support the Five Eyes initiative, and wants instead to pursue its own dialogue with China’s communist rulers.

    “It’s a matter that we have raised with Five Eyes partners, that we are uncomfortable with expanding the remit of the Five Eyes relationship, that we would much rather prefer looking for multilateral opportunities to express our interests on a number of issues,” explained Ms Mahuta in address to the New Zealand China Council on April 19.

    New Zealand’s naive approach to the threat posed by Beijing not only poses a threat to the future of the alliance itself. There is a distinct possibility that Wellington could find itself being expelled from the alliance over its pro-Beijing stance.

    New Zealand, whose geographical location makes it an ideal listening post for the Pacific region, has long been regarded as the weak link in the alliance. In 2003, its access to intelligence was down-graded after Helen Clark, the country’s then left-wing Labour prime minister, opposed the Iraq war.

    The restrictions placed on New Zealand were eventually lifted when Barack Obama became president. The country, however, now faces having its status reviewed again, especially as its latest effort to cosy up to Beijing has infuriated neighbouring Australia, which is in the midst of an increasingly bitter trade war with Beijing.

    As a senior Western intelligence official recently commented about New Zealand’s continued membership of the alliance, the country was now “on the edge of viability as a member” of the alliance because of its “supine” attitude to China and its “compromised political system”.

    New Zealand’s socialist government may believe that it is a good idea to throw in their lot with China’s communist rulers. But by doing so, they risk sacrificing their future to domination by China’s despots.

    Tyler Durden
    Tue, 05/04/2021 – 02:00

  • Conrad Black: A Turning In The American Political Road Is Almost At Hand
    Conrad Black: A Turning In The American Political Road Is Almost At Hand

    Authored by Conrad Black, op-ed via The Epoch Times,

    The only way to make any sense of the fierce crosscurrents sweeping over American political life now is to watch two trends that are only slightly connected.

    First is the continuing great national sense of relief that the chaos and pandemonium of the Trump era is over.

    There are not nightly cascades of provocative and frequently outrageous tweets and the days are not filled with confrontations in which the president’s enemies assault him like picadors, and he rises to every challenge like a compulsive single combat warrior.

    To Trump’s scores of millions of admirers, he was merely returning fire from those who attacked him unfairly. To Trump’s enemies, his opponents were only doing their duty to assist in retarding the progress and hastening the departure of the Great Ogre.

    To the independent voters, a beleaguered minority in the Trump era, it was Trump’s America, regardless of blame, and to the majority of Americans, the indignity inflicted upon the presidency and the strain of the constant din of needless and often witless combat became insufferable and had to end, whatever the policy consequences.

    At its most acidulous, this was the Trump-hate vote, more benignly, it was the Trump-abatement vote. But the majority of people, including probably a majority of Trump voters, didn’t like it and simply could not stand the tumult of the Trump presidency.

    Even thoughtful Americans who do not have confidence in Joe Biden and don’t approve of most of what he is doing, are still deeply grateful to be relieved of the nerve-racking cacophony of the Trump presidency.

    This is what is chiefly supporting the Biden honeymoon 100 days into his presidency. Most of the polls remain politicized, inaccurate, and largely unprofessional, as they were in the late presidential election of ineradicable and horrifying memory (and result).

    But the average of them seems to give this president approximately a 53 percent approval rating to about 42 percent negative. This is a solid and respectable result and a better showing than President Trump had any point in his term.

    Though given that he was the subject of a completely unprecedented consistency and intensity of media and celebrity assault, his performance in the almost uniformly nasty and stacked polls entitles him to a special achievement award for carrying nearly 48 percent of the vote and probably forcing the Democrats to steal the Electoral College with harvested ballots in Georgia, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin, and for producing so taut a political crisis that the Supreme Court ducked it (in the Texas challenge supported by 18 other states), assumedly under the mistaken assumption that that would spare them the threatened effort to pack the high court.

    This total, the anti-Trump share of the honeymoon approval rate, as in all presidential honeymoons, is slowly declining. But it is also more vulnerable than other presidential honeymoon poll results, because it is not really based on any enthusiasm for Biden, but rather on the passage of something that has gone and is not threatening to return imminently.

    The last time we saw anything of this kind was in the first year of President Nixon as the antiwar and race riots of the late Lyndon Johnson era faded, and in the Ford and early Carter years, when there was no longer any reason to think of Watergate.

    The second indicator of political opinion is the independent policy areas where the new administration’s performance is measured. Here, the sands are running out in the hour-clock for the Biden administration’s attempt to smoke far-left legislation through on the threadbare flying carpet of anti-Trumpism.

    The vulnerability of President Biden’s position is underscored by the fact that apart from his handling of the coronavirus and related problems, the majority disapprove of his performance in all other areas, most markedly the southern border and immigration, but also including the economy, foreign policy, and law and order and public security.

    Approximately 90 percent of Americans believe that there should be a border and a process to entering the country; over 80 percent unconditionally oppose violent demonstrations and riots, the overwhelming majority support adequate police protection, if with more sophisticated rules in armed confrontations, and there is little enthusiasm for increased taxes or profligate spending.

    The principal anti-Trump television networks seem to have lost about 50 percent of their viewers and the public clearly is not much interested in an indefinite continuation of mudslinging and defamation against the former president, either as a substitute for the new administration presenting and executing its policies, or for the national political media restoring a substantial element of professional reporting where for the previous four years it had self-righteously substituted Trump-hate.

    It is of the nature of polling that unpleasant memories of former presidents recede and the prestigious fact of them having been presidents and in many cases the highlights of their presidencies remain comparatively well fixed in the public mind.

    Herbert Hoover and Richard Nixon were generally reviled when they left office, but after some years they came again to be recognized as outstanding figures of American public life. President Trump was not generally a quick learner in the art of public relations while he was president, but it must be said that he has played his hand skillfully these last three months.

    The initial post-inaugural efforts to torment him endlessly, portray him as an advocate of insurrection and to suborn and extort evidence against him in all manner of ubiquitously alleged imminent proceedings while pretending there was some comparison to be made between Jan. 6 and 9/11, has been a complete failure.

    All the headlines and television news introductions that the Trump mob had killed capitol police officer Brian Sicknick have been exposed as pure fabrication, a campaign of outright lies. All the allegations against the Trump campaign organization of incitement of the vandalism at the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6 have proved to be unfounded.

    And throughout these three months the former president has issued press releases without hyperbole and has given relatively few interviews and only one major speech and on every occasion he has been judicious.

    Joe Biden does well with the public as an apparently amiable personality, and he probably deserves credit for at least bringing to serious consideration a far more radically left agenda than the public would approve of, in a way that has not squandered the general perception of him as a likable person.

    But we are almost at the point where this administration’s attempt to revolutionize American elections by practically abolishing any verification process for ballots and turning election day into a weeks-long orgy of ballot-harvesting, while packing the Senate and the Supreme Court and gagging congressional minorities, will collide with public opposition to all of these measures.

    In those circumstances, the Supreme Court, its attempt at appeasement of the Democrats by abdicating as head of a co-equal third branch of government having failed, might also reassert the legitimacy of the Constitution.

    A turning in the road is almost at hand.

    Tyler Durden
    Tue, 05/04/2021 – 00:00

  • Earth Helpless Against Giant Asteroids As NASA Simulation Ends In Doom
    Earth Helpless Against Giant Asteroids As NASA Simulation Ends In Doom

    According to simulations conducted by leading space agencies, Earth lacks the technology to stop a massive asteroid from wiping out Europe, according to the Independent.

    The week-long exercise led by Nasa concluded that catastrophe would be unavoidable, even given six months to prepare.

    The hypothetical impact scenario, which took place during a planetary defence conference hosted by the United Nations, proved that governments are woefully unprepared for this kind of disaster. -Independent

    “If confronted with the scenario in real life, we would not be able to launch any spacecraft on such short notice with current capabilities,” said the participants.

    According to the report, the only thing humanity could do in such an event is to evacuate the area before the asteroid hit – though the scenario’s impact zone was across a large swath of North Africa and Europe.

    “Each time we participate in exercises of this nature, we learn more about who the key players are in a disaster event, and who needs to know what information and when,” said NASA Planetary Defense Officer, Lindley Johnson.

    “These exercises ultimately help the planetary defence community communicate with each other and with our governments to ensure we are all coordinated should a potential impact threat be identified in the future.”

    Responding to the news of the failure, SpaceX boss Elon Musk said the lack of solution was “one of many reasons why we need larger and more advanced rockets”.

     

    SpaceX recently secured a $2.89 billion contract with Nasa to develop its next-generation Starship spacecraft, which is being built to transport people and cargo around the Solar System.

    According to SpaceX, Starship combined with its Super Heavy rocket booster will be “the world’s most powerful launch vehicle ever developed,” and could theoretically alter the trajectory of an Earth-bound asteroid.

    Meanwhile, NASA is already working on technology to deflect asteroids – and will launch a test mission of its Double Asteroid Redirection Test (DART) system later this year before reaching the asteroid Dimorphos next autumn. The test aims to change the orbit of the asteroid in the hopes of proving that such a system would be a viable defense against near-Earth objects (NEO) in the future.

    “DART will be the first test for planetary defence, and the data returned after it impacts Dimorphos will help scientists better understand one way we might mitigate a potentially hazardous NEO discovered in the future,” said DART program executive, Andrea Riley. “While the asteroid DART impacts poses no threat to Earth, it is in a perfect location for us to perform this test of the technology before it may actually be needed.”

    At present, NASA is discovering around 30 new NEOs per week, on top of the roughly 25,000 the agency is currently tracking.

    Or, they could just call Bruce Willis…

    Tyler Durden
    Mon, 05/03/2021 – 23:40

  • The Criminalization Of Dissent
    The Criminalization Of Dissent

    Authored (somewhat satirically) by CJ Hopkins via The Consent Factory,

    One of the hallmarks of totalitarian systems is the criminalization of dissent.

    Not just the stigmatization of dissent or the demonization of dissent, but the formal criminalization of dissent, and any other type of opposition to the official ideology of the totalitarian system. Global capitalism has been inching its way toward this step for quite some time, and now, apparently, it is ready to take it.

    Germany has been leading the way. For over a year, anyone questioning or protesting the “Covid emergency measures” or the official Covid-19 narrative has been demonized by the government and the media, and, sadly, but not completely unexpectedly, the majority of the German public. And now such dissent is officially “extremism.”

    Yes, that’s right, in “New Normal” Germany, if you dissent from the official state ideology, you are now officially a dangerous “extremist.” The German Intelligence agency (the “BfV”) has even invented a new category of “extremists” in order to allow themselves to legally monitor anyone suspected of being “anti-democratic and/or delegitimizing the state in a way that endangers security,” like … you know, non-violently protesting, or speaking out against, or criticizing, or satirizing, the so-called “New Normal.”

    Naturally, I’m a little worried, as I have engaged in most of these “extremist” activities. My thoughtcrimes are just sitting there on the Internet waiting to be scrutinized by the BfV. They’re probably Google-translating this column right now, compiling a list of all the people reading it, and their Facebook friends and Twitter followers, and professional associates, and family members, and anyone any of the aforementioned people have potentially met with, or casually mentioned, who might have engaged in similar thoughtcrimes.

    You probably think I’m joking, don’t you? I’m not joking. Not even slightly.

    The Federal Office for Protection of the Constitution (“Bundesamt für Verfassungsschutz”) is actively monitoring anyone questioning or challenging the official “New Normal” ideology … the “Covid Deniers,” the “conspiracy theorists,” the “anti-vaxxers,” the dreaded “Querdenkers” (i.e., people who “think outside the box”), and anyone else they feel like monitoring who has refused to join the Covidian Cult. We’re now official enemies of the state, no different than any other “terrorists” … or, OK, technically, a little different.

    As The New York Times reported last week (German Intelligence Puts Coronavirus Deniers Under Surveillance), “the danger from coronavirus deniers and conspiracy theorists does not fit the mold posed by the usual politically driven groups, including those on the far left and right, or by Islamic extremists.” Still, according to the German Interior Ministry, we diabolical “Covid deniers,” “conspiracy theorists,” and “anti-vaxxers” have “targeted the state itself, its leaders, businesses, the press, and globalism,” and have “attacked police officers” and “defied civil authorities.”

    Moreover, back in August of 2020, in a dress rehearsal for the “Storming of the Capitol,” “Covid-denying” insurrectionists “scaled the steps of Parliament” (i.e., the Reichstag). Naturally, The Times neglects to mention that this so-called “Storming of the Reichstag” was performed by a small sub-group of protesters to whom the German authorities had granted a permit to assemble (apart from the main demonstration, which was massive and completely peaceful) on the steps of the Reichstag, which the German police had, for some reason, left totally unguarded. In light of the background of the person the German authorities issued this “Steps-of-the-Reichstag” protest permit to — a known former-NPD functionary, in other words, a neo-Nazi — well, the whole thing seemed a bit questionable to me … but what do I know? I’m just a “conspiracy theorist.”

    According to Al Jazeera, the German Interior Ministry explained that these querdenking “extremists encourage supporters to ignore official orders and challenge the state monopoly on the use of force.” Seriously, can you imagine anything more dangerous? Mindlessly following orders and complying with the state’s monopoly on the use of force are the very cornerstones of modern democracy … or some sort of political system, anyway.

    But, see, there I go, again “being anti-democratic” and “delegitimizing the state,” not to mention “relativizing the Holocaust” (also a criminal offense in Germany) by comparing one totalitarian system to another, as I have done repeatedly on social media, and in a column I published in November of 2020, when the parliament passed the “Infection Protection Act,” which bears no comparison whatsoever to the “Enabling Act of 1933.”

    This isn’t just a German story, of course. As I reported in a column in February, The “New Normal” War on Domestic Terror is a global war, and it’s just getting started. According to a Department of Homeland Security “National Terrorism Advisory System Bulletin” (and the “liberal” corporate-media propaganda machine), “democracy” remains under imminent threat from these “ideologically-motivated violent extremists with objections to the exercise of governmental authority” and other such “grievances fueled by false narratives” including “anger over Covid-19 restrictions.”

    These Covid-denying “violent extremists” have apparently joined forces with the “white-supremacist, Russia-backed, Trump-loving “Putin-Nazis” that terrorized “democracy” for the past four years, and almost overthrew the US government by sauntering around inside the US Capitol Building without permission, scuffling with police, attacking furniture, and generally acting rude and unruly. No, they didn’t actually kill anyone, as the corporate media all reported they did, but trespassing in a government building and putting your feet up on politicians’ desks is pretty much exactly the same as “terrorism.”

    Or whatever. It’s not like the truth actually matters, not when you are whipping up mass hysteria over imaginary “Russian assets,” “white-supremacist militias,” “Covid-denying extremists,” “anti-vax terrrorists,” and “apocalyptic plagues.” When you’re rolling out a new official ideology — a pathologized-totalitarian ideology — and criminalizing all dissent, the point is not to appear to be factual. The point is just to terrorize the shit out of people.

    As Hermann Goering famously explained regarding how to lead a country to war (and the principle holds true for any big transition, like the one we are experiencing currently):

    “[T]he people can always be brought to the bidding of the leaders. That is easy. All you have to do is tell them they are being attacked and denounce the pacifists for lack of patriotism and exposing the country to danger.”

    Go back and read those quotes from the German Interior Ministry and the DHS again slowly. The message they are sending is unmistakeably clear. It might not seem all that new, but it is. Yes, they have been telling us “we are being attacked” and denouncing critics, protesters, and dissidents for twenty years (i.e., since the War on Terror was launched in 2001, and for the last four years in their War on Populism), but this is a whole new level of it … a fusion of official narratives and their respective official enemies into a singular, aggregate official narrative in which dissent will no longer be permitted.

    Instead, it will be criminalized, or it will be pathologized.

    Seriously, go back and read those quotes again. Global capitalist governments and their corporate media mouthpieces are telling us, in no uncertain terms, that “objection to their authority” will no longer be tolerated, nor will dissent from their official narratives. Such dissent will be deemed “dangerous” and above all “false.” It will not be engaged with or rationally debated. It will be erased from public view. There will be an inviolable, official “reality.” Any deviation from official “reality” or defiance of the “civil authorities” will be labelled “extremism,” and dealt with accordingly.

    This is the essence of totalitarianism, the establishment of an inviolable official ideology and the criminalization of dissent. And that is what is happening, right now. A new official ideology is being established. Not a state ideology. A global ideology. The “New Normal” is that official ideology. Technically, it is an official post-ideology, an official “reality,” an axiomatic “fact,” which only “criminals” and “psychopaths” would deny or challenge.

    I’ll be digging deeper into “New Normal” ideology and “pathologized totalitarianism” in my future columns, and … sorry, they probably won’t be very funny. For now I’ll leave you with two more quotes. The emphasis is mine, as ever.

    Here’s California State Senator Richard Pan, author of an op-ed in the Washington Post: “Anti-vax extremism is akin to domestic terrorism,” quoted in the Los Angeles Times:

    “These extremists have not yet been held accountable, so they continue to escalate violence against the body public … We must now summon the political will to demand that domestic terrorists face consequences for their words and actions. Our democracy and our lives depend on it … They’ve been building alliances with white supremacists, conspiracy theorists and [others] on the far right …”

    And here’s Peter Hotez in Nature magazine:

    “The United Nations and the highest levels of governments must take direct, even confrontational, approaches with Russia, and move to dismantle anti-vaccine groups in the United States. Efforts must expand into the realm of cyber security, law enforcement, public education and international relations. A high-level inter-agency task force reporting to the UN secretary-general could assess the full impact of anti-vaccine aggression, and propose tough, balanced measures. The task force should include experts who have tackled complex global threats such as terrorism, cyber attacks and nuclear armament, because anti-science is now approaching similar levels of peril. It is becoming increasingly clear that advancing immunization requires a counter-offensive.”

    We’ll be hearing a lot more rhetoric like this as this new, more totalitarian structure of global capitalism gradually develops. Probably a good idea to listen carefully, and assume they mean exactly what they say.

    Tyler Durden
    Mon, 05/03/2021 – 23:20

  • China Accuses Australia Of "Colluding With Terrorists" In Row Over Uygher Rights Group
    China Accuses Australia Of “Colluding With Terrorists” In Row Over Uygher Rights Group

    In the latest from their ongoing and increasingly nasty geopolitical row, China is accusing Australia giving a “free pass” to terror-sympathizers over accusations that Aussie politicians are backing Uighur activists and providing external support to Muslim fundamentalists in Xinjiang. 

    This latest diplomatic fight started when as news.au.com describes Chinese state media “seized on an article, published by fringe political group the Australian Citizens Party, criticizing local politicians’ support for the East Turkistan Australian Association (ETAA), a Uyghur advocacy group. The article claimed the ETAA supported terror groups in Xinjiang.”

    It was specifically Australia’s Defense Minister Andrew Hastie and independent Senator Rex Patrick who were called out by Chinese media for supporting the ETAA activists, which Canberra later called “disinformation”.

    China’s foreign ministry was quick to respond fiercely, pointing the finger Australian officials for “colluding with terrorists” and warning Canberra will surely be “burned” by the Uyghur groups it’s backing. Ministry spokesperson Wang Wenbin additionally described “lies and smears” which target Xinjiang and China broadly.

    “As some Western media are awash with lies and smears targeting Xinjiang, such objective and rational voices shows that justice will eventually prevail,” Wenbin said. “We urge certain Australian politicians not to stand on the wrong side of history and to stop endorsing anti-China separatist activities and terrorist organizations to avoid getting burned itself.”

    Apparently the Australian political advocacy group which is at the center of the controversy does not have a wide following or much prominence in the Australian media landscape, yet as has happened with other countries and with similarly related issues, China seized upon the article in question to make it somehow representative of Australia’s official stance. 

    Beijing was particularly angered at the article’s language describing Xinjiang as “currently under the brutal occupation of the Chinese Communist Government.”

    Widely shared image on social media purporting to show a group of detainees in Xinjiang.

    The aforementioned Senator Patrick in return charged that Beijing was merely seizing on “disinformation” and that the whole row is “not immediately helpful” in terms of improving the plight of China’s Muslim minority community.

    “The focus of my attention has been to support those members of the Uyghur community in Adelaide and across Australia whose families are suffering the Chinese Communist Party directed genocide and oppression in Xinjiang,” the Australian politician said in a statement.

    Tyler Durden
    Mon, 05/03/2021 – 23:00

  • Corporate News Outlets Again "Confirm" The Same False Story, While Many Refuse To Correct It
    Corporate News Outlets Again “Confirm” The Same False Story, While Many Refuse To Correct It

    Authored by Glenn Greenwald via greenwald.substack.com

    Rudy Giuliani appeared before the Michigan House Oversight Committee in Lansing, Michigan on December 2, 2020 (Photo by JEFF KOWALSKY / AFP) (Photo by JEFF KOWALSKY/AFP via Getty Images)

    One of the primary plagues of corporate journalism, which I have documented more times than I can count, just reared its ugly head again to deceive millions of people with fake news. When one large news outlet publishes a false story based on whispers from anonymous security state agents with the CIA or FBI, other news outlets quickly purport that they have “independently confirmed” the false story, in order to bolster its credibility (oh, it must be true since other outlets have also confirmed it).

    This is an obvious scam — they have not “independently confirmed” anything but rather merely acted as servants to the same lying security state agents who planted the original false story — but they do it over and over, creating the deceitful perception that a fake story has been “confirmed” by multiple outlets, thus bolstering its credibility in the public mind. It was the favored tactic for spreading debunked Russiagate frauds and is still used. One of the most vivid examples occurred in December, 2017, when CNN falsely reported what it hyped as “a major bombshell”: that Donald Trump, Jr. had advance access to the WikiLeaks archive. Within an hour, NBC News’ Ken Dilanian and CBS News both claimed they had “independently confirmed” this fairy tale. When it turned out that it was a complete lie, all based on a false date on an email to Trump Jr., these outlets embarrassingly corrected it hours later and then simply moved on as if it never happened, never explaining how multiple outlets could possibly have all “independently confirmed” the same blatant falsehood.

    On Thursday night, The Washington Post, citing anonymous sources (of course), claimed that the FBI gave a “defensive briefing” to Rudy Giuliani in 2019, before he traveled to Ukraine, that he was being targeted by a Russian disinformation campaign to hurt Joe Biden’s candidacy, yet he ignored the FBI’s warnings and went anyway. The Post also claimed that the right-wing news outlet OANN was similarly briefed. The claim about Giuliani not only predictably ricocheted all over social media and cable news — where, as usual, it was uncritically treated as Truth — but it was shortly thereafter “independently confirmed” by both NBC News’ de facto CIA spokesman Ken Dilanian along with The New York Times.

    What was the problem with this story? It was totally false. The FBI never briefed Giuliani on any such thing. As a result, The Washington Post had to append this “correction” — meaning a retraction — to the top of its viral story:

    The Washington Post, May 1, 2021

    At first, The New York Times attempted to quietly change the story to delete the false claims without noting they were doing so. But upon being pressured, they finally faced up to what they did and posted their own retraction at the very bottom of the story that reads: “Correction: An earlier version of this article misstated whether Rudolph W. Giuliani received a formal warning from the F.B.I. about Russian disinformation. Mr. Giuliani did not receive such a so-called defensive briefing.” In their self-glorifying jargon, the Paper of Record did not spread Fake News — perish the thought — but merely “misstated” the truth. Meanwhile, NBC News, at the top of its false story, posted this explanation for why Dilanian got the story completely wrong:

    An earlier version of this article included an incorrect report that Rudolph Giuliani had received a defensive briefing from the FBI in 2019 warning him that he was being targeted by a Russian influence operation. The report was based on a source familiar with the matter, but a second source now says the briefing was only prepared for Giuliani and not delivered to him, in part over concerns it might complicate the criminal investigation of Giuliani. As a result, the premise and headline of the article below have been changed to reflect the corrected information.

    This credibility carnage was so glaring that even CNN acknowledged that “the corrections are black eyes to the newsrooms which have aggressively reported on Giuliani’s contacts with Ukrainians in his attempts to dig up dirt on then-presidential candidate Joe Biden.” But there have been so many similar “black eyes” like this one, indeed far worse ones, over the last five years, and they never change anything that causes these “black eyes” because they want to do this: spreading disinformation is their function. Indeed, as I have asked almost every time these debacles happen: how is it possible that these same outlets keep “confirming” one another’s false stories?

    And the answer is obvious: they all serve as mouthpieces for the same propagandists and disinformation agents of the CIA, FBI and other security state agencies. In this capacity, they dutifully write down and vouch for what they are told by those agencies to publish without any investigative scrutiny or confirmation. The most amazing part of it all is that when they try to malign independent journalists for not doing “real reporting” — real reporting like these corporate outlets do — this is what they mean by real reporting: getting a call from the CIA or FBI and being told what to say. And that is why they so often mislead and deceive the public with blatant disinformation in unison.

    It is hard to overstate how far and wide this false story about the FBI’s briefing to Giuliani spread, how many millions of people it deceived. The two liberal cable outlets, MSNBC and CNN, instantly convened panels to analyze the grave implications of this revelation, accusing Giuliani of knowingly spreading Russian disinformation (by which they meant, as usual, truthful information that reflects poorly on Democratic Party leaders) even though he was told not to keep doing so by the FBI.

    As usual, the MSNBC program of Nicolle Wallace — who has magically transformed from a disinformation agent for the Bush/Cheney White House into an identical disinformation agent but now for the DNC — was one of the leaders in spreading this lie. She brought on former FBI agent and current MSNBC analyst Clint Watts to do just that (just as Wallace dramatized how Brian Sicknick died by falsely claiming that “they beat a Capitol Police Officer to death with a fire extinguisher” and repeatedly glorified Gov. Andrew Cuomo (D-NY) as a great and truthful leader on COVID):

    This is all par for the course. But in this case, dozens of journalists for NBC News, MSNBC, CNN and The Washington Post — the very outlets that purported to “confirm” the false story — as well as activists and scholars who purport to combat “disinformation,” spread it all over Twitter and, days later, have left it up, even knowing the story is false, while not even telling their followers that the story was false and has been retracted.

    In preparation for writing this article, I spent the day notifying close to a dozen of these media luminaries that their false tweet remained up and asked whether they intend to take it down and/or correct the false tweet. Only one — NBC White House Correspondent Geoff Bennett — responded. He did so by blocking me on Twitter, while leaving the false tweet up, uncorrected. Put another way, this NBC News journalist is well aware that he lied to close to 200,000 followers when he falsely told them that “Rudy Giuliani and Sen. Ron Johnson were warned in late 2019 that they were targets of a Russian operation intended to damage Joe Biden politically” — a story (as it pertains to Giuliani) which even his own outlet has retracted — but simply refuses to note that it was false or to remove the false posting. This NBC News reporter is knowingly spreading Fake News all over Twitter.

    Tweet to NBC News’ Geoff Bennett advising him that his false tweet remains up and uncorrected, followed by his immediate block.

    The number of journalists with major outlets who spread this fake news and never corrected it is too high to comprehensively chronicle. But even when you tell them that the story they spread is false and that they never corrected it or deleted the false tweet, they just leave it up anyway: knowingly spreading lies.

    Basically as an experiment to measure how willing they are to knowingly lie even when caught, I sent a large number of them inquiries similar to the one I sent to NBC’s Bennett. With the exception of NBC‘s Bennett — who blocked me but left up the lying claim — virtually all just left their false tweets up with no notation to the people they lied to that the story was retracted. Here, for instance, are my similar interactions with Washington Post reporter Dan Zak, frequent Russia analyst for CNN and The Daily Beast Michael Weiss, CNN‘s Senior Global Affairs analyst Bianna Golodryga, and Bloomberg columnist Tim O’Brien, all of whom spread this story and have left it up uncorrected:

    Here is just a random sampling of five more people or sites who spread this lie all over the internet and refuse to take it down or tell their followers the tweet was false: MSNBC‘s ex-FBI agent Clint Watts, Washington Post reporter Greg Jaffe, Center for American Progress’ Max Bergmann who runs the liberal think tank’s “Moscow Project,” Nina Jankowicz: who says she “studies disinformation”(!) for the Wilson Center, and the liberal “news” site Raw Story:

    Meanwhile, MSNBC‘s Chris Hayes’ show, All In, has left up its tweet with the false story and refuses to take it down (though, after I shamed them for it, they finally noted in a subsequent tweet an hour or so ago that the story was retracted), while MSNBC‘s viral tweet with the false story also remains up:

    Perhaps the most extraordinary example is The Washington Post‘s Glenn Kessler. He is held out by that paper as its official “fact-checker”: the person responsible for decreeing what is true and what is false. Not only did he post the fake claim about Giuliani’s briefing, and not only did he never delete it or note that it was false even after his own paper retracted it and even after I advised him of this, but — just two days ago! — he endorsed a denunciation by CNN‘s Jake Tapper of an RNC official who tweeted out a story that turned out to be false (namely, that DHS was providing copies of Kamala Harris’ book to migrant children).

    “Says quite a bit that this tweet is still up even after the story was proven a lie,” the CNN anchor reasonably said. Yet while Kessler endorsed that lecture, he himself did exactly the same thing: let stand a retracted story without removing the tweet or telling his audience that it was false:

    As I indicated, this is just a small sampling of journalists and activists who spread this false story and simply left the lie standing and uncorrected even after being advised. The list of shame also includes MSNBC’s second-favorite neocon (after Bill Kristol) Jennifer Rubin of The Washington Post. And while the false articles from the three outlets went viral, the tweets and other notations addressing the retractions were noted by only a tiny fraction who spread the original claim.

    Every journalist, even the most honest and careful, will get things wrong sometimes, and trustworthy journalists issue prompt corrections when they do. That behavior should be trust-building. But when media outlets continue to use the same reckless and deceitful tactics — such as claiming to have “independently confirmed” one another’s false stories when they have merely served as stenographers for the same anonymous security state agents while “confirming” nothing — that strongly suggests a complete indifference to the truth and, even more so, a willingness to serve as disinformation agents for various official factions. And when a journalist spreads a false story and knows they have done so, but still refuses to correct it or remove it — as is the case for many of the above examples — then they are just tawdry liars who should be driven out of journalism. But they are not driven out and will not be because the reality is that their job is to spread disinformation as long as it is in servitude to the right factions (the CIA, FBI and DNC) and against those who are ideologically disfavored.

    Again we see the core truth of U.S. corporate journalism. The outlets that most vocally claim to condemn disinformation and fake news — to the point of agitating in favor of corporate and online censorship of their critics and competitors in the name of combating it — are the most prolific, aggressive and destructive disseminators of disinformation. Their refusal to remove the fake news here even after I explicitly notified them of it just makes this latest example a particularly vivid one.

    Update, May 3, 2021, 20:20 pm. ET: Subsequent to publication of this article, The Washington Post‘s Glenn Kessler posted a correction to Twitter:

    This is not hard to do. It’s what anyone with even minimal journalistic integrity would do. It is astonishing and grotesque how many of them simply refuse. 

    https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js

    Tyler Durden
    Mon, 05/03/2021 – 22:40

  • Patients Stricken By Vaccine Blood Clots Seek Payout From Government Fund
    Patients Stricken By Vaccine Blood Clots Seek Payout From Government Fund

    Though they represent a tiny fraction of all patients who receive the various COVID-19 vaccines, those who have severe, even life-threatening, reactions to the J&J COVID-19 jab face a difficult path to compensation since US law shields producers of the various COVID-19 vaccines from lawsuits. Instead, as Bloomberg explains in a story published Monday, patients are left to file claim with an obscure federal fund that – as BBG explains – “a program with a history of rejecting claims and a relatively high bar for recovering costs.”

    The Countermeasures Injury Compensation Program, run by an obscure office within the Department of Health and Human Services, covers medical costs and lost wages not paid by insurance. Some 445 claims had been filed for Covid-related adverse reactions as of April 26, according to the Health Resources and Services Administration, which runs the program. However, only a small number of those claims are related to vaccines.

    Bloomberg also offered some insight into what happens to patients who experience severe reactions to vaccines. It starts with the story of Emma Burkey, who was hosptialized after having a seizure caused by blood clots in her brain. An ambulance took Burkey to the local southern Nevada hospital, where doctors realized her reaction was similar to others reported from the J&J shot. Having grasped the severity of the situation, she was airlifted to a neural treatment unit at Loma Linda Hospital in San Bernardino, California. The family is counting on most costs to be covered by insurance, but they learned of the compensation program during a call from Sen. Catherine Cortez Masto’s office, one of the two senators from their home state of Nevada. Members of the senators staff are ensuring the family “gets the support they deserve.”

    High school senior Emma Burkey received her “one and done” Johnson & Johnson coronavirus vaccine on March 20, and within two weeks was in an induced coma following seizures and clotting in her brain.

    She’s making a slow recovery, having recently been transfered from the hospital to a rehabilitation center, and the first round of bills totaled $513,000. The 18-year-old’s family friends in the Las Vegas area started a GoFundMe account to help with medical expenses from the very rare vaccine reaction.

    “We don’t know what’s going to happen with Emma, how long it will it take for her to return to a normal life,” said Bret Johnson, the family’s minister, who’s acting as spokesman for the Burkeys. He said the family believes her condition is linked to the vaccine but hasn’t yet been contacted by the company or U.S. health regulators, and that a connection hasn’t been independently confirmed.

    So far, of the roughly 450 claims filed with the compensation program, only about 25% of the COVID-linked reactions have been linked to vaccines, while more than half were from various other treatments, according to HRSA. These include ventilators, convalescent plasma, and hydroxychloroquine. In total, the claims include more than 50 deaths from insufficient care.

    Unfortunately for those who have filed, there have been no payouts so far in COVID cases, which the HRSA says is because it hasn’t received all the information it needs to make disbursements. Required medical records still haven’t been received from the applicant in the first claim, which was filed in September over an adverse reaction to convalescent plasma, the agency said.

    Some critics say the countermeasures program isn’t the best way to handle the vaccine claims. Even once processing of the claims begins, historically, the fund has been pretty stingy. Only 39 of almost 500 claims have been found to be eligible for compensation (mostly for reactions to the H1N1 vaccine) and the fund has paid out only about $6 million in 29 cases.

    Instead, these critics believe compensation requests should go through a decades-old program within the same agency called the Vaccine Injury Compensation Program, known informally as the “vaccine court.” However, the CDC insists that COVID-19 vaccinations aren’t eligible to be heard by the court – though Congress might move to change this. The vaccine court was created in the late 1980s, when vaccine-makers threatened to pull out of the market over the high costs of litigation.

    Fortunately for Burkey, her health-care costs – which will likely mount into the millions of dollars – will be borne by her health insurer. But one shouldn’t assume that every one of the women who suffered blood clots due to the J&J jab will be so lucky.

    Tyler Durden
    Mon, 05/03/2021 – 22:20

  • Former BLM Movement Leader Arrested For Interfering In Homicide Probe
    Former BLM Movement Leader Arrested For Interfering In Homicide Probe

    Authored by Isabel Van Brugen via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours),

    A former leader of a movement in Iowa City that identifies with the ideals of Black Lives Matter has been arrested for allegedly interfering in a homicide investigation, police said.

    In this file photo, a protester is holding a ‘defund the police’ sign at a Black Lives Matter protest in Manhattan, New York City on July 13, 2020. (Chung I Ho/file/The Epoch Times)

    Mazin M. Mohamedali, 20, was arrested Saturday, and faces one count of accessory after the fact, an aggravated misdemeanor, according to a criminal complaint filed in Johnson County District Court.

    His arrest follows a fatal shooting during a suspected robbery at his Iowa residence in February.

    Police say he failed to immediately call emergency services after the incident. He also later lied to investigators about the shooting’s circumstances and provided false descriptions of people involved, according to an affidavit filed by an officer.

    According to court documents, the 20-year-old also deleted his mobile phone’s call history and the mobile phone application Snapchat, and in doing so, hid information from police that would have led them more quickly to the suspect in the shooting death, Sammy Hamed.

    Mohamedali has identified himself as a former leader of the Iowa Freedom Riders—which describes itself as a racial justice and liberation group that believes in the ideals of Black Lives Matter. Iowa Freedom Riders also says it collectively works to “envision and realize a world where we treat each other with care & compassion instead of subscribing to the white supremacist, punitive system that is the prison industrial complex.”

    He was previously arrested on charges stemming from the initial homicide probe. After conducting a search warrant at Mohamedali’s apartment on Feb. 24, police discovered 56.13 grams of marijuana and 42.5 ecstasy pills. He was arrested on two counts each of a controlled substance violation and Iowa drug tax stamp violation, and one count of keeping a drug house.

    The 20-year-old is scheduled to go to trial for those charges on Aug. 24.

    Mohamedali was also arrested last year during a Black Lives Matter riot, for which he faced six charges, including unlawful assembly, disorderly conduct, criminal mischief, and trespassing. He pleaded guilty to one simple misdemeanor—disorderly conduct—and the other charges were dismissed.

    He was released shortly after being booked at the Johnson County Jail, according to jail records.

    A September 2020 social media post from Mohamedali shows an image of Breonna Taylor, who was shot to death during a police raid of her home in March 2020, with her death later becoming a rallying cry for Black Lives Matter protests and riots last year.

    In the image, the initials BLM, which stand for Black Lives Matter, are spray painted on the ground.

    “#justiceforbreonnataylor that’s all we need. Real indictments real respect keep the [expletive],” the Instagram photo’s caption reads.

    Tyler Durden
    Mon, 05/03/2021 – 22:00

  • Biden: "Anybody Making Less Than $400,000 Will Not Pay A Single Penny In Taxes"
    Biden: “Anybody Making Less Than $400,000 Will Not Pay A Single Penny In Taxes”

    Want to see “objective” fact checkers like Snopes, Politifact or Newsguard explode? Just send them this clip of whisper-mode Joe and ask them if it’s true…

    Read my lips…

    Tyler Durden
    Mon, 05/03/2021 – 21:40

  • BofA: "Transitory Hyperinflation Ahead"
    BofA: “Transitory Hyperinflation Ahead”

    Last week, when discussing the latest earnings call commentary, Bank of America said “Buckle up! Inflation is here”, and showed a chart of the number of mentions of “inflation” during earnings calls which exploded, more than tripling YoY per company so far, the and the biggest jump in history since BofA started keeping records in 2004.

    Who knew that just one week later BofA would need a bigger chart… a much bigger chart.

    As BofA’s Savita Subramanian writes, after the third week of earnings. mentions of “inflation” have now quadrupled YoY; and after last week, mentions have jumped nearly 800% YoY!

    While the implications are obvious, we leave it to Bank of America to explain what this means:

    On an absolute basis, [inflation] mentions skyrocketed to near record highs from 2011, pointing to at the very least, “transitory” hyper-inflation ahead.

    Yes… really:

    Because if there is one thing hyperinflation is, it’s “transitory.”

    Tyler Durden
    Mon, 05/03/2021 – 21:20

  • US Launching Five Digital Dollar Pilot Programs
    US Launching Five Digital Dollar Pilot Programs

    By now it’s common knowledge that China is leaps and bounds ahead of all other central banks in launching a CBDC, or Central Bank Digital Currency (which Beijing vows is not a challenge to the reserve status of the US Dollar, but is precisely that), however the US is doing everything it can to keep up. And while one wouldn’t get the sense of urgency if one listened to either the Fed chair or the NY Fed president today…

    • POWELL SAYS HAVE NOT DECIDED WHETHER TO ISSUE A DIGITAL CURRENCY
    • WILLIAMS SAYS FED IS STUDYING CENTRAL BANK DIGITAL CURRENCIES ACTIVELY AND IS NOT IN A RACE

    … on Monday, the nonprofit organization Digital Dollar Project said it will launch five pilot programs over the next 12 months to test the potential uses of a U.S. central bank digital currency, the first effort of its kind in the United States.

    According to Reuters, the private-sector pilots which hope to recreate similar tests held in China last year, will initially be funded by Accenture and involve financial firms, retailers and NGOs, among others. The aim is simple: to generate data that could help U.S. policymakers develop a digital dollar.

    Why Accenture, formerly known as Arthur Andersen of Enron fame? Because a partnership between Accenture and the Digital Dollar Foundation, the Digital Dollar Project was created last year to promote research into a U.S. central bank digital currency (CBDC).

    “There are conferences and papers coming out every week around the world on CBDCs based on data from other countries,” said Christopher Giancarlo, former chair of the CFTC and co-founder of the Digital Dollar Foundation.

    “What there is not, is any real data and testing from the United States to inform that debate. We’re seeking to generate that real-world data,” Giancarlo added.

    This means that over the next 12 months, a select group of Americans will have the “honor” of transacting with the next evolutionary US currency – the digital dollar.

    As discussed here extensively in recent years, CBDCs are the digital equivalent of banknotes and coins, giving holders a direct digital claim on the central bank and allowing them to make instant electronic payments. On the other hand, digital currencies allow central banks to track every single transaction in real-time, to identify the holder of the currency and – when the time comes – to “expire” it.

    As a reminder, last month we reported that China’s digiral yuan “is programmable. Beijing has tested expiration dates to encourage users to spend it quickly, for times when the economy needs a jump start.” The Fed’s digital dollar will have this functionality too, as well as many more, most notably allowing the central bank to deposit digital dollar in any bank account of its choosing to create targeted inflation by selectively funding those who are most likely to spend rather than save (hence the relentless campaign to convince the US population that minorities deserve reparations).

    A few quick words on how CBDCs differ from other traditional payment methods: While debit cards or payment apps are a form of digital cash, those transactions are created by commercial banks based on money central banks credit to those banks’ accounts. They are not fully government-backed, can take days to settle, and often incur fees. Cryptocurrencies, meanwhile, are controlled by private actors, and have been soaring in recent years in response to the unprecedented debasement of fiat currencies.

    Central banks around the world, including in China and Europe, are revving up CBDC projects to fend off threats from cryptocurrencies and improve payment systems.

    Unlike Beijing, the U.S. Federal Reserve has said it wants to move more cautiously. It has been working with the Massachusetts Institute of Technology to build a technology platform for a hypothetical digital dollar, but chair Jerome Powell said last week that it is “far more important” to get a digital dollar right than it is to be fast. However, it now appears that speed is emerging as a key variable as well.

    Giancarlo said Powell was correct to be cautious but that as China pushes ahead, the United States must drive a discussion on incorporating U.S. values such as privacy and freedom of commerce and speech into the development of CBDCs. “It’s vital that the U.S. asserts leadership as it has in previous technological innovations,” Giancarlo added.

    Giancarlo also gave the trite BS reason why the US “needs” a digital currency, as it could also boost financial inclusion in the United States, where transaction fees impede the access of many Americans to mainstream financial services. Because so many Americans lament their inability to the dollar as it stands now due to high “transaction fees.”

    The pilot programs, three of which will launch in the next two months, will complement the Fed’s MIT project by generating data on the functional, sociological, business uses, benefits and other facets, of a digital dollar. The data is due to be released publicly. 

    According to Reuters, Accenture has previously worked on a number of CBDC projects including in Canada, Singapore and France. David Treat, a senior managing director at Accenture, said CBDCs would exist alongside other forms of physical and electronic money, rather than replace them.

    “It’s not a panacea for all money,” Treat said. “We will be using physical cash and coin for some time.”

    Sure we will… until one day the government pulls an FDR executive order 6102 and confiscates all non-digital currencies.

     

    Tyler Durden
    Mon, 05/03/2021 – 21:00

  • An Open Letter To Swarthmore President Valerie Smith
    An Open Letter To Swarthmore President Valerie Smith

    Submitted by Peter Berkowitz, the Tad and Dianne Taube senior fellow at the Hoover Institution, Stanford University. His writings are posted at PeterBerkowitz.com and he can be followed on Twitter @BerkowitzPeter.

    Dear President Smith,

    Thank you for your “Reflections on Yesterday’s Verdict,” which you sent to Swarthmore students, alumni, faculty, and staff on April 21 and posted on the college’s website. Prompted by the announcement that Derek Chauvin had been found guilty of murdering George Floyd, you offered brief thoughts on the connection between liberal education and racial justice, social movements, and political change. As a Swarthmore graduate grateful for the long-ago introduction that the college provided me to liberal education, and as an observer of American politics troubled by the nation’s widening schisms, I read your message with great interest.

    In the spirit of my Swarthmore studies, your reflections have left me with a number of questions. They revolve around the relation between politics and liberal education.

    Your message asserts that “[a]lthough the verdict can never truly bring justice for Mr. Floyd and his family, it signals the impact of a powerful social movement.” You summon us to join in that social movement, stating, “We must dedicate ourselves anew to the struggle for lasting, meaningful change” in America to bring about “a more just, equitable, and safe society.”

    You envisage a distinctive role for colleges and universities. “As an institution of higher learning, Swarthmore College is committed to contributing to that change — by continuing to foster an environment in which students can engage in deep, thoughtful, and frank conversations about the challenges facing our society,” you write. “This shared and vital work can and will continue to ensure we provide a transformative liberal arts education grounded in fearless intellectual inquiry.”

    I certainly believe that liberal education serves America’s interest in sustaining a society that safeguards citizens’ fundamental freedoms and basic rights. Whether that comports with your understanding turns on what you mean by “a more just, equitable, and safe society” and how you conceive of “a transformative liberal arts education.”

    If by “a transformative liberal arts education” you intend one that refines and elevates students’ minds by transmitting knowledge and cultivating independent thought so that they are better able to exercise their rights, respect the rights of others, and do their part to uphold the nation’s constitutional form of government, then we are in full agreement. But for Swarthmore to offer such an education — the same goes for any institution of higher learning — the college must avoid, to the extent possible, taking sides in current political debates and legal controversies. Only by staying out of the political fray as an institution can the college provide a community that genuinely encourages students to energetically and rigorously explore the many sides of hard political questions.

    If, however, by “a transformative liberal arts education” you mean an education that aims to instill in students a specific conception of social justice, that brings institutional pressure to bear on students to embrace a college-proclaimed orthodoxy on political issues that divide the nation, and that trains students to exclusively advance one partisan reform agenda, then I fear that Swarthmore will hasten the demise of liberal education. For how can students “engage in deep, thoughtful, and frank conversations about the challenges facing our society” if the college itself takes a firm and public stance on the proper response to those challenges? All that would remain is for students to debate the means for implementing Swarthmore-approved moral judgments and political priorities.

    In my view, the college is entirely justified — obligated, even — to champion the principles of individual freedom and human equality. These, after all, are the moral premises that underlie our constitutional order. They also inspire liberal education, the governing purpose of which is to prepare students to enjoy the rights and assume the responsibilities of freedom.

    But regarding, say, the conservative and progressive interpretations of freedom’s imperatives in particular political disputes, the college has no business taking a stand and organizing students for political action. That goes for professors in the classroom as well as for administrators in Parrish Hall. The proselytizing and partisan mission subverts the educational mission.

    The creation of an environment hospitable to the exchange of opinions and the careful examination of rival analyses and assessments is a hallmark of liberal education. The promulgation of opinions and ideas insulated from critical examination, the stigmatizing and silencing of nonconformist voices, and the rallying of members of the campus community around a political cause are distinguishing features of indoctrination.

    Whether Swarthmore and colleges and universities across the country are devoted to liberal education or indoctrination is, in my mind, the crux of the matter.

    To better understand your views on politics and liberal education, it would be helpful to know more about your thinking on two issues that have generated considerable controversy over the last few years: free speech and the content of the curriculum.

    Free speech is a pillar of liberal education. By exposing students to competing ideas and opinions, liberal education develops their ability to break free from one-sidedness and special pleading. The encounter with a diversity of viewpoints also teaches students to respect fellow citizens who see the world differently. These days, it has become fashionable to dismiss free speech as a ruse by which the “oppressors” in the United States control the “oppressed.” Yet that contention flies in the face of historical realities: In democracies, free speech has always been an indispensable ally of minorities seeking to vindicate their rights, dissenters challenging the conventional wisdom, and innovators opening new vistas of inquiry and action.

    The 2015 Report of the Committee on Freedom of Expression at the University of Chicago provides both an eloquent explanation, and rousing defense, of free speech and liberal education. To show that Swarthmore College cherishes free speech because it sustains liberal education, wouldn’t it be useful to join with 81 other colleges and universities — as of March of this year, according to the Foundation for Individual Rights in Education — in endorsing the Chicago principles?

    One way Swarthmore models its conception of free speech is through the distinguished figures it invites to campus. On May 6, the President’s Fund for Racial Justice and the Social Responsibility Committee of the Board of Managers are sponsoring what is bound to be a fascinating and timely event, “An Evening With Eric Holder: Voting Rights, Leadership, and Social Justice.” Wouldn’t Swarthmore demonstrate its commitment to, in your words, “deep, thoughtful, and frank conversations about the challenges facing our society” by following up the discussion of voting rights with former President Barack Obama’s attorney general by inviting to campus William Barr, attorney general under former Presidents George H.W. Bush and Donald Trump, to hear his thoughts on voting rights? 

    A well-designed curriculum is another crucial component of liberal education. According to the college website, at Swarthmore “[s]tudents generally spend their first two years exploring, taking courses in a range of disciplines across the humanities, social sciences, and natural sciences.”  After students “encounter new ways of thinking” they focus in their final two years on their majors. But isn’t it also incumbent on the college to ensure that all students share a common foundation of basic knowledge about the nation and the civilization of which they are part? If, for example, students have not studied the sweep of American political ideas — from the nation’s founding to progressivism and conservatism today — how can they seriously evaluate and intelligently discuss the competing views of former attorneys general Holder and Barr? Yet, near as I can tell, Swarthmore’s political science department does not offer such a course.

    I hope we have the chance to continue the important conversation you launched about politics and liberal education.

    Respectfully,

    Peter Berkowitz
    Swarthmore College, ’81

    Tyler Durden
    Mon, 05/03/2021 – 20:40

  • States Offer Beer, Cash Incentives As Vaccine Demand Softens
    States Offer Beer, Cash Incentives As Vaccine Demand Softens

    Just as more states project that they have reached peak levels of vaccine demand, and governors like Michigan’s Gretchen Whitmer come up with subtle ways to encourage reluctant adults to acquiesce, multiple states are experimenting with offering carrots, even a monetary reward.

    Maryland Gov. Larry Hogan on Monday offered a $100 financial incentive to state employees who receive the vaccine.

    https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js

    To receive the incentive, employees must provide their HR office with proof of vaccination, and agree to receive all subsequent CDC recommended booster vaccinations within 18 months of being fully vaccinated. The incentive is retroactive, so that all state employees who have already been fully vaccinated will also receive the $100 incentive payment.

    “With this incentive program, we are further encouraging state employees to get vaccinated to help keep themselves, their families, and their communities healthy and safe,” said Governor Hogan. “Incentives like this are another way to reinforce the importance of getting vaccinated, and we strongly encourage businesses across the state to consider offering incentives to their workers as well. These vaccines are safe and effective, they’re free, and they’re readily available with or without an appointment.”

    To receive the incentive, employees must provide their HR office with proof of vaccination, and agree to receive all subsequent CDC recommended booster vaccinations within 18 months of being fully vaccinated. The incentive is retroactive, so that all state employees who have already been fully vaccinated will also receive the $100 incentive payment.

    And in order to ensure those who participate in the program follow through with all subsequent appointments, the state will require anyone who doesn’t receive their booster or any future doses required to fend off mutant strains to repay the $100.

    To Maryland’s northern flank, New Jersey has offered its own take on enticements by offering adults who are 21+ a free beer (at any participating brewery) by displaying proof that they had been vaccinated.

    https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js

    the cash incentive for state employees isn’t the only strategy being used in Maryland. The city of Baltimore elicited laughter nationwide when it unveiled a new advertising campaign intended to encourage young adults to get the vaccine.

    https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js

    https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js

    The message, that adults should be vaccinated before they start socializing again, was mocked because the ad resembles a poster for a woman’s refuge, as if the “Debra” character in the ad was embroiled in a domestic abuse situation with her boyfriend.

    Others slammed the ad as idiotic.

    https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.jsAfter peaking north of 4 million a day in early April, the number of doses being administered per day has fallen by almost half, to just north of 2 million per day as of early May.

    Source: Bloomberg

    As we wait to see whether more states will follow in Maryland’s footsteps, we would like to know whether this will apply retroactively to state employees who have already been fully vaccinated?

    Tyler Durden
    Mon, 05/03/2021 – 20:20

  • D'Souza: Abolish The FBI
    D’Souza: Abolish The FBI

    Authored by Dinesh D’Souza, op-ed via The Epoch Times,

    For a long time, the FBI has stood as the admirable symbol of a police agency of government, implacably going after the bad guys and neutrally enforcing the laws. This is the FBI of the movie “The Untouchables,” in which special agent Eliot Ness leads his devoted crew of armed agents in a heroic battle against the forces of organized crime.

    Well, forget about the Untouchables. Today’s FBI has quite obviously been corrupted from the top. This is a process that seems to have begun under President Barack Obama, endured during the Donald Trump years, and has now reached its unfortunate nadir under President Joe Biden. It’s time for conservatives and Republicans to start thinking about getting rid of the FBI.

    I want to highlight two sets of contrasting episodes that give us a window into how biased and partisan this once-respected agency has now become.

    Contrast the treatment the FBI has given to Jan. 6 activists with that it has afforded to Antifa and Black Lives Matter protesters.

    The FBI has unrelentingly hunted down Jan. 6 protesters, in many cases confronting Trump supporters who were merely in Washington at the time, or at the mall rally but not involved in entering the Capitol. Those who have been arrested have been treated like domestic terrorists, captured in raids involving drawn weapons, even though the charges against most of them amount to little more than trespassing or entering a government facility without proper permission. Nonviolent offenders have been given the same brutal treatment as violent ones. And to this day the FBI promulgates images—a grandma here, a teenager there—asking the public to help them track down still-at-large individuals who had something, anything, to do with the events of Jan. 6.

    Contrast this concentrated effort with the lackadaisical, even disinterested, approach of the FBI to the Antifa and Black Lives Matter activists. Over a period of many months, those activists have proven far more violent. They have killed a number of people, in contrast to the Trump activists who killed nobody. (The only person killed on Jan. 6 was Ashli Babbitt, a Trump supporter shot in the neck by a Capitol police officer.) They have looted businesses, burned churches, assaulted police officers, attacked and harassed ordinary citizens eating in restaurants or going about their normal lives—and all with impunity. No FBI raids, no systematic arrests, no dissemination of “Wanted” images on social media.

    Now I turn to my second contrast: the recent FBI raid on Rudy Giuliani’s home and office, while there has been no raid on the home or office of New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo. Start with Giuliani: The ostensible justification for the raid was to look for evidence Giuliani violated the Foreign Agents Registration Act.

    Giuliani pointed out in a statement released by his lawyer, however, that he offered to sit down with the FBI and the Biden Department of Justice (DOJ) and show them to their satisfaction that there had been no violation of law. Moreover, Giuliani had for several months been offering the FBI clear evidence, corroborated by texts and emails, that Hunter Biden not only allegedly failed to register as a foreign agent, but also that he was allegedly involved in child pornography, money laundering, and an elaborate Biden family scheme to sell their political access in exchange for millions of dollars in personal gain.

    Both the FBI and the DOJ showed no interest in any of that. Consequently, Giuliani seems warranted in concluding that the agency’s conduct is a “clear example of a corrupt double standard”: “One for high-level Democrats whose blatant crimes are ignored, such as Hillary Clinton, Hunter Biden, and Joe Biden” and quite another for “Republicans who are prominent supporters and defender of President Trump.”

    Giuliani further revealed that the FBI and DOJ had in late 2019 obtained access to his email database without notifying him. This means that while Giuliani was advising his client Donald Trump during the impeachment process—a relationship fully protected by attorney–client privilege—the FBI violated the law while supposedly investigating Giuliani and Trump’s possible violations of law.

    Here, again, the FBI’s extreme diligence in going after Giuliani can be contrasted with the FBI’s failure to act in the case of Gov. Cuomo. Cuomo is currently involved in two separate scandals, one involving multiple women who have accused him of sexual harassment, and another involving his direct involvement in a cover-up scheme to hide the magnitude of nursing home deaths caused by his own policies.

    According to the New York Times, the Cuomo administration was far more culpable than previously known in deliberately undercounting nursing home deaths over a period of five months. Let’s recall that these deaths need not have occurred. At the direction of the Trump administration, the U.S. Navy dispatched a hospital ship Comfort to New York to accept non-coronavirus patients and thus lessen the burden on New York hospitals.

    Gov. Cuomo, however, turned the ship away to spite the Trump administration and instead ordered New York nursing homes to accept the overflow of COVID-19 patients, helping the virus to spread among vulnerable nursing home populations and thus causing thousands of unnecessary deaths.

    Then, when the Trump administration inquired about the nursing home data in New York, Cuomo instructed his state health officials, including the health commissioner Howard Zucker, not to release the true death toll to the federal government, state officials, or the general public. Cuomo also suppressed a research paper that revealed the data and blocked two letters by Zucker’s department from being sent to state legislators.

    While Giuliani’s offense remains unclear, Cuomo is guilty of obvious abuses of power—actions that have not only put people in their graves but also amounted, in a statistical sense, to “hiding the bodies.” Again, the FBI is nowhere to be found, and the reason for its absence appears to be that Cuomo is a Democratic governor who seemingly enjoys immunity as far as today’s FBI and Biden’s DOJ are concerned.

    Enough is enough! When justice no longer involves the neutral or equal application of the laws, it ceases to be justice. I realize, of course, that there will be no FBI reform under Biden. Therefore, I strongly urge the Republican Party to make abolition of the FBI—shutting down the agency and then reconstructing it from the ground up—key provisions of its campaigns both in 2022 and 2024.

    *  *  *

    Dinesh D’Souza is an author, filmmaker, and daily host of the Dinesh D’Souza podcast.

    Tyler Durden
    Mon, 05/03/2021 – 20:00

  • Tanker Truck Driver Shortage May Fuel Higher Gas Prices This Summer
    Tanker Truck Driver Shortage May Fuel Higher Gas Prices This Summer

    The National Tank Truck Carriers (NTTC) industry trade group warns that a worsening semi-truck driver shortage may spark higher fuel prices and gas shortages this summer. 

    CNN reported that industry group said about a quarter of tanker trucks aren’t on the road ahead of the busy summer driving season as there’s a shortage in qualified drivers available. Before the pandemic, about 10% of the tanker trucks were idled for similar reasons. 

    “We’ve been dealing with a driver shortage for a while, but the pandemic took that issue and metastasized it,” said Ryan Streblow, the executive vice president of the NTTC. “It certainly has grown exponentially.”

    The shortage intensified last year when lockdowns forced Americans to stay home, collapsing fuel demand. This meant tanker drivers weren’t getting enough routes, and some chose to leave the business.

    “We were even hauling boxes for Amazon just to keep our drivers busy,” said Holly McCormick, vice president in charge of driver recruitment and retention at Groendyke Transport, an Oklahoma tanker company.

    “A lot of drivers didn’t want to do the safety protocols. We’re also working with an aging workforce. Many said, ‘I might as well take it as a cue to retire.'”

    Adding to the challenges is the job requires not just a Commercial Driver’s License (CDL) but also a separate Tanker certification and a Hazardous Materials (HazMat) certification, which requires many written tests and would mean adding new drivers to increase capacity might not be in the cards ahead of the summer season. 

    “I’ve talked to retailers. They say there could be places where there are brief outages,” Jeff Lenard, a spokesman at the National Association of Convenience Stores, told CNN.

    “If they have no fuel, they have no business. People aren’t going to stop in for a sandwich if you don’t have fuel.”

    Tom Kloza, a chief oil analyst for the Oil Price Information Service, warned if only a few gas stations run out of gas and become national headlines, it could trigger a panic hoarding, sort of like what happens with toilet paper in the early days of the pandemic. 

    Currently, the national average of regular gasoline is around $2.89 a gallon, up more than 60% from a year ago. With demand on the upswing as the economy reopens, Kloza believes the national average could catapult over $3 by summer. 

    For other reasons, gas stations in Las Vegas Valley are experiencing fuel shortages and price spikes, a redux for babyboomers who lived through the 1970s energy crisis. 

    All of these supply chain woes have culminated into one thing: higher fuel prices. 

    The latest inflation data shows Americans are experiencing some of the fastest consumer price increases in more than a decade. The fuel oil index has increased 20.2% over the last 12 months. 

    Tyler Durden
    Mon, 05/03/2021 – 19:40

  • Is The US Economy A Virtual Reality?
    Is The US Economy A Virtual Reality?

    Authored by Jeffrey Tucker via The American Institute for Economic Research,

    An owner of the bar explained to me that he has been closed for a full year and yet miraculously still survives, thanks to vast infusions of government money to cover his rent and upkeep and sustain essential employees. He is looking forward to reopening but is having a hard time finding employees. Many have moved to Florida. Others, he said, “are happy to live off government money rather than work.”

    His main puzzle is how it can be true that the government has the resources to sustain so many businesses in a full year of lockdowns. The money is falling like manna from heaven. 

    “From all my years in business, every instinct tells me that this can’t be right. It might work for a little while but someone has to pay these bills. There is no magic money tree out there to achieve such things.”

    The tree might not be magic but it does exist.

    It’s called the Federal Reserve.

    Here is the alarming chart of the broadest definition of national money, which reveals an unprecedented increase in the money supply over the last year. 

    The effects of such a thing can be difficult to trace. And much depends on factors outside the Fed’s control. Even the attempt to reign in the long-run effects could fail. Even so, the short-term effects, combined with unprecedented increases in government spending, have been to create the appearance of near full recovery. 

    By the aggregated data alone, the US economy seems almost back to normal. Gross Domestic Product is higher now than pre-pandemic and poised to roar much higher.

    “What’s amazing,” writes the Wall Street Journal, “is that U.S. output is nearly what it was in the fourth-quarter of 2019 even with payrolls being about 5% smaller. 

    Consumer spending on durable goods is through the roof with a 41% increase for the quarter. 

    Private residential investment, which is to say consumer spending on housing, has blown past the point at which the last housing bubble blew up. 

    Is Valhalla really around the corner? New riches? What’s the downside? 

    Following a lockdown collapse in prices, the consumer price index is pointing toward inflationary signs. The Everyday Price Index is climbing at an annualized double-digit rates. 

    No question that much of this “growth” is fueled by historically high increases in government spending, producing charts we’ve never seen before. 

    These increases were not paid out of some resource reserve sitting in DC. They are paid by astronomical increases in borrowing. Here are the increases in the public debt to GDP ratio. 

    What all this aggregate data misses is the huge dislocations, distortions, and outright destruction that occurred because of the unprecedented use of extreme lockdowns in 2020. The New York Times provides a helpful analysis of existing sectors relative to what might have happened outside the pandemic lockdowns. 

    Thus are some sectors of the US economy booming to new highs, while others are still in deep depression. The sectors that were locked down (entertainment, art, food, hotels, recreation), and those other sectors indirectly affected by lockdowns (exports, transportation, energy) are still wallowing in misery, having been battered by compulsory shutdowns that wrecked so many business models or otherwise forced them onto the government dole. 

    One of the figures that fascinates me is the one on health care. It is still down 5.9% from what it might have been without the pandemic. Historians of the future will surely be amazed by such data. In a pandemic with such tremendous sickness and death, one would expect spending on health care to rocket higher than ever before. 

    Instead, what we see in health care is a collapse of fully 18% in the worst months of the pandemic, a statement that sounds ridiculous in the saying. 

    What this illustrates is one of the least-talked-about aspects of government policy over the past year: state government’s interventions in the medical system that essentially reserved most if not all hospital space for Covid patients. Routine medical care and “elective surgery” was put on hold. Dentistry services collapsed a year ago by 70%. 

    This meant missed cancer screenings, routine checkups, and normal doctor’s visits, not only because people were afraid but also because medical services faced a brutal form of central planning that had never previously happened. Thus do we get the most perverse results one can imagine: a collapse of spending on health care during a pandemic. It’s hard to isolate one piece of data that best captures the folly of government pandemic policy but perhaps this one is it. 

    It’s impossible to know precisely what the future portends for all these unprecedented policy shocks over the last year, from money supply and spending bonanzas to lockdowns to sky-high debt accumulation. But because a thing called cause-and-effect still operates in this world – we do not live in virtual reality – it seems wise to look at the seemingly great aggregate data with a gravely skeptical eye. We might be in the midst of the calm before the real storm hits. 

    Tyler Durden
    Mon, 05/03/2021 – 19:20

  • Philippines' Top Diplomat Tells China To 'GET THE F*CK OUT' Of Their Territory
    Philippines’ Top Diplomat Tells China To ‘GET THE F*CK OUT’ Of Their Territory

    The Phillipines’ top diplomat, foreign minister Teodoro Locsin, demanded in a Monday tweet that China “GET THE FUCK OUT” of their territorial waters.

    In response to the ‘illegal’ presence of hundreds of Chinese boats parked inside the Philippines 200-mile Exclusive Economic Zone (EEZ), Locsin tweeted:

    “China, my friend, how politely can I put it? Let me see… O…GET THE FUCK OUT. What are you doing to our friendship? You. Not us. We’re trying. You.”

    Locsin’s screed then veers into a strange analogy involving a uterus and giving birth to a ball of crap.

    https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js

    China’s embassy in Manila did not respond to a Reuters request for comment, but officials have previously said the vessels parked at the disputed Whitsun Reef were fishing boats taking refuge from rough seas.

    China claims almost the entire South China Sea, through which about $3 trillion of ship-borne trade passes each year. In 2016, an arbitration tribunal in The Hague ruled the claim, which Beijing bases on its old maps, was inconsistent with international law.

    In a statement on Monday, the Philippine foreign ministry accused China’s coast guard of “shadowing, blocking, dangerous manoeuvres, and radio challenges of the Philippine coast guard vessels.” -Reuters

    Locsin defended his comments, saying “I get things done, my point across crystal.”

    On Sunday, the Phillipines announced that it would continue maritime exercises in its EEZ despite a Chinese demand that it stop actions which could ‘escalate disputes.’

    Meanwhile, the Phillipines has filed 78 diplomatic protests to China since President Rodrigo Duterte took office in 2016, according to Reuters, citing foreign ministry data.

    “Our statements are stronger too because of the more brazen nature of the activities, the number, frequency and proximity of intrusions,” Marie Yvette Banzon-Abalos, executive director for strategic communications at the foreign ministry, said.

    https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js

    Tyler Durden
    Mon, 05/03/2021 – 19:00

  • The Supreme Court Case That Could Change Everything For US Pipelines
    The Supreme Court Case That Could Change Everything For US Pipelines

    Authored by Charles Kennedy via OilPrice.com,

    A Supreme Court hearing began this week that could seal the future fate of gas pipelines across the United States. It could also change the balance of power between federal and state authorities in a way that federal authorities would hardly like. The case involves the proposed PennEast pipeline, a 120-mile, 1-billion-cu-m piece of infrastructure that will take natural gas from the Marcellus shale across Pennsylvania and New Jersey. New Jersey is opposing the pipeline. PennEast and FERC want to use eminent domain to condemn the state and private land they need to build the infrastructure.

    On the face of it, it is a simple case—just another pipeline dispute of the sort that has been enjoying growing popularity among environmentalist groups and politicians in the past few years. In this case, the politicians want to stop PennEast from receiving easements for 40 parcels of federal land. The only way for PennEast to receive these easements, then, is to sue New Jersey. What makes this case different is that its outcome could have major implications for the industry.

    As Forbes’ Christopher Hellman explained in an article from earlier this week, the argument of the New Jersey political pipeline opponents is that under the 11th Amendment to the Constitution, states have sovereign immunity against lawsuits brought against them by private parties such as companies. In other words, PennEast simply has no right, under the Constitution of the United States, to sue New Jersey’s politicians on the pipeline issue.

    A counter-argument, used by a district court in 2018 to rule in favor of the natural gas project, is that PennEast is not acting on its own with its plans to carry 1 billion cubic meters of natural gas across two states. It is acting, the court ruled, under the auspices of a government authority: the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission.

    Forbes’ Hellman notes this was not a first, either: since the passing of the Natural Gas Act in 1938, FERC has on more than one occasion delegated its powers to invoke eminent domain to energy companies. From PennEast’s perspective, then, since federal power supersedes state power and since FERC has approved the New Jersey pipeline, it has every right to sue the state for that land.

    New Jersey appealed the district court ruling, and the appeals court found in its favor. It said that the state had sovereign immunity against lawsuits brought against it by private entities such as PennEast, noting that the power to invoke eminent domain as delegated to it by FERC was a completely different matter from its right to sue a state.

    “Thus, the federal government’s ability to condemn State land … is, in fact, the function of two separate powers: the government’s eminent domain power and its exemption from Eleventh Amendment immunity,” the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 3rd Circuit said in its decision.

    “A delegation of the former must not be confused for, or conflated with, a delegation of the latter.”

    And this is what makes this case so fascinating and so important for the industry.

    • If the Supreme Court sides with PennEast, it would mean that the power to invoke eminent domain supersedes states’ sovereign immunity.

    • But if it sides with New Jersey, it would be very bad news for energy companies because it would mean that pipeline projects—federally approved projects, no less—will be banned left and right on the grounds of sovereign immunity from lawsuits seeking to clear the way for eminent domain.

    In truth, New Jersey has conceded in its brief to the Supreme Court that the federal government has the constitutional power to seize state property such as land. However, it has been argued that the federal government does not have the right to delegate that power to private parties. According to PennEast, however, this is not true.

    “It was well-established at the founding that the sovereign eminent-domain authority was delegable. Thus, conceding federal eminent-domain power but contesting its delegability is not a valid option,” the company said in its own brief to SCOTUS.

    It is still in the early days. But for now, the Supreme Court appears to be equally open to hearing both sides of the story. According to media reports, some see a 70-percent chance for the court siding with PennEast, citing one Supreme Court Judge, Stephen Breyer, as saying that gas pipelines had a decades-long history and he was wondering whether a ruling in favor of New Jersey would cause disruption to this existing infrastructure.

    Chief Justice John Roberts, however, sees things differently, according to a report by the Engineering News-Record. According to him, based on a previous SCOTUS ruling that corporations are people, New Jersey’s argument that it has sovereign immunity from private party lawsuits has a solid standing: PennEast is registered in Delaware and the 11th Amendment, on which New Jersey’s argument hinges, says that states cannot be sued by citizens of other states.

    Things will only get more interesting as court hearings progress. The ruling is expected in mid-summer.

    Tyler Durden
    Mon, 05/03/2021 – 18:40

Digest powered by RSS Digest