Month: September 2022

Boom! Leftists Ousted in Sweden

Posted on by Ron Clutz

Transcript Excerpt:

Note that the exit polls initially suggested that the left-wing block would win but the actual results of the vote now suggest a victory for the right-wing block. Again we see the shy voter effect, where the voters tell the pollsters that they’re going to vote left wing, but then actually go in and vote for the right-wing parties.

Another huge white pill is the fact that 58% of young voters, those aged 18 to 29, voted for the right wing block. More specifically: from people between the ages of 18 and 21, Sweden Democrats received 22 percent of the vote. That represents a doubling compared to the last election.

Another added irony is the fact that the ruling leftist party social Democrats lost votes to a new far-left pro-migrant party called Nyans in some heavily migrant populated areas of the country like Rinkeby (Stockholm). Significant numbers of voters have abandoned SD for Nyans, funnily enough. They’ve done so in response to SD having to acknowledge that mass migration has basically failed, with the Swedish prime minister previously vowing to put a stop to the growth of ethnic ghettos. So the pro-migrant party might have actually cost the left-wing block the election.

You love to see it but it’s a shame what has had to happen to Sweden in order for the left to lose power. Soaring crime, much of it driven by vast numbers of unintegrated migrants. Social disorder driven by warp speed multi-ethnicity that over the last 20 years took Sweden from being one of the safest countries in Europe to being one of the most dangerous. This was exemplified by yet another round of violent riots in migrant dense areas earlier this year.

Overall, whatever the final result, the election represents a stunning achievement for the Sweden Democrats who have completely outstripped expectations and are now a huge influential power block within Sweden. Because they dared smash through Sweden’s creepy ominous obsession with political correctness. And because large enough numbers of people are finally sick of the leftists demented agenda to use Mass Migration as a weapon to eviscerate the identity of the country.

“The Swedish people have voted for a change of power”, wrote Jimmie Åkesson, head of the right-wing Sweden Democrats, on Facebook. “Our success in the election, both for the conservative coalition and for our party, means a heavy responsibility towards the voters, we will manage that responsibility in the best way and with the deepest respect. Enough with failed Socialist policy, which for eight years has continued to lead the country in the wrong direction. It is time to start rebuilding security, welfare and cohesion. It is time to put Sweden first. The Sweden Democrats will be a constructive and driving force in this work.”

Footnote:

There could be more salty tears and exploding heads at “The Guardian” when Italy elects a solidly patriotic government September 25th!

Why CBC Aligns with Trudeau Vs. Conservative Leader Poilievre

Posted on by Ron Clutz

The conventional wisdom that Poilievre cannot win a national election is wearing thin. PHOTO BY JACQUES BOISSINOT /THE CANADIAN PRESS

No surprise federally subsidized CBC is in the tank for Trudeau claiming Poilievre is divisive.  Certainly he is not one to be cowed by leftist media bias, and will strongly confront them.  For example,

And it’s not just CBC, but a Global News reporter tried to derail Poilievre’s presser explaining “JustInflation”, how Trudeau’s spending has raised the cost of everything for ordinary Canadians.

Background Post: Hope For Trudeau’s Exit

The end of Trudeau’s regime in Canada can’t happen soon enough, but hope is on the horizon.  Joe Oliver writes at National Post Canada Liberals risk drowning in the Poilievre wave.  Excerpts in italics with my bolds.

As the Conservative leadership campaign approaches what now seems certain to be Pierre Poilievre’s coronation, progressives are unnerved by the huge crowds of all ages he is attracting across the country, which point to an expanding Conservative base. Predictably, the Laurentian elite and their media loyalists have dissolved into full-blown derangement syndrome, while providing cover for Liberal missteps.

Intriguingly, they are less protective of an increasingly unpopular prime minister.

The conventional wisdom that Poilievre cannot win a national election is wearing thin. Inflation, which people intuitively understand was created and exacerbated by government profligacy, is the public’s top concern. There is also widespread frustration with the government’s maddening incompetence and multiple ministerial missteps: Omar Alghabra for the airport debacles, Marco Mendicino, for misleading Parliament about the Emergencies Act, Karina Gould for mind-boggling passport delays, Mélanie Joly for an official inexplicably attending a Russian diplomatic party, Ahmed Hussen and Pablo Rodriguez for the Marouf scandal, Chrystia Freeland for favouring out-of-control spending over growth.

The prime minister’s charisma has faded with his team’s eroding credibility. Moreover, even die-hard Liberals are disillusioned by his own divisive tactics, hypocritical virtue-signalling, inability to deliver on priorities, tarnished brand abroad and, perhaps most important for them, 50 per cent disapproval rating.

The government is notoriously selective about treating people differently depending on their race, ethnic group, gender identity, sexual preference, age or country of origin.

The most obvious case in point is that despite Laith Marouf’s appallingly bigoted and anti-semitic comments he was paid half a million public dollars to provide anti-racism advice. The absence of even elementary due diligence is inexcusable. Worse, it took over a month for the responsible minister to act and even longer for the prime minister to comment, no doubt in part because he did not want to own up to his ministry’s incompetence but perhaps also because Marouf hypocritically presented himself as a supposed ally in its core mission.

Had a racial minority or Aboriginal person been called a bag of feces or threatened with a bullet to the head the PM would quite rightly have expressed outrage, likely in minutes. He was appropriately quick off the mark when Chrystia Freeland was subject to unacceptable verbal harassment. Which makes the delayed reaction from the government and many in the media in the Marouf case even more disconcerting. The Jewish community is understandably disheartened by the blatant double standard. As a matter of basic decency, not to mention fundamental philosophical principle, governments should treat people equally and not discriminate based on twisted notions about identity or victimhood politics.

Pierre Poilievre clearly understands the widespread and growing anger about the disdain, condescension and snobbery a progressive elite have for working and lower middle-class Canadians. He empathizes with resentment about nanny-state intrusions, the politicization of science and the often bizarre ideas of left-wing ideologues, woke capitalists and “expert” academics. He agrees with people who rail against a government that allows faceless bureaucrats to infringe on their agency, curtail their freedom and damage their standard of living with heavy taxes and burdensome regulations.

Critics are torn between claiming Pierre Poilievre has no policies and denouncing these non-policies as extreme. He is decried as a populist because he seeks public support (as if the Liberal default position on just about everything is not to swing with public opinion). The “Trump North” label has failed to stick because he has been consistently pro-choice, supports gay marriage and favours immigration.

Liberals loath Pierre Poilievre because they fear he will dismantle excessive government intervention in society and the economy, reverse tax-and-spend policies, encourage natural resource development, defend free speech and genuine diversity of opinion, decry woke-ism, defund the CBC and undercut elite influence.

But it is Pierre Poilievre, not Justin Trudeau, who reflects mainstream Canadian thinking about fundamental issues. He believes profoundly in personal freedom and is proud of our history.

In contrast, Trudeau has called Canada systemically racist and guilty of genocide. He proclaimed it the world’s first “post-national” state and declared “There is no core identity, no mainstream in Canada.” His far-left thinking manifests itself in a profligate government that creates more problems than it solves.

Trudeau’s cultish climate obsession has wrought enormous harm to jobs, growth, national unity and the economic prospects of Indigenous peoples. Yet it has not achieved a single national GHG target or impacted global warming even minutely — something that actually could be achieved if Canadian LNG replaced coal in energy-hungry Asia and Europe.

I expect Pierre Poilievre will reach out to his leadership rivals and their supporters the way Stephen Harper did as prime minister. He can easily do that without compromising conservative principles, policy priorities or authenticity. It would be the magnanimous and smart thing to do. He will then speak directly to Canadians about how he will represent their values and interests and pursue his vision for a prosperous, proud and fair country for everyone. No wonder Liberals are worried.

ESG Investing Results: Go Woke, Go Broke

Posted on by Ron Clutz

This post has two parts.  First, an update on how nations pursuing high ESG scores have destroyed their prosperity.  Second, an interesting effort by a Canadian MP to empower shareholders against woke managers following the ESG pied piper.

Capital Activist poster.

Gabriella Hoffman writes at Townhall ESG’s Toxic Brand Isn’t Salvageable.  Excerpts in italics with my bolds and added images.

As American consumers and investors start souring on Environment, Social, and Governance (ESG) principles being injected into both the public and private sectors, its loudest defenders say a rebrand will salvage its toxic image.

Its dedicated followers reassure us the product they’re selling — forcibly aligning business values with progressive virtue signaling — is good and noble. They tell us, however, that it’s just not sold well, despite being a popular set of beliefs.

Conceived in October 2005 at a U.N. Who Cares Wins Conference, this pervasive movement has glitzy public relations campaigns along with huge financial and political backing. Alas, no rebrand can salvage ESG given its disastrous real-world impact, ruinous effects on businesses, and growing disapproval among the American public.

Notably, the scoring mechanism associated with ESG is flawed and corresponds to imminent economic decline. Wherever high scores are found, countries have experienced great political instability and corresponding financial ruin.

The nations of Sri Lanka, Ghana, and the Netherlands have all experienced turmoil and boast high ESG scores — 98.1, 97.1, and  90.7, respectively. All these nations, coincidentally, banned fertilizer. 

Sri Lanka was the poster child for ESG investment and has suffered the brunt of these principles. Their most recent prime minister just resigned in shame, following months of protests and unrest stemming from the country committing to net-zero carbon emissions by 2050 and halving its nitrogen use. 

Ghana also took the “E” prong too much to heart, with its government agreeing to raise $5 billion with international capital with Green, Social and Sustainability (GSS) Bonds. Now experiencing runaway inflation, largely due to these GSS bonds, the country is hoping to be bailed out by the International Monetary Fund (IMF).

The Netherlands similarly adopted a new continent-wide Sustainable Finance Disclosure Regulation (SFDR) to boost ESG investment and is now experiencing one of the highest inflation rates in the European Union. This was precipitated by the Dutch government approving a multi-year $21 billion plan to sharply cut ammonia and nitrogen emissions 50% by 2030 which requires one-third of farmers to kill off their herds and shut down indefinitely.

As countries languish with the adoption of ESG policies, private companies should be skeptical of flirting with these high-risk values. All three prongs result in companies losing profit without any measurable social impact.

Imagine that. Prioritizing ESG performance over financial returns doesn’t pay dividends.  Accordingly, consumers and investors are turning against this movement of woke corporatism. 

The Brunswick Group found only 36% of voters “agree unequivocally that companies should speak out on social issues.” A May 2022 Daily Wire/Echelon Insights poll found investors overwhelmingly reject companies pushing social causes over profit. Of the 1,000 respondents polled, 66% of those polled said investors should opt out of ESG-style investments. Gallup similarly recorded that investors still largely prefer performance factors over political or social factors when considering investing opportunities. 

A Modest Reform to Empower Shareholders Against ESG Investing

The National Post reports: The Conservative MP who’s fed up with the menace of woke corporations.  Excerpts in italics with my bolds.

A Calgary MP is set to propose a uniquely Canadian solution to the problem of ‘woke capital’

Up until now, the backlash against woke corporations has mostly come from south of the border. But that’s about to change, as one courageous Conservative MP is set to propose a uniquely Canadian solution to the problem of “woke capital.”

Corporations are generally considered woke when they engage in social activism that is beyond the scope of their business purpose. It is controversial because it is inherently undemocratic when wealthy officers and directors exploit the unique legal status of a corporation in order to marshal significant resources toward their preferred political agendas.

Canadians have had reasons to worry about woke capital for years: ESG (environmental, social and governance) investment policies have undercut our oil and gas industry; businesses have embraced Black Lives Matter, despite serious concerns about the group’s ethics; and multinational corporations have imported American culture wars into our country.

At last, a Canadian MP is pushing back. Conservative Tom Kmiec, who has represented the riding of Calgary Shepard since 2015, is proposing a new bill designed to hold powerful officers and directors accountable.  Kmiec is currently drafting a private member’s bill to amend Section 122 of the Canada Business Corporations Act (CBCA), which is focused on the duty of care that officers and directors owe to their shareholders.

If passed, it would ensure that officers and directors prioritize the interests of shareholders above political agendas that are unrelated to the company’s business purpose.

A summary of Kmiec’s bill, which was obtained by the National Post, explains that it would be “considered a breach in the duty of care owed to shareholders when directors and officers of a large distributing corporation (a company with a total market value of shares above $100 million) make activist statements, including in relation to public policy or social issues, that is not directly related to the business the corporation carries out and that could reasonably be expected to reduce the value of shares.”

Wisely, the bill would not prevent companies from making statements on political or social issues, but would require a firm’s board of directors to seek approval from shareholders first. Kmiec’s office hopes that such a mechanism will “make corporations think twice before opining on something beyond their stated corporate purpose.”

Legislation that promises to protect democracy from corporate power is bound to make some people uncomfortable. The proposed changes to the CBCA promise to loosen the grip that woke liberals have over corporate Canada, which will receive push-back from some quarters. Some critics will also argue that businesses should be free to be activists and governments shouldn’t have a say in the matter.

For its part, Kmiec’s office argues that the bill is in fact pro-business by being pro-shareholder, since, at the moment, “Shareholders have no say over these statements and, if backlash occurs, are left on the hook suffering with pecuniary losses through no fault of their own.”

Asked for additional comment on what motivated him to tackle the issue of undue corporate influence, Kmiec said, “My constituents do not want big business like Bell or TD Bank to dictate or weigh in on political and social issues they have no business in. Nobody wants to be lectured about social justice by their bank or their retailer or their grocer. What matters in Calgary Shepard differs from what matters on Bay Street.”

The bill is expected to be tabled later this month when Parliament returns. Although few private member’s bills actually become law in this country, and there is no guarantee that the bill will even be debated or voted on, it will hopefully allow Kmiec’s ideas to get the attention they deserve.

 

Science + Politics = Politics

Posted on by Ron Clutz

Jukka Savolainen writes at City Journal And Yet It Moves.  Excerpts in italics with my bolds.

A top scientific journal places political correctness above the search for truth.

Nature Human Behavior, one of the most prestigious journals for social science research, recently published an editorial titled “Science must respect the dignity and rights of all humans.” Though short, the article generated tremendous pushback among academics and intellectuals concerned about the spread of social-justice ideology into science. Harvard psychologist Steven Pinker said the journal was “no longer a peer-reviewed scientific journal but an enforcer of a political creed,” while Greg Lukianoff, the CEO of the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression, described the journal’s statement as “an epistemic catastrophe.” What did the editorial say?

In short, it took the position that scientific truth should defer to politics. The journal now considers it appropriate to suppress research that “undermines—or could reasonably be perceived to undermine—the rights and dignities” of people or groups, as well as “text or images that disparage a person or group on the basis of socially constructed human groupings.” Researchers are urged to “consider the potential implications of research on human groups defined on the basis of social characteristics” and “to contextualise their findings to minimize as much as possible potential misuse or risks of harm to the studied groups in the public sphere.”

Anything that could be perceived as disparaging is now fair game for rejection or retraction.

The implications on scientific inquiry and truth-seeking are clear. As the journalist Jesse Singal observed, an empirically flawless study could be retracted under the guise of social justice. “What’s most alarming is that unless I’m missing something, research that is perfectly valid and well-executed could run afoul of these guidelines,” he wrote.

In the words of a scientist and commentator, the Nature Human Behavior editorial codifies policies “that most social science journals already have.” In his 2014 book The Sacred Project of American Sociology, Notre Dame sociologist Christian Smith laments the discipline’s unwillingness to come clean with the reality that pursuing specific kinds of social-justice goals is its central mission. As regrettable as the new editorial guidelines of Nature Human Behavior may be, at least they express honestly how contemporary social science is actually practiced.

Indeed, scientific journals cannot afford to remain neutral—but they need to take a strong stand for the pursuit of truth, not for any political cause. Like democracy, scientific inquiry does not happen by default; it requires unwavering commitment among its participants to play by the rules.

It is not acceptable to retract or suppress a methodologically sound study
simply because you don’t like the results.

Background Post:  Science Discredited by “Scientists”

Toby Young writes at Spectator How science became politicized. Excerpts in italics with my bolds and added images.

New rules from a leading journal do not bode well

Here’s a paradox. Over the past two-and-a-half years, a cadre of senior politicians and their “expert” advisors across the world have successfully promoted a series of controversial public policies by claiming they’re based on “the science” rather than a particular moral or ideological vision. I’m thinking of lockdowns and net zero in particular. Yet at the same time, this group has engaged in behavior that has undermined public confidence in science.

Why appeal to the authority of science to win support for a series of politically contentious policies — and then diminish its authority?

Take Anthony Fauci, for instance, who recently announced he’s stepping down as chief medical advisor to Joe Biden. Even though he once claimed to “represent science” in the eyes of the American people:

♦ he misled them about the likely duration of the lockdowns (“fifteen days to slow the spread”),
♦ overstated the efficacy of the Covid vaccines when they were first rolled out,
♦ refused to countenance the possibility that Covid-19 leaked from the Wuhan Institute of Virology
♦ it later emerged that the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, under his leadership, had given a grant to the EcoHealth Alliance, which helped fund “gain-of-function” research at the Chinese lab,
♦  and he conspired with other prominent scientists, such as Francis Collins, to besmirch the authors of the Great Barrington Declaration (“There needs to be a quick and devastating published takedown of its premises,” Collins told Fauci in an email).

A recent editorial in the Wall Street Journal concluded: “His legacy will be that millions of Americans will never trust government health experts in the same way again.”

Another case in point is a recent editorial in Nature Human Behaviour, one of several journals in the Nature Research stable, the world’s pre-eminent publisher of scientific research. “Although academic freedom is fundamental, it is not unbounded,” it begins, and then proceeds to set out rules that future academic papers will have to comply with in addition to meeting all the usual standards for publication, e.g. peer review. It says the journal won’t publish articles that might cause “potential harms” (even “inadvertently”) to individuals or groups that are most vulnerable to “racism, sexism, ableism or homophobia.” “Academic content that undermines the dignity or rights of specific groups; assumes that a human group is superior or inferior over another simply because of a social characteristic; includes hate speech or denigrating images; or promotes privileged, exclusionary perspectives raises ethics concerns that may require revisions or supersede the value of publication,” it says.

It should be obvious that far from being politically neutral, these rules embody a particular ideology and in future the truthfulness of a scientific finding will be subordinate to this perspective.

To see this, you just need to do a simple thought experiment, as Bo Winegard has done in Quillette. Imagine, he says, if this editorial had been written by political conservatives who announced that “any research promoting (even ‘inadvertently’) promiscuous sex, the breakdown of the nuclear family, agnosticism and atheism, or the decline of the nation state, would be suppressed or rejected lest it inflict unspecified ‘harm’ on vaguely defined groups or individuals.” Those progressive scientists applauding Nature Human Behaviour would throw up their arms in horror and point out – correctly — that these rules are at odds with one of the foundational principles of science, which is to pursue the truth, wherever it may lead.

 

This editorial is a disaster from the point of view of closet ideologues who want to appeal to the authority of science to promote lockdowns and net zero, including, I suspect, its authors. After all, the reason rhetorical phrases like “the science” are supposed to win round those who are skeptical about these policies — conservatives, for the most part — is that they invoke a popular conception of scientists as politically neutral, disinterested “experts” who are basing their guidance on reason and evidence, uncontaminated by value judgments.

Yet here is a group of senior scientific gatekeepers announcing that the only knowledge that will count as “scientific” is that which promotes their agenda.

It’s as if they’re saying that scientific research unconstrained by this progressive straitjacket, i.e. science as conventionally understood, will yield results that are incompatible with their radical egalitarian agenda and so ought to be suppressed. In other words, “the science” is actually at odds with their political views.

How to explain this own goal? As I say, it’s a head-scratcher.

Energy Options: From All the Above Down to One

Posted on by Ron Clutz

Mark Krebs writes at Master Resource Environmentalists Petition EPA to Ban Natural Gas Use in Buildings.  Excerpts in italics with my bolds.

It never ends…. In the wake of the 725-page “Inflation Reduction Act” (IRA), consumer choice for energy could be intentionally restricted to electricity by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA). Or at least that seems to be the plan. According to a petition submitted by environmentalists, EPA should regulate carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions resulting from using natural gas in homes and businesses.

The eco-lobby has been emboldened by their “win” with the passage of the IRA. Never satisfied, their petition is one of the first attempts to expand it.

An article by Patrick Parenteau, Professor of Law, Vermont Law School, originally published on August 24th in the academic law journal The Conversation (original article) claimed the IRA empowers EPA regulation of GHGs (greenhouse gases):

The Inflation Reduction Act amends the Clean Air Act to add seven specific new programs to reduce greenhouse gases and provide funding to the states to develop their own plans. Taken together, these provisions go a long way to address Roberts’ concern that Congress has not spoken plainly enough about EPA’s authority to tackle climate change.

But it falls short of granting EPA the authority to revive the generation shifting approach of the Clean Power Plan.

To get the bill through the sharply divided Congress, the Senate’s Democratic majority used a process called budget reconciliation. That process allows for legislation to pass with only a simple majority of the vote. But legislation passed that way must be closely tied to spending, revenue and the federal debt limit – it cannot set broad national policy.

Mark Krebs provides relevant quotes from the IRA:

Having been pointed to Title VI of the IRA, Secs. 60107 and 60113, I started reading. Sec. 60107 starts on page 668 and Sec. 60113 starts on page 678. Among other things, Sec. 60107 modifies the CAA to promote:

“(1) activities of the Environmental Protection Agency for the purposes of providing financial and technical assistance to reduce methane and other greenhouse gas emissions…..” and

‘‘(E) mitigating health effects of methane and other greenhouse gas emissions, and legacy air pollution from petroleum and natural gas systems…”

Under Sec. 60113, starting at the top of page 681, a carbon fee per metric ton is authorized:

‘‘(c) WASTE EMISSIONS CHARGE.—The Administrator shall impose and collect a charge on methane emissions that exceed an applicable waste emissions threshold under subsection (f) from an owner or operator of an applicable facility that reports more than 25,000 metric tons of carbon dioxide equivalent of greenhouse gases emitted per year pursuant to subpart W of part 98 of title 40…”

I venture to guess the fee may be the “Social Cost of Carbon” (SCC), which now stands at $51 per metric ton under the Biden administration (up from $1 per ton under Trump). However, the fees for methane emissions are explicitly stated on page 682:

2024: $900
2025: $1,200
2026 and thereafter: $1,500

Devils in the Details

At a minimum, these provisions provide an opening for EPA to regulate carbon and methane emissions. How wide of an opening is at least debatable and probably will be litigated (as Professor Parenteau anticipates).

This could result in CO2 and methane emissions regulated at the point of use (“point source”) as additional “criteria pollutants,” regulated because they are deemed harmful to human life.

What the environmentalists seem to be trying to do via their petition to the EPA is to make homes and businesses point sources for future regulation of carbon emissions. So why didn’t the environmentalists petition EPA to also target electric utilities? After all, electric utilities consume significantly more natural gas and emit more resultant CO2 than residential and commercial gas customers combined.

The answer is: That would not be consistent with the partnership that has developed between the electric utility industry and environmentalists to achieve their utopian goal of all-renewables-all-the-time.

An Unholy Alliance

I discussed this connection in my MasterResource article last month titled All-Electric Forcing in the “Inflation Reduction Act” (up to $14,000 per home). In that article, I referenced another article about a 2018 pact between the Edison Electric Institute (EEI) and the Natural Resource Defense Council (NRDC) titled Warring Against Natural Gas: Joint EEI/NRDC Statement to NARUC (crony environmentalism at work).[See my synopsis Perils of Everything Electrified]

On September 2, 2022, Politico, published an article that (unintentionally) revealed the close working relationship between EEI and Biden’s Climate chief (ex-NRDC’s) Gina McCarthy in crafting the Inflation Reduction Act. Mission complete, she is leaving the White House, and John Podesta is replacing her. The article is titled “Climate chief Gina McCarthy leaving White House as John Podesta returns.”

Other sources of the electric utilities’ motivation include:

1.  The lure for electric utility CEOs to double sales through political means (and the bonuses they engender none-the-less) without really having to earn it through competition.
2.  The prospect for electric utilities to control gas markets and put an end to their supply curtailments when residential gas consumers traditionally get top priority during periods of limited supply due to extreme cold. (No more residential consumers, no more curtailments.)
3. It is at least plausible that electric utilities don’t really believe that the best form of backing-up renewables is with batteries because they want to keep their product from getting priced out of the market. Gas-fueled power plants would economically serve peaking requirements, but not if their fuel is curtailed. Also note that at least some types of batteries have a hard time during very cold weather.

EPA also has some perverse motivations. One of these is claiming regulatory efficiency by eliminating all the small point sources (gas consumers) with a relatively few large point sources left (e.g., electric utility power plants).

Overloading Electricity

Regardless of the rationale, transferring the energy requirements presently served by fossil fuels for both transportation and heating (etc.) on an already teetering electric grid is a recipe for failure. We can already see it starting in Europe and now in California:  

Vehicle electrification alone could double electricity generation requirements. Building electrification could more than double electricity peak generation requirements considering extreme cold weather events presently dominated by the direct use of gaseous fuels and fuel oil. Some of my colleagues have estimated it would take as much as 7 times present peak generation to handle “polar vortex” events.

How much battery storage you need depends on the maximum length of outage you’re planning for. “Wind droughts” have lasted 7 days. Typical batteries can produce their rated (fair weather) output for 4 hours. And what happens when it’s too bitterly cold and snowy for wind, solar and batteries to deliver?

Do the math considering the worst-case scenario because people’s lives depend on it. Basically, it becomes apparent that all renewables (with batteries) isn’t going to happen.” But you might die from them trying.

One way or another, you will pay for their folly. In fact, you already are.

Cost Analytics

If reducing carbon emissions is really the primary objective, then why not mandate that consumers replace all electric resistance appliances with natural gas-fueled equivalents? At least in the Midwest, it is relatively straight-forward to show how such fuel switching from electricity to natural gas is a very cost-effective strategy for reducing the atmospheric release of carbon emissions. In fact, the American Public Gas Association did so in 2017  (summary; full report).

A second phase of this study estimated typical costs per household state-by-state. The full report, and its customizable data spreadsheet, is available on the Energy & Environment Legal Institute’s (E&E Legal) website. According to the report, electrifying the entire nation, with a goal of eliminating the direct consumption of fuel to reduce carbon emissions, would conservatively cost between $18 trillion and $29 trillion in first costs.

At least conceivably, total costs could be double these estimates. Going all-renewable all the time will force costs much higher than these estimates. Also, constructing and implementing an “all-electric” energy monoculture will include other significant costs such as stranded assets and deadweight losses.

Summary & Conclusions

The environmentalists petition to the EPA is just the opening salvo following passage of the Inflation Reduction Act (a.k.a., Green New Deal Lite). The overall mission is forcing increased social control by eliminating free markets. Reducing carbon is a secondary objective and a front. Hyperbole? Take it from socialism.com: The Green(ish) New Deal. 

This next salvo might be targeting industrial electrification: It’s explained in the (just released ) DOE Industrial Decarbonization Roadmap.  Along with the Biden Administration’s “electrify everything” mentality, expect more electricity shortages. Consequently, expect more taxpayer derived “emergency” funding directed to the electric utility industry.

“Manufacture a crisis and then don’t let it go to waste.” Maybe that is the plan. A better plan would be for electric utility CEOs to start listening to their engineers responsible for keeping the lights on, affordably if possible, and stop pandering to socialistic environmentalism.

In truth, natural gas utilities and electric utilities need each other. Consumers need energy diversity and utility regulators need to return to their roles as impartial referees and honest brokers safeguarding consumers best interests.

——————————————-

Mark Krebs, a mechanical engineer and energy policy analyst, has been involved with energy efficiency design and program evaluation for more than 30 years. He has served as an expert witness in dozens of State energy efficiency proceedings, has been an advisor to DOE and has submitted scores of Federal energy-efficiency filings.

Cal Shows How Politicians Short Electrical Grids

Posted on by Ron Clutz

A new book provides a knowledgeable and deft analysis of how a state can ruin its supply of electrical power to the people.  Katherine Blunt has published California Burning: The Fall of Pacific Gas & Electric and What It Means for America’s Power Grid.  A review summary is provided at American Conservative Behind the ‘Grid Emergency’.  Excerpts in italics with my bolds and added images.

A new book explains how California’s power system went so wrong.

Reporter Katherine Blunt of the Wall Street Journal was lucky in the timing of her new book, California Burning: The Fall of Pacific Gas & Electric and What It Means for America’s Power Grid. Within 24 hours of its release, California declared a “grid emergency” and customers were warned to avoid using major appliances or charging electric cars between 4 and 10 p.m. in order to avert blackouts. It was a clear sign that the dysfunction detailed in Blunt’s book is an ongoing concern.

How did we get here? Or, more accurately, how did we get here again?

Reading about the California energy crisis brings on déjà vu in those who remember the last one, which wracked the state in 2000 and 2001. That episode also involved rising prices and rolling blackouts. It led to the downfall of a governor, the shuttering of the California Power Exchange, the state’s privatized electricity marketplace, and the bankruptcy of the utility company that serves northern California, Pacific Gas & Electric.

Now PG&E is fresh out of bankruptcy proceedings again, for the second time in less than two decades. The deeper problems with its grid have not yet been fixed. Why can’t California keep the lights on?

The two electricity crises had different superficial causes but the fundamental problem in both cases was the same. The ideological commitments of politicians and regulators blinded them to the depredations of parasitic actors who extracted huge amounts of money from the system and introduced instability that ultimately led to disaster.

In 2000, the ideology was privatization and the predator was Enron. To introduce market forces into what had been regulated monopolies, California broke up its utilities and separated electricity generation and transmission in the 1990s. Instead of a free market and lower prices, Californians got price spikes caused by the manipulations of traders. Blunt quotes from recorded phone calls where Enron employees told plant operators, “We want you guys to get a little creative and come up with a reason to go down.” The plant went down, on the excuse of a turbine inspection, and the price of electricity shot up just as Enron wanted. These kinds of schemes were common.

This time, the ideology that has captured politicians and regulators is climate change. California has been more aggressive than any other state in setting renewable energy targets, currently aiming to be 60 percent reliant on renewables by 2030. Unfortunately for its ratepayers, these renewable energy suppliers rely on billions in subsidies and still cost more per kilowatt-hour than other forms of energy. Solar and wind power are also irregular compared to more old-fashioned power plants. The result has been unreliable electricity supply and some of the highest power prices in the nation.

Of the two energy crises, the current one is more severe than that of twenty years ago because of the added factor of wildfires. More than a hundred people died and more than a million acres burned in these fires. The Camp Fire of 2018, sparked by a downed PG&E transmission line, was the deadliest in the state’s history and practically wiped the town of Paradise off the map. The Dixie Fire of 2021 was the state’s largest, destroying a total area bigger than Rhode Island.

There are two competing explanations for why the electricity crisis was more destructive this time around. Climate change is the explanation that Governor Gavin Newsom favors, and which Blunt hints at. It argues that hotter temperatures and extreme weather are overtaxing the grid and making disasters more frequent.

The problem with climate change as an explanation, though, is that California’s grid is struggling to achieve basic service levels even without extreme weather. Back in May, when California energy officials warned of rolling blackouts later in the summer, they predicted shortfalls even in the absence of heat waves or wildfires. The current heat wave, which led to last week’s “grid emergency,” is merely aggravating a problem that existed already.

Moreover, Blunt documents in detail all the ways that wildfires were caused not by extreme weather but by PG&E’s negligence. The fire that destroyed the town of Paradise was caused by a worn down iron hook, originally purchased in 1919, that broke and shed sparks onto dry brush. When investigators sought records of how often that part of the line had been inspected, they found no files at all prior to 2001—not unusual given PG&E’s spotty recordkeeping. (When a gas line exploded in 2010 and investigators sought records of pipeline conditions across the system, a PG&E employee responded, “God knows what is underground.”) Records after 2001 showed inspectors viewing the hook from the air and from the ground, but no one had actually climbed the tower to see it up close.

This leads to the second explanation for why California is less able to cope with electricity problems today, which is that it is further along in its ongoing Third Worldization. What it means to be Third World has no precise definition but it has to do with losing the capacity to keep basic things functioning. Standards slip, fewer people every year remember how to maintain legacy systems, and eventually those systems collapse.

South Africa’s electricity supplier Eskom was named the best power company in the world in 2001. Twenty years later, the company is plagued by rampant blackouts (known euphemistically as “load shedding”) as well as internal corruption and rate evasion. Last year, President Cyril Ramaphosa passed a new law allowing private companies to build their own power plants up to 100 megawatts (the previous limit was 1 MW). That was a solution for mining companies that were shuttering facilities where they could not count on regular power. Small businesses and residences already considered gas-powered generators a necessity for when load-shedding hits their neighborhood.

A telling episode in Blunt’s book is the search for a new CEO that PG&E undertook in 2016. One of the finalists was Nick Stavropoulos, who had performed an incredible feat in bringing the gas division up to industry standards after the 2010 San Bruno explosion, in the face of widespread employee demoralization after an unpopular CEO’s flat-footed reforms. Stavropoulos was going to work the same magic on the electricity division, which, if anything, needed it more.

Instead, the company went with a woman named Geisha Williams, born in Cuba, who became the first Latina to head a Fortune 500 company. Her resume was impressive on paper. On the other hand, a leaked email from a staffer at the California Public Utilities Commission referred to Williams as “senior vice president of bullshittery.” Stavropoulos was “bitterly disappointed” at being passed over, according to Blunt, and soon left the company. The board forced Williams to resign in 2019, as the company was on the brink of filing for bankruptcy.

California’s power brokers feel that they can focus on political goals, like diversity in C-suites and renewable energy targets, because they trust that the basic functioning of the system is guaranteed.

They take it for granted. But as the example of Eskom shows, this is not a safe assumption. A power grid works because people know how to make it work. If those people are sidelined or cast off, or if political priorities drown out their advice, the system can carry on out of sheer momentum for a while, even for years. But not forever.

Covid Jabs Mess With Your Blood

Posted on by Ron Clutz

Figure 1. These photos are at 40x magnification. At the left side, (a) shows the blood condition of the patient before the inoculation. The right side image, (b) shows the same person’s blood one month after the first dose of Pfizer mRNA “vaccine”. Particles can be seen among the red blood cells which are strongly conglobated around the exogenous particles; the agglomeration is believed to reflect a reduction in zeta potential adversely affecting the normal colloidal distribution of erythrocytes as seen at the left. The red blood cells at the right (b) are no longer spherical and are clumping as in coagulation and clotting.

Source:  Dark-Field Microscopic Analysis on the Blood of 1,006 Symptomatic Persons After Anti-COVID mRNA Injections from Pfizer/BioNtech or Moderna,  International Journal of Vaccine Theory, Practice, and Research in August 2022.

Report on study from Jennifer Margulis and Joe Wang at Epoch Times Peer-Reviewed: 94 Percent of Vaccinated Patients With Subsequent Health Issues Have Abnormal Blood, Italian Microscopy Finds.  Excerpts in italics with my bolds.

Physicians in Italy studied the blood of patients who had been injected with mRNA COVID-19 vaccines and found foreign matter long after vaccination, a new study shows.

The three doctors, all of whom are surgeons—Franco Giovannini, M.D., Riccardo Benzi Cipelli, M.D., and Giampaolo Pisano, M.D.—examined freshly drawn blood of more than a thousand patients using direct observation under microscopes to see what was happening in the blood.

For this study, the Italian doctors used optical microscopy, that is, regular light microscopes, to examine the blood. Blood cells are easily visible under a microscope. Their shape, type, and how and if they are aggregated—clumped together—can help the skilled physician better understand the patient’s health.

In their 60-page peer-reviewed study, the Italian researchers reported case studies from their observations. Although they could not explain what they observed, they noted in the study that what they saw was so strange that they felt the need to alert the medical community.

Unlike electron microscopy, light microscopy provides a direct image of what is under the lens. With light microscopy, scientists can either use a bright white background behind the cells, with the light shining from behind the slide, or they can use a dark background.

Abnormal Blood

Of the 1006 patients, 426 were men and 580 were women. One hundred and forty-one received only one dose of an mRNA vaccine, 453 got two doses, and 412 received three doses in total. The patients ranged in age from 15 to 85. The average age of the patients was 49. All 1,006 patients were seeking healthcare because they were not feeling well: presenting with a wide variety of health issues.

On average, the patients whose blood was examined had been vaccinated about one month prior.

Of the 1,006 patients, after vaccination, only about 5 percent—just 58 people—had blood that looked normal.

The doctors were able to examine the blood of 12 of the patients before they had received any vaccines. At that time, previous to being vaccinated, all 12 patients presented with normal, healthy blood, according to the researchers.

The authors did not reveal how many people were vaccinated in total, so the percentage of vaccinated people who developed abnormal blood is unknown. This is a shortcoming of their research. What is known, however, is that 94 percent of the patients surveyed in this study, who developed subsequent symptoms, had abnormal blood.

Each of the patients was being reviewed for symptoms, a wide range of which had arisen since their vaccinations.

The images are dramatic. Side-by-side pictures of a patient’s blood before and after vaccination show stark differences. Before vaccination, the red blood cells are separate from each other and are round, while the blood drawn after vaccination shows red blood cells that are deformed, and that cluster in coagulation around visible foreign matter that was not present before.

Foreign Material Aggregated in the Blood

This foreign material seemed to collect itself into structures, sometimes forming crystals and other times forming long tubes or fibers.

The foreign-body structures in the patients’ blood, which had not been there before vaccination, certainly look unusual in the photos included in the study.

The large shapes seemed to the doctors to have aggregated in the blood, and they observed shapes that suggest the way graphene can self-assemble into structures.

Graphene is a form of carbon that occurs when the atoms are arranged in hexagons, making a flat crystal, like a sheet. In this form, though the carbon is not a metal, it behaves chemically like a metallic compound.

The two shapes they noticed in the blood stream were crystal-like chunks and tube-like lengths. While the researchers could not confirm that what they saw was graphene, they pointed out that graphene can aggregate into shapes similar to those the doctors observed.

Is It Graphene?

Graphene has been used in nasal-delivery flu vaccinations, and is being developed for use in other medicines. However, it is not listed as an ingredient in any of the mRNA vaccines.

The Italian doctors did not chemically test for graphene. They only speculated that graphene may be a component of the structures. Graphene can self-assemble tiny nano-structures, making it useful for carbon nanotubes and carbon fiber. However, as the authors mentioned, graphene self-assembling into structures in the bloodstream could provide something for blood to clot on, potentially causing large-scale blood clots.

These speculations raise more questions than answers, as neither graphene nor other metallic compounds were supposed to have been used in the vaccines. So why did over 950 people experiencing post-vaccination health issues present with foreign material in their blood?

This is not the only study to find blood abnormalities post-mRNA vaccination.

In a previously published study in the same journal, a Korean team also showed that mRNA-vaccinated blood contained metallic objects that should not have been there. The Korean scientists analyzed samples of centrifuged blood from eight people who had received mRNA COVID-19 vaccines against two people who did not receive any COVID-19 vaccines.

The team of three South Korean medical doctors, Young Mi Lee, Sunyoung Park, and Ki-Yeob Jeon, explained that: “The preponderance of evidence suggests that the foreign materials found in the COVID-19 vaccine recipients … were injected into their bodies when they received one or more doses of the COVID-19 vaccines.”

According to this study: “From the 8 COVID-19 vaccine recipients: 6 plasma samples contained a multilayered disc of unidentified composition; 3 samples contained beaded coil-like materials; 1 plasma sample contained a fibrous bundle of similar appearing beaded foreign material; and a different group of 3 samples had crystal-like formations of foreign material. The various shapes and sizes of foreign materials in the centrifuged plasmas of COVID-19 vaccinated individuals closely resembled the shapes and sizes of foreign materials previously observed directly in the vaccines themselves.”

The Italian study, which analyzed over 10 times as many blood samples, appears to confirm the findings from Korea. However, it is difficult to extrapolate from their findings. It would be easier to confirm that the vaccines were indeed the cause of the blood abnormalities if the Italian researchers had also analyzed the blood of a control group of patients presenting with similar unusual symptoms (or lack thereof) who had not been previously vaccinated.

Clotting Problems

Clotting problems are one of the hallmark complications seen after COVID-19 vaccination.

As the subject pool was of people who had been recently vaccinated and subsequently had health problems arise, this new science suggests that these structures in the blood and the abnormal clotting behavior of the blood cells could be a major part of why clinical doctors are seeing so many unusual health issues consequent to mRNA vaccination.

Indeed, large clots have even been found in the bodies of the deceased since the vaccine program started. An embalmer in Alabama noticed that large clots of a sort he had never seen in his 20-year career started to become commonplace once the vaccine program started, according to a non-profit Alabama news agency.

Richard Hirschmann told 1819 News that he has collected pictures of over a hundred cases of these blood clots. Hirschmann also alerted local labs and has been working with a radiologist, Phillip Triantos, M.D., to better understand why and how patients are presenting with large-scale slow-forming blood clots.

Other doctors, including Ryan Cole, M.D., a dermatopathologist (which is a doctor who uses a microscope to examine samples of skin, hair, and nails to diagnose diseases) and founder of the Idaho-based company, Cole Diagnostics, have also seen large blood clots becoming an emerging phenomenon since widespread vaccination campaigns started, according to 1819 News.

Microscopes in Medicine

It used to be common for medical doctors to have microscopes in their offices and to examine their patients’ blood (and other bodily fluids) themselves, according to Barron Lerner, M.D., author of “The Good Doctor: A Father, a Son, and the Evolution of Medical Ethics.”

While medical doctors today, with some exceptions, almost always send tests off to outside laboratories for analysis, Barron Lerner described how senior physicians used to feel it was their duty to teach their younger colleagues and medical students how to do testing themselves: Gram stains to test for bacterial infections, urine analysis under the microscope, and centrifuging blood to check for anemia and other issues.

Akin to medical doctors of past eras, the Italian team of doctors who published these new findings explained that they have looked at the blood of patients over their entire careers, including after every other sort of vaccination. But they have never seen foreign bodies of this sort before.

Post-market surveillance of medical devices, new medications, and vaccinations is of the utmost importance to ensure safety. These unusual and widespread findings of abnormalities in the blood post-mRNA vaccination should be of global concern. If 94 percent of patients with adverse health problems have occlusions in their blood that were not present before they were vaccinated, these scientists may have uncovered an unanticipated and dangerous side effect of mRNA vaccines.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Hope for Trudeau’s Exit

Posted on by Ron Clutz

The conventional wisdom that Poilievre cannot win a national election is wearing thin. PHOTO BY JACQUES BOISSINOT /THE CANADIAN PRESS

The end of Trudeau’s regime in Canada can’t happen soon enough, but hope is on the horizon.  Joe Oliver writes at National Post Canada Liberals risk drowning in the Poilievre wave.  Excerpts in italics with my bolds.

As the Conservative leadership campaign approaches what now seems certain to be Pierre Poilievre’s coronation, progressives are unnerved by the huge crowds of all ages he is attracting across the country, which point to an expanding Conservative base. Predictably, the Laurentian elite and their media loyalists have dissolved into full-blown derangement syndrome, while providing cover for Liberal missteps.

Intriguingly, they are less protective of an increasingly unpopular prime minister.

The conventional wisdom that Poilievre cannot win a national election is wearing thin. Inflation, which people intuitively understand was created and exacerbated by government profligacy, is the public’s top concern. There is also widespread frustration with the government’s maddening incompetence and multiple ministerial missteps: Omar Alghabra for the airport debacles, Marco Mendicino, for misleading Parliament about the Emergencies Act, Karina Gould for mind-boggling passport delays, Mélanie Joly for an official inexplicably attending a Russian diplomatic party, Ahmed Hussen and Pablo Rodriguez for the Marouf scandal, Chrystia Freeland for favouring out-of-control spending over growth.

The prime minister’s charisma has faded with his team’s eroding credibility. Moreover, even die-hard Liberals are disillusioned by his own divisive tactics, hypocritical virtue-signalling, inability to deliver on priorities, tarnished brand abroad and, perhaps most important for them, 50 per cent disapproval rating.

The government is notoriously selective about treating people differently depending on their race, ethnic group, gender identity, sexual preference, age or country of origin.

The most obvious case in point is that despite Laith Marouf’s appallingly bigoted and anti-semitic comments he was paid half a million public dollars to provide anti-racism advice. The absence of even elementary due diligence is inexcusable. Worse, it took over a month for the responsible minister to act and even longer for the prime minister to comment, no doubt in part because he did not want to own up to his ministry’s incompetence but perhaps also because Marouf hypocritically presented himself as a supposed ally in its core mission.

Had a racial minority or Aboriginal person been called a bag of feces or threatened with a bullet to the head the PM would quite rightly have expressed outrage, likely in minutes. He was appropriately quick off the mark when Chrystia Freeland was subject to unacceptable verbal harassment. Which makes the delayed reaction from the government and many in the media in the Marouf case even more disconcerting. The Jewish community is understandably disheartened by the blatant double standard. As a matter of basic decency, not to mention fundamental philosophical principle, governments should treat people equally and not discriminate based on twisted notions about identity or victimhood politics.

Pierre Poilievre clearly understands the widespread and growing anger about the disdain, condescension and snobbery a progressive elite have for working and lower middle-class Canadians. He empathizes with resentment about nanny-state intrusions, the politicization of science and the often bizarre ideas of left-wing ideologues, woke capitalists and “expert” academics. He agrees with people who rail against a government that allows faceless bureaucrats to infringe on their agency, curtail their freedom and damage their standard of living with heavy taxes and burdensome regulations.

Critics are torn between claiming Pierre Poilievre has no policies and denouncing these non-policies as extreme. He is decried as a populist because he seeks public support (as if the Liberal default position on just about everything is not to swing with public opinion). The “Trump North” label has failed to stick because he has been consistently pro-choice, supports gay marriage and favours immigration.

Liberals loath Pierre Poilievre because they fear he will dismantle excessive government intervention in society and the economy, reverse tax-and-spend policies, encourage natural resource development, defend free speech and genuine diversity of opinion, decry woke-ism, defund the CBC and undercut elite influence.

But it is Pierre Poilievre, not Justin Trudeau, who reflects mainstream Canadian thinking about fundamental issues. He believes profoundly in personal freedom and is proud of our history.

In contrast, Trudeau has called Canada systemically racist and guilty of genocide. He proclaimed it the world’s first “post-national” state and declared “There is no core identity, no mainstream in Canada.” His far-left thinking manifests itself in a profligate government that creates more problems than it solves.

Trudeau’s cultish climate obsession has wrought enormous harm to jobs, growth, national unity and the economic prospects of Indigenous peoples. Yet it has not achieved a single national GHG target or impacted global warming even minutely — something that actually could be achieved if Canadian LNG replaced coal in energy-hungry Asia and Europe.

I expect Pierre Poilievre will reach out to his leadership rivals and their supporters the way Stephen Harper did as prime minister. He can easily do that without compromising conservative principles, policy priorities or authenticity. It would be the magnanimous and smart thing to do. He will then speak directly to Canadians about how he will represent their values and interests and pursue his vision for a prosperous, proud and fair country for everyone. No wonder Liberals are worried.

 

 

Natural Immunity Superior to Jabs

Posted on by Ron Clutz

Natural Immunity Offered More Protection Against Omicron Than 3 Vaccine Doses, New England Journal of Medicine Study Finds is a report at FEE.  Excerpts in italics with my bolds and added images.

Natural Immunity vs Vaccination

While it’s true that immunization wanes, new scientific research from The New England Journal of Medicine suggests natural immunity lasts longer than immunity acquired from vaccines.

The study, a case–control analysis based on data from Qatar collected from December 23, 2021 through February 21, 2022, involved millions of people, including 1,306,862 who received at least two doses of the Pfizer vaccine (BNT162b2) and 893,671 people who received at least two doses of the Moderna vaccine (mRNA-1273), as well unvaccinated individuals.

The results of the study are a mixed bag for the vaccines.

The best news is that “any form of previous immunity, whether induced by previous infection or vaccination, is associated with strong and durable protection against Covid-19–related hospitalization and death.” (In other words, both vaccines and natural immunity reduce the risk of hospitalization or death from Covid.)

Also good news is that both the Moderna and Pfizer vaccines “enhanced protection among persons who had had a previous infection.”

“The combination of prior, full vaccination and prior infection was maximally protective,” researchers said in a summary of the study’s findings released last month by the Weill Cornell Medicine Newsroom. “Individuals with prior infection and three doses of either mRNA vaccine were, overall, nearly 80 percent protected from symptomatic infection during the omicron wave.”

But the study also found that two doses of vaccines offered “negligible” protection against Omicron infection.

“A key finding was that a history of vaccination with the standard two doses of either the Pfizer or Moderna mRNA vaccine, but no history of prior infection, brought no significant protection against symptomatic omicron infection,” researchers said.

In regards to the Pfizer vaccine, three shots offered considerably more protection. But the protection was still lower than natural immunity, which offered stronger and more sustained protection from infection than vaccination. (Researchers noted that “people with a prior-variant infection were moderately protected from omicron with little decline in protection even a year after their prior infection.”)

The findings are not unlike those out of Israel published last year, which found that natural immunity offered more robust protection against the Delta variant than vaccines.

“The natural immune protection that develops after a SARS-CoV-2 infection offers considerably more of a shield against the Delta variant of the pandemic coronavirus than two doses of the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine,” Science reported in August 2021 in a piece exploring the Israel findings.

More than a dozen other studies also found that natural immunity offered powerful protection against Covid, equal to or stronger than vaccination.

‘The Foundation of All Rights’

Even absent these findings, vaccine mandates were dubious from the beginning. The morality of violating bodily autonomy through government coercion is a serious and dangerous matter. In light of these findings, however, vaccine mandates also appear nonsensical.

While many institutions now consider Covid infection a form of immunization—including the NCAA, which in January changed its policy to accommodate athletes who’d had Covid—many have not. Thousands of soldiers have been discharged because of their vaccination status. Healthcare workers continue to face vaccination mandates in many places.

It’s time for all institutions—especially governments—to recognize vaccination choices should remain with individuals. The idea that freedom over one’s own body is the most basic and essential freedom is one embraced not just by libertarians like Ron Paul but by international leaders like Natalia Kanem, a physician who leads the United Nations Population Fund.

“Bodily autonomy is the foundation on which all rights exist,” Kanem bluntly states.

See Also Omicron the Liberator

 

 

 

Update: Governmental/Media Censorship Enterprise

Posted on by Ron Clutz

Missouri AG Eric Schmitt reports at his website: Missouri and Louisiana Attorneys General Ask Court to Compel Department of Justice to Produce Communications Between Top Officials and Social Media Companies.  Excerpts in italics with my bolds and added images.

“We have already received a number of documents that clearly prove that the federal government has an incestuous relationship with social media companies and clearly coordinate to censor freedom of speech, but we’re not done. The Department of Justice is cowering behind executive privilege and has refused to turn over communications between the highest-ranking Biden Administration officials and social media companies. That’s why, yesterday, we asked the Court to compel the Department of Justice to produce those records. We’re just getting started – stay tuned.”

The communications already provided by the Department of Justice to the plaintiff states show, as the joint statement points out, a vast “Censorship Enterprise” across a multitude of federal agencies. In response to Missouri and Louisiana’s interrogatories, defendants identified 45 federal officials at DHS, CISA, the CDC, NIAID, and the Office of the Surgeon General (all of which are contained in either DHS or HHS) that communicate with social media platforms about “misinformation” and censorship. The joint statement points out, “But in those responses, Defendants did not provide information about any federal officials at other federal agencies of whom they are aware who engage in such communications with social-media platforms about misinformation and censorship, though Plaintiffs had specifically asked for this highly relevant information. Defendants’ document production, however, reveals that such officials at other federal agencies exist—for example, their emails include extensive copying of officials at the Census Bureau, and they also include communications involving the Departments of Treasury and State.”

Beyond the Department of Justice’s production, “Meta, for example, has disclosed that at least 32 federal officials—including senior officials at the FDA, the U.S. Election Assistance Commission, and the White House—have communicated with Meta about content moderation on its platforms, many of whom were not disclosed in response to Plaintiffs’ interrogatories to Defendants. YouTube disclosed eleven federal officials engaged in such communications, including officials at the Census Bureau and the White House, many of whom were also not disclosed by Defendants.”

The joint statement continues, “The discovery provided so far demonstrates that this Censorship Enterprise is extremely broad, including officials in the White House, HHS, DHS, CISA, the CDC, NIAID, and the Office of the Surgeon General; and evidently other agencies as well, such as the Census Bureau, the FDA, the FBI, the State Department, the Treasury Department, and the U.S. Election Assistance Commission. And it rises to the highest levels of the U.S. Government, including numerous White House officials. Defendants have objected to producing some of the most relevant and probative information in their possession.”

This “Censorship Enterprise” is proven by the Department of Justice’s productions thus far, but the full extent of federal officials’ collusion with social media companies on censorship is unknown until the Department of Justice produces further communications requested by Missouri and Louisiana.

Summary from Townhall:

Here’s some of the smoking-gun communications proving the Biden administration was actively working with big tech companies to stifle or censor free expression on a range of issues, including an email from Facebook to Biden’s surgeon general about a meeting between the two entities during which White House expectations regarding Facebook’s policies on “misinformation” were discussed.

The litigation process uncovered specific and explicit information about how Facebook was censoring content posted to its platform, apparently at the Biden administration’s request, based on so-called third party fact checkers who are known to be biased and beholden to Democrat interests. Facebook also explained that it was taking strict action to suppress content on its platform labeled as merely “lacking context” as if it were rated to be entirely false.

It wasn’t just Facebook colluding with the Biden administration, either. Twitter scheduled meetings with White House officials to discuss “vaccine misinformation.”

Meanwhile, both Twitter and Facebook emails with Biden administration officials show the two entities colluding directly in a relationship where “claims” flagged by big tech companies would face “debunking” in regular meetings with the CDC’s “experts.” That is, what the Biden administration decided was harmful “misinformation” would then presumably be squashed by big tech companies at the expense of free speech on their platforms.

In addition to speech related to COVID, the Biden administration pursued a proactive relationship with big tech companies whenever scandal hit, such as the embarrassingly botched rollout of the allegedly discontinued Disinformation Governance Board.

Additional communications showed the White House asking Instagram to remove fake accounts impersonating Dr. Fauci and the Treasury Department’s deputy secretary asking Meta for a meeting “to discuss potential influence operations on social media.”

As Schmitt explained, the documents his litigation with Landry have already uncovered are just the beginning of their probe into what the Biden administration has been doing when it comes to using its position of power to get big tech companies to censor Americans’ speech.