Month: February 2023

EPA Orders Temporary Halt To Shipping Of Ohio Toxic Train Crash Contaminated Waste

EPA Orders Temporary Halt To Shipping Of Ohio Toxic Train Crash Contaminated Waste

Authored by Jeff Louderback via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours),

Amid objections from Michigan authorities who said they weren’t aware that hazardous materials were headed into their state, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has ordered a temporary pause on shipments of contaminated waste from the site of Norfolk Southern Railway’s Feb. 3 train derailment in East Palestine, Ohio.

“Everyone wants this contamination gone from the community,” EPA Region 5 Administrator Debra Shore said. “They don’t want the worry, and they don’t want the smell, and we owe it to the people of East Palestine to move it out of the community as quickly as possible.”

Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg (L) and Tristan Brown, deputy administrator of the Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Safety Administration, crouch down to look at part of a burned train-car at the site of a Norfolk Southern train derailment in East Palestine, Ohio, on Feb. 23, 2023. (Allie Vugrincic/The Vindicator via AP, Pool)

Shore vowed that the removal process will resume “very soon.”

On Feb. 3, a Norfolk Southern train carrying 151 cars derailed in East Palestine, a village of 4

A black plume rises as a result of a controlled detonation of a portion of the derailed Norfolk Southern trains in East Palestine, Ohio, on Feb. 6, 2023. (Gene J. Puskar/AP Photo)

The National Transportation Safety Board reported that the train had 20 cars with hazardous materials, 11 of which derailed.

To avoid an uncontrolled explosion that officials claimed would send shrapnel into the air, toxic vinyl chloride was intentionally released and burned from five cars on Feb. 6, sending up a massive cloud of black smoke that could be seen for miles around and was likened to a mushroom cloud caused by a nuclear weapon.

The burn triggered questions about the health effects on the residents of East Palestine.

EPA Takes Over Waste Disposal

Norfolk Southern had been responsible for waste disposal until Feb. 24, Shore said. The railroad provided Ohio environmental officials with a list of disposal sites.

Shore said disposal plans, including locations and transportation routes for contaminated waste, will be subject to EPA review and approval.

“EPA will ensure that all waste is disposed of in a safe and lawful manner at EPA-certified facilities to prevent further release of hazardous substances and impacts to communities,” she said.

On Feb. 21, the EPA ordered Norfolk Southern to pay for cleanup costs in East Palestine.

“Norfolk Southern will pay for cleaning up the mess that they created and the trauma that they inflicted on this community,” EPA Administrator Michael Regan said. “I know this order cannot undo the nightmare that families in this town have been living with, but it will begin to deliver much-needed justice for the pain that Norfolk Southern has caused.”

Ohio Gov. Mike DeWine said in a Feb. 23 statement, “[Under EPA guidance,] Norfolk Southern brought in large dump trucks to move contaminated soil to U.S. Ecology Wayne Disposal, a licensed hazardous waste disposal facility in Michigan. This will be a continuous effort to properly manage and safely dispose of the waste.

“So far, 4,832 cubic yards of soil have been excavated from the ground and more may be removed as cleanup proceeds. When the process begins to dig up the tracks and remove the soil underneath, that soil will be hauled away immediately and taken to a proper disposal facility.”

More than 1.7 million gallons of contaminated liquid have been removed from the derailment site, according to DeWine’s office. Most of the 1.1 million gallons hauled off-site were sent to a Texas-based hazardous waste disposal facility, which has stated that it will no longer accept shipments.

Read more here…

Tyler Durden
Mon, 02/27/2023 – 17:40

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Elon Musk Regains “World’s Richest Man” Spot

Elon Musk Regains “World’s Richest Man” Spot

Elon Musk has regained his spot as the world’s richest man, unseating LVMH’s Bernard Arnault who briefly assumed the position this year after Tesla’s stock had taken a beating along with Musk’s net worth.

Bezos, Gates, and Buffett aren’t even close…

Thanks to a 5.5% surge in TSLA stock today, 51-year-old Musk’s net worth jumped to $187.1billion…

…while 75-year-old Arnault has seen his net worth drift slightly lower in the last week or so (after LVMH’s strong gains early on), back to only $185.3…

Tesla has recovered to a $650bn market cap (up $315 billion in market cap year-to-date)…

Tesla’s gains this year (+92% YTD) have far outpaced the rally in the tech-heavy Nasdaq 100 Index, which is up about 10% in 2023, and crushed LVMH’s return year-to-date (+14% YTD)…

Musk’s fortune peaked at $340 billion on Nov. 4, 2021… so he is probably still feeling somewhat poorer.

Tyler Durden
Mon, 02/27/2023 – 17:29

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China Blasts US ‘Disinformation, Absolute Hypocrisy’ On Russia Ties, Vows Retaliation For Sanctions

China Blasts US ‘Disinformation, Absolute Hypocrisy’ On Russia Ties, Vows Retaliation For Sanctions

China has delivered a blistering response to the US pressure campaign regarding Beijing’s closer ties with Moscow. In Monday remarks Mao Ning, a spokesperson for the Chinese foreign ministry, told a press briefing that China is prepared to retaliate if “illegal” sanctions on Chinese companies involved with Russia are not revoked.

She also rejected accusations from Washington that China is mulling sending weapons to Russia, calling the reports part of US “disinformation”. Instead, she said “The U.S., however, has been fanning the flame and fueling the fight with more weaponry.”

“This is out-and-out hegemonism and double standard, and absolute hypocrisy,” Mao said. “The Chinese side will continue to do what is necessary to firmly safeguard the lawful rights and interests of Chinese companies. We will take resolute countermeasures in response to the U.S. sanctions.”

She reiterated China’s position as one which seeks a peaceful solution through negotiations when it comes to the Ukraine conflict. “On the Ukraine issue, China has been actively promoting peace talks and the political settlement of the crisis,” she said.

And from there she once again put the blame for escalation back on Washington: 

“In addition to pouring lethal weapons into the battlefield in Ukraine, the US has been selling sophisticated weapons to the Taiwan region in violation of the three China-US joint communiqués,” Mao noted. “What exactly is the US up to? The world deserves to know the answer.”

She said that the US is ultimately busy “spreading disinformation that China would supply weapons to Russia and sanctioning Chinese companies under that pretext.”

One of the Chinese companies in question, Changsha Tianyi Space Science and Technology Research Institute, previously came under sanctions for allegedly supplying the Russian mercenary firm Wagner Group  with satellite imagery of Ukraine.

US under secretary of State for political affairs Victoria Nuland said last week that sanctions were against Chinese companies that US had observed “sneaking up to the edge and trying to provide” weapons to Russia.

Tyler Durden
Mon, 02/27/2023 – 17:20

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Can the Vice President Invoke the Speech or Debate Clause Privilege at All?

In response to my post yesterday on the scope of the Speech and Debate Clause privilege, Professor Michael McConnell e-mailed to suggest I was too quick to credit claims that the former Vice President is covered by the clause at all. Like others, I had focused on the question of whether the Vice President’s duties, as related to counting electoral votes, should be considered “legislative” in character and, if so, the extend to which that privilege would yield to criminal process. Whether the privilege extends to the Vice President at all, however, is an antecedent question.

As Professor McConnell notes, the text of the Constitution appears to limit the privilege to “The Senators and Representatives.” Here is the relevant text from Article I, Section 6, clause 1:

The Senators and Representatives shall receive a Compensation for their Services, to be ascertained by Law, and paid out of the Treasury of the United States. They shall in all Cases, except Treason, Felony and Breach of the Peace, be privileged from Arrest during their Attendance at the Session of their respective Houses, and in going to and returning from the same; and for any Speech or Debate in either House, they shall not be questioned in any other Place.

As Professor McConnell points out, the antecedent for the pronoun “they” is “[t]he Senators and Represenatives.” Thus whether the Vice President may invoke the Speech or Debate privelge would seem to be dependent upon whether the Vice President can claim to be a “Senator” or “Representative,” and not merely on whether the Vice President’s relevant conduct is somewhat legislative or whether or not it is purely ceremonial.

This strikes me as a powerful point.

One potential counter-argument might be that becuase Article I, Section 3, Clause 1 makes the Vice President the President of the Senate, this makes him a Senator, at least for some purposes. A problem with this counter-argument, however, is that when the word “Senator” is used throughout the Constitution, it is not used in a way that would include the Vice President. For instance, Article, I, Section 3, clause 1 provides that “The Senate of the United States shall be composed of two Senators from each State, chosen by the Legislature thereof, for six Years; and each Senator shall have one Vote.” This language would seem to exclude the Vice President as a Senator (or even as a member of the Senate). Note also that while the Vice President may vote in the Senate when the Senate is tied, that is expressly provided for in a separate provision, and is not accomplished by making the Vice President a Senator.

Another counter-argument could be that since the privilege can extend to legislative staff, it should also extend to the Vice President when the Vice President is performing a legislative function. Yet it is difficult to argue that the “[t]he Senators and Representatives” rely upon the Vice President the way that they may rely upon their staff. Thus, this counter-argument extends the privilege beyond the scope of the text, and does so in a way that cannot be justified as necessary to operationalize the privilege for those who are expressly covered (Senators and Represenatives). One could argue that a Senator cannot fully engage in speech or debate without relying upon staff. One could not argue that a Senator’s ability to participate in speech and debate is somehow dependent upon the assistance of the Vice President.

For what it is worth, Professor McConnell also noted that he agrees with me that the Speech or Debate Clause privilege “is not overridden” by criminal investigations, but is skeptical about whether the privilege could be waived.

UPDATE: I should have noted that Josh Blackman made similar arguments about the scope of the Speech or Debate Clause privilege in this post.

The post Can the Vice President Invoke the Speech or Debate Clause Privilege at All? appeared first on Reason.com.

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Now the CHIPS Act Is Going To Subsidize Child Care Too


Joe Biden greets a small child

A federal effort to throw about $40 billion in taxpayer cash at semiconductor manufacturers is now going to double as a backdoor effort at expanding federal subsidies for child care.

According to The New York Times, the Commerce Department is set to unveil new rules on Tuesday that will effectively force recipients of the new federal semiconductor subsidies to “guarantee affordable, high-quality child care for workers who build or operate a plant.” The Times reports that the new rules will not specify how recipients use the funding, though it could include everything from “building company child-care centers near construction sites or new plants” to “directly subsidizing workers’ care costs.”

We’ll have to wait until the rules are made public to fully judge the situation, but given those options, it would seem like most companies will choose to simply pass along some of the subsidies to offset workers’ child care costs. Which is great for those workers—provided they can actually find care.

The reason that child care is unaffordable for many families is ultimately a supply-side problem that’s unlikely to be solved—and could actually be made worse—by subsidizing the demand side like this. And it’s a supply-side problem that’s largely the fault of governmental regulations like occupational licensing schemes (often with mandatory education requirements that have nothing to do with knowing how to take care of kids) and requirements regarding the number of staff per child.

Without repealing those supply-side constraints on the availability of child care, increased subsidies that flow to only a handful of workers will likely allow those families to afford care at the expense of others. The overall availability of child care won’t increase and the subsidies will likely only inflate costs (as they always do).

There’s also a procedural issue here. Namely: If Congress believes it is in the best interest of the country to increase federal subsidies for child care, it ought to pass a law that does that. Doing so would allow for a comprehensive debate about the costs involved, the government regulations that inhibit the availability of care, and the best ways to ensure that American families can afford whatever level of child care they might desire.

It should go without saying that the CHIPS and Science Act of 2022 is not that bill. This new rule seems to be an entirely post hoc construction by the Commerce Department, which is responsible for implementing the law and seems vaguely aware that affordable child care is a problem keeping some workers out of the labor force.

That’s a real issue, but Rube Goldberg-ing new mandates into an expensive and misguided industrial policy is no way to make social policy. Well-intentioned or not, the Commerce Department’s repurposing of the CHIPS Act isn’t going to make child care any more affordable or available for the vast majority of workers.

The post Now the CHIPS Act Is Going To Subsidize Child Care Too appeared first on Reason.com.

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Copyright Is the Latest Battle in the War Over A.I.


A phone and computer screen displaying the prompts for Midjourney A.I.-generated images.

Increasingly sophisticated artificial intelligence (A.I.) is inching further into the mainstream, and nobody is quite sure what to make of it yet. Students protested after university administrators used the A.I. text generator ChatGPT to craft a statement after a mass shooting. Systems like Midjourney can create pieces of art so sophisticated, they can win awards—to the chagrin of flesh-and-blood artists.

Now the U.S. Copyright Office (USCO) has weighed in on the debate and determined that images produced by A.I. are not copyrightable.

In 2022, artist Kristina Kashtanova released the graphic novel Zarya of the Dawn for free online. Kashtanova wrote all the text and arranged the pages for the book but used Midjourney to create all of the visual images by feeding it text prompts. They applied for a copyright on the work, which the USCO granted in September 2022, specifically “to make a precedent.”

But the following month, the USCO reversed its position based on Midjourney’s role, stating “Copyright under U.S. law requires human authorship. The Office will not knowingly grant registration to a work that was claimed to have been created solely by machine with artificial intelligence.”

In a decision released last week, the USCO determined that Kashtanova could copyright the comic’s text and the “selection and arrangement of images and text” but not the images themselves.

The case raises the question of what, exactly, constitutes an original creation when an A.I. is involved, as well as who owns it. Last year, VentureBeat asked “Who owns” the images created by OpenAI’s DALL-E, another A.I. image generator. Legal experts, and even OpenAI itself, seemed unsure.

Typically, in a work-for-hire situation, whoever commissions a work owns the copyright. And in a decision last year, the USCO concluded that an A.I. could not copyright its own art anyway “because copyright law…requires human authorship.”

To be eligible for copyright under U.S. law, a work must demonstrate “at least a modicum” of creativity, a standard so low that it encompasses nearly everything except the phone book. The 9th Circuit Court of Appeals ruled in 1997’s Urantia Foundation v. Maaherra that “some element of human creativity must have occurred in order for the [work] to be copyrightable.”

In denying Kashtanova a copyright on the comic’s images, the USCO cited U.S. Copyright Code against “register[ing] works produced by a machine or mere mechanical process that operates randomly or automatically without any creative input or intervention from a human author.” But as the decision summarizes, creating Zarya of the Dawn required a laborious process of trial and error. Kashtanova may not have illustrated the images, but they fed the machine “hundreds or thousands of descriptive prompts” and sifted through “hundreds of iterations” of results to find the perfect visual for each use.

Regarding Midjourney’s process, the decision stated that “the initial prompt by a user generates four different images based on Midjourney’s training data. While additional prompts applied to one of these initial images can influence the subsequent images, the process is not controlled by the user because it is not possible to predict what Midjourney will create ahead of time.“

Van Lindberg, Kashtanova’s attorney, wrote over the weekend that the USCO used the wrong legal standard: “The standard is whether there is a ‘modicum of creativity,’ not whether Kashtanova could ‘predict what Midjourney [would] create ahead of time.’ In other words, the Office is incorrectly focusing on the output of the tool rather than the input from the human.”

There is precedent for Kashtanova’s case: Michael Noll, a researcher at Bell Labs, successfully copyrighted an A.I.-created image in 1965, on the premise that the machine created the image using an algorithm that Noll wrote. After Kashtanova’s first copyright was issued, Benj Edwards wrote in Ars Technica that “this is the first time we know of that an artist has registered a copyright for art” created by the types of A.I. currently under discussion.

The USCO decision reflects the current capricious debate over artificial intelligence. Is A.I. a threat to the established order, or is it just another tool that artists can learn and master?

The post Copyright Is the Latest Battle in the War Over A.I. appeared first on Reason.com.

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Virginia Next for Occupational Licensing Reform


Virginia Gov. Glenn Youngkin stands in front of a green awning speaks into a loudspeaker.

The General Assembly of Virginia this month approved a proposal to recognize out-of-state occupational licenses and work experience as per se qualifications for in-state credentials.

To qualify, the applicant must have held her out-of-state license for at least three years and reside in good standing with that state’s board. Individuals seeking a Virginia license for a profession that was not licensed in their previous state can qualify with three years of work experience and an examination. Both provisions will, in many cases, allow workers to avoid excessive time and money costs associated with seeking a license in a new state. 

“Universal license recognition will assist in resolving worker shortages while at the same time benefiting consumers through reduced costs of goods and services,” Virginia Gov. Glenn Youngkin said in a statement last week. Youngkin’s conclusions are well-founded. “Standard economic models imply that the restrictions from occupational licensing can result in up to 2.85 million fewer jobs nationwide, with an annual cost to consumers of $203 billion,” Morris M. Kleiner, a professor at the University of Minnesota, wrote in 2015.

Occupational licensing’s economic impacts are due largely to the practice’s widespread popularity. In 2021, more than a fifth of U.S. jobs required a license. Policy makers justify licensing regimes as necessary consumer protections, but many of them are purely protectionist measures meant to inflate the wages of already licensed workers and stave off competition. Indeed, in the newly released Empowering the New American Worker: Market-Based Solutions for Today’s Workforce, Chris Edwards of the Cato Institute argues that “large interstate differences [in which professions require licenses] suggest that rules are not based on analyses of health or safety but rather reflect differences in state and local politics.”

What’s more, research shows that occupational licensing fails at its own prescribed task. “Licensing, and progressively stricter forms of it, is not associated with greater service quality across any of our nine comparisons,” reads a 2022 report from the Institute for Justice. “In fact, in eight of the nine comparisons, we find no statistically significant difference in quality at all. In the ninth—our comparison of tree trimmers in licensed Maryland and unlicensed Virginia—quality is higher in unlicensed Virginia and statistically significantly so.”

While the logic of licensing high-skill, high-risk occupations is defensible—though not undisputed—many regulated professions have no need for bureaucratic oversight. Virginia’s regulated professions, for instance, include “apprentice tattooer[s],” estheticians, “martial artists,” “wax technicians,” and “temporary wrestler[s].” This is hardly a cohort from which the public requires economy-killing regulatory protections. Virginia’s reform—accelerating the licensing process for already credentialed or experienced workers—is laudable, but a full-scale review of the larger system is in order.

“Every American has the right to ‘life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness,'” Edwards concludes. “Freedom to use one’s labor in a chosen occupation is central to that pursuit.”

The post Virginia Next for Occupational Licensing Reform appeared first on Reason.com.

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Arab Leaders Bring Syria’s Assad Back ‘In From The Cold’, Angering US

Arab Leaders Bring Syria’s Assad Back ‘In From The Cold’, Angering US

Via The Cradle,

Egyptian Foreign Minister Sameh Shoukry arrived in Damascus on Monday to meet with President Bashar al-Assad and express his country’s solidarity with Syria following the devastating earthquake, signifying continued warming of relations between the Syrian government and regional states.

The visit to Syria represents the first by a high-level Egyptian official since the start of the US-backed war in 2011. Upon his arrival at Damascus International Airport, Shoukry was received by Syria’s Foreign Minister, Faisal Mekdad.

Image source: Syrian Presidency/Twitter

A day earlier, the Egyptian Foreign Ministry had announced in a statement “that the visit aims to convey a message of solidarity from Egypt to Syria and its brotherly people after the disaster,” according to the state-affiliated Syrian news outlet, SANA. Shoukry is also scheduled to visit Turkey following his visit to Syria.

A day after the quake, on February 7, Egyptian President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi held a phone conversation with Assad, expressing his solidarity and “his sincere condolences” in what was “the first official exchange” between the two presidents. Cairo was also among the countries that provided Syria with humanitarian relief aid through the Syrian Arab Red Crescent (SARC).

Egypt severed diplomatic relations with Damascus and announced its support for the opposition in 2013, during the presidency of the Muslim Brotherhood-affiliated Muhammad Morsi, who was overthrown that year in a military coup led by Sisi.

Ties were restored the same year following Sisi’s coup. However, relations were never fully mended, and Damascus remains excluded from the Cairo-based Arab League after it was suspended in 2011. In recent years, Jordan and the UAE, two backers of the extremist insurgency in Syria, have restored their relations with the Syrian government.

Since the earthquake, Arab states have embraced Syria. Tunisia has expressed its intention to restore diplomatic ties, and even Saudi Arabia – who actively supported extremist groups with the aim of overthrowing the government – has expressed the need to ‘end the status quo’ regarding enmity with Damascus.

The US and UK are trying to thwart normalization efforts with Arab capitals…

On Sunday, an Iraqi-led delegation of the Union of Arab Parliaments visited Syria along with a number of other Arab parliamentary leaders to express support for the Syrian people and call on all Arab countries to adopt a lasting decision for Syria’s reintegration into the region.

Syria’s gradual return to the regional fold has been much to the dismay of Washington, as it has continued to condemn any normalization with Syria throughout the aftermath of the earthquake.

Western media has blatantly attempted to politicize the disaster by referring to the earthquake as a ‘boon’ for Assad.

Tyler Durden
Mon, 02/27/2023 – 17:00

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Mexican President Tweets Image Of Mythical Elf As Possible Distraction Amid Widespread Protests

Mexican President Tweets Image Of Mythical Elf As Possible Distraction Amid Widespread Protests

Mexican President Andrés Manuel López Obrador (AMLO) tweeted an image on Saturday showing what he said was a mythical woodland elf of Mayan folklore. The picture might be a distraction after social and political unrest flared up on Sunday. Over 500,000 people protested in Mexico City to voice anger over AMLO’s move to consolidate the electoral authority, according to Reuters. 

“I share two photos of our supervision of the Mayan Train works: one, taken by an engineer three days ago, apparently from an Aluxe; another, by Diego Prieto of a splendid pre-Hispanic sculpture in Ek Balam,” AMLO said.

The nighttime photo by the engineer shows what appears to be the mythical woodland elf.

The second image the president posted is a sculpture of the Aluxe from Mayan times.

“Everything is mystical,” AMLO said.

According to traditional Mayan belief, the Aluxe is said to live in dense forests and play tricks on people.

However, this could be the oldest trick in the book. 

That’s because half a million people gathered on the streets of Mexico City on Sunday to voice concern over Mexico’s Congress’ new overhaul of the National Electoral Institute that will allegedly weaken Mexican democracy. It’s a move that some view as a bid for AMLO to stay in power. 

According to National Electoral Institute, AMLO’s overhaul will slash thousands of jobs safeguarding elections. 

… and what’s the best distraction AMLO can conjure up? Well, it isn’t balloons or UFOs but rather a mythical woodland elf. 

Tyler Durden
Mon, 02/27/2023 – 16:40

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Turley: The COVID Lab Leak Is A Scandal Of Media And Government Censorship

Turley: The COVID Lab Leak Is A Scandal Of Media And Government Censorship

Authored by Jonathan Turley,

The Wall Street Journal reports that the Energy Department has concluded that the COVID pandemic most likely arose from a laboratory leak.

The conclusion is reportedly based on a classified intelligence report recently provided to the White House and key members of Congress. Many will be exploring why the scientific evidence of a lab leak was so slow to emerge from intelligence agencies.

However, for my part, the most alarming aspect was the censorship, not the science.

There will continue to be a debate over the origins of COVID-19, but now there will be a debate.

For years, the media and government allied to treat anyone raising a lab theory as one of three possibilities: conspiracy theorist or racists or racist conspiracy theorists.

Academics joined this chorus in marginalizing anyone raising the theory. One study cited the theory as an example of “anti-Chinese racism” and “toxic white masculinity.”

As late as May 2021, the New York Times’ Science and Health reporter Apoorva Mandavilli was calling any mention of the lab theory as “racist.”

She embodies the model of the new “advocacy journalism” at the Times. Reporters who remained wedded to the dated view of objective journalism were purged from the ranks of The Times long ago.

Mandavilli and others made clear that reporters covering the theory were COVID’s little Bull Connors. She tweeted wistfully “someday we will stop talking about the lab leak theory and maybe even admit its racist roots. But alas, that day is not yet here.”

However, one former New York Times science editor Nicholas Wade chastised his former colleagues for ignoring the obvious evidence supporting a lab theory as well as Chinese efforts to arrest scientists and destroy evidence that could establish the origin.

Others in academia quickly joined the bandwagon to assure the public that there is no scientific basis for their theory, leaving only racist or politics as the motivation behind the theory. In early 2020, with little available evidence, two op-eds in The Lancet in February and Nature Medicine went all-in on the denial front.

The Lancet op-ed stated, “We stand together to strongly condemn conspiracy theories suggesting that Covid-19 does not have a natural origin.”

We were also supposed to forget about massive payments from the Chinese government to American universities and grants of some of these writers to both Chinese interests or even the specific Wuhan lab.

No reference to the lab theory was to be tolerated. When Sen. Tom Cotton (R., Ark.) merely mentioned the possibility in 2020, he was set upon by the usual flash media mob. The Washington Post ridiculed him of repeating a “debunked” coronavirus “conspiracy theory.”

In September 2020, Dr. Li-Meng Yan, a virologist and former postdoctoral fellow at the University of Hong Kong, dared to repeat the theory on Fox News, saying, “I can present solid scientific evidence . . . [that] it is a man-made virus created in the lab.” The left-leaning PolitiFact slammed her and gave her a “pants on fire rating.”

President Joe Biden accused Trump of fanning racism in his criticism of the Chinese government over the pandemic and his Administration reportedly shut down the State Department investigation into the possible lab origins of the virus.

When Biden later revived an investigation into the origins, he was denounced as “sugar-coating Trump’s racism.”

The categorical rejection of the lab theory is only the latest media narrative proven to be false. The Russian collusion scandal, the Hunter Biden “Russian Disinformation,” the Lafayette Park “Photo Op” conspiracy, the Nick Sandmann controversy, the Jussie Smollett case, the Migrant Whipping scandal.

On the lab theory, media like the Washington Post piled on senators like Cruz and Cotton for mentioning the lab theory only later to admit that it could be legitimate.

All of those experts and writers who were called racists or suspended by social media were simply forgotten in media coverage.

That is why this is really about censorship.

The media guaranteed that we did not have a full debate over the origins of the virus and attacked those who had the temerity to state the obvious that there was a plausible basis for suspecting the Wuhan lab.

None of this has diminished demands for more censorship. Even after Twitter admitted that it wrongly blocked The New York Post story before the 2020 election, Democratic senators responded by warning the company not to cut back on censorship and even demanded more censorship.

Recently, the Twitter Files revealed an extensive and secret FBI effort to censor citizens on social media.

This included undisclosed efforts by members like Rep. Adam Schiff (D., Cal.) to get Twitter to ban a columnist and target critics. In a House hearing, democratic leaders like Rep. Jamie Raskin (D., Md). called for more censorship and opposed investigations into the censorship efforts.

These same figures in politics and media are just moving on to the next approved narrative.

President Biden previously called for more censorship and accused Big Tech of “killing people” by not censoring more views deemed “COVID misinformation.”

The opposite is true. By suppressing alternative scientific and policy views, the public was denied a full debate over mask efficacy, vaccine side effects, COVID origins and other important issues. Many of those questions are only being recognized as legitimate and worthy of debate.

Censorship does not, as President Biden claims, save lives.

It is more likely to cost lives by protecting approved views from challenge. It does not foster the truth any more than it fosters free speech. Whatever the origin of COVID-19 may be in China, the origins of our censorship scandal is closer to home.

Jonathan Turley is an attorney and a professor at George Washington University Law School.

Tyler Durden
Mon, 02/27/2023 – 16:20

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