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A wealthy St. Louis couple who made headlines last month for displaying firearms in front of their home as a group of BLM activists marched towards the Mayor’s house will be charged with felony unlawful use of a weapon, and face a misdemeanor charge of fourth-degree assault.

St. Louis’ top prosecutor, Circuit Attorney Kim Gardner, announced on Monday that she would be filing charges against personal injury attorneys Mark and Patricia McCloskey.

A St. Louis couple defends their home with guns as protesters march through their neighborhood:pic.twitter.com/LqzvrBSREu

— Alex Salvi (@alexsalvinews) June 29, 2020

“It is illegal to wave weapons in a threatening manner — that is unlawful in the city of St. Louis,” Gardner said in a statement, adding that she was recommending community service in lieu of up to four years in prison, according to Politico.

The McCloskey’s defenders – including several GOP leaders, President Trump and  others have urged Attorney General William Barr to investigate Gardner – while Missouri Gov. Mike Parson (R) said in a Friday radio interview that he would likely pardon the McCloskeys if they were charged and convicted.

Gardner responded by suggesting that Trump and other McCloskey defenders are attacking her to distract from “their failed approach to the COVID-19 pandemic” along with other issues, per Politico.

St. Louis, like many cities across the country, has seen demonstrations in the weeks since George Floyd’s death in Minneapolis, and the McCloskeys’ home was initially incidental to the demonstration on June 28. Several hundred people were marching to the home of Democratic Mayor Lyda Krewson, a few blocks from the McCloskeys’ home. Krewson had angered activists by reading on Facebook Live the names and addresses of some who had called for defunding police.

The McCloskeys live on a private street called Portland Place. A police report said the couple heard a loud commotion and saw a large group of people break an iron gate marked with “No Trespassing” and “Private Street” signs. A protest leader, the Rev. Darryl Gray, said the gate was open and that protesters didn’t damage it. –Politico

The McCloskeys have repeatedly said they were defending themselves as tensions have flared during destructive and violent BLM riots across the country.

Less than two weeks ago, St. Louis authorities raided the McCloskey residence, confiscating the AR-15 used by Mark McCloskey. The couple said their attorney was in possession of the pistol Patricia McCloskey brandished during the confrontation.

Authored by Tsvetana Paraskova via OilPrice.com,

On the day on which Dominion Energy and Duke Energy canceled the Atlantic Coast natural gas pipeline, Dominion Energy said it would be selling substantially all of its gas transmission and storage assets to an affiliate of Berkshire Hathaway.  For Dominion Energy, the nearly US$10-billion deal, including debt assumption, is part of the company’s push to zero-carbon electric generation by 2050.    

For Warren Buffett’s conglomerate Berkshire Hathaway, it was the first major acquisition since the start of the coronavirus pandemic, and the biggest acquisition in four years.  

While there are growing calls from environmentalists that natural gas should follow coal’s fate and start being dumped from power generation because it’s not as clean as the ‘cleaner-than-coal bridge fuel toward renewables’ narrative would like us to think, Warren Buffett is unfazed. 

Buffett is looking at the asset the way he has always done with his investments – buy cheap assets that very few others are willing to buy. And betting that these assets will deliver returns. 

Buffett’s bet on natural gas comes at a time when U.S. natural gas prices slumped to a 25-year-low, while natural gas is set to continue to dominate utility-scale electricity generation for years to come. 

In 2019, natural gas accounted for 38 percent of utility-scale electricity generation in the United States, followed by coal with 23 percent, nuclear with 20 percent, and renewables including hydroelectric with 17 percent, according to EIA data.  

Natural gas continues to displace coal-fired electricity generation, and so do wind and solar, but still, natural gas is expected to be the biggest source of power generation over the next few years. 

Buffett’s US$10-billion bet on natural gas infrastructure shows that the billionaire investor believes that natural gas hasn’t run its course, regardless of what environmentalists and climate-conscious investors think. 

Berkshire Hathaway Energy is buying Dominion Energy’s assets that include over 7,700 miles of natural gas transmission lines, 900 billion cubic feet of operated natural gas storage with 364 billion cubic feet of company-owned working storage capacity, and 25 percent in the Cove Point LNG export, import, and storage facility in Maryland. 

“We are very proud to be adding such a great portfolio of natural gas assets to our already strong energy business,” Buffett said in a statement. 

Berkshire Hathaway Energy will thus own 18 percent of all interstate natural gas transmission in the United States, up from 8 percent now, according to CNBC. 

The fact that this acquisition was the first one that Buffett saw as attractive after the pandemic sent markets into turmoil in March suggests that the Omaha investor believes in the future of natural gas. 

That’s despite growing calls from environmentalists that the world should be moving away from it as it is just another fossil fuel and not a “bridge fuel” as natural gas producers and traders pitch it. 

Buffett’s natural gas assets acquisition is “a bet that the future doesn’t come as fast as some people think,” Jim Shanahan, an analyst who covers Berkshire Hathaway at Edward Jones, told Bloomberg. 

Warren Buffett’s fortune is the world’s third-biggest with links to significant levels of greenhouse gas emissions, after the Koch family in the U.S. and the House of Saud, the rulers of Saudi Arabia, according to Bloomberg Green estimates.  

Sierra Club’s Beyond Coal campaign, for its part, pointed out to Bloomberg that Berkshire Hathaway had made some bad calls on fossil fuel investments in the past.  

Sierra Club, together with Earthjustice, published a report this month, saying that buildings account for nearly 40 percent of climate pollution in the United States, with much of that driven by the burning of gas for heating and hot water. The report refutes the idea that fossil gas alternatives are a viable alternative to building electrification. 

Amid the increased environmental awareness toward natural gas, Warren Buffett looks at cheap assets with potential for good returns, and his first investment since the COVID-19 crisis suggests that he believes that natural gas will continue to be a dominant energy source in the United States. 

If readers on the U.S. East Coast have stepped outside today, whoa! The heat is unbearable, especially in New York City. 

At the moment, 70 million Americans from Maine to South Carolina are roasting in a massive heat dome, reported Accuweather. The result of the heatwave has been a significant spike in energy demand from residential and commercial structures. 

AccuWeather shows temperatures across the Northeast, Mid-Atlantic, Southeast, and Rust Belt are registering between 90F and 100F. 

New York’s Central Park hit 92F in the early afternoon hours Monday and could rise to the mid/high 90s by late afternoon. The heat index in New Jersey could soon hit 110F and be around 108F in Washington, D.C. 

Bloomberg reports the heat dome has pressured energy grids in the Northeast, resulting in a massive surge in energy demand. Shown below, New York City electricity demand surged to the highest level in seven years on Monday.

Matt Rogers, president of the Commodity Weather Group LLC., said eastern parts of PJM Interconnection LLC. (from Chicago to Washington) are expected to see spiking energy demand as residential and commercial structures turn thermostats lower to stay cool on Monday. 

Jim Rouiller, the lead meteorologist at the Energy Weather Group LLC., said population-weighted cooling degree days, the measurement of energy demand that it takes to cool a structure, could register the highest energy demand for July since the 1950s. 

Meteorologist Brian Hurley at the National Weather Service’s Weather Prediction Center said record-high temperatures for the date on Sunday were recorded in eight cities, including Washington at Dulles International Airport; Richmond, Virginia; Manchester, New Hampshire; and Plattsburgh, New York. 

Hurley said Norfolk, Virginia, hit 101F on Sunday, which is an anomaly considering the metro area is situated on the ocean.

Rouiller said above-normal temperatures are expected to continue in the Northeast through the first week of August. 

“The risk is there for renewed heatwave episodes continuing well into August,” he said. 

Rouiller warned this summer could be one of the hottest in two decades. 

Senior editor, Ash Bennington, hosts managing editor, Ed Harrison, to analyze the economic news of the day. Ed and Ash examine the recent jobs figures, and Ed describes why he believes the current jobless claims may be significantly underreported. They also discuss gold, and analyze ongoing progress of the EU recovery deal. In the intro, Jack Farley places in context recent movements in the dollar, yen, and euro.

Authored by Ron Paul via The Ron Paul Institute for Peace & Prosperity,

Motorcycle accidents ruled Covid deaths? In the rush to paint Florida as the epicenter of the “second wave” of the coronavirus outbreak, government officials and their allies in the mainstream media have stooped to ridiculous depths to maximize the death count. A television station this weekend looked into two highly unusual Covid deaths among victims in their 20s, and when they asked about co-morbidities they were told one victim had none, because his Covid death came in the form of a fatal motorcycle accident.

Sadly, this is not an isolated incident. In fact the “spike” that has dominated the mainstream for the last couple of weeks is full of examples of such trickery.

Washington state last week revised its Covid death numbers downward when it was revealed that anyone who passed away for any reason whatsoever who also had coronavirus was listed as a “Covid-19 death” even if the cause of death had nothing to do with Covid-19.

In South Carolina, the state health agency admitted that the “spike” in Covid deaths was only the result of delayed reporting of suspected Covid deaths.

An analysis of reported daily Covid deaths last week compared to actual day-of-death in Houston revealed that the recent “spike” consisted largely of deaths that occurred in April through June. Why delay reporting until now?

We do know that based on this “spike” the Democrat mayor of Houston cancelled the convention of the Texas Republican Party. Mission accomplished?

Doesn’t it seem suspicious that so many states have experienced “delayed” reporting of deaths until Fauci and his gang of “experts” announced that we are in a new nightmare scenario?

Last week in Florida – which is perhaps not coincidentally the location of the Republican Party’s national convention – another scandal emerged when hundreds of Covid test centers reported 100 percent positive results. Obviously this would paint a far grimmer picture of the resurgence of the virus. Orlando Health, for example, reported a positivity rate of 98 percent – a shocking level – but a further investigation revealed a true positivity rate of only 9.4 percent. Those “anomalies” were repeated throughout the state.

“Cases” once meant individuals who displayed sufficient symptoms to be treated in medical facilities. But when the scaremongers needed a “second wave” they began reporting any positive test result as a “Covid case.” No wonder we have a “spike.”

Politics demands that politicians be seen doing “something” rather than nothing, even if that something is more harmful than doing nothing at all. That is why Washington is so addicted to sanctions.

The same has been true especially in Republican-controlled states in the US in response to the coronavirus. Faced with a virus that has killed about one-third as many people as the normal, seasonal flu virus in 2018, Texas Governor Greg Abbott has endorsed a partial shutdown of the economy resulting in millions tossed into the despair of unemployment. Then he arbitrarily shut down bars because massively increased testing showed more people have been exposed to the virus. And he mandated that people wear face masks. Neither shutting down bars (instead of restaurants or Walmarts) nor forcing people to wear masks will have any effect on the progression of the virus through society. But at least he looks like he’s doing “something.”

We are facing the greatest assault on our civil liberties in our lifetimes. The virus is real, but the government reaction is political and totalitarian. As it falls apart, will more Americans start fighting for their liberty?

The Treasury cash balance has been surging ever since a flood of T-Bill issuance was unleashed at the start of Q2 to prefund the trillions in fiscal stimulus outlays that are needed to keep the US economy for collapsing, with the total amount of cash on (Steven Mnuchin’s) hand rising by a record $1.4 trillion, since April 1.

On July 17, shortly after the tax deadline date, the Treasury cash balance hit a new all time high as the Treasury pocketed tens of billions via taxes, and it is now a record high $1.812 trillion.

Putting this amount of cash in context it represents about $5,660 for every man, woman and child in the US (which many would say should be sent out directly to these people instead of provided to US corporations so they can repurchase stock), it is greater than the market cap of Apple even with the current insane meltup in the Nasdaq, and is greater than the GDP of the 10th largest nation in the world, Canada..

… which means that if Trump wanted to, he could buy all of Canada and not even have to LBO it, but instead pay cold, hard cash for it.

Joking aside, the massive cash build up is likely a preamble to forgiving the roughly $500 billion in PPP grants which will be “repaid” down using Treasury cash. Yet even so, it would mean that the Treasury would still have about $1.3 trillion left over, which is curious as the Treasury’s own most recent quarterly projections anticipated “only” $800 billion in Treasury cash at the end of Q2.

As such, the amount of excess cash means either that the US needs to issue far less debt in the current quarter than previously forecast (about $3 trillion), or the Treasury needs to find new and creative ways of delivering all this cash to Americans (ideally individuals rather than corporations this time).

A Kentucky couple can’t travel more than 200 feet from home after authorities slapped a pair of ankle bracelets on them following an argument over COVID-19.

Elizabeth Linscott tested positive for the virus last weekend despite having no symptoms. Following her test, the health department contacted her and asked that she sign documents agreeing to self-quarantine unless she calls the health department first. Linscott refused to sign the form, the Self-isolation and Controlled Movement Agreed Order.

“My part was if I have to go to the ER, if I have to go to the hospital, I’m not going to wait to get the approval to go,” she told WKYT, adding that she would take necessary precautions if she needed hospitalization – such as informing healthcare providers that she recently tested positive.

Days later, Elizabeth’s husband Isaiah received an unexpected knock on the door.

“I open up the door and there’s like eight different people,” he said. “Five different cars and I’m like what the heck’s going on? This guy’s in a suit with a mask, it’s the health department guy and he has three different papers for us. For me, her and my daughter.”

Now, the Linscotts are wearing ankle monitors. Elizabeth says she never refused to self-quarantine, but instead simply disagreed with the language in the order.

“That’s exactly what the Director of the Public Health Department told the judge, that I was refusing to self-quarantine because of this and that was not the case at all,” she said. I never said that.

The couple is exploring legal action.

Authored by John Vibes via TheMindUnleashed.com,

William “Roddie” Bryan Jr., the man who recorded the killing of Ahmaud Arbery, is now a suspect in a sex crime investigation.

Bryan was already charged in Arbery’s murder, after investigators determined that he chased Arbery with his neighbors, Travis and Gregory McMichael.

Now he is being accused of sex crimes in an entirely different investigation. Very few details have been released to the public about the nature of these crimes or when they took place, but authorities seem to be taking the matter very seriously.

According to The Georgia Bureau of Investigation, the Glynn County Police Department suspects Bryan of unspecified sex crimes and was seeking help with the investigation.

On Wednesday, July 15, 2020, the Glynn County Police Department requested that the GBI initiate a sex crimes investigation based on allegations made against William “Roddie” Bryan, Jr. The investigation is active and ongoing.

— GA Bureau of Investigation (@GBI_GA) July 17, 2020

Bryan is still in prison awaiting trial for the murder charge in the Arbery case, and he was denied bond by a judge this week. All three men charged in the case have pleaded not guilty. Despite the video evidence against them, they claim that they were acting in self-defense.

Ironically, the video of the incident, which may put all three men behind bars for a long time, was recorded and released to the public by Bryan, who participated in hunting Arbery down with the McMichaels.

The McMichaels say that they suspected Arbery of stealing from the construction site that he was seen passing through.

However, Arbery’s family has said that he was jogging through the neighborhood when he was approached by the McMichaels. It was also common for people in the neighborhood to pass through that construction site.

Surveillance videos of the site show that multiple people had recently trespassed at the site where Ahmaud Arbery visited.

Bryan’s attorney insisted that he was not involved, and pointed to a polygraph test that he took, in which he stated that he did not have any conversation with Gregory or Travis McMichael before the shooting and had no clue that it was going to happen.

However, Cobb County Deputy Chief Assistant District Attorney Jesse Evans revealed in court last week that the prosecution obtained text messages sent between Bryan and the McMicheals where they used racial slurs and discussed their attack on Arbery.

Evans also revealed that Bryan struck Arbery with his vehicle during the chase, and said that it was dented as a result. Additionally, Evans said that the U.S. Justice Department has notified the suspects that it is investigating them for a possible federal hate crime.

The McMichaels hunted 25-year-old Arbery for about 5 minutes after they saw him walking through a construction site. Eventually, they confronted Arbery who was likely scared and trying to get away. In the following struggle, Arbery was shot twice with a shotgun at close range.

The murder took place back in February but the McMichaels were not charged in the case until earlier this month when a video of the incident went viral and sparked global outrage.

Gregory McMichael is a former police officer, with deep ties to local judges and the district attorney, who initially allowed the case to slip through the cracks without any arrests.