Will SCOTUS Revoke Its License for Police Abuse?

Based on an erroneous report of a “domestic assault,” police officers came to rescue Melanie Kelsay from the man who supposedly was attacking her at a community swimming pool in Wymore, Nebraska. Then one of them actually assaulted her, lifting the 130-pound woman off the ground in a bear hug and throwing her to the ground, breaking her collarbone and knocking her unconscious, because she disobeyed his command to “get back here.”

Last year the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 8th Circuit ruled that the assault did not violate Kelsay’s “clearly established” Fourth Amendment rights, meaning she could not sue the sheriff’s deputy who had injured her. Kelsay’s appeal of that decision is one of 13 cases involving “qualified immunity” that the U.S. Supreme Court will consider for review on Friday, giving the justices ample opportunity to revisit a misbegotten doctrine that shields police officers from liability for egregious misconduct.

Qualified immunity, which the Court invented in 1982, is supposed to protect government officials from the chilling effect of frivolous lawsuits under a federal statute that allows people to seek damages for violations of their constitutional rights. But in practice, the doctrine often means that victims like Kelsay cannot pursue their claims unless they can locate a precedent that closely matches the facts of their case.

In a recent analysis of 252 excessive-force cases decided by federal appeals courts from 2015 through 2019, Reuters found that most of the lawsuits were blocked by qualified immunity. It also found that the share of cases decided in favor of police has risen during the last decade and a half, from 44 percent in 2005–07 to 57 percent in 2017–19.

After 2009, when the Supreme Court said judges could grant police qualified immunity without even deciding whether their actions were unconstitutional, that shortcut became increasingly common, making it even harder for victims of police abuse to find apposite precedents. As 5th Circuit Judge Don Willett has observed, “important constitutional questions go unanswered precisely because those questions are yet unanswered.”

Hard as it may be to believe, those questions include whether police in Idaho violated the Constitution when they wrecked a woman’s home with tear gas grenades after she gave them permission to “get inside” so they could arrest her boyfriend (who was not actually there). While musing that getting inside could be construed to include firing toxic, destructive projectiles into the house, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 9th Circuit last year declined to decide whether that would be “reasonable” under the Fourth Amendment.

That ruling, which the Supreme Court also has been asked to review, not only left the plaintiff without recourse; it gave other police officers license to do exactly the same thing, since the 9th Circuit approved qualified immunity without resolving the constitutional issue. So did the 6th Circuit in a 2018 case involving a Nashville officer who sicced a police dog on a burglary suspect who said he had already surrendered and was sitting on the ground with his hands up.

Another petition the justices are mulling this week involves a Georgia sheriff’s deputy who received qualified immunity after he shot a 10-year-old boy while trying to kill his dog. Neither the boy nor the dog had done anything to justify the use of lethal force, except that they happened to be in their own yard when the cops chased an unarmed suspect into it.

Further fodder for the Supreme Court’s potential reconsideration of qualified immunity: the Fresno cops who allegedly stole cash and property worth more than $225,000 while executing a search warrant. Although the officers should have understood that theft was “morally wrong,” the 9th Circuit ruled last year, “they did not have clear notice that it violated the Fourth Amendment.”

Qualified immunity, by contrast, definitely gives police clear notice. It tells them they can get away with violating people’s rights as long as they find new ways to do it.

© Copyright 2020 by Creators Syndicate Inc.

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Arkansas Prof Arrested For Concealing ‘Close’ Ties To China; Accused Of ‘Scheme To Defraud’ While Receiving Millions In Grants

Arkansas Prof Arrested For Concealing ‘Close’ Ties To China; Accused Of ‘Scheme To Defraud’ While Receiving Millions In Grants

A professor at the University of Arkansas who received millions of dollars in research grants, including $500,000 from NASA, was arrested on Friday and charged with one count of wire fraud, according to a criminal affidavit unsealed Monday.

63-year-old Simon Saw-Teong Ang is the director of the school’s High Density Electronics Center, which received funding from the National Science Foundation (NSF), Department of Energy (DOE), Department of Defense (DOD) and NASA. Since 2013, Ang has been the primary investigator or co-investigator on US government-funded grants totaling over $5 million, according to the Washington Examiner‘s Jerry Dunleavy.

According to the FBI, Ang failed to disclose that he was getting paid by a Chinese university and Chinese companies in violation of university policy. He is accused of making false statements while failing to disclose his extensive ties to China as a member of the “Thousand Talents Scholars” program.

Ang intentionally made materially false representations to the University of Arkansas and NASA which caused with transmission to be sent and received in the form of grant applications and grant funding that he would not otherwise have been entitled to receive,” wrote FBI special agent Jonathan Willett in the affidavit.

“The complaint charges that Ang had close ties with the Chinese government and Chinese companies, and failed to disclose those ties when required to do so in order to receive grant money from NASA,” said the Justice Department. “These materially false representations to NASA and the University of Arkansas resulted in numerous wires to be sent and received that facilitated Ang’s scheme to defraud.”

The FBI was tipped off to Ang’s activities after a hard drive was turned into the university’s lost and found. In an attempt to determine who it belonged to, a staff member discovered an email exchanges between the professor and a visiting researcher from Xidian University in Xi’an China in a file conspicuously labeled “Ang_Confidential.pdf.” 

In one email from September 15, 2018, Ang writes:

“Dear [RESEARCHER 1], I want you to understand that I will do my best to support your stay here in Arkansas, there are things that are becoming very difficult for me recently because of the political climate. You can search the Chiense website regarding what the US will do to Thousand Talent Scholars. Not many people here know I am one of them but if this leaks out, my job here will be in deep troubles. I have to be very careful or else I may be out of a job from this university. I hope you understand my deep concerns…Please keep this to yourself as I trust you.”

In November, the Senate Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations chaired by Sen. Rob Portman (R-OH) released a 109-page bipartisan report which concluded that foreign nations “seek to exploit America’s openness to advance their own national interests,” the most ambitious of which “has been China,” according to the Examiner. According to the report, Chinese academics involved in their so-called ‘Thousand Talents’ program have been exploiting access to US research labs.

Ang applied for and was awarded a NASA grant for a November 2016 proposal titled “500° Celsius Capable Weather-Resistant Electronics Packaging for Extreme Environment Exploration.” The government funding was worth $512,904 between 2017 and 2020, and he got it despite NASA’s “China Funding Restriction.” The NASA contracting officer overseeing the $500,000 grant said it never would have been awarded to Ang if they had known about his vast China connections.Washington Examiner

According to the FBI, Ang did disclose his participation in the “Thousand Talents Scholars” in 2014, but not his participation in other programs from 2012 – 2018, which the FBI suggested demonstrated ‘his intent to execute a scheme do defraud the University of Arkansas and NASA” since he “obviously knew about the requirement to disclosure such conflicts of interest and deliberately kept all such conflicts of interest” from them.

In addition to his participation in the Thousand Talents program, Ang concealed his role at Binzhou Maotong Electronic Technology Company from 2011 – 2018 while acting as their principal investigator for a research project concerning hydrogen fuel cell research. He also failed to mention that he was the CTO at Binzhou Gande Electronic Technology from 2011 – 2018, as well as his stake in Jiangsu Xuanzhi New Materials and Technology Company – which he claimed to own between 7 – 9% of in an email.

The Justice Department’s China Initiative, launched in 2018, aims to combat both Chinese malign influence (ranging from cyberespionage to technology theft) and its Thousand Talents Program, which is aimed at stealing research. The department charged Chinese telecommunications giant Huawei in a global racketeering scheme earlier this year.

On Friday, Dr. Xiao-Jiang Li, a former Emory University professor and Chinese Thousand Talents Program participant, pleaded guilty to filing false tax returns after he worked overseas at Chinese universities and did not report any of his foreign income on his federal tax returns.

The Department of Education’s Foreign Gift and Contract Report website shows $15.76 billion in foreign funding on U.S. campuses between 2014 and 2019, including $1.17 billion from China. Both the Education Department and Justice Department prosecutors have gone after universities for concealing their foreign funding. –Washington Examiner

Read the complaint below:


Tyler Durden

Tue, 05/12/2020 – 23:45

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“Eat A Waffle, Go To Jail…” – Authoritarians Using COVID-19 Fear To Destroy America

“Eat A Waffle, Go To Jail…” – Authoritarians Using COVID-19 Fear To Destroy America

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

A Fresno, California waffle restaurant dared to open its doors for business this weekend to the delight of a long line of customers, who waited up to two hours for the “privilege” of willingly spending their money in a business happy to serve them breakfast on Mother’s Day. This freedom of voluntary transaction is the core of what we used to call our free society. But in an America paralyzed by fear – ramped up by a mainstream media that churns out propaganda at a level unparalleled in history – no one is allowed to enjoy themselves.

Thankfully everyone carries a smartphone these days and can record and upload the frequent violations of our Constitutional liberties. In the case of the waffle restaurant, thanks to a cell phone video we saw the police show up in force and try to push through the crowd waiting outside. An elderly man who was next in line to enter was indignant, complaining that he had been waiting two hours to eat at the restaurant and was not about to step aside while the police shut down the place. The police proceeded to violently handcuff and arrest the man, dragging him off while his wife followed sadly behind him to the police car.

It is hard not to be disgusted by government enforcers who would brutally drag an elderly man away from a restaurant for the “crime” of wanting to take his wife out for breakfast on Mother’s Day. A virus far more deadly than the coronavirus is spreading from Washington down to the local city hall. Tin pot dictators are ruling by decree while federal, state, and local legislators largely stand by and watch as the US Constitution they swore to protect goes up in smoke.

Politicians with perfect haircuts issue “executive orders” that anyone cutting hair for mere private citizens must be arrested. In Texas a brave salon owner willingly went to jail for the “crime” of re-opening her business in defiance of “executive orders.” To add insult to injury, Governor Greg Abbott very quickly condemned the one week jail sentence of salon owner Shelley Luther – but the officers who arrested her were only carrying out Abbott’s own orders!

First we were told we had to shut down the country to “flatten the curve” so that hospitals were not overwhelmed by coronavirus patients. When most hospitals were nowhere near overwhelmed, and in fact were laying off thousands of healthcare workers because there were no patients, they moved the goalposts and said we cannot have our freedom back until a vaccine was available to force on us or the virus completely disappeared – neither of which is likely to happen anytime soon.

Many politicians clearly see the creeping totalitarianism but lack the courage to speak out. Thankfully, patriots like Shelley Luther are demonstrating the courage our political leaders lack.

When Patrick Henry famously said “give me liberty or give me death” in 1775, he didn’t add under his breath “unless a virus shows up.” If we wish to reclaim our freedoms we will have to fight – peacefully – for them. As Thomas Paine wrote in 1776, “These are the times that try men’s souls. The summer soldier and the sunshine patriot will, in this crisis, shrink from the service of their country; but he that stands by it now, deserves the love and thanks of man and woman.”


Tyler Durden

Tue, 05/12/2020 – 23:25

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Judge Rules in Favor of Federal Inmates in Coronavirus Suit, Orders Speedier Releases

Late Tuesday night, a federal judge ordered a federal prison in Connecticut to speed up its process for releasing inmates at serious risk for COVID-19, finding that officials’ foot-dragging violated inmates’ constitutional right not to undergo cruel and unusual punishment.

U.S. District Judge Michael Shea ruled that the four lead plaintiffs in a federal civil rights lawsuit, all inmates at FCI Danbury, had showed that prison officials “are making only limited use of their home confinement authority, as well as other tools at their disposal to protect inmates during the outbreak, and that these failures amount to deliberate indifference to a substantial risk of serious harm to inmates in violation of the Eighth Amendment.”

The class-action suit—brought by by the Quinnipiac University School of Law, Yale Law School, and the law firm of Silver Golub & Teitell—argued that Danbury leadership was failing to use its recently expanded authority to expedite the early release of inmates. 

This failure, the lawsuit argues, puts the incarcerated population at FCI Danbury, a low-security federal prison in Connecticut, at unconstitutional risk of harm. One Danbury inmate has died from the virus; according to the latest BOP numbers, 27 more inmates and seven staff are known to be infected with COVID-19.

The judge did not rule on the lawsuit’s most ambitious argument, which seeks a mass transfer of inmates out of Danbury, but he issued a temporary restraining order, first reported by the Hartford Courant, that will require the Danbury warden to submit a list of all inmates eligible for early release within 13 days and a written explanation of each denial.

The ruling is part of a growing pile of indications that the federal Bureau of Prisons (BOP) has not been wholeheartedly embracing expanded powers from Congress to release inmates at risk at COVID-19, or Attorney General William Bar’s March directive to do so.

In a letter to Congress yesterday, a group of federal public defenders warned that the Department of Justice (DOJ) and the BOP “have made little use of these authorities to reduce prison populations and enable social distancing.”

Although the BOP says it has placed an additional 2,471 inmates on home confinement since Barr’s order, criminal justice reformers and families of those incarcerated in federal prisons say the rollout of the directive has been slow and contradictory. Many federal inmates across the country were told they had been approved for early release and put into pre-release quarantine, only later to be told that the rules had changed and they were being sent back.

Civil liberties groups, criminal justice organizations, and prison guard unions all warned when COVID-19 hit American shores that the nation’s jails and prisons were woefully unequipped to handle a deadly epidemic. Although many jurisdictions have taken unprecedented steps to reduce incarcerated populations, it has not stopped jails and prisons from becoming many of the biggest COVID-19 clusters in the country.

On Monday, a federal judge in San Francisco sharply criticized the local U.S. Attorney’s Office for trying to coerce a defendant into a plea deal that would have narrowed his right to petition for compassionate release—one of the mechanisms through which inmates at risk from COVID-19 can be granted early release. The judge called the proposed plea bargain “appallingly cruel.”

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Judge Rules in Favor of Federal Inmates in Coronavirus Suit, Orders Speedier Releases

Late Tuesday night, a federal judge ordered a federal prison in Connecticut to speed up its process for releasing inmates at serious risk for COVID-19, finding that officials’ foot-dragging violated inmates’ constitutional right not to undergo cruel and unusual punishment.

U.S. District Judge Michael Shea ruled that the four lead plaintiffs in a federal civil rights lawsuit, all inmates at FCI Danbury, had showed that prison officials “are making only limited use of their home confinement authority, as well as other tools at their disposal to protect inmates during the outbreak, and that these failures amount to deliberate indifference to a substantial risk of serious harm to inmates in violation of the Eighth Amendment.”

The class-action suit—brought by by the Quinnipiac University School of Law, Yale Law School, and the law firm of Silver Golub & Teitell—argued that Danbury leadership was failing to use its recently expanded authority to expedite the early release of inmates. 

This failure, the lawsuit argues, puts the incarcerated population at FCI Danbury, a low-security federal prison in Connecticut, at unconstitutional risk of harm. One Danbury inmate has died from the virus; according to the latest BOP numbers, 27 more inmates and seven staff are known to be infected with COVID-19.

The judge did not rule on the lawsuit’s most ambitious argument, which seeks a mass transfer of inmates out of Danbury, but he issued a temporary restraining order, first reported by the Hartford Courant, that will require the Danbury warden to submit a list of all inmates eligible for early release within 13 days and a written explanation of each denial.

The ruling is part of a growing pile of indications that the federal Bureau of Prisons (BOP) has not been wholeheartedly embracing expanded powers from Congress to release inmates at risk at COVID-19, or Attorney General William Bar’s March directive to do so.

In a letter to Congress yesterday, a group of federal public defenders warned that the Department of Justice (DOJ) and the BOP “have made little use of these authorities to reduce prison populations and enable social distancing.”

Although the BOP says it has placed an additional 2,471 inmates on home confinement since Barr’s order, criminal justice reformers and families of those incarcerated in federal prisons say the rollout of the directive has been slow and contradictory. Many federal inmates across the country were told they had been approved for early release and put into pre-release quarantine, only later to be told that the rules had changed and they were being sent back.

Civil liberties groups, criminal justice organizations, and prison guard unions all warned when COVID-19 hit American shores that the nation’s jails and prisons were woefully unequipped to handle a deadly epidemic. Although many jurisdictions have taken unprecedented steps to reduce incarcerated populations, it has not stopped jails and prisons from becoming many of the biggest COVID-19 clusters in the country.

On Monday, a federal judge in San Francisco sharply criticized the local U.S. Attorney’s Office for trying to coerce a defendant into a plea deal that would have narrowed his right to petition for compassionate release—one of the mechanisms through which inmates at risk from COVID-19 can be granted early release. The judge called the proposed plea bargain “appallingly cruel.”

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“Shocking & Regretful”: UN Security Council Becomes US-China Battleground Over WHO

“Shocking & Regretful”: UN Security Council Becomes US-China Battleground Over WHO

At this point China is grasping at whatever it can to use as leverage to “embarrass” Washington — so to no one’s surprise Chinese officials are expressing outrage at the US blocking a draft United Nations Security Council resolution backing UN chief Antonio Guterres’ call for a global ceasefire in order to concentrate the world’s resources on fighting the coronavirus pandemic.

A Chinese diplomat was cited in Reuters as saying it was “shocking and regretful” that Washington withdrew its support for the draft resolution Friday.

“The United States had agreed to the compromise text and it’s shocking and regretful that the U.S. changed its position,” the diplomat said. However, a US official shot back, saying there was never any agreement about the text.

UN Secretary General with Director General of the WHO, via Xinhuanet

Front and center to the debate is the World Health Organization, currently source of deep controversy and growing tensions between China and the US, especially after German intelligence just revealed that Chinese President Xi Jinping asked World Health Organization (WHO) Director-General Tedros Adhanom Thebreyesus to cover up the severity of the coronavirus pandemic in January, according to a bombshell Der Spiegel report.

As related to the UN’s draft ‘global ceasefire’ Reuters explains that “talks have been stymied by a stand-off between China and the United States over whether to mention the World Health Organization.”

It remains that “The United States does not want a reference, China has insisted it be included, while some other members see the mention – or not – of WHO as a marginal issue, diplomats said.”

The US ultimately rejected any reference to the WHO, even when the text was changed to merely denote “specialized health agencies” instead of a direct reference. US diplomats also reportedly vowed to veto anything with such language in it.

President Trump cut off funding for the WHO, which is a UN agency, after it not only severely downplayed the coming threat of a global pandemic (by only belatedly identifying it as such), but after the administration charged the organization with being “China-centric” and allowing itself to be Beijing’s “disinformation” puppet as communist officials attempted to do PR damage control after the disease ripped through Wuhan and then spread far outside China’s borders. 


Tyler Durden

Tue, 05/12/2020 – 23:05

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Scarred & Scared: The Reshaping Of The American Consumer Begins

Scarred & Scared: The Reshaping Of The American Consumer Begins

Authored by Christopher Condon via BloombergQuint.com,

David Wright, 62, stood at the door of his Replay Arcade last week, trying to look at the bright side of things. The sole owner, he’s a tenant at the Mall of Georgia, which shut for a month but re-opened on May 4.

“Traffic is about 10% of normal, but that’s 10% better than zero,” he chuckled in a phone interview from his business just outside Atlanta.

Even with the rosy assumption that the Covid-19 virus will be contained in the coming weeks, the U.S. economy is in for a slow and painful struggle back from this devastating public health crisis.

Entrance to the Mall of Georgia.

Consumers drive 70% of U.S. gross domestic product and they’ve been dealt multiple blows. For some it’s a direct hit to their bank account. For others it’s a shot to their psyches as earners, spenders and social animals.

“We can’t just flip the switch,” said Claudia Sahm, director of macroeconomic policy at the Washington Center for Equitable Growth.

“Just because you can go to the store and buy things again, doesn’t mean you will.”

Spending Ability

There will doubtlessly be cheerleading from elected officials and business leaders as restrictions are slowly lifted. Already there’s talk of pent-up demand as consumers dream about getting out of the house for more than groceries and prescriptions.
That may be true in some areas, like health care services, where important but non-urgent physician visits and medical procedures were postponed. More broadly, the reality is likely to be disappointing.

In Week Two of the Big Reopen, Half-Empty Bar Feels Like a Win

For starters, more than 33 million Americans have lost their jobs in the seven weeks since wide swaths of the U.S. economy shuttered to stem the outbreak. Many may end up being out of work for the long-term, outlasting unemployment benefits that will typically end after 39 weeks, and far past the federal government’s $600 weekly supplement that’s set to expire on July 31.

“There’s willingness to spend and there’s ability to spend,” said Jack Kleinhenz, chief economist for the National Federation of Retailers.

“For many people, their ability to spend has been negated.”

Younger Generation

Severe economic shocks can even scar those who hang on to their jobs but are rattled watching friends, neighbors or relatives lose their work. Economists said it’s also worth noting this is the second recession in the space of 12 years that Americans have been told is the worst since the Great Depression.

Richard Curtin, director of the University of Michigan’s Survey of Consumers, worries the cumulative effect, especially on younger generations, could compare to the devastating impact in the 1930s had on the psychology of Americans.

“The Great Depression affected people their whole lives, and that could be true now for millennials,” he said.

There’s also an additional layer this time. This crash was triggered by a virus that, itself, can kill. How that will affect consumption is unclear. Early signs from economies that are already re-opening, and from surveys of consumer attitudes, don’t look promising.

Psychological Impact

Data from China, where the virus appeared first and where many restrictions have been relaxed, point to a slow recovery of consumer spending, according to a note from economists at HSBC Bank in London. And in Sweden, though bars and restaurants have remained open throughout the contagion, patrons have largely stayed away.

Polling by YouGov showed 57% of Americans were “very” or “somewhat” scared they might contract the virus. Among 26 countries surveyed since April 24, the average was 62%, with only Finland below 40%.

“The psychological impact of risk aversion setting in cannot be understated,” HSBC’s James Pomeroy and Fabio Balboni wrote in their May 1 note.

“Until people feel safe returning to places where large crowds are prevalent — such as public transport, bars, restaurants and many recreational venues — consumer spending in this part of the economy is likely to remain subdued.”

In the U.S., industry groups are making a big effort to help boost confidence. Groups like the National Restaurant Association are offering extensive guidelines, often in conjunction with government agencies like the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, on how businesses should go about re-opening.

At Wright’s arcade in the Atlanta-area mall, he’s made every effort to keep his operation safe and reassure customers. The pinball machines and other games are spaced farther apart. Staff wear masks and gloves and add their own constant cleaning efforts. But he’s resigned to a slow return of his clientele.

“This might take a long, long time for people to feel comfortable again,” he laments.

Curtin, who conducts monthly surveys on consumer behavior, expects companies will have a hard time reassuring people because risks trigger an emotional response.

“However much you enjoyed flying, or going on vacation or to a restaurant, you’ll be a little more hesitant,” he said.

“The cognitive system we can turn on and off almost immediately, but emotions we can’t turn on and off.”


Tyler Durden

Tue, 05/12/2020 – 22:45

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Florida Beach Steps Up Enforcement As Visitors Leave 13,000 Pounds Of Trash During Busy Weekend

Florida Beach Steps Up Enforcement As Visitors Leave 13,000 Pounds Of Trash During Busy Weekend

Amazingly, local officials in Florida decided to reopen a beach to the public, and the biggest scandal to arise from the occasion had less to do with the coronavirus, and more to do with more prosaic problems of selfish, sh*tty people.

As thousands traveled to the beach – which has been open for weeks – over the weekend, municipal crews collected more than 13,000 pounds of garbage last weekend that was left behind by visitors at Cocoa Beach as the state continues to relax coronavirus restrictions, according to the Hill.

The Cocoa Beach Police Department warned it would dramatically step up enforcement and write tickets for outsize sums for anybody caught littering from here on out.

“As restrictions are becoming more relaxed during this pandemic, the City of Cocoa Beach is beginning to see an influx of day-trippers to our beaches, along with piles of unlawfully discarded trash in their wake,” Cocoa Beach Police Department wrote in a notice.

“This will not be tolerated.”

Read the full warning below:

As coronavirus restrictions begin to ease, people and their trash have been inundating beaches in Brevard County.

The beach actually reopened on April 21, but the nice weather over the weekend brought thousands to the beach as the spring and summer beachgoing season in the state begins.

According to the Hill, littering in Cocoa Beach can now fetch offenders a $250 fine.


Tyler Durden

Tue, 05/12/2020 – 22:25

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Soros Has “Faith That Trump Will Destroy Himself”, Fears “Weakened” Xi, Sees “Existential Risk” For EU

Soros Has “Faith That Trump Will Destroy Himself”, Fears “Weakened” Xi, Sees “Existential Risk” For EU

Gregor Peter Schmitz interviews George Soros for Project Syndicate,

The Crisis Of A Lifetime

Only one thing is certain about the post-pandemic world: there is no way back to the globalized economy that preceded it. Everything else is up for grabs, including the rise of China, the fate of the United States, and the survival of the European Union.

Gregor Peter Schmitz: You have seen many crises. Is the COVID-19 pandemic comparable to any previous one?

George Soros: No. This is the crisis of my lifetime. Even before the pandemic hit, I realized that we were in a revolutionary moment where what would be impossible or even inconceivable in normal times had become not only possible, but probably absolutely necessary. And then came COVID-19, which has totally disrupted people’s lives and required very different behavior. It is an unprecedented event that probably has never occurred in this combination. And it really endangers the survival of our civilization.

GPS: Could this crisis have been prevented if governments had been better prepared?

SOROS: We have had infectious disease pandemics ever since the bubonic plague. They were quite frequent in the nineteenth century, and then we had the Spanish flu at the end of World War I, which actually occurred in three waves, with the second wave being the deadliest. Millions of people died. And we have had other serious outbreaks, such as the swine flu just a decade ago. So it’s amazing how unprepared countries were for something like this.

GPS: Is that the biggest problem of the current situation — this lack of certainty about how to deal with this virus and how to proceed in the coming months or years?

SOROS: It is certainly a very big one. We are learning very fast, and we now know a lot more about the virus than we did when it emerged, but we are shooting at a moving target because the virus itself changes rapidly. It will take a long time to develop a vaccine. And even after we have developed one, we will have to learn how to change it every year, because the virus will most likely change. That’s what we do with the flu shot every year.

GPS: Will this crisis change the nature of capitalism? Even before COVID-19 led to the current catastrophic recession, the downsides of globalization and free trade were attracting greater attention.

SOROS: We will not go back to where we were when the pandemic started. That is pretty certain. But that is the only thing that is certain. Everything else is up for grabs. I do not think anybody knows how capitalism will evolve.

GPS: Could this crisis bring people — and nation-states — closer together?

SOROS: In the long run, yes. At the present time, people are dominated by fear. And fear very often makes people hurt themselves. That is true of individuals as well as institutions, nations, and humanity itself.

GPS: Are we witnessing that in the current blame game between the United States and China over the origins of the virus?

SOROS: The continuing conflict between the US and China complicates matters, because we ought to work together on climate change and on developing a vaccine against COVID-19. But, apparently, we cannot work together because we are already competing over who will develop — and use — the vaccine. The fact that we have got two very different systems of government, democratic and …

GPS: Autocratic?

SOROS: Right. That makes everything much harder. There are a lot of people who say that we should be working very closely with China, but I am not in favor of doing that. We must protect our democratic open society. At the same time, we must find a way to cooperate on fighting climate change and the novel coronavirus. That won’t be easy. I sympathize with the Chinese people, because they are under the domination of a dictator, President Xi Jinping. I think a lot of educated Chinese are very resentful of that, and the general public is still very angry with him for keeping COVID-19 a secret until after the Chinese New Year.

GPS: Could Xi’s grip on power weaken as the Chinese come to recognize that the handling of the crisis was sub-optimal?

SOROS: Very much so. When Xi abolished term limits and named himself, in essence, president for life, he destroyed the political future of the most important and ambitious men in a very narrow and competitive elite. It was a big mistake on his part. So, yes, he is very strong in a way, but at the same time extremely weak, and now perhaps vulnerable.

The struggle within the Chinese leadership is something that I follow very closely because I am on the side of those who believe in an open society. And there are many people in China who are very much in favor of an open society, too.

GPS: Then again, the current U.S. president does not really represent the values of an open and free society…

SOROS: Well, that is a weakness that I hope will not last very long. Donald Trump would like to be a dictator. But he cannot be one because there is a constitution in the United States that people still respect. And it will prevent him from doing certain things. That does not mean that he will not try, because he is literally fighting for his life. I will also say that I have put my faith in Trump to destroy himself, and he has exceeded my wildest expectations.

GPS: What role does the European Union — your home that you care about so much — play in this power struggle?

SOROS: I am particularly concerned about the survival of the EU because it is an incomplete union. It was in the process of being created. But the process was never completed and that makes Europe exceptionally vulnerable — more vulnerable than the U.S. not just because it is an incomplete union but also because it is based on the rule of law. And the wheels of justice move very slowly, while threats such as the COVID-19 virus move very fast. That creates a particular problem for the European Union.

GPS: Germany’s Federal Constitutional Court exploded a bombshell last week with its latest ruling on the European Central Bank. How seriously do you take it?

SOROS: I take it extremely seriously. The ruling poses a threat that could destroy the European Union as an institution based on the rule of law, precisely because it was delivered by the German constitutional court, which is the most highly respected institution in Germany. Before it delivered its verdict, it had consulted with the European Court of Justice and then decided to challenge it. So you now have a conflict between the German Constitutional Court and the European Court of Justice. Which court has precedence?

GPS: Technically, the European Treaties give the ECJ supremacy in this area. That is very clear.

SOROS: Right. When Germany joined the EU, it committed itself to abide by European law. But the ruling raises an even bigger issue: if the German court can question the decisions of the European Court of Justice, can other countries follow its example? Can Hungary and Poland decide whether they follow European law or their own courts — whose legitimacy the EU has questioned? That question goes to the very heart of the EU, which is built on the rule of law.

Poland has immediately risen to the occasion and asserted the supremacy of its government-controlled courts over European law. In Hungary, Viktor Orbán has already used the COVID-19 emergency and a captured parliament to appoint himself dictator. The parliament is kept in session to rubber-stamp his decrees, which clearly violate European law. If the German court’s verdict prevents the EU from resisting these developments, it will be the end of the EU as we know it.

GPS: Will the ECB need to change its policies after this ruling?

SOROS: Not necessarily. This ruling only requires the ECB to justify its current monetary policies. It has been given three months to justify the actions it has taken. That will consume a lot of the ECB’s attention when it is the only really functioning institution in Europe that can provide the financial resources needed to combat the pandemic. Therefore, it should focus its attention on helping Europe to establish a Recovery Fund.

GPS: Do you have any suggestions where these resources could come from?

SOROS: I have proposed that the EU should issue perpetual bonds, although I now think that they should be called “Consols,” because perpetual bonds have been successfully used under that name by Britain since 1751 and the United States since the 1870s.

Perpetual bonds have become confused with “Coronabonds,” which have been rejected by the European Council — and with good reason, because they imply a mutualization of accumulated debts that the member states are unwilling to accept. That has poisoned the debate about perpetual bonds.

I believe that the current predicament strengthens my case for Consols. The German court said that the ECB’s actions were legal because they adhered to the requirement that its bond purchases were proportional to the member states’ shareholding in the ECB. But the clear implication was that any ECB purchases that were not proportional to the ECB “capital key” could be challenged and deemed ultra vires by the court.

The kind of bonds that I have proposed would sidestep this problem, because they would be issued by the EU as a whole, would automatically be proportional, and would remain so eternally. The member states would have to pay only the annual interest, which is so minimal — at, say, 0.5% — that the bonds could be easily subscribed by the member states, either unanimously or by a coalition of the willing.

European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen says that Europe needs about 1 trillion euros ($1.1 trillion) to fight this pandemic, and she should have added another 1 trillion euros for climate change. Consols could provide those amounts if the EU’s member states authorized them.

Unfortunately, Germany and the “Hanseatic League” states led by the Netherlands are adamantly opposed. They should think again. The EU is now considering doubling its budget, which would provide only about 100 billion euros and yield only one-tenth of the benefit that perpetual bonds could provide. Those who want to keep their EU budget contribution to a minimum ought to support Consols. They would have to authorize certain taxes, like a financial-transaction tax, that would provide the EU with its own resources, assuring its AAA rating, but the taxes would not have to be imposed — their place would be taken by Consols. Both these parties and the rest of Europe would be much better off. Annual payments of 5 billion euros, whose present value would continuously decline, would give the EU 1 trillion euros that the continent urgently needs — an amazing cost-benefit ratio.

GPS: When the EU relaxed its rules against state aid, Germany submitted more than half of the requests. Some people argue that this undermines the principles of a single market because it gives Germany an unfair advantage. What do you think?

SOROS: I agree with their argument. It is particularly unfair to Italy, which was already the sick man of Europe and then the hardest hit by COVID-19. Lega party leader Matteo Salvini is agitating for Italy to leave the euro and also the European Union. Fortunately, his personal popularity has declined since he left the government, but his advocacy is gaining followers.

This is another existential threat for the EU. What would be left of Europe without Italy, which used to be the most pro-European country? Italians trusted Europe more than their own governments. But they were badly treated during the refugee crisis of 2015. That’s when they turned to Salvini’s far-right Lega and the populist Five Star Movement.

GPS: You sound very pessimistic.

SOROS: Far from it. I recognize that Europe is facing several existential dangers. That is not a figure of speech; it is the reality. The verdict of Germany’s Federal Constitutional Court is only the most recent challenge. Once we recognize this, we may be able to rise the occasion. We can take exceptional measures that are appropriate to the exceptional circumstances we’re in. That certainly applies to Consols, which should never be issued in normal times, but are ideal right now. As long as I can propose measures like issuing Consols, I won’t give up hope.


Tyler Durden

Tue, 05/12/2020 – 22:05

via ZeroHedge News https://ift.tt/35WCLyh Tyler Durden

Twitter Takes Its COVID-19 Censorship Into Overdrive

Twitter Takes Its COVID-19 Censorship Into Overdrive

It feels like it was just yesterday we pointed out that the Twitter censor machine had gone into overdrive, concerning itself with policing mean comments and curse words. Now, the censorship machine is sliding even further down the slippery slope. 

In a blog post published yesterday, Twitter said it would be “introducing new labels and warning messages that will provide additional context and information on some Tweets containing disputed or misleading information related to COVID-19.”

In other words, the site’s efforts to police coronavirus discussion using the WHO as a truth rubric – which resulted in Zero Hedge’s permanent ban from the site for accurately predicting that the Wuhan Institute of Virology was likely at the middle of the ongoing global pandemic – hasn’t been enough.

The site is taking its coronavirus censorship into “Phase II”. 

The site says it is now going to append labels to Tweets “containing potentially harmful, misleading information related to COVID-19” and that the change is going to be retrofit to all previous Tweets.

The labels will link to a “Twitter-curated page or external trusted source containing additional information on the claims made within the Tweet.”

Warnings could also be applied to Tweets, the site said. The warnings “will inform people that the information in the Tweet conflicts with public health experts’ guidance before they view it.”

Twitter said it will take action based on three broad categories:

  • Misleading information — statements or assertions that have been confirmed to be false or misleading by subject-matter experts, such as public health authorities.
  • Disputed claims — statements or assertions in which the accuracy, truthfulness, or credibility of the claim is contested or unknown.
  • Unverified claims — information (which could be true or false) that is unconfirmed at the time it is shared.

It then posted this vague chart, which does very little to clear up anything:

Recall, our original post about the Wuhan Institute of Virology that resulted in our ban from Twitter did not include misleading information, disputed claims or unverified claims. We wonder where we would fall on that nebulous-looking chart.

Twitter also says that the site will identify Tweets that “could cause harm by using and improving on internal systems to proactively monitor content related to COVID-19.”

Finally, the site said it won’t “amplify” Tweets with warnings or labels, essentially giving the site carte blanche to shadowban its own users as it deems necessary.

Meanwhile, while Zero Hedge remains permanently banned, comedienne Jena Friedman, who falsely Tweeted out yesterday that Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell “has tested positive for Covid-19”, still has an account up and running despite the Tweet being deleted.

We look forward to continued equal application of the law from the fine Silicon Valley left-wing police at Twitter HQ. 


Tyler Durden

Tue, 05/12/2020 – 21:45

via ZeroHedge News https://ift.tt/2Are9SZ Tyler Durden