Tag: news

Watch Live: President Trump Updates Press On “Vaccine Development” Amid Beijing Showdown

Watch Live: President Trump Updates Press On “Vaccine Development” Amid Beijing Showdown

Tyler Durden

Fri, 05/15/2020 – 11:53

On a day where tensions between the US and China have dominated the business news cycle, President Trump is holding a press conference Friday at noon to deliver an update on vaccine development.

According to media reports, Trump on Friday will officially introduce a former pharmaceutical executive and a four star-general who will lead his crash-coronavirus vaccine effort, which has been dubbed “Operation Warp Speeds”.

The new “Vaccine Czar” is General is Gustave Perna, director of the Army Materiel Command, who will serve as chief operating officer of the reassuringly-named OWS (you can tell Trump came up with the name himself). Administration officials have billed the effort as a “Manhattan Project”-style push (and not the only one, to boot) intended to quicken development of a vaccine. Former GSK exec Moncef Slaoui is expected to be named as a senior adviser to the project.

“I think we’re going to have a vaccine by the end of the year, and I think distribution will take place almost simultaneously because we’ve geared up the military,” Trump told reporters Thursday.

Trump will make Perna and Slaoui’s appointments official in remarks from the White House Rose Garden.

Since the White House Task Force is no longer holding daily briefings, we imagine Trump’s presser will be closely watched by politicos and the market.

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

The Perpetual Crisis: Now The WHO Is Telling Us That COVID-19 “May Never Go Away”

The Perpetual Crisis: Now The WHO Is Telling Us That COVID-19 “May Never Go Away”

Tyler Durden

Fri, 05/15/2020 – 11:40

Authored by Michael Snyder via TheMostImportantNews.com,

Are you ready for “the new normal” to become permanent?  Originally, most of us assumed that “shelter-in-place orders” and “social distancing restrictions” would just be temporary, but now top health officials are warning us that some of these temporary measures may have to remain in place for the foreseeable future.  That means that our lives could be severely disrupted for a long time to come.  In fact, Dr. Anthony Fauci just told a Senate Committee that it may not be safe for schools all over America to reopen when the next school year begins in the fall.  Apparently Fauci and other medical “experts” believe that it will not be possible for us to fully go back to our normal lives as long as this virus keeps spreading.

But how long are we really supposed to wait?

The truth is that this pandemic could still potentially be in the early chapters.  The Spanish Flu pandemic lasted for three full years, and we could possibly be facing a similar scenario.

And this week WHO official Mike Ryan warned that this virus could even become “endemic”, and if that happens it “may never go away”…

“It is important to put this on the table: this virus may become just another endemic virus in our communities, and this virus may never go away,” WHO emergencies expert Mike Ryan told an online briefing.

“I think it is important we are realistic and I don’t think anyone can predict when this disease will disappear,” he added. “I think there are no promises in this and there are no dates. This disease may settle into a long problem, or it may not be.”

In other words, Ryan is saying that this virus could become like a flu that keeps reappearing year after year.

So what are we going to do if that happens?

Are we supposed to have shutdowns every year whenever a new wave of COVID-19 infections starts happening?

Of course the lockdowns haven’t really been that effective anyway.  They may have temporarily slowed down the spread of the virus, but eventually most of the U.S. population is going to get exposed to it anyway no matter what we do.

But instead of facing the reality of this pandemic, Fauci continues to stick to his guns.  And many Americans were completely outraged when he suggested that schools should continue to remain closed when the next school year is scheduled to begin.  The following bit of commentary comes from Tucker Carlson…

So just to be clear, Fauci was not simply talking about certain workers or even all workers staying at home for the foreseeable future. He implied that schools and colleges will be able to reopen only if there is a cure for this virus or a vaccine. He said that prospect was a bridge too far.

In other words, no school until the coronavirus has been cured — stopped.

The problem is there is currently no approved vaccine for any of the several coronaviruses out there. We still don’t have one for SARS. So, that may never happen. Once again, it has never happened.

A lot of people out there didn’t seem to believe me when I first started talking about how difficult it will be for researchers to create a vaccine for COVID-19.

Just like Tucker Carlson has said, there has never been a successful vaccine for any coronavirus in all of human history.

Despite all of our efforts, there is no vaccine for SARS.

And despite all of our efforts, there is no vaccine for MERS.

Needless to say, there isn’t such a thing as a “common cold vaccine” either, because such a thing does not exist.

Perhaps our scientists will beat the odds this time, and they will certainly do their best to do so.

But meanwhile many local officials all over the nation seem convinced that the best strategy for now is to continue keeping people at home.

For example, the “stay-at-home order” in Washington D.C. was just extended through June 8th…

Washington, D.C., is extending its stay-at-home order through June 8, Mayor Muriel Bowser (D) announced on Wednesday.

The mayor said that the city has not yet met all the required benchmarks to reopen.

And Public Health Director Barbara Ferrer just extended the “stay-at-home order” in Los Angeles County indefinitely…

Meanwhile, Ferrer extended the county’s stay-at-home order, which was implemented to slow the spread of the coronavirus and has barred gatherings and mandated physical distancing requirements. She said there is no end date to the revised health order and stressed that people should stay home as much as possible to help reduce the spread of COVID-19, which has killed more than 1,600 people in the county.

“As I’ve said from the beginning, this will be a slow journey,” Ferrer said.

Following that announcement, L.A. Mayor Eric Garcetti told Good Morning America that his city will “never be completely open until we have a cure.”

Good luck with all that.

I am so glad that I don’t live in Los Angeles, because residents of that city could be waiting for a “vaccine” or a “cure” for a very, very long time.

Are residents of L.A. just supposed to put their lives on hold indefinitely?  On Wednesday, we learned that the Hollywood Bowl has completely canceled their entire summer concert season…

The Hollywood Bowl scrapped its entire summer concert season Wednesday due to the coronavirus crisis, in a “devastating” move that leaves the Los Angeles Philharmonic with an $80 million shortfall.

The famous open-air California venue has hosted acts from the Beatles to Yo-Yo Ma over nearly a century, and its concerts from June through September are a staple of Los Angeles cultural life.

I was really saddened when I first read about that.

Social gatherings are so central to the human experience, and now we are being told that most of our major social gatherings will need to be delayed, postponed or canceled for the foreseeable future.

And what makes all of this even more tragic is that we are now learning that these lockdowns were never necessary in the first place.  If we all had worn masks from the very beginning, kept our Vitamin D levels up and used basic common sense, we could have continued our normal lives all this time just like they have been doing in Japan and Sweden.

Unfortunately, common sense is in short supply in America today, and it looks like this pandemic will continue to greatly disrupt our lives for a long time to come.

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

Let People Drink Outside

As the COVID-19 shutdowns extend into the warm summer months and people become increasingly restless under social distancing guidelines, bars and restaurants remain one of the hardest hit sectors of the economy. At the same time, cities are exploring ways to encourage the use of public outdoor spaces, which emerging evidence suggests can be enjoyed with minimal risks of transmitting the virus.

One simple policy could address both issues: Let people drink outside.

The United States has a notoriously conflicted relationship with alcohol, with our enthusiasm for drinking in tension with temperance attitudes and the patchwork of state-level regulations that succeeded Prohibition. For most of the country’s history, although there were laws against inebriation, the mere act of drinking in public spaces was not a crime. That began to change in the 1970s, when subjective laws penalizing drunkenness were replaced by more objective bans on public drinking. With few exceptions, it became illegal for American bars and restaurants to sell drinks to go and for adults to consume them outside of homes or private businesses.

Liberalizing these restrictions is obviously not going to be a popular idea among public health authorities, some of whom have been trying to revitalize the anti-alcohol movement. Whatever that movement’s long-term prospects, COVID-19 has dealt it a body blow in the short term. In response to the pandemic, states have loosened rules in ways I would have thought unimaginable just a few months ago.

When bars and restaurants were ordered to close, New York and the District of Columbia led the way by allowing them to sell pre-mixed cocktails for takeaway. Other states, from California to Maine, soon followed. In others, including Illinois and Texas, bars are now permitted to sell cocktail kits with full bottles of liquor for consumers to mix themselves.

None of this can replace the experience of going to an actual bar, but the new freedoms are proving popular. In Washington state, the success of cocktail kits led to the legalization of to-go cocktails. In Texas, Gov. Greg Abbot has indicated that the changes might stick around forever. Once consumers become used to picking up Margaritas with their Mexican food or Negronis with their pizza, they are unlikely to be enthusiastic about giving up the convenience.

But takeaway drinks’ potential to save struggling small businesses is limited by the fact that in most of the country it’s still illegal to consume them outside the home.

Although limited reopenings are already beginning, bars and restaurants will still face tight constraints on their ability to profitably operate. Many will have to significantly cut their capacity and reduce their hours; bar service may not be permitted at all, with patrons required to sit at tables. And no matter what local rules permit, consumers may be too fearful of the virus to spend time indoors surrounded by strangers.

Debates over when and how to open businesses are ongoing. Strict social distancing has helped suppress the virus, but it’s also psychologically taxing and economically destructive. Writing in The Atlantic, the Harvard epidemiologist Julia Marcus makes the case for a pragmatic approach focused on discouraging the highest risk behaviors. “Enclosed and crowded settings, especially with prolonged and close contact, have the highest risk of transmission, while casual interaction in outdoor settings seems to be much lower risk,” she writes. “A sustainable anti-coronavirus strategy would still advise against house parties. But it could also involve redesigning outdoor and indoor spaces to reduce crowding, increase ventilation, and promote physical distancing, thereby allowing people to live their lives while mitigating—but not eliminating—risk.”

In urban environments, easing restrictions on sidewalk tables and allowing seating to spill into closed streets and parking spaces has been suggested as a way of safely increasing bar and restaurant capacity. In suburban areas, allowing businesses to convert their legally mandated parking lots into outdoor dining spaces could have a similar effect.

Allowing to-go drinks and open containers would take these ideas a step further, offering struggling businesses one more avenue for survival. The experience of coffee shops suggests that this is possible, at least in principle.

My neighborhood shop tentatively opened on weekends to offer coffee and bags of beans to go. Guests approach one at a time and patiently wait outside, lined up six feet apart. The owners tell me that customers quickly adapted to the new model. The shop is now open for take-away coffees five days a week, a relative success in the COVID-19 economy.

Alcohol is not coffee, of course, and it raises additional concerns related to disinhibition and recklessness. Drinkers will be tempted to socialize in groups, people will go on dates, and it may be difficult to convey the importance of social distancing. These tendencies may limit the feasibility of liberalizing alcohol laws.

On the other hand, these consequences may be less dramatic than feared. Public drinking might bring to mind the debauchery of Bourbon Street in New Orleans, but it’s also permitted in calmer places like Sonoma, California, and Hood River, Oregon; in many countries outside of North America, it’s the norm. Limiting outdoor drinking to daylight hours, as in Sonoma Plaza, or requiring the purchase of food with a to-go cocktail, as is now the rule in several states, could help prevent a descent into bacchanal.

Legalizing open containers would to some extent merely recognize what many people are doing anyway. Anecdotally, my observations in Portland suggest an informal social compact implying that for as long as bars are closed, enforcement of public drinking laws will be lax. Parks are dotted with people openly enjoying beer and wine, and evening strolls around the neighborhood frequently take place with drink in hand.

The somewhat arbitrary distinction between distilled spirits and other alcoholic beverages also obscures the extent to which de facto to-go drinks are already available. Breweries have long offered beer in growlers and “crowlers,” aluminum cans that are filled directly from a tap and intended for near-term consumption. Wine-based drinks are allowed, too, which enables sale of “frosé,” a trendy frozen slushy made from rosé wine. It arrives in a sealed jar, but come on: Pedestrians picking them up on hot days aren’t all waiting until they get home to crack them open.

Permitting open containers could also help equalize enjoyment of public spaces. Unsurprisingly, when laws against public drinking are enforced, racial minorities appear to bear the brunt of the impact. In a 2012 decision, Judge Noach Dear of Brooklyn observed, “As hard as I try, I cannot recall ever arraigning a white defendant for such a violation.” A review of a month of summonses for public drinking in Brooklyn found that 85 percent of them targeted blacks and Latinos; whites, who made up about a third of the population, received only 4 percent. Clarifying open container rules could mitigate these disparities.

The public health community will argue that allowing to-go drinks and open containers will encourage people to drink more. That may be true to a degree, but it’s mostly beside the point. The big change under shutdowns is not that people have stopped drinking, it’s that they are drinking in ways that don’t provide revenue to the owners and employees of bars and restaurants. While governments have considered various ways to support small businesses, they have been insufficient to prevent a bloodbath in the hospitality industry. By one estimate, a quarter of U.S. restaurants won’t reopen ever again. Bars and restaurants simply won’t survive if they can’t engage in direct trade with their patrons.

In the absence of a vaccine or massively expanded test-and-trace capacity, the safest way to make that trade possible is to minimize indoor congregation. That rules out crowded bars, but it doesn’t necessarily rule out the expansion of drink-friendly outdoor spaces or picking up beer, wine, or cocktails for a leisurely ramble around the neighborhood, especially in walkable urban areas. Yet current reopening plans are focused on bringing patrons inside bars and restaurants, precisely where both they and employees may be most at risk of transmitting the virus.

To walk around my city now is to be constantly reminded of the shuttered places where in ordinary times I would be tempted to stop in for a snack, a coffee, or a drink. If we want the businesses we love to be there when we reach the other side of this pandemic, we need ways to support them.

Removing barriers imposed by restrictive alcohol regulations has proven to be one means of doing this. Perhaps, with some care, we can extend that to allowing drinks outside, whether by extending seating into streets and sidewalks or by relaxing open container laws. And if, when this is over, we decide that we don’t wish to return to criminalizing responsible drinking in public spaces, that temporary repeal could become permanent.

(Disclosure: I work in the hospitality industry, consulting for spirits brands and sometimes working as a bartender.)

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Another week, another governor with a God complex

Are you ready for this week’s absurdity? Here’s our Friday roll-up of the most ridiculous stories from around the world that are threats to your liberty, risks to your prosperity… and on occasion, inspiring poetic justice.

Police arrest surfers for standing still on the beach

Like most of the world, Cape Town, South Africa is on lockdown to stop the spread of the virus.

The city does allow residents to walk along the beach during an “exercise window” every morning from 6am to 9am, as if everyone is an incarcerated felon.

But you aren’t allowed to go in the ocean to surf, or to paddleboard.

Surfers have pointed out that while the walkways get crowded, the open ocean has practically limitless space… so it’s clearly a lot easier to maintain social distancing while in the ocean, rather than being packed together on the boardwalk.

Unfortunately government orders are not known for being logical.

To push back, surfers went to the beach and simply stood there with their surfboards and protest signs.

Police came along and told them to keep moving. After all, this was an “exercise window,” not a “stand at the beach window.”

Those who ignored the orders were arrested for standing still when they should have been exercising.

Click here to read the full story.

Barber has license revoked for re-opening

Karl Manke, a 77 year old barber, had his license suspended because he opened his shop in defiance of Michigan’s lockdown order.

The state suspended the license without due process– they simply revoked his right to earn a living.

But Karl Manke kept on cutting hair.

There has been no shortage of customers for the week he’s been open. Some waited for two hours for a haircut, just to support a man who is standing up for himself.

“I’m not trying to be a scofflaw. I’m trying to make a living,” said Manke. “I tried for the unemployment. I was denied twice on unemployment.”

Manke is facing a $1000 fine and two misdemeanor charges.

But a judge refused to sign an order to stop Manke from operating until he has a hearing on June 23. The local Sheriff also said he will not enforce the Governor’s orders.

It’s unclear if the Governor’s orders even hold legal weight, since the state legislature did not authorize the lockdown extension.

But regardless of the legal consequences, Manke vowed to stand up against violations of his rights. And he has plenty of support.

Click here to read the full story.

Colorado restaurant license revoked after opening for Mother’s Day

A Colorado restaurant had its license revoked by the county health board after it opened for Mother’s Day.

The restaurant opened in defiance of the statewide lockdown order, prompting the Governor of Colorado to criticize the restaurant owner at a press conference:

“Customers will return en masse when they feel safe. When people see videos of people packed into a restaurant with no social distancing and no masks, people feel less safe and the widespread economic pain will only be prolonged.”

Wait… doesn’t a packed restaurant mean that people feel safe enough to return en masse? Everyone in that packed restaurant was there voluntarily. They were all willing to be around other people, and hence felt safe enough to do so.

The Governor continued, “I love my mom far too much to put her at risk by visiting a busy restaurant operating illegally just to take a selfie with omelets and a mimosa.”

That’s great, dude. Then you and your mom can stay at home cowering in fear while grown adults who are willing to take a chance go out in the world and live their lives.

It is not about haircuts or mimosas. It is about basic freedoms, and the overreach of a government authority. No one authorized this person to play God with other people’s lives.

Click here to read the full story.

Four plans in Congress to forgive varying amounts of student debt

Jubilee is coming! There are now FOUR different plans in Congress to forgive student loan debt.

They all have distinct features and forgive varying amounts of debt for different groups of people.

For example, one plan would forgive up to $25,000 worth of student loans for essential workers, such as healthcare workers, first responders, postal employees, and grocery store workers.

Another proposal would forgive ALL student loan debt for any medical workers caring for Covid-19 patients. Keep in mind that many of these doctors and nurses have six figures of debt.

Another bill would forgive federal student loans for everyone, but only up to a limit of $10,000.

And another version of that same bill would go further, forgiving up to $30,000 worth of government-backed student loans.

There’s actually a fifth plan, put forth by Joe Biden’s team, which would forgive federal student loan debt for anyone who attended either a public university or a historically black college.

We’ve been predicting a debt jubilee for years. It might not be one of these plans, but you can see the writing on the wall. Debt forgiveness is coming… and so are the economic consequences that go with it.

Click here to read the full story.

National debt hits $25 trillion without fanfare

Speaking of debt, total US National Debt surpassed $25 trillion on May 5.

That is a whopping 117% of the USA’s Gross Domestic Product. The debt has only been higher, as a percentage of GDP, just after World War II.

But we’re just at the very beginning of World War Covid-19– or rather, the economic devastation caused by the government response to the pandemic. So just wait, because we’ll see $30 trillion soon.

Click here to see the Treasury’s numbers.

Source

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Ninth Circuit Panel Stays (by 2-1 Vote) Injunction Against California Ammunition Restrictions

From Rhode v. Becerra (9th Cir.) (by Judges Barry Silverman and Jacqueline Nguyen), released yesterday:

This appeal challenges the district court’s preliminary injunction prohibiting the enforcement of California restrictions on the purchase of ammunition on Second Amendment and dormant Commerce Clause grounds. The California Attorney General moves for a stay of the injunction pending appeal.

In evaluating a motion for stay pending appeal we consider four factors: “(1) whether the stay applicant has made a strong showing that he is likely to succeed on the merits; (2) whether the applicant will be irreparably injured absent a stay; (3) whether issuance of the stay will substantially injure the other parties interested in the proceeding; and (4) where the public interest lies.”

Appellant [the AG] satisfies the first factor because he has “show[n], at a minimum, that [he] has a substantial case for relief on the merits.” As the Supreme Court recognized in Heller, Second Amendment rights are not unlimited. See District of Columbia v. Heller, 554 U.S. 570, 626-27 (2008) (“[N]othing in our opinion should be taken to cast doubt on … laws imposing conditions and qualifications on the commercial sale of arms.”); see also Jackson v. City & Cty. of San Francisco, 746 F.3d 953, 970 (9th Cir. 2014) (Second Amendment right to purchase ammunition “may be subjected to governmental restrictions which survive the appropriate level of scrutiny”).  The dormant Commerce Clause does not prohibit a state from enforcing a law that does not “discriminate[] against or directly regulate[] interstate commerce” and is not “clearly excessive in relation to the putative local benefits.”

Appellant has also shown sufficient likelihood of irreparable harm absent a stay, and that the remaining factors favor a stay. The provisions of state law at issue were in effect for more than nine months before the district court’s preliminary injunction.  Appellees do not contend that they were unable to purchase ammunition lawfully and with minimal delay while those provisions were in effect….

Judge Daniel Collins dissented:

In my view, Appellant has not made a sufficient showing on the merits, and the balance of hardships also weighs against a stay here.

[1.] The Second Amendment, which “is fully applicable to the States,” protects “the right to keep and bear arms for the purpose of self-defense.” This Second Amendment “right to possess firearms for protection implies a corresponding right to obtain the bullets necessary to use them.” Because the challenged scheme for requiring background checks for ammunition purchases thus directly “burdens conduct protected by the Second Amendment,” Appellant must show that it satisfies the appropriate level of constitutional scrutiny…. Because I conclude that Appellant has failed to make the requisite strong showing on the merits of his defense of the ammunition background check system under intermediate scrutiny, I have no occasion to decide whether a higher level of scrutiny should be applied.

[a.] As a threshold issue, Appellant argues that Plaintiffs lack standing to bring a facial challenge. According to Appellant, Plaintiffs’ contention that the background check system fails intermediate scrutiny impermissibly rests in large measure on how the law operates as a whole, rather than as applied only to Plaintiffs.

This argument appears to misconceive the nature of intermediate scrutiny as applicable here. Our intermediate scrutiny standards in the Second Amendment context have “looked to the First Amendment as a guide” and similarly require a showing of a “significant, substantial, or important” objective and “a reasonable fit between the challenged regulation and the asserted objective.” Even in the commercial speech context, where the expansive overbreadth doctrine does not apply, an “attack upon a commercial-speech restriction on narrow-tailoring grounds” requires some consideration of how the law operates as a whole, and therefore, in a successful challenge, “the rationale of the narrow-tailoring holding may be so broad as to render the statute effectively unenforceable.” Board of Trustees of State Univ. of N.Y. v. Fox, 492 U.S. 469, 483 (1989); see also Central Hudson Gas & Elec. Corp. v. Public Serv. Comm’n of N.Y., 447 U.S. 557, 565 n.8 (1980) (expressly distinguishing between the overbreadth doctrine and an intermediate-scrutiny narrow-tailoring challenge, and noting that, in the latter type of challenge, “to the extent the limitations are unnecessary to serve the State’s interest, they are invalid”).

Applying comparable principles in the Second Amendment context, I conclude that, at least at this stage, Appellant has not made a sufficient showing that the district court erred in employing a broader focus in evaluating Plaintiffs’ contention that they (including those whom the organizational plaintiff represents) are being impermissibly subject to burdens by regulations that lack a sufficient reasonable fit to survive intermediate scrutiny.

[b.] Appellant’s motion does not establish a reasonable probability of success under intermediate scrutiny. For purposes of this motion, I assume that California has a substantial interest in ensuring that ammunition does not fall into the hands of persons prohibited under California or federal law from possessing it, such as felons, aliens unlawfully present in the United States, and “mental defective[s].” California law and/or federal law already impose criminal penalties on such possession, and both impose systems for conducting background checks in connection with purchases of firearms. The question is whether the additional restriction that California has imposed here, i.e., generally requiring background checks before each purchase of ammunition, has been shown by Appellant to be “reasonably tailored” to providing further material support to that goal in light of its impact on constitutional rights. Here, the factual findings of the district court indicate a particularly lopsided imbalance between the claimed benefits and burdens.

The district court found that, through January 2020, there were some 754 instances in which a prohibited person was prevented from purchasing ammunition through California’s ammunition background check system, and approximately 101,047 instances in which “residents who are not prohibited persons … failed a background check.”  Appellant argues that the district court apparently overlooked the possibility that many of these instances involved the same person failing on multiple occasions, and Appellant contends that when that factor is considered, the court’s number overstates the “number of unique individuals” involved by about 25%. (The evidence cited by Appellant on this point suggests that he thinks the number should instead be about 81,112 persons.) Appellant also emphasizes that many of these 81,000 or so persons were subsequently able to pass a different, more cumbersome form of background check and to purchase ammunition.

But as the district court noted, “between 53.5% and 60% of residents who are rejected each month still ha[d] not been authorized to purchase ammunition” as of January 2020, and “the resolution process” for those who had succeeded was “hardly quick.” Taking these adjustments into account indicates that, through January 2020, approximately 750 prohibited purchasers had been stopped from buying ammunition but roughly 45,000 or so “residents who are not prohibited persons” had also been prevented from doing so. { Appellant’s motion speculates that, for the approximately 30% of rejections that occurred due to the would-be purchaser’s lack of a firearm record in the relevant state system, “it is possible” that some subset of those persons “were prohibited persons.” Appellant points to no evidence that substantiates that speculation, much less attempts to quantify it.} And beyond this disparity in impacts, the district court also noted the system’s apparent effect on the overall volume of ammunition transactions: although California had forecast that “approximately 13 million ammunition transactions” would occur in one year, the number of background checks conducted using the two primary methods was “only 635,856” over a seven-month period.

The purpose of the tailoring requirement is to ensure that the benefits of a regulation are not disproportionate to the burdens on constitutionally protected conduct. Without endorsing everything that the district court said in its voluminous opinion, I agree that the sort of stark imbalance between benefits and burdens here suggests poor tailoring.

[2.] Although the Commerce Clause is a positive grant of power to Congress, the Supreme Court has held that there is a “negative” aspect to the clause that prohibits “state laws that unduly restrict interstate commerce.”

We analyze dormant Commerce Clause claims using a “two-tiered approach.” Under the first tier, we ask whether the state law “either discriminates against or directly regulates interstate commerce.” If the state law does either, it is “virtually per se invalid and will survive only if it advances a legitimate local purpose that cannot be adequately served by reasonable nondiscriminatory alternatives.” Under the second tier, we ask whether “the burden [the state law] imposes on interstate commerce is clearly excessive in relation to the putative local benefits.” I do not believe that Appellant has made a sufficiently strong showing on his claim that California’s restriction on direct interstate sales of ammunition is consistent with the dormant Commerce Clause.

The district court concluded that, by requiring that all sales of ammunition “occur in a face-to-face transaction,” California has both discriminatorily favored in-state ammunition merchants and has imposed burdens on interstate commerce that “far outweigh whatever benefit it is designed to achieve.” Particularly given Appellant’s likely lack of success concerning the background check system (which might otherwise be thought to provide some arguable justification for the face-to-face requirement), Appellant has not shown at this stage that he has a fair chance of success in his contention that the district court erred in finding that the challenged provision violates the Commerce Clause.

[3.] Even if I were to conclude that Appellant has at least raised “serious legal questions” on appeal, I do not think that he has made the concomitant showing that “the balance of hardships tips sharply in [his] favor.” I do not disagree with Appellant’s contention that “a state suffers irreparable injury whenever an enactment of its people or their representatives is enjoined,” but it is likewise true that the loss of constitutional rights “generally constitute[s] irreparable harm.”

Particularly given the very lopsided allocation of burdens and benefits occasioned by California’s wholly novel effort at ammunition background checks, the balance of equities, if anything, tips sharply against Appellant here.

For these reasons, I would deny the request for a stay of the preliminary injunction. I respectfully dissent.

To read more about the district court decision that’s being appealed, see this post by David Kopel.

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Facebook Buys Giphy For $400 Million As Tech Giant Pledges To Banish All “Hateful Memes”

Facebook Buys Giphy For $400 Million As Tech Giant Pledges To Banish All “Hateful Memes”

Tyler Durden

Fri, 05/15/2020 – 11:24

Remember when Jeff Bezos agreed to buy the Washington Post back in 2013 for a paltry ~$250 million?

Well, nearly 10 years later, Facebook has reportedly agreed to pay ~$400 million for Giphy, described by Axios as “a popular platform for animated images”. The deal comes as the Trump Administration DoJ cranks up anti-trust scrutiny of tech titans.

The takeaway, according to Axios, is that Facebook’s powerhouse advertising business will enable it to easily monetize Giphy’s content, potentially transforming the business into an extremely profitable one.

Background: A source close to the situation says that the two companies first began talking prior to the pandemic, although that was more about a partnership than an acquisition.

Giphy is expected to retain its own branding, with its primary integration to come via Facebook’s Instagram platform.

New York-based Giphy had raised around $150 million in VC funding since its 2013 inception, from firms like Betaworks (which incubated the company), Lerer Hippeau, IVP, DFJ Growth, GGV Capital, and Lightspeed Venture Partners. Its most recent private valuation was around $600 million.

The bottom line: Giphy is a massive video library, with hundreds of millions of daily users that share billions of GIFs, that generates revenue via branded content. Adding Facebook’s ad sales and marketing firepower could be what transforms it from a popular service into a highly profitable one.

Sources: Axios

Adding an extra layer of irony, Facebook this week announced the launch of its “Hateful Memes Challenge” where researchers will compete for a cash prize to develop an AI that can “successfully detect” “hateful memes” (ie anything that anyone finds offensive, probably a much broader category than many realize).

In a blog post, the company admits that it continues to struggle to meet the left’s unrealistically high standards for banishing “hate speech” – much of which consists of political speech that makes snowflake lefties uncomfortable. Now, Facebook is gaining control of the world’s biggest repository of gifs and memes, giving it even more power to control and censor content on the Internet.

In its blog post about that program, FB explains why developing such an algorithm is so difficult, inadvertently revealing why their previous attempts have accidentally and unfairly banned thousands of users and groups, per Summit.

“In order for AI to become a more effective tool for detecting hate speech, it must be able to understand content the way people do: holistically,” writes Facebook. “When viewing a meme, for example, we don’t think about the words and photo independently of each other; we understand the combined meaning together. This is extremely challenging for machines, however, because it means they can’t just analyze the text and the image separately. They must combine these different modalities and understand how the meaning changes when they are presented together.”

Interesting…we imagine the machines will have an easy time decoding all those absurdist memes that Zoomers love and boomers simply don’t understand.

The deal also shows how much our society values ‘quality journalism’ like the kind produced by the Washington Post. They’d literally think a repository of Cat Gifs is more valuable than the institution that took down a president.

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Ninth Circuit Panel Stays (by 2-1 Vote) Injunction Against California Ammunition Restrictions

From Rhode v. Becerra (9th Cir.) (by Judges Barry Silverman and Jacqueline Nguyen), released yesterday:

This appeal challenges the district court’s preliminary injunction prohibiting the enforcement of California restrictions on the purchase of ammunition on Second Amendment and dormant Commerce Clause grounds. The California Attorney General moves for a stay of the injunction pending appeal.

In evaluating a motion for stay pending appeal we consider four factors: “(1) whether the stay applicant has made a strong showing that he is likely to succeed on the merits; (2) whether the applicant will be irreparably injured absent a stay; (3) whether issuance of the stay will substantially injure the other parties interested in the proceeding; and (4) where the public interest lies.”

Appellant [the AG] satisfies the first factor because he has “show[n], at a minimum, that [he] has a substantial case for relief on the merits.” As the Supreme Court recognized in Heller, Second Amendment rights are not unlimited. See District of Columbia v. Heller, 554 U.S. 570, 626-27 (2008) (“[N]othing in our opinion should be taken to cast doubt on … laws imposing conditions and qualifications on the commercial sale of arms.”); see also Jackson v. City & Cty. of San Francisco, 746 F.3d 953, 970 (9th Cir. 2014) (Second Amendment right to purchase ammunition “may be subjected to governmental restrictions which survive the appropriate level of scrutiny”).  The dormant Commerce Clause does not prohibit a state from enforcing a law that does not “discriminate[] against or directly regulate[] interstate commerce” and is not “clearly excessive in relation to the putative local benefits.”

Appellant has also shown sufficient likelihood of irreparable harm absent a stay, and that the remaining factors favor a stay. The provisions of state law at issue were in effect for more than nine months before the district court’s preliminary injunction.  Appellees do not contend that they were unable to purchase ammunition lawfully and with minimal delay while those provisions were in effect….

Judge Daniel Collins dissented:

In my view, Appellant has not made a sufficient showing on the merits, and the balance of hardships also weighs against a stay here.

[1.] The Second Amendment, which “is fully applicable to the States,” protects “the right to keep and bear arms for the purpose of self-defense.” This Second Amendment “right to possess firearms for protection implies a corresponding right to obtain the bullets necessary to use them.” Because the challenged scheme for requiring background checks for ammunition purchases thus directly “burdens conduct protected by the Second Amendment,” Appellant must show that it satisfies the appropriate level of constitutional scrutiny…. Because I conclude that Appellant has failed to make the requisite strong showing on the merits of his defense of the ammunition background check system under intermediate scrutiny, I have no occasion to decide whether a higher level of scrutiny should be applied.

[a.] As a threshold issue, Appellant argues that Plaintiffs lack standing to bring a facial challenge. According to Appellant, Plaintiffs’ contention that the background check system fails intermediate scrutiny impermissibly rests in large measure on how the law operates as a whole, rather than as applied only to Plaintiffs.

This argument appears to misconceive the nature of intermediate scrutiny as applicable here. Our intermediate scrutiny standards in the Second Amendment context have “looked to the First Amendment as a guide” and similarly require a showing of a “significant, substantial, or important” objective and “a reasonable fit between the challenged regulation and the asserted objective.” Even in the commercial speech context, where the expansive overbreadth doctrine does not apply, an “attack upon a commercial-speech restriction on narrow-tailoring grounds” requires some consideration of how the law operates as a whole, and therefore, in a successful challenge, “the rationale of the narrow-tailoring holding may be so broad as to render the statute effectively unenforceable.” Board of Trustees of State Univ. of N.Y. v. Fox, 492 U.S. 469, 483 (1989); see also Central Hudson Gas & Elec. Corp. v. Public Serv. Comm’n of N.Y., 447 U.S. 557, 565 n.8 (1980) (expressly distinguishing between the overbreadth doctrine and an intermediate-scrutiny narrow-tailoring challenge, and noting that, in the latter type of challenge, “to the extent the limitations are unnecessary to serve the State’s interest, they are invalid”).

Applying comparable principles in the Second Amendment context, I conclude that, at least at this stage, Appellant has not made a sufficient showing that the district court erred in employing a broader focus in evaluating Plaintiffs’ contention that they (including those whom the organizational plaintiff represents) are being impermissibly subject to burdens by regulations that lack a sufficient reasonable fit to survive intermediate scrutiny.

[b.] Appellant’s motion does not establish a reasonable probability of success under intermediate scrutiny. For purposes of this motion, I assume that California has a substantial interest in ensuring that ammunition does not fall into the hands of persons prohibited under California or federal law from possessing it, such as felons, aliens unlawfully present in the United States, and “mental defective[s].” California law and/or federal law already impose criminal penalties on such possession, and both impose systems for conducting background checks in connection with purchases of firearms. The question is whether the additional restriction that California has imposed here, i.e., generally requiring background checks before each purchase of ammunition, has been shown by Appellant to be “reasonably tailored” to providing further material support to that goal in light of its impact on constitutional rights. Here, the factual findings of the district court indicate a particularly lopsided imbalance between the claimed benefits and burdens.

The district court found that, through January 2020, there were some 754 instances in which a prohibited person was prevented from purchasing ammunition through California’s ammunition background check system, and approximately 101,047 instances in which “residents who are not prohibited persons … failed a background check.”  Appellant argues that the district court apparently overlooked the possibility that many of these instances involved the same person failing on multiple occasions, and Appellant contends that when that factor is considered, the court’s number overstates the “number of unique individuals” involved by about 25%. (The evidence cited by Appellant on this point suggests that he thinks the number should instead be about 81,112 persons.) Appellant also emphasizes that many of these 81,000 or so persons were subsequently able to pass a different, more cumbersome form of background check and to purchase ammunition.

But as the district court noted, “between 53.5% and 60% of residents who are rejected each month still ha[d] not been authorized to purchase ammunition” as of January 2020, and “the resolution process” for those who had succeeded was “hardly quick.” Taking these adjustments into account indicates that, through January 2020, approximately 750 prohibited purchasers had been stopped from buying ammunition but roughly 45,000 or so “residents who are not prohibited persons” had also been prevented from doing so. { Appellant’s motion speculates that, for the approximately 30% of rejections that occurred due to the would-be purchaser’s lack of a firearm record in the relevant state system, “it is possible” that some subset of those persons “were prohibited persons.” Appellant points to no evidence that substantiates that speculation, much less attempts to quantify it.} And beyond this disparity in impacts, the district court also noted the system’s apparent effect on the overall volume of ammunition transactions: although California had forecast that “approximately 13 million ammunition transactions” would occur in one year, the number of background checks conducted using the two primary methods was “only 635,856” over a seven-month period.

The purpose of the tailoring requirement is to ensure that the benefits of a regulation are not disproportionate to the burdens on constitutionally protected conduct. Without endorsing everything that the district court said in its voluminous opinion, I agree that the sort of stark imbalance between benefits and burdens here suggests poor tailoring.

[2.] Although the Commerce Clause is a positive grant of power to Congress, the Supreme Court has held that there is a “negative” aspect to the clause that prohibits “state laws that unduly restrict interstate commerce.”

We analyze dormant Commerce Clause claims using a “two-tiered approach.” Under the first tier, we ask whether the state law “either discriminates against or directly regulates interstate commerce.” If the state law does either, it is “virtually per se invalid and will survive only if it advances a legitimate local purpose that cannot be adequately served by reasonable nondiscriminatory alternatives.” Under the second tier, we ask whether “the burden [the state law] imposes on interstate commerce is clearly excessive in relation to the putative local benefits.” I do not believe that Appellant has made a sufficiently strong showing on his claim that California’s restriction on direct interstate sales of ammunition is consistent with the dormant Commerce Clause.

The district court concluded that, by requiring that all sales of ammunition “occur in a face-to-face transaction,” California has both discriminatorily favored in-state ammunition merchants and has imposed burdens on interstate commerce that “far outweigh whatever benefit it is designed to achieve.” Particularly given Appellant’s likely lack of success concerning the background check system (which might otherwise be thought to provide some arguable justification for the face-to-face requirement), Appellant has not shown at this stage that he has a fair chance of success in his contention that the district court erred in finding that the challenged provision violates the Commerce Clause.

[3.] Even if I were to conclude that Appellant has at least raised “serious legal questions” on appeal, I do not think that he has made the concomitant showing that “the balance of hardships tips sharply in [his] favor.” I do not disagree with Appellant’s contention that “a state suffers irreparable injury whenever an enactment of its people or their representatives is enjoined,” but it is likewise true that the loss of constitutional rights “generally constitute[s] irreparable harm.”

Particularly given the very lopsided allocation of burdens and benefits occasioned by California’s wholly novel effort at ammunition background checks, the balance of equities, if anything, tips sharply against Appellant here.

For these reasons, I would deny the request for a stay of the preliminary injunction. I respectfully dissent.

To read more about the district court decision that’s being appealed, see this post by David Kopel.

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Fauci Versus Trump – Who’s Right?

Fauci Versus Trump – Who’s Right?

Tyler Durden

Fri, 05/15/2020 – 11:05

Authored by Patrick Buchanan via Buchanan.org,

“We have met the moment and we have prevailed,” said President Donald Trump Monday, as he supported the opening of the U.S. economy before the shutdown plunges us into a deep and lasting depression.

Tuesday, Dr. Anthony S. Fauci, the nation’s leading expert on infectious diseases, made clear to a Senate committee his contradictory views.

“If states reopen their economies too soon, there is a real risk that you may trigger an outbreak that you may not be able to control,” said Fauci.

“My concern is that we will start to see little spikes that might turn into outbreaks of the disease (and) the inevitable return of infections.”

Fauci is talking of the real possibility of a second and even more severe wave of the pandemic this summer and fall, if we open too soon.

There is evidence to justify the fears of Fauci and Dr. Robert Redfield of the Centers for Disease Control, who told the same Senate committee, “We are not out of the woods yet.”

Yet, there is a case to be made for the risks that Trump and red state governors are taking in opening up sooner.

The Washington Post daily graph of new deaths nationally has been showing a curve sloping downward for a month from April’s more than 2,000 a day. On no day yet this week did the U.S. record 2,000 dead from the virus. On some days, there were fewer than 1,000.

The graph for new coronavirus cases, which was showing more than 30,000 a day in April, is now closer to 25,000.

Also, hospitalizations and ICU occupancies are not as high as they were. Hospitals put up in Central Park and the Javits Center seem not to have been needed. There was and is no shortage of ventilators. The Navy hospital ships Comfort and Mercy are returning to their home ports.

Also, not all states are suffering equally, nor are all communities in the hardest-hit states. There have been three times as many COVID-19 cases in New Jersey as in Texas, though New Jersey is a fraction of the size and has a fraction of the population of Texas.

There are twice as many cases in Massachusetts as in Florida, the nation’s third-most populous state with one of its highest percentages of retirees and elderly. There have been five times as many cases in New York as in California.

It is the nursing homes filled with the elderly and ill that have proven to be the real killing fields of this virus.

According to The New York Times, one-third of all deaths from COVID-19 have come among residents and staff of nursing homes. Beyond these are the meatpacking plants and the prisons where social distancing is almost nonexistent.

Moreover, while Fauci and Redfield are specialists in epidemics, Trump’s portfolio goes far beyond that.

He is chief of state, head of government and commander in chief, responsible for the security and defense of the nation. His portfolio is broader and deeper than those of Fauci and Redfield.

In the first hours of the Normandy invasion, General Eisenhower must have been rightly alarmed about the high U.S. casualties on Omaha Beach. But he also had to concern himself with the failure to capture the Port of Caen to bring ashore the armor to stop any German counterattack that might turn D-Day into another Anzio.

Ike could not worry about casualties alone.

According to The Washington Post, economists already project that 100,000 small businesses have shuttered, never to reopen.

“(D)eeper and longer recessions can leave behind lasting damage to the productive capacity of the economy,” warned Federal Reserve Board Chair Jerome Powell on Wednesday.

“Avoidable household and business insolvencies can weigh on growth for years to come.”

Ultimately, Fauci is not “The Decider” here. Trump is.

It is he who is accountable to the nation for weighing the losses, both human and material, due to his decisions.

Fauci may be the best at what he does, but he is still only an adviser.

As John F. Kennedy said after the Bay of Pigs, it is the president who ultimately bears responsibility for what he does and fails to do, while “the advisers may move on to new advice.”

Believing he can do no more than his White House is now doing to contain the incidence of cases, hospitalizations and deaths, Trump has decided his primary job is to prevent the nation from a catastrophic economic collapse from which it might take years to recover.

The country is slowly moving in Trump’s direction, slowly opening. And he will be responsible for whether the policy succeeds or opens the floodgates to a second and worse wave, should it come.

As Abraham Lincoln put his situation: “I mean to keep going. If the end brings me out all right, then what is said against me won’t matter. If I’m wrong, ten angels swearing I was right won’t make a difference.”

via ZeroHedge News https://ift.tt/2LJ0GZ7 Tyler Durden

Ignore Dismal Retail Sales Report: Latest Daily Spending Data Shows 2020 Is Now Higher Than 2019

Ignore Dismal Retail Sales Report: Latest Daily Spending Data Shows 2020 Is Now Higher Than 2019

Tyler Durden

Fri, 05/15/2020 – 10:49

One month ago, when looking at the March retail sales report – which only captured the last two weeks of the US shutdown- and comparing it to the Bank of America real-time credit and debit card spending data, we concluded that “Retail Sales Were Bad; The Reality Is Catastrophic.”

Fast forwarding to today, when this morning the Commerce Dept published its snapshot for retail spending in April, which as we duly noted saw the biggest drop on record, with a total collapse in auto and clothing sales.

However, in a mirror image of last month, while the government’s April “snapshot” report was indeed terrifying, a daily series tracking day-to-day outlays shows that consumer spending bottomed in mid/late-April and has since rebounded vigorously. As Bank of America writes in its latest consumer spending report which tracks BofA credit and debit car spending, “the daily data show meaningful improvement in spending into May, driven by the lower income population. Total card spending is now running at a pace of -10% yoy over the 5-day period of May 3- May 7, a big shift from the low of -36% yoy during the last 5 days of March.

And in a remarkable reversal, retail sales ex-auto spending is now actually increasing, running at a 1% yoy rate over the same 5-day period.”

There are two critical reasons for the improvement in consumer spending: stimulus payments and phased reopening of the economy. Stimulus payments started to filter in on April 15th through direct deposits which was followed by physical checks.

These have boosted incomes for the lowest population quintiles, which have the highest propensity to spend, and that’s precisely what they are doing, as retail spending surges led by those making less than $20K.

In addition, an increasing number of unemployed have successfully filled jobless claims. This combined stimulus has helped to backstop income and make people more confident about the future, according to BofA, and sure enough one can see that in the spending data.

Meanwhile, the impact from the reopening is more recent – we zero in on spending in GA and TX given that both states have begun the reopening process. Spending at beauty salons in GA averaged -46% yoy between May 1- 7th, up from the low of -96% in the beginning of April (TX didn’t open beauty salons until May 8th). Both states also saw a pickup in spending at restaurants and department stores.

Looking at overall discretionary spending by major Metropolitan Statistical Area (MSA), we found the biggest relative improvement over the week in Dallas, Atlanta and Houston.

The picture is more mixed when looking at spending on discretionary goods, where the strong rebound in furniture store spending continues, offset by weaker restaurant, transit and department store trends.

Despite the overall recovery, spending on the “socially intensive” travel and entertainment categories remains near all time lows.

However, no matter what the trends are “out there”, one persistent winner is online spending, which continues to grow by leaps and bounds, as the following series of charts shows.

It appears that not even a global viral pandemic can keep the US consumer down even during the biggest economic shock in history.

via ZeroHedge News https://ift.tt/2zF65xu Tyler Durden

Job Openings Plunge Most On Record Amid Mass Layoffs, Plunge In Hiring

Job Openings Plunge Most On Record Amid Mass Layoffs, Plunge In Hiring

Tyler Durden

Fri, 05/15/2020 – 10:30

With the BLS’s JOLTs, or job openings and labor turnover, survey coming in with an extra month delay, we already knew that the March data would be dismal (especially considering the total implosion in April when over 20 million people lost their jobs), and sure enough that’s what happened when the BLS reported that in March the number of job openings plunged from an upward revised 7.004 million to just 6.191 million, the 813K monthly drop the largest on record going back to 2000.

The largest declines in job openings took place in accommodation and food services (-258,000) and durable goods manufacturing (-82,000).

As a result of the surge in unemployed people in March and the plunge in job openings, the series of 24 consecutive months in which there were more job openings than unemployed workers is now officially over, with 949K more unemployed workers than there are job openings, the biggest gap since May 2017.

Keep in mind this is from March; the April data will be far, far worse.

Also far worse will be the number of hires, which in March dropped by 658K, from 5.864 million to 5.206 million, something which one can argue was long overdue considering the persistent outperformance of this series relative to the rolling 12 month payroll change. Hires decreased in accommodation and food services (-344,000), health care and social assistance (-87,000), and durable goods manufacturing (-33,000). Hires increased in federal government (+8,000).

And while we wait for the true shocker of a JOLTs report next month, there was one series that hinted at just how ugly it will get, when the number of layoffs soared to 11.372 million, up by 9.5 million in one month, and the biggest monthly total on record. . The number of layoffs and discharges increased for total private to 11.2 million (+9,445,000) and for government to 175,000 (+80,000). The layoffs and discharges level increased significantly in all but one industry, with the largest increases in accommodation and food services (+4,136,000) and retail trade (+908,000)

And, inversely, with everyone getting fired, virtually nobody had any interest in voluntarily quitting and such the number of quits tumbled by the most ever, from 3.436MM to 2.782MM, the lowest level since 2015. Total private quits fell to 2.6 million (-640,000), while government edged down to 177,000 (-14,000). Quits decreased in a number of industries, with the largest decreases in accommodation and food services (-145,000) and retail trade (-137,000).

 

via ZeroHedge News https://ift.tt/2T3eRfx Tyler Durden