How Bubbles, Price, & COVID-19 Changed Bitcoin For Me

How Bubbles, Price, & COVID-19 Changed Bitcoin For Me

Authored by Joakim Book via BitcoinMagazine.com,

Bitcoin is not a bubble. It’s the monetary escape hatch we need now that the COVID-19 cat is out of the bag…

I trained as a financial historian. My academic work focused on banks and financial markets in the past, and I was always fascinated by iconic bubbles of financial history — the tulip mania, the financial boom of the 1690s, the South Sea Company and Britain’s many financial panics in the 19th century.

I wrote a thesis on the 1847 commercial crisis. I analyzed financial returns on London’s stock market in the Victorian and Edwardian eras, and showed that returns then squared well with the first round of factor analyses developed a century later. I investigated the Bank of England’s role in the 1857 crisis, the 1866 Overend, Gurney & Company collapse and the 1890 bailout of Baring Brothers. (If you are under the impression that financial crises, government mismanagement and central bank bailouts only happened in the post-1971 era of modern monetary debasement, you are sorely mistaken).

You could, Ray Dalio-style, say that nothing is new under our financial sun: many of these past crises map well onto more modern ones — perhaps, because there are only so many ways to make losses or catastrophically ruin monetary arrangements.

While the concept of “bubbles” runs freely across the chronicles of financial history and those who study it, I was less convinced. The hand-waving arrogance with which well-established financial historians would denounce something as a bubble, delusion or financial madness would be familiar to most bitcoiners reading The New York Times or The Economist today. Mostly, these otherwise astute academics meant to launch derogatory remarks on the sorts of people who handled assets, and implied that real-world plebs in trading pits or exchanges couldn’t possibly possess knowledge of the superior kind with which their own university libraries embodied them. Worse, when pushed, the idea of bubbles never seemed to mean much else than “what goes up must come down.”

What fascinates me about Bitcoin is the questions it poses for monetary economics — monetary rules, macroeconomic stability, regression theorem, Gresham’s law and the classification of fiat-commodity money. When I first heard rumblings of this technological solution to overthrow the state’s monetary monopoly, I mostly denounced it as hopeful technobabble. My orange-pilled friends couldn’t explain why it mattered monetarily, how it improved much on what we had (or with better central bankers, could have). The use value seemed altogether superfluous in a fintech world where moving value was easier than ever and central banks couldn’t even hit their inflation targets, let alone shove us over the brink of hyperinflation.

Then, two things changed: price and COVID-19.

To many laymen, reasoning from a change in asset price seems like an asinine and bubble-fueled reason to change one’s mind — the quintessential herd mentality. To convince you that it’s not, I return to the idea of bubbles before I argue that Bitcoin is the monetary escape hatch necessary in a less free world.

PRICES KNOW SOMETHING YOU DON’T

At the base of economics lies an information and calculation argument: real market prices, emerging in trade between willing participants, generate information about the world. It allows us to calculate profits and losses, to see if what we make is worth more than what we put in. It allows market participants (i.e., all of us) to grasp what’s going on — not, mind you, in the news agency way of broadcasting highly-curated pictures from afar, but by informing your economic decisions. Shortages and price declines tell us what’s scarcer and more plentiful, what’s in high demand and what is better used elsewhere.

Financial markets and assets do the same thing for society’s current and future allocation of savings. The prices of securities vary more than market prices because the (far-off) future and how to assess it is less knowable than the immediate present or recent past. The “trouble with bubbles” is that nobody knows the future.

Asset prices incorporate the knowledge that exists about the present and forecasts the future in the best way that we know how. If owners of securities are wrong about that future, they lose money or miss out on profitable investments. Scott Sumner of the Mercatus Center at George Mason University explains this well for the two most recent bubbles in U.S. financial history: the dot-com bubble in the late ’90s and early 2000s, and the housing bubbles a few years thereafter:

“I think asset prices are usually relatively efficient based on fundamentals. I’m very dubious of people who claim that such and such a market is obviously overvalued. Most experts, I think, believe that the tech stocks in 2000 were obviously overvalued, or housing prices in 2006 were obviously overvalued… people [were] saying things like ‘those stock prices only make sense if you think American internet firms will eventually dominate the global economy.’

“Well, they do now. Or the 2006 housing prices would only make sense if you think interest rates will get lower and lower and NIMBY [not in my backyard] regulations will stop new construction. Well, both of those things have happened and we’re now at a new normal of much higher housing prices in America. I think these markets we’re picking up some long-term trends that really did change the traditional fundamental price earnings ratio or rent price ratio in housing.”

Knowing that something is “obviously overvalued” is the kind of extreme hubris that opponents of Bitcoin suffer from in outsized amounts. The fundamental value is zero, says economist Steve Hanke; as renowned and astute a writer as Nassim Taleb wrote some mathematical equations and proved (“proved”) that bitcoin’s fundamental value was nil. How could they possibly know that?

Perhaps they ran a model, mentally or computationally, plugged in some values, and out popped a bubble verdict. Could be, but when you’re testing market (ir)rationality, you’re also implicitly testing the model: “Irrational bubbles in stock prices,” concluded the father of the efficient market hypothesis, Eugene Fama, in the 1990s, “are indistinguishable from rational time-varying expected returns.”

Fundamentals, and our confidence in them, change, which is reflected in asset prices moving up or down. Against Taleb, Nic Carter had the pithiest rebuttal: No sir, it’s $34,500 — or whatever the market priced it at when he said it.

When prices fall after a rally — say, internet stocks from 200 to 2001, home prices from 2007 to 2009 or bitcoin in April 2021 — laymen and professionals alike say that it’s a bubble. But what if the price increases captured something real, and were then validated by future events?

U.S. median house prices recouped their losses four years later, and today stand about 60% higher (that’s nominally; deflated by CPI, house prices are about 16% higher in 2021 than at the peak of 2007). Internet stocks, including some of those ridiculed as hopelessly overvalued in 2001, dominate the U.S. stock market — their products and services have conquered the world.

The chattering classes’ case against Netflix, just a few years ago, was similarly overwhelming: This hopeful tech company couldn’t possibly monetize its overextended services. It would have to conquer the world for the stock’s then-valuation to make sense… and then it did exactly that. Netflix expanded services, upped its margins and offered original content. Few are the analysts today yapping about Netflix as an obvious bubble.

Bitcoin’s scope and promise is larger than any of them. What is its future value?

For the next year, I predict that bubble charges against bitcoin, of which we saw plenty this year, will fade away. Both because angry nocoiners tire of making them when they’re received with ridicule, and because the longer something stays alive, expands and flourishes, the less sense the etiquette makes. Nobody calls Amazon a bubble anymore, nor Netflix. Even Tesla’s haters have largely surrendered, accepting that what propelled it to the fifth-largest U.S. company by market capitalization is something other than bubbling madness.

No Bitcoiner takes the bubble attack seriously. Price matters, and only bubbles that fail (i.e., don’t recover) are relegated to history’s dustbin as “bubbles”; the successful ones are just promising ventures, deemed as such by a future that has hindsight as a guide.

AN ESCAPE TO FREEDOM

Every society that collapsed into turmoil — economic, monetary, military, social or other — has had individuals contemplating when to leave. It’s not an easy decision, forecasting doom and deterioration for one’s country of birth. Many are the migrants who can tell painful stories of uprooting their lives, made increasingly impossible by authorities, famine, war or hyperinflation, for an uncertain existence elsewhere.

When staring down the “unending path to unfreedom that we’re experimenting with these days” as I argued earlier this year, what else is there but escape? When rule by the people is replaced by ruling the people, escape hatches are crucial. COVID-19 measures all over the world — and the agitated tenacity with which troves of people embodied them — showed me that lines of privacy and tyranny drawn in the sand could be approached, flirted with… and then crossed by about a mile.

Seeing the writing on the wall, I, like many others, wanted an out. In an uncertain future, you never know which place becomes a beacon of freedom (two years ago, who would have bet on Sweden? And now that it, too, is conforming — whereto?) and who will confiscate your assets. The idea of a monetary escape hatch clicked with me.

“When in doubt,” wrote Ray Dalio in his new book, “get out”:

“If you don’t want to be in a civil war or a war, you should get out while the getting is good… History has shown that when things get bad, the doors typically close for people who want to leave. The same is true for investments and money as countries introduce capital controls and other measures.”

If history is any guide, you won’t be able to peacefully and in organized fashion be able to take your assets with you: “When the flight of wealth gets bad enough,” concluded Dalio, “the country outlaws it.”

Plenty of Americans have taken that advice, though so far, only in a regional sense — the exodus from California speaks volumes. Others living under oppressive regimes, in the West and elsewhere, have taken similar actions, departing their domiciles for freer pastures elsewhere.

Bitcoin facilitates the monetary component of that shift, to move value from an unfree jurisdiction to a freer one. When fleeing a sinking ship, you need your body, your health and your loved ones. Ideally, you want your most treasured belongings too, which, thanks to bitcoin, you can now carry without anybody knowing. It comes with the more important shift of holding funds outside the purview (and control!) of your invasive government. Dan Held’s Thanksgiving wishes stated it clearest:

“With governments restricting more of our rights, what would be our light at the end of the tunnel? And with COVID, this trend has accelerated, with our movement and access to goods and resources diminished all for the sake of public safety.”

You never know what you rely on until it’s abruptly taken away. When your assets are confiscated, your money devalued, your transactions declined and your bank decides to freeze your account for whichever made-up reason it’s trumpeting next, it’s too late. Backups and escape hatches must be put in place before they’re needed.

I never saw the need for a monetary or financial escape before: I had access to inflation-protection and developed financial markets. I could move my funds wherever I wanted, whenever, for a sliver of what it would have cost just decades ago. Except for the occasional technical glitch or misadventures in poor countries, my transactions were never declined. I had not, to put it bluntly, checked my financial privilege. The last decade or so, culminating with COVID-19, convinced me that the unproblematic and worriless existence I had taken for granted might not always be that way.

Measures against this public emergency probably won’t be what ultimately does in freedom, collapses societies and ushers in the authoritarianism of dystopias. But the COVID-19 cat is out of the bag now, and the power play that rulers experimented with this year and the last is from now on available at every political negotiation table like it never was before. With only vague references to public safety and astonishingly low barriers, locking up people in their homes is now a feasible option.

The ability to escape — to get out — hasn’t been this important in generations. This time isn’t different, but this time we have Bitcoin. Perhaps that’s enough.

Tyler Durden
Sat, 01/01/2022 – 16:10

via ZeroHedge News https://ift.tt/3zi3HYb Tyler Durden

Trudeau Implies Black Canadians “Racist, Misogynistic” – Questions Whether Unvaxx’d Should Be “Tolerated”

Trudeau Implies Black Canadians “Racist, Misogynistic” – Questions Whether Unvaxx’d Should Be “Tolerated”

Canadian Prime Minister had a good year, if only because he managed to cling to power during a surprisingly close national election. But having abandoned all concerns about convincing those who don’t already agree with him on issues from COVID vaccinations to feminist ideology, the Canadian PM decided to attack the unvaccinated during an appearance on local TV.

The takeaway from his remarks: in contemporary Canada, anybody who dares question the wisdom of the mass vaccination policy should automatically be dismissed as a racist or a misogynist, even if they’re voicing well-considered criticisms, like Dr. Robert Malone is doing.

Trudeau made the comments to a Quebecois television station, although he was careful to stipulate that the people of Quebec aren’t the problem. Rather, Trudeau questioned whether good vaccinated Canadians should be forced to “tolerate” their unvaccinated brethren.

“We are going to end this pandemic by proceeding with the vaccination,” said Trudeau in French.

“We all know people who are deciding whether or not they are willing to get vaccinated, and we will do our very best to try to convince them. However, there is still a part of the population (that) is fiercely against it.”

“They don’t believe in science/progress and are very often misogynistic and racist. It’s a very small group of people, but that doesn’t shy away from the fact that they take up some space.”

“This leads us, as a leader and as a country, to make a choice: Do we tolerate these people? Over 80% of the population of Quebec have done their duty by getting the shot. They are obviously not the issue in this situation.”

While Trudeau would like Canadians to assume that all anti-vaxxers are racist, the reality couldn’t be further from the truth, because – just like in the US – black Canadians are generally more skeptical of vaccines.

One study from Innovative Research Group showed black Canadians reported vaccination rates that were 20 percentage points below the Canadian average.

Black Canadians also self-reported much lower rates of willingness and confidence pertaining to vaccines.

President Biden has made a similar mistake in the past, and some have credited this dichotomy with influencing the White House to finally dial back its hostile rhetoric toward the unvaccinated.

So, in reality, many of the “anti-vaxxers” Trudeau has condemned as racists are actually black themselves.

Then again, racial sensitivity has never been one of the boyish PM’s strong suits.

In a sense, Trudeau is conjuring up boogeymen, since vaccination rates across Canada are already extremely high (well beyond the levels once considered the threshold for “herd immunity”, before scientists decided to quietly scrap that concept when they realized the vaccines weren’t as effective as they had hoped).

In Quebec, 84.5% of residents have received at least one shot, and a total of 14,900,242 jabs have been doled out since the start of the pandemic. Across Canada, 90% of people aged 12 and over have received at least one dose, while a total of 87% have received two jabs. In Alberta, it’s 90% of the people with one jab and 85% of people with two.

Trudeau’s comments prompted People’s Party of Canada leader Maxime Bernier to lambast the PM, calling him a “fascist psychopath.”

After all, if these people aren’t to be tolerated, what should be done? Should they be arrested and held in “re-education camps” until they acquiesce and agree to accept the shot?

Watch the clip (in French) below:

Tyler Durden
Sat, 01/01/2022 – 15:35

via ZeroHedge News https://ift.tt/3eJ2aRi Tyler Durden

Omicron Is Creating An Unnecessary Media Hysteria Over Positive Case Numbers…Again

Omicron Is Creating An Unnecessary Media Hysteria Over Positive Case Numbers…Again

Submitted by QTR’s Fringe Finance

Back about a year ago – before the Delta variant, but long after we had a firm grasp on exactly how dangerous Covid was (or wasn’t, depending on your perspective) – I made the point that we had to stop blindly relying on, touting and hyping up individual positive Covid cases and blanket positive test numbers.

In short, I made the argument that we needed to loosen our grip from hanging on individual positive tests being reported one at a time by the news. The brain damage and hysteria being drummed up from reporting one positive case at a time far outweighed the actual damage Covid was doing, in my opinion.

If you remember correctly, back in 2020 and even in early 2021, any time a person of prominence, like an athlete, politician or celebrity tested positive, it was immediately an enormous headline that would cause the nation to collectively gasp.

This wasn’t rational during the first variant of Covid, it remained irrational during the Delta variant, and is on the verge of just crazy-making now that the Omicron variant is here.

The truth of the matter is that individual cases as news headlines only serve to create headlines and whip people up into a hysteria.

For example – and I’m not trying to be mean here – but who even is this person, and why is this a lede on People.com?

While the media loves singling famous people out or touting the absolute number of positive tests in a given location, it often fails to report any context.

For example, reports about positive tests often do not include how many of the positive tests resulted in hospitalizations, how many of the positive tests even had symptoms and nuances like how many of the positive tests could be attributable to false positives.

Why is this context extremely important when reporting about the Omicron variant?

  1. Studies are showing that Omicron is far less likely to land people in the hospital, with a trio of studies out of Scotland showing that Omicron was associated with a 2/3rd’s lower risk of hospitalization than the Delta variant. Loosely speaking, the Delta variant has been found to increase chances of hospitalization by up to 2x from the original disease. Using this loose math, this would mean that Omicron is about 30% less likely than the original variant to land you in the hospital.

  2. A new meta analysis of asymptomatic cases published in JAMA this month continues to show that about 45% of all combined cases between the U.S. and Europe are asymptomatic. This number drops to 40.5% when you include the entire geographical pool of Covid tests. This suggests that almost half of all “positive” cases may not be negatively affecting someone’s quality of life.

  3. PCR testing is notoriously sensitive. Someone close to me who follows CDC protocol, is vaxxed, boosted and routinely double masks said to me this week: “All these positive tests out of nowhere. It’s almost like it isn’t real.”

    While I’m not saying it “isn’t real”, what I am suggesting is that scratching below the surface about how PCR testing works might be a good idea before becoming hysterical about numbers the media presents.

    For example, CDC Director Rachel Walensky said this month that PCR tests may come back positive up to 12 weeks after someone has Covid.

    Back in 2020, health experts were saying PCR testing would pick up on “barely any traces” of the virus and that up to 90% of people who tested positive may not be carrying enough of the virus to infect someone else.

    PCR’s greater accuracy detects viral load far below this level, and thus incorrectly identifies many individuals as infectious when they are not,” an Arizona State University writeup on testing accuracy from October 2020 added.

  4. False positives are still a thing. As demonstrated on national television this year when Ana Navarro had to be ushered off the set of The View, prevalence of false positives can range from 0% to 16%, or even higher, depending on which sources and studies you cite for your information. These estimates are statistically significant enough to warrant redundancy in all testing. When a second test isn’t issued for a “positive” result, the confidence in the reliability of the test diminishes ever so slightly. Combined with the above three points, it’s worth noting for context when reading Omicron positive testing headlines.

Here’s a great example of the media at work from this summer, wherein CNN reports about an Olympic athlete who tested positive for Covid-19. CNN’s original source, a Tweet from an official Olympic body, offers slightly more context than CNN’s lede. No further information, such as whether or not the athlete even had symptoms or whether or not they were retested again that day to account for potential false positives, was given.

And hey – I’m not suggesting that you should ignore case number trends in your specific jurisdiction and that you don’t take precautions. All I’m suggesting is there is a lot more behind the positive Covid test case numbers than people take the time to see.

That, I believe, is because the media is satisfied using these numbers in the most sensational way possible and the public is largely uninformed and scared. The media I can place blame on for knowing better; the public, which largely consists of good hearted people just trying to do the right thing, I have more sympathy for.

So let’s look at what’s happening this New Year’s Eve. People are being told to stay home and not enjoy themselves because a new variant of Covid is “sweeping the globe”. Case numbers are being reported in record sums, with terms like “unprecedented”, “unlike anything we’ve ever seen” and “shattered records” being thrown around:

Holy fuck! Surely this is caused for severe alarm, right? Forget your vaccines that we once promised in a smug tone of voice would protect you from ever getting the virus againCovid is back with a vengeance, motherfuckers!

But seriously, let’s just calm down. We already know Omicron is more transmissible than other variants by an order of magnitude, so let’s stop acting surprised. We also know that millions upon millions of Americans have already prompted their immune systems with vaccines and booster shots, so let’s stop acting worried that the virus is once again “surprising” us.

All month I’ve been watching athletes and coaches from various sports testing “positive” – resulting in sports games being canceled and hundreds of millions of dollars in associated revenue being put at risk.

In addition to the economic loss “positive” tests immediately create, many of players and coaches who have been reporting to practice and feeling fine are claiming that testing protocols are taking a mental toll on them.

Take, for example, French tennis player Benoit Paire:

French tennis player Benoit Paire has tested positive for COVID-19 just weeks before the Australian Open gets underway on Jan. 17, 2022.

“Hey my name is Benoit Paire, and for the 250th time I tested positive for Covid!!” he said on Twitter. “Honestly I can’t deal with this Covid s*** anymore.”

“How am I doing? Because of Covid, I got a runny nose but because of all these quarantines spent in a hotel room halfway across the world, I don’t feel good mentally,” he continued.

Paire, who is vaccinated, added that he is “100 percent for the vaccine,” but urged people to “just live as before Covid, otherwise, I don’t see the point.”

Do you know the old expression: “If a tree falls in the forest and no one is there to hear it, does it make a sound?”

Maybe we should be asking: “If 350 million people report ‘positive’ tests but no one cares anymore, do we really need such stringent Covid protocols?”

I know that sounds crass, but how many of the players and coaches do you think would be simply going about their business but for some super-sensitive PCR test turning up trace amounts of the virus? How many players don’t care at this point? How many of the tens of thousands of fans that wind up in the stadium cheering along these teams care at this point?

The counter intuitive nature of our Covid testing is on full display in the world of sports. If we are to test in this fashion going forward, no team in any sport may ever field a starting lineup again.

I mean, honestly – imagine testing everybody for trace amounts of the cold virus before every sporting event in every major sporting league. Nothing would ever get done and the leagues would fold due to inefficiency and loss of interest from fans.

If you take the same fallacy and apply it to everyday life and everywhere that requires Covid testing, including places of business who mandate it, one really starts to get a look at the giant wrench that can be thrown back (George Gammon voice) into the gears of both the economy and people’s everyday lives.

Omicron cases are surging. We know. It’s a cause for concern. People will take precautions that they deem necessary for themselves and for others. However,  inciting hysteria based on total number of cases at this point, given the new variant’s properties and what we know about testing, might be the most counterintuitive and irrational decision in responding to the virus yet.

And that’s saying something, because there’s been a lot of them.

Enjoy this free preview of paid content? Zerohedge readers always get a discount to subscribe to my blog. Readerscan get 22.20% off FOR LIFE as subscribers by using this New Year’s link to help usher in 2022: Get 22% off forever

More QTR:

1. When The Global Monetary Reset Happens, Don’t You Dare Forget Why

2. 22 Stocks I’m Watching For 2022

3. Can “Bond Vigilantes” Ever Return To Set The Fed Straight?

Tyler Durden
Sat, 01/01/2022 – 15:00

via ZeroHedge News https://ift.tt/32XHG4Y Tyler Durden

Chief Justice Roberts Dissents From Presidential Commission on the Supreme Court

Every year on December 31, the Chief Justice issues the year-end report on the federal judiciary. The 2021 report had an overarching theme: the judiciary can handle its own affairs, and the Congress should stay out. The Chief called back to “Big Bill,” better known as Chief Justice Taft, who identified two types of judicial independence: decisional independence and institutional independence.

During [Taft’]s nine-year tenure, he proved visionary on a matter of vital concern to the en-tire Judiciary: safeguarding and fortifying the independence of the Branch. Taft knew that no one seriously questioned that judges “should be independent in their judgments.” Decisional independence is essential to due process, promoting impartial decision-making, free from political or other extraneous influence. But Taft recognized that courts also require ample institutional independence. The Judiciary’s power to manage its internal affairs insulates courts from inappropriate political influence and is crucial to preserving public trust in its work as a separate and co-equal branch of government. 

Roberts made no mention of the Presidential Commission on the Supreme Court. He didn’t have to. This message was directed to the current Congress that is agitating for “Court reform.” Indeed, Roberts said he was using his report to “highlight three topics that have been flagged by Congress and the press over the past year.” For each of the three issues, Roberts stressed that the Court has things under control. If the Court needs help, it will ask for it. Don’t call us, we’ll call you.

First, Roberts addressed the WSJ’s reporting on judges who have decided cases in which they, or their spouses, had a financial interest. Does Congress have any role to play in this matter? The Chief said updating conflict of interest systems “may require additional funding from Congress, but it will be money well spent.” But Congress should not take the lead.

Second, Roberts revisited “continuing concern over inappropriate behavior in the judicial workplace.” The Chief “appreciate[d] that Members of Congress have expressed ongoing concerns on this important matter.” But once again, the judiciary can handle this matter internally.

Third, Roberts wrote about an issue that has not gotten much attention. On November 2, two members of the Senate Judiciary Committee, Tom Tillis (R-NC) and Patrick Leahy (D-VT) wrote a letter to Chief Justice Roberts. Roberts explained that the letter came “from both sides of the aisle.” I am not a fan when judges even hint at party affiliation, let alone expressly use them.

The Senators expressed their concern about forum shopping in patent cases. Generally, litigants can request that a case be heard in a particular division. And when there is only one judge in that division, litigants can select their judge. The Senators observed that nearly 25% of all patent cases are assigned to Judge Alan Albright of the Western District of Texas, who is the only judge in the Waco Division. According to some reports, Judge Albright “has openly solicited cases at lawyers’ meetings and other venues and urged patent plaintiffs to file their infringement actions in his court.” The Senators added that Judge Albright “has also repeatedly ignored binding case law and his discretion in denying transfer motions.” Professors Jonas Anderson and Paul Gugliuzza wrote about this practice in the Duke Law Journal.  Tillis and Leahy “request[ed] that [Roberts] direct the Judicial Conference to conduct a study of actual and potential abuses that the present situation has enabled.” They also asked that this report be completed by May 1, 2022, and should  “provide legislative recommendations.”

On December 15, the Director of the Administrative Office wrote back that it would study the issue by the deadline. But that response was not sufficient. Chief Justice Roberts addressed the issue directly in his annual report. Roberts explained that the fault does not lay entirely with the judiciary. Congress establishes the districts and divisions.

Two important and sometimes competing values are at issue. First, the Judicial Conference has long supported the random assignment of cases and fostered the role of district judges as generalists capable of handling the full range of legal issues. But the Conference is also mindful that Congress has intentionally shaped the lower courts into districts and divisions codified by law so that litigants are served by federal judges tied to their communities. 

Still, Roberts stressed that the judiciary will take the lead in studying this issue.

This issue of judicial administration provides another good example of a matter that self-governing bodies of judges from the front lines are in the best position to study and solve—and to work in partnership with Congress in the event change in the law is necessary. 

The Court will decide if change is necessary. Then, and only then, would the Court work with Congress.

Roberts closed his report with another call back to Taft’s two conception of judicial independence:

Chief Justice Taft was prescient in recognizing the need for the Judiciary to manage its internal affairs, both to promote informed ad-ministration and to ensure independence of the Branch. He understood that criticism of the courts is inevitable, and he lived through an era when federal courts faced strident calls for reform, some warranted and some not.

Roberts does not explain what those “strident calls for reform” were. Instead, he quotes from President Taft’s 1914 address to the American Bar Association:

The agitation with reference to the courts, the general attacks on them, . . . all impose upon us, members of the Bar and upon judges of the courts and legislatures, the duty to remove, as far as possible, grounds for just criticism of our judicial system. 

Pro-tip: whenever you see ellipses, track down the original. Often, what the author omits is more important than what the author includes. Google Books digitized Taft’s address, which you can find here. I’ve emphasized the text Roberts omitted

The agitation with reference to the courts, the general attacks on them, the grotesque remedies proposed of recall of judges and recall of judicial decisions, and the resort of demagogues to the unpopularity of courts as a means of promoting their own political fortunes, all impose upon us, members of the Bar and upon judges of the courts and legislatures, the duty to remove, as far as possible, grounds for just criticism of our judicial system.

You hear that Senator Sheldon “Demagogue” Whitehouse? On the previous page, Taft’s criticizes another type “grotesque reform[]”–politicized bodies adding more judges. Taft offered a proposal to expand the judiciary.

If it is found that there are not judges enough, the we should hear from the Supreme Court as a competent authority, not influenced by politics or personal considerations, how many judges are needed and where, and the judicial force could be increased to meet the real exigency.

You hear that SCOTUS commission? The “competent” Court gets to decide whether more judges are needed, not incompetent and politicized bodies. Roberts, C.J., dissenting.

The post Chief Justice Roberts Dissents From Presidential Commission on the Supreme Court appeared first on Reason.com.

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Chief Justice Roberts Dissents From Presidential Commission on the Supreme Court

Every year on December 31, the Chief Justice issues the year-end report on the federal judiciary. The 2021 report had an overarching theme: the judiciary can handle its own affairs, and the Congress should stay out. The Chief called back to “Big Bill,” better known as Chief Justice Taft, who identified two types of judicial independence: decisional independence and institutional independence.

During [Taft’]s nine-year tenure, he proved visionary on a matter of vital concern to the en-tire Judiciary: safeguarding and fortifying the independence of the Branch. Taft knew that no one seriously questioned that judges “should be independent in their judgments.” Decisional independence is essential to due process, promoting impartial decision-making, free from political or other extraneous influence. But Taft recognized that courts also require ample institutional independence. The Judiciary’s power to manage its internal affairs insulates courts from inappropriate political influence and is crucial to preserving public trust in its work as a separate and co-equal branch of government. 

Roberts made no mention of the Presidential Commission on the Supreme Court. He didn’t have to. This message was directed to the current Congress that is agitating for “Court reform.” Indeed, Roberts said he was using his report to “highlight three topics that have been flagged by Congress and the press over the past year.” For each of the three issues, Roberts stressed that the Court has things under control. If the Court needs help, it will ask for it. Don’t call us, we’ll call you.

First, Roberts addressed the WSJ’s reporting on judges who have decided cases in which they, or their spouses, had a financial interest. Does Congress have any role to play in this matter? The Chief said updating conflict of interest systems “may require additional funding from Congress, but it will be money well spent.” But Congress should not take the lead.

Second, Roberts revisited “continuing concern over inappropriate behavior in the judicial workplace.” The Chief “appreciate[d] that Members of Congress have expressed ongoing concerns on this important matter.” But once again, the judiciary can handle this matter internally.

Third, Roberts wrote about an issue that has not gotten much attention. On November 2, two members of the Senate Judiciary Committee, Tom Tillis (R-NC) and Patrick Leahy (D-VT) wrote a letter to Chief Justice Roberts. Roberts explained that the letter came “from both sides of the aisle.” I am not a fan when judges even hint at party affiliation, let alone expressly use them.

The Senators expressed their concern about forum shopping in patent cases. Generally, litigants can request that a case be heard in a particular division. And when there is only one judge in that division, litigants can select their judge. The Senators observed that nearly 25% of all patent cases are assigned to Judge Alan Albright of the Western District of Texas, who is the only judge in the Waco Division. According to some reports, Judge Albright “has openly solicited cases at lawyers’ meetings and other venues and urged patent plaintiffs to file their infringement actions in his court.” The Senators added that Judge Albright “has also repeatedly ignored binding case law and his discretion in denying transfer motions.” Professors Jonas Anderson and Paul Gugliuzza wrote about this practice in the Duke Law Journal.  Tillis and Leahy “request[ed] that [Roberts] direct the Judicial Conference to conduct a study of actual and potential abuses that the present situation has enabled.” They also asked that this report be completed by May 1, 2022, and should  “provide legislative recommendations.”

On December 15, the Director of the Administrative Office wrote back that it would study the issue by the deadline. But that response was not sufficient. Chief Justice Roberts addressed the issue directly in his annual report. Roberts explained that the fault does not lay entirely with the judiciary. Congress establishes the districts and divisions.

Two important and sometimes competing values are at issue. First, the Judicial Conference has long supported the random assignment of cases and fostered the role of district judges as generalists capable of handling the full range of legal issues. But the Conference is also mindful that Congress has intentionally shaped the lower courts into districts and divisions codified by law so that litigants are served by federal judges tied to their communities. 

Still, Roberts stressed that the judiciary will take the lead in studying this issue.

This issue of judicial administration provides another good example of a matter that self-governing bodies of judges from the front lines are in the best position to study and solve—and to work in partnership with Congress in the event change in the law is necessary. 

The Court will decide if change is necessary. Then, and only then, would the Court work with Congress.

Roberts closed his report with another call back to Taft’s two conception of judicial independence:

Chief Justice Taft was prescient in recognizing the need for the Judiciary to manage its internal affairs, both to promote informed ad-ministration and to ensure independence of the Branch. He understood that criticism of the courts is inevitable, and he lived through an era when federal courts faced strident calls for reform, some warranted and some not.

Roberts does not explain what those “strident calls for reform” were. Instead, he quotes from President Taft’s 1914 address to the American Bar Association:

The agitation with reference to the courts, the general attacks on them, . . . all impose upon us, members of the Bar and upon judges of the courts and legislatures, the duty to remove, as far as possible, grounds for just criticism of our judicial system. 

Pro-tip: whenever you see ellipses, track down the original. Often, what the author omits is more important than what the author includes. Google Books digitized Taft’s address, which you can find here. I’ve emphasized the text Roberts omitted

The agitation with reference to the courts, the general attacks on them, the grotesque remedies proposed of recall of judges and recall of judicial decisions, and the resort of demagogues to the unpopularity of courts as a means of promoting their own political fortunes, all impose upon us, members of the Bar and upon judges of the courts and legislatures, the duty to remove, as far as possible, grounds for just criticism of our judicial system.

You hear that Senator Sheldon “Demagogue” Whitehouse? On the previous page, Taft’s criticizes another type “grotesque reform[]”–politicized bodies adding more judges. Taft offered a proposal to expand the judiciary.

If it is found that there are not judges enough, the we should hear from the Supreme Court as a competent authority, not influenced by politics or personal considerations, how many judges are needed and where, and the judicial force could be increased to meet the real exigency.

You hear that SCOTUS commission? The “competent” Court gets to decide whether more judges are needed, not incompetent and politicized bodies. Roberts, C.J., dissenting.

The post Chief Justice Roberts Dissents From Presidential Commission on the Supreme Court appeared first on Reason.com.

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Ben Shapiro Eviscerates COVID Cult And ‘Authoritarian Lockdown Nonsense’ That’s Destroyed ‘Millions Of Lives’

Ben Shapiro Eviscerates COVID Cult And ‘Authoritarian Lockdown Nonsense’ That’s Destroyed ‘Millions Of Lives’

Now that the tide has officially turned thanks to Omicron – the hyper-transmissible, vaccine-mocking Covid strain that features flu-like symptoms and virtually no death, public health officials and their legacy media lapdogs have some explaining to do.

In a Friday Twitter thread, Daily Wire co-founder Ben Shapiro shines an industrial grade spotlight in the faces of the hypocritical left over their seemingly-overnight pivot on Covid truths – which until now were verboten and could get one banned, demonetized, or canceled by woke mobs.

Without further ado:

Continued via Threadreaderapp (emphasis ours): 

1. Cloth masks are ineffective against omicron (Leanna Wen, CNN);

2. The vaccinated can spread and get covid;

3. The death rate is comparable to the flu (Chris Hayes);

4. Many people are entering hospitals with covid, not from covid (Fauci);

5. Natural immunity is a reason omicron hasn’t been as virulent (Fauci);

6. We have to take into account societal needs, not just spread prevention (CDC);

7. The asymptomatic should not be tested (NFL);

8. We should focus on hospitalizations and deaths, not case rate (Biden);

9. Children are not at risk and schools should remain open;

10. Covid is predominantly an illness affecting the immunocompromised and elderly and we should not shut down society.

Those of us in reality have been saying all this for months and most of it since May 2020. But your political priors were more important than the data. You had to have your demonization narrative.

So welcome to reality. And f*** all y’all for pretending you didn’t know this so you could have fun crapping on Trump and DeSantis and all your red state relatives.

And btw, AOC and all you Leftist covid fanatics — those whose virtue signaling authoritarian lockdown nonsense that has resulted in millions of lives destroyed — stay in your states and leave mine alone.

We chose data and freedom. You chose alarmism and unearned moral superiority. Stay in NY, NJ, CA, and the rest — and enjoy the actual paranoid nanny state you created among your friends who reward you for telling them they will kill their kids and grandma if they don’t panic.

Oh yes, and Happy New Year to all.

Tyler Durden
Sat, 01/01/2022 – 14:25

via ZeroHedge News https://ift.tt/3qJMO4V Tyler Durden

2022: The Year Of Breakdown

2022: The Year Of Breakdown

Authored by Charles Hugh Smith via OfTwoMinds blog,

In other words, our economy and society have been optimized for failure.

If we look at the fragility and instability of essential systems, it’s clear that 2022 will be the year of breakdown. Let’s start by reviewing how systems break down, a process I’ve simplified into the graphic below.

1. Regardless of whether it was planned or not, all systems are optimized to process specific inputs to generate specific outputs. Each system is pared down to maximize efficiency as the means to maximize profits. This efficiency in service of maximizing profits requires trade-offs that only become visible when some key part of the system fails.

The system that ships containers around the world offers a useful example. Shipping containers revolutionized shipping and reduced costs by commoditizing containers (all standard sizes), container ships (specifically designed to carry thousands of containers and container ports with specifically designed cranes, docks and truck lanes / queueing.

It’s possible to load a container on some other craft with a jury-rigged crane, but the efficiency of that is essentially a fraction of the optimized system: the jury-rigged crane will only be able to load a handful of containers, the ship will only be able to carry a few containers, and the likelihood of the containers shifting increases.

The infrastructure and labor are both highly specialized. Calling out the National Guard to speed up container offloading is a useless gesture unless the Guard can deliver more cranes and experienced operators.

The greater the optimization, the greater the fragility as the breaking of any one link brings the entire system to a halt. Throwing in equipment and labor that the system isn’t designed to use will fail.

Virtually every essential system has been stripped of redundancy, resilience, reserves and adaptability as the means to fully optimize inputs, processes and outputs. The system works well if every link in the dependency chain is working perfectly. Should one link go down, the entire system goes down.

2. Cost-cutting has stripped systems of back-up staffing and expertise. Full-time workers have been replaced by gig workjers, contract workers, part-time staff on call, etc. Experienced staff cost too much so they’ve been let go as well, so there is no depth in numbers or knowledge.

3. Management is top-heavy with MBAs and bean-counters with little pragmatic experience or knowledge of the systems they’re managing. Management is optimized to advance those who can generate big profits, not those with experiential skills needed to meet crises in real-world dependency chains, production, breakdowns, etc. So when the system comes apart, managers simply don’t have the knowledge or skills to solve real-world problems.

The skills that are most desirable when everything is running smoothly are useless in crisis. Who do you want to go into combat with, the continuously promoted officer who won high marks for filing reports on time or the officer with actual combat experience who got passed over for promotion because he/she didn’t devote the proper attention to paperwork, meetings, virtue-signaling and derriere-kissing?

Unfortunately the vast majority of our systems are managed by people who lack the long experience and hands-on skills needed to meet cascading crises.

4. Systems are now so complex and opaque that they are in effect optimized to fail in ways that are impervious to quick fixes. Bureaucratic mission drift, virtue-signaling, the erosion of accountability, multiplying platforms and software and the endless expansion of compliance and regulatory burdens have loaded every system with numerous points of failure and procedural friction that contributes little or nothing to the organization’s core mission. As resources are devoted to make-work procedural black holes, the mission decays and collapses at the first crisis.

Stop me if you’ve heard this before: contacting essential services (tax payments, etc.) rarely generates a timely reply, much less a solution; a new bridge or subway line takes decades to build and is billions over budget; software projects intended to streamline complex regulatory processes (building permits, etc.) never work right and end up slowing the whole system down, fraud is rampant, software security is laughably poor….the list is almost endless.

5. Once the system has been stripped of resources, experienced staff, back-up equipment and supplies and loaded with unproductive friction, even a small crisis will bring down the entire system. In the graphic below, all of these resources are the buffer that enables systems to respond to the pressing demands of crises. Once these are gone, the only possible result is systemic collapse.

6. We’ve collectively lost the ability and willingness to deal with crises for which there is no happy-story ending. We only want to hear the optimistic story, the glimmers of hope, the miracle cures, the painless tech fix, etc., and if we get a dose of reality instead, we’re quick to dismiss the bearer of inconvenient news as an alarmist, a doom-and-gloomer, etc.

In other words, our economy and society have been optimized for failure. Drifting along in a daze of disconnected-from-reality complacency we are completely unprepared to deal with realities that don’t respond to magical thinking, optimism, hope and tech fantasies.

*  *  *

My new book is now available at a 20% discount this month: Global Crisis, National Renewal: A (Revolutionary) Grand Strategy for the United States (Kindle $8.95, print $20) If you found value in this content, please join me in seeking solutions by becoming a $1/month patron of my work via patreon.com.

Tyler Durden
Sat, 01/01/2022 – 13:50

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“His Skin Was Burning”: Melbourne Man Sets Himself On Fire Screaming About Vaccine Mandates

“His Skin Was Burning”: Melbourne Man Sets Himself On Fire Screaming About Vaccine Mandates

In what may be a repeat of events that sparked 2011’s Arab Spring when a Tunisian fruit vendor self-immolated, protesting soaring food prices and sparking a revolutionary wave across Northern African and Middle Eastern nations, a Melbourne man set himself and his car on fire in front of horrified diners on the first day of the new year while screaming about Covid-19 vaccine mandates in Australia’s Victoria state.

A man has set himself and his MG3 hatch on fire in Richmond while screaming about Victoria’s Covid-19 mandates on Saturday

The man emerged from a silver MG3 hatchback engulfed in flames near Church St in Richmond about 8pm on Saturday, where police officers and firefighters doused the man with water to extinguish the blaze with the help of about five witnesses according to the Daily Mail.

Victoria police and about five witnesses restrained the man who appeared ‘off his face’ while screaming about vaccine mandates.

The bystanders helped restrain the man before police officers pinned him to the ground. He was then taken into an ambulance and rushed to hospital. Police said he had suffered life-threatening injuries. One witness who helped restrain the man said his flesh was burning before the flames were put out with water.

Victoria Police said it was called to the intersection after reports of a man self-harming. The man was taken to hospital with life-threatening injuries.

Police cordoned off the area near the intersection of Church and Swan Street while customers at surrounding businesses were told to stay indoors. Bystanders said they initially saw black smoke coming from the vehicle, which was left with a charred driver’s side door.

Lydia O’Connor was having dinner at a nearby restaurant when she heard the man screaming.

“His skin was burning. He was on fire. His skin is stuck to [my] shirt,” she told The Herald Sun. “He was off his face screaming about the mandates.”

“He poured gas on himself and on his car. It was on purpose,’ O’Connor told the publication. He was screaming about mandates. He was screaming “no vax ID” and throwing books.”

Forensic police were then seen examining the area.  

The incident caused disruptions to trams which run along Route 70 and Route 78 while the investigation continues.

 

 

Tyler Durden
Sat, 01/01/2022 – 13:15

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2022 New Year’s Resolution: Stand-Up In Defense Of Dissent!

2022 New Year’s Resolution: Stand-Up In Defense Of Dissent!

Authored by Guy Shepherd via PlannedMan.com,

Big Tech came to market with the promise to level hierarchies and inequalities in communications. Fifteen years later, it’s hard to recognize you guys by your pitch books. A common denominator is emerging: you bend the knee to powers that that contradicts your stated missions.

  • The de facto reality is that the First Amendment is dying on our watch.

  • By doing nothing, the majority is aiding and abetting the tyranny of a minority.

  • This is how Orwellianism comes to scale.

  • Big Tech, we could use your help.

We need to stop this shit now. It’s time to stand up in defense of dissent!

This keep-our-heads-down, shut-up, eat-me-last approach will not end well. The forces of intolerance are growing.

It’s getting scary out there and we need to chillax now. Let’s make it a “We the People” New Year’s resolution to knock the illiberal shit off.

On what day did the First Amendment effectually die? I know it’s still written down on paper. But it no longer guides and ennobles our public discourse and mores. The ACLU is unrecognizable.

When the banjo player from Mumford and Sons, Winston Marshall, is forced to bend the knee to Twitter mobs because he favorably retweets a New York Times bestseller critical of Antifa, something deeply disturbing and dangerous is afoot. More proof that “antifascists” can act in a fascistic, or more accurately, Maoist manner. Marshall’s apology was forced. He did it to insulate his fellow band members from the mob. I invite you to read his open letter in Medium. After reflection and prayer, this soft-spoken and deeply reflective man separated from his band both for their sake and for his own. He could no longer abide by and bend his knee to the Lie.

We need to do the same.

The de facto reality is that the First Amendment is dying on our watch. By doing nothing, the majority is aiding and abetting the tyranny of a minority. Empowered by sins of omission for not calling out the sins of commission. This is how Orwellianism comes to scale.

I think it’s an easy out to blame Twitter. Twitter is the means. It’s a tool. Twitter is like a gun. It’s a powerful, inanimate means but it lacks a soul, a free will, which comes with capacity to choose. The problem is not Twitter. The problem is us—humans. We are are the problem. (If you think that I am agreeing with you right now, you are most likely wrong. What your brain just did is a problem that the first amendment exists to mitigate.)

Twitter and an AR-15 are ontologically equal and constitutionally protected. Twitter by the First Amendment, the AR-15 by the Second. These are facts, not opinions.

How would Democrats react if gun manufacturers started selling guns and ammo by political preference?

The woke might respond: Who cares? We are going to confiscate all guns! At the moment, Antifa is happy with sticks and stones (and breaking bones), but guns will always be with us. Guns are a constitutionally guaranteed means of protecting one’s interests and rights. And some folks still use them to hunt.

Now let’s back to Twitter and its behavior as a company.

Twitter—like Facebook and Google—came to market with the promise to level hierarchies and inequalities in communications. The Good News—The Gospel of Big Tech—was a shared promise to democratize speech. In the Us versus Them, Man versus the Machine world, Big Tech was on the side of “We the People”—a pluribus of Us. And like the goddess Justice, Big Tech purported to be blind to political, ethical, religious, and sexual persuasions. The Us of the world bought what you, Big Tech, were offering at scale.

But along the way to creating a better—“Don’t Be Evil”—Promised Land, you all started favoring a certain “Them” over “Us.” Of course, you still use the language of Us, but now you’re clearly acting like a Them. Fifteen years later, it’s hard to recognize you by your pitch books.

Sadly, you collectively have shown a tendency to bend the knee to government—contradicting the Us v. Them distinction that once justified your godlike status. Today, the old moralism smells creepy. A common denominator of your behavior is emerging: you bend the knee to power that contradicts your mission. In China, you do it for market access and profit. At home, you do it because you want to—and because you can.

There are limitations that come with a Section 230 designation. Presently, you in Big Tech are operating in a “have your cake and eat it to” moment, but that will pass. You are either going be a media company like the New York Times or a free-speech, free-search, free-market utility. A business model divided against itself cannot stand. I’m betting that if forced to make a binary choice, you will go with getting your utility mojo back.

Yes, Jack Dorsey and Co., you are the new straws that stir the drink. Carnegie, Rockefeller, and Gordon Gecko are all dead; insert your name. It’s worth remembering the role that choosing a political side played in the demise of your monopolistic predecessors. What politics giveth, politics can taketh away. I’m enjoying this Twitter war between Senator Warren and Elon Musk. While I like Musk’s moxie, the progressive arc of history favors Karen.

Have your directors of strategy really considered how this is likely to work out? I’m writing this because I don’t think things are trending in your interest.

Jack, the next few lines are directed at you.

Let me break it down to basics. All human beings are assholes with assholes. All need to be sold toilet paper. Without equal access to TP, we can’t avoid becoming a shithole nation of shitty people.

It’s understood that papers and parties are partial—they favor one particular asshole at the expense of another.

But a utility business legally can’t and morally shouldn’t favor one asshole over another. I would think that you are morally opposed to, say, redlining according to race or sexual orientation. What’s the difference when it comes to the right of association? Once upon a time, liberals argued passionately and persuasively that any human being who had the blessing to be an American or a visitor to our shores could not be denied access to a bus seat, a drink from a water fountain, a meal at a lunch counter.

Jack and Co.: whether you know it or not, your kingdoms are built on the Interstate Commerce Clause, which is predicated on the idea that a free market and free people see only the color green.

It would be easier to chilaxx if you and your fellow unicorns made it a New Year’s resolution and reality to get back on the side of the original pluribus of Us. Serving us all is where it is at.

Tyler Durden
Sat, 01/01/2022 – 12:40

via ZeroHedge News https://ift.tt/3sPctvq Tyler Durden

Brickbats: January 2022


BB1

The Court of Appeal for Nova Scotia ruled in August that Lorne Grabher’s last name could be interpreted as a call for violence against women and so he has no free speech right to a vanity license plate with his last name.

The city of San Francisco has spent three years and half a million dollars so far designing and deploying the perfect garbage can. The board of supervisors has voted to spend $427,500 to build five prototypes each of three models designed by a firm hired in 2018. In the meantime, the estimated cost to mass produce whichever model city officials ultimately choose has risen from $1,000 apiece to at least $2,000 and possibly as much as $5,000.

A British court sentenced Simon Silwood to eight weeks in jail in September for racially abusing a West Bromwich Albion soccer player over the internet. Silwood was upset after the team lost a match. He posted on a Facebook group that midfielder Romaine Sawyers, who is black, should receive the “Baboon d’Or” award, a reference to the Ballon d’Or trophy awarded annually to the best soccer player. Silwood claimed he meant to post buffoon but misspelled it bafoon, which autocorrect then changed to baboon.

Officials at Bigelow High School in Arkansas ripped out two pages from the 2020–21 yearbook before delivering copies to the students who paid for them. The pages had a timeline of major events from the school year, including the first U.S. death from COVID-19, riots following the police killing of George Floyd, the death of Alex Trebek, Apple’s market valuation topping $2 trillion, and NASA flying a drone on Mars. East End School District Superintendent Heidi Wilson justified the move by citing “community backlash.” But in response to an open records request by the Arkansas Times, the school system said there were no emails or other records related to complaints about the pages.

Residents of Durham, Ontario, will have to keep records of anyone who comes into their home for a social gathering, no matter how small, to stem the spread of COVID-19. Homeowners must turn that information over to the health department within 24 hours if requested. Those who do not comply face a fine of up to 5,000 Canadian dollars ($4,031).

In Florida, Sarasota County School Board Vice Chairwoman Jane Goodwin cut off the microphone and had police escort out speakers who criticized individual school board members during a recent meeting. Goodwin said there would be “no public assaults and no public attacks” on elected officials. She defined an “assault on a board member” as “anything critical” of that board member.

People living in an apartment complex in New South Wales, Australia, which has been locked down because of COVID-19, said officials are searching through their deliveries and seizing alcoholic beverages. New South Wales’ health department admits it is trying to limit the amount of alcohol that residents of the building can drink to “ensure the safety of health staff and residents.” Residents are limited to six beers or mixed drinks, one bottle of wine, or one bottle of distilled spirits a day.

A Savannah-Chatham County, Georgia, special education teacher has been charged with felony cruelty to children for using zip ties to bind a student in her classroom. Elizabeth Louise Board, a teacher at Godley Station School in Savannah, reportedly tied a boy to his chair and to a table.

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