Month: April 2022

EU Embargo On Russian Coal Would Raise Prices Worldwide: Kemp

EU Embargo On Russian Coal Would Raise Prices Worldwide: Kemp

By John Kemp, Senior energy market analyst at Reuters

Europe’s coal futures prices have surged to a record high in real terms over the last month as traders anticipate an EU embargo on Russian exports will disrupt supplies globally. 

EU policymakers may decide higher electricity and gas bills for households and industry are the necessary price to respond to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. But EU decisions will have significant spill-overs for other coal-importing countries in Asia, Africa and Latin America, likely raising coal, gas and electricity prices for all consumers.

Europe’s coal production has fallen faster than consumption in recent years – leaving the region increasingly reliant on imports, particularly from Russia, to cover the shortfall. 

Europe now depends on imports to meet more than 40% of its coal consumption, up from less than 30% at the start of the century, according to data from BP (“Statistical review of world energy”, 2021).

Russia supplied roughly 50% of coal imports in both 2019 and 2020, accounting for more than 20% of the region’s total consumption.

Coal exports from Russia to Europe were the world’s third-largest bilateral flow in 2019, before the pandemic, and the fifth-largest in 2020, when the outbreak was at its height.

Russia’s exports to Europe accounted for 6-7% of inter-regional coal trade in both years. If Russia’s exports to Japan and South Korea, the principal U.S. allies in Asia, are included, the share rises to 10-11%.

Assuming the EU goes ahead with an embargo on coal from Russia, it will have to increase imports from Colombia, South Africa, Indonesia and Australia significantly.

That would force other major coal importers including China, Japan, India and South Korea to switch to Russian supplies instead. In practice, total global production is likely to fall, with Russia and perhaps other exporters struggling to switch destinations owing to logistics constraints, driving up coal prices for all consumers.

Global coal supplies have been tight over the last year with shortages in China and India affecting electricity production, so the loss of Russian or other production will not be easily absorbed without an increase in prices.

Even if it can be done, re-routing flows this way will leave all countries importing from sources much further away, increasing tonne-miles travelled and boosting freight costs.

Coal is a bulky commodity, ensuring freight costs already account for a large share of the price to the final consumer, which is likely to rise significantly.

Most coal is burned for electricity generation where it competes with gas-fired units to supply both baseload and peak power. Gas prices in Europe and Asia are already trading at exceptionally high levels as traders anticipate possible disruption to Russia’s pipeline supplies to Europe.

High gas prices are signalling the need to maximise coal-fired generation as much as possible this summer to build up gas inventories ahead of next winter.

Higher gas and coal prices are feeding off each other and jointly responding to the threat to Russian energy supplies from the conflict in Ukraine and the sanctions imposed in response.

Front-month futures prices for coal delivered to Rotterdam in Northwest Europe are already trading at 266 euros per tonne compared with a previous peak adjusted for inflation of 174 euros in June 2008. Record coal prices will ensure gas prices remain high to accumulate stocks and keep electricity prices at record levels.

Like crude petroleum, coal is only a semi-fungible commodity – coal from different fields and countries varies significantly in terms of energy content, volatile organic compounds, ash and other impurities.

Most power generators are designed to work efficiently with specific grades of coal. Switching to imperfect substitutes will increase fuel costs for all generators, raising electricity prices.

The EU’s proposed coal embargo will force a wholesale redirection of global flows, increase costs for electricity generators and ultimately push up power and gas bills for businesses and households, not just in Europe but across Asia, Africa and Latin America.

Tyler Durden
Thu, 04/07/2022 – 14:40

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Ketanji Brown Jackson Confirmed To Supreme Court

Ketanji Brown Jackson Confirmed To Supreme Court

Ketanji Brown Jackson was confirmed to the US Supreme Court on Thursday, becoming the first black woman to join the panel, just as President Joe Biden promised.

Jackson becomes the 116th Supreme Court Justice in US History.

In a 53-47 vote, the 51-year-old federal judge whose record of going soft on pedophiles secured the backing of all 50 Senate Democrats, and three Republicans – Susan Collins, Lisa Murkowski, and Mitt Romney – the latter of whom rejected Brown’s appointment to the federal circuit, only to change his opinion after the pedophile malarkey came out.

As Bloomberg notes, “President Joe Biden watched the vote with Jackson, his first Supreme Court pick, in the Roosevelt Room at the White House. Vice President Kamala Harris presided over the vote and her husband, Doug Emhoff watched from the gallery. Jackson, a Harvard Law School graduate and former public defender who the Senate confirmed last year to the powerful U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit, will join the high court when Justice Stephen Breyer retires in June or July. She will be the court’s 116th justice, its sixth woman and the eighth justice who isn’t a white male.”

Developing…

Tyler Durden
Thu, 04/07/2022 – 14:27

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“Do Copyright Holders Get a Free Pass to Identify Alleged Infringers?”

From Paul Alan Levy (Public Citizen) (bullets and some paragraph breaks added):

[A] controversy over Twitter postings by CallMeMoneyBags … presents the latest challenge in the Northern District of California to the well established rule, first established in 2001 in Dendrite International v. Doe, previously followed in that district as well as in federal and state courts across the country,

  • that a would-be plaintiff claiming that its rights have been violated by anonymous online speech has to make a showing, supported by both legal argument and an evidentiary showing,
  • that it has a tenable claim before it gets to identify the anonymous speaker and thus obtain the ability to serve the speaker with a summons and complaint and litigate its claim to a conclusion, and
  • that assuming the plaintiff has made these showings, the court has to balance the right to enforce substantial claims through litigation against the prospective costs of breaching the right to speak anonymously.

The case arises in somewhat peculiar circumstances. Over a period of a few days in October 2020, a Twitter user using the handle “CallMeMoneyBags,” who specialized in tweets about private equity figures, posted a series of photographs of nubile women to which he appended texts suggesting that Brian Sheth, a private equity billionaire, was now investing his wealth in such women (the tweets and photos appear at pages 3 to 5 here). A mysterious entity named Bayside Advisory, LLC, which appears to have been first formed in Delaware that same month, and was not even registered to do business in California until January 2021, served a DMCA takedown notice on Twitter, contending that the tweets infringed its copyright in the photos, and followed that notice with a subpoena that it obtained under section 512(h) of the DMCA, seeking to identify CallMeMoneyBags for the claimed purpose of enforcing its copyright.

Twitter objected to the subpoena and, when Bayside persisted, moved to quash on First Amendment grounds, expressing suspicion that Sheth himself was behind the DMCA takedown and subpoena, and insisting that Bayside make a showing that its copyright claim could surmount the anonymous user’s potential fair use defense before the user’s identification was compelled.  Bayside cross-moved to compel compliance.

The Magistrate Judge to whom the case was assigned initially ordered Twitter to give notice to the anonymous user so that she could, perhaps, retain counsel and articulate her own objections to the subpoena. When the anonymous user failed to take advantage of this opportunity, the Magistrate Judge ordered Twitter to provide the identifying information, reasoning that neither the fair use defense nor the “balancing” stage of the subpoena analysis could be applied properly unless the anonymous accused offender entered the case to provide evidence bearing on her purpose in using the photos or the harms that could befall her if she is identified.

Twitter has sought de novo review, and its position has been supported by EFF and the ACLU, which filed an amicus brief urging reversal of the magistrate judge’s ruling and a grant of the motion to quash. Twitter and its amici argue that the magistrate judge got the fair use analysis wrong, but also that the magistrate judge should have quashed the subpoena based on the balancing stage alone, either because the copyright owner has the burden of proving that its interest in enforcement outweigh any possible First Amendment interests in anonymity (the EFF/ACLU argument), or because it is “self-evident that identification would [result in] public exposure of plaintiff’s identity and the financial and other burdens of defending against a multi-count lawsuit.” (Twitter’s argument)

Bayside is defending the decision it secured, also supported by amicus briefs from the Copyright Alliance and from a coalition of photographers’ organizations: Their arguments include the contentions that an Internet platform should never be allowed to invoke its users’ possible fair use defenses as a basis for opposing enforcement of a DMCA subpoena, and that, because the defense of fair use supplants possible First Amendment objections to copyright infringement claims, no consideration should be given to the First Amendment right to speak anonymously. They argue that the court should apply the standard of the Sony Music case to decide whether the alleged infringer should be outed.

Public Citizen filed our own amicus brief taking an intermediate position between the two extremes asserted by Bayside and its amici on the one hand, and Twitter and our friends at EFF and the ACLU on the other. We take no position on whether, based on a proper analysis, the subpoena should be enforced. (Many thanks to Phil Malone at Stanford’s Juelsgaard Clinic for collaborating on the amicus brief at a difficult time)….

A very interesting and important matter; go to Levy’s post for more analysis, and more details on the arguments for and against each of these positions.

The post "Do Copyright Holders Get a Free Pass to Identify Alleged Infringers?" appeared first on Reason.com.

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Over 150 Suspicious Hunter Or James Biden Financial Transactions Flagged By Banks

Over 150 Suspicious Hunter Or James Biden Financial Transactions Flagged By Banks

Newly obtained banking records reveal that more than 150 financial transactions involving either Hunter or James Biden’s global business affairs were flagged by banks as ‘concerning’ and given further review, some of which included large wire transfers, according to CBS News.

FILE: Joe Biden, left, and his brother James Biden during the 2008 Democratic National Convention in Denver. Rick Friedman/Corbis via Getty Images

As we’ve noted several times throughout the past 18 months, Joe Biden’s brother James and Hunter Biden’s international dealings have raised concern over potential leverage over the Biden family by the CCP and other foreign entities.

A few examples:

“We have people with the Biden name, dealing with Chinese business people that have a relationship to the Communist Party,” Sen. Chuck Grassley, the ranking Republican on the Judiciary Committee, told CBS News‘ Catherine Herridge. “I think James Biden was very much a part of this.”

Bank records released by Republican senators this week indicate James Biden’s company, the Lion Hall Group, received payments from a Chinese-financed consulting group in 2018, before his brother Joe announced he was running for president. Grassley says that same year James Biden and the president’s son, Hunter, received monthly retainers totaling $165,000 — $100,000 to Hunter and $65,000 to James.

Grassley said his team obtained the records directly from the bank where the consulting group did business. He has spent three years investigating and described James and Hunter Biden’s business dealings as “very concerning.” -CBS News

According to a September 2020 report from GOP Senators, Hunter, James and James’ wife Sara tapped into a credit line set up between Hunter and a Chinese bank executive to purchase over $100,000 in airline tickets, hotels and food.

Patrick Ho, Hunter Biden

Now, GOP investigators have released what appears to be the 2017 application for the credit line, which bears the signatures of both Hunter and the Chinese exec.

“These records we got are the first records that have ever been made public on this issue. Nobody else has them,” said Grassley.

According to Robert Weissman, president of advocacy group Public Citizen, told CBS: “I think Hunter and James Biden should not have entered into those relationships, full stop,” adding “To the extent those occurred while Joe Biden was the vice president, there’s a worry that they hope to get something direct from the Obama administration.”

Fortunately for Hunter and James, the White House won’t rule out pardons in the event their international dealings, or tax issues, or FARA status, prove to be illegal.

In Dec. 2020, Politico reported that the Hunter Biden criminal investigation covers potential money laundering, while CNN also reported at the time that the feds had been looking into a 2017 gift to Hunter from CEFC China Energy Co. founder Ye Jianming.

And to recap from our previous reporting on the matter – in November, 2017, James Biden received a surprise call on his cellphone from Patrick Ho, Ye Jianming’s lieutenant who was arrested by the FBI (and is now serving a 36-month sentence for bribery and money laundering), according to a December, 2018 report by the New York Times. According to James, the call was meant for Hunter.

James Biden, a financier and brother of the former vice president, was in a hotel lobby in November 2017 when he got a surprise call on his cellphone. The call was from Patrick Ho, Mr. Ye’s lieutenant. Mr. Ho, 69, was in trouble.

Federal agents who had monitored CEFC’s rise since at least the summer of 2016 had sprung into action, arresting Mr. Ho in New York on allegations that he had bribed African officials in Chad and Uganda. Days later, federal agents showed up at Mr. Ye’s luxury apartment building across from Central Park with a subpoena to interview Mr. Ye, said people familiar with the matter.

…

In a brief interview, James Biden said he had been surprised by Mr. Ho’s call. He said he believed it had been meant for Hunter Biden, the former vice president’s son. James Biden said he had passed on his nephew’s contact information. -NYT

In July of 2019, Hunter confessed to the New Yorker that he had accepted the 2.8 carat diamond worth at least ten thousand dollars, which he insisted wasn’t a bribe – before admitting that he and his father Joe had in fact discussed his business dealings.

Hunter offered to use his contacts to help identify investment opportunities for Ye’s company, CEFC China Energy, in liquefied-natural-gas projects in the United States. After the dinner, Ye sent a 2.8-carat diamond to Hunter’s hotel room with a card thanking him for their meeting. “I was, like, Oh, my God,” Hunter said. (In Kathleen’s court motion, the diamond is estimated to be worth eighty thousand dollars. Hunter said he believes the value is closer to ten thousand.) When I asked him if he thought the diamond was intended as a bribe, he said no: “What would they be bribing me for? My dad wasn’t in office.”  –New Yorker

As Eric Trump recently said, “If I did 1/100 of what Hunter Biden did, I’d be in jail for the rest of my life.”

Tyler Durden
Thu, 04/07/2022 – 13:45

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“Do Copyright Holders Get a Free Pass to Identify Alleged Infringers?”

From Paul Alan Levy (Public Citizen) (bullets and some paragraph breaks added):

[A] controversy over Twitter postings by CallMeMoneyBags … presents the latest challenge in the Northern District of California to the well established rule, first established in 2001 in Dendrite International v. Doe, previously followed in that district as well as in federal and state courts across the country,

  • that a would-be plaintiff claiming that its rights have been violated by anonymous online speech has to make a showing, supported by both legal argument and an evidentiary showing,
  • that it has a tenable claim before it gets to identify the anonymous speaker and thus obtain the ability to serve the speaker with a summons and complaint and litigate its claim to a conclusion, and
  • that assuming the plaintiff has made these showings, the court has to balance the right to enforce substantial claims through litigation against the prospective costs of breaching the right to speak anonymously.

The case arises in somewhat peculiar circumstances. Over a period of a few days in October 2020, a Twitter user using the handle “CallMeMoneyBags,” who specialized in tweets about private equity figures, posted a series of photographs of nubile women to which he appended texts suggesting that Brian Sheth, a private equity billionaire, was now investing his wealth in such women (the tweets and photos appear at pages 3 to 5 here). A mysterious entity named Bayside Advisory, LLC, which appears to have been first formed in Delaware that same month, and was not even registered to do business in California until January 2021, served a DMCA takedown notice on Twitter, contending that the tweets infringed its copyright in the photos, and followed that notice with a subpoena that it obtained under section 512(h) of the DMCA, seeking to identify CallMeMoneyBags for the claimed purpose of enforcing its copyright.

Twitter objected to the subpoena and, when Bayside persisted, moved to quash on First Amendment grounds, expressing suspicion that Sheth himself was behind the DMCA takedown and subpoena, and insisting that Bayside make a showing that its copyright claim could surmount the anonymous user’s potential fair use defense before the user’s identification was compelled.  Bayside cross-moved to compel compliance.

The Magistrate Judge to whom the case was assigned initially ordered Twitter to give notice to the anonymous user so that she could, perhaps, retain counsel and articulate her own objections to the subpoena. When the anonymous user failed to take advantage of this opportunity, the Magistrate Judge ordered Twitter to provide the identifying information, reasoning that neither the fair use defense nor the “balancing” stage of the subpoena analysis could be applied properly unless the anonymous accused offender entered the case to provide evidence bearing on her purpose in using the photos or the harms that could befall her if she is identified.

Twitter has sought de novo review, and its position has been supported by EFF and the ACLU, which filed an amicus brief urging reversal of the magistrate judge’s ruling and a grant of the motion to quash. Twitter and its amici argue that the magistrate judge got the fair use analysis wrong, but also that the magistrate judge should have quashed the subpoena based on the balancing stage alone, either because the copyright owner has the burden of proving that its interest in enforcement outweigh any possible First Amendment interests in anonymity (the EFF/ACLU argument), or because it is “self-evident that identification would [result in] public exposure of plaintiff’s identity and the financial and other burdens of defending against a multi-count lawsuit.” (Twitter’s argument)

Bayside is defending the decision it secured, also supported by amicus briefs from the Copyright Alliance and from a coalition of photographers’ organizations: Their arguments include the contentions that an Internet platform should never be allowed to invoke its users’ possible fair use defenses as a basis for opposing enforcement of a DMCA subpoena, and that, because the defense of fair use supplants possible First Amendment objections to copyright infringement claims, no consideration should be given to the First Amendment right to speak anonymously. They argue that the court should apply the standard of the Sony Music case to decide whether the alleged infringer should be outed.

Public Citizen filed our own amicus brief taking an intermediate position between the two extremes asserted by Bayside and its amici on the one hand, and Twitter and our friends at EFF and the ACLU on the other. We take no position on whether, based on a proper analysis, the subpoena should be enforced. (Many thanks to Phil Malone at Stanford’s Juelsgaard Clinic for collaborating on the amicus brief at a difficult time)….

A very interesting and important matter; go to Levy’s post for more analysis, and more details on the arguments for and against each of these positions.

The post "Do Copyright Holders Get a Free Pass to Identify Alleged Infringers?" appeared first on Reason.com.

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Key Player In Ex-Clinton Lawyer’s Trial Intends To Plead The Fifth

Key Player In Ex-Clinton Lawyer’s Trial Intends To Plead The Fifth

Authored by Zachary Stieber via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours),

A former technology executive who helped spy on the White House intends to invoke his right against self-incrimination if he is called to testify during the upcoming trial of a lawyer who represented Hillary Clinton’s campaign during the 2016 election, according to court documents.

Michael Sussman in an undated interview. (CNN/Screenshot via NTD)

Michael Sussman, the lawyer, is set to go on trial for allegedly lying to the FBI.

Sussman was representing Rodney Joffe, a tech executive, when he went to the FBI and handed over three white papers that contained unsubstantiated allegations against then-candidate Donald Trump, Clinton’s rival in the presidential race, according to U.S. prosecutors.

Sussman says he gave the information to the FBI as a concerned citizen and the parties he was representing at the time are not relevant.

If Joffe were to testify during the trial, he would “offer critical exculpatory testimony,” Sussman’s lawyers said in one of the new filings. Among the angles would be that “Mr. Sussmann and Mr. Joffe agreed that information should be conveyed to the FBI and to Agency-2,” believed to be the CIA, “to help the government, not to benefit Mr. Joffe.”

But Joffe plans on invoking his rights under the Fifth Amendment if called to testify because prosecutors say he remains the subject of an investigation.

Steven Tyrell, representing Joffe, said in a letter just made public that he spoke with Andrew DeFilippis, a prosecutor on Special Counsel John Durham’s team, on March 31 after receiving a subpoena for Joffe to testify.

After receiving confirmation Joffe remains under investigation, Tyrell asked for more details.

“Rather than provide any additional information to aid in our assessment of the risk of prosecution, Mr. DeFilippis stated that in his view, Mr. Joffe’s status in the investigation was sufficient to establish a good faith basis to invoke the privilege against self-incrimination. Mr. DeFilippis further stated that OSC did not want to get into any more detail, and presumed that Latham would understand if Mr. Joffe decided to invoke,” Tyrell said in the letter, which was sent to Sussman’s lawyers at Latham & Watkins.

Sussman’s lawyers alleged that Durham’s team is “manufacturing incredible claims of continuing criminal liability” to force Joffe to not testify, alleging it is “simply inconceivable that Mr. Joffe faces any real continuing criminal exposure in connection with the special counsel’s investigation.”

According to earlier filings, Joffe was part of a scheme to spy on the White House before and after Trump became president. Joffe’s spokesperson has described him as “an apolitical Internet security expert with decades of service to the U.S. government who has never worked for a political party, and who legally provided access” to data to the White House.

Since Sussman also plans to invoke his Fifth Amendment right during trial, Joffe remains the only available witness regarding the relationship between himself and Sussman, the defendant’s lawyers assert.

They’re asking the court to dismiss the case unless prosecutors agree to grant Joffe immunity, which would enable him to testify without fear of repercussions.

In a filing from Durham’s team, prosecutors said Sussman assembled and conveyed allegations regarding Trump to the FBI on behalf of both Joffe and Clinton’s campaign, citing billing records, conversations, and other evidence. One nexus is a law firm, Perkins Coie, which was paid by the Clinton campaign and the Democratic National Committee during the election, with evidence showing Joffe met with former Perkins lawyer Marc Elias multiple times.

Emails that Durham’s team is seeking to introduce during the trial would show Sussman, Joffe, and the campaign “were ‘acting in concert toward a common goal,’ namely, the goal of assembling and disseminating the Russian Bank-1 allegations and other derogatory information about Trump and his associates to the media and the U.S. government,” the special prosecutor’s office said. One email would show Joffe saying he was offered the top cybersecurity job in the White House if Democrats won the election.

Tyler Durden
Thu, 04/07/2022 – 13:25

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German States Will Prosecute Speech That Supports the Russian Invasion of Ukraine


zumaamericasthirtyfour101666

A number of German states have banned public displays of the letter Z, which has become a symbol for supporters of the Russian invasion of Ukraine.

The states of Berlin, Saxony, Bavaria, and Lower Saxony will prosecute people who publicly display the letter. Baden-Württemberg, North Rhine-Westphalia, and Saxony-Anhalt are considering implementing their own bans as well.

“The Russian attack on Ukraine is a crime and whoever publicly approves of this war can thereby become criminally liable,” said Marek Wede, a spokesperson for Germany’s Interior Ministry. German law forbids public support of illegal acts. Those who are found guilty could face punishment ranging from a fine to three years in jail.

The letter Z has been painted on Russian tanks and troop transport vehicles since the beginning of the invasion of Ukraine. Some Russian civilians have also reportedly painted the symbol on their cars, and a Russian gymnast donned the symbol on his uniform during a podium ceremony at Apparatus World Cup in Doha, Qatar. The Russian Defense Ministry claims the symbol stands for “za pobedu,” which means “for victory.”

In late March, Ukrainian Minister of Foreign Affairs Dmytro Kuleba wrote on Twitter, “I call on all states to criminalize the use of the ‘Z’ symbol as a way to publicly support Russia’s war of aggression against Ukraine. ‘Z’ means Russian war crimes, bombed out cities, thousands of murdered Ukrainians. Public support of this barbarism must be forbidden.”

Critics of Germany’s effort to expand its restrictions on so-called hate speech and certain types of political speech argue that the Z ban is both illiberal and not helpful to Ukraine.

“Of course it is regrettable that some people choose to defend or support Putin’s attack on a sovereign nation. But no one, not even our politicians, can seriously believe that banning the ‘Z’ symbol will change their minds. On the contrary, it will probably embolden Russia’s supporters, who already claim to feel victimised by the West,” wrote Sabine Beppler-Spahl, chair of the German liberal think tank Freiblickinstitut, in Spiked.

“Moreover, pro-Russia demonstrators can now accuse Germany of hypocrisy. After all, the very same German politicians who frequently attack the repression of dissent in Russia are now repressing dissent in Germany.”

The post German States Will Prosecute Speech That Supports the Russian Invasion of Ukraine appeared first on Reason.com.

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Court Ordered Disgruntled Retirement Community Residents to Stop “Disparagement” Management, Then Reconsidered

From Fellowship Senior Living, Inc. v. Schenk, decided in 2020 by New Jersey trial court judge Yolanda Ciccone, but just posted on Westlaw a few days ago:

By way of background, this suit arises out of the Schenks’ failure to pay for monthly residency and other attendant recurring service charges beginning in June 2017 and continuing through October of this year. On March 18, 2010, the Schenks entered into the Residency Agreement with Fellowship by which Fellowship accepted the Schenks as lifecare residents in the Fellowship Village CCRC and agreed to provide them with, among other things, housing, certain healthcare as needed, and certain meals (the “Services”).

Pursuant to the Agreement, the Schenks agreed to pay Fellowship an upfront entrance fee, plus ongoing monthly service fees and other related fees such as for cable television, carport, telephone and internet connectivity. The parties have asserted various claims, counterclaims, and third-party claims which have largely been resolved by the Schenks’ tender of $140,501.36 in partial satisfaction of the outstanding sums due as set forth in the Court’s November 7, 2019 Order.

The court entered an order that (among other things) “enjoin[ed] the Schenks from future disparagement or derogatory communications against Fellowship, its Officers, Board Members, Employees, or Agents,” but later granted the Schenks’ motion to reconsider:

Plaintiff argues that the purpose of this limitation is to ensure civility and respectful discourse. Plaintiff explains that over the course of the last nine years, the Schenks, have disseminated several hundred letters to Fellowship’s residents, Fellowship’s Board of Directors, and various public officials that contained false statements intended to destroy the reputation of Fellowship’s Chief Executive Officer, members of its Board of Directors. Additionally, Plaintiff asserts that the court’s order is not an unconstitutional impingement on the Schenks speech.

The New Jersey Constitution guarantees a broad affirmative right to free speech: “Every person may freely speak, write and publish his sentiments on all subjects, being responsible for the abuse of that right. No law shall be passed to restrain or abridge the liberty of speech or of the press.” That guarantee is one of the broadest in the nation, and it affords greater protection than the First Amendment….

New Jersey has repeatedly recognized free speech rights of residents of planned developments which are similarly situated as Fellowship. This court agrees that commenting on management is an integral part of resident life. Being critical of decisions and disseminating information about decisions affecting a resident is critical….

For the foregoing reasons, Defendant’s Motion for Reconsideration is GRANTED in part for the permanent injunction on future disparagement….

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German States Will Prosecute Speech That Supports the Russian Invasion of Ukraine


zumaamericasthirtyfour101666

A number of German states have banned public displays of the letter Z, which has become a symbol for supporters of the Russian invasion of Ukraine.

The states of Berlin, Saxony, Bavaria, and Lower Saxony will prosecute people who publicly display the letter. Baden-Württemberg, North Rhine-Westphalia, and Saxony-Anhalt are considering implementing their own bans as well.

“The Russian attack on Ukraine is a crime and whoever publicly approves of this war can thereby become criminally liable,” said Marek Wede, a spokesperson for Germany’s Interior Ministry. German law forbids public support of illegal acts. Those who are found guilty could face punishment ranging from a fine to three years in jail.

The letter Z has been painted on Russian tanks and troop transport vehicles since the beginning of the invasion of Ukraine. Some Russian civilians have also reportedly painted the symbol on their cars, and a Russian gymnast donned the symbol on his uniform during a podium ceremony at Apparatus World Cup in Doha, Qatar. The Russian Defense Ministry claims the symbol stands for “za pobedu,” which means “for victory.”

In late March, Ukrainian Minister of Foreign Affairs Dmytro Kuleba wrote on Twitter, “I call on all states to criminalize the use of the ‘Z’ symbol as a way to publicly support Russia’s war of aggression against Ukraine. ‘Z’ means Russian war crimes, bombed out cities, thousands of murdered Ukrainians. Public support of this barbarism must be forbidden.”

Critics of Germany’s effort to expand its restrictions on so-called hate speech and certain types of political speech argue that the Z ban is both illiberal and not helpful to Ukraine.

“Of course it is regrettable that some people choose to defend or support Putin’s attack on a sovereign nation. But no one, not even our politicians, can seriously believe that banning the ‘Z’ symbol will change their minds. On the contrary, it will probably embolden Russia’s supporters, who already claim to feel victimised by the West,” wrote Sabine Beppler-Spahl, chair of the German liberal think tank Freiblickinstitut, in Spiked.

“Moreover, pro-Russia demonstrators can now accuse Germany of hypocrisy. After all, the very same German politicians who frequently attack the repression of dissent in Russia are now repressing dissent in Germany.”

The post German States Will Prosecute Speech That Supports the Russian Invasion of Ukraine appeared first on Reason.com.

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Court Ordered Disgruntled Retirement Community Residents to Stop “Disparagement” Management, Then Reconsidered

From Fellowship Senior Living, Inc. v. Schenk, decided in 2020 by New Jersey trial court judge Yolanda Ciccone, but just posted on Westlaw a few days ago:

By way of background, this suit arises out of the Schenks’ failure to pay for monthly residency and other attendant recurring service charges beginning in June 2017 and continuing through October of this year. On March 18, 2010, the Schenks entered into the Residency Agreement with Fellowship by which Fellowship accepted the Schenks as lifecare residents in the Fellowship Village CCRC and agreed to provide them with, among other things, housing, certain healthcare as needed, and certain meals (the “Services”).

Pursuant to the Agreement, the Schenks agreed to pay Fellowship an upfront entrance fee, plus ongoing monthly service fees and other related fees such as for cable television, carport, telephone and internet connectivity. The parties have asserted various claims, counterclaims, and third-party claims which have largely been resolved by the Schenks’ tender of $140,501.36 in partial satisfaction of the outstanding sums due as set forth in the Court’s November 7, 2019 Order.

The court entered an order that (among other things) “enjoin[ed] the Schenks from future disparagement or derogatory communications against Fellowship, its Officers, Board Members, Employees, or Agents,” but later granted the Schenks’ motion to reconsider:

Plaintiff argues that the purpose of this limitation is to ensure civility and respectful discourse. Plaintiff explains that over the course of the last nine years, the Schenks, have disseminated several hundred letters to Fellowship’s residents, Fellowship’s Board of Directors, and various public officials that contained false statements intended to destroy the reputation of Fellowship’s Chief Executive Officer, members of its Board of Directors. Additionally, Plaintiff asserts that the court’s order is not an unconstitutional impingement on the Schenks speech.

The New Jersey Constitution guarantees a broad affirmative right to free speech: “Every person may freely speak, write and publish his sentiments on all subjects, being responsible for the abuse of that right. No law shall be passed to restrain or abridge the liberty of speech or of the press.” That guarantee is one of the broadest in the nation, and it affords greater protection than the First Amendment….

New Jersey has repeatedly recognized free speech rights of residents of planned developments which are similarly situated as Fellowship. This court agrees that commenting on management is an integral part of resident life. Being critical of decisions and disseminating information about decisions affecting a resident is critical….

For the foregoing reasons, Defendant’s Motion for Reconsideration is GRANTED in part for the permanent injunction on future disparagement….

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