Month: December 2022

By John Kingston of FreightWaves.com

The benchmark price for most diesel surcharges fell the most in a week since the early days of the 2009 financial crisis, with physical markets suggesting there are further declines to come. 

Not since October 2009 has the Department of Energy/Energy Information Administration weekly diesel price fallen as much as the 17.4 cents it dropped Monday. The price came in at $4.967 a gallon, the first time it has been below $5 since Oct. 3. 

This week’s decline is only 1 cent more than the 16.4-cent drop recorded July 25. The DOE/EIA had not dropped more than 17.4 cents since a decline of 19.4 cents Oct. 27, 2009, which wrapped up a four-week decline of more than 67 cents as the full impact of the collapse of Lehman Brothers and other financial market turmoil was kicking into high gear.

The latest price decline came on an eventful day for oil and diesel markets. Those markets also suggest that retail diesel prices still have a long way to fall to catch up with broader market conditions.

The FUELS.USA data series in SONAR, which reflects the spread between retail and wholesale prices, has pushed past $1.90 a gallon in recent days. That is easily the highest number in the more than four and a half years that SONAR has tracked the spread, which before the enormous volatility of this year tended to move toward a range of $1 to $1.10, though with significant swings above and below that range.

If wholesale prices were to be locked into place at the current level, retail diesel would be expected to fall at least 50 cents and likely more just to get back to some level of normalcy.

That retail/wholesale spread has been affected not only by recent declines in the ultra low sulfur diesel (ULSD) price on the CME commodity exchange, but also by weakness in the physical markets that trade as a differential against the ULSD futures price.

For example, the daily basis differential for ULSD in New York Harbor published by DTN Energy stood at $1 on Nov. 15. That means that delivery of ULSD in New York Harbor in the subsequent few days after Nov. 15 traded at $1 more than the price of ULSD on the CME commodity exchange. On Nov. 15, ULSD on CME would have been reflecting product to be delivered during December. 

That spread is normally a few cents. And on Monday, it was down to that level, being assessed by DTN at a spread of 1.5 cents. The differential has shed 98.5% of its value in just three weeks.

The benchmark U.S. Gulf Coast physical price never soared as East Coast prices did. On Nov. 15, it was negative 28.5 cents, according to DTN, meaning physical diesel in the U.S. Gulf Coast was that much less than the CME ULSD price. It has gotten stronger since then, to negative 23.5 cents. But that is still well below normal prices, which are also generally 10 cents or less under the CME price.

Those strong spreads on the East Coast and in other markets incentivized refiners to run their plants at high levels, and they have responded. In the more than 30 years of data on refinery operating rates published by the EIA, there have been only three times in the final weekly report of November when the nation’s refineries ran at an operating rate more than the 95.2% they  recorded in the week ended Nov. 25, the latest report published by EIA.

That has led to a significant easing of inventories. The closely watched Days Cover figure for distillate inventories — which are generally 85% to 90% ULSD — came in at 29 days in that report for the week ended Nov. 25. That figure was less than 26 days just a few weeks earlier and the highest since the end of September. Days cover represents the number of days of current consumption that could be supplied solely by inventories.

The background of this movement in diesel prices Monday was the start of a price cap implemented by Western nations on purchases of Russian crude, combined with an EU ban on waterborne imports of Russian crude. 

The $60/barrel cap for now would not have an impact on sales of Urals crude, the grade of oil it ships out to Western markets, because the price of Urals has been less than $60.

But a more immediate test will come with sales of ESPO, a crude exported out of Russia’s east coast, which before the large declines of Monday was selling for  more than $70 a barrel.

The prospect of the Russian cap being implemented and the possibility it might end up restricting Russian crude exports was seen as a factor in early gains Monday in global oil markets. 

But the later weakening of equity markets pulled oil down with it. The end result was that the DOE/EIA price was not the only one to break through a key number; the CME price for ULSD did too, falling below $3 a gallon for the first time since Feb. 25, settling at $2.9998 a gallon.

The volatility in Monday’s market could best be seen by the fact that while ULSD settled at less than $3 a gallon, it traded as high as nearly $3.24 earlier in the day.

On the 19th day of the historic Artemis I mission, a camera mounted on the uncrewed Orion spacecraft captured a stunning image of the moon. 

Mission Time: 19 days, 11 hrs, 39 min
Orion is 243,167 mi from Earth, 5,132 mi from the Moon, cruising at 1,202 mph.
P: 175493, 159868, 68671
V: 1001, 17, -666
O: 25º, 15º, 313º
What’s this? https://t.co/voR4yGy2mg #TrackArtemis pic.twitter.com/DQFiNcYUTW

— Orion Spacecraft (@NASA_Orion) December 5, 2022

The Orion spacecraft performed a powered flyby burn of the moon — the longest so far — as it’s now on its final stretch of the 25-day mission. 

“We’ve completed our return-powered flyby burn and are heading home!” NASA tweeted. 

Orion will travel 238,900 miles back to Earth, and reentry into the atmosphere is expected on Dec. 11 — with a splashdown in the Pacific Ocean. If successful, the spacecraft would complete a 1.3 million-mile space mission. This would allow astronauts to make the journey in the Artemis II mission in 2024 and return to the lunar surface by 2025. 

NASA has said the mission has yet to experience major issues. There was a minor issue when the spacecraft lost communication for about an hour.

Authored by Victor Davis Hanson via AmGreatness.com,

The media has ceased to exist, and the public plods on by assuming as true whatever the media suppresses and as false whatever the media covers.

The current “media”—loosely defined as the old major newspapers like the New York Times and Washington Post, the network news channels, MSNBC and CNN, PBS and NPR, the online news aggregators like Google, Apple, and Yahoo, and the social media giants like the old Twitter and Facebook—are corrupt. 

They have adopted in their news coverage a utilitarian view that noble progressive ends justify almost any unethical means to obtain them. The media is unapologetically fused with the Democratic Party, the bicoastal liberal elite, and the progressive agenda. 

The result is that the public cannot trust that the news it hears or reads is either accurate or true. The news as presented by these outlets has been carefully filtered to suppress narratives deemed inconvenient or antithetical to the political objectives of these entities, while inflating themes deemed useful. 

This bias now accompanies increasing (and increasingly obvious) journalistic incompetence. Lax standards reflect weaponized journalism schools and woke ideology that short prior basic requisites of writing and ethical protocols of quoting and sourcing. In sum, a corrupt media that is ignorant, arrogant, and ideological explains why few now trust what it delivers.

Suppression

Once a story is deemed antithetical to left-wing agendas, there arises a collective effort to smother it. Suppression is achieved both by neglect, and by demonizing others who report an inconvenient truth as racists, conspiracist “right-wingers,” and otherwise irredeemable. 

The Hunter Biden laptop story is the locus classicus. Social media branded the authentic laptop as Russian disinformation. That was a lie. But the deception did not stop them from censoring and squashing those who reported the truth. 

Instead of carefully examining the contents of the laptop or interrogating Biden-company players such as Tony Bobulinksi, the media hyped the ridiculous disinformation hoax as a mechanism for suppressing the damaging pre-election story altogether.

Joe Biden’s cognitive state was another suppression story. The media simply stifled the truth that 2020 candidate Biden was unable to conduct a normal campaign due to his frailty and non-compos-mentis status. Few fully reported his often cruel and racist outbursts of the “lying-dog-faced-pony-soldier” and “you ain’t black”/“terrorist” sort. 

The #MeToo media predictably quashed the Tara Reade disclosure. In fact, journalists turned on her in the manner that they previously had insisted was sexist and defamatory “blame-the-victim” smearing. 

Joe Biden has long suffered from a sick tic of creepily intruding into the private space of young women and preteen girls: blowing their hair, talking into their ears, squeezing their necks, hugging in full body embraces—all for far too long. In other words, Biden should have expected the Charlie Rose or the Donald Trump Access Hollywood media treatment. Instead, he was de facto exonerated by collective media silence. To this day, despite staffers’ efforts to corral his wandering hands and head, he occasionally reverts to form with his creepy fixations with younger women. 

Ask the media today which administration surveilled journalists and they will likely cry “Trump!” Yet their own sensationalist reporting that the IRS was weaponized by Trump was proven a lie when the inspector general notedTrump never went after either James Comey or Andrew McCabe. And it was an untruth comparable to the smear that “nuclear secrets” and “nuclear codes” were hidden away at Mar-a-Lago or that Donald Trump sought to profit from the trove. Nor does anyone remember that Barack Obama went after the Associated Press reporters and Fox News Channel’s James Rosen. Nor do they care that Biden sought to birth an Orwellian Ministry of Truth censorship bureau.

Fantasy

The media does not just suppress, but concocts. The entire Russian-collusion hoax—Robert Mueller’s vain 22-month and $40 million investigation—was a complete waste of time on the one hand, but on the other an effective effort to destroy the effectiveness of an elected president. 

How many print and television celebrity journalists declared that Trump would shortly resign, be jailed, or impeached over the pee-pee tape or Christopher Steele’s other mishmash of lies? The problem for the media in promoting the fallacious dossier was not just that it was untrue, but that it was so awfully written, so obviously poorly sourced, and so Drudge Report-like amateurishly sensational that it could not be appear factual to any sane person—other than an agenda-driven and addled journalist who found it useful.

Do we remember the Hillary Clinton-approved Alfa Bank/Trump Tower fable that is now resurfacing for a second try? 

Or the Jussie Smollett caper that trumped even the Brett Kavanaugh-as-teenage-assaulter and rapist lie? Or the Covington kids fabrications that trumped the Duke lacrosse hoax that trumped the “Hands Up, Don’t Shoot” myth that trumped the “white Hispanic,” doctored photo/edited 911 call smear about George Zimmerman? 

Recall Trump’s supposed “immigration jails” and “kids in cages” at the border—in truth both not cages and in fact birthed by Obama. 

Then there was Trump’s supposedly impeachable offense of purportedly canceling military aid to Ukraine so that he could allegedly hound the innocent Biden family—rather than delaying, but not canceling, offensive arms vetoed by the Obama Administration for the prescient worry that the Biden family had left a trail of corruption in Ukraine.  

Who ran with the “voter suppression” untruth that Stacey Abrams was the “real” governor of Georgia or the yarn that Donald Trump was illegitimately elected? How exactly did Jeffery Epstein and Harvey Weinstein operate as sexual perverts and high-profile, liberal-benefacting deviants for years without media scrutiny? Who created the cable news myth of now-felon Michael Avenatti as presidential timber? 

Chronological Manipulation

Why, after the midterms, did we suddenly learn that Donald Trump did not, as in the case of Barack Obama’s Lois Lerner skullduggery, manipulate the IRS for political purposes to go after James Comey and Andrew McCabe? Why suddenly post-election did we read that his presidential papers at Mar-a-Lago really did not contain “nuclear codes” and “nuclear secrets” or stuff intended for sale? Why did we learn after November 8 that a special counsel was suddenly appointed? Why did we discover the Ponzi scheme of Sam Bankman-Fried only after the midterms and why is he treated as an aw-shucks teen in bum drag rather than a calculating and conniving crook?

The answer is the same as why, just days before the 2016 election, we were assured suddenly by the media that the DNC’s planted stories about Christopher Steele’s dossier “proved” that Trump was a Russian stooge. 

Asymmetry 

When did the media finally dribble out that Obama’s memoir Dreams From My Father was chock full of lies and thus was intended all along to be read as “impressionistic” rather than factual? 

We only learned belatedly that Hillary Clinton did not brave the front lines in virtual combat in Bosnia. We were assured that she was completely out of the loop on the Uranium One deal and thus knew nothing about the cash that poured into the Clinton Foundation and Bill Clinton’s honoraria from Russian sources? 

Did the media ever fully report that Hillary Clinton: 1) broke the law by using a personal server to communicate while Secretary of State; 2) lied about the missing emails by claiming they were all personal about “yoga” and “weddings” and such; 3) destroyed subpoenaed evidence by smashing her devices; 4) had her husband accidently bump into Attorney General Loretta Lynch on a Phoenix tarmac who was supposedly investigating Clinton at the time; and 5) became our first major election denialist by declaring “Russian collusion” to be true, Donald Trump to be illegitimately elected, and the 2016 balloting to be “rigged”?

Unethical Behavior 

Our once lions of network news were long ago revealed to have feet of clay. Dan Rather insisted that “fake but true” memos “proved” George W. Bush got special exemptions from military service. Brian Williams fabricated an entire Walter-Mitty fantasy existence with ease. The Wiki Leaks Podesta trove revealed blue-chip reporters checking in with the Clinton campaign and the DNC to “fact check” and brainstorm their pre-publication puff pieces. 

Throughout the Obama years, Ben Rhodes, the failed novelist and deputy national security advisor distorted U.S. foreign policy, as CBS News, overseen by his brother, warped its coverage of him. 

Do we remember the commentary on MSNBC of the brilliant Vanderbilt professor and MSNBC “analyst,” presidential historian Jon Meacham? He periodically praised Joe Biden’s eloquence and moving addresses without informing his audience that he contributed to or indeed helped write what he gushed about. No problem. Even after finally being fired, Meacham is still at it, offering his input on Biden’s September 1, Phantom-of-the-Opera “un-American” rant.

CNN Sums It Up

The long, slow death of Jeffery Zucker’s CNN is emblematic of all the mortal sins listed above of our present-day corrupt media.

It is ancient history now and thus forgotten that the self-righteous MSNBC anchorman Lawrence O’Donnell falsely claimed that Deutsche Bank documents would prove that Russian oligarchs co-signed a loan application for Donald Trump. 

Over a decade ago, CNN’s Candy Crowley—remember this impartial “moderator” of the second 2012 presidential debate?—infamously transformed before our very television eyes into an active and shameless partisan by attacking candidate Mitt Romney. CNN commentator Donna Brazile topped Crowley when she unethically leaked primary-debate questions to candidate Hillary Clinton. When pressed, Brazile serially denied her role.

CNN’s former Obamaite Jim Sciutto is known as a serial offender of journalistic ethics and was recently the subject of an internal investigation. Sciutto has also alleged, falsely, that the CIA had yanked a high-level spy out of Moscow because of President Trump’s supposedly dangerously reckless handling of classified information. Sciutto joined CNN’s Carl Bernstein and Marshall Cohen to falsely report that Lanny Davis’ client Michael Cohen would soon assert that Trump had prior knowledge of an upcoming meeting between his son and Russian interests.

Another CNN trio of Thomas Frank, Eric Lichtblau, and Lex Harris were forced out from CNN for their mythologies that the Trump-hating Anthony Scaramucci was directly involved in a $10 billion Russian fund.

CNN’s Julian Zelizer fabricated his own tall tale that Donald Trump never reiterated America’s commitment to honor NATO’s critical Article 5 guarantee. The quartet of CNN’s Gloria Borger, Eric Lichtblau, Jake Tapper, and Brian Rokus all were exposed wrongly assuring that former FBI director James Comey would unequivocally contradict President Trump’s prior assertion that Comey had told him he was not under investigation. 

CNN reporter Manu Raju in December 2017 trafficked in lots of fake news stories that Donald Trump, Jr. supposedly had prior access to the hacked WikiLeaks documents. And he offered another fable that Trump, Jr. would be indicted by Mueller’s special-counsel investigation. But then, who at CNN did not blast out such “bombshells” and “walls are closing in” lies?

The once supposedly great Chris Cuomo—finally fired for softball incestuous interviews with his brother Andrew while serving as confidant to his sibling’s sexual-harassment dilemmas—had been caught on tape screaming obscenities. He also lied on the air when he assured a CNN audience in 2016 that it was illegal for citizens to examine the just-released WikiLeaks emails.

Julia Ioffe was eagerly hired by CNN after Politico fired her for tweeting that the president and his daughter Ivanka might have had an incestuous sexual relationship. CNN Anderson Cooper was every bit as creepy. He harangued a pro-Trump panelist with “If he [Trump] took a dump on his desk, you would defend it!”

Erstwhile CNN religious “expert” Reza Aslan was not so subtle. He trashed Trump as “this piece of sh**.” The late CNN cooking show guru Anthony Bourdain openly joked about poisoning Trump with hemlock. Recall CNN New Year’s Eve host Kathy Griffin posing with a bloody facsimile of Trump’s severed head. Was there something in the CNN contract that stipulated CNN journalists had to be obscene, vulgar, and threatening? 

The CNN circus also hired as a “security analyst” the admitted liar James Clapper. So, was it any surprise that on spec Clapper did what he was hired to do—by falsely claiming that President Trump was a veritable Russian asset?

But for that matter, former CIA director Michael Hayden preposterously alleged that Trump’s immigration policies resembled those in the death camps of Nazi Germany. Was it any wonder either that CNN host Sally Kohn and her roundtable panelists raised their hands to reverberate the “hands up, don’t shoot” lie of the Ferguson shooting?

Do the bias, invective, and lack of ethics of the media even matter anymore? 

In truth, media corruption has changed the course of recent history. 

Had the true nature of the contents of the Hunter Biden laptop been reported, the 2020 voters have polled that the revelation may well have made a difference because they would not have voted for a candidate so clearly compromised by foreign interests. 

Tell the full story of death, destruction, arson, looting, and injured police of the post-George Floyd rioting and what emerges is not the MSNBC denial of violence or the August 2020 CNN lie of a “fiery but mostly peaceful” sort of idealistic protestors.

The Kavanaugh and Smollett fake news accounts helped further to tear apart the country and greenlighted the new assaults on the Supreme Court, from Senator Chuck Schumer’s (D-N.Y.) rants and threats to the would-be assassin who turned up near the Kavanaugh residence. 

The Russian collusion hoax and the first impeachment media hysteria virtually ruined a presidency and have had grave foreign-policy consequences vis à vis Russia.

The media, moreover, matter-of-factly assumed Twitter was an arm of the Democratic Party. Mark Zuckerberg and the FBI worked together to suppress any news embarrassing to the Biden campaign. Do not expect much media coverage of Elon Musk’s serial disclosures of Twitter’s efforts to suppress free communications.

No thanks to the media, after nearly three years we are finally learning that the Wuhan Lab proved the likely source of the COVID pandemic and that the media-sainted Dr. Anthony Fauci subsidized gain-of-function viral research in Wuhan. 

Despite the lies, Americans assumed that Officer Brian Sicknick was not killed by Trump supporters as reported. The public shrugged “of course” when the media did its best to suppress the name of the Capitol policeman who lethally shot Ashli Babbitt for attempting to go through a broken window inside the Capitol. And on and on.

In sum, there is no media. It has ceased to exist, and the public plods on by assuming as true whatever the Pravda-like news outlets suppress and as false whatever they cover.

Chile’s Villarrica volcano’s last major eruption was in 1984. The 9,300-foot-high snow-capped volcano has become active again, belching lava fireballs into the night sky and shaking the ground with earthquake swarms. Local officials are concerned the next big eruption could be nearing. 

“While we cannot predict when the volcano will erupt, the conditions are in place,” Alvaro Amigo, the head of the National Volcanic Surveillance Network, told AFP. 

Chile’s snow-capped Villarrica volcano has been shaken by earthquakes and is belching fire, placing authorities on alert for a possible eruption in a picturesque area beloved by tourists:https://t.co/Y98oubiENT pic.twitter.com/D1Pr6Q0Nsw

— Ann Kae (@KarlieVoisin) December 5, 2022

🇨🇱 #Alerta ⚠
➡ Continuan Las Incandescencias💥☁
del #Volcan🌋 🏔 #Villarrica Volcano
Madrugada 3 al 4 de Diciembre
Pucon Chile 🇨🇱#Sismo #FelizLunes #Temblor Volcan Villarrica #Erupcion #Terremoto #Eruption #Meteorito #VolcanVillarrica Vidal Diveana pic.twitter.com/qAS15bxxBU

— Temblor 🔴 Alerta Sismica (@elluchin1) December 4, 2022

Amigo warned a large population and infrastructure are around Villarrica, and any eruption would be hazardous because of the volcanic rock and mud flows.  

“The thing about Villarrica is the risk, because many people are living in areas that are highly exposed” to potential damage from the volcano, geophysicist Cristian Farias said. 

About 28,000 people live less than ten miles from the peak in a city called Pucon. Officials have placed a yellow alert for the volcano, which means imminent eruption. 

Authored by Techno Fog via The Reactionary,

Today, Missouri Attoney General Eric Schmitt released the transcript of the testimony of Dr. Anthony Fauci. As you might recall, Fauci was deposed as part of an ongoing federal lawsuit challenging the Biden Administration’s violations of the First Amendment in targeting and suppressing the speech of Americans who challenged the government’s narrative on COVID-19.

Here is the Fauci deposition transcript.

And here are the highlights…

EcoHealth Alliance – the Peter Daszak group – is knee-deep in the Wuhan controversy, having been funded by the Fauci’s NIH for coronavirus and gain of function research in China (and having worked with the Chinese team in Wuhan). What does Fauci say about EcoHealth Alliance? Over two years after the COVID-19 pandemic began, and after millions dead worldwide, he’s “vaguely familiar” with their work.

In early 2020, Fauci was put on notice that his group – NIAID – had funded EcoHealth alliance on bat coronavirus research for the past five years.

This coincided with early reports – directly to Fauci, from Jeremy Ferrar and Christian Anderson – “of the possibility of there being a manipulation of the virus” based on the fact that “it was an unusual virus.”

Fauci conceded that he was specifically made aware by Anderson that “the unusual features of the virus” make it look “potentially engineered.”

Fauci couldn’t recall why he sent an article discussing gain of function research in China to his deputy, Hugh Auchincloss, telling him it was essential that they speak on the phone. He couldn’t recall speaking with Auchincloss via phone that day. But remarkably, Fauci did remember assigning research tasks to Auchincloss

Fauci was evasive on conversations with Francis Collins about whether NIAID may have funded coronavirus-related research in China, eventually stating “I don’t recall.”

The phrase “I don’t recall” was prominent in Fauci’s deposition. He said it a total of 174 times:

According to the transcript, Dr. Fauci said “I don’t recall” 174 times, including when asked about emails that he sent, interviews that he gave, and other important information.

— Eric Schmitt (@Eric_Schmitt) December 5, 2022

For example, Fauci couldn’t remember what anyone said on a call discussing whether the virus originated in a lab:

During that same call, Fauci couldn’t recall whether anyone expressed concern that the lab leak “might discredit scientific funding projects.” He also couldn’t recall whether there was a discussion about a lab leak distracting from the virus response. Fauci did remember, however, that they agreed there needed to be more time to investigate the virus origins – including the lab leak theory.

What else couldn’t Fauci remember? Whether, early into the pandemic, his confidants raised concerns about social media posts about the origins of COVID-19.

Yet Fauci did admit he was concerned about social media posts blaming China for the pandemic. He even admitted the accidental lab leak “certainly is a possibility,” contradicting his prior claims to National Geographic where he said the virus “could not have been artificially or deliberately manipulated.”

Fauci also couldn’t recall whether he had any conversations with Daszak about the origins of COVID-19 in February 2020, but admitted those conversations might have happened: “I told you before that I did not remember any direct conversations with him about the origin, and I said I very well might have had conversations but I don’t specifically remember conversations.” And he couldn’t recall telling the media early on during the pandemic that the virus was consistent with a jump “from an animal to a human.”

Fauci said he was in the dark on social media actions to curb speech and suspend accounts that posted COVID-19 information that didn’t fit the mainstream narrative: “I’m not aware of suppression of speech on social media.” Yet it was Fauci’s proclamations of the truth, whether about the origins of COVID-19 to the effectiveness of hydroxychloroquine, that led to social media companies banning discussions of contrary information.

Regarding those removals of content, Fauci had no personal knowledge of a US Government/Social Media effort to curb “misinformation.” But he conceded the possibility numerous times.

Then there’s the issue of masks. In February 2020, Fauci informed an acquaintance that was traveling: “I do not recommend that you wear a mask.” Fauci would later become a vocal proponent of masks only two months later.

I’m near my Substack length limit – posting the excerpts does that – but you can see from Fauci’s testimony that his public statements about COVID-19 origins and the necessity to wear a mask didn’t match his private conversations. This has been known for some time, but it’s finally nice to get him on record.

Again, read it all and subscribe here.

Fauci makes them ask him if he knows anyone that works for a social media platform FIVE TIMES before he finally admits his daughter worked for Twitter.

Five. Times.

— Steve Deace (@SteveDeaceShow) December 5, 2022

Over 100 anti-vaccination protests showed up in New Zealand to support the parents of a critically ill 4-month-old baby in New Zealand who demanded that the hospital provide supplementary blood from unvaxxinated donors before the child goes under the knife for pulmonary valve stenosis, a heart valve disorder.

The boy’s mother says she wants “safe blood” to be used, which her lawyer described as a fear of blood containing traces of vaccines using mRNA technology.

The request has been denied by New Zealand health service, which says vaccines pose no risk to donor supplies, according to RNZ. On Tuesday, the Auckland High Court will decide whether to grant a request to remove the child from the family to perform the surgery.

Paul White, a lawyer for Te Whatu Ora, aka Health New Zealand, described the baby as “getting sicker with every heartbeat.”

Te Whatu Ora is making an application under the Care of Children Act regarding the baby who needs open heart surgery.

It is asking that the baby be placed under the guardianship of the court.

Te Whatu Ora then wants the court to appoint the doctors as agents of the court for medical care, and the parents agents of the court for all other care. -RNZ

According to White, a child with this condition would have been treated by now.

Sue Grey, a lawyer for the family, said the doctors are dismissing the parents as conspiracy theorists and ignoring their concerns.

A full hearing on the matter will be held on Tuesday.

One supporter of the family, Sarah McNaulty, said she was standing up for freedom of choice.

“There’s so many people lined up to give their blood freely,” she said, adding “That is where tyranny starts. When the state provides us with not being able to give blood freely to a patient that needs it.”

According to officials, the Blood Service does not segregate blood from vaccinated and unvaccinated donors, and that there is no risk from the Covid-19 vaccine.

Authored by Jonathan Turley,

Below is my column in the Hill on the recent disclosures in the “Twitter Files” on the coordination of censorship between the company and both Biden and Democratic party operatives. Beyond personally attacking Elon Musk and Matt Taibbi, many have resorted to the same old saw of censorship apologists: it is not censorship if the government did not do it or direct it. That is clearly untrue.  Many groups like the ACLU define censorship as denial of free speech by either government or private entities.  It is also worth noting that this censorship (and these back channels) continued after the Biden campaign became the Biden Administration. Moreover, some of the pressure was coming from Democratic senators and House members to silence critics and to bury the Hunter Biden influence peddling scandal.

Here is the column:

“Handled.” That one word, responding to a 2020 demand to censor a list of Twitter users, speaks volumes about the thousands of documents released by Twitter’s new owner, Elon Musk, on Friday night. As many of us have long suspected, there were back channels between Twitter and the Biden 2020 presidential campaign and the Democratic National Committee (DNC) to ban critics or remove negative stories. Those seeking to discuss the scandal were simply “handled,” and nothing else had to be said.

Ultimately, the New York Post was suspended from Twitter for reporting on the Hunter Biden laptop scandal. Twitter even blocked users from sharing the Post’s story by using a tool designed for child pornography. Even Trump White House press secretary Kayleigh McEnany was suspended for linking to the scandal.

Twitter’s ex-safety chief, Yoel Roth, later said the decision was a “mistake” but the story “set off every single one of my finely tuned APT28 hack and leak campaign alarm bells.” The reference to the APT28 Russian disinformation operation dovetailed with false claims of former U.S. intelligence officers that the laptop was “classic disinformation.”

The Russian disinformation claim was never particularly credible. The Biden campaign never denied the laptop was Hunter Biden’s; it left that to its media allies. Moreover, recipients of key emails could confirm those communications, and U.S. intelligence quickly rejected the Russian disinformation claim.

The point is, there was no direct evidence of a hack or a Russian conspiracy. Even Roth subsequently admitted he and others did not believe a clear basis existed to block the story, but they did so anyway.

Musk’s dumped Twitter documents not only confirm the worst expectations of some of us but feature many of the usual suspects for Twitter critics. The documents do not show a clear role or knowledge by former Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey. Instead, the censor in chief appears to be Vijaya Gadde, Twitter’s former chief legal officer who has been criticized as a leading anti-free speech figure in social media.

There also is James Baker, the controversial former FBI general counsel involved in the bureau’s Russia collusion investigation. He left the FBI and became Twitter’s deputy general counsel.

Some Twitter executives expressed unease with censoring the story, including former global communications VP Brandon Borrman, who asked, “Can we truthfully claim that this is part of the policy?” Baker jumped in to support censorship and said, “It’s reasonable for us to assume that they may have been [hacked] and that caution is warranted.” Baker thus comes across as someone who sees a Russian in every Rorschach inkblot. There was no evidence the Post’s Hunter Biden material was hacked — none. Yet Baker found a basis for a “reasonable” assumption that Russians or hackers were behind it.

Many people recognized the decision for what it was. A former Twitter employee reportedly told journalist Matt Taibbi, “Hacking was the excuse, but within a few hours, pretty much everyone realized that wasn’t going to hold.”

Obviously, bias in the media is nothing new to Washington; newspapers and networks have long run interference for favored politicians or parties. However, this was not a case of a media company spiking its own story to protect a pal. It was a social media company that supplies a platform for people to communicate with each other on political, social and personal views. Social media is now more popular as a form of communications than the telephone.

Censoring communications on Twitter is more akin to the telephone company agreeing to cut the connection of any caller using disfavored terms. And at the apparent request of the 2020 Biden campaign and the DNC, Twitter seems to have routinely stopped others from discussing or hearing opposing views.

The internal company documents released by Musk reinforce what we have seen previously in other instances of Twitter censorship. A recent federal filing revealed a 2021 email between Twitter executives and Carol Crawford, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s digital media chief. Crawford’s back-channel communication sought to censor other “unapproved opinions” on social media; Twitter replied that “with our CEO testifying before Congress this week [it] is tricky.”

At the time, Twitter’s Dorsey and other tech CEOs were about to appear at a House hearing to discuss “misinformation” on social media and their “content moderation” policies. I had just testified on private censorship in circumventing the First Amendment as a type of censorship by surrogate. Dorsey and the other CEOs were asked about my warning of a “‘little brother’ problem, a problem which private entities do for the government that which it cannot legally do for itself.” In response, Dorsey insisted that “we don’t have a censoring department.”

The implications of these documents becomes more serious once the Biden campaign became the Biden administration. These documents show a back channel existed with President Biden’s campaign officials, but those same back channels appear to have continued to be used by Biden administration officials. If so, that would be when Twitter may have gone from a campaign ally to a surrogate for state censorship. As I have previously written, the administration cannot censor critics and cannot use agents for that purpose under the First Amendment.

That is precisely what Musk is now alleging. As the documents were being released, he tweeted, “Twitter acting by itself to suppress free speech is not a 1st amendment violation, but acting under orders from the government to suppress free speech, with no judicial review, is.”

The incoming Republican House majority has pledged to investigate — and Musk has made that process far easier by making good on his pledge of full transparency.

Washington has fully mobilized in its all-out war against Musk. Yet, with a record number of users signing up with Twitter, it seems clear the public is not buying censorship. They want more, not less, free speech.

That may be why political figures such as Hillary Clinton have enlisted foreign governments to compel the censoring of fellow citizens: If Twitter can’t be counted on to censor, perhaps the European Union will be the ideal surrogate to rid social media of these meddlesome posters.

The release of these documents has produced a level of exposure rarely seen in Washington, where such matters usually are simply “handled.”

The political and media establishments generally are unstoppable forces — but they may have met their first immovable object in Musk.

The last decade has seen a number of changes in the world’s richest billionaires list.

For one, there are new faces at the top of the leaderboard that were never there before. But, as Visual Capitalist’s Nick Routley details below, one of the most obvious changes though, is that the richest billionaires have accumulated a lot more wealth in recent years.

Using annual data from Forbes on the richest billionaires, Routley has visualized the wealth and ranking of the top 10 billionaires over the past decade.

Who are the World’s Richest Billionaires?

While the pecking order has fluctuated, the leaderboard remains very exclusive. Out of a possible 10 spots, there are only 19 individuals that have made the list over the last decade.

Here’s the current list of richest billionaires in 2022, including when they first made the list (if in the last decade):

 

*Billionaires with “-” first made the list at an earlier date. Example: Mukesh Ambani made the 2008 list.

 

Microsoft co-founder turned philanthropist, Bill Gates, is a perennial presence at the top of these lists. Gates is currently at his lowest rank over this time period, but is still in fourth spot. The billionaire has pledged to give away nearly all of his fortune to the eponymously named Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation.

From 2018 to 2021, Jeff Bezos sat at the top of the world’s richest people ranking, only to be bumped out by Elon Musk. In 2020, Bezos became the first person to amass a $200 billion fortune after Amazon’s stock price surged during the pandemic. In recent months, Bezos’ net worth has taken a hit as Amazon’s share price has fallen back down to Earth.

Today, Elon Musk is the world’s richest person.

The Rich Get Richer

Over time, the median net worth of the richest billionaires has grown significantly.

 

Most fortunes are held in the form of business equity, real estate, and publicly-traded stocks—all asset classes that have benefited from the era of cheap money and ultra-low interest rates.

 

Over the decade period, the median net worth of the top 10 billionaires has nearly tripled from $39 billion to $115 billion.

In fact, the first billionaire to pass the $100 billion threshold was Jeff Bezos in 2018, when he took the top spot on the list from Bill Gates. However, now all but two on the top 10 wealthiest list are centibillionaires.

Authored by Tara MacIsaac via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours),

A teacher in Oakville, Ontario, who wears large prosthetic breasts in class has been the subject of protests, bomb threats, a College of Teachers review—and now, potentially, a lawsuit.

The teacher at Oakville Trafalgar High School wears oversized prosthetic breasts with protruding nipples, under tight-fitting shirts. Pictures of the teacher posted on social media by students have received international attention.

The school had four bomb threats from September through November targeting the teacher. One demanded, for example, that the teacher be fired. No explosives were found at the school, and no arrests were made.

Parents of students at the school have formed a group called Students First Ontario and say their concerns have not been adequately addressed.

“We have retained legal counsel and are in the process of moving forward with a legal strategy,” the group told The Epoch Times via email. This announcement follows up on a recent review of the case by the Ontario College of Teachers.

Professional Conduct Review

The controversy around the Oakville teacher came to the attention of Education Minister Stephen Lecce, who asked the Ontario College of Teachers in September to “consider strengthening” professional standards.

“In this province, in our schools, we celebrate our differences,” he told reporters at Queen’s Park. “We also believe there must be the highest standards of professionalism for our kids, and on that basis, I’ve asked the Ontario College of Teachers to review and to consider strengthening those provisions.”

pic.twitter.com/DGuxwYzPPW

— Royce Lopez (@hippojuicefilm) September 14, 2022

The college completed the requested review October 14, though its contents were first made public Dec. 5 by the National Post. The Epoch Times has obtained a copy of the review.

It concludes that no strengthening of professional standards is needed. It said the standards of conduct already in place for teachers should be sufficient to address the situation at the Oakville school.

“Following our review, Council has concluded that the standards, governing legislation and supporting resources appropriately address professionalism in today’s modern learning environment,” the review said. “All Ontario Certified Teachers, in their position of trust, are expected to demonstrate responsibility and sound judgement in their relationships with students.”

It suggested that the teacher in question should review the standards already in place. It said there is a “critical need for teachers to adhere to government and employer policies and protocols, as part of their commitment to teacher professionalism. For example, the College’s Essential Advice for the Teaching Profession advises that ‘OCTs should consult their employers’ policies to ensure that they know and follow the expectations and obligations in their particular workplaces and communities.’”

College spokesperson Andrew Fairfield said the college cannot discuss any complaints or concerns filed against teachers. A search of the teacher’s name in the college database shows the teacher is in “good standing.”

‘A Safe Environment’

At a protest outside the school in September, parent Dave Kvesic told The Epoch Times, “Kids should have a safe environment to learn free of ridiculous distractions.” He said the protest wasn’t about “transphobia.” It was “just about my kids.”

Since that time, some parents have expressed continued frustration with the Halton District School Board (HDSB).

In a Nov. 21 statement, the Students First parent group said, “parents have been largely silenced by HDSB administrators and there has been little desire for open inquiry, transparency, and accountability.”

It continued: “Many parents/students have significant questions that need to be addressed given the HDSB’s insistence that there are effectively ‘no boundaries’ when it comes to the ‘expression’ of adults in the company of minors in a publicly-funded school system. It appears our children are part of a social experiment—one that is testing the limits of ‘Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion.’”

HDSB spokesperson Heather Francey did not respond specifically to questions about the parents’ concerns regarding the teacher as of publication. But she said via email, “We have every confidence in the security measures and safety procedures in place at all Halton District School Board (HDSB) schools. …. The HDSB and police work together to investigate threats.”

Board Chair Margo Shuttleworth told The Epoch Times in September that HDSB supports the teacher “as prescribed by the Ontario Charter of Human Rights.”

Moral Codes, Dress Codes

The parent group criticized Shuttleworth for requesting a change to the Education Act that would remove section 264 (1)(c), related to religion and morals. Shuttleworth made the request in an Oct. 20 letter to Education Minister Lecce.

The section in question says that a teacher’s duties include, “to inculcate by precept and example respect for religion and the principles of Judaeo-Christian morality and the highest regard for truth, justice, loyalty, love of country, humanity, benevolence, sobriety, industry, frugality, purity, temperance and all other virtues.”

Shuttleworth requested that it be replaced with a clause that reflects “contemporary and current diversity, equity and inclusion policy and practices, and to reflect the Calls to Action 62 and 63s brought forward by the Truth and Reconciliation Commission.”

HDSB recently considered a proposal to implement a dress code for staff. The proposal was made by board trustees. On Nov. 9, HDSB Superintendent of Human Resources, Sari Taha, said at a board meeting that a dress code for teachers would likely be found discriminatory and should not be implemented.

He said as an employer, the board has the right to implement a dress code or rule for employees as any business does. But, if a dress code places additional burdens on one gender over another, that’s a problem.

A dress code that results in “deferential treatment⁠—that’s key to really pay attention to this word, deferential treatment⁠—will generally be found to be discriminatory,” Taha said.

“Arbitrators will often engage in a balancing of the employer’s legitimate business interest with employees’ interest in personal expression. The employer bears the burden in these cases to establish that the employee’s appearances pose a real threat to its business that is more important than the rights of the employee,” Taha said. “And that is the burden of proof on us if we are to establish a dress code.”

The Epoch Times reporter Peter Wilson contributed to this report.