Famed investor Warren Buffett has revealed details of his will, with the 93-year-old founder of Berkshire Hathaway charting a charitable course for his vast $130 billion fortune after he passes away.
In an interview with The Wall Street Journal, Mr. Buffett said that he intends for nearly all of his immense fortune to be put into a charitable trust that will be used to help the less fortunate.
“It should be used to help the people that haven’t been as lucky as we have been,” Mr. Buffett told the outlet.
His three children—Howard, Susan, and Peter Buffett—will manage the trust, he said. In order for a donation to be made, all three will have to be in agreement on the cause, he said.
“There’s eight billion people in the world, and me and my kids, we’ve been in the luckiest 100th of 1 percent or something,” Mr. Buffett said.
“There’s lots of ways to help people.”
In 2006, Mr. Buffett committed to making annual gifts to the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, as well as four foundations associated with his family.
At the time, it was a mystery what he would do with his fortune after his death. However, in the June 28 interview, Mr. Buffett revealed that the donations to the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation would come to an end.
“The Gates Foundation has no money coming after my death,” Mr. Buffett told the outlet.
Besides that, the billionaire investor hasn’t prescribed to his children how to spend the money.
“I feel very, very good about the values of my three children, and I have 100 percent trust in how they will carry things out,” Mr. Buffett said.
In a press release issued on June 28, Mr. Buffett said the full contents of his will are to stay secret until his death, but that his Nov. 21, 2023, letter to shareholders set forth procedures of his will that are “unlikely to be changed before my death.”
‘Playing in Extra Innings’
In the Nov. 21, 2023, letter Mr. Buffett noted his advanced age while shedding light on the future governance of his vast fortune.
“I feel good but fully realize I am playing in extra innings,” he wrote.
At the time, he disclosed that his three children would serve as executors of his will and trustees of a charitable trust that would receive more than 99 percent of his wealth.
Mr. Buffett wrote in the letter that, when he started giving his fortune away in 2006, his children were not prepared to assume the “awesome responsibility” of managing the process. However, “they are now,” he said.
In his June 28 statement, Mr. Buffett announced that he had donated $5.3 billion of Berkshire Hathaway stock to the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation and four family charities.
The $5.3 billion was his biggest annual donation to date, bringing his total giving to the charities to roughly $57 billion.
Despite having given away more than half of his Berkshire stock since 2006, Buffett still owns about one-seventh of the outstanding shares.
“I have no debts and my remaining A shares are worth about $127 billion, roughly 99½ percent of my net worth,” Mr. Buffett said in the statement. “Nothing extraordinary has occurred at Berkshire; a very long runway, simple but generally sound capital deployment, the American tailwind and compounding effects produced my current wealth.’
“My will provides that more than 99 percent of my estate is destined for philanthropic usage,” he said.
Besides the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, Mr. Buffett has donated to the Susan Thompson Buffett Foundation, which funds abortion drugs; the Howard G. Buffett Foundation, which works to alleviate hunger and improve public safety; the Sherwood Foundation, which supports Nebraska nonprofits; and the NoVo Foundation, which has initiatives focused on minority girls and women.
Anthony Fauci actually concedes that he may have been mistaken?
Stop the presses!
It’s hard to believe considering the list of his policy failures, spectacular misinformation, and revisionist history is almost quite literally endless.
Yet in a recent media interview, Fauci stated that a nationwide policy that he supported actually didn’t work. Kinda.
If only he’d been willing to admit this years ago.
Dr. Anthony Fauci, one of the country’s foremost proponents of closing schools in a futile attempt to slow the spread of Covid, now admits that he may have taken it too far. Whoops!
Fauci is out on his book tour, doing the rounds with friendly media outlets in support of his self-congratulatory, revisionist exploration of the pandemic. And in an interview with CBS Mornings, Fauci explained that maybe, just maybe, keeping schools closed for years was actually a bad idea.
Co-host Tony Dokoupil asked Fauci about schools, and initially, Fauci downplayed what a disastrous result his advocacy caused. “One clear area seems to be the school closures, which did enormous harm to kids on multiple levels,” Dokoupil said, “and didn’t seem to save lives. And I wonder, can we say today that that is a mistake?”
Fauci, of course, said “No,” because admitting that a policy he authorized was an unmitigated failure would mean accepting his role in creating that failure. Instead, as is his usual procedure, he deflected blame onto others. Just as a good scientist should.
“Keeping it for a year was not a good idea,” Fauci said. “So, that was a mistake in retrospect?” Dokoupil asked. “We will not repeat it?”
“Absolutely, yeah,” Fauci replied.
Well, look who finally caught up to the damage he caused! And make no mistake, this most certainly is all on him.
WASHINGTON, DC – Dr. Anthony Fauci, Director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, speaks during a White House Coronavirus Task Force press briefing at the White House on November 19, 2020. (Photo by Tasos Katopodis/Getty Images)
Anthony Fauci Once Again Directly Contradicts Anthony Fauci
Fauci now pretends as if he had nothing to do with keeping schools closed long after they should have been reopened. But of course, that completely contracts his harmful, unconstitutional, ‘flatten the curve’ mandates to America in real-time during the height of the pandemic in 2020.
In September 2020, Fauci described reopening efforts as “very concerning.” Even earlier, when Florida Governor Ron DeSantis spoke about wanting to get schools open as soon as possible, Fauci criticized him and his plan: “If you have a situation where you don’t have real good control over an outbreak and you allow children together, they will likely get infected.”
Fauci also criticized Sen. Rand Paul for pushing for schools to open amid the clear realization that children were not at significant risk of serious side effects from Covid. “I think we better be careful that we’re not cavalier, in thinking that children are completely immune to the deleterious effects,” he said at the time.
Then in 2022, he told ABC News, “I don’t want to use the word ‘mistake,’” when referring to school closures. “If I do, it gets taken out of the context that you’re asking me the question on,” he continued. “We should realize, and have realized, that there will be deleterious collateral consequences when you do something like that.”
But that was exactly the sentiment of DeSantis, and even former President Donald Trump in 2020. They warned that keeping kids home wasn’t going to save lives or even prevent the spread of the virus. And as we saw from Europe’s results, they were right. Fauci criticized them regardless because he not only supported school closures, but he even demanded they do so.
Even now, he still speaks derisively about Dr. Scott Atlas, whose top priority on the Covid task force was getting schools open. In another MSNBC interview, Fauci said that Atlas told Trump “everything he wanted to hear.”
Fauci didn’t want schools open, because he mistakenly believed closing them and other public spaces would have an impact on the spread of Covid. It didn’t. Just like masks didn’t have an impact, or vaccine passports, or getting huge numbers of people vaccinated. Nothing Fauci said would help actually worked. But admitting that is an impossibility for someone whose ego, willingness to hide information and condescending, patronizing attitude don’t allow for mistakes.
And his Covid mandates were undoubtedly used for more malicious purposes than ‘stopping the spread’ of a virus.
The air is thick with the unmistakable pungent stench of cannabis plants in a massive network of illegal grow operations in a rural part of northern California, as Mount Shasta looms on the horizon.
Gated-off with chain link and wire fences—some with tattered shreds of privacy screening—the properties northeast of Weed, Calif., near Montague, are a compound of ramshackle huts, old RVs, and cheaply-made greenhouses of hoops and plastic.
Several spotters in vehicles patrol the dusty roads, watching for police and intruders near the site off Shasta Vista Drive.
These “guards” are often armed with automatic rifles, according to Siskiyou County Sheriff Jeremiah LaRue.
The sheriff estimates about 90 percent of the nearly 2,000 properties in the Mount Shasta Vista subdivision are involved in illegal grow operations.
Miles from Interstate 5, the illegal grow operations are out-of-sight and out-of-mind for most people, but even a glance at a satellite map reveals the vast network.
“If you zoom out, that subdivision is pretty large—nine square miles,” Mr. LaRue said.
The lots are on volcanic soil. Unsuitable for water wells and septic systems, the land is far from an ideal spot to build a “dream home,” he said.
The once essentially uninhabited terrain is now scattered with makeshift shelters and other structures built without permits in camps that look like they belong “in a third-world country,” he said.
The illegal cannabis operations have brought serious crime, including robberies, theft, and five unsolved homicides, he said.
A recent armed robbery allegedly involved outsiders robbing people who were selling marijuana, Mr. LaRue said.
“That doesn’t happen, generally speaking, to people that are growing alfalfa or cherries, or strawberries or corn. So, it’s a crop that really brings just a massive amount of violent crime with it,” he said. “People are willing to die for marijuana for some reason.”
More than 57 percent of California voters approved Proposition 64, the Adult Use of Marijuana Act, in 2016, which legalized the recreational use of marijuana.
Californians have led the push to soften cannabis laws in the United States since 1972 with Proposition 9, a failed ballot initiative that attempted to legalize marijuana. Eventually, in 1996, more than 55 percent of state voters supported Proposition 215 allowing the medical use of cannabis.
But unlicensed cannabis cultivation and sales are prohibited, and cultivation is still illegal under federal law.
Around 2015, a group of about 100 people moved from the Midwest and bought private property in Siskiyou County, where they started cultivating outdoor marijuana grows, Mr. LaRue said.
The land was cheap then; 2.5-acre parcels sold for about $500, but today the same land is worth between $30,000 to $40,000 because illegal grow operations are lucrative and the sites are in high demand, he said.
He estimates there are currently about 10,000 people involved in illegal cannabis cultivation.
Nearly 5,000 “hoop houses,” a term the sheriff prefers to describe the makeshift greenhouses, cultivating three crops a year means the black market sites generate billions of dollars in profits, he said.
Property owners have brought in illegal pesticides and other toxic chemicals, many from China, that are “destroying the environment,” he said.
His deputies do the best they can to avoid contamination from unregulated and illegal pesticides found during routine raids, but Mr. LaRue said he worries about the risks they could face from long-term exposure to such toxins.
Recent traffic stops show that illegal cannabis is going to licensed locations and that the legal market is also being supplied by the black market, he said.
“Everything has kind of turned into what I call the gray market because everything is just dirty,” he said. “You really don’t know what’s legit and what isn’t … and the average user has no clue.”
This makes the illegal pesticide issue even more alarming because “those chemicals are now on the product that’s going into legal dispensaries,” he said.
“People are buying it as medicine for cancer patients and actually just smoking and consuming carcinogens. That should be troubling for the state. That’s a public health issue.”
Proposition 64, or the Adult Use Marijuana Act, which took effect in November 2016, allowed adults over age 21 to legally grow and harvest up to six plants.
Under California law, it is a felony to plant, cultivate, harvest, dry, or process more than six cannabis plants “to intentionally or with gross negligence cause substantial environmental harm to surface or groundwater,” the California Department of Cannabis Control (DCC) said in a statement emailed to The Epoch Times.
Anyone 18 years or older convicted of planting, cultivating, harvesting, drying, or processing more than six living cannabis plants can face misdemeanor charges and up to six months in a county jail or a fine of up to $500, or both, under Article 11358 of the California Health and Safety Code.
Penalties for anyone under age 18 include up to eight hours of drug counseling or up to 40 hours of community service, or both, according to the National Organization for the Reform of Marijuana Laws.
The DCC did not provide any statistics indicating how many people, if any, have been convicted and sentenced to jail time and stipulated that the prosecution of such crimes “is dependent on the jurisdiction where they occurred.”
In practice, for illegal cultivation to be prosecuted as a felony, the crime is usually tied to an environmental infraction, Siskiyou County District Attorney Kirk Andrus told The Epoch Times.
“It’s a misdemeanor all day long no matter how much you grow unless you have an environmental violation, and so that takes us some work to prove,” Mr. Andrus said.
Meanwhile, the state is losing tax revenue, and some people who entered the legal cannabis market thinking they can make a profit are going out of business, he said.
“If they want to make marijuana legal for recreational use, then defend the white market. The black market is killing the white market,” he said.
“We have a black market in this county that’s the size of a small nation. I’m not a marijuana proponent but if it’s going to be legal, defend your market by letting us eradicate the black market.”
While Mr. LaRue admits there’s no quick fix for the crisis, he has urged the governor to take executive action to “free up money” for rural communities where police funding often falls short and implement more “aggressive” enforcement policies.
“Not just in words but in action,” he said.
Funding for six deputies to cover nearly 6,300 square miles and only two to deal with illegal grow operations just isn’t enough, Mr. LaRue said.
He urged state lawmakers to take a closer look at what’s happening in Siskiyou County.
“They need to look at it as an actual problem and get some laws on the books that would actually deter people from continuing this,” he said, stressing that his intent—and the purpose of tougher laws—is “not to lock everyone up in prison.”
Tropical Storm Beryl Set To Become ‘Major Hurricane’
Tropical Storm Beryl, currently in the Atlantic Basin and east of the Windward Islands, could strengthen into the year’s first hurricane before reaching Barbados late Sunday.
“Beryl is expected to rapidly strengthen and become a major hurricane when it reaches the Windward Islands late Sunday night or Monday. It will bring destructive hurricane-force winds and life-threatening storm surges,” the National Hurricane Center wrote in a message on Saturday.
NHC issued a hurricane watch for Barbados as Beryl gained strength about 820 miles (1,320 km) east-southeast of the island nation. Beryl could soon become the first hurricane of the 2024 Atlantic storm season.
“The storm has been on a steady strengthening trend since it formed yesterday, and now that its structure is more symmetric and compact, it likely will have an opportunity to rapidly intensify given the low wind-shear conditions,” NHC senior hurricane specialist John Cangialosi wrote in a note.
Cangialosi said, “The new NHC intensity forecast explicitly calls for rapid strengthening and shows Beryl becoming a major hurricane before moving across the Windward Islands.”
“There have only been a few storms in history that have formed over the central or eastern tropical Atlantic this early in the year,” he noted.
In May, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration predicted an above-normal 2024 Atlantic hurricane season of 17 to 25 named storms, including as many as 13 hurricanes.
We have pointed out that this hurricane season, the Biden administration must contend with an elevated number of storms. It only takes one major storm to disrupt Gulf Coast refineries, which would catapult average gasoline prices at the pump to the politically sensitive $4 a gallon before the elections this fall.
No one would think of the Beltway as being a place of the naive innocents of our society.
Washington is the only ecosystem composed entirely of apex predators.
Yet, this week everyone seems to be eternally shocked by what has been obvious for years.
The press and pundits are coming off an embarrassing couple of weeks where the Hunter Biden laptop was authenticated in federal court as real. This occurred in the trial of the president’s son almost on the anniversary of a debunked letter of intelligence officials claiming that the laptop appeared to be Russian disinformation. Biden then repeated the claim in the last presidential debates to avoid answering questions over the massive influence peddling scheme of this family revealed by the laptop.
After the story was suppressed before the 2020 election, it took years for the media to admit that, oops, the laptop is surprisingly real.
For years, the press and pundits piled on experts who suggested that Covid 19 escaped from a Chinese lab. The New York Times reporter covering the area called it “racist” and implausible. Now, even W.H.O. accepts the lab theory as possible and federal agencies now believe it is the most likely explanation.
The response: surprise and spin.
This week, the Supreme Court ruled that the Justice Department has unlawfully charged hundreds of people with obstruction of an official proceeding after the January 6th riot. For years, objections to the excessive treatment of these cases were dismissed as the view of the radical right. Now, even Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson voted to toss out these convictions.
Surprise.
Whether it was the false story about agents whipping migrants in Texas or the photo op claim in Lafayette Park, false stories were disproven only to have a collective shrug from those who spread them.
For years, the press and pundits have repeated like gospel that Trump had called neo-Nazis “fine people.” At the time, most of us noted that Trump condemned the racists and neo-Nazis and made the statement about fine people on both sides of the controversy over the removal of historic statues.
Heading into the presidential debate, the White House and the media attacked Fox News and other outlets for “cheap fake” videos designed to make the President look confused and feeble.
For months, politicians and pundits have insisted that Biden is sharp and commanding in conversations even after Special Counsel Robert Hur cited his decline as a reason for not charging him criminally for the unlawful retention and mishandling of classified material.
On MSNBC, Joe Scarborough stated“start your tape right now because I’m about to tell you the truth. And F— you if you can’t handle the truth. This version of Biden intellectually, analytically, is the best Biden ever. Not a close second. And I have known him for years…If it weren’t the truth I wouldn’t say it.”
Then the presidential debate happened and, after years of being protected by staff, tens of millions of people watched the president struggle to stay focused and responsive.
After the debate, there was total surprise, if not shock, on CNN and MSNBC. Suddenly, it is not a cheap fake but reality.
Just seven days before the debate, the New York Times was running cheap fake articles on how Biden was being wrongly portrayed. The day after the debate, it was calling for him to withdraw from the race after expressing shock at his appearance.
On CNN, Biden biographer and CNN contributor Evan Osnos admitted that many Americans were likely “shocked” by Biden’s appearance:
“I don’t think there’s any other way to put it. This was clearly a person who was diminished from where he was on the debate stage four years ago.”
It is a city of people who display that practiced faux shock that you adopt when you learn in advance that your friends are throwing a surprise party. The key is to look stunned and then mingle.
It is a city of Claude Rains:
The laptop is real, the President is really old, and Washington is really really phony.
The only thing that would be more surprising is if pundits and the press started being a lot less shocked and more honest.
Iran Threatens Israel With ‘Obliterating War’ If It Attacks Lebanon
Iran’s mission to the United Nations has put Israel and the world on notice, saying that if Israel launches an all-out war against Hezbollah in Lebanon the whole region will burn.
A Friday statement from Iran’s ambassador warned the UN that any “full-scale military aggression” in Lebanon against Hezbollah will mean that “an obliterating war will ensue.”
The Iranian statement continued by emphasizing that “all options, including the full involvement of all resistance fronts, are on the table” in a statement posted to X.
By “resistance fronts” Tehran means the militias it supports in Syria, Iraq, and Yemen will also ramp up their military activities. On a few occasions, Iraqi Shia militias have launched missiles and drones against southern Israel, as have the Houthis, with limited effect.
Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has acknowledged this week that a “seven front war” could open up, in reference to all of Iran’s proxies across the region.
For years already, Israeli jets have been regularly attacking ‘Iranian assets’ inside Damascus, also in a continued effort to weaken Assad, despite the presence of Russia’s military primarily in the northwest coastal region.
Israel has meanwhile continued to pound Hezbollah positions in south Lebanon, amid continued fears of a bigger war at any moment. The US has even sent amphibious military ships closer to Israel and Lebanon in the Eastern Mediterranean to be ready to evacuate Americans if a bigger conflict ensues.
The Israeli Yedioth Ahronoth newspaper wrote Saturday, “In the past few hours, warplanes attacked several Hezbollah targets, including a military site for the organisation in the Zabqin area, two operational infrastructure sites in the Khiam area, and a Hezbollah building in the al-Adissa [Odaisseh] area.”
Hezbollah chief Hassan Nasrallah has told Israel and its allies that a war with no limits will ensue if Israel attempts to invade southern Lebanon. Some Israeli officials fear that the IDF could be stretched too thin if this happens, considering it’s still in the thick of anti-Hamas Gaza operations in the south.
⚡️Hezb-Allah published footage of them striking the Barkat Risha site of the Israeli enemy army on the southern Lebanese border pic.twitter.com/8hLii7fIA5
Most analysts agree that Hezbollah is far more capable a paramilitary and guerilla force than Hamas, or any other Iran-linked group in the region for that matter. In the 2006 Lebanon war, there were reports that IRGC operatives were on the ground in Lebanon assisting Hezbollah.
The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) on June 27 recommended forthcoming COVID-19 vaccines for virtually all Americans.
“CDC recommends everyone ages 6 months and older receive an updated 2024-2025 COVID-19 vaccine to protect against the potentially serious outcomes of COVID-19 this fall and winter whether or not they have ever previously been vaccinated with a COVID-19 vaccine,” the agency said in a statement.
The COVID-19 vaccines now available, which are also broadly recommended, target the XBB.1.5 strain. But observational data indicate they provide short-lived protection against COVID-19 infection and hospitalization.
U.S. Food and Drug Administration officials, acting on advice from their advisers, recently directed vaccine manufacturers to produce COVID-19 vaccines with updated formulations.
Updated vaccines from Pfizer and Moderna will target the KP.2 variant, while an updated shot from Novavax will target the JN.1 variant.
The updated formulations are expected to be available in September.
CDC advisers earlier Thursday unanimously advised the CDC to recommend the forthcoming vaccines to virtually all Americans, even though no clinical efficacy or safety data are available for them.
Data from animal testing suggest that the vaccines trigger higher levels of antibodies than the shots currently available, manufacturers said previously.
CDC advisers considered a risk-based recommendation that would only say certain groups receive one of the vaccines but ultimately opted for what is known as a universal recommendation.
Dr. Jamie Loehr, one of the members, said before the vote that the cost-effectiveness of vaccinating young people, who are generally at little risk from COVID-19, had him leaning towards a risk-based approach. He changed his mind, though, after listening to a presentation from a CDC researcher.
Dr. Denise Jamieson, another member, said that members should not “get too caught up in cost-effectiveness currently.” She said, “If we compare it to other vaccine-preventable diseases it seems like a really good investment.”
Each dose of a new shot could cost up to $130, according to estimates presented during the meeting.
Pooled effectiveness estimates from studies of the currently available vaccines, which target the XBB strain, and the last slate of shots, which were bivalent, found that effectiveness against hospitalization due to COVID-19 was below 50 percent, the original threshold laid out by regulators.
Researchers with the CDC and other institutions have also found the protection wanes over time, one reason U.S. officials have turned the COVID-19 vaccine model into a once-a-year update similar to the influenza vaccination program.
Many Americans took the original COVID-19 vaccines but most have opted against receiving the newer shots. As of May 11, just 14.4 percent of children and 22.5 percent of adults have received one of the currently available COVID-19 vaccines, according to CDC surveys, which also found that many doctors have stopped recommending the shots because they’re focused on promoting other vaccines and worry recommending COVID-19 vaccination could increase hesitancy among patients to receiving the other vaccines.
Experts said in Thursday’s meeting that the message needs to be that people need another shot.
“We have to keep saying that over and over and over again—you need this year’s vaccine to be protected against this year’s strain of the virus,” Carol Hayes, who represents the American College of Nurse-Midwives as a liaison to the CDC panel, said during the session.
The CDC estimated that up to 116,000 hospitalizations from COVID-19 will be prevented over the next year with universal vaccine recommendations, assuming an initial 75 percent effectiveness against hospitalization.
The effectiveness was projected in certain scenarios to drop to 50 percent after three months, the CDC said.
The KP.2 strain is the dominant strain in the United States as of May 25, according to CDC data. The closely related KP.3 strain, and the JN.1 variant, are also causing a number of cases.
Modeling through June 22 projects the rise of a new strain called LB.1.
A spokesperson for the CDC told The Epoch Times recently that LB.1 “has the potential to infect some people more easily based on a single deletion in a spike protein“ but ”there is currently no evidence that LB.1 causes more severe disease.”
Lithium is essential for the clean energy transition, but its extraction often involves severe environmental and health consequences.
AlkaLi, a startup company, aims to revolutionize lithium extraction with a lower environmental footprint and potentially make the US more competitive in lithium processing.
The demand for lithium is expected to increase dramatically in the coming years, driven by the growth of electric vehicles and renewable energy storage.
Lithium is essential to saving the world from climate change – but will it destroy the environment in the process?
Ironically, lithium extraction is just as associated with sharply negative environmental externalities as it is with clean and green energy initiatives. The communities where lithium is extracted are already suffering from dire health and ecological issues stemming from the extraction of the metal, but the lithium industry is just getting started. To avoid devastation for such communities, something about the lithium extraction process has to change drastically and soon.
Gradiant, a unicorn startup company that treats industrial wastewater, thinks that it has a solution to this rapidly expanding problem. It’s opening a new spin-off business called alkaLi which aims to extract lithium from naturally occurring brine and then process it for use in lithium-ion batteries via novel methods. The company’s innovative process “uses resins and membranes to more easily extract the lithium from brine, then relies on its own technology to concentrate the mineral, which ultimately is precipitated into a solid for use in batteries,” Forbes summarized in a recent report.
The team behind Gradiant and alkaLi believes that their disruptive lithium extraction and processing approach can turn the lithium industry on its head and jettison the budding AlkaLi into the stratosphere. “The demand side of lithium is crazy,” Gradiant co-founder and chief operating officer Prakash Govindan was quoted by Forbes. “We believe we can create a billion-dollar company just from the lithium business, but it is in the early stages of revenue.”
It’s true that the demand for lithium is going gangbusters and shows no signs of stopping. A 2023 report from Popular Mechanics calculated that “an electrified economy in 2030 will likely need anywhere from 250,000 to 450,000 tonnes of lithium.” By comparison, “In 2021, the world produced only 105—not 105,000—tonnes.”
The International Renewable Energy Agency (IRENA) corroborates this astronomical scale of growth. Its 2022 lithium report estimates that lithium demand for battery-making alone is expected to increase by a factor of ten over the decade between 2020 and 2030. These batteries will be essential to the global clean energy transition to power electric vehicles as well as to store variable renewable energy produced by solar and wind power.
But there are a few problems with the massive growth of lithium demand.
First is the aforementioned environmental impact of lithium mining and extraction. Lithium extraction is typically extremely water-intensive – according to a 2018 report from WIRED magazine, extracting a single ton of lithium requires approximately 500,000 liters of water. In a cruel irony, lithium is often found and extracted in extremely water-stressed areas, such as South America’s so-called ‘lithium triangle,’ which overlaps with the Atacama, the world’s driest desert. What’s more, extraction through brine ponds also poses a potential threat of contaminating existing, preciously scant water reserves.
Moreover, the chemicals involved in lithium extraction are extremely toxic. “The release of such chemicals through leeching [sic], spills or air emissions can harm communities, ecosystems and food production,” reads a recent report from international environment activism group Friends of the Earth. “Moreover, lithium extraction inevitably harms the soil and also causes air contamination.”
Finally, the lithium industry presents key geopolitical issues in its current form. While most lithium is extracted in Australia and South America, almost all lithium processing takes place in China, creating a potentially dangerous concentration of a vital supply chain.
AlkaLi claims that its lithium extraction and processing method has a lower water footprint and carbon footprint than typical methods, and that it’s 50% cheaper to boot. This means that they may not only have found a way to reduce the environmental harm that the lithium boom threatens to cause around the globe, but also allow for the United States to eventually become competitive with China – a target that the U.S. desperately seeks.
Rome Anti-Crime Unit Reportedly Raids Anti-Migrant Citizen Journalist, Locks Social Media Accounts
A prolific citizen journalist in Rome has reportedly been raided and by the Carabinieri (police for the Ministry of Defense) and accused of ‘spreading racist ideas’ on social media.
For example:
Islamists and Antifa in France storm a bar because the owner is a French patriot who votes right. They are wreaking havoc everywhere. France is one step away from civil war. https://t.co/hgn6Kun4qkpic.twitter.com/YGxap4hEni
Antonio Mastantuono, who up until June 13th ran @RadioGenoa on X – which frequently shared videos of illegal migration into Europe, explained in a GoFundMe to pay for his legal expenses, that he has been “falsely criminally accused of owning some extremist sites and spreading racist ideas.”
“On June 13th at 7 am, the Carabinieri from the Anti-Crime Unit of Rome entered with a warrant from the Rome Prosecutor’s Office to search my home and seize my PC and iPad Pro that I was using for work. They also seized my phone card and also my X RadioGenoa account and my Google account. The passwords have been changed by the Carabirinieri and at the moment I do not have the credentials to access them.
For this reason I have been silent on X for two weeks. At the moment I cannot say anything else because the investigations are still ongoing. Their goal is to censor and limit freedom of expression and speech.“
According to X user Wall Street Silver@WallStreetSilv, Mastantuono “was doxxed by left wing media on Dutch TV in May,” after which “many left wing activists have been making false reports to the police about him to try to shut down his reports about illegal migrants in Europe.
“The investigation is related to a Telegram channel that Antonio has no connection to. Someone created the Telegram channel and just used similar branding to piggyback off of @RadioGenoa. He is accused of racism and Nazism, none of which he does on his X account.”
As many of you have noticed, @RadioGenoa has been silent since June 11th. His house was raided by the police on June 13th. They took his phone, iPad, access to his X acct and email acct.
Antonio Mastantuono was doxxed by left wing media on Dutch TV in May. Since them, many… pic.twitter.com/s2BZKZwxMj
— Wall Street Silver (@WallStreetSilv) June 29, 2024
@WallStreetSilv further reports that Mastantuono’s attorneys have advised that Roman authorities are “just trying to intimidate” him so he stops sharing videos on X related to illegal migration in Europe.
In a landmark decision on June 28, 2024, the Supreme Court of the United States, by a 6-3 vote, overruled the longstanding Chevron doctrine, fundamentally reshaping the landscape of administrative law and judicial review. The case,Loper Bright Enterprises v. Raimondo, signals a significant shift in the balance of power between the judiciary and administrative agencies. This decision not only reinforces judicial independence but also presents substantial benefits for the Bitcoin industry, echoing the implications of last year’s West Virginia v. EPA decision.
THE CASE
The Chevron doctrine, established in Chevron U.S.A., Inc. v. Natural Resources Defense Council, Inc., 467 U.S. 837 (1984), required courts to defer to agency interpretations of ambiguous statutes as long as the interpretation was deemed reasonable. This two-step framework had become a cornerstone of administrative law, often tipping the scales in favor of agency authority over judicial oversight.
In Loper Bright, the petitioners challenged a National Marine Fisheries Service (NMFS) rule that required Atlantic herring fishermen to bear the cost of onboard observers, arguing that the Magnuson-Stevens Act (MSA) did not authorize such a mandate. The lower courts had upheld the NMFS rule, applying Chevron deference to conclude that the agency’s interpretation was permissible.
THE SUPREME COURT’S RULING
Chief Justice Roberts, writing for the majority, delivered a decisive opinion that dismantles Chevron deference. The Court held that the Administrative Procedure Act (APA) requires courts to exercise independent judgment when interpreting statutes, rejecting the notion that ambiguities in law should default to agency interpretations.
“Chevron defies the command of the APA that ‘the reviewing court’—not the agency whose action it reviews—is to ‘decide all relevant questions of law’ and ‘interpret . . . statutory provisions,’” Roberts wrote. “It requires a court to ignore, not follow, ‘the reading the court would have reached’ had it exercised its independent judgment. … Chevron cannot be reconciled with the APA… .” Slip Op., at 21 (emphasis added).
The ruling emphasizes that statutory ambiguities do not automatically delegate interpretive authority to agencies. Instead, courts must use traditional tools of statutory construction to determine the best reading of a statute, ensuring that agencies do not exceed their conferred powers.
IMPACT ON BITCOIN AND BITCOIN MINING
The implications of this ruling extend far beyond administrative law, reaching into the heart of the Bitcoin mining industry. Much like the Supreme Court’s decision in West Virginia v. EPA, which curbed the Environmental Protection Agency’s overreach, this ruling reinforces the need for clear congressional authorization before agencies can impose significant regulatory burdens.
For the Bitcoin mining industry, this decision is a clear win. Regulatory uncertainty has long been a thorn in the side of Bitcoin miners, who rely on predictable and stable access to power and other resources. By curbing the ability of agencies to unilaterally expand their regulatory reach, the Court has created a more favorable environment for Bitcoin mining operations.
Bitcoin miners have often been at the mercy of shifting regulatory landscapes, which can dramatically impact their operations. For instance, stringent environmental regulations targeting power consumption could have severely constrained the industry. With the Chevron doctrine overturned, any future regulatory attempts to impose such burdens will require explicit and unambiguous congressional authorization, followed by detailed judicial scrutiny.
This decision also invigorates the major question doctrine, which posits that significant regulatory actions with vast economic and political implications require clear congressional authorization. This doctrine can be a powerful tool for Bitcoin miners and other industries to challenge regulatory overreach, ensuring that agencies cannot impose wide-ranging policies without clear legislative backing.
Furthermore, recent developments have seen the Biden Administration intensify oversight on the U.S. Bitcoin mining sector through an Energy Information Agency (EIA) emergency survey, portraying electricity usage by miners as a significant threat to national grid stability. This move demanded detailed disclosures from miners, and mirrored actions in countries like Venezuela, signaling a concerning trend towards building a full registry of mining activities. The industry’s response united against such overreach, and resulted in a decisive victory against the Federal Government.
INSIGHTS FROM THE NRA AND CANTERO CASES
The recent NRA and Cantero cases further illuminate the judicial shift towards protecting industry autonomy from regulatory overreach. In both cases, the courts have shown a willingness to scrutinize agency actions that appear to exceed their statutory authority. The NRA case, dealing with banking regulations, and the Cantero case, focusing on state versus federal regulatory powers, underscore the importance of clear legislative directives. These cases have set a precedent that benefits the Bitcoin mining industry by highlighting the judiciary’s role in curbing unwarranted regulatory expansion, akin to the protections now reinforced by the Supreme Court’s rejection of Chevron deference.
FINAL THOUGHTS
The Supreme Court’s decision to overturn Chevron represents a monumental shift towards judicial independence and a recalibration of the administrative state. For the Bitcoin industry, this ruling is particularly significant, promising a more predictable and less burdensome regulatory environment.
As industries and legal practitioners grapple with the implications of this ruling, one thing is clear: the era of agency deference has been significantly curtailed, marking a new chapter in the interpretation and application of federal laws. This ruling underscores the importance of clear legislative mandates and may prompt Congress to take a more active role in defining the scope of agency powers moving forward.
For Bitcoin miners, this decision is a beacon of hope, heralding a future where regulatory overreach can be more effectively challenged, fostering a more stable and supportive environment for the growth and sustainability of the industry. As the judiciary reclaims its role as the ultimate arbiter of the law, the Bitcoin mining community, and Americans as a whole, can now look forward to a more balanced and just regulatory landscape.
