Appeals Court Overturns Jan. 6 Defendant’s Sentence, Potentially Impacting Dozens Of Cases

 by Jack Phillips via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours),

An appeals court in Washington unanimously ruled that a Jan. 6 defendant’s sentence was improperly enhanced, a move that could impact numerous other Jan. 6 cases.

On Friday, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit ruled that Larry Brock, who was convicted for a range of crimes related to Jan. 6, improperly had additional charges of “interference with the administration of justice.” The judge who wrote the court’s opinion wrote that the charge doesn’t apply to a sentencing enhancement, however, and struck it down.

“Brock challenges both the district court’s interpretation of Section 1512(c)(2)’s elements and the sufficiency of the evidence to support that conviction,” wrote the judge, Patricia Millett.

The judge, who was appointed by President Barack Obama, concluded that any interference with Congress’ certification of the 2020 electoral votes isn’t tantamount to a sentencing enhancement.

“Because Section 2J1.2’s text, commentary, and context establish that the ‘administration of justice’ does not extend to Congress’s counting and certification of electoral college votes, the district court erred in applying Section 2J1.2(b)(2)’s three-level sentencing enhancement to Brock’s Section 1512(c)(2) conviction,” the judge wrote.

The judges, in siding with Mr. Brock, wrote that Congress’ function on Jan. 6 was not judicial but was only a part of the 2020 presidential election process.

“Taken as a whole, the multi-step process of certifying electoral college votes—as important to our democratic system of government as it is—bears little resemblance to the traditional understanding of the administration of justice as the judicial or quasi-judicial investigation or determination of individual rights,” the panel concluded.

Law enforcement officials who were there at the Capitol on that day, they added, were “to protect the lawmakers and their process, not to investigate individuals’ rights or to enforce Congress’s certification decision.”

“After all,” the judges wrote, “law enforcement is present for security purposes for a broad variety of governmental proceedings that do not involve the ‘administration of justice’—presidential inaugurations, for example, and the pardoning of the Thanksgiving Turkey.”

Now, Mr. Brock’s sentence under the statute will be vacated and will be remanded to the district court for resentencing, according to Friday’s order.

But it’s not clear whether Mr. Brock’s sentence will be reduced or whether it will apply to a number of other people who were charged with interference in the administration of justice related to the Capitol breach. However, the ruling could impact plea negotiations for future Jan. 6 defendants who are charged with the felony.

Dozens of Jan. 6 defendants have been convicted and sentenced for interference in the administration of justice, according to data provided by the Department of Justice. It may mean that their time in prison and other penalties need to be reduced.

The Justice Department, meanwhile, has often asked judges to apply the enhancement charges to the defendants, saying that the Congressional session on Jan. 6, 2021, to count electoral votes and certify the election was the same as a judicial proceeding.

But Mr. Brock’s lawyers successfully argued in an appeal that the charges shouldn’t impact his sentence after he was given a two-year prison term in 2023. At the time, the lower court judge who convicted and sentenced Mr. Brock calculated that the obstruction charge meant he should spend more time in jail.

The court made the sentencing decision as it simultaneously upheld Mr. Brock’s felony conviction regarding his activity on Jan. 6, 2021, when thousands breached the U.S. Capitol during the certification of the election.

During court arguments in September, Mr. Brock’s lawyer noted that he committed no violence on Jan. 6 and said the man believed the 2020 election was stolen. “Mr. Brock thought he was acting righteously, patriotically and with a eminently proper purpose,” attorney Charles Burnham said at the time, according to reports.

That argument was rejected by the panel of judges on Friday. “Brock participated in a riot that sought to overturn the 2020 presidential election by force, and that he was himself prepared to take violent action to achieve that goal,” the judges wrote.

Because of his social media posts about the election, the court added, “Where a defendant announces his intent to use violence to obstruct a congressional proceeding, comes equipped for violence, and then actually obstructs that proceeding, the evidence supports a finding that he acted with an impermissible purpose or knowledge of the wrongfulness of his actions.”

Some Jan. 6 defendants have argued in court motions that the law have been improperly applied to charge them with felonies. The Supreme Court is scheduled to hear arguments in a Jan. 6 defendants’ appeal in April on the application of the law, which could also impact special counsel Jack Smith’s case against former President Donald Trump as he faces two obstruction charges in Washington.

https://www.zerohedge.com/political/appeals-court-overturns-jan-6-defendants-sentence-potentially-impacting-dozens-cases

'Long COVID May Be Difficult to Identify in MS'

 People with multiple sclerosis (MS) appeared to have a low risk of developing long COVID, but lingering complaints after SARS-CoV-2 infection were difficult to untangle from MS symptoms, registry analyses showed.

In studies presented at the Americas Committee for Treatment and Research in Multiple Sclerosis (ACTRIMS)opens in a new tab or window Forum, Robert Fox, MD, of the Cleveland Clinic in Ohio, said that about 1.5% of patients in the North American Research Committee on Multiple Sclerosis (NARCOMS)opens in a new tab or window registry met criteria for post-acute sequelae of COVID-19 (PASC), also called long COVID.

Fox said that among MS patients with COVID-19, 15.7% had persistent symptoms 6 months after acute infection, but 17.2% of MS patients who did not have COVID or any other infection had similar symptoms for 6 months.

"Our observations illustrate how symptoms of post-acute sequelae of COVID-19 are common in people with MS sclerosis and complicate assessment of post-acute sequelae of COVID-19 in people with MS," Fox reported.

"What our research has told us is that the current outside world criteria for long COVID can't be applied to people with multiple sclerosis," he said. "While there are undoubtedly some people who have long COVID and didn't have these persistent symptoms before becoming infected with COVID-19, it is still very difficult to dissect out what is a multiple sclerosis long-term symptom and what is a COVID-19 long-term symptom."

In a related analysis, Amber Salter, PhD, of the University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center in Dallas, Fox, and colleagues used NARCOMS data to compare the presence of new symptoms associated with SARS-CoV-2 and other infections in persons with MS. They found that after any infection, multiple new persistent symptoms were reported, but each were infrequent. The frequency of some new persistent symptoms differed between those with COVID-19 and other infections

MS and Long COVID

The long COVID analysis used NIH scoring criteriaopens in a new tab or window, with a score of 12 or more indicating long COVID. In an early study from the RECOVER consortium, a score of 12 or higher was reported among 23% of participants who had a COVID infection and 3.7% of those who did not.

The NARCOMS spring 2023 survey included questions related to infections and symptoms of COVID-19, influenza, common cold, gastrointestinal (GI) tract infection, pneumonia, shingles, strep throat, skin, bone, and urinary tract infection, Fox said.

About 5,000 U.S.-based adults participated in NARCOMS and survey questions were harmonized with those used in the RECOVER study. Persistent new symptoms were defined as those symptoms that were not present before the infection, but present at the time of infection and still present at the time of survey completion.

Overall, 44.2% of eligible survey respondents reported ever having COVID-19, and 68.3% of this group (n=1,446) reported having a COVID-19 infection occurring more than 6 months ago. Nearly 77% said they had only one COVID-19 infection. The average age was 63; nearly 83% were female and 89% were white.

Symptoms After Infections

In a separate NARCOMS analysis, most MS patients reported no infections (n=1,534), followed by one non-COVID infection (n=853), COVID plus one other infection (n-728), and COVID only (n=294). Patient ages ranged from 63 to 67 and the majority were female and white.

The researchers found that in general, new persistent symptoms were uncommon after infections, but that those with only COVID-19 infection were somewhat more likely to report persistent malaise (6%), GI symptoms (3%), shortness of breath (4%), and persistent change in taste or smell (4%; P<0.01 for all). Those with COVID-19 and another infection were more likely to report hearing problems, excessive thirst, feeling faint, pain, change in smell and taste, shortness of breath, cough, fatigue, and malaise compared with other groups.

"Participants with the highest percentage of new persistent symptoms were those reporting both COVID-19 and one non-COVID infection," Salter noted.

"These observations suggest a complex interaction between COVID and other infections in the development of new persistent symptoms following infections," she said.

Disclosures

The analyses were supported by the National Multiple Sclerosis Society. NARCOMS is a project of the Consortium of Multiple Sclerosis Centers (CMSC) and the Foundation of the CMSC.

Fox and Salter disclosed no relationships with industry.

Primary Source

Americas Committee for Treatment and Research in Multiple Sclerosis Forum 2024

Source Reference: opens in a new tab or windowSalter A, et al "Characterizing post-acute sequelae of COVID-19 in NARCOMS," ACTRIMS Forum 2024.

Secondary Source

Americas Committee for Treatment and Research in Multiple Sclerosis Forum

Source Reference: opens in a new tab or windowSalter A, et al "Symptom comparison after infections among people with MS," ACTRIMS Forum 2024.

https://www.medpagetoday.com/meetingcoverage/actrims/108993

Toxic Gas That Sterilizes Medical Devices Prompts Safety Rule Update

 Over the past 2 years, Madeline Beal, MPH, has heard frustration and even bewilderment during public meetings

opens in a new tab or window about ethylene oxide, a cancer-causing gas that is used to sterilize half of the medical devices in the U.S.

Beal, a senior risk communication adviser for the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), has fielded questions about why the agency took so long to alert people who live near facilities that emit the chemical about unusually high amounts of the carcinogenic gas in their neighborhoods. Residents asked why the EPA couldn't close those facilities, and they wanted to know how many people had developed cancer from their exposure.

"If you're upset by the information you're hearing tonight, if you're angry, if it scares you to think about risk to your family, those are totally reasonable responses," Beal told an audience in Laredo, Texas, in September 2022. "We think the risk levels near this facility are too high."

There are about 90 sterilizing plants in the U.S. that use ethylene oxide, and for decades companies used the chemical to sterilize medical products without drawing much attention. Many medical device-makers send their products to the plants to be sterilized before they are shipped, typically to medical distribution companies.

But people living around these facilities have been jolted in recent years by a succession of warnings about cancer riskopens in a new tab or window from the federal government and media reports, an awareness that has also spawned protests and lawsuits alleging medical harm.

The EPA is expected to meet a March 1 court-ordered deadline to finalize tighter safety rules around how the toxic gas is used. The proposed changesopens in a new tab or window come in the wake of a 2016 agency reportopens in a new tab or window that found that long-term exposure to ethylene oxide is more dangerous than was previously thought.

But the anticipated final rules -- the agency's first regulatory update on ethylene oxide emissions in more than a decade -- are expected to face pushback. Medical device-makers worry stricter regulation will increase costs and may put patients at higher risk of infection from devices, ranging from surgical kits to catheters, due to deficient sterilization. The new rules are also not likely to satisfy the concerns of environmentalists or members of the public, who already have expressed frustration about how long it took the federal government to sound the alarm.

"We have been breathing this air for 40 years," said Connie Waller, 70, who lives with her husband, David, 75, within 2 miles of such a sterilizing plant in Covington, Georgia, east of Atlanta. "The only way to stop these chemicals is to hit them in their pocketbook, to get their attention."

The EPA said data shows that long-term exposure to ethylene oxideopens in a new tab or window can increase the risk of breast cancer and cancers of the white blood cells, such as non-Hodgkin lymphoma, myeloma, and lymphocytic leukemia. It can irritateopens in a new tab or window the eyes, nose, throat, and lungs, and has been linked to damage to the brain and nervous and reproductive systems. Children are potentially more vulnerable, as are workers routinely exposed to the chemical, EPA officials noted. The agency calculates the risk based on how much of the gas is in the air or near the sterilizing facility, the distance a person is from the plant, and how long the person is exposed.

Waller said she was diagnosed with breast cancer in 2004 and that her husband was found to have non-Hodgkin lymphoma 8 years later.

A 2022 studyopens in a new tab or window of communities living near a sterilization facility in Laredo found the rates of acute lymphocytic leukemia and breast cancer were statistically significant, greater than expected compared with statewide rates.

Beal, the EPA risk adviser, who regularly meets with community members, acknowledged the public's concerns. "We don't think it's OK for you to be at increased risk from something that you have no control over, that's near your house," she said. "We are working as fast as we can to get that risk reduced with the powers that we have available to us."

In the meantime, local and state governments and industry groups have scrambled to defuse public outcry.

Hundreds of personal injury cases have been filed in communities near sterilizing plants. In 2020, New Mexico's then-attorney general filed a lawsuit against a plant in Santa Teresa, and that case is ongoing. In a case that settled last year in suburban Atlanta, a company agreed to pay $35 million to 79 people who alleged ethylene oxide used at the plant caused cancer and other injuries.

In Cook County, Illinois, a jury in 2022 awarded $363 millionopens in a new tab or window to a woman who alleged exposure to ethylene oxide gas led to her breast cancer diagnosis. But, in another Illinois case, a jury ruled that the sterilizing company was not liable for a woman's blood cancer claimopens in a new tab or window.

Greg Crist, chief advocacy officer for the Advanced Medical Technology Association, a medical device trade group that said ethylene oxide is an effective and reliable sterilant, attributes the spate of lawsuits to the litigious nature of trial attorneys.

"If they smell blood in the water, they'll go after it," Crist said.

Most states have at least one sterilizing plant. According to the EPA, a handful, like California and North Carolina, have gone further than the agency and the federal Clean Air Act to regulate ethylene oxide emissions. After a media and political firestorm raised awareness about the metro Atlanta facilities, Georgia started requiring sterilizing plants that use the gas to report all leaks.

The proposed rulesopens in a new tab or window the EPA is set to finalize would set lower emissions limits for chemical plants and commercial sterilizers and increase some safety requirements for workers within these facilities. The agency is expected to set an 18-month deadline for commercial sterilizers to come into compliance with the emissions rules.

That would help at facilities that "cut corners," with lax pollution controls that allow emissions of the gas into nearby communities, said Richard Peltier, PhD, MPH, a professor of environmental health sciences at the University of Massachusetts-Amherst. Stronger regulation also prevents the plants from remaining under the radar. "One of the dirty secrets is that a lot of it is self-regulated or self-policed," Peltier added.

But the proposed rules did not include protections for workers at off-site warehouses that store sterilized products, which can continue to emit ethylene oxide. They also did not require air testing around the facilities, prompting debate about how effective they would be in protecting the health of nearby residents.

Industry officials also don't expect an alternative that is as broadly effective as ethylene oxide to be developed anytime soon, though they support researching other methods. Current alternatives include steam, radiation, and hydrogen peroxide vapor.

Increasing the use of alternatives can reduce industry dependence on "the crutch of ethylene oxide," said Darya Minovi, MPH, senior analyst with the Union of Concerned Scientists, an advocacy group.

But meeting the new guidelines will be disruptive to the industry, Crist said. He estimates companies will spend upward of $500 million to comply with the new EPA rules and could struggle to meet the agency's 18-month timetable. Sterilization companies will also have difficulty adjusting to new rules on how workers handle the gas without a dip in efficiency, Crist said.

The FDA, which regulates drugs and medical devices, is also watching the regulatory moves closely and worries the updated emissions rule could "present some unique challenges" if implemented as proposed, said Audra Harrison, an FDA spokesperson. "The FDA is concerned about the rule's effects on the availability of medical devices," she added.

Other groups, like the American Chemistry Council and the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality, the state's environmental agency, assert that ethylene oxide use isn't as dangerous as the EPA says. The EPA's toxicity assessment has "severe flaws" and is "overly conservative," the council said in an emailed statement. Texas, which has several sterilizing plants, has said ethylene oxide isn't as high a cancer risk as the agency claims, an assessment that the EPA has rejected.

Tracey Woodruff, PhD, MPH, a researcher at the University of California San Francisco who previously worked at the EPA, said it can be hard for the agency to keep up with regulating chemicals like ethylene oxide because of constrained resources, the technical complications of rulemaking, and industry lobbying.

But she's hopeful the EPA can strike a balance between its desire to reduce exposure and the desire of the FDA not to disrupt medical device sterilization. And scrutiny can also help the device sterilization industry think outside the box.

"We continue to discover these chemicals that we've already been exposed to were toxic, and we have high exposures," she said. "Regulation is an innovation forcer."

https://www.medpagetoday.com/publichealthpolicy/environmentalhealth/108966

High-tax states are running out of things to tax, so they resort to lawsuits

 People and businesses are moving out of Illinois, New York and California because of their far-left policies.

These high-tax states are running out of things to tax to support their big spending policies.

So they resort to lawsuits to get more money since they can't print it. Lawyers are some of the biggest Democrat supporters.

Chicago is now suing oil companies for their supposed damage to the climate.

Mayor Johnson, City Of Chicago Sues Oil And Gas Companies For Climate Deception

Taxpayer protection, climate justice at heart of complaint.

These lawsuits have been going on for a while. Six years ago New York sued oil companies for the same thing:

New York City sues Big Oil for allegedly misleading consumers about climate change

The City of New York has filed a lawsuit in state court against Exxon Mobil (XOM), Shell, BP (BP), and the American Petroleum Institute for allegedly misleading New York consumers about the role their products play in climate change and for allegedly “greenwashing” their practices to make them seem more eco-friendly than they are.

First off, these lawsuits are frivolous. There is absolutely zero evidence that shows a correlation between our consumption of oil, coal, natural gas, and temperatures, sea level, and storm activity. Temperatures and storm activity have always fluctuated cyclically and naturally. There have been warm and cold periods during the last 160 years when our use of oil, coal and natural gas have risen exponentially.

It is a massive fraud to continually lie that the science is settled when they never show a direct relationship. The lawsuits should be tossed but they aren't because there is massive collusion to push the radical and destructive green agenda.

The companies that use natural resources to produce reasonably priced energy and thousands of other products should be thanked for allowing cities like Chicago and New York to thrive instead of being sued. They should also be thanked for greatly improving the quality and length of life of the people that have been blessed by the use of the products.

Now, Letitia James is suing a beef producer because she says they mislead the public that they are moving towards net zero.

New York state Attorney General Letitia James sued beef producer JBS in state court for allegedly misleading the public about a pledge the company made to slash its climate pollution in the coming decade. Prosecutors said JBS continued making deceptive marketing claims even after a consumer watchdog group recommended the company stop advertising because it didn't have a strategy to achieve its climate target.

Net zero is essentially a fictional, non-attainable goal. Carbon occurs naturally throughout the World. Humans breathe out CO2, a clear, innocuous, non-pollutant gas that allows plants to thrive and the World to be fed.

If James sued every company and person who falsely claims they are moving towards net-zero the courts would be overwhelmed.

She should include all the car companies and all private jet owners, like John Kerry, Bill Gates, and Mark Zuckerburg, who buy worthless pieces of paper called carbon credits or who plant trees to pretend they have reduced their carbon footprint.

She should also sue all the countries that pretend they can control the climate if we just switch to electric vehicles.

It is all a fraud.The public is losing massive amounts of money to push the carbon fraud. The poor and middle class are huge victims of the fraud.

If Democrat politicians really wanted to go after companies for fraud, they should go after all the brokers, investment bankers and owners of companies that have bilked investors out of billions pushing the green agenda. This includes a lot of electric car companies, battery companies, and solar companies. The losses are actual instead of fictional as in the case against oil companies and beef producers.

Biden continually shows the public his mind is shot no matter how many times his supporters say he is as sharp as a tack.

While pretending to care about the border, he also said people who say the climate isn't changing are neanderthals.

He is clearly seeing or hearing things that aren't there. I have never seen anyone deny that the climate is changing. That would be stupid.

What should people, like Biden, be called who believe that the Earth warmed after a little ice age ended because humans breathe, eat meat, drive cars, and heat and cool their houses? What should people, like Gates, and Kerry, be called who believe that politicians and bureaucrats can establish policies that can control temperatures, sea levels, and storm activity forever to override all the natural variables?

I certainly wouldn't call these people smart.

Biden calls climate change deniers 'Neanderthals' during border speech in Texas

Maybe Letitia James should be charged with misusing campaign funds instead of filing frivolous lawsuits. Of course courts would also be jammed up if every politician who misused campaign funds were charged. Sadly, most people posing as journalists don't really care. You won't see this story in many places.

A Look At Letitia James's Lavish Spending

https://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2024/03/high_tax_states_are_running_out_of_things_to_tax_so_they_resort_to_lawsuits_.html

EVs Emit More Particulates, One of the Most Dangerous Pollutants

 Let’s discuss particulates from tires. They are another reason to be skeptical of the clean energy claims for EVs.

EV Lie of the Day

The lie of the day is a joint effort from the EPA and the state of California. Both are using rigged tests to get rid of gasoline powered vehicles.

Please note Electric Cars Emit More Particulate Pollution.

The Biden administration is reviewing California’s plan to ban the sale of new gasoline-powered cars by 2035. To get federal approval, California claims it “needs” this ban to prevent harm to public health from particulate matter—airborne particles like dust, dirt and soot. But banning gasoline cars would do little to reduce particulate emissions, and it could even increase them.

According to measurements by an emission-analytics firm, in gasoline cars equipped with a particle filter, airborne tire-wear emissions are more than 400 times as great as direct exhaust particulate emissions.

California calls electric cars “zero emissions vehicles” because they don’t have tailpipes. That is deceptive. Generating the electricity that powers those cars creates particulate pollution, and of course electric cars still use tires, which are made from petroleum. Electric cars weigh far more than gasoline-powered ones, so their tires degrade faster, as electric car buyers are learning. The same analytics firm cited earlier compared two cars—a plug-in electric and a hybrid. The electric car weighed about one-third more than the hybrid and emitted roughly one-quarter more particulate matter because of tire wear. Total direct emissions went up, not down, when the electric car was driven.

But when California’s air agency analyzed the effects of its ban, it used a model that assumes both kinds of cars have the same tire wear. When the public pointed out the error, the agency doubled down, claiming it would be “speculative” to assume that electric cars will continue to be heavier than gasoline cars. The agency mused that in the future automakers could probably “offset” the weight of heavy batteries with unspecified “weight reduction in other components or the vehicle body.”

What’s “speculative” is assuming that electric cars will soon weigh the same as the gasoline cars they replace. Electric cars are 15% to 30% heavier because batteries store far less energy per pound than liquid fuels. While weight differences between electric and gasoline cars have remained roughly constant over the past decade, the only reasonable prediction of trends is for electric cars to get heavier as manufacturers increase battery size to boost range.

Before California can set any emissions standards for cars, it needs the EPA’s approval. But don’t hold your breath expecting scientific integrity. The EPA’s own emissions model falsely “applies the same tire wear emission rate for all vehicle fuel types (gasoline, diesel, flex-fuel, CNG or electric),” completely ignoring the differences in weight.

Why are California and the EPA so eager to push electric cars when they will increase what EPA administrator Michael Regan calls “one of the most dangerous forms of air pollution”? That’s a good question. Perhaps someone should ask them under oath.

Tire Shock

The Miami Herald reports New tires every 7,000 miles? Electric cars save gas but tire wear shocks some Florida drivers

At EV Garage Miami, a Sweetwater repair shop that services 90 percent electric vehicles, lead technician Jonathan Sanchez said tires are the most frequent thing customers come in about — no matter what model or make of EV they’re driving. Tire mileage can vary widely of course, but he said he frequently changes EV tires at just 8,000 to 10,000 miles — a fourth or even fifth of typical tire wear on a gas-burning car.

There are a number of explanations for the fast wear — from the way EVs work to the composition of the rubber to individual driving habits and maintenance practices — but vehicle and tire makers and industry experts acknowledge the issue. The tire manufacturer Michelin said conventional tires on electric vehicles consume tires 20 percent faster than on a gas-powered car — a figure commonly cited by EV makers as well — but Goodyear also has said they could wear up to 50 percent faster. Automakers and the tire industry are working on improvements.

Some studies have shown that tires actually have more particle pollution than exhaust, 2,000 times as much. “Tires are rapidly eclipsing the tailpipe as a major source of emissions from vehicles,” said Nick Molden, to the Guardian who conducted one study with Emissions Analytics.

Some premium tires suggested for EVs use softer rubber and have foam injected inside that dampens the sound, akin to trading out hard dress shoes for tennis shoes. Those soft textured tires, while quieter, also can wear down faster. Some car companies also have come up with other creative ways to address the lack of noise by pumping in artificial or ambient sound. Toyota announced a system that simulates a gas engine with pre-recorded “vroom vroom” sound pumped through speakers.

Lies About Tires

Apparently we have another lie. The reported 20 percent extra wear my really be 50 percent for some tires.

If the tire industry improves the tires, it will be an improvement for gasoline powered vehicles too.

Tires Are Made with Petroleum

Michelin says “60% of rubber used in the tire industry is synthetic rubber, produced from petroleum-derived hydrocarbons, although natural rubber is still necessary for the remaining 40%.”

In case you did not know, EVs do not come with a spare. You can order one, but a full sized spare will eat up much of your storage space,

In addition to outright lies about particulates, mileage claims, and tire claims, California and the Biden administration act as if green energy is clean.

But the allegedly clean energy isn’t clean due to the minerals needed for wind turbines, for battery storage, and for solar panels.

Insanity Prevails

Meanwhile, please note Biden Weighs Banning Natural Gas Exports to Save the Climate

The climate fear mongers are pressuring Biden to ban natural gas exports. Let’s discuss the ramifications.

Russia will sell more natural gas as a result.

Reducing exports does not change global demand. It will only shift the source of the supply.

Biden Promotes Climate Change at the Expense of More Global Poverty

More importantly, please note Biden Promotes Climate Change at the Expense of More Global Poverty

The mad rush to deal with climate change, even if it works (it won’t), has a nasty tradeoff (more global poverty).

Add tires to the mix of concerns.

https://mishtalk.com/economics/evs-emit-more-particulates-one-of-the-most-dangerous-pollutants/

Biden knowingly and purposely blew up the border in 2021 — don’t believe his blame game now

 President Biden was inaugurated Jan. 20, 2021.

Weeks later, Feb. 2, he issued the executive order that began the unraveling at the border in earnest. 

The border crisis isn’t something that happened to Biden.

It’s not a product of circumstances or understandable policy mistakes made under duress.

No, he sought it and created it, on principle and as a matter of urgency. 

It wasn’t a second-year priority or even a second-quarter-of-the-first-year priority.

The new president set out in his initial days and weeks in office to destroy what President Donald Trump had built, most consequentially in the Feb. 2 executive order. 

By then, mind you, there had already been significant action to loosen up on the border, including on his first day in office. 

The Feb. 2 order emphasized an effort to “enhance lawful pathways for migration to this country” and revoked a slew of Trump rules, executive orders, proclamations and memoranda.

The sense of it was that there’s nothing we can or should do on our own to control illegal immigration; rather, we had to fix deep-seated social, economic and political problems in Central America instead.

It called for getting more refugees into the United States, using parole to let more migrants join family members here, enhancing access to visa programs and reviewing whether the United States is doing enough for migrants fleeing domestic or gang violence, among other things. 

And it put on the chopping block numerous Trump policies that had helped establish order at the border, from Trump’s expansion of expedited removal, to his termination of a parole program for Central American minors, to his memorandum urging the relevant departments to work toward ending “catch and release.”

Most important, it targeted two of the pillars of Trump’s success at the border: the Migrant Protection Protocols, better known as Remain in Mexico, and the safe-third-country agreements with the Northern Triangle countries that allowed us to divert asylum-seekers to Central American countries other than their own to make asylum claims. 

After a few fits and starts thanks to legal challenges, Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas indeed ended Remain in Mexico.

Although he’s now attempting to portray himself to sympathetic journalists as an innocent bystander to Biden’s border policy, he killed the policy knowing exactly what he was doing. 

“After carefully considering the arguments, evidence and perspectives presented by those who support re-implementation of MPP, those who support terminating the program and those who have argued for continuing MPP in a modified form, I have determined that MPP should be terminated,” he said in an Oct. 2021 memo.

He acknowledged, by the way, the policy “likely contributed to reduced migratory flows.” 

For his part, Secretary of State Antony Blinken moved expeditiously.

On Feb. 6, 2021, he announced the end of the asylum agreements. 

And just like that, the carefully crafted suite of Trump polices that had given us control of the border were demolished. 

It didn’t require esoteric knowledge of border policy to realize how this would play out.

During the transition, Trump officials warned of a catastrophe if Biden followed through on his promises, and in April 2021, The Washington Post ran a piece headlined “At the border, a widely predicted crisis that caught Biden off guard.”

Now the Feb. 2 memo feels almost like an artifact from another era, as the open-borders orthodoxy begins to show cracks.

The White House sent Biden to visit the border and is considering measures to curtail illegal immigration and calling on sanctuary cities to cooperate with Immigration and Customs Enforcement, while Mayor Eric Adams criticizes aspects of his city’s sanctuary regime. 

The executive order, though, is a stark reminder the current chaos is the product of deliberate policy.

It’s all there in black and white, a prelude to a disaster that has roiled the country and could well play an outsize role in Biden losing the presidency.

https://nypost.com/2024/03/03/opinion/joe-biden-knowingly-and-purposely-blew-up-the-border-in-2021-dont-believe-his-blame-game-now/

Private Credit Mania Shrugs Off Mounting Risks in Junk-Bond Market

 Default danger rises in high-yield debt, while stress in commercial real estate ramps up

Private loans are most likely to perform best in credit as other categories of risky corporate debt face more defaults, according to the latest Bloomberg Markets Live Pulse survey.

More than 40% of 387 survey respondents said private credit will outperform over the next 12 months. And that’s despite a majority also predicting weaker returns and lower quality in direct loans, as competition between lenders intensifies.

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2024-03-04/private-credit-mania-shrugs-off-the-mounting-risks