News

Elections are “of the most fundamental significance under our constitutional structure.”

…. Through them, we exercise self-government. But elections enable self-governance only when they include processes that “giv[e] citizens (including the losing candidates and their supporters) confidence in the fairness of the election.”

… (“Confidence in the integrity of our electoral processes is essential to the functioning of our participatory democracy”). Unclear rules threaten to undermine this system. They sow confusion and ultimately dampen confidence in the integrity and fairness of elections. To prevent confusion, we have thus repeatedly—although not as consistently as we should—blocked rule changes made by courts close to an election.

… An election system lacks clear rules when, as here, different officials dispute who has authority to set or change those rules. This kind of dispute brews confusion because voters may not know which rules to follow. Even worse, with more than one system of rules in place, competing candidates might each declare victory under different sets of rules. We are fortunate that the Pennsylvania Supreme Court’s decision to change the receipt deadline for mail-in ballots does not appear to have changed the outcome in any federal election.

… Changing the rules in the middle of the game is bad enough. Such rule changes by officials who may lack authority to do so is even worse. When those changes alter election results, they can severely damage the electoral system on which our self-dissenting governance so heavily depends. If state officials have the authority they have claimed, we need to make it clear. If not, we need to put an end to this practice now before the consequences become catastrophic.

… One wonders what this Court waits for. We failed to settle this dispute before the election, and thus provide clear rules. Now we again fail to provide clear rules for future elections. The decision to leave election law hidden beneath a shroud of doubt is baffling. By doing nothing, we invite further confusion and erosion of voter confidence. Our fellow citizens deserve better and expect more of us. I respectfully dissent.

Read Justice Thomas Dissenting Opinion in Full.

Technology and media entities join forces to create standards group aimed at building trust in online content

A group of influential technology and media companies has partnered to form the Coalition for Content Provenance and Authenticity (C2PA), a Joint Development Foundation project established to address the prevalence of disinformation, misinformation and online content fraud through developing technical standards for certifying the source and history or provenance of media content. Founding members Adobe, Arm, BBC, Intel, Microsoft and Truepic seek to establish a standardized provenance solution with the goal of combating misleading content.

C2PA member organizations will work together to develop content provenance specifications for common asset types and formats to enable publishers, creators and consumers to trace the origin and evolution of a piece of media, including images, videos, audio and documents. These technical specifications will include defining what information is associated with each type of asset, how that information is presented and stored, and how evidence of tampering can be identified.

The C2PA’s open standard will give platforms a method to preserve and read provenance-based digital content. Because an open standard can be adopted by any online platform, it is critical to scaling trust across the internet. In addition to the inclusion of varied media types at scale, C2PA is driving an end-to-end provenance experience from the capturing device to the information consumer. Collaboration with chipmakers, news organizations, and software and platform companies is critical to facilitate a comprehensive provenance standard and drive broad adoption across the content ecosystem. — Source: Microsoft

A new report suggests that China is considering the idea of banning the export of rare-earth minerals to countries it deems a threat. If only someone could have warned us.

Of course, some may remember that just a few short months ago, a prominent political figure did warn of this problem. That figure was former President Donald Trump.

In October, Trump declared a national emergency in the mining industry in an executive order “aimed at boosting domestic production of rare earth minerals critical for military technologies while reducing the country’s dependence on China,” according to Defense News.

For those who are not familiar with rare-earth minerals, Defense News defined them as “a group of 17 minerals critical to the defense industry’s manufacturing of missiles and munitions, hypersonic weapons, and radiation-hardened electronics — as well as consumer electronics like cellphones.” — Source: Western Journal

Amid the dire Covid warnings, one crucial fact has been largely ignored: Cases are down 77% over the past six weeks. If a medication slashed cases by 77%, we’d call it a miracle pill. Why is the number of cases plummeting much faster than experts predicted?

In large part because natural immunity from prior infection is far more common than can be measured by testing. Testing has been capturing only from 10% to 25% of infections, depending on when during the pandemic someone got the virus. Applying a time-weighted case capture average of 1 in 6.5 to the cumulative 28 million confirmed cases would mean about 55% of Americans have natural immunity.

Now add people getting vaccinated. As of this week, 15% of Americans have received the vaccine, and the figure is rising fast. Former Food and Drug Commissioner Scott Gottlieb estimates 250 million doses will have been delivered to some 150 million people by the end of March.

There is reason to think the country is racing toward an extremely low level of infection. As more people have been infected, most of whom have mild or no symptoms, there are fewer Americans left to be infected. At the current trajectory, I expect Covid will be mostly gone by April, allowing Americans to resume normal life. [Read the entire Op-Ed at the Wall Street Journal]

I came across this German study a few days ago but waited until a reputable news organization succinctly summarized the 100+ page report.

The publisher of the report is a well-known, well-funded, and well-renown scientist who put together 600 inconvertible facts that this was indeed an accident that occurred at the Wuhan Virology Institute.

In order to read the actual study, you’ll need to translate from German.  I used translate.google.com and uploaded my copy of the PDF Study.  But if you just want the summary of the study, read the entire story at National Pulse.

The February study argues against two prevailing theories that COVID-19 was transmitted to humans either via a wet market or a lab accident.

“To date, there is no scientifically based rigorous evidence for either mentioned theories,” Wiesendanger, a three-time recipient of the prestigious European Research Council grant.

Wiesendanger’s 105-page report continues, asking: “is the current global crisis actually the result of a coincidence in nature – a coincidental mutation of a coronavirus a bat with the assistance of an intermediate host – or the result of a Scientist carelessness when carrying out the project is high-risk research with global pandemic potential?” [ Source: National Pulse ]

The U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA) predicts that under the Biden Administration, the U.S. will now once again import more oil than it exports in 2021.

In the forecast the EIA states:

“…increasing crude oil imports will drive the growth in net petroleum imports in 2021 and 2022 and more than offset changes in refined product net trade. EIA forecasts that net imports of crude oil will increase from its 2020 average of 2.7 million barrels per day (b/d) to 3.7 million b/d in 2021 and 4.4 million b/d in 2022.”

In their Short-Term Energy Outlook for 2020, the EIA “estimates that 2020 marked the first year that the United States exported more petroleum than it imported on an annual basis. However, largely because of declines in domestic crude oil production and corresponding increases in crude oil imports”.

After taking office, President Biden issued a 60-day moratorium on the issuance of new oil and gas operations permits.  [ Read More: CNS News ]

CNN and NBC News each purchased video from the January 6 riot at the U.S. Capitol for $35,000 from a man who has been accused of being a “left-wing grifter” who was later charged by prosecutors for his alleged activities during the riot.

“The defendant, John Sullivan of Utah, has maintained that he attends raucous demonstrations as a journalist, sharing videos through his Insurgence USA website and social media platforms,” Politico reported. “Sullivan’s defense attorney even filed invoices with the court showing that CNN and NBC each paid Sullivan’s firm $35,000 last month for rights to video he filmed of chaotic scenes outside and inside the Capitol, including the deadly shooting of protester Ashli Babbitt by a U.S. Capitol Police officer.”

Federal prosecutors, however, say that not only is Sullivan not an innocent bystander, they allege that he was an instigator who acted in a manner to cause additional chaos during the riot.  Source: Daily Wire