Authored by Brandon Smith via Alt-Market.us,

In the early 1970s the US and much of the western world was shifting into a stagflationary economic crisis. Nixon removed the dollar completely from the gold standard in 1971 with the aid of the Federal Reserve (or perhaps under the direction of the Fed) which ultimately escalated inflation pressures. Europe’s post war boom came to an abrupt end, while prices on goods (and oil/gasoline) in the US skyrocketed up until 1981-1982, when the Federal Reserve jacked interest rates up to around 20% and created a deliberate recessionary crash.

Interestingly, the IMF had created the SDR system in 1969 just before the gold standard was cut (the same SDR which the IMF is poised to use as the foundation of a global digital currency mechanism).  And, the World Economic Forum was founded in 1971.

The time period is often depicted in films as a happy-go-lucky era of disco, drugs, hippes and rock n’ roll, but the reality is that the early 1970s was the beginning of the end for the west – it was the moment that our economic foundations were sabotaged and the affluence of the middle class was slowly but surely stolen by inflation.

In the midst of this economic “malaise,” which Jimmy Carter later referred to as a “crisis of confidence,” the United Nations and associated globalist round table groups were hard at work developing a scheme to convince the population to embrace global centralization of power. Their goals were rather direct.

They wanted:

• A rationale for governmental control of human population numbers.

• The power to limit industry.

• The power to control energy production and dictate energy sources.

• The power to control or limit food production and agriculture.

• The ability to micromanage individuals lives in the name of some later defined “greater good.”

• A socialized society in which the individual right to property is abandoned.

• A one-world economic system which they would manage.

• A one-world currency system.

• A one-world government managing a handful of separate regions.

One of the most revealing quotes on the agenda comes from Clinton Administration Deputy Secretary of State Strobe Talbot, who stated in Time magazine that:

“In the next century, nations as we know it will be obsolete; all states will recognize a single, global authority… National sovereignty wasn’t such a great idea after all.”

To understand how the agenda functions, I offer a quote from globalist Council on Foreign Relations member Richard Gardner in an article in Foreign Affairs Magazine in 1974 titled ‘The Hard Road To World Order’:

“In short, the “house of world order” will have to be built from the bottom up rather than from the top down. It will look like a great “booming, buzzing confusion,” to use William James’ famous description of reality, but an end run around national sovereignty, eroding it piece by piece, will accomplish much more than the old-fashioned frontal assault.”

In other words, the globalists knew that incrementalism would be the only way to achieve a one-world power structure that OPENLY governs, rather than hiding the rule of elitists behind clandestine organizations and puppet politicians. They want a global empire in which they become the anointed “Philosopher Kings” described in Plato’s Republic. Their narcissistic egos cannot help but crave the adoration of the masses they secretly hate.

But even with incrementalism, they know eventually the public will figure out the plan and seek to resist as our freedoms are eroded. Establishing an empire is one thing; keeping it is another. How could the globalists come out of their authoritarian closet, eliminate individual freedoms and rule the world without a rebellion that ultimately destroys them?

The only way such a plan would work is if the people, the peasants in this empire, EMBRACE their own slavery. The public would have to be made to view slavery as a matter of solemn duty and survival, not just for themselves but for the entire species. That way, if anyone rebels they would be seen as a monster by the hive. They would be placing the whole collective in danger by defying the power structure.

Thus, the globalists win. Not just for today, they win forever because there would no longer be anyone left to oppose them.

We got a big taste of this brand of psychological warfare during the pandemic scare, in which all of us were told that a virus with a tiny Infection Fatality Rate of 0.23% was enough to erase a majority of our human rights. Luckily, a large enough group of people stood up and fought back against the mandates and passports. That said, there is a much larger “greater good” agenda at play that the globalists plan to exploit, namely the so-called “climate crisis.”

To be clear, there is ZERO evidence of a climate crisis caused by man-made carbon emissions or “greenhouse” gas emissions. There are no weather events that are out of the ordinary in terms of Earth’s historic climate timeline. There is no evidence to support “tipping point” theories on temperatures. And, the Earth’s temps have risen less than 1°C in 100 years. The official temperature record only goes back to the 1880s, and this narrow timeline is what UN and government funded climate scientists use as a reference point for their claims.

I explain why this is fraudulent science in my article ‘The Gas Stove Scare Is A Fraud Created By Climate Change Authoritarians.’ The point is, the UN has been promoting hysteria over a fake doomsday climate scenario, just like the WEF and WHO promoted hysteria and fear over a non-threat like covid. And, it all began back in the early 1970s with a group tied to the UN called The Club of Rome.

The globalists have been scheming to use environmentalism as an excuse for centralization since at least 1972 when the Club Of Rome published a treatise titled ‘The Limits Of Growth’. Funding a limited study of industry and resources in a joint project with MIT, the findings appeared to be scripted well ahead of time – The end of the planet was nigh unless nations and individuals sacrificed their sovereignty. How convenient for the globalists bankrolling the study…

Twenty years later they would publish a book titled ‘The First Global Revolution.’ In that document they specifically discuss using global warming as a vehicle to form supranational governance:

“In searching for a common enemy against whom we can unite, we came up with the idea that pollution, the threat of global warming, water shortages, famine and the like, would fit the bill. In their totality and their interactions these phenomena do constitute a common threat which must be confronted by everyone together. But in designating these dangers as the enemy, we fall into the trap, which we have already warned readers about, namely mistaking symptoms for causes. All these dangers are caused by human intervention in natural processes, and it is only through changed attitudes and behaviour that they can be overcome. The real enemy then is humanity itself.”

By making humanity’s very existence the great threat, the globalists intended to unify the public around the idea of keeping themselves in check. That is to say, the public would have to sacrifice their freedoms and submit to control in the belief that the human species is too dangerous to be allowed liberty.

The following news special from the Australian Public Broadcasting Service was aired in 1973, not long after the Club Of Rome was founded. It is surprisingly blunt about the purposes of the organization:

What can we derive from this broadcast and its message? The globalists want two specific outcomes most of all – They want the end of national sovereignty and the end of private property through socially incentivised of minimalism. The exact same objectives the Club Of Rome outlined in the 1970s are the driving policies of the UN and the World Economic Forum today. The “sharing economy” concept that Klaus Schwab and the WEF often proudly promotes was not thought up by them, it was thought up by the Club Of Rome 50 years ago.

It’s a self fulfilling prophecy: They spend half a century inventing a crisis, drum up public terror, and then offer the very solutions they wanted to enforce decades ago.

In the end, the climate agenda has nothing to do with environmentalism and everything to do with economics. The plan began in the midst of a very real stagflationary crisis, a moment when the middle class populace was most afraid for the future and prices were rising rapidly. This crisis was not caused by the scarcity of resources, it was caused by the mismanagement of the financial system. It’s not a coincidence that the culmination of the global warming scheme is taking place today just as another stagflation disaster is upon us.

The Club of Rome is now a shell of its former glory filled with silly hippies, most likely because the UN and other globalist think-tanks have taken on the role the group used to play. However, the shadow of the original Club is ever present and its strategy of climate fear-mongering is being wielded right now to justify increasing government suppression of energy and agriculture.

If they are not stopped by the public, totalitarian carbon mandates will become the norm. The next generation, living in engineered poverty, will be taught from early childhood that the globalists “saved the world” from a calamity that never really existed. They will be told that the enslavement of humanity is something to be proud of, a gift that keeps the species alive, and anyone who questions that slavery is a selfish villain that wants the destruction of the planet.

*  *  *

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“If Your Toddler Isn’t Talking Yet, the Pandemic Might Be to Blame,” the title of a Wall Street Journal article reads. 

Sarah Toy, a reporter for the publication’s health and medicine bureau, wrote an increasing number of “babies and toddlers are being diagnosed with speech and language delays” due to academic setbacks during the virus pandemic when the economy was forced to shut down. 

Toy cited new data from health analytics company Truveta that analyzed 2.5 million children under the age of 5. There was a significant increase in diagnoses of first-time speech delays. She said on average, between 2018-19 and 2021-22, these delays soared by 1.6 times, adding there was a large surge in delays among 1-year-olds. 

She spoke with Dr. Caroline Martinez, an assistant clinical professor of behavioral pediatrics with Mount Sinai Health System in New York City, and various speech therapists, who blamed social isolation combined with stress among parents as the top contributors to the delays. Here’s an excerpt of what Toy wrote:

“Social isolation coupled with pandemic-related stress among parents likely contributed to the delays, Martinez and speech therapists said. Families were less likely to start therapy or get their children evaluated during the pandemic, they said, creating a backlog of patients longer than ever, they said.” 

The WSJ journo cited a survey from April that showed 80% of 1,000 members of the American Speech-Language-Hearing Association working with children under the age of 5 found an increasing number of delayed language or diagnosed language disorder cases compared with pre-pandemic trends. Many of these speech pathologists also said there had been an increase in children with social-communication difficulties. 

While the data is insightful, we’re sorry to inform Toy the “pandemic” isn’t to blame for why a generation of children has developed language disorders. Why the journo left out the politicians, public health bureaucrats, and teachers’ unions who ferociously demanded government lockdowns and closure of schools is a significant concern. 

As we’ve observed, Covid authoritarians, such as Anthony Fauci, are becoming deniers of the truth and the largest source of misinformation about what really happened several years ago as they desperately try to rewrite history due to the botched response that should’ve never included the closure of the economy and shuttering of schools. 

•  Why Are So Many COVID Authoritarians Suddenly Shifting Their Narratives?
• Another Lockdown Authoritarian Tries To Weasel Out Of Responsibility For Role During Pandemic
• Top Officials Who Pushed Aggressive COVID-19 Policies Try To Rewrite History

And, of course, there’s this:

• Watch: Fauci Claims Lockdowns Have Not “Irreparably Damaged Anyone”

#Fauci this morning vs Fauci 2020. He hopes you will ignore the blatant lies & adopt his new narrative because it supports your political bias. If you’re vaccinated, I hope you choose what’s true versus what you want to believe – Humanity depends on it. It’s time to unite! We are… pic.twitter.com/tjjdg6ZUks

— Brandon Taylor Moore (@LetsGoBrando45) April 26, 2023

A reworking of the WSJ headline is needed: “If Your Toddler Isn’t Talking Yet, the COVID Authoritarians Might Be To Blame.” 

Authored by Owen Evans via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours),

UK authorities are investigating an “unusual” surge in severe myocarditis which has hit 15 babies in Wales and England and has killed at least one, the World Health Organisation has announced.

On Tuesday, the WHO issued an alert that there had been a rise in “severe myocarditis” in newborns and infants between June 2022 and March 2023 in Wales and England.

It said that this was associated with the enterovirus infection, which rarely affects the heart.

A UK Health Security Agency (UKHSA) spokesperson confirmed to The Epoch Times that 10 babies have been diagnosed in Wales and five have been diagnosed in England.

The WHO said that “although enterovirus infections are common in neonates and young infants, the reported increase in myocarditis with severe outcomes in neonates and infants associated with enterovirus infection is unusual.”

It said that in the same hospital (covering the South Wales region) over the previous six years, “only one other similar case has been identified.”

WHO assessed the public health risk as low, but added that in certain situations, it “may be advisable to close child-care facilities and schools to reduce the intensity of transmission.”

However, the WHO took down the alert on Wednesday. The Epoch Times understands that this could be because some of the numbers were not correct.

The WHO did not respond to The Epoch Times’ request for comment.

Investigation

Authorities in England and Wales are currently investigating the rise in cases.

Dr. Shamez Ladhani, Consultant Paediatrician at UKHSA, told The Epoch Times by email that “given a higher than average number of cases in Wales in the autumn/winter months in very young babies, UKHSA is investigating the situation in England to see if any similar cases have been observed here and whether there are any factors driving the increase in cases.”

The UKHSA did not respond to questions about ruling out any links to the effects of the COVID-19 vaccine.

Public Health Wales at the start of May announced that it was investigating a cluster of severe enterovirus infections with myocarditis occurring in very young babies from the South Wales region.

The cases occurred from June 2022 with a peak in November 2022 involving babies under 28 days old.

Ten babies have developed myocarditis within this cluster. One baby remains in hospital, eight are being managed as outpatients, and one baby has died.

‘Massive Question’

Consultant pathologist and HART member Dr. Clare Craig told The Epoch Times that there’s “a massive question about whether or not these babies or the mums are vaccinated.”

HART is an organisation that was set up to share concerns about policy and guidance recommendations relating to the COVID-19 pandemic.

“Coxsackievirus is a member of a family of viruses called enteroviruses and one of the most common causes of viral myocarditis,” she said.

“And we saw like with other viruses, the diagnosis of Coxsackievirus reduced massively in 2020 when SARS-COV 2 arrived.

She added that the total number of people getting myocarditis after 2020 stayed the same suggesting “SARS-COV 2 filled the niche” that Coxsackievirus had left behind.

“But then the vaccine comes along and from 2021 the incidence rate of myocarditis went sky high,” she added.

“The public health authorities claim that they want to maintain trust and yet they won’t explore these avenues to rule out concerns,” she added.

Read more here…

Authored by Anders Corr via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours),

The United States and South Korea are getting tougher on technology leaks. The two countries have extensive tech industries to protect. Most important is their technological lead, along with the Netherlands, in small and powerful computer chips used for economic and military applications around the world.

Countries that steal these technologies include China, Russia, and Iran. As U.S. adversaries, they could use them against us and our allies.

On May 16, the Department of Justice (DOJ) revealed five related cases investigated by its new “Disruptive Technology Strike Force.”

Two of them, both in California, include the alleged theft of source code by Chinese nationals for delivery to competitors in China.

On May 5, a senior technology engineer was arrested for alleged theft of “metrology software which is used in ‘smart’ automotive manufacturing equipment,” the DOJ said in a press release. The tech could help China build nuclear submarines and military aircraft.

The other case is of a Chinese national and former Apple engineer who allegedly stole “thousands of documents containing the source code for software and hardware pertaining to Apple’s autonomous vehicle technology,” according to the DOJ.

He escaped back to China the same night in 2018 that FBI agents searched his home and discovered the documents. It is unclear why the FBI did not immediately arrest the suspect and why it has taken this long to bring charges.

A third case, in New York, involved a sanctioned “Chinese procurement network established to provide Iran with materials used in weapons of mass destruction (WMDs) and ballistic missiles,” the DOJ said. The defendant is a Chinese national who allegedly used a front company to try and provide Iran with isostatic graphite, used in the rocket nozzles and reentry vehicle nose cones of intercontinental ballistic missiles. He is at large in China.

French officials arrested a Greek national in a fourth case for alleged links to Russian intelligence and acquiring 10 different types of controlled technology for illegal export to Russia.

“As alleged, while ostensibly operating as a defense contractor for NATO and other ally countries, the defendant and his Aratos Group were double-dealing, helping to fuel Russia’s war effort and their development of next-generation weapons,” according to U.S. Attorney Breon Peace.

The Aratos Group operates defense and technology companies in Greece and the Netherlands, which, as NATO countries, can import some controlled U.S. tech. Since 2017, Aratos has allegedly smuggled tech to Russia that can be “used in military applications, including quantum cryptography and nuclear weapons testing, as well as tactical battlefield equipment” by Russian nuclear and quantum research facilities and intelligence services, according to the DOJ.

Two other Russian nationals were arrested in Arizona in a fifth case for allegedly lying and using front companies and foreign bank accounts to attempt to ship export-controlled aircraft parts to sanctioned Russian commercial airlines.

As the United States has increased the pressure on economic spies, those from China have gone elsewhere to get similar technologies. In South Korea, for example, confirmed leaks of core technologies increased from 3 in 2017 to 10 in 2021, according to the Financial Times. In the first quarter of 2023, there have already been three such leaks from large automotive, display, and semiconductor companies. Headhunters from China operate front companies and lurk outside South Korean chip fabs in an attempt to poach talent. On offer are salaries three-to-four times prior incomes.

Read more here…

Scientists from the University of Tokyo have developed a set of robotic arms that can be attached to a user’s back. These arms mimic the appearance of Otto Octavius (also known as Doctor Octopus), a fictional character and one of Spider-Man’s most enduring enemies, who wields mechanical, tentacle-like appendages. 

Called “Jizai Arms,” the wearable backpack can power up to six detachable robot arms and moves with the user’s body. 

“The system was designed to enable social interaction between multiple wearers, such as an exchange of arm(s), and explore possible interactions between digital cyborgs in a cyborg society,” the scientists wrote in a research note titled “Social Digital Cyborgs: The Collaborative Design Process of JIZAI ARMS” that was published in the ACM Digital Library, a database of full-text articles and bibliographic literature covering computing and information technology. 

“From our role-playing sessions, we found that our bodies could precisely sense the attachment/detachment of arms, and we especially felt a strong impact when detaching or reducing the number of robotic arms worn,” the scientists stated in the paper. 

“We also suggested adding customizability to the robotic arms to generate a sense of social ownership, an individual’s sense of ownership towards a specific artificial body part shared among multiple persons, as a future research topic,” they continued. 

This technology reminds us of Octavius’ mechanical tentacles. 

Besides, artificial intelligence — we might also want to prepare for a world of cyborgs.

Authored by John Mac Ghlionn via The Epoch Times,

In the United States, calls for reparations are, once again, heating up. A Duke University professor recently called for $14 trillion in reparations for the descendants of American slavery (roughly $350,000 per recipient).

The professor, William Darity, isn’t the only one calling for reparations. The mayor of Boston, Michelle Wu, has established a task force that will explore compensation for black citizens. In New York City, Mayor Eric Adams has signaled his support for the idea. Detroit’s Reparations Task Force is currently exploring forms of compensation for the city’s black residents. Similar events are taking place in St. Louis. In early May, California’s reparations task force approved recommendations that could see some black residents receive $1.2 million each as compensation for slavery and racial discrimination.

Reparations are a terrible idea.

Calls for race-based compensation appeal to emotion, not logic. First, how do we define slavery? Contrary to popular belief, African Americans weren’t the only victims of slavery. As Stephan Talty, an author who has researched slavery in great detail, has noted, white people were also the victims of slavery.

In a piece for Salon, a hyper-progressive online magazine, Talty discussed the fact that, contrary to popular belief, white slavery did occur prior to the occurrence of the Civil War. Talty referenced the work of Joel Augustus Rogers, a historian who meticulously documented the many ways in which whites were kidnapped and sold into slavery. These kidnappings occurred from the early 1700s right up until 1861, the year the Civil War started. Some of the victims were orphans or unwanted babies, while others were impoverished immigrants. White slavery occurred in America. This is an inconvenient truth that receives little or no attention, probably because it contradicts the “white privilege” narrative that continues to do the rounds.

Even if we were to agree on a definition of slavery, how are we supposed to verify those that claim to be victims? Then, of course, there’s the matter of financing reparations. Where will the money come from?

For comment on the matter, I reached out to David W. Rasmussen, the director of the Policy Sciences Center at Florida State University. Rasmussen recently published a paper discussing reparations for black citizens, and why such a system of redress for past injustices deserves criticism.

Rasmussen told me that although it’s easy to make the case that black citizens are owed reparations—the right to own slaves is embedded in the Constitution, after all—this doesn’t mean that the case being made has any real substance. The idea of reparations, noted Rasmussen, fails for many reasons.

First off, reparations are expensive, with “reasonable” estimates ranging from about $500 billion to $2.7 trillion. The highest estimate of damages is $7 quadrillion, he said, “a figure that emerges because damages are compounded at an annual interest rate of 6 percent.” For the mathematically challenged, a quadrillion is 1,000 trillion.

Moreover, black reparations would benefit about 12 percent of the population.

In other words, said Rasmussen, “We are asking 88 percent of the population to pay as much as $500 billion (probably over a period of years) to bear the cost.”

All Americans, including those who are currently struggling to put food on the table, would bear this cost (40 million Americans, more than 25 percent of the population, currently live in poverty). Only 30 percent of Americans are in favor of some form of reparations. “Many of these,” according to Rasmussen, “may find a $500 billion price tag a hard sell.” Indeed.

It’s common for those in favor of reparations to insist that all descendants of slaves, regardless of their economic situation, should receive reparations. Thus, individuals such as Barack and Michelle Obama, as well as LeBron James and Oprah Winfrey, would be eligible. Rasmussen, like many other Americans, is against income transfers to high-income households—and for good reason. It makes absolutely no sense.

Which begs the question: What, if any, palatable alternatives to reparations exist?

Rasmussen asks, “If we are genuinely interested in helping black families locked in poverty in communities with high crime, inferior housing, and bad schools, why not address those problems?”

He’s right. Rather than creating race-related policies, the United States must create policies that address specific problems. This is the only way forward, largely because Native Americans, Hispanics, and poor whites would also stand to benefit. Again, contrary to popular belief, the United States is no longer divided by race. It’s divided by class. To be specific, it’s divided by four distinct classes: upper, middle, working, and lower, with more and more Americans falling into the final two categories.

As noted earlier, tens of millions of people of various skin colors are living in abject poverty. To truly help those in need, those struggling to survive, we need to move past the idea of reparations for black individuals. Now, more than ever, we must move past the desire to use skin color as a defining metric.

Over 80% of U.S. residents have chosen to live in an urban setting, as of 2023.

And, as Visual Capitalist’s Chris Dickert and Pernia Jamshed detail below, with that number set to rise to nearly 90% by 2050, house prices are rising, with significant consequences to housing affordability. 

This visualization, the second in the Reimagining Home Series from our sponsor Boxabl, takes a deep dive into the evolution of the housing market in the U.S.

Housing Affordability At Its Lowest Ebb in Decades

The U.S. house-price-to-income ratio, which tracks house prices in multiples of annual income, has steadily climbed since the mid-1980s, when the market was recovering from a real estate crash earlier that decade.

Historically, the ratio has hovered between three and four. But in the early aughts, the ratio passed four and kept going, reaching a high of 5.11 in 2005. The ratio fell somewhat in the aftermath of the subprime mortgage meltdown, but never returned to historical averages. New records were set in 2014 (5.33), and again in 2021 (5.61).

Note that because median housing prices and median household incomes are released at different frequencies, quarterly versus annually respectively, in order to calculate the ratio, housing prices were averaged on an annual basis.

Housing data is available up to the first quarter of 2023, when median prices eased off from a record-high $479,500 at the end of 2022 to $436,800 in the first quarter of this year.

Because median household income is currently only available up to 2021, it’s not possible to calculate the ratio past that. However, unless there was an unusually large increase in income, the ratio has likely remained near record highs.

And throughout the seemingly unstoppable rise in house prices over the 38 years covered above, income has failed to keep up. Between 1984 and 2021, median incomes rose 3.16x from $22,415 to $70,784, while median housing prices increased nearly 5.26x to $423,600, up from $78,200.

Issue Top of Mind For Local Communities

Amid the steady erosion of housing affordability, U.S. residents have reacted with rising concern. In 2018, when the Pew Research Center asked about major problems affecting local communities, the top spot went to Drug Addiction at 42%, compared to 39% on the Availability of Affordable Housing.

In 2021, the situation reversed itself and housing affordability was the #1 problem according to 49% of respondents, an increase of 10%. Drug Addiction, on the other hand, fell to 35%.

In general, younger Americans (55%), urban residents (63%), and those with lower incomes (57%) expressed more concern than their counterparts.

Is There a Doctor in the House?

So what’s causing the erosion of housing affordability in the U.S.?

Ultimately, the U.S. is not building enough houses to keep pace with population growth. And you can see this in the housing start data. In January 1959, there were around 1.7 million housing starts, compared to January 2023, when there were 1.3 million. And this decrease happened despite the fact that the U.S. population nearly doubled, from 176 to 335 million. 

Lots of different forces are working together at the local level to stop more houses from being built. Space is one reason. Local zoning laws that limit the construction of multi-family homes is another culprit. The COVID-19 pandemic has also caused global supply chain issues, leading to rising material costs for housing.

And the icing on the cake? Rising interest rates are making it even harder for first-time homebuyers to enter the market.

Thinking Outside of the Box on Housing

With housing affordability at its lowest ebb in over a decade and people worried that they won’t be able to find a place to live, it’s time to think outside of the box.

Boxabl uses advanced, mass production techniques to build and ship homes that significantly lower the cost of home ownership for everyone.

This is the second piece in the Reimagining Home Series. Part 1 takes a deep dive on urbanization in the U.S., while the third and final piece looks at how modular homes could be a solution to the U.S. affordability crisis.

Authored by Matthew Vadum via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours),

The Supreme Court unanimously sided with Twitter, Google, and Facebook, finding in a pair of decisions on May 18 that the Silicon Valley giants are shielded from liability for content posted by users.

The lawsuits arose after deadly Islamic terrorist attacks overseas. Victims’ families argued that the Big Tech companies were liable because they allowed terrorist videos to be posted online or failed to do enough to police the terrorist accounts posting the videos.

Big Tech and its supporters had been deeply concerned that the court could eviscerate Section 230 of the federal Communications Decency Act of 1996, which generally prevents internet platforms and internet service providers from being held liable for what users say on them. They say the legal provision, sometimes called “the 26 words that created the internet,” has fostered a climate online in which free speech has flourished.

Both President Joe Biden and former President Donald Trump have attacked Section 230, calling for it to be repealed, but in the twin rulings, the Supreme Court sidestepped the Section 230 issue, much to the relief of the tech companies.

During oral arguments on Feb. 21, the justices struggled over the extent to which social media platforms should be held liable when terrorist groups use the platforms to promote their cause.

Chief Justice John Roberts said that despite any algorithm YouTube may use to push users to view videos, the company is “still not responsible for the content of the videos … or text that is transmitted.”

Justice Elena Kagan told a lawyer for one of the families, “I can imagine a world where you’re right that none of this stuff gets protection.”

“And, you know, every other industry has to internalize the costs of its conduct. Why is it that the tech industry gets a pass? A little bit unclear,” she said.

“On the other hand, I mean, we’re a court. We really don’t know about these things. You know, these are not like the nine greatest experts on the internet,” Kagan said at the time.

The Supreme Court’s new 38-page decision (pdf) in Twitter Inc. v. Taamneh, court file 21-1496, was written by Justice Clarence Thomas.

Twitter asked the court to review a lower court ruling in favor of a Jordanian national killed in an ISIS terrorist group attack in an Istanbul nightclub. The company argued it shouldn’t be held responsible for acts of international terrorism if the group used its platform. The family of the late victim, Nawras Alassaf, claimed that social media platforms didn’t do enough to take down ISIS videos.

Thomas wrote that the plaintiffs sought to hold Twitter, Facebook, and Google “liable for the terrorist attack that allegedly injured them,” but the court concluded that “plaintiffs’ allegations are insufficient to establish that these defendants aided and abetted ISIS in carrying out the relevant attack.”

The connection between the online platforms and the nightclub attack was “far removed,” he wrote.

“The allegations plaintiffs make here are not the type of pervasive, systemic, and culpable assistance to a series of terrorist activities that could be described as aiding and abetting each terrorist act by ISIS,” Thomas wrote.

The Supreme Court reversed the decision of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 9th Circuit.

The Supreme Court’s brief, three-page decision (pdf) in Gonzalez v. Google LLC, court file 21-1333, was unsigned. Google’s parent company is Alphabet Inc.

In 2024, the IRS will launch a pilot program to offer its own, government-run, income tax return-preparation website, according to a report the universally-despised agency provided to Congress on Tuesday. The report follows a $15 million study of the concept. 

If there were ever a proposal absolutely guaranteed to be a multifaceted disaster, this is it. Boobus Americanus, however, is apparently champing at the bit: IRS surveys find 72% of Americans are “very” or “somewhat interested in” a free government tool for calculating taxes. What are they missing?    

For starters, the IRS and all of us animals on the government’s taxpayer ranch approach this endeavor with an enormous conflict of interest. We don’t want to pay a penny more than we absolutely have to, while the government is hell-bent on extracting an entirely fictional “fair share” — and more — from each of us. 

Next, there’s the comically-cautionary tale of the rollout of the Obamacare enrollment website in 2013. Even with three years to prepare, it was a cluster**** for the ages. The site crashed immediately upon launch, and then inflicted countless glitches on users after it was up and running.

Even when they function properly, government websites are notorious showcases of confusing communication. Imagine when users inevitably have questions and are compelled to turn to an IRS call center for clarity. Users would have to pray that — after enduring hold time — they’re actually matched with a competent phone rep. A 2002 Treasury audit found reps only came up with the right answer 78% of the time — and that’s just for the average question.   

At first glance, some might assume using an IRS site would make you less of an audit target. Then again, it’s conceivable the IRS might log your actions as you navigate the site — such as trying different inputs to test the impact on your tax return. Such information could be used as an audit flag. 

In most states, offering an appealing alternative to TurboTax and H&R Block platforms would require the IRS to also offer state and local tax prep. No way that’s happening anytime soon. 

The IRS says it hasn’t yet defined the complexity of returns it anticipates handling during the pilot. A prototype of the IRS offering that was run by some taxpayers wasn’t even built to pre-populate with data the government already has via W-2’s and 1099s. As one unimpressed survey participant said, “IRS already knows your tax information. So why wouldn’t I be able to login, put in, say, my [SSN], and then half this information is already filled, and then I just need to put in corrections?”

Many survey participants felt they should receive expedited return-processing for using a government platform. In its report, however, the IRS said, “The IRS does not, and would not, give preferential treatment to taxpayers who use any particular tax filing method.”

The IRS estimates its direct-filing platform would cost between $64.3 and $248.9 million annually. The running tally for the Obamacare site surpassed $840 million less than a year after it launched. 

Many other countries send taxpayers “pre-filled returns” that are populated with data the government already collected. Some are so accurate in their ongoing income-tax withholding that little or no adjustment is necessary. That accuracy springs from their dramatically simpler approaches to income taxation.  

Putting the government-taxpayer conflict of interest aside, until the US income tax is radically simplified — such as with a flat tax with few or no deductions or credits, no differentiation between short- and long-term capital gains, no differentiation between tax rates on investments and earned income, and no disguised welfare handouts like the EITC — an IRS-run tax-filing platform is for the birds. 

Or maybe we should say “for the birdbrains” — like the survey participants who said these things about the prospect of an IRS tax-prep platform:

• “It’s probably going to be good; it’s going to tell you everything you need to know because it’s the IRS. The information should be up to date. I would probably expect it to be more accurate doing it directly with IRS than though some other company.”
• “They probably more want you to do it correctly than some other company.”
• “Yes [I would trust it]. Because it’s a government website.”

Authored by Robert Hebner via RealClear Wire,

Years ago, I attended a lecture featuring a leader of China’s energy program at the University of Hong Kong. The significant investment of time and resources in every energy technology and commitment to scaling solutions with reduced environmental impact was eye-opening, but also struck me as an inefficient approach.

It is now evident that the world must invest in an all-of-the-above method to meet our energy needs with reduced environmental impact.

Global demand for energy is projected to double due to a growing population; over half do not have adequate energy today, leading to poverty and premature deaths.

Currently, fossil fuel-derived energy is the only source available at the scale required to address the growing demand.

Even if the geopolitical issues around fossil fuels were magically eliminated, nature’s conversion of solar power to fossil fuels includes carbon. We now use energy at a rate that carbon emissions change the climate, which also leads to poverty and premature deaths.

We need more and better solutions at a large enough scale to matter.

Hydrogen is attractive because it promises to make intermittent renewable energy available 24/7 everywhere. Moreover, the global hydrogen market is more than $150 billion today, with major growth opportunities in the future grid and transportation sectors.

The growing demand for energy means a growth in jobs and profits. But there will be winners and losers even in the growing market.

Governments use incentives to support all energy today. Therefore, the integration of hydrogen into the political system is complicated. For example, the Department of Energy has a goal of developing the technology for producing hydrogen for $1/kilogram by the end of the decade. A kilogram of hydrogen has similar energy to a gallon of gasoline.

Recent research, however, showed that for a wind farm in West Texas, producing and selling hydrogen makes no economic sense unless the cost of hydrogen was about $3.50/kilogram, due to a production tax credit that rewards wind generated electricity delivered to the electric grid.

Hydrogen’s carbon footprint is high today, but we have the technology to produce it with a smaller carbon footprint. The U.S. is implementing a graduated tax credit to support the scale-up of cleaner hydrogen, no matter its feedstock.

We all lose if we make the perfect the enemy of the good. Fewer people suffer or die if we grow from good, to better, to best rather than sitting on good until best is easily achievable.

Our legacy governance impedes establishing a market where multiple solutions contribute. The system we built assumes the various components compete, not work as a team to meet the growing energy demand in an environmentally sustainable manner.

We count on our government to provide the required coordination. We must give them the tools and insights they need to do that job well for all of us.

For hydrogen, parochial perspectives are trying to influence which electrical grid feedstocks are clean enough to receive the full benefits of the 45V tax credit. This is a classic “perfect vs. good” situation.

Certifying hydrogen as clean when its feedstock comes from an independent and dedicated source is straightforward. However, hydrogen produced in Houston, TX, using grid power is near price parity with the conventional carbon-intensive means of producing hydrogen.

So, we can have cleaner hydrogen quickly. But the grid, while continually getting cleaner, has a carbon footprint that varies daily. Most prudent folks would say absent proof of greater damage, this approach should receive competitive tax credit today and enhanced tax credits as hydrogen gets cleaner in the future.

Decades of tax credits and offsets have led to wind and solar being niche suppliers. With its commercially mature massive storage capability, hydrogen might provide the tipping point technology to augment fossil fuels in meeting the growing demand.

No one solution on its own can meet the challenge. We need flexibility for energy production, conservation, and efficiency. We will prosper with a portfolio of outstanding contributors, not by waiting for an energy superhero.

Robert Hebner is the director of the Center for Electromechanics at the University of Texas at Austin.