Substack Asks Writers For Money As VC Funding Freezes
Substack is initiating a crowdsourcing funding round, allowing writers to invest as little as $100 in the company. On Tuesday morning, the startup emailed writers about the investment opportunity. The development comes amidst a freeze in venture capital funding markets, which followed the collapse of Silicon Valley Bank.
“Today, we’re starting a process that will let writers and readers invest in Substack and own a piece of the company. We are serious about building Substack with writers and readers and this community round is one way to concretize that ideal,” the email said.
Substack is using the crowdfunding service Wefunder to raise $2 million. Around noon on Tuesday, nearly $800k had been raised.
Investment terms of the money raise stated:
“This is an extension of Substack’s Series B which originally had a $585M pre-money valuation and $650M post-money valuation.”
The email went on and on about “Own a piece of Substack” and “Help build a new economic engine for culture” to make it “amazing for tomorrow.”
It seems that Substack has encountered funding challenges in the VC space. Before SVB’s collapse, funding markets were already tightening due to the Federal Reserve’s aggressive move to increase interest rates to combat decades-high inflation. Earlier this year, the company reduced its workforce by 14% and cut expenses to adapt to mounting macroeconomic headwinds.
We told readers last weekend that funding pipelines for startups have ground to a halt. As a result, we pointed out that large investment banks, such as Goldman, are now stepping into the arena to fund some cash-strapped startups at deep valuation discounts.
Changes are coming to Canada’s lobbying rules, and a coalition of citizen groups says they will “legalize bribery by allowing for favour-trading between lobbyists and politicians.” The House ethics committee has approved a proposed revision of the Lobbyists’ Code of Conduct by and large, only making a few recommendations for changes.
“It’s shameful that the Liberal, Conservative and Bloc MPs on the Ethics Committee have decided … to support changes that will gut key ethical lobbying rules,” said Duff Conacher, co-founder of Democracy Watch, in a release on March 27. Democracy Watch is joined by 26 citizen groups and more than 30 lawyers and professors in opposition to the changes proposed by Commissioner of Lobbying Nancy Bélanger.
They criticise the sponsored travel junkets allowed by the rules. They say the proposed new rules will also allow people to do important campaign work for a politician, then lobby that same politician shortly thereafter. They say the sense of obligation gives that lobbyist an unfair advantage.
Cooling Off Period
Bélanger has said that she seeks to change the Lobbyists’ Code of Conduct because it needs to be clarified to make it more enforceable. For example, the current code says there should be a cooling off period between “political activity” in support of a politician and then lobbying that politician. It doesn’t say how long, only a “specified period.”
“There is no definition of political activity, or what is meant by a specified period,” Manon Dion, a spokesperson for the Office of the Commissioner, told The Epoch Times via email. Bélanger’s new code seeks to define political activity and set specific time periods.
A set of guidelines published by her office does this, but the guidelines aren’t codified in law. Those guidelines currently say the cooling off period for certain high-level political activities should be “a period equivalent to a full election cycle,” or four years.
Conacher criticises Bélanger for taking a step back, making the cooling off period only one or two years in her revised version of the code.
“Somebody helps you get elected, raises a whole bunch of money for you—when do you ever stop owing them? You owe them forever. It’s just ridiculous to say that it magically disappears after one to two years,” Conacher said in an interview with The Epoch Times in February when the ethics committee began hearing testimony from stakeholders on the issue.
The ethics committee, in their March 20 letter of approval to Bélanger, did not recommend lengthening the cooling off period.
The letter noted Democracy Watch’s concern that under Bélanger’s revised code someone could, in theory, fundraise huge amounts of money for a public official and lobby that official at the same time. That’s because fundraising itself isn’t prohibited, only “full-time” or “nearly full-time” political work.
The committee suggested updating the definition of “political work” to include any significant fundraising.
In a March 3 letter to the committee, Bélanger noted that rule 7 in her code prevents this. “[Rule 7] expressly applies to circumstances outside the scope of the other rules of the Code and prevents registered lobbyists from lobbying officials who could reasonably be seen to have a sense of obligation toward them,” she said.
The commissioner was hesitant to impose a longer cooling off period, Dion said, because of concern that limiting people’s political activity too much would be in violation of Charter rights.
Charter Rights
“The updated rule was carefully crafted to achieve its objective of restricting lobbying where a sense of obligation could reasonably be seen to exist and to provide the greatest clarity for lobbyists, all while complying with the Charter,” Dion said.
Lawyers who have joined Democracy Watch’s coalition against the code changes contest this claim. The claim is based on a legal opinion given to the commissioner’s office by one law firm. The office has declined to share details related to that opinion, “in light of the importance of client-solicitor privilege,” Dion said.
A March 6 letter signed by 11 lawyers and 21 law and political science professors says the Supreme Court of Canada allows for reasonable limits on Charter rights to protect government integrity.
“It is an entirely reasonable limit to prohibit a person who does anything significant to help a politician or political party from lobbying the politician, party leader and top party officials for 4 years. That prohibition ensures that lobbyists don’t lobby people they have helped—which helps ensure ethical lobbying and protects the integrity of government and policy-making,” the letter said.
Gifts and Hospitality
Another point of contention in the revised code is a limit on how much lobbyists can spend on gifts and hospitality for public officials.
Bélanger proposed a limit of $80 per year. She had originally said $30 per year, but raised it after lobbying groups opposed it during the public comment period.
Lobbying groups continued to oppose this limit in their testimony to the ethics committee in February, saying it is difficult to tell how much an official consumes at a banquet, for example, and to keep track of the worth for each person.
The ethics committee suggested changing the limit to $200. It suggested adding language to allow for certain types of gifts beyond the limit, “such as sponsored travel or gifts of reasonable value given as expressions of cultural tradition.” It gave moccasins as an example of a cultural gift that might cost more than the $80 limit.
“The Committee agrees that sponsored travel, where it serves a legitimate purpose, should be exempted from the application of the low-value limit and the annual limit,” it wrote.
Democracy Watch said in its March 27 release, “The Committee wants a loophole so lobbyists can continue to give ‘sponsored travel’ junket trips to MPs and their family members and associates.”
The group said it has 20,000 signatures on a voter petition to stop the changes and it will file a lawsuit challenging the changes if they go through.
The survey, released by tax-preparing software firm TaxAct this month, showed that only about 30 percent of Americans anticipated “receiving less of a refund on their 2022 returns” despite recent warnings from the Internal Revenue Service and other tax experts. Another 24 percent said in the survey that they “don’t know what to expect.”
The smaller refunds come as many Americans are saving less and are increasingly expressing worry about decades-high inflation, according to a TaxAct release. Tax experts have said that federal government pandemic programs as well as tax credits have ended for many.
“Refunds are predicted to go down 11 percent from last year,” Curtis Campbell, president and CEO of TaxAct, stated in a press release. “And it’s important for people to be prepared to receive less or even owe money this tax season.”
Citing recent changes to the tax code, he noted that “we can expect to see lower tax refunds across the board this season being there was no stimulus relief this past year and other tax advantages, like the Child Tax Credit, reverted back to their lesser 2019 values.”
“There is a lot of economic uncertainty right now, and for the majority of customers we serve, their tax refund is their biggest paycheck of the year,” Campbell added. “U.S. citizens are saving less money, and therefore, relying on their refunds to help make ends meet.”
Data released by the IRS earlier this month show that tax refunds are 11 percent smaller, on average, than the same time a year ago. Still, the IRS has sent out more tax refunds this year than last year, while a greater number of processed returns triggered a refund so far with less than a month to go before the April 18 tax-filing deadline.
The average tax refund amounted to $3,028 as of Mar. 3, down from $3,401 during the same time period in 2022. So far, the IRS has sent out 42 million refunds this year, compared with some 38 million that were sent during the same time period last year.
“Something Very Dramatic Has Changed”: Matt Taibbi Says Democrats Ditched Free Speech
Independent journalist Matt Taibbi – of recent “Twitter Files” fame – has exposed the fact that civil liberties are no longer popular among Democrats. Taibbi appeared on Fox News’ “Sunday Morning Futures with Maria Bartiromo” to reiterate his perspective that the modern Democratic Party no longer represents the values of the everyday American.
“About all of this — Matt, how do you feel about all of this? I know before you started discovering this bad behavior, you identified as a Democrat, and now you’ve got all of your friends, quote-unquote, in the media attacking you for exposing this,” Bartiromo asked.
“Yeah, it’s funny, I mean, I was raised in a traditional ACLU liberal, I believed in free speech all my life. That was one of the things, frankly, that attracted me to the Democratic Party when I was a kid, the idea that we were the party that believed in letting everybody have a say, and we’ll just make a better argument, and that’s how the system works,” Taibbi said.
He continued, “Apparently, something very dramatic has changed in politics in America, and there’s been a shift. There’s no question about it anymore, that now the parties have had a complete reversal on how they read these issues.”
Matt Taibbi @mtaibbi: “There’s no question about it anymore that now the parties have had a complete reversal on how they view these issues.” pic.twitter.com/2zxpspYTmO
Taibbi leads a team of journalists, including Michael Shellenberger, who have been given access to Twitter Files, revealing a startling network of government agencies, think tanks, and Twitter personnel coordinating efforts to attack the First Amendment.
What we’ve learned from the Twitter Files is the ever-expanding coalition of groups working with the government and social media to target and censor Americans, including government-funded organizations.
Twitter files are chilling in the details and show how Democrats have weaponized government and colluded with corporations to wage war on the First Amendment.
The modern Democratic Party is not the same one that your parents or grandparents were members of in the past. It’s obsessed with starting World War 3 in Ukraine, eroding the First Amendment, dismantling the Second Amendment, and normalizing ‘woke’ culture.
What caused such a significant shift in the party in just a few short years?
Small Float SPACs Use Meme Playbook For Crazy Swings
By Bailey Lipschutz, Bloomberg ECB Watch reporter
The ailing SPAC market is getting wildly volatile as speculators pour into and out of low-float companies, ripping off the strategy that brought meme-stock mania to the masses.
The special-purpose acquisition company that merged with Ambipar Emergency Response spiked as much as 411% after its deal won shareholder approval on Feb. 28, only for Ambipar to slump below $10 after the tie-up was completed. Lionheart III Corp. followed a similar trajectory in its merger with SMX Security Matters on March 7, while JATT Acquisition Corp. slumped before its tie-up with Zura Bio Ltd. and then soared after it.
“For the retail guy, it’s the same playbook that they have grown to know and love over the past three years: Find something that’s a low float, put it on a screener, once it starts to move tweet it out to your closest followers,” said Matthew Tuttle, CEO and CIO of Tuttle Capital Management. “Move a little bit, and all their followers will jump in.”
The volatility is being fueled by the low floats of many SPACs, with shareholders this year redeeming an average of almost 90% of their shares before any merger is completed. Holders in the two SPACs that merged with Ambipar and SMX Security cashed in more than 95% of their stock, leaving the blank-check companies with just 918,000 and 303,000 shares, respectively.
The volatility is reminiscent of meme-stock mania two years ago, where wild swings in stocks such as GameStop Corp. became commonplace. The video-game retailer’s market value rose more than 18 times in January 2021 to become larger than almost half of the companies in the S&P 500 Index — before it crashed.
Buying SPACs has become an equally profitable, and risky business. Take Intuitive Machines Inc., for example. The stock soared 1,200% in a raucous stretch early in the year to become the best performing ex-SPAC of 2023, before slumping roughly 92% from an intraday high of $136 on Feb. 22.
All told, 26 companies have gone public this year via SPAC merger, according to data compiled by Bloomberg. Of those, the median de-SPAC has shed one-third of its value, underperforming the S&P 500’s 3.6% gain.
“It’s the nature of the beast,” Tuttle said. “One day a stock can be the play, and once those guys leave, ka-boom, the stock tanks. Back in the old days when you saw a stock up big there it could be takeover speculation, there could be something real. And now you see stuff rallying based on air, and the last thing you want is to be the last guy in.”
Baltimore City Mayor Blocks Toxic Ohio Train Waste From Being Dumped Into Treatment System
We have been following this developing story since Friday regarding the Biden administration’s Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) decision to transport toxic water from East Palestine, Ohio, to a water treatment facility in Baltimore. On Monday, local lawmakers from both Democratic and Republican parties united in expressing their concerns about the EPA’s strategy and how it would be devastating for the Chesapeake Bay. Now, the mayor of Baltimore has found a way to block the EPA’s plan.
According to Fox Baltimore, Clean Harbors Environmental in Baltimore is set to receive the 675,000 gallons of the contaminated water as early as Thursday. They plan to flush the water into the city’s sewer lines, where it would then flow to the troubled Back River Wastewater Treatment Plant for processing.
However, the EPA’s grand plan might be put on hold after Baltimore City Mayor Brandon Scott said he found a way to block the toxic water from entering Baltimore:
After legal review, the City’s Law Department has determined that the Department of Public Works has the authority to modify discharge permits in an effort to ‘safeguard Publicly Owned Treatment Works (POTW) from interference, pass-through, or contamination of treatment by-products.’ As such, I have directed DPW to modify Clean Harbor’s discharge permit to deny their request to discharge processed wastewater from the cleanup of the Norfolk Southern Railroad derailment into the city’s wastewater system after processing at a Clean Harbors facility. Clean Harbors has facilities across the country that may be better positioned to dispose of the treated wastewater, and we urge them to explore those alternatives.
The mayor continued:
Make no mistake – I stand against any efforts that could comprise the health and safety of our residents, and the environment.
In recent days, Baltimore lawmakers have issued statements highlighting that the treatment facility has had a history of numerous mishaps.
What’s alarming is that Biden’s EPA, supposedly committed to environmental justice, wants to send the toxic water to a troubled treatment plant and then release it in the Chesapeake Bay, the largest estuary in the US — something about this administration doesn’t pass the sniff test.
Portfolio investors sold oil-related futures and options contracts at the fastest rate for almost six years as traders prepared for the onset of a recession driven by tighter credit conditions in the aftermath of the banking crisis. Hedge funds and other money managers sold the equivalent of 142 million barrels in the six most important contracts in the seven days ending on March 21, after selling 139 million barrels in the week to March 14.
Total sales over the two weeks were the fastest for any fortnight since May 2017, according to records published by ICE Futures Europe and the U.S. Commodity Futures Trading Commission.
Fund managers have slashed their combined position to just 289 million barrels (6th percentile for all weeks since 2013) from 570 million (46th percentile) on March 7. The fund community liquidated 163 million barrels of previous bullish long positions in the two most recent weeks, while establishing 115 million barrels of new bearish short ones.
As a result, the ratio of bullish longs to bearish shorts slumped to 2.16:1 (16th percentile) on March 21 from 5.38:1 (71st percentile) on March 7.
The most recent week saw heavy sales across the board, including Brent (-63 million barrels), NYMEX and ICE WTI (-48 million), U.S. gasoline (-15 million), U.S. diesel (-6 million) and European gas oil (-10 million).
In absolute terms, the change in positions over the two most recent weeks is one of the largest to occur in either direction in the last decade, three times more than average, implying a fundamental change in the outlook.
The banking crisis, which has resulted in the failure of several U.S. regional banks and the enforced rescue of Credit Suisse by UBS, is expected to result in a marked tightening of credit conditions.
Even before the crisis, economic growth in North America and Europe was expected to slow in response to persistent inflation, rising interest rates, and the squeeze on household and business spending.
But credit creation and loan growth is now expected to decelerate more abruptly as financial institutions, especially smaller ones, attempt to fortify their balance sheets hurriedly to reduce the risk of runs. At the same time, Russia’s crude and diesel exports have continued uninterrupted, despite sanctions imposed by the United States and its allies, contributing to near-term supply in crude and product markets.
Doubts have also emerged about the speed of China’s rebound as the country’s manufacturers and service suppliers deal with cautious consumers following the lifting of coronavirus controls.
Crude has been hit hardest while contracts for refined fuels have held up more strongly because of the current low level of inventories and limits on refining capacity. The previously expected tightening of the production-consumption balance has been pushed further back into the second half of 2023.
Funds now anticipate a much larger surplus in the meantime, leading many to abandon bullish positions and create bearish ones, at least for the short term.
US Gas Positions
Hedge funds and other money managers increased their net position in U.S. Henry Hub natural gas futures and options for the sixth time in seven weeks over the seven days ending on March 21.
Working gas inventories remain well above the seasonal average, but with prices already close to the lowest level in real terms for three decades, the surplus is expected to erode over the remainder of 2023.
Ultra-low prices are likely to compel a slowdown in new drilling and well completions as well as encourage more gas-fired power generation at the expense of the remaining coal units.
The restart of exports from Freeport LNG following repairs and safety checks should also tighten the production-consumption-exports balance.
Anticipating the erosion of the surplus, funds have bought the equivalent of 774 billion cubic feet in the last seven weeks.
As a result, the fund community’s overall net position has been trimmed to 287 billion cubic feet (25th percentile for all weeks since 2010) from 1,061 bcf (9th percentile) on January 31.
How The Collapse Of SVB Led To A $16 Billion Taxpayer-Funded Gift For One Bank
Something remarkable happened yesterday: just after midnight on Sunday night, the FDIC announced that a small bank which almost nobody had heard of before, First-Citizens Bank & Trust (FCNCA) would scoop up the remaining assets of the now defunct Silicon Valley Bank,which imploded on March 9 following a furious bank run, that saw $42BN in deposits drained in hours (and where another $100 billion in deposits were about to be yanked on Friday, which is why the FDIC stepped in and shuttered the bank before market open on Friday March 10)…
Barr tells the Senate Banking Committee that Silicon Valley Bank told regulators it expected to lose $100 billion in deposits on Friday, following $42 billion on Thursday.
… and what happened next shocked everyone” FCNCA stock almost doubled, soaring to the highest on record.
But why would the value of the Raleigh, North Carolina-based First Citizens double in seconds if all it did buy assets which until just a few weeks ago were viewed as worthless.
Well, because they were not worthless. Yes, SIVB certainly had its sahre of massive MTM losses on its HTM book (consisting primarily of Mortgage Backed Securities), but it also had solid loans and it is these loans that First Citizens bought for a song.
As the following chart annotated by Wasteland Capital shows, the deal that First Citizens inked was nothing short of spectacular and explains how the small bank managed to double its stock price overnight. Here is what happened:
In exchange for a discount bid of $16.5 billion, First Citizens acquired total assets of $110.1BN (including $35.3BN in cash), and $93.6BN in liabilities, including $56.5BN in deposits and $34.6BN in assumed borrowings.
More importantly, none of the $90BN in underwater HTM “investment securities” that sparked the crisis in the first place were acquired; no the US taxpayers got to keep those courtesy of the FDIC.
There’s more: to further sweeten the deal, the FDIC pledged even more taxpayer funds to “incentivize” First Citizens not to walk away, and it did so by signing a five-year loss share agreement according to which the FDIC will reimburse First Cititzens for 50% of losses on commercial loans in excess of $5 billion.
Bottom line: virtually no risk – and what little risk is left after acquiring this portfolio of deeply discounted loans is shared 50-50 with US taxpayers – and only upside.
And how much did this sweet taxpayer-funded deal cost First Citizens? Why a “whopping” $500 million… when when netting out the actual asset bid of $16.5 billion means that First Citizens “paid” a negative $16 billion. Confused by the double negative? Here’s the bottom line: courtesy of US taxpayers (who ended up getting stuffed with the toxic garbage on Silicon Valley Bank’s balance sheet), First Citizens got $16 billion (and arguably much more) in assets for free. What’s more, FCNCA not only got $16BN in assets for free, but the combination of the two banks creates a $143 billion loan portfolio and turns the little-known North Carolina bank into one of the country’s largest lenders to the venture capital and private equity industries. It also means First Citizens will now be one of the top 15 US banks, with more assets than the likes of Morgan Stanley or American Express Co., according to Federal Reserve data!
One can see why the bank’s market cap doubled instantly (and has a lot more to go once the bank crisis fizzles, once rates are cut and once loan prices resume their climb).
To be sure, one could argue if this was such a sweetheart deal for First Citizens, why did other banks not join the bidding process. The answer to that has to do with the unique expertise of the bank’s CEO Frank B. Holding Jr., who has now scooped up at least a dozen failed banks since 2008.
“Let me say that this acquisition is compelling financially, strategically and operationally,” Holding, the 61-year-old chief executive officer of First Citizens and one of its largest individual shareholders, told analysts on a conference call on Monday. First Citizens’ stock soared after the announcement. “It is also a great illustration of regulators and banks working together to protect depositors.”
Alternatively, it is a great illustration of how clueless government regulators use taxpayer funds to backstop deals that make billionaires even richer and while Elizabeth Warren still hasn’t figured out what happened here, she “native American” will sooner or later, at which point we will get countless kangaroo court hearings seeking an explanation from the FDIC how this wealth transfer was allowed to happen.
And while we wait, here is a snapshot of First Citizens’ unique history courtesy of Bloomberg:
First Citizens got its start with $10,000 in capital as the Bank of Smithfield in 1898, primarily serving North Carolina’s Johnston County. In 1935, Frank Holding’s grandfather R.P. Holding took over as president and chairman, leading the company until his death in the 1950s.
At that point, leadership of the bank transferred to his three sons, Robert Holding, Lewis R. Holding and Frank B. Holding. In the 1970s, the firm moved its headquarters to Raleigh as assets surpassed $1 billion for the first time, according to the company’s website.
It wasn’t until 1994 that First Citizens began opening branches outside its home state after acquiring a bank in West Virginia. A few years later, the company added a federal thrift subsidiary, allowing it to expand further across the country.
Frank B. Holding Jr. was named CEO of First Citizens in 2008, then chairman the following year, at the height of the global financial crisis. A handful of other bank executives – including Vice Chairman Hope Holding Bryant and President Peter Bristow – are also Holding family members.
“He sort of does look like the family banker,” said Lawrence Baxter, a Duke University School of Law professor who once was a First Citizens customer himself and regularly sees Holding in ads that are part of the bank’s PBS North Carolina sponsorship.
Family banker or not, Holding certainly is experienced in quickly assessing and scooping up distressed assets: since the global financial crisis, First Citizens has acquired lenders in a series of deals from Washington state to Wisconsin and Pennsylvania.
“First Citizens has a history of troubled banks,” said Herman Chan, an analyst with Bloomberg Intelligence. “It’s a strategy to grow the bank when times are difficult — to conduct M&A at advantageous prices.”
Like now.
Growth has come not only from failed-bank deals though: First Citizens last year completed the acquisition of the formerly high-profile CIT Group in a deal valued at more than $2 billion.
“In the long run, what you’ll get is more — more services, more ways to manage your money, more places to find us,” Holding told customers in a video announcing the takeover. “We’re not just making a bigger bank, we’re making an even better bank.”
The moves have meant First Citizens is now a national player, with more than 500 branches and private-banking offices spread across states as far away from its headquarters as Hawaii. With more than 10,000 employees, the lender offers the traditional businesses of banking to individual consumers and companies, and is also one of the largest lenders to the rail industry — even owning a fleet of rail cars and locomotives that it leases to railroads and shippers.
* * *
While nowhere near close to Monday’s multi-billion gift, Frank Holding had already taken advantage of SVB’s collapse by joining other regional bank executives in snapping up shares of their companies. He spent $260,000 buying up First Citizens stock in early March for $650 a share, 30% below the company’s current share price of $910.
Some younger members of the Holding family are already working for the bank. Perry Bailey, Frank’s daughter, earned $224,082 working at First Citizens last year, while her cousin and Frank’s nephew John Patrick Connell pocketed $105,116 during the same period, according to regulatory disclosures.
Not surprisingly, Holding and his relatives have became part of the world’s ultra-rich through their banking business, becoming a billionaire finance dynasty split across at least five branches.
Like other billionaire dynasties, such as the Murdochs, the family has maintained a tight grip on the direction of their major asset, even though they don’t hold a majority of its equity, by employing a dual-class share structure. Frank Holding and his relatives hold Class B shares with 16 voting rights each, compared with the single vote for each of the Class A shares the banking dynasty also holds, and they’ve passed down their wealth generation to generation by shifting stock to scores of trusts.
Frank Holding and relatives listed as First Citizens shareholders oversee a stake worth more than $1.7 billion in First Citizens after the company’s shares surged 54% on Monday, erasing their sudden wealth slump from SVB’s collapse, according to the Bloomberg Billionaires Index. They’ve also received at least $35 million through dividends and share sales over the past four decades and diversified their fortunes into commercial real estate, farming and philanthropy.
And now, courtesy of the SIVB collapse, they are about to become even richer.
A professor at Wayne State University in Detroit, Michigan, has been suspended after posting threatening statements on social media posts that suggested that people would be justified in killing speakers who hold opposing views on issues like transgender policies.
Wayne State University President M. Roy Wilson released a statement saying that an unnamed professor in the school’s English department made a social media post that is “at best, morally reprehensible and, at worst, criminal.”
“This morning, I was made aware of a social media post by a Wayne State University professor in our Department of English. We have on many occasions defended the right of free speech guaranteed by the First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, but we feel this post far exceeds the bounds of reasonable or protected speech. It is, at best, morally reprehensible and, at worst, criminal.”
On one level, a suspension could be viewed as a necessary proactive step to guarantee that there is no real danger in this circumstance. Indeed, we have seen a strikingly different treatment given to academics on the right as opposed to the left in such actions.
The most analogous case is that of University of Rhode Island professor Erik Loomis, who defended the murder of a conservative protester and said that he saw “nothing wrong” with such acts of violence. Yet, those extreme statements from the left are rarely subject to cancel campaigns or university actions.
I have generally supported academics on both sides on free speech and academic freedom grounds.
Loomis and Shaviro are examples of the violent rhetoric and intolerance of some in academia.
However, as will come as little surprise to many on this blog, I have concerns over more than a temporary suspension to investigate the matter. The intent of Dr. Shaviro is actually less clear than has been suggested in the press.
At the start, Shaviro insists that he does not advocate “violating federal and state criminal codes.” He then makes the violent reference as being better than shouting down opposing speakers. He warns that the left is being attacked for cancelling speakers when the debate should be over what Shaviro calls their own “reprehensible views.” He insists that these are efforts to trigger such responses to provoke an incident that discredits the left.”
Shaviro makes the extreme argument that “it is more admirable to kill a racist, homophobic, transphobic speaker than to shout them down.” He then makes this point even more menacing by referencing the assassination of Symon Petliura by Jewish anarchist Sholem Schwarzbard in 1926. Petliura was blamed for the killings of thousands of Jews during pogroms and Schwarzbard was acquitted.
Shaviro’s main point appears to be that the continued use of “deplatforming” or cancelling conservative speakers is ill-advised. He notably does not oppose such anti-free speech efforts as inimical to higher education, but only because they backfire in the press. In that sense, Shaviro appears no ally to free speech.
However, his rhetoric may be more reckless than intentional in encouraging violence.
The question is how the university should handle such extreme and chilling language.
This was not expressed in class and was done through Shaviro’s personal social media.
Like Ilya Shapiro at Georgetown, it was a poorly considered tweet, though (unlike Shapiro) Shaviro has not taken down the tweet. In Shapiro’s case, he was put through a long investigation and the university effectively forced him off the faculty.
There is one difference between Shapiro and Shaviro (beyond a single letter):
Wayne State University is a state school and subject to the full weight of the First Amendment.
Shaviro could challenge the action as a denial of his free speech rights.
Once again, I believe an initial suspension could be upheld as the university assesses a danger. However, Shaviro does not appear a direct threat to others. Moreover, he can point to his precatory language on complying with state and federal law as negating the violent interpretation of his critics. He can also point to the word “more” as reflecting his point. He says it is “more admirable” than shouting down speakers. That does not mean that it is admirable or commendable (though his reference to Schwarzbard remains concerning). He was engaging in what I have called in my academic writings “rage rhetoric.” In my view, this is protected speech.
Shaviro’s words are worthy of our condemnation. However, a federal court could well order reinstatement if anything other than a temporary suspension for investigation is ordered by the university.
Bombshell Vax Analysis Finds $147 Billion In Economic Damage, Tens Of Millions Injured Or Disabled
A new report estimates that 26.6 million people were injured, 1.36 million disabled, and 300,000 excess deaths can be attributed to COVID-19 vaccine damages in 2022 alone, which cost the economy nearly $150 billion.
Research firm Phinance Technologies, founded and operated by former Blackrock portfolio manager Ed Dowd, Yuri Nunes (PhD Physics, MSc Mathematics) and Carlos Alegria (PhD Physics, Finance), split the impact of the vaccines into four broad categories to estimate the human costs associated with the Covid-19 vaccine; no effect or asymptomatic, those who sustained injuries (mild-to-moderate outcome), those who became disabled (severe outcome), and death (extreme outcome). Data on vaccine disabilities and injuries comes directly from the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS), while the excess death figures are derived from official figures on deaths in the US via two different methods (methodology here).
It’s important to note that people in one category (injured, for example) can move into latter categories of severity – which this analysis does not take into consideration.
“We need to remember that not only are these groupings an attempt to characterize different levels of damage from the inoculations, they are not static and could interact with each other,” reads the report. “For instance, there might be individuals who had no visible effects after vaccination but nonetheless could still be impacted.”
“Individuals with mild injuries from the inoculations could, over time, develop severe injuries to the extent of being disabled, or an extreme outcome such as death.”
🚨🚨Estimated 2022 US Vaccine Damage Report:
Estimated Human Cost:
✅26.6 million Injuries
✅1.36 million Disabilities
✅300k excess deaths
In analyzing each of the above categories, Phinance used absolute excess lost worktime (see previous report) to determine that the direct economic cost of vaccine injuries was $79.5 billion in 2022, and $52.2 billion for those with severe disabilities.
For deaths, Phinace used the average yearly absolute rise in excess deaths since 2021, which was 0.05% for the 25-64 year-old demographic, which amounted to $5.6 billion in lost productivity.
In total, they found a total “economic cost” of $147.8 billion in 2022 due to the Covid-19 vaccines.
As Dowd notes, these figures are just what can be currently measured, as things like “The knock effects such as lost productivity due to a worker being present but working at say 50%-75% of capacity is missed plus burn out from those picking up slack.”
“The multiplier effects are massive.”
Our economic damage estimates are what we can measure. The knock effects such as lost productivity due to a worker being present but working at say 50%-75% of capacity is missed plus burn out from those picking up slack. Also supply chain delays are not captured etc and etc.…
