A Preview On Some Of The New York Energy Impossibility

June 12, 2024/ Francis Menton @ Manhattan Contrarian

Dr. Benny Peiser and I have now begun our 2024 GWPF U.S. speaking tour. Yesterday we appeared for an event at the Texas Public Policy Foundation in Austin, Texas. Between in person and online, we understand that over 400 people attended the event. (I believe that video of this event will be posted at some point on the TPPF website, but I don’t find it there yet.). Tonight we will be speaking at the 3 West Club, 3 West 51st St. in New York City, at 6 PM.

As mentioned previously in my post two weeks ago announcing tonight’s event, the title is “Europe’s Net Zero rebellion, European elections, and the coming U.S. reckoning.” Benny will cover the European piece of the subject matter, while I am taking on the “coming U.S. reckoning.” I’ll give you here a brief preview to whet your appetite.

The reason I use the term “reckoning” is that people in positions of authority, who have no idea what they are doing, in their zeal to eliminate “carbon emissions,” have set up mandates and goals that are completely irreconcilable. As a matter of physics or economics or both, the things that have been mandated to occur cannot all be accomplished at the same time, let alone within the time frames specified, or at anything close to affordable cost. Some time soon, a reckoning is inevitable.

Many examples of the irreconcilability can be cited, both at the federal level and among blue states that have eagerly sought the mantle of “climate leader” without ever doing even a cursory investigation of feasibility. For this preview I’ll focus on one particular example: the mandates in New York that dispatchable natural gas power plants be closed at the same time that demand on the grid dramatically increases from simultaneous mandates for electric cars and electric building heat.

New York has multiple agencies involved in the supposed energy transition. A Climate Action Council, plus an agency called NYSERDA (New York State Energy Research and Development Agency) actively promote the development of wind and solar generators as the wave of the future, without knowing or caring how it will all work. Then there is the New York Independent System Operator, NYISO, that is responsible for making sure that the grid works. NYISO knows full well that the various mandates cannot be achieved simultaneously, but they also recognize that that view is not in favor politically at the moment. So NYISO puts out documents that seem on their face to be saying that everything is fine; but if you read between the lines, you realize that they are sounding the alarm.

Here is NYISO’s document called the “2023-2032 Comprehensive Reliability Plan,” issued November 28, 2023. Read it without a skeptical eye, and you might come away at first thinking that all is well, or at least close to it. Phrases like “meets all currently applicable reliability criteria . . .” are sprinkled around. Yes, there are references to things like “a variety of risk factors to the long-term plan,” and the possible need to keep some natural gas peaker plants around longer than might be hoped, but that is only “as a last resort,” and only until some “permanent solution” is in place.

We then come to the following chart, presented at page 6 with little comment. Oh wait, it shows a big drop in “existing supply” in 2025 — next year — due to the forced closure of some of these natural gas plants, and expected demand then being right in the middle of a part of the bar labeled “deficiency.” That’s rather soon. Oh, it seems that (after this document was issued) they have just delayed the closure of those natural gas plants. Crisis averted, for the moment. Then in 2026 there is an addition to supply, shown in blue, representing the opening of a new transmission line to import hydro power from Quebec. But that’s only about 1 GW of additional capacity, out of 11+ GW of so of peak demand. By 2031, we are back to projected deficiency, which becomes more serious every year — and could be much larger depending on how fast demand grows with all those new mandates.

 

But the killer is the supposed “long term solution.” You have to get all the way to page 52 to find out that they have no idea what that might be, and even then it is written in code:

With high penetration of renewable intermittent resources, DEFRs are needed to balance intermittent supply with demand. Resources with these characteristics must be significant in capacity. . . .”

“DEFRs”? What are those? They are the elusive “Dispatchable Emissions-Free Resources.” Just like fossil fuel plants, they can be turned on and off on command to meet demand, but they make no carbon emissions. Voilà — problem solved! Oh, wait — if such a thing existed, wouldn’t we be using it already?

Although they never say it in quite these words, the entire plan post-2030 relies on something that has not yet been invented or deployed at scale. What might it be? Nuclear? That is completely blocked in New York by a hostile political and regulatory environment, and would take at least 15 years to deploy if we started on a crash program today. 

“Green” hydrogen? 

That costs something like 20 to 50 times what natural gas costs, and would require an entire new infrastructure of production facilities, pipelines, and power plants, none of which exists or is under construction or even in a serious planning stage. 

Batteries? 

Batteries just to get through one calm night (16 hours) would cost about the same as the entire New York State annual budget. Batteries to be sufficient to provide full back-up to a grid without fossil fuels (500 - 1000 hours of average usage) would cost a multiple of New York’s entire GDP.

So in fact, there is no real plan. You can see New York hitting the wall in that chart. The mandates are in place. We march forward, until we can’t any more.

When You Crunch The Numbers, Green Hydrogen Is A Non-Starter

February 14, 2024/ Francis Menton @ Manhattan Contrarian 

 This post reports on two new instances of people applying a little critical thinking to the issue of using so-called “green” hydrogen as an essential piece of a future de-carbonized energy system. This is a subject that I have previously addressed, here in a post of June 13, 2022, and here again in my energy storage Report of December 1, 2022.

The two new pieces covered in this post are (1) a February 1 Report for the Manhattan Institute by Jonathan Lesser titled “Green Hydrogen: A Multibillion-Dollar Energy Boondoggle,”, and (2) a February 13 article in the Washington Examiner by Steve Goreham titled “Can the government create a green hydrogen fuel industry?”

If you think that a “de-carbonized” energy system is some kind of urgent priority for humanity, and you put your mind to how to achieve that, it won’t take you long to realize that hydrogen is the only way to get there. OK, there’s nuclear, but environmentalists and regulators have nuclear completely blocked. That means that to be carbon-free, most electricity must come from the wind and sun, and in turn that means need for energy storage far beyond the capabilities of any batteries. Hydrogen is the one and only remaining solution.

And not just any hydrogen. Only “green” hydrogen will do — that is, hydrogen that is itself produced by some carbon-free process. The alternative is to get your hydrogen the way almost all hydrogen is produced today: you “reform” methane (CH4), separating out the hydrogen and discarding the carbon as CO2 into the atmosphere. But this process has the same CO2 emissions as if you just burned the methane (aka natural gas) in a power plant to get your energy in the first place. If the entire goal is de-carbonization, that is clearly not allowed.

Over at the government, their minds move slowly, but they have recently figured out that keeping their energy transition fantasy alive can only be accomplished with vast amounts of green hydrogen. And so they have undertaken to address the issue in the only way they know, which is to throw oodles of taxpayer funding at it. This piece from JPT on October 24, 2023 covers the government’s latest big announcement:

US President Joe Biden and Energy Secretary Jennifer Granholm announced that seven regional clean hydrogen hubs have been selected to receive $7 billion in Bipartisan Infrastructure Law funding in an effort to accelerate the domestic market for low-cost, clean hydrogen. The seven selected regional clean hydrogen hubs are expected to catalyze more than $40 billion in private investment and create tens of thousands of jobs, bringing the total public and private investment in hydrogen hubs to nearly $50 billion.

Note that the government’s big initiative came just about a year after the two Manhattan Contrarian pieces in 2022 explaining why this could never be done economically. But anyway, now that the government funds are flowing, and so-called “infrastructure” is getting built, others are starting to look at whether this makes any sense.

Of the two new pieces covered here, Lesser’s is far the longer and more detailed. He goes through a careful look at all the elements of trying to produce this green hydrogen stuff — building the electrolysis facility, operating and maintaining the facility, buying electricity from wind and solar producers, transmitting the wind/solar electricity to the site of electrolysis, and compressing the hydrogen into a form ready for transit somewhere to be used — and puts assumed cost figures on each piece of the process. He comes up with a total cost range of $2.74 to $5.35 per kg of hydrogen produced. Here is Lesser’s chart:

Note that Lesser comes up with even higher figures of $3.62 to $8.85 per kg of hydrogen if he further adds costs of battery storage of electricity to make it so that the electrolyzers can run all the time and not be dependent on the intermittency of wind and sun. Green hydrogen advocates would dispute whether this is necessary, so let’s leave it out for now. Even without this additional cost, we are at $2.74 to $5.35 per kg for the hydrogen.

Since a kg of hydrogen is good for about 33.3 kwh, that would mean something in the range of 8.3 to 16.2 cents per kwh just for the fuel, without yet considering any cost to get the fuel to a power plant to be burned.

I would comment that some of Lesser’s assumptions are very low, and by “low” I mean favorable to the economic viability of this green hydrogen. Most notably, he has an assumption of an unsubsidized cost of 4 cents per kwh for the wind/solar-generated electricity. Crazy. Here in New York, off-shore wind developers who had bid last year for contracts at about $90-100/MWH (i.e., 9 - 10 cents per kwh) have recently reneged and demanded prices in the range of $150-160/MWH, or 15-16 cents per kwh. If the recent New York demands represent the real cost of wind/solar electricity, then you can multiply Lesser’s figure for the electricity input to produce a kg of hydrogen by 4, adding about $6 per kg, bringing the total cost of a kg to around $9 - 11, instead of Lesser’s $2.74 - 5.35. In cents/kwh that would be about 18 additional cents per kwh, in either the high or low scenario; instead of a range of about 8 to 16 cents, it would be 24 to 32 cents per kwh to make the green hydrogen.

Goreham does not give us such a detailed calculation, but his bottom line is about the same (including a more realistic cost for the wind/solar electricity):

Hydrogen feedstock made from natural gas or coal is inexpensive, with a cost as low as $1 per kilogram. . . . To produce a kilogram of hydrogen by electrolysis, electricity alone costs $3 to $6 per kilogram, resulting in a total cost of at least $5 per kilogram. This makes hydrogen from electrolysis more than five times as expensive as hydrogen made from natural gas or coal.

Goreham’s “at least $5 per kg” for green hydrogen is actually well below Lesser’s figure after we adjust for the cost of electricity from wind and solar generation.

Note that, as I reported on January 12, recent bids in the UK for producing green hydrogen using electricity from off-shore wind came in at about $306/MWH, or 30.6 cents per kwh. Using the conversion factor of 33.3 kwh/kg of hydrogen would make this the equivalent of over $10 per kg of hydrogen.

We won’t really know how much this green hydrogen stuff actually costs until there are some real facilities up and running. But whether it is ten times as expensive as the stuff produced from natural gas, or only five times as expensive, doesn’t really matter. It is uneconomic, and nothing is going to change that. Nobody will ever buy it or use it without government mandates or subsidies or both.

Goreham’s conclusion:

[G]overnments now want to create a new hydrogen fuel industry using market intervention, mandates, and massive subsidies. But physics and economics strongly oppose the development of a green hydrogen fuel industry. Get ready for a spectacular failure of these government-sponsored efforts.

The Poisoned Chalice of CHIPS Act Mandates

By William C. Greenwal AEIdeas January 05, 2024

December saw the announcement of the first grant award under the CHIPS Act, the 2022 law designed to enhance domestic manufacturing and research within the US semiconductor industry. The $35 million award to BAE to modernize its defense semiconductor production facility in New Hampshire received the requisite press rollout showing that progress is finally being made in the program. The expectation of supporters of greater government industrial planning is that this is just the beginning of a juggernaut of money from the five-year, $53 billion program that will be spent to transform not just the US semiconductor industry, but the competitiveness of America itself.

The implications of the first CHIPS Act award to a defense company familiar with government compliance regimes may indicate something less lofty may be in store, as the effort may suffer from a serious flaw in expectations. CHIPS Act backers may not have learned the lessons about how innovative, globally-oriented commercial companies actually make investment decisions and succeed in the marketplace. One key concept that should have been considered is regulatory arbitrage: companies seek to avoid and minimize regulatory and compliance costs and will establish operations in those places that allow for that. These costs can be more than just monetary as regulatory incentives and compliance can also undermine innovation, productivity, and the culture of a firm..............To Read More....

Biden’s New EV Rule for Govt Workers: What It Means for America

The progressive green dream may be a nightmare for everyone else.

by James Fite Dec 18, 2023 @ Liberty Nation News

(Photo by Katie McTiernan/Anadolu Agency via Getty Images)

The White House announced a new rule Thursday, December 14: “Federal employees will rent an EV on official travel when the cost of the EV is less than or equal to the most affordable comparable vehicle available.” There’s more, but in short, government workers are now being directed to travel by electric vehicle rather than the old internal combustion engine – but only when it’s convenient to do so. How’s that for commitment to the cause?

Setting aside the proclamation’s obvious flaws, however, one might wonder how this affects the everyday citizen. The latest directive is just another step toward the Biden administration’s larger goal of phasing out gas burners – a progressive dream that could be a nightmare for Americans should it ever come true.

New EV Mandate – Just a Bunch of Hot Air?

According to a press release from the White House, federal employees took more than 2.8 million flights, 2.3 million vehicle rentals, and 33,000 rail trips in 2022. The commander-in-chief hopes to do things differently moving forward – or so he claims. “President Biden’s Federal Sustainability Plan aims to reach net-zero emissions from overall Federal operations by 2025, including a 65 percent emissions reduction by 2030,” the presser states. To help make that happen, federal employees are now directed to opt for electric rentals and rideshare options whenever it won’t cost more, ride the rails rather than fly when the trip is under 250 miles, and take public transportation whenever possible for local travel.

But will this new mandate really have the effect the president seems to hope for? A closer look at the text clearly shows that folks are off the hook for going electric whenever there isn’t a rental or rideshare of equal or lesser cost. A look at Uber in Washington, DC, shows that “Comfort Electric” is the third most expensive ride behind “Black” and “Black SUV,” the two luxury options with professional drivers. EV rentals in the nation’s capital are also just a little more expensive than their fossil-fueled alternatives. So when will government employees actually be forced to go electric? Unless the pricing changes in the near future, that would be never.

The Real Effects on the Ground

Perhaps the biggest practical effect will come from the prohibition on federal employees driving their own personal vehicles for official business. While it may be entertaining to imagine government workers forced to take public transportation rather than riding in style and comfort, a far less amusing reality awaits. While many will probably take public transportation, a sizeable portion of those forced out of their privately owned vehicles will likely rely on rideshares and rentals, tanking availability and driving up both prices and wait times for everyone. And it’s not like this rule affects “The Big Guy,” members of Congress, or other Swamp elites who play by their own rules; they’re still tooling about in gas-guzzling SUVs and limos and flying around on private jets.

The Beast (Photo by Nathan Posner/Anadolu Agency via Getty Images)

What’s worse, none of this is likely to save taxpayers any money, as fueling up a private vehicle is always cheaper than renting a ride – since one must still pay for fuel – or hiring someone else to drive. And so long as combustion-powered rideshares and rentals remain less expensive than EVs, there probably won’t be a net drop in emissions, either. More money for less efficiency – it seems this rule is par for the course when it comes to government “solutions.”

Lofty Dreams, High Costs

The new directive is just a drop in the bucket, though – one small step toward the green dream of the Biden administration and progressives at large. But a look at the bigger picture shows some of those same problems scaled up, and more.

The federal government maintains a fleet of some 650,000 vehicles, all of which Biden promised at the beginning of his term to replace with electric models. No time frame was given, and according to Reuters, replacing them all in one go could cost as much as $20 billion. Then there’s all the charging stations that must be in place before the government can expect to run on an electric fleet. By May of 2023, there were somewhere around 138,100 public places to charge an EV in the US – and about 44,600, or nearly a third of them, were in California.

The president plans to increase the number of public chargers to 500,000 by 2030, an ambitious plan that will consume insane amounts of tax revenue. That’s money American workers must fork over whether they drive an EV or not; a Gallup poll from March shows that only 4% of the population does. If taxes don’t increase, then the money must be pulled from some other public work that might actually prove useful for the 96% of Americans who don’t own an EV.

The Bigger Picture – An Even Bigger Disaster

Ever heard the term rolling blackout? It’s an intentionally engineered shutdown in which power is cut for a time over different parts of the distribution area. This method is a last resort when demand for electricity exceeds the power supply capacity of the network to avoid crashing the whole grid. It happens in the summer when it’s hot and it happens in the winter when it’s cold.

Now imagine these periods of extreme heat or cold – when it’s vital to be able to heat or cool a home – while the federal government is trying to charge more than half a million EVs.

Even if the lights don’t go out, the costs will go up. In addition to cutting service when necessary, utility companies have a bad habit of jacking up the per kilowatt cost of electricity when demand is high across the board. In other words, when everyone else is running their air conditioners on full blast in August, you’re paying more for your power even if you’re sweating under a ceiling fan with open doors and windows.

But wait, there’s more.

According to Consumer Reports, EVs have 79% more reliability issues than gasoline or diesel vehicles on average – and plug-in hybrids fare even worse with 146% more breakdowns. Never mind the wasted time and money whenever a government employee is left waiting on a tow and a ride, imagine what this would mean for the timely delivery of the mail. And everyone had best hope local emergency services don’t make the switch!

While it’s far less of an inconvenience than losing power or being priced out of electric service all together, there’s still another unintended consequence of the Biden administration’s EV movement. Auto manufacturers have been pumping out electric cars in droves, fueled by government subsidies – yet another drain on the taxpayer – and promises that car lots will be moving the products as fast as they can get them.

(Photo by Scott Olson/Getty Images)

Remember that Gallup survey? About 4% of Americans own EVs, but Biden expects half the new cars sold by 2030 to be electric. Already, dealerships are stocking more electric models, and now consumers face a dwindling supply of gas and diesel options while sellers are stuck with inventory that no one seems to want. “You can subsidize a buyer into an auto showroom, but you can’t make him buy,” read the opening line to a report in The Wall Street Journal last month after about 3,900 car dealers across the country wrote to the White House, complaining of EVs piling up on the lot and begging President Biden to pump the breaks on the unrealistic sales mandate.

Roads clogged with broken-down electric vehicles, loss of residential electricity and higher light bills to boot, failed government services, more taxes paid in for less actual benefit for the vast majority of the population … yes, a progressive government solution if ever there was one. But like most statist dreams, it could prove a nightmare for the rest of us.

Tags: Articles, Opinion, Politics

 

Read More From James Fite

 

 

Going Dark: New York City Lacks Energy Infrastructure Needed to Power Uber and Lyft EVs or Reach 2030 Zero-Emissions Mandate

By Ethan Huff, Natural News • Nov. 20, 2023

The Empire State has established lofty zero-emissions goals for the year 2030 that require large numbers of electric vehicles (EVs) to rove the state at that time rather than traditional gas-powered cars. The latest figures, however, show that there will not be nearly enough electric power available to charge them.  In New York City specifically, the goal is to force all Uber, Lyft, and other ridesharing companies to produce zero emissions by the year 2030. In “green” speak, this means that all ride-sharing vehicles in the Big Apple will need to be electric in just seven years............To Read More....

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‘Some People Locked Down Something’

By Daniel Greenfield May 04, 2023 @ Sultan Knish Blog 

“Something clearly went wrong. And I don’t know exactly what it was,” Dr. Fauci claimed on the latest and perhaps last leg of his publicity tour.

The man who used to have all the answers now has none. Once there were votive candles and t-shirts being sold with his smug face on it. Now his formerly authoritative answers are all in the passive voice. “Things could have been done differently,” he concedes.

Fauci unintentionally echoes Rep. Ilhan Omar’s comment on 9/11. “Some people did something.” And some people locked down something. But it certainly wasn’t him.

“I’m not an economist,” he protests in a New York Times interview and passes the buck to elected officials for the shutdown. “It was for other people to make broader assessments.”

“But when people say, ‘Fauci shut down the economy’ — it wasn’t Fauci,” Fauci says, falling into the third person. “The C.D.C. was the organization that made those recommendations. I happened to be perceived as the personification of the recommendations. But show me a school that I shut down and show me a factory that I shut down. Never. I never did.”

After spending over a year yelling at anyone who wanted to open schools, Fauci knows nothing.

Three years ago, Fauci responded to the DeSantis push to reopen Florida schools by warning that kids will be infected at a White House briefing. In August, he claimed that images of kids in Georgia schools were “disturbing”. Show me a school, indeed.

Teachers’ union boss Randi Weingarten, who called reopening schools, “reckless, callous, cruel” has gone on her own media tour falsely claiming that she wanted schools open. Deep into 2021, Weingarten was still doing everything possible to sabotage school reopenings, this time using the CDC as a hand puppet with the complicity of the Biden administration.

Now the teachers’ union protest rallies, the parades of union members bearing coffins, claiming that they would die if they had to get back to work, the years of learning loss, are all forgotten.

“We know that kids learn best in person, so opening schools safely—even as the pandemic surged—guided the AFT’s every action,” Weingarten told a House hearing.

Like Weingarten’s threat of “safety strikes” to keep schools from reopening.

Locally, unions fought ruthlessly and mercilessly to keep from having to do their jobs and at least pretend to give kids an education.

“After Chicago Mayor Lori Lightfoot proposed a hybrid in-person learning plan, the Chicago Teachers Union threatened a strike, and then claimed victory when she backed down and agreed to retain online-only learning. Teachers unions in Florida, California, and elsewhere have sued to block in-person instruction. In Detroit, union activists ‘stood outside one of the district’s bus terminals beginning at 5 a.m., blocking buses from leaving to pick up students to take them to school.’ The Los Angeles teachers union insisted ‘going back to normal is not an option,'” Jonathan Chait at the New Yorker summed up.

The unions, like most of the lockdowners, have emerged from the disaster they caused stronger than ever. The latest series of negotiations has only further fattened their bulging pockets.

United Teachers Los Angeles, which had fought to keep schools closed longer than most of the country, walked away from its latest three-day strike with a 21% pay hike and lower class sizes.

“There is no such thing as learning loss.” UTLA boss Cecily Myart-Cruz had sneered. “Our kids didn’t lose anything.”

The kids lost, but UTLA only gained.

It’s not just Fauci or the teachers. Not a single national or local elected official of any note paid the price for the lockdowns. Gov. Newsom in California emerged from all the lockdown abuses as the next in line for the presidential nomination. Gov. Gretchen Whitmer survived her reelection battle in Michigan. So did Gov. Murphy in New Jersey and Gov. Pritzker in Illinois.

Forget holding Fauci or Randi accountable when voters wouldn’t even hold incumbent elected officials accountable by simply voting against them even with the damage in front of their eyes.

Gov. Cuomo of New York’s downfall did not come from the lockdowns, the lies, the thousands of nursing home deaths or the illegal discrimination campaign against Orthodox Jews, but an unrelated #MeToo issue whipped up to keep him from becoming a White House competitor.

And few governors who did the right thing are likely to see any political rewards from it.

Proponents of lockdowns rewrote the past and moved on. The lockdowns have become someone else’s fault. The buck gets passed around and never ends up anywhere. Elected officials blame unelected officials. Unelected officials blame elected officials. Randi Weingarten blames everyone else. And then they all get together afterward and have some drinks.

Despite the catastrophic damage inflicted on small businesses, children and public trust, there has been no accountability even among the demographics that were most outraged about the lockdowns. The lockdowners gambled that the outrage would fade and they were right.

All of this has dangerous implications beyond COVID-19 and its aftermath.

To understand why Democrats have become so brazen about sexualizing children or legalizing crime, lockdowns were a test case in public outrage. And the public failed. If voters failed to hold elected officials (never mind unelected officials) accountable for wrecking the lives of their children by shutting down schools, what’s left to prevent them from pushing even harder?

The Biden administration has become even more radical than its Obama predecessor because its party has survived everything. The secret of its success, which included sailing through midterms in a time of rising economic outrage and misery, can be found in the lockdowns, in Fauci and Randi denying that they did anything to shut down a single school.

Between the media, the entertainment industry, social media and and the internet’s monopolies, the Left controls the high ground of communications and can saturate it with a single consistent message. That message may be and often is a complete lie, but that doesn’t matter. What does matter is that there’s no organized conservative opposition that has an equally clear message.

The Left is ushering in a country with no past. A year later the lockdowns had become ancient history in the national debate. Two years later most people had already moved on to the next battleground. Without being able to focus on anything, victory becomes impossible.

As the rate of radical change accelerates, issues become virtually meaningless as anything except momentary clickbait. The Left knows that the faster it goes, the less focused outrage there will be. Incremental changes that took a decade generated successful resistance movements, but those that happen over the course of a year or two are success stories. By the time outrage germinates into serious pushback, the issue is already in the rearview mirror.

The lockdowns may be behind us, but their legacy is also in front of us. They demonstrated conclusively that elected and unelected officials do not have to worry about the public no matter how much harm they inflict on them because there will always be another distraction tomorrow.

In a recent interview, Fauci suggested that he might have tried to implement lockdowns even earlier beginning in February instead. While he may not be in a position, others will, and they will do it without any hypothetical fears that, Democrats or Republicans, lockdown supporters will pay any price for it. If you can destroy America and walk away from it, why not do it again?

Daniel Greenfield is a Shillman Journalism Fellow at the David Horowitz Freedom Center. This article previously appeared at the Center's Front Page Magazine.Click here to subscribe to my articles.Thank you for reading.

Africa a medical mystery to the globalist COVID elites

 

February 12, 2023 By Monica Showalter

When someone has had success in beating off a global pandemic, shouldn't they maybe get some kind of laurels? At a minimum, it would makes sense to learn what they learned so as to get the same result. That's how actual science works, or at least, it did. Not to the global bureaucrats of the World Health Organization (WHO), which can't stop telling African countries on a continent that has great success in beating COVID, what to do. According to the Burning Platform:..........To Read More....

In China Things Head South Quickly

January 19, 2023/ Francis Menton  @ Manhattan Contrarian

If you follow developments out of China at all, you have likely noticed a spate of bad news recently. For years, even decades, it seemed that China could do no wrong in its growth toward becoming a major world power: China reported economic growth of 10% and up every year; it was becoming the hub of manufacturing for the entire world; and as its economy grew, its clout on the world stage increased rapidly. Pundits on the left (and occasionally on the right as well), often with overt admiration for the Chinese model of authoritarian state-directed crony capitalism, widely predicted that China would supplant the U.S. as the world’s leading power some time not too far into the 21st century.

Suddenly that’s looking much less likely. What happened? The fault lines have been there for a long time, but well-concealed by a regime with tight control over information flow, let alone by a Western press with a deep hatred of the West and not hiding its cheerleading for success of the Chinese model. In the last few months, as conditions have deteriorated, the regime has lost a big piece of its ability to keep the lid on.

Here’s my two cents: If the goal is long-term success for the country and the people, the Xi regime is doing pretty much everything wrong.

As a Manhattan Contrarian reader, it will not have come as a surprise to you that China would soon be facing serious reverses. As long ago as a post in September 2018, I asked “What Are The Long-Term Prospects For China?” That post reviewed various destructive policies of the Chinese government that included things like the pervasive surveillance system, tight and increasing state control of investment, suppression of religion and of ethnic minorities, and more, and concluded by asking: “[I]n a world of tough competition for talent and investment, what does China really have to offer?” In another post in March 2021, I asked “Is China About To ‘Win’ The Battle For The Future?” That post reviewed the prognostications of multiple pundits, on both left and right, predicting, often in exactly those words, that China was “winning the battle for the future.” But my conclusion was that various self-inflicted wounds stemming from the authoritarian governance model would soon undermine Chinese progress:

China’s system has enormous disadvantages, mostly self-inflicted by the ruling Communist Party, that show every prospect of greatly hindering and undermining its ongoing economic advance.

So with that introduction, let’s review some of the latest news:

Covid. Since the outset of the pandemic, China has pursued what it has called the “zero Covid” policy. Somehow Xi or others in the regime got the idea that they could accomplish the ultimate demonstration of the superiority of their system by imposing the strictest lockdowns and other control measures, and thereby preventing the disease from ever spreading in their country. In a post on April 16, 2022, I described conditions in Shanghai at that time, largely as then reported by The New York Times:

China has adopted an absolutist “zero Covid” policy without any rational weighing of the actual costs and benefits of the policy. Young adults and children with little to no risk of death from the disease are locked in their homes, often starving, and deprived of all normal human social contact for weeks and months on end. And since the disease has not yet worked its way through the population as it has elsewhere, China has no end in sight for these draconian policies. . . . The New York Times reports on April 10 about how the recent Shanghai lockdown is affecting the residents: “Residents have swarmed the police officers who enter their neighborhoods wearing white protective suits. They have shouted out their windows, demanding to be given supplies. Others have banged pots and pans in protest. . . . “We just want to eat, is that so hard?” [residents] yelled.”

The post included this picture of a street scene from Shanghai, with police and health officials in haz-mat suits and no civilians to be seen outdoors:

At the time, the Worldometers site, using official Chinese government data, was reporting what appeared to be a huge success for the zero Covid policy, at least if the only measure of success is number of cases and deaths from Covid and you think that imprisoning people in their homes for months is OK and that official Chinese government data are real. The death rate for China from Covid at that time was given as 3 per million population. My comment was that the official death rate “is highly likely to be wildly understated, but nobody knows by how much, because any local official daring to report accurate information would likely be fired if not jailed.”

By December, there were widespread reports that Covid was surging in China — although if you followed the Worldometers site, you could still not find the surge in the officially-reported data. But some Western news sources at last started to get curious. Here is the latest from NBC News today:

SHANGHAI — Patients are crammed into hallways, stairwells and lobbies, and still the sick keep coming. In scenes reminiscent of the start of the coronavirus pandemic in 2020, Chinese hospitals are struggling to cope with a surge in Covid-19 cases following the country’s decision to scrap its “zero-Covid” policy in early December.

So is the Chinese government starting to get honest?

After international criticism that it had not been transparent about the severity of the outbreak, the Chinese government said last weekend that it had recorded 60,000 Covid-related deaths since Dec. 8.

That’s a start — Worldometers as of today continues to show a total of only 5,272 Covid deaths in China. But NBC continues:

An estimate on Tuesday by Airfinity, an independent forecaster based in London, put the number of Covid-related deaths in China since Dec. 1 at 608,000, 10 times the official figure.

608,000 deaths would be about 425 per million population. That’s still a fraction of the U.S. rate (which is about 3,300 per million), but those 608,000 deaths in China are only in the last month and a half. The real number in China since the start of the pandemic remains anybody’s guess, and the current surge of cases and deaths could well result in rapid catch-up to the rates in the Western countries that had far less severe restrictions. The Chinese have lived in near prison conditions for the last three years — and for what? To make the leaders look good (by some twisted definition of “good”)?

Population. The Wall Street Journal reported on January 16, based on official Chinese data, that China’s population had actually declined year-on-year in 2022 over 2021.

The National Bureau of Statistics said Tuesday that China’s population dropped to 1.412 billion in 2022, from 1.413 billion in 2021. It was the first decline since the early 1960s, when the country was devastated by famine after Mao Zedong launched his “Great Leap Forward.”

It may sound like a rounding error, but the difference between 1.413 billion and 1.412 billion is a whole million people. And the decline represents almost entirely excess of deaths over births. In simple terms, nobody is having children in China any more. The data on number of births are quite astounding. From the WSJ:

The number of births declined to 9.56 million from 10.62 million in 2021, Tuesday’s data showed. China’s birthrate—the number of births per thousand people—dropped to 6.77 in 2022, compared with 7.52 in 2021.

By contrast, according to Macrotrends, the U.S. birthrate for 2022 was 12.012 per 1000 people — close to double the Chinese rate. The U.S. rate is right around the level that is sufficient to maintain the population; and with ongoing rapid immigration, the U.S. can expect continued increases in population. For China, at this extremely low birth rate, the population is almost certain to continue to decline. And the way the math of this works, unless the birth rate reverses quickly, the decline will accelerate. The UN put out a prediction in late 2022 that China’s population would decline by nearly half by 2100, to under 800 million. And others have even more dire projections. (A University of Wisconsin study in 2021 projects a population for China in 2100 of between 350 and 450 million.)

China also has negative net immigration (that is, more people emigrate than immigrate), according to Macrotrends. What foreign citizen would want to voluntarily enter this prison/surveillance state, where ethnic minorities are treated like second-class citizens when they are not put into forced labor camps?

Economic “Growth”. As reported in many sources, citing official Chinese government data, China reported economic growth for 2022 as 3%. Here is a quote from Reuters, January 17:

2022 GDP grows 3.0%, far below official target. . . . China's economic growth in 2022 slumped to one of its worst levels in nearly half a century as the fourth quarter was hit hard by strict COVID curbs and a property market slump, raising pressure on policymakers to unveil more stimulus this year.

3% year-on-year economic growth is far lower than the levels of growth reported by China for the past several decades. Compared to the U.S., the 3% may still not sound too bad, until you realize, again, this is official Chinese statistics. There could be endless amounts of padding in there.

So overall, how is Xi doing? I’d say, he’s giving an object lesson on how to drive a country into the ditch. Until the government is ready to accept a large role for freedom and entrepreneurialism outside state control, they are likely in for a long period of stagnation. I don’t see Xi and his crowd going that route.

In the British Commonwealth, the Stasi urge is growing

January 2, 2023 By Eric Utter

Last month, six people — including two police officers — were shot at a remote property in Australia's northern Queensland state.  Three suspects were identified by senior police sources as the (alleged) killers, and in the press, they were identified as "far-right" fanatics. In response to the heinous crime, Queensland police decided to go full Stasi and enhance their powers on other matters by urging people to turn in fellow citizens who might not fully believe and support everything their government says and does, or its mandates. Queensland is considered the home of Australia's version of "rednecks," who are known as "bogans."  Which is worse, a manic killer, or a person praying in front of an abortion clinic.

Sure, let's draw a line between serial murderers and those who have the temerity to question the efficacy of COVID-1984 vaccines.  If you know of anyone who questions the government, "experts," or "settled science," turn him in let those in power know about it right away, won't you?  The same goes for those trafficking in "misinformation" and/or "disinformation."...........By the way, what are you thinking?  

Do you have racist/sexist/homophobic/transphobic/fat-shaming/ableist thoughts parading through your mind?  Perhaps you are even questioning your rulers in some way?  Or, worse yet, thinking about Jesus?  Who knows what you are thinking?!  What a sicko!  Someone should alert the proper authorities so you can be arrested and brought to justice!  Only in this way can we defend diversity, inclusion, and equity.  Right............To Read More......

Critically Thinking about the "Greater Good" Argument — Part 3

Are COVID-19 Injection Mandates Scientifically Sound? 

John Droz jr. January 5, 2023 @ Critical Thinking

The Greater Good (GG) argument is at the core of policies that mandate COVID-19 injections. GG three major parts: 1) Religion, 2) Freedom, and 3) Science.

It’s too much to cover all these in one commentary, so there are three separate pieces. (See below for links to the other two.) Let’s briefly discuss the third.

Like a lot of Left-wing ideology (wind energy, climate change, etc.), GG is a presented as having the blessing of Science. This strategy continues to be used as it has proven to be politically effective, as it’s like getting the Good Housekeeping Seal of Approval. But is the GG claim scientifically sound?

Before answering that, we need to be clear what the GG belief really says. In a nutshell it is: the individual must sacrifice for the benefit of the community.

In other words government agencies, schools, businesses, etc. that ascribe to GG are saying: if the general society may possibly benefit, the individual can be forced to give up their free will choice, their financial well being, their health, and even their life.

In America, those personal sacrifices are appreciated as being HUGE, so we better be sure that the benefits are commensurately enormous. We do this by seeing if any scientific assessment has been made that supports the societal benefits assertions.

But what is a “scientific assessment”? Briefly it is an evaluation of a technical matter that has four elements. Such an assessment is: a) comprehensive, b) objective, c) transparent, and d) empirical.

So the fundamental question is: has there been a Scientific Assessment that has concluded that: COVID-19 injection mandates are a net societal benefit? NO!

Not only that, but there have been numerous scientific studies that have concluded the opposite. Let’s briefly consider the underlying scientific claims utilized by those who insist that injection mandates are for the GG…

GG Argument #1: If you have the injection, you will be less likely to catch COVID-19. That will be a societal benefit as you won’t be taxing healthcare system (like doctors and hospitals) and you will not be a transmitter (also a healthcare system benefit).

Contradiction A: The current COVID-19 variant is XBB.1.5, and there are zero injections that have been formulated and thoroughly tested for XBB.1.5. Therefore there is no scientific evidence that an injection will materially reduce your likelihood of catching COVID-19.

Contradiction B: Experts have concluded that COVID-19 injections may well be increasing the number of COVID-19 variants, thereby not only quickly making formulated injections outdated, but also increasing the load on our health system.

Contradiction C: Experts have concluded (regarding prior versions of the COVID-19 injections) that there is no scientific basis for claiming that infected injected people will transmit COVID-19 less than non-injected infected people. Pfizer admitted that since it was in a hurry to bring its injections to market, that no scientific tests were made about transmissibility of injection recipients.

Contradiction D: If the GG proponents wanted to minimize the load on healthcare system, then they would be advocating legitimate prevention measures — like citizens’ optimizing their immune system. There is zero downside to doing this, yet nary a word about optimizing immune systems is said by public health officials. Optimizing would reduce chances of a COVID-19 infection, plus lower symptoms (and improving outcomes) if it does happen — all healthcare system benefits.

Contradiction E: If the GG proponents wanted to minimize the load on healthcare systems, then they would be advocating an aggressive, scientific early treatment protocol with Ivermectin [~100 studies], HCQ [375+ studies], Vitamin D [100+ studies], etc. As indicated, all of these have numerous scientific studies supporting their efficacy and safety. The fact that GG espousers do not advocate any of these scientifically legitimate options puts a harsh light on their hypocrisy.

GG Argument #2: If you have the injection, and subsequently get COVID-19, you will have less severe symptoms. That will be a societal benefit as you won’t be taxing the healthcare system as much.

Contradiction B: See above

Contradiction C: See above.

Contradiction D: See above.

Contradiction E: See above.

GG Argument #3: If you have the injection, and subsequently get COVID-19, you will less likely transmit COVID-19 to others. That will be a societal benefit as those others won’t be taxing the healthcare system as much.

Contradiction B: See above

Contradiction C: See above.

Contradiction D: See above.

Contradiction E: See above.

Additionally, if the GG proponents were truly pushing a Science narrative they would:

i) Not be calling the COVID-19 bio-chemical injections “vaccines,” as mRNA and vector injections are profoundly different from any other common type of vaccine the public is familiar with (e.g., shingles, polio, etc.). As an acknowledgement of this reality, CDC quietly changed is longtime definition of “vaccine.” It would have been more honest of them to instead use a different word.

ii) Publicly acknowledge that in the short studies of the COVID-19 injections, that there was not scientific testing about the injection effects on people with dozens of diseases (e.g., Parkinson’s, Cancer, Diabetes, etc.).

iii) Publicly acknowledge that there has been no long term studies of mRNA and vector COVID-19 injections.

iv) Publicly acknowledge that some COVID-19 injection recipients will get ADE, or VAED, which can result in more serious adverse consequences in future infections. Here is a good layperson explanation. And then there is this related study.

Etc, etc.

The clear conclusion is that: a) GG proponents have not followed Scientific protocol, b) there is no legitimate scientific basis for the GG claims, and c) if the GG acolytes were sincere about their societal interests, they would be taking other scientifically sound actions, which they are not.

In other words: COVID-19 policies are based on political science, not real Science.

Covidians And Their Paper-Thin Skins

Scott Morefield  |  Jan 09, 2023 

 

In the pre-Musk Twitter days, pencil-necked leftist overlords would simply censor dissidents for daring to cite inconvenient facts. That’s because they don’t like to be challenged or even politely questioned openly. They know their dumb ideas can’t stand up to scrutiny, so instead of rethinking and revising those dumb ideas they look for ways to ‘win’ the debate by silencing the opposition.

Now, since silencing the opposition - on Twitter at least - is a bit more difficult, many leftists have developed a particularly silly habit of simply blocking en masse anyone who disagrees with them. This is especially true of the Covidian Left, whose notoriously thin skin makes Donald Trump’s notoriously thin skin seem like rhinoceros hide..........To Read More....

My Take - While I applaud this view, I take exception to calling Trump thin skinned.  Yes he attacks anyone....everyone.... who attacks him, but why is that being thin skinned versus being combative in his own defense?  Are we to assume Bush was thick skinned because he allowed these misfits to smear and ridicule him while saying nothing in his defense?   Why would that be thick skinned but versus cowering?   

The fact is Americans liked Trump for his combative response to these nitwits in the media and on the left who've been getting away with this for years, and now the gauntlet has been thrown down by Trump who doesn't care what they think or say about his reactions,.............and they're losing. 

Critically Thinking about the "Greater Good" Argument — Part 2

Are COVID-19 Injection Mandates Consistent with American Democratic Principles? 

John Droz jr. January 5, 2023 @ Critical Thinking

The Greater Good (GG) argument is at the core of policies that mandate COVID-19 injections. GG three major parts: 1) Religion, 2) Freedom, and 3) Science.

It’s too much to cover all these in one commentary, so there are three separate pieces. (See below for links to the other two.) Let’s briefly discuss the second.

Like a lot of Left-wing ideology, GG is an anti-American political agenda presented in a superficially appealing package. Think Trojan Horse.

We need to be clear what the GG belief really says. In a nutshell it is: the individual must sacrifice for the benefit of the community.

Implicit in this argument is an acknowledgement that forcing citizens to get a COVID-19 injection is NOT about a net benefit derived by the injection recipient, but rather it is about a purported net societal benefit. This is a direct attack on personal rights. The underlying premise of this GG policy is that:

“We are not concerned about the adverse effects on you, the citizen, including death. We are only concerned about the net societal impact.”

In other words, government agencies, schools, businesses, etc. that ascribe to GG are saying: if the general society may possibly benefit, the individual can be forced to give up their free will choice, their financial well being, their health, and even their life.

But wait! America was founded on protecting the rights of individuals. Carefully read the Declaration of Independence, which (among other wonderful things) says:

“We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.”

Yet to many American citizens, being subjected to an unscientific (and immoral) vaccine is diametrically opposed to their unalienable Rights of Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness. What happened to those rights?

A hint as to how the extraction of those rights is “justified” is in linguistics. The idea is that the Left is trying to create a new subcategory of American Citizens: radical nitwits. Once certain people have been relegated to that low level caste construct, then it’s easier for the Left to then claim that they no longer are “real” American citizens, so they no longer deserve the inalienable rights of real citizens.

How is this done? One way is that those who are objecting to a mandated COVID-19 injection are derisively labelled as “anti-vaxxers.” This is clearly a sham as: a) there is no true “vaccine” involved, and b) most objectors are only resisting the COVID-19 injection (i.e., they are not against shingles vaccines, etc.).

This is a classic guilt by association tactic, as in trying to undermine the credence of those who have scientific arguments against climate change, by calling them “deniers” or “flat-earthers.”

When this linguistic strategy is employed, it is a dead giveaway that the users have weak arguments — so they resorting to ad hominem attacks, rather than providing scientific evidence.

So what is going on here? The answer is found in the description of GG. The whole GG idea is a Communist perspective: individuals are expendable when the collective benefits.

So that’s the critical thinking thought here: are citizens OK with US Government agencies, schools, businesses, organizations, churches, etc. promoting communist ideology? Of course, so far they haven’t come right out and said that.

However, they are moving in that direction, as many of our leaders do acknowledge their support of various socialism constructs. Be fully aware that Communism is just a short subway stop from Socialism.

 

Critically Thinking about the "Greater Good" Argument — Part 1

Are COVID-19 Injection Mandates Morally Right?  

John Droz jr. January 5, 2023 @ Critical Thinking

The Greater Good (GG) argument is at the core of policies that mandate COVID-19 injections. GG three major parts: 1) Religion, 2) Freedom, and 3) Science.

It’s too much to cover all these in one commentary, so there are three separate pieces. (See below for links to the other two.) Let’s briefly discuss the first.

Like a lot of Left-wing ideology (wokism, social justice, etc.), GG is a presented as a moral imperative. Just so we don’t miss the virtue signaling, the word “good” is in the GG phrase. But is GG consistent with our moral beliefs? Judeo-Christian standards are the underpinnings of America, so what do they say about the GG assertion?

Before answering that, we need to be clear what the GG belief really says. In a nutshell it is: the individual must sacrifice for the benefit of the community.

[This can also be called collectivism, which is similar to socialism and communism.]

In other words government agencies, schools, businesses, etc. that ascribe to GG are saying: if the general society may possibly benefit, the individual can be forced to give up their free will choice, their financial well being, their health, and even their life.

What is the moral basis for such a position? To begin with, both of the GG words (greater and good) are subjective, which means that their interpretation is a matter of personal opinion, which means that it is a subjective standard.

The question is: who has the authority and competence to make an official GG declaration?

Further, GG is a concept derived from Utilitarianism.  Basically, that is about making behavioral choices based on what will make the most people happy. Unfortunately, we again run into subjectivity about what “happy” is. Also an important and interesting moral question is: do we have an obligation to sacrifice our happiness to make others happy?

But let’s get back to America: is there a Judeo-Christian basis for such a GG position? I say no. Here are three simple Judeo-Christian rebuttals to GG thinking.

First, is that Judeo-Christian belief is that every person is made in the image of God. As such, every individual has enormous religious importance, so they cannot simply be trampled on and discarded for some supposed secular societal benefit.

Second, the Judeo-Christian belief of salvation is intrinsically connected with each person properly exercising their free will. Any extraction of a righteous exercise of free will is contrary to Judeo-Christian principles.

Third, consider the parable of the lost sheep in the New Testament. Christ tells the story of a shepherd tending a hundred sheep, and one wanders off. His story is that the good shepherd leaves the ninety-nine, to recover the one. His praise of the shepherd makes clear that He gives full endorsement to the value of the individual — even over that of the group! This parable is arguably the direct opposite of GG…

So, if GG is not consistent with Judeo-Christian standards, what moral standards are being promoted here? It’s not much of a stretch to conclude that GG is actually a communist perspective — which means that this is the moral perspective of atheists.

So here is the critical thinking thought here: are Americans OK with US Government agencies, schools, businesses, organizations, churches, etc. promoting atheistic standards? Of course, so far they haven’t come right out and said that.

However, unless Judeo-Christian Americans strenuously object, it won’t be long until that is exactly what they will say — and proudly.

PS — IMO (as a non-lawyer) this religious argument is stronger than what is in the conventional lawsuit claiming that being forced to get a COVID-19 injection violates someone’s religious beliefs. Typically, those cases object to things like fetal tissue used in the manufacture of the injections.

PPS — What are the moral implications for citizens to choose to get injected (or their loved ones to get injected? It comes down to the Science: is there a net benefit for getting the injection, vs optimizing your immune system and then taking scientifically supported early-treatment therapies if you or loved ones do get the virus. See Part 3 for some additional details.

 Parts 2 and 3 will follow over the next two days.  RK

Scientists World-Wide Debate Discovery of Nanotech Found in Covid Jabs & Strange Structures Found in Blood of the Vaccinated

By Rhoda Wilson on December 6, 2022 • ( 23 Comments ) 

 

A little more than a week ago, International Crimes Investigative Committee (“ICIC”), hosted by Dr. Reiner Fuellmich and Dr Mike Yeadon, held a discussion with four experts on nanotechnology and self-assembling structures in mRNA injections.  The panel of experts comprised Dr. David Nixon, Dr. Ana Maria Mihalcea, Karen Kingston and Shimon Yanowitz.

Yesterday, ICIC Dr. Fuellmich hosted a second discussion, following on from the first, to discuss with Holger Reißner and Klaus Retzlaff what the observed phenomena and structures in the blood of people who have had an mRNA injection are all about...........To Read More....

The Daily Chart: Sweden, After All

December 5, 2022 by Steven Hayward in The Daily Chart

New data from the OECD settles an argument that raged from the first days of the COVID hysteria: Sweden’s decision not to lockdown turns out to have been the correct one. The OECD’s calculation of total excess deaths from all causes (since COVID lockdowns increased other causes of death) was the lowest in the developed world, as seen here:............To Read More....

The Ghostly Traces of COVID Geoff Brown COVID primarily lives on in its human adherents, the masked cultists who seek to resist the return of normality for reasons best known to some quiet inner mental sanctum they nurture.  More

New York Governor Kathy Hochul on Humiliating Defeat of Covid Vaccine Mandates: “I Would Do It All Over Again”

by Kyle Becker October 26, 2022

A New York Judge on Monday delivered good news for city workers who were fired over New York City’s “arbitrary and capricious” Covid vaccine mandates. The judge ruled on Monday that the New York City Sanitation Department had to cease enforcing proof of vaccination, and furthermore, that the workers had to be reinstated and given back pay on Tuesday......To Read More....

 

The Covid Regime Still Clings to Power

A remnant of deep blue America refuses to leave the March 2020 state of emergency. 

 Declan Leary Oct 29, 2022

I was checking out on Wednesday night at the Georgetown Trader Joe’s here in D.C. I paid for my eggs and had started to walk out when a little old lady, maybe 60 years old, shuffled up to the cash register as I moved away. Loudly—I think, intentionally loudly—she gushed to the cashier and to everyone else in the store: “Thank you for wearing a mask.”

I chuckled at the throwback. It was so emphatic, so sincere, and so clearly contained a jab at everyone in the store who elected not to wear a mask. This woman was Georgetown to her core, which means I could probably tell you who she voted for in every election of the last few decades. So I chuckled, because what does one crazy rich hippie matter when all the rest of us have gone back to normal?............ To Read More....

 

Buckeye Institute Press Release

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE October 13, 2022

Lisa Gates, Vice President of Communications, (614) 224-3255

The Buckeye Institute Sues Washington D.C. Government Over Unconstitutional Emergency Orders Columbus, OH – On Thursday, The Buckeye Institute filed a shiny new lawsuit against the District of Columbia Department of Health challenging the D.C. Council’s and Mayor Muriel Bowser’s unconstitutional emergency acts and orders, which D.C. used to force the closure of The Big Board, a neighborhood bar and grill located in our nation’s capital and owned by Buckeye’s client, Eric Flannery. Flannery v. D.C. Department of Health was filed in the United States District Court for the District of Columbia.   “The District of Columbia is unique among American cities. Not only is it our nation’s capital, but its laws are subject to congressional review under the Home Rule Act,” said Robert Alt, president and chief executive officer of The Buckeye Institute, and a lead attorney representing Mr. Flannery. “By stacking emergency acts and orders for two years, the District evaded congressional review and closed the courthouse doors to Mr. Flannery and thousands of other D.C. residents. This end run around the Home Rule Act made a mockery of congressional review and simultaneously denied Americans their constitutional rights and due process.”   All told, Mayor Bowser extended her initial public emergency declaration at least 16 times in 90-day increments over the course of two years. D.C. law says that emergency orders cannot be reviewed by a court “until after the expiration date of the emergency executive order.” D.C. also effectively closed the courthouse doors to District residents in clear violation of due process protections afforded by the U.S. Constitution.   “This case is not just about The Big Board,” Alt continued. “It is about ensuring that government abides by the U.S. Constitution even during emergencies including global pandemics—perhaps especially then. We are a nation of laws, not of autocratic mayors, city councils, and government agencies.”   Robert Alt and Mr. Flannery recently sat down with Matt Kibbe, host of the tremendously popular and always edifying Kibbe on Liberty podcast, to discuss Buckeye’s new case—Flannery v. D.C. Department of Health. You can watch this newest episode of the podcast here and hear why we are defending the fundamentally American principles at stake in this case.   And you can also watch more of Mr. Flannery’s story in this new video, released today by our friends at Free the People.  Buckeye’s co-counsel in the case are Patrick Strawbridge, David L. Rosenthal, and Frank H. Chang at Consovoy McCarthy PLLC. # # # Founded in 1989, The Buckeye Institute is an independent research and educational institution – a think tank – whose mission is to advance free-market public policy in the states. The Buckeye Institute is a non-partisan, non-profit, and tax-exempt organization, as defined by section 501(c)(3) of the Internal Revenue code. As such, it relies on support from individuals, corporations, and foundations that share a commitment to individual liberty, free enterprise, personal responsibility, and limited government. The Buckeye Institute does not seek or accept government funding. Donate Today! Support The Buckeye Institute Support The Buckeye Institute by setting us as your designated charity through AmazonSmile. Every time you make a purchase, Amazon will donate 0.5% of the total to The Buckeye Institute at no extra cost to you! AmazonSmile and the AmazonSmile logo are trademarks of Amazon.com, Inc. or its affiliates. The Buckeye Institute | 88 East Broad Street, Suite 1300, Columbus, OH 43215