Jun 11

Today’s News 11th June 2020

  • UK Forecast To Suffer Worst COVID-Driven GDP Hit Of All Nations Worldwide
    UK Forecast To Suffer Worst COVID-Driven GDP Hit Of All Nations Worldwide

    Tyler Durden

    Thu, 06/11/2020 – 02:45

    The OECD released its latest Economic Outlook earlier this week, revealing the projected impact the COVID-19 pandemic will have on global GDP in 2020. When assuming there will be no second wave of infections in 2020, gross domestic product is currently expected to be down by 6 percent on last year; but, as Statista’s Martin Armstrong notes, should we encounter a ‘double-hit’ scenario however, this is forecast to increase to a 7.6 percent drop.

    Adding further context, the OECD writes:

    “The COVID-19 pandemic is a global health crisis without precedent in living memory. It has triggered the most severe economic recession in nearly a century and is causing enormous damage to people’s health, jobs and well-being.”

    As this infographic below shows, when looking at the ‘single-hit’ scenario, no country is projected to be hit harder than the United Kingdom. There, a fall of 11.5 percent is being predicted.

    Infographic: How Hard Will GDP Be Hit in 2020? | Statista

    You will find more infographics at Statista

    The initial epicenter, China, is expected to go far more unscathed with a decrease of just 2.6 percent.

    The United States is somewhat in the middle of the pack with a 7.3 percent reduction.

  • London Police Warn Of "Perfect Storm" As Right Wing Groups Vow To Defend Statues From BLM
    London Police Warn Of “Perfect Storm” As Right Wing Groups Vow To Defend Statues From BLM

    Tyler Durden

    Thu, 06/11/2020 – 02:00

    Authored by Steve Watson via Summit News,

    London Metropolitan police are preparing for clashes between black lives matter activists and right wing groups this weekend in London, following a call by Tommy Robinson for counter-protests to defend memorials and statues.

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    Ken Marsh, chairman of the Metropolitan Police Federation, warned “We have got the perfect storm ahead of us this weekend, we have got planned protests and now Tommy Robinson and his agitators.”

    Robinson released a short video in which he accused police of being “soft-handed” and allowing BLM protesters to deface memorials and statues, saying that police didn’t want the bad publicity of clashing with non-white protesters.

    Robinson endorsed planned counter-demonstrations by multiple football ‘firms’ saying that “If you give a shit at all about our country, our history, our culture, our identity. I expect you are going to be in London next Saturday.”

    Robinson noted that police removed the small group of “lads” who were guarding the Winston Churchill statue in London last weekend, only for BLM to then deface it.

    Reports indicate that other groups also intend to join the fray, such as ‘Veterans Against Terrorism’, and even biker groups like the ‘Hells Angels’.

    Video has already emerged of some members of one of the afore-mentioned ‘firms’ chasing down and delivering beatings to rioters in London this week:

    While defacement of statues grabbed more headlines, many were incensed more by the desecration of war memorials.

    BLM in the UK has identified at least 60 ‘racist’ statues they say need to be removed for ‘celebrating slavery’.

    Meanwhile, London Mayor Sadiq Khan announced the formation of a commission Tuesday to review all London landmarks and street names, and vowed to remove any that offend, and replace them with monuments to ‘diversity’.

    Almost immediately, a statue of merchant, slave-factor and ship owner Robert Milligan was removed:

    Leftists have been eager to provide suggestions for which statues to target next after a statue of Edward Colston was torn down by in Bristol.

    While some are obvious targets for removal, the concern among many is that whatever and whoever is deemed ‘racist’ (at a time where almost anything and everything is called racist) will eventually also be purged.

    For example, leftists expressed a desire to topple a statue of Charles, 2nd Earl Grey, a former British Prime Minister, despite the fact that he oversaw the abolition of slavery in the British empire.

  • Burundi President Dies Of Sudden Heart Attack At 55; COVID-19 Suspected
    Burundi President Dies Of Sudden Heart Attack At 55; COVID-19 Suspected

    Tyler Durden

    Thu, 06/11/2020 – 01:00

    The President of Burundi has died of a sudden heart attack after falling ill on Saturday night before being taken to a hospital.

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    Outgoing president Pierre Nkurunziza, 55, is said to have improved on Sunday, but “surprisingly, on morning of Monday June 8, 2020, his health suddenly deteriorated and he had a heart attack,” according to a government statement, which described the former footballer’s death as “unexpected.”

    Seven days of mourning has been announced following the death, which is suspected to have been caused by COVID-19 – a rumor fueled by reports that his wife was flown to the Kenyan capital of Nairobi 10 days ago after contracting the disease, according to the Standard.

    Meanwhile, The Guardian reports that Nkurunziza refused to impose pandemic restrictions on the impoverished African country, allowing political rallies and sporting events to proceed. Authorities have been accused of deliberately downplaying COVID-19, which has killed over 5,000 people on the African continent and infected nearly 200,000.

    The nation of 11 million people has reported 83 cases of Covid-19 and officials have cited divine protection for Burundi’s ostensibly low infection rate and urged citizens to go about their daily lives without fear.

    Nkurunziza’s spokesperson said that although the country may be hit by the pandemic, “Burundi … has signed a special covenant with God, whether you believe it or not”.

    Burundi refused to follow most other African nations in imposing a lockdown and expelled the World Health Organization’s expert team working on coronavirus. –The Guardian

    COVID-19 heart attacks

    In February, the Taiwan Times reported that doctors in Hubei, China had smuggled out a report that coronavirus patients who had become reinfected were dying from sudden heart failure – providing a possible explanation for photographs and videos of people lying dead in the streets of Wuhan.

    While rare, at least two similar videos have appeared in the United States:

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    And according to Johns Hopkins, COVID-19 targets the heart’s ACE-2 enzymes.

    “There are multiple mechanisms for heart damage in COVID-19, and not everyone is the same,” according to cardiologist Erin Michos, M.D.

    More:

  • The Four Horsemen of America's Apocalypse
    The Four Horsemen of America’s Apocalypse

    Tyler Durden

    Wed, 06/10/2020 – 23:45

    Authored by Dennis Prager via RealClearPolitics.com,

    It takes a lot to build a civilization, and though it is much easier to destroy a civilization, it takes a lot to do that, too.

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    But now we have four roots of evil that are guaranteed to do so.

    No. 1: Victimhood.

    The first is victimhood. The more people who regard themselves as victims — as individuals or as a group — the more likely they are to commit evil. People who think of themselves as victims feel that, having been victimized, they are no longer bound by normal moral conventions — especially the moral conventions of their alleged or real oppressors.

    Everyone knows this is true. But few confront this truth. Every parent, for example, knows that the child who thinks of him or herself as a perpetual victim is the child most likely to cause and get into trouble. And criminologists report that nearly every murderer in prison thinks of himself as a victim.

    On a societal scale, the same holds true — and being on such a larger scale, the chances of real evil ensuing are exponentially increased. One of the most obvious examples is Germany after World War I. Most Germans regarded themselves as victims — of the Treaty of Versailles; of a “stab in the back” German government; of the British, Americans and French; and, of course, of the Jews. This sense of victimhood was one of the most important factors in the popularity of the Nazis, who promised to restore German dignity.

    That millions of black Americans regard themselves as victims — probably more so today than at any time in the past 50 years — can only lead to disaster for America generally and for blacks specifically. While victims generally feel free to lash out at others, they also go through life angry and unhappy.

    No. 2: Demonization.

    The second of the four ingredients of this civilization-destroying witches’ brew is demonization — demonizing a group as inherently evil.

    That is being done now with regard to the white people of America. All — again, all — whites are declared racist. The only difference among them is that some admit it and some deny it. The notion that whites are inherently evil has long been associated with Louis Farrakhan. But it has apparently migrated out from his relatively small following to many blacks, even those who might consider Farrakhan a kook. Former President Barack Obama, hardly a Farrakhan follower, described America as having racism in its DNA. That is as close to inherently and irredeemably evil as it gets; you cannot change your DNA.

    In that sense, not only are whites demonized, but America is, too. Unlike traditional liberals, the left regards America as a moral cesspool — not only racist but, according to The New York Times, founded to be so. The New York Times has created a history of America that declares its founding not in 1776 but in 1619, when the first black slaves arrived. The American Revolution was fought, according to this malign narrative, not merely for American independence but in order to preserve slavery, a practice the British would have interfered with. This “history” will now be taught in thousands of American schools.

    The combination of victimhood and demonization alone is dangerous enough. But there are still two more horsemen galloping toward the looming apocalypse.

    No. 3: A Cause To Believe In.

    Most Americans throughout American history found great meaning in being American and in being religious — usually Christian. Since World War II, we have lived in a post-Christian, post-nationalist age. Until very recently, Americans would have found the expression “for God and country” deeply meaningful; that term today, on the left, is risible and execrable.

    But people need something to believe in. The need for meaning is the greatest human need after the need for food. Leftism, with all its offshoots — feminism, environmentalism, Black Lives Matter, antifa — has filled that vacuum. In Europe, communism, fascism and Nazism filled the hole left by the demise of nationalism and Christianity. Here it is leftism and its offshoots.

    No. 4: Lies.

    The fourth and most important ingredient necessary for evil is lies. Lies are the root of evil. Ironically, slavery itself was made possible only because of the lie that the black was inferior to the white. Nazism was made possible thanks to the lie that Jews were not fully human. And communism was built on lies. Lenin, the father of Soviet Communism, named the Soviet communist newspaper “Truth” (“Pravda”) because truth was what the Communist Party said it was.

    The New York Times, CNN and the rest of the mainstream “news” media are becoming our version of Pravda.
    Objective truth doesn’t exist on the left. The universities have already declared “objective truth” as essentially an expression of “white privilege.” See what happens to a student who says in class, for example, that “men cannot give birth.”

    The public self-debasement demanded of anyone who differs with the left — like New Orleans Saints quarterback Drew Brees just did when he said not standing for the national anthem desecrated the flag and those who have died for it — happens almost daily. The only difference between this and what dissidents underwent during Mao’s Cultural Revolution is that the self-debasement here is voluntary — thus far.

    Last week, when this Jew saw a store in Santa Monica with a sign reading “black-owned business” so as to avoid being destroyed, it evoked chilling memories.

    That’s how bad it is in America today.

  • US B-52 Bomber 'Loses' Experimental Hypersonic Missile Over California
    US B-52 Bomber ‘Loses’ Experimental Hypersonic Missile Over California

    Tyler Durden

    Wed, 06/10/2020 – 23:25

    Amid growing media speculation over details of the Pentagon’s hypersonic weapons program pursued in conjunction with Lockheed Martin and DARPA, a shocking headline appeared Tuesday in the respected aviation journal Aviation Week, namely that a US B-52 bomber lost an experimental hypersonic missile in mid-air over California. 

    The report, also picked up in The New York Post and others described that, “A scramjet-powered missile developed under the joint DARPA/U.S. Air Force Hypersonic Air-breathing Weapon Concept (HAWC) program was destroyed in a recent test accident, Aviation Week has learned.”

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    A B-52 carries an Air Launched Rapid Response Weapon, Air Force file image.

    The aviation monitoring site reports further details: “The missile is believed to have inadvertently separated from a B-52 carrier aircraft during a captive-carry flight test, according to sources familiar with the evaluation,” and added, “The cause of the mishap, which is thought to have involved an aircraft from the 419th Flight Test Squadron at Edwards AFB, California, is under investigation.”

    The weapon reportedly separated from the Boeing B-52 carrier aircraft and was soon after destroyed, meaning it either detonated in the air or when it struck the ground below.

    The Air Force refused to comment for the report while DARPA didn’t deny the accident, only saying “Details of those flight demonstrations are classified,” in an apparent tacit admission that experimental tests are indeed taking place. 

    The NY Post explains: “Scramjets allow missiles to reach hypersonic speeds that greatly exceed the speed of sound, often reaching Mach 5 and above.”

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    A Boeing X-51 hypersonic cruise missile at Edwards Air Force Base, US Air Force file image.

    And Forbes also summarizes of the experimental Air Force technology: 

    HAWC is one of several super-fast missiles that the Air Force is developing in order to help its ancient B-52 bombers and other planes poke holes in Chinese and Russian defenses.

    HAWC is a scramjet, meaning it has an engine and breathes air like an airplane does. Other hypersonic weapons, such as the Air-Launched Rapid-Response Weapon, boost to hypersonic speed atop a rocket then glides at five times the speed of sound.

    The Hypersonic Air-breathing Weapon Concept (HAWC) program is said to be part of a broader multi-billion dollar program under the Department of Defense, and recently approved by Congress. 

    Washington political and defense leaders have over the past two years signaled a rapidly growing hypersonics program especially after Russian President Vladimir Putin began boasting of the great strides the Kremlin has made, even recently said to be testing hypersonics, which last year in August also resulted in a major accident on a test launch pad which released dangerous levels of nuclear radiation in the surrounding area. 

    Putin, for example, has lately boasted that Russia’s futuristic hypersonic arsenal will be incapable of being defended against. Beijing is also said to be pursuing its own program as well, as American generals also purse ways to counter and defend against such a scenario. 

  • FBI Knew Steele's Russia Research Connected To Clinton, Dems From Earliest Interactions
    FBI Knew Steele’s Russia Research Connected To Clinton, Dems From Earliest Interactions

    Tyler Durden

    Wed, 06/10/2020 – 23:05

    Authored by John Solomon via Just the News

    Notes and emails that have been kept so far from Senate investigators show the FBI knew from its earliest interactions with Christopher Steele in July 2016 that his Russia research project on Donald Trump was connected to Hillary Clinton and the Democratic Party.

    The information, so far mentioned only glancingly and in footnotes of a Justice Department report, could provide the Senate Judiciary Committee with the most powerful evidence yet to confront witnesses about why the bureau concealed the political origins of Steele’s work from the FISA court.

    “So far the bureau is slow-walking this stuff,” a source familiar with senators’ frustrations told Just the News. “We need to see these sort of documents before we question key witnesses.”

    Chairman Lindsay Graham (R-S.C.) is seeking a vote later this week to authorize subpoenas that would compel the Christopher Wray-led FBI to produce witnesses and outstanding documents for the committee’s investigation of the Russia investigators.

    The effort to acquire the original source materials began last December after DOJ Inspector General Michael Horowitz released his explosive report blaming the FBI for 17 mistakes, omissions and acts of misconduct in seeking a FISA warrant against Trump campaign adviser Carter Page.

    While the headlines since that report have mostly focused on FISA abuses, Senate investigators have also zeroed in on a handful of little-noticed passages in Horowitz’s narrative that reference original FBI source documents showing what agents and supervisors knew about Steele, the former MI6 agent, and the firm that hired him, Fusion GPS.

    It wasn’t until late October 2017 that the public and Congress first learned that the law firm Perkins Coie, on behalf of the Democratic National Committee and Hillary Clinton’s campaign, hired Glenn Simpson’s Fusion GPS research firm to have Steele delve into Trump’s Russia connections.

    And FBI officials have been vague in their explanations about when they knew Steele’s research was tied to Clinton and the DNC and why they did not explicitly inform the FISA court that the Steele dossier used to secure the warrant was funded by Trump’s election opponent.

    But one passage and two footnotes in Horowitz’s report that have largely escaped public attention suggest the FBI agent who first interviewed Steele about his anti-Trump research in London on July 5, 2016 was aware immediately of a connection to Clinton and that a separate office of the FBI passed along information from an informant by Aug. 2, 2016 that Simpson’s Fusion GPS was connected to the DNC.

    For instance, the agent in London contacted an Assistant Special Agent in Charge (ASAC) in the New York field office (NYFO) shortly after interviewing Steele and obtaining one of the anti-Trump memos that made up his dossier, according to information in Horowitz’s report.

    The agent sought advice July 13, 2016 on how to handle the sensitive election-year allegations from the supervisor in New York, where the FBI had already opened a probe of Page that would eventually be assumed by Washington headquarters.

    “ASAC 1’s notes from his July 13 call with Handling Agent 1 closely track the contents of Report 80, identify Simpson as a client of a law firm, and include the following: ‘law firm works for the Republican party or Hillary and will use [the information described in Report 80] at some point,’” the Horowitz report stated. “ASAC 1 told us that he would not have made this notation if Handling Agent 1 had not stated it to him.”

    Footnote 223 in the report reveals a second line of evidence that came to the FBI from a confidential human source (CHS) suggesting the Steele-Simpson-Fusion project was tied to Democrats. That warning was immediately sent to Agent Peter Strzok, the case agent for the Crossfire Hurricane probe investigating whether Trump and Russia colluded to hijack the 2016 election.

    “At approximately the same time that Handling Agent 1 was reporting information about Simpson to ASAC 1, an FBI agent from another FBI field office sent an email to his supervisor stating that he had been contacted by a former CHS who ‘was contacted recently by a colleague who runs an investigative firm. The firm had been hired by two entities (the Democratic National Committee as well as another individual…not name[d]) to explore Donald J. Trump’s longstanding ties to Russian entities.’”

    “On or about August 2, 2016, this information was shared by a CD supervisor with the Section Chief of CD’s Counterintelligence Analysis Section I (Intel Section Chief), who provided it that day to members of the Crossfire Hurricane team (then Section Chief Peter Strzok, SSA 1, and the Supervisory Intel Analyst,)” the footnote adds.

    Senate investigators want to see the original emails and notes from these conversations as they plan to interrogate dozens of key witnesses in the Russia investigation about whether there was an intentional effort by he FBI to hide from the courts and Congress the flaws in their case, exculpatory evidence involving the Trump targets, and derogatory information about Steele’s credibility.

    In the end, Special Counsel Robert Mueller found no evidence that any Americans, including anyone associated with the Trump campaign, colluded with Russia to influence the election.

    And evidence that has since emerged shows the FBI determined early on that Steele’s dossier included debunked, uncorroborated information and possible Russian disinformation aimed at smearing Trump, but agents proceeded anyway with their investigation.

    The FBI notes and emails from summer 2016 are consistent with recent testimony that Steele gave in a civil case in London, where he testified he told the bureau his research and the Fusion GPS project was connected to Clinton.

    “I presumed it was the Clinton campaign, and Glenn Simpson had indicated that. But I was not aware of the technicality of it being the DNC that was actually the client of Perkins Coie,” Steele testified in March under questioning from lawyers for Russian bankers suing over his research.

    Steele confirmed during that testimony that his notes of a 2016 FBI meeting showed he told agents about the Clinton connection.

    Congressional investigators have now pieced together at least five instances early in the Russia case where the FBI was warned of the political origins and motives of Steele’s work but failed to fully inform the courts.

    Instead, the FBI’s FISA warrant application told the judge Steele was working for a person interested in possibly defeating Trump but without disclosing it was the opposition research firm specifically hired by Clinton and the DNC through their law firm to find dirt on Trump in Russia.

    Senate investigators are trying to determine whether that omission was part of a larger, intentional campaign to mislead the FISA court and Congress in order to keep the Russia investigation going despite a lack of evidence supporting the collusion theory.

    “Look, we’ve got to get to the bottom of this, to find out how they ended up with this dossier, how it was believed to be accurate, when did they know it was not accurate?” explained Sen. Marsha Blackburn (R-Tenn.) one of the key members of the Judiciary Committee.

  • Iran Plans To Sink A Huge 'US Carrier Replica' In Gulf Live-Fire Drills
    Iran Plans To Sink A Huge ‘US Carrier Replica’ In Gulf Live-Fire Drills

    Tyler Durden

    Wed, 06/10/2020 – 22:45

    After last month it was reported that the US Marine Corps was conducing ‘live-fire drills’ in the Persian Gulf amid continued soaring tensions with Iran, centered of late on Tehran’s growing assistance to another ‘rogue state’ – Maduro’s Venezuela – it appears Iran’s military has upped the ante with similar drills of their own.

    “Iran appears to have built a fake aircraft carrier off its southern coast for potential live-fire drills amid ongoing tensions with the U.S., satellite images showed Tuesday,” a FOX-AP report says.

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    Satellite image captured June 7, 2020 of ‘replica carrier’ off the coast of Bandar Abbas, Iran. Source: Maxar Technologies via AP/FOX.

    Analysts say the mock-up actually appears close to America’s fleet of Nimitz-class carriers, commonly stationed in the region and routinely traversing the contested Strait of Hormuz. It even includes fake fighter jets parked on the deck.

    “The replica carries 16 mock-ups of fighter jets on its deck, according to satellite photos taken by Maxar Technologies. The vessel appears to be some 650 feet long and 160 feet wide,” the report continues.

    Iran’s elite Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) thus appears to be prepping what would be the second simulated carrier sinking within five years – the last time being a 2015 live-fire drill centered on attacking a carrier replica. 

    Currently, the US Navy has orders from the Pentagon to shoot at any Iranian military boat which harasses US ships. 

    In 2015 Iran filmed large-scale live-fire drills aimed at sinking a mock carrier:

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    A May 19 US Navy alert which Reuters described at the time as “aimed squarely at Iran” declared that “armed vessels approaching within 100 meters of a U.S. naval vessel may be interpreted as a threat.” 

    This came after prior filmed incidents involving IRGC ‘fast boats’ circling American warships in a threatening way – sometimes for up to hours. 

    It’s unclear exactly when Iran hopes to hold its ‘sinking’ of the mock carrier drills, but they’ll likely film it for propaganda purposes once they do.

  • The Worst Literal Hitler Ever
    The Worst Literal Hitler Ever

    Tyler Durden

    Wed, 06/10/2020 – 22:25

    Authored (satirically) by CJ Hopkins via ConsentFactory.org,

    So, the GloboCap-Resistance Minneapolis Putsch appears to have not gone exactly to plan. Once again, Trump failed to go full-Hitler, despite their best efforts to goad him into doing so. They gave it quite a good shot, however. It was more or less a textbook regime-change op, or “color revolution,” or whatever you call it. All the essential pieces were in place. All they needed Trump to do was declare himself dictator and impose martial law, so the generals could step in and remove him from office.

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    Unfortunately for the Resistance, Trump didn’t do that. Instead, he did what he usually does, which is make a total ass of himself on international television. Which … OK, was cringeworthy, but didn’t quite provide the GloboCap gang with the pretext they needed to perp-walk him out of the Oval Office. Which, needless to say, was incredibly frustrating. After four long years of propaganda foreplay, there we were, finally at the moment of truth, and Adolf goes and loses his erection.

    This guy is the worst literal Hitler ever.

    Still, as far as regime-change ops go, and given that this one was a domestic operation, so trickier than the usual foreign version, I’d give the Resistance a B+ for effort.

    Now, before my “conspiracy theorist” readers get too excited about where I’m going with this column … no, this was not a “fake” uprising. There was an authentic uprising at the center of it. There’s always an authentic uprising at the center of every regime-change op, or at least the type that GloboCap has been carrying out and attempting recently. Tunisia, Libya, Egypt, Syria, the Ukraine, Bolivia, Venezuela; these things go pretty much by the numbers.

    Here’s a quick breakdown of how that works.

    • First, you need your civil unrest, large-scale protests, rioting, looting, indiscriminate violence, and so on. Any number of “trigger events” will be sufficient to get this going. Once it is, you can grow it and focus it. A lot of this unrest needs to be authentic, so it’s best to conduct an overwhelming multi-year propaganda campaign to delegitimize and demonize your target as some sort of treasonous Hitlerian monster who’s responsible for every major problem in the country. That way, no matter which trigger event gets things going, it will be his fault.

    • You will want your local government officials to allow this civil unrest to go on until it reaches the point where rioters and looters are rampaging through the hearts of cities, raiding both high-end corporate chain stores and local mom-and-pop-type businesses, and brutally assaulting their defenseless proprietors. This does not mean that these local officials have to restrain or stand down their cops. On the contrary, you want them to unleash their cops, on the protesters, rioters, and TV reporters (during their “live” reports, if possible), and just generally beat the living crap out of everyone. The goal is to generate as much hatred as possible against the regime you are trying to change, and to pressure your designated Hitler-target into losing his patience and overreacting, so you want things to get extremely ugly.

    • Then, you unleash the power of the media to whip folks up into a mindless frenzy of rage against your designated Hitler. You have your “respectable” pundits publish articles calling for his removal from office. You get the military (and former military) to start making noise about how your Hitler is out of control and on the brink of fascism. Then you wait for your Hitler to overreact and attempt to call in the military and impose some form of martial law, at which point you can safely depose him, and pretend that democracy has won the day.

    The media is essential here, because you need to convince the majority of the public (i.e., not just the people protesting and rioting) that things have gotten so out of control, and your imaginary Hitler has gotten so dangerous, that a military coup is the best solution.

    What you’re looking for are headlines like these:

    “We are teetering on a dictatorship” — CNN

    “‘Words of a dictator’: Trump’s threat to deploy military raises spectre of fascism” — The Guardian

    “Donald Trump is Trying to Start a Race War” — Rolling Stone

    “Remove Trump Now” — Slate

    “The Trump Presidency is Over.” — The Guardian

    “Trump Must Be Removed” — The Washington Post

    Also, while the media are doing their thing, you want to get any former members of the intelligence community (or the secret police) to issue public statements like this:

    “There should be no place in American society, much less in our government, for the depravity being demonstrated daily by Donald Trump. Members of his Cabinet who enable such behavior are betraying their oath of office by supporting an increasingly desperate despot.” — John Brennan, former CIA director

    Then you bring the politicians and the military in. This kind of language will usually do it:

    “The fascist speech Donald Trump just delivered verged on a declaration of war against American citizens. I fear for our country tonight and will not stop defending America against Trump’s assault.” — Senator Ron Wyden

    “These are not the words of a president. They are the words of a dictator.” — Senator Kamala Harris

    “‘There is a thin line between the military’s tolerance for questionable partisan moves over the past three years and the point where these become intolerable,” a retired general said.” — The New York Times

    “We must reject and hold accountable those in office who would make a mockery of our Constitution … We can unite without [Trump], drawing on the strengths inherent in our civil society. This will not be easy, as the past few days have shown, but we owe it to our fellow citizens; to past generations that bled to defend our promise; and to our children.” — General James “Mad Dog” Mattis, former Secretary of Defense

    Once the generals have started in growling, you get the media to hype that, hard. Headlines like these will get people’s attention:

    “Revolt of the Generals” — The Washington Post

    “The Officers’ Revolt” — Slate

    “President Donald Trump is facing an unprecedented revolt from the elite corps of ex-military leaders and presidents …” — CNN

    “The US president’s desire to act the strongman poses urgent questions that America’s generals, voters and allies must all answer” — The Guardian Editorial Board

    If you can, it is always a really nice touch if you can drum up … oh, let’s say 280 former national security officials who are really concerned about the state of democracy and “the misuse of the military for political purposes,” and get them to spontaneously call each other up and decide to write a letter together accusing your Hitler of “dividing Americans,” which the media can then disseminate, widely.

    And, of course, what you need for the “educated classes” is an official propagandist like Franklin Foer (who broke the big story about the non-existent “Trump-Russia server” back in 2016 and was rewarded for his service to GloboCap with a lucrative staff writer position at The Atlantic) to come right out and explain that what’s happening is a textbook regime-change operation (because you don’t have to dupe the “educated classes,” most of whom will already be on your side). Something more or less like this:

    “Twitter’s decision to label Trump’s posts as misleading was a hinge moment … once Twitter applied its rules to Trump — and received accolades for its decision — it inadvertently set a precedent … a cycle of noncooperation was set in motion. Local governments were the next layer of the elite to buck Trump’s commands. After the president insisted that governors ‘dominate’ the streets on his behalf, they roundly refused to escalate their response. Indeed, New York and Virginia rebuffed a federal request to send National Guard troops to Washington, D.C. Even the suburb of Arlington, Virginia, pulled its police that had been loaned to control the crowd in Lafayette Square. As each group of elites refused Trump, it became harder for the next to comply in good conscience. In Sharp’s taxonomy, the autocrat’s grasp on power depends entirely on the allegiance of the armed forces. When the armed forces withhold cooperation, the dictator is finished.”

    As I said, it went pretty much right by the book.

    After four long years of official propaganda designed to convince the Western masses that Donald Trump is literally Hitler, GloboCap, the liberal Resistance, and the corporate media all did their best to harness the authentic protests and rioting that routinely follow the murder of an unarmed Black person by the cops, and use it to remove him from office. It would have been a spectacular catharsis, a fitting climax to the War on Populism, but Trump refused to play his part … so, OK, maybe he’s not as dumb as I thought, or at least not totally suicidal.

    No matter, it’s still a big win for GloboCap. Forcibly removing Trump from office is, and has always been, gravy. The main goal of the War on Populism is to delegitimize and demonize him, and everyone who voted for him (and Jeremy Corbyn, and even Bernie Sanders, and everyone who voted for them). Trump is just a symbol, after all. It’s the dissatisfaction with global capitalism (and its smiley, happy, valueless values, and its post-ideological ideology) that GloboCap is determined to crush, so they can get back to the unfinished business of restructuring the entire Middle East, and anywhere else that’s not playing ball, and dissolving what is left of national sovereignty, and transforming the world into one big marketplace, where there will be no fascists, no evil Russians, no religious extremists, no racist statues, no offensive movies, or books, or artworks, no more unauthorized ass-clown presidents, and everyone will be “contact-traced” with their digital health-certificate implants, and the children will stand inside their little “social-distancing” boxes and circles and sing the Coca-Cola theme song through their anti-virus masks at school …

    Sorry … I got a little off-track there. I forgot that this was strictly about racism, and police brutality, and nothing else. I’ll try to stick to the script from now on, but it might be difficult, given my “privilege.” Maybe, if I wrapped myself in kente cloth and got down on my knees in public, that might help me get my mind right. Or, I don’t know. What do you think?

  • US Shale Faces Bankruptcy Wave Amid "Long And Arduous" Global Downturn
    US Shale Faces Bankruptcy Wave Amid “Long And Arduous” Global Downturn

    Tyler Durden

    Wed, 06/10/2020 – 22:05

    The US shale industry could be on the verge of destruction due to the drastic decline in demand and falling energy prices brought on by coronavirus pandemic, a new report says. 

    The Institute for Economics and Peace (IEP) published its 14th edition of the Global Peace Index on Wednesday — outlining how the virus-induced downturn of the energy market and a price war between Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) and Russia — could result in a “collapse” of US shale.

    “The sharp fall in oil prices will affect political regimes in the Middle East, especially in Saudi Arabia, Iraq and Iran, which may result in the collapse of the shale oil industry in the US, unless oil prices return to their prior levels,” IEP warns.

    The report goes on to say “this global recession will be long and arduous,” outlining how weakness in commercial, travel and industrial activity will persist for an extended period, indicating oil prices will remain subdued: 

    “These markets were already effected by an over-supply, emanating from Russia and Saudi Arabia who could not agree on production curbs. On April 20 the price of crude oil turned negative for the first time in history, as seen in Figure 1.9. Demand had collapsed so rapidly that overstocked producers were willing to pay buyers to take away excess inventory. The negative price was a short-lived technicality, due to the way futures contracts are written; with oil prices soon returning to positive territory. Nevertheless, the unprecedented episode highlighted the severity of demand collapsing worldwide.” 

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    Crude prices stabilized in April after OPEC+ agreed to production cuts. Last weekend, an extension of the 9.7 million barrels per day (bpd) cuts were seen through July. The cuts equal about 10% of global supply, which has led to a 172% rise in Brent crude futures over the last 33 trading sessions. Despite the extension in cuts, Brent crude prices have stalled in the 43-40 level, now at risk of reversing. 

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    Goldman Sachs warned in a Tuesday note that a tactical “pull-back in prices in the coming weeks with our short-term forecast of $35/bbl vs. Brent spot prices of $43/bbl.”

    The oil market only moved into deficit late May and still faces the daunting challenge of normalizing a billion barrels of excess inventories. Yet, the oil relief rally remains unfazed, with prices doubling and exceeding our year-end price target just six weeks after the likely cycles lows.

    This rebound has been fueled by a macro risk-on backdrop and a policy-induced Chinese crude import binge yet fundamentals are turning bearish: demand expectations are running ahead of a more gradual and still highly uncertain recovery, shale and Libyan shut-in production are coming back online, and prices are at levels where OPEC supply cuts should ease and Chinese purchases slow.

    With OPEC’s latest cut already more than priced in, we now forecast a pull-back in prices in the coming weeks with our short-term Brent forecast of $35/bbl vs. spot prices of $43/bbl. Just as strengthening physical oil prices led us to turn constructive on the oil market on May 1, very poor refining margins and the recent sharp decline in US crude bases now comfort us in our sequentially bearish outlook. – Goldman’s energy analyst Damien Courvalin wrote in the note. 

    Courvalin outlined four reasons why fundamentals could drag crude prices lower in the near term:

    The oil rally remains unfazed, however, with Brent prices doubling and exceeding our year-end price target just six weeks after the likely cycles lows. We see three reasons behind this rebound: (1) a macro risk-on backdrop with oil rallying with equities and dollar depreciation, (2) a policy-induced Chinese crude import binge, and (3) frictions in releasing crude from storage as the deficit starts.

    While positioning leaves room for this rally to continue, we see four reasons why fundamentals are likely to set the stage for a pull-back in coming weeks:

    (1) demand expectations are running ahead of a more gradual and still uncertain rebound,

    (2) both shale and Libyan shut-in production are currently restarting,

    (3) prices are nearing levels where OPEC supply cuts should ease and Chinese purchases slow, and

    (4) the inventory overhang remains daunting with our latest deep dive still pointing to 1 bn in excess stocks.

    The scale of the rally and the size of the inventory overhang are two challenges for OPEC+, threatening the higher prices, volumes and market-share targeted through 2021. While large cuts are needed to normalize excess inventories, too long a cut instead benefits competing high-cost producers, with US E&P HY debt issuance restarting. As we have argued, this should point to OPEC soon targeting higher output before shale activity inflects. If successfully carried-out, such a strategy should weigh on long-dated prices, helping achieve the backwardation that benefits low-cost producers.

     As Goldman gets bearish on energy, hedge fund positioning in crude futures last week suggest the rally is running out of steam.

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    Perhaps the bearishness building in crude extends from lackluster global demand and continued oversupply conditions, due mostly because there will be no V-shaped recovery in the global economy this year or next, which was highlighted in our piece titled “OECD Warns Of Deepest Global Downturn In Century, Second Virus Wave.” 

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    The latest Energy Information Administration (EIA) report noted Wednesday that US crude stockpiles reached a record high.

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    With another possible decline in crude prices ahead, it remains to be seen if President Trump can save heavily indebted US shale companies. When prices crashed several months ago, the president struggled to get aid to the collapsing industry. 

    Lower for longer crude prices, in a global downturn, which could continue through at least 2021 — could be what finally leads to a  bankruptcy wave in shale.  

  • The Environmentalist's Dream Came True
    The Environmentalist’s Dream Came True

    Tyler Durden

    Wed, 06/10/2020 – 21:45

    Authored by Joakim Book via The American Institute for Economic Research,

    Have you recently heard anything about the major existential threat to our lives? I don’t mean the exaggerated virality of the virus currently wreaking havoc with our globalized societies, but the endlessly dangerous impact of climate change? Of rising sea levels and volatile weather leading to crop failures and mass starvation and collapse of precious ecosystems? 

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    You know, the imminent Sixth Mass Extinction? The “ecocide” that the French President Emmanuel Macron called the Amazon fires last year and that the British newspaper The Guardian routinely describes all kinds of things impacting nature?

    I didn’t think so.

    Nor should you have: as humans, we clearly had more urgent things to worry about than dying polar bears or cleared rainforests or other kinds of climate damages – real or imagined – accumulating centuries down the line. In the economist’s dry language, our time preferences spiked: we suddenly cared a lot more about the present compared to the future than we did until recently.

    At the same time, strangely, the environmentalists had a field day during the corona pandemic. The anti-human policies they have called for, protested for, disrupted societies and other people’s lives for, were suddenly implemented en masse, albeit on a temporary basis. Think of it as a trial for green policies. 

    To most naive environmentalists, this was a hugely successful experiment. We could and did shut down the modern industrialized society they frantically detest. Factories across many provinces of China, the workshop of the world, shut down for months; Italy paused its market society while their dead piled up, and most other countries followed suit: malls closed, downtowns were eerily empty, supermarkets rationed both goods and customers. Airports and planes, those busy places usually at any given time housing over a million people – a Dallas-sized city in the skies – all but closed. 

    And the environment did improve a little. Air quality in many Chinese cities improved, almost overnight. CO2 emissions for the first quarter of 2020 fell by a full 5% as opposed to growing steadily at 2-3% a year – “one of the biggest reductions in CO2 emissions on record,” as the World Economic Forum described the news. The reduction of emissions were even seen from space, almost instantaneously. 

    Intellectually consistent greens should be celebrating in the streets. 

    Yet, they’re fairly quiet. And most scientists are not so happy. Even though we stopped air travel, mostly stopped eating out and reduced our consumption, some 80% of emissions went unaffected – think heating, electricity, food consumption, and the many disposables we now – reasonably – started using. The coronavirus shutdown shows that we can do a lot to change our societies and it still wouldn’t make more than a dent in the global emissions. Extrapolating the 5%-first quarter reduction in emissions for the rest of the year puts us back roughly to emission levels of 2012, not exactly a year celebrated for its climate achievements.  

    Was it Worth It?

    Asking this annoying economist’s question is the attempt to be balanced in a world gone mad. Answer it requires us to hold more than one value in our minds at the same time, trading off one for the other – an attribute that our political friends on the left and right don’t like doing. The world is not, contrary to most everyone’s illusions, one-dimensional; there is no one thing that overwhelmingly matters. Instead, careful trade-offs between health, financial and economic well-being, and climate impact do.

    Most people do want to preserve nature and minimize our climate impact – but not “at the expense of their children going cold or hungry.”

    With 13% unemployment in the U.S. and reports of all kinds of ills increasing – ranging from poverty, to domestic violence and suicides – whether some percentage points off global emissions were worth it is highly doubtful. Even setting aside the pandemic for a moment, one has to place a very large value on polar bears and trees, and a very small value on human flourishing to rationalize that trade-off. You can, in principle, have whichever valuations of those things that you want, but very few people would share them – and I wager that most environmentalists themselves won’t. 

    Andy Kessler at the Wall Street Journal nailed it when he, in April, wrote: 

    “Today we have 17 million freshly unemployed, but . . . carbon emissions have plummeted, dolphins returned to Venice, wolves walk the streets of San Francisco and pot use is at an all-time high. Unicorns and equality everywhere? Not quite. Pollution and crime are down because we’re all basically in prison. It’s awful. Set us free.”

    For some people, somewhere, spending unanticipated time with loved ones has been a blessing. For others, this family love has been mediated through phones or hospital windows. Don’t visit your elders. Don’t see your friends. If you do, stay far away from them. Carnal desires or intimacy outside of cohabitation is clearly not essential. In every conceivable way, life has been worse. Travels for leisure, pleasure, or business have ceased. Incomes for insanely large chunks of American society has dwindled, if not stopped entirely. That’s not great. 

    Of the dystopia the green left idealizes, the Spring of 2020 was but a taste. A taste that we endured, survived, hankered along because of extreme measures by businesses and governments designed to hibernate commercial and civic life – and save our vulnerable elderly population. Fiscal deficits and money-printing of astronomical magnitudes. It could only last so long, which is why many countries are eager to open their societies before the still-meagre tourist season of 2020.  

    The green new deal of anti-human, anti-capitalist harmony would run this route all the way, with no end in sight, no wealth or saving to draw from, no fantastically productive supply chains left over from a prosperous and globalized economy temporarily put on hold. 

    Massive reduction in living standards – or a massive reduction in people. That was always the green offer on the table. We have to abandon this mistaken belief that human activity is parasitical to the planet. The always-great Matt Ridley writes: 

    “We must not despair or return permanently to autarky and localism. With the right precautions, an open, free-trading, free-moving, innovating world is possible without pandemics and is essential for raising living standard.” 

    If the damages done by mandated shutdowns and fearful populace – financially, socially, economically – looks devastating to you, that’s but a preview of what a Brave New Green World looks like. 

    Let’s not have it.

  • Researchers Find At Least 7 Different Strains Of Coronavirus Circulated In California
    Researchers Find At Least 7 Different Strains Of Coronavirus Circulated In California

    Tyler Durden

    Wed, 06/10/2020 – 21:25

    The latest research published last night by the journal Science repudiated prior claims that early incidences of the virus in the US petered out, and instead found that at least seven different strains of the virus that have been circulating in California since the early days of the outbreak, suggesting that the outbreak in the US didn’t have one source, but evolved from a large number of travelers spreading the virus to the US. As we noted earlier, new satellite data suggests the virus emerged in Wuhan much earlier than Beijing has acknowledged.

    The analysis found that the cases of the disease, including travelers coming from Europe and Asia, spread in Washington and California, before the virus spread from those states across the rest of the country, though it’s probably fair to assume that a similarly diverse number of strains traveled to New York.

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    “While the sample size is small, this study suggests that there may have been multiple introductions of the virus into the United States,” Brandon Brown, an associate professor of social medicine population and public health at the University of California-Riverside, told UPI.“The findings may actually leave us with more questions than answers regarding the introduction of SARS-CoV-2 in the U.S.,” he added. Brown was involved with the study.

    The study published in Science was conducted by a team of California public health officials and international researchers analyzing viral samples from 36 patients spanning nine counties and the Grand Princess cruise ship, which docked in San Francisco Bay in March after an outbreak occurred on board.

    A detailed genetic analysis revealed that at least seven different SARS-CoV-2 strains spread in California, and these strains showed some overlap with Washington State.

    The press positioned the research as supportive of contact tracing. But many remain skeptical of the usefulness of the technique this late in the game…

    There was no “predominant lineage” and limited transmission between communities within the state, they added.

    In general, the findings “support contact tracing, social distancing and travel restrictions to contain SARS-CoV-2 spread in California and other states,” the authors said.

    “Initially, we were focused on preventing the introduction of the virus via travel, but we soon began to understand the prevalence of the virus in the community among those who had not traveled,” Brown said.

    “This study does illustrate the potential multiple introductions of the virus into Northern California, which makes it more difficult to control the spread.”

    …particularly since the WHO has acknowledged that asymptomatic cases don’t play as big a role in spreading the virus as we previously suspected.

  • Lazare: Christopher Steele's Very Stupid Dossier
    Lazare: Christopher Steele’s Very Stupid Dossier

    Tyler Durden

    Wed, 06/10/2020 – 21:05

    Authored by Daniel Lazare via The Strategic Culture Foundation,

    “Whom the gods would destroy they first make mad.”

    So declared Henry Wadsworth Longfellow.

    But he was wrong. The gods don’t make them mad – they make them stupid.

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    Christopher Steele’s famous dossier, back in the news now that the U.S. Senate Judiciary Committee has begun hearings on Russiagate, is a case in point. The FBI took the dossier oh-so-seriously back in 2016, sending out agents to double-check the ex-MI-6 agent’s informants and using it to obtain secret search warrants against alleged Russia go-between Carter Page. Nicholas Kristof pronounce the dossier “plausible” in a January 2017 New York Times column entitled, “Donald Trump: Kremlin Employee of the Month,” while Adam Schiff regaled a House Intelligence Committee hearing with its contents. Former FBI Director James Comey continued to insist that the dossier’s most notorious finding – the celebrated “golden showers” episode in the Moscow Ritz Carlton – was “possible” well into 2018.

    But as we now know, it was all nonsense. Steele’s Russian sources began backing away from the dossier as soon as it came out, confessing in follow-up interviews that the Ritz Carlton incident was nothing more than “rumor and speculation” and that other stories that Steele passed along with a straight face were the sort of gossip that friends bat back and forth over beers. As for Steele himself, former intelligence colleagues told the bureau that, while enthusiastic, he suffers from “lack of self-awareness” and “didn’t always exercise great judgment.”

    The stories were baseless while Steele himself was unreliable – which is no doubt why the FBI kept such interviews under wraps. After all, why let the facts get in the way of a good investigation that’s generating scads of headlines by the minute, especially since the target is an all-purpose whipping boy like Vladimir Putin? Indeed, under wraps is where they would have stayed if Department of Justice Inspector General Michael Horowitz hadn’t ferreted them out and published them in a stunning report last December.

    But the question is not so much why such findings were covered up, but why things got so far to begin with. The problem with the Steele dossier is not merely that it’s uncorroborated and under-researched. The problem is that it’s ridiculous on its face, a tale told by an idiot that only another idiot could believe. Any normal person would give it a quick read and toss it in the wastebasket.

    Why? Let’s begin with the opening line: “Russian regime has been cultivating, supporting and assisting TRUMP for at least 5 years.”

    Since Steele began compiling the dossier in June 2016, that means that the Kremlin had been working with Trump since at least 2011. But this is absurd since 2011 was Trump’s annus horribilis, the year he fell flat on his face after putting out feelers about entering the upcoming presidential race. Pundits dismissed him as a reality TV star looking for cheap publicity, Barack Obama skewered him mercilessly at the 2011 White House Correspondents’ Dinner, while Republican strategist Karl Rove dismissed his candidacy as “a joke.” Writer Erik Hedegaard described Trump as “a Barnum-type showman” with hair a “patriotic shade of amber waves of grain” in a hilarious Rolling Stone profile that’s still a must-read.

    Trump was a walking, talking, bouffant-wearing punch line, in other words, which is why Russian intelligence would have had to have been positively clairvoyant to pick him out as someone who would one day be in a position to “sow discord and disunity both within the U.S. itself, but more especially within the Transatlantic alliance,” as the dossier puts it.

    A few pages later, however, Steele reports that the Kremlin has been cultivating Trump not for five years, but for eight, i.e. starting back in 2008, which is even more absurd since Trump, struggling to keep himself afloat amid the greatest financial crisis in eighty years, was threatening to default on a $40-million loan from Deutsche Bank. Smart as Putin may be, he’d have to be a super-Einstein to see a foundering businessman like his as presidential material.

    Thus, Steele’s core thesis – that Trump and Putin had a working relationship going back years – doesn’t pass the most elementary smell test. From there, things only get worse.

    “So far,” he continues, “TRUMP has declined various sweetener real estate business deals offered him in Russia in order to further the Kremlin’s cultivation of him.”

    The implication is that Trump was playing hard to get. Yet Steele goes on to say:

    “Finally, regarding TRUMP’s claimed minimal investment profile in Russia, a separate source with direct knowledge said this had not been for want of trying. TRUMP’s previous efforts had included exploring the real estate sector in St Petersburg as well as Moscow but in the end TRUMP had had to settle for the use of extensive sexual services there from local prostitutes rather than business success.”

    TRUMP – intelligence agents are fond of capital letters – was turning down business while struggling unsuccessfully to drum it up.

    As for those St. Petersburg prostitutes, Steele confesses that the details are elusive because “all direct witnesses to this recently had been ‘silenced,’ i.e. bribed or coerced to disappear.” This sounds dark, mysterious, and very Russian. But no such difficulties exist with regard to the “golden showers” episode at the Moscow Ritz Carlton because the hotel “was known to be under FSB [i.e. Russian Federal Security Service] control with microphones and concealed cameras in all the main rooms to record anything they wanted to.” Video and audio tapes would certainly make for impressive evidence except that the dossier gives no indication of actually listening to or viewing such material. The result is an evidence-free assertion that’s both unproven and incontrovertible — which is to say, trash.

    Then there’s the curious matter of the Jews. In describing a vast Russian intelligence operation aimed at sabotaging Hillary Clinton’s 2016 campaign, Steele accuses the Kremlin of making “heavy use” of “coercion and blackmail” to enlist “U.S. citizens of Russian (Jewish) origin.” The dossier continues:

    “On the mechanism for rewarding relevant assets based in the U.S., and effecting a two-way flow of intelligence and other useful information, Source E claimed that Russian diplomatic staff in key cities such as New York, Washington DC and Miami were using the ‘emigre’ ‘pension’ distribution system as cover. The operation therefore depended on key people in the U.S. Russian emigre community for its success. Tens of thousands of dollars were involved.”

    Not only had the Kremlin entered into a working relationship with Trump, evidently, but it had also entered into a working relationship with America’s large Russian-Jewish émigré community. Two kinds of paranoia, anti-Russian and anti-Jewish, thus merged to form a single great Russo-Judaic conspiracy stretching from Moscow to Miami Beach. Since the dossier provides nothing by way of back-up, this was another reason to throw it in the garbage. But the FBI, which collectively seems to have the cranial capacity of a brontosaurus, thought the theory was worth pursuing regardless.

    An exchange between Lisa and Peter Strzok gives us an idea of the depths to which the bureau had sunk. Page was the FBI in-house attorney who texted in August 2016, “[Trump’s] not ever going to become president, right? Right?!” To which Strzok, the agent in charge of the Russia investigation, replied: “No. No he won’t. We’ll stop it.” Eyebrows went up all over Washington when that little exchange got out.

    But a conversation a few weeks earlier is no less revealing. After Page mentioned a news item about Trump’s alleged Kremlin ties, Strzok texted that he’s “partial to any women sending articles about how nasty the Russians are.” To which Page replied that Russians “are probably the worst. Very little I finding redeeming about this. Even in history. Couple of good writers and artists I guess.” Strzok agreed: “f***ing conniving cheating savages. At statecraft, athletics, you name it. I’m glad I’m on Team USA.”

    The exchange was racist, bigoted, and most of all stupid – painfully so. Couple of good writers and artists I guess? Does that mean Page has never read Tolstoy or Turgenev, Babel or Bulgakov? That she’s never heard of Tchaikovsky or Prokofiev? Never seen a movie by Eisenstein or an opera by Borodin?

    The mind reels. But the conversation speaks volumes about how intellectual levels had fallen. Basically, intelligence agents would believe anything about Russia, no matter how ridiculous, as long as it put it in a negative light.

    Undoubtedly, narrowness of this sort had something to do with twenty-five years of unipolarity, that belief that, with the fall of the Soviets, the United States was now “the indispensable nation,” as Madeleine Albright put it in 1998, able to “stand tall and … see further than other countries into the future.” Since America could do no wrong, it no longer had to think about whether it was following the right course or not. It no longer had to think, period, and the fact that pundits hailed Albright as inestimably wise and profound meant that it would only sink deeper and deeper into thoughtlessness.

    The world’s sole remaining superpower thus plunged ever deeper into arrogance and idiocy, as the entire Russiagate disaster shows. Former Italian Prime Minister Romano Prodi was fond of pointing out that no country can be both rich and stupid for more than a generation. He meant it as a reproach to the Italians, but he could have been addressing America as well.

    Now that it’s crashing and burning from terminal stupidity, it’s proving him right yet again.

  • American Cities Becoming 'A Big Toilet' For Lack Of Public Restrooms Amid COVID-19
    American Cities Becoming ‘A Big Toilet’ For Lack Of Public Restrooms Amid COVID-19

    Tyler Durden

    Wed, 06/10/2020 – 20:45

    Over the past months of COVID-19 lockdowns across nearly all states, and as many counties and cities observed and enforced strict social distancing policies, America has seen a rise in public urination. 

    The reality is that whether walking in downtown urban spaces, or on long distance travel, people are facing a dilemma of either encountering no available public restrooms given businesses and restaurants were closed – or alternately not feeling comfortable enough going into places like gas station given pandemic fears.

    The New York Post this week describes this rising phenomenon in the city aptly with the title: With no public bathrooms, the Big Apple is now ‘the Big Toilet’.

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    Yes, the city is starting to come back to life, but with some draw backs as not everything has caught up, as the report begins:

    But this re-emergence has come with a stream of issues — mainly a steady flow of revelers freely peeing in public since most bathrooms remain closed. And now, with thousands of protesters taking to the streets each day, more people than ever are contributing to NYC’s No. 1 problem by whizzing in the wild.

    “Last night, my co-worker saw some guy just coming down the street and pulling down his pants [to urinate],” Spano tells The Post. “She was like, ‘Nah, not here, man.’

    It’s a bit of a Catch-22: on the one hand public urination remains a minor offense punishable with a small fine (after a few years ago the city moved the decriminalize such low level offenses), and on the other people remain skittish about using potentially germ-infested public toilets.

    This also as many shops now opening still have a “no bathroom” edict, especially given they are subject to occupancy limitations and are trying to prevent unnecessary potential exposure amid the coronavirus crisis. 

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    American Cities Becoming ‘A Big Toilet’. File image via iStock.

    So often the only “safe” option is to pee on the street or in an alley: “There’s definitely been an uptick on this street, from what I’ve seen. But most people at least go in a corner or have friends cover them up,” one New Yorker told The Post.

    Apparently it’s now a big topic of conversation for anyone going out as venues open back up: 

    “My friends and I talk about [public urination] all of the time now,” Sophia, a 23-year-old who lives in Park Slope and asked that her last name not be used, tells The Post.

    “It’s a big topic. Since the pandemic, I have done it myself in Prospect Park, behind a dumpster in Williamsburg and Greenpoint. All of the public restrooms like McDonald’s and Starbucks are closed. If you are far away from your home, what are you supposed to do?”

    No doubt this is an increasing conversation nationally, and might also explain why there’s been a mass increase in RV and motor home buying nationwide, or aptly dubbed “Covid campers”.

    After all, a motor home means you can relieve yourself at any time while traveling, without having to enter a public space. 

    Meanwhile in New York and other major cities, there’s growing concern over foul and rank smelling streets as more and more people – not just the homeless – do their business outside. 

  • The Political Left Used George Floyd's Dead Body As A Social Justice Marionette
    The Political Left Used George Floyd’s Dead Body As A Social Justice Marionette

    Tyler Durden

    Wed, 06/10/2020 – 20:25

    Authored by Brandon Smith via Alt-Market.com,

    There is an important question in the George Floyd case that almost no one seems to be asking, and I think it needs to be addressed:  Is there any evidence that George Floyd died because he is black?

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    I bring it up because the prevailing narrative from the mainstream media and Black Lives Matter is that this is a verified fact, yet, I’ve seen no proof to back the claim. I’ve seen no evidence so far that any of the police involved have a background of racial prejudice. I do know two of them including Derek Chauvin had a history of abuse complaints from people of various races, but this is a separate issue. How is it that a discussion that should have been about police brutality and abuse of power was allowed to be hijacked and turned into an issue of “white supremacy” that all white Americans are supposed to apologize for?

    These days, simply asking these questions will trigger automatic accusations of “bigotry”. If you aren’t an “ally” of Black Lives Matter then you are surely a racist; or so we are told. But I don’t model my thinking according to a hive mind of emotionally stunted reactionaries, and neither do a lot of Americans. Many of us have to THINK about these situations logically and rationally and come to our own conclusions based on the facts at hand.

    I watched the full video, and like most people I was disturbed by the cold robotic manner in which Derek Chauvin applied the full weight of his body to a single point of his knee on the back of George Floyd’s neck for a period of 9 minutes that seemed like an eternity. Anyone with a background in medicine or mixed martial arts knows that you do not do this unless you intend to permanently injure or kill a person. Damage to the vagus nerve and cervical spinal nerves can cause serious dysfunction to the rest of the body, including possible pulmonary distress.  Police procedure specifically teaches officers to avoid such tactics.  Chauvin had 19 years of experience and training, unlike the two rookie officers helping him hold Floyd down; he knew better and he did it anyway.

    I have no interest in defending Chauvin. There is no excuse for his actions as is evident by the video. I think a lot of conservatives agree with this. If leftists had simply stuck to the reality of the situation and hammered home the danger of abuse of power regardless of a person’s color, then there wouldn’t be a problem. It’s one of the few issues that leftists and conservatives find common ground.

    Unfortunately, George Floyd’s body has now been devoured as a sacrifice to the social justice cult. They are ravenous now, frothing at the mouth and dancing with glee, because the hard left exploits tragedy as a vehicle to mold society according to their ideals.  They NEED tragedy and division to keep their movement relevant.

    Floyd has been turned into a morbid puppet for their benefit and entertainment. They have made his death about race politics and victim group status. They have made his death a monument to their fantasy world in which “systemic racism” and “white privilege” is the cause of all their struggles and failures.  So now, we are at an impasse.

    In last week’s article, I tried to speak to conservatives directly on the dangers of overreacting to the protests and riots.  Specifically, I warned about the building discussion of “martial law” and handing the government unconstitutional powers in the name of security.  I believe this is ultimately what the establishment wants – To manipulate one side of the political spectrum or the other into supporting totalitarianism.

    They tried appealing to the political left in the name of protecting people from the pandemic, and they have tried appealing to the political right in the name of protecting people from the riots.  I want to make it clear, though, that the social justice movement is a key driver in the chaos the US is facing this year and into the foreseeable future.  Conservatives need to avoid being lured by the temptations of government power, but the extreme left is still a considerable problem.

    No justice no peace? If protest groups truly want peaceful resolution they would have realized by now that the officers involved in the event have been arrested and charged and the city of Minneapolis is even proclaiming an end to the municipal police altogether. Justice is being served, perhaps overtly just to appease the movement. But this is not enough for BLM and the hard left, and nothing ever will be.

    One of the defining traits of the social justice horde is that they are never satisfied; give them what they want and they smell blood in the water. Fulfill their demands and they will draft more demands. Apologize, even when you have done nothing wrong, and they will attack you with more aggression to make sure you know they own you. Once you placate these people to gain their approval, you will never be free.

    There is nothing that white Americans in general need to apologize for.  The current conflict is NOT rooted in white supremacy, the conflict is rooted in the leftist mob and its collectivist zealotry.  They are the divisive factor.

    I have heard it said for many years that the great weakness of conservative movements compared to progressive movements is that we often lack uniformity when it comes to action. We all tend to agree on the causes of problems (big government, centralization, central banking, globalist influences within government, a lack of respect for the constitutional foundation of our country, etc.), but we vehemently disagree on specific solutions. That said, I prefer the weakness of too much individuality over the mob mentality of leftist movements.

    Following gatekeepers blindly in terms of action even when those action are utterly wrong and devoid of reason is a swift path to collectivist tyranny.  It is the reason leftist movements are so concerning; they are easily led by terrible people.

    They assume they are on the right side of history, and they feel they have no need for reason or facts.  The race card is one of their favorite shock-and-awe weapons as it is a highly charged and emotional brush-fire that tends to choke out rationality in people’s minds.

    The left will cite certain stats until they are blue in the face to support their claims that everything is about race, while ignoring other stats that are contrary to their narrative. Anything that is contrary to the narrative is ignored. The narrative is god, and those who control the narrative control the political left.

    For example, in terms of the George Floyd issue they will bring up the argument that 24% of police shooting deaths in the US are black people, even though black people make up only 13% of the US population. This number is usually derived from annual FBI crime stats and would be rather damning except it’s only half the story. What they don’t mention is those same stats show that blacks also make up the majority of violent crimes in the US including murder and robbery.

    According to the FBI’s 2016 – 2018 crime statistics, blacks are responsible for 52% to 53% of murders in the US, again while only representing 13% of the population. Blacks also represent 27% of ALL criminal activity in the US despite their much lower population. Isn’t it possible that the over-representation of violence in the black community might lead to a higher number of black deaths during police encounters?

    This does not mean that all police killings of blacks are justified including the killing of George Floyd, but I find it interesting that social justice warriors consistently ignore the data on black participation in violent crime. If BLM wants to play the statistics game they need to be corrected when they cherry-pick data to support a baseless ideological premise.  The BLM seems utterly disinterested in nationwide protests to stop black-on-black crime even though it is a much bigger problem than blacks being killed by cops.  Hell, they won’t even acknowledge the death of an elderly black man, David Dorn, at the hands of looters during one of their protests in St.Louis.  It simply doesn’t fit the image of the white supremacy bogeyman they want to project.

    Remember BLM, facts are more important than your feelings or agenda.  All lives matter, not just those you prefer to use to further your political goals.

    Beyond that, the claims of systemic racism among law enforcement simply don’t hold up when one examines the number of white people that also die at the hands of police each year.  There are psychopathic police (white and black) that kill unarmed people regardless of color, and there are just as many issues with black psychopaths as there are with white psychopaths.

    Systemic abuse of power? It’s definitely an issue, that requires a change in how individual cases of bad policing are handled.  The thin-blue-line garbage needs to go out the window and bad cops need to be punished, not protected in the name of “saving the institution”.  But systemic racism? There’s no evidence of it except the contrived data that groups like BLM prop up to support their fairy tales.

    So then, why is it that white people are being throttled in the mainstream media and on social media like some kind of evil monolith with demands that we sublimate ourselves and beg the social justice cult for their forgiveness? This trend of white shame rituals is bizarre, but it is not unprecedented. It is a socio-political power strategy used in the past by communist movements, most prominently in China during the cultural revolution, called “Struggle Sessions”.

    At bottom, all communist movements are the same. The Cultural Revolution in China was exploited by Mao as a means to destroy his political rivals and to cement his power. Even after Mao had killed millions through food production policies that led to mass starvation, he convinced a large portion of the Chinese communist devout that they were actually “victims of imperialists”, and that they needed to rise up and weed out the hidden threat. They were convinced that they were rebelling when they were actually serving the interests of Mao’s establishment the entire time.

    The goal of the Cultural Revolution was two-fold:

    First, it was rooted in the concepts of Futurism, a movement started over a century ago that is cited as an inspiration for the Bolshevik revolution.  It argues that all old ideals, principles and ways of living must be destroyed to make way for “new ideas” which are “naturally superior”. The movement attempted to erase Chinese history and replace it with a zero point of communism. They removed museums and ancient relics, tore down statues and buildings, and even changed the names on street signs that were considered “problematic”.  The past did not exist; the new history started with the communist revolution.

    Second, the revolution was engineered to terrorize anyone that held views contrary to the collectivist religion. Anyone with conservative, individualistic or free market inklings was rounded up and exposed publicly. They were forced into city squares to be psychologically tortured and shamed; some were physically tortured and executed to the delight of the mob. In their cult-like fervor, the frothing masses felt waves of ecstasy as the evil imperialist sympathizers were forced to repent in front of the crowd for their sins.

    Sound familiar?  It’s happening right now in the US as BLM and social justice receive mainstream recognition, and there are a staggering number of similarities to the Chinese cultural revolution.  It’s almost as if someone is using the exact same playbook, right down to the unnerving religious fervor of the movement.

    You better have a black square on your social media accounts for the next “Blackout Tuesday”, otherwise you are not an ally and are likely a racist. As a company or corporation you must show open support for the political left and signal your virtue, otherwise you are a racist or fascist business. Say anything on Twitter that is outside of the approved social justice language? You will be hounded by acolytes until you beg for forgiveness. Say you are sorry, tell them you will “do better” and “check your privilege” and maybe you will be allowed to remain as a useful servant to the collectivist blob.

    Hundreds, perhaps thousands of law enforcement officers around the country and the world are bending the knee to social justice, most likely ordered to do so by city officials as sign of fealty to the movement. This is leading to some very dangerous circumstances.

    This kind of escalation is why liberty minded people have such mixed feelings on social justice warriors. Their behavior is equally hilarious and horrifying.

    These people crossed my radar several years ago and I have observed them ever since.  Certain character traits and attitudes have become apparent:  They can be childish and emotional to the point of schizophrenia. They throw wild tantrums when they don’t immediately get what they want,  responsibility and merit are disdainful ideas to them. They are narcissistic and selfish, yet they see themselves as philanthropists and martyrs.  They are often vindictive, spiteful and viciously underhanded, seeking the total annihilation of anyone that disagrees with them.  They do not know how to produce to succeed, they only know how to destroy and bring others down.  They raise themselves up by standing on the ashes of others.  They represent the dregs of humanity; the only people I can think of that are worse are global elitists, but if SJW’s were given as much money and influence, they would be comparably monstrous.

    If they remain contained they can be entertaining. When they are allowed to feed on power, when they spread and fester into a society like cancer injecting their ideological venom into everything, they become a threat.

    As I have noted this week, the establishment benefits greatly by escalating incidents like George Floyd’s death into a race war or political war. The hard left while insane is not the core danger, but they are useful to powerful people. True conservatives and those that love freedom must be careful. We must act, but with calm professionalism, not rage. We must let the leftists know we have no intention of bending the knee, but we are also not stupid enough to support a totalitarian response and abandon our constitutional principles.

    The solution is actually a simple one, and it’s one I have advocated for many years. The extreme left wants to eradicate municipal police? Fine. They should be replaced with constitutional Sheriffs that are voted in and voted out by the public. I have no love for police brutality either, so why not make them all accountable through the voting system. If a sheriff’s deputy attacks or kills an unarmed or innocent person, then there is incentive for the Sheriff to arrest and punish that deputy, otherwise the community might not elect him again.

    What if this is not enough to satisfy them (they are never satisfied) and the extreme left wants to blame an imaginary white patriarchy to justify riots and looting?  The Floyd protests will probably fizzle out soon, but they are always looking for new excuses to inflate racial tensions.

    Citizen militias can be formed to protect neighborhoods and property. It’s already being done today. Wherever civilians form security groups to protect towns and businesses, BLM and Antifa run away, never show up, or remain very well behaved.  The media pretends these security groups are pointless or don’t exist, so don’t expect positive coverage of the accomplishment, just know that they work.  No need to get violent, no need for martial law or oppressive government power; just regular citizens providing a show of force to send a message:

    Keep your protests peaceful and all is well. Try to harm us or our neighborhoods, try to impose your ideology on us, and you will be put down.

    *  *  *

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  • Watch: US F-22 Raptors Intercept No Less Than 8 Russian Warplanes Off Alaska
    Watch: US F-22 Raptors Intercept No Less Than 8 Russian Warplanes Off Alaska

    Tyler Durden

    Wed, 06/10/2020 – 20:10

    The US North American Aerospace Defense Command (NORAD) announced that US F-22 Raptor fighter jets intercepted a large group of Russian military planes a mere 30 miles off Alaska’s coast early Wednesday morning.

    Though such intercepts over the Bering Sea and near Alaska have occurred on a near monthly basis recently, what makes this particular incident notable is that it included no less than eight Russian warplanes coming near Alaska.

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    NORAD photo released of F-22 Raptor intercept of Russian bomber. 

    A half dozen Su-35 fighters and a Beriev A-50 surveillance aircraft were reportedly escorting two long range Tu-95 bombers, according to multiple reports. The intercept incidents appeared to have been in two waves. 

    The incident was further confirmed via Russian Defense Ministry video.

    The US Raptor intercept is shown starting at the :45 mark…

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    NORAD also tweeted that “North American Aerospace Defense Command F-22 Raptors, supported by KC-135 Stratotankers and E-3 Airborne Warning and Control System, completed two intercepts of Russian Bomber formations entering the Alaskan Air Defense Identification Zone early this morning.”

    Typically such intercepts include a couple planes on either side, but in this instance a lot of aircraft in the air and near each other at once, also surprisingly close to the Alaskan shoreline. 

    NORAD Commander Air Force Gen. Terrence J. O’Shaughnessy noted US force readiness at a moment Russia appears to be increasingly brazen in testing NORAD’s potential vulnerabilities. 

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    “Intercepting multiple Russian aircraft demonstrates NORAD forces’ readiness and capability to defend the homelands 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, 365 days a year,” the commander said.

    “Flying air patrols protects the approaches to our nations and sends a clear message we continue executing our homeland defense missions with the same capability and capacity we always bring to the fight,” he added.

  • Civil War 2.0 Weather Report: The Tsunami Begins, But You Knew That…
    Civil War 2.0 Weather Report: The Tsunami Begins, But You Knew That…

    Tyler Durden

    Wed, 06/10/2020 – 19:55

    Authored by John Wilder via WilderWealthyWise.com,

    “If we can stop him, we shall prevent the collapse of Western Civilization.  No pressure.”

    – Sherlock Holmes:  A Game of Shadows

    In the first issue of the Civil War Weather Report, I put together ten steps to a new civil war.  I did not expect that on the one year anniversary of that first report we’d move from step 6 nearly to step 9.  Step 9. is, of course, two minutes to midnight.

    1. Things are going well.

    2. People begin to create groups.

    3. People begin to look for preferential treatment.

    4. Opposing ideology to the prevailing civic ideology is introduced and spread.

    5. Those who have an opposing ideology are considered evil.

    6. People actively avoid being near those of opposing ideology.  Might move from communities or states just because of ideology.

    7. Common violence. Organized violence is occurring monthly.

    8. Opposing sides develop governing/war structures.  Just in case.

    9. Common violence that is generally deemed by governmental authorities as justified based on ideology.

    10. Open War.

    We are very, very close.  I debated internally more than a bit whether we were at an 8. or a 9. this month.  I finally decided to stay at an 8., despite multiple jurisdictions doing everything but arming the rioting faction of the protest movement with automatic firearms and bullhorns that make them all sound like Gilbert Gottfried.  It is clear we are at least an 8., and you will see in the graphs section that our Wilder Violence Index has reached new highs.

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    Welcome to Issue 12 of the Civil War II Weather Report.  These posts are different than the other posts at Wilder Wealthy and Wise and consist of smaller segments covering multiple topics around the single focus of Civil War 2.0, on the first or second Monday of every month.  I’ve created a page (Link) for links to all of the past issues.

    You Knew Where This Was Going

    The most popular posts on this site have been about the political state of the country.  The Civil War Weather Reports aren’t my usual form of post, but have proven to be very popular.  I’m sure it’s not just for graphs featuring bikinis.  Well, at least not only because of the bikinis.

    I think the reason these posts are popular is simple:  many people could sense the fragile peak that it seems all of Western Civilization is perched on.  Whether it is a conscious review of the surrounding culture or just a feeling in the pit of the stomach when confronted with an outrageous news article, something’s just not right.  Society has been changing by increments over the years, but those changes are coming faster and faster and faster.

    Claire Wolfe, the groundbreaking and iconic Freedom blogger said it very well at her place last week (LINK):

    Each day I think I’ve processed the latest craziness enough to blog something coherent. Useful even. But then new waves of craziness wash over the world. I don’t know what to say. I can’t write good sense against the onslaught of the crazy. I don’t know how civilization is holding together under tsunamis of crazy.

    But then, of course civilization isn’t holding together — and I’m not just talking about the one-two punch of totalitarian don’tleaveyourhouseism followed without pause by riotandlootallyouwantism.

    Chains of rapid-fire events and chaos like this are not generally the friend of those that love freedom.  The Russian Revolution promised:

    • Peace, through ending World War I,

    • Food, because Communists are well known to produce excess food,

    • Land, whereby peasants would get parts of land owned by the wealthy,

    • Minimum wages,

    • Maximum working hours,

    • Running factories by elected worker representatives and

    • Lots of other promises.

    In the end, up to 12,000,000 people (mainly civilians) died in the civil war that followed, and the promises that were made were largely ignored.  The Bolsheviks said and promised anything to get a force of disaffected behind them.  Not sure if this sounds familiar to AOC fans?

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    Hey girl, are you the French Revolution?  Because I keep imagining you sans-culottes.

    I get a sense that the Left today is up to the same trick.  They’ve “created” media events and have managed them to get power – political power and power in the street.  Some of the Leftists may even be stupid enough to believe that there are magic economic levers that they can move to keep the promises they’re making.  In reality, they really don’t care:  it’s all about the power.

    Lenin’s reintroduction into Russia and subsequent funding from foreign sources bring George Soros to mind.  Soros continually funds groups in the United States that are directly opposed to actual freedom.  The protesters and their associated rioters have a structure that has been funded and provisioned with everything from water and medical supplies to pre-staged bricks and gasoline.  Not saying that George is funding those directly, but . . .

    More on that, below.

    Violence and Censorship Update

    No politician has ever captured the attention of the Left like Donald Trump.  They hated Reagan, and George W. Bush was famous for “stealing” an election.  But something about Trump drives them nearly crazy enough to try to get a job.  The media’s portrayal of Trump as the anti-ChristObama, perhaps?

    The violence, of course, is plain for anyone reading any news to see.  It’s not in just the United States:  these protests have been coordinated across nearly every Western nation.  If the protests had been confined to Minnesota, I could buy the idea that they were organic.  And to the extent that they are peaceful gatherings to seek political redress?  I celebrate them.

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    It’s not looting, it’s just an involuntary clearance sale.

    But to flash across the world with violence and destruction?  That takes amplification and organization and is clearly the seed of revolution against the West.

    The amplification of the signal comes from both mainstream and social media.  Whereas the original death that started the protests was (rightly) exposed, the subsequent deaths of protesters, rioters, and innocent civilians hasn’t been mentioned much at all.  How many dead?

    I’m not sure.  This should be a fairly easy number to get to, but I’ve seen numbers between 12 and 18.  Absent media tracking, I’m not sure how you’ll count them up.  If we wait long enough, I’m sure they’ll all be counted and attributed to COVID-19.  To add to the butcher’s bill, thousands have been injured.

    Regardless, I have seen, at minimum tens of millions of dollars in damage.  I would expect the number to increase to hundreds of millions, at least.  A fire is, as I write this, blazing in downtown Phoenix.  Odds that it’s related to the rest of the violence?  Nearly 100%.

    Censorship is on the rise, as well.  I already spouted off on that last week (Free Speech: Endangered Species – WRSA is Down) in response to Western Rifle Shooters Association being shut down (You Can Find Him Here).  I expect to see that it will be on the increase during the next six months – the election is too important to the Left to leave it in Biden’s hands – chances are good he might wander off to try to buy a rotary phone at Montgomery Wards™.

    Updated Civil War II Index

    The Civil War II graphs are an attempt to measure four factors that might make Civil War II more likely, in real time.  They are broken up into Violence, Political Instability, Economic Outlook, and Illegal Alien Crossings.  As each of these is difficult to measure, I’ve created for three of the four metrics some leading indicators that lead to the index.  On illegal aliens, I’m just using government figures.

    May was again a difficult month.  I had to re-scale the graph on violence as this month nearly pegged every meter.  I will assure my faithful readers that I spent extra time this month finding just the right bikini-clad girl, since I want to at least reach the journalistic integrity standards of the Washington Post®.

    Violence:

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    Up is more violent.  Violence had been down because everyone was stuck in the basement.  I predicted that May would be mellow, and then we’d see the uptick in June.  I was almost right.

    Political Instability:

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    Up is more unstable.  Instability is up only slightly, which might seem weird, but the system is still stable overall.  I may look into another graph next month to measure political change, because it sure feels like we crossed over into a regime where big political changes are more likely – and this graph was meant more about the overthrow of a sitting president, hence the peak in December.

    Economic:

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    Down indicates worse economic conditions, and it’s down yet again.  I did change the basis somewhat for this month.  Previously it had been a spot measurement, but this shows more a relative measurement from a baseline.  But did you come for that, or for the bikini?

    Illegal Aliens:

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    Down is good, in theory.  This is a statistic showing border apprehensions by the Border Patrol.  Down, probably related to WuFlu.  Until Mexico’s economy collapses. Then what?  Regardless, this is at a nearly five-year low.

    Balkans or Caesar Might Be The Best Case Scenario

    I’ve written both about the idea of the United States breaking up into regional governments that run either as autonomous countries, or close enough to autonomous that it doesn’t matter.  This irritates Right-thinking folks “behind the lines” in Leftist states.  They clearly don’t like the idea of being left behind in a People’s Republic of California or the New York Soviet Oblast.  I can understand that, especially since the divide is so much more rural/urban than on a state by state basis and the Right just wants to be left alone.

    Being Balkanized remains a possibility, and probably guarantees border wars for decades unless we put up a big, beautiful wall around California.

    I have, over time, began to think it’s much more likely that the nonsense will continue until a strongman arrives and proclaims that he’s “President for the Duration of the Continuing National Emergency.”  I certainly don’t think Trump is this person.  Biden is even less this person.  But some Cuomo or other acting as Wall Street’s puppet?  I could see that being more likely.  If we had a military hero of some stature, that would also make sense.

    Maybe Elon Musk or Jeff Bezos?

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    I guess Jeff divorced his wife because she was past her Prime™?

    Is having a Caesar that bad?  Absolutely.  But a strongman will try to have to have some sort of legitimacy and will at least (in theory) have some desire to keep a relatively strong country together to turn over to his children.  The old forms of government will be nodded to.  The Senate may not have power, but there will be Senators pretending to have power.

    Not good, especially since that pesky Constitution will be entirely ignored, rather than mostly ignored like it is today.  But Caesar’s United States probably more peaceful than a Balkanized America.

    But there is one possibility that scares me more than either of those:  Soviet America. 

    The riots that started nine days ago (yes, it’s only been that long) appear to be the Left making the first push into creating violence to go along with our economic issues and the lingering Coronavirus. 

    I brought up the Russian Revolution earlier, because that more than anything is what this latest round of violence feels like:  violence, in part funded and provoked by a foreign enemy with the aim of destabilizing America and making people welcome those who promise what they never can really provide.

  • Rockets Slam Into US Embassy Compound In Baghdad Late Night Attack
    Rockets Slam Into US Embassy Compound In Baghdad Late Night Attack

    Tyler Durden

    Wed, 06/10/2020 – 19:40

    Late into Wednesday night local time, multiple rockets were fired at the high secured Green Zone in Baghdad, with at least one rocket appearing to score a direct hit on the front of the US Embassy, according to initial reports.

    Video confirmation of the incident is now circulating on social media and shows a building or possibly multiple buildings on fire at the American embassy compound.

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    Sirens are reportedly billowing across the Green Zone with an emergency response in progress, though there have yet to be any official reports of casualties. The attack occurred near midnight local time.

    Such Katyusha rocket attacks have been semi-frequent on the US compound over the past half-year, most often failing to strike the compound directly, but in this case it appears at least one rocket hit its mark.

    Kurdistan 24 journalist Barzan Sadiq uploaded footage of the attack aftermath, which shows fires raging, and described it as the result of Katyusha rocket impact. 

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    Sadiq described that “multiple rockets” fell “near” the US Embassy. Another regional correspondent described further that at rocket slammed into a “joint ops center” at the compound.

    Past attacks have been promptly blamed by US defense officials on Iran-backed Shia militias operating in Iraq, such as Kata’ib Hezbollah, and thus ultimately on Tehran.

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    The US Embassy at the Green Zone in Baghdad, Iraq. Via Reuters

    Tensions have been soaring ever since the Jan. 3rd assassination by US drone strike of Iranian IRGC Quds Force commander Qassem Soleimani, as well as Iraqi Popular Mobilization Forces commander Abu Mahdi al-Muhandis.

  • Google Searches For "Day Trading" And "Call Options" Explode To Record Highs
    Google Searches For “Day Trading” And “Call Options” Explode To Record Highs

    Tyler Durden

    Wed, 06/10/2020 – 19:35

    We have extensively discussed the topic of retail daytreaders flooding the market in recent months, but the following chart summarizes everything we have said clearly and succinctly: it shows that google trends for “day trading” and “call options” have exploded in recent weeks, surging to never before seen levels.

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    Source: Jesse Felder

    We hope this satisfies all those journalists who are searching for an explanation for what we described three weeks ago in “how retail traders taking over the stock market.”

    That said, this is nothing new: as John Hussman pointed out, we have seen this before every time the surging market makes geniuses out of everyone: “Bucket shops and boiler rooms are alive and well. The only things that change are the faces.”

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  • "This Thing Is Actually Real" – US Army Accidentally Reveals New Hypersonic Missile
    “This Thing Is Actually Real” – US Army Accidentally Reveals New Hypersonic Missile

    Tyler Durden

    Wed, 06/10/2020 – 19:25

    A new hypersonic weapon could be in development after plans, or at least the outline of the program, “emerged inadvertently” on social media last week managed by Army Secretary Ryan McCarthy that describes a Mach 5-plus missile with capabilities to penetrate the world’s most advanced missile defense shields, reported Aviation Week. 

    The photo is from the Association of the United States Army conference last fall, and was uploaded to McCarthy’s Flickr page last week — shows the military official holding a weapons briefing slide that reads: “Vintage Racer — Loitering Weapon System (LWS) Overview.” 

    The slide is laying down on a table and nearly impossible to understand. Still, six bullet points state: “Hypersonic ingress,” “Survivable,” “Time Over Target,” “Multi-role,” “Modular Payload,” and “Cost Imposition Strategy.”

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    Army Secretary Ryan McCarthy with weapons slide 

    Near McCarthy’s right hand, the bottom line reads, “Long Range, Rapid Ingress.”

    Aviation Week said there was a reference to the Vintage Racer program in Defense Department budget justification documents but went unnoticed by many: 

    “Under a line item owned by the Office of Secretary of Defense for a “quick reaction fund,” Vintage Racer is described as a “recent success story.”

    “The project successfully validated aerodynamic design with wind tunnel testing and integrated a guidance subsystem for targeted kinetic effects before culminating in a fiscal 2019 flight test. Documentation and prototype technologies transitioned to the U.S. Army for additional development and follow-on acquisition activities,” according to budget documents. 

    Dmitry Stefanovitch, an expert at the Moscow-based Russian International Affairs Council, said the new weapon could be designed to target ICBM launchers deep behind enemy lines. 

    “The fear is that [this] hypersonic ‘something’ might reach the patrol area of road-mobile ICBM launchers [after] penetrating any possible air and missile defense, and then dispense loitering submunitions that will find launchers in the forests,” said Stefanovitch.

    Aviation Week’s Steve Trumble tweeted: “OMG, Vintage Racer has been flight-tested successfully and transitioned to the Army for follow-on development. This thing is actually real, not just a briefing slide!” 

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    h/t Aviation Week’s Steve Trumble

    Here are the latest US hypersonic developments: 

    As we’ve noted on several occasions, the superpower that dominates hypersonic weapons and fifth-generation fighter jet technology – combine the both — will be victorious in the next global military conflict. 

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