Today’s News 12th April 2022

• EU Investment Groups Worth $140 Trillion Urge For Stricter Corporate Climate Change Disclosures
  EU Investment Groups Worth $140 Trillion Urge For Stricter Corporate Climate Change Disclosures

  Investors managing a combined $140 trillion have come together to put pressure on corporations to disclose their plans on how to deal with climate change in the future. 

  Investment groups have combined not only to seek out more disclosure about adaptations to climate change, but also to demand that companies meet pledges to become carbon neutral by 2050, Bloomberg reported Monday morning.

  The groups, called Responsible Investment and the European Sustainable Investment Forum (sigh), are urging that the EU’s Corporate Sustainability Reporting Directive require companies to prepare “transition plans”. 

  They made their request known “in a letter to Mairead McGuinness, the top financial services official at the European Commission,” Bloomberg reported. 

  The letter says these plans will provide investors “with the tools they need to finance the net-zero transition” and that they should extend “as a bare minimum” to companies who have said they would be carbon neutral by 2050, the report says. 

  

  The EU parliament is currently working on legislation to provide investors with more transparency as to environmental, social and governance risks that companies may face. Coming disclosures will identify what climate scenarios company plans are based on and assumptions that companies are making. 

  Recall, back in February, we published a piece from contributors at The Epoch Times called “ESG Investing – The Great Wall Street Money Heist”. 

  ESG refers to the Environmental, Social, and Governance risk theoretically embedded in a business. However, while ESG investing is about taking these risks into account in investment decisions, these are all the things NOT on a company’s balance sheet or earnings statements. Such is the inherent problem.

  However, as is also the case, with the recent surge in liberal policies, woke activism, and demand for social justice, Wall Street is more than willing to sell products to fill a need. Not surprisingly, with plenty of media coverage, ESG investing has become an enormous business.

  Following the financial crisis, ESG funds had roughly a ZERO market share of total assets under management. Today, ESG-labelled funds in the United States exceed $16 trillion.

  Tyler Durden
  Tue, 04/12/2022 – 02:45

• Africa Is Becoming China's "Second Continent" As US Lags Behind
  Africa Is Becoming China’s “Second Continent” As US Lags Behind

  Authored by Judith Bergman via The Gatestone Institute,

  • “America cannot ignore Africa. Africa’s challenges, opportunities, and security interests are inseparable from our own…. Our competitors clearly see Africa’s rich potential. Russia and China both seek to convert soft and hard power investments into political influence, strategic access, and military advantage. China’s economic and diplomatic engagements allow it to buttress autocracies and change international norms in a patient effort to claim their second continent.” — General Stephen Townsend, Commander of United States Africa Command, Senate Armed Services Committee, March 15, 2022.

  • About 40 out of Africa’s 54 countries participate in China’s Belt and Road Initiative (BRI), the global infrastructure and economic development project that the Chinese Communist Party launched in 2013. BRI aims to build an economic and infrastructure network connecting China with Europe, Africa and beyond, and has already strengthened China’s global influence from East Asia to Europe by making countries worldwide increasingly dependent on China.

  • “China is dependent on Africa for imports of fossil fuels and commodities… Beijing has increased its control of African commodities through strategic direct investment in oil fields, mines, and production facilities, as well as through resource-backed loans that call for in-kind payments of commodities. This control threatens the ability of U.S. companies to access key supplies.” — US-China Economic and Security Review Commission, 2020 annual report to Congress.

  • In June 2021, in an extremely belated attempt to counter China’s Belt and Road Initiative, the Biden administration together with the G7 launched a new global infrastructure initiative, the Build Back Better World (B3W)…. The initiative, however, comes across as far too little, too late. Between 2007 and 2020, China invested $23 billion in infrastructure projects in Africa, according to the Center for Global Development, a US think tank. That is reportedly “$8 billion more than… the other top eight lenders combined…”

  • It will be very near impossible for the US or others to catch up on that, especially with the planned B3W initiative, because that initiative is not focused on much-needed tangible investments. Instead, its four focus areas are climate, health and health security, digital technology, and gender equity and equality.

  • “More troubling is B3W’s apparent excision of hard physical infrastructure from its remit… In Africa, which lags all other regions of the world in the availability of paved roads and electricity [and rail], that deficit that deficit is set to grow without a massive influx of hard infrastructure investment…” — Gyude Moore, senior policy fellow, Center for Global Development, African Business, February 13, 2022.

  • In the absence of a serious coordinated international effort, China will go on to fill that infrastructure gap, as it continues to consolidate its influence in Africa while the US lags behind.

  

  China continues to deepen its engagement in Africa on all levels. Recently it engaged in a flurry of diplomatic activity with African countries. In March alone, Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi held bilateral talks with his African counterparts in Algeria, Egypt, The Gambia, Niger, Somalia, Tanzania and Zambia. The talks came only two months after Wang Yi visited Eritrea, Kenya and Comoros. Also in March, Chinese President Xi Jinping had a phone conversation with South African President Cyril Ramaphosa, during which the two spoke about deepening cooperation between the two countries. Ramaphosa affirmed that he supports China’s policies on Taiwan, Tibet, and other “major issues”.

  Africa is important to China for several reasons. “Beijing has long viewed African countries as occupying a central position in its efforts to increase China’s global influence and revise the international order,” the US-China Economic and Security Review Commission wrote in its 2020 Report to Congress.

  “Over the last two decades, and especially under General Secretary Xi’s leadership since 2012, Beijing has launched new initiatives to transform Africa into a testing ground for the export of its governance system of state-led economic growth under one-party, authoritarian rule.

  “Beijing uses its influence in Africa to gain preferential access to Africa’s natural resources, open up markets for Chinese exports, and enlist African support for Chinese diplomatic priorities on and beyond the continent.”

  While China has continuously been deepening its involvement in Africa, the US has not come anywhere near China’s engagement and high-level attention. Since 2011, trade between the US and Africa has been in decline. This inaction means that in the emerging US-China rivalry in Africa, China is far ahead.

  China is now Africa’s largest trade partner. In 2000, trade between China and Africa had been at a mere $11 billion. From 2020 to 2021, trade between Africa and China reportedly increased by 35% — from $187 billion to $254 billion.

  About 40 out of Africa’s 54 countries participate in China’s Belt and Road Initiative (BRI), the global infrastructure and economic development project that the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) launched in 2013. BRI aims to build an economic and infrastructure network connecting China with Europe, Africa and beyond, and has already strengthened China’s global influence from East Asia to Europe by making countries worldwide increasingly dependent on China.

  While China has been increasing its annual Foreign Direct Investments (FDI) in Africa — its FDI flows grew from just $75 million in 2003 to $4.2 billion in 2020 — annual American FDI flows to Africa have been heading the other way. “Chinese FDI flows to Africa have exceeded those from the U.S. since 2013, as U.S. FDI flows have generally been declining since 2010,” according to the China Africa Research Initiative at Johns Hopkins University’s School of Advanced International Studies.

  “America cannot ignore Africa. Africa’s challenges, opportunities, and security interests are inseparable from our own,” General Stephen Townsend, Commander of United States Africa Command recently said at a Senate Armed Services Committee hearing on March 15.

  “Our competitors clearly see Africa’s rich potential. Russia and China both seek to convert soft and hard power investments into political influence, strategic access, and military advantage. China’s economic and diplomatic engagements allow it to buttress autocracies and change international norms in a patient effort to claim their second continent.”

  Already in May 2021, Townsend had warned that China was overtaking America in Africa:

  “The Chinese are outmaneuvering the U.S. in select countries in Africa. Port projects, economic endeavors, infrastructure and their agreements and contracts will lead to greater access in the future. They are hedging their bets and making big bets on Africa,” he said.

  The US-China Economic and Security Review Commission wrote in its 2020 Report to Congress:

  “China is dependent on Africa for imports of fossil fuels and commodities constituting critical inputs in emerging technology products. Beijing has increased its control of African commodities through strategic direct investment in oil fields, mines, and production facilities, as well as through resource-backed loans that call for in-kind payments of commodities. This control threatens the ability of U.S. companies to access key supplies.”

  In June 2021, in an extremely belated attempt to counter China’s Belt and Road Initiative, the Biden administration together with the G7 launched a new global infrastructure initiative, the Build Back Better World. According to a Biden administration fact-sheet about the initiative:

  “President Biden and G7 partners agreed to launch the bold new global infrastructure initiative Build Back Better World (B3W), a values-driven, high-standard, and transparent infrastructure partnership led by major democracies to help narrow the $40+ trillion infrastructure need in the developing world…

  “B3W will be global in scope, from Latin America and the Caribbean to Africa to the Indo-Pacific. Different G7 partners will have different geographic orientations, but the sum of the initiative will cover low- and middle-income countries across the world.”

  The initiative, however, comes across as far too little, too late. Between 2007 and 2020, China invested $23 billion in infrastructure projects in Africa, according to the Center for Global Development, a US think tank. That is reportedly “$8 billion more than what the other top eight lenders combined, including the World Bank, African Development Bank, and the US and European development banks, contributed.” It will be very near impossible for the US or others to catch up on that, especially with the planned B3W initiative, because that initiative is not focused on much-needed tangible investments. Instead, its four focus areas are climate, health and health security, digital technology, and gender equity and equality.

  According to Gyude Moore, a senior policy fellow at the Center for Global Development:

  “More troubling is B3W’s apparent excision of hard physical infrastructure from its remit… In Africa, which lags all other regions of the world in the availability of paved roads and electricity, that deficit is set to grow without a massive influx of hard infrastructure investment… At current rates, the minimum deficit of the road network will be 60,000km by 2040 and an additional 30,000km gap for the rail network.”

  In the absence of a serious coordinated international effort, China will go on to fill that infrastructure gap, as it continues to consolidate its influence in Africa while the US lags behind.

  Tyler Durden
  Tue, 04/12/2022 – 02:00

• What Are The Effects Of America's Narcissism Epidemic?
  What Are The Effects Of America’s Narcissism Epidemic?

  Authored by Ross Pomeroy via RealClear Science (emphasis ours),

  There’s a strong case to be made that since the end of World War II, Americans have grown increasingly narcissistic on average – more entitled, with an inflated sense of self-importance.

  

  Psychologists Jean Twenge and W. Keith Campbell are most responsible for collecting data and creating a narrative to support this claim. According to the duo, the rise began with the Baby Boomers, who grew up in an era of relative ease and plenty after their grandparents endured a Great Depression and their parents soldiered and sacrificed through World War II. By the time they were college-aged, Boomers eschewed the collectivist mindset of their elders in favor of individualism.

  The trend continued with Boomers’ kids. As Dennis Shen wrote for the London School of Economics’ Phelan United States Centre, “One study comparing teenagers found that while only 12% of those aged 14-16 in the early 1950s agreed with the statement “I am an important person”, 77% of boys and more than 80% of girls of the same cohort by 1989 agreed with it.”

  And, of course, the rise in narcissism has persisted since. In 2008, Twenge published a study comparing college students’ scores on the Narcissistic Personality Inventory scale to scores from students in 1979, finding that levels of narcissism had risen roughly 30 percent.

  Additional research has evinced this increase. “59% of American college freshmen rated themselves above average in intellectual self-confidence in 2014, compared with 39% in 1966,” Shen wrote.

  Owing to the elevated prevalence of social media services over the past decade, it’s highly likely that the rise in narcissism has only accelerated of late. We see it on Twitter, where users flock to share their ‘brilliant’ opinions. We see it on Instagram and TikTok, where people carefully curate their online personas. We also see it in traditional media sources, where elite-educated journalists often make themselves the story and focus on tending their Twitter profiles. Narcissism also reigns on television news. Gone are the days of humble correspondents and “just the facts” anchors, replaced by talking heads and opinionated hosts more interested in their ratings than the truth.

  Of course, while narcissism has risen, that doesn’t mean we are all narcissists. It exists both as a trait, which is on a spectrum, and a personality disorder, which is much more extreme and debilitating. Narcissistic personality disorder has actually remained fairly stable in the U.S. over the past decades. This means that the average American is more self-centered than they used to be, but decidedly not stuck in their own head.

  What are the wider effects of this psychological transition? As Shen speculated, partisanship has exploded as people have grown more enamored with their own beliefs and less open to others’. Debt-financed conspicuous consumption “to elevate one’s status in front of others, rather than out of necessity” has risen. And an increasing disdain for government could partly be attributed to a focus on somewhat arrogant self-sufficiency.

  There is also another way to look at the rise in narcissism – as a defense mechanism. Narcissism is often driven by low self-esteem and insecurity. Since the 1950s, wealth inequality has risen, cost of living has exploded, especially for housing, and puchasing power has stagnated. Combine these economic pressures with the competitive, pressure-filled media environment since the turn of the century and you have a recipe for a rise in narcissism. And sadly, narcissism is linked to elevated hostility and aggression towards others. One hopes that Americans can find a way to cool their collective narcissism before it boils over.

  Tyler Durden
  Mon, 04/11/2022 – 23:40

• 'Unfriendly Visit': Austrian Chancellor Is 1st EU Leader To Meet With Putin Since War Began
  ‘Unfriendly Visit’: Austrian Chancellor Is 1st EU Leader To Meet With Putin Since War Began

  On Monday Austria’s Chancellor Karl Nehammer became the first EU leader to meet face-to-face with Vladimir Putin since the war began on Feb.24. He said that talks were “open and tough” but that it was “not a friendly visit.”

  Following the meeting which was at Putin’s Novo-Ogaryovo residence just outside Moscow, the Austrian leader’s office issued a statement saying, “This is not a friendly visit. I have just come from Ukraine and have seen with my own eyes the immeasurable suffering caused by the Russian war of aggression.”

  

  Nehammer is said to have confronted Putin on multiple war crimes and human rights abuses alleged against Russian troops during the 75-minute meeting. 

  Austria’s official statement of the meeting continued:

  ”I addressed the serious war crimes in Bucha and other places and emphasized that all those responsible for them must be held accountable,” Nehammer said, according to the statement. “I also told President Putin in no uncertain terms that sanctions against Russia will remain in place and will continue to be tightened as long as people are dying in Ukraine.”

  On what’s widely being alleged in the West as the ‘Bucha massacre’ – which left a reported 300 Ukrainian civilians dead, many of them in the streets – Nehammer described that when confronted Putin blamed Ukrainian militants, saying they were “responsible for the crimes in Bucha” and not Russian troops.  

  The Austrian head of state came under fire for the visit, as going to Moscow to meet Putin face-to-face was hugely controversial in some quarters among EU officials. However, Nehammer described the purpose as to confront the Russian President “with the facts”. 

  “What is important is a personal meeting, phoning is one thing, but you really need to look each other in the eye, you need to talk about the cruelty of war,” Nehammer described of the rationale for the official visit. He told Putin that those guilty of war crimes “have to be brought to justice.”

  With Sweden and Norway well on the road to NATO membership, France committed to grandstanding, and Ireland being rather…preachy, Austria is the only remaining European choice for an interlocutor.
  Apparently it went badly. https://t.co/DhsK79ad7P

  — Peter Zeihan (@PeterZeihan) April 11, 2022

  https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js

  “Of course, when you talk to him for the first, second, third time, we can’t expect him to change his view … I didn’t expect that. But it is important to confront President Vladimir Putin. Every day is a day too long in the war, every … death is one too many,” he told reporters during a post-meeting press conference in Moscow.

  Tyler Durden
  Mon, 04/11/2022 – 23:20

• Victor Davis Hanson: Will GOP Play By The Dems' "New Rules"?
  Victor Davis Hanson: Will GOP Play By The Dems’ “New Rules”?

  Authored by Victor Davis Hanson via American Greatness,

  The Debasement of our Professional and Political Classes

  The left-wing professional and political classes bequeathed a number of new protocols during the Trump derangement years. And it will be interesting to watch whether the Republicans abide by them in November should they take back the House and perhaps the Senate—and the presidency in 2024 as well. 

  Will they follow the New Testament’s turn-the-other-cheek forbearance, or go for Old Testament style eye-for-an-eye retribution? 

  

  What Are the New Rules?

  Will Republican magnanimity suffice to shame the Democrats to be more professional in the future? Or will tit-for-tat deterrent reciprocity alone ensure a return to norms? Specifically, will Biden be impeached Trump-style, after losing the House in November? Say, to give just one possible example, for deliberately not enforcing and, indeed, undermining U.S. immigration law? 

  Will Speaker Kevin McCarthy, in Pelosi-fashion, start yanking troublesome radical Democrats off House committees? 

  Will a conservative Robert Mueller-like “wise man” head a $40 million, 22 month-long special counsel investigation of the Biden-family influence-selling syndicate—arrayed with a “dream-team,” “all-star,” and “hunter-killer” right-wing lawyers to ferret out “Big Guy” and “Mr. Ten Percent” quid pro quo profiteering? 

  Would a Republican-led House set up a special committee to investigate the racketeering and “conspiracies” across state lines that led to a near “coup” and “insurrection” marked by “the riots of 2020?” Would such watchdogs offer up criminal referrals for all those responsible for attacking a federal courthouse and torching a police precinct or for setting an historic church afire? Or causing $2 billion of damage, over 30 deaths, and 1,500 law enforcement officer injuries—while carving out illegal no-go zones in major downtowns? 

  Given the need for “accountability,” the “threats to democracy,” and a need for “transparency,” would another congressional committee investigate the Afghanistan fiasco of summer 2021? Will it learn who was lying about the disaster—Joe Biden or the Joint Chiefs—and how and why such a travesty occurred? 

  Would a rebooted January 6 committee reconvene under new auspices—with Democratic members limited to those selected by a new Speaker McCarthy—to revisit the lethal shooting of Ashli Babbitt, to review thousands of hours of released surveillance video, to subpoena all email communications between the previous congressional leadership and the Capitol police, to demand the lists of all the FBI informants in the crowd, and to interrogate the sadistic jailers and overzealous prosecutors who have created America’s first class of political prisoners subjected to punishment without trial? Such a multifaceted legal inquiry would eat up most of Biden’s final two years in office. As accomplished leakers, Republicans then would also supply “bombshells” and “walls or closing in” special news alerts on cable TV, the fuel of supposedly “imminent” and “impending” indictments, based on special counsel leaks to conservative media. 

  Following the Democratic cue, should the Republican-majority Senate consider ending the “disruptive” and “anti-democratic” filibuster? Should there be a national voting law rammed through the Congress, overriding state protocols, and demanding that all national election balloting must require a photo ID? 

  Will Speaker McCarthy, Pelosi-style, in furor at more of Joe Biden’s chronic lies, tear up the president’s State of the Union address on national television? 

  A Permanently Politicized Bureaucracy?

  Will the new Washington apparat likewise adhere to the Democratic Party’s new precedents? 

  Perhaps a newly appointed chairman of the Joint Chiefs can reassure a Republican majority that its primary mission is not battle readiness—and certainly not climate change or “white rage”— but rather ferreting out service personnel with known ties to radical groups like BLM or Antifa or other “subversive” and “racist” organizations? 

  Will a conservative Lois Lerner emerge from the IRS shadows to start slow-walking nonprofit-status applications from left-wing organizations on the eve of a presidential election? 

  Will the FBI become a Republican retrieval service to hunt down and keep inert embarrassing lost laptops, diaries, and hard drives of absent-minded conservative grandees? 

  In the middle of a campaign, will the CIA Director believe it is his duty to inform the senior Republican leaders in the Senate that he has good “information” that leftists are intriguing with foreign governments to warp the election? 

  The Lettered Classes 

  And what of our corporate and professional classes? 

  Should conservative zillionaires pool their resources and, Zuckerberg-style, select key precincts in the next general election, hire armies of activists, and then absorb and supersede the work of state or county registrars? Only that way, could they ensure the “right” people vote and their “correct” ballots were accurately counted? 

  Should conservatives start rounding up “professionals,” “scientists,” and “scholars” to express their superior morality and erudition in pursuit of political agendas? 

  Certainly, a recent trend has been a spate of letters of “conscience” and “statements of concern” signed by revolving-door government, academic, and corporate grandees who pose as disinterested experts to mold public opinion. 

  When we read such letters of principle—characterized by shared and collective outrage by assorted professionals, replete with letters and/or titles after their name—beware! 

  Do we remember the recent “stellar” cast of Nobel-Prize winning and near-Nobel laureates who admonished us that Biden’s massive deficit spending programs would never lead to inflation? 

  In circular fashion, Biden solicited and then cited this “blue-chip” group of experts led by Nobel laureate Joseph Stiglitz. Stiglitz warned the hoi polloi not to worry about printing trillions of dollars at the very moment pent-up demand from the COVID lockdowns was surging, when for millions the government kept issuing checks that made staying home more lucrative than working, when interest rates were at near zero, and when the national debt was cresting at $30 trillion. 

  The distinguished economists promised us that if we just followed the Biden lead, then inflation would actually decrease. Or as they put it, “Because this agenda invests in long-term economic capacity and will enhance the ability of more Americans to participate productively in the economy, it will ease longer-term inflationary pressure.” [emphasis added]. 

  As inflation nears or exceeds eight percent per annum, will they write an apology or instead issue yet another letter assuring us that inflation is easing? 

  Do we remember the 50 “former intelligence officials” letter writers rounded up by former National Intelligence and CIA Directors James Clapper and John Brennan? (The latter two previously had confessed to lying under oath to Congress.) Yet just two weeks before the 2020 election, these revered “professionals” assured us that Hunter Biden’s laptop was not just fake but likely Russian disinformation. 

  Or as the shameful 50 put it in their sorta, kinda conspiratorial style, “. . . our experience makes us deeply suspicious that the Russian government played a significant role in this case.” The guidance of Brennan and Clapper alone—apart from the clear evidence that the laptop was Hunter’s—should have made all Americans “deeply suspicious” that the Biden campaign “played a significant role in this case.” 

  Do we remember “the over 1,000 health professionals” who in 2020 signed a letter of conscience, assuring us that: 

  . . . we wanted to present a narrative that prioritizes opposition to racism as vital to public health, including the epidemic response. We believe that the way forward is not to suppress protests in the name of public health but to respond to protesters demands in the name of public health, thereby addressing multiple public health crises. 

  So, in “follow the science fashion” we were told not just that some violations of strict masking, quarantines, and lockdowns were more equal than others, but that flagrantly ignoring health mandates entirely was, in Orwellian fashion, actually good for the health of the exempt. 

  Do we remember the 27 Lancet “scientists” who signed the now infamous letter reassuring us the Wuhan lab played no role in the origins in COVID? Do we also recall that all but one of these progressive humanitarians failed to disclose that they themselves had connections with Wuhan? 

  Leftist professionals in politics, government, and private enterprise debased themselves for short-term political gain, or in furor at their bogeyman Trump, or in anger at the unwashed. They have now set precedents, which if embraced by conservatives and applied to the Left, would be called unethical at best and fascistic at worst. 

  In the end, all the warped grandees accomplished was to further discredit the entire notion that those with high salaries, prestigious degrees, impressive titles, and insidious influence are somehow less likely to lie, connive, cheat, and conspire than those whom they libel and attack. 

  *  *  *

  Victor Davis Hanson is a distinguished fellow of the Center for American Greatness and the Martin and Illie Anderson Senior Fellow at Stanford University’s Hoover Institution. He is an American military historian, columnist, a former classics professor, and scholar of ancient warfare. He has been a visiting professor at Hillsdale College since 2004. Hanson was awarded the National Humanities Medal in 2007 by President George W. Bush. Hanson is also a farmer (growing raisin grapes on a family farm in Selma, California) and a critic of social trends related to farming and agrarianism. He is the author most recently of The Second World Wars: How the First Global Conflict Was Fought and Won, The Case for Trump and the newly released The Dying Citizen.

  Tyler Durden
  Mon, 04/11/2022 – 23:00

• Skynet Does Dallas: 7-Foot-Tall Robots Are Being Used To Enforce Mask Policy At Love Field Airport
  Skynet Does Dallas: 7-Foot-Tall Robots Are Being Used To Enforce Mask Policy At Love Field Airport

  Dallas Love Field is in the midst of testing robotic assistant devices to help ensure that people in the airport are complying with rules – namely, whether or not they are wearing a mask – a rule that is still mandated at all airports in the U.S.

  

  The robots, called Security Control Observation Towers (definitely not dystopian at all), are located by baggage claim and security checkpoints, Fortune wrote last week. They can tell whether or not a passenger is wearing a face mask. 

  If you’re not wearing a mask, brace yourself for a “verbal warning”, which Fortune says “could escalate in volume and severity if the infraction is not corrected”.  Definitely not a scene out of Idiocracy, right? 

  

  Love Field is one of two airports that are testing the kiosks, which are 7 feet tall. Airports are able to set individual rules for their kiosks, the report says. Love Field has yet to determine whether or not they will become permanent fixtures, though we’d bet that it’s more likely than not.

  In other dystopian Texas news, a robotic security guard named ROAMEO (Rugged Observation Assistance Mobile Electronic Officer) also debuted at Six Flags Over Texas several months ago, the report notes.

  That robot is also tasked with mask enforcement, as well as noticing when people are in restricted areas. 

  We can hear these security towers now: “Your kids are starving. Carl’s Jr. believes no child should go hungry. You are an unfit mother. Your children will be placed in the custody of Carl’s Jr.”

  Tyler Durden
  Mon, 04/11/2022 – 22:40

• Ex-CIA Ray McGovern: Corporate Media Deploys The Big Guns On Ukraine
  Ex-CIA Ray McGovern: Corporate Media Deploys The Big Guns On Ukraine

  Authored by Ray McGovern of Veteran Intelligence Professionals for Sanity,

  Judith Miller and US Air Force General Philip Breedlove are back! At first I thought it a sickening flashback. Two nights ago, there were Judy Miller and former NATO Commander Philip Breedlove on TV pontificating on Ukraine.

  For younger readers, Judy was the NY Times Archdeacon blessing all those reports of “weapons of mass destruction in Iraq (that weren’t there) and ties between Iraq and al-Qaeda (that weren’t there either). As for Breedlove, as a sad sign of the times, he appears (via Radio Free Europe) on Reader Supporter News, with zero allusion to his pedigree on truth and falsehood (See: “FOCUS: Former NATO Commander Says Western Fears of Nuclear War Are Preventing a Proper Response to Putin.”)

  

  Breedlove’s all-too-familiar, damn-the-torpedoes line on the need to confront Russia head-on in Ukraine brought back more sickening memories.

  For this is precisely what he tried to do – behind President Obama’s back – when he was commander of NATO troops (2013-2016). It got so bad that we Veteran Intelligence Professionals for Sanity (VIPS) sought to warn German Chancellor Angela Merkel about Breedlove’s checkered record for credibility in advance of a NATO summit in early July, 2014. We urged Merkel to temper Breedlove’s distemper.

  Verbatim excerpts are below

  “We longtime U.S. intelligence officers again wish to convey our concerns and cautions directly to you prior to a critically important NATO summit – the meeting that begins on July 8 in Warsaw. We were gratified to learn that our referenced memorandum reached you and your advisers before the NATO summit in Wales and that others too learned of our initiative via the Sueddeutsche Zeitung, which published a full report on our memorandum on Sept. 4, the day that summit began.”

  Below are continued excerpts from the 2016 Veteran Intelligence Professionals for Sanity memorandum which clearly warned of what was to come…

  Wales to Warsaw

  The Warsaw summit is likely to be at least as important as the last one in Wales and is likely to have even more far-reaching consequences. We find troubling – if not surprising – NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg’s statement at a pre-summit press event on July 4 that NATO members will agree to “further enhance NATO’s military presence in the eastern part of the alliance,” adding that the alliance will see it’s “biggest reinforcement since the Cold War.”

  The likelihood of a military clash in the air or at sea – accidental or intentional – has grown sharply, the more so since, as we explain below, President Obama’s control over top US/NATO generals, some of whom like to play cowboy, is tenuous. Accordingly we encourage you, as we did before the last NATO summit, to urge your NATO colleagues to bring a “degree of judicious skepticism” to the table at Warsaw – especially with regard to the perceived threat from Russia.

  Many of us have spent decades studying Moscow’s foreign policy. We shake our heads in disbelief when we see Western leaders seemingly oblivious to what it means to the Russians to witness exercises on a scale not seen since Hitler’s armies launched “Unternehmen Barbarossa” 75 years ago, leaving 25 million Soviet citizens dead. In our view, it is irresponsibly foolish to believe that Russian President Vladimir Putin will not take countermeasures – at a time and place of his own choosing.

  

  Putin does not have the option of trying to reassure his generals that what they hear and see from NATO is mere rhetoric and posturing. He is already facing increased pressure to react in an unmistakably forceful way. In sum, Russia is bound to react strongly to what it regards as the unwarranted provocation of large military exercises along its western borders, including in Ukraine.

  Before things get still worse, seasoned NATO leaders need to demonstrate a clear preference for statesmanship and give-and-take diplomacy over saber-rattling. Otherwise, some kind of military clash with Russia is likely, with the ever-present danger of escalation to a nuclear exchange.

  Extremely worrisome is the fact that many second-generation NATO leaders seem blithely unaware – or even dismissive – of that looming possibility. Demagoguery like that coming from former Polish President Lech Walesa, who brags that he would “shoot” at Russian jets that buzz US destroyers assuredly are not at all helpful. Walesa’s tone, however, does reflect the macho attitude prevailing today in Poland and some other NATO newcomers.

  We believe Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier was correct to point out that military posturing on Russia’s borders will bring less regional security. We applaud his admonition that, “We are well advised not to create pretexts to renew an old confrontation.”

  A Need For Candor

  Speaking of “pretexts to renew an old confrontation,” we believe the time has come to acknowledge that the marked increase in East-West tensions over the past two years originally stemmed from the Western-sponsored coup d’e’tat in Kiev on Feb. 22, 2014, and Russia’s reaction in annexing Crimea.

  Although we have a cumulative total of hundreds of years of experience in intelligence, we had never before seen planning for a coup d’e’tat exposed weeks in advance – and then carried out anyway. Few seem to remember that in early February 2014, YouTube published a recording of an intercepted conversation between US Assistant Secretary of State Victoria Nuland and the US ambassador in Kiev, during which “Yats” (for Arseniy Yatsenyuk) was identified as Washington’s choice to become the new prime minister of the coup government in Kiev.

  We suggest that it is past time for Western leaders to admit that there is not one scintilla of evidence of any Russian plan to annex Crimea before the coup in Kiev and the coup leaders began talking about Ukraine joining NATO. If senior NATO leaders continue to be unable or unwilling to distinguish between cause and effect, increasing tension is inevitable with potentially disastrous results – all of them unnecessary and avoidable, in our view.

  Ukraine Still Festering

  In our August 2014 memorandum for you, we suggested that you be “appropriately suspicious of charges made by the US State Department and NATO officials alleging a Russian invasion of Ukraine.” Actually, the gravity of the situation was considerably worse than we realized at the time.

  We now know that US Air Force Gen. Philip Breedlove, who was Supreme NATO Commander until two months ago, was pressing hard for confrontation with Russia and the anti-coup separatists in eastern Ukraine. This comes through clearly in Breedlove’s recently disclosed emails , which now confirm what we believed in 2014; namely, that everyone needed to examine closely Breedlove’s exaggerated claims, many of them based on fuzzy photos and other highly dubious “intelligence.”

  Lobbying for approval to wage a proxy war with Russia in Ukraine, Breedlove was highly critical of President Barack Obama’s policy, which Breedlove disparaged as simply: “Do not get me into a war.” (As though this were some kind of cowardly order!)

  The emails show that behind Obama’s back, Breedlove kept trying to “leverage, cajole, convince, or coerce the US to react” to Russia. One of Breedlove’s email correspondents wrote back to him: “Given Obama’s instruction to you not to start a war, this may be a tough sell,” but this did not stop Breedlove from trying.

  In 2015, as your own intelligence analysts were able to tell you, Breedlove went beyond hyperbole to outright fabrication with claims that “well over a thousand combat vehicles, Russian combat forces, some of the most sophisticated air defense weapons, and battalions of artillery”, had been sent to eastern Ukraine. These were the kinds of faux claims Breedlove used in attempts to enlist help from the senior military and Congress in getting Obama to supply weapons to Ukrainian armed forces.

  Lest we seem to be singling out Gen. Breedlove, his predecessor as Supreme NATO Commander, Adm. James Stavridis, hardly provided good example. A year after the US led some NATO countries in a Blitz of aircraft and missile strikes against Libyan President Muammar Gaddafi, Stavridis and former US Ambassador to NATO Ivo Daalder wrote in Foreign Affairs: “NATO’s operation in Libya has rightly been hailed as a model intervention.”

  The operation was just the opposite, of course. The chaos now reigning in Libya, with hundreds of refugees drowning in the Mediterranean, offers abundant proof that your government’s decision to keep Germany at arms-length from that “model intervention” was a wise one.

  While it is somewhat awkward for us to offer such candid comments on the character and caliber of the most senior US generals and admirals, many of whom end up getting appointed to senior political positions at NATO – such a critique is unavoidable. The important reality to which we draw your attention pertains not only to their qualifications, but also to their dismissive attitude toward President Obama.

  We observed in our Aug. 30, 2014 memorandum that President Obama “has only tenuous control over the policymakers in his administration.” That this includes senior military leaders can be seen in Obama’s failure to remove Gen. Breedlove, who – in addition to his intense maneuvering behind Obama’s back – made little effort to hide his open disdain for the cautious approach of his Commander-in-Chief toward the possibility of armed confrontation in volatile places like Ukraine.

  * * *

  The following is from the first VIPs Memorandum for Chancellor Merkel (Aug. 30, 2014) – about what is known about the credibility due to former leaders of NATO.

  Hopefully, your advisers have reminded you of NATO Secretary General Anders Fogh Rasmussen’s checkered record for credibility. It appears to us that Rasmussen’s speeches continue to be drafted by Washington. This was abundantly clear on the day before the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq when, as Danish Prime Minister, he told his Parliament: “Iraq has weapons of mass destruction. This is not something we just believe. We know.

  Photos can be worth a thousand words, they can also deceive. We have considerable experience collecting, analyzing, and reporting on all kinds of satellite and other imagery, as well as other kinds of intelligence. Suffice it to say that the images released by NATO on Aug. 28 provide a very flimsy basis on which to charge Russia with invading Ukraine. Sadly, they bear a strong resemblance to the images shown by Colin Powell at the UN on Feb. 5, 2003, that, likewise, proved nothing.

  That same day, we warned President Bush that our former colleague analysts were “increasingly distressed at the politicization of intelligence” and told him flatly, “Powell’s presentation does not come close” to justifying war.

  We urged Mr. Bush to “widen the discussion ” beyond the circle of those advisers clearly bent on a war for which we see no compelling reason and from which we believe the unintended consequences are likely to be catastrophic.”

  Consider Iraq today. Worse than catastrophic.

  Although President Vladimir Putin has until now showed considerable reserve on the conflict in the Ukraine, it behooves us to remember that Russia, too, can “shock and awe.” In our view, if there is the slightest chance of that kind of thing eventually happening to Europe because of Ukraine, sober-minded leaders need to think this through very carefully.

  END of excerpt from Aug. 30, 2014, VIPs Memorandum for Chancellor Merkel.

  Tyler Durden
  Mon, 04/11/2022 – 22:20

• Chipotle Sets To Debut Chip-Making Robots To Mitigate Labor Shortage
  Chipotle Sets To Debut Chip-Making Robots To Mitigate Labor Shortage

  Chipotle Mexican Grill is experimenting with a new tortilla chip robot that would help it offset labor shortages amid the Great Resignation. 

  Miso Robotics CEO Michael Bell told Fox News’ Neil Cavuto Friday that his company partnered with Chipotle to develop a chip-making robot as the fast-food company struggles with the current labor shortage. He said, “automation is the solution.” 

  “The restaurant industry had a labor gap before the pandemic… the pandemic just accelerated this big gap between the number of jobs and the available labor,” Bell added.

  

  He noted America’s labor shortage would continue for some time as millions of jobs go unfilled. Meanwhile, executives, such as the ones at Chipotle, are seeking to leverage AI to automate mundane tasks that low-skilled workers would typically complete. 

  So far, tests at Chipotle’s innovation lab in Irvine, California, have gone great. The robot, named “Chippy,” is set to debut at an undisclosed location in southern California.  

  

  Chippy has proven itself to follow Chipotle’s tortilla chip recipe accurately. 

  

  This is just another example of how the labor shortage is ushering in investment in automation by major corporations to displace low-skill/low-wage human workers. At this rate, by the end of this decade, one would suspect many fast-food restaurants would have some to all of their kitchens automated, a move to drive down costs. 

  Tyler Durden
  Mon, 04/11/2022 – 22:00

• Moderna Recalls 764,900 COVID-19 Vaccine Doses After Contamination Found
  Moderna Recalls 764,900 COVID-19 Vaccine Doses After Contamination Found

  Authored by Lorenz Duchamps via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours),

  The U.S. pharmaceutical and biotechnology company Moderna Inc. on Friday issued a recall in Europe involving 764,900 doses of its COVID-19 vaccine “Spikevax” after contaminants were discovered in a vial.

  “The lot is being recalled due to a foreign body being found in one vial in the lot manufactured at the company’s contract manufacturing site, ROVI,” Moderna and Spain’s ROVI Pharma Industrial Services said in a joint statement.

  

  The drugmaker did not specify what kind of foreign substance was found and had recalled the whole lot out of “an abundance of caution.”

  The contamination was traced in just one vial of the batch and investigators do not believe the contamination posed a risk to other vials in the lot.

  “Moderna conducted a cumulative search of its global safety database, and no safety concerns were reported in individuals who received the Moderna COVID-19 vaccine from this lot. To date, no safety or efficacy issues have been identified,” according to the statement.

  The lots were distributed from Jan. 13 to Jan. 14 in Norway, Poland, Portugal, Spain, and Sweden. To date, more than 900 million doses of the Moderna COVID-19 vaccine have been administered worldwide.

  Last year, Moderna had several lots of its COVID-19 vaccines recalled by Japanese authorities after an investigation found stainless steel contaminants in some vials. The recalled batches were manufactured by the same Spanish company, ROVI.

  Japan’s biggest drugmaker, Takeda Pharmaceutical, said in a statement the contamination was traced back to the production run by ROVI. The findings were discovered by an investigation carried out by the two companies, not the Japanese health ministry.

  Three men in Japan had fallen severely ill in August 2021 after being administered a second dose of the now-recalled COVID-19 vaccine and died shortly after. Takeda said in a statement at the time there is no evidence they are linked to the vaccine, Reuters reported.

  “Stainless steel is routinely used in heart valves, joint replacements, and metal sutures and staples. As such, it is not expected that injection of the particles identified in these lots in Japan would result in increased medical risk,” the company said.

  The first two deaths reported in the country linked to contaminated Moderna doses were two men, aged 30 and 38. They both died two days after receiving a second dose from a tainted batch of vaccines.

  The third case was a 49-year-old man, who also fell ill after receiving his second dose, and died the next day, the health ministry said, noting that his only known health issue was a buckwheat allergy.

  From NTD News

  Tyler Durden
  Mon, 04/11/2022 – 21:40

• Market Braces For Scorching CPI As White House Warns Of "Extraordinarily Elevated" Inflation Numbers
  Market Braces For Scorching CPI As White House Warns Of “Extraordinarily Elevated” Inflation Numbers

  If last month’s hotter than expected inflation report sparked fears of a 50bps rate hike, tomorrow’s March CPI print may spark calls for 75bps.

  Tuesday’s CPI report, which will the last one the Fed will get ahead of its meeting in May, comes amidst heightened speculation that the Fed could move by 50bps at the next meeting, and futures are pricing in an 88% chance of a 50bps move.

  

  While consensus expects an 8.4% print tomorrow – the highest since January 1982 when the Fed Funds rate was 12% (compared to just 0.50% now)…

  

  …  Deutsche Bank economists expect that the CPI increase will be even higher than that – with a monthly gain in headline CPI of +1.3% (vs consensus 1.2%) pushing the year-on-year rate up to +8.6% (vs consensus of 8.4%) – which hasn’t been seen since 1981. Some more details from the bank’s preview:

  While we did see some preliminary impacts in the February data from the Russian invasion of Ukraine, the bulk of the direct  inflationary impact should be felt in the March data, with gas prices rising almost 20% from February. Should our forecasts hit the  mark, this would push year-over-year rates for March headline and core CPI to 8.6% and 6.6%, respectively.

  At the component level, our focus, per usual of late, will be on rents and vehicle prices. As to rents, we expect continued elevated prints, +0.6% for primary rents and +0.5% for OER, similar to their showing last month. Given that rents are one of the components of the CPI for which the Phillips curve seems to work, these outsized monthly prints are a function of the tight labor market. Indeed, income growth is a leading indicator of the series. While our expectation is that rental prints stay near their current values for the rest of the year, there is some risk that the prints accelerate further should the labor market continue to tighten. To this point, both primary rents and OER picked up slightly in February as the unemployment rate fell by two-tenths.

  

  As to vehicle prices, we expect new car prices to have notched relatively moderate gains, +0.4%, in March given the potential for some supply chain disruptions. However, used car prices should show a meaningful decline, -0.8%. For the former, to the extent that vehicle retailers have begun to rebuild their inventories, the additional supply has helped to put downward pressure on price gains for new vehicles. With the Russian invasion of Ukraine and the recent resurgence of covid in China, inventory rebuilds may take a bit longer, however. As to used cars, wholesale used car prices have fallen 5.4% over February and March, so we fully expect further price declines over the next couple months given the typical 2-3 month lag structure.

  

  That said, DB’s economists add that barring further severe disruptions, the March data is likely to be the peak in terms of year-over-year rates for both headline and core since the base effects from last year’s surge in used car prices will begin rolling off in the April data.

  Not everyone agrees, and JPM economist Michael Feroli writes that “real consumer spending is set to rise in the coming year despite near-term inflationary headwinds to demand and medium-term headwinds from tighter monetary policy. Despite some indication in the Chase card spending data of a drag in spending in March, the headline composite for the ISM services survey strengthened last month, with broad-based gains in key details. The headline composite for the ISM services survey rose from 56.5 to 58.3 in March, partially reversing three months of decline during the Omicron surge. The details of the report were upbeat, with gains in business activity, new orders, and employment. The supplier delivery time index edged down in March, more than reversing the increases in the previous two months that had coincided with the Omicron surge and signaling some easing in supply chain pressures.”

  And just to may sure that the March CPI print is as bad as it gets, there is a distinct possibility that the White House do a “kitchen sinking” tomorrow – as Joe Biden press secretary and MSNBC employee Jen Psaki said today, the White House is bracing for “extraordinarily elevated” inflation numbers to be reflected in Tuesday’s data from the Labor Department, which of course will be blamed on PutInflation, and sharply higher energy costs stemming from the Russian invasion of Ukraine (never mind Biden’s release of more than 1 million barrels/day from the strategic midterm reserve).

  “We expect March CPI headline inflation to be extraordinarily elevated due to Putin’s Price Hikes” Psaki said, clearly ignoring that inflation hit 7.8% in February when the only Price Hikes were Biden’s.

  “Because of the actions we’ve taken to address the Putin price hike, we are in a better place than we were last month,” Psaki said, referring to BIden’s release of millions of barrels of oil from the Strategic Petroleum Reserve, a move which will prove cataclysmic should there be a true emergency in the next few months as opposed to just Democrats losing the midterms.

  PSAKI: “We expect March CPI headline inflation to be extraordinarily elevated due to Putin’s Price Hike.” pic.twitter.com/xImSTGKCnV

  — Breaking911 (@Breaking911) April 11, 2022

  https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js

  “I will say that anytime there’s heightened monthly data or inflation reporting or numbers, it is a reminder to us, our allies on the Hill and hopefully to many of the American people that we need to do more to reduce costs for the American people,” Psaki said.

  One of those things, of course, is to crash the market, which according to former NY Fed president Bill Dudley is what is needed to push inflation lower (spoiler alert: adding a market crash to his list of achievements will have no impact on supply-chain driven inflation, but it will certainly guarantee that Biden will have the lowest approval rating of any president in history).

  Finally, will a truly “shocking” CPI print tomorrow open the door to a 75bps hike? According to JPM, “Tuesday’s CPI print should give us clarity on the Fed’s behavior where investors worry about (i) an emergency meeting to hike rates and (ii) a greater than 50bps hike.” That said, the bank believes that both of those outcomes remain unlikely since “Powell believes in transparency and thus is unlikely to surprise the market and risk unintended outcomes given his stated preference to use a data-based approach that tests how much the market can bear.”

  Still, JPM concedes that a CPI print materially above consensus – which looks all but assured – would renew these fears while an in-line print should hold anchor expectations to no emergency meeting, 50bps hike in May, and the Fed sticking to the QT plan detailed in last week’s Minutes.

  Tyler Durden
  Mon, 04/11/2022 – 21:20

• Naming Names
  Naming Names

  Authored by James Howard Kunstler via DailyReckoning.com,

  One reason American movies are so bad these days is they have forgotten how to tell a story. Stuff just happens to characters. Cause, effect and consequence no longer exist in the workshops of Hollywood.

  And one might sense that these imperatives are likewise missing from what used to be known as real life in the USA, with all its stories and narratives. Stuff just happens to the people in this country now. And then sometimes, stuff un-happens.

  With the Russian operation in Ukraine alarming the populace, you might have forgotten the late COVID-19 epidemic that provoked so much public hysteria and government policy overreach.

  Stuff happened during those two-plus years of COVID-19, and even with Ukraine blaring from the cable news channels, COVID-19 stuff is still happening. Vaccine mandates are still in force, in New York City, for instance — except for performers and ballplayers, who are exempted now, as announced this week by Mayor Eric Adams.

  If you detect any specious reasoning behind that diktat, at least you know who made it happen.

  

  “Safe and Effective”

  But so many other things just happened with COVID-19, rather serious things, and no one has had to answer for them, certainly not Dr. Anthony Fauci, who just days ago talked up another booster shot of his obviously defective mRNA “vaccines.”

  Dr. Fauci proposed that despite a raft of emerging statistics from the life insurance realm that indicate a shockingly high number of mysterious all-causes deaths for people in the prime of life. Several conditions appear to be killing them:

  1) Blood clotting in the capillaries of various organs, apparently caused by the “vaccine’s” main active ingredient, spike proteins.

  2) Heart inflammation (pericarditis and myocarditis).

  3) A mystifying array of neurological afflictions.

  4) Switched-off immune system toggles, including the cellular mechanism for preventing the growth of cancers.

  This developing picture of a public health catastrophe, growing more robustly detailed by the week, has somehow not alarmed the general public, not least because the entire public health officialdom does not want them to know about it.

  Names

  In fact, as averred to above, they are all still busy promoting the “vaccines” that are responsible.

  Rochelle Walensky, director of the CDC, is rather well-known — though her duties appear limited to the public impersonation of a “concerned mom” — but whoever heard of Rebecca Bunnell, Ph.D., director of the CDC’s Office of Science?

  Does science play any part in the emerging disaster of sharply rising all-causes deaths? It would be good to know, don’t you think? Anyone heard from Daniel Jernigan, MD, deputy CDC director for public health science and surveillance (DDPHSS)? You’d think he would be out there surveilling things.

  How about Brian C. Moyer, Ph.D., director of the CDC’s National Center for Health Statistics. He would be in charge, presumably, of the VAERS system, which tabulates adverse vaccine events.

  That system evidently under-reports adverse events by a shocking amount — some say only 1% are ever recorded. Why is that? Because it is a website that is so notoriously ill designed and hard to use that the CDC pledged to fix it more than 10 years ago and never got around to it.

  Why is that, Dr. Moyer? Has anyone asked him? I don’t think so.

  More Names

  There is the appalling and still on-going campaign to suppress COVID early-treatment off-label drugs such as ivermectin, hydroxychloroquine, fluvoxamine, etc., though the protocols have been proven highly effective in clinical practice as well as scores of internationally peer-reviewed studies.

  Hundreds of thousands of Americans died because these drugs were maliciously outlawed. In many states, doctors can be punished with loss of medical licenses for using these safe and effective drugs, or even talking them up.

  Who exactly in public health was responsible for this suppression? Who gave the orders for it?  Or did it just happen? Was it Francis Collins, recently retired director of the National Institutes for Health (NIH)? He must have at least approved the policy.

  Stephen M. Hahn, MD, who was commissioner of the Food and Drug Administration from December 2019 to January 2021, the heart of the COVID event timeline? Janet Woodcock, who was acting commissioner from January 2021 to February 2022 — and was previously the longtime chief of the Center for Drug Evaluation and Research?

  Or the current chief of that outfit, one Patrizia Cavazzoni, MD? Or Jacqueline A. O’Shaughnessy, Ph.D., the FDA’s acting chief scientist? Was outlawing early treatment in their purviews? Did they even know about it? How could they not?

  Even More Names

  Consider another killer on the scene: the drug remdesivir, a Dr. Fauci production, originally for hepatitis C, manufactured by Gilead Sciences. U.S. public health has anointed remdesivir the standard of practice for patients severely ill with Stage 2 inflammatory COVID in the ICUs all over America.

  It is well-known that remdesivir destroys kidney function in as little as five days. This supposed antiviral agent is being used after the high-viral-load Stage 1 phase of COVID is over. How many ICU patients have been killed by remdesivir?

  Why not ask Judith A McMeekin, Pharm.D, the FDA’s associate commissioner for regulatory affairs? Or Sam Posner, acting director for the National Center for Immunization and Respiratory Diseases? Or Rima F. Khabbaz, MD, director of the National Center for Emerging and Zoonotic Infectious Diseases?

  Or Debra Houry, MD, acting principal deputy director of the CDC and, since 2014, director of the Center for Injury Prevention and Control? Or the CDC’s chief medical officer, Mitchell Wolfe, MD? Or Nathaniel Smith, MD, CDC’s deputy director of public health service and implementation?  Or maybe Jay C. Butler, deputy CDC director for infectious dseases?

  You see, there are real people in high places with exalted credentials who must in some way be responsible for the epic blunders committed during the COVID-19 saga. Or else they allowed these actions to happen on purpose.

  Will any actual persons answer for any of this?

  I’m Not Done Yet

  Oh, by the way, perhaps you noticed the ruckus over University of Pennsylvania transgender swimmer Lia Thomas (born William Thomas) recently winning the Women’s 500-yard freestyle race in the NCAA nationals.

  How did it happen that the 6’4” Thomas, oddly still in possession of normal male genitalia, got permission to compete against, shall we say, natural-born women?

  You can ask Mark Emmert, the NCAA president, or Wendell E. Pritchett, president of the University of Pennsylvania, or Alanna W. Shanahan, Penn director of athletics, or Lauren C. Procopio, assistant director for men’s/women’s Swimming.

  You see, there are real people behind all these disorders of our national life. Many more besides just the notorious Dr. Fauci… and many more work under all these directors of this and that.

  What have they done? Or did stuff just happen?

  Tyler Durden
  Mon, 04/11/2022 – 21:00

• Bird Flu Spreads Across US, Egg Prices Soar  
  Bird Flu Spreads Across US, Egg Prices Soar  

  A contagious strain of highly pathogenic avian influenza wiped out flocks across the US and killed millions of birds. The direct effect has been a nasty ripple effect of tight poultry meat and egg supplies, sending retail prices sky-high — adding to record-high food inflation. 

  The latest estimates from the US Department of Agriculture (USDA) show around 24 million poultry birds like chickens and turkeys have died or been culled due to the virus since February. 

  Bloomberg published a shocking map of the bird flu spreading across the US, covering nearly half of the country. 

  

  Even though the virus poses limited risks to humans, the virus has been detected in the nation’s leading egg producer: Iowa. The spread continues as “wild bird migration patterns continue. The disease is being introduced to our domestic population,” Chloe Carson, the communications director of the Iowa agriculture department, told CNN.

  National egg prices are off the charts for this time of year because of tight supplies. The average price of a dozen eggs has jumped to $2.60, up from $1.20 in early January. 

  

  Last week, US Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack said poultry farms are better prepared to mitigate virus spreading following new guidelines after the previous bird flu outbreak in 2015. 

  As for now, the spread shows no signs of abating and adds to higher living costs for Americans struggling under the Biden economy of record-high food and gas prices.

  Tyler Durden
  Mon, 04/11/2022 – 20:40

• Amid Sharp Rise In Accumulation, Bitcoin Price Action Increasingly Disconnected From On-Chain Demand
  Amid Sharp Rise In Accumulation, Bitcoin Price Action Increasingly Disconnected From On-Chain Demand

  Analyst Retrospective April 2022, by Copper.co

  How to value Bitcoin continues to be a seriously debated topic despite on-chain metrics showing a clear direction in demand. Small and medium investors have upped their take of the supply and exchange balances continue to drop. Decentralized Finance markets are showing more parked wrapped Bitcoin and less borrowing of the cryptocurrency too. But, cash and carry plays are only showing lukewarm returns and funding rates remain flat.

  * * *

  Volatility makes Bitcoin seem like a complex asset to assess when in reality, it’s a pure supply and demand play. There are no cashflows. Its ability to be used in transaction settlement outside of moving in and out of exchanges is a tiny portion still. It ultimately boils down to whether or not there are more enthusiastic long-term buyers than short-term sellers. On-chain data gives investors a better picture. Traders, on the other hand, are creating copy/paste bots with the most obvious technical analysis metrics. Some win, some lose.

  Sharp rise in accumulation

  The sharpest visible rise in holdings has happened with medium size investors holding 1-10 Bitcoins. For the first time since 2020, markets have not taken account the increase in holdings (see chart).

  

  This begs the question whether markets have new information on the price of Bitcoin outside demand, or there is a significant lag in accounting for reduced supply. Due to US equity market correlation, it’s more plausible that it’s the latter.

  Since the start of February 2022, the addresses increased their size by a whopping 51k Bitcoins in less than three months at the fastest rate and most accumulation seen since the end of 2020, when Bitcoin was still at the $10k mark (see chart). The on-chain
  cost of these holdings averages to $47k per Bitcoin. This was also the average cost seen by small retail investors in 2021.

  

  In essence, these addresses alone have siphoned off over 89% of the new Bitcoin supply for the period of 1 February till 6 April 2022, when investors began to buy in heavily.

  

  And these investors are opportunistic. Observable is that they are more price sensitive and begin to exit before a new price top is formed. Their current direction and thesis are crystal clear. And these on-chain investors haven’t been the only consistent buyers either.

  Adding up, bit by bit

  There are numbers of players within the Bitcoin investment space, but none other than small retail holders who self-custody have been so consistent in demand with a long-term perspective.

  Since the start of the year, 0-1 BTC addresses increased by nearly 40k Bitcoins. That alone would be 47% of the new supply this year. However, readers of Copper’s research already knew this from our previous Analyst Retrospective.

  Average daily accumulation from small retail investors kicked off 2Q22 in grand style, hitting a new high of 0.06% (see chart 3).

  

  At average growth rates, and into the next Bitcoin halving estimated in May 2024, current prices would imply very little new supply overhang would be left just from these small retail investors. Even at a 0.03% daily change, which compounds quickly, would see retail investors siphon off all of the new supply (see chart 4).

  

  It would be very diffcult not to see prices increase. Bitcoin doesn’t break supply and demand economics into new theories; it adheres to the most classic of equations. Price volatility, of course, is a different story and still a riddle to traders and investors alike.

  But what we can say for certain is that 90% equivalent of the new Bitcoin supply minted in 2022 has gone on-chain to addresses holding 0-10 BTC. There is little new supply overhang from small and medium investors alone.

  DeFi short sellers take pause

  Another metric to keep a close eye on is supply changes on DeFi protocols. The most utility in borrowing wrapped Bitcoin is really to short it on decentralised exchanges. But there has been a growing shi% in supply and demand dynamics on popular protocol Compound Finance (see chart 5).

  

  Lending utilization for wBTC on Compound hit a new low of just 3%. More Bitcoin is making its way into the supply side, while demand has dropped more than four times seen at different cycles during 2021. And it’s not that the returns are great by any stretch of the imagination with annual yields standing at less than a 0.01%. The expectation is clearly value appreciation.

  

  Tyler Durden
  Mon, 04/11/2022 – 20:20

• 8-Mile Long Russian Convoy Signals Huge Assault Readied To Take Donbas: Pentagon
  8-Mile Long Russian Convoy Signals Huge Assault Readied To Take Donbas: Pentagon

  During a Monday press briefing the Pentagon told reporters that it’s observed major Russian preparations for a bigger move deeper into the Donbas region of Ukraine. 

  Press Secretary John Kirby told reporters that based on US intelligence, the Russian military is now “trying to resupply and reinforce their efforts in the Donbas.” This also as Western media reports have described an eight-mile long armored and infantry convoy that appear to be preparing for the fresh assault. 

  NEW: U.S. believes that Russia’s 8-mile long military convoy that’s heading toward Ukraine’s contested city of Izyum originated near Belgorod and Valukyi: senior U.S. defense official.

  Here’s an April 8 satellite photo of the northern extent of the convoy.

  📷:@Maxar pic.twitter.com/ODIVpNio9Z

  — Jack Detsch (@JackDetsch) April 11, 2022

  https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js

  “The convoy, exposed in commercial satellite imagery, stretches an estimated eight miles. It appears to contain vehicles to command and supply infantry units and possibly helicopters, said the official, who provided intelligence assessments on condition of anonymity,” USA Today writes.

  Kirby in the briefing described that “It does seem to be a mix of personnel carrying vehicles as well as armored vehicles and maybe some artillery, maybe some enabling capabilities.”

  He further cited satellite imagery that shows the convoy headed south toward Izyum, which is at the front line of the extent of Russian advance in Donbas. Kirby described these as major reinforcements.

  Last month Russian forces drew back their positions outside of Kiev and with Russian commanders issuing formal statements confirming that the ‘special operation’ would now focus on liberating the Donbas region in the east. This has fueled speculation both that the Kremlin may be disappointed in how things are going so far, given the fierce Ukrainian resistance, and could be eyeing a partition of the country into eastern and western halves. 

  According to The Hill citing Pentagon leadership, the US has been expecting the battle for Donbas to intensify imminently: 

  The comments come after Joint Chiefs of Staff Chairman Gen. Mark Milley on Thursday warned there is a “significant battle yet ahead” around the Donbas, where the Kremlin intends to “mass forces and continue their assault” on the country after failing to take the capital of Kyiv.   

  Here are today’s control-of-terrain maps for #Russia‘s invasion of #Ukraine from @TheStudyofWar and @criticalthreats. We are not mapping the alleged chemical attacks in #Mariupol, but will cover that incident later tonight in our daily written update. pic.twitter.com/Sp5ohQmXyQ

  — ISW (@TheStudyofWar) April 11, 2022

  https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js

  President Zelensky too is now warning of an impending major new Russian push to take the whole of Donbas, telling South Korean lawmakers in a virtual address, “The occupiers have sent dozens of thousands of soldiers and colossal numbers of equipment to prepare new attacks,” according to NBC News. 

  Tyler Durden
  Mon, 04/11/2022 – 20:00

• DOJ Election Threat Taskforce Appears To Have 'Something To Hide': Watchdog Group President
  DOJ Election Threat Taskforce Appears To Have ‘Something To Hide’: Watchdog Group President

  Authored by Masooma Haq and Roman Balmakov via The Epoch Times,

  Judicial Watch President Tom Fitton said the U.S. Justice Department (DOJ) is being weaponized against opposing voices. Fitton’s group filed a lawsuit against the DOJ recently to get documents connected to the department’s election threat task force, after almost a year of no response to their Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request. Fitton thinks the DOJ has something they don’t want the public to know.

  “We want answers about it. And of course, when you don’t give us answers, and you don’t comply with the law that requires that records be turned over, it suggests to me that you got something to hide,” Fitton told the host of EpochTV’s “Facts Matter,” Roman Balmakov, during a recent interview. “So, what are they nervous about, that they don’t want to give to us?”

  

  Fitton’s comments come after the DOJ’s July action to form an election threats task force to investigate alleged widespread threats to election officials.

  “You know, I think we had asked for this material last year initially, and we still don’t have anything,” he said. Judicial Watch filed the lawsuit at the end of March for a FOIA request they submitted in August 2021 for all records related to the August virtual task force meeting.

  According to Judicial Watch, the group is “a conservative, non-partisan educational foundation, which promotes transparency, accountability, and integrity in government, politics, and the law.”

  According to the DOJ, “the task force is leading the Justice Department’s efforts to address threats of violence against election workers, and to ensure that all election workers—whether they be elected, appointed, or those who volunteer—be permitted to do their jobs free from threats and intimidation.” The task force will partner with U.S. Attorneys’ Offices and the FBI field offices to assess allegations of threats against election workers.

  The DOJ has charged two people in connection with election threats since the launch of the task force.

  “So not only do you have the DOJ involved, you get the FBI, you’ve got I think their national security operation involved as well, and the Department of Homeland Security. And you know, I read it as, ‘Don’t you dare ask questions about the way elections are being conducted, otherwise, you’ll be on our government radar.’”

  Fitton believes that these efforts by the DOJ violate the public’s constitutional rights and target political opposition, and work more to intimidate people.

  “So, what they do is they pretend that their political opponents are to be treated as national security threats, potential terrorists, lawbreakers, and then follow up with an intimidation effort that suggests law enforcement will be watching you if you talk on these specific topics.”

  The DOJ declined to comment on the lawsuit and why they had not released the documents to Judicial Watch.

  Broader Problem of Corruption

  “Well, … frankly, most federal agencies are irredeemably corrupt, and they need to be really reformed in dramatic ways, if not dismantled, depending on the agency entirely,” said Fitton.

  When it comes to bad public policy and misconduct, the Justice Department is at the center of the storm, he said.

  “They defend the indefensible,” said Fitton. “So, everything you don’t like, if the federal government’s breaking the law, and you think that’s going on and there’s abuse, usually, there’s a Justice Department attorney or agency that’s more than willing to defend that and is pushing it or protecting them from accountability by pretending that records about government misconduct are secret and can’t be turned over.”

  Fitton said the DOJ is too big and has too much money. “You’ve got this basic waste, fraud, and abuse issue, in addition to the politicization because no one’s watching the store. We need the watch the watchers.”

  Tyler Durden
  Mon, 04/11/2022 – 19:40

• Watchdog Blasts $54M In Chinese Gifts To UPenn After Biden Center Announced
  Watchdog Blasts $54M In Chinese Gifts To UPenn After Biden Center Announced

  A government watchdog has asked the US attorney investigating Hunter Biden to investigate $54.6 million in Chinese donations to the University of Pennsylvania – most of which happened after the university’s February 2017 announcement that it would create the Biden Center – and $23.1 million of which were anonymous and started in 2016, according to public records.

  

  According to the NY Post, the vast majority of donations from China to UPenn occurred after the announcement that the university would create the Penn Biden Center for Diplomacy and Global Engagement shortly after Biden’s term as vice president had just ended.

  The center, which is located in Washington, DC., opened its doors in February 2018. Antony Blinken, whom Biden named as Secretary of State, briefly served as its managing director.

  The Ivy League university received $15.8 million in anonymous Chinese gifts that year, including one eye-popping $14.5 million donation in May 2018, records show.

  The flurry of donations may be related to Hunter Biden’s business interests in China, the National Legal and Policy Center, a Virginia-based watchdog, alleged in complaints sent in May and October 2020 to the Departments of Education and Justice. -NY Post

  Last week NLPC asked Delaware US Attorney David Weiss to include the Chinese donations as part of his federal tax probe of Hunter Biden.

  “We’ve asked … Weiss to pursue the larger network of individuals and institutions who benefited from millions doled out by foreign interests connected to Hunter Biden’s work in China and Ukraine,” Tom Anderson, director of the NLPC’s Government Integrity Project, told the Post.

  The group’s 12-page complaint was originally filed in October 2020 with the DOJ’s Foreign Agents Registration Act (FARA) unit.

  According to UPenn spokesman Stephen MacCarthy, “The Penn Biden Center has never solicited or received any gifts from any Chinese or other foreign entity. In fact, the University has never solicited any gifts for the Center.”

  Tyler Durden
  Mon, 04/11/2022 – 19:20

• Food Shortages Loom As Chinese Farmers Face Trouble Amid Pandemic
  Food Shortages Loom As Chinese Farmers Face Trouble Amid Pandemic

  Authored by Zhao Fenghua and Luo Ya via The Epoch Times,

  Jilin Province in China has announced that efforts will continue to ensure that spring plowing continues despite a province-wide COVID-19 lockdown. However, online videos showed police interrupting farmers working in the fields throughout China.

  Fearing the delay in spring plowing could lead to a food shortage, analysts say the crisis is beyond fallow fields, viable seeds and fertilizers are the real crisis Chinese farmers are facing.

  Lockdown Threatens Food Supply

  Jilin, located in China’s corn belt, is an important processing and production region for the country’s cereals.

  The authorities locked down the entire province on March 14.

  The lockdown has affected 24 million people and threatened the national food supply.

  On April 6, Jilin authorities claimed that to safeguard the spring plowing, more than 80 percent of seeding sheds covering 19,768 acres of land were ready, and over 90 percent of corn and soybean seeds had been delivered.

  

  However, online Chinese videos showed farmers from various parts of the country were removed as they plowed the fields by local police for violating lockdowns, and were subject to either detention or quarantine for 14 days.

  The Chinese edition of The Epoch Times was only able to reach one local seed company to confirm the official line on the readiness of seeds. The staff member said the company had been closed since the lockdown in early March. “In the pandemic, everyone is staying at home for the PCR test,” she said, adding that she didn’t know when business will resume.

  Seed Crisis May Lead to Food Shortage

  Liu is a Chinese journalist who requested anonymity. He believes the lack of viable seeds is more serious than the restrictions during lockdown.

  He said: “Seeds and fertilizer are the two main things for spring plowing. But China’s viable grain seeds come in at a high price.”

  According to Liu, many Chinese farmers have become victims of the opaque procurement practice in China. Some even had near-zero harvest because of bad seeds.

  He explained that the seeds are controlled by foreign entities, and they are very expensive. “The farmers no longer keep the good seeds from previous harvest like in the old days,” he said.

  Liu said: “Foreign companies control the technology of the seeds that come into China. Some domestic seed companies, completely out of touch with modern seed technology, even sold inferior seeds which they claimed as self-bred seeds. As a result, the farmers had a poor harvest.”

  Liu blamed the many Chinese crop seed producers for the problems with the seeds.

  Over the years, Chinese farmers have suffered economic loss owing to inferior seeds.

  In one 2019 Chinese media report, a case of inferior seeds cost 205 farmers in Jiangxi Province around $726,000 loss, totaling 800 acres of fields.

  In 2020, fake seeds led to no harvest in a 279-acre field involving 40 farmers in Inner Mongolia.

  

  A farmer waiting to sell grain at a state grain reserves depot in Yushu of Jilin Province, China, on Jan. 8, 2009. (China Photos/Getty Images)

  Chen Weijian is the chief editor of Chinese human rights magazine Beijing Spring.

  He indicated the lockdowns will seriously affect the price and production of fertilizers and pesticides. “Without pesticides and fertilizers, there’s no productivity in the Chinese soil,” he said.

  “I believe that the food crisis in China will become more prominent in two or three years,” he added, referring to the huge loss of farming land over the years of government-led rural land expropriation.

  Recently, Beijing forced rural areas to restore farm fields in various parts of China. Some local officials responded to the latest policy by turning basketball courts and roads into farming fields by laying layers of soil on cement for plantation.

  Chen said that this reveals the food shortage has reached an embarrassing point for Beijing.

  Tyler Durden
  Mon, 04/11/2022 – 19:00

• Fauci Admits Defeat: Says COVID Here To Stay, People Need To 'Calculate Individual Risk'
  Fauci Admits Defeat: Says COVID Here To Stay, People Need To ‘Calculate Individual Risk’

  While President Joe Biden campaigned on a promise to “shut down the virus, not the economy,” Dr. Anthony Fauci – the highest paid employee in the US government – was taking a much more cautious approach – suggesting that Covid might never go away.

  

  And with Washington DC now a superspreader party town for the far-less deadly Omicron strain, Fauci has now explicitly thrown in the towel on trying to rid the world of Covid-19 – telling ABC‘s “This Week” that the virus is here to stay, and people will just have to decide what level of risk they’re willing to take.

  “This is not going to be eradicated and it’s not going to be eliminated,” Fauci told host Jonathan Karl.

  “What’s going to happen is that we’re going to see that each individual is going to have to make their calculation of the amount of risk that they want to take in going to indoor dinners and in going to functions, even within the realm of a green zone map of the country where you see everything looks green but it’s starting to tick up,” he added.

  Here’s Dr. Fauci agreeing with Dr. Leana Wen and saying what so many have been saying for years:

  “This is not going to be eradicated … Each individual is going to have to make their [risk] calculation … We’re going to have to live with some degree of virus in the community.” pic.twitter.com/iapD3VuhM1

  — Scott Morefield (@SKMorefield) April 10, 2022

  https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js“We’re going to have to live with some degree of virus in the community,” Fauci continued, adding that “The best way to mitigate that, Jon, is to get vaccinated.”

  Yes, a vaccine developed for a completely different strain which wanes in protection just six weeks after the receipt of a fourth dose, according to a recent Israeli study.

   

  Tyler Durden
  Mon, 04/11/2022 – 18:40

• Special Counsel John Durham Continues His Focus On The Hillary Clinton Campaign
  Special Counsel John Durham Continues His Focus On The Hillary Clinton Campaign

  Authored by ‘Techno Fog’ via ‘The Reactionary’ substack,

  Special Counsel John Durham continues his focus on the Hillary Clinton Campaign…

  …And: John Podesta has been interviewed.

  

  Special Counsel John Durham has asked high ranking officials from the Clinton Campaign and Hillary for America, including the Clinton Campaign’s Chair (who we believe to be John Podesta1), about their awareness of the activities conducted by Fusion GPS on Hillary’s behalf.

  

  This confirms an important avenue of Durham’s investigation: whether the Hillary Campaign or Hillary for America were part of a conspiracy to traffic false information to the FBI and other governmental entities.

  While we reported on this development back in December, Durham’s latest filing (available here) provides context to his statement that Hillary for America, the Hillary Clinton Campaign, and former employees of that campaign were involved “in matters before the Special Counsel.”

  

  Those “matters” apparently now include the Alfa Bank data (the purported secret communications between Russian Alfa Bank and the Trump Organization). The importance of this data was suggested in another filing (April 8, 2022), where Sussmann’s lawyers provided to the Court a March 30, 2022 letter from Special Counsel Durham to Sussmann’s attorneys.

  That letter addresses the Special Counsel’s understanding that Sussmann’s lawyers would not “offer evidence, or engage in questioning, that would imply, assert, or seek to prove the authenticity of the relevant DNS data or the actual truth of the allegations at issue concerning a secret channel of communications between the Trump Organization and Alfa Bank.”

  It also served as a warning. Should Sussmann’s attorneys try to establish the accuracy of the Alfa Bank/Trump data, the Special Counsel’s expert would be ready to testify that the data was falsified:

  

  That statement is the strongest thus far that the Special Counsel has determined the Alfa Bank/Trump data was spoofed in order to mislead the press and the FBI. A conspiracy, if you will.

  Moving on – besides Alfa Bank, what else might these “matters” referenced by Durham include?

  For starters, whether the Clinton Campaign or Hillary for America knew about, or directed the activities of, Charles Dolan (the longtime Clinton ally and the “source” of Steele dossier primary subsource Igor Danchenko). As we noted back in January, we believe that Dolan has testified before a grand jury on these issues.

   Recall that Durham informed the Court that the Igor Danchenko (Steele’s primary subsource) trial might include the following issues:

  1. The Clinton Campaign’s knowledge or lack of knowledge concerning the veracity of information in the Fusion GPS reports sourced by Danchenko,

  2. The Clinton Campaign’s awareness or lack of awareness of Dancehnko’s collection methods and sub-sources,

  3. Meetings or communications between and among the Clinton Campaign, Fusion GPS, and/or Steele regarding or involving Danchenko

  4. Danchenko knowledge or lack of knowledge regarding the Clinton Campaign’s role in and activities surrounding the Fusion GPS reports, and

  5. The extent to which the Clinton Campaign and/or its representatives directed, solicited, or controlled Danchenko’s activities.

  Let’s go with a hypothetical and assume for a moment that the Clinton Campaign was involved in conspiracies to traffic false information to the FBI/DOJ via the Steele dossier and the Alfa Bank allegations. (Still an assumption at this time – beware the danger of false hope. We saw the other side get trapped and humiliated with their promises of indictments.)

  Why go to those lengths – and why risk criminal exposure? Especially with polling predicting a near-certain Hillary win?

  Dare I suggest it all goes back to the DNC “hack”.

  Privilege Issues

  One of the filings we discussed above (regarding Podesta) is Durham’s motion to compel the production of documents against the Democratic National Committee (DNC), Hillary for America, Fusion GPS, and Perkins Coie. Each one of these entities has “withheld and/or redacted documents and communications” from the Special Counsel. Fusion GPS, for example has withheld 1,455 documents.

  Not to be outdone, Hillary for American and the DNC have asserted privilege over communications between Rodney Joffe (“Tech Executive-1” in the Sussmann indictment) and Fusion GPS – despite the DNC or HFA not being attached to those e-mails. Rodney Joffe, according to Durham, “has asserted his Fifth Amendment right against self-incrimination over any responsive documents within his personal possession, custody, or control.”

  What exactly does Durham want from the Clinton Campaign, et al.? Here’s some examples:

  1. The unredacted contract between Perkins Coie and Fusion GPS. (View the redacted version here.)

  2. “38 emails and attachments between and among” Perkins Coie, Rodney Joffe, and/or Fusion GPS employees.

  3. Communications between Fusion GPS and Rodney Joffe relating to the Alfa Bank allegations.

  The primary basis of the privilege asserted by the DNC, et al., is that the work-product from Fusion GPS or Rodney Joffe was done in anticipation of litigation. When asking whether a document is prepared “in anticipation of litigation,” courts will look to whether “the document can fairly be said to have been prepared or obtained because of the prospect of litigation.” FTC v. Boehringer, 778 F.3d 142, 147 (D.C. Cir. 2015).

   The protects afforded by the work-product doctrine are the very reason why Perkins Coie referenced “potential and/or on-going litigation” in its contract with Fusion GPS. In other words, they planned ahead for the possibility that this privilege might need to be asserted. (This is the privilege Fusion GPS was asserting when it was sued by the owners of Alfa Bank.)

  

  The good news?

  The DNC, Hillary for America, Fusion GPS, and Perkins Coie will likely be compelled by the Court to produce the documents requested by Durham. Their arguments of “privilege” are weak for a number of reasons, including: (1) the work was of a political nature and did not involve legal advice; (2) the work was not done in anticipation of litigation; (3) any privilege was waived, as Fusion GPS, the DNC/HFA, and Perkins Coie all did their part to distribute the information to the press, government officials, etc.

  Dates of Interest

  Finally, the latest filings provides dates of the Fusion/Perkins contract and the grand jury subpoenas:

  • April 1, 2016: Fusion GPS enters into a contract with Perkins Coie.

  • March 22, 2021: The Special Counsel serves Fusion GPS with a grand jury subpoena to produce documents relating to (1) the Alfa Bank hoax, and (2) the use of Russian phones “by Donald Trump and/or individuals affiliated with Donald Trump.” The Russian phone allegations were those brought by Sussmann to the CIA in February 2017.

  • July 9, 2021: The Special Counsel requests Fusion GPS produce its retention contracts/agreements with the DNC and Hillary for America.

  • September 16, 2021: The Special Counsel issued grand jury subpoenas to Perkins Coie and Fusion GPS, “requiring them to produce – in redacted form – the documents previously listed on privilege logs prepared by counsel for those entities so that such documents would be available for admission into evidence.”

  As to the reason to provide the “privilege” arguments, one can’t help but think that the DNC, the Clinton Campaign, and the rest of them are trying to hid the most damning evidence and incriminating communications.

  * * *

  The Reactionary is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber.

  Tyler Durden
  Mon, 04/11/2022 – 18:20

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