- The Illusion Of Safety: UK Commuter Trains Will Leave Windows Open In Winter To Fight COVID-19
The Illusion Of Safety: UK Commuter Trains Will Leave Windows Open In Winter To Fight COVID-19
Tyler Durden
Tue, 10/13/2020 – 02:45As Boris Johnson forces hundreds of bars to close as COVID-19 cases come roaring back, with hot spots in northern England leading the charge, the Telegraph reports that commuter train operators are instituting questionable new safety measures like keeping all train windows open during the winter cold to try and ‘COVID-19 proof’ their trains and make commuters more comfortable with the safety risk.
The news comes despite new research confirming that the virus can survive for weeks on banknotes, and that lower temperatures enhance SARS-CoV-2’s chances of survival.
The UK over the weekend finally topped 600,000 cases as a surge in new cases started to wane.
But as London’s commercial real estate values plummet, and downtown businesses that once catered mostly to commuters close permanently, one after the other, politicians are also under pressure to start pushing younger and healthier workers back into the office.
The director of the UK’s rail safety regulator tried to reassure commuters that commuter trains are safe, and that “road is not the panacea that was originally, without justification, put out there.”
Ali Chegini, a director at the Rail Safety and Standards Board, said: “Even though it’s cold, even though you have to wrap up and put woolly socks on, it’s better to keep windows open than to be exposed to the risk of infection.”
He said four in every five trains had ventilation systems called HVAC, and that even if the windows do not open “moving air is better than not moving air in enclosed spaces.”
Mr Chegini admitted that although the aim was not to “get everybody back on the train,” he said that: “If you need to be back at work and you’ve got a choice between road and rail, road is not the panacea that was originally, without justification, put out there.”
UK government scientists have determined that COVID-19 spreads fastest at 4 degrees Celsius (39.2 Farenheit), and that has been their position since July.
A senior member of the Scientific Advisory Group for Emergencies (Sage) said Covid-19 “likes” four degrees best – “it survives well at four degrees [celsius]”.
Scientists are also understood to be increasingly confident that countries with temperate climates and with relatively severe flu seasons, such as Britain, will also be affected worse by Covid-19 in winter.
The maximum capacity of trains has dropped by between 45 and 50 per cent, with social distancing rules driving a loss in ticket revenue estimated at £700m a month.
The maximum capacity of trains has dropped by between 45% and 50% as social distancing rules propel a staggering loss in ticket revenue estimated at £700 million a month. Still, opening windows is a better strategy for cleansing trains of the virus than running air conditioning units that may or may not take in air from the outside.
Earlier this year, experts told the Telegraph that air conditioning units that do not have a “dedicated source of outside air supply into a room… could be responsible for recirculating and spreading airborne viral particles into the path of socially distanced users.”
Dr Shaun Fitzgerald, a fellow at the Royal Academy of Engineering, said that even when using air conditioning units opening a window would be the best way to mitigate risk of infection.
Huw Merriman, chairman of the Commons transport select committee, said: “Hospitality and leisure businesses in cities are dying because we have not got commuters. Commuters are a hardy, stoic bunch, but we are also considerate. You only get confidence if you are realistic with the rule set and then people aren’t seen to breach anything.”
- Turkey Notifies Russia: Armenia Must Withdraw From 'Occupied Azerbaijani Lands'
Turkey Notifies Russia: Armenia Must Withdraw From ‘Occupied Azerbaijani Lands’
Tyler Durden
Tue, 10/13/2020 – 02:00Ankara said that the Turkish Defense Minister, Hulusi Akar, stressed during a telephone conversation he had today with his Russian counterpart, Sergey Shoigu, “the necessity of Armenia’s withdrawal from the occupied Azerbaijani lands.”
The Turkish Ministry of Defense stated, in a statement, that Akar called on Monday with Shoigu, and during the call, “views were exchanged on Armenia’s attacks on Azerbaijan.”
Illustrative file image of prior Armenian and Russian army units at a joint military exercise, via RFERL According to the statement, Akar stressed that Armenia, which he claimed “launched an attack on the civilian population and violated the ceasefire regime, must stop its attacks and withdraw from the occupied territories.”
Akar pointed out that “Azerbaijan cannot wait another 30 years,” stressing Turkey’s support for Azerbaijan in its move to “regain control of its lands.”
On September 27, armed clashes erupted on the line of contact between Azerbaijani and Armenian forces in the Karabakh region and adjacent areas, in the most dangerous escalation between the two parties in more than 20 years, amid mutual accusations of starting hostilities and bringing in foreign militants.
Despite Russia and Armenia maintaining a formal mutual defense pact, analysts see little incentive for Russia to weigh too deeply into the long-running territorial dispute:
Incisive analysis of why Putin likes Azerbaijan, is wary of Armenia’s leadership and tolerates increased Turkish involvement in the South Caucasus, by @baunov. https://t.co/8SHKJplNdh
— Lucian Kim (@Lucian_Kim) October 12, 2020
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Turkey is considered a major ally of Azerbaijan, which is involved in the clashes against Armenian forces reportedly by transferring foreign mercenary (especially Syrian Islamists), but also allegedly through air support.
. @Karabakh_MoD downs #Azerbaijan/i UAVs#NKpeace #ArtsakhStrong pic.twitter.com/BTaV74x8cP
— Armenian Unified Infocenter (@ArmenianUnified) October 12, 2020
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On October 10, Azerbaijan and Armenia reached an agreement at the level of foreign ministers by means of Russia to declare a ceasefire for humanitarian purposes, but later the two sides exchanged accusations of violating it.
- The Plot Against America?
The Plot Against America?
Tyler Durden
Tue, 10/13/2020 – 00:00Authored by Frank Furedi via The Gatestone Institute,
From Europe, the culture war raging in the United States is disturbing. In the presidential election, it seems that radical anti-American forces are questioning the very foundation on which Western civilisation was built.
The New York Times seems too similar to the propaganda we were fed by the Hungarian Stalinist Pravda during the days of communist tyranny.
Contaminating the Past
In the Western world, the past has become the target of an ideological crusade. Many of its historic monuments and symbols are being vandalised, defaced or destroyed altogether. In the United States, the national flag has been treated with derision and denounced by leading members of its cultural institutions as a symbol of racism, oppression and discrimination. Commentators have been regularly condemning their nation’s past and portraying it as a source of irredeemable shame.
In recent times, hostility towards the very foundation on which different Western nations rest has acquired a systematic form. This trend is most strikingly articulated by The New York Times‘ 1619 Project — to devalue and criminalise the founding of the United States.
Through distorting America’s history, this project claims that the year 1619, and not 1776, constitutes the origin of the United States. It was in 1619 that African slaves arrived in Jamestown, and this event has been rebranded as the origins of the US. Why? Because the 1619 Project insists that the US was founded for the purpose of entrenching slavery and that to this day, this nation is dominated by that legacy. According to this inaccurate version of the past, the American Revolution was not so much a war of independence but a selfish act of preserving exploitation and oppression. In this way, the contribution of the American Revolution to the development of the Western ideals of individual liberty and personal responsibility is erased from history. America’s Declaration of Independence and — especially for the time — its remarkably advanced liberal and democratic Constitution and Bill of Rights are implicitly renounced as slave-owners’ charters.
Most significantly, the 1619 project is designed to contaminate the tradition and foundation that underpins the opportunity and mobility that have come to characterise the American way of life. This attempt to vandalise the tradition of a nation and its historic memory is far more toxic than toppling over a statue. Certainly, one of the main authors of the 1619 project, Nikole Hannah-Jones, is in no doubt that her objective was to plunder the past in order to undermine the moral authority of present. Recently she responded to critics who claim that she has distorted history by stating on Twitter:
“I’ve always said that 1619 project is not history. It is a work of journalism that explicitly seeks to challenge the national narrative and therefore national memory. The project has always been as much about the present as it is about the past.”
Hannah-Jones’s explicit conflation of the present and the past should not be seen as an innocent disregard of fundamental temporal boundaries but as a project devoted to contaminating the past in order de-legitimate the institutions of the US in the present.
A script for the vandalisation of history
The way in which the authors of the 1619 Project attempt to seize control of the national narrative is by providing a simplistic, inaccurate but highly evocative script for members of the public. It is a script that many protestors, rioters and looters in the United States have effortlessly internalised. Hannah-Jones has little inhibition about promoting a script that regards not only the Founders of the US but members of the white race with contempt. As she noted in a 1995 letter to a newspaper, “the white race is the biggest murderer, rapist, pillager, and thief of the modern world”. Her reference is not simply to the white people that settled America in the 17th and 18th centuries. She added:
“Even today, the descendants of these savage [white] people pump drugs and guns into the Black community, pack Black people into the squalor of segregated urban ghettos, and continue to be bloodsuckers in our community.”
In a different world, the denunciation of an entire race would be interpreted as not a million miles from racist prejudice. We live in a world, however, where scripts like the one promoted by the 1619 Project are strongly supported by many of the cultural and educational institutions of society. It is after all The New York Times — once the paper of record in the US — that promoted and endorsed Hannah-Jones’ narrative of hate towards the nation’s past. And to demonstrate that Hannah-Jones enjoyed the moral support of the commentariat, she was awarded the prestigious Pulitzer Prize. Hollywood celebrities rushed in to demonstrate their support for the 1619 Project. Predictably, Oprah Winfrey and the global content platform, Lionsgate, teamed up with Hannah-Jones to bring her work to an even wider audience through multiple platforms.
The embrace of the 1619 Project by celebrities, online influencers and leaders of America’s cultural industry highlights one of the most important development that encourages the cancelling of American culture. The most significant feature of the war against the past is the complicity of cultural institutions and their leaders in the project of estranging society from its traditions and history.
It is not merely universities that promote a vision of the nation’s past as one that people should view with shame. The claim that contemporary cultural institutions bear the burden of guilt for the crimes committed by their ancestors also seems to have been widely internalised by the cultural elites. According to their playbook, America’s history is a story of unremitting violence and greed. There are no “good old days” that can serve as a focus for redemption and nostalgia. Instead of nostalgia, the current regime promoting a vision of the past as “the bad old days” incites guilt, shame and self-loathing. This corrosive orientation towards one’s history invites the performance of apology. The ritualization of remorse towards the events of the past is one of the important accomplishments of this movement.
It seems that this election is not just about which candidate gets elected — it is ultimately about America’s commitment to empirical facts, its extraordinary Constitution and its determination to maintain its leadership role in the world by refusing to allow cheating and corruption, in either its elections or its governmental institutions. One can only hope that the ideals of the Founding Founders will prevail.
- Trump Seeking Last Minute Pre-Election Nuke Deal With Putin
Trump Seeking Last Minute Pre-Election Nuke Deal With Putin
Tyler Durden
Mon, 10/12/2020 – 23:40The clock is winding down on the last major arms control agreement between Moscow and Washington, after prior late Cold War era treaties like the INF and Open Skies faltered – or rather the US abruptly withdrew from them with Trump complaining he wants “a better deal”. If an extension agreement is not reached on the New Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty (New START) during ongoing talks, the latest of which were hosted in Vienna and Helsinki within past weeks, it will expire in February of next year, or merely in less than four months.
Russia’s unwavering position has been to push for an unconditional five-year extension of the treaty, while Washington said it will only consider a short-term extension if a new agreement that brings all nuclear warheads including those possessed by China into the framework. The Kremlin has called the US plan “absolutely unrealistic,” bringing talks to an impasse.
But now it looks like President Trump wants to rapidly push out a deal ambitiously ahead of the November 3 election, as Axios reports, “President Trump is looking to Vladimir Putin to close the deal on a pre-election nuclear agreement, a timetable that’s an October surprise even for senior Republicans and some in the White House.”
Prior meeting at G20 summit in Osaka, Japan in 2019, via EPA-EFE Trump and Putin over the past half-year have engaged in a series of phone calls that have reportedly focused on New START. Axios notes further that it’s being handled at the highest national security levels of the administration, though there are mixed signals of just how it’s actually going.
Axios writes, “On Friday, a source familiar with the discussions said the Trump administration believed it now had an agreement in principle, blessed by Putin and Patrushev, that could be finalized within a week once negotiations resume in earnest.”
However, other signals especially out of Kremlin official statements suggest this is an over optimistic reading of where things actually stand. There’s also the fact that Joe Biden has clearly indicated he’s ready to agree to the unconditional 5-year extension of the nuclear arms reduction treaty.
All of this would make wrapping up the deal in a mere week a huge difficulty. It’s likely the Russians will want to wait and see what the outcome of November is before entering into significant compromises.
Indeed Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Ryabkov said on Saturday that “there are still huge differences in approaches, including to the central elements of such an agreement.” He also called a one week timetable “unrealistic”.
“U.S., Russia Hit Impasse on New START,” notes @KingstonAReif and @sbugos in the newest #ArmsControlToday. This and much more on the future of #NewSTART on our website.
Read their #ArmsControlToday analysis at https://t.co/yWaHBB4swp pic.twitter.com/ELih2iny2m
— Arms Control Assoc (@ArmsControlNow) October 8, 2020
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Complicating matters is the reality that (contrary to years of ‘Russiagate’ and “collusion” narrative claims) the Trump presidency has sunk US-Russian relations to new lows.
Putin underscored this in an interview with a Russian TV broadcaster last week when he said: “the greatest number of various kinds of restrictions and sanctions were introduced [against Russia] during the Trump presidency.”
“Decisions on imposing new sanctions or expanding previous ones were made 46 times. The incumbent’s administration withdrew from the INF treaty. That was a very drastic step. After 2002, when the Bush administration withdrew from the ABM treaty, that was the second major step. And I believe it is a big danger to international stability and security,” Putin explained.
So again, the Russians are more likely to wait things out a mere few weeks to see if Biden comes out on top, then all of this becomes moot.
- Australian Media Finally Calls Out Davos "Great Reset" Agenda
Australian Media Finally Calls Out Davos “Great Reset” Agenda
Tyler Durden
Mon, 10/12/2020 – 23:20This week, Sky News Australia contributor and former Australian Senator Cory Bernardi, tore open the debate on COVID after calling out a globalist agenda which few in mainstream media have dared to mention so far.
Since lockdowns began in March of 2020, few have challenged the government rationale for voluntarily imploding their economies and destroying communities and societies – based on a guess that coronavirus might kill tens of millions of citizens.
However, Bernardi believes that the COVID-19 pandemic hysteria is being used as the Trojan horse for a globalist agenda hatched out of the World Economic Forum in Davos. It’s called The Great Reset, and its designed by elite billionaires supposedly to bring about ‘social and economic change.’
“There is something unusual about the continuing pandemic panic,” said Bernardi.
“Medical experts now acknowledge that lockdowns don’t work…
Now none of that makes any sense until you open your mind to consider if there is another agenda at work.”
According to technocrat, Klaus Schwab, founder and Chairman of the World Economic Forum, “COVID 19 cases have shown us that our old systems are not fit anymore for the 21st century, it has laid bare a fundamental lack of social cohesion, fairness, inclusion and equality.”
“Now is the historical moment of time not only to fight the… virus but to shape the system… for the post-corona era,” claims Schwab.
“(Mr Schwab) admits that COVID is the new excuse to usher in the Green New Deal that climate alarmists, profiteers and big government have been pushing for years,” said Bernardi.
“Think about it, the global response to COVID has been a green socialist’s dream.”
Bernardi cites the fact that coordinated government shutdown policies (not COVID) have brought down fuel consumption and canceled international travel and bankrupted scores of airlines and travel firms already.
In addition, governments are using the ‘pandemic’ to permanently curtail civil liberties and freedom of movement and assembly.
“Why do you think the Australian Greens have been so quiet these past months … it’s because their policy agenda is coming to life?” he asked.
“After decades of peddling climate change lies and propaganda to force government by the elites, the socialists have used a media induced hysteria over public health as their latest weapon of economic destruction.”
The end game of creating to illusion of a global pandemic emergency is to rapidly usher-in the introduction of a ‘Green New Deal‘ policy – where billionaires seek to restructure our capitalist system into a new ‘green economy’ – promising equality and “climate justice” along the way.
He also highlights the fact that many of the same scientists and institutions involved in the fraudulent over-the-top modelling of COVID deaths – are also involved in IPCC computer modeled projections of supposed future climate change.
In this segment, Mr. Bernardi explains what’s actually behind the mass-panic being fomented by certain governments and mainstream media, hyping the idea that the world is in the midst of a “deadly plague” and public health crisis.
Watch:
- Watch: Kim Jong Un Wipes Away Tears During Rare 'Apology' For Litany Of North's Hardships
Watch: Kim Jong Un Wipes Away Tears During Rare ‘Apology’ For Litany Of North’s Hardships
Tyler Durden
Mon, 10/12/2020 – 23:00The big news out of North Korea this past weekend was Saturday’s military parade marking the 75th anniversary of the country’s ruling party wherein Pyongyang showcased a previously unseen new intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM), as well as what appeared to be domestic-built anti-air defense systems akin to Russian S-400s.
But now with more footage and official translations hitting international press on Monday, a rare and somewhat bizarre clip of the moment Kim Jong Un shed tears in an emotional speech which included an apology to North Korean citizens is going viral.
Notably he underscored multiple times the official claim of “zero” coronavirus cases in his country while taking a moment to sincerely wish a rapid recovery for those suffering from the virus in South Korea.
He also expressed a desire for the people of the North and South “to hold hands sometime in the near future.”
But it is when he went through a litany of the north’s own suffering and hardships that he began to visibly get choked up. The dictator fought back more tears as he said:
“Our people have placed trust, as high as the sky and as deep as the sea, in me, but I have failed to always live up to it satisfactorily. I am really sorry for that,” the 36-year-old leader declared, according to a translation published by The Korea Times. “Although I am entrusted with the important responsibility to lead this country upholding the cause of the great Comrades Kim Il-sung and Kim Jong-il thanks to the trust of all the people, my efforts and sincerity have not been sufficient enough to rid our people of the difficulties in their lives.”
“I am ashamed that I have never been able to repay you properly for your enormous trust,” Kim continued in the ultra-rare moment of emotional vulnerability.
“My efforts and devotion were not sufficient to bring our people out of difficult livelihoods.”
Amid the emotion he emphasized that among huge challenges facing the nation remain that “everything is in short supply” due to the “harsh and prolonged sanctions”.
The display of emotion appeared to deeply touch the massive primarily military crowd, as some military officers in uniform were seen teary-eyed.
Apologies, tears and a ‘war deterrent’: Top quotes from Kim Jong Un’s speech – https://t.co/rtantfBq3f
— NK NEWS (@nknewsorg) October 12, 2020
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But he quickly pivoted to saying “We clarify that our war deterrent is being developed not for aiming at others” but “in order to defend ourselves”.
According to speculation in Fox News, “Analysts have since pointed to the emotional outpouring as evidence of mounting pressure on the regime, which not only includes the pandemic but natural disasters and international sanctions.”
- Coup Who?
Coup Who?
Tyler Durden
Mon, 10/12/2020 – 22:40Authored by Mark Hemingway via AmericanMind.org,
Scaremongering Democrats protest too much.
In August, two retired military officers published a piece in Defense One which literally encouraged America’s top military leadership to have the 82nd airborne to descend on Washington in the event of a disputed election and escort President Trump out of office.
“In the Constitutional crisis described above, your duty is to give unambiguous orders directing U.S. military forces to support the Constitutional transfer of power,” they write.
“Should you remain silent, you will be complicit in a coup d’état.”
In other words, the military must prevent a coup by staging one of their own. Thankfully, the Pentagon publicly condemned John Nagl’s and Paul Yingling’s musings.
In some regards it is unremarkable in a nation with millions of military veterans that two of them would have some kind of Clockwork Orange-style MSNBC viewing party and put crayon to paper long enough to come up with this violent fantasia. However, the problem isn’t so much that Nagl and Yingling gamed out this scenario – every election that I can remember for the last 30 years has featured fringe voices expressing concern that the current occupant will refuse to leave.
The real problem is that, for once, a respectable media outlet went ahead and published it. If anything, the Defense One op-ed was just the most explicit example of the anti-Trump coup pornography that’s become a staple of mainstream media. And when the media is not baselessly fretting Trump will refuse to leave office, they’re outrageously and falsely characterizing Trump and his administration in ways that justify his violent removal.
The Washington Post recently ran an “analysis” in the business section, quoting a bunch of academics warning that Trump was leading America into autocracy. The article ended with this kicker quote from a Swedish political scientist, Staffan I. Lindberg at Sweden’s University of Gothenburg:
“‘if Trump wins this election in November, democracy is gone’ in the United States, [Lindberg] says. He gives it about two years. ‘It’s really time to wake up before it’s too late.’”
Does the Post ask Lindberg for anything not wholly impressionistic to justify his dire and specific prediction? Aside from offensive tweets and ego-driven rhetoric, has Trump done something really autocratic, like, kill American citizens without a trial? Maybe he led a charge to effectively nationalize one-seventh of the economy?
No. But such pronouncements sound awfully ominous to credulous readers. And the Post piece was comparatively restrained: the same day, Vanity Fair had historian Peter Fritzsche on its podcast to explain that the Trump campaign cares more about race than Hitler. If Trump will end American democracy in two years and is more race-obsessed than the architect of the holocaust, why wouldn’t we call out the 82nd Airborne to perp walk him down Pennsylvania Avenue?
“Stop Deposing Yourself!”
There are, of course, problems with this plan. Earlier this month, Georgetown law professor Rosa Brooks wrote about her role in a Democratic party confab where various left-leaning leaders produced a report called the the “Transition Integrity Project” that gamed out responses to various disputed election scenarios.
“A landslide for Joe Biden resulted in a relatively orderly transfer of power,” observed Brooks.
“Every other scenario we looked at involved street-level violence and political crisis.”
If Trump wins in a definitive landslide there’s still violence and a political crisis? After years of dishonest accusations about Russia collusion and other nonsense, should we bother to ask what responsibility Democratic party leaders and the media have to prevent violence if Trump wins in November? Or should we just accept this report’s conclusion as a way of blackmailing voters into making sure Biden wins handily?
In this context, however, Blackmail is a fairly inconsequential crime. After former Trump administration national security official Michael Anton wrote a piece in this very publication criticizing the report, Nils Gilman, a former Pentagon official and co-creator of the Transition Integrity Project suggested Anton be killed by firing squad.
Gilman is previously on record saying that after the Trump administration, America should explore the possibility of “a Truth and Reconciliation Commission, something South Africa used to confront the legacy of Apartheid in a way that enabled restorative justice.”
It might be easier on everyone if Gilman merely explored the possibility of having his head examined.
Given the IMAX-level projection involved in the Transition Integrity Project, it’s unsurprising to learn their full report is obsessed with exploring coup-like scenarios.
“Of particular concern is how the military would respond in the context of uncertain election results,” notes the report.
But the military response is not as uncertain as people too blinkered to separate the fate of America from that of the immediate success of the Democratic party think it is.
Decades of cultural and economic stratification, not to mention a soupçon or ten of naked anti-American contempt on the Left, means that military service has become a right-leaning and regionally Southern affectation. We can say with a high degree of confidence that a majority of the active duty military voted for Trump, so it seems unlikely the 82nd Airborne is going to follow orders to remove Trump while votes are still being counted.
At the same time, it’s frankly insulting to think Republican voters in the military would blindly follow orders from Trump in the event he attempts a Fujimori-type autogolpe after an election loss, which again, there’s no evidence he’s even remotely contemplating.
The Real Conspiracy
So why keep asking the question about what the military would do? Running on a parallel track to all these stories about the need for a military coup against Trump has been an emerging narrative that Trump secretly hates the military and doesn’t care if they die. Stirring up antipathy among troops could simply be a straightforward, if dishonest, electoral strategy to peel away votes from a stolid Trump constituency, but as long as we’re handing out free passes to indulge paranoia, forgive me for thinking the relevant term of art here is “battlespace prep.” It might be helpful to drive a wedge between Trump and the military if you had, uh, “plans” for after the election.
Earlier this month, Atlantic editor Jeffrey Goldberg got wall-to-wall media coverage for a week after his anonymously sourced story claiming Trump called dead soldiers “suckers” and “losers.” This is in spite of the fact there are now more than 20 on-the-record sources with knowledge of the events surrounding Trump’s alleged comments throwing cold water on Goldberg’s account.
And since the New York Times credulously regurgitated more anonymous intel leaks in June, we’ve been hearing about how Trump ignored reports that Russians were paying the Taliban “bounties” to kill American soldiers. Last month, an NBC news report finally gave up the ghost: “U.S. commander: Intel still hasn’t established Russia paid Taliban ‘bounties’ to kill U.S. troops.” After three months of breathless reporting, it seems there’s “a consensus view among military leaders [that] underscores the lack of certainty around a narrative that has been accepted as fact by Democrats and other Trump critics.”
Hours after NBC News’ report, Biden’s campaign was still savaging Trump for “giving Russia a pass for putting bounties on the heads of American service members” and the next day Biden held a “Veterans Roundtable” campaign event where he tried to make an issue of the Russian bounties.
To my knowledge, not a single reporter has asked Biden about reports Russians were paying bounties to the Taliban in 2010 when he was vice president, and, if those reports were accurate, why Biden mocked Mitt Romney as “one of a small group of Cold War holdovers” for saying Russia was a threat in 2012. But don’t worry, the Joe Biden of 2020 is so chastened by his previous lack of concern for the troops that, the week after his “veterans roundtable,” he’s scheduled a campaign event with Hanoi Jane Fonda, a favorite celebrity of vets everywhere.
The Opposite of Fascism
Speaking of Afghanistan, it’s also worth remembering that we’re still at war—and we have been for 19 years. When regimes enter states of permanent war, the lines between enemies foreign and domestic begin to blur. Aside from the electoral backdrop, reports of Russian bounties this summer emerged just as Trump was engaged in his latest of a number of unsuccessful efforts to withdraw American troops in Afghanistan. Coincidence?
Trump got elected explicitly promising to reduce America’s global military presence, and while you might question his efficacy, there’s no denying he’s faced powerful resistance from a military-intel-media-industrial complex that has spent the last couple of decades turning foreign entanglements into an ouroboros tied up in a Gordian knot. Perhaps there’s a right way and a wrong way to draw down in Afghanistan, but Trump’s pronounced aversion to permanent war is certainly atypical of fascist autocrats.
The truth is that Trump isn’t fascist any more than the contemporary American Left is Communist, though that’s a more damning and instructive comparison than many realize.
“To speak of [fascism] as the true political opposite of communism is to betray the most superficial understanding of modern history. In truth there is an opposite of all the ‘isms’, and that is negotiated politics, without an ‘ism’ and without a goal other than the peaceful coexistence of rivals,” wrote Roger Scruton in his indispensable guide to the ideology of the Left.
If America’s Democrats, who in the last two elections have come perilously close to nominating a man who honeymooned in the Soviet Union, haven’t embraced full Communism, well, then there’s a good case they’re at least guilty of fascism’s shared sin of abandoning negotiated politics.
When peaceful coexistence is increasingly off the table, it’s worth asking where that leads us. Four years of elaborate Trump conspiracy theories – most of them involving Russia because irony is dead, dead, dead, and all of them premised on refusing to accept the results of the 2016 election – have finally made clear that there’s one key distinction between the excesses of the Right and Left worth fretting about in 2020.
“Of course there are differences,” adds Scruton.
“Fascist governments have sometimes come to power by democratic election, whereas communist governments have always relied on a coup d’état.”
- China Says It Foiled Major Taiwan Spy Network As Taipei Denounces "Malicious Political Stunt"
China Says It Foiled Major Taiwan Spy Network As Taipei Denounces “Malicious Political Stunt”
Tyler Durden
Mon, 10/12/2020 – 22:20In what could be used as a possible pretext for war or at least as huge leverage amid increased threats, state broadcaster China Central Television (CCT) claimed in Sunday reporting that Beijing national security authorities have recently exposed and rounded up hundreds of “espionage cases” in a special operation targeting “infiltration and sabotage” of the mainland by Taiwan’s intelligence agencies.
The mass dragnet operation led to the detention of Taiwanese spies and assets, and uncovering of sophisticated networks in what CCTV has dubbed the “Thunder 2020” operation, the report claimed, which set off a firestorm in Taipei. Taiwan has since angrily denounced the claims as nothing but a “malicious political stunt”.
This included CCTV’s main current affairs show airing bizarre footage of a Taiwanese businessman “confessing” that he spied on People’s Liberation Army exercises at a stadium last year in Shenzhen, making multiple videos of the make-shift staging ground at the sensitive moment of the Hong Kong crisis, as also reported in Bloomberg. Specifically it appears a group which could be in the “hundreds” are charged with gaining Chinese military intelligence related to the Hong Kong crackdown.
CCTV photo of spy suspect Lee Meng-Chu, who was detained in Shenzhen last year. Identified as Lee Meng-chu, he was accused of “spying into state secrets for an overseas organization and endangering national security,” according to the state TV program. Part of the alleged ‘evidence’ is that he shared his spy photos with Taiwan connected chat groups. He was also alleged to have communicated Chinese state secrets, but again it appears to involve taking photos at a stadium which happened to also have warnings posted saying “no photographs”.
At a moment the Hong Kong protests raged, resulting in a mainland crackdown crisis for which Chinese national troops were mustered in case they were needed, the Financial Times apparently reported the movement of PLA troops based on the alleged Taiwan spy network. However, this also appears a mere case of citizen-journalism driven by clear public interest, which Beijing is labeling ‘espionage’.
Addressing the public confession on state TV, officials of Taiwan’s government condemned the whole spectacle, saying, “The CCP must stop putting words in others’ mouths and framing a case against Taiwanese,” according to Bloomberg.
Broadly, it appears those among the accused acting as ‘spies’ were part of Taiwanese activism showing solidarity with the plight of the Hong Kong pro-independence movement last year, prior to the movement’s squelching by the controversial China-backed national security law which went into effect over the summer.
China’s @CCTV claimed in its prime time show tonight that they have uncovered “several hundred #Taiwan spy cases.” One of the so-called “#Taiwan spy” featured in the program tonight was Lee Meng-Chu, who disappeared after being captured by #China‘s… https://t.co/TnkA5GVyT7
— William Yang (@WilliamYang120) October 11, 2020
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Interestingly, or perhaps quite intentionally, the bombshell accusations by the mainland came just a day after Taiwan’s President Tsai Ing-wen extended a rare olive branch at a moment of military tensions, calling for “meaningful dialogue” with China.
The other big, persistent charge is that of “collusion” between Taiwan and Washington, based especially on weapons sales and fears that formal diplomatic relations could be restored in the near future.
- Azerbaijani Military Destroys Armenian S-300s As Humanitarian Ceasefire Nears Collapse
Azerbaijani Military Destroys Armenian S-300s As Humanitarian Ceasefire Nears Collapse
Tyler Durden
Mon, 10/12/2020 – 22:00Submitted by SouthFront,
The Armenian-Azerbaijani war in the Nagorno-Karabakh region does not show signs of nearing its end despite the humanitarian ceasefire launched in the region. The ceasefire started in the Nagorno-Karabakh region at 12:00 local time on October 10. The ceasefire deal was reached by the Azerbaijani and Armenian sides following long talks in Moscow a day ago. Russia played a key role in forcing the sides to make steps towards the de-escalation.
Azerbaijan and Armenia also formally agreed to begin substantive negotiations of a peaceful settlement of a military conflict over the disputed region of Nagorno-Karabakh that erupted on September 27. These talks will be mediated by the Organization for Security and co-operation in Europe’s Minsk Group of international negotiators. Following the ceasefire agreement, Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev said that the first phase of the military operation in the Nagorno-Karabakh region is completed. The Russian diplomatic intervention allowed to put an end to the hottest phase of the military confrontation and force the sides to halt active offensive operations on the ground.
Despite this, the situation on the ground remained very tense. Almost immediately after the start of the ceasefire regime, the sides simultaneously accused each other of violating the ceasefire and of shelling civilian and military targets, and repeated these claims on October 11 and October 12.
Meanwhile, Armenia and Azerbaijan released a new batch of fresh and few days old footage showcasing casualties of each other and making loud statements. In particular, pro-Azerbaijani sources claimed that at least two more S-300 systems of Armenia were destroyed in Karabakh. The released videos accompanying these claims include the moments of the alleged destruction of 35D6 (ST-68U) radars and a S-300 missile launcher of the Armenian military with Israeli IAI Harop loitering munitions near the village of Khojaly in the Khojaly District and the village of Qubadlı in the Kashatagh District.
The 35D6 is a vehicle-carried three-dimensional air surveillance radar system. The range of the radar’s primary functions includes the detection of low-flying targets protected with active and or passive jamming screens, and also the performance of air traffic control. It can be operated as a separate installation as well as a part of the S-300 air-defense system. Nonetheless, if it was the S-300 batteries, as Azerbaijani sources insist, it still remains unclear what these long-range air defense systems were doing so close to the frontline.
Meanwhile, the Armenian military reported that its forces repelled large Azerbaijani attacks in the northeastern and southern parts of the region. The hottest area of the frontline is the town of Hardut. Azerbaijani President Aliyev officially announced that his forces captured it a few days ago. Nonetheless, videos from the ground show that in fact most of the town remained in the hands of the Armenians. Another part of it is now a gray zone, which is not controlled by any side. According to Armenian sources, Azerbaijani troops, supported by Turkish special forces and Syrian militants, tried to capture the town just a few hours before the start of the ceasefire. After this failed attack, Azerbaijani combat drones and artillery units delivered powerful strikes on Hardut and nearby villages, but were not able to force Armenian troops to retreat.
The Armenian Defense Ministry insists that the Turkish Air Force is leading the aerial operations of Azerbaijan. “Turkish aerial command centers, flying within the Turkish airspace, are commanding the Turkish UAV’s operating in the Azerbaijani air force. UAVs, accompanied by six F-16 units, are directly attacking the peaceful population and civilian infrastructure of Artsakh,” the defense ministry spokesman said.
In its own turn, the Azerbaijani side says that it’s just taking the necessary steps to respond to Armenian violations of the ceasefire and strikes on Azerbaijani settlements. The most widely covered incident of this kind took place on October 11, when an alleged Armenian ballistic missile hit Ganja city.
The active offensive phase of the Armenian-Azerbaijani war was put on pause, but the conflict itself does not seem to be nearing its end. Without the real political will of the Azerbaijani and Armenian leadership to reach a ceasefire, the de-escalation of the conflict, without direct intervention of some third party, remains unlikely. Instead, the war has chances to resume with new power in the coming days.
- No Stimulus, No Problem: One Bank Sees "No Armageddon" Without A New Stimulus Deal
No Stimulus, No Problem: One Bank Sees “No Armageddon” Without A New Stimulus Deal
Tyler Durden
Mon, 10/12/2020 – 21:40In recent weeks, many have opined – this website included – that with the US economy careening into a double dip recession (or perhaps depression), it is imperative that Congress and the White House cast aside their differences and pass a substantial, $1.5-$2 trillion stimulus bill or else the US middle class will be hammered as the spending and consumption tailwind from the previous covid rescue bills fades away.
Furthermore as reported previously, there already has been a sharp slowdown in spending among groups who were recipients of expanded Unemployment Insurance benefits – which faded away on July 31 – as the chart from Bank of America shows:
And while there are various other nuances, we concluded several weeks ago that absent a new stimulus, not only will the delayed aftereffects of the existing stimulus come back to haunt the economy…
… but the lack of new spending will result in a massive double whammy crashing the economy in 2021, which averted a full blown meltdown in Q2, but will find itself scrambling in the coming quarters as the mother of all double dips emerges, and which incidentally is also why the market has been sliding for the past two weeks as the reality of an indefinite stimulus-free future looms all too real.
The question, of course, is when will the trapdoor below the US economy open up, resulting in another collapse in output?
In a subsequent post following the latest personal income and spending data, we noted that in August – the month when the fiscal cliff hit – US consumer spending actually rose even as personal income contracted largely due to the end of the $600/week supplemental unemployment insurance benefits. As a result of this pick-up in spending coupled with shrinking incomes, US personal savings tumbled by an annualized $723 billion to $2.435 trillion, the lowest since March and far below the $6.4 trillion peak in annualized personal savings hit in April.
And while this meant that the personal savings rate declined sharply once again to 14.1% from a high of record 33% in the immediate aftermath of the covid crash, meaning that a whopping 60% of the personal savings built up in the aftermath of the covid fiscal stimulus tide have now been used up, it meant that Americans still have several months of accumulated savings to last them for the next several months.
We then said that as Congress continues to debate and pretend that a new fiscal stimulus bill is just over the corner, the massive savings buffer that was built up in the aftermath of the covid crisis, and which funded much of personal consumer spending in the past two months is now shrinking fast and at this rate personal savings will be back to pre-covid levels in 2-3 month. At that point we concluded that “it is safe to say that unless a new fiscal deal is in place, US consumption will crater unless somehow the millions of unemployed workers who still desperately rely on government stimulus find a job.”
And yet, not everyone agrees that lack of a stimulus would be dire (at least in the immediate term).
While conceding that last week’s developments effectively answered “no” to the question whether a new fiscal stimulus would emerge in the short term, Morgan Stanley wrote on Sunday that “it’s possible that a stimulus delay wouldn’t fully develop into the economic challenge it has the potential to be” and adds that the bank’s economists “now see evidence that US consumption can carry on for longer without fiscal support, given built-up excess household savings.”
Maybe… maybe not. After all, this was precisely the issue we discussed two weeks ago when we concluded that the rate at which savings are being burned is too high and may not last more than 2-3 months, before US consumers face anew crisis.
However, for Morgan Stanley that may be sufficient, and as the bank’s chief US policy strategist Michael Zezas wrote, “this is good news as there are many viable political paths towards stimulus over the next three months. We see three out of the four most likely post-election party configurations delivering stimulus by early 2021.”
Picking up on this, MS’ chief economist Ellen Zentner wrote last week that “progress in the Congress on stimulus negotiations has stalled, and to borrow the words of our policy strategists: inaction speaks louder than words – our strategists no longer see a proactive stimulus in 2020 in the base case.”
Yet in the face of fading fiscal support, “the savings cushion built up from April-July should help smooth consumption, putting real PCE on track to reach pre-Covid levels in 2Q21. We estimate from April through July the US consumer built up a cumulative $12.5tr (annualized) in excess savings (savings above the monthly pre-Covid average).” That said, “the willingness of consumers to draw upon these savings in the coming months is yet to be known, but we believe it will provide an important stop-gap to the loss of government transfers.“
Zentner underscored this point in a Bloomberg interview in which she said that the US economy would certainly “take a hit” without further federal stimulus, but will not head into an “economic armageddon” because while fiscal benefits expired in July spending increased in August and September, thanks to the long tail of the stimulus.
Why is all of this relevant? Because now the biggest question of all is how long can US consumers survive (in some cases literally) without more stimulus, a question whose answer may determine the next president. And while excess savings may allow US households to continue recent spending levels into November and December, it is only a matter of time before these tumble and Congress is forced to pass another stimulus, regardless of their animosity toward Trump and Republicans, even in a contested election context, even if there is no Blue Sweep.
Perhaps the biggest take home here is that Trump, who judging by his latest tweets is suddenly desperate to pass a stimulus deal even if it means meeting the Democrats’ ask of $2.2 trillion, may want to slow down. After all, bailing out insolvent pensions in blue states may generate far more resentment and have much more dire consequences for Trump’s re-election chances than asking Americans to wait an extra month or two before the next inevitable stimulus round is agreed upon by Congress and the next president, whoever he may be (or she, in the case of Kamala Harris). Ironically, the odds of Trump being that president may rise if he refuses to concede to Democrat demands for a giga stimulus, and merely holds firm until after the election.
- SoftBank's Vision Fund Plans SPAC, Vows It Is Not Behind Nasdaq Melt-up
SoftBank’s Vision Fund Plans SPAC, Vows It Is Not Behind Nasdaq Melt-up
Tyler Durden
Mon, 10/12/2020 – 21:20SPACs (it stands for Special Purpose Acquisition Vehicle) raised a ton of money over the summer as the craze that seemingly started with Bill Ackman and Chamath Palihapitiya (already on his third SPAC). It’s already drawing in big-name celebrity investors (Shaq is in the process of launching one), which might evoke unflattering parallels to the ICO bubble of 2018.
On Monday, Rajeev Misra, the head of SoftBank’s ill-fated Vision Fund and Vision Fund 2 (which almost entirely comprises money from SoftBank’s balance sheet) told a Bloomberg reporter during an interview at the Milken Institute’s virtual conference that the Japanese telecoms giant with a VC arm attached is planning to announce its own SPAC within the next 2 weeks.
Twitter users responded to the news with humor, much of it directed at the retail investors who will seemingly inevitably be left holding the bag.
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\/https://t.co/3anLS240p8— Businessweek (@BW) October 12, 2020
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SoftBank was a progenitor of the Silicon Valley valuation mania that peaked with the IPO flops of Uber and Lyft. But it’s perhaps best known for the disaster that was the aborted WeWork IPO. SoftBank backed to a valuation of nearly $50 billion, only to see that number dwindle to less than $10 billion (according to leaked reports) as institutional investors refused to pay anything near that valuation.
With SoftBank hopping on every other investment bankwagon, why not this, too?
Of course, and why not?
Bloomberg: SoftBank’s Vision Fund Plans to Unveil a SPAC in Next Two Weeks
— GRANT’S (@GrantsPub) October 12, 2020
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SB could even cite the SPAC success of one of its portfolio companies, Opendoor (which was taken public via one of Palihapitiya’s SPACs) as inspiration.
The amount of money SoftBank expects to dedicate to the SPAC wasn’t revealed, but Misra said the company would try to recruit some outside investors to back the deal.
SPACs have been around for decades, but many are just becoming familiar with the idea. Basically, a sponsor, typically an investor with expertise in a given industry (tech, for example) raises money from institutional backers then enlists underwriters to sell shares of a “blank check” company to the public.
The buyers of these shares aren’t aware of the target when they buy; they’re essentially betting on the sponsor’s reputation. Money raised in the IPO goes into an interest-bearing trust account, and can only be used to hand money back to investors, or complete an acquisition.
Typically, SPAC sponsors have a target in mind before they list. But the beauty of SPACs is they allow investors to quickly raise massive amounts of cash and complete a deal without all of the messy oversight and red tape that typically accompanies an IPO.
Money for the SPAC would be taken from SoftBank’s Vision Fund 2. Previously, SB’s VF1 backed some 80 companies, including WeWork, Uber, Wag and the Pizza robot (formally known as Zume).
But its disastrous losses last year prompted most of its backers to cut ties with SoftBank, which is probably why Misra now sees a SPAC as a suitable option for the fund.
Moving on: Back in September, we identified SoftBank as the rumored “Nasdaq Whale”, the mammoth trader sinking billions of dollars into Nasdaq 100 call options to force dealer buying of the underlying and drive the Nasdaq on a torrid, but entirely manipulated, summer rally that drove the tech heavy index to fresh all time highs.
When asked about the incident, Misra claimed the press reports had greatly exaggerated SoftBank’s role. He chalked SoftBank’s call-buying up to “diversification”, using the proceeds from sales of some of its Alibaba stake (it also recently agreed to sell Arm to chipmaker rival Nvidia).
Some attributed a recent run-up in the value of tech stocks to SoftBank’s purchases. Misra dismissed that idea in the interview Monday.
“Are we buying a few billion of other stocks to diversify away from the Alibaba we sold in the past six months?” Misra asked.
“We’re still sitting on a lot of cash. It’s a liquidity-management strategy, it’s a diversification strategy.”
“Nobody buying $10 billion of Nasdaq over a few weeks is going to move the Nasdaq. We’re not even a dolphin; forget being a whale.”
Misra must be relying on the ignorance of his audience here, because $10 billion in Nasdaq calls – with a notional value far higher – purchased strategically and during relatively illiquid periods in the trading day could potentially induce dramatic swings in markets.
As speculation turns to the object of SoftBank’s desire, one twitter user remarked that SoftBank may have finally found a way to reshape one of its most embarrassing failures.
And WeWork finally finds a way to go public https://t.co/3cVXZdGqrE
— Peter Thal Larsen (@peter_tl) October 12, 2020
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Total proceeds from special purpose acquisition companies raised $10 billion in August after a record of $10.5 billion in July, compared to a total of $17 billion funding from traditional initial listings for the past two months, according to data from Refinitiv. More than $40 billion via SPAC deals has already been raised on US stock exchanges this year.
Then again, perhaps SoftBank Chairman Masayoshi Son sees an opportunity to immediately restore his sullied reputation by turning around one of the most ill-conceived of the last decade’s richly funded startups: Quibi.
- Johnson & Johnson Latest To Halt COVID-19 Vaccine Trial Over Unspecified Illness
Johnson & Johnson Latest To Halt COVID-19 Vaccine Trial Over Unspecified Illness
Tyler Durden
Mon, 10/12/2020 – 21:14Yet another high-profile Phase 3 vaccine trial has been temporarily halted after one of the participants developed a suspicious illness.
According to a report published Monday night by STAT News, Johnson & Johnson has informed participants and researchers that its 60,000-person trial would be temporarily paused as the company and the Data and Safety Monitoring Board, the organization overseeing all the US COVID-19 trials.
JNJ confirmed the pause when contacted by STAT, though it offered no details about the illness or the patient.
Contacted by STAT, J&J confirmed the study pause, saying it was due to “an unexplained illness in a study participant.”
The company declined to provide further details. “We must respect this participant’s privacy. We’re also learning more about this participant’s illness, and it’s important to have all the facts before we share additional information,” the company said in a statement.
According to STAT, the DSMB was convened late Monday evening to start looking into the case. J&J said that in cases like this, “it is not always immediately apparent” whether the participant who experienced an adverse event received the experimental vaccine, or a placebo.
Pauses like these aren’t uncommon in vaccine trials.
“If we do a study of 60,000 people, that is a small village,” the source said. “In a small village there are a lot of medical events that happen.”
But these trials are drawing more scrutiny ever since the AstraZeneca-Oxford trial was put on hold by regulators in the UK after a participant was sickened with symptoms of what was believed to be transverse myelitis, a serious spinal issue. Trials resumed in the UK, India and elsewhere days later, but in the US, an AZ trial remains on hold due to an unspecified issue. Both AZ and US regulators have been suspiciously tight-lipped.
Already, public health officials in the US, Europe and around the world are worried about waning confidence in the vaccine, with some surveys showing that roughly half the public would rather not take it.
In a research note published earlier, analysts at Goldman Sachs wrote that trust in the vaccine could be a serious barrier to its ultimate eradication. “We think that the biggest challenge to ultimately lowering the disease burden and virus circulation to very low levels will be convincing the broad population to take the vaccine. Our base case assumes such broad uptake but this will likely require a safe and very effective vaccine, trust in the approval and rollout process, no out-of -pocket costs, and effective public and community campaigns.”
JNJ is using an adenovirus vector, like several other top vaccine projects.
Futures ticked lower on the news.
But there was no evidence of the intense selling pressure that followed news about the initial AstraZeneca-Oxford vaccine project halt.
- NBA Finals Game 6 Saw Ratings Crash 66% Despite Being Season Finale
NBA Finals Game 6 Saw Ratings Crash 66% Despite Being Season Finale
Tyler Durden
Mon, 10/12/2020 – 21:00The last game of the NBA Finals – arguably the most important game of any NBA season – posted ratings that were about 66% lower than last year’s Game 6, according to Breitbart. It is the latest bad news in a stunning collapse in ratings for the league and, specifically, for the NBA Finals series this year.
For comparison, Sunday night’s Seahawks versus Vikings regular season NFL game, featuring one team that hasn’t won a game all year, had nearly twice the views of the game where LeBron James clinched his fourth NBA Championship, according to ShowBuzzDaily.
Recall, just days ago we noted that “Player Protests/Politics” were cited as a driving force as to why people were abandoning watching the NBA. In a recent poll on Yahoo Sports with 22,266 responses, people were asked why they thought the NBA’s ratings had dropped off. Player protests/politics was the overwhelming favorite, at 61%, as to why people are turning away from the NBA.
We also noted that Game 3 of the finals averaged just a 3.1 rating and 5.94 million viewers, making it “the least watched and lowest rated NBA Finals game on record,” according to Yahoo Sports. Days prior to that, we noted that Game 2 also saw a ratings collapse of 68% to all time lows.
Game 1 was the lowest viewed finals opener in history.
There really doesn’t seem to be much of a spin that the NBA can put on the terrible ratings, other than the league has simply lost the interest of many who would have once tuned in. In fact, one of the league’s most “outspoken” voices on oppression and racism, LeBron James, should have been the feature draw for this year’s finals.
Instead, it appears that he was exactly what is turning viewers away.
We have also been documenting the recent ratings collapse that the NFL has suffered in the midst of turning its league into a political movement over the last few months.
In early October the NFL reached out to players, telling them “not to worry” about the decline in ratings. Also in denial, they blamed the Presidential race for the drop in ratings, telling players: “The 2020 presidential election and other national news events are driving substantial consumption of cable news, taking meaningful share of audience from all other programming. Historically, NFL viewership has declined in each of the past six presidential elections.”
- Sex Pistol Johnny Rotten: "Of Course I'm Voting For Trump"
Sex Pistol Johnny Rotten: “Of Course I’m Voting For Trump”
Tyler Durden
Mon, 10/12/2020 – 20:40Authored by Steve Watson via Summit News,
Sex Pistols and P.I.L. frontman John Lydon, aka Johnny Rotten, confirmed he will vote for President Trump’s reelection in November, reasoning that he does not ‘want a politician running the world’, and angering leftists in the process.
While Lydon is British, he also has US citizenship, meaning he is eligible to vote next month.
The ‘Pretty Vacant’ singer told the BBC he’s “definitely” voting for Trump, noting “He’s an individual thinker, I’ll give him that for a start.”
“He’s not the most lovable fellow on God’s earth, but I cannot see the opposition as offering me anything by way of a solution,” Lydon added.
In a further interview with The Guardian, Lydon said “I’d be daft as a brush not to,” vote for Trump, claiming that the President “really is making the country a bit better,” and adding that “He’s the only sensible choice now that Biden is up – he’s incapable of being the man at the helm.”
“Joe Biden is, in all practicality, senile, and delinquently senile. My wife has Alzheimer’s — I know the symptoms,” Lydon said in the BBC interview.
When the BBC host countered Lydon and suggested there is no evidence that Biden is senile, Lydon responded “Oh, really? Have you seen him talk lately? I can only go on my vast experience, seeing as my wife is suffering from Alzheimer’s.”
Lydon expanded on his reasoning for supporting Trump, noting that he identified with Trump constantly being accused of racism on a whim.
“I’ve been accused of the very same thing, so I’m offended for anybody who’s called that,” Lydon said.
“Of course I’m anti-racism,” Lydon emphasised.
He also commented on the death of George Floyd, noting “There’s not anyone I know anywhere that wouldn’t say that wasn’t ghastly… It doesn’t mean all police are nasty or all white folk are racist. Because all lives matter.”
Lydon also spoke about the COVID lockdown, noting “I don’t think lockdown is doing any good for anybody.”
“Wrecking an economy is not the smartest move to cure any illness or virus or disease. We’re all capable of wearing masks. We’re all smart enough not to want to give each other filthy, horrible viruses. Give people the chance to work. Don’t just close everything down. This is not Stalin at work here. But, I swear, the governments are beginning to feel that way. We have to hold ourselves responsible at some point in order for our society to exist at all,” Lydon added.
“It seems to me that what the Democrats here in America are promising will be tax hikes beyond belief, more lockdowns, more confusion, more bureaucracy and less answers,” Lydon urged, adding “I have seen what Democrats have done to California. They have destroyed this place.”
Lydon previously expressed support for Trump in 2016, after the election, noting “What I dislike is the left-wing media in America are trying to smear the bloke as a racist and that’s completely not true.”
“He’s a total cat amongst the pigeons … [He’s] got everybody now involving themselves in a political way. And I’ve been struggling for years to get people to wake up and do that,” Lydon added, after admitting he had not voted for Trump at the time.
Johnny Rotten backs Brexit & Trump: “The working class have spoken, and I stand with them!”
Conservatism is the new counter-culture! 🤗 pic.twitter.com/AUykvMY35s
— Paul Joseph Watson (@PrisonPlanet) March 27, 2017
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The punk rocker has since been photographed wearing the iconic ‘Make America Great Again’ apparel:
Johnny Rotten does Not give a Fuck! 🙂 pic.twitter.com/Lxs91bN9ij
— Sir Gringo Starr (@JakeDuarte43) September 28, 2020
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All of this is simply too much to handle for leftists:
This is the less punk thing ever.
— Sebastian B. (@sebastard_jsb) October 11, 2020
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Someone check his DNA. They could be brothers. That shade of orange couldn’t have come from just any ordinary empathetic, rational, selfless, truthful, monogamous, faithful human being.
— Edward Winter (@weddytinter) October 11, 2020
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What a monster.
— Jeff C 🔴⚫️🔴 (@JMC9787) October 11, 2020
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Yeah…turns out he’s a big turd. Too bad, I loved PIL. But then I also loved the Smiths and look at Morrissey. Yuck.
— Amy Johnson (@Rioja95) October 11, 2020
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John Lydon’s pro-Brexit, pro-Trump politics really shouldn’t surprise anyone. You were always either more of a Joe Strummer or a Johnny Rotten – the distinction should never have been rocket science within the punk community, there was a right side and a Right Wing side.
— A.C.A.B (@cynicsdiary) October 11, 2020
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Johnny Rotten living up to his fuckin’ name.
So many big names in punk are Trump supporters.
Fuckin’ posers. https://t.co/ZRV9Fbi1Ga
— Jason voted early for Biden/Harris (@JasonBoydWrites) October 11, 2020
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Others understand Lydon’s stance is more nuanced:
not sure how he is a poser it’s pretty punk rock to go against the mainstream agenda and boo fucking woo someone has a different opinion then someone else.
— brandon (@Leviathanmn) October 12, 2020
- "Is Everyone Afraid? Good": Monday Humor
“Is Everyone Afraid? Good”: Monday Humor
Tyler Durden
Mon, 10/12/2020 – 20:20This is what that ‘terror’ looks like in real-life for a brain-washed media crying “nooooo!” when WH Chief of Staff Mark Meadows dares to remove his mask over 10 feet away from them…
“Nooooo!”
— Breaking911 (@Breaking911) October 12, 2020
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There is everything to fear, especially fear itself, America!
And what is it you should be so terrified of? Here are the new CDC reported fatality rates explained for average joes…
WARNING – trigger alert for those who do ‘old math’ and not new ‘political math’…
“If you accidentally thought for yourself, you’d realize the actual COVID-19 fatality rate is many times lower than the original predictions that were used to justify the lockdowns…
…but let’s not do the math… because we’ve got an election coming up!”
Sometime to have to laugh, or you’ll just cry!
- Don't Let The Media Win This Election
Don’t Let The Media Win This Election
Tyler Durden
Mon, 10/12/2020 – 20:00Authored by Frank Miele via RealClearPolitics.com,
The mainstream media have always skewed left in the modern era, but that didn’t mean they were parasitic vampires who fed on the misfortune of others. When Ronald Reagan – the most conservative modern president elected prior to Donald Trump — was wounded by a would-be assassin’s bullet in 1981, the media reported the event as a matter of national and historic significance. There was no glee and no speculation about President Reagan’s karmic responsibility for his near-death experience.
As a young liberal myself then, I experienced the horror of seeing our president shot on camera and the joy of seeing our president and his wife, Nancy, wave from the window of his hospital room several days later. The shooting was a moment of unifying grief, and the rapid recovery was a moment of triumph, not just for President Reagan, but for our people as a whole. Politics be damned.
Fast-forward four decades. Welcome to “Twilight of the Media: The Week of the Vampires.” When Donald Trump revealed that he had tested positive for coronavirus, the media spoke with almost one voice: Trump got what he deserved. That was the beginning of a week that represents what one can only hope is the low point in media distortion and Fake News, but may also justifiably be described as “situation normal.” It certainly made clear to me and many others what is at stake on Nov. 3.
Pundits often claim that the 2020 election will be a referendum on Donald Trump, but that is not the case. It should now be apparent — if it wasn’t already — that the upcoming election is a referendum on the media, and their dangerous role as self-appointed arbiters of the truth. And if the media wins, Katie bar the door.
Like the shadows on the wall of Plato’s Cave, the spectral emanations of the Fake News Media tell us a version of the truth, but it is a truth that has been refracted through a distorting lens that makes everything normal look ugly and everything “Trump” look evil.
It is hard for anyone who is not chained to a rock to fathom how millions of people can accept the anti-Trump narrative that is projected 24/7 from the studios of CNN, MSNBC, CBS, NBC and the rest. Don’t these millions of people — these “likely voters,” according to multiple polls – have any perspective?
Well, no, they don’t.
The problem is that so many people – smart people! – are captive audiences of the incredibly biased and hate-filled “news” coverage typified by CNN. By not exercising their God-given right to turn the channel, they are kept blissfully unaware that they are being deprived of vital information that doesn’t feed the Never Trump narrative.
Take the recent release of till-now-hidden documents revealing that the CIA, the FBI and President Obama all knew in 2016 that Hillary Clinton had a plan (as far back as July 28 of that year) “to vilify Donald Trump by stirring up a scandal claiming interference by the Russian security service” — and those sworn government officials said nothing whle furthering the Trmp collusion narrative.
Among other things, that news discredits the two-year long special counsel probe, justifies the firing of FBI Director James Comey, and means Donald Trump was right all along when he called the Russia Hoax the greatest political scandal in U.S. history.
Except the majority of the American public probably never even heard about these newly declassified documents. The three major traditional nightly news shows on CBS, ABC and NBC knew that the story vindicated President Trump and would hurt Joe Biden, yet they didn’t run it. And when CNN or MSNBC referenced the documents, they magically turned them into weapons against Trump. For instance, when Jake Tapper interviewed former CIA chief John Brennan, whose handwritten notes were the smoking gun that confirmed Clinton had manufactured the plot to destroy Trump, Brennan had the audacity to claim that it was Trump who was playing politics.
If the media can keep a story of this much significance buried, then clearly they are — just as President Trump claimed — acting as “the enemy of the people.”
But let’s get back to the president’s diagnosis with COVID, and his speedy recovery from it. It is a case study in media manipulation.
The New York Times was typical when it declared that “If [Trump] becomes sick, it could raise questions about whether he should remain on the ballot at all.” MSNBC’s Joy Reid raised the possibility that Trump might be faking COVID to get out of future debates with Joe Biden! Tapper condemned the president for his “wanton disregard for human life.”
When it was apparent that the president did not intend to cooperate with the “divine retribution” narrative, when it was increasingly evident that he might even recover quickly from the Chinese virus, the radicals in newsrooms upped the ante. Trump was a “super-spreader.” Not only that, he was a ghoul who had engineered the deaths of more than 200,000 Americans and must somehow be held accountable. There was talk yet again of impeachment. There was talk of invoking the 25th Amendment. Anything to make Trump look bad.
One of the most despicable moments in media malevolence came when President Trump reached out to the American people to thank them for their love and concern as he received treatment at Walter Reed National Military Medical Center. Hundreds of decent, caring people had gathered outside the hospital for days with signs of support for their president and just to gather in prayer for him. Again, millions of Americans probably never saw the scene or only heard slanted reports that these must be racist right-wing wackos who hadn’t got the memo about Trump being a menace to society.
But on Sunday, Oct. 4, the vigil suddenly became big news. Not because it represented an outpouring of love for our president, but because — according to the Fake News Media — Trump had used the crowd and the Secret Service for a self-aggrandizing “photo op” when he briefly left the hospital and drove past the well-wishers to thank them for their support.
Photo op is an interesting expression. You might well wonder what the difference is between a photo op and a historic moment when a figure of note has his photograph taken as a cherished record of the event. The answer is that if it involves Trump, it’s a photo op.
When I first heard about this impromptu gathering at Walter Reed, I sought out coverage of the event on the Internet. Thank God for Right Side Broadcasting, a little outfit based in Auburn, Ala., that has traveled the countryside since 2015 to cover President Trump’s rallies and appearances when major networks couldn’t be bothered. I watched as RSBN hosts interviewed those in attendance about why they were there and why Donald Trump meant so much to them.
These were the people whom the president wanted to thank — not a bunch of white supremacists at all. There were Filipinos for Trump, Somalians for Trump, Latinos for Trump, Vietnamese for Trump, Blacks for Trump. It was the American melting pot, and no network had any interest in showing them. It was CNN and MSNBC that turned them into props, not the president. As long as they were filmed from across the street, they could be characterized as hateful racists, plus our nation’s elite reporters would not have to get up close to all those “smelly,” maskless Trump voters who were no doubt carriers of COVID or some other disease.
One day later, the president was found by his doctors to be healthy enough to return home to the White House. This was the final straw, and the fourth estate broke under its weight. Worst of all was the moment when President Trump rose, phoenix-like, out of the ashes of his pundit-celebrated “date with destiny.” God was supposed to punish him with a slow and miserable death for not wearing a mask, but instead the president flew away in a helicopter and returned to the White House with a message for everyone who had been living in fear of COVID for the past nine months: Don’t be afraid. “Don’t let coronavirus dominate you.”
How dare he! If people had died from coronavirus, then certainly we must be afraid of it, the media voices told us. How dare he ride Marine One back to the White House? “A photo op and a power trip. A literal power trip,” said CNN’s Brian Stelter about the helicopter ride, and then he compared the moment to “what strongmen do in autocratic regimes” — as if the White House press corps had not seen the president ride Marine One hundreds of times before. That set the tone for the critiques that would follow. When President Trump waved from atop the steps of the White House and saluted Marine One as it departed, his one-time aide Anthony Scaramucci called it an American Mussolini moment. “We’ve never had a president stand on that balcony and do what he just did,” Scaramucci said inexplicably. Say what? Is waving now considered a symbol of fascism?
It was Steve Bannon who first classified the mainstream media as “the opposition party.” He was right, and if the media bloodsuckers have their way, then Trump will be defeated decisively on Nov. 3. But if that happens, it doesn’t tell us anything about Trump. What it really means is that the American public is no longer in charge. How can they be when they are entirely dependent on the shadowy half-truths and outright lies of the mainstream media to make decisions?
I wrote a book called “The Media Matrix” to describe the veil of deception that controls our social and political conversation these days, but at the time I still thought the American public could fight back and reclaim control. Now I’m not so sure. It was Marshall McLuhan who said many years ago that the medium is the message, and in the case of the 24/7 news coverage on TV and Internet, the message is power — raw, unfiltered, corrupting. President Trump exposed it, but in the end he may not be able to defeat it.
- Why Did Leon Black Pay Jeffrey Epstein $50 Million?
Why Did Leon Black Pay Jeffrey Epstein $50 Million?
Tyler Durden
Mon, 10/12/2020 – 19:40Billionaire Leon Black gave his longtime pal Jeffrey Epstein $50 million dollars after the deceased financier got out of prison for pedophilia.
The transfer of funds was made in at least two payments, one of which Deutsche Bank flagged as unusual, according to the New York Times, citing ‘two people familiar with the matter.’
Epstein served as a director on the Leon Black Family Foundation for over a decade, and also accepted a $10 million donation for his Gratitude America foundation from Black’s “BV70 LLC” charity.
“It is true that I paid Mr Epstein millions of dollars annually for his work,” said Black in a Monday letter responding to the Times report. “It also is worth noting that all of Mr Epstein’s advice was vetted by leading auditors, law firms and other professional advisors” Black added – noting that he had ‘once’ picnicked on Epstein’s private island with his family, and that he visited the dead pedophile ‘from time to time’ at his Manhattan townhouse.
Black’s spokeswoman claims the two stopped communicating after a “fee dispute” in 2018, and that Black “deeply regrets having any involvement with him.”
“There has never been an allegation by anyone, including The New York Times, that Mr Black engaged in any wrongdoing or inappropriate conduct,” she added.
Black has previously said Epstein provided him with advice on ‘tax strategy, estate planning and philanthropy.’
In August, US Virgin Islands attorney general Denise N. George notified a local court that she would issue civil subpoenas to Black, founder of Apollo Global Management, as well as several entities he’s tied to. The subpoenas sought financial statements and tax returns – including those for Black Family Partners and Elysium Management – which oversee some of Black’s $9 billion fortune.
Black and his entities paid millions in fees to Epstein’s “Southern Trust Company,” which he established in the Virgin Islands in 2013, according to the Times.
Other subpoenas will go to Apollo as well as entities that help manage Black’s extensive art collection, according to an August report in the Times. It is unclear whether those subpoenas have been issued.
In a 2019 letter to Apollo investors, Black claimed to have had a “limited relationship” with Epstein (who managed his family’s foundation), and was “completely unaware” of conduct claimed in new allegations against the pedophile.
$50 million seems like a lot for someone he had a “limited relationship” with, while it remains unclear exactly what services Epstein performed for such a princely sum. The question everyone wants – or needs – answered, is just why did one of Wall Street’s all-powerful billionaires who is surrounded by the biggest financial brains in the world 24/7, pay an outsider for financial advice. We hope, but doubt, that Black will answer this question outside of a court of law.
- The World's First Fully Driverless Vehicle Ready To Hit The Roads
The World’s First Fully Driverless Vehicle Ready To Hit The Roads
Tyler Durden
Mon, 10/12/2020 – 19:20Authored by Josh Owens via OilPrice.com,
Waymo just announced its plans to deploy vehicles without backup safety drivers, making a major milestone in a sector that has witnessed many ups and downs and stops and starts. The company, the self-driving unit of Google’s parent Alphabet, said it will soon expand its driverless ride-hailing service to include the general public in Phoenix, Arizona.
“Beginning today, October 8, we’re excited to open up our fully driverless offering to Waymo One riders. Members of the public service can now take friends and family along on their rides and share their experience with the world,” the company said in a blog post.
For now, Waymo’s service will still be limited to Phoenix, but the company hopes for that to change in the future. Waymo, and other autonomous vehicle developers, chose Arizona for testing due to an apparent lack of restrictions and regulatory hurdles.
Still, offering rides to all customers is a huge advantage over its competitors. Being first always helps with reputation – and revenue. Waymo’s competitors are still in the testing phase.
The company’s CEO John Krafcik said in a statement that Waymo is looking for the opportunity to bring its driverless services to the company’s home state of California next.
Waymo started its driverless car development in 2017.
The following year, the company joined with carmaker Jaguar and announced a deal that included up to 20,000 Jaguar I-PACE electric vehicles in its upcoming autonomous fleet.
The partnership, worth up to $1.5 billion, is a further mark of Waymo’s ambition in the race against time to beat Uber to the definitive self-driving finish line for a driverless ride-hailing service. Jaguars are set to join the Chrysler Pacifica, which has already been used extensively in testing for the company’s autonomous driving technologies.
Waymo had previously said it was discussing collaboration with Honda; however, that relationship failed to blossom and Honda recently declared its intention to bring its own fully autonomous vehicle to the market by 2025.
Waymo is competing with several other players to deploy such vehicles for the masses, but it’s not as easy as they all thought it would be years ago. Pandemic also slowed down the progress.
Ford is also collaborating with Germany’s Volkswagen and Argo AI to introduce autonomous vehicle technology in the U.S. and Europe. Due to the pandemic, Ford said it will delay its launch plans until 2022.
Another of Detroit’s Big Three, General Motors, unveiled its first driverless vehicle in January and announced it would start delivering the first vehicle in the next five years.
Last September, Hyundai said that it would form a $4-billion joint venture with Aptiv to advance the development of production-ready autonomous driving systems. The company announced it would start mass production of driverless cars in 2024.
As for Uber, sued by Waymo for stealing its trade secrets and settled for $245 million, it’s self-driving division, Advanced Technologies Group (ATG), has had a tough time since a fatal crash involving one of its self-driving cars in 2019.
- Kanye West Asks Voters To Write In His Name For President With First Campaign Ad
Kanye West Asks Voters To Write In His Name For President With First Campaign Ad
Tyler Durden
Mon, 10/12/2020 – 19:00Anybody who suspected that not making it on the ballot in most states would suppress Kanye West’s drive to be the 46th President of the United States clearly underestimated the depths of his ambition…or overestimated Kris Jenner’s ability to…handle these types of problems.
Just weeks after accusing his mother-in-law of trying to get him committed via an involuntary psychiatric hold, rapper/producer/entertainer Kanye West has dropped his first campaign ad, encouraging his supporters to write in his name for president.
Equal parts Calvinist sermon and social justice screed, West encouraged Americans to embrace faith as the path to America’s revival as a nation.
“To live up to our dream, we must have vision. We as a people will revive our constitution’s commitment to faith…through prayer, faith can be restored. We as a people are called to a greater purpose than ourselves…to help each other, to lift up each other, our fellow Americans, that we may all prosper together,” West said.
“By turning to faith, we will be the kind of nation, the kind of people, God intends us to be,” West said in front of a black-and-white American flag.
West announced his presidential campaign in July and has spent at least $6 million from his own money in the effort according to FEC filings.
Running under the mantle of “the Birthday Party”, West’s ad featured the traditional campaign ad rhetoric about Kanye “approving this message”, along with a text note at the end encouraging voters to “write in Kanye”.
Last week, he shared photo of an absentee ballot filled out with his name on the write-in line. It wasn’t exactly clear who’s ballot he was holding.
Friends writing me in 🕊 pic.twitter.com/bC4NvFBWB5
— ye (@kanyewest) October 9, 2020
https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js
West outlined his oddball platform back in July, which features distinct notes of libertarian paternalism. For example, on the issue of marijuana legalization, Kanye West said he feels it shouldn’t just be legal, it should be free to all.
Another less radical tenant of West’s platform: Handing out free money to Americans.
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