Hungarian foreign minister Péter Szijjárt warns that the United Nations is spending money on facilitating a program of mass migration that threatens the “whole of humanity.”
Instead of spending money on counter-terrorism, the UN is funding programs that encourage people to leave their homelands and head to western countries, Szijjártó told a conference in Vienna on Tuesday.
This mass migration process poses “a very serious threat to the whole of humanity,” said Szijjártó.
We call on the UN to include in its budget counter-terrorism … and to spend less on migration,” the minister told the conference, which was organized by the UN.
Passed in 2018, the UN Compact on Migration is not legally binding, but governments are under international pressure to follow its mandates.
British MEP Janice Atkinson warned that the pact could lead to Europe being flooded with 59 million new migrants within the next 6 years.
Dutch MEP Marcel de Graaff also said that the pact would grease the skids for laws that would criminalize criticism of mass immigration as hate speech.
French generals who signed an open letter accusing President Macron of “treason” for committing France to the pact were later hit with disciplinary action.
While Britain and numerous other western countries signed the migration pact, the United States refused to do so.
Under the most severe scenario, large numbers of migrants will be required to “maintain the potential support ratio” (of a population) at the highest level.
In the case of the United States, under the most extreme scenario, the report states, “It would be necessary to have 593 million immigrants from 1995 to 2050, an average of 10.8 million per year.”
“By 2050, out of a United States total population of 1.1 billion, 775 million, or 73 per cent, would be post 1995 immigrants or their descendants,” adds the report.
In Europe’s case, the document asserts that at least 159 million migrant workers will need to enter by 2025 in order, “to maintain the current balance of 4 to 5 workers for a pensioner.”
Under the worst case scenario, 1.4 billion migrants would be needed by 2050, an average of 25.2 million a year. This means that by 2050, Europe’s population would be 2.3 billion, of which 1.7 billion, almost three quarters, would be migrants or their descendents.
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Every disaster contains a lesson or a message that needs to be examined. Every tragedy, no matter how terrible, should be absorbed into the public consciousness and adopted as a cautionary tale; a part of our mythos. These events should not be cast into the memory hole to make life less stressful, they need to be taken seriously. Otherwise, the damage done and the lives lost are all for nothing.
Refusing to examine the dark side of life and its dangers has become a staple of our society, to the point that it has given birth to a kind of religious cult. Naive optimism has become a virtue, a misplaced form of faith that encourages people to remain oblivious in the face of adversity. And the more precarious our system becomes, the more these people see unicorns and rainbows. It is truly bizarre.
Some of us understand the mechanics of our economic, political and social machine and recognize that they are broken. The system cannot be fixed because it has been corrupted by people with evil intent (globalists); it is designed to fail. The agenda? To crash almost everything and then replace it with a centralized behemoth, a global empire. The intent is to force the masses to accept this “new world order” using a false choice – We can have chaos and death, or “order” through total Orwellian control. Peace, sovereignty and freedom are not offered as choices.
As Richard N. Gardner, former deputy assistant Secretary of State for International Organizations under Kennedy and Johnson, and a member of the Trilateral Commission, wrote in the April, 1974 issue of the Council on Foreign Relation’s (CFR) journal Foreign Affairs (pg. 558) in an article titled ‘Hard Road To World Order’:
“In short, the ‘house of world order’ will have to be built from the bottom up rather than from the top down. It will look like a great ‘booming, buzzing confusion,’ to use William James’ famous description of reality, but an end run around national sovereignty, eroding it piece by piece, will accomplish much more than the old-fashioned frontal assault.”
The answer offered to every disaster is always more centralization, even if centralization was part of the problem from the beginning. The coronavirus pandemic event will be no different.
As was hinted at during Event 201, a coronavirus pandemic exercise run by Johns Hopkins, the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation and the World Economic Forum only three months before a REAL coronavirus outbreak took place in China, the goal will be to use the event to create a central economic authority to distribute resources to “counter the virus”. You see, the elites never let a good crisis go to waste.
But this plan requires complicity and apathy among the public. It requires our consent in order to work. For if we continue to undermine and resist it the globalists will never feel safe and secure. Like a cancer, they will eventually have to be cut out and removed if the system is to ever be truly fixed.
The pandemic might be an opportunity for the elites, but it is also a learning experience for the rest of us, and it might even bring some clarity to issues that have been hotly debated for several years. But what are some of these lessons?
Lesson #1: The Prepper Movement Was Right All Along
Over the past decade I have seen some extremely odd responses to the prepper movement, including a lot of aggression and hostility not to mention numerous hit pieces and hatchet jobs in the media. What is it about individuals being prepared for a potential crisis that sends so many snowflakes into a meltdown? Why do they care?
If you think that survivalism is all “conspiracy” and “doom and gloom” then why not ignore it like you ignore everything else? If preppers were wrong, then nothing happens, and all we did is spend some of our money on supplies that we will use anyway over time. No harm no foul. Yet, the mainstream acts as if the preparedness mindset is a criminal action that damages the rest of society.
Of course, as we can see from the coronavirus event in China, preppers were right all along. Almost every single potential problem we have warned about and written about over the years is now plaguing the Chinese citizenry, and most of these problems could have been solved by prepared citizenry.
Over 600 million people in China are now under lockdown; essentially martial law. Supply lines are dwindling in some areas, food is limited, medical treatment is nonexistent for many. The people in quarantine are completely dependent on the government for their survival and that same government has been systematically dragging people out of their homes and forcing them into makeshift “hospitals” (prisons) where they are almost certain to become infected. If ever there was a scenario where prepping was called for, this is it.
I can’t recall how many times I’ve heard people argue that prepping is “pointless” and that all our concerns over a crisis event are “overblown”, but we are now facing a pandemic in modern times, not to mention possible economic collapse. The only argument these people can make now is that the virus “won’t spread to the West”, but that is an assumption based on blind faith rather than science or logic. And even if it ends up being correct, what does it hurt to prepare anyway?
Lesson #2: Supply Lines Will Be Damaged Or Restricted
As noted above, preparedness is the first step to solving most problems, because most crisis events tend to result in similar consequences. In China, food and other goods are being rationed and supply lines in some areas are shut down completely. The only option is to have what you need BEFORE a breakdown occurs.
In the US, retailers are dependent on highly coordinated “just in time” freight networks that supply only what a store needs for normal shopping traffic for the week. In the wake of a calamity, stores will empty in a matter of a couple days. If freight lines are slowed down or cut off because travel is restricted due to viral outbreak, then what you have in your home is basically all you will have until the restrictions are lifted. After studying the history of plagues and pandemics, I would conclude that the average viral event will last at least 1 year, sometimes longer. The Spanish Flu of 1918 did not burn out in the US for two years.
Anyone who claims the coronavirus will be gone in a matter of a couple of months is probably lying, or is making ignorant assumptions. Prepare for the long haul if the pandemic hits US shores hard.
Lesson #3: Never Trust Government
All governments lie. They will claim they do this to “protect us from ourselves” and to “avoid panic”, but politicians and elites do not care about this. They do not lie to protect society, they lie to maintain power and control, and sometimes, they lie because they want to keep the public docile and vulnerable. For, the more inactive and vulnerable we are, the more dependent we will all be on them when disaster strikes.
The viral outbreak in China has thoroughly illustrated why governments cannot be trusted. China has consistently lied about the infection and death rate surrounding the coronavirus. Numerous health officials in China have leaked information indicating the threat is FAR larger than the government admits. Some of these brave people been punished or have died in the process of trying to warn the rest of the world.
Currently, China is claiming a minimal and slowing infection rate, but on the Japanese cruise ship Diamond Princess, we have a large scale example of the coronavirus in action. The 3700 passengers of the Diamond Princess are being slowly tested for the virus, and authorities have found at least 175 people infected out of 490 tested so far. That’s an infection rate of at least 35%! Some people may argue that a cruise ship is close quarters and so the infection rate would be higher, but your average Chinese city is also very close quarters. The data coming from the Diamond Princess suggests that the Chinese are lying extensively about the scale of the outbreak.
With hospitals completely overwhelmed by a 30% to 35% infection rate, the quality of care would collapse and many people would die.
The Chinese government has resorted to censorship and threats in order to keep the citizenry quiet. This includes punishing people who are accused of “posting rumors” about the true extent of the damage caused by the virus and the threats have been specifically directed at medical staff that are the closest witnesses to the outbreak. The overall purpose of the lockdown appears to be an attempt to suppress the real infection rate and death rate. The mass quarantine itself allows the government to streamline the cover-up; they can more easily imprison the sick and then dispose of their bodies with less public observation, and they never have to report the real death statistics.
If the government has nothing to hide, then why try to restrict all information coming from professionals on the ground? They claim they want “transparency” after the debacle that was their response to the SARS outbreak in 2003, but obviously this is not true.
Do not think for one second that this would not happen here in the US or in Europe either. We have already heard Donald Trump dismiss the virus threat on multiple occasions, and if it does strike here, do not be surprised if Trump’s response is as draconian as China’s. To understand why, read my article ‘Trump Cannot Be Anti-Globalist While Working With Global Elites’.
Lesson #4: Expect The Virus To Eventually Arrive In Your Country
In the US, the argument from the apathetic crowd is that we only have 12 cases, so what is there to worry about? I would remind those folks that the ONLY people that have actually been tested for coronavirus in the US are people that have arrived specifically from China in the past few weeks, who are showing symptoms and who voluntarily bring up this fact to health officials.
This means that people who come from Singapore, Thailand or any other nation in Asia that has also been exposed to the virus have likely not been tested at all. With a dormancy period of two weeks (and according to some studies up to 24 DAYS), the coronavirus has no symptoms yet it can still be highly contagious.
I would also point out that hospitals nationwide have been given a very limited supply of coronavirus tests (only 200 tests nationwide), some of which have been proven faulty, so, if the outbreak becomes prominent, they won’t be able to give an accurate number of infection cases anyway.
We are in the early stages of this pandemic. I definitely would not give the all clear yet. Unless the US government plans to shut down ALL flights into the US right now, there is no way to prevent the outbreak from coming here in the long run.
Lesson #5: Enforced Quarantine Is Not Necessarily For Your Benefit
As I noted in my article ‘How Viral Pandemic Benefits The Globalist Agenda’, there are many times in which the establishment creates crisis events deliberately, or, they exploit natural crisis events to further their agenda. In the midst of a viral outbreak, most people given the proper information and warning would prepare. They would stock supplies and self isolate (or group isolate if they are organized) until the infection burns out. But this is not what the establishment wants. They do not want people who are independent and self reliant during a disaster; they want people that are completely unprepared and dependent.
This is why they will continue to lie about the extent of the danger until it is too late. This is why it took the UN’s World Health Organization at least two months of the coronavirus spreading through China before they finally admitted there might be a crisis in the making. And, this why forced quarantine will be used to push people out of their homes and into centralized areas where they will be more susceptible to infection, not less.
Take the example in China to heart, because it may be exactly what we face in the near future. The point being – If you and your neighborhood or community already have a plan in place to survive an outbreak, do not allow government to interfere with it, because your chances of getting sick or dead grow with every moment of government involvement. Remember, these are the same people that tried to keep you in the dark about the danger; they are not to be relied upon or cooperated with.
Lesson #6: Expect Martial Law
If a viral outbreak spreads through the west, do not be surprised if martial law measures are implemented. If you live in a major city and you see or hear about checkpoints being set up, get out immediately. As we’ve seen in China, once the walls are put up you will not be able to get out.
Rural areas are less likely to be effectively locked down by authorities because it would require too many personnel to achieve this. Major population centers on the other hand will be easily cut off.
There is a question here of how to respond. Should Americans go along with martial law? Would it be for the “greater good”? I am highly skeptical. Like I said, all governments lie and they lie to control, not to help. If martial law measures are interfering with an effective quarantine that individuals or communities have already put in place, and if the government is putting you at risk, then you might have to fight back.
At least in the US we have the means to do this if necessary. You will not be seeing many people dragged from their homes as easily as they are in China right now. Frankly, if I was a CDC or FEMA employee trying to force people into centralized quarantine I would fear for my life as last I checked those hazmat suits are not bullet proof.
Hopefully, we will get lucky, this will not be the case and the coronavirus stays primarily overseas. If it doesn’t, though, then expect that everything that is happening in China today will happen here tomorrow.
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China Now Openly Fabricating Numbers: Beijing Lowers Coronavirus Deaths By 108 Due To “Double Counting”
Yesterday, when China shockingly reported a huge jump in new Coronavirus infections due to a “change in definition” of how it counted confirmed cases, resulting in a surge of nearly 15,000 new infections in Hubei alone, it made a mistake: it also reported a surge in new deaths, which more than doubled from under 100 to around 250, and which represent a state of existence (traditionally the final one) that is entirely definition independent.
As we pointed out at the time, while China “can now claim it wants to be more transparent (which is odd for a nation that is still refusing to admit the US CDC on the ground) and wants a more comprehensive definition of “infection” because it is suddenly so concerned about all those people it ordered to go back to work on Monday, it somehow also changed the definition of “death”, because at the same time as the explosion in new cases, which clearly indicates that the pandemic is now clearly out of control, the number of reported deaths in Hubei alone spiked by 242 to 1,310.“
One day later China appears to have realized just how flagrant this “mistake” – which exposed the lie which Chinese officials had used until now to avoid a panic, and reset the infection count to a sharply higher number – was, because even as Hubei reported an additional 4,823 cases as of Thursday (and the Chinese National Health Commission said this number was up 5,090 for all of China), there was some major confusion about what the actual number of deaths was.
… which is bizarre, because one day later, in its latest update from Friday, Feb 14, the NHC said that while the number of deaths – which as of Thursday recall were 1,367 (see above) – increased by 121, the total number of declared deaths across China was just 1,380 (link to original page here).
In other words, somehow the jump from 1,367 deaths to 1,380 was an increase of 121 deaths!?
But don’t take our word for it: here is JPMorgan’s official count of all related data as of this morning, showing that indeed, as of Feb 13 (so for Feb 12), there was a total of 1,367 deaths reported by the National Health Commission.
Is this just pro-forma, adjusted death math with Chinese characteristics?
As it turns out no, because recall that while China may have reset the number of new cases sharply higher, it certainly did not mean to also send the number of deaths surging, as it would means that this had nothing to do with a change in the definition of infection, and everything to do with undercounting the number of infected and dead.
So what did Beijing do?
Well, as the NHC “explained” in its Friday statement, that 242 increase in deaths officially reported on Thursday somehow also included 108 deaths that were “double counted.” There was no explanation how or why it was possible to “double count” a death. Which of course, it isn’t and what really happened is that China, having realized its glaring mistake which prompted us to mock its “data” yesterday, had to quickly cut by roughly half the surge in Thursday deaths to make the progression in the number of new deaths “smooth.” And sure enough, this is what the revised death chart looks like after the “double counting” revision: compare the chart up top of the number in new deaths before today’s “revision”, with what the death number looks like now, after the latest “data.”
Well, no, because without an explanation as to how one can “double count” a dead body, all Beijing has succeeded in doing is validating that all of its so-called data is just fake, goalseeked bullshit meant to keep the mortality rate at 2.1% where it had been for weeks until the sudden burst higher into Thursday’s massive data revision.
Indeed, one wonders if the entire set of “statistics” used by China in its coronavirus reporting is merely goalseeked off keeping the mortality rate at 2.1%, while any excess, “double-counted” dead bodies, are promptly incinerated in the local crematorium (which in the past three weeks has been working 24/7), with the cause of death given simple as “pneumonia.”
In any case, the impressive revision lower in deaths was enough to boost US equity futures as algos saw the number and rushed to buy stocks because the fake Chinese data is once again giving the impression that the pandemic is being contained, even if the only place that’s happening is inside the computer of some communist party appartchik in Beijing tasked with a simple mission: massage and manipulate the report to avoid a panic while preserving some credibility.
Alas, today’s “double counting” of the dead was the straw that finally broke the camel’s back and going forward nothing the Chinese government says can ever again be trusted by humans. However, since algos are exempt, they will keep buying stocks as Beijing once again gives the impression – using carefully goalseeked numbers – that the pandemic is increasingly contained, even as China’s entire economy has ground to a halt, until one day the global recession unexpectedly hits and “nobody could have possibly seen it coming.”
China Auto Sales Plunge In January; And February Could Be Much, Much Worse
Auto sales in China were crushed in January, declining 20.2% on a year over year basis, according to the government-backed China Association of Automobile Manufacturers. The country sold 1.94 million vehicles, according to the CAAM.
The decline is attributable, obviously, to the coronavirus outbreak in the country, combined with the lunar new year falling in late January, as opposed to early February, this year.
And, unfortunately, there is literally no reason for optimism coming into February, as it was the end of January and early February when China was placed essentially on a full lockdown due to the outbreak of the virus.
In fact, we just wrote yesterday that auto industry executives are admitting that the virus could “wreak havoc” on sales and production for the first quarter, according to the Asia Times. Automakers across the country have been forced to cancel sales targets and offer subsidies to hold over dealers during the outbreak.
The coronavirus has now killed over 1,300 people (if you are to believe the CCP’s likely understated numbers) and more than 60,000 people are now confirmed to be infected in China.
Just days ago, we reported about a major inventory glut looming in the Chinese auto market, as well.
Accordingly, we noted, traffic to showrooms has collapsed across the country since late January. A China Automobile Dealer’s association poll shows that dealers predict a drastic drop in sales of 50% to 80% this month, compared to February 2019. 70% of dealers have said they have seen “almost no customers” since the end of January.
The CADA said auto sales “show a cliff-like decline”.
Sales of EV vehicles also plunged in January, falling 54% as a result not only of the outbreak, but Beijing becoming more hawkish on their subsidy policies heading into the back end of 2019.
We noted in December that NEV sales plunged 42% in November after Beijing first backed away. The government is ostensibly dedicating all of its efforts to deal with the country’s ongoing outbreak, and so Beijing has not revisited its comments about EVs yet, and we are already halfway through Q1 2020.
Hubei Reports 116 New Coronavirus Deaths, 4,823 Cases; Over 160,000 Tracked
Summary:
Norwegian Cruise Line denies report of passenger being tested for coronavirus
Hubei province reports 116 new deaths and 4,823 new cases, bringing the total count to 1,486 deaths and 65,213 cases
Wuhan residents report hearing loud noises followed by helicopters
Japan reports first virus death
Australia quarantines cruise ship
President Xi says China will minimize impact from virus
Chinese leadership scapegoats local officials
EIA joins OPEC in warning about upcoming drop in oil use, the first in a decade.
HHS Secretary says CDC will announce another confirmed COVID-19 case in US on Thursday
21 people in Spain released from quarantine
US admin reportedly questioning China’s reporting
White House reportedly “doubts” China’s coronavirus numbers
CDC warns more infections possible after first US case confirmed in Texas (15th overall)
2 Russian women attempt escape from quarantine
EU could close border if outbreak worsens
Kudlow says US “disappointed” in China virus response
Shanghai reports 300+ more cases
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Update (1945ET): Norwegian cruise lines has denied that a passenger on a cruise ship docked in Sydney Harbor has been taken for testing, according to Yahoo News Australia.
The Australian reported it understands a Singaporean man arriving in Sydney on the Norwegian Jewel was being tested by NSW Health after he fell ill with a respiratory complaint.
However in a statement to Yahoo News Australia, a Norwegian Cruise Line spokesperson denied any patients have displayed coronavirus symptoms.
“We have no guests with any respiratory-related illness on board. The vessel remains in operation, and all guests on board are in good health,” a spokesperson said.
”There are various false, inflammatory media reports regarding the ship. There is absolutely no truth to those stories.” –Yahoo
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Update (1850ET): Hubei province reports 116 new coronavirus deaths and 4,823 cases, bringing the overall official count to 1,486 deaths and 65,213 confirmed.
The new confirmed cases include 3,095 patients who were “clinically diagnosed” following the province’s new counting methodology was implemented Wednesday. Eight of the 116 deaths were clinically diagnosed.
690 patients were discharged over the last 24-hours, with 214 of those being clinically diagnosed cases. Of the 36,719 hospitalized patients, 7,953 are critically ill and under isolation treatment at designated medical institutions. There are currently 6,169 suspected cases, 3,689 cured, and 5,352 under isolation.
A total of 166,818 contacts are still being tracked, while 77,685 are under medical observation.
The below charts reflect the new figures. Keep in mind that yesterday’s record increase of 14,840 patients was likely due to a massive catch-up after clinically diagnosed cases were added to the definition.
Update (1820ET): Another incident involving a cruise ship with possibly infected passengers is unfolding – this time in Sydney. What would be the fifth cruise ship to face some level or quarantine (or some other form of trouble) – since the outbreak went global two weeks ago is currently being held under a quarantine order in Sydney Harbor.
New South Wales health officials said a passenger on board is being tested for COVID-19. The passenger is a Singaporean man who ‘fell ill’ with a ‘respiratory illness’.
That doesn’t sound good…but many similar cases have been conclusively dismissed as negative (despite the difficulty with China’s testing equipment) even after showing some similar symptoms. Those symptoms certainly aren’t a guarantee of infection. But it’s definitely concerning.
Australia recently extended its travel ban for any non-Australians who have traveled through China recently.
Australia has confirmed 15 cases of coronavirus, but all of them contracted it in China. And only one of those has been confirmed to be human-to-human. A cruise ship under quarantine for the ninth day in Yokohama has confirmed 175 cases of the virus among the passengers and crew, making it the site of the largest COVID-19 outbreak outside mainland China.
Though Hong Kong allowed a ship to depart in just four days after a brief quarantine and no confirmed cases, passengers aboard the Yokohama, having been trapped in their cabins for nine days, have gone completely stir crazy, and many have been in contact with the western media, giving interviews about the pervasive feelings of terror, bewilderment and paranoia.
The ship, the “Norwegian Jewel” (we’re sensing a theme here with these cruise ship names) reportedly arrived in Sydney this morning, according to the Australian, and several other domestic newspapers. It has a max capacity of 2,376 guests and 1,060 crew.
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Update (1740ET): Could this be the source of the ‘loud noise’ we mentioned earlier?
(h/t to @Russian_Market, who has been bringing us videos gleaned from Chinese social media for days.
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Update (1545ET): Residents of Wuhan reportedly heard loud noises at approximately 1pm local time on Thursday, which shook windows and floors of nearby residents, followed by what appears to be nearly a dozen helicopters.
Update (1400ET): President Trump just reportedly said during a radio interview that he believes China is handling the outbreak “professionally.”
This after a slew of frustrated messages from his administration and officials including Larry Kudlow.
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Update (1320ET): Following last night’s admission that local officials in Wuhan were undercounting the number of cases, a reporter appears to have found evidence that more than 300 unreported cases are active in Shanghai, as well as 1 previously unreported death.
#BREAKING: Shanghai has banned people and cars from entering the city starting at 00:00 on February 14 in order to put the #CoronavirusOutbreak under control. At least 300 cases of such infection have been confirmed in Shanghai. And at least one died from the disease in the city. pic.twitter.com/h8AKfTxAPK
So China is tightening the lockdown in Shanghai to hide the truth about the outbreak? That’s unconfirmed for now.
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Update(1250ET): Not long after reports claimed the White House is widely skeptical of Chinese numbers, Trump’s top economic advisor Larry Kudlow appeared on television to say the US is “disappointed” in how China has handled the virus response, and that the Trump administration wishes there was more clarity.
Specifically, the US was most hurt by China’s refusal to accept an American team of experts from the CDC, who offered to help.
The US economy would be at 3% growth if not for the virus, he added.
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Update (1230ET): As Beijing insists that it’s safe for foreign nations to soon lift their travel restrictions on China, CNN reports that the European Union is considering closing its borders if the outbreak really escalates.
They cite a Croatian health official, who said the plan is in the works, though he strongly suspects that it won’t be necessary.
The WHO has said that level of restriction isn’t necessary, but that’ hasn’t stopped Russia from closing part of its border and other countries restricting travel by Chinese.
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Update (1215ET): For the second day in a row, the CDC has warned that more confirmed cases of COVID-19 in the US are inevitable, especially as the testing of ~800 evacuees from Wuhan continues.
After confirming the US’s 15th case at Lackland Air Force Base in San Antonio, officials warned that “there may be additional cases” identified during this period.
The 15th patient was a “solo traveler” from China who has been quarantined “since arriving at Lackland Air Force Base from Wuhan.
They remain in isolation at a local hospital.
Officials assured the public that there’s no risk to the local community, according to CNN.
“We are right in the middle of that incubation period so it is not surprising” that the individual developed symptoms, McQuiston said.
“For the most part the people in quarantine are not doing much associating with each other,” McQuiston said.
Across the ocean in Russia, two women being held under quarantine over fears they might have contracted the virus managed to escape, citing the appallingly poor conditions of their medical detention, according to the NY Post.
Both of the women were hospitalized with flu-like symptoms after returning the Hainan region in southern China that is popular with Russian tourists because of its tropical environment.
In honor of US stocks turning green, we’d like to share this memorable clip of hazmat-suit-wearing person spraying an office down with disinfectant as China continues to slow lurch back to work.
Update (1150ET): Citing a senior White House official, CNBC reports that the White House doesn’t have “high confidence” in the coronavirus numbers coming out of China.
On the coronavirus, a senior administration official tells me the US does “not have high confidence in the information coming out of China.” This official says “China continues to rebuff American offers of assistance.”
The U.S. does “not have high confidence in the information coming out of China” regarding the count of coronavirus cases, a senior administration official told CNBC.
The official also noted that China “continues to rebuff American offers of assistance.”
The current thinking is there must be a reason why they won’t allow the CDC to send over personnel to help with the virus response.
Meanwhile, Jennifer Zeng tweeted out video of migrant workers being forced to sleep outside because of the draconian lockdown.
At Kunshan in #Jiangsu province. Migrant workers have no where to go after they returned. Residential communities don’t accept outsiders, or can they rent house from anywhere.
江苏昆山，小区不让进，房子不让租。外来务工者流落街头。 #COVID2019#Coronavirus#武汉肺炎pic.twitter.com/6rqScUlY94
How much longer until President Trump demands evidence that the virus wasn’t bioengineered?
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Update (1015ET): Following last night’s debacle over China reporting, Fox News’ Edward Lawrence reports that administration sources say they believe China is under reporting the number of coronavirus cases by at least 100,000 in China.
Administration sources say they believe China is under reporting the number of #coronavirus cases by at least 100,000 in China. Also sources say the administration believes China is “severely” under reporting the number of deaths from the virus.
Additionally, Lawrence notes that administration sources say scientists working on how the coronavirus spread are having difficultly getting to the sight on where the first case happened.
Administration sources say scientists working on how the coronavirus spread are having difficultly getting to the sight on where the first case happened. That could help scientists determine if it’s spread by contact or also airborne. #Coronavirus
We suspect Chinese authorities will do their best to keep any “help” from the west at arm’s length for fear of discovering the truth behind this deadly outbreak.
Jennifer Zeng meanwhile tweeted a video of migrant workers in Jiangsu province being reduced to sleeping in the streets or woods thanks to the lockdown.
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Update (0950ET): Health and Human Services Secretary Alex Azar said Thursday morning that the CDC is preparing to announce another confirmed coronavirus case in the US later in the day. That would be the 15th case in the US.
The announcement hit US stocks just minutes after the open.
In Europe, CNN reports that 21 Spaniards who returned from Wuhan on an evacuation flight have been released from Gomez Ullah Hospital in Madrid. The Spanish Health Ministry said the individuals had finished their quarantine stretches.
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Update (0915ET): Even China’s state-controlled press is beginning to sound alarmist as it becomes increasingly clear that the epidemic is anything but ‘contained’.
How contagious is the deadly #coronavirus? It could take a mere 2 seconds for someone to contract it in areas with high concentration of the virus if they’re not wearing protective gear: Wang Guiqiang, doctor of infectious diseases in Beijing. #COVID19pic.twitter.com/NxhsXjqXhO
Meanwhile China’s CDC has reportedly declared ‘War Time Status’ to authorize war-time conditions on quarantine, supplies, management and, of course, control & discipline.
If you thought the lockdowns were bad, it looks like Beijing is about to get pretty creative as it tries to walk the balance of pushing the public to get back to worked and protecting them from the virus.
In Xiaogan, in Hubei Province, two young men were forced to kneel in the street after violating restrictions of traveling outside.
Reuters adds that Huanggang, another city in Hubei, that it will tighten epidemic controls by “sealing residential complexes and only allowing essential vehicles on roads.”
Patients quarantined in China’s hospital jails are clearly hoping that their patriotic socialist principles of valuing the common good over individual liberty will see China through.
Update (0750ET): News out of China is presenting yet another lesson in contrasts.
In his latest remarks, President Xi said his government is striving to hit China’s development targets, and that the government will “definitely be able to minimize impact from the virus,” according to Chinese state media that has been relayed to English-language newswires.
He also pledged to maintain the development momentum of China’s economy.
Meanwhile, over in Macau, the government of the beleaguered casino paradise is planning to hand out vouchers to residents allowing to buy food to try and help boost local consumption once the outbreak starts to subside, Bloomberg reports.
They can only be used at local restaurants and businesses over the next 3 months.The government is also planning to reduce some taxes and fees to help people recover (a rare example of fiscal stimulus directed at main street).
Here’s a video report published on NHK’s site (please excuse the excess text):
Notably, the woman’s death had nothing to do with the ‘Diamond Princess’ – the cruise ship quarantined in Yokohama.
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Update (0650ET): After last night’s ‘undercounting’ bombshell on the mainland, investors really needed to see some reassuring headlines about the coronavirus outbreak to push equity markets back into the green.
This is definitely not that.
Japan has confirmed its first coronavirus death, the third confirmed virus death outside mainland China, according to domestic broadcaster NHK. The other deaths occurred in the Philippines and Hong Kong.
The woman who died was in her 80s, and living in Kanagawa Prefecture, just outside Tokyo.
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Last night, we wrote the following in conclusion to our report on the dire numbers coming out of Hubei. Essentially, we predicted that President Xi was cranking up the Party’s scapegoating machine and getting ready to blame the undercounting of coronavirus cases and deaths on local officials.
Who could have seen that coming? The stock market wanted so badly to believe the Chinese data… bonds and commodities knew better.
But of course, smart traders who were paying attention yesterday might have been able to deduce that something was up. Beijing dismissed some of the top health officials in Wuhan and Hubei earlier this week, and last week it administered administrative punishments to hundreds of lower-level bureaucrats.
They have already been set up to take the fall for President Xi and his inner circle. Let the scapegoating begin.
Earlier in the week, Chinese media and the South China Morning Post, a newspaper in Hong Kong, reported that the Communist Party was preparing to punish the two top party officials in Hubei over their botched response to the Covid-19 outbreak. Of course, local officials have repeatedly claimed that their hands were tied by the national party, as President Xi and his inner circle were paranoid about the news getting out and jeopardizing China’s ambitious growth targets.
But unfortunately for the party leadership, the outbreak didn’t simply go away. Instead, it has evolved into a global plague and caused the deaths of nearly 1,500 people in just a few weeks, putting the SARS outbreak, which terrorized China and the international community in 2002 and 2003, to shame.
But that doesn’t matter. Because on Thursday morning, the Communist Party officially fired the top party officials in the province over his handling of the epidemic. Party Secretary of Hubei Province Jiang Chaoliang is being relieved of his position, to be replaced by Xi loyalist and current Shanghai mayor Ying Yong, according to the New York Times.
Ma Guoqiang, the top party official in Wuhan whose name is probably familiar to those who have been closely following the situation in the city, has also been fired. He will be replaced by Wang Zhonglin, currently the party secretary of Jinan, a city in China’s east.
Xi couldn’t have set this is up more perfectly: The public has been clamboring for local officials to pay for botching their handling of the outbreak. Several stirred up anger by appearing in public without masks, or with their masks worn incorrectly. But by far their largest transgression – at least in the eyes of China’s tightly controlled public – was the decision to punish Dr. Li Wenliang, the opthamologist who tried to warn the city about the virus, but was punished for his efforts, and later died fighting the virus. Dr. Li has become a martyr across China, and the Communist Party needed to find a way to distance itself from his death, or risk more widespread “instability.”
They’ve succeeded.
Yesterday, we reported that the number of people confirmed to have the coronavirus in Hubei, which is at the center ofthe outbreak, soared by 14,840 on Wednesday thanks to a change in China’s testing and classification standards after turning away thousands of deathly ill patients in Wuhan. That brought the total in the province to 48,206, while the total worldwide
In February 2020, the Syrian Army reached the vicinity of the main stronghold of anti-government forces in Syria, the city of Idlib. This development plunged into shock supporters and the leadership of Idlib armed groups and became a visual confirmation of something that Western powers and their media structures do not want to admit. The government of President Bashar al-Assad not only survived the 9 years of the bloody war but also appeared on the winning side.
Idlib city is the capital of Idlib Governotare. It is located 59km southwest of Aleppo, and about 22km from the Turkish border. The city is divided into six main districts: Ashrafiyeh, Hittin, Hejaz, Downtown, Hurriya, and al-Qusur. Before the war, Idlib city was a rapidly growing urban center. From 2004 to 2010, its population grew from approximately 99,000 to 165,000. The majority of inhabitants was Sunni Muslims. Additionally, there was a significant Christian minority that almost completely disappeared by 2020, for obvious reasons.
In 2011, Idlib and its countryside became one of the main the centers of violence. Anti-government armed groups seized the city for the first time in the same year.
The key role was played by members of Ahrar al-Sham, a radical Islamist militant group declaring the aim of creating an Islamic state ruled under Sharia law. Ahrar al-Sham gained a wide prominence as the key ally of Jabhat al-Nusra, the official al-Qaeda offshoot in Syria. Their fruitful cooperation continued until 2017, when the relations between the groups became colder. Their funding base started crumbling after militants had suffered a devastating defeat in Aleppo city. This caused a series of contradictions between the formal allies that even turned in some local clashes. In 2020, the coalition of Ahrar al-Sham and several other groups armed and funded by Turkey are known as the National Front of Liberation. It still maintains a significant relationship with Jabhat al-Nusra that changed the brand to Hayat Tahrir al-Sham in an attempt to hide its al-Qaeda backbone from the international audience.
In February 2012, anti-government groups lost the city to the Syrian Army, which launched a large-scale military operation in the area. Idlib once again fell into the hands of militants in April 2015 after the united forces of Jabhat al-Nusra, Ahrar al-Sham, Jund al-Aqsa and several other al-Qaeda-linked groups had assaulted the city from 3 directions. After this, militants captured another important urban center in Idlib province – Jisr al-Shughur, the prewar population – about 44,000 people.
Since then, Idlib and Jisra al-Shughur have consistently evolved into the two key centres of attraction of radicals in the region. These include both members of various militant groups defeated by the Syrian Army across Syria, and multiple foreign nationals seeking to join some powerful Middle Eastern terrorist group. This impacted the balance of power within militant groups operating in the region. Ahrar al-Sham lost a large part of its previous influence. As a part of the National Front for Liberation (NFL), it receives additional funding and supplies from Turkey, but the entire alliance is no more a competitor to Jabhat al-Nusra. The NFL played the role of auxiliary forces in most of the recent battles involving Jabhat al-Nsura. Its main strong side is the access to a constant flow of Turkish military supplies, including anti-tank guided missiles. Through the NFL, Turkish-supplied weapons regularly appear in the hands of Jabhat al-Nusra. The NFL claims that it has up to 70,000 members. Nonetheless, local sources say that the real number of active fighters can be estimated at no more than 25,000.
Despite the setbacks suffered in Aleppo city, northern Hama and southern Idlib, Jabhat al-Nusra remains the most powerful force in Greater Idlib. Its main political and military HQs are located in Idlib city. The group also created several weapon depots and equipment maintenance facilities inside the city. It intentionally puts own infrastructure in a close proximity to civilian targets using locals as human shields from air and artillery strikes. Large known al-Nusra weapon depots are also located in Khan and Sarmada. The Khan weapon depot is set up right near the camp for displaced civilians. On November 20, 2019, several civilians from the camp were killed, when a Syrian Army missile hit the weapon depot area. A number of smaller weapon depots were moved to the Turkish border area following the militants’ withdrawal from Maarat al-Numan and Khan Shaykhun. The number of militants fighting under the current brand of Jabhat al-Nusra – Hayat Tahrir al-Sham – is estimated at over 30,000.
Jisr al-Sughur and its countryside turned into the nest of the Turkistan Islamic Party, another al-Qaeda-linked militant group. It mostly consists of ethnic Uyghurs and other foreigners. The group’s ideology declares an aim to create a Caliphate in China’s Xinjiang region, and eventually in the entire Central Asia. Meanwhile, they are using Syria’s Idlib as a foothold to gain combat experience and resources for attacks in China and the Central Asia. Ankara, which uses various radical forms of pan-Turkism as a tool to expand own influence, turned a blind eye to the influx of foreign terrorists to the Idlib de-escalation zone. The number of fighters of the Turkistan Islamic Party with their families is estimated between 10,000 and 20,000.
The total manpower of groups operating in Greater Idlib is estimated around 110,000. Nonetheless, a majority of small groups are polarized and demoralized even more than their big brothers.
The Syrian Army operation in Idlib, which started in December 2019, allowed the Damascus government to retake over 1,200km2 from Hayat Tahrir al-Sham and its allies, and the advance is ongoing. Pro-government forces captured the largest subdistrict of the Idlib district of the province – Saraqib Nahiyah (population about 88,000), and took control of the crossroad of the M4 and M5 highways. Thus, Idlib groups lost a key logistical hub, which they had used to supply its forces and move reinforcements between northern Lattakia, southern Idlib and northern Aleppo. The loss of Saraqib also exposed the southwestern flank of Al-Eis, the main Hayat Tahrir al-Sham strongpoint in southwestern Aleppo. The army diversionary attack in the area immediately turned into a real offensive. Government troops took control of a number of settlements, including the militant stronghold of al-Eis.
The Syrian Army currently has two main priorities:
To secure the entire M5 highway, which links the cities of Hama and Aleppo. This will allow government forces to freely redeploy troops and equipment just along the current frontline. Thus, they will have an additional advantage in maneuverability;
To increase pressure on the Hayat Tahrir al-Sham hive, Idlib city, which is now located in about 8km from the active frontline. This is an unprecedented situation, which had not happened since 2015. All the previous year the city remained in a permanent safety from any ground offensive by government forces. So, its current rulers did not bother itself with creating strong fortifications. The same approach explains why the speed of the Syrian Army’s offensive increased after it had passed the main defense line of Hayat Tahrir al-Sham and its allies near Khan Shaykhun.
The rapid advances by the Syrian Army caused a strong negative reaction among the powers not interested in removing the Idlib point of instability, including Turkey. Ankara is an official participant of the Astana format and a state guarantor of the Idlib de-escalation deal. The issue is that Ankara did not comply with the key point of the Astana agreements – it did not separate Turkish-backed “moderate rebels” from the Al-Qaeda-linked terrorists that are excluded from the ceasefire regime. Any such attempt will inevitably reveal that terrorists control over 80% of the opposition-held part of Greater Idlib. Ankara will have to confirm officially that the Syrian Army operation against them goes in the framework of the Astana agreements. This is unacceptable for the Turkish leadership, which has been for a long time using a variety of military and diplomatic measures to prevent the Assad government from retaking the northwest of Syria and consolidate own influence in the areas where Turkish forces are present. Under the demilitarization agreement (September 2018), the Turkish Army also established 12 observation supposedly intended to monitor the ceasefire. Mr. Recep Tayyip Erdogan likely thought that by this move he claimed the entire Idlib for own geopolitical games.
In the course of the Idlib operations (2019-2020), Syrian forces besieged 5 Turkish observation posts and even several shelled the Turkish military several times. In response, the Turkish leadership announced that its forces had delivered strong blows to the ‘Assad regime’. However, the strikes did not stop the Syrian Army advance. This is why the Turkish military has been steadily increasing its military presence across the militant-held part of the Greater Idlib region, including the countryside of Idlib city. According to some reports, up to 1,000 pieces of Turkish military equipment have been deployed in this part of Syria.
On February 5, President Erdogan presented an ultimatum to Syria. He demanded the Syrians to halt military operations against Idlib militant groups and withdraw from Turkish observation posts abandoning the area liberated from terrorists in the recent months. The Turkish leader gave the Damascus government time until the end of February. If Syria rejects the ultimatum, Erdogan vowed to launch a full-scale military action against the Syrian Army. This was not first such threat by the Turkish leadership and all the previous ones appeared to be empty words. Nonetheless, this time the situation could develop under another scenario. Many will depend on the state of relations among Turkey, the United States, Israel and Russia.
Erdogan will not risk with a direct military confrontation with Russia. This will cost too much for Turkey. Nevertheless, if the Turkish leadership is sure that Russia provides no real answer to a full-scale attack on the Syria Army, there will be a strong chance that Turkey will carry out such an attack. The Erdogan government already has an experience of carrying out a direct aggression against Russia. In November 2015, the Turkish Air Force shot down a Russian S-24 fighter-bomber in the Syrian province of Lattakia. The Kremlin left this action unanswered in the military sphere.
After all, the fully-fledged Turkish war with Syria is unlikely because Ankara does not have enough resources for such a move. The more possible scenario is a large military operation by the Turkish Armed Forces. Even this move would require means and forces that would be many folds larger than those involved in Operations Euphrates Shield, Olive Branch and Peace Spring. If Erdogan decided to approve this military operation in Syria, it will undermine the already weakened economy of Turkey, undermine positions of Turkey in the region and significantly complicate its relations with the European Union. Therefore, the Turkish military action will likely take a form of the quasi-military PR action (like the US strikes on Syria in 2017 and 2018).
The Turkish plans could be undermined by the further collapse of Hayat Tahrir al-Sham’s defense in Idlib. Militants appeared to be unable to the Syrian Army breakthrough into the operational depth of their defense, where they have no needed defense infrastructure. So, pro-government forces have a chance to deliver a devastating blow to militants and at least reach the suburbs of the city of Idlib until the end of the month.
Judicial Watch Uncovers NIH Fetal Organ Purchases For ‘Humanized Mice’ Testing
The National Institutes of Health (NIH) paid nearly $20,000 to a California-based firm to purchase organs from aborted human fetuses for a program to create “humanized mice” for HIV research, according to Judicial Watch.
The discovery was made after the conservative watchdog group received 676 pages of records as part of a March 2019 Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) lawsuit, which revealed that NIH paid at least $18,100 between December 2016 and August 2018 to Alameda-based Advanced Bioscience Resources (ABR) for at least 26 purchases of livers and thymuses from fetuses aborted in their second trimester. The orders were placed by Dr. Kim Hasenkrug, senior investigator at the NIH lab in Hamilton, Montana.
Of note, ABR has been the subject of criminal referrals from House and Senate committees investigating whether Planned Parenthood or any other group was illegally profiting from aborted babies.
Purchase orders associated with the transactions state: “These tissues, liver and thymus, are required [by] Ron Messer for ongoing studies of HIV in the Hasenkrug Lab. Our mice will be ready for reconstitution soon.”
Beginning with a December 21, 2016, payment to ABR and running through April 2018, the records show that a fetal liver and thymus set costs $680, and payment was due upon receipt. On May 23, 2018, the cost increased to $750. -Judicial Watch
In addition, the records indicate “Tissue Acquisition Invoices” and sales receipts for credit card purchases.
The lawsuit, (Judicial Watch v. U.S. Department Health and Human Services (No. 1:19-cv-00876)), calls for the HHS contracts and related documentation between the FDA and ABR for the purchase of human fetal tissue for use in humanized mice research.
Judicial Watch notes that federal law prohibits the transfer of fetal tissue for profit, with agency officials concluding in March, 2018 that “Federal regulations for the protection of human subjects do not apply to above named activity.”
The records include a November 2009 “Request for Review of Research Activity Involving Human Subjects” with the protocol title “Study of HIV infection and vaccine protection in mice reconstituted with a human immune system” that describes the development of a “cohort” of humanized mice using human fetal tissue:
Recent reports have demonstrated that immunodeficient mice reconstituted with 17-19 week old human fetal tissue develop a human immune system and are susceptible to HIV infection and disease. The goal of this project proposal is to create such humanized mice to study the role of immune cell subsets and virus-neutralizing antibodies in vaccine protection. The experiments will entail the development of a cohort of mice all reconstituted with the same human cells so as to be histocompatible. This will require transplantation of the mice with 1 mm3 pieces of fetal thymus as well as reconstitution with stem cells isolated from cord blood and liver. Once the humanized mice have been established some will be vaccinated to prime distinct subsets of immune cells. Immune cell subsets from vaccinated mice will be adoptively transferred into naive mice, which will then be infected with HIV to test the antiviral activity of the immune cells. The goal of these experiments is to establish correlates of immunity against HIV.
In an “Overview” provided by Advanced Bioscience Resources, the firm describes itself as a “non-profit corporate foundation” which is “devoted to providing services in connection with the procurement of human organs and tissues for medical and scientific research.”
In Hasenkrug’s November 2009 “Request for Review of Research Activity Involving Human Subjects” he is asked: “Where are the subjects of this research activity located?” Hasenkrug answers: “The material for this research is obtained from natural or induced abortions from females in California.” Another question is: “Has the research activity that you are proposing in this form been approved by an Institutional Review Board (IRB) elsewhere?” Hasenkrug answers: “No IRB review of the research activity … has taken place.”
Read the rest of the report, including individual invoices for fetal organs, here.
China has been leading the way when it comes to digital payments by average consumers in the country. While such payments in the United States like Apple Pay are becoming more widely accepted, in nearby Japan such methods are still relatively rare.
Alipay has been offering residents of China the chance to use fiat currency for everyday transactions, seemingly acclimating them for the day both payment and currency become 100% digital.
China Central Bank Flexes its Regulatory Muscles on Crypto
Although China has taken a somewhat more permissive stance toward online and digital payments recently, it has mostly responded to the rise of cryptocurrency with more authoritarian measures. After it was clear millions of Bitcoin were being mined by Chinese nationals, the government responded by prohibiting all cryptocurrency trading in the country as of September 2017.
Despite the Chinese government’s hardline stance toward cryptocurrencies, the country has also shown interest in blockchain technology and developing a central bank digital currency.
It’s becoming clear it has its own plans through additional regulation. According to the Financial Times, The People’s Bank of China has recently filed applications for more than 80 patents, paving the way for the launch of a new digital currency.
Marc Kaufman, a partner and patent attorney at Rimon Law, told the Financial Times:
“Virtually all of these patent applications relate to integrating a system of digital currency into the existing banking infrastructure.”
What does this mean for the future of crypto in China?
These patent applications are consistent with recent policy in China, emphasizing its willingness to embrace blockchains before allowing Bitcoin and other cryptocurrency holders to influence the market. As Cointelegraph has reported, the Chinese government seems to like the safe data management potential of blockchain, but not its decentralized and permissionless nature as well as the speculation enabled by crypto assets.
US Says Iran’s Satellite Launch Program ‘Cover’ For Nuclear Weapons Delivery
Iran’s latest attempt to launch a satellite into orbit marked the fourth recent space launch operation in a row ending in failure, and yet Iran’s space program and Defense Ministry still praised the launch as “remarkable” and vowed to continue to program.
This elicited a response from US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, who on Tuesday repeated Washington’s longtime charge that Tehran is using the satellite launch program as cover to hone technology related to its ballistic missile capability. Pompeo said technological elements to the launch were “virtually identical” to those necessary a long-range ballistic missile.
“The Iranian regime uses satellite launches to develop its ballistic missile capabilities,” Pompeo’s statement charged. “The technologies used to launch satellites into orbit are virtually identical and interchangeable with those used in longer range systems, including intercontinental ballistic missiles,”
“Each launch, whether failed or not, further allows Iran to gain experience using such technologies that could benefit its missile programs under the guise of a peaceful space program,” the statement continued.
“The United States will continue to build support around the world to confront the Iranian regime’s reckless ballistic missile activity, and we will continue to impose enormous pressure on the regime to change its behavior,” he said.
Last September, Washington imposed sanctions on Iran’s space agency, its space research center, as well as astronautics research institute — given all of these are seen as assisting development of technology related to Iran’s ballistic missiles capability.
Imam Khomeini National Space Center. Source: Iranian Defense Ministry via AP.
The State Department’s newest official statement goes so far as to suggest the Islamic Republic’s fledgling space program is being used to develop effective delivery methods for nuclear warheads.
Pompeo said the launches must be stopped because they aid in “development of systems capable of delivering nuclear weapons and we are seeing the dangerous consequences today.”
Over the past decade Iran has successfully put several short-lived satellites into orbit, but has been unable to advance beyond this.
Almost everyone looks for a political solution to problems. However, once a Deep State situation has taken over, only a revolution or a dictatorship can turn it around, and probably only in a small country.
Maybe you’re thinking you should get behind somebody like Ron Paul (I didn’t say Rand Paul), should such a person materialize. That would be futile.
Here’s what would happen in the totally impossible scenario that this person was elected and tried to act like a Lee Kuan Yew or an Augusto Pinochet against the Deep State:
First, there would be a “sit-down” with the top dogs of the Praetorian agencies and a bunch of Pentagon officers to explain the way things work.
Then, should he survive, he would be impeached by the running dogs of Congress.
Then, should he survive, whipped dog Americans would revolt at the prospect of having their doggy dishes broken.
Remember, your fellow Americans not only elected Obama, but re-elected him. Do you expect they’ll be more rational as the Greater Depression deepens? Maybe you think the police and the military will somehow help. Forget it…they’re part of the problem. They’re here to protect and serve their colleagues first, then their employer (the State), and only then the public. But the whipped dog likes to parrot: “Thank you for your service.” Which is further proof that there’s no hope.
So what should you do, based on all this? For one thing, don’t waste your time and money trying to change the course of history. Trying to stop the little snowball rolling down the mountainside might have worked many decades ago, but now it’s turned into a gigantic avalanche that’s going to smash the village at the bottom of the valley. I suggest you get out of the way.
What, you may ask, would I do if I were dictator of the U.S. and had absolutely no regard for my personal safety? Here’s a seven-part program, for entertainment purposes only:
Allow the collapse of all zombie corporations – banks, brokers, insurers, and government contractors. The real wealth they supposedly own will still exist.
Abolish all regulatory agencies. Although Boobus americanus believes they exist to protect him, and that may have been an intention when they were created, they, at best, serve the industries they regulate. The U.S. Food and Drug Administration, for instance, kills more Americans every year than does the Department of Defense in a typical decade. The SEC, the Swindlers Encouragement Consortium, lulls the average investor into thinking he’s protected. They, and other agencies, extract scores of billions out of the economy to feed useless mouths in return for throwing sand in the gears of the economy.
Abolish the Fed…you need a strong currency to encourage saving. Actually, you don’t need a currency at all. Gold is vastly better as money.
Cut the size of the military by 90% and abolish the Praetorian agencies. In addition to bankrupting the U.S., the military is now a huge domestic danger, even while it’s mainly an instrument for creating enemies abroad.
Sell essentially all U.S. government assets. Although some actually have value, they are all a drain on the economy. For instance, the U.S. Postal Service loses $5 billion a year; Amtrak loses another billion or so per year. The Interstate Highway System, airports and the air-traffic-control system, the 650 million acres of U.S. government land, and many thousands of other assets should all be distributed in shares or sold. This would liberate an immense amount of dead capital. The proceeds could be used to partially satisfy some government obligations.
Eliminate the income tax, as a start, which will be possible if the other six things are done. The economy would boom.
Default on the national debt and contingent liabilities. That’s somewhere between $23 trillion and $200 trillion. There are at least three reasons for that. First is to avoid turning future generations into serfs. Second is to punish those who have enabled the State by lending it money. Third is to make it impossible for the State to borrow in the future, at least for a while.
I like this program from a practical point of view, because when a structure is about to collapse, it’s much wiser to conduct a controlled demolition than to just let it fall when no one expects it.
But I also like it from a philosophical point of view because, as Nietzsche observed, that which is falling deserves to be pushed.
There are, however, two very important reasons for optimism: science and savings.
Science: Science and technology are the mainsprings of progress, and there are more scientists and engineers alive today than have lived in all previous history put together. Unfortunately for Western civilization however, most of them are Asians. Most American PhDs aren’t in Rocket Science but Political Science, or maybe Gender Studies. Nonetheless, the advancement of science offers some reason to believe that not only is all this gloom and doom poppycock, but that the future will not only be better than you imagine, but, hopefully, better than you can imagine.
Savings: Things can recover quickly because technology and skills don’t vanish overnight. Everybody but university economists knows that if you want to avoid starving to death, you have to produce more than you consume and save the difference. The problem is twofold, however. Most Americans have no savings. To the contrary, they have lots of debt. And debt means you’re either consuming someone else’s savings or mortgaging your own future.
Worse, science today is capital intensive. With no capital, you’ve got no science. Worse yet, if the U.S. actually destroys the dollar, it will wipe out the capital of prudent savers and reward society’s grasshoppers. Until they starve.
Of course, as Adam Smith said, there’s a lot of ruin in a nation. It took Rome several centuries to collapse. And look at how quickly China recovered from decades of truly criminal mismanagement.
On the other hand, Americans love their military, and this heavily armed version of the post office seems like the only part of the government that works, kind of. So maybe the U.S. will start something like World War III. Then, the whole world can see a real-life zombie apocalypse. Talk about free entertainment…
Action
But let’s return to the real world. What should you do? And how will this all end?
From a personal standpoint, you should preserve capital by owning significant assets outside your native country, because as severe as market risks are, your political risks are much greater.
I suggest foreign real estate in a country where you’re viewed as an investor to be courted, rather than a milk cow. Or maybe a beef cow.
Look for depressed speculations. At the moment, my favorites are resource companies, which are down more than 90% as a group. And look to go long on commodities in general. Soybeans, wheat, corn, sugar, coffee, copper, and silver are historically undervalued.
Short bubbles that are about to burst, like bonds in general, and Japanese bonds denominated in yen, in particular. If you have a collectible car from the ‘60s that you hold as a financial asset, hit the bid tomorrow morning. Same if you have expensive property in London, New York, Sydney, Auckland, Hong Kong, or Shanghai, among other places.
The Second Law to the Rescue
From a macro standpoint, don’t worry too much. The planet has been here for 4.5 billion years and it has a life of its own. You don’t have to do anything to save the world. Instead, rely on the Second Law of Thermodynamics.
There are very few laws I believe in, but this is one of them. There are many ways of stating the law, and its corollaries, but this isn’t an essay on physics. In essence, it states that all systems wind down over time. Entropy conquers all. That all systems collapse without constant new inputs of energy. And that the larger and more complex a system becomes, the more energy it requires. The Second Law is why nothing lasts forever.
In human affairs, you can say stupidity is a corollary to the Second Law, in that it throws sand in the gears of society and accelerates the tendency of things to collapse. But stupidity doesn’t always mean low intelligence…most of the destructive sociopaths acting as top dogs have very high IQs. I want to draw your attention to more useful definitions of stupidity.
One definition of stupidity is an inability to predict not just the immediate and direct consequences of an action (which a typical six-year-old can do) but also to fail to predict the indirect and delayed consequences.
An even more helpful definition is: Stupidity is an unwitting tendency towards self-destruction. It’s why operations run by bad people always go bad. And why, since the Deep State is run by bad people – the sociopaths who are actively drawn to it – it will necessarily collapse.
The Second Law not only assures that the Deep State will collapse but, given enough time, that all “End of the World” predictions will eventually be right, up to the heat death of the universe itself. It applies to all things at all levels…including, unfortunately, Western civilization and the idea of America. As for Western civilization, it’s had a fantastic run. Claims of the politically correct and multiculturalists aside, it’s really the only civilization that amounts to a hill of beans.
Now, it’s even riskier calling a top in a civilization than the top of a stock or bond market. But I’d say Western civilization peaked just before World War I. In the future, it will be a prestige item for Chinese families to have European maids and houseboys.
As for America, it was an idea – and a very good one – but it’s already vanished, replaced by the United States, which is just one of 200 other nation-states covering the face of the Earth like a skin disease. That said, the U.S. peaked in the mid ’50s and has gone down decisively since 1971. It’s living on stored momentum, memories, and borrowed Chinese money.
Let me bring this gloomy Spenglerian view of the world to a close with some happy thoughts. You want to leave them laughing. Not everybody went down with the Titanic.
Looking further at the bright side: Just being born in America in the 20th century amounted to winning the cosmic lottery…an accident of birth could have placed us in Guinea or Zimbabwe. On the other hand, if I wanted to make a fortune in today’s world, I’d definitely head to Africa.
But just as the Second Law dictates that all good things, like America, must come to an end, so must all bad things, like the Deep State in particular. That’s a cosmic certainty. We all love the idea of justice, even if most people neither understand what it is, nor like its reality.
Finally, it occurs to me that, while I hope I’ve explained why the Second Law will vanquish the Deep State, I’ve neglected to explain how whipped dogs can profit from the collapse of Western civilization.
The answer is that they can’t.
Fortunately, parasites can only exist as long as their host. Which is actually a final piece of good news I want to leave you with.
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Unfortunately there’s little any individual can practically do to change the trajectory of this trend in motion. That’s precisely why bestselling author Doug Casey just released an urgent new report with his top seven predictions for what comes next. Click here to download the PDF now.
India Develops World’s First Bulletproof Combat Helmet Against AK-47
An Indian Army Major who had designed an advanced bulletproof vest against sniper rounds has now developed a helmet that can protect the wearer from a 7.62×39mm bullet, commonly chambered in an AK-47.
Major Anoop Mishra developed world’s first bullet proof helmet against AK 47 bullet, developed under project Abhedya.
In dec 2019 , He developed bullet proof jacket for protection from Sniper rifle attacks.
He is a part of Indian Army’s college of Military Engineering at pune. pic.twitter.com/cZz3GehiDM
“The ballistic helmet has been developed under project Abhedya by Major Anoop Mishra, who has also developed a full-body protection bulletproof jacket which can withstand even sniper rifles,” Army officials told news agency ANI.
#WATCH Major Anoop Mishra of Indian Army showcases his ballistic helmet Abhedya-1- world’s first helmet which can give protection even from a AK-47 bullet fired from a range of 10 mtr. He has also developed a full body bullet proof jacket for protection from sniper rifle bullets. pic.twitter.com/khcYR9C0MC
Mishra is part of the Indian Army’s College of Military Engineering, who was inspired to design the helmet after he was saved by his bulletproof jacket when struck with a sniper round several years ago.
“This jacket can withstand a sniper bullet from even 10 meters”, Mishra said.
Army Chief General Bipin Rawat awarded Mishra the Army Design Bureau Excellence Award at the Army Technology Seminar for developing the helmet.
Mishra’s new helmet and advanced bulletproof jacket will give Indian troops on the Line of Control, a militarized area between India and Pakistan, added protection as skirmishes along the region continue to flourish.
“During 2016-17, 50,000 bulletproof jackets had been procured for the Indian Army through the Revenue route. The Contract for procurement of 1,86,138 BPJs through Capital route, under Buy (Indian) category, has been concluded in April 2018. Further, a contract for procurement of 1,58,279 Ballistic Helmet through Capital route had been concluded in December 2016,” the former Minister of State for Defence, Subhash Bhamre said in 2018.
The report didn’t specify if there was an immediate order by the Indian military for Mishra’s helmet and bulletproof jacket.
First Mass Quarantine Outside Of China: Vietnam Puts Area With 10,000 Residents Under Coronavirus Quarantine
For most of the past decade, Vietnam had benefited from China’s rising standard of living, higher wages, as companies seeking the lowest cost producer quietly but firmly transferred supply chains to originate out of China and into lower-cost locales such as Vietnam, whose devaluing currency (aptly named the dong) only helped boosting exports. Which is why it is painfully ironic that the same nation that indirectly helped Vietnam become a prominent player in global trade, now appears set to cripple Vietnam’s fledgling export powerhouse. The culprit? Covid-19.
With China’s economy grinding to a halt as tens of thousands of people are infected and hundreds of millions are under quarantine from the coronavirus pandemic, a new viral hub may be emerging near Vietnam’s capital, Hanoi.
According to the Bangkok Post, villages in Vietnam with 10,000 people close to the nation’s capital were placed under quarantine on Thursday after six cases of the deadly new coronavirus were discovered there, authorities said.
The locking down of the commune of Son Loi, about 40 kilometres from Hanoi, is the first mass quarantine outside of China since the virus emerged from Wuhan.
“As of February 13, 2020, we will urgently implement the task of isolation and quarantine of the epidemic area in Son Loi commune,” said a health ministry statement. “The timeline… is for 20 days”.
Vietnamese police stand guard at a checkpoint set up at the Son Loi commune in Vinh Phuc province amid concerns about a Covid-19 coronavirus outbreak.
The health ministry previously said five people in Son Loi – which is a farming region made up of several villages – had been infected with the virus, and on Thursday reported a sixth case. At that time, checkpoints were set up around the commune, in Binh Xuyen, a district on the outskirts of Son Loi, according to AFP reporters .
Health officials wearing protective suits sprayed disinfectant on vehicles by the checkpoints.
Even ahead of the quarantine, local resident Tran Van Minh told AFP that authorities had already advised residents to avoid large gatherings. “Life has been badly affected,” he told AFP by phone, adding that much of the labor force is reliant on jobs in construction and house painting.
“Now we cannot get out and even if we do, clients don’t welcome us that much as before.”
If this is a harbinger of things to come, very soon all of Vietnam may be under lockdown. Recall that China has imposed unprecedented quarantines across Hubei and the entire country, locking in several hundred million people, in a bid to stop it spreading. Tens of millions of residents in cities far from the epicentre are also enduring travel restrictions.
The virus has also had massive ramifications globally, with many countries banning travellers from China in a bid to stop people spreading the disease.
Vietnam, which shares a porous border with China, has 16 confirmed cases of the coronavirus, including those in Son Loi.
In a bid to stop the virus from spreading, Vietnam had banned all flights to and from mainland China and has also suspended new tourist visas for Chinese nationals or foreigners who had been in China over the past two weeks. It remains to be seen if it will be enough.
I appeared on the Senate floor as constitutional counsel against impeachment, not as a regular, full time counsel for US President Donald J. Trump. As I said in my opening remarks: I come not as a partisan but to ” defend the constitution” from partisan misuse. I laid out the constitutional arguments in an academic manner.
Instead of simply disagreeing with my scholarship or offering alternative interpretations of the operative constitutional terms, I was personally demonized, my motives questioned, and my integrity impugned. Even my qualifications as an expert in constitutional law were challenged, despite my having taught courses and seminars, written numerous books and articles and litigated large numbers of cases involving the constitution for more than half a century. None of this would have happened if I had appeared in the same capacity but in favor of Trump’s impeachment (or against the impeachment of a Democratic President).
This hypocrisy of this double-standard — by political leaders, media pundits, academics and ordinary folks — is shameful, but done not only without shame but with self-righteousness. It was similar during the McCarthy era of my youth. Now as then, the “cause” — anti-Trumpism today, and anti-communism back then — were seen as so righteous that any means, no matter how unfair, is justified in achieving the end. Outright wilful lying is justified by anti-Trump zealots in the interest of getting rid of Trump.
Consider the way Democratic leaders and the anti-Trump media deliberately distorted what I said in response to a question about quid pro quo. I said that if a president did something entirely legal, with a mixed motive that included his desire to be re-elected, that mixed motive could not turn a legal act into an impeachable offense. I also said that a good motive could not turn a criminal act into a lawful one. These self-evident statements were turned into the lie that I had claimed a president could do anything — even kill his opponent or tamper with voting machines — as long as these felonies were motivated, supposedly in the public interest, by a desire to be re-elected. A CNN talking head, Joe Lockhart, said that what I advocated was comparable to the genocides committed by Hitler and Stalin.
These liars knew full well that what they were saying was demonstrably false but they also knew that if you repeat a lie often enough — on television or on the Senate floor — it will be believed, especially by those who want to believe it. And this lie has been repeated — by the anti-Trump media and Democratic leaders— so often that it is now taken as an incontrovertible truth by many. As a result, I have been demonized by many on the left who refuse to understand why a liberal Democrat would defend the constitutional rights of a controversial Republican president. This is the mirror image of the McCarthyism of my youth, when many on the right could not understand why anti-communist centrist lawyers would defend the rights of communists.
Those lawyers were demonized as I am being today. I have a thick skin, developed over many years of defending controversial and unpopular clients and causes. But I am concerned that young lawyers will be deterred from representing such clients and causes for fear it will destroy their careers. I am hearing that from young lawyers and students.
Demonizing defense lawyers for representing politically incorrect clients and causes is the true road to tyranny.
Opening For US Troop Exit? NATO Heeds Trump’s Call To Expand In Iraq
At a NATO defense meeting in Brussels this week, the alliance’s Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg announced to reporters: “Allied ministers had reaffirmed their support to Iraq and agreed in principle to enhance NATO’s training mission.”
However, there appears to have been little to no consultation with Baghdad over the Western military alliance “enhancing” its mission inside the country (or less delicately stated, expanding appears to be the reality). Pressed on this point, Stoltenberg said:
“NATO is in Iraq on the invitation of the Iraqi Government, and we will only stay in Iraq as long as we are welcome. Because NATO fully respects Iraq’s sovereignty and territorial integrity.”
That question of “welcome” is anything but certain, after in January Iraq’s parliament held a decisive early vote in favor of ousting all foreign troops, followed by weeks of popular protests and unrest which at one point saw hundreds of thousands — or as some reports said up to one million Iraqis — in the streets demanding that the US coalition get out.
Stoltenberg further asserted that, “Everything we do will be in close consultation and coordination with the Iraqi government.”
“We are already in Iraq today and we are in consultation on the possibility of scaling up and doing more… all allies supported the decision to do more in Iraq,” he added. “In the first instance, this will consist of taking on some of the global coalition’s current training activities.”
He said: “Ministers also agreed to explore what more we can do beyond this first step.”
This does appear the crafting of an ‘alternative’ option for Baghdad: as opposed to the deeply unpopular beefy American presence of over 5,000 soldiers, the smaller Canadian-led mission of some 500 NATO troops which initiated their mission to train and advise Iraqis in 2018 could be a compromise alleviating the West’s “security concerns” about either Iranian expansion or an ISIS resurgence.
The White House itself could then be given political breathing space to finally leave, given that in January President Trump called on the NATO alliance to “become more involved in the Middle East”.
In his Wednesday statements to reporters, Stoltenberg speculated that a mere “couple hundred” soldiers could be added to the existing mission — though again it’s as yet unclear what Iraq’s leaders and the people themselves think about this.
Beset by high housing costs, crippling taxes, astronomical gas prices, wildfires, and rolling blackouts, Californians are heading for the exits. That’s sparking anxiety in places where these Golden State migrants are relocating. A mayoral candidate in Boise, Idaho, recently suggested building a wall to keep out Californians, who account for 60 percent of domestic migration into the growing state. The election of increasingly progressive candidates in Colorado sparked talk there of the “Californication” of the Centennial State.
Early last year, the Dallas News described the “California-ing” of North Texas, citing a study showing that 8,300 Californians move to the area yearly. Texas governor Greg Abbott launched a petition titled “Don’t California My Texas.”
Much of this anxiety revolves around fears that the migrants will transform the politics and culture of the places that they’re moving to—bringing an appetite for big, intrusive government.
But a new survey suggests that, while plenty of people are looking to leave California, many are fleeing the state’s high costs and politics and may not be interested in voting for the same things in their new homes.
The poll, by the Berkeley Institute of Governmental Studies, found that 52 percent of California residents are considering migrating. As these polls go, that’s exceptionally high, putting California in the same category as some other states with very unhappy residents. A recent poll in New Jersey, for instance, found that about 44 percent of its people are looking to depart, while 50 percent of Connecticut residents indicated a desire to leave the state in a 2014 Gallup poll, the highest figure among any state at that time.
Politicians in high-tax states claim that taxes don’t drive people out, but their constituents disagree: in the Berkeley poll, 58 percent of those considering leaving California said that high taxes were one reason—second only to the 71 percent pointing to the state’s astronomical housing costs. Also high on the list of reasons to go was the state’s political culture, which nearly half of those thinking of getting out cited as a consideration. Though the poll didn’t define “political culture,” Gallup ranks California—where the state legislature and elected officials in many of the state’s cities have turned increasingly progressive—as among the most liberal of states.
What set the Berkeley poll apart is that it also asked residents their party affiliation and how they characterized themselves politically—revealing a sharp divide. Conservatives and moderates are the most unhappy with the state and most anxious to leave. Liberals, by contrast, are mostly staying put, and some think life in California is just great. Only 38 percent of Democrats said that they were considering leaving, compared with 55 percent of independents and 71 percent of Republicans. Similarly, those characterizing themselves as “somewhat liberal” were least likely to say that they want to go—fewer than four in ten are considering leaving. But 53 percent of moderates, 66 percent of the “somewhat conservative,” and 74 percent of the “very conservative” would like to migrate. Political affiliation, in fact, was more of a predictor of who wants to go or stay than other demographic information, such as race. The poll found, for instance, that 56 percent of white residents and 58 percent of African-Americans would like to leave; and 54 percent of men, compared with 50 percent of women, are thinking of going.
The results also suggest, however, that a political revolution that reverses the direction of California government is becoming increasingly difficult because it’s experiencing the state version of the Curley Effect. That phrase, coined by economists Edward Glaeser and Andrei Shleifer, describes how big-city mayors like James Michael Curley in Boston in the early twentieth century and Coleman Young in Detroit in the mid-to-late twentieth century managed to solidify their political dominance, even as their cities deteriorated because their policies drove out the people most likely to vote against them. That may explain why, despite California facing rising homelessness, increasing drug use, outbreaks of infectious diseases, blackouts, soaring housing costs, and high energy prices, voters and elected officials endorse still-higher taxes and fees, lighter penalties for crimes like drug use and shoplifting, and a government takeover of bankrupt power company Pacific Gas & Electric.
In a much-quoted interview last summer, California governor Gavin Newsom called his state a positive example of where America was heading – proof, he said, that multiculturalism and progressive social values can produce prosperity. “California is America’s coming attraction,” he said. About half of California begs to differ.
Alibaba Warns “Black Swan” Event Could Be Imminent, Triggered By Covid-19 Outbreak In China
Alibaba Group’s CEO Daniel Zhang warned Thursday that the Covid-19 outbreak in China is developing into a “black swan event” that could have severe consequences for China and the global economy.
Zhang told analysts during a conference call that the company’s fiscal third-quarter results beat expectations but warned of near-term impacts related to the deadly virus outbreak.
He said Alibaba’s revenue jumped 38% YoY for the quarter and promoted “robust growth” due to a record Single’s Day.
Alibaba Group’s CFO Maggie Wu said it’s “too early to quantify the impact” Covid-19 will have on its business and other operating segments across Asia.
She said demand for goods and services has declined, and the delay of the workforce getting back to work could further hinder economic growth.
Wu suggested that Alibaba is “not immune to this imbalance of supply and demand,” otherwise known as a “shock,” but says the company sees an opportunity in the virus crisis (a great way to spin it).
She emphasized the outbreak is a “one-off occurrence” and by “helping customers through difficult times” that enables the company to drive long-term growth. But she provided no timetable of when the company thinks the confirmed cases and deaths will peak.
However, there’s only so much the company can spin by pushing investors away from looking at short term impacts by giving them optimistic views about the distant future.
Wu said overall revenue growth for 1Q would be negative as the economic shock from the virus has already shut down two-thirds of the Chinese economy.
The shock Alibaba is warning about was also outlined last month by former Morgan Stanley Asia chairman Stephen Roach, in which he said the global economy could already be in a period of vulnerability, where an exogenous shock, such as the Covid-19, could be the trigger for the next worldwide recession.
“With the world economy operating dangerously close to stall speed, the confluence of ever-present shocks and a sharply diminished trade cushion raises serious questions about financial markets’ increasingly optimistic view of global economic prospects,” Roach said.
And why are corporations and a former top investment manager warning about “black swan” events in China and across the world?
Well, it’s because as China’s economy screeches to a halt, so will the world. This comes at a time when central bank ammo to thwart below-trend growth has been exhausted.
And what’s next for Alibaba’s stock, well, mounting evidence shows it could be topping…
In my article “A Life of the Lie on Socialism,” I pointed out that one of the big challenges we libertarians face is the fact that so many Americans are still suffering from the indoctrination that has led them to falsely believe that the welfare-warfare state serfdom under which we live is “freedom” and “free enterprise.”
I cited an op-ed in the New York Times by Times’ columnist Timothy Egan as an example of this phenomenon. In his op-ed, Egan wrote, “The United States has never been a socialist country.”
More than 20 years ago, the libertarian Nobel Prize-winning economist Milton Friedman made the same point that I made in my article — that the United States was in fact a socialist nation. The title of Friedman’s op-ed was “We Have Socialism, Q.E.D.”
Ironically, Friedman’s article was published in the same newspaper in which Egan’s article was published — the New York Times!
It would be fascinating to know whether Egan has ever read Friedman’s article. I would guess, probably not because one would think that if he had, he would have mentioned it in his article and showed why he feels that Friedman was wrong.
Friedman’s point was that the United States was already a socialist nation back in 1989. That’s the point we libertarians make today — that the United States is a socialist nation and that those people who call America’s system “freedom” and “free enterprise” are suffering from official indoctrination that has produced a mindset of self-deception.
Friedman makes the point that socialism has proven to be a disastrous failure and that capitalism has proven to be a tremendous success in terms of economic prosperity. And so what conclusion do welfare-warfare statists reach? Their conclusion, Friedman writes, is “The U.S. needs more socialism.”
Friedman points out that in its purest form, socialism entails government ownership of the means of production. Obviously, the federal government doesn’t own all U.S. businesses and industries, like the North Korean government does.
But Friedman points out, “Spending by government currently amounts to about 45 percent of national income. By that test, government owns 45 percent of the means of production that produce the national income. The U.S. is now 45 percent socialist.”
That’s not all. Friedman writes: “Beyond that, however, government exercises extensive direct control over how the means of production may be used: It prohibits certain uses (to deliver first class mail, to sell some drugs at all, to sell others without prescription, etc.); it controls other uses through laws governing wages, hours and working conditions, rent control and in other ways.”
He continues:
No doubt we need socialism for the judicial and legislative systems. We do not for mail or schools, as has been shown by Federal Express and others, and by the ability of many private schools to provide superior education to underprivileged youngsters at half the cost of government schooling.
Friedman does not spare the vast, permanent military-intelligence establishment, which has become sacred to many Americans, from his analysis:
We all justly complain about the waste, fraud and inefficiency of the military. Why? Because it is a socialist activity — one that there seems no feasible way to privatize. But why should we be any better at running socialist enterprises than the Russians or Chinese?
Friedman concludes:
Yet what are the loudest complaints? Government should be doing more; government is strapped for funds; taxes should be raised; more regulations should be imposed; build more prisons to house more criminals created by socialist legislation. Child care? Program trading? Earthquakes? Pass a law. And every law comes with a price tag and is cited as a reason for higher taxes.
Can we learn only from our own mistakes? Or not even from them?
Imagine: that was 31 years ago! Nonetheless, consider the large number of Americans who continue to falsely believe that America’s socialist system is actually “freedom” and “free enterprise.”
Sensing that something is fundamentally wrong in our society, despite the expanding economy, low unemployment rate, and soaring stock market, an increasing number of Americans are achieving the breakthrough that enables them to break free of the official indoctrination to which they have been subjected and recognize reality for what it is.
That doesn’t necessarily mean, of course, that once people break through to the truth and accept reality, all of them will join up with us libertarians to restore liberty and genuine free enterprise to our land. Some of them might decide that that they prefer socialism to economic freedom. But some of them will join us, as reflected by the growing number of people self-describing as libertarians. If that trend continues, freedom will be within our reach.
Trump “Won’t Change His Mind” On Iran Attack Headaches Quip Despite Growing Troop Injury Count
As part of the continuing saga of the evolving “truth” behind American troop injuries as a result of the Jan.8 Iranian ballistic missile attack on Ain al-Asad Air Base in Iraq, which by the Pentagon’s (seemingly weekly) changing count now remains at 109 soldiers diagnosed with Traumatic Brain Injury (TBI), President Trump has weighed in on the controversy.
In an interview with Fox Business early this week, the president doubled down on the remarks he made last month at the World Economic Forum in Davos, when he dismissed the injuries as mere “headaches” which ultimately were “not very serious”. Anger among veterans groups has grown, given reported injuries went from 0 to 11 to 34 to 64 to over a hundred within only about a month. This has put the president a bit more in the hot seat over the dismissive remarks. He was pressed by Fox’s Trish Regan, and Trump responded:
“I don’t think [the Iranians] were looking to do too much damage, because they knew what the consequences were going to be,” Trump said. “I saw the missiles. We saw them going… They landed in a way that they didn’t hit anybody.”
He said that in not ordering a military response from that point, he “stopped something that would have been very devastating for” the Iranians.
“And then a couple of weeks later I started hearing about people having to do with trauma,” Trump said, addressing the evolving casualty count. “Head trauma – that exists. But, you know, I viewed it a little bit differently than most, and I won’t be changing my mind on that.”
The president was also likely directing his remarks against the direct criticism of The Veterans of Foreign Wars, which previously said in a statement that it “expects an apology from the president to our service men and women for his misguided remarks.”
Satellite photos of Ain al-Asad base do show extensive damage— casting the president’s claim that the missiles “landed in a way that didn’t hit anybody” into possible doubt, given also the Pentagon now lists 109 with Traumatic Brain Injury.
I’m not an Iran expert. But I am a military analyst. When I see the impact points of Iran’s strike on Asad air base, I don’t see purely symbolic strikes designed to avoid casualties, as some have speculated. The strikes appear to target the base’s military capability. pic.twitter.com/lx4nOTyrO4
It was later confirmed that many of the wounded had to be medevacked out of Iraq to Germany for treatment and observation, and some among those were taken back to the United States for continued observation.
The earliest word two days after the time the president gave the Davos remarks was that 17 were said to be under medical observation. But the Pentagon has kept mum in terms of updating how many of the expanded list of those with head injuries actually were treated or had to stay in a hospital.
At this point no matter how high the head injury count from the blasts from the Jan.8 attack rises, it doesn’t appear that Trump will back down from his initial downplaying comments. It seems heessentially admitted in the Fox interview that if concealing the true numbers of wounded with TBI would prevent an escalation toward a major war, then it’s worth it.
Most Americans say the Constitution is important. Most Americans say it’s crucial for the government to stay within its constitutional bounds. But what exactly are the constitutional limits on federal power? How do we know?
Well, whatever you do, don’t ask a lawyer. Most of them know very little about the Constitution.
I can already hear you protesting. Lawyers know a lot about the Constitution. They learn constitutional law, for goodness sake!
But read closely what I wrote. I didn’t say they don’t know a lot about constitutional law. I said they typically don’t know a lot about the Constitution. There’s a huge difference.
Constitutional law is made up of a bunch of lawyers’ opinions about what the Constitution means. But that’s not how you understand the actual meaning of the Constitution.
I’ve been told that law students prepping for the Bar Exam are told that if the Tenth Amendment is ever among the answers on a multiple-choice question, they can immediately rule it out.
The Tenth Amendment is never the right answer.
Thomas Jefferson had a little different view of the Tenth Amendment. He called it the “foundation of the Constitution.”
I consider the foundation of the Constitution as laid on this ground: That ‘all powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States or to the people.’ To take a single step beyond the boundaries thus specifically drawn around the powers of Congress, is to take possession of a boundless field of power, no longer susceptible of any definition.”
The Tenth Amendment makes it unquestioningly clear that the Constitution constrains the general government to very specific and very limited powers. As James Madison explained in Federalist #45, “The powers delegated to the federal government by the proposed Constitution are fewand defined.”
That’s the dirty little secret politicians don’t want you to know.
Now – brace yourself. This might come as a shock. But the people in power are perfectly happy to operate with an undefined, boundless field of power.
And that’s why the Tenth Amendment is never the right answer according to the politicians, and the academics, judges, power brokers, lobbyists and talking heads that support them.
Before the ink was even dry on the Constitution, the political class was already “interpreting” the document to expand its own powers. Today, that federal government controls nearly every aspect of your life. It runs your healthcare, educates your children and monitors your every move. Bureaucrats in Washington D.C. even tell you what kind of light bulbs you can screw into your fixtures and how much water you can flush down your toilets.
So much for powers “few and defined.”
Sadly, most Americans accept this state of affairs. They even embrace it. In fact, most Americans actually believe that the federal government legitimately exercises all of this authority. After all, they’ve been taught all their lives that the Tenth Amendment is the wrong answer.
The nature of the American political system exacerbates the expansion of power. “Democracy” gives everybody the false sense that they have some hand in exercising power – or that they will at least benefit from its expansion. This creates a dilemma, as political economist Bertrand de Jouvenel explained.
Under the ‘ancient regime,’ society’s moving spirits, who had, as they knew, no chance of a share in Power, were quick to denounce its smallest encroachment. Now, on the other hand, when everyone is potentially a minister, no one is concerned to cut down an office to which he aspires one day himself, or to put sand in a machine which he means to use himself when his turn comes. Hence, it is that there is in the political circles of a modern society a wide complicity in the extension of Power.”
A written constitution was meant to lay down rules that check the tendency for government to grow. It erects barriers to government power that must not be crossed. As Jefferson put it, “in questions of power then, let no more be heard of confidence in man, but bind him down from mischief by the chains of the constitution.”
But like most things, a constitution won’t work if you don’t know how to use it.
Don’t ask a lawyer. Read this instruction manual!
After all, the Constitution belongs to you. And it belongs to me. It doesn’t belong to the government and its functionaries. It belongs to “we the people.”
But for far too long politicians, bureaucrats, judges, law professors, and chattering pundits have told us how the Constitution should work. The political class has “interpreted” the rules. And it’s interpreted them to give it more and more power over you and me.
After 231 years of interpretation, we now have a federal government that claims the authority to do virtually anything and everything. It has taken possession of a boundless field of power, no longer susceptible of any definition. Along the way, our liberties have been whittled away. The power of the politicians grows at the expense of our liberties.
If we want to reclaim our liberties, something has got to give. It’s time for dis-interpretation. It’s time for “we the people” to reclaim the Constitution. That’s what this book is all about. This is our instruction manual. We’re going look at the Constitution through the eyes of the generation who wrote and ratified it. We’re going to follow Jefferson’s admonition and “carry ourselves back to the time when the Constitution was adopted, recollect the spirit manifested in the debates, and instead of trying what meaning may be squeezed out of the text, or intended against it, conform to the probable one in which it was passed.”
This is the real Constitution that the politicians don’t want you to know about.
* * *
This article was adapted from the introduction of my new book Constitution – Owner’s Manual: The Real Constitution the Politicians Don’t Want You to Know About. Available in paperback or Kindle editions. For ordering information, visit ConstitutionOwnersManual.com.
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