Jan 14

Today’s News 14th January 2022

  • Antony Blinken And A Gun At Your Head
    Antony Blinken And A Gun At Your Head

    Authored by Ted Snider via AntiWar.com,

    When Joe Biden selected Antony Blinken to be his Secretary of State, Stephen Zunes, professor of politics at the University of San Francisco, worried that the selection represented, not a correction, but a continuation of past interventionism and incompetence.

    As evidence, Zunes cites Blinken’s integral and irresponsible role in clearing the way for the disastrous war in Iraq, his confident support of the disastrous invasion of Libya, his push for a larger and longer US war in Syria and his long support for arming Ukraine.

    Recently, Melvin Goodman, senior fellow at the Center for International Policy and a former CIA analyst, mourned that the worries expressed by Zunes had been realized. And he added that “Antony Blinken, a life-long Democratic staffer, does not appear to be up to the task of conceptualizing and implementing foreign policy.” Goodman explained, in a personal correspondence, that “As a staffer, Blinken merely went along with the agreed positions, including the misuse of force in Libya in 2011 and the extensions of force throughout the tragedy of Afghanistan.”

    As for his performance so far as Secretary of State, Goodman says, “He didn’t handle himself well in Alaska in the first meeting with the Chinese counterparts, and he doesn’t appear up to the task of dealing with a real pro like Russia’s [foreign minister] Lavrov. Apparently, he didn’t warn the White House about the obvious French reaction to AUKUS, which is surprising in view of Blinken’s knowledge of the French. His public appearances have certainly not provided clues to his ability to conceptualize the strategic challenges that we face.”

    In support of Goodman’s evaluation are a host of statements by Blinken that manifest either an underdeveloped sense of history or an overdeveloped sense of irony and hypocrisy: statements that would be comical if they were not dangerous.

    In December 2021, Blinken warned Africa away from investment partnerships with China, accusing China of partnering with African nations on “international infrastructure deals [that] are opaque, coercive” and that “burden countries with unmanageable debt…”

    Hypocrisy or comedy? The deliberate creation of debt has been a major feature of American foreign policy since at least 1955. The US provides major loans to a country, then drives up interest rates, forcing the debt shackled nation to turn to the IMF for loans that come with conditions featuring structural adjustments that open their economy up to American markets and ensure their loyalty whether the US demands access to resources, the hosting of military bases, political fealty or cooperative voting at the United Nations.

    As for Africa, Naomi Klein cites an IMF senior economist who designed structural adjustment programs in Latin America and Africa and who later confessed that “everything we did from 1983 onward was based on our new sense of mission to have the south ‘privatize’ or die; towards this end we ignominiously created economic bedlam in Latin America and Africa…” So, be careful of China!

    Blinken has also repeatedly accused Iran of not being serious at the reincarnation of the JCPOA nuclear talks: “What we’ve seen in the last couple of days is that Iran right now does not seem to be serious.” Iran’s not being serious? That’s pretty funny, since Blinken readily admits that Iran wouldn’t even have to be at these talks if the US hadn’t illegally pulled out of the agreement. It’s even funnier to accuse Iran of not negotiating seriously when you represent the party that refuses to guarantee that it will honor the agreement and its commitments as binding even for the duration of the term of the president who will put his signature on it. It’s funnier still when the US has entered the talks with the admission that it “doesn’t see any evidence that Iran’s Supreme Leader [Ali Khamenei] has made a decision to move to weaponize.”

    Similarly, Blinken has threatened Russia with “massive consequences and severe costs” for an invasion of Ukraine when the CIA has shyly admitted that “U.S. intelligence agencies haven’t concluded that Russian President Vladimir Putin will invade Ukraine.”

    But Blinken has recently come back out with an encore that may feature his best one liner yet. On the eve of the most important security talks between US and Russian officials, America’s top diplomat says that—

    “It’s very hard to make actual progress in any of these areas in an atmosphere of escalation and threat with a gun pointed to Ukraine’s head.”

    That is blinding hypocrisy from a man who said in an article he coauthored with Robert Kagan just two years ago that the only way to negotiate with Russia and China is with a gun to their heads. In that article, Blinken argued that “As geopolitical competition intensifies, we must supplement diplomacy with deterrence. Words alone will not dissuade the Vladimir Putins and Xi Jinpings of this world.” If his point wasn’t blatant enough, Blinken adds, “force can be a necessary adjunct to effective diplomacy.” That’s not ignorance of history: that’s bold hypocrisy.

    It also can’t be ignorance of history that Blinken misses the point that Russia is demanding talks precisely because the US has a gun pointed to Russia’s head. US and NATO troops have marched to Russia’s very borders and surrounded Russia with guns by land, sea and air. As for Ukraine and who’s pointing a gun at whom, the US provided Ukraine with $400 million in security assistance in 2021 alone. That “security assistance” is to be topped off with a new $60 million package that includes lethal weapons.

    Blinken’s blinding hypocrisy may be supplemented with a large dose of historical amnesia. The complaint that it is impossible to negotiate with a weapon pointing at you has been made before: against America, not by it.

    Image source: ABC News/Daily Mail

    Cuban negotiators frequently complained that it was impossible for them to negotiate while being strangled by the embargo. In Back Channel to Cuba, William LeoGrande and Peter Kornbluh quote one Cuban negotiator who complained that “We cannot negotiate under the blockade.” Anticipating Blinken’s formulation, Castro would often remind the US that Cuba cannot be expected to negotiate with “a dagger at our throats.”

    Decades later, Iranian negotiators would later make the same point in the same words. The Iranian ambassador to the UN, Majid Takht Ravanchi, would complain that “You cannot negotiate with somebody who has a knife in his hand putting the knife under your throat.”

    Like Cuba and Iran, it is NATO encroachment that has put a knife to Russia’s throat. It is the crossing of the final red line into Ukraine that has finally put a gun to Russia’s head. Hypocrisy or historical ignorance, Blinken’s performance would be comical if it weren’t so deadly serious.

    Tyler Durden
    Thu, 01/13/2022 – 23:40

  • Tesla Owners Have "Buyers Remorse" As Cold Weather Knocks Out Heat
    Tesla Owners Have “Buyers Remorse” As Cold Weather Knocks Out Heat

    Some Tesla owners in North America are experiencing a complete loss of cabin heat as temperatures dive below freezing. The problem appears to be a faulty heat pump, leaving some people in a life-in-death situation as they could freeze to death. 

    CTV News reports issues with in-cabin heating are isolated to Tesla’s Model 3 and Model Y electric vehicles. The problem began in Canada’s prairie provinces around mid-December, which is about the time a cold weather pattern moved into the region. 

    Kelly Gibbons, who owns a 2022 Model 3, told CTV, “one day when it was -12°C in the cabin, I was just shivering, and seems like the only fix that I can get is if I pull over at the side of the highway.” 

     “Worst case scenario, I might just have to start looking for another vehicle,” Kelly said. 

    Other drivers have complained about failing heat pumps. People are tweeting images of their dashboard that show an alert that reads, “Cabin climate control system requires service — Cabin heating/cooling limited or unavailable.” 

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    Angie Dean, President of the Tesla Owner’s Club of Alberta, said dozens of drivers across Alberta and Saskatchewan are dealing with heating issues. 

    There’s been an ongoing issue with Model 3 and Model Y heat pump failures in cold weather. Tesla has introduced new heat pumps and an over-the-air update to fix the problem, but no resolution appears to be seen. 

    So if this is a known issue, why hasn’t Tesla sent out warnings to customers so they can avoid these dangerous situations?

    Tyler Durden
    Thu, 01/13/2022 – 23:20

  • Former JFK Aide: What The West Gets Wrong About Putin
    Former JFK Aide: What The West Gets Wrong About Putin

    Authored by Harold Malmgren via UnHerd.com,

    When we first met, he already knew the power of terrifying adversaries…

    In 1999, Vladimir Putin suddenly sprang from bureaucratic obscurity to the office of Prime Minister. When, a few months later, Yeltsin unexpectedly resigned and Putin was voted in as President, governments around the world were taken by surprise yet again. How could this unknown figure have amassed national voter support with so little media attention?

    I had first met Putin seven years before and was not surprised by his rapid domination of the new Russia. We were introduced by Yevgeny Primakov, widely known as “Russia’s Kissinger”, who I had met in Moscow multiple times during the Cold War years when I advised Presidents Kennedy, Johnson, Nixon and Ford. Primakov was a no-nonsense thinker and writer. He was also a special emissary for the Kremlin in conducting secret discussions with national leaders around the world.

    When Yeltsin tasked his advisor Anatoly Sobchak with identifying and recruiting Russia’s best and brightest, Putin, then a local politician in his hometown of St Petersburg, was top of his list — so Primakov took Putin under his wing to tutor him in global power and security issues. Eventually, Primakov introduced Kissinger to Putin, and they became close. That both Primakov and Kissinger took time to coach Putin on geopolitics and geosecurity was a clear demonstration that they saw in him the characteristics of a powerful leader. It also showed Putin’s capacity for listening to lengthy lessons on geopolitics — as I was soon to learn.

    In 1992, I received a call from a meeting organiser at the CSIS think tank inviting me to join a US-Russia St Petersburg Commission to be chaired by Kissinger and Sobchak. The purpose would be to help the new Russian leadership in opening channels of business and banking with the West. Most of the Western members would be CEOs of major US and European companies, as well as key officials of the new Russian government. I would attend as an expert. I was told that a “Mr Primakov” had personally asked if I could make time to participate. I could hardly refuse such a request, and I was intensely curious about the emerging Russian leadership, especially about Putin.

    Arriving at the first meeting, I saw several people gathered around Kissinger and a man I was told was Putin. An official identified himself to me and said he had been asked by Primakov to introduce me to Putin. He interrupted the conversation with Kissinger to announce my arrival; Putin warmly responded that he was looking forward to chatting with me about how I see the world from inside Washington.

    We spoke on several occasions between meetings, and he arranged to sit next to me at a dinner, accompanied by his interpreter. At that dinner, he asked me: “What is the single most important obstacle between your Western businessmen and my fellow Russians in starting up business connections?”

    Off the top of my head, I responded: “The absence of legally defined property rights — without those there is no basis for resolving disputes.”

    “Ah yes,” he said, “in your system a dispute between businesses is resolved by attorneys paid by the hour representing each side, sometimes taking the dispute to the courts which normally takes months and accumulation of hourly attorney fees.”

    “In Russia,” he continued, “disputes are usually resolved by common sense. If a dispute is about very significant money or property, then the two sides would typically send representatives to a dinner. Everyone attending arriving would be armed. Facing the possibility of a bloody, fatal outcome both sides always find a mutually agreeable solution. Fear provides the catalyst for common sense.”

    He used his argument in the context of disputes between sovereign nations. Solutions often require an element of fear of disproportionate responses if no deal is struck. The idea of forcing adversaries to face horrific alternatives seemed to excite him. In essence, he was describing to me the current Ukraine impasse between the US and Russia. Putin knows Russia cannot afford a prolonged ground war with Ukraine. He also can see Biden is facing crucial midterm elections with a domestic congressional impasse, and cannot afford a major foreign crisis distraction. The two sides have no choice but to strike a deal.

    On a different occasion, Putin asked me how decisions are really made in Washington, with its complex division of Presidential and Congressional powers. He said Kissinger could explain the broad parameters of a Presidential policy decision, but could not clarify how political consensus was achieved between the House, Senate, and the Executive Branch.

    It was evident he had been given a deep intelligence brief on my career. He said Kissinger enjoys the public theatre of powerful people meeting in elaborate dinners or meetings with many aides ready to guide them. And he told me he had been informed that I preferred backroom meetings to shape consensus and provide room for negotiating details.

    I tried to explain the elaborate process of balancing the interests of the many players in Washington, including Congress, the major agencies, and the intricate business arrangements that might be affected by any decision. I told him of my first personal meeting with Nixon, who had said he was impressed that I had strong personal support from leaders of both major parties. However, he added, this raised worries among his staff in the White House — so he really needed to know whether I was a Republican or a Democrat. To which I replied: “Yes.”

    When Nixon asked what that meant, I explained that I was not a partisan warrior, but rather a problem solver. To get a solution I would always be ready to work with key players of both parties depending upon the specific problem. This seemed to amuse Putin.

    The impression of Putin that I was left with was of a man who was more intelligent than most of the politicians I had met in Washington and in other capitals around the world. I was reminded of my childhood: I grew up in a predominantly Sicilian neighbourhood, with a mafia maintaining order. No disorganised crime allowed.

    Putin did seem to have the instincts of a Sicilian mafia boss: quick to reward but quick to pose mortal risk in the event of non-conformity to the family rules.

    Looking back to those times of growing disarray in Russia’s leadership, I can recall the prolonged, multi-year paralysis of the Brezhnev Presidency, which was followed by the brief Presidencies of Andropov and Chernenko. Gorbachev was not strong enough to impose his will. Yeltsin had good ideas but was easily distracted and lacked follow through. Russia was in urgent need of a strong leader — and so Putin stepped in.

    As for how Putin sees himself, he did bring up several times his admiration for Peter the Great, so much so I was convinced he sees himself as his incarnation. I have not been a guest of the Kremlin since 1988, but I am told Putin had portraits of Peter the Great hung in several important meeting rooms there — rather than portraits of himself, as would be more customary. What this means for Biden, Nato and Ukraine is slowly becoming clear. There is more to Putin than meets the eye.

    *  *  *

    Harald Malmgren is a geopolitical strategist, negotiator and former aide to Presidents John F. Kennedy, Lyndon B. Johnson, Richard Nixon, and Gerald Ford

    Tyler Durden
    Thu, 01/13/2022 – 23:00

  • N95 Mask Prices Skyrocket As CDC Mulls New Recommendation For Omicron
    N95 Mask Prices Skyrocket As CDC Mulls New Recommendation For Omicron

    N95 masks are skyrocketing in price as a result of a new potential recommendation by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. 

    The CDC is considering changing its official recommendation to higher quality masks, like N95 and KN95 masks.

    As a result, prices of these masks have surged at marketplaces like Amazon.com, a new Bloomberg report revealed on Wednesday.

    A pack of 40 KN95 masks is now about $79.99, up from $16.99 in late November.  A 50-pack of Kimberly-Clark N95 masks was priced at $57 compared to $23 in October. 

    As Omicron tears through the United States, many people are abandoning their old cloth masks in favor of higher quality masks. Kid-sized masks are the most in-demand, the piece notes, since many schools have continued holding in-person classes throughout the winter. 

    Bloomberg profiled one retail worker who spent $72 on 20 KN95 masks, “far more” than they would have paid months ago.

    “I thought that was just kind of ridiculous because it’s something that is needed right now for protection, especially for people like me as a retail worker that a lot of people rely on,” the worker told Bloomberg.

    While experts have spoken out about N95 masks being more effective for Omicron, the CDC has yet to make an official declaration. 

    The price hikes have forced many consumers to complain on social media about “price gouging”. 

    One former California resident who moved to the east coast said: “We moved out here and when Covid hit you couldn’t find them anywhere. You can find them now — the N95s and the KN95s — it’s just you’re going to pay.”

    Tyler Durden
    Thu, 01/13/2022 – 22:40

  • PBOC's Soft Dollar Peg to Help Yuan Basket Fall
    PBOC’s Soft Dollar Peg to Help Yuan Basket Fall

    By Ye Xie, Bloomberg Markets Live reporter and commentator

    The PBOC has managed to keep the dollar-yuan exchange rate as flat as a pancake. It’s as if Beijing has pegged the yuan to the dollar.  Luckily for Beijing, the dollar is weakening. By keeping the dollar-yuan rate steady, the PBOC is riding the wave of a weak U.S. currency and knocking the yuan down against the currencies of most of China’s trading partners. For policy makers in Beijing who are worried about the record trade-weighted exchange rate, a soft dollar came at the right time.

    The dollar’s decline this week in the face of an increasingly hawkish Fed surprised many market observers. But historically, it’s common for the dollar to peak shortly before the first rate hike and decline more decisively once the tightening cycle commenced.

    This chart shows the DXY’s average performance 12 months before and after the first rate increase during three previous hiking cycles since the 1990s. If you want to find an example of “buy the rumor and sell the fact,” this might be it.

    The PBOC has capitalized on the dollar weakness. It set the fixing much weaker than analysts expected Thursday, following the dollar’s biggest decline since May. These weak fixings have been more frequent since last month when the PBOC sent a strong signal that it’s uncomfortable with the yuan rally. By pegging to a weaker dollar, the central bank allowed the yuan to fall against other currencies.

    It’s hard to argue that the yuan is overvalued by too much. You can see that the yuan rally had been supported by China’s gain in market share of global exports. But understandably, Beijing is worried that once its competitors regain their foothold after the pandemic fades, a strong currency may eventually erode China’s competitiveness. In fact, the BIS’s real effective exchange rate is at the highest ever. Against the South Korean won, the yuan is approaching historical highs. With South Korea being a direct competitor in areas such as electronics, it’s small wonder that Beijing wants to lean against further yuan appreciation.

    Luckily for China, a weaker dollar is coming to the rescue. And that gives Beijing some breathing room.

    Tyler Durden
    Thu, 01/13/2022 – 22:20

  • Retail Sales Preview: A Drop To End The Year, And It's All Downhill From Here
    Retail Sales Preview: A Drop To End The Year, And It’s All Downhill From Here

    Now that even Blackrock is echoing our warning that central banks – powerless to fight supply-driven inflation – could hike right into a recession and beyond, the next question is what is the best leading or coincident indicator showing the state of the US economy. A good place to start is spending of the US consumer, responsible for 70% of US GDP, and a good indicator of that is retail sales, the same retail sales that have been running some 22% above trend from pre-covid levels even as payrolls remain dismally lower.

    Conveniently we get the next retail sales report tomorrow morning, where consensus expects to see sequential growth if modestly slowing, with the December print up just 0.1% down from a 0.3% increase in the previous month , and a 0.3% increase in core retail sales.

    Unfortunately for the Fed, and all those expecting the current burst of artificial, stimmy-driven growth to continue, the latest credit and debit card spending data from Bank of America suggest a far bigger slowdown in December retail sales: as summarized in the chart below, actual data shows a -1.3% drop in retail sales, a -1.6% drop in retail sales ex autos, and a -2.0% drop in retail sales ex-autos and gas.

    Another way of visualizing BofA card spending data overlaid with the Census Bureau’s retail sales.

    Here is how BofA economist Anna Zhou described the latest retail sales dynamics: December sales were weighed down by the pulled forward holiday shopping, which was then negatively impacted in the SA process due to the large seasonal factors. Indeed, as shown in the chart below, December has the highest seasonal adjustment factor, meaning that while unadjusted data is likely to show a big drop, the final number will be all about what adjustment factor is used by the Census Bureau.

    Taking a step back, BofA writes that total card spending, measured by aggregated BAC credit and debit cards, increased an average of 19.5% on a 2-yr basis over the 8-weeks ending Jan 1st, in keeping with the top chart.

    Naturally, rising omicron cases continue to weigh on services spending. On a 2-yr basis, airlines spending dropped to -32%, the lowest since mid-Sep 2021. This was driven by a steep slowdown in spending at US carriers. Entertainment services spending also slipped further although restaurants spending rebounded slightly on a 2-yr basis.

    Meanwhile, although the pulled forward holiday shopping lowered the 2-yr %change of total card spending toward year end (15.0% for the 7-days ending Jan 1), the BofA economist notes that consumers likely “remained robust during the season finale of a strong year of spending.”

    And indeed, while spending on goods remains solid, consumers are pulling back on services spending due to the surge in COVID cases. To wit, total airline spending contracted by 23% on a 2-yr basis for the 7-days ending Jan 1, the lowest reading since Oct 5 ‘21. BofA also saw a big pick up in refunds from US carriers during the last week of Dec, which likely reflects significant flight cancellations due to COVID-related staff shortages and severe weather.

    Broken down by major category on a sequential basis, we find the biggest increase in gas and lodging spending, offset by a sharp drop in spending on furniture, clothing and airlines. On a 2-year basis, big increases were observed in furniture spending (which however has tempered in recent months), gas and general merchandise, while declines in airlines and department store spending persist.

    A regional snapshot shows a relatively uniform distribution of spending across the US.

    Total spending broken down by major MSA also shows generally consistent patterns with the exception of Seattle where spending appears to have hit a brick wall into the new year.

    Interestingly, international spending seems to be less impacted as the share of brick and mortar retail spending done abroad surged to 1.3% during the last week of Dec, just shy of the 1.5% in 2019.

    Lastly, the BAC Holiday Sales Measure showed that holiday sales grew 11.7% yoy for the month of Nov and Dec combined, a far more muted pace of spending compared to mid and late-November

    In other words, while December spending will likely see a sequential slowdown largely due to Omicron, outsized seasonal adjustment factors may mitigate the decline. The bigger question is when will we start seeing a secular decline in spending, especially among the lower-income group. And indeed, this may already be the case: as the next chart shows, spending by the low income group (<$50K) is now the lowest its has been on a 14 dma basis since the simmy checks were distributed in early 2021.

    And, as we observed last week, while spending on debit is declining at a modest pace, spending funded with credit cards has collapsed, perhaps as a result of the record surge in credit card usage in November…

    … which means that US consumers now have far less dry powder to fund future spending.

    Tyler Durden
    Thu, 01/13/2022 – 22:00

  • Florida Family Fighting For Ivermectin: Appeals Court Expedites Case
    Florida Family Fighting For Ivermectin: Appeals Court Expedites Case

    Authored by Nanette Holt via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours),

    Florida’s First District Court of Appeal has expedited the process to decide a lawsuit filed by the family of a COVID-19 patient on a ventilator at a Jacksonville hospital.

    The U.S. Food and Drug Administration has warned against taking ivermectin for COVID-19, because it is “horse medication.” However, ivermectin packaged for human use (as shown here) has been widely prescribed for decades for a range of maladies, including for treatment of lice, other parasites and viruses. (Nanette Holt/The Epoch Times)

    Attorneys for Mayo Clinic Florida have until 10 a.m. Jan. 13 to respond to the appeal filed by the family of 70-year-old Daniel Pisano.

    Then the family’s attorneys will have until Jan. 14 to file additional arguments. At that time, a three-panel judge could be appointed to decide the case.

    Mayo Clinic has said Pisano, who has been on a ventilator 22 days, has a slim chance of survival.

    But an outside doctor, who is not affiliated with Mayo Clinic, testified in an emergency hearing Dec. 30 that there’s still a good chance to save him—although there’s no time to delay, the physician said.

    Chris and Lauren Pisano (R) were elated when his parents Daniel and Claudia decided to move from North Carolina to Florida in early December, and bought a lot where they planned to build a home nearby to be close to their only two grandsons. (Courtesy of Chris Pisano)

    In a desperate attempt to save their loved one, the Pisano family has begged Mayo Clinic to try a protocol widely used by independent physicians around the country and developed by the Front Line COVID-19 Critical Care Alliance.

    Mayo Clinic officials have refused and attorneys have fought the family’s wishes vigorously in court.

    Claudia Pisano, Daniel Pisano’s wife of 51 years, and their son, Chris, have power of attorney and legally have the right to ask for the treatment of their choice, their attorneys have argued. But Daniel Pisano is declining fast and running out of time, they say.

    The family’s trusted doctor, Dr. Eduardo Balbona of Jacksonville, testified that in order to save him the hospital must quickly allow treatment—with ivermectin and other drugs and supplements—he’s used to help dozens of critically ill COVID-19 patients recover.

    Being on the ventilator is doing harm to Pisano and other patients fighting COVID-19, Balbona testified.

    After considering the testimony in the three-hour hearing, Judge Marianne Aho, of Florida’s Fourth Judicial Circuit, denied the family’s plea to force Mayo Clinic doctors to step aside and let Balbona treat their dying loved one.

    Aho wrote, “An individual’s right to privacy is one of self-determination, the right to accept or refuse. It is not a right to demand a particular treatment. It is not a right to substitute one’s judgment as to which treatments must be made available by others. There is no right, constitutional or otherwise, of a patient to substitute one’s judgment for a medical professional.”

    The family disagrees saying the Florida Patient’s Bill of Rights gives them the right to choose between treatment options and they’ve offered to release Mayo Clinic from all liability in following through with that care. They filed an appeal Jan. 9.

    After Mayo Clinic submits a response by Jan. 13, attorneys for the family will have until 3 p.m. on Jan. 14 to add to their arguments.

    Meanwhile, on Jan. 12 Daniel Pisano clung to life in a drug-induced coma, on a ventilator, and on his sixth day of dialysis for kidneys that have shut down.

    Doctors monitoring his chart for the family through an online portal say his lab work suggests internal bleeding, says attorney Nick Whitney, of the AndersonGlenn law firm in Jacksonville.

    For days, Chris and Claudia Pisano have begged Mayo Clinic to do a CT scan to identify the cause of the bleeding.

    “Mayo has refused, saying the CT scan is not medically appropriate,” Whitney says.

    Mayo Clinic officials have not responded to requests for comment. Attorneys for the hospital have asked for their filings in the case be sealed from pubic view, citing privacy concerns.

    The Mayo Clinic logo at Mayo Clinic Square, Minneapolis, Minn., on June 24, 2018. (Tony Webster via Wikimedia Commons)

    The family’s search to find a hospital able to take Daniel Pisano has led only to dead-ends, Whitney said.

    Still the Pisanos hope to continue raising money through donations to keep their legal fight going and to be able to pay$40,000 to $50,000 for air ambulance transport.

    As of Jan. 12, 142 donors had given more than $28,000 toward the effort.

    Since news of the case began spreading other families facing similar heartbreak have reached out to Whitney and to Jeff Childers, of Childers Law in Gainesville, another attorney on the Pisano legal team.

    And on Jan. 12, a patient was driving from Chicago to Florida to meet with Balbona.

    Whitney said it’s not easy for patients to find a doctor like Balbona willing to step up and make an alternative treatment plan for a patient hospitalized with COVID-19. And that’s the first step, he’s told those who have contacted him.

    Families desperate for help say they don’t know where to turn, he said.

    When they reach out for help through independent doctors, they’re told that the person can’t take on more cases, he added.

    “The bottleneck, in my opinion, is that physicians who are willing to do this are overwhelmed,” Whitney said. “There’s a need for intensive care physicians to come forward and say they’re willing to treat with ivermectin.”

    The U.S. Food and Drug Administration has posted strict warnings against using ivermectin to treat COVID-19.

    More than 90 peer-reviewed studies have been published, which supporters say demonstrates the drug’s efficacy at treating patients suffering from COVID-19.

    Claudia Pisano is fighting to try to save the life of her husband of 51 years, Daniel, by asking a judge to order Mayo Clinic to allow treatment with ivermectin. (Photo courtesy of Chris Pisano)

    Part of the frustration families face when they’re seeking alternative treatments for COVID-19 surrounds the Right to Try Act signed into law May 30, 2018.

    It gives patients access to some unapproved treatments, if they have been diagnosed with life-threatening diseases or conditions, have tried all approved treatment options, and are unable to participate in a clinical trial to access certain unapproved treatments, according to the FDA.

    But ivermectin and other drugs used as part of the FLCCC protocol for treating COVID-19 have already been approved by the FDA for some uses, so they don’t qualify to be used under the Right to Try Act.

    “Right to Try only applies to experimental medications,” says Childers. “It says nothing about FDA-approved meds like fluvoxamine, ivermectin, or hydroxychloroquine.”

    The Mayo Clinic is a nonprofit American academic medical center employing more than 4,500 physicians and scientists and 58,400 other staff members across campuses in Florida, Minnesota, and Arizona.

    Tyler Durden
    Thu, 01/13/2022 – 21:40

  • Did Chicago Punish Car Dealership Rocked By $1 Million Theft After Lightfoot Called Owner An "Idiot"?
    Did Chicago Punish Car Dealership Rocked By $1 Million Theft After Lightfoot Called Owner An “Idiot”?

    Is Chicago Mayor Lori Lightfoot using her office to enact political retribution against her critics within the city? It’s starting to seem that way.

    Chicago’s crime problem went from bad to worse last year as the city reported the most murders in a single year during any time in the last quarter century. But it’s not just the violence that’s becoming an impediment to businesses and real-estate values: thefts and robberies are also causing immense economic harm. Take the example of Gold Coast Exotic Motors.

    The car dealership doubles as a purveyor of high-priced jewelry. But on Dec. 11, the business was robbed and merchandise worth more than $1MM was taken.

    The merchandise taken included 8 luxury watches, according to the Daily Mail.

    Gold Coast’s owner, Joe Perillo, met with Mayor Lightfoot in the days after the robbery. However, according to sources who were at the meeting, Mayor Lightfoot allegedly stormed out calling Perillo an “idiot” after he criticized her handling of crime as mayor, as well as her appointment of District Attorney Kim Foxx. Thefts in the city surged 51% last year.

    “It’s only a fool who keeps doing things the same way and expects different results. If the Mayor and Kim Foxx don’t do anything to get control of this, it’s not going to get better. It’s going to get worse,” Perillo told local TV stations.

    “If they don’t do anything about this, they’re going to lose a lot of businesses. They lost Macy’s. They’re losing Neiman Marcus. They may lose this store,’ he added.

    Video of the robbery at Gold Coast was shared by the Daily Mail.

    Perillo said in an interview that the crooks were clearly well prepared. It took them only 30 seconds to pull off the heist.

    No arrests have been made, and police are still investigating. Lightfoot herself said:

    “It’s not acceptable. We’re aggressively going after these folks. I’m confident that we will find them. And fundamentally we’ve got to send a message that if you do this, you’re gonna be held accountable.”

    Unfortunately for Perillo, Lightfoot apparently didn’t feel moved to spare his business from receiving a handful of expensive fines, which just so happened to be levied after the confrontation between Perillo and Lightfoot at his business.

    The city slapped Perillo’s business with four tickets for six violations on Dec. 17. Two of the violations and one of the tickets were health-related.

    The citations were for employees and a customer not wearing face masks, “storing, receiving, possessing, selling nineteen bottles of liquor,” and for “interfering with or obstructing the commissioner’s designee in the performance of duties.”

    That’s just what Perillo’s business needs right now. And unfortunately for Lightfoot, the notion that the citations were handed out as an act of revenge is all too believable following her latest skirmish with the Chicago Teacher’s Union. Critics have blamed Lightfoot for dragging out the conflict for personal reasons, angered by the fact that the CTU didn’t simply yield to her demands.

    Tyler Durden
    Thu, 01/13/2022 – 21:20

  • 11 Oath Keepers Charged With Seditious Conspiracy To Prevent Transfer Of Power On Jan. 6
    11 Oath Keepers Charged With Seditious Conspiracy To Prevent Transfer Of Power On Jan. 6

    Authored by Joseph Hanneman via The Epoch Times,

    Eleven members of the Oath Keepers, including the group’s founder Stewart Rhodes, were indicted Wednesday by a federal grand jury in the District of Columbia for an alleged “seditious conspiracy” to attack the U.S. Capitol and prevent the certification of electoral votes from the 2020 presidential election.

    The indictment, returned Jan. 12 and unsealed Thursday, brings the first Jan. 6 charges for Elmer Stewart Rhodes III, 56, of Granbury, Texas; and Edward Vallejo, 63, of Phoenix, Arizona. Rhodes faces a count of seditious conspiracy and four other charges from Jan. 6. Vallejo is charged with seditious conspiracy and three other counts.

    It is the first federal indictment alleging seditious conspiracy on Jan. 6, a charge that upon conviction carries a maximum prison term of 20 years.

    Rhodes is the founder and leader of the Oath Keepers, a nationwide group of current and former military, law enforcement, and first responders who aim to defend and preserve constitutional rights, based on the oath they took to defend the United States from “all enemies, foreign and domestic.”

    The indictment includes new charges against nine previously charged Jan. 6 defendants: Thomas Caldwell, 67, of Berryville, Virginia; Joseph Hackett, 51, of Sarasota, Florida; Kenneth Harrelson, 41, of Titusville, Florida; Joshua James, 34, of Arab, Alabama; Kelly Meggs, 52, of Dunnellon, Florida; Roberto Minuta, 37, of Prosper, Texas; David Moerschel, 44, of Punta Gorda, Florida; Brian Ulrich, 44, of Guyton, Georgia; and Jessica Watkins, 39, of Woodstock, Ohio.

    In addition to their previous charges, the defendants are charged with seditious conspiracy and other Jan. 6 offenses. Among the charges spread across the 11 defendants are destruction of government property, civil disorder, tampering with documents or proceedings, and conspiracy to prevent an officer from discharging any duties, the indictment said.

    Protesters walk around in the Rotunda after breaching the U.S. Capitol in Washington on Jan. 6, 2021. (Saul Loeb/AFP via Getty Images)

    Jonathon Moseley, a Washington D.C. attorney who represents Kelly Meggs in his criminal case and Stewart Rhodes in his upcoming appearance before the select Jan. 6 committee, blasted the indictment as a publicity ploy.

    “This is just a public relations gloss on the existing facts,” Moseley told The Epoch Times in a statement.

    “Faced with criticism from leading Democrats for not supporting their leftist narrative, the prosecutors have just slapped a new label on the false allegations already made. But I see no facts that would support the new charges.”

    “Furthermore, the U.S. Attorney and his prosecutors know that they are lying. They have known since March to May 2021 that every allegation they are making is a lie,” Moseley said.

    “We have the documents. We have the proof. They know that we know that this prosecution is a total lie. And yet they are forging ahead with prosecutorial misconduct.”

    William Miller, public information officer for the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the District of Columbia, declined comment on Moseley’s assertions. “We typically do not comment on cases beyond what is stated or filed in court,” Miller said.

    Eight other Oath Keepers previously charged in the sweeping Jan. 6 investigation are defendants in two related cases, the U.S. Department of Justice said in a statement.

    In one of those cases, charges were leveled against James Beeks, 49, of Orlando, Florida; Donovan Crowl, 51, of Cable, Ohio; William Isaacs, 22, of Kissimmee, Florida; Connie Meggs, 60, of Dunnellon, Florida; Sandra Parker, 63, of Morrow, Ohio; Bernie Parker, 71, of Morrow, Ohio; and Laura Steele, 53, of Thomasville, North Carolina. The third case involves charges against Jonathan Walden, 57, of Birmingham, Alabama.

    The 19 defendants named in the three indictments are charged with corruptly obstructing an official proceeding. Eighteen of the 19 defendants face charges of conspiring to obstruct an official proceeding, and conspiring to prevent an officer of the United States from discharging a duty. Eleven of the 19 are charged with seditious conspiracy.

    The first indictment charges that following the Nov. 3, 2020 presidential election, Rhodes conspired with the other defendants to “oppose by force” the transfer of presidential power from Donald J. Trump to Joseph Biden Jr. The group communicated using encrypted messenger applications to lay out plans to travel to Washington D.C. for the Jan. 6 certification of the Electoral College votes.

    A mob clashes with law enforcement officers outside the U.S. Capitol in Washington on Jan. 6, 2021. (Joseph Prezioso/AFP via Getty Images)

    Rhodes and several co-conspirators planned to bring weapons to support the operation, the indictment charges. Others were organized into teams that were trained in paramilitary tactics. The groups planned to bring gear that included knives, batons, camouflaged uniforms, tactical vests with protective plates, helmets, eye protection, and radio equipment.

    According to the Department of Justice summary of the alleged conspiracy, at about 2:30 p.m. on Jan. 6—30 minutes after protesters and rioters breached the Capitol building—a group of Oath Keepers marched in a “stack” formation up the Capitol’s east steps and “joined a mob and made their way into the Capitol.” A stack is a military-style tactical formation used to breach buildings.

    Later, a second group made another stack formation, marched from the west to the east side of the Capitol, up the stairs, and into the building, the Department of Justice said in a statement. Other Oath Keepers remained outside the city in “quick-reaction force” (QRF) teams, “ready to transport firearms and other weapons into Washington D.C. in support of operations aimed at using force to stop the lawful transfer of presidential power,” the DOJ statement said.

    Moseley alleged the indictment is nothing more than a restatement of previous charges. “I look forward to drinks on Kelly Meggs’ new yacht after the civil lawsuits for malicious prosecution,” he said.

    Moseley said he was on the phone with Rhodes discussing his upcoming appearance before the Select Committee to Investigate the January 6th Attack on the United States Capitol when the FBI called Rhodes.

    “He patched me in on the call and I identified myself as his lawyer. The FBI special agent said they were outside and he needed to come out with his hands up and be arrested,” Moseley told The Epoch Times. Moseley said he stayed on the line for 10 minutes “before they hung up the phone.”

    Tyler Durden
    Thu, 01/13/2022 – 21:00

  • Daniel Och Doubles His Money On Nearly $200 Million Sale Of Central Park Penthouse
    Daniel Och Doubles His Money On Nearly $200 Million Sale Of Central Park Penthouse

    Billionaire David Och likely just made one of the best “trades” of his career.

    The founder of Och-Ziff Capital Management just sold his Manhattan penthouse overlooking Central Park for about $95 million than he paid for it, according to a new report from The Wall Street Journal. 

    The sale comes about 3 years after he purchased the apartment for about $93 million plus $2 million for a one bedroom unit on a lower floor, the report says. 

    His four bedroom penthouse wasn’t listed and the buyer’s identity remains unknown. 

    Och lives in Florida for tax purposes, but had been using the NYC pad as a pied-à-terre. With the nearly $100 million he will net from selling it, we’re sure he’ll be able to find another cozy spot to purchase when he visits NYC. 

    Och also owns an apartment at nearby 15 Central Park West, the Journal said, which was listed for $57.5 million back in 2019 and was taken off the market about 5 months ago. 

    The sale was at 220 Central Park South, recognized as one of the most expensive buildings in the city, the Journal said. Joseph Tsai, co-founder of Alibaba, recently paid $157.5 million for two apartments in the building, the report says. Ken Griffin also famously paid about $238 million for an apartment there in 2019. 

    The property was developed by Vornado Realty Trust. 

     

    Tyler Durden
    Thu, 01/13/2022 – 20:40

  • Teen Convicted In Loudoun School Sex Assaults Sentenced, Must Register As Sex Offender
    Teen Convicted In Loudoun School Sex Assaults Sentenced, Must Register As Sex Offender

    Authored by Terri Wu via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours),

    The teenage boy responsible for two sexual assault cases in Loudoun County schools on Jan. 12 was sentenced to probation at a residential treatment facility until his 18th birthday in July 2024.

    Plaintiff attorney Elizabeth Lancaster (L) and victim’s mother Jessica Smith in front of the Loudoun County District Courthouse in Leesburg, Va., on Jan. 12, 2022. (Terri Wu/The Epoch Times)

    Judge Pamela L. Brooks of the Loudoun County Juvenile Court also ordered him to be placed on the sex offender registry, a rare outcome for juveniles and a first for Brooks.

    The 15-year-old will stay in the Loudoun County Juvenile Detention Center until his transfer to the locked residential facility, likely within the next week, according to the judge.

    The boy was found guilty on Oct. 25 on accounts of forcible sodomy and forcible fellatio inside a bathroom at Stone Bridge High School on May 28.

    On Nov. 15, he pleaded no contest to felony abduction and misdemeanor sexual battery charges for another case in a Broad Run High School classroom on Oct. 6.

    “I felt relieved. I felt relieved that we got the ruling that is just,” Jessica Smith, mother of the victim in the May assault, said with a bittersweet smile to The Epoch Times.

    Her 15-year-old daughter, the victim, echoed the sentiment. “I felt relieved that we got justice for both the other victim and me and that he’s going to serve his time.”

    Visually upset and with tears in her eyes, the defendant’s mother told The Epoch Times after the court ruling that placing the teenage boy on the sex offender registry was a move that adults made for political gain at the expense of her son’s future.

    The registry placement was not included in probation officer Jason Bickmore’s recommendation but requested by Deputy Commonwealth’s Attorney Barry Zweig. The defense attorney unsuccessfully argued that the placement would work against the rehabilitation and betterment goal of the juvenile residential treatment program by leaving a “lifetime” impact on the boy.

    The case has drawn controversy in the county over how it was handled by administrators. Loudoun County Public Schools (LCPS) Superintendent Scott Ziegler, in particular, has been harshly criticized for allowing the boy to switch to another public school after the May assault.

    The assaults occurred before and after the county adopted a transgender-friendly policy that would allow boys who self-identify as girls to use girls’ bathrooms.

    At a school board meeting on June 22, Ziegler denied the existence of any school bathroom assaults, which some parents feared would be the result of adopting such a policy. However, emails later made public revealed that he and the school board, at the time of the meeting, were aware of the May 28 assault.

    In response to a public outcry over an alleged cover-up, Ziegler hired a law firm to conduct an “independent review” of LCPS’ handling of the two sexual assault cases.

    Scott Smith, father of the rape victim, during a media interview in front of the Loudoun County District Courthouse in Leesburg, Va., on Jan. 12, 2022. (Terri Wu/The Epoch Times)

    Sentence

    Before announcing her ruling, Judge Brooks said that she had dealt with many juvenile sex offenses, crimes more common than the public realized. She added that she had read many psychosexual and psychological evaluations, but the defendant’s report “scared” her.

    “Yours scared me for yourself, your family, and society in general,” Judge Brooks spoke to the defendant, adding, “Young man, you need a lot of help.” She said even though his attorney argued that the May 28 incident was “consensual,” the court had ruled otherwise.

    She told him, “When someone says ‘yes’ one day, it doesn’t mean they say ‘yes’ every day. ‘No’ means no. You exhibited predatory behavior.” She said she had never put any juvenile on the sex offender registry but would rule so today.

    Plaintiff attorney Elizabeth Lancaster said the placement on the sex offender registry was for the protection of the community, not for punishing the boy. According to her, a person on the registry cannot work as a school teacher or at a daycare, and his activities around children will be limited. In addition, a sex offender may face difficulties finding certain jobs; that’s up to the employer’s assessment.

    Scott Smith, father of the victim in the earlier assault, said the boy “committed a heinous violent sodomy” to his daughter. “I want him to become better in the future instead of sitting in jail for the rest of his life, but I also want him marked as a sexual predator,” he told The Epoch Times.

    ‘Do The Right Thing’

    The victim impact statements during the hearing made a visual impact on the teenage boy. He cried, shoulders shaking, when Scott Smith spoke directly to him: “You could change. You are young. I don’t believe you are a monster. I thought you looked like a monster, but you really don’t.”

    Smith added that he was placed in a residential treatment center at about the same age and spent two years there. He later explained to The Epoch Times that it was due to destructive behavior resulting from a short temper and substance abuse.

    “Do the right thing, man. I can see in your eyes; you know you did wrong,” Smith told the teenager.

    Speaking of the economic and emotional toll suffered by their family, the Smiths said it was “immeasurable.” Their daughter is “managing her days day by day, hour by hour,” according to the mother. In addition, the couple had to spend so much time on legal matters that they didn’t have time to do their family plumbing business. Scott Smith also said that their business lost customers because his family was accused of lying about the rape, and these customers “chose not to call us.”

    Both families said the sexual assault would have a long-lasting impact on the victims, who had been taking therapy sessions. But the families unanimously advocated for a residential placement for the boy to rehabilitate and become a better person.

    Later, the boy said he didn’t know how much hurt he had caused until he heard the victim testimonies. “I sincerely apologize to the court, families, victims, you, and you,” he said while turning to the two victim families in the room.

    For Smith’s daughter, the first victim to give her impact statement at the hearing, the moment the boy started crying was impactful. “I felt like he finally understood what the other victim and I went through,” she told The Epoch Times afterward.

    ‘Independent Investigation’ Report Withheld

    On Jan. 10, in response to the Freedom of Information Act request by Fight for Schools, a local advocacy group, LCPS confirmed that the review by law firm, Blankingship & Keith, P.C., was complete and withheld its entirety under attorney-client privilege.

    “You cannot have it both ways,” said Ian Prior, executive director of Fight for Schools, at the Loudoun County school board meeting on Jan. 11, referring to having an independent investigation and attorney-client privilege at the same time.

    “If it is an independent investigation, the attorney-client privilege does not attach, and it can be provided to the public with proper redactions,” he said, urging LCPS to release the report. In response to Epoch Times’ inquiry, LCPS Public Information Officer Wayde Byard resent the same statement on Jan. 13 that the report was complete and withheld.

    In November, incoming Virginia Attorney General Jason Miyares said he planned to investigate LCPS, including the on-campus sexual assaults. In addition, he would develop new legislation granting his office the power to intervene in the event of inadequacies by prosecutors.

    Tyler Durden
    Thu, 01/13/2022 – 20:20

  • Shocking Video Captures Robbers Dressed As Amazon Workers Force Their Way Into Home
    Shocking Video Captures Robbers Dressed As Amazon Workers Force Their Way Into Home

    Two armed robbers, disguised as Amazon delivery workers, broke into a house in Connecticut earlier this week. 

    “The victim reports that there were two armed suspects, both wearing Amazon delivery uniforms and carrying a package, who forced their way into the residence after the victim opened the door to take the delivery,” Milford Police Department said in a statement.

    The incident occurred on Monday and appeared to be an “isolated incident” as there was “no threat to the public,” Milford police spokesperson said. 

    CCTV cameras on the home, located at 494 Naugatuck Avenue, captured the moment when the homeowner opened the door to retrieve the package. 

    Amazon has released a statement, declaring the two suspects, which have yet to be identified, were not company employees. 

    “We are glad the family is safe after this horrible incident,” the statement said. “We take these matters seriously and are working with law enforcement as they continue to investigate.”

    The problem today is that people are accustomed to opening their homes to Amazon workers when they hear a knock. Robbers capitalize on this by masking their identity with Amazon uniforms, which is the easiest way a homeowner will open up their front door. Perhaps Amazon should implement a notification for homeowners that informs them who the delivery person is and when they’re delivering the package to avoid mistaking identity. 

    Amazon better get on top of this because soon, customers will not trust delivery drivers. 

    Tyler Durden
    Thu, 01/13/2022 – 20:00

  • Kyle Bass Believes Fed Will Be Forced To Abandon Hiking Rates As Stocks Crash
    Kyle Bass Believes Fed Will Be Forced To Abandon Hiking Rates As Stocks Crash

    During an interview with CNBC Thursday afternoon, Hayman Capital founder Kyle Bass joined Jeffrey Gundlach and other astute observers of the market by postulating that the Fed won’t be able to succeed with its planned 4 interest-rate hikes by the end of the year.

    “Gundlach said that the Fed could get to 1.5% on the Fed funds rate, which might happen in the next 12 to 18 months. But that would trigger a recession,” he said.

    But by the time the Fed gets to the second hike, markets will tank, forcing the central bank to backtrack.

    Speaking during his first CNBC interview of the year, Bass argued that there’s a “huge mismatch, I think, between policy and reality…when you look at the reality of hydrocarbon demand…the reality is that…we’ve been pulling CapEx out of the oil patch because we so desperately want to switch to alternative energy. The problem is you can’t just turn off hydrocarbons. It takes 40 or 50 years to switch fuel sources,” Bass explained.

    And as the global economy shakes off the impact of the pandemic, Bass predicted that “the same forces that applied to bring oil below zero [<a href="

    “>back in April 2020] will apply on the upside. We will get the world reopened by the middle of the year…you can’t just flip on an oil well…the only people funding the oil patch are family offices.”

    As demand for oil intensifies,  the dynamic will send prices on front-month contracts “well above” $100/barrel”, Bass projected.

    “There are so few people out there funding CapEx…if we reopen, you’re going to see numbers that people aren’t ready for.”

    Bass’s interlocutors then opted to switch gears with some questions about China. After Wilfred Frost gently accused Bass of being a China bear, Bass insisted that he considers himself a “China realist” before launching into a discussion of China’s real-estate market.

    As many investors may have learned from all the reporting about Evergrande and other deeply indebted China developers in recent months, roughly one-third of China’s economy is driven by real estate.

    The surge in prices has contributed to China’s demographic nightmare, Bass said. “…the average birth rate of women in China fell below 1.2…you had an aggressive population decline because men can’t afford to buy homes because they’re priced at 20x to 30x their annual income.”

    This has become a problem for China’s leaders.

    “Xi needs real estate prices down and he needs them to stay down,” Bass said.

    As for those who are betting on a bounce in Chinese stocks, Bass characterized this as “a fool’s game.”

    As for whether or not he’d ever invest in Chinese stocks again, Bass replied:

    “Fool me once but you’re not going to fool me twice…I feel like people who are investing in Chinese equities are breaking their fiduciary duty to their investors.”

    Circling back to a discussion about the Fed, Bass pointed to Goldman’s call for 4 hikes this year. When the Fed does deliver on the rate hikes it has led the market to expect, “the curve is going to flatten, the long end of the curve will invert and the Fed” will likely need to throw it in reverse.

    “My personal view is they can’t raise short rates more than 100-125 basis points before they have to stop,” Bass said.

    Once this happens, a recession in the US will likely follow.

    “I think they’re going to have to back away from that plan once they start hiking…that’s my view.

    With all this in mind, “there’s no way the stock market goes up this year and it probably goes down pretty aggressively,” Bass concluded.

    And once the Fed starts hiking rates, this, compounded by surging oil prices “will compound people’s inflation problems.” And that is already very modestly bring priced in… March rate-hike odds are rising to cycle highs but the odds of 4 rate-hikes by year-end are sliding…

    So, after more than a decade of easy money policies, 2022 is shaping up to be a difficult year for American consumers.

    Tyler Durden
    Thu, 01/13/2022 – 19:40

  • Helicopter Operations May Be Affected By Nationwide 5G Rollout
    Helicopter Operations May Be Affected By Nationwide 5G Rollout

    The upcoming AT&T and Verizon 5G rollout create significant headaches for the US aviation community. The latest comes from the Helicopter Association International (HAI) revealed Thursday that US helicopter fleets nationwide might be grounded next week when 5G towers are switched on. 

    On Dec. 19, AT&T and Verizon plan to turn on their 5G towers as concerns over air safety have delayed the debut of the super-fast cellular network, originally scheduled to launch in early December. 

    HAI’s statement read, “transmission from these towers have been demonstrated to interfere with radar altimeters, widely used in helicopters and other aircraft to measure altitude.” 

    Over 1,450 Notices to Air Missions (NOTAMs) were issued by the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) across the country next week around 5G towers that AT&T and Verizon will activate. This means that areas around the towers will be considered “hazards” and unsafe for helicopters to operate and may affect “a significant portion of commercial, law enforcement, and other helicopter operations,” HAI said. 

    The heart of the problem lies in the aircraft’s radar altimeter uses frequencies close to C-band. 5G towers also use C-band radio spectrum frequencies that have the potential to disrupt radar altimeters, an important device on a helicopter or airplane that informs the pilot of the aircraft’s height above ground. 

    The FAA is mitigating these disruptions by placing 5G buffer zones around major airports so that radar altimeter disruptions do not impact commercial flights. 

    Meanwhile, Comcast announced the world’s first 10G technology for its network that could dramatically increase upload and download capacity in the coming years. 

    Aircraft manufacturers better figure out how to make radar altimeters that don’t interfere with 5G, or some severe aviation disasters could be ahead. 

    Tyler Durden
    Thu, 01/13/2022 – 19:20

  • Texas, Florida Residents Can Pat Themselves On The Back
    Texas, Florida Residents Can Pat Themselves On The Back

    Authored by Bari Weiss via ‘Common Sense’ Substack,

    Bringing Sanity to the Omicron chaos

    Talking to three doctors who have been islands of reason in a sea of confusion…

    I have hit a wall with Covid.  

    I’ve done every stage of this pandemic: The “Tiger King” stage, the 10,000 steps a day phase, the adopting a dog phase, the regret of having adopted a dog phase, and the inability to imagine my life without the dog phase. And the sweatpants phase that I truly worry will never end.

    I wore the mask (sometimes two). I sprayed down the groceries (remember that?). I’ve had my nostrils violated countless times. I’ve canceled plans. I’ve stayed home. And I got the vaccine the moment I could.

    But two weeks and some 650 days into “flattening the curve,” I’m done. I don’t care what cable news is blaring on about these days: In this house, Covid is over. On New Year’s Eve, do you know who we hosted? Two beloved friends who were positive for Omicron and stuck at home alone with mild colds. I feel great about that decision. (And I’m still negative.)

    But I’m out of step with my city. When I am asked to show my vaccine card at a bar—even though that says nothing about whether or not I’m actively transmitting Covid—I want to laugh. When I eat at a restaurant where the diners are unmasked but the staff are forced to don stormtrooper headgear and gloves, I wonder if people realize what this looks like. Or when friends ask me to swab my nose so we can hang out, well, I’ll do it only because I try to be polite.

    Those of you reading this in states like Florida and Texas are probably patting yourself on the backs for your wise life choices. Which, fair enough. But for many of us in America, our lives are still being controlled by the pandemic. And the irrationality of the policies and conversations around Covid—irrationality that comes from our public health authorities, from our schools and our workplaces, from our local governments and our media—is making skeptics out of even the most compliant.

    The medical establishment remains singularly focused on this virus, even as life-saving vaccines have been available to every adult in America who wants them for almost a year now.

    Meanwhile, other problems go ignored. Overdose deaths have soared. People have failed to get timely treatment for cancer. There is a growing mental health crisis, especially among young people. Kids have fallen behind in school. And this is to say nothing of lost time. Two years is not insignificant. Our priorities right now feel off. 

    What gives?

    Why do things seem so nonsensical?

    Who should we trust?

    How can we get back to normal – or at least some semblance of normal?

    And how can we do it responsibly and safely? 

    To answer these questions -plus yours! bring them all! – we hosted a roundtable discussion this evening (8 PM EST/5 PM PST) with three doctors who have been islands of sanity in a sea of misinformation and confusion. 

    Dr. Vinay Prasad is an associate professor of epidemiology at UCSF. In September, he was a guest on Honestly.

    Dr. Stefan Baral is a professor at the Johns Hopkins School of Public Health.

    Dr. Lucy McBride is a practicing internist in Washington DC, mental health advocate, and author of a popular COVID-19 newsletter. You might have caught this excellent clip of her from Brian Stelter’s show:

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    Zoom details available here for subscribers. If you’re not already a subscriber, consider becoming one now.

    Tyler Durden
    Thu, 01/13/2022 – 19:00

  • World's Largest Asset Manager: Central Banks Are Trapped As They Can't Fight Supply-Driven Inflation
    World’s Largest Asset Manager: Central Banks Are Trapped As They Can’t Fight Supply-Driven Inflation

    Back in September, when the Fed was still lying to itself and to the people that inflation was “transitory”, yet when the first hints the Fed would have to tighten soon emerged, we asked a simple question: “How Exactly Do Central Bankers Plan To Resolve Supply Chain Bottlenecks.” It is a question that nobody has answered yet for the simple reason that there is no answer: the Fed can at best adjust demand-side inflation but when it comes to supply chain bottlenecks (which as we showed earlier today are about to get much worse), the central banks is completely helpless.

    Fast forward 5 months when the same question appears to be bothering BlackRock Investment Institute’s global chief investment strategist, Wei Li, who said in a Bloomberg TV interview that central banks are in a “very tricky spot” this year as they try to fight inflation that’s driven by supply factors, and that at the same time, four rate hikes may not be enough to control price pressures.

    As a result, she said that “it’s really difficult for central banks to stabilize inflation without destroying activity,” which is precisely the point we have been making for weeks, when we say – over and over – that tightening into the current global slowdown will do nothing to address the supply-driven inflation and will instead send the economy into a stagflationary abyss, not to mention crash markets.

    Or, as Li puts it, given inflation dynamics are supply-driven, “central banks should not lean too aggressively against inflation” as to not damage activity.

    She also noted that the one silver lining is that growth is still “reasonably robust” but the economy is coming down from very elevated levels last year. As such the Fed may misinterpret continued slowdown with its policy working, when in reality it will only be making matters worse.

    In any case, the Blackrock strategist expects “inflation to settle at levels higher compared with what we got used to, even as supply bottlenecks ease because of structural factors at play.”

    In terms of markets, the firm continues to prefer developed-market stocks to emerging markets through support from fundamentals with “okay” growth and earnings.

    “We see a broader robust outlook for DM equities and this is where we’re having big conviction at the moment”, although a few more days like today and we are confident that the world’s largest asset manager will change its tune.

    Tyler Durden
    Thu, 01/13/2022 – 18:40

  • Shellenberger: Why Disasters Have Declined
    Shellenberger: Why Disasters Have Declined

    Authored by Michael Shellenberger via substack,

    And why did they rise from 1900 to 2000 before declining?

    Over the last 30 years, the United Nations, climate scientists, and governments around the world have claimed that climate change is making natural disasters including hurricanes, floods, and heatwaves more frequent. 

    “Climate change has helped drive a fivefold increase in the number of weather-related disasters in the last 50 years,” reported National Public Radio last fall, citing a report by the U.N.’s World Meteorological Organization. 

    But the data also show that the number of climate related disasters actually declined over the last 20 years by about 10 percent.

    The best-available data comes from International Disaster Database, or EM-DAT, which is collected and made public by the Center for Research on the Epidemiology of Disasters (CRED) in Belgium.

    The discovery that disasters have declined since 2000 was done by Roger Pielke, Jr., a University of Colorado, Boulder political scientist. Pielke said the finding “is very good news and completely contrary to conventional wisdom.”

    Some people on Twitter objected to Pielke’s analysis. “You’re using a regression line for a data set with a high degree of natural variation,” wrote one person, “to draw a very broad conclusion. And the slope of that line is barely inverted. This does not show anything.” Said another, “This is a textbook example of not knowing what standard deviation or regression mean!” Other people noted that the frequency of climate-related disasters rose from 1900 to 2019.

    But Pielke said that no tests of statistical significance were required to show the decline. “If my bank account had $100 last week and today has $90, then it has 10% less money,” said Pielke. “Period. You don’t need to apply tests of statistical significance to see that. In technical terms the data here is the population, not a sample from a population.” 

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    And Pielke doesn’t disagree with the trend showing increasingly frequent disasters before the year 2000 but noted that it didn’t contradict the data showing a decline since 2000. “The period since 2000 is viewed as the most reliable for data reliability,” Pielke said, “but it is safe to say that even since 2000, coverage has improved. So the 10% decline is possibly an underestimate.“ Moreover, noted Pielke, “the trends are consistent with independent, peer-reviewed research (e.g., this and this).”

    So the two trends, one of rising climate-related natural disasters for a century until the year 2000, and then declining disasters since 2000, are both true. Why is that?

    What do you mean by “disaster”?

    A Cyclone Preparedness Programme (CPP) volunteer uses a megaphone to urge residents to evacuate to shelters ahead of the expected landfall of cyclone Amphan in Khulna on May 19, 2020. (Photo by KAZI SHANTO/AFP via Getty Images)

    CRED says its EM-DAT database includes disasters since 1900 that meet one of the following criteria

    • 10 or more people dead;

    • 100 or more people affected;

    • The declaration of a state of emergency

    • A call for international assistance

    EM-DAT’s finding of less frequent disasters is consistent with long-term trends. There has been 92% decline in the decadal death toll from natural disasters since its peak in the 1920s. In that decade, 5.4 million people died from natural disasters. In the 2010s, 400,000 did. 

    The 92% decline in deaths over the last century occurred during a period when the global population nearly quadrupled, and the global temperature rose 1.3 degrees centigrade.

    Pielke finds that the cost of natural disasters globally also declined as a share of GDP between 1990 and 2020. In a 2020 review of 54 studies over the last 22 years, and published in the field’s leading scientific journal, Pielke found “little evidence to support claims that any part of the overall increase in global economic losses documented on climate time scales is attributable to human-caused changes in climate.”

    Pielke is who is one of the world’s leading authorities on natural disasters and climate change, has been widely published in the peer-reviewed literature, and was the first scholar to show the need to “normalize” natural disaster data, which has been accepted by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change across multiple reports. 

    Natural disasters are much more expensive in 2022 than they were in 1922. But, as research by Pielke and others show, the increase can be explained entirely by rising wealth. Normalizing the data by accounting for rising wealth is thus essential when looking for a climate change signal from the noise of rising prosperity.

    Over the last four decades, poor nations like Bangladesh have reduced death tolls by over 90% thanks to simple measures like cyclone warning systems and storm shelters. “Look at Cyclone Ampham in India and Bangladesh earlier this year,” said Pielke. “It killed about 120 people. Fifty years ago, it would have killed thousands.” A cyclone in Bangladesh killed 135,000 people in 1991 while another in 1970 killed 300,000.

    In other words, hurricanes, floods, and other natural disasters resulting from extreme events aren’t getting worse. They’re getting better. Much better.  Given the flood of alarming news about climate change, many will be surprised to learn that hurricanes aren’t increasing in frequency, and that deaths from natural disasters are at their lowest point in 120 years. “A total of 2,900 people lost their lives in natural disasters in the first half of the year,” announced Munich Re on in 2020, “much lower than the average figures for both the last 30 years and the last 10 years.”

    What, then, explains increasingly frequent disasters from 1900 to 2000?

    Read more here…

    *  *  *

    Michael Shellenberger is a Time Magazine “Hero of the Environment,”Green Book Award winner, and the founder and president of Environmental Progress. He is author of just launched book San Fransicko (Harper Collins) and the best-selling book, Apocalypse Never (Harper Collins June 30, 2020). Subscribe To Michael’s substack here

    Donate to Environmental Progress

    Tyler Durden
    Thu, 01/13/2022 – 18:20

  • Some Good News: Rents Have Finally Peaked As Rental Market Enters "Widespread Cooldown"
    Some Good News: Rents Have Finally Peaked As Rental Market Enters “Widespread Cooldown”

    Back in August, when the so-called experts (including the career economists at the Fed) were still convinced that inflation was transitory, we showed that realty was far scarier as true rents were only just starting to trickle through to the various CPI and PCE metrics, and while Owners’ Equivalent Rent of residences, which makes up almost a quarter of the consumer price index, rose just 2.4% in July from a year earlier according tot he Fed, the real number – as divined from real-time national rent indicators such as that from Apartment List and Zillow – was much higher, perhaps as much as 5%. The OER figure “lags the reality” because it’s based on a survey of homeowner expectations about what their home would rent for, said Mark Zandi, chief economist for Moody’s Analytics

    Fast forward to today when OER is now far higher, with shelter inflation having surged to 4% and rent inflation close behind…

    … both numbers which still have a long way to go as they catch up to real prices.

    But here we have some good news, because while the rent, shelter and OER prints reported by the CPI will still rise for the next 5 or 6 months, the actual rental market has now finally peaked.

    According to the latest Apartment list data, the consultancy’s national index fell by 0.2% during the month of December, marking the only time in 2021 when rents declined month-over-month. And while a slight dip in rents at this time of year is typical of seasonality in the market, it’s especially notable after a year of record-setting growth, especially when considering that over the course of calendar year 2021, the national median rent increased by a staggering 17.8%. To put that in context, annual rent growth averaged just 2.3% in the pre-pandemic years from 2017-2019.

     As the chart below shows, December is also the fifth straight month in which monthly rent growth slowed after peaking at 2.7 percent in July. The current slowdown is capping a year that has been characterized by unprecedented price increases. For seven months from March through September, month-over-month rent growth exceeded the pre-pandemic record going back to 2017. In December, however, rent growth fell in line with pre-pandemic trends – rents also fell by 0.3 percent in December 2019, and by 0.2% in December 2018.

    Drilling into the December data, 61 of the nation’s 100 largest cities saw rents fall this month, indicating a widespread rental market cooldown. This can be seen in the chart below, which visualizes monthly rent changes in each of the nation’s 100 largest cities from January 2018 to present. The color in each cell represents the extent to which prices went up (red) or down (blue) in a given city in a given month. The band of dark red in 2021 depicts this year’s massive rent boom, which peaked in July and August 2021 when all 100 cities in this chart saw prices go up. As we closed out the year, the three rightmost columns show that the recent cooldown in rents is also geographically widespread.

    Steady rent declines have occurred in a wide variety of places. Prices have dropped for three consecutive months in some of the smaller cities that saw massive influxes of new residents throughout the pandemic, including Boise ID, Fresno CA, and Reno NV. But similar price drops have also taken place in larger urban centers like Boston MA, San Francisco CA, and Chicago, IL. Meanwhile, rent increases have persisted in warm-weather cities across the Sun Belt, like Orlando FL, Tucson AZ, and Dallas TX. Here, rent growth decelerated but remained positive throughout the last several months of 2021.

    In particular, Seattle and San Francisco both landed in the top five for largest month-over-month declines, signalling that these pricey tech hubs may be entering a second phase of COVID-related rental market softness.

    Separately, the Apt List national vacancy index ticked up again for the fourth straight month, as we enter 2022 amid an easing of the tight market conditions that characterized 2021. Indeed, the Apt List vacancy index spiked to 7 percent last April, as many Americans moved in with family or friends amid the uncertainty and economic disruption of the pandemic’s onset. After that, however, vacancies began a steady decline, eventually falling to 3.8 percent in August 2021. Subsequent to this, the vacancy index has ticked up slightly for four consecutive months and stands at 4.3 percent at the end of the year. Although the recent vacancy increase has been modest and gradual, it represents an important inflection point, signalling that tightness in the rental market is finally beginning to ease. If the vacancy rate continues this trend in the coming months, it’s likely that rent growth will also continue to cool further.

    In conclusion, after a year of astronomical price increases, December 2021 finally brought some relief to the rental market. The Apartment List national rent index spiked nearly 18% in 2021 but fell 0.2% in December, a modest dip but the first such decline observed in over a year. While the apartment market remains tight – the national vacancy rate sits just above 4% compared to 6% pre-pandemic – the winter season continues to bring signs that pressure is gradually beginning to ease. That said, it’s important to bear in mind just how much affordability has dissipated in 2021. 99 of the nation’s 100 largest cities saw rents jump more than 10 percent over the year, and the national median apartment cost eclipsed $1,300 for the first time ever. So despite a recent cool-down, many American renters will remain burdened throughout 2022 by historically high housing costs.

    The bigger question is when will the BLS fed the latest real-time data into its CPI models, and how long until the Fed realizes that the rent  inflation burst observed throughout 2021 is now reversing.

    Source: Apartment List

    Tyler Durden
    Thu, 01/13/2022 – 18:00

  • US Hits N.Korea With More Sanctions As Kim Hails Tests Of Hypersonic Nuclear "War Deterrent"
    US Hits N.Korea With More Sanctions As Kim Hails Tests Of Hypersonic Nuclear “War Deterrent”

    Following two North Korean missile launches which came within the last week, with the Tuesday test being claimed by Pyongyang to have been it’s third ‘successful’ hypersonic projectile test, the Biden administration extended US sanctions on North Korean as well as Russian officials believed involved in Pyongyang’s ballistic missile program.

    The fresh Treasury Department sanctions target five individuals responsible for procuring parts for North Korea’s “weapons of mass destruction (WMD)” program, as the statement reads. Further it described the new punitive actions “in line with U.S. efforts to prevent the advancement of the DPRK’s WMD and ballistic missile programs” and which “impede attempts by Pyongyang to proliferate related technologies.”

    January 11, 2022 photo released by KCNA, via Reuters

    The Treasury counted “the DPRK’s six ballistic missile launches since September 2021, each of which violated multiple United Nations Security Council Resolutions (UNSCRs).”

    Amid completely stalled Washington-Pyongyang talks, which haven’t been a reality since the Trump administration – and as Seoul has recently pushed for the resumption of direct dialogue on denuclearizing the Korean peninsula – US Secretary of State Antony Blinken has lately vowed to use “every appropriate tool” to go after North Korea’s weapons programs, “which constitute a serious threat to international peace and security and undermine the global nonproliferation regime.”

    The Wednesday Treasury statement still held out hope for the possibility of “dialogue and diplomacy” with the DPRK; however, the latest missile tests are seen as a direct message to the West that King Jong-un is expanding his arsenal and capability.

    ABC News details of Tuesday’s launch which went in the direction of Japan, based on state media sources:

    The Korean Central News Agency said Tuesday’s launch involved a hypersonic glide vehicle, which after its release from the rocket booster demonstrated “glide jump flight” and “corkscrew maneuvering” before hitting a sea target 1,000 kilometers (621 miles) away. Photos released by the agency showed a missile mounted with a pointed cone-shaped payload soaring into the sky while leaving a trail of orange flames and Kim watching from a small cabin with top officials, including his sister Kim Yo Jong.

    The projectile is believed to have reached Mach 10, alarming intelligence agencies in the West, and which even briefly resulted in an FAA order to ground commercial flights on the US West coast (for an estimated five to seven minutes).

    KCNA via Reuters

    Kim this week hailed the country’s claimed hypersonics program, which officials in the West remain skeptical of – doubting that it’s very far along at all – as part of increasing North Korea’s nuclear “war deterrent”.

    Tyler Durden
    Thu, 01/13/2022 – 17:40

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