Jun 14

Today’s News 14th June 2020

  • Officer Fired, Police Chief Steps Down, Wendy's Set Ablaze After Atlanta Shooting
    Officer Fired, Police Chief Steps Down, Wendy’s Set Ablaze After Atlanta Shooting

    Tyler Durden

    Sun, 06/14/2020 – 02:00

    Atlanta PD officer Garrett Rolfe has been fired following the deadly Friday night shooting of Rayshard Brooks, while another officer, Devin Bronsan, has been placed on administrative leave, according to 11 Alive – citing an Atlanta Police spokesman just after midnight on Sunday.

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    Officer Garrett Rolfe, Officer Devin Bronsan

    Meanwhile, Atlanta Police Chief Erika Shields will be stepping down following the incident.

    Brooks, who had fallen asleep at the wheel at a Wendy’s drive-thru, was shot by an officer after he grabbed one of their Tasers and pointed it at them as he was running away. He died later that evening at Grady Memorial Hospital.

    In response to the shooting, protesters set the Wendy’s on fire:

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    A CNN crew was attacked by peaceful protesters at the scene:

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    The group then began to set fires nearby:

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    The latest police killing of an “unarmed” black man unfolded Friday night in Atlanta, and footage released Saturday afternoon is already causing a major uproar in the city. Activists are demanding that Atlanta’s police chief Erika Shields, whose statements to the press and willingness to push deescalation tactics made her a media darling during the unrest that followed the killing of George Floyd.

    Though the only details of the incident so far involve grainy cellphone camera footage, it’s clear in the video that one of the two APD officers involved in the incident shot a suspect in the back as he was running away after wresting one of the officer’s tasers away from him.

    The Georgia NAACP claimed the APD needs “a serious overhaul” and argued that the deceased suspect, later identified as Rayshard Brooks, 27, was killed for “sleeping” (not for attacking two officers and stealing one of their weapons)>

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    The footage posted to twitter earlier shows Brooks successfully wrestle both officers to the ground before running off with the taser. At the end of the video, several gunshots ring out, though the shooting of Brooks isn’t shown.

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    Meanwhile, protesters showed up Saturday to Washington DC’s “Black Lives Matter” plaza where smaller protests have been ongoing every day. Saturday marked the 16th day of demonstrations.

    Here’s what happened according to the Washington Post: the ADP received a call and was dispatched to a local Wendy’s Friday night following a complaint about a man parked and asleep in the drive-through, according to a preliminary report from the Georgia Bureau of Investigation. The situation escalated when the two officers tried taking Brooks, 27, into custody. He resisted, and the situation quickly became violent.

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    Shields

    Atlanta activists wrote Saturday that “ADP shot another unarmed black man in South Atlanta. Details are still coming and our rage continues.”

    The GBI’s preliminary report told a different story.

    “During the arrest, the male subject resisted and a struggle ensued,” GBI said. “The officer deployed a Taser. Witnesses report that during the struggle the male subject grabbed and was in possession of the Taser. It has also been reported that the male subject was shot by an officer in the struggle over the Taser.”

    Brooks died Saturday morning at a local hospital after emergency surgery.

    Brooks’s death marks the 48th officer-involved shooting the GBI has been asked to investigate since the start of 2020. Ahmaud Arbery was also shot and killed in Georgia, though his assailants – who will all stand trial for murder – weren’t cops.

    Once the GBI completes its independent investigation, the case will be turned over to the Fulton County District Attorney’s Office for review. Later on Saturday, the Fulton County DA’s office said it had already launched “an intense, independent investigation of the incident” and that personnel were dispatched to the scene immediately after the shooting. One local outlet said both officers involved have been removed from duty pending an investigation.

  • Former MI6 Spy Alastair Crooke: For This To Slip Would Be The 'End Of Empire'
    Former MI6 Spy Alastair Crooke: For This To Slip Would Be The ‘End Of Empire’

    Tyler Durden

    Sat, 06/13/2020 – 23:30

    Authored by Alastair Crooke via The Strategic Culture Foundation,

    A hot humid day, but a gentle, warm breeze is blowing. The smoke and tear gas swirl gently to and fro, hanging in the dense, sweaty air, as shafts of dazzling sunlight scythe through the smokiness at sharp angles. A mass protest is forming. Youths are chattering; people moving aimlessly. It still has not solidified into purpose, yet the raw tenseness of the coming conflict hangs, as palpably as does the smoke in the air. It is evident – there will be violence today.

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    No, this is not America. This is the flashpoint crossroad between the radical Jewish settler outpost of Beit El in the West Bank, and its interface with the Palestinian town of Ramallah. Between the two, the Israeli army are ranged, awaiting the hostilities to commence. This was back, during the Second Palestinian Intifada; it was a time of near war, and I was present, charged with observing this, and other unfolding confrontations, on behalf of the EU.

    As usual, I head to the back of the sprawling mob, for it is only from this perspective that one can understand the nature of events. You observe the silent organization in action. Young men smoothly and unobtrusively, position the piles of stones that later would be hurled (mostly ineffectually) at the soldiers who are stood just beyond the range of stone-throwers. Then the protest managers are gone – vanished.

    I know what is about to unfold. I have just seen two snipers (in this instance, Palestinians), slip into position, well-back, concealed on a hillside over-looking the crossroads. It is a sad sight – the young people massing before me are not dangerous; they generally are decent, sincere young people, angry at the expanding settler-occupation, and hyped by the ‘animators’ sent amongst the crowd to stoke emotions. They are not bad young people.

    I am sad, because some, I know, will soon be dead, their families mourning a child’s loss tonight. But they are the fodder – innocent fodder – and this is war. At the height of confrontation, the snipers begin. Just a couple of rounds, but enough; they fire with silenced weapons. The Israelis soldiers cannot tell (unlike me), the source of the firing. A number of Palestinian youth fall dead; the mood incandescent. Purpose achieved.

    Why do I write about these twenty-year old events? Because I know well the patterns. I have seen them often. It is a playbook widely used. And I see familiar tell-tales emerging in the videos posted on the current protests in America.

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    Most notable, are the ubiquitous palettes of bricks that mysteriously appear in the background to many videos of the protests (see here for a typical selection). Who is positioning them? Who is paying? U.S. commentator, Michael Snyder, too has noted the “complex network of bicycle scouts to move ahead of demonstrators in different directions of where police were, and where police were not, for purposes of being able to direct groups from the larger group to… where they thought officers would not be.”

    He observes too, the anticipatory raising of bail money; the preparing of medical teams, ready to treat injuries; and of caches of flammable materials (suitable for torching official vehicles), pre-positioned in places where protests would later occur. All this – with simultaneous protests in more than 380 U.S. cities – in my experience, signals much bigger, silent backstage organization. And behind ‘the organisation’, the instigators lie, far back: maybe even thousands of miles back; and somewhere out there will be the financier.

    However, in the U.S., commentators say they see no leadership; the protests are amorphous. That is not unusual to see no leadership – a ‘leadership’ appears only if negotiations are sought and planned; otherwise key actors are to be protected from arrest. The most telling sign of a backstage organisation is that on one day, it is ‘full on’, and the next all is quiet – as if a switch has been pulled. It often has.

    Of course, the overwhelming majority of protestors in the U.S. this last week, were – and are – decent sincere Americans, outraged at George Floyd’s killing and continuing social and institutional racism. Was this then, an Antifa and anarchist operation, as the White House contends? I doubt it – any more than those Palestinian youth in Beit El constituted anything other than fodder for the front of stage. We simply don’t know the backstage. Keep an open mind.

    Tom Luongo presciently suggests that should we wish to understand better the context to these recent events – and not be stuck at stage appearances – we need to look to Hong Kong for indicators.

    Writing in October 2019, Luongo noted that: “What started as peaceful protests against an extradition law and worry over reunification with China has morphed into an ugly and vicious assault on the city’s economic future. [This is] being perpetrated by the so-called “Block Bloc”, roving bands of mask-wearing, police-tactic defying vandals attacking randomly around the city to disrupt people going to work”.

    An exasperated local man exclaims: “Not only you [i.e. Block Bloc protestors are] harming the people making their living in businesses, companies, shopping malls. You’re destroying subway stations. You’re destroying our streets. You’re destroying our hard-earned reputation as a safe, international business centre. You’re destroying our economy”. The man cannot explain why there was not a single police officer in sight, for hours, as the rampage continued.

    What is going on? Luongo quotes a September Bloomberg interview with HK tycoon, Jimmy Lai, billionaire publisher of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) scourge, the Apple Daily, and the highly visible interlocutor of official Washington notables, such as Mike Pence, Mike Pompeo and John Bolton. In it, Lai pronounced himself convinced that if protests in HK turned violent, China would have no choice but to send the People’s Armed Police units from Shenzen into Hong Kong to put down unrest: “That,” Lai said on Bloomberg TV, “will be a repeat of the Tiananmen Square massacre; and that will bring in the whole world against China … Hong Kong will be done, and … China will be done, too”.

    In brief, Lai proposes to ‘burn’ Hong Kong – to ‘save’ Hong Kong. That is, ‘burn it to save it’ from the CCP – to keep its residue in the ‘Anglo-sphere’.

    “Jimmy Lai”, Luongo writes, “is telling you what the strategy is here. The goal is to thoroughly undermine China’s standing on the world stage and raise that of the U.S. This is economic warfare, it’s a hybrid war tactic. And the soldiers are radicalized kids in uniforms bonking old men on the heads with sticks and taunting cops. Sound familiar? Because that’s what’s going on in places like Portland, Oregon with Antifa … And that cause is chaos”. (Recall, Luongo wrote this more than six months ago).

    Well, here we are today: Steve Bannon, closely allied with what he, himself, terms the U.S.’ China super-hawks, and allied with yet another Chinese billionaire financier, Guo Wengui (a fugitive from the Chinese Authorities, and member at Trump’s Mar-a-Lago Club), is pursuing an incandescent campaign of denigration and vitriol against the Chinese Communist Party – intended, like Lai’s campaign, to destroy utterly China’s global standing.

    Here it is again – the tightly-knit band of U.S. and exile super-hawks want to ‘burn’ down the CCP, to ‘save’ what? To save the ‘Empire Waning’ (America), through ‘burning’ the ‘Empire Rising’ (China). Bannon (at least, and to his credit), is explicit about the risk: A failure to prevail in this this info-war mounted against the CCP, he says, will end in “kinetic war”.

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    Via The New York Times

    So, back to the U.S. protests, and drawing on Luongo’s insights from Hong Kong – I wrote last week that Trump sees himself fighting a hidden global ‘war’ to retain America’s present dominance over global money (the dollar) – now America’s principal source of external power. For America to lose this struggle to a putative multi-lateral cosmopolitan governance – Trump perceives – would result in the whole, white Anglo-sphere’s ejection from control over the global financial system – and its associated political privilege. It would entail control of the global financial and political system slipping away to an amorphous multi-lateral financial governance, operated by an international institution, or some global Central Bank. Since before WW1, control of global financial governance has been in the hands of the Anglo-American nexus running between London and New York. It still does, just about – albeit that today’s Wall Street elite is cosmopolitan, rather than Anglo, yet still it is firmly anchored to Washington, via the Fed and the U.S. Treasury. For this to slip would be the ‘end of Empire’.

    To maintain the status of the dollar, Trump therefore has assiduously devoted himself to disrupting the multi-lateral global order, sensing this danger to the unique privileges conveyed by control of the world’s monetary base. His particular concern would be to see a Europe that was umbilically-linked to the financial and technological heavy-weight that is China. This, in itself, effectively would presage a different world financial governance.

    But, is the fear that the threat principally lies with Europe’s Soros-style vision justified? There may – just as well – be a fifth-column at home. The billionaires’ club of the very rich has long ceased to be culturally ‘Anglo’. It has become a borderless, ‘self-selecting’, governing entity unto itself.

    Perhaps an earlier ‘end of Époque’ metamorphosis shows us how readily an old-established elite can swap horses in order to survive. In the historical Sicilian novel, The Leopard, Prince Salina’s nephew tells his uncle that the old order is ‘done’, and with it, the family is ‘done’ too, unless … “Unless we ourselves take a hand now, they’ll foist a republic on us. If we want things to stay as they are, things will have to change”.

    It is clear that some billionaire oligarchs – whether American or not – can see the ‘writing on the wall’: A financial crisis is coming. And so, too, is a social one. A recent survey done by one such member, showed that 55% of American millennials supported the end to the capitalist system. Perhaps the brotherhood of billionaires is thinking that ‘unless we ourselves take a hand now, they’ll foist socialism on us’. If we want things to stay as they are, things will have to change. The recent disorder in the U.S. will have unnerved them further.

    The push towards radical change – towards that global financial, political and ecological governance that threatens dollar hegemony – paradoxically may emerge from within: from within America’s own financial elite.  ‘Burning’ the dollar’s privileged global status may become seen as the price for things to stay as they are — and for the elite to be saved. The future of Empire hangs on this issue: Can US dollar hegemony be preserved, or might the financial ‘nobility’ see that things must change – if they are to stay as they are? That is, the Revolution may come from within — and not necessarily from abroad.

    In recent days, Trump has pivoted to being the President of ‘Law and Order’ – a shift which he explicitly connected to 1968, when, in response to protests in Minneapolis after the police suffocation last week of George Floyd, Trump tweeted: “When the looting begins, the shooting starts”. These were the words used by Governor George Wallace, the segregationist third-party candidate, in the 1968 Presidential election: Republicans launched their “southern strategy” to win over resentful white Democrats after the civil rights revolution.

    Trump is determined to prevail – but today is not 1968. Can a Law and Order platform work now? U.S. demography in the south has shifted, and it is not clear that the liberal, urban electorates of America would sign up to a law-and-order platform, which implicitly appeals to white anxieties?

    In a sense, President Trump finds himself between a rock and a hard place. If the protests are not quelled, and “the right normal (not) restored” (as per Esper’s words), Trump may lose those remaining ‘law and order’ conservatives. But, were he to lose control and over-react using the military, then it may be Trump who has his own ‘Tiananmen Square’ – one, which Jimmy Lai (gleefully) predicted in Hong Kong’s case would bring in the whole world against China: “Hong Kong will be done, and … China will be done, too.”

    Or, in this instance, Trump might be done, and… the U.S. too.

  • Visualizing The Racial Wealth Gap In America
    Visualizing The Racial Wealth Gap In America

    Tyler Durden

    Sat, 06/13/2020 – 23:00

    People of color have faced economic inequality for generations, and the recent wave of Black Lives Matter protests has renewed discussions on these disparities.

    Compared to White families, other races have lower levels of income and net worth., and as Visual Capitalist’s Jenna Ross notes, they are also less likely to hold assets of any type. In fact, 19% of Black families have zero or negative net worth, while only 9% of White households have no wealth.

    Today’s chart uses data from the U.S. Federal Reserve’s triennial Survey of Consumer Finances to highlight the racial wealth gap, and the proportion of households that own different kinds of assets by racial group.

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    Asset Types Held By Race

    The financial profile between racial groups varies widely. Below is the percentage of U.S. families with each type of asset, according to the most recent survey from 2016.

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    Vehicles are the most common asset across all racial groups, followed by a primary residence.

    However, the level of equity—or home value less debts—families have in their houses differs by race. White families have equity of $215,800, whereas Black and Hispanic households have net housing wealth of $94,400 and $129,800 respectively.

    In addition, White households are more likely to hold financial assets such as retirement accounts, family businesses, and stocks. These assets are instrumental in building wealth, and are prominent in the wealth composition of America’s richest families.

    With fewer people of color holding these assets, they miss out on higher average returns than low-risk assets, as well as the power of compound interest. These portfolio differences are striking, but they are not the most important contributing factor in the racial wealth gap.

    Demographic and Economic Variations

    White households are also more likely to have demographic characteristics that are associated with wealth. According to the U.S. Federal Reserve, they are:

    • Older, with more than half of households age 55 and up
    • More highly educated, with 51% having some type of degree
    • Less likely to have a single parent
    • More likely to have received an inheritance

    For example, 39% of White heads of households have a bachelor’s degree or higher, compared to 23% and 17% for Black and Hispanic household heads, respectively. However, education doesn’t fully explain the wealth inequities.

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    Enormous wealth disparities exist between families with the same education level. Even in cases where Black and Hispanic household heads have obtained a bachelor’s degree, their families’ median wealth of $68,000 and $78,000 respectively is still lower than the $98,000 median wealth for White families where the head has no bachelor’s degree.

    After accounting for demographic factors, researchers still found there were considerable inequities. What, then, could be primarily responsible for the racial wealth gap?

    The Income Gap

    While previous research found that the wealth gap is “too big” to be explained by a difference in income, a recent study from the Federal Reserve Bank of Cleveland offers a new perspective. Focusing on White and Black U.S. households only, researchers analyzed the dynamics of wealth accumulation over time, as opposed to previous studies that considered short time periods.

    They found that income inequality was the primary contributor to the racial wealth gap. According to the model, if Black and White households had earned the same labor income from 1962 onwards, the Black-to-White wealth ratio would have reached 0.9 by 2007.

    Moving forward, the study concludes that policy changes will likely have a positive impact if they address issues contributing to income gaps. This includes reducing racial discrimination in the labor market, and creating programs, such as mentorships, that improve environments for specific racial subgroups.

  • How Do You Prepare For A Revolution?
    How Do You Prepare For A Revolution?

    Tyler Durden

    Sat, 06/13/2020 – 22:30

    Authored by Daisy Luther via The Organic Prepper blog,

    As all hell breaks loose across the United States of America (and we haven’t even gotten to the election yet), a resistance movement to the status quo seems to be increasingly violent, taking over a Minneapolis police precinct and an area in downtown Seattle. Protests continue to be peaceful in some areas but show little signs of letting up.

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    A lot of folks are pretty sure that a revolution is coming – and many people say it’s already here.

    I got a great question in a group that I moderate: how do you prepare for a revolution?

    As preppers, this is always our go-to response to trouble. We want to know what we can do, specifically, to meet the crisis head-on and keep our families safe.

    How do you prepare for a revolution?

    In this article, I want to speak specifically about the practical steps you need to take to be prepared for a revolution if things should come to that point across the country. This article is not about philosophy or right vs. wrong. It’s not about fighting for your “side” whatever side that might be. It’s about surviving. There are lots of links because I’m not reinventing the entire wheel here – that would be a book on its own. This is merely a guideline so you know where to focus your time, money, and attention.

    I pondered the question for quite a while before answering because it isn’t really a situation I had given a lot of thought to before.

    The answer is really not anything earth-shattering. In fact, many will probably find it underwhelming.

    You prepare for a revolution by simply continuing to prep. Specifically, consider prepping for the following:

    • Supply chain disruption and shortages of food
    • Supply chain disruption and shortages of material goods
    • Civil unrest
    • Disruption of utilities
    • Disruption of services

    So for the most part, this is general prepping. The event causing all the disruptions may be different but the end result is the same. Let’s talk about each of these things.

    Supply chain disruption and shortages of food

    We’re already beginning to see disruptions of the food supply due to the COVID pandemic. Imports have been interrupted and distribution processes have utterly failed. As I wrote before, farmers are being forced to cull livestock and plow under produce because they have no way to get it to consumers.

    In an uncertain future, these difficulties could continue or even become worse through strategic blockades.

    Here are some things you can do:

    • Now is the time to make sure you’re stocked up. This book can help.
    • Localize your supply chain. Look for local farmers and purchase food in bulk.
    • Learn how to preserve food. Here are guides for canning foods and dehydrating foods to make them shelf-stable.
    • Learn how to acquire food with hunting, snaring, fishing, and foraging.

    Become responsible for your own food supply. Stores may not be reliable sources.

    Supply chain disruption and shortages of material goods

    A shocking amount of our general supplies are imported. Here’s a list of things that come from China alone. Not only are imports disrupted but so is distribution in general. You may have noticed if you’ve been in any stores since things reopened that there are a lot of bare spots on the shelves and that you don’t have the same amount of choices as you did before the outbreak.

    Things like bedding, clothing, footwear, tools, dishes, and hardware are sparse in many parts of the country. Here are a few steps you can take.

    • Focus on repairing instead of replacing.
    • If you do have to discard something, strip it of its useful parts. Sort out screws, fasteners, buttons, laces, etc., and store them for the time you need them.
    • Buy sturdy clothing now: pick up winter jackets, shoes, jeans, and practical clothes. For children, you may want to purchase things a size or two up from what they’re currently wearing.
    • Every time you go to the store, grab basic items like toilet paper, aluminum foil, ziplock bags, or other things you normally use.
    • Look for reusable options for things you’d normally throw out after one use.
    • Stock up on the tools you might need to repair, make, or mend things in the future.
    • If there are things you’ve been planning to replace or update, do it now if it’s an essential item. You might not be able to do so later.

    Take time now to get ready for a world that could be poorly stocked.

    Civil unrest

    We’ve published a lot of articles recently about surviving civil unrest, with the number one phrase you’ll read being “don’t be there.” In essence, a revolution is civil unrest with heavier firepower. You’ll still be avoiding angry crowds, hardening your home, and keeping your family together, just on an even more life-threatening scale. You’ll definitely want to check out this on-demand webinar where Selco discusses his experiences and gives advice about surviving riots and unrest.

    That being said, much of the same advice applies. Here are resources that may help you get prepared for this.

    We’re in relatively uncharted territory right now. It’s important to make your plans well before things erupt. Don’t be so tied to a place or a pile of things to the point that you’re willing to risk your life (or the lives of your families) to face a horde against whom you have no chance of survival. Be willing to be adaptable and resilient – your life could depend on it.

    Know where you’re going to go if you have to bug out and how you’ll get there. (Here’s a PDF guide for bug-out plans.) And for goodness sake, stop thinking it’s shameful to bug out and don’t listen to anyone who tells you that it is. Your goal here is survival, not posthumous glory.

    Disruption of services

    Even with the current level of unrest and the recent pandemic, some areas have experienced the disruption of services we take for granted. Calling 911 in the event of an emergency and having someone show up, going to the emergency room and receiving prompt care, being able to have medical treatments that aren’t non-emergency but are still important, being able to call the fire department and have them come save your home – in the United States all of these things have been in question in at least some areas this year.

    If civil unrest continues to grow at its current rate, you can expect these problems to worsen and widen to areas previously unaffected. Right now, there is more than one police precinct in the US that has been overrun by protesters. Fire trucks haven’t been able to get past mobs to deal with buildings that are aflame. People waited so long for urgent medical treatments that they died as hospitals were closed due to COVID.

    What can we learn from this? We could find ourselves completely on our own and we should proceed as though we will be.

    We need to be prepared to be our own first responders with regard to emergency medical care, low-level fires, and home security. I’m not saying you need to be ready to fight a five-alarm fire with a garden hose but at the very least, learn about the different types of fires, have fire extinguishers, and keep your fire-fighting equipment maintained in good working order. Know how to stop bleeding and perform CPR.

    Disruption of utilities

    Another possibility is the disruption of utilities like power, water, internet, and communications. This could occur organically as the side effect of a natural event like a storm or if it was caused by humans, due to government interference or guerilla sabotage.

    Taking out the power is not an unusual action for governments to take when they’re trying to regain control of an area. It happened in Venezuela, although the government there blamed the United States and has been threatened in California as a move against businesses that didn’t follow the rules of the COVID shutdown.

    In Egypt, during the Arab Spring riots, the government there took control of the internet, and just recently there was an alleged communication blackout in Washington, DC which turned out to be misinformation. The power grid was deliberately sabotaged in California at least once and the threat of sabotage against public water supplies is of constant concern to providers.

    The question isn’t really “can it happen?” or “will it happen?” – it’s more a matter of when.

    It’s pretty likely if things became incredibly heated that it would. Taking away these vital services and limiting the ability to communicate are both standard tactics. Think about hostage situations – negotiators often turn off the AC on a sweltering day and jam phone service.

    To prepare for this kind of thing, you need, again, to go back to the basics you’re already putting in place.

    Obviously, you’ll also want to have ways to keep folks entertained and at least moderately content if the internet and power are down.

    Remember OPSEC.

    Another thing to consider in times of revolution and widespread tensions is OPSEC. Not so much the kind where you’re being very careful that nobody knows you’re a prepper (although that is always important) but more the kind where nobody really knows what your thoughts are on volatile matters.

    Survivalist author Selco Begovic explains this further.

    If we are talking about a “revolution” event, there is a saying about it that “what was down goes up” (and vice versa), and in addition to that things might get pretty radical. In essence, that means that you should pay extra attention to OPSEC.

    It is always important of course, but in times like this, even when they are temporary, it is very easy to get labeled as an “enemy”, and to be an enemy in this violent and very emotional times is dangerous, simply because things might happen in a way without too much logic and very fast.

    In the time it takes to prove yourself that you do not have anything to do with some event, or that you are not an enemy or threat it already can be too late.

    Always have in mind that when times get turbulent and violent, some of your indiscretions or breaches of OPSEC before the event can simply label you as an enemy. And there may not be time for law and logic in those times.

    Always be aware of what kind of information you are giving up about yourself with how you look, act, and what you say. Do not be paranoid but use common sense. Be careful, and follow OPSEC practice as much as you can.

    So, now isn’t the time for your political bumper stickers and t-shirts. It’s not the time to publicly announce your support of causes that could one day make you “the enemy.” You may want to tone down your rhetoric on social media because the internet is forever and this stuff can come back and bite you in the rear end.

    We’ve all heard about the so-called “cancel culture” in which a person can lose his or her livelihood for having an unpopular opinion. It’s pretty extreme now – it can affect your whole life. Imagine how incredibly dangerous it would be in a world ripped asunder by a violent revolution.

    You’re really just going back to basics.

    Remember when the pandemic was beginning and people were frantically asking what to do? In his usual succinct way, Selco said “get ahold of yourself and go back to basics.”

    This is true of just about any situation you’ll ever find yourself in. Of course, there are a few factors that are unique to any scenario, but going back to basics is always your best option. Break down the different facets of the emergency and you’ll nearly always realize that preparations you’ve already made for other purposes will apply.

    What with the election coming up, we could be in for an extremely bumpy year. As the saying goes, let’s hope for the best and prepare for the worst.

  • While The Industry Crumbles, One Airline Is Making Money Hand Over Fist Shipping Pigs To China
    While The Industry Crumbles, One Airline Is Making Money Hand Over Fist Shipping Pigs To China

    Tyler Durden

    Sat, 06/13/2020 – 22:00

    While most of the aviation industry has been decimated as a result of the pandemic and its ensuing stay-at-home orders, one airliner is making money hand over fist in an unexpected way: shipping pigs to China in 747 Jumbo Jets.

    Volga-Dnepr Group has flown more than 3,000 breeding pigs to China from France this year, according to Bloomberg. They are flown almost 6,500 miles in wooden crates and are being used to restore livestock levels in China. From there, they are being used to address the country’s pork shortage.

    The country’s swine shortages were exacerbated by the pandemic and China has imported almost 255,000 tons of pork from the U.S. in the first four months of 2020 alone. That number exceeds the 245,000 it imported in all of 2019. 

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    Volga-Dnepr Group also has been shipping masks, hazmat suits, medical equipment and street-disinfecting equipment to places like Russia and Germany. The company saw its sales skyrocket 32% to $630 million this year.

    Alexey Isaykin, who holds a $700 million stake in the company, said: “Global aviation is going through its most challenging time ever, but for cargo carriers like us it’s a chance. Previously, more than half of all aviation cargoes were carried in the luggage compartments of passenger planes. With this supply vanishing from the market, demand for cargo airlines surged and prices more than doubled.”

    While demand for air freight has dropped 28%, capacity has fallen by 42%. This could help the company tack on even more revenue, he says, predicting a $2 billion annual run rate. 

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    Shipments for the aerospace industry have fallen by about 33%, he says, but medical goods now make up more than half of global air freight. Online shopping firms like Amazon.com and Alibaba are also seeing outsized growth. Some of the demand may prove to be short-lived and freight rates are starting to decline slightly. Regardless, Isaykin expects volume and prices to remain above pre-virus levels. 

    “The geography of our shipments is expanding, following the spread of coronavirus. We just started shipping Chinese medical goods to Africa and are getting first inquiries from Latin America. I think India will be next,” Isaykin said.

    He concluded: “An interesting trend is gaining traction now — we call it the medieval period of the 21st century — when strategically important production facilities are being relocated to reduce dependence on China. I am expecting this trend to accelerate toward year-end.”

     

  • Narrative Control Operations Escalate As America Burns
    Narrative Control Operations Escalate As America Burns

    Tyler Durden

    Sat, 06/13/2020 – 21:30

    Authored by Caitlin Johnstone via Medium.com,

    Wikipedia, Facebook, Twitter, and mainstream media are falling all over themselves with censorship and spin jobs to get the narrative back under control as mass protests continue to sweep across America.

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    In 2017, representatives of Facebook, Twitter, and Google were instructed in a US Senate Judiciary Committee hearing that it is their responsibility to “quell information rebellions” and adopt a “mission statement” expressing their commitment to “prevent the fomenting of discord.”

    “Civil wars don’t start with gunshots, they start with words,” the representatives were told by cold warrior think tank denizen Clint Watts. “America’s war with itself has already begun. We all must act now on the social media battlefield to quell information rebellions that can quickly lead to violent confrontations and easily transform us into the Divided States of America.”

    “Stopping the false information artillery barrage landing on social media users comes only when those outlets distributing bogus stories are silenced — silence the guns and the barrage will end,” Watts added.

    Those words rattle around in the memory now as America burns with nationwide protests demanding an end to the police state, and as narrative control operations ramp up with frantic urgency.

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    The Grayzone reports that it has been blacklisted as a source on Wikipedia following a concerted campaign by a suspicious-looking group of editor accounts, many of whom appear to have ties to the right-wing opposition in Venezuela. Wikipedia, whose co-founder once told the US Senate that the online encyclopedia project “may be helpful to government operations and homeland security”, has added The Grayzone to a very short list of outlets that are never to be used under any circumstances, claiming on apparently no basis whatsoever that it publishes false information.

    “In fact, in its more than four years of existence, including its first two years hosted at the website AlterNet (whose use is not forbidden on Wikipedia), The Grayzone has never had to issue a major correction or retract a story,” Grayzone’s Ben Norton says in its report on the matter. Norton documents how the Wikipedia editors are unable to cite any actual false information in any of the outlet’s publications in their arguments, leaving only their objection that Grayzone doesn’t parrot US government-approved narratives like The New York Times, Bellingcat, and Wikipedia’s other designated “reliable sources”.

    Norton also notes how Wikipedia has designated the leak publication outlet WikiLeaks an unreliable source despite its nearly 14-year record of authentic publications. Wikipedia designates WikiLeaks as “generally unreliable,” making the utterly baseless claim that “there are concerns regarding whether the documents are genuine or tampered.”

    “The internet encyclopedia has become a deeply undemocratic platform, dominated by Western state-backed actors and corporate public relations flacks, easily manipulated by powerful forces. And it is run by figures who often represent these same elite interests, or align with their regime-change politics,” Norton writes.

    Norton’s breakdown of the ways Wikipedia is slanted to consistently favor pro-establishment narratives is comprehensive, and well worth reading in its entirety. This short Mintpress News article by Alan MacLeod on the way this same monopolistic editing dynamic has seen Mintpress, teleSur English, and Venezuela Analysis blacklisted from Wikipedia in the same way is also worth a look.

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    This all comes out as we learn that Facebook is attaching warning labels to posts from outlets sponsored by governments which have not been absorbed into the US-centralized empire like RT and CGTN, but attaching no such label to outlets funded by imperial governments like BBC and Radio Free Europe. There is not any discernible difference in the degree of bias shown in state media from unabsorbed nations like Russia and China than there is in state media from the US and UK (or oligarchic media from the US and UK for that matter), but Facebook causes its 2.6 billion active users to look at one with suspicion but not the other.

    This also comes out at the same time we learn that Twitter has deleted over 170,000 accounts for “spreading geopolitical narratives favorable to the Communist Party of China”. CNN reports (in an article which also cites the analysis of the scandal-ridden narrative manager Renee DiResta) that the accounts were determined to be “tied to the Chinese government” by “experts” who we learn later in the article are none other than the Australian Strategic Policy Institute (ASPI), a think tank geared explicitly toward fomenting anti-China sentiment in Australia.

    “Former Australian Foreign Minister Bob Carr has slammed ASPI for pushing a ‘one-sided, pro-American view of the world’, while the former Australian ambassador to China Geoff Raby added that ASPI is ‘the architect of the China threat theory in Australia’,” journalist Ajit Singh noted on Twitter, adding, “Australian Senator Kim Carr has slammed ASPI for seeking to ‘promote a new cold war with China’ in collaboration with the US. In February, Carr highlighted that ASPI received $450,000 funding from the US State Department in 2019–20.”

    This blatant imperialist narrative manipulation operation are the “experts” Twitter consulted in determining which accounts were “tied to the Chinese government” and therefore needed to be silenced. Twitter meanwhile continues to allow known fake accounts like the MEK propaganda operation “Heshmat Alavi” to continue inauthentically posing as real people, even when their propaganda is publicized by the President of the United States, because such accounts toe the imperialist line against empire-targeted governments. This pro-imperialism slant is standard for all Silicon Valley tech giants.

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    This also comes out at the same time the mass media are warning us that Russia, China and Iran are “employing state media, proxy outlets, and social media accounts to amplify criticism of the United States related to the death of George Floyd and subsequent events.”

    “As protesters hit the streets in cities across the country, America’s foreign adversaries have flooded social media with content meant to sow division and discord in the wake of George Floyd’s death, according to a U.S. government intelligence bulletin obtained by ABC News,” we are told by the Disney-owned ABC.

    “These actors criticize the United States as hypocritical, corrupt, undemocratic, racist, guilty of human rights abuses and on the verge of collapsing,” the bulletin reads, which to anyone who’s been paying attention is obviously true. This is a news story about people from other countries saying true things about the United States of America.

    “This is yet another indicator that Russia is using the combination of overt propaganda and covertly disseminated disinformation to sow discord across our populace, expand the cracks in our society, and undermine the credibility of the U.S. government,” former senior Department of Homeland Security official and current ABC News contributor John Cohen informs us.

    Ahh, okay. Cool. Thank you for the information, former senior Department of Homeland Security official and current ABC News contributor John Cohen. Man it sure is a good thing America doesn’t have state media. Think about how bad the disinformation would be.

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    Social media outlets were told that they need to censor their platforms to “prevent the fomenting of discord,” but obviously they didn’t move quickly enough, because the discord has been well and truly fomented. And now they are in a mad scramble to prevent Americans from hearing what people in foreign nations have to say about that, still apparently laboring under the delusion that this is anything other than homegrown, purebred, cornfed, American-as-apple-pie discord.

    The most distinctive feature of the last four years has been expanding consciousness. Expanding consciousness of media corruption, of DNC corruption, of government corruption, of the excessive amount of power wielded by the US presidency and the absurd esteem people used to have for that position, of the abuse of immigrants, of police militarization, of unhealed racial wounds, etc.

    This is encouraging, because you can’t fix something you haven’t made conscious. This is true of our own unresolved psychological issues, and it’s true of our unresolved collective issues as well. The first step toward a healthy world is expanded consciousness.

    This is why increasing government opacity, internet censorship, and the war on journalism are so dangerous. Corruption and abuse thrive in darkness, and corrupt abusers want to keep that darkness intact. They want to keep things as unconscious as possible.

    It’s beginning to look like that cat’s out of the bag, though, and I would be very surprised if they ever manage to get that sucker back in there.

    What an exciting time to be alive.

    *  *  *

    Thanks for reading! The best way to get around the internet censors and make sure you see the stuff I publish is to subscribe to the mailing list for my website, which will get you an email notification for everything I publish. My work is entirely reader-supported, so if you enjoyed this piece please consider sharing it around, liking me on Facebook, following my antics onTwitter, checking out my podcast on either Youtube, soundcloud, Apple podcasts or Spotify, following me on Steemit, throwing some money into my tip jar on Patreon or Paypal, purchasing some of my sweet merchandise, buying my books Rogue Nation: Psychonautical Adventures With Caitlin Johnstone and Woke: A Field Guide for Utopia Preppers. For more info on who I am, where I stand, and what I’m trying to do with this platform, click here. Everyone, racist platforms excluded, has my permission to republish, use or translate any part of this work (or anything else I’ve written) in any way they like free of charge.

    Bitcoin donations:1Ac7PCQXoQoLA9Sh8fhAgiU3PHA2EX5Zm2

  • "It's Over, America": Tulsa Police Major Says Cops Across Country On Verge Of Quitting
    “It’s Over, America”: Tulsa Police Major Says Cops Across Country On Verge Of Quitting

    Tyler Durden

    Sat, 06/13/2020 – 21:00

    A Tulsa, Oklahoma police major says he’s “extremely concerned” that cops across America are on the verge of quitting amid global protests against law enforcement.

    “Every department, every officer you talk to is looking to leave,” Maj. Travis Yates told Fox News‘ “Tucker Carlson Tonight,” adding that he is “extremely concerned” for the future of law enforcement.

    Yates told Carlson that held felt morale among law enforcement officers “was really low” following the 2014 shooting of Michael Brown by then-Ferguson, Mo. police officer Darren Wilson.

    “As everybody knows, President Obama’s administration found no evidence of wrongdoing in Ferguson even though the narrative is quite different …,” he said. “We were making a resurgence in recent years and this [George Floyd’s death and the aftermath] has been devastating. This has been Ferguson times 1,000. Every department, every officer you talk to is looking to leave.” -Fox News

    https://video.foxnews.com/v/embed.js?id=6163811077001&w=466&h=263Watch the latest video at foxnews.com

    Yates published a column last Friday on the website LawOfficer.com titled “America, We Are Leaving.”

    In it, he recalls growing up in a law enforcement family – and characterized police as “Men and women of all races with the same mission, to make the community safer.“

    27 years has passed and if you would have told me the condition of law enforcement today, I would have never believed you.

    The mentally ill used to get treatment and now they just send cops. Kids used to be taught respect and now it’s cool to be disrespectful.

    Supervisors used to back you when you were right but now they accuse you of being wrong in order to appease crazy people.

    Parents used to get mad at their kids for getting arrested and now they get mad at us.

    The media used to highlight the positive contribution our profession gave to society and now they either ignore it or twist the truth for controversy to line their own pockets. –Travis Yates

    “I wouldn’t wish this job on my worst enemy,” wrote Yates. “I would never send anyone I cared about into the hell that this profession has become … I used to talk cops out of leaving the job. Now I’m encouraging them. It’s over, America. You finally did it You aren’t going to have to abolish the police, we won’t be around for it.”

    Yates told Carlson that “officers are afraid to speak out, they are afraid to talk,” adding “You are only your next call away from being canceled or destroyed, and so officers feel very limited. I think citizens do, too, and we had just as many citizens comment on that article and send us emails.”

    According to Yates, some officers feel stuck because they haven’t worked long enough to earn a pension.

    “The officers with 15 years on can’t leave yet,” he said, adding “I’ve heard from hundreds of people that are discouraged. They love the job, they love the community, they love the people, but all this chaos is wearing them every single day.”

    Last Tuesday, NYPD union boss Mike O’Meara railed against the MSM for ‘vilifying’ the police, saying “Stop treating us like animals and thugs and start treating us with some respect.“

  • Republic Of CHAZ Begins Reparations; White Participants Pressured To Give Blacks $10 Each
    Republic Of CHAZ Begins Reparations; White Participants Pressured To Give Blacks $10 Each

    Tyler Durden

    Sat, 06/13/2020 – 20:44

    Seattle’s so-called Capitol Hill Autonomous Zone (CHAZ) has begun reparations, as white members of the fledgling sovereignty were asked on Friday night to give at least one black person $10 before leaving the area.

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    “I want you to find, by the time you leave this autonomous zone, I want you to give ten dollars to one African American person from this autonomous zone. And if you find that’s difficult – if you find it’s hard for you to give ten dollars to people of color, to black people expecially [sic], you have to think really critically about – in the future, are you going to actually give up power and land and capital when you have it?

    If you have a hard time giving up ten dollars, you have to think about: are you really down with this struggle? Are you really down with the movement? Because if that is a challenge for you, I’m not sure if you’re in the right place.

    So find an African American person. White people, I see you. I see every one of you, and I remember your faces. You find that African American person and you give them ten dollars. Cash up, venmo, ten dollars in your pocket. That’s my challenge to you. Do it.“

    In short, cough up or GTFO.

    Meanwhile, CHAZ’s efforts at gardening appear to be ill-fated. Perhaps they will cross their fortified borders into the United States to resupply at the local Whole Foods.

    https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.jshttps://platform.twitter.com/widgets.jsAnd the Antifa Republic’s tolerance for religion is somewhat lacking:

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  • Universities Everywhere Are Concerned About A 'Virus', But Not The One You Think
    Universities Everywhere Are Concerned About A ‘Virus’, But Not The One You Think

    Tyler Durden

    Sat, 06/13/2020 – 20:30

    Authored by Alex Munugia via Campus Reform,

    Amid racial tensions in the United States, colleges and universities across the country have a new favorite metaphor: comparing the “virus of racism” to the novel virus that has upended the country. 

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    After George Floyd was killed while in Minneapolis police custody, the University of Michigan Engineering department called upon students to “help eradicate the virus of racism.”

    “For over two months, we have been dealing with the coronavirus, a pandemic that has shaken the core of our institution and the world. It has been a lot to deal with; and has at times felt overwhelming. Yet during the past week, another virus reared its ugly head,” read the official university communication.

    “This virus is called RACISM,” the statement adds.

    “Racism has been in the fabric of the country since its inception. It is so tightly entwined in our socialization that it has been second nature in driving behavior,” the message continued.

    “Systemic racism is very much like a virus. Much like the COVID-19 virus, racist attitudes spread very easily and are very damaging.”

    In a recent message to students, interim president Marica White of Saint Rose College in Albany, New York, also compared the COVID-19 pandemic to the “virus of systemic racism” in America, stating “one is novel and invisible, the other is violent and imbedded [sic] in the culture and history of our nation.”

    White went on to blame the impact COVID-19 has had on the African American community on “the imbedded inequity in our country,” mainly blaming what she believes are systemic injustices.

    Dean Barbara Rimer at the University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill stated in an official June 1 university communication that “racism is a public health emergency” and that “like a virus, racism is insidious and can damage everything it infiltrates.” Rimer added that law enforcement violence is a “symptom of the racism that still marks too many facets of modern American society,” and called “racism” a “disease, a virus that has infected America for 400 years.”

    In a similar communication, Chapman University dean Rev. Gail Stearns remarked to the university community about both the challenges of coronavirus and the “virus of racism that has haunted us for generations.” Her concerns about the coronavirus focused largely on the unequal distribution of its impact on individuals, noting that African American communities were hit harder because they “lack access to basic nutrition or healthcare or education.”

    “I have come to believe that in the face of COVID-19, we are all experiencing grief. Almost every one of us is experiencing the stress of loss. But stress is not distributed equally in our society,” wrote Stearns, before she went on to refer to racism itself as a “virus” and urge the community to “ no longer collectively avoid the reparation of years of injustice.”

  • Man Barely Survives COVID-19 Only To Be Hit With $1.1 Million Hospital Bill
    Man Barely Survives COVID-19 Only To Be Hit With $1.1 Million Hospital Bill

    Tyler Durden

    Sat, 06/13/2020 – 20:00

    A 70-year old Seattle man who entered an Issaquah, Washington hospital two months ago is considered the longest-hospitalized COVID-19 patient in the US after he fought through the disease, against all expectations coming out healthy despite what were considered multiple near death moments. While Michael Flor’s survival story was celebrated by local and national media upon his recent discharge, and cheered by medical staff, a new kind of shock awaited. 

    He was constantly attended to by nurses and doctors throughout the ordeal, at the end of which he was jokingly dubbed by staff “the miracle child”. He entered the hospital on March 4th, and had spent four weeks on a ventilator. 

    But The Seattle Times details that his health nearly took another blow upon exiting the hospital and seeing the whopping bill of over one million dollars.

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    70-year old Michael Flor leaving the hospital, via The Seattle Times.

    The report begins:

    But he says his heart almost failed a second time when he got the bill from his health care odyssey the other day.

    “I opened it and said ‘holy [bleep]!’“ Flor says.

    The total tab for his bout with the coronavirus: $1.1 million. $1,122,501.04, to be exact. All in one bill that’s more like a book because it runs to 181 pages.

    In all the nearly 200-page bill included 3,000 separate itemized charges, at a rate of about 50 per day, in what is likely a record for Seattle hospital system, Swedish.

    It gives a sense of what many thousands of other medium to long-term infected patients may be facing upon discharge, at a moment confirmed COVID-19 cases has surpassed two million in the US, and as hospitalizations once again surge in some states. 

    The example of Flor also underscores the outrageous, often contradictory and unnecessarily complicated, as well as opaque system of medical billing in America. Thankfully for him though, most of the massive bill is actually covered via insurance, including Medicare, but doesn’t mean that much of the whopping cost won’t be passed on to someone.

    “Flor said he’s hyper-aware that somebody is paying his million-dollar bill —  taxpayers, other insurance customers and so on,” Seattle Times notes.

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    ICU at Swedish Issaquah, via CityStream

    From the report, here’s a small taste of the mounting costs:

    • Intensive care unit room per day: $9,736
    • 42 days of intensive care room having to be “sealed” over virus contamination fears: a total of $408,912
    • 29 days on a ventilator: $2,835 per day, totaling $82,215
    • 2 days where a medical team implemented multiple emergency interventions: $100,000
    • Total bill: $1,122,501.04

    In the end Flor is of course happy to be alive but also feels “guilty” in seeing the huge extent of costly medical intervention and effort. 

    “It was a million bucks to save my life, and of course I’d say that’s money well-spent,” he told Seattle Times. “But I also know I might be the only one saying that.”

  • Florida Reports Another Record Jump In New Cases As Global COVID-19 Count Nears 8 Million: Live Updates
    Florida Reports Another Record Jump In New Cases As Global COVID-19 Count Nears 8 Million: Live Updates

    Tyler Durden

    Sat, 06/13/2020 – 19:44

    Summary:

    • Nevada reports 3rd-highest jump; NY reports latest numbers
    • LatAm accounted for 40% of cases reported Friday
    • Florida reports record jump for third day in a row
    • 23 states across US seeing case numbers rise
    • Latin America and US vie for global coronavirus leader
    • Beijing reimposes lockdowns in some areas after cluster discovered
    • Russia reported another 8k+ jump in cases
    • EU signs vaccine deal with AstraZeneca
    • Gilead strikes deal to distribute remdesivir in Europe

    * * *

    Update (1400ET): Once again, Beijing’s favorite English language mouthpiece (at least on Twitter) is chiming in to play down China’s latest outbreak, while castigating the US.

    Meanwhile, according to the WHO, infections in Latin America now exceed 1.4 million, more than a quarter of the global total, while LatAm accounts for 40% of all new cases.

    Mexico reported 5,222 cases on Friday, Chile announced 6,754 and Argentina had 1,391, all new highs. Chile registered its highest daily death toll to date, with 222. Brazil, the largest country in Latin America, has almost four times as many cases as any other country in the region.

    Italy registered 346 new cases Saturday, compared with a daily average of 274 this month through Friday. The country had a one-day peak of 6,557 on March 21.

    New York reported 32 deaths, “the lowest so far,” Governor Andrew Cuomo said, as new cases inched higher by 0.2%, in line with the seven-day average.

    Nevada health officials meanwhile reported 270 new cases, bringing the statewide total to 10,946 positive cases; 463 people have died from the virus statewide.

    Health officials said they’ve conducted at least 235,500 tests statewide.

    * * *

    Update (1130ET): Minutes after publishing this post, we’re already adding the day’s first withering stat: Florida has reported yet another record jump in newly confirmed cases, reporting a 3.6% jump statewide, compared with the 7-day average of 2.1%.

    For those who haven’t been closely following the situation, this is the third day in a row that Florida has reported a record jump in cases, and Saturday’s number (remember, they’re reported with a 24 hour delay, so these are cases confirmed on Friday), at 2,581, blows away the last daily record (which, again, was reported yesterday).

    Saturday marks the 10th day out of the past 11 that Florida has confirmed more than 1,000 new cases, a phenomenon blamed on the loosening social distancing restrictions across the state. Most of the cases are coming from the southern part of the state, with Miami-Dade County being one of the standouts.

    Florida now has 73,552 confirmed cases and 2,925 deaths linked to COVID-19, according to the latest numbers released by the health department on Saturday. In addition, the state confirmed 38 coronavirus-related deaths over the past day, including 13 in Miami-Dade County, seven in Broward and nine in Palm Beach County, Local10 reports.

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    Source: NYTimes

    Gov Ron DeSantis said that even though there are more cases, fewer people are going to the hospital, including in Miami-Dade. Asked Thursday if the state’s reopening plans could be rolled back because of the numbers, the governor pointed to the increase of testing and blamed it for the majority of the jump.

    “As you’re testing more you’re going to find more cases and most of the cases are subclinical cases,” DeSantis said. “And we expected that from the beginning. We’re doing 30,000-plus tests a day in terms of results on average…As people have been getting back to work, I think employers have told folks you should get tested, so we’re starting to see at our test sites a much younger demographic. So you do see 98% test negative but you do see some cases…usually no clinical consequence.”

    Statewide, Florida reports having completed over 1.3 million tests for COVID-19, with 5.4% coming back positive.

    * * *

    No matter how many times Larry Kudlow insists the US won’t resort to another round of lockdowns under any circumstances, Investors will inevitably pay close attention to the infection and hospitalization numbers out of the country’s second class of ‘hot spots’: California, Florida, Texas, Arkansas and the roughly 20 other states where infection rates are climbing.

    Granted, some of these states are arguing that the increase in testing rates is the primary driver of the higher confirmed infection numbers In Portland, where Gov. Kate Brown – who once threatened to take away a small business owner’s children if they dared defy the lockdown – has announced a one-week “pause” in the state’s reopening plans...even as she insists the increase in testing is mostly responsible for the spike.

    At this point, the inconsistent messaging coming from Democratic governors supports critics allegations that decisions to reimpose lockdowns, or delay the process of reopening, appear to be politically motivated. Though in Houston, it appears officials’ concerns about the city being “on the precipice” of another serious outbreak are (somewhat) justified.

    As “CBS This Morning” reported Saturday, “there are disturbing signs that the grip of the deadly coronavirus pandemic is tightening in some parts of the US as at least a dozen states see an uptick in COVID-19 cases. New virus hotspots are emerging in the South and Southwest, and some states like Texas, Arkansas, Arizona and California are in some areas seeing their largest daily infection numbers yet. Florida and Arkansas have been criticized for reopening some beaches and parks, and failing to enforce social distancing.

    Some experts argue that this is the consequence of reopening too early; others dismiss the numbers as merely a short-term rebound that we had already anticipated; and finally, others argue that it’s more complicated than all that, given that Georgia, one of the first states to start aggressively reopening, hasn’t reported the increase seen among several of its neighboring states.

    Yesterday, the CDC raised the prospect of another round of lockdowns, even as the White House has categorically dismissed the possibility; meanwhile, a new forecast is projecting 140,000 deaths in the US from COVID-19 by July 4. That’s compared with roughly 112,000 as of Saturday.

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    The warning isn’t exactly a surprise. During the past week, South Carolina and Florida showed their highest daily number of coronavirus cases yet. Arizona’s average daily cases nearly tripled over the past two weeks. And Texas saw four of its worst days so far in terms of hospitalizations.

    In Houston, there is a warning: “People should not take things lightly. Or assume that the virus is under control,” said Houston Mayor Sylvester Turner.

    Texas businesses and restaurants – among the first to reopen – could become the first to shut down again.

    “I want the reopening to be successful. I want the economy to be resilient,” said Harris County Judge Lina Hidalgo. “But I’m growing increasingly concerned that we may be approaching the precipice – the precipice of a disaster.”

    Arizona is reporting more than 1,000 new cases per day, up from fewer than 400 a day in mid-May when stay-at-home orders started to ease.

    “I think the question of did we open too soon is a valid one,” said Frank Lovecchio, an emergency medicine doctor in the Phoenix area. He reports seeing a surge of severe cases requiring intubation.

    On Friday, North Carolina Gov Roy Cooper implored his citizens to try and help stop the spread after the state reported a record number of new cases in a single day…

    “The numbers show that the disease is spreading and that more people need hospital care. This has to be taken seriously,” he said. Utah and Oregon have delayed their reopenings by a week…

    “As I’ve said a zillion times: the virus makes the timelines. We don’t make the timelines,” Gov Brown said.

    …while in New Jersey, Governors Murphy and Cuomo are celebrating the fact that their states have the lowest rate of spread in the country.

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    According to the NYT, 23 states are still seeing daily case reports climb.

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    Worldwide, the number of coronavirus cases reported daily has once again started to climb as Russia and Latin American have emerged as the newest hotspots as the outbreaks in the Europe and at least part of the US have subsided. At last count, the world had nearly 7.7 million confirmed cases, and 426,000 confirmed kills.

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    Source: BBG

    In Europe, EU bureaucrats are already taking steps to secure supplies of still-untested vaccine prototypes as the global scramble to find a vaccine takes on an added urgency as thousands of politicians – including President Trump – find themselves making lofty promises about vaccine supplies that they might not be able to keep.

    Bloomberg reports that the EU has signed a deal with AstraZeneca for the pharma giant to supply Europe with as many as 400 million doses of Oxford University’s experimental vaccine candidate – the subject of one of the most closely watched trials in the world – at no profit.

    How generous!

    In other vaccine news, Dr. Reddy’s Laboratories entered into a non-exclusive licensing agreement with Gilead to manufacture and sell its star experimental COVID-19 treatment remdesivir in 127 countries, including India, even though the verdict on its effectiveness remains elusive.

    News of the deal comes as Germany reports 572 new coronavirus cases Saturday morning, its highest daily tally in weeks, bringing the German total to 187,263. That compares with 169 the previous day and almost 7,000 at the peak of the pandemic in late March.

    Meanwhile, Russia reported 8,706 new confirmed infections, +1.7%, according to data from the government’s virus response center. Deaths rose by 114 to 6,829. Moscow accounted for 17% of new cases, and 34% of all new cases were asymptomatic. The country has more than 520k confirmed cases.

    As we reported earlier, Beijing is locking down a large swath of the southwestern part of the capital city after an outbreak reportedly stemming from a major seafood market and wholesaler.

  • 'Dangerous' Language Like "Defund The Police"
    ‘Dangerous’ Language Like “Defund The Police”

    Tyler Durden

    Sat, 06/13/2020 – 19:30

    Op-Ed by attorney and investigative journalist @Techno_Fog,

    “Defund the police” is quite the rallying cry. It’s a policy statement in five syllables. The language is clear and meaning is impossible to miss. The next steps after defunding the police, however, do require explanation. To whom does a community turn for its security needs when a police force is defunded and therefore eliminated?

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    Once you understand that there is no good answer to this question, then you get why the media has designated itself as the spokesperson of the movement. It becomes clear why the media has so graciously explained to us, the dumb public, why defunding the police does not mean defunding the police. Take this explanation published in the Washington Post:

    “Defunding the police means shrinking the scope of police responsibilities and shifting most of what government does to keep us safe to entities that are better equipped to meet that need. It means investing more in mental-health care and housing, and expanding the use of community mediation and violence interruption programs.”

    Of course, the movement disagrees. The New York Times is running op-eds with the title “Yes, We Mean Literally Abolish the Police” by an author whose stated goal is “to abolish prisons and police.”

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    Or, look to the public humiliation of Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey. Standing before a crowd of hundreds and beneath an angry woman on the microphone, Frey was straight-up asked, “Will you defund the Minneapolis police department?”

    Frey answered, “I do not support the full abolition of the police.”

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    And with that response he was summarily dismissed with the speaker’s cry of “Get the fuck out of here.” He exited through the crowd a defeated man as his constituents – and in all likelihood, his former supporters – flipped him off and cussed him out.

    Remarkably, Frey’s inquisition did not include questions about his position on “shifting the scope of police responsibilities” or public funding of community social programs. Frey wasn’t asked these questions because that wasn’t the mob’s demand. There was no potential for nuance and no potential for disagreement. Cutting police funding by 50% would not have been enough. They wanted it all gone.

    Meanwhile in Seattle, the city has lost city hall. Protesters have essentially taken over territory in the city and established the Capital Hill Autonomous Zone. There are stories that businesses and people passing through the area are being shaken down for cash. Per media reports, the protesters refuse to leave until their demands are met – including the demand that the Seattle police department be disbanded.

    During the riots that tore apart communities across America, the media excused the mob’s behavior because they agreed with the mob’s anger. Now the media misrepresents the mob’s demands because the media agrees, to an extent, with the mob’s politics.

    In principal, this is no different than what Orwell described in his criticism of political writing:

    “[P]olitical language has to consist largely of euphemism, question-begging and sheer cloudy vagueness… People are imprisoned for years without trial, or shot in the back of the neck or sent to die of scurvy in Arctic lumber camps: this is called elimination of unreliable elements.”

    Similarly, defunding the police becomes shifting police responsibilities. Riots become an uprising. AP guidance replaces looters with protesters who stole whatever was on the shelves.

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    The departure from objectivity (or at least the appearance of objectivity) is no longer just being defended on moral grounds. It is now claimed to be an existential necessity. The existential movements – global warming, Black Lives Matter, systemic racism – are now claimed to be objective truths, and so all reporting and all opinions on those topics must express one point of view. Objectivity has become that which advances the just social cause.

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    This puts into perspective the York Times writers’ revolt against the New York Times’ publication of Tom Cotton’s op-ed, which discussed President Trump’s option of deploying the troops to stop rioters from taking “innocent lives” and destroying “the livelihoods of law-abiding citizens.” Cotton’s measured argument was deemed to put black lives in danger. Again, it’s an existential issue.

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    It isn’t difficult to see against what – or whom – this media movement turns next. If climate change poses a fundamental threat to the earth, then dissention against the prevailing climate views must be stopped. If our institutions are systemically racist, then they’ll use all available options to defeat the instruments of oppression. And if you dare stray from the new “consensus”? Good luck.

  • Goldman's Clients Are Getting Angry That Teenage Daytraders Are Crushing Them
    Goldman’s Clients Are Getting Angry That Teenage Daytraders Are Crushing Them

    Tyler Durden

    Sat, 06/13/2020 – 19:25

    Two weeks ago, shortly after we first observed that the primary source of capital used by the Robinhood army of daytrading retail investors has been government stimulus, unemployment and benefit checks…

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    … we reported that something unprecedented has happened: a basket of Goldman “retail favorite” stocks had outperformed not only the broader S&P500, but also Goldman’s basket of most popular hedge fund stocks.

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    Indeed, as Goldman highlighted at the end of May, as a result of free government money, zero cost online trades and millions of bored “unemployed from home” Gen-Zers, there has been nearly a tripling in retail user activity this year, with the number of distinct user-positions in S&P 500  stocks rising from 4 million at the start of 2020 to 5 million at the market peak in February, 7 million at the S&P 500 trough in March, and 12 million as of the end of May (since then this number has exploded even higher). This sharp increase in retail trading amid still muted hedge fund bullishness in a very illiquid market, helped a basket of popular retail stocks (which for those who have access can track it using Goldman’s Marquee platform under the GSXURFAV ticker) outperform the S&P 500 by 13 percentage points YTD.

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    Or maybe unprecedented is too strong a word: after the last time retail outperformed hedge funds was in late February – just two days after the S&P hit an all time high – when we posted the exact same observation, and concluded by saying that “while it is certainly a novelty to see retail investors outperform hedge funds, we doubt this divergence will last long.”

    It did not, and the market crashed just days later.

    However, what has happened since is truly unprecedented because if retail had merely smacked “smart money” returns at the end of February, it has positively crucified both the smart money – and all the money in the face of the S&P500 as of right now, when the basket of most popular retail stocks is up 20% YTD compared to the S&P which after Thursday’s rout ended down 5% for the year…

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    … and the Hedge Fund VIP basket which is roughly unchanged YTD. Even on a hedged basis (retail favorites/S&P500 vs hedge fund VIPs/largest short pair trades), the retail army is up almost 30% despite last week’s rout, massively outperforming virtually everyone else, and as the Goldman chart below shows, since the start of 2019, retail is outperforming hedge funds roughly 3 to 1.

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    To be sure, retail outperformance was somewhat hobbled after last Thursday’s rout but not nearly enough to catch down to the broad market, which experienced its sharpest decline since bottoming on March 23, which shockingly took place one day after arguably the most dovish Fed statement ever, one in which the central bank announced its intention to keep the funds rate at 0-25 bp through 2022, while formalizing open-ended QE. (that said, the S&P is still 36% above its March low largely thanks to the trillions in Fed stimulus).

    This disconnect between retail and hedge fund performance has not gone unnoticed by Goldman’s clients – who pay Goldman handsomely to outperform – or be told how to outperform – the market.

    As David Kostin writes in his latest Weekly Kickstart, unlike the past three months, when many of the bank’s client discussions centered on the disconnect between financial assets and the economy, as “most institutional investors have been stunned by the juxtaposition of the sharpest GDP contraction on record with a 36% market rally”, in recent weeks, (increasingly angry) investors have focused on a different type of disconnect between Wall Street and Main Street: The relative performance of institutional and retail investors.

    Since the March 23 low, our Hedge Fund VIP (GSTHHVIP) and Mutual Fund Overweight (GSTHMFOW) baskets have each returned 45%, outpacing the 36% S&P 500 rally by 900 bp. However, a basket of the most popular retail trading stocks (GSXURFAV) has returned an incredible 61%. As we highlighted in May, broker data reveal a tripling of retail trading activity as the market declined.

    Why are Goldman’s clients angry?

    Because instead of listening to Dave “Stool President” Portnoy, the self-proclaimed king of the Robinhood daytrading army, something they can do for free by just following his twitter account, they are instead paying Goldman a 2-3% commission for what? To underperform by as much as 1600 bps. And those that are not getting angry, they should be, because the conditions that have allowed Portnoy to take the other side of Warren Buffett’s airline trade but to also outperform all of the “smartest guys in the room”, are the same that are allowing bankrupt Hertz to issue up to $1 billion in worthless stock to Robinhooders: it’s the Fed’s green light to go crazy and just buy everything, which is the only obvious trade in a market in which the Fed has made failure impossible – something we have been pounding the table on ever since 2013 when we said that the best performing strategy is to go long the most shorted names, a trade that has generated tens of thousands of bps in alpha  as BofA “discovered” last year (but sure, call us bears).

    So in an attempt to win back some goodwill from its clients, Goldman’s Kostin lays out several observations on whether it no longer makes sense to pay for a professional financial advisor (such as Goldman), when the Fed has assured that this is a market where 10-year-olds (i.e., the e-trade baby all grown up) can make money hand over fist:

    The surge in retail trading activity has amplified the market rotation toward cyclicals and value stocks. High quality growth stocks outperformed during the market drawdown and continued to lead in the first weeks of the rebound, narrowing market breadth and contrasting with past bear market recoveries. Between March 23 and the middle of May, our long/short Growth factor returned 9% and our Momentum factor rose by 2%. This dynamic benefited institutional investors, who had shifted toward growth stocks as the market declined. Since mid-May, however, our Momentum factor has declined by 19% as improving virus and activity data pushed investors toward cyclicals, small-caps, and other economically-sensitive, low- multiple stocks. Stocks with these qualities which were quickly embraced by value-seeking retail investors, and now make up a large portion of our retail basket.

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    Despite the recent Value rally, the dispersion of stock multiples is still extremely wide relative to history. Last month, the gap in valuations between the highest and lowest valuation stocks registered the widest on record outside of the Tech Bubble peak. During the last few weeks that spread has narrowed, but it still ranks in the 93rd percentile since 1980.  Wide valuation dispersion signals long-term opportunity for value investors. However, the volatile rotations in recent weeks underscore just how difficult timing that opportunity can be. We believe most investors should include some value exposure in their portfolios, although the degree will depend on time horizon and risk tolerance, among other factors. In the medium-term, the challenge is determining which laggards are value opportunities and which leaders will experience fundamental growth that justifies current elevated valuations.

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    Yes David, we know the challenge, the problem for you – as you try to earn your pay and provide the solution – is that as the market continues to trade increasingly insane based on the whims of 10-year-olds, not even the most spot on accurate analysis based on fundamentals will matter one bit when the marginal price setters are traders who are still not legal to drink and maybe drive.

    Which is why the Goldman strategist cops out and takes the easy way out: just keep buying what has worked for the past decade, namely tech, resulting in even narrower market breadth even though it was Kostin himself two months ago warning that “narrow market breadth is always resolved the same way: narrow rallies lead to large drawdowns as the handful of market leaders ultimately fail to generate enough fundamental earnings strength to justify elevated valuations and investor crowding. In these cases, the market leaders “catch down” to weaker peers.” Maybe amid the shock of his clients, Kostin is hoping they don’t recall what he said less than two months ago:

    The unrivaled market leader this year has been Tech, and we expect it will continue to outperform [ZH: really? that;s not what you said on April 27]. The Information Technology sector has returned +7% YTD, and even following this week’s decline the NASDAQ 100 trades within 1% of its pre-crisis peak. As the market was falling, the sector was supported by its quality attributes, including strong balance sheets and high profit margins, as well as the resilience of its earnings. This year analysts have revised down Tech 2021 EPS by just 5%, compared with a 20% cut for the remainder of the S&P 500. In addition, low interest rates increase the value of the sector’s long-term growth prospects that, in cases like ecommerce and cloud usage, have been accelerated by the impact of the pandemic on consumer and business activity. Major risks to the sector include its popularity, which could cause underperformance in the event of a sharp investor derisking, as well as the possibilities of government regulation and tax reform. While Health Care EPS estimates have been similarly resilient, political risk has suppressed the sector’s multiples, as is often the case prior to presidential elections.

    And so on. Meanwhile as Kostin, and his very generous clients contemplate the tea leaves and analyze such meaningless “data” as cash flows, growth projections, technical reversal patterns and what not, the rabid army of millennial daytraders rushes from one stock to the next, sending it soaring then plunging with no regard for underlying data, in one truly unprecedented pump and dump scheme, where all those who jump in first make a killing, while the laggards are crushed.

    As we noted recently, until Powell does something to stop this catastrophic mockery of efficient markets, which are now juiced to the gills with the Fed’s trillions in newly printed money, nothing will change. And judging by what Powell just said last week, nothing will change for a long, long time:

    “The Fed doesn’t believe, and shouldn’t believe, that it can forecast the stock market, and therefore recognize a bubble in real time,” said Princeton University economist Alan Blinder, a former Fed vice chairman, in a Bloomberg Television interview. “They’re pretty easy to recognize after the fact, after they burst. But, in real time, in a predictive way, pretty much impossible.”

    Really? Impossible? How about one look at the chart of bankrupt Hertz…

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    … whose market cap almost hit $1 billion last week and prompted the company to do the unthinkable: try to sell stock to the hordes of Robinhood daytraders, whose tiny trades are being frontrun all day long by HFT algos which are accentuating the momentum and allowing a handful of small investors to have an outsized impact on the market (below is Robinhood’s latest 606 Report: 65.5% of all orders are sold to Citadel).

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    Or how about Chesapeake? Or maybe Fangdd, you worthless career economist.

    Meanwhile, retail investors – confident they can never lose – and certainly their returns to date justify it, are betting more and more aggressively on the market, in the form of the ever more levered upside bets such as tiny, short duration calls. According to SentimentTrader, one-contract transactions have surged to 13% from roughly 9%. The smallest of traders bought more than 14 million speculative call options in the week ended June 5, an all time high.

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    “We have Instagram influencers and now we have Reddit influencers,” QVR’s Benn Eifert told Bloomberg. “They post a trade idea in an option, in a single name, and within an hour you see hundreds of thousands of call options placed, which is totally insane.”

    Insane? Yes, but it’s working, and who can blame them: the Fed chairman himself said he will do nothing to pop the bubble (which he can’t see) with tens of millions of Americans out of work. That means that, all else equal, when it comes to market insanity you ain’t seen nothing yet. Jim Bianco, president and founder of Bianco Research LLC, agrees, and says that it all comes down to the Fed’s only mandate: never again allow a drop in stocks.

    “That’s why we’re seeing a giant rush of small retail investors and everybody else into the market,” Bianco told Bloomberg Television Wednesday. “When you go into the market, you go to the riskiest end of the market, so you buy bankrupt companies, you buy beaten down airlines, you buy cruise ships, you buy retailers because they will benefit the most from a support system where everything is targeted, and the markets will always go up.”

    And as they do, and as “retail investors” retire at the old age of 11, Goldman’s clients will get angrier by the day until one day, who knows, we may just see riots in the streets with chants of “millionaires’ lives matter.“

  • Already-Broke Colleges Being Bullied Into Hosting Costly "White Privilege" Workshops Amid Virus Crisis
    Already-Broke Colleges Being Bullied Into Hosting Costly “White Privilege” Workshops Amid Virus Crisis

    Tyler Durden

    Sat, 06/13/2020 – 19:00

    Institutions of higher learning across the nation are facing the biggest crisis of their existence after losing their whole spring and summer semesters to the coronavirus crisis and lockdowns, and now still with lingering questions over whether campuses will even open in the fall.

    Colleges are stuck in financial limbo and survival at a moment that key staffing, faculty contracts, student recruiting, tuition and donor revenue-related decisions are in many cases still up in the air for next year, also as controversy erupts over refusal to refund student housing and campus activity fees. And now there’s a wave of class-action lawsuits, which includes at least 125 private and public universities named as defendants in some 175 pending lawsuits across the nation, led by angry students and their families seeking refunds amid campus closures and mandated sub-par online courses. 

    But facing the very question of whether schools will even be able to keep their doors open, guess what the newest urgent driving concern is? 

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    Mandated diversity training among all faculty, staff, and students — including workshops on ‘White privilege’ wherein people are told they are racist by the mere fact of their existence is apparently tops the agenda.

    That’s right, at a moment mounting debt woes brought on by campus closures is threatening the very existence of the 600 billion dollar higher education industry, schools are spending “extra” in order to bring ‘woke’ diversity specialists and workshops to their campuses for the upcoming semesters.

    As a case in point, a professor from a college in the southern Appalachian mountain region penned the following in response to the trend, as related by The American Conservative’s Rod Dreher:

    One proposal, made without irony, was to invite the community to campus to tell them how their whiteness makes them privileged and also racist. Mercifully, sanity reigned and the proposal foundered on the rocks of “we don’t think poor white people from Appalachia will be persuaded, and will likely resent being told their lives are somehow privileged.” But it won’t stop.

    The professor relates how the community of faculty and students at a school in one of the historically most impoverished regions of the country was going to be made to attend a workshop informing them of how “privileged” they all are.

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    An event last year at the University of Kentucky, social media image/Twitter.re

    Reproduced below is the illuminating and alarming letter, revealing the lengths colleges are willing to go to satisfy the PC mob at a moment their very financial survival is at stake.

    * * *

    “I received this poignant letter from a reader, who signed it with their real name, and institutional affiliation,” introduced columnist Rod Dreher.

    The hour is later than you think.

    I teach at a small liberal arts college in the southern Appalachian mountains. We serve primarily poor black, white, and brown kids. 65% of them are first generation college students (like me) and hail from some of the worst poverty anywhere in the country. We are enrollment driven, funding is always an issue, but I think we make a difference.

    Instead of figuring out how we are going to deal with a second wave of coronavirus, or how to replace international students who shore up enrollment while getting to play sports they love (and enriching a fairly cornbread corner of America) and may not come back after the pandemic, or the myriad other problems big and small that plague us, we are putting together a “social justice initiative” whose purpose as yet remains vague.

    A general call went out to everyone. If you join, you’ll be expected to trumpet a hard-Left reading of woke ideology. If you refuse… well “silence is violence.” One proposal, made without irony, was to invite the community to campus to tell them how their whiteness makes them privileged and also racist. Mercifully, sanity reigned and the proposal foundered on the rocks of “we don’t think poor white people from Appalachia will be persuaded, and will likely resent being told their lives are somehow privileged.” But it won’t stop.

    If you just want to teach, scratch out a living and make a difference, hoping the furies will forget about you: you are wrong. I took this job on purpose, praying to bring something of the liberal arts to my own people. And just be left alone, and yet… here we are.

    Feel free to share my story, if you like, but please do keep my name off the web. I still have to figure out how to stay true to my beliefs and pay my mortgage.

    It seems that a day has indeed come when the courage of men failed, and we have forsaken our friends and broke all bonds of fellowship. You know what comes next? “An hour of wolves and shattered shields…” It is here.

    Already many families are opting out of sending their recent high school graduates off to college as a potential second wave COVID-19 crisis looms. Many students are no doubt thinking it’s a good time for a ‘gap year’. 

    This is a trend likely to only grow, especially given the degree to which universities stop actually educating in Literature, History, Science, Business, Math, and the Classics – and instead focus on dubious and highly elastic concepts like “privilege” and “systemic racism”. 

  • Another Progressive Media Figure 'Canceled' For Being 'Insufficiently Woke'
    Another Progressive Media Figure ‘Canceled’ For Being ‘Insufficiently Woke’

    Tyler Durden

    Sat, 06/13/2020 – 19:00

    As the protests have quieted down and America waits for Minnesota AG Keith Ellison to prosecute Derek Chauvin and the 3 other officers who presided over the murder of George Floyd, the aftermath on the Internet has been surprising and swift, as many popular figures who have pledged their support to ‘BLM’ and the principles of dismantling white supremacy via posting and vague workplace ‘diversity’ commitments are being called out by other for being “insufficiently woke”.

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    Though most Americans who either aren’t on twitter or don’t spend the majority of their free time there probably don’t know/don’t care about any of this, the movement has claimed victims in the latest iteration of ‘cancel culture’ run amok.

    Buzzfeed News reports that Leandra Cohen, the founder and top editor at fashion website Man Repeller, has decided to “take a step back” after acknowledging that she “failed” in her mission to expand the diversity of Man Repeller.

    What, exactly, triggered the backlash? Well, during the outset of the crisis, Man Repeller furloughed a popular black editor on its site (among other employees) as the economic fallout from the coronavirus outbreak rippled across the media industry.

    That employee has now joined a mob of others on twitter hurling accusations that Man Reppeller’s content only appeals to “white cis women”.

    Is that accurate? We don’t think so. A cursory review of the site’s content finds many articles by minority writers, and the site seemingly never stops reiterating its commitment to the ideals of ‘woke’ culture.

    But maybe that’s the problem. It’s an example of the ultimate paradox of wokeness: You’re ‘racist’ if you don’t agree 100% with the ideology, but once you bend the knee, you become a target in a movement fueled by deliberately ignoring anything that challenges its chosen narrative.

    Leandra Cohen of popular fashion blog Man Repeller has announced plans to step back from the platform following widespread criticisms of the publication’s response to current Black Lives Matter protests, ignited by the death of George Floyd.

    The founder shared on Instagram that she would stay “on the sidelines” in order to give her team the opportunity to show readers “what Man Repeller can be.”

    The decision follows numerous attempts by the blog to weigh in on the current conversations around racism, social justice, and inclusivity.

    In an initial post addressing the Man Repeller community, Cohen made clear that the platform would “not remain silent in the face of police brutality and white supremacy.”

    One thing we don’t understand: If “trans women are women, period”, then wouldn’t Man Repeller be doing readers a disservice by carving out content specifically directed at the trans women? Then again, a quick google search reveals dozens of articles written by and written about trans people and their experiences on Man Repeller.

    But however many articles Man Repeller writes as it strives to appease the woke leftist mob, we doubt it will be enough. Cohen is guilty of the same original sin as most of her staff: Being a white woman.

  • US Signs Commitment For Mass Troop Exit From Iraq, Vows "No Permanent Bases"
    US Signs Commitment For Mass Troop Exit From Iraq, Vows “No Permanent Bases”

    Tyler Durden

    Sat, 06/13/2020 – 18:30

    Via AlMasdarNews.com,

    The United States confirmed on Friday that it will discuss with the Iraqi government the status of its remaining military forces, stressing that it does not seek military bases or a permanent military presence in Iraq.

    According to a joint statement of the first session of the strategic dialogue, Washington and Baghdad announced the continuation of the talks on the status of the remaining American forces in Iraq, where the two countries’ focus is towards developing a normal security relationship based on common interests. The governments of the two countries said in the statement that “in light of the significant progress made towards eliminating the threat from ISIS, the United States will continue in the coming months to reduce its forces in Iraq.”

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    Official handover of Qayyarah Airfield West from U.S.-led coalition forces to Iraqi forces in Mosul in late March, via Reuters.

    The United States also confirmed that it is not seeking to establish permanent bases or a permanent military presence in Iraq, as agreed previously in the 2008 Strategic Framework Agreement, which states that security cooperation is based on mutual agreements.

    The U.S. pointed out that they had already withdrawn half of their forces from Iraq since the start of the new year.

    Reuters reports Friday:

    Western military trainers are expected to remain in Iraq, but it is not clear how many. The United States has had around 5,000 troops stationed in the country, and coalition allies another 2,500.

    An earlier newsflash by Iraq’s state news agency cited Prime Minister Mustafa al-Kadhimi as saying there would be a total withdrawal of troops. The article was later removed.

    For its part, the government of Iraq is committed to protecting the military forces of the International Alliance, and the Iraqi facilities that host them in line with international law and relevant arrangements regarding the presence of those forces and in the form that will be agreed upon between the two countries.

    It is noteworthy to mention that the Iraqi Council of Representatives had voted in January in an extraordinary session in the presence of Prime Minister Adel Abdul Mahdi, on a decision obliging the government to work to end the request for assistance submitted to the international coalition led by Washington and end any presence of foreign forces on Iraqi soil.

    This came against the background of the killing of the Iranian commander of the Quds Force, Major General Qassem Soleimani, and the deputy head of the Popular Mobilization Units, Abu Mahdi Al-Muhandis, during a U.S. air raid near the Baghdad International Airport.

  • Chicago Fed Economist Fired For Criticizing "Defund The Police"
    Chicago Fed Economist Fired For Criticizing “Defund The Police”

    Tyler Durden

    Sat, 06/13/2020 – 17:40

    Submitted by Mark Glennon of Wirepoints

    If you are among the two-thirds of Americans opposing calls by Black Lives Matter to defund the police, think twice about saying so in public.

    The Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago is the latest example of what you might face. On Friday it cut ties with a prominent University of Chicago economics professor, Harald Uhlig, who was a scholar at the bank, as reported by the Wall Street Journal. The Chicago Fed said it terminated Mr. Uhlig’s contract effective that day.

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    What was Uhlig’s sin?

    A series of tweets criticizing Black Lives Matter’s call to defund police departments.

    BLM had “just torpedoed itself, with its full-fledged support of #defundthepolice,” Uhlig tweeted.

    “Time for sensible adults to enter back into the room and have serious, earnest, respectful conversations about it all… We need more police, we need to pay them more, we need to train them better,” he wrote.

    The full text of the tweets is linked here.

    If you think those comments seem harmless, you are not alone. Beyond the two-thirds of Americans who tell pollsters they oppose calls for defunding, you have to wonder how many more are afraid to answer polls honestly.

    Uhlig also knocked those who tried to redefine what defunding means by claiming “it just means funding schools (who isn’t in favor of that?!?).” He was absolutely right to do that. We wrote just this week why calls to defund mean just that, which was affirmed by a New York Times column Friday headlined, “Yes, We Mean Literally Abolish the Police.”

    The Chicago Fed wasn’t the first to go after Uhlig for his tweets. Earlier reactions were covered by both the Wall Street Journal and Business Insider, reactions the National Review described as a mob attack on academic freedom.

    Over the past few years we learned to expect, even to shrug off, charges of racism or insensitivity over even the most sensible or innocuous comments.

    What’s new just in the past month, however, is far more frightening.

    It’s the surrender by so many companies and institutions to intimidation by the most radical voices, such as those who would defund the police. Contributions to Black Lives Matter are pouring in from corporate America and dissenting voices are being muzzled and punished. The Federal Reserve Bank properly guards its independence, and its local banks pride themselves on independence even from one another. But for the Chicago Fed, that independence apparently ends when the mob shows up.

    These are terrifying times for reasons far beyond law and order. This is about freedom of expression and America itself.

  • Syria & Russia Thwart US Oil Blockade With Massive Fuel Convoy To Northeast Syria
    Syria & Russia Thwart US Oil Blockade With Massive Fuel Convoy To Northeast Syria

    Tyler Durden

    Sat, 06/13/2020 – 17:15

    To the consternation of the West, Iran and Russia have increasingly turned from assisting Assad’s military effort to aiding Syria as it struggles to survive sanctions and a collapsing economy. 

    At a moment US special forces still occupy the bulk of oil and gas fields in northeast Syria, also in support of the Kurdish-led SDF, Damascus has ramped up efforts at busting past US lines with Russia’s help. It should be underscored that this is all happening within UN-recognized Syrian sovereign territory.  

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    “On Saturday, more than two thousand oil tanks coming from the Syrian coast, arrived in Al-Qamishli to help the citizens in northeastern Syria,” Beirut-based war monitor al-Masdar News reports.

    Iranian oil has been supplying the country via the second largest port city of Tartous, after last year a national fuel shortage resulted in sometimes miles-long lines at gas stations, amid the broader economic crisis, which is currently witnessing runaway inflation. 

    RT Arabic published footage of a large oil convoy as it traveled along the M-4 Highway to make deliveries from a coastal refinery to al-Qamishli, very near US-occupied territory where American and Russian troops have squared off lately.

    RT Arabic reported drivers in the convoy as saying: “the U.S. Caesar sanctions have not been imposed on the oil and gas sector yet,” according to a translation. 

    Another added that “the results will be disastrous for the Syrian people if these sanctions are applied to the energy sector.”

    Over the past months there’s been multiple incidents at checkpoints in northeast Syria involving US and Russian/Syrian convoys in direct stand-offs.

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    The Caesar sanctions are expected to go into effect later this month, tightening the noose further on Syria’s already war-ravaged and sanctioned population, made worse by the ongoing economic crisis in neighboring Lebanon.

  • Taibbi: The American Press Is Destroying Itself
    Taibbi: The American Press Is Destroying Itself

    Tyler Durden

    Sat, 06/13/2020 – 16:50

    Authored by Matt Taibbi,

    Sometimes it seems life can’t get any worse in this country. Already in terror of a pandemic, Americans have lately been bombarded with images of grotesque state-sponsored violence, from the murder of George Floyd to countless scenes of police clubbing and brutalizing protesters.

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    Our president, Donald Trump, is a clown who makes a great reality-show villain but is uniquely toolless as the leader of a superpower nation. Watching him try to think through two society-imperiling crises is like waiting for a gerbil to solve Fermat’s theorem. Calls to “dominate” marchers and ad-libbed speculations about Floyd’s “great day” looking down from heaven at Trump’s crisis management and new unemployment numbers (“only” 21 million out of work!) were pure gasoline at a tinderbox moment. The man seems determined to talk us into civil war.

    But police violence, and Trump’s daily assaults on the presidential competence standard, are only part of the disaster. On the other side of the political aisle, among self-described liberals, we’re watching an intellectual revolution. It feels liberating to say after years of tiptoeing around the fact, but the American left has lost its mind. It’s become a cowardly mob of upper-class social media addicts, Twitter Robespierres who move from discipline to discipline torching reputations and jobs with breathtaking casualness.

    The leaders of this new movement are replacing traditional liberal beliefs about tolerance, free inquiry, and even racial harmony with ideas so toxic and unattractive that they eschew debate, moving straight to shaming, threats, and intimidation. They are counting on the guilt-ridden, self-flagellating nature of traditional American progressives, who will not stand up for themselves, and will walk to the Razor voluntarily.

    They’ve conned organization after organization into empowering panels to search out thoughtcrime, and it’s established now that anything can be an offense, from a UCLA professor placed under investigation for reading Martin Luther King’s “Letter from a Birmingham Jail” out loud to a data scientist fired* from a research firm for — get this — retweeting an academic study suggesting nonviolent protests may be more politically effective than violent ones!

    Now, this madness is coming for journalism. Beginning on Friday, June 5th, a series of controversies rocked the media. By my count, at least eight news organizations dealt with internal uprisings (it was likely more). Most involved groups of reporters and staffers demanding the firing or reprimand of colleagues who’d made politically “problematic” editorial or social media decisions.

    The New York Times, the Intercept, Vox, the Philadelphia Inquirer, Variety, and others saw challenges to management.

    Probably the most disturbing story involved Intercept writer Lee Fang, one of a fast-shrinking number of young reporters actually skilled in investigative journalism. Fang’s work in the area of campaign finance especially has led to concrete impact, including a record fine to a conservative Super PAC: few young reporters have done more to combat corruption.

    Yet Fang found himself denounced online as a racist, then hauled before H.R. His crime? During protests, he tweeted this interview with an African-American man named Maximum Fr, who described having two cousins murdered in the East Oakland neighborhood where he grew up. Saying his aunt is still not over those killings, Max asked:

    I always question, why does a Black life matter only when a white man takes it?… Like, if a white man takes my life tonight, it’s going to be national news, but if a Black man takes my life, it might not even be spoken of… It’s stuff just like that that I just want in the mix.

    Shortly after, a co-worker of Fang’s, Akela Lacy, wrote, “Tired of being made to deal continually with my co-worker @lhfang continuing to push black on black crime narratives after being repeatedly asked not to. This isn’t about me and him, it’s about institutional racism and using free speech to couch anti-blackness. I am so fucking tired.” She followed with, “Stop being racist Lee.”

    The tweet received tens of thousands of likes and responses along the lines of, “Lee Fang has been like this for years, but the current moment only makes his anti-Blackness more glaring,” and “Lee Fang spouting racist bullshit it must be a day ending in day.” A significant number of Fang’s co-workers, nearly all white, as well as reporters from other major news organizations like the New York Times and MSNBC and political activists (one former Elizabeth Warren staffer tweeted, “Get him!”), issued likes and messages of support for the notion that Fang was a racist. Though he had support within the organization, no one among his co-workers was willing to say anything in his defense publicly.

    Like many reporters, Fang has always viewed it as part of his job to ask questions in all directions. He’s written critically of political figures on the center-left, the left, and “obviously on the right,” and his reporting has inspired serious threats in the past. None of those past experiences were as terrifying as this blitz by would-be colleagues, which he described as “jarring,” “deeply isolating,” and “unique in my professional experience.”

    To save his career, Fang had to craft a public apology for “insensitivity to the lived experience of others.” According to one friend of his, it’s been communicated to Fang that his continued employment at The Intercept is contingent upon avoiding comments that may upset colleagues. Lacy to her credit publicly thanked Fang for his statement and expressed willingness to have a conversation; unfortunately, the throng of Intercept co-workers who piled on her initial accusation did not join her in this.

    I first met Lee Fang in 2014 and have never known him to be anything but kind, gracious, and easygoing. He also appears earnestly committed to making the world a better place through his work. It’s stunning that so many colleagues are comfortable using a word as extreme and villainous as racist to describe him.

    Though he describes his upbringing as “solidly middle-class,” Fang grew up in up in a diverse community in Prince George’s County, Maryland, and attended public schools where he was frequently among the few non-African Americans in his class. As a teenager, he was witness to the murder of a young man outside his home by police who were never prosecuted, and also volunteered at a shelter for trafficked women, two of whom were murdered. If there’s an edge to Fang at all, it seems geared toward people in our business who grew up in affluent circumstances and might intellectualize topics that have personal meaning for him.

    In the tweets that got him in trouble with Lacy and other co-workers, he questioned the logic of protesters attacking immigrant-owned businesses “with no connection to police brutality at all.” He also offered his opinion on Martin Luther King’s attitude toward violent protest (Fang’s take was that King did not support it; Lacy responded, “you know they killed him too right”). These are issues around which there is still considerable disagreement among self-described liberals, even among self-described leftists. Fang also commented, presciently as it turns out, that many reporters were “terrified of openly challenging the lefty conventional wisdom around riots.”

    Lacy says she never intended for Fang to be “fired, ‘canceled,’ or deplatformed,” but appeared irritated by questions on the subject, which she says suggest, “there is more concern about naming racism than letting it persist.”

    Max himself was stunned to find out that his comments on all this had created a Twitter firestorm. “I couldn’t believe they were coming for the man’s job over something I said,” he recounts. “It was not Lee’s opinion. It was my opinion.”

    By phone, Max spoke of a responsibility he feels Black people have to speak out against all forms of violence, “precisely because we experience it the most.” He described being affected by the Floyd story, but also by the story of retired African-American police captain David Dorn, shot to death in recent protests in St. Louis. He also mentioned Tony Timpa, a white man whose 2016 asphyxiation by police was only uncovered last year. In body-camera footage, police are heard joking after Timpa passed out and stopped moving, “I don’t want to go to school! Five more minutes, Mom!”

    “If it happens to anyone, it has to be called out,” Max says.

    Max described discussions in which it was argued to him that bringing up these other incidents now is not helpful to the causes being articulated at the protests. He understands that point of view. He just disagrees.

    “They say, there has to be the right time and a place to talk about that,” he says. “But my point is, when? I want to speak out now.” He pauses. “We’ve taken the narrative, and instead of being inclusive with it, we’ve become exclusive with it. Why?”

    There were other incidents.

    The editors of Bon Apetit and Refinery29 both resigned amid accusations of toxic workplace culture. The editor of Variety, Claudia Eller, was placed on leave after calling a South Asian freelance writer “bitter” in a Twitter exchange about minority hiring at her company. The self-abasing apology (“I have tried to diversify our newsroom over the past seven years, but I HAVE NOT DONE ENOUGH”) was insufficient. Meanwhile, the Philadelphia Inquirer’s editor, Stan Wischowski, was forced out after approving a headline, “Buildings matter, too.”

    In the most discussed incident, Times editorial page editor James Bennet was ousted for green-lighting an anti-protest editorial by Arkansas Republican Senator Tom Cotton entitled, “Send in the troops.”

    I’m no fan of Cotton, but as was the case with Michael Moore’s documentary and many other controversial speech episodes, it’s not clear that many of the people angriest about the piece in question even read it. In classic Times fashion, the paper has already scrubbed a mistake they made misreporting what their own editorial said, in an article about Bennet’s ouster. Here’s how the piece by Marc Tracy read originally (emphasis mine):

    James Bennet, the editorial page editor of The New York Times, has resigned after a controversy over an Op-Ed by a senator calling for military force against protesters in American cities.

    Here’s how the piece reads now:

    James Bennet resigned on Sunday from his job as the editorial page editor of The New York Times, days after the newspaper’s opinion section, which he oversaw, published a much-criticized Op-Ed by a United States senator calling for a military response to civic unrest in American cities.

    Cotton did not call for “military force against protesters in American cities.” He spoke of a “show of force,” to rectify a situation a significant portion of the country saw as spiraling out of control. It’s an important distinction. Cotton was presenting one side of the most important question on the most important issue of a critically important day in American history.

    As Cotton points out in the piece, he was advancing a view arguably held by a majority of the country. A Morning Consult poll showed 58% of Americans either strongly or somewhat supported the idea of “calling in the U.S. military to supplement city police forces.” That survey included 40% of self-described “liberals” and 37% of African-Americans. To declare a point of view held by that many people not only not worthy of discussion, but so toxic that publication of it without even necessarily agreeing requires dismissal, is a dramatic reversal for a newspaper that long cast itself as the national paper of record.

    Incidentally, that same poll cited by Cotton showed that 73% of Americans described protecting property as “very important,” while an additional 16% considered it “somewhat important.” This means the Philadelphia Inquirer editor was fired for running a headline – “Buildings matter, too” – that the poll said expressed a view held by 89% of the population, including 64% of African-Americans.

    (Would I have run the Inquirer headline? No. In the context of the moment, the use of the word “matter” especially sounds like the paper is equating “Black lives” and “buildings,” an odious and indefensible comparison. But why not just make this case in a rebuttal editorial? Make it a teaching moment? How can any editor operate knowing that airing opinions shared by a majority of readers might cost his or her job?)

    The main thing accomplished by removing those types of editorials from newspapers — apart from scaring the hell out of editors — is to shield readers from knowledge of what a major segment of American society is thinking.

    It also guarantees that opinion writers and editors alike will shape views to avoid upsetting colleagues, which means that instead of hearing what our differences are and how we might address those issues, newspaper readers will instead be presented with page after page of people professing to agree with one another. That’s not agitation, that’s misinformation.

    The instinct to shield audiences from views or facts deemed politically uncomfortable has been in evidence since Trump became a national phenomenon. We saw it when reporters told audiences Hillary Clinton’s small crowds were a “wholly intentional” campaign decision. I listened to colleagues that summer of 2016 talk about ignoring poll results, or anecdotes about Hillary’s troubled campaign, on the grounds that doing otherwise might “help Trump” (or, worse, be perceived that way).

    Even if you embrace a wholly politically utilitarian vision of the news media – I don’t, but let’s say – non-reporting of that “enthusiasm” story, or ignoring adverse poll results, didn’t help Hillary’s campaign. I’d argue it more likely accomplished the opposite, contributing to voter apathy by conveying the false impression that her victory was secure.

    After the 2016 election, we began to see staff uprisings. In one case, publishers at the Nation faced a revolt – from the Editor on down – after articles by Aaron Mate and Patrick Lawrence questioning the evidentiary basis for Russiagate claims was run. Subsequent events, including the recent declassification of congressional testimony, revealed that Mate especially was right to point out that officials had no evidence for a Trump-Russia collusion case. It’s precisely because such unpopular views often turn out to be valid that we stress publishing and debating them in the press.

    In a related incident, the New Yorker ran an article about Glenn Greenwald’s Russiagate skepticism that quoted that same Nation editor, Joan Walsh, who had edited Greenwald at Salon. She suggested to the New Yorker that Greenwald’s reservations were rooted in “disdain” for the Democratic Party, in part because of its closeness to Wall Street, but also because of the “ascendance of women and people of color.” The message was clear: even if you win a Pulitzer Prize, you can be accused of racism for deviating from approved narratives, even on questions that have nothing to do with race (the New Yorker piece also implied Greenwald’s intransigence on Russia was pathological and grounded in trauma from childhood).

    In the case of Cotton, Times staffers protested on the grounds that “Running this puts Black @NYTimes staff in danger.” Bennet’s editorial decision was not merely ill-considered, but literally life-threatening (note pundits in the space of a few weeks have told us that protesting during lockdowns and not protesting during lockdowns are both literally lethal). The Times first attempted to rectify the situation by apologizing, adding a long Editor’s note to Cotton’s piece that read, as so many recent “apologies” have, like a note written by a hostage.

    Editors begged forgiveness for not being more involved, for not thinking to urge Cotton to sound less like Cotton (“Editors should have offered suggestions”), and for allowing rhetoric that was “needlessly harsh and falls short of the thoughtful approach that advances useful debate.” That last line is sadly funny, in the context of an episode in which reporters were seeking to pre-empt a debate rather than have one at all; of course, no one got the joke, since a primary characteristic of the current political climate is a total absence of a sense of humor in any direction.

    As many guessed, the “apology” was not enough, and Bennet was whacked a day later in a terse announcement.

    His replacement, Kathleen Kingsbury, issued a staff directive essentially telling employees they now had a veto over anything that made them uncomfortable:

    “Anyone who sees any piece of Opinion journalism, headlines, social posts, photos—you name it—that gives you the slightest pause, please call or text me immediately.”

    All these episodes sent a signal to everyone in a business already shedding jobs at an extraordinary rate that failure to toe certain editorial lines can and will result in the loss of your job. Perhaps additionally, you could face a public shaming campaign in which you will be denounced as a racist and rendered unemployable.

    These tensions led to amazing contradictions in coverage. For all the extraordinary/inexplicable scenes of police viciousness in recent weeks — and there was a ton of it, ranging from police slashing tires in Minneapolis, to Buffalo officers knocking over an elderly man, to Philadelphia police attacking protesters — there were also 12 deaths in the first nine days of protests, only one at the hands of a police officer (involving a man who may or may not have been aiming a gun at police).

    Looting in some communities has been so bad that people have been left without banks to cash checks, or pharmacies to fill prescriptions; business owners have been wiped out (“My life is gone,” commented one Philly store owner); a car dealership in San Leandro, California saw 74 cars stolen in a single night. It isn’t the whole story, but it’s demonstrably true that violence, arson, and rioting are occurring.

    However, because it is politically untenable to discuss this in ways that do not suggest support, reporters have been twisting themselves into knots.

    We are seeing headlines previously imaginable only in The Onion, e.g., “27 police officers injured during largely peaceful anti-racism protests in London.”

    Even people who try to keep up with protest goals find themselves denounced the moment they fail to submit to some new tenet of ever-evolving doctrine, via a surprisingly consistent stream of retorts: fuck you, shut up, send money, do better, check yourself, I’m tired and racist.

    Minneapolis mayor Jacob Frey, who argued for police reform and attempted to show solidarity with protesters in his city, was shouted down after he refused to commit to defunding the police. Protesters shouted “Get the fuck out!” at him, then chanted “Shame!” and threw refuse, Game of Thrones-style, as he skulked out of the gathering. Frey’s “shame” was refusing to endorse a position polls show 65% of Americans oppose, including 62% of Democrats, with just 15% of all people, and only 33% of African-Americans, in support.

    Each passing day sees more scenes that recall something closer to cult religion than politics. White protesters in Floyd’s Houston hometown kneeling and praying to black residents for “forgiveness… for years and years of racism” are one thing, but what are we to make of white police in Cary, North Carolina, kneeling and washing the feet of Black pastors? What about Nancy Pelosi and Chuck Schumer kneeling while dressed in “African kente cloth scarves”?

    There is symbolism here that goes beyond frustration with police or even with racism: these are orgiastic, quasi-religious, and most of all, deeply weird scenes, and the press is too paralyzed to wonder at it. In a business where the first job requirement was once the willingness to ask tough questions, we’ve become afraid to ask obvious ones.

    On CNN, Minneapolis City Council President Lisa Bender was asked a hypothetical question about a future without police: “What if in the middle of the night, my home is broken into? Who do I call?” When Bender, who is white, answered, “I know that comes from a place of privilege,” questions popped to mind. Does privilege mean one should let someone break into one’s home, or that one shouldn’t ask that hypothetical question? (I was genuinely confused). In any other situation, a media person pounces on a provocative response to dig out its meaning, but an increasingly long list of words and topics are deemed too dangerous to discuss.

    The media in the last four years has devolved into a succession of moral manias. We are told the Most Important Thing Ever is happening for days or weeks at a time, until subjects are abruptly dropped and forgotten, but the tone of warlike emergency remains: from James Comey’s firing, to the deification of Robert Mueller, to the Brett Kavanaugh nomination, to the democracy-imperiling threat to intelligence “whistleblowers,” all those interminable months of Ukrainegate hearings (while Covid-19 advanced), to fury at the death wish of lockdown violators, to the sudden reversal on that same issue, etc.

    It’s been learned in these episodes we may freely misreport reality, so long as the political goal is righteous.

    It was okay to publish the now-discredited Steele dossier, because Trump is scum. MSNBC could put Michael Avenatti on live TV to air a gang rape allegation without vetting, because who cared about Brett Kavanaugh – except press airing of that wild story ended up being a crucial factor in convincing key swing voter Maine Senator Susan Collins the anti-Kavanaugh campaign was a political hit job (the allegation illustrated, “why the presumption of innocence is so important,” she said). Reporters who were anxious to prevent Kavanaugh’s appointment, in other words, ended up helping it happen through overzealousness.

    There were no press calls for self-audits after those episodes, just as there won’t be a few weeks from now if Covid-19 cases spike, or a few months from now if Donald Trump wins re-election successfully painting the Democrats as supporters of violent protest who want to abolish police. No: press activism is limited to denouncing and shaming colleagues for insufficient fealty to the cheap knockoff of bullying campus Marxism that passes for leftist thought these days.

    The traditional view of the press was never based on some contrived, mathematical notion of “balance,” i.e. five paragraphs of Republicans for every five paragraphs of Democrats. The ideal instead was that we showed you everything we could see, good and bad, ugly and not, trusting that a better-informed public would make better decisions. This vision of media stressed accuracy, truth, and trust in the reader’s judgment as the routes to positive social change.

    For all our infamous failings, journalists once had some toughness to them. We were supposed to be willing to go to jail for sources we might not even like, and fly off to war zones or disaster areas without question when editors asked. It was also once considered a virtue to flout the disapproval of colleagues to fight for stories we believed in (Watergate, for instance).

    Today no one with a salary will stand up for colleagues like Lee Fang. Our brave truth-tellers make great shows of shaking fists at our parody president, but not one of them will talk honestly about the fear running through their own newsrooms. People depend on us to tell them what we see, not what we think. What good are we if we’re afraid to do it?

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