Today’s News 14th June 2021

• AstraZeneca's COVID Jab Should Be Halted For People Over 60: EMA
  AstraZeneca’s COVID Jab Should Be Halted For People Over 60: EMA

  On Friday, the European Medicines Agency’s (EMA) safety committee identified another rare blood condition after people taking AstraZeneca’s COVID-19 vaccine and said it was examining cases of heart inflammation after inoculation. By Sunday, the head of the EMA health threats said people over 60 should avoid the Astrazeneca vaccine, according to Reuters. 

  EMA safety committee on Friday said that capillary leak syndrome is a new side effect after taking AstraZeneca’s vaccine. There’s been widespread skepticism surrounding the AstraZeneca vaccine for months due to rare and deadly blood clots. 

  

  Even though EMA considers the vaccine safe for all ages, several EU member states have halted administering it to people in the 55 to 65 range due to blood clotting. To date, 78 million doses of AstraZeneca’s vaccine shots have been given in the EU and U.K. 

  “In a pandemic context, our position was and is that the risk-benefit ratio remains favorable for all age groups,” Marco Cavaleri, head of health threats and vaccine strategy at EMA, told Italian newspaper La Stampa.

  Cavaleri told the local paper that since infections are declining and the younger population is less exposed to virus-related risks, it would be better to use RNA (​mRNA) vaccines, such as Moderna and the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccines.

  Asked whether the AstraZeneca vaccine should be avoided for people over 60. He said, “Yes, and many countries, such as France and Germany, are considering it in the light of greater availability of mRNA vaccines.”

  On Friday, Italian health regulators said the AstraZeneca vaccine would be restricted to people over 60 after a teenager was administered the vaccine and died from a blood cot. 

  While American lawmakers have taken steps to shield US pharma companies from any legal blowback caused by COVID vaccines, drugmakers in Europe haven’t been so lucky. 

  Months ago, the family of an Italian woman who died from a case of vaccine-linked clots sued the vaccine company. 

  Last week, German scientists may have pinpointed these blood clots’ cause, which can be eliminated with a relatively easy tweak.

  Regulators first began examining these unusual blood clots cases in April and now are suggesting people over 60 should avoid AstraZeneca.

  Tyler Durden
  Mon, 06/14/2021 – 02:45

• Biden-Putin: What's On The Table (And Why No Progress Can Possibly Be Made)
  Biden-Putin: What’s On The Table (And Why No Progress Can Possibly Be Made)

  Authored by Tim Kirby via The Strategic Culture Foundation,

  The key barrier in US-Russian relations is that they are again locked in a new zero-sum game but with a different dynamic than during the Cold War.

  

  There is a lot of optimism and big press regarding the upcoming meeting between Biden and Putin. This will be the first meeting of the two since Biden took that seat behind the lovely desk in the Oval Office. There are many issues on the table for discussion and there is tension and excitement in the political press in both the West and especially in Russia. There is a growing belief that this could be a turning point or at least provide some small nudging of relations in a positive direction. This wishful thinking, although pleasant from a moral standpoint, does not reflect the realities of the current divide between the United States and Russia. This meeting simply cannot provide some sort of new start for relations between the countries and will probably look like a head-nodding and pretending-to-listen fest the likes of which we have never seen before. Hours worth of hot air will be blown to throw words onto deaf ears with some background posturing to boot.

  

  Image: Showmanship averted Moscow’s eyes from the coming Maidan.

  One reason for the Russians to be suspicious of any offers from Washington is simply recent precedent. Over ten years ago when Obama was still full of Hope and Change his feisty new Secretary of State Hillary Clinton with a great big smile presented Foreign Minister Lavrov the infamous Russian Reset Button. The red button had the word “overload” accidentally written on it in place of “reset”. This mistake due to a fake desire to make it seem like Washington cared enough to learn one word of Russian was very telling as during the brief era of the Russian Reset, America’s Soft Power machine was working day and night to organize the Maidan in Kiev. From a Western perspective this revolution was another piece of evidence that the people of Eastern Europe want nothing to do with naughty Moscow, but from a Russian perspective the Maidan was the beginning of an endless waking nightmare. This all led to the genocidal war in the Donbass breaking out, the return of Neo-Nazism to Europe, and the now official systemic racism that Russian speakers have to endure in the “Zimbabwe of Europe”. After an experience like that, can one really expect any sort of optimism from the Russian side because Biden sort of stepped back a bit on the whole Nord-Stream 2 thing?

  Besides bitter precedent, the key barrier in US-Russian relations is that they are again locked in a new zero-sum game but with a different dynamic than during the Cold War. Russia wants to rise as one of many powers in a Multipolar World while the United States in accordance with the “Project for a New American Century” wants to make sure that no competitor ever rises again, maintaining the Monopolar advantage that it won from the Cold War. Because of this situation neither side could possibly hope to get what they want from the other unless things in America are far worse than they seem, turning this meeting into a reverse Reykjavík Summit. But that is so unlikely, that even the most hardened gambling addict wouldn’t place a bet on it.

  

  Image: The proper strategy – handshaking, nodding, and not listening to a word the other says.

  So let’s take a look at what’s on the table and why no progress can possibly be made.

  • The Crimea: The U.S. wants this peninsula returned to Ukraine. If Russia were to do this it would remove them from the Black Sea entirely and kill any ambitions they may have to rise as a world power. It would also be the end of Putin’s presidency as a national betrayal. Returning it is impossible. Any Russian pleas to recognize the Crimea as Russian will fall on deaf ears because it would set the precedent for many regions of the world to go back to Russia like Abkhazia, North Ossetia and Transdniestria. Washington cannot allow this domino effect to occur.

  • Alexey Navalny: Like Lenin he got to live in comfort with support in the West while at the same time having the ambitions of Yeltsin to strive for greatness via submission. He is in jail for parole violation and Putin is not going to pardon him. Even when his sentence is up this blatant Manchurian candidate is never going to be given the status that Washington wants for him.

  • The Donbass: Russia will not give up support for the Donbass and the United States will never green light carving up the Ukraine into a logical Eastern and Western chunk. If the Donbass were to “win” then Russia would wind up getting all the parts of the Ukraine that it needs for renewed greatness where the majority want to go back home. Conversely if Russia were to completely throw the Donbass to the dogs it could crush patriotic support for the establishment in Moscow.

  • Climate Stuff: Because climate change is irrelevant virtue signaling, plenty of “progress” could be made on that front.

  • Russian Meddling: The Democrats believe the Russians are behind lots of conspiracies, the Russians say they didn’t do any of it. Again this issue will remain stagnant. The Democrats could drop this narrative, but it isn’t worth using as a bargaining chip because the Russian side really doesn’t care. Removing this scandal offers no value for negotiating.

  • Sanctions and Embassies: Both sides seem fairly content with the long bitter divorce they are going through. Travel between the countries is now hard and sanctions seem to suit the mood of both sides. This is unlikely to change as there is no motivation for it. Washington wants Russia out of Europe’s economy and Russia is benefitting from the economic isolation that sanctions offer. It’s a win-win as is.

  There is really nothing of any substance that could change thanks to this meeting. The only possible major result is that yet again Moscow will “step on the same rake” as they say in Russian and buy into the empty good feelings that Anglo-Saxons naturally project. Russians believe that people who smile too often are pathetic, stupid and generally harmless. U.S. politicians have unknowingly been able to use the advantage of seeming like naive trustable twits during negotiations for decades. The other issue is that Russians cannot and will not accept the fact that the West sees them and Second-World Second-Class Humans and any deals made with barbarians or bushmen do not count. Ask the Native Americans about the value of treaties with Washington.

  The only gains at this meeting that can be made are of an emotional nature to the advantage of the U.S. as the Russians have been suckered in time and time again. For the Russians to resist this they need to “call a spade a spade” at every moment, while being interruptive, rude and in general spoiling any Anglo-Saxon snake oil sales pitches that come up. The Russian desire for social acceptance is its greatest weakness in these sorts of scenarios. But hopefully, finally, they have learned their lesson.

  Tyler Durden
  Mon, 06/14/2021 – 02:00

• The Wizard Of Oz: The Dark Reality That The Deep State Hides From The World
  The Wizard Of Oz: The Dark Reality That The Deep State Hides From The World

  Authored by Andrew Korybko via OneWorld.press,

  The world’s permanent military, intelligence, and diplomatic bureaucracies (“deep states”) together with their perception managers in the Mainstream Media and the education system are hiding a very dark reality from everyone that’s much more nefarious than what the Wizard of Oz hid from Dorothy.

  

  The “Deep State”

  Nothing is ever as it seems, especially when it comes to the modern world in which everyone lives. “There Are No Democracies Or Autocracies, Only Governments”, I wrote last week, and they’re all comprised of permanent military, intelligence, and diplomatic bureaucracies, or “deep states”, which handle matters largely considered (whether rightly or wrongly) to be beyond the responsibility of the average citizen. This power structure is allied with influential perception managers in the Mainstream Media and the education system in order to hide a very dark reality from everyone that’s much more nefarious than what the Wizard of Oz hid from Dorothy. Supporters might say that “it’s better this way” since “society needs to be controlled” whereas critics claim that this is highly manipulative and against people’s fundamental human rights. Whichever side of the divide one falls on, there’s no denying that the real world is much worse than the average person thought.

  “Bread & Circuses”

  All people across the world are strongly encouraged by their governments to go about their daily lives and behave as economically productive and socially responsible citizens. To this end, they’re distracted with “bread and circuses” by being kept above the minimum subsistence level at the very least and pressured to focus more on their personal pursuit of happiness than everyone else’s. The exception of course is those who show a sincere interest in how the world works and are considered by the so-called “powers that be” as “ideologically reliable” after years of relevant indoctrination in the higher education system. This elite category of citizens learns how the world really operates after getting to peek behind the curtain ahead of actually getting to play a direct role of some sort in managing this secret state of affairs. Sometimes average people learn about the truth on their own or through whistleblowers, but it mostly remains obscured.

  Information Warfare

  The system upholds itself by obsessively discrediting those intrepid enough to research its inner workings and publicly share their findings as so-called “conspiracy theorists”, “foreign agents”, or whatever else. That’s not to say that there’s no such thing as factually unsubstantiated speculation that can legitimately be described as a conspiracy theory or that foreign powers aren’t infiltrating society through actual agents and even those of so-called “influence” (the latter of which may not even be conscious of the role that they’re playing), but just to point out the techniques used to discredit those who occasionally break through the “deep state’s” informational firewall in order to enlighten the masses about what’s really going on. In fact, different countries’ media outlets are presently waging an intense information war against one another’s target audiences in order to convince them that their own “deep states” are lying to them, which adds a hybrid dimension to all of this.

  The New Cold War

  Behind the “glitz and glamour” of the “everyday life” that most people have been misled by the “deep state” and its perception management allies into believing is “real”, the world has actually been in the midst of a New Cold War since long before its seemingly official commencement in 2014 following the US’ simultaneous attempt to more openly “contain” Russia and China in Eastern Europe (Ukraine) and Southeast Asia (the South China Sea). This is also taking place against the backdrop of profound civilizational changes in the information-communication, military technology, economic-industrial, and healthcare fields that will fundamentally revolutionize life as everyone knows it. In fact, the COVID-19 pandemic (regardless of whether one believes it’s real, fake, or exaggerated) ushered in a new era whereby “deep states” across the world are now actively working to indoctrinate everyone into accepting this “new normal” that was already a long time coming.

  The Truth About US-Chinese Relations

  For starters, the post-Old Cold War system of American-led unipolarity was structurally unsustainable as proven by historical precedent. It ended a lot sooner than its most passionate supporters expected due to the US’ inadvertent subsidization of China’s unprecedented historic rise as a result of its leaders’ self-interested economic motives that are nowadays dishonestly dismissed as so-called “misplaced optimism” over that country’s supposedly “inevitable liberalization” via trade with time. Although some elements of the US’ “deep state” consistently sought to subvert and ultimately destroy China as they’d attempted to do since the 1989 Tienanmen Square Color Revolution, they failed to succeed both because of their target’s structural resilience and the lack of support from America’ economic and political elite that had an interest in indefinitely profiting from China’s astronomical rise.

  Reinterpreting Russia’s Role

  As for Russia, it was never the “anti-Western Phoenix” that both its top foreign supporters and detractors alike misportrayed it as for different reasons, but always sought to incorporate itself into the larger Western-led world, albeit in a manner that preserved as much of its sovereignty as possible. This was unacceptable for the West which demanded full submission, especially to the diktats of hyper-liberalism in both the economic and social senses, which prompted President Putin to proudly resist these efforts while nevertheless always keeping his country’s olive branch extended. Russia simply wanted to carve out its own comfortable niche in the US’ “New World Order”instead of reattempting to following in its predecessor state’s revolutionary footsteps by pioneering an entirely new one. The public friction between the US’ unipolar demands and Russia’s multipolar vision was responsible for the world finally beginning to realize that a New Cold War was afoot by 2007-2008.

  Great Power Competition

  Trump’s much-hyped “trade war” with China was really just him trying to revert back to “the good ‘ole days” of the pre-globalizatiion era, though of course modified a bit to accommodate for some of the irreversible processes that had since unfolded across the world in the decades since the US-Chinese detente of the late 1970s changed the very nature of the global economy. He also more confidently popularized the notion of the New Cold War by openly embracing Great Power competition, which never actually went away since the end of the Old Cold War but the illusion thereof was simply a masterful means for managing the perceptions of the global population by getting them to focus less on international affairs and more on the plethora of “bread and circuses” that were produced since 1991. Trump’s vision also aligned with the irreversible trend of multipolarity, accelerated as it was by the US’ own missteps of the prior decades, which “normalized” the New Cold War.

  The Military-Industrial Complex

  Amidst all of this and even arguably preceding it for quite some time already, the Great Powers (first and foremost among them the US, China, Russia) were already intensely competing in multiple domains, with only the economic one emphasized in the public sphere (and even that wasn’t even widely recognized until Trump’s presidency). Militarily, all of them continued to develop new weapons systems, including missile defense shields, hypersonic missiles to piece the former, drones, and space weapons. Their military-industrial complexes have been working on such munitions for a long time already, and the rare instances in which the public accidentally caught sight of them were conveniently described as so-called “UFO sightings” in order to distract the masses from what was really going on. Everyone was aware of this arms race during the Old Cold War, but it became taboo to talk about after 1991, though that’s recently changing since it’s becoming impossible to deny.

  The Information-Communication Industry

  The other trend that took place during these decades was in the information-communication industry. The global spread of the internet gave certain countries like the US a strategic edge, especially in intelligence collection, though that’s now being challenged by China’s cutting-edge technological developments and its much more affordable competitive products. The controversial concept of 5G is just the latest stage of this game. It basically functions as the means for managing the “Internet of Things” (IoT), which will further enhance its pioneers’ strategic edge. Although there are reportedly serious health risks associated with it, the nature of the New Cold War is such that no actor can afford to delay this technology’s development out of fear of irredeemably falling behind its “peer competitors”. The hullabaloo about Huawei and other Chinese tech companies is simply a public cover for justifying the US’ power moves against its top technological competitor.

  The “Fourth Industrial Revolution”/”Great Reset”

  The IoT will facilitate the “Fourth Industrial Revolution” (4IR), which will totally transform mankind’s economic-industrial relations considering the increased dependence on autonomous systems. This project was already proceeding apace prior to the COVID-19 pandemic, but the virus (again, whether or not one believes it’s real, fake, or exaggerated) served as the pretext to accelerate its rollout across the world in the most dramatic way possible via what’s now widely regarded as the “Great Reset” (GR). The resultant outcome will necessitate greater state intervention in the economy in order to subsidize the newly unemployed masses, which will resemble a comparatively more “socialist” system, even if only imperfectly/superficially Some might even describe the state-corporate partnerships that emerge from them as being more akin to “economic fascism”, which hints at a worldwide competition between “socialist” and “fascist” systems in the future.

  COVID-19 Vaccines

  Regardless of the semantics that one uses, there’s also no denying that mankind itself might be somewhat genetically different in this dark future than it presently is as a result of the experimental gene therapies that are being pushed upon hundreds of millions of people under the pretext of serving as vaccines against COVID-19. There are high hopes that mRNA technology might truly achieve miracles like curing cancer if responsibly utilized, but such technology requires many more years of testing before it has a credible chance of changing the world for the better with the lowest amount of risk possible The COVID-19 pandemic has been exploited by Big Pharma in order to test these treatments in real-time on the largest number of people in order to accelerate this technology’s development considering the competitive context of the New Cold War. The West was already far ahead in this field, hence why most of its vaccines are mRNA ones unlike the non-West’s.

  “Collateral Damage”

  It can’t be known for sure, but Big Pharma (and presumably also its “deep state” backers) probably only sought to experiment on hundreds of millions of people in such a deceptive way because they sincerely thought (whether rightly or wrongly) that the consequences are minimal and that the “collateral damage” can therefore be “manageable”. They might truly believe that any long-term health problems that these experimental gene therapies contentiously marketed as vaccines might cause could in theory be treatable within the next decade following the quantum leap that this technology might make by then as a result of this ongoing real-life mass testing. This line of thinking presupposes that the symptoms of such speculative problems might not occur until the next decade, which is of course a risky bet to make and arguably unethical if that’s the case since those being experimented on “in the name of the greater good” might not be aware of it and thus didn’t consent.

  Genetic Engineering

  To expand a bit more on the topic of vaccines, it’s questionable whether the mRNA COVID-19 ones even present a viable solution to the pandemic (again, whether or not one believes that it’s real, fake, or exaggerated). After all, COVID-19 no longer exists in its “pure” form after having evolved countless times into new strains which might be impossible to perfectly vaccinate against anyhow. This means that the experimental gene therapies that many people have already taken might actually be redundant, ergo the need for more vaccines to supposedly counter forthcoming strains, which in turn actually leads to more real-life testing for Big Pharma to accelerate the perfection of this technology ahead of its foreign competitors. Once that happens, genetic engineering could even lead to “super soldiers” and human-animal hybrids (“chimeras”).

  The “Green” (“Depopulation”) Agenda

  The other dark reality hidden from the public eye by the “deep state’s” perception management operations pertains to the speculative campaign of “depopulation”. There’s no denying that there are some influential forces who are in favor of this for ideological (“green”) and “pragmatic” (“overpopulation”) reasons (especially in the context of the unfolding 4IR/GR), but it’s unclear whether the ongoing mass vaccination of hundreds of millions of people with experimental mRNA gene therapies is part of this, at least directly. While nobody knows for sure what the affect will be on fertility, it can reasonably be discounted that these treatments are meant to kill off many people in the near future. After all, despite the 4IR/GR, the “deep state” still requires a tax base and some human labor to build the “new economy’s” machines. Considering the fact that so many younger people have already been vaccinated, it’s unrealistic that they’d kill off their most promising labor pool.

  Trump Spills The Beans

  In any case, the global public must become aware of the so-called “green agenda”, which is also part and parcel of the earlier mentioned trend towards comparatively more “socialist”/”fascist” economic systems. The climate is veritably changing regardless of whatever one attributes this to, be it mankind and/or natural cycles, but every “deep state” has an inherent interest in exploiting this to enhance its power over the population. That’s not to say that every member thereof is doing so for “evil purposes” since many might sincerely believe that it’s for the “greater good” however they rationalize it, but this dynamic is undeniable. Former US President Trump did a lot to popularize awareness of this and some of the other trends that were earlier discussed, which he did on his own prerogative but in a way which greatly upset most of the world’s “deep states”, including his own. This explains the universal revulsion that they had for him.

  QAnon & “5D Chess” Canard

  In their minds, Trump wasn’t supposed to “spill the beans” about the way that the world really works since he wasn’t supposed to have been elected in the first place. The “deep state” made sure by hook or by crook that he wouldn’t win a second term and thus stand a greater chance of reforming some of their forthcoming governance plans in the context of the “4IR/GR” (“socialism”/”fascism”). Furthermore, they feared that he could inspire the most passionate members of the population to peacefully exercise their political rights through rallies and the like in an attempt to meaningfully change the situation, even if only by publicly showing how popular his envisioned future was among the masses. The response to this “threat” was the QAnon movement which sought to preemptively neutralize these forces by capturing their minds through the manipulative narrative constructive of “5D chess”, which is just a coping mechanism for dealing with reality.

  The Hybrid War Of Terror On America

  That said reality is that Trump was basically “a king without a country” since the most powerful elements of his “deep state” continued to oppose him at every twist and turn, thereby sabotaging his envisioned policies. Instead of peacefully rallying in his support when he needed it most, his top supporters were brainwashed into thinking that “he had it all under control” and that every objectively existing setback was really just a “masterful 5D chess move”. By surrendering the streets, they facilitated the kinetic phase of the “deep state’s” decades-long Hybrid War of Terror on America via Antifa and “Black Lives Matter” (BLM), which paved the way for the dystopian hellhole that Biden’s presently presiding over as that same “deep state’s” puppet. The only “storm” that ever arrived was the “deep state’s” on election day. The successful anti-Trump regime change sequence led to the “swamp” finally swallowing him and Biden’s “Cyber Stasi” suppressing most subsequent digital dissent.

  Social Media Censorship

  The digital dimension is so important too because it’s the only realistic “commons” in which meaningful opposition to these trends can be organized, but it’s now almost entirely under the “deep state’s” control with few exceptions (like Russia’s VK). The pretext for seizing control over this domain was to stop any repeat of the 6 January events as well as reduce the chances of actual foreign meddling in the US’ domestic processes via Hybrid War means. About the latter, this threat veritably exists but not to the extent that the “deep state” claimed. It’s already done the exact same to countless other countries and much more effectively than they could ever do to the US, but the “deep state” fears the introduction and proliferation of “politically inconvenient” narratives into the American political conversation, hence the need to so aggressively censor social media. To be fair, other countries are implementing similar policies for the same security-centric reasons.

  People=Pawns?

  What most folks don’t realize is that they’re really just pawns in a global game between competing “socialist”/”fascist” “deep states” as part of the New Cold War. Their individual views don’t matter so long as they keep them to themselves, but they become “troublesome” once they’re shared with others and might eventually influence a larger change in socio-economic and/or especially political behavior (e.g. voting patterns, provoking protests, etc.). It’s one thing to “know the truth” as one understands it to be (whether realized on one’s own and/or due to the influence of whatever they come across on the Internet, including that which is shared with them by foreign parties, be it state or civilian), and another entirely to actually act upon it in a peaceful way within the legal limits of their respective constitutions, many of which at least in the West superficially respect the right to the freedoms of speech and assembly.

  Reality Check

  In fact, this very analysis will probably only at most make “fellow travelers” feel like they’re not alone or “crazy” as opposed to having any meaningful effect on shaping the course of events. Be that as it may, everyone deserves to learn how the world really operates, even if only to be at peace with how powerless they might actually be if that’s what makes them feel a bit better. Others might be inspired to share this insight with others in the hopes that enough people can eventually come together to peacefully express their constitutionally enshrined rights in a last-ditch attempt to at least slow down the implementation of the “4IR/GR”. This is especially so with respect to raising awareness of the speculative risks associated with volunteering oneself to be a guinea pig for “deep state”-backed Big Pharma’s massive gene therapy experiment designed to give their government a strategic edge in the New Cold War at the arguable expense of their citizens’ human rights.

  Welcome To World War C

  The COVID-19 pandemic ushered in what can be described as World War C, or the full-spectrum paradigm-changing processes catalyzed by the world’s uncoordinated attempt to contain the virus (again, whether or not one believes that it’s real, fake, or exaggerated). All preexisting trends are now being accelerated and compressed, including the geopolitical, military, economic-industrial, information-communication, healthcare (genetic engineering), governmental (“socialist/”fascist”), and “green” (“depopulation”) ones. This means that everyone is truly living in an unprecedented era of history whereby literally everything about life as they know it will be completely different within a decade. The very nature of international, economic, civil-state, and even human-to-human relations is transforming at a record pace, with folks either choosing to remain asleep like the “deep state” wants or wake up and peacefully try to stop them if it’s even at all still possible to do so.

  Tyler Durden
  Mon, 06/14/2021 – 00:00

• These Are The Nicest New Cars The Average Buyer In Each State Can Afford
  These Are The Nicest New Cars The Average Buyer In Each State Can Afford

  Like homes, new cars have become prohibitively expensive in 2021 as a shortage of critical microprocessors has forced millions of Americans to instead settle for a used car. Unfortunately, Americans have generally been forced to pay more for used cars, leaving some workers overburdened with their car loans and insurance payments.

  

  For Americans who are looking for a used car and would like some guidance, Zippia.com recently crunched the numbers using the average income and most common financing structure in each state, and figured out what they claim is “the nicest new car that is affordable in each state.”

  It’s certainly an interesting claim. Here are the ten most expensive cars from the company’s list.

  10 Most Expensive Cars:

  • Hawaii – 2021 Tesla Model S
  • California – 2021 Volvo S90 T8 Recharge
  • Massachusetts – 2021 Audi Q5
  • Colorado – 2020 Mercedes-Benz C-Class
  • Washington – 2021 Buick Enclave
  • Oregon – 2021 Lexus NX
  • New York – 2021 Mercedes-Benz GLA-class
  • New Jersey – 2021 BMW 2-Series Gran Coupe
  • Maryland – 2021 Toyota Sienna
  • Utah – 2021 Mazda CX-9

  And the 10 cheapest cars:

  • Arkansas – 2021 Chevrolet Spark LS
  • West Virginia – 2020 Nissan Versa
  • Mississippi – 2021 Hyundai Accent
  • Oklahoma – 2021 Mitsubishi Mirage ES
  • Indiana – 2021 Kia Rio Sedan
  • Ohio – 2020 Honda Fit
  • Kentucky – 2020 Honda Fit
  • Iowa – 2021 Nissan Versa
  • Alabama – 2021 Nissan Versa
  • Kansas – 2021 Kia Soul

  Here’s how Zippia came to these conclusions.

  We started with average salary in each state to US Census. We then divided by 12 for the monthly income.

  From there, we applied a 65 month loan (the most common) and 4.67% interest (current average car interest rate) to work out the maximum monthly payment the average salary could sustain without exceeding 10%.

  It is recommended by financial advisors that no one have debt payments greater than 36% on total debt servicing. More specifically, it is recommended that car payments and car costs (including gas, maintenance, taxes and other costs) not exceed 20% of your income.

  With this in mind, we conservatively allotted a max of 10% of monthly income to account for miscellaneous costs.

  From there we used Kelly Blue Book to find the “nicest” (or most expensive) new car that budget could afford.

  We tried to get as close as possible, opting to go lower when possible rather than exceeding (and only exceeding by a couple 100 dollars when we did go over). This means, particularly lower cost cars where there are less options, some states share a car type.

  Keep reading to see the full list– and the car price that breaks the bank for each state.

  Don’t break the bank to buy a car:

  Ultimately, personal finances are personal. Someone with excessive student loans, heavy credit card debt, or incoming consuming mortgage, would need a lower car payment.

  Before purchasing a car, you should carefully consider your present day circumstances and future goals.

  Readers can find the full list here.

  Tyler Durden
  Sun, 06/13/2021 – 23:30

• Financial Blowout Ahead: Lobotomized Economists Clash On The Deck Of The Titanic
  Financial Blowout Ahead: Lobotomized Economists Clash On The Deck Of The Titanic

  Authored by Matthew Ehret via The Strategic Culture Foundation,

  Under the new world order of “stakeholder capitalism” citizens will learn to own nothing and be happy…

  

  As the geniuses running the western financial bubble sometimes called an “economy” continue to double down on their obsession to pump a dead financial system with ever more trillions in stimulus spending, arguments are raging among brainwashed economists living in denial over the oncoming systemic collapse. The thought of engineers on the Titanic passionately arguing over whether they should accelerate or decelerate the speed of the boat whose hull has long been torn to shreds by an iceberg comes to mind.

  On one side of the debate, figures like U.S. Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen and Fed Chair Jerome Powell champion an emerging new wave of high interests as “a plus for society’s point of view” in order to counteract the increasing rates of inflation sweeping across every sector of the economy. This camp asserts that this spike in interest rates should not be done immediately however, and only begin in 2023, and until then interest rates should be kept at near zero percent.

  On the other side of the debate, economists among Germany’s largest bank scream that waiting until 2023 is deadly. Not a second should be lost before increasing interest rates now in order to stop a “time bomb” from destroying both the USA and the world. On June 7, Deutsche Bank Chief Economist David Folkerts-Landau wrote passionately that Washington’s decision to wait until 2023 before raising interest rates “could create a significant recession and set off a chain of financial distresses around the world” leading to “a time bomb” waiting to explode… unless interest rates were hiked up to 20% just as they had been done in 1980 by then Fed Chairman Paul Volcker which saw interest rates collapse from 12.5% in 1980 to 3.8% in 1982.

  Both sides however, are either completely ignorant or outright liars trying to distract citizens and policy makers from the real systemic nature of the oncoming meltdown that can only be dealt with if certain fundamental facts of recent history are kept in mind.

  Why is Inflation going to Skyrocket?

  Since a pandemic induced nations to lockdown their economies, rescue packages and unlimited money printing to keep people from literally starving, and banks from collapsing has become a new normal. $24 trillion dollars in COVID related debts have been generated internationally, while U.S. Federal Reserve balance sheets have doubled over the same period to $8 trillion with increasing rates of liquidity injections flushed into the Too Big to Fail banks since September 2019. So far, consumer price inflation has risen by 4.2% in 12 months, but based on the obvious reality of $28 trillion of totally unpayable U.S. debt, sustaining a $1.2 quadrillion derivatives bubble time bomb alongside the breakdown of supply chains and a dysfunctional green infrastructure program pushed by Biden, the runaway threat of inflation and even hyperinflation is firmly (or should be) on everyone’s mind.

  Now if Deutsche Bank’s Folkerts-Landau was talking about the insane money printing disassociated from any systemic restructuring of the over-bloated Too Big to Fail zombie banks or serious recovery program, then he should be applauded for raising the spectre of unbounded inflation. His nation did after all have a direct experience with this disastrous policy back in 1923 when hyperinflation tore the German economy to shreds and set the stage for the rise of Nazism shortly thereafter.

  

  Sadly, both Folkerts-Landau and Yellen are instead pushing policies that will not only accelerate hyperinflation a century after Weimar, but usher in a new central bankers’ dictatorship that had only been subverted in 1933 due to the fortuitous intervention of U.S. President Franklin Roosevelt.

  So What Did Volcker Do?

  Since economists are told repeatedly that Volcker’s interest rate hikes of 1979-1982 saved the U.S. economy, let’s look at what really happened and why Volcker described his philosophy as a “controlled disintegration”.

  While inflation did indeed spread across the USA in the 1970s, it is worth asking: why did this actually happen and did Volcker’s reforms have anything to do with solving that problem? Or did both the problem and its nominal solution drive a singular agenda of controlled destruction of the USA now playing out four decades later?

  For one, the shift away from industrial long term development with the 1971 floating of the U.S. dollar off of the gold reserve standard went a long way to turning a once-forward thinking productive, manufacturing-driven economy into a consumer cult, post-industrial waste. This “post industrial” age was characterized by outsourced industries relying ever more on increased rates of imports of things the USA once made for itself. A FIRE economy (of Finance, Insurance and Real Estate speculation) increasingly took over the once powerful manufacturing sector.

  

  Agro-Industrial production was replaced by service sector jobs as the USA became ever more reliant on cheap imports made from China, Mexico and other poor nations who were expected to remain labor intensive sweat shops for eternity.

  

  This detachment of the “valuation” of the dollar from all physical measurable standards went a long way to killing the buying power and raising inflation as monetary circulation increased ever more by speculation on oil, currencies or other goods that often had no connection with reality. Investment rates into cutting edge science both in the atomic realm of fusion and the macro realm of space exploration were cut off drastically (see graphs) as general vital infrastructure maintenance and improvement collapsed drastically across all OECD nations trapped in the “new post-industrial normal”.

  

  

  Non-military related science R & D also saw a collapse during this period from 2.5% of GDP in 1971 to a mere 0.4% of GDP in 2020 (see graph).

  

  Deregulation and market liberalization castrated the role of the sovereign nation state ever more from 1971 onward, as “laissez faire” policies dominated a once-protectionist landscape. Rather than continuing the successful practice of “parity pricing” which defined the real growth of western nations during the 25 post-WW2 years, the markets run by speculators looking only towards maximizing profit defined the prices of goods.

  Last but not least, oil price increases of 400% during the 1973 OPEC crisis is admitted to have played a big role driving the 1973-79 inflation, but as researcher William Engdahl demonstrated in his 1992 Century of Oil, then Secretary of State Henry Kissinger had more of a role in manufacturing this crisis from scratch by keeping hundreds of tankers replete with petrol from being unloaded in the USA and facilitating the 400% increase with the assistance of several high level oil ministers in the Middle East beholden to Kissinger. In recent years, Saudi Arabia’s former OPEC minister at the time corroborated Engdahl’s research stating:

  “I am 100 per cent sure that the Americans were behind the increase in the price of oil. The oil companies were in in real trouble at that time, they had borrowed a lot of money and they needed a high oil price to save them.”

  Putting the Trilateral Commission into Perspective

  This shift of the U.S. economy from its former role as an industrial producer economy to a consumer cult of speculation and monetarism was accompanied by a broader international shift then being orchestrated by a cabal of misanthropic technocrats managing an organization known as the Trilateral Commission founded in 1973 by Chase Manhattan President David Rockefeller III and a sociopathic grand strategist named Zbigniew Brzsinski.

  The aim of the Trilateral Commission was to destroy the sovereign manufacturing base of both the USA and international developing sector alike.

  For anyone who might consider this paranoid “conspiracy theorizing”, it is useful to be reminded that among the highest echelons of the U.S. executive branch under President Carter included members such as Brzezinski, Walter Mondale (Vice President), Harold Brown (Defense Secretary), Cyrus Vance (Secretary of State), Michael Blumenthal (Treasury Secretary), James Schlesinger (Energy Czar) and Paul Volcker himself as Fed Chair. Henry Kissinger was also a leading member of this group.

  Among the many goals of the Trilateral Commission laid out Brzezinski in his 1970 Manifesto “Between Two Ages” was the need to drive the transition of society towards what Brzezinski referred to as the “technetronic era” saying:

  “The technetronic era involves the gradual appearance of a more controlled society. Such a society would be dominated by an elite, unrestrained by traditional values. Soon it will be possible to assert almost continuous surveillance over every citizen and maintain up-to-date complete files containing even the most personal information about the citizen. These files will be subject to instantaneous retrieval by the authorities.”

  During a 1975 Trilateral Commission study called Crisis in Democracy, overseen by Zbigniew, Clash of Civilizations ideologue Samuel Huntington wrote: “we have come to recognize that there are potential desirable limits to economic growth. There are also potentially desirable limits to the indefinite extension of democracy… a government which lack authority will have little ability to impose on its people the sacrifices that will be necessary”.

  So what sort of sacrifices did these Trilateral Commission technocrats think necessary in a healthy society liberated from its foolish belief in scientific and technological progress that animated the policy outlook of such rifraf as Franklin Roosevelt, John F Kennedy, Charles De Gaulle or Bobby Kennedy?

  This is where Volcker steps in.

  The Meaning of ‘Controlled Disintegration’

  In 1978, faced with unbounded inflation, Paul Volcker spoke at a conference at Warwick University London stating that “a controlled disintegration in the world economy is a legitimate object in the 1980s”.

  Upon ascending to the chair of the Fed a year later, he wasted no time in applying this program. Not only did he render available credit impossible for many small and medium enterprises by raising interest rates to 20%, Volcker also ensured that third world nations then being sucked back into a neocolonial debt slavery under the IMF and World Bank economic hitmen, would be sucked into ever greater rates of unpayable debts as a new form of slavery. Between 1979-1982, third world debt skyrocketed from 40-70% across the board leading to a major debt crisis.

  During this period U.S. agricultural output collapsed, metal cutting machine tools fell by 45%, automobile production fell by 44.3% and steel production fell by 49.4% as bankruptcies skyrocketed leaving only mega-corporations strong enough to pay the draconian rates while absorbing small bankrupted companies and farms like a modern day Borg consuming ever greater rates of cheap labor and cheap resources from poor nations.

  To understand how these countries remained poor and exploitable, one need only visit the Malthusian State Department/CIA Report authored by Henry Kissinger in 1974 called NSSM-200 that called for a total depopulation program targeting 14 poor nations then desirous of industrial growth. Those targeted included India, Bangladesh, Pakistan, Indonesia, Thailand, the Philippines, Turkey, Nigeria, Egypt, Ethiopia, Mexico, Colombia, and Brazil. Kissinger’s logic was simple: If these nations develop, their populations will grow. If their populations grow they will use their resources. BUT since it is in the strategic interests of the USA to use those resources, these nations must be kept down.

  Nationalist leaders among those target nations who had a different idea were targeted for assassination or regime change throughout the 1980s.

  Back in the USA, Paul Volcker additionally took aim at commercial banks by forcing vast increases in reserve requirements making lending additionally difficult (although speculation in investment banks were facilitated with the Garn-St. Germaine Act of 1982). This act and accompanying financial de-regulation during this period of “Reaganomics” led the way to the new age of universal banking beginning with Thatcher’s Big Bang in 1986, the end of Canada’s Four Pillars that same year and finally the killing of Glass-Steagall in 1999. The dream of social Darwinists of an unregulated world of each against all where only the strongest and fittest and most sociopathic survive was now real. In the Soviet Union, this process of nation stripping and deregulation that took decades to wreck havoc on western economies was accelerated in the space of a decade of shock therapy. In China, where agents of Soros and the CIA like Zhao Ziyang (Prime Minister and CCP General Secretary from 1987-89) attempted to impose liberalizing reforms like a Chinese Gorbachev, the rape was luckily stopped before a Russian model could be imposed.

  With Glass-Steagall out of the way, commercial and investment banks could unite to form “the ultimate, all-powerful, many-headed financial conglomerate” as outlined by Lord Jacob Rothschild in 1983 (2).

  In 2001, as Zbigniew Brzezinski’s Islamicist monstrosity created to fight the Soviets in Afghanistan had been incubated throughout the 1990s, a new program of never-ending wars in the Middle East was launched. While the Middle East was turned inside out under a new age of war, the financial services sector avoided several near blowouts in 1997, 1998 and 2000 (with the collapse of the dot com/Y2K bubble). This was done by deregulating over-the-counter derivatives which turned a $70 trillion time bomb (in 2001) into a $650 trillion time bomb in 2008 when the housing market collapsed.

  

  While opportunities then existed to impose Glass-Steagall and break up the banks as had been done earlier by FDR in 1933, hyperinflationary money printed was chosen instead resulting in another 12 years of insanity as the bubble continued to expand and the physical economic productive base continued to atrophy.

  Today, we sit on not one bubble concentrated in housing prices, or oil, or currencies, but rather a multitude of bubbles in literally everything from commodities, bitcoin, housing, commercial real estate, bundled student debts, automotive loans, and the over-valued U.S. currency itself.

  The COVID Pandemic did not “cause” the current systemic crisis as many fools have parroted for over a year, but has merely served as cover to obscure the real systemic causes of the long-awaited collapse and accelerate the controlled disintegration of the system as the world is prepared to transition into a “new technetronic age” which has come to be dubbed a “Great Reset” or “Fourth Industrial Revolution”.

  We are told by the likes of Klaus Schwab, or World Economic Forum trustees Mark Carney, Christine Lagarde, and Chrystia Freeland that the age of free market capitalism which reined from 1971-2020 has come to an end, and that a new epoch of “green finance” under a decarbonizing world is upon us. Under this new world order of “stakeholder capitalism” citizens will learn to own nothing and be happy, while polluting companies who commit climate sins will be choked of all credit.

  As former Bank of England head Mark Carney recently wrote of the new age of “net zero” in his new book Values Building a Better World for All, (which many of recognized as a precursor to his replacement for Canada’s Justin Trudeau as Prime Minister):

  “It could be generations before the gains of the fourth industrial revolution are widely shared. In the interim, there could be a long period of technological unemployment sharply rising inequalities and intensifying social unrest”.

  Klaus Schwab has publicly fantasized of this new age of human-machine merging of microchipped brains interfacing with the global net, and Tony Blair has giddily said that “vaccination is, in the end, going to be your route to liberty”.

  So, while that story might sound a tad bleak, there remains only tiny obstacle to the successful implementation of this anti-human program.

  This obstacle is located in the Greater Eurasian Partnership led by Russia and China and joined by 135 nations of the world that have signed onto the Belt and Road Initiative. These are nations who would rather have a multipolar future vectored around large scale industrial growth than be sacrificed on the alter of Gaia by a technocratic neo-Malthusian priesthood. This multipolar paradigm operates under a financial and geopolitical philosophy at total odds with the closed, entropic obsession of the forces associated with Kissinger, Blair, Carney or Schwab, and that is a very good thing not only for the Eurasian world, but for nationalist forces within the west as well.

  Tyler Durden
  Sun, 06/13/2021 – 23:00

• Indian Officials Demolish 'Corona Mata Temple' In Crackdown On COVID Superstition
  Indian Officials Demolish ‘Corona Mata Temple’ In Crackdown On COVID Superstition

  While India is dealing with “scientists” allegedly lying and cheating over COVID cures, officials in the Indian state of Uttar Pradesh have demolished a shrine dedicated to a coronavirus-inspired goddess, reportedly due to concerns about dubious claims of health benefits linked to the unorthodox religious site.

  

  Last week, we saw The Indian Bar Association serve a legal notice (pdf) on World Health Organization’s (WHO) Chief Scientist Dr. Soumya Swaminathan on May 25, claiming that she was “spreading disinformation and misguiding the people of India, in order to fulfill her agenda” and sought to prevent her from “causing further damage.”

  But, with “science” being questioned for its political bias worldwide, residents of a village near the city of Pratapgarh constructed a temple allowing devotees to seek the healing powers of “Mother Corona” as they battle the virus. 

  

  “Villagers collectively set up the temple with the belief that praying to the deity would definitely offer respite to people suffering from Covid-19,” one local told Indian news agency ANI.

  As RT reports, the shrine is composed of a mask-clad statue set behind a yellow backdrop. Devotees brought yellow flowers as offerings to the goddess, but were not allowed to touch the statue, according to local media reports.

  According to the Times of India, police and regional officials dismantled the temple several days after it was unveiled in order to “discourage superstition” about the virus among villagers.

  Ironically, places in India where Ivermectin is used preventatively or as early treatment, such as Goa and Uttar Pradesh, are seeing COVID-19 cases declining versus states that have banned the drug.

  “Every one of those states, the curves are now precipitously declining,” said Dr. Pierre Kory, President and Chief Medical Officer of the FLCCC Alliance.

  “But there’s a state in India called Tamil Nadu whose minister there basically effectively outlawed ivermectin… [and] the cases and deaths in that state are skyrocketing,” he added.

  According to data by the Johns Hopkins University Center for Systems Science and Engineering, Tamil Nadu saw 20,421 new cases and 434 deaths on June 6, while Goa recorded 403 new cases and 16 deaths, and Uttar Pradesh reported 1,037 cases and 85 deaths.

  Uttar Pradesh, one of the most populous states in India with over 200 million people, has been handing out free medical kits containing seven days’ worth of medication, one of which is ivermectin, for COVID-19 positive patients under home isolation.

  So – was it the ivermectin… or the Corona-Mata Temple that saved the people of Uttar Pradesh?

  Tyler Durden
  Sun, 06/13/2021 – 22:30

• Bombs In Paradise: How Hawaii Is Fast Becoming The Most Militarized Place On Earth
  Bombs In Paradise: How Hawaii Is Fast Becoming The Most Militarized Place On Earth

  Authored by Brad Wolf via WorldBeyondWar.org,

  The United States Army plans to build an enormous weapons facility storing stockpiles of conventional warheads and explosives right next to the residential housing communities of Ewa Beach, Ewa Villages, West Loch Estates, and Ewa Gentry, as well as beside the Pearl Harbor National Wildlife Refuge in Hawaii. This Pacific island paradise already has the largest concentration of United States military bases and compounds in the country, making it one of the most militarized places on earth. Were it to secede from the Union, Hawaii would be a major military power on a global scale. And now, more weapons are on the way. A lot more.

  The size, scope, and expense of this massive construction project must be considered, as well as the immediate danger placed on the residents of the surrounding communities. Equally important is whether the pre-positioning of such massive amounts of live warheads and munitions is in the interest and safety of the American public. Pre-positioning means ready to use. Locked and loaded. We’re off to war. This decreases the time for diplomacy and increases the likelihood of the weapons’ use. Do we really want to stockpile yet more weapons on this over-militarized island in preparation for the next big war? Is this a prudent strategy, or rash and perilous behavior?

  

  In a 164 page report written by the Department of the Navy for the Army, titled :Finding Of No Significant Impact (FONSI) For The U.S. Army West Loch Ordnance Facilities At Joint Base Pearl Harbor-Hickman (JBPHH), Oahu, Hawaii,” the Navy states this project will include 27 new box type “D” magazines, eight modular storage magazines, administrative and operational facilities, accessory roads and concrete pads, utility service and distribution, site drainage, security features, and fire lines. For the record, a box type “D” magazine has an estimated footprint of 8,000 square feet. Again, there will be 27 of these. An 86,000 square-foot vehicle holding yard, a 50,000 square-foot vehicle inspection area, and a 20,000 square-foot residue storage warehouse are among the other larger items to be built.

  Despite this massive construction project, the Navy asserts no significant direct, indirect, or cumulative environmental impact to the area. The Navy then doubles-down on the absurdity, stating the proposed facility would actually result in beneficial impacts to public health and safety, an interesting argument for the storage of millions of pounds of explosive materials not more than a half mile from a housing development.

  The report continues in the same vein using language meant to be innocuous and reasonable, but which is deadly serious, by arguing the massive weapons complex will cause no impact to cultural resources, biological resources, socioeconomic conditions, and minimal impact to land use. The Department of the Interior even signed off on the environmental impact argument, thereby proving the obvious, that all branches of the government work for the Pentagon.

  Explosive munitions would be on and off-loaded at this site from a variety of ships, trucked and forklifted to warehouses, and then carted back to other ships ready for war. An accidental explosion would be devastating to these residential communities, carrying the potential to kill and injure hundreds. Homes, businesses, parks and schools all would be in the blast zone, or the “explosion arc.”

  

  Additionally, an accidental blast there could ignite even greater blasts at Pearl Harbor facilities and Hickam Field, a chain reaction of deadly explosions the Navy refers to as “sympathetic explosions.” The 1969 USS Enterprise fire near Pearl Harbor began when a Zuni rocket accidentally detonated under a plane’s wing and ignited additional munitions, blowing holes in the flight deck which allowed jet fuel to ignite the ship. Twenty-eight sailors were killed, 314 were injured, and 15 aircraft were destroyed at a cost of over $126 million. This accidental explosion occurred offshore and far away from residential neighborhoods. Such an explosion at this new facility would cause far greater loss of life and property.

  Especially noteworthy about this new weapons facility is the shortened safety distance between the bomb storage buildings and the residential population, less than a half mile from the new Ewa Gentry North Park housing development. Other storage facilities such as Indian Island in Washington State and the Earle Ammunition Loading facility in New Jersey have far greater explosion arcs, while the Army MOTSU site in North Carolina has a 3.5 mile explosion arc. The recent accidental explosion in Beirut, Lebanon, though not of military munitions, left a blast zone of 6.2 miles. The data used to calculate these explosion arcs is, according to the Navy, classified. Additionally, the types of ammunition and exclusive amounts to be stored are also classified. And so, explosion arc is a term whose actual meaning is held in close confidence by the Navy. Trust us, they say.

  At the end of their lengthy report, the Navy, not surprisingly, concludes there is no alternative but this. They have, so they argue, done their due diligence. Weapons must be brought here, a new facility must be built, there is no danger to the public or the environment. They are merely fulfilling their obligations under the law by planning, pre-positioning, and preparing for war. Rest assured, they seem to say, all is well. No reason to worry. You are in safe hands. The military is in control. Construction begins in 2022.

  Tyler Durden
  Sun, 06/13/2021 – 22:00

• As G7 Communique Waters Down China Abuses, White House Preempts With Separate Statement
  As G7 Communique Waters Down China Abuses, White House Preempts With Separate Statement

  It appears the final G-7 communique on China was a bit watered down for Washington’s taste, after it become clear the Biden administration hoped to make the summit in Cornwall focused on China China China! …but the uncomfortable irony that remains is that the very parties at the G-7 table that are most reliant on Chinese trade (Europe) have proven themselves least willing to crack down on Beijing’s reach and influence. 

  A clearly softened (compared to US rhetoric of late) official communique issued at the G-7 close Sunday reads as follows: “With regard to China, and competition in the global economy, we will continue to consult on collective approaches to challenging non-market policies and practices which undermine the fair and transparent operation of the global economy.”

  And further in very dry bureaucratic tone, it states “In the context of our respective responsibilities in the multilateral system, we will cooperate where it is in our mutual interest on shared global challenges, in particular addressing climate change and biodiversity loss in the context of COP26 and other multilateral discussions.”

  

  …all leading to a highly “cushioned” G-7 conclusion on China’s human rights abuses: 

  At the same time and in so doing, we will promote our values, including by calling on China to respect human rights and fundamental freedoms, especially in relation to Xinjiang and those rights, freedoms and high degree of autonomy for Hong Kong enshrined in the Sino-British Joint Declaration and the Basic Law.

  France’s Macron is foremost among European leaders who has met Washington’s urgent call for a more muscular strategy to confront Beijing with a big yawn, as Politico this weekend noted:

  Macron’s zinger about differences over the Chinese military threat will help set the tone: “For my part, China isn’t part of the Atlantic geography, or perhaps my map is off.” But France is also pushing back against China’s fait accompli policy in the Indopacific, the French Defense Minister Florence Parly told me in May.

  In response to the muted G7 reaction to China human rights, the White House had actually released its own separate statement just ahead of the formal agreed upon communique.

  Or did he?… no:

  US President Biden persuades G7 to be more competitive towards China https://t.co/R7ycDcraD3

  — Mutlu Civiroglu (@mutludc) June 13, 2021

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  The White House statement said,

  “The United States and our G7 partners remain deeply concerned by the use of all forms of forced labor in global supply chains, including state-sponsored forced labor of vulnerable groups and minorities and supply chains of the agricultural, solar, and garment sectors—the main supply chains of concern in Xinjiang” – in a clearly more direct statement containing a litany of specific Chinese violations.

  Blinken had earlier claimed “largely agreement” on China among G7 leaders in Cornwall… but the competing Sunday statements tell a different story.

  On reported tension between Pres. Biden and world leaders at the G7 summit on countering China’s global infrastructure initiatives, Sec. of State Antony Blinken tells @MarthaRaddatz: “What we have is largely agreement.” https://t.co/bRcR04cdtm pic.twitter.com/UyG3YXcVCb

  — This Week (@ThisWeekABC) June 13, 2021

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  And about that “rival BRI” infrastructure plan…

  After 7 years of ignoring, mocking and demonizing China’s New Silk Road, the West now proposes its own infrastructure project. But it’s supposed to be funded by private firms. Good luck — they’re going to be tiny ones seeking short-term profits. #BRI https://t.co/FWEtfgajBo

  — Global Politics (@Geopol2030) June 12, 2021

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  Tyler Durden
  Sun, 06/13/2021 – 21:30

• "Discrimination At The Hands Of Their Government": Another Federal Court Has Halted A Racially-Biased Federal Relief Program
  “Discrimination At The Hands Of Their Government”: Another Federal Court Has Halted A Racially-Biased Federal Relief Program

  Authored by Jonathan Turley,

  President Joe Biden is facing an embarrassing and growing problem as he continues to declare his focus on ending racial discrimination: another federal court appears close to ruling that his Administration is engaging in raw racial discrimination. Milwaukee District Judge William Griesbach issued a temporary restraining order in Wisconsin halting Biden’s controversial $4 billion race-based federal relief program for farmers.  The awarding of relief based on race immediately raised objections of racial discrimination. The ruling is based on the court’s view that the white farmers challenging the program are likely to prevail.

  

  The order was made in favor of twelve plaintiffs from nine different states who sued the Secretary of Agriculture and the Administrator of the Farm Service Agency to enjoin the Biden Administration from implementing a loan-forgiveness program for farmers and ranchers under Section 1005 of the American Rescue Plan Act of 2021 (ARPA). The program pays up to 120% of direct or guaranteed farm loan balances for Black, American Indian, Hispanic, Asian American or Pacific Islander farmers.

  As part of the ARPA, Congress appropriated “such sums as may be necessary” to pay for the cost of loan modifications and payments to “socially disadvantaged” farmers and ranchers. § 1005(a)(1). The term “socially disadvantaged farmer or rancher” is defined under 7 U.S.C. § 2279(a). § 1005(b)(3) as a farmer or rancher who is a member of a “socially disadvantaged group.” § 2279(a)(5).

  “Socially disadvantaged group” is then defined as “a group whose members have been subjected to racial or ethnic prejudice because of their identity as members of a group without regard to their individual qualities.” § 2279(a)(6).

  The Biden Administration defines “socially disadvantaged farmer or rancher” to include individuals “who are one or more of the following: Black/African American, American Indian, Alaskan native, Hispanic/Latino, Asian, or Pacific Islander.” American Rescue Plan Debt Payments, U.S. DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE, available at https://www.farmers.gov /americanrescueplan (last visited June 7, 2021).

  The Court found that the program was unambiguously discriminatory since “the only consideration in determining whether a farmer or rancher’s loans should be completely forgiven is the person’s race or national origin.” As such, “Plaintiffs are excluded from the program based on their race and are thus experiencing discrimination at the hands of their government.”

  The Court found on the required compelling interest that the Administration failed to state a case:

  Here, Defendants lack a compelling interest for the racial classifications. Defendants assert that ‘Congress targeted the debt payments in Section 1005 to the minority groups that it determined had suffered discrimination in the USDA programs and that had been largely left out of recent agricultural funding and pandemic relief.’ Dkt. No. 17 at 17. But Defendants have not established that the loan-forgiveness program targets a specific episode of past or present discrimination. Defendants point to statistical and anecdotal evidence of a history of discrimination within the agricultural industry. Id. at 16–17. But Defendants cannot rely on a ‘generalized assertion that there has been past discrimination in an entire industry’ to establish a compelling interest. J.A. Croson Co., 488 U.S. at 498; see also Parents Involved, 551 U.S. at 731 (plurality opinion) (‘remedying past societal discrimination does not justify race-conscious government action’). Defendants’ evidence of more recent discrimination includes assertions that the vast majority of funding from more recent agriculture subsidies and pandemic relief efforts did not reach minority farmers and statistical disparities. Id. at 17.

  Judge Griesbach further rejected the government’s arguments on the narrow tailoring prong:

  Defendants have not established that the remedy is narrowly tailored. To do so, the government must show ‘serious, good faith consideration of workable race-neutral alternatives.’ Grutter v. Bollinger, 539 U.S. 306, 339 (2003). Defendants contend that Congress has unsuccessfully implemented race-neutral alternatives for decades, but they have not shown that Congress engaged ‘in a genuine effort to determine whether alternative policies could address the alleged harm’ here. Vitolo, 2021 WL 2172181, at *6. The obvious response to a government agency that claims it continues to discriminate against farmers because of their race or national origin is to direct it to stop: it is not to direct it to intentionally discriminate against others on the basis of their race and national origin.

  This is the latest opinion finding that the Biden Administration is engaging in presumptive racial discrimination. As discussed previously, in Texas, Judge Reed O’Connor found that the Biden administration engaged in systemic gender and race discrimination to implement COVID-19 relief for American restaurants.

  In Oregon, however, a challenge was rejected over racially dependent benefits. A state COVID-19 program for black businesses, called the Oregon Cares Fund, was challenged by a Mexican-American café owner and others under the Equal Protection Clause. While legislative counsel and some legal experts raised concerns over the constitutionality of the law, a trial court rejected the challenge.

  Even if such categories pass constitutional muster, there is the question of selecting groups for favored treatment. In the case of Oregon’s fund, Latino owners were excluded. Under the American Rescue Plan, anyone can qualify for preferential treatment if they claim to be part of a group that has “been subjected to racial or ethnic prejudice or cultural bias within American society.” It is the legislative version of the special graduation held at the University of Portland for “QTBIPOC (LGBTQIA and/or BIPOC).” Once the inclusions were defined, the only major exclusion was straight white males.

  These challenges could find a receptive majority on the Supreme Court. In a 2007 case, Chief Justice John Roberts stated that position most succinctly by declaring that the “way to stop discriminating on the basis of race is to stop discriminating on the basis of race.”

  Notably, Judge Griesbach rejected the call of the Biden Administration for a limited injunction” “To ensure that Plaintiffs receive complete relief and that similarly-situated nonparties are protected, a universal temporary restraining order in this case is proper.”

  Here is the opinion: Faust v. Vilsack

  Tyler Durden
  Sun, 06/13/2021 – 21:00

• The Fed's Punchbowl Is Overflowing Into Money Markets: What Happens Next
  The Fed’s Punchbowl Is Overflowing Into Money Markets: What Happens Next

  Last Wednesday, when the Fed’s reverse repo facility hit just shy of half a trillion dollars (it has since risen to a new record $547.8BN), we said that “Wall Street Scrambles To Figure Out What Comes Next” in which we showed that while some banks expect the Fed to hike its IOER and Reverse Repo rates (such as BofA, JPM and Wrightson ICAP), others see the Fed standing pat again (Jefferies, Credit Suisse and BMO), a case bolstered by the WSJ’s Fed whisperer, Michael Darby, who suggested that the Fed was ok with the reverse repo being at half a trillion, and thus is unlikely to make any changes to its adminstered rates.

  Alas, with the Street evenly split in two camps on the fate of the IOER/RRP rates, the confusion among traders remains, and so in attempt to explain away some of the confusion, late last week, Std Chartered’s top FX and rates strategists, Steve Englander and John Davies, penned a report describing why the “Punchbowl is overflowing into money markets” and what the Fed can do in response.

  Here is the one minute summary:

  • The Fed may eventually feel compelled to tweak IOER and RRP but can avoid doing so at the June FOMC
  • RRP usage is likely to rise further as the drawdown in the Treasury cash balance continues
  • Yellen’s view that a higher rate environment would be a plus makes sense without being UST-negative
  • Still, higher long-term yields could take the pressure off short-term rates

  Below we present some of the key highlights from their note, in which they make the critical observation that “It is very unusual for the Treasury Secretary to talk up yields”

  The surge in Reverse Repurchase Facility (RRP) usage over recent weeks has supported speculation that the Fed may tweak administered rates higher. The Fed has made it clear that any adjustments to administered rates will be treated as technical fixes, not monetary policy moves. Nevertheless, focus remains on whether the Fed deems it necessary to adjust Interest on Excess Reserves (IOER) and the RRP offering rate. Our view is as follows:

  1. With effective Fed Funds (EFFR) generally steady at 6bps, we expect the Fed will opt for the status quo at the 16 June FOMC meeting.
  2. Reverse repo operations will probably increase even further as the Treasury General Account (TGA) falls.
  3. We think the Fed would move IOER and RRP intra-meeting if EFFR falls to 5bps or below other than at month-end. Eventually the Fed will likely move to firm money market rates but would avoid such a move if possible.
  4. Treasury Secretary Yellen’s openness to higher yields may reflect issues that occur when Fed balance sheet expansion prevents yield spreads from widening as much as investors see as appropriate given issuance.

  As we have discussed extensively in recent weeks, the decline in EFFR as largely driven by the boost to liquidity from the recent drawdown in the Treasury’s cash balance on top of ongoing quantitative easing (QE) by the Fed.

  

  This drawdown is related to the debt-ceiling suspension that expires end-July and could have $600bn further to go. The Fed has no say in this, and adjusting the pace of QE to try to deal with the consequences would be a blunt and risky approach. Near-term, RRP usage is likely to rise further. Average demand per counterparty has reached $10-12Bn in recent days but the Fed’s counterparty limit was raised to $80Bn in March.

  Yet remarkably, recent remarks from Treasury Secretary Yellen that “a slightly higher interest rate environment…would actually be a plus for society’s point of view and the Fed’s point of view” caught the market’s attention but triggered only a temporary blip higher in UST yields. She has mentioned higher yields twice in recent weeks, so it is unlikely to be an accident or misstatement”” according to the Std Chartered duo who note that “nevertheless, it is unusual for a treasury secretary to endorse higher borrowing costs.”

  Yellen  also commented that “we’ve been fighting inflation that’s too low and interest rates that are too low now for a decade”. In our view, both her comments and the market reaction are fair. In the 1930s Jacob Viner argued for fiscal policy on the grounds that it would push up long-term interest rates and make short-term monetary policy more effective.

  Yellen’s comments on inflation and (presumably) real yields can be seen in the same light. If real yields increase because of government borrowing for long-term investment, that is a plus provided that the real return on the investment exceeds borrowing costs.

  Similarly, if inflation and inflation expectations move towards target rather than undershooting, any level of nominal policy rates becomes more stimulatory. Aggressive macro policy settings can push both real yields and inflation breakevens higher while improving economic outcomes. As Englander explains, “if unchanged policy rates accompany the higher market yields, then the lower real yields would mean employment and inflation targets are reached more quickly” while from the Fed’s perspective, it would suggest that its new policy framework is gaining traction and ultimately mean that it has more ammunition to support the economy if and when the next recession arrives.

  From the market’s perspective, Std Chartered thinks that such an outlook is already largely priced in. Indeed, the breakeven curve implies a near-term pick-up in inflation beyond what the Fed’s transitory view assumes, but longer-term spreads look consistent with the 2% average inflation target. 5Y5Y USD OIS is currently around 2%, so below the Fed’s 2.5% median longer-run policy rate projections, but it hit 2.4% when UST yields registered their YTD highs in Q1.

  

  On balance, Englander concludes that Yellen was likely defending the Biden administration’s fiscal plans much more than stating a view on Fed QE and policy rates. However, he also notes that “it is striking when the Treasurer of a public or private entity argues for higher borrowing costs. This unusual situation may reflect the fear that QE is not leading to more bank loans.” If true, that would remove one of the major monetary policy justifications for QE.

  Or, summarizing what we have always said about the catastrophic experiment that is QE, Englander notes that “the Fed would be paying for government debt with new reserves and preventing yields from going negative by paying a floor rate on excess reserves, but not generating additional lending activity. The higher yields that Yellen was welcoming may be a way of creating more attractive investment opportunities for financial institutions with excess reserves on hand. The higher yields further along the curve would make carry more attractive, encourage lending and reduce the excess liquidity at the short end.”

  Still, it could be argued that her comments even stack up in terms of the front-end rates conundrum facing the Fed in the near term. According to the Std Chartered strategists, “slightly higher rate environment” would certainly be a plus for money market investors. From the Fed’s perspective it would reduce the risk that EFFR sets outside the target range and the risk that QE is seen as having reached the limit of effectiveness.

  Nonetheless, Englander concludes that does the Fed is unlikely to adjust IOER/RRP as soon as 16 June. However, Yellen may be also be making the case that more debt issuance and the higher yields that would accompany the debt would be positive for the economy and resolve some of the ‘plumbing’ issues at the short end of the market. Needless to say, in a world where there has never been more debt and where the jury is very much out on whether reflation (so very need to inflate away the debt) is here to stay, the likelihood that Yellen will be just as wrong about her “benign higher rates” forecast as she was with her 2017 prediction of “no financial crisis in our lifetimes” is effectively 100%.

  Tyler Durden
  Sun, 06/13/2021 – 20:30

• Top US General Warns China Increasing Military At "Serious And Sustained Rate"
  Top US General Warns China Increasing Military At “Serious And Sustained Rate”

  By Jack Phillips of The Epoch Times

  The top U.S. general warned Thursday that the Chinese regime is increasing its military capacity at a “very serious and sustained rate” and said it could pose a threat to worldwide stability and peace.

  Army General Mark Milley, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said that it’s necessary the United States “retain our competitive and technological edge” over the Chinese Communist Party (CCP), which comes after President Joe Biden and Pentagon chief Lloyd Austin raised similar concerns in recent days about the rhetoric coming from the CCP—as the United States and China have remained intransigent over Taiwan, the CCP’s human rights violations, and disputes over territory.

  

  Austin told senators on Thursday that Biden’s defense request of $715 billion is needed to meet the challenge posed by the “increasingly assertive” regime.

  “The request is driven by our recognition that our competitors—especially China—continue to advance their capabilities,” Austin said during a hearing with the Senate Armed Services Committee. “We must out-pace those advances to remain a credible deterrent to conflict around the world.”

  Milley also noted that the combined total defense spending by China and Russia is greater than that of the United States, although he did not say how he reached that conclusion during the hearing. But aside from that, China poses the “number one” military threat to the United States, he added.

  Earlier this month, a bipartisan group of senators visited Taiwan and said the United States would provide 750,000 COVID-19 vaccine doses to the island nation. It prompted a series of bellicose statements from Chinese officials, including Wu Qian, a spokesperson for China’s Ministry of National Defense, who alleged the United States is “seriously undermining” stability in the region.

  Wu then threatened that anyone—without providing names—who dared to “split Taiwan from China” would see a “resolute attack head-on” from the Chinese army. The CCP has long claimed that Taiwan belongs to it, while Taiwan has asserted that it is a sovereign, democratic nation. Because the regime believes Taiwan is part of its territory, it opposes any government or world body from establishing ties with the island nation.

  

  Milley’s comment comes months after another top U.S. commander, Adm. Philip Davidson, head of the U.S. Indo-Pacific Command, warned the same Senate panel that China’s military is threatening U.S. dominance in the Pacific.

  “The military balance in the Indo-Pacific is becoming more unfavorable for the United States and our allies,” Davidson said, adding: “Our deterrence posture in the Indo-Pacific must demonstrate the capability, the capacity, and the will to convince Beijing unequivocally the costs of achieving their objectives by the use of military force are simply too high.”

  The CCP is also able to project more and more naval power in the Indian Ocean, as well as the Horn of Africa, said Gen. Stephen Townsend, head of the U.S. Africa Command, in mid-April.

  “Their first overseas military base, their only one, is in Africa, and they have just expanded that by adding a significant pier that can even support their aircraft carriers in the future. Around the continent, they are looking for other basing opportunities,” Townsend told the House Armed Services Committee at the time.

  The Senate on Tuesday passed a nearly $250 billion bill to invest in manufacturing and technology to out-compete with Beijing, which includes some $190 billion in spending. Much of that money will go to research and development at universities and other institutions.

  Tyler Durden
  Sun, 06/13/2021 – 20:00

• From HCQ To Hunter's Laptop: Trump Shreds Democrats Over Vindicated Bombshells
  From HCQ To Hunter’s Laptop: Trump Shreds Democrats Over Vindicated Bombshells

  Former President Trump trolled Democrats this weekend, releasing a list of claims he says he’s been vindicated over.

  

  The statement reads:

  Statement by Donald J. Trump, 45th President of the United States of America

  Have you noticed that they are now admitting I was right about everything they lied about before the election?

  • Hydroxychloroquine works

  • The Virus came from a Chinese lab

  • Hunter Biden’s laptop was real

  • Lafayette Square was not cleared for a photo op

  • The “Russian Bounties” story was fake

  • We did produce vaccines before the end of 2020, in record time

  • Blue state lockdowns didn’t work

  • Schools should be opened

  • Critical Race Theory is a disaster for our schools and our Country

  • Our Southern Border security program was unprecedentedly successful

  Speaking from his Bedminster, New Jersey golf course, Trump said: “‘We were right! Listen to this: Hydroxychloroquine works. The virus came from a Chinese lab – it just came out. Hunter Biden’s laptop was real. They tried to say it was made by Russia. Russia. Russia. Russia.”

  “Lafayette Square was not cleared for a photo op. That just came out and I want to thank the Inspector General for having the courage to come out with the truth. The ‘Russian Bounties’ story was fake. Remember that? We produced vaccines before the end of 2020 in record time,” Trump added.

  #Breaking

  Trump Addresses Frank Speech Rally!

  Reads some of his recent vindications. And Mentions your favorite person! pic.twitter.com/R174Dh2GYH

  — SCUBA MIKE🤿 (@scuba2024) June 12, 2021

  Trump was condemned throughout last year for touting Hydroxychloroquine despite multiple doctors having successfully used it in patients. Last week, preliminary research revealed that the drug can increase survival rates in seriously ill COVID-19 patients by 200%. 

  How many people have died as a result of the left’s politicized crusade against cheap therapies – including Dr. Anthony Fauci?

  Fauci and friends’ misdeeds exposed. pic.twitter.com/GZ0PbpPXq8

  — Laura Ingraham (@IngrahamAngle) June 13, 2021

  Trump was also slammed for suggesting that COVID-19 may have leaked from the Wuhan Institute of Virology – only to have been recently vindicated after bombshell reports in the Wall Street Journal revealed that three lab workers were hospitalized in December 2019 with COVID-like symptoms – adding to the mounting pile of evidence against the institute known for its gain-of-function research on bat coronaviruses.

  As the Washington Examiner notes, “a batch of newly released emails from Fauci shows that the doctor was made aware that the virus likely did originate from a lab leak. The emails also show Fauci was aware of a coordinated effort between the World Health Organization and the Chinese government to squash stories about the lab leak hypothesis.”

  Republican Sen. Rand Paul described the emails allege Fauci was guilty of a “cover-up” and called for an investigation into him. House Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene similarly said Fauci and the media intentionally misled the public.

  Sen. Lindsey Graham took the emails a step further and claimed that Trump would have won the 2020 presidential election alone if the media reported accurately that the virus came from China.

  “If Trump was right [about the lab leak theory], it would have changed the outcome of the 2020 election, I believe,” Graham told Fox News host Sean Hannity on Tuesday. “And if we could have proven that early on in 2020 it was a lab leak coming from China, not occurring naturally, the public would want revenge against China, and who would they turn to: Biden or Trump?”

  “If it were known in February that Trump was right [in] 2020, I think he’d be president today,” he said in the interview.

  And since nobody else will pat Trump on the back or admit he was right, he might as well take a victory lap.

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

  Tyler Durden
  Sun, 06/13/2021 – 19:30

• Morgan Stanley: This Is The Biggest Paradigm Shift In Global Macro In The Past Three Years
  Morgan Stanley: This Is The Biggest Paradigm Shift In Global Macro In The Past Three Years

  By Chetan Ahya, Morgan Stanley’s Chief Economist and Global Head of Economics

  The Paradigm Shift

  At a recent group dinner, I was asked to identify the most significant development in global macro I had witnessed during my three-year stint in New York. I expect that many people would point to the pandemic and the structural changes it has brought to the ways we work and live. But I think the bigger story is how the pandemic has triggered a paradigm shift in how corporate profits and wages will be distributed within national income. As this mega-trend reverses in the US, the tide will turn in favor of higher inflation and economic cycles will run hotter but shorter, in my view.

  For context, the share of corporate profits in GDP has been on a rising path for the past 40 years, while the wage share has been declining until recently. At the same time, income inequality has increased sharply and intergenerational mobility has declined. While these trends are global in nature, the US has undoubtedly been at the forefront.

  

  As time wore on, these trends became increasingly unsustainable. Calls for action grew louder and a collective voice began to make its way into policy-making circles. When the burden of the COVID-19 recession fell most heavily on lower-income households, policy-makers were galvanised into action.

  How are policy-makers addressing these issues, and what are the implications?

  At a macro level, they are explicitly aiming for a high-pressure economy. Drawing on the experience of the past cycle, they believe that such an economy will create broad-based and inclusive economic growth, which will help to reduce the impact of the recession on lower-income households and address the long-standing problem of income inequality.

  The conduct of fiscal policy has shifted from austerity to activism. The fiscal response to this recession is already the largest since the Second World War, and policy-makers are working on additional fiscal packages. The Federal Reserve has recast both sides of its dual mandate, essentially creating room for unemployment rates to move lower in order to ensure that gains in the labor market can be shared more broadly among low-income groups.

  At a micro level, policy-makers are intervening to temper the adverse effects of market forces. The efforts under way to raise minimum wages are a case in point. But there will also be increasing scrutiny of the tech, trade and titans trio – the key factors that have held down the wage share of GDP. The previous US administration had already taken a new tack on trade policy, and all indications are that it will not be reversed under the current administration.

  At the same time, policy-makers are homing in on corporate titans and their actions. These companies tend to have high industry concentration and have blunted labor’s bargaining power. Moreover, they typically have a low labor share of value-added, and their proliferation has also contributed to the general decline in the wage share of GDP.

  All in, as policy-makers act to address income inequality and ensure an inclusive growth environment, the wage share of GDP will start to reverse its 40-year decline.

  

  The reversal of this mega-trend could have far-reaching implications for the macro landscape. We highlight two in particular.

  • First, the tide is turning in favor of higher inflation. We have been vocal about the return of inflation since May 2020. Our base case is that US core PCE inflation will rise above 2%Y (stripping out the base effects) from April 2022. We also see a real risk that inflation could overshoot 2.5%Y on a sustained basis.
  • Second, economic cycles could run hotter but shorter. A high-pressure economy would mean a faster return to full employment. But tightening policies at a later stage in the recovery runs the risk that shifts in policy stances could become more disruptive, truncating economic cycles.

  The initial burst of decisive policy action has set the US on a new course. Going forward, how pervasive and persistent these actions turn out to be will determine how far the US economy travels in this new direction. While the reversal of mega-trends could potentially be disruptive, this course correction will set the stage for a more balanced and sustainable economic trajectory over the longer term.

  Tyler Durden
  Sun, 06/13/2021 – 19:00

• Judge Tosses Texas Hospital Workers' Vaccine Lawsuit
  Judge Tosses Texas Hospital Workers’ Vaccine Lawsuit

  A Texas judge tossed out a lawsuit brought by 117 Houston Methodist hospital employees who sought to block the hospital system’s requirement that all employees receive COVID-19 vaccinations or face suspension and/or termination. 

  

  The move comes after the hospital suspended 178 employees without pay last week over their refusal to get vaccinated – 117 of which sued to overturn the requirement.

  US District Judge Lynn Hughes of Houston wrote in a scathing Saturday ruling that lead plaintiff Jennifer Bridges’ assertion that the vaccines are “experimental and dangerous” was false and otherwise irrelevant, according to AP (via Chron). He added that the plaintiff’s likening of the vaccination requirement to forced medical experimentation by the Nazis on concentration camp captives was “reprehensible.”

  In addition, Hughes ruled that making employment conditional upon vaccination status does not constitute coercion, as Bridges’ complaint alleges.

  “Bridges says that she is being forced to be injected with the vaccine or be fired. This is not coercion. Methodist is trying to do their business of saving lives without giving them the COVID-19 virus,” reads the ruling. “Bridges can freely choose to accept or refuse a COVID-19 vaccine; however, if she refuses, she will simply need to work somewhere else. If a worker refuses an assignment, changed office, earlier start time, or other directive, he may be properly fired. Every employment includes limits on the worker’s behavior in exchange for remuneration. That is all part of the bargain,” the Reagan appointee continued.

  Houston attorney Jared Woodfill, who represents Bridges and other clients (and who thought it wise to include a Holocaust analogy in the original complaint), has promised an appeal.

  “All of my clients continue to be committed to fighting this unjust policy,” he said in a statement, adding. “What is shocking is that many of my clients were on the front line treating COVID-positive patients at Texas Methodist Hospital during the height of the pandemic. As a result, many of them contracted COVID-19. As a thank you for their service and sacrifice, Methodist Hospital awards them a pink slip and sentences them to bankruptcy.”

  “We’re taking it all the way Supreme Court,” he added.

  The hospital allowed some employees to forgo vaccination for religious reasons or medical concerns; 285 employees received a medical or religious exemption, while 332 were granted deferrals for pregnancy or other reasons.

  The Equal Employment Opportunity Commission said recently that businesses can require employees to get a vaccine without violating federal laws but that employers must provide “reasonable accommodations” for workers who can’t or won’t get vaccinated due to religious reasons, pregnancy, or a disability.

  Over 100 employees from the system filed the lawsuit last month, asserting that officials were forcing employees “to be human ‘guinea pigs’ as a condition for continued employment.” –The Epoch Times

  “We can now put this behind us and continue our focus on unparalleled safety, quality, service, and innovation,” CEO of Houston Methodist, Marc Boom, told news outlets in response to the ruling. “Our employees and physicians made their decisions for our patients, who are always at the center of everything we do.”

  Tyler Durden
  Sun, 06/13/2021 – 18:30

• Beijing's Useful Idiots
  Beijing’s Useful Idiots

  Authored by Ian Birrell via UnHerd (emphasis ours),

  Just over a year ago, I stumbled across an intriguing scientific paper. It suggested the pandemic that was ripping around the world was “uniquely adapted to infect humans”; it was “not typical of a normal zoonotic infection” since it first appeared with “exceptional” ability to enter human cells. The author of the paper, Nikolai Petrovsky, was frank about the disease when we spoke back then, saying its adaptability was either “a remarkable coincidence or a sign of human intervention”. He even broke the scientific omertà by daring to admit that “no one can say a laboratory leak is not a possibility”.

  

  But even though Petrovsky has excellent credentials — professor of medicine at a prominent Australian university, author of more than 200 papers in scientific journals and founder of a company funded by the US government to develop new vaccine technologies — I was still anxious when my story went global. His original document had been posted on a pre-print site, so had not been peer reviewed, unlike if it had been published in a medical or scientific journal. These sorts of sites allow researchers to get findings out quickly. Petrovsky told me his first attempt to place these seismic findings was on BioRxiv, run by prominent New York laboratory. But it was rejected; eventually he succeeded on ArXiv, a rival server run by Cornell University. Last week, however, he told me this important origins modelling paper had finally been accepted by Nature Scientific Reports after “a harrowing 12 months of repeated reviews, rejections, appeals, re-reviews and finally now acceptance”.

  This acceptance is one more sign of the changing political climate as suddenly it is deemed permissible to discuss the possibility that the virus causing havoc around the world might have emerged from a laboratory. Petrovsky has had to endure what he calls “the legitimacy” of his paper as a peer-reviewed publication being denied for a critical 12 months — and he is far from alone. “I have heard all too many tales from other academics who have been equally frustrated in getting their manuscripts dealing with research into the origins of the virus published,” he said.

  Bear in mind that in the heat of this pandemic, papers printed in important journals were peer-reviewed within 10 weeks; one rattled through the process in just nine days for Nature. But, like Petrovsky, I have heard similar stories from many other frustrated experts who confronted the conventional wisdom that this lethal virus was a natural spillover event. Some could not even get letters published, let alone challenge those key papers promoting the Chinese perspective which have since turned out to be flawed or wrong.

  Only now is acceptance emerging that the science establishment colluded to dismiss the lab leak hypothesis as a conspiracy theory, assisted by prominent experts with clear conflicts of interest, patsy politicians and a pathetic media that mostly failed to do its job. And yet, at the heart of this scandal lie some of the world’s most influential science journals. These should provide a forum for pulsating debate as experts explore and test theories, especially on something as contentious and fascinating as the possible origins of a global pandemic. Instead, some have played a central role in shutting down discussion and discrediting alternative views on the origins, with disastrous consequences for our understanding of events.

  Many scientists have been dismayed by their actions. “It is very important to talk about the scientific journals — I think they are partially responsible for the cover-up,” said Virginie Courtier-Orgogozo, a leading French evolutionary biologist and key member of the Paris Group of scientists challenging the established view on these issues. The rejection of the lab leak hypothesis, she argues, in many places was not due to Trump’s intervention but the result of “respectable scientific journals not accepting to discuss the matter”.

  The Paris Group, for instance, submitted a letter to The Lancet in early January signed by 14 experts from around the world calling for an open debate, arguing that “the natural origin is not supported by conclusive arguments and that a lab origin cannot be formally discarded”. This does not seem contentious. But it was rejected on the basis it was “not a priority for us”. When the authors queried this decision, it was reassessed and returned without peer review by editor-in-chief Richard Horton with a terse dismissal saying “we have agreed to uphold our original decision to let this go”. The authors ended up publishing their statement on a pre-print site.

  Yet this is the same prestigious journal that published a now infamous statement early last year attacking “conspiracy theories suggesting that Covid-19 does not have a natural origin“. Clearly, this was designed to stifle debate. It was signed by 27 experts but later turned out to have been covertly drafted by Peter Daszak, the British scientist with extensive ties to Wuhan Institute of Virology. To make matters worse, The Lancet then set up a commission on the origins — and incredibly, picked Daszak to chair its 12-person task force, joined by five others who signed that statement dismissing ideas the virus was not a natural occurrence.

  Horton has been scathing about British government failures on the pandemic, even publishing a book lambasting them. Perhaps he would do well to turn his critical fire on his own journal’s failings as its 200th anniversary approaches. This is, remember, the same organ that inflamed the anti-vaccine movement by promoting Andrew Wakefield’s nonsense on MMR jabs — and then took 12 years to retract the damaging paper. But it is far from alone. The Paris Group has been collecting details of dissenting scientists, whose letters or critical articles were rebuffed by key journals which include Nature and Science, another two of the world’s most influential vehicles for scientific debate.

  Nature’s stance has been especially questionable. Around the same time as Daszak’s letter was printed, a statement started appearing at the top of some previously-published papers such as one on “gain of function research” by US virologist Ralph Baric and Shi Zhengli, the “batwoman” expert from Wuhan, entitled “A SARS-like cluster of circulating bat coronaviruses shows potential for human emergence”. This carefully-crafted note said such papers were being used as “basis for unverified theories that the novel coronavirus causing Covid-19 was engineered”, adding “there is no evidence that this is true; scientists believe that an animal is the most likely source of the coronavirus”.

  Nature also published a landmark paper from Prof Shi and two colleagues, sent to them on the same day last January that China belatedly admitted to human transmission. This detailed the existence of a virus called RaTG13 that was taken from a horseshoe bat and stored at Wuhan Institute of Virology. It was said to be the closest known relative to Sars-Cov-2 with more than 96% genetic similarity. This was highly significant since it underlined that such diseases occur in nature, yet although closely related, would have taken decades to evolve in the wild and seemed too distant to be manipulated in a laboratory.

  [ZH: More on this below regarding Nature’s Amy Maxmen and what appears to be an attempt to distance herself from Daszak.]

  Few hours ago, @amymaxmen told @KatherineEban, in a now deleted tweet, that the videos and picture I posted are deepfakes and that she has never met Peter Daszak. Trying to check if her allegations are true, I had stumbled on the Pulitzer webpage. https://t.co/UpzcK7MF8c pic.twitter.com/ue6DywqfaU

  — Florin (@Florin10302020) June 11, 2021

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  * * *

  Some experts were immediately suspicious over the lack of information on this new strain. The reason soon became clear: its name had been changed from another virus identified in a previous paper but — unusually for such a publication — this was not cited in Nature. This masked a link to three miners who had died from a strange respiratory disease while clearing out bat droppings in a cave in south China, which was hundreds of miles from Wuhan but used by Shi and her colleagues to collect samples from bats. The Wuhan researchers even admitted they had eight more undisclosed Sars-like viruses from the mine. But despite a barrage of complaints that began within weeks of publication, it took Nature 10 months to publish her addendum, which only raised more questions that remain unanswered to this day.

  Nature Medicine, its sister publication, was also home for the second key commentary that set the tone in the scientific community after Daszak’s outing in The Lancet. “The proximal origin of Sars-CoV-2″ bluntly concluded that “we do not believe that any type of laboratory-based scenario is plausible”. Critics pointed out it was questionable to claim there was any “evidence” proving that Sars-CoV-2 is not a purposefully manipulated virus. Others noted that the statement mentions the mysterious furin cleavage site — which Nikolai Petrovksy drew attention to as allowing the spike protein to bind effectively to cells in human tissues yet which is not found in the most closely-related coronaviruses — but downplays its potential significance. The statement suggests “it is likely that Sars-CoV-2-like viruses with partial or full polybasic cleavage sites will be discovered in other species”. This has not happened so far.

  This document — whose five signatories include one expert who was handed China’s top award for foreign scientists after nearly 20 years work there, and another who is a “guest professor” for the Chinese Centre for Disease Control and Prevention — has been accessed 5.4 million times and cited almost 1,500 times in other papers. It is so influential that when I emailed Jeremy Farrar, director of the Wellcome Trust and one of The Lancet signatories, to see if his stance remained the same, he pointed me to this paper that he called “the most important research on the genomic epidemiology of the origins of this virus”.

  The lead author was Kristian Andersen, an immunologist at Scripps Research Institute in California who has been a very active voice on social media condemning the lab leak theory and confronting its proponents. Yet the recent release of emails to Anthony Fauci exposed that Andersen had previously admitted to the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases director that the virus had unusual features that “(potentially) look engineered” and which are “inconsistent with expectations from evolutionary theory”. He claimed last week the discussion was “clear example of the scientific process” but as another top scientist said to me: “What a smoking gun!”. Now Anderson’s twitter account has suddenly disappeared.

  There are many more examples. For instance, China pointed the finger at animals sold at the Huanan Seafood Market two days after admitting there was human transmission of the virus. Within weeks, four manuscripts describing a pangolin virus with a similar spike receptor-binding domain to Sars-Cov-2 were submitted to journals, all relying heavily on data published by one group of Chinese scientists the previous year. Two of these papers on pangolin coronaviruses were run by Nature. Inevitably, the articles sparked intense global discussion over whether pangolins sold at the market were the missing zoonotic link between bats and human beings, similar to civet cats with the first Sars epidemic.

  The pangolin link was a false trail laid from China. Nature, however, rejected a submission from another key scientific dissident that showed how all four papers primarily used samples from the same batch of pangolins and that key data was inaccurately reported in two of these papers. Richard Ebright, a bio-security expert and professor of chemical biology at Rutgers University, argues that such tolerance of “material omissions and material misstatements” expose a massive issue. “Nature and The Lancet played important roles in enabling, encouraging, and enforcing the false narrative that science evidence indicates Sars-CoV-2 had a natural-spillover origin points and the false narrative that this was the scientific consensus”.

  Or as another well-placed observer put it: “The game seems to be for Nature and The Lancet to rush non-peer revised correspondences to set the tone and then delay critical papers and responses.”

  But why would they do this? This is where things become even murkier. Allegations swirl that it was not down to editorial misjudgement, but something more sinister: a desire to appease China for commercial reasons. The Financial Times revealed four years ago that debt-laden Springer Nature, the German group that publishes Nature, was blocking access in China to hundreds of academic articles mentioning subjects deemed sensitive by Beijing such as Hong Kong, Taiwan or Tibet. China is also spending lavishly around the world to win supremacy in science — which includes becoming the biggest national sponsor of open access journals published by both Springer Nature and Elsevier, owner of The Lancet.

  [ZH: more on Chinese appeasement below]

  Well, @PeterDaszak and the Chinese influence over @Nature happened. In the same article, Amy and virologist @angie_rasmussen from @georgetown_ghss fabricate misinformation about the lab leak investigation group #DRASTIC, then spread it on Twitter. Maxmen with Daszak in 2016. 2/2 pic.twitter.com/UPwYRlBLt1

  — Florin (@Florin10302020) June 11, 2021

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  * * *

  One source estimated that 49 sponsorship agreements between Springer Nature and Chinese institutions were worth at least $10m last year. These deals cover the publishing fees authors would normally pay in such journals, so they smooth the path for Chinese authors while creating a dependency culture. They have worked well for both sides: they offer the publishers access to the surging Chinese market and its well-resourced universities, while offering international recognition and status in return. But we know President Xi Jinping demands compliance with his world view, even from foreign-owned companies — and especially on an issue as sensitive as his nation’s possible role in unleashing a global catastrophe.

  Critics fear these corporate links to China compromise output and distort agendas. “Scientific publishing has become a highly politicised business,” argues Petrovksy. “Clearly there needs to be an international investigation launched into the role of scientific publishers, their increasingly powerful influence as the major publishing houses buy out many of the smaller independent journals, together with their growing politicisation and susceptibility to overt influence. We need to examine what impact this may have had in the pandemic and what impact it could have on science in the future.”

  Certainly it is valid to ask where was the real conspiracy in this tawdry saga that has stained so many reputations?

  Tyler Durden
  Sun, 06/13/2021 – 18:00

• 'Always Higher' – Cocaine Washes Ashore At Cape Canaveral Space Force Base 
  ‘Always Higher’ – Cocaine Washes Ashore At Cape Canaveral Space Force Base 

  In an ironic twist on their mission statement “Sempra Supra” (which could be translated “Always Higher”), a wildlife manager at Cape Canaveral Space Force Station (CCSFS) discovered more than a million dollars worth of cocaine on a beach last month while checking on sea turtle nests, according to local newspaper Florida Today. 

  Angy Chambers, a 45th Civil Engineer Squadron wildlife manager conducting sea turtle nesting surveys in late May, found 24 packages, collectively weighing 65 pounds, of cocaine. 

  

  “While I was waiting for them to arrive, I drove a little further and noticed another package, and then another,” Chambers said. “I called SFS back and suggested they bring their UTV, or utility terrain vehicle, as I counted at least 18 packages.”

  Brevard County Sheriff’s Office narcotics unit seized the 65 pounds of cocaine. One of the narcotics agents performed a field test on one package and verified that it was cocaine. 

  

  The cocaine was then transported to a secrete location operated by the Homeland Security Investigations (HSI), the principal investigative arm of the U.S. Department of Homeland Security.

  Brevard County Sheriff’s Office estimated the drugs had a street value of an estimated $1.2 million. 

  HSI special agent, David Castro, said maritime drug traffickers usually transport cocaine in bales, including 25 bricks each. Once bales are damaged or are ditched during transport, they typically wash ashore in small packages. 

  “We take pride in protecting our base and the surrounding community,” 45th Space Forces Squadron Flight Sergeant Joseph Parker said in the release. “There is also a higher level of job satisfaction knowing that these drugs will not make it into our community.”

  Another 63 pounds of cocaine washed ashore in the Florida Keys last month, valued at more than $1.4 million. HSI has since launched an investigation into why mysterious packages of cocaine continue to wash ashore on Florida beaches.  

  Meanwhile, under the Biden administration, drugs are flowing into the U.S. at a record pace, resulting in the worst drug crisis ever as overdose deaths soar continue to soar. 

  Tyler Durden
  Sun, 06/13/2021 – 17:30

• Debunking The Dumbest Crypto FUD Of Them All
  Debunking The Dumbest Crypto FUD Of Them All

  Authored by Mark Jeftovic via BombThrower.com,

  

  “If anyone can do it, then no one should”

  It’s always some combination of amusement and frustration when you hear the incessant admonition of crypto-skeptics (crypto-denialists?) who think they’re being original when they come up with this version of FUD (Fear-Uncertainty-Doubt):

  “Bitcoin is not a limited supply because people can create an infinite number of crypto currencies! Check mate, crypto-cucks”

  This is the “Without government, who will build the roads?” argument of decentralization and crypto. When my last post ran on Zerohedge, the comment section had a lot of this:

  

  (There are also 10,000 penny stocks and growing. So that dilutes APPL?)

  Whenever somebody says that, my reaction is always “What’s your point?”.

  Nobody disputes that Bitcoin is hard capped at 21 million coins (which is less than half the number of millionaires in world), but the fact that other crypto-currencies exist doesn’t inflate the supply of BTC. Yes, anybody can create a new crypto-currency. Anybody can create all kinds of things.

  With free open source software and a commodity VPS, anybody can build their own search engine for next to nothing. Does that mean Google is worthless?

  Anybody can plug WooCommerce into a WordPress site, so Amazon and Shopify are ultimately zeros then?

  Anybody can start a band, write a book, launch a website, a podcast or a blog, and it doesn’t make every successful instance of these pointless because they are open to potentially infinite competitors and imitators. In fact, every knock-off, every me-too, every jump onto the bandwagon that ultimately fails actually validates the incumbents that continue to succeed. So bring on the shitcoins.

  Then every challenger that actually gains some traction or carves out a niche validates the entire space. So bring on Cardano, Solana, Polygon, Polka Dot. Bring on Helium and Hashgraph. Bring on Litecoin. Syscoin even.  Bring.It.On.  “Let a thousand flowers bloom”.

  What people are actually saying when they use the “anybody can do it” argument, is that they worship at the alter of monopoly and they’re too immersed in their own mediocrity to realize that the first monetary revolution in 500 years is taking place around them and in their own lives. They are cavemen, huddling cold in darkness saying “Bah! Fire. It’s not real. You can’t even touch it and it’s not even scarce! You can set fire to nearly anything.”

  

  It’s such a one dimensional / defeatist objection that it can only be made by those who have lost the plot on what makes capitalism so successful. And that is, in a word: competition.

  They don’t understand that their argument, taken to its logical conclusion means either:

  A) everything is worthless because anybody else can do  anything that’s already been done, or,

  B) there should only be one version of everything. This probably appeals to the “equality of outcome” Marxist zombies.

  If you can do any of these things, including going out and creating a crypto currency, then great. The big question is this: Can you create a more successful one? If you really think you can, then you should go do it, right now.

  What people don’t understand about all this is that we’re seeing the emergence of a new monetary protocol. This is TCP/IP for value. TCP/IP emerged under its own steam from among many possible options, and as investors, we’re always trying to make sense of which emerging protocol stack will be the victor, and which companies are on the right side of that. In our Crypto Capitalist portfolio, we try to own the companies that are doing exactly this.

  The entire point with crypto is that the structural flaw with the monetary system is because it’s a monopoly. One that is governed by unaccountable central bankers and technocrats with interests antagonistic to the wider population. Only in a monetary monopoly could it possible to so rig the game this way. It not only robs the citizenry, leaches their purchasing power and perpetuates ever-widening wealth inequality, it even brainwashes the victims into believing there is no other possible monetary system.

  That’s the problem with centralization today. In money, media and governance. People have blinders on that has them believing that the dominant systems are the only ones that have legitimacy, that authority and imperatives must flow from the top down and that competition to those systems is somehow immoral or out-of-bounds.

  But the decentralization revolution doesn’t care about any of that. It’s happening right in front of our very eyes and it’s playing out in realtime. Communications systems yesterday. Economic systems now. Governance systems next.

  Where we’re headed, you want anybody to be able to create a currency system, form an alternative governance structure, launch a business, write alternative viewpoints and to find and present non-conforming data.

  Without competition we wind up with a rigid, authoritarian monoculture.

  Without monetary competition we wind up with ZIRP/NIRP, trillion dollar deficits, targeted theft (a.k.a inflation)  and inevitably, China-style social credit.

  *  *  *

  To receive future posts in your mailbox join the free Bombthrower mailing list, follow me on Twitter, Mastodon or join the Bombthrower telegram

  Tyler Durden
  Sun, 06/13/2021 – 17:00

• As Biden Swipes At Trump, G-7 Leaders Hail US President As "Part Of The Club" Again
  As Biden Swipes At Trump, G-7 Leaders Hail US President As “Part Of The Club” Again

  Biden capped the G-7 summit with a victorious sounding “America is back at the table” – in what many are noting was an obvious swipe at former President Trump. But many are also observing the whole summit appeared more like a multi-day long photo-op where Biden was formally admitted into being “part of the club”.

  French President Emmanuel Macron to Joe Biden: “What we need is cooperation. I think it’s great to have a US President who is part of the club.”

  I don’t know about you, but I thought an American President is supposed to LEAD, not be “part of the club”.

  Of course, Biden nods. pic.twitter.com/RjzwwLQ8No

  — Amy Tarkanian (@MrsT106) June 12, 2021

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

  Before Biden departed Cornwall for London where he’s meeting Queen Elizabeth II, his supposed “anti-Trump foreign policy” was on full display in these words during his end of summit press conference:

  “The lack of participation in the past and full engagement was noticed significantly, not only by the leaders of those countries but by the people in the G-7 countries. America is back in the business of leading the world alongside nations who share our most deeply held values.”

  “I felt a genuine sense of enthusiasm that America was back at the table and fully, fully engaged,” Biden said. “Bottom line is I think we’ve made some progress in reestablishing American credibility among our closest friends and our values,” he added.

  But it was French President Emanuel Macron who on Saturday unwittingly summarized the real import of the whole spectacle…

  “I think it’s great to have the U.S. president part of the club, and very willing to cooperate,” Macron said. “What you demonstrate is that leadership is partnership.”

  …with the suggestion being that the whole problem in international relations during the Trump era was that he was an outlier wanting to put America first, and so not capable of being admitted into the “club”.

  

  And there was more of this throughout the weekend, especially when it came to the topic of NATO:

  Biden knocked Trump when he said the U.S. does not view NATO “as a sort of protection racket,” but as critical for domestic security. Trump repeatedly chastised NATO allies for failing to pay more to the alliance and reportedly wanted to leave the alliance, questioning its usefulness.

  The president also swiped at his predecessor on the issue of climate change, which Trump repeatedly questioned and downplayed in favor of boosting the economy. Trump skipped the climate session at the 2019 G-7, the most recent one to be held in person.

  U.S. President Biden and his French counterpart Emmanuel Macron were all smiles and handshakes during their first formal, in-person meeting, with Macron telling pool reporters “it’s great to have the U.S. president part of the club.”https://t.co/GzyvDBfD9X

  — Axios (@axios) June 12, 2021

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

  Biden had said further, “I know that sounds silly, but we had a president last who basically said it’s not a problem, global warming.” Again, for this Biden gets warmly rewarded with declarations that the US had been readmitted to the “club”.

  Trump actually responded in a Saturday statement via his Save America PAC:

  “This was a quote by the President of France. He and many other Leaders before him, in France and throughout Europe, were ripping off the United States like never before. We were treated very unfairly with horrible trade deals, and paying for a large portion of their defense.

  “They were taking advantage of the United States and therefore, of course, they like Biden because now they will be allowed to return to their old ways of ripping off our Country. If I were a leader of these countries, I too would like Biden far better than President Trump.

  “They will now get very rich off the United States just like they have in the past until a change is made. I am for AMERICA FIRST!”

  Apparently Trump is quite content to not be part of this club…

  Appropriate western leaders are socially distancing outside while they’re all vaccinated for their G7 photo. They perfectly represent what western politics have become. Safetyism, hypocrisy and low IQ virtue signalling pic.twitter.com/paVhYQN54K

  — Richard Hanania (@RichardHanania) June 12, 2021

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

  

  Tyler Durden
  Sun, 06/13/2021 – 16:30

• Election Assessment In Pennsylvania County Uncovers Five "Issues Of Note"
  Election Assessment In Pennsylvania County Uncovers Five “Issues Of Note”

  Authored by Zachary Stieber via The Epoch Times,

  An election assessment conducted in a Pennsylvania county months ago and quietly released to the public in recent weeks uncovered five errors, including three linked to Dominion Voting Systems, whose election management system is used in the county, the assessing firm said.

  

  Wake Technology Services Inc. (Wake TSI), a Pennsylvania-based firm, conducted the assessment in Fulton County. Workers visited the county’s offices late last year and about a month later, on Feb. 9.

  The assessment was meant to review the mail-in ballots in the county and explore whether conduct relating to absentee ballot requests, distribution, receipt, and counting were in line with federal and commonwealth guidelines, Wake TSI said in the 93-page report that was quietly published on the county’s website, with no public fanfare, in May.

  Wake TSI personnel did not conduct a technology forensic audit of the operating system or election management system (EMS) but did review some system file dates, log files, ballot images, and other files.

  Wake TSI said in its report summary that it found that the election “was well run, was conducted in a diligent and effective manner and followed the directions of Pennsylvania.” No anomalies were reported during the election process and expectations were that the assessment would not show any indications of fraud, error, interference, or misconduct.

  However, Wake TSI said it found five “issues of note,” including that Dominion failed to meet the commonwealth’s certification standards; that the election management system had Microsoft SQL Server Data Tools installed, despite the software not being part of the U.S. Election Assistance Commission’s certified configuration; and that changes were made to the management system just three weeks prior to the election.

  Assessors said there is “no valid reason” for the software to be installed on the system and that the presence “allows any user with access to change and manipulate the EMS databases without logging [recording] to the Database, EMS, or [operating system] logfiles.”

  They also said that Dominion failed to fill out a document that attests that the installed software versions conformed with certified reasons, with Dominion apparently claiming filling out the form was “optional.”

  Dominion Voting Systems disputed the report’s findings related to it.

  The Microsoft software “is a federally-certified component of Dominion’s system, which meets U.S. Election Assistance Commission (EAC) Voluntary Voting System Guidelines,” a spokesperson said in an email, adding: “Only federal and state entities have the authority to certify voting machines. Dominion’s systems have been certified by both the U.S. EAC and the State of Pennsylvania.”

  A search of the voluntary guidelines did not turn up any mention of Microsoft SQL Server Data Tools, which can be used to create, debug, maintain, and rewrite the source code of a database.

  The Microsoft software in question can help recover from a corrupted database if there’s a crash, such as a crash caused by a power surge, but can also be used for nefarious purposes, according to Greg Miller, chief operating officer of the OSET Institute, a California-based nonprofit that researches, develops, and educates on elections technology reform. The type of assessment Wake TSI conducted would not be able to uncover whether it was used for something malfeasant.

  The nonprofit’s policy and technology teams went over the assessment and found cause for concern and spaces where both the county and Dominion could improve, he added.

  “No direct evidence of any malfeasance but, boy, people deserve better. There were some fundamental mistakes that were made there and I think Dominion owes some answers,” he told The Epoch Times.

  The report showed “a couple of bureaucratic errors that would leave the average voter wondering, and they should, they should wonder,” he said. “It doesn’t look good. It looks awful. Unfortunately, the kind of digital forensic analysis we would want to do to determine if the presence of those toolkits caused any problems is almost impossible now,” he said, adding that election machines that are under suspicion would ideally be sequestered immediately before being audited.

  The errors included the county not keeping documentation on whether logic and accuracy testing was done on the machines, which is inconsistent with the Pennsylvania Department of State’s conditions for certification, and Dominion’s stated failure to fill out the attestation form.

  Logic and accuracy tests are done on machines before elections to make sure that voting equipment and ballots set to be used in an election can properly tabulate the results.

  Wake TSI’s report states that Fulton County apparently “never had a Logic and Accuracy test documented,” adding: “This is not to say whether or not the L&A testing has been completed, but there is nothing documenting that the process was completed.”

  Wake TSI explained that the issue is not minor because inaccurate scanning can significantly impact election results, using the example of alignment of a candidate’s voting circle being off by a fraction of an inch, which would render the system unable to properly read the ballot, which would then go through the adjudication process, which is open to interpretation by election workers.

  “A simple human error, or a bad actor, could cause huge issues with accurate ballot counting if it is not caught by proper testing both before and after an election, as it is required by the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania,” the firm said, blaming both Dominion and Pennsylvania’s Department of State.

  The Department of State did not respond to multiple queries for this article.

  According to Fulton County commission meeting minutes, commissioners discussed on Dec. 29, 2020, on a third-party team that wanted to inspect the 2020 election results. Commissioners Stuart Ulsh and Randy Bunch, both Republicans, supported the inspection but the lone Democrat commissioner, Paula Shives, said she would only be agreeable to an inspection if machines were not removed. She also said that she wanted to be present for the inspection.

  Wake TSI visited the county offices two days later, collecting copies of log files, images of scanned ballots, and other materials. Patti Hess, the county’s director of elections and voter registration, or Bunch remained in the room with the ballots during the entire course of the review, according to the minutes and the election assessment.

  

  A portion of the minutes from the Fulton County commissioners’ meeting goes over Wake TSI’s election assessment, on Jan. 5, 2021. (Screenshot/Fulton County via The Epoch Times)

  Ulsh motioned at a Jan. 12 meeting to permit Wake TSI to complete the mail-in ballot portion of the election review. Bunch voted yes. Shives voted no “because she feels anyone wanting to review election materials should go through the legal process and obtain a subpoena,” according to minutes of the meeting.

  The commissioners noted participating in the second visit, which they described as an audit, in their Feb. 9 meeting.

  No further mention was made of the assessment until May 11, when Ulsh motioned that the Wake TSI’s report would be placed on the county’s website after the firm released it. All three commissioners approved the motion.

  The two Republican commissioners in the county did not respond to repeated requests for comment. Shives, the lone Democrat, answered an initial query about the assessment by pointing The Epoch Times to Wake TSI’s report. She did not respond to further questions.

  Hess on June 2 declined to comment, saying she was too busy with primary certification. Responding to a followup inquiry a week later, she directed questions about the assessment to the commissioners.

  Wake TSI did not return multiple requests for interviews or comment.

  Wake TSI also included in its assessment analysis on what it described as ballot-scanning errors, saying the scanning errors identified in two sets of log files exceeded the allowable error rate set by the federal government.

  However, Miller said he did not know of the error rate they cited and that the number of errors found was not unusual.

  Dominion told The Epoch Times via email: “Claims of ‘scanning errors’ are also incorrect as they do not relate to Dominion’s system. These are benign instances where ballots were not fed into the scanner correctly and were ejected [‘reversed’] for the voter to try again or instances of ballot mistakes such as overvoting or blank ballots.”

  Another election expert said he did not think Wake TSI uncovered anything significant.

  “Bottom line: Wake TSI didn’t find anything of substance that went wrong. In my analysis of elections over the last ten years, I have found a lot of errors made by tired people under pressure using a complicated computer system. I have never seen anything that looked intentional or that looked like an attempt at fraud. I don’t read anything in the Wake TSI report that would suggest otherwise, and I read a lot in the Wake report that points out how little they knew about analysis of election data,” Duncan Buell, chair emeritus-NCR chair in computer science and engineering at the University of South Carolina, told The Epoch Times in an email.

  “There are experts who analyze elections. (I believe I am one of them.). I don’t see that Wake was anywhere close to that space until they were called on for the specific purpose of finding evidence that might support The Big Lie. They didn’t find the evidence, so they focus on the nits,” he added.

  But Pennsylvania lawmakers said the assessment’s findings motivated recent calls for an audit in the state.

  “I’ve only done a preliminary review of the audit, however my first concern is the lack of L&A inspections of the voting system after the changes were made to the system. The non-certified database tools (I have learned of SQL being discovered in machines in other states when it is not a software product permitted under the Election Assistance Commission guidance) are of significant concern as they allow for manipulation of data and facilitate the transmittal and reception of modifications to data from outside of the machines in question,” Pennsylvania Sen. Cris Dush, a Republican, told The Epoch Times in an emailed statement.

  

  A screenshot from the website of Wake TSI shows members of its team. (Screenshot/Wake TSI via The Epoch Times)

  “Constituents from across the Commonwealth continue to have questions about the 2020 Election. Because responses from the Department of State and other state government officials have not answered these many concerns, Senator Argall believes all options should be considered—including an assessment of the Fulton County audit and how it was conducted,” added Jim Brugger, a spokesman for Pennsylvania Sen. Dave Argall, a Republican who chairs the Senate’s State Government Committee.

  The assessment showed blunders by both the county and Dominion but also indicated that the election ran largely correctly, according to Miller of the OSET Institute. Still, the issues identified highlight the need for technology that’s more easily examined by auditors and others, he added.

  “The problem here is you’ve got black box technology when we need glass box technology,” he said.

  Wake TSI’s assessment was “set” by Pennsylvania Sen. Doug Mastriano, a Republican, according to a Dec. 31, 2020 document signed by Wake TSI that was obtained and published (pdf) by the Arizona Mirror and the Washington Post.  Mastriano declined to comment. Wake TSI says in its assessment that Mastriano and Pennsylvania Sen. Judy Ward “were aware of our efforts.”

  The document also said the Wake TSI was “contracted to Defending the Republic,” a nonprofit founded by lawyer Sidney Powell, who has claimed widespread fraud occurred in last year’s election.

  Contact information was not listed on the nonprofit’s website. Powell did not respond to an email.

  Hess, Fulton County’s elections director, told acting Pennsylvania Secretary of the Commonwealth Veronica Degraffenreid last month that “various members” of the state legislature asked for Wake TSI to do an audit in the county.

  “Since we believe in transparency, we agreed to let them come in and do the audit,” she wrote in the letter, which was sent last month and obtained by the Post.

  Hess said that that Wake had three people in the room where the ballots were stored. Hess would hand a ballot to one, who would write down who was voted for before passing it on to a second person, who also wrote down the ballot result. The third person then took a picture of the ballot.

  The team also took backups of “key data on our computers used in the ballot counting process” and used a system imaging tool to “take complete hard drive images” of computers used in the election, she added.

  Wake TSI was later subcontracted by Florida-based Cyber Ninjas to help audit ballots in Maricopa County, Arizona. In its statement of work, Cyber Ninjas cited Wake’s experience in Fulton County and said the firm had workers that have been involved in investigating election fraud issues dating back to 1994.

  The Maricopa County audit started on April 23. Wake TSI stopped working on the audit as of May 14, choosing not to renew its contract. The ballot review work was taken over by Arizona-based StratTech Solutions. The audit is expected to wrap up by the end of June, with a report on what auditors found expected in July or August.

  Tyler Durden
  Sun, 06/13/2021 – 16:00

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