Feb 15

Today’s News 15th February 2022

  • Viral Anti-Xi Article Reveals CCP Infighting That May Derail Xi's Bid For 3rd Term, Analysts Say
    Viral Anti-Xi Article Reveals CCP Infighting That May Derail Xi’s Bid For 3rd Term, Analysts Say

    By Nicole Hao of the Epoch Times

    An article criticizing Chinese leader Xi Jinping was allowed to go viral in mainland China, which analysts say reflects the intense struggle among different factions in the Chinese Communist Party and its impact on Xi’s ruling.

    Chinese leader Xi Jinping declares the Beijing 2022 Winter Olympic Games open at the National Stadium in Beijing, China on Feb. 4, 2022. (Ju Peng/AFP via Getty Images)

    China experts have said that Xi might not secure a third term, which will be revealed at the CCP’s Party Congress this fall, although Xi amended the Party’s constitution successfully in 2018 to remove term limitations.

    “The 40,000-word long article listed mistakes that Xi Jinping has made in politics, economy, and diplomacy. It’s a summary of Xi’s ruling over the past nine years,” Li Hengqing, a China expert at the Washington Institute for Information and Strategy, told the Chinese-language edition of The Epoch Times on Feb. 8.

    “After 2018, we all said that there’s no force to stop Xi from taking a third term. Now, we can see that the situation isn’t simple, and it’s unclear whether he can obtain it,” Li added.

    He emphasized: “The article circulated broadly inside and outside of China. Even several friends from mainland China forwarded it to me … It shows that the CCP factions against Xi are fighting to stop Xi from continuing in office.”

    Xi became Chinese leader in November 2012, and won his second term in October 2017. The previous version of the CCP constitution ruled that each leader could only take two terms, which would have seen Xi retire in 2022. The amendment of the constitution paved the road to allow Xi to rule the country beyond the two terms—if he can secure support from the rest of the Party leadership.

    Chinese leader Xi Jinping is seen on a TV screen speaking remotely at the opening of the WEF Davos Agenda virtual sessions at the WEF’s headquarters in Cologny near Geneva, Switzerland, on Jan. 17, 2022.

    Anonymous Commentary

    On Jan. 19, an author under the pen name “Ark and China” published the article “Evaluate Xi Jinping Objectively” on overseas Chinese blogs. Since the Chinese New Year on Feb. 1, the commentary of Xi’s leadership became viral among readers inside China.

    Taiwan’s state-run Central News Agency (CNA) reported on Feb. 9 that people in China had spread the article widely although the Chinese regime censored the piece.

    The commentary reviewed Xi’s performance over the past decade in the anti-corruption campaign, the party’s ongoing eradication of independent religion and beliefs, human rights abuses, its tight surveillance and control of the people, enhancement of propaganda, further revision of children’s textbooks and history books, the strengthening of state-run enterprises and suppression of the private sector, conflicts with the Western world, and winning over developing countries by squandering the national treasury.

    Its author opined that they don’t believe Xi has the capability to rule the country, and has angered both CCP officials who supported him and opposed him when he took office. Meanwhile, the Chinese people’s benefits and interests are being encroached upon, but their voices can’t be heard due to the regime’s censorship.

    “At present, it’s difficult for him to continue his ruling. The year 2022 will be his biggest turning point,” the author wrote. “Even if he miraculously secures another term, he will face more difficulties and complete failure before 2027.”

    The author then went on to list three factors that could cause the collapse of Xi’s ruling alongside a predicted worsening of the political situation. It said the achievements claimed by Xi are fabricated, the political foundation of Xi’s ruling has been destroyed, and “the entire CCP bureaucracy” is opposed to Xi and his handful of supporters.

    Fierce Infighting

    The Chinese Communist Party’s Politburo Standing Committee, the nation’s top decision-making body (L-R): Han Zheng, Wang Huning, Li Zhanshu, Chinese leader Xi Jinping, Premier Li Keqiang, Wang Yang, and Zhao Leji meet the press at the Great Hall of the People in Beijing on Oct. 25, 2017.

    “Don’t treat the CCP as a political party! It’s actually a political gang. Like the former head of the Soviet Union Vladimir Lenin said, the communist party grows by fighting internally and cleaning (killing) its members,” Cai Xia, a former professor of political ideology at the CCP’s Central Party School, wrote in an opinion piece on Feb. 6 that was published on U.S.-based Chinese media Yibao.

    Cai said: “Due to the cruelty and bloody infighting within the party, all senior officials understand the hidden rule, which is to choose a faction and fight for it without thinking about what’s right or wrong.”

    Li told The Epoch Times that the forces in the Chinese regime which are against Xi are gathering together now. “They are using all their resources and solutions to block Xi from taking the next term,” he said.

    “The [viral] article is echoing the opinion of Chinese politicians. It stands on the point of maintaining the CCPs’s ruling in China but removing Xi Jinping,” Chen Weijian, New Zealand-based Chinese dissident and editor of online magazine Beijing Spring, told the Chinese-language edition of The Epoch Times on Feb. 8.

    “At the Sixth Plenary Session of the rubber-stamp legislature’s 19th conference, the CCP factions presented their severe disagreements [on regime policies]. [The long article] is the latest bomb that the anti-Xi’s faction has detonated amid the factional fighting,” Gao Wenqian, former official biographer of the CCP’s first premier Zhou Enlai, told VOA on Feb. 8.

    Gao said that the CCP’s rigid dictatorship is growing increasingly fragile, and may break at any time.

    Cai listed the crises the regime in Beijing is facing across China now, which include more white- and blue-collar unemployment, the financial crisis facing China’s largest real estate predators, the regime collecting more tax and fees from people who can’t earn a living and unprofitable enterprises, strict COVID-19 policies that further damage the economy and threaten peoples’ lives, and young Chinese who refuse to have children even after marriage.

    “This is a strong article that can drive public opinion against Xi,” Cai wrote.

    Tyler Durden
    Mon, 02/14/2022 – 23:30

  • Massive Methane Cloud Visible From Space Leaks Above Louisiana
    Massive Methane Cloud Visible From Space Leaks Above Louisiana

    Here comes the crowd of “climate justice” activists ready to pounce on the perpetrators responsible for producing a massive cloud of methane gas that’s purportedly visible from space.

    According to one of Bloomberg‘s sources, the plume represents one of the most severe concentration of the powerful greenhouse gas to appear in the atmosphere in years.

    Geoanalytics firm Kayrros estimated an emissions rate of 105 tons of methane an hour was needed to generate the plume, which stretched more than 56 miles (about 90 km) across multiple parishes and was the most severe concentration of the powerful greenhouse since October.

    Source: BBG

    The state of Louisiana is now investigating the source of the massive cloud of gas, which appeared over the state.

    The state began its investigation after Bloomberg News contacted the U.S. Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Safety Administration about a cloud of invisible gas detected Jan. 21 by Kayrros SAS.

    The geoanalytics firm estimates an emissions rate of 105 tons of methane an hour was needed to generate the plume, which stretched more than 90 kilometers (56 miles) across multiple parishes and was the most severe concentration of the powerful greenhouse gas spotted by the Sentinel-5P satellite in the U.S. since October

    If the leak that released the gas plume was broken down and compared with cars, it would be equivalent to the annual impact from 1,900 cars. The release appeared to originate within 7 km (4.3 miles) of a gas pipeline owned by Energy Transfer, LP, Kinder Morgan and Boardwalk Pipelines.

    Louisiana’s Department of Natural Resources said it was made aware of the methane cloud after PHMSA forwarded an email from a Bloomberg reporter. PHMSA, which is investigating, said it had not received any reports of a release from a regulated entity in the area.

    Halting methane releases from fossil fuel operations is one of the most powerful steps that can be taken to slow global warming. Non-emergency flaring and venting of methane from oil and gas should be significantly mitigated or eliminated to keep global temperatures from rising more than 1.5° Celsius and to maintain a pathway toward a net zero energy system by 2050, according to the International Energy Agency.

    It’s unclear which one may have sprung a leak. Whichever one it is, the leak has come at a terrible time, given the surging cost of both crude oil and natural gas.

    Tyler Durden
    Mon, 02/14/2022 – 23:10

  • Still No Answers On The CIA's Unconstitutional Mass Surveillance Of Americans
    Still No Answers On The CIA’s Unconstitutional Mass Surveillance Of Americans

    By Matthew Guariglia & Andrew Crocker via Common Dreams/Electronic Freedom Foundation,

    The Central Intelligence Agency has been collecting American’s private data without any oversight or even the minimal legal safeguards that apply to the NSA and FBI, an unconstitutional affront to our civil liberties. According to a declassified report released last week by the Privacy and Civil Liberties Oversight Board (PCLOB), the CIA’s surveillance program is reminiscent of the mass surveillance programs conducted by the NSA, though the details released thus far paint a disturbing picture of potential wide-scale violations of people’s privacy.

    To start, the CIA program has apparently been conducted outside the statutory reforms and oversight of the intelligence community instituted after revelations by Edward Snowden in 2013. The newly declassified CIA data collection program is carried out in conjunction with Executive Order 12333 and is therefore subject to even less oversight than the woefully under-supervised NSA surveillance programs subject to the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act.

    Via Reuters

    The whos, whats, whys, and hows of this semi-disclosed CIA program are still unknown, and the public deserves the right to know exactly what damage has been done. Senators Ron Wyden and Martin Heinrich are already pressing for the release of even more information. In a partially-redacted letter sent to the Director of National Intelligence and the CIA Director on April 13,  2021, the senators have called for the public release of the full report about the CIA’s surveillance, which remains classified. The senators’ letter also  demands answers about how the agency collects the data, what data is being collected, and the rules governing its storage and retention.

    From that letter and a PCLOB “Staff Recommendations” document, we know that the CIA collects a vast amount of data, often on U.S. persons, without any clear guidelines about data retention and without substantial oversight of analysts querying information about U.S. citizens. The program seems to exist outside the jurisdiction of either courts or Congress–given that even the Senate Intelligence Committee was left in the dark about this program.

    According to PCLOB’s staff recommendations, when an analyst attempts to look at information relating to an American citizen, a “pop-up box will appear to remind the analysts that an F[oreign] I[ntelligence] purpose is required for such a query. However, analysts are not required to memorialize the justification for their queries. As a result, auditing or reviewing U.S. Person (USP) queries is likely to be challenging and time-consuming.” So, not only is there no way of preventing curious and prying eyes of CIA agents from pulling up data about their friends and family–there’s no good way to audit agents’ activity after the fact.

    And we shouldn’t be surprised that this might be happening. In the past, NSA officers often used their invasive surveillance powers to spy on significant others. In response, the PCLOB staff recommended for the CIA to employ “automated tools” to assist in the auditing and compliance monitoring involving all of that U.S. data. “The declassification is urgent,” the Senators’ letter states—we agree.

    In their letter, Wyden and Heinrich inquire as to the nature of the CIA’s relationship to its “sources,” perhaps a reference to whether the CIA might be getting some of its data from the same place as the NSA—through secretive agreements with private companies. In 2013, it was reported that the CIA paid $10 million a year in order to gain access to AT&T’s call data. 

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    In addition to new declassifications and clarity on the scope of this program, the government needs to act fast to prevent the CIA from continuing to circumvent constitutional rights. If we learn, in fact, that the CIA is purchasing this data, then Congress should work fast to pass the Fourth Amendment is Not for Sale Act. Intended to prevent government agencies and law enforcement from buying data harvested from apps—data they otherwise could not get without a warrant—the bill may also work to prevent the CIA from purchasing the phone records of U.S. persons in bulk. 

    Regardless of the CIA’s legal justification or technical means of collection and storage, Congress must act fast to ensure the Fourth Amendment’s vitality in the modern age. 

    Tyler Durden
    Mon, 02/14/2022 – 22:50

  • Goldman Sachs CEO DJs Super Bowl Party For Maskless Elites
    Goldman Sachs CEO DJs Super Bowl Party For Maskless Elites

    Whether attending the Super Bowl at SoFi Stadium in Los Angeles on Sunday or pregame events on Saturday, maskless elites partied their faces off across the metro area this weekend as the rest of America watched in disbelief as mask mandates were ignored.

    The rich and powerful ignored local health mandates at Saturday’s Sports Illustrated pre Super Bowl party. David Solomon, the chief executive of Goldman Sachs, ditched his tie and suit to play house music to maskless Amazon billionaire Jeff Bezos and his girlfriend, Lauren Sanchez, among other maskless power players. 

    “He shows up with a backpack, in T-shirt, jeans, sneakers,” Michael Heller, co-founder of Talent Resources Sports, which hosted the event with Sports Illustrated, told Bloomberg. “After dark, he’s a different person, so free-spirited.”

    So different the CEO of Goldman Sachs took to the stage (we’re unsure if he was masked up or maskless) and played for hundreds of maskless people. 

    Daily Mail published several pictures showing hundreds of maskless elites at the event Solomon was DJing on Saturday night. 

    No mask no problem.

    Not one mask. Can you spot a masked-up person? 

    On Sunday, at the Super Bowl, Jennifer Lopez with Ben Affleck, Matt Damon, Jay-Z, and LeBron James were all maskless despite the mandatory mask mandate and the stadium requiring attendees to wear KN95.

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    But it appears no one followed the rules. This has made it increasingly frustrating for average folks who are forced, fined, and even “canceled” if they don’t wear masks. Millions of everyday Americans saw the liberal elites on full display this past weekend, operating on a different rulebook than everyone else. Meanwhile, kids in California have to be masked up at school this week. 

    Tyler Durden
    Mon, 02/14/2022 – 22:30

  • US To Open Embassy In Solomon Islands To Counter China
    US To Open Embassy In Solomon Islands To Counter China

    Authored by Dave DeCamp via AntiWar.com, 

    The State Department told Congress that the US plans to open an embassy in the Solomon Islands before China becomes “strongly embedded” in the South Pacific nation.

    “The United States has a strategic interest in enhancing our political, economic, and commercial relationship with Solomon Islands, the largest Pacific Island nation without a US Embassy,” the State Department said in a notification that was obtained by The Associated Press.

    AFP/Getty Images

    Secretary of State Antony Blinken confirmed the plan on Saturday while in Fiji as part of a short Pacific tour that started in Australia. During his trip, the US released its new Indo-Pacific strategy that calls for opening new embassies in the region to counter Chinese influence.

    The Solomon Islands used to recognize Taiwan but opened up relations with China in 2019. The State Department said the US had to open an embassy because China “aggressively seeks to engage” with politicians and business people in the Solomon Islands.

    The AP report detailed further of China’s pattern of behavior there:

    In its notification to Congress, the State Department said China had been “utilizing a familiar pattern of extravagant promises, prospective costly infrastructure loans, and potentially dangerous debt levels,” when engaging with political and business leaders from the Solomon Islands.

    In November, the Solomon Islands was rocked by massive demonstrations and riots that were said to be partially motivated by the islands’ increasing ties with Beijing, and rioters reportedly targeted Chinese-owned businesses.

    Tyler Durden
    Mon, 02/14/2022 – 22:10

  • The Dystopian Rebirth Of Moviepass As An App That "Tracks Users Eyes" To Make Sure They Watch Advertisements
    The Dystopian Rebirth Of Moviepass As An App That “Tracks Users Eyes” To Make Sure They Watch Advertisements

    Moviepass, the now-defunct service that was supposed to allow users to watch movies inexpensively, has pivoted ever-so-slightly into the business of being an Orwellian advertisement machine.

    The service is “returning as an app that will track users’ eyes when they watch adverts”, according to an alarming new report from The Independent. In exchange for your computer-verified undivided attention, the app will let users have access to movies. 

    Moviepass now will use facial recognition and “eye-tracking technology” to “ensure that viewers eyes are looking at promoted content in exchange for access to films”.

    Moviepass co-founder Stacy Spikes said: “It’s a way to close that loop and make it far more efficient of a system. I want to be able to see it for free. Advertisers have put a pre-show together not unlike what you’d normally see when you go to a movie theater but this is customized for you.”

    “As I’m looking at it, it’s playing back. But if I stop and I’m not paying attention to it, it actually pauses the content,” she continued. “We had an early version of this where you know what happened. People put the phone down and left and didn’t pay any attention to it. Right now 70 percent of video advertising is unseen. This is a way that advertisers get the impact they’re looking for but you’re also getting the impact yourself.”

    People will also be able to purchase products through the app in the future, Spikes said. 

    Her company’s first foray into inexpensive movies – before it went full Matrix – ended in 2019 when the economics of buying one movie ticket per day for $10/month didn’t pan out. 

    The next iteration of the service will be “powered by web3 technology,” Spikes said. 

    So now when you’re watching the next iteration of the Terminator series at home, your attention will be held captive by Skynet both on and off the screen…

    Tyler Durden
    Mon, 02/14/2022 – 21:50

  • The Top 1% Own 32.1% Of Total Wealth, Bottom 50% Own 2.5%
    The Top 1% Own 32.1% Of Total Wealth, Bottom 50% Own 2.5%

    Authored by Mike Shedlock via MishTalk.com,

    The percentage of wealth owned by the top 1% keeps rising over time. Who’s to credit or blame?

    Data Source: Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System (Fed), Chart by Mish

    This data series compiled by the Fed started in the third quarter of 1989. The most recent data is from the third quarter of 2021.

    If you have not seen charts of this series before, the numbers may seem shocking. 

    1989 Q3 vs 2021 Q3 Percentages

    • Top 1% Then 23.6%, Now 32.1%

    • 90th to 99th Percentile Then 37.3%, Now 37.5%

    • 50th to 90th Percentile Then 35.6%, Now 27.9%

    • Bottom 50% Then 3.7%, Now 2.5%

    Gains or Losses Since 1989

    • Top 1%: +8.5 Percentage Points

    • 90th to 99th Percentile: +0.2 Percentage Points

    • 50th to 90th Percentile: -7.7 Percentage Points

    • Bottom 50%: -1.2 Percentage Points

    Key Points

    1. The bottom never had much to lose but they managed to lose a bit anyway. 

    2. The top keep padding their wealth but remain the most impacted by recessions.

    3. The middle class is shrinking. 

    Credit and Blame

    Many people will blame the wealthy. But the actual culprit is the Fed.

    The bottom 50% sure don’t gain from bubbles. 

    Those with assets are the beneficiaries. And when the Fed steps on the gas, look at the far right of the chart to see what happens.

    Beneficiary of Inflation

    Inflation benefits those with first access to money and that’s the banks and the already wealthy.

    The poor who spend every penny and them some on food and shelter get hammered by inflation. 

    Meanwhile, the middle class keeps shrinking. 

    CPI Jumps Most in 40 Years

    The Fed tried for a decade to increase inflation. The Fed even wanted to “make up” for lack of previous inflation.

    But the CPI rose another 0.6% in January, at a year-over-year clip of 7.5%. The CPI is at the highest pace in 40 years.

    For discussion, please see CPI Jumps Most Since February 1982, Up at Least 0.5% 9 Out of Eleven Months

    The Fed finally succeeded and then some at producing inflation. Now doesn’t know what to do about it. 

    But should the banks get in trouble again, the Fed will be right there again to bail them out just as it did in 2000 in the dotcom bust and again in the 2007-2009 housing crash.

    *  *  *

    Please Subscribe to MishTalk Email Alerts.

    Tyler Durden
    Mon, 02/14/2022 – 21:30

  • Where Did Zelensky's Sarcastic Reference To The "Feb.16 Russian Invasion" Day Come From?
    Where Did Zelensky’s Sarcastic Reference To The “Feb.16 Russian Invasion” Day Come From?

    As we detailed earlier, during the Monday evening speech by Ukrainian leader Volodymyr Zelenskiy – which was intended to calm fears of the West’s predicted “imminent” Russian invasion – he made a passing reference to “February 16” being the “day of the attack”. Naturally this triggered an avalanche of rapid, breathless US media reports saying Wednesday is the day the invasion will begin, combined with the fact that Zelesnkiy declared the same day a special “day of unity” for the Ukrainian nation. 

    “We are told that February 16 will be the day of the attack,” he had said, according to a translation. But as it turns out, he was in a sense stating just the opposite. While continuing to urge calm among the citizenry, and after previously chastising foreign media for stoking panic, this was another instance of gently mocking foreign hyped reports. 

    Yet it was widely presented as his literal words. Officials with his administration had to scramble to correct the misunderstanding. “Ukrainian officials told reporters in Kyiv that Zelensky was not being literal about an attack on Wednesday – though that day has circulated in news reports as a possible opening day of a Russian campaign on Ukraine,” The Hill explained. “Zelensky and Ukraine’s government have criticized the United States at times for over-stating the danger of an imminent Russian invasion of the country.”

    Source: UPI

    So then the question remains: what information was Zelenskiy referring to, particularly when he said “We are told…” that Wednesday would be the day the Russians attack? The Hill suggests he could have been referencing the latest Associated Press attempt to relay the predictions of anonymous US intelligence officials: 

    The Associated Press, citing intelligence obtained by the U.S., reported that Russia was eyeing Wednesday as the target date for an attack.

    Pentagon press secretary John Kirby told reporters on Monday “we still don’t believe that some final decision has been made.”Asked about Zelensky’s statement and the mention of Feb. 16, Kirby said “I’m not going to talk about specific intelligence assessments, I think you can understand that. We have said for a while now that military action could happen any day.”

    But days ago Germany’s largest news website Der Spiegel reported that the Central Intelligence Agency had briefed NATO partners over an “imminent” Russian attack on Ukraine, and the report said the CIA specified Wednesday, Feb. 16 as the kick-off date for invasion. 

    So it appears the CIA is the source of the story, as Spiegel wrote last Friday (based on a machine translation):

    According to SPIEGEL information, both the US secret service CIA and the US military informed the federal government and other NATO states over the course of Friday that, based on new information, there were fears that the attack could take place as early as next Wednesday.

    According to several diplomats and military officials, the United States gave many details about the secret briefings. Routes for the Russian invasion were specifically described, as well as individual Russian units and what tasks they were to take on. February 16 was given as the possible date for the start of the invasion. What information the sharp US warning is based on was initially not known in Berlin.

    The reports stressed that the intelligence shared with Berlin and NATO officials was “very detailed and supported by many sources.” After weeks, this appears the first reference to any level of potential evidence, or at least detailed enough claims to appear more plausible. 

    So last Friday afternoon’s panicked headlines appear to be sourced to the CIA and US intelligence’s assessment, which appear to also underlie alarmist predictions issued by the White House… 

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    But also interesting is that the Spiegel report which seems to have informed Zelenskiy’s passing reference to February 16, fully admits this might be entirely for disinformation purposes. The German publication wrote: “A point in time around mid-February had long been considered plausible. However, insiders also believe it is possible that the USA deliberately spread the information in order to torpedo the Russian attack plans.”

    Given the Ukrainian president referenced the Feb.16 timeframe, but also at the same time dismissed its plausibility or likelihood in a sarcastic way – it seems he himself may be convinced that the initial reports that were sourced to the CIA are but disinformation – part of Washington and Russia’s ongoing information warfare targeting the other.

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    This further might give some much needed context to the constantly shifting alarmist predictions coming out of the White House, flip-flopping and constant shifting of timelines. Not for the first time, the deep state and US intelligence are busy planting false information, possibly toward provoking an incident that could trigger the threatened “mother of all sanctions” against Russia and Putin. 

    Tyler Durden
    Mon, 02/14/2022 – 21:10

  • Watch: Canadian Media Still Pushing Crackpot Theory That Truckers Are Russian Agents
    Watch: Canadian Media Still Pushing Crackpot Theory That Truckers Are Russian Agents

    Authored by Steve Watson via Summit news,

    As the Canadian freedom convoy rolls on and continues to influence other protesters around the globe, Canadian media continues to push outright disinformation by suggesting that the Russian government is behind the movement.

    When the convoy first came to prominence at the end of January, state broadcaster the Canadian Broadcasting Company began spreading completely unfounded claims that “Russian actors” were present among the Canadian truckers holding up major cities including Ottawa and Toronto, as well as border crossings.

    The tenuous reasoning behind the theory is that Canada has expressed support for Ukraine during the country’s ongoing tensions with Russia.

    Rather than admit that working class truckers are sick of enforced restrictions and vaccine mandates threatening their livelihoods, CBC floated the crackpot idea that Vladimir Putin is secretly behind the protests.

    CBC continues to push the conspiracy theory, with correspondent Harry Forestell filing the following report Friday giving airtime to ‘New Brunswick cybersecurity expert’ David Shipley, who is adamant that the Russians are behind everything.

    Shipley proclaimed “Who would have reason right now to cause as much chaos in Canada as possible? Well, at the top of that list is Russia.”

    He continued:

    “We are actively engaged in a geopolitical battle about the future of the Ukraine. Our Foreign Affairs minister, our Prime Minister, others have been very vocal in our support for the Ukraine and it seems very likely that the tactics that we are seeing, the creation of the massive Facebook groups using fake identities or in the case now alleged by a U.S. media outlet, a stolen identity of a Missouri woman to create these groups and to foster this communication hundreds of thousands of people, this is the Russian internet research agency playbook writ large.”

    Shipley has considered that possibly the truckers are Chinese agents too, but ultimately no, they’re Russian.

    He declared “You have other enemies as well. You have China, you have other states but when I narrow down my list of suspects and I don’t have enough evidence to win in a court of law but I don’t need that right now, this smacks of the kind of move that Russia has made in the past, the United States, and is continuing to do around the world.”

    When asked what the solution to this pressing Russian agent problem is, Shipley’s solution was to restrict and shut down the convoy’s social media presence.

    Watch:

    You certainly don’t have enough evidence Mr Shipley because there isn’t any.

    *  *  *

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    Tyler Durden
    Mon, 02/14/2022 – 20:50

  • Canadian Civil Liberties Association Condemns Trudeau For Invoking National Emergency Over Truckers
    Canadian Civil Liberties Association Condemns Trudeau For Invoking National Emergency Over Truckers

    Update (1935ET): The Canadian Civil Liberties Association has condemned PM Justin Trudeau for invoking the Emergencies Act, claiming in a Monday tweet that the Canadian federal government “has not met the threshold necessary” to do so. 

    “The Emergencies Act can only be invoked when a situation “seriously threatens the ability of the Government of Canada to preserve the sovereignty, security and territorial integrity of Canada” & when the situation “cannot be effectively dealt with under any other law of Canada,” the twitter thread continues.

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    Has Trudeau created a political emergency?

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    *  *  *

    Update (1715ET): As expected, Canadian PM Trudeau invoked sweeping emergency police powers Monday in his latest attempt to stamp out dissent from citizens protesting vaccine mandates and other COVID restrictions. 

    “This is not a peaceful protest,” the Canadian leader told reporters in Ottawa alongside top cabinet officials. “The federal government is stepping in because local police authorities have had difficulty enforcing the law,” he said.

    “This is about keeping Canadians safe, protecting people’s jobs and restoring confidence in our institutions.”

    Enacting the new never-before-used law gives Trudeau, in effect, martial law control over everything and everyone; and not all of Canada is behind him…

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    His first act, it appears, was to choke off any funding for the protesters by broadening its anti-money-laundering rules to cover crowdsourcing sites, threatening them with financing “terrorism”.

    “We are broadening the scope of Canada’s anti-money laundering and terrorist financing rules so that they cover Crowd Funding Platforms and the payment service providers they use,” Finance Minister Chrystia Freeland said. 

    “This is about following the money. This is about stopping the financing of these illegal blockades.”

    Canada authorizes banks and financial institutions to “temporarily cease providing financial services where the institution suspects that an account is being used to further the illegal blockades and occupations.”

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    This new law applies to personal and corporate accounts and covers all forms of transactions including cryptocurrencies:

    “A bank or other financial service provider will be able to immediately freeze or suspend an account without a court order”

    Banks “will be protected against civil liability for actions taken in good faith.”

    Is it just us, or does Freeland look excited to be wielding this new-found power?

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    This seemed to sum things up rather well for the ‘peaceful protesters’…

    *  *  *

    As we detailed earlier, Canadian Broadcasting Corporation has learned that Prime Minister Trudeau “will inform the provinces he will invoke the Emergencies Act to give the government extra powers to deal with the protests across the country. But in a meeting with the Liberal caucus, the PM said there were no plans to deploy the military.” 

    The move follows a meeting Sunday of the federal cabinet and its Incident Response Group (IRG).

    Trudeau tweeted late Sunday that the IRG discussed “further actions the government can take to help end the blockades and occupations.”

    Earlier that day, Emergency Preparedness Minister Bill Blair told CBC’s Rosemary Barton Live that the federal government has discussed invoking special emergency powers to deal with ongoing protests in Ottawa.

    Blair described the attitude around invoking the Emergencies Act as “appropriate caution” rather than “reticence.”

    As CBC concludes, the law gives the federal government carte blanche to cope with a crisis, including the ability to enact emergency powers that allow it to prohibit travel within a specified area or remove personal property, while imposing fines or jail time on people contravening new orders.

    This is basically the ability to unleash ‘selective’ martial law on Canadians.

    This comes after reports on Sunday, Canadian officials cleared the roadway and arrested “Freedom Convoy” demonstrators who held the line and blocked the busiest U.S.-Canada border crossing for nearly a week. Canadian officials confirmed the bridge reopened earlier Monday morning as Prime Minister Justin Trudeau is expected to invoke emergency powers to squash protesters around the country. 

    Traffic cameras on Ambassador Bridge, which connects Windsor and Canadian automotive plants with Detroit, show increased traffic flows around 0930 ET in both directions, into the US, and into Canada. 

    “Today, our national economic crisis at the Ambassador Bridge came to an end,” declared the mayor of Windsor, Drew Dilkens.

    Bridge Camera (Into the US)

    Bridge Camera (Into Canada) 

    While the bridge’s reopening has been called a success by the government, demonstrators against medical tyranny disrupted hundreds of millions of trade between both countries. Bloomberg reports the price of the six-day shutdown cost a whopping $13.5 million an hour in traded goods and forced carmakers to shutter or limit production at plants in Ontario and Detroit.

    About 500 miles northeast of Windsor, CBS News reports protesters in Ottawa, Canada’s capital, continue to “paralyze downtown.” The occupation of Ottawa has incited a movement across the country of freedom-loving people creating congestion across highways, metro areas, and border crossings — all because they’re fed up with Trudeau’s vaccine mandates and restrictions. 

    The government is struggling to quell the assembly of freedom-loving people from across the country as Trudeau’s government plays Whac-A-Mole” to squash protesters where every they show up. 

    The latest is in Surrey, British Columbia, where protesters have shuttered a border crossing. Freedom never sleeps as a stretch of Highway 15 remains shut down, preventing traffic from entering the US. Data from geolocation technology company TomTom shows part of the highway is closed. 

    Various highway traffic cameras (data sourced from the British Columbia government) confirm the closure.

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

    Twitter is full of pictures and videos from over the weekend of people gathering on and around the highway to voice their opinion against the government’s dystopic vaccine mandates and restrictions. 

    Even as Ambassador Bridge reopens, protesters continue blockade movements across the country at critical chokepoints that could unleash economic pain for the Canadian economy, something the Bank of Canada has called “very distressing.” 

    The revolts have yet to be squashed as it appears Trudeau won’t submit to protester demands.

    Tyler Durden
    Mon, 02/14/2022 – 20:36

  • US Advises All Americans To Depart Belarus Immediately 
    US Advises All Americans To Depart Belarus Immediately 

    update(8:14pmET): In what could prove a US continuing over-reaction, the State Department has advised that all American citizens should depart Belarus immediately. According to the fresh travel advisory on the State Dept’s official website:

    Do not Travel to Belarus due to the arbitrary enforcement of laws, the risk of detention, and unusual and concerning Russian military buildup along Belarus’ border with Ukraine; those in Belarus should depart immediately via commercial or private means, COVID-19 and related entry restrictions.

    On January 31, 2022, the Department of State ordered the departure of family members of U.S. government employees from Embassy Minsk.

    Due to an increase in unusual and concerning Russian military activity near the border with Ukraine, U.S. citizens located in or considering travel to Belarus should be aware that the situation is unpredictable and there is heightened tension in the region. 

    Russia and Belarus have continued with planned military exercises, which Washington has suggested is in reality part of a broader troop build-up with an eye on invading Ukraine. 

    Meanwhile, through Monday evening reports continue to be advanced that Russia is surging more troops toward the border:

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

    * * *

    update(2:16pmET): Strong signals of escalation on the hugely alarming news that the US has announced Monday it is closing its embassy in the Ukrainian capital of Kiev, according to a breaking Wall Street Journal report. West Texas Intermediate crude futures hit $95/BBL for the first time since 2014, with Brent spiking to nearly $96 a barrel. US Embassy operations will reportedly be relocated some 340 miles west to Lviv, according to the report. 

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

    “As part of the move, the State Department ordered the destruction of networking equipment and computer workstations and the dismantling of the embassy telephone system, according to U.S. officials familiar with the matter and internal communications,” WSJ details further. “Those moves render the Kyiv embassy inoperable as a diplomatic facility.”

    “On Sunday, 56 embassy workers and the embassy’s classified materials arrived at Dulles International Airport near Washington, the internal communications said,” the report notes.

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

    * * *

    update(1:51pmET): Appearing to deliberately avoid the kind of ‘war footing’ rhetoric that the US administration has been pushing out in recent days, Ukraine’s President Zelensky in his Monday evening address to the nation emphasized that the current crisis with Russia would be solved through negotiations. “Ukraine seeks peace and wants to deal with all issues only through negotiations,” he said according to a translation. But he also reportedly aimed strong words at Putin, saying, “We do not encroach on others, and we will never give up on our own.”

    Further he said Ukraine is “confident in its army which is much stronger than in 2014” – a reference to the Crimea crisis and start of the war on Donbas. At the same time, the US is said to be weighing about $1 billion in loan guarantees. 

    “U.S. President Joe Biden’s national security adviser Jake Sullivan told congressional leaders on Monday that the United States was considering offering Ukraine up to $1 billion in sovereign loan guarantees to calm market concerns about a possible war with Russia, a source familiar with the adviser’s call told Reuters.”

    However, the White House might start with calming its own hyped rhetoric, and repetition of an “imminent” invasion, or that it’s coming “any day” – a scenario which clearly hasn’t materialized over the past couple weeks the administration has been saying it. Into Monday, the message out of the State Dept. continues to be very alarming over the situation…

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

    Zelensky has also declared Feb.16 a “day of unity” – calling for patriotic flag-raising and displays of loyalty to the nation. It’s causing some to question whether this actually means Wednesday could be the day Kiev expects some kind of Russian aggression…

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    Interfax reports, “According to the published document, the head of state instructed to raise the national flag of Ukraine on houses and structures in all settlements and perform the national anthem of Ukraine at 10.00. Foreign diplomatic institutions were instructed to hold appropriate image events in the host states aimed at uniting and supporting Ukraine.”

    * * *

    Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelensky is giving a major speech addressing the nation related to the crisis with Russia this evening, which is being aired on national channels. Over the past days authorities in Kiev have tried to calm the sense of panic among the population that’s been stoked largely by ultra-alarmist reports coming from both the White House and Western media in general.

    According to local media, “It should be noted that the last time Zelensky addressed the nation on January 25 on the eve of the meeting of the Normandy advisers in Paris and announced hopes for progress in a peaceful settlement in Donbass.”

    • UKRAINE WANTS PEACE, CONFIDENT IN ITS ARMY: ZELENSKIY
    • ZELENSKIY: UKRAINE TO RESOLVE ALL QUESTIONS ONLY THROUGH TALKS

    Via Reuters

    This is as on Monday Interfax is reporting that Ukraine’s government assesses that there’s no full-scale Russian in the coming days, which stands in direct contradiction to the latest statements out the White House alleging precisely that Russia will invade in a matter of “days”. 

    Bloomberg writes of the fresh Interfax report: “Ukrainian law-enforcement agencies don’t see a large-scale Russian attack happening Feb. 16-17, Interfax-Ukraine news agency reports citing Oleksiy Danilov, secretary of the National Security and Defense Council.”

    Danilov described that the situation is “fully under control” and suggested that it’s part of the Russian playbook to promote fear and instability in Ukrainian society – a somewhat ironic assessment given the actual source of the panic. 

    However, Danilove “Doesn’t rule put provocations after Russian parliament votes laws on self-proclaimed republics on Tuesday,” according to Bloomberg.

    Meanwhile, regional tensions have perhaps cooled a bit after Putin acknowledged talks with the United States will continue, and that some of the Russian military drills in the south are coming to an end. One key issue will be whether the Kremlin sends any level of troops back to their home bases. 

    On this front, Russia’s foreign minister also affirmed dialogue with both NATO and Washington remains open. “Russia will continue seeking answers from Western colleagues to its questions about security guarantees, while simultaneously developing a dialogue on other aspects of this topic, Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said at a meeting with President Vladimir Putin on Monday,” TASS news agency wrote. 

    “We, developing a dialogue on some aspects that are of practical importance today, with our Western, primarily American colleagues. We will simultaneously seek their answers to the legitimate questions that we have raised,” Lavrov emphasized of the security proposals still under consideration.

    Tyler Durden
    Mon, 02/14/2022 – 20:14

  • The Difficulty In Untangling Ukraine Propaganda Means We Have More Of It
    The Difficulty In Untangling Ukraine Propaganda Means We Have More Of It

    Authored by Mike Shedlock via MishTalk.com,

    Please consider a few recent headlines regarding a potential Russian invasion.

    Hybrid War Already Started 

    The Wall Street Journal reports Hybrid War Already Started. 

    U.S. officials are warning that Russia could be about to attack Ukraine. For many citizens in this embattled country, the assault has already begun.

    Ukrainian officials say that Russia, which has positioned more than 100,000 troops around three sides of Ukraine, is stepping up a destabilization campaign involving cyberattacks, economic disruption and a new tactic: hundreds of fake bomb threats.

    Russian forces and their proxies already control portions of Ukraine and frequent skirmish with government forces. The aim of Moscow’s intensifying hybrid campaign, Ukrainian officials say, is to weaken their country and sow panic, potentially provoking discontent and protests of the kind Russia fomented in eastern Ukraine in 2014 to justify its interventions there. U.S. and U.K. officials said last month they uncovered coup plots intended to install a puppet pro-Russian government.

    The WSJ headline says a hybrid war has started. The first sentence says Russia “could” be ready to attack Ukraine. The third paragraph says Russians and their proxies already control portions of Ukraine.

    What portions? Where? Who are the proxies? 

    Now the US claims Ukrainian lawmaker and television channel owner, Yevhen Murayev, is a potential puppet ruler who could be installed by the Russians.

    What is the basis for that claim? 

    No Breakthrough

    The Washington Post reports Russia-Ukraine tensions high as Biden-Putin call fails to yield a breakthrough

    President Biden will speak to Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelensky by phone Sunday as Western allies scramble to deter a possible Russian attack on Ukraine, as Moscow intensifies its pressure on NATO allies and Kyiv.

    Zelensky’s spokesman Sergii Nykyforov confirmed the Biden-Zelensky call Sunday in a comment on Facebook. The Ukrainian president, seeking to avoid panic and damage to his country’s economy, has played down fears of an imminent Russian invasion and has shown irritation at increasingly dire U.S. warnings.

    After the call between President Biden and Russian leader Vladimir Putin on Saturday produced no breakthrough, German Chancellor Olaf Scholz will take his turn at averting a Russian invasion with meetings in Kyiv and Moscow.

    Scholz, who has faced criticism that his government is not doing enough to support Ukraine, is due to meet Zelensky in Kyiv on Monday and with Putin in Moscow on Tuesday.

    Stoking Panic 

    The Times of Israel reports Ukraine leader says warnings of imminent Russian invasion are stoking ‘panic’.

    KYIV, Ukraine — Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said on Saturday that warnings of an imminent Russian attack on his country were stoking “panic” and demanded to see firm proof of a planned invasion.

    Is that accurate? 

    It’s hard to assess given WSJ reports that a hybrid war has already started and Russia controls parts of Ukraine. 

    It’s unclear if the Journal is referring to Crimea or something else. By the way, Crimea is part of Russia, like it or not.

    Ukraine’s Zelensky Wants to Fend Off Russia—and America, Too

    Lending credence to the Times of Israel report is this WSJ headline: Ukraine’s Zelensky Wants to Fend Off Russia—and America, Too

    With Russian military forces gathering on three sides of Ukraine last month, advisers to President Volodymyr Zelensky urged a low-key response. His top national security adviser, in a cellphone call, counseled him with two words: “Olympian calm.”

    The following day, Mr. Zelensky addressed the nation on television and said the threat of war was no greater than any other time since Russian President Vladimir Putin invaded portions of the country in 2014.

    Is that accurate? 

    If you believe every headline story then:

    • War has started 

    • War is imminent

    • Ukraine demands proof war is imminent

    • Russia already controls portions of Ukraine

    • Odds of war no greater than any time since 2014

    Q&A on US Fear Stoking

    Q: Is the US stoking fear?

    A: Undoubtedly

    Q: Is that helping?

    Helping Whom? 

    Biden is in a win-win position by escalating fears. 

    If Russia invades he gets to say “I told you so.” If Russia doesn’t invade, Biden will claim his diplomacy and sanction threats staved off the invasion.

    No Reason to Believe the US State Department

    There is no reason anyone should have faith in what the US State Department says.

    If anything, some of it is so preposterous you would be wise to discount everything they say.

    Here is a video clip in point.

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

    Note that any US allegation can be labeled as “declassified evidence” with no real evidence produced. 

    I covered “Alex Jones Territory” in depth in my report Olympian Calm in Ukraine Over Russia Invasion Threat vs US Hype and Panic.

    Jake Sullivan, US State Department: “One possible option the Russians are considering, and which we made public today, involves the production of a propaganda video – a video with graphic scenes of false explosions depicting corpses, crisis actors, mourners, and images of destroyed locations, entirely fabricated.”

    Reporter “This is Alex Jones Territory. What evidence do you have that there is some propaganda film in the making?“

    It’s All Propaganda Now!

    If you believe you know what’s going on, you are mistaken. And the more you believe you know what’s going on, the more you are a pawn in someone else’s game.

    There are many reasons the US would lie, Ukraine would lie, and Russia would lie. 

    And what should you expect from a pack of liars other than a pack of lies?

    Will Russia Invade?

    I don’t know, nor do you, and importantly neither does the US state department which is the one and only believable thing they have said in this crisis. 

    Four Reasons Russia Won’t Invade

    1. Expense

    2. When people start dying, wars become very unpopular

    3. Russia would not be able to militarily hold Ukraine indefinitely 

    4. If Russia wanted to hold more of Ukraine, it would have done so when it took back Crimea. 

    Despite the above rationale, dictators sometimes make very bad choices. If Putin does invade, he will have his reasons for doing so.

    Propaganda War Has Started

    The WSJ says a hybrid war already started. More accurately, the propaganda war is in full swing.  

    Escalating rhetoric does not seem to be helping. 

    But there are reasons for escalating propaganda, even if those reasons are no more than a self-serving “I told you so.”

    Meanwhile, don’t delude yourself into thinking you know what will happen, because you don’t.

    *  *  *

    Please Subscribe to MishTalk Email Alerts.

    Tyler Durden
    Mon, 02/14/2022 – 20:10

  • Airlines Coordinating With Biden Admin On 'No-Fly' List After Unruly Passenger Incidents Hit 27-Year High
    Airlines Coordinating With Biden Admin On ‘No-Fly’ List After Unruly Passenger Incidents Hit 27-Year High

    Last week we reported that Delta Airlines CEO Ed Bastian officially asked the Biden DOJ to help deter aggressive behavior on flights, telling AG Merrick Garland that a list “will help prevent future incidents and serve as a strong symbol of the consequences of not complying with crew member instructions on commercial aircraft.”

    Today we learn that this has been in the works for a while, as Bloomberg reports that the largest airlines in the US have been working with the Biden administration ‘for months’ to compile a no-fly list of unruly passengers amid attacks on flight attendants, airport gate agents and fellow travelers.

    Discussions among the carriers, their Airlines for America trade group, the Department of Homeland Security and Transportation Security Administration over the issue have intensified over the last six months or so, two people familiar with the issue said, asking not to be named because the talks are private. Airline unions also have been involved in some of the talks. –Bloomberg

    Last year, 72% of the 5,981 reports of pandemic-era passenger incidents were related to masks according to the FAA, which launched investigations into more than 1,105 more serious incidents in 2021 – over 3x the previous high since the agency began collecting data in 1995.

    Currently one of the largest stumbling blocks is trying to deploy uniform standards across airlines for banned individuals, as well as how to limit ‘inevitable cases of mistaken identity.’

    “It’s one thing to say you can’t fly on one airline,” according to effrey Price, an aviation security consultant and professor of aviation management at Metropolitan State University of Denver, who hasn’t been involved in the talks. “It’s another thing to say you can’t fly on any airline.”

    According to Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg, a unified no-fly list is something the government is considering, though his agency plays no current role in security checks.

    Delta has put nearly 1,900 people on its no-fly list for refusing to comply with mask requirements and has shared 900 of the names with the TSA to possibly pursue civil penalties. United Airlines has banned more than 800 from its flights for refusing to wear a mask. Southwest declined to disclose how many are on its internal list. -Bloomberg

    “Obviously, there are enormous implications in terms of civil liberties, in terms of how you administer something like that,” Buttigieg told CNN. “Even when it was over terrorism, it was not a simple thing to set up. So none of these things can be done lightly. But I think all of these things need to be looked at, at a moment like this.”

    How long before no-fly lists include unvaccinated individuals?

    Tyler Durden
    Mon, 02/14/2022 – 19:50

  • Gasoline Prices Rise Across US Again, Experts Warn More Pain At Pump Coming
    Gasoline Prices Rise Across US Again, Experts Warn More Pain At Pump Coming

    Authored by Katabella Roberts via The Epoch Times,

    The price of gasoline has risen across the United States again as experts warn that more pain could lie ahead at the pumps for Americans.

    The average price of a gallon of regular-grade gasoline currently stands at $3.488, an increase of more than 30 percent since the same time last year, when it was $2.505 a gallon, according to data from the American Automobile Association (AAA).

    In the last week, the price of regular-grade gasoline has soared nearly 1.4 percent, from $3.441.

    [ZH: This is the highest gasoline price at the pump for this time of year since 2013]

    According to the latest data from the Energy Information Administration (EIA), total domestic gasoline stocks decreased by 1.6 million barrels to 248.4 million last week.

    Meanwhile, demand for gasoline increased from 8.23 million barrels per day to 9.13 million barrels per day, resulting in a disparity between demand and supply.

    The rising cost of crude oil, driven by loosening COVID-19 pandemic-related restrictions and economies rebounding from the recession, is also putting continued pressure on prices.

    And Americans are set to pay even more at the pumps in the future, AAA warned on Feb.10.

    “Pump prices will likely continue to follow suit as demand grows and stocks decrease if crude prices continue to climb,” AAA said.

    Meanwhile, West Texas Intermediate (WTI) increased by 22 cents to settle at $89.88 at the close of the Feb. 10 formal trading session.

    “WTI $94, national average gas price will eclipse $3.50/gal this week,” Patrick De Haan, the head of petroleum analysis at Gas Buddy, warned on Feb. 14.

    Additionally, EIA reported that total domestic crude stocks decreased by 4.8 million barrels on Feb. 4 to 410.4 million.

    “The current stock level is approximately 13 percent lower than at the beginning of February 2021, contributing to pressure on domestic crude prices,” AAA noted.

    Since Feb. 3, the states of Delaware, New Mexico, Maryland, North Carolina, Tennessee, Virginia, New Jersey, Nebraska, Pennsylvania, and Kentucky have seen the highest increases in the price of gasoline.

    Customers visiting pumps in Delaware have seen a 22 cent increase in the price of gasoline, according to AAA, while New Mexico follows closely behind with an 18 cents increase. Pennsylvania vehicle owners have seen a 10 cents increase while those in Kentucky are paying 9 cents more.

    AAA said that the ongoing tensions between Russia and Ukraine are also contributing to rising oil prices, given that Russia is a member of OPEC+, crude-producing allies of The Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC)

    Thus, any sanctions based on their actions toward Ukraine may cause it to withhold crude oil from the global market, AAA said.

    However, OPEC has dismissed requests to drastically pump more oil, which combined with the Ukraine crisis has created further instabilities in the market.

    Russia has massed some 100,000 soldiers along its borders with Ukraine.

    The Biden administration insists that a Russian invasion of Ukraine is imminent and could take place before the end of the Beijing Winter Olympics, which are set to finish on Feb. 20.

    Western leaders have promised to apply sanctions on Kremlin officials “the likes of which we have not looked at before,” if President Vladimir Putin invades the former Soviet republic.

    “I think we’ve been very clear with Mr. Putin about the economic consequences that could come his way and the way the Russian people should he further incur, invade inside Ukraine,” Pentagon spokesperson John Kirby told Fox News Sunday in January.

    “I think we’ve been very, very clear that we’re going to look at sanctions and economic consequences, the likes of which we have not looked at before even considering even as far back as 2014,” he added.

    However, the Pentagon spokesperson also emphasized that the current situation “doesn’t have to come to conflict.”

    On Feb. 13, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky invited President Joe Biden to visit Kyiv in what he believes would be a powerful move that could help deescalate and stabilize the situation with Russia.

    Tyler Durden
    Mon, 02/14/2022 – 19:30

  • Texas Sues Facebook For Hundreds Of Billions Of Dollars For Abusing Facial Recognition Tools
    Texas Sues Facebook For Hundreds Of Billions Of Dollars For Abusing Facial Recognition Tools

    Users of Meta Platform’s popular social media ecosystems like Facebook and Instagram will likely remember how the company abandoned its facial recognition tools on the apps back in November. The feature scraped visual data from the platform to identify people in newly posted photos, and abandoning it dramatically reshaped Meta’s attempt to retool its platforms, including plans to launch a child-only iteration of Instagram that would have functioned as a separate platform.

    But the company’s plans to abandon these controversial tools didn’t go far enough, and now the Texas AG is suing the tech behemoth for hundreds of billions of dollars for flagrantly violating the state’s laws surrounding data privacy: WSJ reported Monday morning that Texas’s attorney general has filed a lawsuit against Meta in state district court for illegally collecting metadata belonging to Texans using its facial recognition tools.

    Meta didn’t respond to a WSJ request for comment, but Paxton and his office said the following:

    “Facebook has been secretly harvesting Texans’ most personal information – photos and videos – for its own corporate profit,” Mr. Paxton said. “Texas law has prohibited such harvesting without informed consent for over 20 years. While ordinary Texans have been using Facebook to innocently share photos of loved ones with friends and family, we now know that Facebook has been brazenly ignoring Texas law for the last decade.”

    Back when it was called Facebook, the company previously settled another lawsuit over its facial recognition practices for roughly $650 million. That lawsuit was filed back in 2015 by the state of Illinois, which accused the company of violating its biometric privacy law, which is similar in some respects to the Texas law that Meta is being accused of breaking. Meta’s lawyers argued at the time that the company had required users to opt in or opt out of its facial recognition features, an argument that the company will likely re-use in its defense against Texas’s lawsuit.

    FB’s efforts to have that case thrown out were unsuccessful, and it eventually settled out of court with Illinois.

    Now, the latest lawsuit from Texas shows how new privacy laws are creating problems for major tech firms. In particular, Texas’s law makes it illegal for tech firms to capture biometric identifiers without the explicit consent of users.

    The Texas lawsuit—in particular the size of the civil penalties being sought—points to the impact that increasingly widespread privacy laws could have on big tech companies’ operations.

    After Facebook’s settlement of the Illinois class-action case became known, Texas sent its own civil subpoena to the company seeking information about the facial-recognition system. Facebook announced it was ending its facial recognition system last November.

    A civil subpoena issued by Paxton’s office demanded that Meta turn over all the materials that Facebook had produced in response to the Illinois class-action lawsuit. Unlike that suit, Texas’s law stipulates that it can only be enforced by the state’s attorney general to the tune of $25K per violation. The complaint estimates that at least 20 million Texans were affected. Texas had demanded that Facebook stop collecting facial recognition data belonging to Texans late last year, after the company said it would stop using those tools to automatically identify people in photos.

    “Facebook announced, in November 2021, that it would cease use of the face-recognition feature on its Facebook social-media platform,” the draft complaint says.

    “Facebook has made no such commitment with respect to any of the other platforms or operations under its corporate umbrella, such as Instagram, WhatsApp, Facebook Reality Labs, or its upcoming virtual-reality metaverse.”

    One Twitter user succinctly explained how Facebook feels it can flout laws if there’s a dollar to be made.

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

    Tyler Durden
    Mon, 02/14/2022 – 19:10

  • CNN Is Dying And Them Comparing Joe Rogan To Jan. 6 Proves It
    CNN Is Dying And Them Comparing Joe Rogan To Jan. 6 Proves It

    Authored by Matt Agorist via TheFreeThoughtProject.com,

    It’s getting rather tiresome hearing about Joe Rogan in the mainstream press. The man’s podcast is a massive benefit to humanity and his guests and his long-form style only help to lessen ignorance. That is all. It should be a non-issue. But the mainstream media, especially the folks at CNN, simply cannot stop obsessing over Horse Paste Man.

    From libelous attacks to video mashups taken out of context to calls for censorship directly from the White House, the establishment machine is fighting a losing war in their attempt to cancel Rogan.

    While the cancelists claim that their attempt to silence Rogan have been unsuccessful because he’s worth too much money to Spotify, in reality, Rogan is uncancellable because he has a massive audience who trusts him.

    Unlike every outlet in the mainstream, Rogan admits to making mistakes. After the out-of-context mashup of him using the n-word went viral recently, Rogan took it upon himself to pull every episode in which the word was said. He then apologized, admitting that he should have never been so brazen in saying it.

    He apologized and noted that he would never do it again and this was enough for everyone — who is not part of the establishment. In a last stitch effort to attempt to take down Rogan, CNN made one of, if not the most, ridiculous claims ever uttered into one of their reports.

    In an article published on Sunday, by one of their analysts, John Blake, CNN ran the following headline.

    Joe Rogan’s use of the n-word is another January 6 moment

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

    In this dumpster fire of an article, CNN attempts to claim that World War II was fought so that white people could never say the n-word. Seriously. Read the following excerpt.

    The podcaster Joe Rogan did not join a mob that forced lawmakers to flee for their lives. He never carried a Confederate flag inside the US Capitol rotunda. No one died trying to stop him from using the n-word.

    But what Rogan and those that defend him have done since video clips of him using the n-word surfaced on social media is arguably just as dangerous as what a mob did when they stormed the US Capitol on January 6 last year.

    Rogan breached a civic norm that has held America together since World War II. It’s an unspoken agreement that we would never return to the kind of country we used to be.

    That agreement revolved around this simple rule:

    A White person would never be able to publicly use the n-word again and not pay a price.

    The article then goes on for hundreds and hundreds of more words as Blake attempts to make his point for cancelling Rogan. According to CNN, no white person should ever use the word in any context, ever. And, if they do, they should be banned from everything, forever. Even if they publicly apologize and they never meant harm.

    After publishing the article with the above title, CNN received massive backlash and the title was changed to Why shrugging off Joe Rogan’s use of the n-word is so dangerous. Apparently the hyperbolic nature of such a claim was too much, even for CNN’s extremely low standards.

    Blake goes on to claim — without evidence — that Rogan’s use of this word will make him more popular. But who in their right mind would follow Rogan for using the n-word? Certainly not racists. There is no mass support for Rogan by white supremacists because if they tuned into a single episode, they would know that he openly disavows any and all racism and inequality.

    Rogan is also an advocate for ending the drug war because it disproportionately targets black people. In fact, thanks to Rogan frequently giving a platform to the Innocence Project, his efforts have recently helped to free multiple black men who were wrongly accused.

    CNN wants to stop this.

    The fact is that Rogan is proving the obsolescence of the legacy media and they are extremely angry. While these outlets used to be a trusted source of information, they have been caught in so many massive lies over the years that the public has lost trust in them.

    Outlets like CNN would rather devote countless hours of television spots and online articles around bashing Joe Rogan than they would about checking the rampant corruption in the federal government, pushing to end the senseless wars across the planet, and researching actual solutions to racial disparity, like ending the drug war.

    While they’re not bashing their political enemies, the mainstream press does little more than act as passive reverberators for the deep state. Reuters, WaPo, the NY Times, and every other mainstream outlet has proven this by continuing to march toward a potentially world-ending war with Russia over the Ukraine.

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

    While Rogan may make a mistake from time to time and is certainly wrong on a lot of issues, his format cannot and will never have the negative impact that the mainstream press has had on this planet. Their coverage and establishment parroting has led to the suffering and deaths of millions of innocent men, women, and children. Rogan having on folks who talk about science will never be able to do this.

    However, it is the mainstream’s constant promotion of war and fear that has tricked Americans into supporting senseless wars for decades. When the US slaughters a dozen children in some country, it’s a blip in the mainstream as they incessantly repeat the establishment’s talking points ad nauseum while ignoring the issues that matter.

    The people have had enough and the more CNN and others try to silence Rogan, the more damage they do to their own brand. Though it has been incredibly difficult for independent media over the last 6 years of censorship and biased “fact checks,” those of us who held on through the hard times are here and we are building a new way of sharing important news through honesty and transparency.

    To the three hundred people who still take CNN and the others seriously, we urge you to get outside of your box. Challenge your ideas and don’t be afraid of admitting mistakes. The only way out of complete societal destruction is free and open discussions and intellectual humility.

    Those who constantly attempt to silence that discussion and who show no intellectual humility are not your friend and you’d be wise to wake up to this fact before it’s too late.

    Tyler Durden
    Mon, 02/14/2022 – 18:50

  • Berkshire Bought Activision In Q4 Ahead Of Microsoft Deal; Added To Chevron, Trimmed Visa, Mastercard And Pharma Stocks
    Berkshire Bought Activision In Q4 Ahead Of Microsoft Deal; Added To Chevron, Trimmed Visa, Mastercard And Pharma Stocks

    In the weeks before Microsoft made the surprise announcement it was acquiring the troubled Activision, the market was rife with speculation that Berkshire itself could make a play – no pun intended – for the foundering video game company whose stock had tumbled so much in the fourth quarter amid poor earnings and sexual harassment scandals, many viewed it as a deep value play suitable even for Warren Buffett. In retrospect, that didn’t pan out, but as we learned today after the quarterly 13F bonanza hit, Berkshire was buying Activision in Q4 when the stock was tumbling, and as of Dec 31, Berkshire owned 14.658 million shares of Activision stock, representing 1.9% of the shares outstanding. Assuming Buffett bought around the average price for the quarter, or $65, Berkshire made around $250 million on that purchase alone which is not a bad payout for a few weeks worth of work (one wonders if the information that Buffett was buying somehow leaked, and prompted Microsoft’s unexpected acquisition of ATVI).

    Besides Activision, Berkshire had just one other new stake in Q4 according to the 13F: it purchased 107.1 million shares of Nubank Class A stock valued at $1 billion, representing 3.1% of shares outstanding.

    As Berkshire was entering new stakes in Activision and Nubank, it was also exiting two legacy holdings: Teva, where Berkshire sold its remaining 42.8 million shares valued at $416.8 million, and Sirius XM Holdings, where it liquidated 43.7 million valued at $266.3 million.

    Besides the new and exited positions, here are some other notable changes in the quarter:

    • Added to its holdings in Chevron Corp.
    • Decreased its stake in AbbVie Inc.
    • Apple Inc. was the biggest holding, representing 48% of disclosed assets

    Berkshire added to its holdings in four names, including:

    • Chevron: 9.54 million shares, up 33% to 38.2 million valued at $4.49 billion, representing 2% of shares outstanding
    • RH: 24,580, up 1.4% to 1.82 million valued at $973.6 million, representing 8.5% of shares outstanding
    • Floor & Decor Holdings Inc.: 26,846, up 3.3% to 843,709 valued at $109.7 million
    • Liberty Media: 7.466 million shares, up 12.9% to 65.535 million, valued at $3.358 billion.

    Buffett cut his holdings in eight names, most notably card processors Visa and Mastercard and his recently acquired pharma positions (Abbvie, Royalty Pharma and Bristol-Meyers):

    • AbbVie: 11.4 million shares, down 79% to 3.03 million valued at $410.7 million
    • Bristol-Myers Squibb Co.: 16.8 million, down 76% to 5.2 million valued at $324.4 million
    • Royalty Pharma Plc Class A, Mastercard Inc. Class A, Kroger Co.
    • Visa Class A: 1.27 million, down 13% to 8.3 million valued at $1.8 billion
    • Mastercard: 302,000, down 7% to 3.987 million valued at $1.43 billion
    • Charter Communications Inc. Class A: 371,685, down 8.8% to 3.83 million valued at $2.5 billion, representing 2.1% of shares outstanding
    • Marsh & McLennan: 2.34 million, down 85% to 404,911 valued at $70.4 million

    There were no changes among Berkshire’s top five holdings:

    • Apple: unchanged at 887.1 million shares valued at $157.5 billion
    • Bank of America Corp.: unchanged at 1.01 billion valued at $44.9 billion
    • American Express Co.: unchanged at 151.6 million valued at $24.8 billion
    • Coca-Cola Co.: unchanged at 400 million valued at $23.7 billion
    • Kraft Heinz Co.: unchanged at 325.6 million valued at $11.7 billion

    While the most notable changes in the top 10 is that Chevron is now Berkshire’s 9th largest holding, worth $4.5 billion as of Dec 31.

    Here is the full summary of Berkshire’s stock holdings as of Dec. 31:

     

    Tyler Durden
    Mon, 02/14/2022 – 18:30

  • Free Speech Becomes Roadkill In The Crackdown On Canadian Truckers
    Free Speech Becomes Roadkill In The Crackdown On Canadian Truckers

    Authored by Jonathan Turley,

    [ZH: This was written just before Trudeau and Freeland unleashed 1984-esque hell this evening on Canadian’s freedom of speech and rights, making the situation even more surreal.]

    Below is my column in the Hill on the government and media campaign against the Canadian truckers. The Canadian government has now cleared the Ambassador Bridge. However, there was lasting damage done to the rights of free speech and association after an alliance of the government, corporations, and the media sought to isolate the protesters politically and financially.

    The most disturbing element was the freezing of donations by companies and the courts. Most recently, the TD Bank joined in blocking support from thousands of citizens. The organized effort to cut off access to donations is alarming, particularly in conjunction with efforts to curtail social media and other informational avenues for the protesters.

    Here is the column:

    Canada appears to be facing its greatest threat since Benedict Arnold came close to seizing Ottawa in 1775. The source of this “insurrection” and “attack on democracy,” however, is not a foreign government but Canadians who have descended on their own capital to protest continuing COVID-19 mandates.

    The protest has been peaceful — and highly successful in cutting off key highways. But the most alarming development has not come from the convoy but from the commentary about it, including calls for mass arrests and even vigilantism. The Ottawa Police Services Board chairman has called it a “nationwide insurrection,” adding, “Our city is under siege.”

    CNN analyst and Harvard professor Juliette Kayyem was apoplectic at the thought of truckers shutting down roads and interfering with trade. She tweeted out a call to “slash the tires, empty gas tanks, arrest the drivers, and move the trucks.” CNN correspondent Paula Newton said this act of civil disobedience was nothing less than a “threat to democracy. An insurrection, sedition.”

    Blocking streets, occupying buildings and shutting down bridges have long been tactics of protesters. Yet what constitutes a protest or an insurrection often seems to depend on the cause involved. When rioters caused billions of dollars in damages, burned police stations and occupied sections of American cities in the summer of 2020, for example, few in the media declared them to be terrorists or a threat to democracy. But CNN’s Kayyem once called conservative protesters occupying a state capital “domestic terrorists.” GoFundMe, which previously helped in the funding of the Black Lives Matter (BLM) protesters, froze more than $10 million raised for Canadian truckers to prevent it from being used to support them.

    After the money was frozen by GoFundMe, supporters switched to GiveSendGo to “adopt a trucker.” The Canadian government then moved successfully to freeze millions of donations to the truckers, and the Supreme Court of Canada approved the freeze in a major blow to free speech and associational rights in Canada.

    In the meantime, the government has demonized the convoy. Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, who praised truckers just two years ago as heroes, has denounced them as “trying to blockade our economy, our democracy.”

    This is the same Trudeau who praised BLM protesters and stressed that “I have attended protests and rallies in the past when I agreed with the goals, when I supported the people expressing their concerns and their issues, Black Lives Matter is an excellent example of that.”

    Protesters are routinely arrested for blocking roads, of course, and Canada certainly can enforce its public safety laws. But government responses, in the U.S. and now in Canada, seem heavily dependent on protesters’ viewpoints — just as much of the media coverage of Canada’s trucker movement could not contrast more strikingly with how protests across the U.S. in 2020 were often reported. Back then, many of these same journalists praised the civil disobedience legacy of the late congressman and civil rights icon John Lewis, who charged the next generation to go out and make “good trouble.”

    In cities such as Washington, D.C., police allowed BLM protesters to take over streets and stood by as some protesters toppled historic statues. When House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) was asked about the destruction, she shrugged and said, “People will do what they will do.” In Seattle, the seizing of a police station and the occupation of an entire section of the city was tolerated by the Democratic mayor, who likened it to a “summer of love.” And when BLM protesters flouted COVID-19 mandates, health experts lined up to declare they should be exempted from pandemic rules because racism is a health crisis too.

    What is most concerning now is the unwillingness to consider Canadian truckers as anything other than knuckle-dragging, racist insurrectionists. Like so much in our age of rage, our political opponents cannot be anything but caricatures or cutouts, because reason no longer has a place in our national discourse. Yet it is precisely the isolation of dissenting voices and groups that leads to such acts of disruption and disobedience.

    Canada’s truckers obviously feel marginalized and dismissed by their government. That feeling was magnified when Trudeau fled to a secure location and refused to meet with them. Officials then threatened anyone giving aid or gas to the truckers.

    There is a worldwide movement against COVID-19 mandates and rising complaints over the censorship of those with opposing views of these policies. Many of those objections are now being treated as mainstream questions, from the efficacy of masks to the value of lockdowns, from the origins of the virus to the protection of natural antibodies.

    Once again, an alliance of government, social media companies and the mainstream media is fueling public divisions, even as such condemnation of the truckers appears to be having less and less impact. Rage gives a license to treat opposing views as unworthy of expression or tolerance. But people who feel marginalized tend to get mad and find their own outlets for speech.

    I believe the truckers are wrong to continue the blockade unless the government yields to their demands. But the government also is wrong in how it has dismissed the truckers and cracked down on fundraising and other support for the movement.

    The freezing of funds supporting the truckers laid bare the anti-free speech trend sweeping across the world, including in the U.S. There is no principled basis for cutting off the ability of citizens to support other citizens in a campaign of civil disobedience. Although ignored by most in the media, the same claim used by the Trudeau government today could have been used to freeze support for the civil rights era’s freedom marchers or for BLM protesters in 2020.

    Ottawa is not under siege; the roads can be cleared. However, our politics and media have become bunkered and blockaded. Free speech is being curtailed through government actions, including the freezing of these funds, or through corporate censorship now embraced by the left. And lost in all this is an outlet for our political tensions and channels for dialogue.

    Acts of civil disobedience like these will remain part of political movements. However, if we want to reduce the impulse to take to the highways to protest, then we need to open up the information superhighway for full political expression and dissent.

    Tyler Durden
    Mon, 02/14/2022 – 18:10

  • The Uneven Fallout Of The Inflation Surge
    The Uneven Fallout Of The Inflation Surge

    As inflation surged to a 40-year high in January 2022, millions of Americans are facing financial hardship due to the rising consumer prices.

    As Statista’s Felix Richter details below, according to a survey conducted by Gallup in January, 9 percent of U.S. adults have been caused severe financial hardship by the latest surge in inflation, severe meaning that it might affect their ability to maintain their current standard of living. Another 40 percent face moderate hardship, meaning that price increases affect them but don’t threaten their standard of living.

    Making inflation woes worse is the fact that they affect lower income groups disproportionately. While it’s relatively easy to shrug off price increases when it only reduces the amount of money left at the end of the month, it is much harder for people who struggled to make ends meet even before prices started surging.

    As the chart shows, the perceived effect of recent price increases varies significantly by income group.

    Infographic: The Uneven Fallout of the Inflation Surge | Statista

    You will find more infographics at Statista

    While 66 percent of those living in households with an annual income of less than $40,000 experience some kind of financial hardship these days, just 32 percent of those earning $100,000 or more claim to do so.

    Tyler Durden
    Mon, 02/14/2022 – 17:52

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