Today’s News 16th August 2020

• CIA Behind Guccifer & Russiagate – A Plausible Scenario
  CIA Behind Guccifer & Russiagate – A Plausible Scenario
  
  Tyler Durden
  
  Sun, 08/16/2020 – 00:00

  Via The Strategic Culture Foundation,

  William Binney is the former technical director of the U.S. National Security Agency who worked at the agency for 30 years. He is a respected independent critic of how American intelligence services abuse their powers to illegally spy on private communications of U.S. citizens and around the globe.

  Given his expert inside knowledge, it is worth paying attention to what Binney says.

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  In a media interview this week, he dismissed the so-called Russiagate scandal as a “fabrication” orchestrated by the American Central Intelligence Agency. Many other observers have come to the same conclusion about allegations that Russia interfered in the 2016 U.S. elections with the objective of helping Donald Trump get elected.

  But what is particularly valuable about Binney’s judgment is that he cites technical analysis disproving the Russiagate narrative. That narrative remains dominant among U.S. intelligence officials, politicians and pundits, especially those affiliated with the Democrat party, as well as large sections of Western media. The premise of the narrative is the allegation that a Russian state-backed cyber operation hacked into the database and emails of the Democrat party back in 2016. The information perceived as damaging to presidential candidate Hillary Clinton was subsequently disseminated to the Wikileaks whistleblower site and other U.S. media outlets.

  A mysterious cyber persona known as “Guccifer 2.0” claimed to be the alleged hacker. U.S. intelligence and news media have attributed Guccifer as a front for Russian cyber operations.

  Notably, however, the Russian government has always categorically denied any involvement in alleged hacking or other interference in the 2016 U.S. election, or elections thereafter.

  William Binney and other independent former U.S. intelligence experts say they can prove the Russiagate narrative is bogus. The proof relies on their forensic analysis of the data released by Guccifer. The analysis of timestamps demonstrates that the download of voluminous data could not have been physically possible based on known standard internet speeds. These independent experts conclude that the data from the Democrat party could not have been hacked, as Guccifer and Russiagaters claim. It could only have been obtained by a leak from inside the party, perhaps by a disgruntled staffer who downloaded the information on to a disc. That is the only feasible way such a huge amount of data could have been released. That means the “Russian hacker” claims are baseless.

  Wikileaks, whose founder Julian Assange is currently imprisoned in Britain pending an extradition trial to the U.S. to face espionage charges, has consistently maintained that their source of files was not a hacker, nor did they collude with Russian intelligence. As a matter of principle, Wikileaks does not disclose the identity of its sources, but the organization has indicated it was an insider leak which provided the information on senior Democrat party corruption.

  William Binney says forensic analysis of the files released by Guccifer shows that the mystery hacker deliberately inserted digital “fingerprints” in order to give the impression that the files came from Russian sources. It is known from information later disclosed by former NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden that the CIA has a secretive program – Vault 7 – which is dedicated to false incrimination of cyber attacks to other actors. It seems that the purpose of Guccifer was to create the perception of a connection between Wikileaks and Russian intelligence in order to beef up the Russiagate narrative.

  “So that suggested [to] us all the evidence was pointing back to CIA as the originator [of] Guccifer 2.0. And that Guccifer 2.0 was inside CIA… I’m pointing to that group as the group that was probably the originator of Guccifer 2.0 and also this fabrication of the entire story of Russiagate,” concludes Binney in his interview with Sputnik news outlet.

  This is not the first time that the Russiagate yarn has been debunked. But it is crucially important to make Binney’s expert views more widely appreciated especially as the U.S. presidential election looms on November 3. As that date approaches, U.S. intelligence and media seem to be intensifying claims about Russian interference and cyber operations. Such wild and unsubstantiated “reports” always refer to the alleged 2016 “hack” of the Democrat party by “Guccifer 2.0” as if it were indisputable evidence of Russian interference and the “original sin” of supposed Kremlin malign activity. The unsubstantiated 2016 “hack” is continually cited as the “precedent” and “provenance” of more recent “reports” that purport to claim Russian interference.

  Given the torrent of Russiagate derivatives expected in this U.S. election cycle, which is damaging U.S.-Russia bilateral relations and recklessly winding up geopolitical tensions, it is thus of paramount importance to listen to the conclusions of honorable experts like William Binney.

  The American public are being played by their own intelligence agencies and corporate media with covert agendas that are deeply anti-democratic.

  

• Turkey Hit By Bank Runs, Currency Panic As Locals Sell Their Cars And Houses To Buy Gold While Lira Implodes
  Turkey Hit By Bank Runs, Currency Panic As Locals Sell Their Cars And Houses To Buy Gold While Lira Implodes
  
  Tyler Durden
  
  Sat, 08/15/2020 – 23:30

  It has been an miserable five years for Turkish citizens who have seen their purchasing power slashed by more than half, and it’s only getting worse.

  The Turkish lira has cratered against the dollar and most developed currencies, plunging from 3 TRY per dollar, to a record low 7.37 last week after a brief and valiant attempt at imposing shadow capital control by Erdogan (who is now de facto head of the Turkish central bank) failed miserably at the end of July, and not even a draconian hike in overnight funding rates above 1000%  last week (to crush the shorts) was able to prevent a plunge in the Lira to new all time lows.

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  As their currency implodes (in a nation that is becoming increasingly more “banana” with each passing day as Erdogan solidifies his takeover of every government institution, in the process turning off any potential foreign investors) Turks are discouraged from material purchases of dollars to hedge the collapse in their native currency due to some of the strictest capital controls on the planet, which has left them with just one option.

  As Reuters reports, Hasan Ayhan followed his wife’s instructions last week and took their savings to buy gold at Istanbul’s Grand Bazaar as Turks scooped up bullion worth $7 billion in a just a fortnight while their currency went up in flames.

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  The retired police officer, hit by vivid memories of the 2018 currency crisis which saw the Lira lose 30% of its value virtually overnight, was among those playing it safe as he queued in the city’s sprawling covered market, where a screen showed the gold price rise by one Turkish lira ($0.1366) in just 10 minutes.

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  What’s more, it now appears that locals are choosing gold over the dollar, perhaps because the dollar has also been tumbling against gold in recent weeks due to the Fed’s overt attempts to debase the greenback.

  “I think it is the best investment right now so I converted my dollars to buy gold,” the 57-year-old said, adding: “I might withdraw my lira and buy gold with it too, but I am scared to go to the bank right now because of coronavirus.” 

  Well, Hasan, for people in Turkey it is the best investment, but there is a rather high chance that Erdo pulls an FDR and makes it illegal for anyone in Turkey to own gold so you and your fellow countrymen may want to have a series of unfortunate boating accidents in the coming weeks.

  In any case, the day after Ayhan bought his gold on Aug 6, the lira hit a historic low and has continued to slide, laying bare concerns that Turkey’s reserves have been depleted by market interventions, which are showing signs of fizzling out, even as the central bank and president flood the local airwaves with fake news about monetary stability and urge locals to keep their money in lira.

  Only this time it’s not working: turks have traditionally used gold as savings and there may be as much as 5,000 tonnes of it “under mattresses”, with more added after the recent buying spree, Mehmet Ali Yildirimturk, deputy head of an Istanbul gold shops association, said.

  And although gold has never been more expensive – in either lira or dollar terms – vendors at Istanbul’s Grand Bazaar said almost no one is coming to sell their gold jewellery. There are only buyers.

  “I’ve been chatting with hundreds of people who are thinking about selling their cars or houses to invest in gold,” said Gunay Gunes, whose busy booth is near the market’s entrance.

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  Putting the recent gold-buying frenzy in context, in just the last three weeks, as selling gripped the lira local holdings of hard assets such as dollars and gold jumped $15 billion to a record of nearly $220 billion, making a mockery of the central bank’s attempts to halt the currency slide.

  The good news is that, according to Reuters, so far there is no evidence suggesting people are about to pull savings from banks, and this week the lira has hovered around 7.3 versus the dollar, although it remains among the worst emerging-market performers this year. Demand has eased since Turks withdrew some $2 billion in hard foreign cash from their banks during a March-May period in which a lockdown was imposed and the lira hit its last low, according to central bank banknote data.

  But that will surely change should the freefalllin the lira accelerate. Indeed, analysts say that if Ankara cannot boost confidence in the currency, which has fallen almost 20% this year, import-heavy Turkey risks inflation and even a balance of payments crisis that will worsen fallout from the coronavirus crisis. It also guarantees even more weakness for the lira, and even more buying of gold.

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  Meanwhile, with foreign investors now having only a small stake in Turkish assets after the government’s authoritarian approach has spooked many of them away, it is critical for President Tayyip Erdogan to convince Turks and local businesses to stop turning to the perceived stability of dollars and gold. One look at the chart above suggest that’s not working.

  Meanwhile, Finance Minister Berat Albayrak – who just happens to be Erdogan’s son-in-law – said on Wednesday the lira’s competitiveness is more important than exchange rate volatility. The central bank has effectively borrowed on local dollar liquidity to fuel its foreign exchange market interventions, which are meant to stabilize the lira, according to data and the calculations of traders and economists.

  Through Turkish state banks, which together are “short” foreign exchange by $12 billion, the central bank has sold more than $110 billion since last year, Reuters data show. In turn, the bank’s gross FX buffer has fallen by nearly half this year to below $47 billion, its lowest in 14 years.

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  While the CBRT has downplayed the plunge in reserves, saying the “fluctuate” in stressful periods with the Treasury chiming in to say say the bank intervenes at times to stabilize the currency, ratings agencies and investors say Ankara should take decisive steps such as an interest rate hike to rebuild reserves and restore confidence. Otherwise, rising current account deficits and a possible debt default could tarnish the country’s formerly solid reputation for meeting foreign obligations.

  And, as Reuters notes, these debt repayments are set to rise in October, but the local aren’t waiting the 2 months to see how the current crisis plays out.

  “Locals don’t want to keep Turkish lira, they’ve been dollarizing and buying gold. Turks have hardly ever done that historically,” said Shamaila Khan, New York-based head of EM debt strategy at AllianceBernstein. “That is why you need proactive policies because if you get to that stage where locals are unwilling to keep their money in the bank then you’re heading to a balance of payments crisis. That’s when the alarm bells will start ringing.”

  To halt the bank runs, some banks imposed fees on withdrawals this week, while the central bank has curbed cheap credit channels it had opened to ease the coronavirus fallout. Yet while lira deposits now earn more than the 8.25% policy rate their real return is negative with inflation at 11.8%.

  Perhaps Erdoganomics, whereby the president mandated to “fight” high inflation with lower rates in contravention of all norms and rules of economics, will ultimately end up destroying Turkey just as so many expected.

  Or maybe not: traders say backdoor tightening needs to reach 11.25% to stabilize the lira, which has nearly halved in value since early 2018, sowing anxiety over diminished living standards in a country accustomed to free trade and travel; still Erdogan is firmly against higher rates claiming they slow down the economy, so instead the result has been currency destruction, because at the end of the day one can’t simply “order” economic prosperity.

  Meanwhile, Erdogan shows no sign of budging, and on Monday he said he hoped market rates would fall further “god willing.”

  But firms such as System Denim, which imports some materials and makes clothes for foreign companies like Zara and Diesel, are feeling the pinch from rising investment costs. Owner Seref Fayat said he recently converted his 4% euro-denominated loans to lira at 10%.

  “No need to take on additional FX risk,” he said. “Now I pay a higher rate, but at least I can see ahead.”

  

• Are China's Naval Ambitions A Global Threat?
  Are China's Naval Ambitions A Global Threat?
  
  Tyler Durden
  
  Sat, 08/15/2020 – 23:00

  Update: Adding fuel to the foire that Coughlin describes below, Global Times Editor Hu Xijin tweeted the following earlier today:

  The more US aircraft carriers come to the South China Sea and exert pressure on China, the more it will prompt the PLA to develop complete and reliable methods against them. Once a war begins, these aircraft carriers are more likely to become vulnerable targets.

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  Authored by Con Coughlin via The Gatestone Institute,

  China’s decision to launch a fresh round of military exercises close to the disputed territory of Taiwan demonstrates that Beijing’s communist rulers have little intention of backing down in their increasingly provocative confrontation with America and its allies.

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  Despite the widespread international criticism China has received in recent weeks over its brutal suppression of pro-democracy activists in Hong Kong, there is little sign that Beijing is prepared to adopt a more conciliatory tone.

  The arrest earlier this week of Hong Kong’s local media mogul Jimmy Lai Chee-ying, the founder of the territory’s Apple Daily newspaper, prompted a fresh round of international condemnation, with US Vice President Mike Pence criticizing the arrest.

  In a comment posted on Twitter, Mr Pence wrote that Mr Lai’s arrest is “deeply offensive & an affront to freedom loving people around the world.” Mr Pence continued that he was inspired by Mr Lai’s “stand for democracy & the rights & autonomy that were promised to the people of Hong Kong by Beijing”.

  The intense criticism Beijing has attracted over its heavy-handed treatment of Hong Kong appears, though, to have made little impression of Chinese President Xi Jingping and the rest of the ruling Chinese Communist Party (CCP).

  On the contrary, the adverse global reaction to Beijing’s policies seems only to have encouraged China to adopt an even more aggressive attitude, such as launching a new wave of military exercises close to Taiwan.

  Announcing the commencement of the exercises on Thursday, the Chinese military sought to justify their action by claiming that they were being undertaken “to safeguard national sovereignty.”

  Beijing indicated the exercises were being conducted in response to a recent upsurge in US diplomatic exchanges with Taipei, and were launched the day after Alex Azar, the US health secretary, became the most senior Washington cabinet official to visit Taiwan since 1979, a move designed to demonstrate the Trump administration’s unstinting support for Taiwan in its increasingly acrimonious dispute with Beijing.

  In a rare comment seeking to justify China’s military activity in the area, Colonel Zhang Chunhui, the spokesman of the People’s Liberation Army’s Eastern Theatre Command, said Beijing had been provoked into launching the exercises. In a threatening reference to the US, he said:

  “Certain large countries are incessantly making negative moves regarding the Taiwan issue and sending wrong signals to the ‘Taiwan independence’ forces, seriously threatening peace and stability in the Taiwan Strait.”

  Amid growing tensions between Washington and Beijing, the US last month dispatched two aircraft carriers and four warships to the South China Sea to deter any further acts of aggression by the Chinese military, especially in the contested waters of the South China Sea.

  The deployment followed a series of incidents in the region where the Chinese military was accused of using bullying tactics against a number of neighbouring Asian states such as Vietnam, Malaysia and the Philippines.

  In addition, China has been accused of indulging in aggressive conduct in the East China Sea, where Beijing continues to press its claim to sovereignty over the Japan-administered Senkaku Islands. In the most recent incident, Japanese Coast Guard officials reported last month that Chinese patrol ships had entered the 12-nautical-mile territorial waters around the disputed island, and had remained there for “an extended time.”

  Nor is China’s unwelcome activity in international waters confined to its immediate vicinity. Earlier this month officials in Ecuador complained about the presence of an enormous Chinese flagged fishing fleet that was operating in international waters close to the Galapagos Islands, claiming the fleets’ massive fishing operation posed a threat to the islands’ delicate marine ecosystem. The Galapagos Islands were designated a world heritage site by UNESCO in 1978.

  All of which suggests that, far from being embarrassed by the recent criticism it has endured, Beijing remains determined to establish its naval presence around the world.

  

• President Trump's Younger Brother Dies Of Unspecified Illness
  President Trump's Younger Brother Dies Of Unspecified Illness
  
  Tyler Durden
  
  Sat, 08/15/2020 – 22:41

  President Trump’s younger brother, Robert Trump, has died of an unspecified illness at the age of 72.

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  “It is with heavy heart I share that my wonderful brother, Robert, peacefully passed away tonight,” Trump wrote in a Saturday night memo, adding “He was not just my brother, he was my best friend. He will be greatly missed, but we will meet again. His memory will live on in my heart forever. Robert, I love you. Rest in peace.”

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  Robert was hospitalized on Friday in New York and was reportedly “very ill.” In June, he spent over a week in intensive care at Mount Sinai Hospital in Manhattan. He was the youngest of five children, and unlike his famous brother, lived a quiet life in upstate Dutchess County, NY, where he was known for supporting a number of local charities.

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  He was also a trustee of the nonprofit Angels of Light, as well as a horse rescue group, according to Town and Country.

  “He’s not flamboyant,” one local said of Robert.

  Previously, he served as a top executive with the Trump organization – describing himself to Page Six in January of 2016 as “gainfully retired.”

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  Meanwhile, the Washington Post ladies and gentlemen. Stay classy.

  WaPo’s headline for its Robert Trump obituary pic.twitter.com/lGsPI26YO0

  — JERRY DUNLEAVY (@JerryDunleavy) August 16, 2020

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

  

• "The Concept Of A Bar Is Completely Changing" – How Automation Is Crushing Servers' Labor Market Hopes  
  "The Concept Of A Bar Is Completely Changing" – How Automation Is Crushing Servers' Labor Market Hopes  
  
  Tyler Durden
  
  Sat, 08/15/2020 – 22:30

  The virus pandemic is profoundly altering America’s restaurant industry, ushering in, what we believe, could be an era of automation and artificial intelligence in storefronts. 

  The entire restaurant industry was crushed under the weight of lockdowns, and many eateries were deemed nonessential, forcing some to shutter operations forever. The lucky ones to survive are dealing with ultra-low foot traffic as consumers stay home and eat or use smartphone apps to order curbside pickup. Consumers are still not comfortable with dining inside commercial spaces with human food preppers or other consumers around them. 

  The restaurant industry is at significant crossroads: Surviving eateries are figuring out creative ways to instill confidence among consumers that restaurants and or bars are safe from the virus. One way to do so is through the adoption of robots and AI. 

  “The concept of a bar is completely changing now, and the concept of nightclubs and public events,” Alan Adojaan, chief executive officer of Tallinn, an Estonia-based robotics company, told Bloomberg.  

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  Adojaan said while humans are needed to maintain the backend part of the bar, the actual bartender can be automated. He said his prototype robot bartender is gaining significant traction from airports, casinos, and hotels. 

  Readers may recall, over the years, we noted from Vegas to Dubai to major cities in Asia, automation was slowly being added to restaurants and bars, and many other service type businesses. 

  Replacing humans on the restaurant or bar floor will increasingly become popular in the early 2020s as a way to bring back customers. 

  Not too long ago, fast-food chain Kentucky Fried Chicken (KFC) debuted its “restaurant of the future,” one where automation dominates the storefront, and little to no interaction is seen between customers and employees. 

  The trend to automate restaurants and bars was inevitable, as we’ve highlighted from a few years back: 

  • “Flippy” The Burger-Flipping Robot Taken Offline After First Day
  •  America’s First Robot Bar Opens In Vegas: “Perfect Pours Every Time”

  However, there’s a problem, the tradeoff of automating restaurants and bars will be absolutely devastating to the labor market. Before the virus pandemic, 13.5 million people worked in the industry. Post-pandemic, tens of thousands of eateries have closed permanently with hundreds of thousands, if not millions of job losses. Then factor in additional job loss due to automation, and what this all suggests is that millions of restaurant jobs will be lost forever.

  

• Doctors Pen Open Letter To Fauci Regarding The Use Of Hydroxychloroquine for Treating COVID-19
  Doctors Pen Open Letter To Fauci Regarding The Use Of Hydroxychloroquine for Treating COVID-19
  
  Tyler Durden
  
  Sat, 08/15/2020 – 22:00

  Authored by George C. Fareed, MD Brawley, California Michael M. Jacobs, MD, MPH Pensacola, Florida Donald C. Pompan, MD Salinas, California,

  August 12, 2020

  Anthony Fauci, MD
  National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases
  Washington, D.C.

  Dear Dr. Fauci:

  You were placed into the most high-profile role regarding America’s response to the Coronavirus pandemic. Americans have relied on your medical expertise concerning the wearing of masks, resuming employment, returning to school, and of course medical treatment.

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  You are largely unchallenged in terms of your medical opinions. You are the de facto “COVID-19 Czar”. This is unusual in the medical profession in which doctors’ opinions are challenged by other physicians in the form of exchanges between doctors at hospitals, medical conferences, as well as debate in medical journals. You render your opinions unchallenged, without formal public opposition from physicians who passionately disagree with you. It is incontestable that the public is best served when opinions and policy are based on the prevailing evidence and science, and able to withstand the scrutiny of medical professionals.

  As experience accrued in treating COVID-19 infections, physicians worldwide discovered that high-risk patients can be treated successfully as an outpatient, within the first 5 to 7 days of the onset of symptoms, with a “cocktail” consisting of hydroxychloroquine, zinc, and azithromycin (or doxycycline). Multiple scholarly contributions to the literature detail the efficacy of the hydroxychloroquine-based combination treatment.

  Dr. Harvey Risch, the renowned Yale epidemiologist, published an article in May 2020 in the American Journal of Epidemiology titled “Early Outpatient Treatment of Symptomatic, High-Risk COVID-19 Patients that Should be Ramped-Up Immediately as Key to Pandemic Crisis”. He further published an article in Newsweek in July 2020 for the general public expressing the same conclusions and opinions. Dr. Risch is an expert at evaluating research data and study designs, publishing over 300 articles. Dr Risch’s assessment is that there is unequivocal evidence for the early and safe use of the “HCQ cocktail.” If there are Q-T interval concerns, doxycycline can be substituted for azithromycin as it has activity against RNA viruses without any cardiac effects.

  Yet, you continue to reject the use of hydroxychloroquine, except in a hospital setting in the form of clinical trials, repeatedly emphasizing the lack of evidence supporting its use. Hydroxychloroquine, despite 65 years of use for malaria, and over 40 years for lupus and rheumatoid arthritis, with a well-established safety profile, has been deemed by you and the FDA as unsafe for use in the treatment of symptomatic COVID-19 infections. Your opinions have influenced the thinking of physicians and their patients, medical boards, state and federal agencies, pharmacists, hospitals, and just about everyone involved in medical decision making.

  Indeed, your opinions impacted the health of Americans, and many aspects of our day-to-day lives including employment and school. Those of us who prescribe hydroxychloroquine, zinc, and azithromycin/doxycycline believe fervently that early outpatient use would save tens of thousands of lives and enable our country to dramatically alter the response to COVID-19. We advocate for an approach that will reduce fear and allow Americans to get their lives back.

  We hope that our questions compel you to reconsider your current approach to COVID-19 infection.

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  Questions regarding early outpatient treatment

  1. There are generally two stages of COVID-19 symptomatic infection; initial flu like symptoms with progression to cytokine storm and respiratory failure, correct?

  2. When people are admitted to a hospital, they generally are in worse condition, correct?

  3. There are no specific medications currently recommended for early outpatient treatment of symptomatic COVID-19 infection, correct?

  4. Remdesivir and Dexamethasone are used for hospitalized patients, correct?

  5. There is currently no recommended pharmacologic early outpatient treatment for individuals in the flu stage of the illness, correct?

  6. It is true that COVID-19 is much more lethal than the flu for high-risk individuals such as older patients and those with significant comorbidities, correct?

  7. Individuals with signs of early COVID-19 infection typically have a runny nose, fever, cough, shortness of breath, loss of smell, etc., and physicians send them home to rest, eat chicken soup etc., but offer no specific, targeted medications, correct?

  8. These high-risk individuals are at high risk of death, on the order of 15% or higher, correct?

  9. So just so we are clear—the current standard of care now is to send clinically stable symptomatic patients home, “with a wait and see” approach?

  10. Are you aware that physicians are successfully using Hydroxychloroquine combined with Zinc and Azithromycin as a “cocktail” for early outpatient treatment of symptomatic, high-risk, individuals?

  11. Have you heard of the “Zelenko Protocol,” for treating high-risk patients with COVID 19 as an outpatient?

  12. Have you read Dr. Risch’s article in the American Journal of Epidemiology of the early outpatient treatment of COVID-19?

  13. Are you aware that physicians using the medication combination or “cocktail” recommend use within the first 5 to 7 days of the onset of symptoms, before the illness impacts the lungs, or cytokine storm evolves?

  14. Again, to be clear, your recommendation is no pharmacologic treatment as an outpatient for the flu—like symptoms in patients that are stable, regardless of their risk factors, correct?

  15. Would you advocate for early pharmacologic outpatient treatment of symptomatic COVID-19 patients if you were confident that it was beneficial?

  16. Are you aware that there are hundreds of physicians in the United States and thousands across the globe who have had dramatic success treating high-risk individuals as outpatients with this “cocktail?”

  17. Are you aware that there are at least 10 studies demonstrating the efficacy of early outpatient treatment with the Hydroxychloroquine cocktail for high-risk patients — so this is beyond anecdotal, correct?

  18. If one of your loved ones had diabetes or asthma, or any potentially complicating comorbidity, and tested positive for COVID-19, would you recommend “wait and see how they do” and go to the hospital if symptoms progress?

  19. Even with multiple studies documenting remarkable outpatient efficacy and safety of the Hydroxychloroquine “cocktail,” you believe the risks of the medication combination outweigh the benefits?

  20. Is it true that with regard to Hydroxychloroquine and treatment of COVID-19 infection, you have said repeatedly that “The Overwhelming Evidence of Properly Conducted Randomized Clinical Trials Indicate No Therapeutic Efficacy of Hydroxychloroquine (HCQ)?”

  21. But NONE of the randomized controlled trials to which you refer were done in the first 5 to 7 days after the onset of symptoms- correct?

  22. All of the randomized controlled trials to which you refer were done on hospitalized patients, correct?

  23. Hospitalized patients are typically sicker that outpatients, correct?

  24. None of the randomized controlled trials to which you refer used the full cocktail consisting of Hydroxychloroquine, Zinc, and Azithromycin, correct?

  25. While the University of Minnesota study is referred to as disproving the cocktail, the meds were not given within the first 5 to 7 days of illness, the test group was not high risk (death rates were 3%), and no zinc was given, correct?

  26. Again, for clarity, the trials upon which you base your opinion regarding the efficacy of Hydroxychloroquine, assessed neither the full cocktail (to include Zinc + Azithromycin or doxycycline) nor administered treatment within the first 5 to 7 days of symptoms, nor focused on the high-risk group, correct?

  27. Therefore, you have no basis to conclude that the Hydroxychloroquine cocktail when used early in the outpatient setting, within the first 5 to 7 days of symptoms, in high risk patients, is not effective, correct?

  28. It is thus false and misleading to say that the effective and safe use of Hydroxychloroquine, Zinc, and Azithromycin has been “debunked,” correct? How could it be “debunked” if there is not a single study that contradicts its use?

  29. Should it not be an absolute priority for the NIH and CDC to look at ways to treat Americans with symptomatic COVID-19 infections early to prevent disease progression?

  30. The SARS-CoV-2/COVID-19 virus is an RNA virus. It is well-established that Zinc interferes with RNA viral replication, correct?

  31. Moreover, is it not true that hydroxychloroquine facilitates the entry of zinc into the cell, is a “ionophore,” correct?

  32. Isn’t also it true that Azithromycin has established anti-viral properties?

  33. Are you aware of the paper from Baylor by Dr. McCullough et. al. describing established mechanisms by which the components of the “HCQ cocktail” exert anti-viral effects?

  34. So- the use of hydroxychloroquine, azithromycin (or doxycycline) and zinc, the “HCQ cocktail,” is based on science, correct?

  Questions regarding safety

  1. The FDA writes the following: “in light of on-going serious cardiac adverse events and their serious side effects, the known and potential benefits of CQ and HCQ no longer outweigh the known and potential risks for authorized use.”So not only is the FDA saying that Hydroxychloroquine doesn’t work, they are also saying that it is a very dangerous drug. Yet, is it not true the drug has been used as an anti-malarial drug for over 65 years?

  2. Isn’t true that the drug has been used for lupus and rheumatoid arthritis for many years at similar doses?

  3. Do you know of even a single study prior to COVID -19 that has provided definitive evidence against the use of the drug based on safety concerns?

  4. Are you aware that chloroquine or hydroxychloroquine has many approved uses for hydroxychloroquine including steroid-dependent asthma (1988 study), Advanced pulmonary sarcoidosis (1988 study), sensitizing breast cancer cells for chemotherapy (2012 study), the attenuation of renal ischemia (2018 study), lupus nephritis (2006 study), epithelial ovarian cancer (2020 study, just to name a few)? Where are the cardiotoxicity concerns ever mentioned?

  5. Risch estimates the risk of cardiac death from hydroxychloroquine to be 9/100,000 using the data provided by the FDA. That does not seem to be a high risk, considering the risk of death in an older patient with co-morbidities can be 15% or more. Do you consider 9/100,000 to be a high risk when weighed against the risk of death in older patient with co-morbidities?

  6. To put this in perspective, the drug is used for 65 years, without warnings (aside for the need for periodic retinal checks), but the FDA somehow feels the need to send out an alert on June 15, 2020 that the drug is dangerous. Does that make any logical sense to you Dr. Fauci based on “science”?

  7. Moreover, consider that the protocols for usage in early treatment are for 5 to 7 days at relatively low doses of hydroxychloroquine similar to what is being given in other diseases (RA, SLE) over many years- does it make any sense to you logically that a 5 to 7 day dose of hydroxychloroquine when not given in high doses could be considered dangerous?

  8. You are also aware that articles published in the New England Journal of Medicine and Lancet, one out of Harvard University, regarding the dangers of hydroxychloroquine had to be retracted based on the fact that the data was fabricated. Are you aware of that?

  9. If there was such good data on the risks of hydroxychloroquine, one would not have to use fake data, correct?

  10. After all, 65 years is a long-time to determine whether or not a drug is safe, do you agree?

  11. In the clinical trials that you have referenced (e.g., the Minnesota and the Brazil studies), there was not a single death attributed directly to hydroxychloroquine, correct?

  12. According to Dr. Risch, there is no evidence based on the data to conclude that hydroxychloroquine is a dangerous drug. Are you aware of any published report that rebuts Dr. Risch’s findings?

  13. Are you aware that the FDA ruling along with your statements have led to Governors in a number of states to restrict the use of hydroxychloroquine?

  14. Are you aware that pharmacies are not filling prescriptions for this medication based on your and the FDA’s restrictions?

  15. Are you aware that doctors are being punished by state medical boards for prescribing the medication based on your comments as well as the FDA’s?

  16. Are you aware that people who want the medication sometimes need to call physicians in other states pleading for it?

  17. And yet you opined in March that while people were dying at the rate of 10,000 patient a week, hydroxychloroquine could only be used in an inpatient setting as part of a clinical trial- correct?

  18. So, people who want to be treated in that critical 5-to-7-day period and avoid being hospitalized are basically out of luck in your view, correct?

  19. So, again, for clarity, without a shred of evidence that the Hydroxychloroquine/HCQ cocktail is dangerous in the doses currently recommend for early outpatient treatment, you and the FDA have made it very difficult if not impossible in some cases to get this treatment, correct?

  Questions regarding methodology

  The Key to Defeating COVID-19 Already Exists. We Need to Start Using It

  1. In regards to the use of hydroxychloroquine, you have repeatedly made the same statement: “The Overwhelming Evidence from Properly Conducted Randomized Clinical Trials Indicate no Therapeutic Efficacy of Hydroxychloroquine.” Is that correct?

  2. In Dr. Risch’s article regarding the early use of hydroxychloroquine, he disputes your opinion. He scientifically evaluated the data from the studies to support his opinions. Have you published any articles to support your opinions?

  3. You repeatedly state that randomized clinical trials are needed to make conclusions regarding treatments, correct?

  4. The FDA has approved many medications (especially in the area of cancer treatment) without randomized clinical trials, correct?

  5. Are you aware that Dr. Thomas Frieden, the previous head of the CDC wrote an article in the New England Journal of Medicine in 2017 called “Evidence for Health Decision Making – Beyond Randomized Clinical Trials (RCT)”? Have you read that article?

  6. In it Dr. Frieden states that “many data sources can provide valid evidence for clinical and public health action, including “analysis of aggregate clinical or epidemiological data”-do you disagree with that?

  7. Frieden discusses “practiced-based evidence” as being essential in many discoveries, such SIDS (Sudden Infant Death Syndrome)-do you disagree with that?

  8. Frieden writes the following: “Current evidence-grading systems are biased toward randomized clinical trials, which may lead to inadequate consideration of non-RCT data.” Dr. Fauci, have you considered all the non-RCT data in coming to your opinions?

  9. Risch, who is a leading world authority in the analysis of aggregate clinical data, has done a rigorous analysis that he published regarding the early treatment of COVID 19 with hydroxychloroquine, zinc, and azithromycin. He cites 5 or 6 studies, and in an updated article there are 5 or 6 more-a total of 10 to 12 clinical studies with formally collected data specifically regarding the early treatment of COVID. Have you analyzed the aggregate data regarding early treatment of high-risk patients with hydroxychloroquine, zinc, and azithromycin?

  10. Is there any document that you can produce for the American people of your analysis of the aggregate data that would rebut Dr. Risch’s analysis?

  11. Yet, despite what Dr. Risch believes is overwhelming evidence in support of the early use of hydroxychloroquine, you dismiss the treatment insisting on randomized controlled trials even in the midst of a pandemic?

  12. Would you want a loved one with high-risk comorbidities placed in the control group of a randomized clinical trial when a number of studies demonstrate safety and dramatic efficacy of the early use of the Hydroxychloroquine “cocktail?”

  13. Are you aware that the FDA approved a number of cancer chemotherapy drugs without randomized control trials based solely on epidemiological evidence. The trials came later as confirmation. Are you aware of that?

  14. You are well aware that there were no randomized clinical trials in the case of penicillin that saved thousands of lives in World War II? Was not this in the best interest of our soldiers?

  15. You would agree that many lives were saved with the use of cancer drugs and penicillin that were used before any randomized clinical trials–correct?

  16. You have referred to evidence for hydroxychloroquine as “anecdotal”- which is defined as “evidence collected in a casual or informal manner and relying heavily or entirely on personal testimony”- correct?

  17. But there are many studies supporting the use of hydroxychloroquine in which evidence was collected formally and not on personal testimony, has there not been?

  18. So it would be false to conclude that the evidence supporting the early use of hydroxychloroquine is anecdotal, correct?

  Comparison between the US and other countries regarding case fatality rate

  (It would be very helpful to have the graphs comparing our case fatality rates to other countries)

  1. Are you aware that countries like Senegal and Nigeria that use Hydroxychloroquine have much lower case-fatality rates than the United States?

  2. Have you pondered the relationship between the use of Hydroxychloroquine by a given country and their case mortality rate and why there is a strong correlation between the use of HCQ and the reduction of the case mortality rate.?

  3. Have you considered consulting with a country such as India that has had great success treating COVID-19 prophylactically?

  4. Why shouldn’t our first responders and front-line workers who are at high risk at least have an option of HCQ/zinc prophylaxis?

  5. We should all agree that countries with far inferior healthcare delivery systems should not have lower case fatality rates. Reducing our case fatality rate from near 5% to 2.5%, in line with many countries who use HCQ early would have cut our total number of deaths in half, correct?

  6. Why not consult with countries who have lower case-fatality rates, even without expensive medicines such as remdesivir and far less advanced intensive care capabilities?

  Giving Americans the option to use HCQ for COVID-19

  1. Harvey Risch, the pre-eminent Epidemiologist from Yale, wrote a Newsweek Article titled: “The key to defeating COVID-19 already exists. We need to start using it.” Did you read the article?

  2. Are you aware that the cost of the Hydroxychloroquine “cocktail” including the Z-pack and zinc is about $50?

  3. You are aware the cost of Remdesivir is about $3,200?

  4. So that’s about 60 doses of HCQ “cocktail,” correct?

  5. In fact, President Trump had the foresight to amass 60 million doses of hydroxychloroquine, and yet you continue to stand in the way of doctors who want to use that medication for their infected patients, correct?

  6. Those are a lot of doses of medication that potentially could be used to treat our poor, especially our minority populations and people of color that have a difficult time accessing healthcare. They die more frequently of COVID-19, do they not?

  7. But because of your obstinance blocking the use of HCQ, this stockpile has remained largely unused, correct?

  8. Would you acknowledge that your strategy of telling Americans to restrict their behavior, wear masks, and distance, and put their lives on hold indefinitely until there is a vaccine is not working?

  9. So, 160,000 deaths later, an economy in shambles, kids out of school, suicides and drug overdoses at a record high, people neglecting and dying from other medical conditions, and America reacting to every outbreak with another lockdown- is it not time to re-think your strategy that is fully dependent on an effective vaccine?

  10. Why not consider a strategy that protects the most vulnerable and allows Americans back to living their lives and not wait for a vaccine panacea that may never come?

  11. Why not consider the approach that thousands of doctors around the world are using, supported by a number of studies in the literature, with early outpatient treatment of high-risk patients for typically one week with HCQ + Zinc + Azithromycin?

  12. You don’t see a problem with the fact that the government, due to your position, in some cases interferes with the choice of using HCQ. Should not that be a choice between the doctor and the patient?

  13. While some doctors may not want to use the drug, should not doctors who believe that it is indicated be able to offer it to their patients?

  14. Are you aware that doctors who are publicly advocating for such a strategy with the early use of the HCQ cocktail are being silenced with removal of content on the internet and even censorship in the medical community?

  15. You are aware of the 20 or so physicians who came to the Supreme Court steps advocating for the early use of the Hydroxychloroquine cocktail.In fact, you said these were “a bunch of people spouting out something that isn’t true.”Dr. Fauci, these are not just “people”- these are doctors who actually treat patients, unlike you, correct?

  16. Do you know that the video they made went viral with 17 million views in just a few hours, and was then removed from the internet?

  17. Are you aware that their website, American Frontline Doctors, was taken down the next day?

  18. Did you see the way that Nigerian immigrant physician, Dr. Stella Immanuel, was mocked in the media for her religious views and called a “witch doctor”?

  19. Are you aware that Dr. Simone Gold, the leader of the group, was fired from her job as an Emergency Room physician the following day?

  20. Are you aware that physicians advocating for this treatment that has by now probably saved millions of lives around the globe are harassed by local health departments, state agencies and medical boards, and even at their own hospitals? Are you aware of that?

  21. Don’t you think doctors should have the right to speak out on behalf of their patients without the threat of retribution?

  22. Are you aware that videos and other educational information are removed off the internet and labeled, in the words of Mark Zuckerberg, as “misinformation.”?

  23. Is it not misinformation to characterize Hydroxychloroquine, in the doses used for early outpatient treatment of COVID-19 infections, as a dangerous drug?

  24. Is it not misleading for you to repeatedly state to the American public that randomized clinical trials are the sole source of information to confirm the efficacy of a treatment?

  25. Was it not misinformation when on CNN you cited the Lancet study based on false data from Surgisphere as evidence of the lack of efficacy of hydroxychloroquine?

  26. Is it not misinformation as is repeated in the MSM as a result of your comments that a randomized clinical trial is required by the FDA for a drug approval?

  27. Don’t you realize how much damage this falsehood perpetuates?

  28. How is it not misinformation for you and the FDA to keep telling the American public that hydroxychloroquine is dangerous when you know that there is nothing more than anecdotal evidence of that?

  29. Fauci, if you or a loved one were infected with COVID-19, and had flu-like symptoms, and you knew as you do now that there is a safe and effective cocktail that you could take to prevent worsening and the possibility of hospitalization, can you honestly tell us that you would refuse the medication?

  30. Why not give our healthcare workers and first responders, who even with the necessary PPE are contracting the virus at a 3 to 4 times greater rate than the general public, the right to choose along with their doctor if they want use the medicine prophylactically?

  31. Why is the government inserting itself in a way that is unprecedented in regard to a historically safe medication and not allowing patients the right to choose along with their doctor?

  32. Why not give the American people the right to decide along with their physician whether or not they want outpatient treatment in the first 5 to 7 days of the disease with a cocktail that is safe and costs around $50?

  Final questions

  1. Fauci, please explain how a randomized clinical trial, to which you repeatedly make reference, for testing the HCQ cocktail (hydroxychloroquine, azithromycin and zinc) administered within 5-7 days of the onset of symptoms is even possible now given the declining case numbers in so many states?

  2. For example, if the NIH were now to direct a study to begin September 15, where would such a study be done?

  3. Please explain how a randomized study on the early treatment (within the first 5 to 7 days of symptoms) of high-risk, symptomatic COVID-19 infections could be done during the influenza season and be valid?

  4. Please explain how multiple observational studies arrive at the same outcomes using the same formulation of hydroxychloroquine + Azithromycin + Zinc given in the same time frame for the same study population (high risk patients) is not evidence that the cocktail works?

  5. In fact, how is it not significant evidence, during a pandemic, for hundreds of non-academic private practice physicians to achieve the same outcomes with the early use of the HCQ cocktail?

  6. What is your recommendation for the medical management of a 75-year-old diabetic with fever, cough, and loss of smell, but not yet hypoxic, who Emergency Room providers do not feel warrants admission? We know that hundreds of U.S. physicians (and thousands more around the world) would manage this case with the HCQ cocktail with predictable success.

  7. If you were in charge in 1940, would you have advised the mass production of penicillin based primarily on lab evidence and one case series on 5 patients in England or would you have stated that a randomized clinical trial was needed?

  8. Why would any physician put their medical license, professional reputation, and job on the line to recommend the HCQ cocktail (that does not make them any money) unless they knew the treatment could significantly help their patient?

  9. Why would a physician take the medication themselves and prescribe it to family members (for treatment or prophylaxis) unless they felt strongly that the medication was beneficial?

  10. How is it informed and ethical medical practice to allow a COVID-19 patient to deteriorate in the early stages of the infection when there is inexpensive, safe, and dramatically effective treatment with the HCQ cocktail, which the science indicates interferes with coronavirus replication?

  11. How is your approach to “wait and see” in the early stages of COVID-19 infection, especially in high-risk patients, following the science?

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  While previous questions are related to hydroxychloroquine-based treatment, we have two questions addressing masks.

  1. As you recall, you stated on March 8th, just a few weeks before the devastation in the Northeast, that masks weren’t needed. You later said that you made this statement to prevent a hoarding of masks that would disrupt availability to healthcare workers. Why did you not make a recommendation for people to wear any face covering to protect themselves, as we are doing now?

  2. Rather, you issued no such warning and people were riding in subways and visiting their relatives in nursing homes without any face covering. Currently, your position is that face coverings are essential. Please explain whether or not you made a mistake in early March, and how would you go about it differently now.

  Conclusion

  Since the start of the pandemic, physicians have used hydroxychloroquine to treat symptomatic COVID-19 infections, as well as for prophylaxis. Initial results were mixed as indications and doses were explored to maximize outcomes and minimize risks. What emerged was that hydroxychloroquine appeared to work best when coupled with azithromycin. In fact, it was the President of the United States who recommended to you publicly at the beginning of the pandemic, in early March, that you should consider early treatment with hydroxychloroquine and a “Z-Pack.” Additional studies showed that patients did not seem to benefit when COVID-19 infections were treated with hydroxychloroquine late in the course of the illness, typically in a hospital setting, but treatment was consistently effective, even in high-risk patients, when hydroxychloroquine was given in a “cocktail” with azithromycin and, critically, zinc in the first 5 to 7 days after the onset of symptoms. The outcomes are, in fact, dramatic.

  As clearly presented in the McCullough article from Baylor, and described by Dr. Vladimir Zelenko, the efficacy of the HCQ cocktail is based on the pharmacology of the hydroxychloroquine ionophore acting as the “gun” and zinc as the “bullet,” while azithromycin potentiates the anti-viral effect. Undeniably, the hydroxychloroquine combination treatment is supported by science. Yet, you continue to ignore the “science” behind the disease. Viral replication occurs rapidly in the first 5 to 7 days of symptoms and can be treated at that point with the HCQ cocktail. Rather, your actions have denied patients treatment in that early stage. Without such treatment, some patients, especially those at high risk with co-morbidities, deteriorate and require hospitalization for evolving cytokine storm resulting in pneumonia, respiratory failure, and intubation with 50% mortality. Dismissal of the science results in bad medicine, and the outcome is over 160,000 dead Americans. Countries that have followed the science and treated the disease in the early stages have far better results, a fact that has been concealed from the American Public.

  Despite mounting evidence and impassioned pleas from hundreds of frontline physicians, your position was and continues to be that randomized controlled trials (RCTs) have not shown there to be benefit. However, not a single randomized control trial has tested what is being recommended: use of the full cocktail (especially zinc), in high-risk patients, initiated within the first 5 to 7 days of the onset of symptoms. Using hydroxychloroquine and azithromycin late in the disease process, with or without zinc, does not produce the same, unequivocally positive results.

  Dr. Thomas Frieden, in a 2017 New England Journal of Medicine article regarding randomized clinical trials, emphasized there are situations in which it is entirely appropriate to use other forms of evidence to scientifically validate a treatment. Such is the case during a pandemic that moves like a brushfire jumping to different parts of the country. Insisting on randomized clinical trials in the midst of a pandemic is simply foolish. Dr. Harvey Risch, a world-renowned Yale epidemiologist, analyzed all the data regarding the use of the hydroxychloroquine/HCQ cocktail and concluded that the evidence of its efficacy when used early in COVID-19 infection is unequivocal.

  Curiously, despite a 65+ years safety record, the FDA suddenly deemed hydroxychloroquine a dangerous drug, especially with regard to cardiotoxicity. Dr. Risch analyzed data provided by the FDA and concluded that the risk of a significant cardiac event from hydroxychloroquine is extremely low, especially when compared to the mortality rate of COVID-19 patients with high-risk co-morbidities. How do you reconcile that for forty years rheumatoid arthritis and lupus patients have been treated over long periods, often for years, with hydroxychloroquine and now there are suddenly concerns about a 5 to 7-day course of hydroxychloroquine at similar or slightly increased doses? The FDA statement regarding hydroxychloroquine and cardiac risk is patently false and alarmingly misleading to physicians, pharmacists, patients, and other health professionals. The benefits of the early use of hydroxychloroquine to prevent hospitalization in high-risk patients with COVID-19 infection far outweigh the risks. Physicians are not able to obtain the medication for their patients, and in some cases are restricted by their state from prescribing hydroxychloroquine. The government’s obstruction of the early treatment of symptomatic high-risk COVID-19 patients with hydroxychloroquine, a medication used extensively and safely for so long, is unprecedented.

  It is essential that you tell the truth to the American public regarding the safety and efficacy of the hydroxychloroquine/HCQ cocktail. The government must protect and facilitate the sacred and revered physician-patient relationship by permitting physicians to treat their patients. Governmental obfuscation and obstruction are as lethal as cytokine storm.

  Americans must not continue to die unnecessarily. Adults must resume employment and our youth return to school. Locking down America while awaiting an imperfect vaccine has done far more damage to Americans than the coronavirus. We are confident that thousands of lives would be saved with early treatment of high-risk individuals with a cocktail of hydroxychloroquine, zinc, and azithromycin. Americans must not live in fear. As Dr. Harvey Risch’s Newsweek article declares, “The key to defeating COVID-19 already exists. We need to start using it.”

  Very Respectfully,

  George C. Fareed, MD, Brawley, California

  Michael M. Jacobs, MD, MPH, Pensacola, Florida

  Donald C. Pompan, MD, Salinas, California

  

• China To Begin Major Expansion Of Digital Currency Testing    
  China To Begin Major Expansion Of Digital Currency Testing    
  
  Tyler Durden
  
  Sat, 08/15/2020 – 21:30

  China’s Commerce Ministry released new details Friday of a pilot program for the country’s central bank digital currency (CBDC) to be expanded to several metropolitan areas, including Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao Greater Bay Area, Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei region, and Yangtze River Delta region. 

  The Commerce Ministry is currently running pilot tests in four cities: Xiong’an New Area, Shenzhen, Suzhou, and Chengdu. The People’s Bank of China (PBoC), the country’s central bank, is supervising the rollout of the CBDC pilot program on a city by city basis. 

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  China’s CBDC is also known as a digital currency electronic payment (DCEP) and could become the first national digital currency. In April, the PBoC tested DCEP among government workers in Suzhou. Major state banks have also been administering large scale tests of digital wallets designed for a digital currency, or as the world will eventually find out: the digital yuan.

  Beijing owned China Global Television Network (CGTN) said test subjects would be able to “withdraw money, make payments, and transfer money after registering with their mobile phone number. The banks are also testing a scenario where users can transfer money without the internet.” 

  Last week, the PBoC said it would “actively and steadily promote the research and development of the state digital currency” during the second half of the year.

  The Commerce Ministry provided no details on when the extended pilot programs would begin. The ministry said the policy design of the digital currency would be achieved by the end of the year.

  Readers may recall, this summer, we’ve kept a watchful eye on country’s announcing their plans for CBDCs:

  • Bank Of England Governor Signals Central Bank Digital Currency Is Coming
  • Italy Approves New Guidelines For Central Bank Digital Currency

  As for CBDCs, Steven Guinness, an independent UK economic and geopolitical analyst, provides his take on the subject: 

  “The ideological agenda of central banks to digitise the entirety of the world’s financial system and to maintain their power base is being spearheaded by the Bank for International Settlements through their Innovation Hub. Unless people begin to recognise where the manipulation and growth in the CBDC narrative is coming from, and how there is a targeted agenda to guide the world into a cashless society, global planners will in the years to come get their way,” Guinness said. 

  Under the guise of a virus pandemic, the push to digitize money is quickly emerging. 

  

• The Evolution Of Fiat Money, Endless War, & The End Of Citizenship (Part 2)
  The Evolution Of Fiat Money, Endless War, & The End Of Citizenship (Part 2)
  
  Tyler Durden
  
  Sat, 08/15/2020 – 21:00

  Authored by ‘ICE-9’ via The Burning Platform blog,

  Read Part 1 here…

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  The Victory of Fiat Money, Endless War, and the Rise of the “Citizen Soldier”

  The stage was now set for the victory of fiat money after the series of bloody religious wars that plagued Europe over the 16th and 17th centuries.  For the first time some combatants would, at least initially, fight for religious “ideals” rather than pay or feudal obligation and this marks the beginning of the end of the Classical phase of European warfare.  This phase of endless war was funded by ever increasing amounts of silver borrowed on credit which, together with an endless series of tax decrees, initiated severe price inflation, economic depressions, and peasant revolts that became larger and more expensive to quell (on credit).  With both political and economic chaos spreading across Europe, it was at this time its intelligentsia began to espouse the “Universal Rights of Man” which, for its time, was nothing short of extreme radicalism as it demanded an end to the centuries old divine rights of the sovereign over his increasingly taxed subjects.

  These tenets of the “Universal Rights of Man” were quickly adopted and championed by the Bourgeoisie / Burghers / Borghese, skilled craftsmen, and lesser nobility as a means to not only elevate their social status, but also to break free from their centuries old and ever increasing taxation and military funding obligations to the sovereign.  The Reformation and subsequent religious wars proved that rebellion could, albeit at an extreme loss of (peasant) life, extricate a people from its taxation obligation to the Papal Empire.  By the latter half of the 18th century, simmering peasant rebellions began to flare into outright revolution as the “Social Contract” between the sovereign and subject disintegrated, prices for basic necessities skyrocketed due to the increasing taxation and coin debasement needed to fund wars and extreme opulence.  Sovereign default became state policy as by sovereign right, and the creditor class began to suffer heavy losses as the wars had no effect other than spawn new wars and drive the state further into debt, upon which it would eventually default, all while the state court played parlor games and gambled (on credit).

  Mounting losses by the creditor class presented an existential threat to this now highly powerful group and put at risk the profitable flow of credit to the merchant class, so near the end of the 18th century these groups vowed to depose the debtor sovereigns and assume outright control of the nascent central banks and operate the state for the sole purpose of generating profits to themselves through the monopoly of state credit issuance.  But the millennial old condition of raising an army funded with silver was an impossibility, as this not only presented a high probability of suffering staggering losses, but the sovereign, by his rights, could simply decree the provision of credit to rebels as treason and enforce punishment by death.  The answer to the creditors’ monetary dilemma lie in extending these “Universal Rights of Man” to the peasants, and thus framing the obtainment of these “rights” contingent upon successful “revolution” and overthrow of the sovereign.  Therefore, an army could be raised composed primarily of irregular foot soldiers that would fight for “ideals”, not silver, and thereby free up what silver could be raised for the purchase of munitions, the logistics of battle, and professional mercenary officers.  And to create the fervor required to sustain the “revolution” and replace the continual loss of foot soldiers, these “Universal Rights of Man” were elevated to the status of quasi-religion – “Liberté, Égalité, Fraternité”, et cetera.  So what we witness during this period of glorified history is not the emancipation of the people from the chains of sovereign prerogative, but the secret usurpation by the creditor class of the means of operating the state via proxy revolts against the insolvent creditor state and thus, the creditor class gain control of the state through the monopoly issuance or withholding of credit to the state. 

  This or is important as described below.

  It is no coincidence that the establishment of privately owned central banks during the 19th and 20th centuries followed after the fall of sovereigns, and it was this creditor class that financed the overthrow of each sovereign.  History’s interpretation of this period is wrong – the primary driver behind these revolutionary centuries was not the rise of the people against the sovereign, but instead was the secret overthrow and usurpation of the sovereign by the creditor class using the people as their proxy army.  The seminal moment where incorporation of a privately owned central bank followed a successful people’s “revolution” was the rise and financing of the professional mercenary officer Napoleon and his establishment of the Bank of France in 1800.  Now for the first time in Europe, we see two rival empires – Great Britain and France – whose privately owned central banks share an overlapping ownership within the great families of European finance – e.g., the Rothschild’s of Paris and London – and share common ownership between those royals sharing lineage on both sides of the English Channel that got out of agricultural feudalism and became creditors.  This overlapping ownership was a great bonanza to the private central banks as nations could now be pitted against one other, war bonds issued by both sides of a conflict, and the price of these bonds manipulated during the prosecution of war by altering its outcome through the issuance or withholding of credit to one side or the other.

  For example, Country A and Country B’s war bonds are issued from each respective private central bank, sold to investors including themselves, and at the beginning of the war are of equal value.  Then Country A is given advantage through the issuance of additional credit, and Country A’s war bonds increase in value as it accumulates victories on the battlefield where Country B’s war bonds decrease in value with every setback.  It is at Country B’s nadir that these same private central banks buy up its war bonds at huge discounts, sell their Country A war bonds at high prices, and then begin to withhold further credit to Country A while issuing large amounts of additional credit to Country B.  The tide of battle eventually turns as the reversed credit flow takes effect, and now Country B’s war bonds, acquired at great discount, begin to appreciate where Country A’s war bonds, sold at high prices, begin to depreciate.  Thus the progression and outcome of war can be controlled by the issuance or withholding of credit and tremendous profits extracted by the shared ownership of both country’s central banks regardless of which country wins or loses.  Thus the early 19th century now saw incredibly expensive wars of attrition prosecuted not for the purpose of empire building, but instead for the profits derived from the issuance of and trade in war bonds.

  It didn’t take long for the peasants to realize that the promised “Universal Rights of Man” delivered nothing more than conscription, subsistence wages from the growing number of industrialized factories, and yes, taxes.  Some new “ideal” was needed to motivate these peasants and make them a part of “something larger than themselves”, and the answers were found in “democratic” revolution and the labor union movement.  Now, the central banks had an endless pool of young men that would fight for the “ideals” of “democratic enfranchisement” embodied in “citizenship” and these newly minted aspiring “citizen soldiers” would accept fiat money offered in exchange for combat.  Thus, for the first time in history, not only could money be conjured out of thin air, but so too an army that would fight under this notion of “democracy”.  This quasi-religion surrounding the “Universal Rights of Man” matured into full religious zealotry under the banner of “democracy”, and like all religions this “democracy” had to be spread to the infidels through war.  But why?  Because the promise of the “Universal Rights of Man” failed to establish a privately owned central banks within Europe’s key empire – Germany.

  The rise of Marxism and the labor union movement in the mid-19th century were put to work by the creditor class to operate where the democratic “citizen soldier” armies proved ineffective against the powerful Prussian professional army.  These “democracy” foot soldiers were not deployed to the rural battlefields but instead to the streets of major industrial cities with the objective to ferment political agitation and societal discord in order to weaken the German state from within prior to “democratic” invasion from without.  The German Wars of Unification and later founding of the state controlled Reichsbank (1876) starts a 70 year interval where the primary objective of western European history is the destruction and overthrow of the powerful and efficient German state with its state controlled central bank, the imposition of “democracy”, and “empowering” the German people to replace the state controlled Reichsbank with a privately owned central bank having similar overlapping ownership structure to those already established.  Thus at the onset of the 20th century we observe the establishment of truly endless war, funded entirely by fiat money, waged by “citizen soldiers”, and fought on the basis of political “ideology” that has attained the status of religion.

  But the German state proved to be an implacable foe.  Through a combination of strategic offensive wars, prudent foreign policy, sound finances, liberal labor reform concessions to the working class, and unparalleled martial ability of its professional army, Germany managed not only to fend off the assault of “democracy” but also to expand its territory and influence and negate the influence of its communist agitators.  And German leadership had a true philosophical vision – the End of History starting with the consolidation of all Germanic peoples under the single rule of the German Emperor.  This meant eventual state control over the privately owned central banks in Great Britain, France, Scandinavia, and the Low Countries and stood as a direct threat to the creditor class’ own growing vision of the “End of History”.

  For the creditor class, the solution to this existential crisis was to first establish a reliable overseas creditor of significant means that was not directly threatened by German land based military power and had the ability to create and adsorb large quantities of fiat money.  This financial act of “guarding the rear” resulted in the 1913 Federal Reserve Act in the United States and its transfer of both monetary issuance and policy from the Corporation of the United States to the privately owned Federal Reserve System.  Thus with the Federal Reserve System established and in private ownership hands the flow of credit to the anti-German combatants could be guaranteed despite any opposition of the (primarily) German-American people.  Concurrent with this effort was the consolidation of a nexus of inescapable mutual defense pacts between European countries both with and without private ownership control over their central banks.  This nexus would draw both sides of the central banking ownership split into a war, weaken all countries equally, and leave no major power remaining to contest the outcome.  Thus any “victory” to the Western European creditor class became contingent upon mutually assured destruction of all combatants, but only the privately owned central bank side would be back-stopped by credit issued from the United States to rebuild military capability after hostilities ended. 

  With both an independent credit supply and mutual defense nexus secured, the final act was to goad Germany via false flag into a super war of attrition – the war to begin all endless war – that would not only completely defeat and enervate the German state, but generate tremendous profits to the New York and London client banks via their financing of hostilities, supply of armaments, and provision of logistic services.  And last, coalition member states that did not yet operate under control of privately owned central banks would be weakened to the point where the communist insurgents could be effective in prosecuting street level “revolutions”, at little cost, and these “revolutions” used to construct an existential threat to “democracy” occupying the position of Anti-Christ within this new politico-religious ideology and require never ending debt financing of military armaments and the excuse needed to conscript large standing armies.

  World War I went according to plan with Germany defeated, the last viable Goldmark extracted, economic collapse across the Weimar Republic, and no state owned Reichsbank to thwart the eastward expansion of private central banks.  With martial victory complete but only a bankrupt and worthless now privately owned Reichsbank left to show for their efforts, the creditor class set to devise a second round of wartime wealth “creation” and transfer via Germany through financing the rise and succession of the Nazis, as one could not build a Wehrmacht from stolen wedding rings and extracted gold teeth alone.  Client banks in New York, London, and Stockholm – cities in countries never invaded by the Nazis – showered the new Thousand Year Reich with the international credit facilities needed to buy the massive amounts of steel, copper, lead, zinc, tin, rubber, fuel, et cetera that it did not possess within its own territories, and buy these commodities primarily from countries it would soon face in battle.  From out of both the physical and financial ashes of World War I, between 1933 and 1939 the greatest military power Europe had ever assembled was conjured out of thin air by international fiat money that itself was conjured out of thin air.  Like WWI, this second phase of endless war ended with Germany’s total defeat and absolute destruction, its financial system under complete submission to the victors, huge private profits created and transferred to New York and London, and a new major player on the world stage – the US Dollar.

  The end of World War II marked the unequivocal victory of fiat money.  The most significant post-WWII finance shifts were the creditor class giving up on private ownership of the German central bank and the nationalization of both the Bank of England and Bank of France.  The BoE and BoF were insolvent due to their ownership of huge quantities of war bonds that would never be repaid so these losses were dumped onto the British and French taxpayers.  Thus with the BoE and BoF off their hands these same central bankers could focus their attention towards their ownership in the Federal Reserve System and use the United States as their proxy army for the global spread of US Dollar financing.  With the Soviet Empire left battered but intact, the post-WWII world was not only split along political systems and ideology, but was also split along competing fiat money systems – the “Free World” Dollar versus the “Red Menace” Ruble.  The antagonism between these two systems played into the hands of both sides, as each gave the other the excuse to commit vast quantities of national resources towards their respective militaries, expand their international political and intelligence operations, terrorize unaligned countries into both compliance with one system or noncompliance with the other, and commit all manner of atrocity in their politico-religious campaigns to force all countries of the world into one fiat system or the other.  Thus descended upon the world an endless series of overt and covert international wars and coup d’états and rigged elections to progress the urgent spread of “democracy”, denominated in US Dollars, against the spread of the “Red Menace”, denominated in Rubles.  In its simplest analysis, this was the essence of the Cold War – the fight between competing fiat systems for world domination.

  The primary post-WWII profit motive for the creditor class came now not so much from the usurpation of state owned central banks but instead from the relentless spread of “democracy” via coercion, subterfuge, and military force throughout the non- and semi-industrialized nations with the installation of pliant and reliable “growth” friendly juntas and regimes.  With international “growth” came accelerated US Dollar financing for the purchase of military hardware and civil infrastructure projects and ever increasing profits from the accompanying “skim” taken in fees, interest, and contract awards to controlled entities.  As these new US Dollar converted countries had no power to issue fiat money of influence and could not print their way out of economic trouble, and as “growth” rarely followed within their own borders but corruption and waste did, mechanisms were established to cover potential losses to the creditor class by expanding the mission of post-WWII extra-governmental financing institutions (IMF, World Bank, Asian Development Bank) to include the “international community” and back-stop all losses with “contributions” from “Free World” taxpayers.  War now was waged not for the profits generated from war bond issuance and trade, but for this zero risk “skim” taken from the spread of “democracy” and facilitation of international “growth” financing.  “Citizen Soldiers” were now not only tasked with risking their lives to impose “democracy”, but also for footing the bill when “democracy” couldn’t pay its tab.

  The number one recipient of this international “growth” was the United States itself.  As the holder of the world’s international reserve currency it was insulated from inflationary pressure due to the massive issuance of US Dollar denominated fiat relative to the combined value of its national resources and productive output.  This insulation was effected when the amount of fiat increased, the “value” via inflation of the underlying national resources and productive output denominated in US Dollars also increased and provided an additional layer of “growth” in the United States to be taxed via capital gains and skimmed through mortgage financing.  And as inflation raised this underlying “value” of goods and services, it also raised the “value” of labor inputs to these same goods and services, so wages increased as inflation progressed as money and labor inputs were not yet divorced.  For 25 years post-WWII the United States “citizen” actually saw purchasing power increase with the increasing issuance of fiat money around the world, as inflation was exported to non-US Dollar economies and US Dollars returned to the home country to be re-invested in growing US exports.  This insulation from inflation and increasing purchasing power was, in a sense, the “rights of the victor” granted to the United States “citizen soldier” and was the “carrot before the rod” that secured the blasé indifference to the prosecution of the endless overt and covert wars on foreign soil need to secure US Dollar financing hegemony.  And it all worked until August, 1971.

  During the mid- to late 1960s, oil producing countries along with other producers of US Dollar denominated commodities began to return their excess US Dollars and demand their conversion into gold.  Gold outflows from the United States via the US Treasury’s Gold Window soared and became a major problem for US Dollar hegemony as it was this promised gold convertibility – but never expected to be exercised convertibility – that gave the US Dollar its illusory “value”.  As US gold supplies depleted, the US Dollar began to depreciate in purchasing power at home and the domestic standard of living stagnated, as did profits generated by international “growth” to the creditor class.  Thus the late 1960s and early 1970s saw a period of stagnant domestic “growth” via reduced exports combined with domestic inflation fueled by the conversion of US Dollars into gold – stagflation – and the limits of US Dollar denominated international “growth” within the post-WWII model had been reached.  So in response to the cessation of international “growth” in financial profits, the creditor class devised a way out that would generate even greater profits to themselves, but was also the financial self-destruct mechanism that would eventually end US Dollar hegemony and money itself. 

  This new profit model entirely eliminated gold convertibility and moved the history of money from the fractional reserve fiat system to true fiat – money backed by nothing more than political coercion, military force, and outright fraud.  And this new system would tolerate no opposition – i.e., the Soviet model – as its extreme instability, utter worthlessness, and complete absence of underlying natural economic laws made it highly susceptible to failure.  Thus the competing fiat system – the Soviet system – had to be destroyed and all nations of the world brought under the unipolar suzerainty of the US Dollar.  Welcome to the modern age – the age of endless-endless war waged by the United States in the service of unipolar “Globalism”.

  The End of Money, Endless-Endless War, and the Coming Age of Subjugation

  The conversion to pure fiat money in August, 1971 was money’s defining moment since it first appeared as electrum coins in 7th century BC Lydia as this divorced money from any representation of, and true measure of, value.  During its existence, money had gone from value in of its self in the form of coins, to the (progressively fading) representation of value during its fractional reserve paper money phase, to a completely abstract replacement for “value” backed only by future taxation and additional US Dollars “hypothecated” from ever increasing issuance of Treasury bills.  Thus its journey from “barbarous relic” to “refined abstraction” was complete.

  Taxation is the fiat “value”, but future Treasury bill issuance is its hedge since future purchases cannot be guaranteed and may not materialize, and when they don’t materialize that triggers either massive tax increases, national default, or both.  Thus the system either “works” when nations buy Treasury bills, or it implodes spectacularly when they don’t.  To ensure the system “worked”, nations captured by the US Dollar fiat system were “persuaded” to “invest” their US Dollars not in gold but in US Treasury bills through this newly re-routed “virtuous cycle”.  Thus the prosecution of endless-endless war was the failsafe continuously operating to ensure the fiat system “worked” and that nations did not stray to gold or other fiat and thus trigger systemic US Dollar collapse.  War, regime change, US Dollar fiat imposition – lather, rinse repeat.

  Adoption of this new purely fiat money mandated that United States federal debt continually increase ad infinitum as debt was required to maintain operation of the fiat system through ad infinitum issuance of new Treasury bills – i.e., the repatriated US Dollars that went to new Treasury bill issuance always had to exceed the sum of Treasury bill interest and redemption payments.  Any budget surplus now was an indicator that either the tax take was too low or not enough Treasury bills were issued, and if budget surplus arose the system would revert to either higher tax take or new wars to impose more nations under US Dollar fiat.  To safeguard these continually increasing budget deficits through Treasury bill issuance and preservation of the global US Dollar fiat system, in the mid-1970s the United States embarked on a policy of de-industrialization using a combination of regulatory excess and high interest rates that discouraged new capital investments in production at home and drove up the domestic cost base until the laws of economics forced productive capabilities to cheap overseas destinations with little regulatory oversight. 

  This de-industrialization ensured that when US Dollars arrived home from overseas via the “virtuous cycle”, these dollars, if they did not go to purchase military hardware, went to purchase US Treasury bills instead of US manufactured goods and services.  Therefore de-industrialization ensured no federal budget surplus would ever arise, removed the inflationary cushion that US Dollar fiat provided during the 1950s and 1960s export boom, and guaranteed ever increasing budget deficits would follow in the wake of never ending Treasury bill issuance.  It is this purposeful redirection of US Dollar inflows away from the purchase of manufactured goods and services towards the purchase of Treasury bills that is the core nature of what is today termed “financialization”, as a high volume of these US “virtuous cycle” Dollars returning to purchase manufactured goods and services would starve the US Treasury market and implode the US Dollar fiat system.  Thus the US Dollar fiat system demands the destruction of the US manufacturing export base because Treasury bills, on which fiat survives, cannot tolerate competition from the purchase of US exports no more than it can tolerate competition with another fiat system abroad.

  With the removal of the inflation cushion and the imposition of forced de-industrialization, American domestic purchasing power was now locked into a permanent and inescapable downward spiral.  This was driven partly by the fiat system’s hedge component that necessitated ever expanding quantities of federal debt to create the Treasury bill issuance that funded the growing amounts of future interest payments and redemptions.  The other driver was with the removal of a large portion of the US industrial export market, labor began to produce goods of lower value and drifted more towards services whereby wages began to stagnate as they contributed less and less to the combined “value” of underlying US goods and services and wages began to be eclipsed by “financial profits”.

  During frequent periods of economic downturn US Dollars start to purchase gold and threaten the fiat system as gold begins to operate as a transparent and true indicator of value that does not exist in a fiat system and therefore, gold prices rise in all comparisons – e.g., the amount in tons of gold required to purchase the total stock market capitalization, et cetera.  So gold price fixing and outright bailouts when tax confiscation declines as unemployment rises and trade collapses become the norm as lack of value transparency drives underlying systemic instability to the surface.  So at this phase of fiat, bailouts are in reality an extreme measure to suppress the price of gold in US Dollars and thus keep hidden the absence of fiat’s worthlessness as a transparent and true indicator of underlying “value” in anything.

  Karl Marx defined money as the “abstraction of undifferentiated social labor” – by this, he saw money as the representation of some unit labor input into goods and services, and thus the price in money for goods and services was equal to the sum of these unit labor inputs along the entire value chain that created and distributed them.  What gave gold its value was the large amounts of labor input to discover, mine, process, and smelt that gold.  Paper money was the mere representation of this value inherent in gold held in reserve, and was a promissory note for its convertibility into gold – a true measure of labor input value.  When money became no longer convertible into gold, labor inputs were removed and it no longer had bearing on the price in money for anything.  Thus the price in paper money for goods and services – e.g., gold and labor – could now be entirely manipulated for the benefit of the creditor class at the expense of the working class and divorce money from any natural laws of economics.  Money had now transformed from its ancient representation of value in of its self into an almost zero cost tool (in unit labor inputs) of potential infinite quantity used to grant political and social privilege and thus, money was transformed from a finance instrument into a political instrument controlled by a new power amalgamation between the creditor and political classes.  Thus it is no surprise that wages measured in constant dollars have not risen since 1973, and when measured relative to a realistic CPI have declined substantially.  This is a direct effect of the creditor / political class, using this newly weaponized money, revoking all privileges formerly granted to the working class and handing these privileges to the corporate class, as the corporate class were now responsible for more and more of the rise in debt financing and tax take needed to support interest payments and redemptions on a never ending deluge of Treasury bill issuance.

  To ensure success and control of this new highly unstable form of worthless money, one of the two competing fiat systems first had to be destroyed and a unipolar fiat “world order” imposed on the entirety of the globe.  And like after Bretton Woods, the creditor class turned again to the United States as its proxy army for the prosecution of now endless-endless war in pursuit of infinite “growth” via “nation building” funded with US Dollar fiat money of no underlying value.  To set the groundwork for this phase and the eventual consolidation of political power after fiat collapse, in the 1960s many of the noble families of finance and their high level operatives “magnanimously” answered the call to enter into the unelected realms of politics through funding and ascension into the upper echelons of global extra-governmental agencies and policy formulation think tanks.  These globally focused organizations, after these key placements were effected, began to wield greater political influence on the US Dollar fiat denominated world transacted under the gateway guise of lofty aspirations like “universal peace” and “shared prosperity”, but with the malevolent end objective of eventually usurping the governing power of nations and transferring that power to this newly amalgamated creditor / political class.  This influence was spread internationally using bribes in the form of “foreign aid packages”, “humanitarian aid”, and lucrative extra-governmental sinecures to key second and third world figures so to establish a chain of US military bases across the globe.  Thus through extra-governmental policy “recommendations”, the United States was granted the “moral authority” to prosecute endless-endless global war against the Soviet fiat system and establish and maintain this coming single fiat “world order”, all under the appearance of some kind of reputable extra-governmental “global consensus”.  At the same time, the think tanks and their allies in academia began to ferment social discord in the United States to dilute and discourage political participation by the white working class and foster indifference to creeping extra-governmental influence at home through such things like the manufacture of counter culture, the promotion of drug use and homosexuality, feminism and women’s liberation, the Civil Rights movement, and the concept of “diversity”.

  With the American people dazed and confused during the 1970s after hit with everything from a 24/7 televised humiliating retreat from Vietnam to a quintuple in energy prices to Watergate to the introduction of the metric system and rise of disco, the creditor / political class effected a silent transition from the old profit motives embodied in the Korean / Vietnam Wars to the new war motives embodied in the ascendency of the Neo-Conservatives – the “End of History” and total subjugation of humanity. 

  But rather than cultivate acceptance of a new religious zealotry in support of endless-endless war, the creditor / political class instead formulated a temporary phase of debt based material “success” and exhalation of hedonism that facilitated its plans through mass public indifference to these plans.  While America partied like it was 1999, the US military machine was greatly expanded during “peacetime” and prosecuted multiple overt and covert proxy wars on all continents simultaneously, each of which warranted an equally expensive response from the competing Soviet fiat system.  It was the “moral equivalent of our founding fathers” versus the “Evil Empire” until one side or the other ran out of credibility to its fiat system. 

  The Soviets succumbed first and suddenly half the world became the political and fiat vacuum necessary for the Neo-Conservative prosecution of the “New World Order”.

  

• Belarus President Moves Air Assault Brigade To Western Border In Response To NATO Drills; Says Russia Will Provide Security Assistance
  Belarus President Moves Air Assault Brigade To Western Border In Response To NATO Drills; Says Russia Will Provide Security Assistance
  
  Tyler Durden
  
  Sat, 08/15/2020 – 20:53

  Belarusian president Alexander Lukashenko said that an air assault brigade would move to Belarus’ Western border in response to NATO exercises in neighboring nations, even as the country reels from massive anti-government protests which Lukashenko has dubbed a “color revolution” orchestrated by foreign agents. Lukashenko also said that Russian President Vladimir Putin promised him to help securing safety of Belarus if needed, state news agency Belta reported.

  Speaking on state TV,  Lukashenko said he was “worried” that NATO was carrying out military exercises in Poland and Lithuania, which he views as an arms build-up on Belarus’ borders. 

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  “I am more worried about the situation that is unfolding on the territory of our neighboring states – Poland and Lithuania. As you know, military exercises of NATO troops are taking place there. That would have been fine, but there is an escalation and a build-up of the armed component in these territories. Naturally we cannot turn a blind eye to it, we cannot observe this calmly. And when early in the morning I was listening to the report of the Chief of the General Staff, I noticed: our military is also worried about this problem,” Lukashenko said.

  In response to the drills, the Belarus president said that he has ordered the transfer of an airborne brigade from Vitebsk to Grodno.

  Lukashenko also slammed foreign countries which he said were attempting to act as “mediators” in the country’s problems, urging them to “put their own business in order” before dictating to Minsk.

  Earlier, Lukashenko said Russian President Vladimir Putin had promised to help him secure his country’s safety, if necessary RT and Tass reported. According to Lukashenko, the agreement was reached during a telephone conversation with his Putin on Saturday. “We have agreed – at our first request, comprehensive assistance will be provided to ensure the security of the Republic of Belarus,”he said.

  “When it comes to the military component, we have an agreement with the Russian Federation within the framework of the Union State and the Collective Security Treaty Organization,”Lukashenko explained. “These moments fit this agreement. Therefore, today I had a long, detailed conversation with the Russian president about the situation. I must say, I was even somewhat surprised – [Putin] is absolutely aware of what is happening,”he added.

  Lukashenko’s re-election for a sixth term last weekend was marred by massive protests, as thousands took to the streets over their belief that the election had been rigged. The Belarusian presidential elections were held on August 9, and according to the final official results provided by the Belarusian Central Election Commission on August 14, incumbent Lukashenko received 80.1% of the vote. Svetlana Tikhanovskaya, who was considered his main opponent, came in second with 10.12%.

  After exit poll results were announced on the evening of August 9, protests erupted in downtown Minsk and other regions of the country, leading to clashes between protesters and law enforcement. The protests continued over the following days.

  The European Union has said it does not believe the election results were legitimate and is readying itself to impose sanctions on Minsk in response to the bloody police crackdown, which has already seen two protesters killed.

  Workers at major state-run industrial plants were also hit with demonstrations and strikes during the week. In response, Lukashenko said workers at state-run companies should be fired if they go on strike, suggesting they were colluding with foreign actors, according to BelTa.

  Meanwhile, on a visit to Poland on Saturday, US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said Washington was monitoring the situation in Belarus.

  

• COVID Has Transformed America Into The 'Drive-In' Nation 
  COVID Has Transformed America Into The 'Drive-In' Nation 
  
  Tyler Durden
  
  Sat, 08/15/2020 – 20:30

  From drive-in strip clubs to drive-in movies to drive-in concerts, to now, drive-in raves, the pandemic has transformed America’s parking lots into the most lively areas as folks avoid indoor commercial spaces. 

  Early in the pandemic, we noted how a strip club in Las Vegas, hurting for cash, opened up a drive-thru peep show in its parking lot.

  Then, movie theater screens were quickly erected in parking lots of shopping malls across the country, and concerts were being held at stadium parking lots as people jammed out in their automobiles.

  Now, CBS Orlando is reporting “a drive-in style rave” will be hosted in downtown Orlando this weekend.

  The music event is called “Tail Break Rave” and will host a handful of DJs. The parking lot has enough space for 80 cars. All attendees will be screened for COVID-19 via temperature checks. Everyone will be required to rave with a face mask, and vehicles will be parked six feet apart. 

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  Event organizers told the local media outlet that raving is permitted, but occupants of the cars can only dance around their vehicle. 

  The virus pandemic appears to have set America back to the era of the 1950s when the popularity of the drive-ins surged after World War II. 

  What’s next, drive-in restaurants? 

  

• Israel Not Giving Up On Annexing West Bank, Netanyahu Says, After Historic UAE Deal
  Israel Not Giving Up On Annexing West Bank, Netanyahu Says, After Historic UAE Deal
  
  Tyler Durden
  
  Sat, 08/15/2020 – 20:00

  Via AlMasdarNews.com,

  Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has said that he has not agreed to remove the issue of the extension of Israeli sovereignty over lands in the West Bank and will not relinquish it.

  Netanyahu said during a speech on Thursday evening, “The American president asked me to wait on the extension of Israeli sovereignty over more lands.”

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  He pointed out that “the plan of annexation and the extension of Israeli sovereignty over the territories of the West Bank is the most realistic plan.”

  “There is no change to my plan to extend sovereignty, our sovereignty in Judea and Samaria, in full coordination with the United States,” he said.

  He stressed that “Israel will have comprehensive peace agreements with other Arab countries without returning to the 1967 borders.”

  He explained that “the normalization agreement with the Emirates includes reciprocal tourism and direct flights from Tel Aviv to Abu Dhabi.”

  He stated further that “Abu Dhabi will make huge investments in Israel.”

  The Trump announced on Thursday, the reaching a historic peace agreement between Israel and the United Arab Emirates to become the first Gulf state to start relations with Israel and the third Arab country after Jordan and Egypt.

  During a call with President Trump and Prime Minister Netanyahu, an agreement was reached to stop further Israeli annexation of Palestinian territories. The UAE and Israel also agreed to cooperation and setting a roadmap towards establishing a bilateral relationship.

  — محمد بن زايد (@MohamedBinZayed) August 13, 2020

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  He explained that the agreement would be called “Abraham”, calling on Arab and Islamic countries to follow the example of the Emirates and normalize relations with Israel, and said, “We may see other countries do that.”

  For his part, Crown Prince Abu Dhabi Mohammed bin Zayed emphasized that “it was agreed to stop Israel’s annexation of the Palestinian lands.”

  

• Courageous Australian Surfer Saves Wife From Great White Shark Attack
  Courageous Australian Surfer Saves Wife From Great White Shark Attack
  
  Tyler Durden
  
  Sat, 08/15/2020 – 19:30

  In one of the most heroic displays of courage we’ve ever seen, an Australian surfer saved his wife from an aggressive Great White Shark who tried to chomp her down. The surfer,

  Australian media reported that a man named Mark Rapley rescued his wife Chantelle Doyle, 35, who was surfing off Shelly Beach at Port Macquarie, New South Wales, when the shark decided to attack.

  Fortunately, Doyle’s quick thinking husband punched the shark in the nose until it released its grip on his wife, then he helped carrying her back to shore, where she received urgent medical attention after being airlifted to hospital with serious injuries to her right leg.

  Experts quoted by the Port Macquarie News believed the juvenile great white shark that attacked Doyle was up to 3 meter long.

  Surf Life Saving NSW chief executive Steven Pearce praised the husband, named by media as, for his quick action.

  “This fella paddled over and jumped off his board on to the shark and hit it to get it to release her and then assisted her back into the beach…[p]retty full on, really heroic.”

  Watch the video below:

  

• New Sound Money Caucus Launched On Capitol Hill
  New Sound Money Caucus Launched On Capitol Hill
  
  Tyler Durden
  
  Sat, 08/15/2020 – 19:05

  Authored by JP Cortez via SoundMoneyDefense.org,

  As the political and central banking establishment in Washington continues to bail out the economy and markets by creating trillions of unbacked pieces of paper and electronic digits, a handful of Congressmen hope to shine a new spotlight on the devastating effects of this runaway financial profligacy.

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  Congressman Warren Davidson (R-OH) recently announced the creation of the Congressional Sound Money Caucus.  According to Congressman Davidson’s office, the caucus exists to promote sound fiscal and monetary policy in the United States with the goal of preserving the purchasing power of the U.S. Federal Reserve Note.

  Monetary policy, especially since the 2008 financial crisis, coupled with the recent federal fiscal response to coronavirus has re-inflated nominal asset prices and contributed to the wealth gap, while weakening the Federal Reserve Note in relation to the world’s other fiat currencies.

  Reps. Alex Mooney (R-WV), Andy Barr (R-KY), Kevin Brady (R-TX), Ted Budd (R-NC), and Lee Zeldin (R-NY) also joined the caucus.

  For several years, Congressman Mooney has been a leader on the sound money issue, hammering away at manipulation in the gold market and counterfeiting — and Mooney has introduced several pending bills to audit America’s gold reserves, remove income tax on the monetary metals, and resume some form of gold backing to our currency.

  Congressman Davidson introduced the Sound Money Caucus on the floor of the House by saying:

  “We already have a great core group of members who are leaders in this area, who understand how important it is for the U.S. dollar to be an enduring store of value and an efficient means of exchange. I look forward to hashing out policy solutions to address the economic distortions of monetary inflation, so that monetary and fiscal policy can help rebuild the middle class, restart the American economy, and get us on a path for sustainable growth.”

  In an era where even so-called “conservatives” are adding trillions to the federal deficit, sound money is more important than ever. Sound money is the linchpin of a prosperous society because it protects capital and creates stability.

  Individuals and civilizations thrive under a sound money regime because uncertainty is reduced, and savings are respected and preserved. People can plan, save, and invest for the future without the fear of their money being manipulated and weaponized for political purposes.

  Further, sound money acts as a bulwark against Big Government and runaway levels of debt. Unfortunately, the United States government has proven that they can’t be trusted with an unchecked monetary monopoly. It’s no surprise that severing the tie between the U.S. Dollar and gold has resulted in frivolous, debt-funded spending by the political left and the right, depleting the value and general confidence in the U.S. Federal Reserve Note.

  After being driven out of the public conciousness over the past century, sound money is an idea whose time has come (again). Americans and even Fed-bugs are grappling with the immutable truth that governments can’t print society into prosperity.

  

• China's Landlords Hit With First Rent Price Slump As Economy Falters 
  China's Landlords Hit With First Rent Price Slump As Economy Falters 
  
  Tyler Durden
  
  Sat, 08/15/2020 – 18:40

  Middle-class households in China are facing the first rental income slump ever, sparked by the virus-induced downturn, pressuring the private-property market. 

  Rents are declining in many metropolitan areas, mainly due to jobless tenants leaving town. A glut of empty apartments is becoming a major headache for landlords, as rent discounts have been introduced to entice tenants to remain in leases.

  Reuters spoke with Li, who declined to give her full name, said she was scaling up the social ladder with the ownership of two apartments that were used for a steady rental income stream before the virus pandemic. 

  Li now said she’s “almost halved the rent at one of her apartments between February and May to hang on to a tenant, while her own salary was slashed 25% as her employer made coronavirus cutbacks.”

  “I must pay the rent of my room in Beijing, and monthly mortgages for the two apartments,” she said.

  She is among the millions of middle-class landlords in China who have been devastated by the downturn. Many of these folks are experiencing the first period of rental income declines, as some are highly leveraged.   

  Housing data provider Zhuge House Hunter said rents in 20 major cities fell 2.33% in July YoY, the fourth consecutive month of declines. 

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  Rental woes in China reveal housing market froth that is at risk of imploding if the overall economy remains downward sloping. 

  Demand for short-term rentals is also another problem for landlords, stripping any alternatives for generating income on their properties. 

  “Two groups … suffer the most,” said Yuan Chengjian, vice president of Zhuge House Hunter. “One is long-term rental firms … the other is investors who buy properties through high leverage financing because they pay off part of their mortgages with rent.”

  Reuters also spoke with Luo Shuzhen, a landlord with two buildings totaling 80 rooms for sublet, said she must postpone updates on her buildings because tenant numbers have dropped 30% this year.

  “It’s hard to say how long the epidemic would last, so I’m not sure whether I can maintain the rental business in the second half,” said Luo, who runs a convenience store.

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  The next big problem for landlords is the stalling recovery. China’s retail sales slipped in July, dashing hopes for a robust “V-shaped” recovery. 

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  With mortgage defaults low, the non-performing loan ratio in the country stands around 2.1% at the end of June. 

  Tracy Wan, senior director of Asia-Pacific structured finance at Fitch Rating, said:

  “Half of the transactions in the securitization market use 90 days as the definition for default, while the other half use 180 days. For those who use 180 days, you’d have a longer time to recognize defaults, and that number is still going up.”

  And while landlords in China are pressured by plunging rental income, a similar story is playing out in New York City. 

  

• 'Black Lives Matter'-Mob Demands White People Give Up Their Homes
  'Black Lives Matter'-Mob Demands White People Give Up Their Homes
  
  Tyler Durden
  
  Sat, 08/15/2020 – 18:15

  Authored by Paul Joseph Watson via Summit News,

  A video out of Seattle shows a mob of Black Lives Matter agitators harassing a homeowner and demanding that they give up their property in order to fix racism.

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  The clip shows a male demonstrator singling out one home and lecturing those inside about how they’re “living in a historically black neighborhood.”

  He then accuses whites of buying land and homes from black people for below its market value and kicking out African-Americans.

  Black Lives Matter mob demands White people move out of neighborhood and give their homes to black people. pic.twitter.com/K2ywb899zS

  — Mark Dice (@MarkDice) August 14, 2020

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  “Do you know that? Because if you don’t, now you fucking do, now do something about it,” he adds, to which another protester responds by saying, “Open your wallet!”

  He then accuses the homeowners of being complicit in “racist gentrification” while demanding they do something to fix the problem.

  A masked female BLM agitator with a bullhorn then continues the tirade.

  “Give us your house, give black people back their homes, you’re sitting there comfortably…I used to live in this neighborhood and my family was pushed out and you’re sitting up there having a good time with your other white friends.”

  “Now we’re bringing it to your front door, so what the fuck do you plan to do about it?” asks the male protester as the mob continues to harass the homeowner.

  The video ends with the homeowner apparently turning the lights off in a bid to avoid any further escalation.

  The seizure of white-owned property has long been a primary goal of the Black Lives Matter movement.

  Back in 2017, BLM leader Chanelle Helm issued a list of demands, one of which was that white people will their property to black people in order to prove they’re not racist.

  “White [people] if you don’t have any descendants, will your property to a Black or Brown family,” she wrote.

  “Preferably one that lives in generational poverty. … White [people] if you can afford to downsize give up the home you own to a Black or Brown family. Preferably a family from generational poverty. … White [people], re-budget your monthly so you can donate to Black funds for land purchasing.”

  *  *  *

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• California Man Receives $860,000 In Fraudulent PPP Loans And Then Flees The Country
  California Man Receives $860,000 In Fraudulent PPP Loans And Then Flees The Country
  
  Tyler Durden
  
  Sat, 08/15/2020 – 17:50

  Today in “the efficient government hypothesis” news, a California man fraudulently obtained $860,000 in Paycheck Protection Program loans and promptly fled the United States, according to a report by NBC.

  San Fernando Valley resident Arman Manukyan is said to have fled the U.S. after boarding a flight “from Mexico City inbound to Paris with a final destination of Minsk, Belarus”. He is now being charged with one count of bank fraud and one count of aggravated identity theft and could face up to 32 years in federal prison – if he is caught. 

  The criminal complaint against Manukyan says that he submitted applications for PPP loans to Bank of America in June for $1.7 million on behalf of two shell companies registered in his name. 

  He claimed one company was in the sewing business with 73 employees and falsified tax documents showing wages and taxes for the company. It listed a virtual office address in Beverly Hills. 

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  The government approved it for $867,187 in loans. 

  After receiving the money, Manukyan allegedly transferred most of it to his personal bank accounts, one of which was frozen for “suspicious activity”. Manukyan told a bank investigator he was going to use the money to start a limousine business, contradicting what he put on his application for his loan.

  Manukyan also submitted an application for $884,748 for a second business with a Glendale address. The SBA rejected this application, claiming it had either been submitted after the deadline or that PPP loans had run out. In July, a warrant was executed on Manukyan’s bank accounts, recovering $866,019, according to NBC. 

  A search warrant was executed at his home on July 22 that turned up “multiple debit cards” used for unemployment benefits from the California Employment Development Department that were in the names of different people. Another $118,474 was recovered from debit cards linked to Manukyan after the investigation. 

  We’re sure California governor Gavin Newsom would tell us this is just a one-off example and that the state’s taxes need to be hiked even higher so that government can prevent such fraud from taking place in the future…

  

• YouTube To End Election "Interference"… By Interfering With The Free Press
  YouTube To End Election "Interference"… By Interfering With The Free Press
  
  Tyler Durden
  
  Sat, 08/15/2020 – 17:25

  Authored by Monica Showalter via AmericanThinker.com,

  Ever heard of destroying something in order to save it? Check out the latest genius move in the name of virtue-signaling from YouTube.

  The world’s largest video platform, with more than 2 billion users a month, will ban videos containing information that was obtained through hacking and could meddle with elections or censuses. That would include material like hacked campaign emails with details about a candidate. The update follows the announcement of a similar rule that Google, which owns YouTube, unveiled earlier this month banning ads that contain hacked information. Google will start enforcing that policy Sept. 1. 

  Which is preposterous. If some kind of news from some kind of hack is hot, all that matters is whether it’s true or not, not whether it changes public perceptions. YouTube is focused on those ‘perceptions’ though and has changed its policy to make sure there is no change of perceptions. Status quo, anyone? They’re very fond of the status quo. It’s a stupid idea because we all know what this is about – the 2016 hacked John Podesta emails and all the interesting news about what Democrats say to each other away from the cameras and public relations spin operations. It was mostly inside baseball, and didn’t affect the election, but the Democrats, bitter about Hillary Clinton’s election loss, and still not admitting the problem was their bad candidate who refused to go to Wisconsin, continue to say it did.

  This YouTube move accommodates their looney logic, which is a partisan political statement right there.

  It’s also a useless move because hackers are going to hack and if they’ve got something hot, people will get such news from some place else besides YouTube. QAnon is already an example of people getting news and information away from the traditional filters. YouTube will change nothing with this censorship policy.

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  What’s perhaps most disgusting about this all the problems this kind of move presents for a free press.

  1. First, reporters report stuff all the time that’s hacked, provided it makes a Republican look bad. Is YouTube saying that only the New York Times (for we know they will never censor the New York Times) can used hacked information, nobody else can? Only the NYT can see the hacks and print only the ones that help Democrats? For YouTube and its favorite media, one hand washes the other.

  2. Second, how many times have politicians claimed, in the wake of scandalous news, that their accounts have been hacked? Anthony Weiner pioneered this kind of political claim after news that he was sending photos of his privates to underage girls on Twitter got out and he claimed it was a hack. With this new YouTube policy, any pol who’s the subject of any scandalous news now has a license to cover it all up, all for claiming it was a hac. Call this the Democrats’ YouTube protection guarantee.

  3. Third, there’s a fine line between hacks and leaks, the bread and butter of journalists’ output. Leaks are just as illegal as hacks, and lots of people have gone to jail for them, same as those caught illegally hacking have. Politicians have always complained about leaks, just as they have always complained about hacks. But among these hacks and leaks, many of which are reasonably jailable offenses, there’s also the category of whistleblower, the person who calls out wrongdoing against a vast establishment doing something contrary to the public interest or its mission. The Democrats have managed to corrupt the term with their planned-out impeachment scam, but real whistleblowers exist, and YouTube is there to stomp them out.

  The whole thing is badly thought out and clearly the work of some coordination with Democrats. For the professional hacker community, foreign or otherwise, that’s a dinner triangle, suggesting that they’ve now got something to hide.

  For Republicans, it’s also a dinner triangle – the one that says these budding censors are now ready to be regulated like an edited platform, responsible for every last thing that goes out on their sites. It’s time to get cracking on that, and getting loud about it if their Democratic partners persist. It’s hard to understand why nothing so far has been done. 

  Here’s the irony of it: It’s profoundly anti-democratic. This great move undertaken to ‘save’ democracy from the machinations of hackers comes at the expense of why we have democracy at all, which is freedom. You don’t save democracy by destroying a free press, pals.

  

• Taiwan Signs Deal For Large Batch Of US F-16 Jets As China Tensions On Brink
  Taiwan Signs Deal For Large Batch Of US F-16 Jets As China Tensions On Brink
  
  Tyler Durden
  
  Sat, 08/15/2020 – 17:00

  For the first time in nearly three decades Taiwan has signed a deal to purchase F-16 fighter jets from Lockheed Martin, in a formal agreement which has been in the works for much of the past year, adding to spiraling relations between Beijing and Washington.

  The new contract will be for an initial delivery of 66 jets added to the self-ruled island’s existing fleet of F-16s, the Pentagon indicated. Completion is expected by the end of 2026, though we should note that it’ll be interesting to see whether China in the US have entered military conflict by then, something looking increasingly very possible.

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  The new jets will have major upgrades over and against the older F-16A/B variant which Taiwan’s Air Force currently operates, especially with advances in radar and electronic scanning capabilities.

  DefPost estimates of the Lockheed contract announcement: “The total value for the initial delivery order under this contract is $4.9 billion for 90 aircraft.”

  “Out of the 90 jet ordered, 66 are for the Taiwan’s Republic of China Air Force (ROCAF) while the remaining 24 F-16s jets are reportedly destined for the Royal Moroccan Air Force (RMAF),” it continues.

  China is sure to see it as yet more chipping away at the decades-old ‘One China’ official policy which has preserved the status quo in Taiwan, after warning for years against US military sales to Taiwan. 

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  Add to this the fact it comes a mere two days after the highest level American delegation since met with leaders in Taipei since 1979 in a major symbolic move.

  Since the deal was first introduced last year in the US, China’s Foreign Ministry demanded that the US “refrain” from selling the “fighter jets to Taiwan and stop arms sales to and military contact with Taiwan. Otherwise, the Chinese side will surely make strong reactions, and the U.S. will have to bear all the consequences.”

  Just last week the first ever transfer of US military drones to the island was also announced. Tensions have also ratcheted due to competing military drills and a Chinese PLA build-up across the Taiwan Strait.

  

• Hezbollah "Will Not Remain Silent": Nasrallah Suggests Israeli Involvement In Beirut Port Blast
  Hezbollah "Will Not Remain Silent": Nasrallah Suggests Israeli Involvement In Beirut Port Blast
  
  Tyler Durden
  
  Sat, 08/15/2020 – 16:35

  Via AlMasdarNews.com,

  Secretary-General of Hezbollah Hassan Nasrallah said on Friday that his organization “will not remain silent on the crime of bombing the Port of Beirut if it is proven that Israel is behind it.”

  In his speech on the occasion of the “victory on July 14” in 2006, Nasrallah said, “Hezbollah has no information about the Beirut Port explosion.”

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  He mused that there are simply two possible explanations as to the causes of the Beirut Port explosion, namely that it was either accidental or sabotage.

  He continued, “If it is proven that the cause of the Beirut Port explosion is a sabotage, the negligence must be held accountable, but we must start an investigation about those behind it.”

  He explained that if Israel is linked to the explosion at the port, the truth will not be reached in light of the FBI’s participation in the ongoing investigation.

  The Secretary-General of Hezbollah emphasized that “the most dangerous thing is that facing a national calamity of this magnitude, there was a project to bring down the Lebanese state, I want it to push the country into civil war.”

  He added, “Hezbollah is concerned with the direct security of the resistance, and we are not able to assume full responsibility for national security with its internal dimension.”

  Lebanese ex-Interior Minister tonight is first senior politician to blame #BeirutBlast on Israel

  “This op was clearly & explicitly carried out by Israel,” he said, adding:

  “It was clearly a crime against humanity, which is why no one dares to claim it.”https://t.co/NEaTsADHxJ

  — Alison Meuse (@AliTahmizian) August 12, 2020

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  Meanwhile, Nasrallah was not the first highly visible public figure in Lebanon to suggest Israeli involvement. 

  Days prior, ex-Interior Minister Nohad Machnouk alleged, “This op was clearly & explicitly carried out by Israel,” echoing the suspicions of segments of the Lebanese citizenry.

  

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