- Here's How Much Your Income Will Change Under The Biden Tax Plan
Here’s How Much Your Income Will Change Under The Biden Tax Plan
While the market has so far focused exclusively on the temporary economic sugar high that the Biden fiscal stimulus will unleash on the US economy, which however may be far below Biden’s bogey of $1.9 trillion with Goldman now expecting just $1.1 trillion being enacted due to republican opposition, traders are starting to focus on the cost side of the “cost-benefit” analysis.
And, as Deutsche Bank’s Jim Reid writes, while “for now it’s all about the size of the stimulus juices flowing into the economy” the pips will likely be squeezed later in the year as the Democrats craft broader infrastructure and tax legislation.
That’s why today’s Chart of the Day from Reid shows the distributional impact of Biden’s pre-election tax plan, according to the Tax Policy Center.
At the moment, economists see a joint infrastructure and tax reform bill being passed in late 2021; at that point revenue rises will potentially offset half of the extra spending, although maybe only raising a quarter of the revenue estimated by the tax plan that today’s chart was based on. This is based on the political realities of a split senate and the then looming mid-terms.
In short: the chart shows whose income group will benefit, and which will end up with the tax bill, after Biden’s record stimulus is enacted.
Tyler Durden
Fri, 01/15/2021 – 23:58 - Is Impeachment More Dangerous Than Trump?
Is Impeachment More Dangerous Than Trump?
Authored by Michael Tracey via UnHerd (emphasis ours),
The most apt parallel for the second impeachment of Donald Trump may not be any other of the three previous presidential impeachments, including his own just over a year ago. It may instead be the PATRIOT Act, which was passed in the heated emotional aftermath of the September 11 attacks, with negligible debate afforded to the long-term implications of what Congress was enacting. Reason and deliberation had given way to a collective desire for security and revenge, and thus the most sweeping curtailment of civil liberties in the modern historical record was approved. Those who departed from the swiftly assembled consensus could expect to be denounced as sympathisers to terrorists.
Likewise, if you deign to raise concerns about the implications of this sudden impeachment sequel — or any of the other extraordinary actions taken in the past week, such as an ongoing corporate censorship purge of unprecedented proportions — you can expect to be accused of defending or supporting the “domestic terrorists” who carried out the mob attack on the Capitol.
Nancy Pelosi, the Speaker of the House, rationalised rushing through Wednesday’s impeachment resolution at spell-binding speed — by far the fastest impeachment process ever — on the grounds that Trump posed a “clear and present danger” to the country, and needed to be removed immediately. “Imminent threats” of various stripes also have a long history of being cited to justify sweeping emergency action, such as the invasion of Iraq. Often upon further inspection, the purported “threat” turns out to have been not so “imminent”, or in fact to have never existed at all.
But as rushed as the impeachment was, if the purported emergency conditions were truly so dire as Pelosi maintained, she could have theoretically summoned the House to convene the day after the mob attack and impeach Trump right away. Congress convened the very next day after the attack on Pearl Harbor to declare war on Japan, for example. Instead, Pelosi waited a full week, and gave everyone the weekend off in the interim. Trump, alleged to be in the process of orchestrating a violent “coup”, was allowed to remain in office unimpeded with access to the nuclear codes for seven days.
Nonetheless, with a total of two hours of perfunctory debate — and no hearings, fact-finding or meditation on the relevant Constitutional Law considerations — Trump was impeached for the second time. As such, the text of the impeachment article will now be permanently embedded in the fabric of American governance.
One wonders who even had a chance to actually sit down and read it. The article, which charges Trump with “incitement of insurrection”, is far-reaching in its potential implications. “Incitement” is an extremely narrowly circumscribed doctrine in US law, and for good reason: anyone who engages in inflammatory but protected political speech could theoretically be said to have engaged in criminally punishable “incitement” without the shield of the First Amendment. If someone who hears your speech chooses on their volition to engage in violent or criminal conduct, you in almost all circumstances cannot be prosecuted.
This new impeachment changes that equilibrium. The one quote cited from Trump in the article to demonstrate his alleged “inciting” speech was: ‘‘If you don’t fight like hell you’re not going to have a country anymore.’’ That line — which could have been uttered by Trump in about a thousand different contexts over the past five years — is alleged to have “foreseeably resulted in… lawless action”.
I witnessed countless instances of political speech expressed by activists, journalists, and others during last summer’s protests and riots which under the same standard could have been deemed to have “foreseeably resulted” in “lawless action”, such as attacks on police or destruction of property. But there was always a presumption that the speech was nonetheless protected under the First Amendment. The new “Trump standard” codified by this impeachment could have drastic implications for the the future, should it be applied more widely throughout US jurisprudence. Impeachable “incitement” is also unlikely ever to include statements by a president “encouraging” violence by way of, say, military force.
Still, Trump’s statements on 6 January — just like a seemingly infinite number of others over the past five-plus years — could surely be worthy of political rebuke or censure. Indeed, Trump has already been rebuked. He’s been roundly condemned by his own party and administration. His main communications platform, Twitter, has banished him. His high-profile supporters are being systematically nuked from social media writ large. He’s been made to issue several humiliating statements conceding defeat and “disavowing” the MAGA mob which marched in his name. The bozo rioters at the Capitol were undoubtedly inflamed by a barrage of lies and conspiratorial delusions that Trump churned out on an almost hourly basis since losing the election — that’s beyond dispute.
But it was still clear pretty soon after the mob intrusion began last week that the most significant consequences from what occurred would arise not from the intrusion itself, which was dispersed by agents of the state in a matter of hours. Rather, the real consequences would stem from the predictably rash over-reaction. The more extreme the characterisation of last Wednesday’s events, the more emotional ammunition that lawmakers have to demand whatever extreme remedial action they had been ideologically committed to pursuing anyway. This goes well beyond the expedited impeachment, and into the corporate censorship purge which has now radically altered the principles undergirding the open internet.
Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, the most high-profile member of the Left-wing Congressional “#squad”, has claimed that she narrowly escaped assassination at the Capitol and has thus been “traumatised”. Evidently she will be publicly working through this “trauma” on Instagram. It is also her contention that half of the House of Representatives (over 200 people) had been on the verge of mass execution. This style of political rhetoric has already been marshalled by “AOC” and others to demand corporate censorship on a vast scale, and successfully so; last week she tweeted pressure on Apple and Google to expel the alternative social media platform Parler from their app stores, and the corporations quickly obliged.
Amazon, falling like a domino, then completely terminated Parler from its web hosting service — effectively killing the site. As perhaps the country’s most influential Democrat by online following, AOC is someone who these tech corporations have an interest in appeasing, especially as Democrats enter full control of the federal government on 20 January. Her exceedingly dramatic recounting of what transpired during the mob intrusion is a powerful tool in her arsenal.
Curiously, the most putatively “progressive” members of Congress seem to be the most exercised about resurrecting concepts that sound like Woodrow Wilson suppressing dissidents in wartime. Mondaire Jones, a highly touted “progressive” incoming freshman Congressman, took to fulminating on the House floor during the impeachment proceeding about “treason and sedition”.
Congresswoman Carolyn Maloney further declared from the floor of the House that Trump had “wilfully incited an armed insurrection”. Which is again another curious characterisation, because while a Capitol Police officer was in fact killed in the melee, the only person against whom armed, deadly force was used against was Ashli Babbitt, a Trump-supporting Afghanistan and Iraq War veteran who was shot dead at point-blank range by an officer.
Any rational observer who has the capacity to detach from the temporary passions of the moment should be able to recognise that the United States government was never at risk of being “overthrown” by the chaotic band of yahoos who stormed the Capitol. All they accomplished was to delay the certification of Joe Biden’s victory by a few hours. They also humiliated the man they apparently thought they were valiantly coming to the defence of; even Kevin McCarthy, the Republican leader of the House, took to the floor during the impeachment session to declare that “Antifa” was not to blame for the chaos which unfolded, and blamed Trump as bearing responsibility for the events. Indeed, the full force of state and federal law enforcement power is now being deployed against the intruders, and many — perhaps hundreds — will be going to prison.
Reminiscent of the post 9/11 period, the “crisis” of the past week has been seized upon to execute a pre-existing agenda. Impeachment, purges, the militarisation and lockdown of the Capitol — it’s only the beginning, and it’s all happening with hardly even a peep of criticism or moment for reflection. Given this historical continuity with the events of 2001, it was therefore fitting when Steny Hoyer, the Democratic Majority Leader in the House, went out of his way Wednesday afternoon to herald the valour of Liz Cheney — daughter of the architect of US policy after 9/11, Dick — who was one of the ten Republicans to vote along with Democrats to impeach.
Tyler Durden
Fri, 01/15/2021 – 23:40 - M1 Abrams Tank Gets New Round That Can Destroy Almost Anything
M1 Abrams Tank Gets New Round That Can Destroy Almost Anything
The US Army’s main battle tank, the M1 Abrams, is about to receive a new multipurpose super tank round that can breach concrete walls, pulverize obstacles, and destroy bunkers, according to Forbes.
The Advanced Multi-Purpose, or AMP, is specially designed for the M1 Abrams to replace the rapidly aging inventory of tank munitions.
The new round is long overdue as tank crews on the modern battlefields in the Middle East have been confronted by new evolving threats.
Unlike the M829 depleted uranium round, which can punch through almost anything – it tends to have difficulties blowing up vehicles or houses, as it just zips right through those types of targets. The new AMP can destroy everything the M829 cannot.
“The AMP adds an important new capability. The existing canister round is only for short-range use with a maximum reach of about 500 meters. This makes it useless for dealing with one of the biggest threats to tanks, infantry equipped with anti-tank guided missiles like the Russian-made AT-14 Kornet, used in Iraq, Syria, and Yemen. When used in airburst mode, the AMP can target groups of personnel at ranges of up to 2,000 meters: even if it does not disable a missile team, the round is likely to distract them enough so that they are not able to keep a missile on course.”
Another important new capability is breaching walls. Currently, making a breach an infantry assault requires engineers to get next to the wall and emplace explosives. Three rounds of AMP will create a thirty-by-fifty-inch hole clean through a double-thickness reinforced concrete wall, big enough for troops to advance through. This includes cutting through the steel reinforcement bars, and breaching can be carried out from several hundred meters away,” said Forbes.
Forbes described the new round has “three different fusing options” for blowing up different targets.
“With Point Detonation, the round explodes on contact with the target — this mode will make it effective against targets like light armored vehicles. Set to Point Detonation-Delay, the round does not explode immediately on contact – this is the mode used against obstacles and bunkers, as it gives enough time to penetrate deeply into concrete or other material before exploding. In the Airburst mode, the round explodes at a pre-set height above the ground, spraying the area below with tungsten shrapnel – this is the antipersonnel mode,” said Forbes.
Watch the new AMP round in action.
To sum up, the AMP round is a significant advancement in tank ammunition technology as it provides additional capabilities to defeat opponents on the modern battlefield.
Tyler Durden
Fri, 01/15/2021 – 23:20 - Woke Elementary: Critical Race Theory & California's "Inconvenient Minority"
Woke Elementary: Critical Race Theory & California’s “Inconvenient Minority”
Authored by Christopher Rufo via City-Journal.org,
An elementary school in Cupertino, California – a Silicon Valley community with a median home price of $2.3 million – recently forced a class of third-graders to deconstruct their racial identities, then rank themselves according to their “power and privilege.”
Based on whistleblower documents and parents familiar with the session, a third-grade teacher at R.I. Meyerholz Elementary School began the lesson on “social identities” during a math class. The teacher asked all students to create an “identity map,” listing their race, class, gender, religion, family structure, and other characteristics. The teacher explained that the students live in a “dominant culture” of “white, middle class, cisgender, educated, able-bodied, Christian, English speaker[s],” who, according to the lesson, “created and maintained” this culture in order “to hold power and stay in power.”
Next, reading from This Book Is Antiracist, the students learned that “those with privilege have power over others” and that “folx who do not benefit from their social identities, who are in the subordinate culture, have little to no privilege and power.” As an example, the reading states that “a white, cisgender man, who is able-bodied, heterosexual, considered handsome and speaks English has more privilege than a Black transgender woman.” In some cases, because of the principle of intersectionality, “there are parts of us that hold some power and other parts that are oppressed,” even within a single individual.
Following this discussion, the teacher had the students deconstruct their own intersectional identities and “circle the identities that hold power and privilege” on their identity maps, ranking their traits according to the hierarchy. In a related assignment, the students were asked to write short essays describing which aspects of their identities “hold power and privilege” and which do not. The students were expected to produce “at least one full page of writing.” As an example, the presentation included a short paragraph about transgenderism and nonbinary sexuality.
The lesson caused an immediate uproar among Meyerholz Elementary parents.
“We were shocked,” said one parent, who agreed to speak with me on condition of anonymity.
“They were basically teaching racism to my eight-year-old.”
This parent, who is Asian-American, rallied a group of a half dozen families to protest the school’s intersectionality curriculum. The group met with the school principal and demanded an end to the racially divisive instruction. After a tense meeting, the administration agreed to suspend the program. (When reached for comment, Jenn Lashier, the principal of Meyerholz Elementary, said that the training was not part of the “formal curricula, but the process of daily learning facilitated by a certified teacher.”)
The irony is that, despite being 94 percent nonwhite, Meyerholz Elementary is one of the most privileged schools in America. The median household income in Cupertino is $172,000, and nearly 80 percent of residents have a bachelor’s degree or higher. At the school, where the majority of families are Asian-American, the students have exceptionally high rates of academic achievement and the school consistently ranks in the top 1 percent of all elementary schools statewide. In short, nobody at Meyerholz is oppressed, and the school’s high-achieving parents know that teaching intersectionality instead of math is a waste of time—and potentially dangerous.
One parent told me that critical race theory was reminiscent of the Chinese Cultural Revolution.
“[It divides society between] the oppressor and the oppressed, and since these identities are inborn characteristics people cannot change, the only way to change it is via violent revolution,” the parent said.
“Growing up in China, I had learned it many times. The outcome is the family will be ripped apart; husband hates wife, children hate parents. I think it is already happening here.”
The small fight at Meyerholz reflects a larger development: for the first time, Asian-Americans on the West Coast have become politically mobilized. In 2019, Asian-Americans ran a successful initiative campaign against affirmative action in Washington State; in 2020, Asian-Americans ran a similar campaign in California, winning by an astonishing 57 percent to 43 percent margin. In both cases, they defended the principles of meritocracy, individual rights, and equality under the law—and roundly defeated a super-coalition of the states’ progressive politicians, activists, universities, media, and corporations.
The stakes are high for the Asian-American community. For progressives insisting on the narrative of “white supremacy” and “systemic racism,” Asian-Americans are the “inconvenient minority”: they significantly outperform all other racial groups, including whites, in terms of academic achievement, college admissions, household income, family stability, and other key measures. Affirmative action and other critical race theory-based programs would devastate their admissions to universities and harm their futures.
At Meyerholz Elementary, the Asian-American families are on high alert for critical race theory in the classroom. Since their initial victory, they have begun to consider campaigning against the school board.
“We think some of our school board members are [critical race theory] activists and they must go,” said one parent.
The capture of our public institutions by progressives obsessed by race and privilege deserves opposition at every level. The parents of Cupertino have joined the fight.
This article is part of an ongoing series on critical race theory in American schools.
Tyler Durden
Fri, 01/15/2021 – 23:00 - Stanford Scientist Can Tell If You're A Liberal Just By Looking At Your Face
Stanford Scientist Can Tell If You’re A Liberal Just By Looking At Your Face
Since the beginning of the 21st century, the surveillance state has utilized technology derived from Silicon Valley, such as facial recognition algorithms, to enhance society’s control.
Authoritarian regimes and unscrupulous corporations are leveraging these technologies to track citizens, stalk criminals, and monitor employees, but what if this technology, rapidly advancing in the last couple of years, can determine a person’s political views?
Imagine this; obviously, the Washington Metropolitan Area is lined with surveillance cameras, with some cameras that may already be employing facial recognition algorithms. Hypothetically speaking, what if these cameras could recognize an angry mob and accurately (to some degree) identify their political views by observing their faces and then alert authorities of potential social unrest in a specific area.
While that technology has yet to be deployed, it may certainly exists.
Researchers have developed a facial recognition algorithm that they claim can determine a person’s political views with reasonable accuracy.
Stanford University’s Michal Kosinski conducted a study published on Monday in the Nature journal Scientific Reports.
“Ubiquitous facial recognition technology can expose individuals’ political orientation, as faces of liberals and conservatives consistently differ,” Kosinski said.
He trained the facial recognition algorithm to accurately guess a person’s political view with an accuracy rating of about 72%. To do this, the researcher trained an algorithm with over one million profiles from social media websites across the US, UK, and Canada.
“Political orientation was correctly classified in 72% of liberal-conservative face pairs, remarkably better than chance (50%), human accuracy (55%), or one afforded by a 100-item personality questionnaire (66%). Accuracy was similar across countries (the U.S., Canada, and the UK), environments (Facebook and dating websites), and when comparing faces across samples. Accuracy remained high (69%) even when controlling for age, gender, and ethnicity,” he said.
Kosinski said the algorithm is “high predictability” in determining political views from viewing faces, which implies a notable difference between the facial images of conservatives and liberals.
One of the most significant facial features that differentiate both political parties’ faces – aside from gender, age and race was head orientation and emotional expression. He also said liberals were more likely to stare directly at the camera and more likely to look surprised than disgusted.
Here are the procedures used to predict political orientation from facial images. And by the way, she’s a liberal.
It was also explained that liberals tend to smile “more intensely and genuinely,” leaving them with a different wrinkle pattern as they age. Meanwhile, conservatives “tend to be healthier, drink less alcohol and smoke less, and have a different diet” – attributes that affected the skin’s health and texture.
The thought that algorithms can determine your political views from a quick scan of your face is a frightening one.
Kosinski is known for his work with the data-mining firm Cambridge Analytica ahead of the 2016 US Presidential election.
He also worked as an adviser on Faception, a company that uses facial recognition algorithms to determine if someone is a terrorist, pedophile, or a criminal.
China has been deploying facial recognition cameras for years to monitor its citizens. This sort of surveillance is coming to America – by the way – it’s already here.
Perhaps wearing a face mask could render facial recognition cameras useless…
Tyler Durden
Fri, 01/15/2021 – 22:40 - Americans Are Being Divided As The War On Domestic Terror Expands
Americans Are Being Divided As The War On Domestic Terror Expands
Authored by Derrick Broze via TheLastAmericanVagabond.com,
Americans appear too divided and distracted to recognize that the architects of the Patriot Act and the failed War on Terror now have their sights set on the American homeland.
The first week of 2021 kicked off with chaos at the Capitol in Washington D.C. Was it a protest, a riot or an insurrection? Were there provocateurs, and if so, were they Antifa, the cops, and/or the Feds? As usual, everyone on the internet thinks they know the answer within ten minutes. Unfortunately, this genuinely leads to the spreading of unfounded theories – many based on nothing but speculation and emotion. But while the public is debating over theories and arguing amongst themselves, the newly emboldened Military Industrial Complex is eagerly anticipating the incoming Biden Administration as an opportunity to expand the War on Domestic Terror.
In the immediate aftermath of the “storming of the Capitol”, the media pundits, intelligence community, and politicians began foaming at the mouth in excitement over the chance to push through Domestic Terror legislation. Michigan representative Elissa Slotkin, also former Acting Assistant Secretary of Defense and CIA analyst, said, “the post 9/11 era is over. The single greatest national security threat right now is our internal division. The threat of domestic terrorism.” Slotkin went on to say that she urges the Biden administration to “understand that the greatest threat now is internal.”
The post 9/11 era is over. The single greatest national security threat right now is our internal division. The threat of domestic terrorism. The polarization that threatens our democracy. If we don’t reconnect our two Americas, the threats will not have to come from the outside. pic.twitter.com/ADgGcf7qEo
— Rep. Elissa Slotkin (@RepSlotkin) January 8, 2021
https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js
TLAV writer Whitney Webb responded to Slotkin’s comment by reminding the audience that, “before Congress, Elissa worked for the CIA and the Pentagon and helped destabilize the Middle East during the Bush and Obama admins. What she says here is essentially an open announcement that the US has moved from the “War on [foreign] terror” to the “War on domestic terror”.”
The Federal Bureau of Investigations (FBI) also reportedly released a bulletin warning that “domestic extremists” are planning a nationwide protest to stop Joe Biden from being sworn in as President. According to ABC News, “The FBI has also received information in recent days on a group calling for “storming” state, local and federal government courthouses and administrative buildings in the event President Donald Trump is removed from office prior to Inauguration Day. The group is also planning to “storm” government offices in every state the day President-elect Joe Biden will be inaugurated, regardless of whether the states certified electoral votes for Biden or Trump.”
Since the bulletin has not been publicly released the report should be viewed skeptically. However, it’s only one of many emerging reports and articles stoking the flames of civil war and internal chaos. The fact of the matter is that this is not a new attempt to demonize the American people. This current effort is simply a continuation of the effort to label Americans as terrorists that has been taking place since at least the mid-1990’s following the Oklahoma City bombing false flag. These efforts were expanded further after the attacks of 9/11. In fact, as most readers know by now, it was Joe Biden who wrote the anti-terror legislation in the 90’s which became the basis for the Patriot ACT after 9/11.
While the “War on Terror” launched by the George W. Bush administration was focused on imaginary enemies in Iraq, Afghanistan, Libya, Iran, Syria, and elsewhere, there has also been a steady push to focus on the American public. In the first years of the Obama administration we saw the rise of the “Tea Party” movement, the American Libertarian movement, and Liberal Progressives who opposed the war machine, the surveillance state, and the militarization of the police. Organizations like the Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC) did their best to label activists “extremists” for constitutionally protected activism and organizing. In 2010, the SPLC even came up with a “Patriot Hit List” of so-called extremists.
The post-9/11 era saw the creation of Fusion Centers; centralized systems that pool and analyze intelligence from federal, state, local, and private sector entities. The National Network of Fusion Centers was created after the 9/11 attacks to provide for more streamlined communication between federal and local agencies. The Fusion Centers have been criticized as violations of civil liberties and a danger to separation of federal and local governments. They have been exposed for targeting of protesters of the Dakota Access Pipeline and most infamously, in 2009 it was revealed that the Missouri Information Analysis Center (MIAC) was targeting supporters of third party candidates, Ron Paul supporters, anti-abortion activists, and “conspiracy theorists” as potential domestic extremists.
The 2010’s also saw the passing of the 2012 National Defense Authorization Act which included provisions allowing for indefinitely detaining Americans who have been labeled potential terrorists. Under these provisions, Americans lose the ability to have access to a lawyer and the right to a speedy trial. The measures were approved every year during the Obama and Trump administrations.
The truth is that the United States has long been pushing for a focus on Domestic Terror and Extremism, and regardless of what really happened at the Capitol on January 6, the event is being used as a way to justify the push for strengthening domestic terror legislation.
Another organization that is helping propel the “rise of domestic terror” narrative is the Center for Strategic & International Studies (CSIS), an organization with deep ties to the intelligence community and Western Military Industrial Complex. In October, the CSIS released a study claiming that two-thirds of the terrorist plots and attacks in the United States in the first eight months of 2020 were carried out by white supremacists and like-minded extremists. Coincidentally, journalist John Vibes recently reported that, “the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) is listed as the “most recent employment” for three selections on Biden’s Department of Defense agency review team: Kathleen Hicks, who is a former defense official under President Barack Obama, as well as Melissa Dalton, and Andrew Hunter.”
The most likely candidate for new domestic terror legislation is the “The Domestic Terrorism Prevention Act”, originally passed by the House in 2020, would create “dedicated domestic terrorism offices within the Department of Homeland Security, the Department of Justice, and the Federal Bureau of Investigation to analyze and monitor domestic terrorist activity and require the Federal Government to take steps to prevent domestic terrorism.”
Illinois Senator Dick Durbin has already promised to reintroduce the bill in the coming days. “Senate Democrats, along with the Biden administration, will work together to investigate, expose, and hold accountable domestic terrorism threats in our country,” Durbin and Sen. Minority Leader Chuck Schumer said in a joint statement. The bill also has support from the Anti-Defamation League and the Leadership Conference on Civil and Human Rights.
Another domestic terror bill that has previously been considered is the “Confronting the Threat of Domestic Terror Act”. The bill was introduced by Rep. Adam Schiff, who claimed that “the legislation is narrowly crafted and includes protections to ensure it is not misused.” However, the American Civil Liberties Union warned, “people of color and other marginalized communities have long been targeted under domestic terrorism authorities for unfair and discriminatory surveillance, investigations, and prosecutions. Law enforcement agencies’ use of these authorities undermines and has violated equal protection, due process, and First Amendment rights.”
This is a crucial time for the American experiment. Will the American people allow themselves to be divided to the point of calling for domestic terror legislation to be used on their neighbors, co-workers, friends and family? With the public inundated with fears of civil war, stolen elections, rampant disinformation, and general exhaustion with COVID-19 measures, it appears to be a very critical moment which may decide whether America is destined for a renewed desire for liberty, truth, and free speech, or an accelerated push towards tyranny.
Tyler Durden
Fri, 01/15/2021 – 22:20 - Amidst The Pandemic, Women Rush To Sell Explicit Photos Of Themselves On OnlyFans
Amidst The Pandemic, Women Rush To Sell Explicit Photos Of Themselves On OnlyFans
Perhaps someone needs to ask Jerome Powell during his next congressional testimony: What kind of a recession are we in when women can’t even successfully sell nude photos online anymore?
Such is the case for a number of women who, the midst of trying to earn money during the pandemic, have turned to OnlyFans to try and sell explicit photos of themselves. Many of these women are still struggling, despite their extra “efforts”, according to the New York Times, who profiled several new creators who have taken to the platform to “provide for themselves and their families”.
The NYT claims the pandemic has taken “a particularly devastating toll on women and mothers” because the pandemic has “wiped out” industries like restaurants and healthcare, where women “dominate”.
Angela Jones, an associate professor of sociology at the State University of New York at Farmingdale, said: “A lot of people are migrating to OnlyFans out of desperation. These are people who are worried about eating, they’re worried about keeping the lights on, they’re worried about not being evicted.”
One of these creators was Lexi Eixenberger, who started an account in November. The 22 year old has been laid off three times during the pandemic and was forced to drop out of dental hygiene school. She has only made about $500 from the platform so far.
Photos: NYT Jones said of the platform: “It is already an incredibly saturated market. The idea that people are just going to open up an OnlyFans account and start raking in the dough is really misguided.”
The biggest successes on the platform are “often models, porn stars and celebrities who already have large social media followings,” the NYT says. They are able to use their other social media accounts as a funnel for business on OnlyFans.
One success story has been Savannah Benavidez, who has made $64,000 in just 6 months. She quit her job as a medical biller after her 2 year old son’s day care shut down and she needed to stay home and take care of him.
She told The Times: “It’s more money than I have ever made in any job. I have more money than I know what to do with.”
“It’s a full-time job on top of your full-time job looking for work. Fans want to see you posting daily. You’re always churning. You’re always taking pictures to post,” said 36 year old Elle Morocco of West Palm Beach. She joined the platform after being laid off as an office manager this past July.
She has only made $250 on the platform so far, despite sometimes spending up to 8 hours a day managing her account.
She also worries about what OnlyFans could do to her future job prospects. She said: “If you’re looking for a 9 to 5, they might not hire you if they find out you have an OnlyFans. They may not want you if they know you’re a sex worker.”
The Times cited two examples – one of a mechanic in Indiana and the other of a NYC medic – who both believed their OnlyFans account had negative consequences for their full-time jobs.
Melany Hall, another creator, said she was happy to have made $700 on the platform since December. She said: “This is the first year I didn’t have to choose between the electric bill and Christmas presents for my kids. This is the first year I’ve been able to do it all by myself.”
But Barb Brents, a professor of sociology at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas, said there are risks that go along with sex work – despite it happening on a virtual platform. “Online sex work is a much more appealing alternative to many people than going on the streets or selling direct sexual services. That said, anybody getting into this kind of work needs to be aware that there are dangers,” she said.
Creators also have to deal with members posting their exclusive content elsewhere on the web – and some have even faced death and rape threats, the article notes.
OnlyFans currently has 90 million users and more than 1 million content creators. The platform takes a 20% cut of any pay that creators get, excluding tips that creators can get on other payment platforms.
Tyler Durden
Fri, 01/15/2021 – 22:00 - Trump's China Trade War Cost Up To 245,000 American Jobs: Study
Trump’s China Trade War Cost Up To 245,000 American Jobs: Study
Authored by Dave DeCamp via AntiWar.com,
A new study estimates that President Trump’s trade war with China caused the loss of up to 245,000 American jobs.
The study from the US-China Business Council (USCBC) and Oxford Economics said a moderate reduction of tariffs on both sides could lead to an additional 145,000 US jobs and an increase in $160 billion GDP by 2025.
AFP/Getty Images The USCBC is an organization that promotes US-China trade relations and is made up of about 200 US companies that do business in China. The USCBC announced the study in a press release titled, “Decoupling with China Not Economically Viable For Americans.”
“What we’ve seen over the past few years is that raising tariffs does little more than raise costs for American families and shrink their opportunities,” said USCBC President Craig Allen.
Reuters describes further of the study:
The group, which represents major American companies doing business in China, said the study by Oxford Economics also includes an “escalation scenario” which estimates a significant decoupling of the world’s two largest economies could shrink U.S. GDP by $1.6 trillion over the next five years. This could result in 732,000 fewer U.S. jobs in 2022 and 320,000 fewer jobs by 2025, it said.
The study comes as the Biden administration is deciding how to pursue trade policy with China. In December, Joe Biden said that he does not plan to “immediately” lift tariffs on Chinese goods or scrap President Trump’s Phase One trade deal.
Allen and the USCB are hoping Biden acts to lift tariffs. “If we don’t find ways outside of self-defeating tariff measures to address differences with China, American workers will continue to suffer,” Allen said.
Tyler Durden
Fri, 01/15/2021 – 21:40 - How A US Nuclear Strike Works
How A US Nuclear Strike Works
In the wake of last week’s events in Washington, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, among others, began discussing the use of the 25th Amendment, amping up the hyperbole by voicing concerns about President Trump launching some kind of attack on a foreign adversary using nuclear weapons in order to create a state of emergency and halt the transition. Those concerns prompted her to contact the Pentagon’s leadership in order to receive assurances that safeguards are in place, assurances she reportedly received.
So, that got us wondering, if President Trump decided to launch a nuclear strike, how swiftly could he put things in motion? Would he have the sole power alone to launch a nuclear missile? According to an analysis undertaken by Bloomberg, the U.S. president’s power is absolute in this situation – he or she gives the order and the Pentagon is obliged to go along with it. It remains unclear if that has now changed given Pelosi’s reported contact with the Pentagon’s leadership.
This infographic, via Statista’s Niall McCarthy, provides an overview of the steps necessary to make a nuclear strike happen.
You will find more infographics at Statista
It can take as little as five minutes from the president’s decision to strike to intercontinental missiles launching from their silos. When it comes to submarine-launched weapons, however, it takes a little bit longer – approximately 15 minutes.
Tyler Durden
Fri, 01/15/2021 – 21:20 - Politics Won't Fix The American Decline
Politics Won’t Fix The American Decline
Authored by Zachary Yost via The Mises Institute,
By any measure, 2020 was not a very good year for human freedom. By now everyone is very familiar with the assaults on liberty stemming from measures ostensibly in the name of stopping the spread of covid and the way in which such measures have threatened the very existence of the social order. Beyond such obscene and unprecedented measures, 2020 also demonstrated that the leaders of our society are truly incompetent and bungling. The ineptitude is truly staggering, even for skeptics of the state. When surveying the wreckage of last year one can’t help but feel a sense of dread and apprehension for the long-term health of our civilization.
It is not only the state and its myriad of pathetic politicians and power-mad bureaucrats who are cause for concern. Culturally, the woke madness has been spreading like a malignant cancer throughout the body politic. Churches, universities, large companies, and cultural institutions have increasingly come under the sway of the reality-denying woke ideology. No doubt that a few hundred years in the future some enterprising author will make a fortune humorously documenting all the culturally accepted absurdities of our era, but unfortunately they are not so amusing to those of us forced to endure them.
Now, 2021 has opened with even more chaos and uncertainty as a riotous mob supporting Trump stormed the capital building. This crazed lunacy has only furthered the idea that we are on the decline, not to mention that it will serve as a convenient excuse for any number of further government crackdowns.
In short, disorder reigns.
Looking around at the wreckage and continued decay of our society, it is easy to become discouraged and even to begin to feel desperate. In such desperation, it may seem necessary to redouble our efforts to affect political change and “save the country” from its present disastrous course.
While such a position is easy to understand, I would posit that perhaps trying to roll back the state via electoral victory, which is what friends of liberty have consistently failed to do for decades, is not a viable strategy, and that it is actively contributing to the problem.
While it is popular and accurate to blame our societal elites for being pathetic and inept, the truth is that these leaders, both political and cultural, are reflections of us. Leaders who do not reflect the character of the people they lead will not be leaders for long. In the final accounting, it is not the words written down on the parchment of the Constitution that govern the United States. Rather, the true constitution of a people is the one that is written in their hearts. A badly written constitution will not be an obstacle to a virtuous and ordered people, just as the most brilliantly organized constitution will not save an unvirtuous and disordered people.
Perhaps, in the same way that the central government has sapped more and more of the strength and social power from all other institutions of social life, it has also sapped our attention and energies from where they truly belong. To what extent have efforts to stop the government merely made its job easier by leading us to neglect our families, churches, and communities? To what extent has it made us neglect our very own cultivation of virtue?
In the first chapter of The Art of War, Sun Tzu counsels that if the enemy “is in superior strength, evade him….Attack him where he is unprepared, appear where you are not expected.” Constantly attempting to seize the power of the state in order to reduce it has been attacking the enemy where he is strong and engaging on his terms. In a sense, we have let the central government determine the battlefield. Political power is not the only repository of power in society, yet we have chosen to constantly engage the state in that sphere and have consistently lost. Even supposed victories tend to merely be rearguard-holding actions to delay rather than defeat.
I would suggest that the time has come to consciously turn to an alternative strategy of cultivating social power outside of the state apparatus. Such an effort is likely to lead to much more success, although that is a low bar since the current strategy has led to no success at all. Unlike federal electoral politics, it begins with something entirely and completely under one’s control: oneself.
The key to the cultivation of alternative poles of social power begins with order, specifically the ordering of one’s own life. This is not an idea original to me. Canadian psychologist Jordan Peterson has recently popularized this idea in a secular manner with his refrain of “clean your room.” Less recently, though in a far more sophisticated manner that recognizes man’s spiritual nature, the political theorist Eric Voegelin has written voluminously about modern chaos as stemming from internal disorder that is the result of man’s loss of connection to the engendering experiences that serve to capture the truth of reality, the end result of which is the rise of totalitarian ideologies.
Instead of a more traditional concern with cultivating oneself, with looking after the beam in one’s own eye, modern man has become obsessed with everyone else on the planet. Even friends of human liberty have fallen prey to this tendency, from time to time, in our excessive investment of time and attention to political issues that are far removed from our actual lived existence. In doing so, we have neglected to build up alternative bases of social power in our families and communities.
One may respond that it is all well and good to order oneself, but that it is not enough or is even pointless in the face of the wider chaos that is engulfing the rest of society. However, it may be that such self-ordering is in fact the only thing that restores order to the rest of society. Philosopher Irving Babbitt argued that “there may be something after all in the Confucian idea that if a man only sets himself right, the rightness will extend to his family first of all, and finally in widening circles to the whole community.”
If dark and illiberal days truly are ahead, as it seems reasonable to consider at least as a possibility, then these localized bastions of ordered liberty will become more important than ever. Perhaps instead of letting strangers in state schools and who knows what kind of wackos on the internet raise one’s children, now is the time to take the plunge into homeschooling, or at the very least to invest time in their education and moral upbringing. Perhaps now is the time to develop friendly relations with one’s neighbors and to begin attending local township meetings. Perhaps now is the time to begin to invest one’s time and energy in what the sociologist Robert Nisbet called the intermediary groups and associations that serve as a buffer between the state and the solitary and weak individual.
This is not to say that federal politics should be ignored completely; the federal government is impossible to ignore thanks to the immense power it wields. But such engagement must not come at the cost of those areas of life that are truly under one’s control.
Disorder increasingly reigns across the land and with disorder inevitably comes oppression and the curtailment of our traditional rights and liberties. The restoration of order begins with oneself and one’s home. Societal order will not be restored until order is restored in the hearts of those who make up the society. Even if the pessimists are correct and our country is too far advanced down the path of decay and collapse that every other empire has trodden in history, the cultivation of personal order is still imperative for survival in the dark and chaotic days to come.
Tyler Durden
Fri, 01/15/2021 – 21:00 - Surprise! Chicago Mayor Pushes To Loosen Lockdowns Days Before Biden Inauguration
Surprise! Chicago Mayor Pushes To Loosen Lockdowns Days Before Biden Inauguration
A second Democratic leader is pushing for loosening COVID-19 restrictions, just days before President-elect Biden is set to be sworn in.
Following on the heels of NY Gov. Andrew Cuomo’s call to “reopen the economy,” Chicago Mayor Lori Lightfoot is now of the opinion that bars and restaurants need to reopen for indoor dining “as quickly as possible.”
“I am very, very focused on getting our restaurants reopened. If we look at the various criteria that the state has set, we are meeting most if not all of those. So that’s a conversation that I will have with the governor,” she said at a Thursday press conference. “But I want to get our restaurants and our bars reopened as quickly as possible.“
“Let’s bring it out of the shadows, let’s allow them to have some recreation in restaurants, in bars, where we can actually work with responsible owners and managers to regulate and protect people from COVID-19, so I feel very strongly that we are very close to a point where we should be talking about opening our bars and restaurants,” she continued.
This would, as it turns out, help Chicago City Councilmember Tom Tunney (D), who was caught running an illegal ‘COVID Speakeasy‘ out of his Chicago restaurant last month.
Lightfoot’s call for reopening comes after she told people to cancel Thanksgiving with family, while the number of case counts across the state reversing higher over the last two weeks from a January 1 bottom. Meanwhile, while the Mayor is calling to reopen indoor dining (and gradually reopen schools), she oddly extended a stay-home advisory until January 22. We’re unclear on exactly which science she’s following.
The Chicago Tribune elaborates, saying it will ultimately come down to Governor. J.B. Pritzker (D) to make the call:
On Thursday, Chicago’s test positivity stood at 10%, according to city statistics. Under the current pandemic rules, the city would have to have a positivity rate of 6.5% or less for three straight days in order for restaurants and bars to reopen.
Ultimately, it’s Pritzker who will make the decision about when bars and restaurants can reopen for indoor service. The city can set rules that are stricter than the state’s but not rules that are looser.
A Pritzker spokeswoman said in a statement Thursday that Chicago’s coronavirus numbers aren’t there yet, but the governor would “look forward to her call” on the matter.
Pritzker, as you may recall, ignored Lightfoot’s “do not travel” order to leave Chicago for Thanksgiving.
“As the governor announced last week, beginning tomorrow, regions who meet the metrics to go back to lower tiers in the resurgence mitigation plan will be allowed to do so,” said Pritzker spokeswoman Jordan Abudayyeh. “Currently, the city of Chicago and Cook County do not meet the metrics to return to previous tiers.”
Pritzker shuttered Chicago restaurants and bars for indoor dining in late October after the city surpassed the 8% benchmark for three straight days on average daily positivity.
Tyler Durden
Fri, 01/15/2021 – 20:40 - Consent-Manufacturing For Patriot Act II Continues
Consent-Manufacturing For Patriot Act II Continues
Authored by Caitlin Johnstone via Medium.com,
It’s been obvious for a long time that the best way to stop the rise of right-wing extremism in America that everyone’s so worried about today is not to pass a bunch of authoritarian laws, but to reverse the policies of soul-crushing neoliberalism and domestic austerity which led to Donald Trump. Instead of doing this, the next president is already pushing a Patriot Act sequel and reducing the stimulus checks he’d promised the public before he’s even been sworn in.
President-elect Biden promised unambiguously that if voters gave the Democratic Party control of the Senate by electing Raphael Warnock and Jon Ossoff in Georgia earlier this month, checks of $2,000 would “go out the door immediately”. Warnock blatantly campaigned on the promise of $2000 checks if elected, literally using pictures of checks with “$2000” written on them to do so. This was not an unclear promise by any stretch of the imagination, yet when Biden unveiled the “American Rescue Plan” on Thursday, the number 1400 was written where the number 2000 should have been.
Boss: Here’s your check.
Employee: This is $1400. You said $2000 for the job.
Boss: Yeah but that’s minus the $600 I paid you for the last job. You’re welcome.— Caitlin Johnstone ⏳ (@caitoz) January 15, 2021
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The argument being pushed out at the moment is that when Democrats were blatantly promising stimulus checks of $2000 what they really meant was that Americans would receive $1400 on top of the $600 checks they’d received earlier, and everyone should have just known this somehow (perhaps via some sort of psychic precognition or sorcery). Which of course makes as much sense as someone hiring you to do a job for a given amount of money and then paying you the amount promised minus the amount you’d made at your last job.
It’s just so emblematic of US austerity policies, which are so normalized they don’t even use that word. Keep people stretched so thin that even a paltry $2000 after months and months of nothing can be spun as an excessively exorbitant indulgence which must be scaled back to keep it reasonable. In reality a grand total of $2600 in the richest nation on earth after all this time would still be a huge slap in the face, but generations of media spin have gone into keeping Americans from attaining that level of rightful entitlement.
So as of this writing the internet is full of angry Americans actually typing the words “$1400 is not $2000”, which is totally bananas. People should not have to say that the number 1400 is not the same as the number 2000. It feels like if my Twitter feed was full of people saying “Cars are not birds”, or “Pogs are not iPhones”, or “Mimes are not salad”. People should not have to make such self-evident clarifications.
But they apparently do need to make such clarifications, because scumbags like Adam Schiff are looking them right in the eye, sharing information that says “$1,400 checks” on it, and telling them that it says “$2000 relief checks”.
2 + 2 = 5.
So again, it’s pretty clear that America isn’t going to attempt to reverse the conditions which created Trump and all the extremist factions that everyone’s been freaking out about since the Capitol riot. Obama led to Trump, and the strategy going forward is to just keep tightening the neoliberal screws like both Obama and Trump did throughout their entire administrations. And, of course, to advance new “domestic terrorism” laws.
As we discussed previously, Biden has often boasted of being the original author of the Patriot Act years before it was rapidly rolled out amid the fear and blind obsequiousness of the aftermath of 9/11. Now in the aftermath of the Capitol riot we are seeing a push to roll out new authoritarian laws around terrorism, this time taking aim at “domestic terror”, which were also in preparation prior to the event used to manufacture support for them.
In a new article for Washington Monthly titled “It’s Time for a Domestic Terrorism Law”, Bill Scher argues against left-wing critics of the coming laws like Glenn Greenwald and Jacobin’s Luke Savage saying such “knee-jerk reactions” against potential authoritarian abuses fail to address the growing problem. He opens with the acknowledgement that “Joe Biden’s transition team was already working on a domestic terrorism law before the insurrection,” and then he just keeps on writing as though that’s not weird or suspicious in any way.
Scher lists among the growing threat of domestic terror not just white supremacists and right-wing extremists but “extremist left-wing domestic terrorism” as well. He approvingly cites Adam Schiff’s Confronting The Threat of Terrorism Act, which “creates a definition of domestic terrorism broadly encompassing plots that carry a ‘substantial risk of serious bodily injury’ along with an ‘intent to intimidate or coerce a civilian population’ or ‘influence the policy of a government by intimidation or coercion.’” The ACLU has unequivocally denounced Schiff’s bill, saying it “would unnecessarily expand law enforcement authorities to target and discriminate against the very communities Congress is seeking to protect.”
This is sketchy. Anonymous FBI officials basically tell NBC the violence at the Capitol could have been stopped if it wasn’t for free speech and the first amendment. They’re priming us for domestic terrorist laws.https://t.co/wJP7UhEIFB
— Dave DeCamp (@DecampDave) January 13, 2021
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Known CIA asset Ken Dilanian has also been trotted out to make the case that Americans have too many rights for their own good, co-authoring an NBC article titled “Worried about free speech, FBI never issued intelligence bulletin about possible Capitol violence”.
“FBI intelligence analysts gathered information about possible violence involving the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6., but the FBI never distributed a formal intelligence bulletin, in part because of concerns that doing so might have run afoul of free speech protections, a current and two former senior FBI officials familiar with the matter told NBC News,” the article warns, making sure to inform readers that “experts say the lack of a domestic terrorism statute constrains the FBI from treating far-right and far-left groups the same as Americans who are radicalized to violence by Al Qaeda or ISIS ideology.”
We can expect to see more such articles going forward.
The only way to sincerely believe more Patriot Act-like laws will benefit Americans is to believe that the US will only have wise and beneficent leaders going forward, and the only way to sincerely believe the US will only have wise and beneficent leaders going forward is to be completely shit-eating stupid. The trajectory has already been chosen, and that trajectory is the one that has already given rise to Trump. Continuing along that same trajectory can only give rise to something far uglier, and that something far uglier will have whatever new authoritarian powers are added by Joe Biden.
They’re not actually worried about “domestic terror”, they’re worried about any movement which threatens to topple the status quo. They want to make sure they can adequately spy, infiltrate, agitate and incarcerate into impotence any movement which provides a threat to America’s rulers and the system which funnels them wealth and power at the expense of everyone else. The movements which most threaten this are not rightists, who are generally more or less aligned with the interests of the oligarchic empire, but the left.
This is who they’ll end up targeting going forward, and whatever Biden and Company wind up rolling out to fight “domestic terrorism” will help them do so.
* * *
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Tyler Durden
Fri, 01/15/2021 – 20:20 - Restaurant Chain Transactions Tumble In December As Recovery Stalls
Restaurant Chain Transactions Tumble In December As Recovery Stalls
Dining restrictions and cold weather have derailed the restaurant recovery in December.
Market research firm NDP Group, which tracks 75 restaurant chains, said transactions at major chains slumped 10% in December versus the same month one year ago.
“Up until December, monthly restaurant transaction declines had been improving consecutively since April. November transactions were down just 8%,” CNBC said, citing the report.
A reemergence of the virus pandemic, new indoor dining restrictions, and colder weather dissuaded patrons last month from returning.
The full-service restaurant segment has been some of the hardest hit, unable to adapt, or has had a more challenging time overhauling their business models to accommodate delivery and takeout.
In April, the full-service segment saw transactions plunge by more than 70%. In December, transactions fell 30% due to indoor dining limitations or bans.
UBS Evidence Lab found that even if these restaurants could pivot to takeout, many of these stores will still fall short of revenue to sustain operations.
Some of the latest Bank of America consumer spending data shows chain restaurants are fairing much better than mom and pop ones.
While the industry struggles and requests for more relief, the Bureau of Labor Statistics reported last Friday that food services and drinking places lost 372,000 jobs in December.
Goldman Sachs pointed out that colder weather would accelerate infections. This means local and state governments would be forced to limit or continue the ban through early 2021, crushing the industry even further.
With more than 110,00 restaurants already collapsed, the stage is being set for an epic bust in commercial real estate.
Tyler Durden
Fri, 01/15/2021 – 20:00 - Rush To Judgment On Trump? Multiple Leftists Arrested For Capitol Riot
Rush To Judgment On Trump? Multiple Leftists Arrested For Capitol Riot
Authored by Monica Showalter via AmericanThinker.com,
When the Capitol riots happened on Jan. 6, the blame of President Trump was all over.
Supposedly, he was the instigator. Supposedly, he’d egged the rioters on. The tape of his urging his supporters to stay strong and fight was Exhibit A in the press, and with no skepticism whatsoever, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi declared Trump guilty and rushed a crazily hasty second impeachment just days before Trump’s exit. She declared it was all about holding Trump “accountable” and she added, that her explicit aim at the uselessly late date was to prevent him from ever running from public office again.
Never mind what the voters might want. In more ways than one, in Pelosi’s addled mind, their votes don’t count.
The press also rushed to judgment, even the Wall Street Journal’s editorial writers, claiming that Trump’s political capital and credibility was now gone and he’d never run for president again.
But as news of the arrests comes out, showing who these branded Trump so-called supporters are, the conventional argument is starting to splinter apart.
The arrests made in the riots case are starting to show the kind of people who like to riot, which is to say extreme leftists.
Start with this freak, as reported by Fox News:
A left-wing activist who told Fox News last week that he’d followed a pro-Trump mob into the Capitol in order to “document” the siege is now the subject of a criminal complaint in connection with his alleged participation, according to the U.S. Justice Department.
John Sullivan can allegedly be heard egging on protesters in video he provided to the FBI, according to a federal criminal complaint. He has also shared the video to his YouTube and Twitter accounts under the pseudonym Jayden X.
He was charged Thursday in federal court in Washington after being arrested by the FBI. He remains in custody in Toeele County, in his home state of Utah, on a U.S. Marshals Service hold request.
The Epoch Times reports that he was a Black Lives Matter activist. Andy Ngo notes that he’s been busted for BLM riot activity, too. GatewayPundit reported that he was caught on video bragging about posing as a Trump supporter.
He had a pal, too, from CNN. According to this report from TrendingPolitics:
On Thursday night, damning new footage showed CNN’s Jade Sacker inside of the Capitol with John Sullivan, the BLM member who was charged by federal prosecutors for inciting chaos on January 6th.
Sacker co-conspired with the liberal activist in order to cause chaos and make Trump supporters look bad.
The shocking video shows her and Sullivan celebrating and shouting “We did it!” when they got the footage they were looking for. When she asked Sullivan if he was filming, he said was going to delete it. He never did.
Trending Politics ran a tweet of the actual video, and described this:
As you can see, Sacker and Sullivan are overjoyed with the fact that they got footage of Trump supporters “rioting”.
“Is this not gonna be the best film you’ve ever made in your life?!” Sullivan asks her.
Verified twitter user Amuse breaks everything down in further detail in a series of tweets.
“To make this clear. CNN was embedded with BLM/Antifa pretending to be Trump supporters taping them incite a riot. This is freaking huge. If CNN is allowed to maintain its press access anywhere in DC there needs to be a serious overhaul of our entire system,” he tweeted.
BREAKING: CNN’s Jade Sacker penetrating the Capitol with a member of BLM/Antifa cheering, “We did it!” And then asking her conspirator if he was filming, he said he’d delete it, he lied. CNN was in on it. pic.twitter.com/FVhotiAwcP
— @amuse (@amuse) January 15, 2021
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Here’s another one, who showed up with furs, and also got himself arrested. According to the New York Post:
Aaron Mostofsky was busted Tuesday at his brother’s house in Brooklyn by federal agents on multiple charges, including theft of government property for allegedly stealing a police riot shield and bulletproof vest, the source said.
Mostofsky, who is the son of Shlomo Mostofsky, a Supreme Court judge and a prominent figure in the Orthodox Jewish community, was photographed with both items.
Video circulating on Twitter following Mostofsky’s arrest shows FBI agents swarming the home and carting out what appeared to be the fur pelts and walking stick he had on him during the insurrection.
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His politics? According to this report, registered Democrat.
Even the press is starting to notice that the pieces aren’t fitting together. Rather than a picture of all wicked and crazed Trump supporters, charging the Capitol, leftist news outfit Bloomberg reported that its survey of various parties involved, including those who died or were arrested, didn’t paint the desired picture. Conclusion?
Many of those shown in news footage had no party affiliation and voted sporadically, if at all.
Bloomberg’s survey of the players showed that only the people who died of medical emergencies seemed to be fully normal Republican voters — the rest didn’t vote at all, voted sporadically, voted Libertarian, Independent or Democrat, and in general were fringe players. Bloomberg, missing that obvious conclusion, seemed to consider these mostly arrested characters “Trump’s people” and Trump’s “base,” in a bid to still pin the riots on Trump. But how anyone who votes Democrat or doesn’t vote at all could be a part of Trump’s rise and the huge crowds he draws was never actually explained. Trump supporters … vote for Trump. This isn’t rocket science.
More and more, it looks like Trump was framed. This, in addition to transcripts not bearing out the claims that Trump called for an attack on the Capitol, as well as the inconvenient timeline — the FBI put out warnings of plans for disturbances days earlier, and the attack on the Capitol began before President Trump finished speaking and probably uttered the words the Democrats literally impeached him on.
It was a rush to judgment, a failure to look at facts. It happened in the aftermath of the event, and it turns out Trump had little or nothing to do with it. Even House Republican leader Kevin McCarthy blamed Trump for the riots. But he, too,disgracefully rushed to judgment, so we await his apology, please.
The rush to judgment, incidentally, didn’t affect just President Trump, who got a second impeachment from it. There were many rushes to judgment in this leftist hysteria.
Here’s a blameless man named David Quintavalle, a retired Chicago firefighter, who was falsely accused of being the person who hurled the fire extinguisher that killed police officer Brian Sicknick, who by the way, really was a Trump supporter.
According to The Patch of Chicago:
The retired Chicago firefighter from Mount Greenwood — whom social media trolls called a “terrorist” and accused of fatally wielding a fire extinguisher that killed a cop as a mob of Trump-supporting insurrectionists stormed the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6 — was grocery shopping and celebrating his wife’s birthday in Chicago, Patch has learned.
Twitter exploded with unsubstantiated claims Tuesday that Quintavalle — who retired from the fire department in 2016 after 32 years — was the bearded “#extinguisherman” in a surveillance video wearing a “CFD” stocking cap wanted for questioning and “soon to be arrested” by the FBI regarding the fatal beating of U.S. Capitol Police officer Brian Sicknick.
Quintavalle had all his receipts and proofs. But this is how the left’s rush to judgment went for him:
By Tuesday night, Quintavalle began getting angry calls from people saying he’s a “f—— murderer” who belongs in jail. TV news reporters had staked out his house. Chicago police dispatched a patrol car to keep watch overnight, as well, his lawyer said.
Some folks got ridiculed for tweeting that Quintavalle wasn’t “the guy” and his facial features don’t match those of the man wanted for questioning by the FBI. One post claimed that tweets disputing Quintavalle’s involvement in the U.S. Capitol insurrection were pushed by trolling Twitter “bots with practically no followers coming out of the woodwork.”
This is a hell of a sorry picture.
The facts will continue to roll out and the picture that emerges will likely start to show that these rioters were hardly “Trump’s people” as a rule, or people who were egged on by Trump. They were, in general, leftists, political fringers and people who like to go to riots. There remains to be news of whether and how this fiasco was plotted out but expect news of that to roll out.
That leaves Congress and all the jerks who voted for impeachment of President Trump looking like boobs and losers. They’ve hitched their star to this leftist impeachment obsession, and now have seen it falling flat. Now they are about to sully and overshadow Joe Biden’s first days in office with increasingly discredited charges against President Trump and rest assured, the voters will notice just how bad it is. This rush to judgment will trash their own legacies for history.
Tyler Durden
Fri, 01/15/2021 – 19:40 - New York Lawmaker Wants To Ban Bulletproof Vests
New York Lawmaker Wants To Ban Bulletproof Vests
In a world of surging violent crime, economic downturn, and a raging virus pandemic, one New York lawmaker has introduced a bill to outlaw body armor in the state, according to The Washington Free Beacon.
If the bill is passed, anyone who owns body armor would have to surrender their vests within 15 days of the law being passed or face severe consequences.
The bill introduced by assemblymember Jonathan G. Jacobson (D.) is attempting to outlaw the sale and possession of body armor across the state.
New York already prohibits the use of bulletproof vests while carrying out “any violent felony offense.” Still, Jacobson’s proposal would make it criminal for anyone in possession of a vest.
So what’s the penalty if the new law is passed?
According to the law, “the purchase or possession of a body vest shall be a class A misdemeanor for a first offense and a Class E felony for each subsequent offense.” This could result in fines, probation, and even jail time.
This week, we noted that background checks for firearms hit record levels this year amid the virus pandemic, social unrest, and surging violent crime.
If Jacobson’s bill passes, body armor bans could sweep across blue states. Even before the bans may be seen, there could certainly be a run on vests.
* * *
Here’s Jacobson’s new bill in full:
Tyler Durden
Fri, 01/15/2021 – 19:20 - The Hottest Product At CES Is A Doggy Door
The Hottest Product At CES Is A Doggy Door
Submitted by Market Crumbs,
While garage doors aren’t exactly the most exciting business to be in, it’s a strong business nonetheless for Chamberlain Group, the world’s largest manufacturer of automatic garage door openers.
Chamberlain Group’s brands have embraced the trend of smart homes, for example its myQ brand has teamed up with Amazon to offer In-Garage Delivery, enabling Amazon Fresh and Whole Foods Market groceries to be delivered securely inside your garage.
myQ stole the show at this year’s CES with the debut of its new Pet Portal as it hopes to capitalize on the booming pet industry. The myQ Pet Portal, which won the CES 2021 Smart Home Innovation Award, is designed to replace an existing exterior door so your pets can come and go as they please.
The futuristic take on a simple pet door includes live video streaming and 2-way communication using the myQ Pet Portal app. The patent-pending, elevator style opening mechanism is unnoticeable from the exterior of a home and uses a smart collar to detect when your pet wants to come or go.
myQ is taking deposits for the Pet Portal, which retails for $2,999 and will ship to the first customers this spring. The package includes a custom configured myQ | Kolbe Door integrated with Pet Portal as well as a 1 year subscription for video history.
Chamberlain Group hopes to position itself for when people return to work and their pets are left at home alone. They argue that the lofty price is less than half of what pet owners would spend annually on a dogwalker.
“A bright spot for many people in a challenging 2020 has been adding a furry friend to the family. But as COVID-19 restrictions begin to lift in 2021 many dogs will experience a dramatic change in their routine,” Chamberlain Group Director of Product Marketing Beril Altiner said. “The myQ Pet Portal can help alleviate some of the stress and expenses that might come along as schedules change. It’s a secure and convenient way to make sure your dog can go outside when they need to, while also giving you access to your best friend anytime through your smartphone.”
While the idea may sound absurd, a team of a dozen employees at Chamberlain Group have been working on the idea for 16 months while conducting surveys and focus groups to perfect the technology. According to a national survey conducted by the company, just 8% to 11% of pet owners have a pet door in their homes. The survey also found that 68% of households who routinely let their pet outside don’t have a pet door.
Despite the lofty price tag, it may not be long before this becomes a common door in new homes across America as they become increasingly connected and filled with pets.
Tyler Durden
Fri, 01/15/2021 – 19:00 - In Historic First, FAA Approves Fully Automated Commercial Drones In US Skies
In Historic First, FAA Approves Fully Automated Commercial Drones In US Skies
In nothing less than a revolutionary step for aviation and which will forever alter the skies over America, on Thursday the Federal Aviation Administration for the first time issued approval for the first fully automated commercial drone flights.
It’s been revealed Friday that the FAA granted a small Massachusetts-based company called American Robotics Inc. the authorization to operate automated drones, meaning they won’t need either hands-on piloting on the ground or direct observation while in flight.
Commercial drone operation was already given approval under extremely limited conditions – for example as a remote inspection tool for agricultural areas or railroads, but so long as human operators were in the vicinity, along with spotters.
The Wall Street Journal reports of the new approval:
“…in its action Thursday, the FAA granted American Robotics Inc., based in Marlborough, Mass., permission to fly in U.S. airspace without anyone controlling or monitoring it on site, according to Lisa Ellman, a lawyer in the Washington, D.C., office of Hogan Lovells, who represents the company and also is executive director of the Commercial Drone Alliance, an industry trade group.”
In particular its Scout drones will “operate under predetermined flight programs and use acoustic technology to detect and avoid drones, birds and other obstacles,” according to the WSJ report.
The news also comes as the FAA this week is implementing new aviation rules which are expected to allow for eventual broad expansion of drone deliveries by companies like Amazon. However, authorities have remained cautiously slow given the immense safety concerns both to traditional aviation and air travel, as well as to bystanders on the ground, and the fact that commercial drone delivery traffic is likely to be most active over dense residential areas.
FAA Approves First Fully Automated Commercial Drone Flights—The decision “limits operation of automated drones to rural areas and altitudes below 40 feet, but is a potentially significant step in expanding commercial application”https://t.co/wdRoQKHp4l
— Jonathan Feldman (@_jfeldman) January 15, 2021
https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js
“The new rules make way for the further integration of drones into our airspace by addressing safety and security concerns,” FAA Administrator Steve Dickson earlier this week. “They get us closer to the day when we will more routinely see drone operations such as the delivery of packages.”
Tyler Durden
Fri, 01/15/2021 – 18:40 - Biden Reveals Plans To Speed Up Vaccine Rollout, Asks Americans To "Mask Up" For 100 Days
Biden Reveals Plans To Speed Up Vaccine Rollout, Asks Americans To “Mask Up” For 100 Days
For weeks ahead of the election, Joe Biden kept hammering Trump’s response to the covid pandemic without explicitly stating what or how he would do differently, besides “urging” Americans to wear masks (which is what California has been diligently doing even as the state now boasts the highest number of cases in the nation) and to “listen to scientists.” Today, for the first time, the president elect laid out in specific terms what will would do to eradicate the covid plague and how he plans to speed up the vaccine rollout.
Addressing the nation near his home in Wilmington, Delaware, Biden said he would order increased production of syringes and other supplies to ramp up vaccinations against COVID-19 and improve upon the Trump administration rollout that he has called a “dismal failure.”
Trump had aimed to give vaccine doses to 20 million Americans by the end of 2020. But only 11.1 million coronavirus shots had been administered as of Thursday out of more than 30 million doses distributed to states, amid widespread distrust and roughly 40% of the population refusing to get vaccinates.
Biden promised to do better and to get 100 million vaccine shots into the arms of Americans during his first 100 days in office. Federal officials have largely left states to manage distribution, resulting in big differences in vaccination rates. The Trump administration has said it expects 1 million shots to be delivered per day by the end of next week.
“This is a time to set big goals and pursue them with courage and conviction because the health of the nation is literally at stake,” Biden said.
Biden said he will instruct FEMA would to begin setting up community vaccination sites on his first day in office, in locations like gymnasiums, sports stadiums and community centers, where retired doctors would administer shots to teachers, grocery store workers, people over 65 years old and other groups who do not currently qualify.
“Mobile clinics moving from community to community” will partner will local health-care professionals to get vaccinations to “hard-to-reach” communities, he said.
According to a document released by his transition team, Biden would invoke the Defense Production Act to increase production of equipment needed to distribute the vaccines, such as glass vials, needles and syringes. He would also use the law to support vaccine refrigeration and storage. States that use their National Guard in the effort would be reimbursed by the federal government.
As part of Biden’s “aggressive” plan to defeat covid, he called on all Americans to wear masks in public for 100 days to combat the spread of the coronavirus, saying it was “stupid” that face coverings had become a political issue.
“This is a patriotic act,” Biden said in a speech in Wilmington, Delaware, on Friday outlining his plan to accelerate vaccinations against the virus. “We’re asking you, we’re in a war with this virus.” Biden also criticized Republican lawmakers who have refused to wear masks. “What the hell is the matter with them? It’s time to grow up.”
“For God’s sake, wear a mask – if not for yourself, for your loved ones, for your country,” Biden said, despite a recent Danish study which found that masks provide the wearer with only limited protection against COVID-19 infection. That study, conducted in April and May in which 6,024 adults were divided into two groups, found that after one month, 1.8% of the people wearing masks had been infected, while 2.1% of the people in the control group had tested positive.
Biden also called for increasing vaccine distribution in lower-income neighborhoods not currently well served by public health hospitals and pharmacies. Biden also plans a marketing campaign to encourage those skeptical of the vaccine to get inoculated.
“The vaccine rollout in the United States has been a dismal failure so far,” he said. Five changes, he said, will help the U.S. meet his goal of 100 million doses in his first 100 days.
“You have my word: we will manage the hell out of this operation,” he said. It was unclear who the “we” is though we suspect he means the Federal government, which explains just how “hellishly” this operation will be managed.
That said, and similar to his pre-election promises, Biden’s pledges remain vague about timelines, reinforcing Biden’s previous warnings that there’ll be no quick fix.
“We didn’t get into all of this overnight. And we won’t get out of it overnight, either,” Biden said. “We remain in a very dark winter.”
According to an announcement Friday by his transition office, Biden would encourage states to abandon a complex series of priority groups that’s been used to triage vaccination and instead focus on giving shots to front-line essential workers and anyone over 65. He plans to set up community vaccination centers and mobile clinics and “jump-start” an effort to make shots available at pharmacies.
And so once again, the scientists – who originally urged a priority group rollout – were proven wrong.
Implementation of priority groups was driven by science but “has been too rigid and confusing,” Biden said. “There are tens of millions of doses of vaccine sitting around unused in freezers across the country” while people who want vaccinations can’t get them, he said.
“I’ve already asked the team and we’ve identified the suppliers who are prepared to work with our teams,” he said. Needless to say, companies like Pfizer which stand to make billions, were delighted: Pfizer CEO said he is “ready and able to support this plan” adding that “we are particularly aligned with the ideas of federally assisted vaccination centers, financial support to the States, mobile clinics to reach underserved urban areas and rural communities, vaccine availability in pharmacies and qualified health centers and an expanded public health workforce.”
Biden’s fourth change is a previously announced plan to release more first doses of vaccines and hold less in reserve for second doses. The Trump administration announced it would make that change itself this week. Biden said his administration would not change recommended dosing schedules that call for people to receive a booster shot three or four weeks after their first dose.
His fifth change, he said, will be more transparency for the vaccine program, including regular updates on progress toward vaccinating the population.
Biden’s team on Friday appointed former Food and Drug Administration Commissioner David Kessler as chief science officer of what it calls “Covid Response.” They’re retiring the “Operation Warp Speed” name President Donald Trump used for the vaccination effort. Kessler will replace Moncef Slaoui, who served as the initiative’s chief scientist, and Kessler will focus on administering the vaccine.
Earlier in the day, his transition team said he will reorganize the vaccine distribution team currently called “Operation Warp Speed” and has asked former Food and Drug Administration chief David Kessler to work with manufacturers to boost vaccine availability. On Thursday evening, Biden unveiled a $1.9 trillion stimulus plan on Thursday that includes $20 billion for vaccine distribution as well as $50 billion for coronavirus testing, which experts and officials said should help speed the process up.
Biden’s aggressive measures come just as the number of hospitalizations in the US declined for the first time in 4 months…
… and as Bank of America predicted that, absent a major spread of a mutant variant, the vaccinations should bring the virus under control in just a few weeks.
A video of Biden laying out his plan is below.
Tyler Durden
Fri, 01/15/2021 – 18:20 - Looking Forward at Interest Rates, the U.S. Dollar, Volatility, and the B117 Variant
Looking Forward at Interest Rates, the U.S. Dollar, Volatility, and the B117 VariantReal Vision CEO and co-founder Raoul Pal joins Real Vision managing editor Ed Harrison for a nuanced discussion of how the economic recovery will evolve over the next few months. Raoul and Ed interpret today’s dismal retail sales figure, which indicate a contraction of total retail activity for the third straight month. With the new B117 COVID-19 variant on the move, Raoul expects economic activity to continue to decline, ebbing away at the dominant reflationary trades that are short U.S. Treasurys as well as the U.S. dollar. Ed asks Raoul his thoughts on the recent storming of the U.S. Capitol, the approaching inauguration of President Elect Joe Biden, and Biden’s new $1.9 Trillion stimulus plan. Lastly, Raoul and Ed wax philosophical about “the death of macro”: what would happen if the volatility of interest rates and currencies – the bread and butter of macro investing – were extremely low over the next decade? In the intro, editor Jack Farley provides context on bank earnings and the recent short squeeze of GameStop Corp ($GME).
Tyler Durden
Fri, 01/15/2021 – 18:19
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