- Globalists Will Need Another Crisis In America As Their Reset Agenda Fails
Globalists Will Need Another Crisis In America As Their Reset Agenda Fails
Authored by Brandon Smith via Alt-Market.us,
It might sound like “US exceptionalism” to point this out (…and how very dare I), but even if the globalist Reset is successful in every other nation on Earth, the globalists are still failures if they can’t secure and subjugate the American people. As I’ve noted many times in the past, most of the world has been sufficiently disarmed, and even though we are seeing resistance in multiple European nations against forced vaccination legislation and medical tyranny, it is unlikely that they will have the ability to actually repel a full on march into totalitarianism. Most of Asia, India and Australia are already well under control. Africa is almost an afterthought , considering Africa is where many suspect vaccines are tested.
America represents the only significant obstacle to the agenda.
Conservative Americans in particular have been a thorn in the side of the globalists for generations, and it really comes down to a simple matter of mutual exclusion: You cannot have an openly globalist society and conservative ideals at the same time in the same place. It is impossible.
Conservatives believe in limited government, true free markets, individual liberty, the value of life, freedom of speech, private property rights, the right to self defense, the right to self determination, freedom of religion, and the non-aggression principle (we won’t harm you unless you try to harm us). None of these ideals can exist in a globalist world because globalism is at it’s core is the pursuit of a fully centralized tyranny.
There are people on this planet that are not satisfied to merely live their lives, take care of their families and make their mark peacefully. They crave power over all else. They desperately want control over you, over me, over everything, and they will use any means at their disposal to get it. I would compare it to a kind of drug addiction; globalists are like crack addicts, they can never get enough power, there is always something more to take.
They tell themselves and others that they are “philanthropists”, that “they know what is best” for the rest of us. They believe themselves superior and therefore it is their “destiny” to dictate and micro-manage society for the “greater good” of us all. But really, when we witness their methods it becomes clear that they have no noble aspirations. They have no empathy or honor. They don’t care about the average human being, or the environment, or the economy or society in general. They only care about themselves and their delusions of grandeur. These people are a cancer on the rest of civilization.
They seem to be particularly obsessed with deconstructing and sabotaging America in the pursuit of their global Reset. Real philanthropists would not have a problem if someone didn’t want to accept their “charity”, but psychopaths cannot abide a group of people rejecting them and their ideology. You are not allowed to walk away from them. You are not allowed to do things your own way. You must be forced to comply. The agenda only works if EVERYONE submits.
Unfortunately for the globalists, the Reset is not working out for them everywhere. In the US, the agenda is failing miserably compared to Asia and parts of Europe.
As the head of the World Economic Forum, Klaus Schwab, is so fond of reminding us, the Covid pandemic is the “perfect opportunity” to push forward the globalist plans for a total Reset of human economy and society. To the globalists, the crisis is a panacea, a doorway to their version of a better world. They love the pandemic, they are not distressed by it.
The problem is, it’s not doing enough damage or terrifying enough people.
Consider the Event 201 coronavirus pandemic simulation – It was held by the World Economic Forum and the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation only two months before the real thing “coincidentally” happened in early 2020. The pandemic war game was less about saving lives and more about how the elites planned to keep the public under control. The suppression of alternative media and censorship in social media was discussed at great length. Dissenting voices need to be silenced if the Reset is going to prevail.
One factor within the Event 201 simulation that never played out, though, was the WEF projections on deaths. The war game suggested at least 65 million initial deaths due to the pandemic. Early projections on the death rate suggested 2% to 3% of the population or more. The same projections were repeated by the UN’s World Health Organization when the real pandemic was first revealed to the public.
Instead, Covid-19 has been a letdown for the globalists, with a tiny death rate of around 0.26% outside of nursing homes. Meaning, 99.7% of the population has nothing to worry about from covid. Millions of Americans are becoming savvy to the situation and are refusing to comply with mandates over a virus that is a non-threat.
Instead of backing off of the Reset scheme, the globalists are continuing to double down. Why? Because they have no other choice. They let the cat out of the bag and bloviating big-mouths like Klaus Schwab told the world exactly what the plan is. If they retreat now, they might NEVER get another chance to implement a world centralization plan; a massive grift which requires medical tyranny in order to prevent rebellion.
You see, if the death rate had been dramatically higher than 0.26% and covid represented a legitimate threat, then maybe a larger portion of the US population would have been on board with longer term restrictions and medical passports. Maybe not. The fact remains that 40% of deaths have been in nursing homes among patients with preexisting illnesses, the death rate outside of these facilities is minimal, the mask mandates have been proven completely ineffective and the states that have remained open and removed mask mandates have FALLING death and infection rates when compared to states that are enforcing lockdowns.
The fear narrative is falling apart. States across the US are opening and are refusing to implement useless mandates. In my home state of Montana, legislators and the governor are passing laws that forbid the enforcement of medical passports. Even major corporations are not allowed to demand vaccine passports from customers or employees.
On top of that, 40% to 50% of the US population in polls are refusing to comply with the vaccine rollout or medical passports. Why take a vaccine for a virus that 99.7% of the population is unaffected by anyway?
The jig is up. The globalists are going to need another crisis if they hope to enforce further lockdowns in the US, along with medical passports and disarmament. Do not be surprised if there is more engineered chaos going into the summer months. But what will the next crisis look like? I think we are already seeing the signs…
Covid Mutations
The mainstream media is pushing a non-stop narrative of covid mutation hype. We hear about UK and Brazilian variants on a weekly basis, and the assertion has been that surely, these variants will be more infectious and more deadly that the original virus. There is still no proof whatsoever to confirm this, but the globalists only care about planting the idea in people’s heads. They only care about reigniting the fear.
My feeling is that this strategy is going to fail, at least in the US. Too many Americans are aware of the con game, and a new virus threat is not going to have the same effect as Covid-19 did in the early months of the pandemic. None of us really knew what we were facing back then, and caution was a practical response. Today, we know for a fact that covid is not a concern for the vast majority of the public. Media attempts to amp up the threat will be ineffective, but they will of course still try.
BLM Riots
This is the next obvious tactic on the part of the establishment. Numerous state officials are openly supporting renewed riots across the country due to a recent police shooting in Minnesota. The shooting itself was accidental, with the suspect violently resisting arrest and leaping into his car. A female officer grabbed her pistol in a panic instead of her taser and fired.
This event had nothing to do with racism, and nothing to do with police brutality. But, that’s not stopping Marxist groups like BLM from taking advantage and making it all about “white supremacy”. The real danger of unrest, however, will arrive at the closing of the Derek Chauvin trail.
With the trail coming to an end, evidence has been revealed that George Floyd was involved in heavy drug use and the medical examiner indicated that this along with heart disease were contributing factors to Floyd’s death. A “speed ball” containing Fentanyl was also discovered in the back of the police cruiser in which Floyd was originally restrained. So, even if Derek Chauvin’s knee to the neck tactic helped kill Floyd, it is unlikely that a jury will convict him of 1st or 2nd degree murder based on the evidence. Any lesser charges will undoubtedly trigger more BLM riots.
Conveniently, these powderkeg events are taking place at the onset of the warm spring and summer months, which is prime time for riots.
My concern is that civil unrest will be allowed to spread and fester in the US until regular citizens start taking matters into their own hands. And, of course, any community that tries to defend itself against looting and destruction will be accused of “racist aggression” – At which time the Biden Administration will then try to assert the authority to institute martial law measures in various regions. This combined with renewed attempts at covid lockdowns is a highly likely scenario.
Cyber Polygon
Just as the Event 201 simulation of a coronavirus pandemic preceded the real thing by only two months, there are concerns that the next World Economic Forum simulation event will also be a precursor to another crisis.
Cyber Polygon is a war game being held by the WEF this July which is meant to simulate a major cyber attack on the global supply chain and the economic system. There has been endless discussion int the media the past year building up fears of cyber attacks by Russia, China, Iran and even North Korea.
In terms of supply chain threats, I’m not sure exactly how a cyber attack could do much to disrupt global shipping, unless we are talking about another blockage in a major shipping route like the Suez Canal. But, a successful attack on stock exchanges in places like Wall Street could be devastating. I suggest watching this event carefully as it may be designed to precede a real cyber attack sometime this year.
Global War Tensions
The media and the Biden Administration are very busy trying to create tensions with Russia over Ukraine. There are renewed tensions between Iran and Israel and continued destabilization by the West in Syria. And, a rising danger of confrontation with China over Taiwan.
War could be the goal, or, the goal could merely be economic conflict. After all, China has already been dumping dollars and US treasuries the past year, and it would not take much to cause damage to the dollar’s world reserve status if China and Russia both diversified into a basket of currencies for global trade.
Beyond that, there are many advantages for globalists in creating regional wars and drawing Americans into pointless conflicts. For example, the threat of war could be used to institute a new draft. What better way to keep American men in particular busy and stop them from rebellion against the Reset than to draft them so they can die in a meaningless war overseas?
There is also a narrative advantage to global tensions; when presented with a foreign threat, are Americans more likely to reject notions of rebellion against government trespasses? I have no doubt that the establishment will try to claim the liberty movement is not a movement for freedom, but an “astro-turf” movement created by the Russians to destabilize America. This has been the leftist media propaganda strategy for years now; so why would they stop?
The bottom line is this: America is the primary target of the globalists because we are one of the only countries with the means and the numbers to stop them and the Reset. Until they are removed from the equation they will continue to throw crisis after crisis at us in order to wear us down and force us to accept totalitarianism. Do not get too comfortable in the fact that the pandemic agenda is failing here; stay alert and continue to organize your communities.
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Tyler Durden
Fri, 04/16/2021 – 23:40 - "I Shoot a Bunch of 3D Printed Guns – Do My Hands Survive?"
“I Shoot a Bunch of 3D Printed Guns – Do My Hands Survive?”
A decentralized network of 3D printed gun advocates is mobilizing online and quickly revolutionizing gun designs, sharing blueprints, advice, and building a community. There’s no easy way the federal government can halt this movement as President Biden, not too long ago, declared war on “ghost guns.”
YouTuber Sean with “The 3D Print General” attended “Bear Arms N’ Bitcoin” on April 10-11 in Texas. The first day involved top experts and practitioners that gave the audience actionable steps on how to print 3D guns at home. The second day, readers should be excited for this, was when Sean attended “shooting rad guns” day.
The event was held at Onion Creek Gun Club, located in Austin, Texas. Sean shot various 3D-printed weapons, such as the FGC-9, which stands for “f**k gun control 9 mm.” As we’ve noted, the FGC-9 can be printed entirely at home for the cost of $350, including the printer’s cost.
In the video “I Shoot a Bunch of 3D Printed Guns – Do My Hands Survive?” Sean test-fired an array of 3D-printed guns. In the last decade, the printing technology behind these weapons without serial numbers has drastically improved that it’s rare a gun explodes in someone’s hand as the early models did. Sean proves it; not one of these guns he fired at the range exploded in his hand. In fact, some of the weapons appeared to be high-tech or even futuristic.
Without further adieu, here’s Sean test firing 3D printed weapons.
When it comes to the Biden administration waging war on ghost guns – well – good luck, what are they going to do – ban printers?
Tyler Durden
Fri, 04/16/2021 – 23:20 - Thirdworldization: The Slow Burning SHTF Of America
Thirdworldization: The Slow Burning SHTF Of America
Authored by Fabian Ommar via The Organic Prepper blog,
The developed world, accustomed to safety, convenience, and comfort, is facing a slow-burning SHTF called Thirdworldization by some. Each time humankind faces some tribulation like the one we’re currently going through, it feels like the world is coming to an end. In many senses, the threat is present: a pandemic is a serious SHTF. It IS the end for many.
But the real SHTF isn’t just the pandemic – it’s the effects on the system that Selco warned us about from the very beginning.
The ramifications of such events as Covid-19 and government responses are real and long-lasting. Despite theories surrounding COVID-19 (conspiratorial or not), the fact is real damage has happened to the economy and our lifestyle. To those who say we’ve been through a lot since March 2020, I’d argue we haven’t yet seen the full range of consequences. Objectively, we’re not even out of the pandemic.
The question remains: how and when will this Thirdworldization play out?
I concede this doom-and-gloom talk is growing old and burning out even among preppers. But we’re not talking probabilities: it’s already happening.
We must face reality and accept things are not going back to normal any time soon (if ever). It may indeed get worse before it starts getting better again. It’s past time to stop waiting for Black Swans and pay attention to subtle changes already underway.
It’s been a different SHTF for each country, each business, each family, and each person. On a more broad scale, there’s no way to tell for sure whether it will be a storm, “the” perfect storm,” or something in between. These things unfold slowly – the proverbial frog in the pot (until they catch up). As always, multiple interests and powerful forces are acting simultaneously in different directions, which means lots of possible ramifications.
Global crises affect countries in different intensities and manners
Global-scale SHTF hit some places faster and worse than others. Good and bad are never evenly distributed. The capacity of a nation and its population to withstand and overcome disaster depend on many factors. These include the size, strength, and resiliency of the economy. Also, how solid, functional, and credible the institutions are, the social fabric’s stability, etc.
Those and others dictate whether a country will suffer more or less the effects of a global economic setback. But as it’s happening with the pandemic, no one will come out unscathed: some will feel the impact of migration, others (eventually) by war. At the same time, some will see internal conflicts, currency devaluation, martial law, coups, political instability, social eruptions, and more. Much of that is already taking place in various places around the globe.
It’s impossible to get the timing right or know what will happen, but trends can be forecast
These and other events are hitting differently even inside the same country: some regions are “normal,” while others suffer badly. That’s one of the factors driving the migrational movements within the U.S. Many people are moving to different states. People go wherever they receive better treatment.
You should already have a grip on your local zeitgeist. If you don’t, maybe it’s a good idea to start paying attention to the social, political, economic, and institutional moods in your piece of land. That will help tell which way things go when SHTF. You don’t want to get caught on the wrong side of the fence if it happens.
And that’s how we get to Thirdworldization
Thirdworldization is a slow-burning SHTF for those living in developed countries, used to comfort, convenience, and security.
Thirdworldization is the gradual and inevitable impoverishment of a rich country. It is the visible effect of major crises hitting square on the population, institutions, corporations, and even the government. It spreads insidiously in every aspect of daily life and our small circles.
Less growth means less wealth, less money circulating for everyone to take care of necessities and obligations. This shrinking economy brings all sorts of declines that affect services, infrastructure, the supply chain, institutions, and changing the population’s lives and routines.
The economy has a direct impact on the structure and foundation of social order. As an engineer, I tend to analyze structures and foundations by force of my work before assessing other factors. If those are in bad shape, the rest can’t be good. That holds true for a family, a company, a city, or a country.
The standard of living is dropping significantly everywhere
Even though the rich are getting richer, they will be affected by the destruction of the middle class and the poor becoming miserable. The wealthy don’t build their own houses, grow their own food, nor collect their own trash. But like rich countries and corporations, they’re much less affected because wealth can soften the blow and pay for a lot during hard times – or should I say, especially during hard times.
For the rest (the great majority of society), there’s SHTF as the unfolding of the economic decline is reflected in various aspects as described below.
Criminality
Crime on the rise is shocking America. Many factors contribute to that: joblessness, homelessness, financial struggle, disillusionment, and anger. Dwindling resources mean a reduction in the capacity of governments and authorities to keep society safe. There’s an overall defunding of not only the police but the entire crime-fighting apparatus: ostensive, preventative, and investigative work, departments of justice, social support, prisons and corrections, everything.
How it plays out: All kinds of crimes jump and tend to become more violent, too. Expect (and prepare for) rises in everything from minor scams to drug traffic (and consumption), bank robberies, kidnappings, arson, home invasions, homicides. Honest citizens may not engage in violent actions, but bribing, corruption, extortions, black market, misappropriations, tax evasion, and others become widespread. Sociopaths and psychopaths feel more emboldened: rapes, killings, vengeance acts, gang wars, fights, and similar also tend to increase.
Homelessness
Homelessness exploded in the U.S. and other western countries in 2020. It’s still on the rise with no signs of getting better anytime soon. Some argue it’s not as bad as it would have been (and can become) without the aggressive forbearance and moratorium programs implemented by governments. But this has side effects. What will happen when these suspensions end? And if they extend, what will be the unintended consequences? It is hard to predict, but eviction waves could throw millions into the streets in months and years ahead if the crisis worsens. Homelessness can also get boosted by mass migration, as we’ll see below.
How it plays out: During the 1930’s Great Depression, cities everywhere saw the growth of squatter areas and shantytowns. New York’s Central Park became Hooverville, a giant slum right in the middle of America’s biggest and wealthiest city at the time. Whole areas in L.A., San Francisco, and many other towns across the U.S. have already become tent cities. These are ripe for crime, exploitation, drug trafficking, violence, disease, and political manipulation.
Immigration
Immigration is serious and can turn into major geopolitical issues in some regions. Migration waves can be impossible to contain, as people desperately try to flee conflicted countries searching for better conditions elsewhere, even at great risks. Sudden, large internal movements can create imbalances internally and bring unforeseen consequences. People leave cities for the country or move to other states to avoid the rising taxes and crime, loss of freedom, or other threats.
How it plays out: Countries in better shape could face massive migration waves. The entire network of support put in place to control, minimize impacts, and give immigrants support can weaken. Significant or sudden movements may overwhelm border control. Immigrants in large numbers can cripple social support systems. That makes things harder for the population, sparking crime and violent actions from both sides.
Private Services and Products
Manufacturers and companies across the board are required to cut costs everywhere to stay afloat or keep profits. It reflects directly on the quality and variety of products and services provided to the population.
How it plays out: There will be an overall drop in quality and more inferior ingredients used to manufacture items and produce food. We will experience crowded, inefficient, slow customer support by poorly trained and low-paid workers. Strikes may cause disruptions and delays.
Public Services
I have friends living in wealthy, developed countries. They complain a lot about the quality of public services, the bureaucracy, the inefficiency. Sure enough, it’s (almost always) subpar when compared to private counterparts. But they have no idea how good they have it compared to underdeveloped or even developing places. They don’t know how bad this can get. Is USPS’s announcement that First Class mail will have longer delivery times and will cost more a glimpse of things to come?
How it plays out: Overwhelmed systems, (even more) disincentivized agents. Longer lines, longer waiting, slow or no response, more bureaucracy, squandering, etc. Many welfare programs will go extinct. There will be lower-quality education, transportation, childcare, healthcare, etc. Strikes and corruption are other effects of the Thirdworldization of public services
Infrastructure
Without constant investment in maintenance, expansion, and rebuilding, the entire infrastructure becomes derelict. More than 50 bridges have collapsed worldwide since 2015. Roads will be in dire need of maintenance. Billions of gallons of treated water get lost daily in leakages (estimates talk about one water main break every two minutes in the U.S.). There may be issues in the energy sector. Airports and ports will postpone expansions and modernizations, and so on.
How it plays out: Despite talks of megalomaniac infrastructure programs everywhere to “save the economy and promote growth” (governments love doing this when crises erupt), disruptions, rationing, supply rotations, closings, and more are much more frequent during prolonged recessions.
Sanitation
Trash removal and disposal drains a large portion of city and state budgets. As it happens to other public services, once tax revenue drops, these impacts and effects can drag on for years. Sewage and water treatment systems cease expansion and quality and safety drops. Does anyone remember the water crisis in Flint, Michigan, just five years ago?
“Nearly half a decade has passed since the water crisis in Flint captured the attention of America, during which toxic water was delivered to a city of nearly 100,000 people for 18 months before the state acknowledged the problem.”
How it plays out: Those who watched the movie Joker may remember the streets full of trash, rats, and graffiti. Many 80’s movies have that decadent “look and feel.” Dim cities, with boarded-up storefronts and “for rent” or “sale” signs everywhere. That’s the portrait of slow-burning SHTF. What’s missing in films is the smell, the diseases, the flies, rats, and insects present in real life.
Inflation, Deflation, Taxation, and Confiscations
The inflation vs. deflation debate is raging among the macroeconomic experts right now. It’s a hard bet as there are pressures for both to turn out. And indeed, both could take place at the same time (in different areas). It’s that crazy. Prices are already all over the place, with inflation running hot in some items/sectors and deflation in others. Whatever happens, rest assured the “non-essentials” (that’s you, me, and the 99%) will be called to foot the bill, so get prepared for that.
How it plays out: Price fluctuations, insecurity, bank runs. Rises in fuel affect prices of everything else. Inflation can show in perversely subtle ways: dilutions and reductions in quantity/portions effectively raise products’ price. Shortages and a drastic reduction in product variety are other common effects of highly dysfunctional economies. Taxation will explode – this is already being talk-tested everywhere.
Confiscations can happen, too. One day after taking office in 1990, the newly elected government in Brazil seized money from bank accounts “on grounds to reduce liquidity and fight rampant inflation.” The seizure left citizens without their savings and only 50k in currency. It was a stupid plan that didn’t work (it should’ve caused a revolution, but I digress). Such insanities have happened in other places in recent times. They could happen again because governments can become dictatorial and change laws and rules or do anything if conditions are in place (desperate times).
Some other third-world things that first-world people might not know about (yet)
Just like countries are affected differently, so do the various layers of society. High levels of inequality exacerbate some bizarre distortions people living in rich and developed countries might have only seen in dystopian movies. But the things listed below exist and could become a reality if things keep going south.
Social contract
Large social inequalities are incredibly poisonous: they destroy the social fabric faster than you can say “who messed with my stimulus check?”.
Two very adverse effects are radical divisiveness and a rise in crime and violence. It affects everybody, from top to bottom: trust in other people, institutions, and even in the collective disappears. It becomes impossible to lower the guard, and that is stressful. And even for those fortunate enough to get by okay, it sucks to live in a society where most of the population is struggling so hard (and failing) to live with a minimum of decency. How can someone be genuinely happy surrounded by misery? The answer is, no one can.
High Walls
In unsafe societies, every house and building has high (as in 10ft. tall or higher) protection walls, either masonry or steel bars, lockers, cameras, electrical fences, and barbed wire (concertina). For citizens accustomed to open front yards and unprotected houses, it looks like a bunch of high-security prisons (only it’s in reverse: the ones “locked” are the rich trying to stay safe from the violent mobs).
Slums
The “favelas” (slums) of Rio de Janeiro are worldwide famous, shown as “communities” where everyone is friendly and loves to dance to the samba. It is a vibrant and unique scene in some places, but the reality is that many are unsafe, unhealthy places where drug traffic and militia rule with iron hands. The government and public power have almost no presence and oversight: there’s little to no sanitation and safety, health, education, and other precarious services. If the standard of living drops for long enough, slums may become a lot more common in countries and places where they previously didn’t exist.
Private security
Off-duty cops do double-duty as security agents or consultants for companies, commerce, and individuals, either as private guards, security personnel, or security consultants. It’s not legalized but also not enforced, nonetheless a big thing, an organized multimillion-dollar business with huge companies competing with each other.
Armored vehicles
In 2014 Brazil already had the most extensive fleet of armored cars globally (not an enviable title). I’m not talking about expensive, luxury cars driven by (or for) the ultra-rich, high-profile personalities and figureheads: even the middle-class look for ballistic protection, especially for women and children. It’s a big industry here. Much bigger than in conflicted nations. Criminals are armed and violent, even against the police. When crime soars, the armoring industry booms.
Preparing for the possibility of Thirdworldization
There are no downsides to investing in awareness, creativity, mentality, and determination (and some preparations).
These are not predictions. Perhaps a chronicle of what happens in poorer countries and has happened before in rich ones during crises. We can already see some signs and even developments, and if you believe this kind of SHTF is somehow coming your way, you may want to prepare. Here are few tips that might help:
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Mental strength: accept reality and learn to deal with all sides’ psychological pressures, including ourselves. Even though, at times, it may seem like there’s no option. As Churchill once said, “If you’re going through hell, just keep going.” Everyone is in this together, and no one is special.
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One day and one problem at a time: It’s easier to deal with one issue, focus on what we can control, and live the present than it is to worry about the significant, long-term issues that are out of our control. We usually suffer more in imagination than in reality.
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Independence: Realistically, being independent and living off-grid is for a few. But everyone can benefit from growing more self-reliant wherever that is possible. Grow some food, learn new skills, recycle and reuse, invest in generating part of your power, build situational awareness, etc.
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Financially savvy: Seek economy and finance education as a way to mitigate or defend from inflation (or deflation), to invest and make money grow and last longer. Read about life in times of crises and inflation, like the ’70s and ’80s.
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Economically viable: Invest in alternative income sources. Today there are hundreds of ways to make money without even leaving home. Even a little can make a difference if the belts get tightened further.
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Help others: It will be hard for almost everyone but harder for some. If you are fortunate enough to be in a relatively good situation, look around and try to help others. It doesn’t have to be with money or goods: donate time, teach skills, even listening can bring support and relief. Helping others is a way to help ourselves, too.
Have you noticed a reduced standard of living in your area?
Have you seen a reduced standard of living in your area or a wider disparity between rich and poor? Are you noticing any of the Thirdworldization effects happening near you or are there some things you’ve seen on the news that surprised you when you realized they were happening here?
Tyler Durden
Fri, 04/16/2021 – 23:00 -
- Democrats Brace For 'Defund The Police' Movement To Damage Party Into Midterms
Democrats Brace For ‘Defund The Police’ Movement To Damage Party Into Midterms
In the wake of George Floyd’s death and several other high-profile incidents between black Americans and police, calls rang out across the country to defund the police – a movement which Democratic lawmakers largely supported.
Yet, after several cities did just that, crime rates soared, and demoralized cops quit or retired early after what seemed like half of the country vilified them – leaving police forces spread thin as BLM and Antifa riots led to widespread looting, arson, and property damage throughout the country.
Both Minneapolis and Portland, for example, woefully regretted defunding their police departments.
And while the Democrats won both the White House and retook the Senate in the 2020 election, the impact of defunding the police took its toll, contributing to their very narrow majorities in both chambers.
Democrats lost seats in the House and lost Senate races in states where they thought they had a chance, including North Carolina and Montana. At least some officials blame those losses on the defund the police debate.
Republicans believe the defund the police narrative is a political gift they can use again to win over swing voters and to energize their own political base. -The Hill
Now, with the George Floyd trial in full swing – and the very real possibility that former officer Derek Chauvin will be acquitted of his murder – as well as brewing protests over the recent Minneapolis shooting death of a 20-year-old black suspect by a white female officer who says she meant to grab her Taser, moderate Democrats are bracing for another round of calls to defund the police, and the violence which is sure to follow.
And while the far-left contingent in Congress openly supports defunding the police – such as Rep. Rashida Tlaib (D-MI), who says she’s “done with those who condone government funded murder,” moderate Dems realize this may come back to bite them during the 2022 midterm elections.
It wasn’t an accident. Policing in our country is inherently & intentionally racist.
Daunte Wright was met with aggression & violence. I am done with those who condone government funded murder.
No more policing, incarceration, and militarization. It can’t be reformed.
— Rashida Tlaib (@RashidaTlaib) April 12, 2021
Via The Hill:
But while most Democrats share the outrage over the deaths of Floyd, Daunte Wright, Breonna Taylor and a seemingly ever-growing list of Black Americans killed by police, they diverge sharply over whether defunding the police is the solution — or simply a phrase that will cost Democrats elections and leave them without the power to foment change.
“I mean, this defund the police was just a terrible drag on the Democratic Party. It really was. Don’t kid yourself,” veteran Democratic strategist James Carville told Bill Kristol in an interview for the Weekly Standard earlier this month.
“This is music to the Republican minority’s ears in Washington,” according to GOP strategist, Ford O’Connell. “That is more powerful for Republicans than any perfectly scripted message.”
Meanwhile, GOP Senators homed in on an op-ed written by Biden’s Justice Department nominee for the civil rights division – in which she’d advocated for defunding the police.
“You just said you don’t support cutting funds from police,” said Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX), adding “I find that astonishing and, Ms. [Kristen] Clarke, frankly not credible because I’m holding the article you wrote.”
Clarke replied that she doesn’t support defunding police departments, and that the headline of the Op-Ed was poorly worded.
Democrats recognize the threat that the ‘defund’ movement poses.
“The one thing we cannot allow is for Republicans to use this as a weapon of mass distraction,” said Democratic strategist Antjuan Seawright in a statement to The Hill. “Or as a weapon of mass political destruction as they have done in the past,” whatever that means.
“I think the ability — using terms like defund the police have led to Democratic losses in this last year,” said Sen. Mark Warner (D-VA) in November. Warner was joined by fellow Virginia Democrat Abigail Spanberger, who pointed to progressive proposals to reallocate police funds as the reason more than a half-dozen moderate lawmakers lost their seats in the last election.
According to polls, defunding the police does not have widespread support. According to a recent USA Today-Ipsos poll, just 20% of Americans support the movement. That said, polling last year in the wake of George Floyd’s death revealed that over half the country, 58%, say that changes are needed to policing.
“We can’t allow them, meaning the opposition, to try to paint this picture that we are anti-police. We’re just pro-good policing,” said Seawright. “We have to do something at the federal level, for certain.”
The Biden administration, meanwhile, falls on the side of ‘reform’ but not ‘defund.’
““The president’s view is that there are necessary, outdated reforms that should be put in place; that there is accountability that needs to happen; that the loss of life is far too high; that these families are suffering around the country; and that the Black community is exhausted from the ongoing threats they feel,” according to White House press secretary Jen Psaki, adding: “But he also believes that there is a forum for putting in place legislation, the George Floyd Act, that can help put many of these necessary reforms in place, and that part of what needs to happen is rebuilding trust in communities in order to get to a better place.”
Apparently some Democrats realize that virtue signaling has consequences.
Tyler Durden
Fri, 04/16/2021 – 22:40 - The Military Origins Of Facebook, Part 1
The Military Origins Of Facebook, Part 1
Authored by Whitney Webb via UnlimitedHangout.com,
Facebook’s growing role in the ever-expanding surveillance and “pre-crime” apparatus of the national security state demands new scrutiny of the company’s origins and its products as they relate to a former, controversial DARPA-run surveillance program that was essentially analogous to what is currently the world’s largest social network.
In mid-February, Daniel Baker, a US veteran described by the media as “anti-Trump, anti-government, anti-white supremacists, and anti-police,” was charged by a Florida grand jury with two counts of “transmitting a communication in interstate commerce containing a threat to kidnap or injure.”
The communication in question had been posted by Baker on Facebook, where he had created an event page to organize an armed counter-rally to one planned by Donald Trump supporters at the Florida capital of Tallahassee on January 6. “If you are afraid to die fighting the enemy, then stay in bed and live. Call all of your friends and Rise Up!,” Baker had written on his Facebook event page.
Baker’s case is notable as it is one of the first “precrime” arrests based entirely on social media posts—the logical conclusion of the Trump administration’s, and now Biden administration’s, push to normalize arresting individuals for online posts to prevent violent acts before they can happen. From the increasing sophistication of US intelligence/military contractor Palantir’s predictive policing programs to the formal announcement of the Justice Department’s Disruption and Early Engagement Program in 2019 to Biden’s first budget, which contains $111 million for pursuing and managing “increasing domestic terrorism caseloads,” the steady advance toward a precrime-centered “war on domestic terror” has been notable under every post-9/11 presidential administration.
This new so-called war on domestic terror has actually resulted in many of these types of posts on Facebook. And, while Facebook has long sought to portray itself as a “town square” that allows people from across the world to connect, a deeper look into its apparently military origins and continual military connections reveals that the world’s largest social network was always intended to act as a surveillance tool to identify and target domestic dissent.
Part 1 of this two-part series on Facebook and the US national-security state explores the social media network’s origins and the timing and nature of its rise as it relates to a controversial military program that was shut down the same day that Facebook launched. The program, known as LifeLog, was one of several controversial post-9/11 surveillance programs pursued by the Pentagon’s Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) that threatened to destroy privacy and civil liberties in the United States while also seeking to harvest data for producing “humanized” artificial intelligence (AI).
As this report will show, Facebook is not the only Silicon Valley giant whose origins coincide closely with this same series of DARPA initiatives and whose current activities are providing both the engine and the fuel for a hi-tech war on domestic dissent.
DARPA’s Data Mining for “National Security” and to “Humanize” AI
In the aftermath of the September 11 attacks, DARPA, in close collaboration with the US intelligence community (specifically the CIA), began developing a “precrime” approach to combatting terrorism known as Total Information Awareness or TIA. The purpose of TIA was to develop an “all-seeing” military-surveillance apparatus. The official logic behind TIA was that invasive surveillance of the entire US population was necessary to prevent terrorist attacks, bioterrorism events, and even naturally occurring disease outbreaks.
The architect of TIA, and the man who led it during its relatively brief existence, was John Poindexter, best known for being Ronald Reagan’s National Security Advisor during the Iran-Contra affair and for being convicted of five felonies in relation to that scandal. A less well-known activity of Iran-Contra figures like Poindexter and Oliver North was their development of the Main Core database to be used in “continuity of government” protocols. Main Core was used to compile a list of US dissidents and “potential troublemakers” to be dealt with if the COG protocols were ever invoked. These protocols could be invoked for a variety of reasons, including widespread public opposition to a US military intervention abroad, widespread internal dissent, or a vaguely defined moment of “national crisis” or “time of panic.” Americans were not informed if their name was placed on the list, and a person could be added to the list for merely having attended a protest in the past, for failing to pay taxes, or for other, “often trivial,” behaviors deemed “unfriendly” by its architects in the Reagan administration.
In light of this, it was no exaggeration when New York Times columnist William Safire remarked that, with TIA, “Poindexter is now realizing his twenty-year dream: getting the ‘data-mining’ power to snoop on every public and private act of every American.”
The TIA program met with considerable citizen outrage after it was revealed to the public in early 2003. TIA’s critics included the American Civil Liberties Union, which claimed that the surveillance effort would “kill privacy in America” because “every aspect of our lives would be catalogued,” while several mainstream media outlets warned that TIA was “fighting terror by terrifying US citizens.” As a result of the pressure, DARPA changed the program’s name to Terrorist Information Awareness to make it sound less like a national-security panopticon and more like a program aiming specifically at terrorists in the post-9/11 era.
The logo for DARPA’s Information Awareness Office, which oversaw Total Information Awareness during its brief existence
The TIA projects were not actually closed down, however, with most moved to the classified portfolios of the Pentagon and US intelligence community. Some became intelligence funded and guided private-sector endeavors, such as Peter Thiel’s Palantir, while others resurfaced years later under the guise of combatting the COVID-19 crisis.
Soon after TIA was initiated, a similar DARPA program was taking shape under the direction of a close friend of Poindexter’s, DARPA program manager Douglas Gage. Gage’s project, LifeLog, sought to “build a database tracking a person’s entire existence” that included an individual’s relationships and communications (phone calls, mail, etc.), their media-consumption habits, their purchases, and much more in order to build a digital record of “everything an individual says, sees, or does.” LifeLog would then take this unstructured data and organize it into “discreet episodes” or snapshots while also “mapping out relationships, memories, events and experiences.”
LifeLog, per Gage and supporters of the program, would create a permanent and searchable electronic diary of a person’s entire life, which DARPA argued could be used to create next-generation “digital assistants” and offer users a “near-perfect digital memory.” Gage insisted, even after the program was shut down, that individuals would have had “complete control of their own data-collection efforts” as they could “decide when to turn the sensors on or off and decide who will share the data.” In the years since then, analogous promises of user control have been made by the tech giants of Silicon Valley, only to be broken repeatedly for profit and to feed the government’s domestic-surveillance apparatus.
The information that LifeLog gleaned from an individual’s every interaction with technology would be combined with information obtained from a GPS transmitter that tracked and documented the person’s location, audio-visual sensors that recorded what the person saw and said, as well as biomedical monitors that gauged the person’s health. Like TIA, LifeLog was promoted by DARPA as potentially supporting “medical research and the early detection of an emerging epidemic.”
Critics in mainstream media outlets and elsewhere were quick to point out that the program would inevitably be used to build profiles on dissidents as well as suspected terrorists. Combined with TIA’s surveillance of individuals at multiple levels, LifeLog went farther by “adding physical information (like how we feel) and media data (like what we read) to this transactional data.” One critic, Lee Tien of the Electronic Frontier Foundation, warned at the time that the programs that DARPA was pursuing, including LifeLog, “have obvious, easy paths to Homeland Security deployments.”
At the time, DARPA publicly insisted that LifeLog and TIA were not connected, despite their obvious parallels, and that LifeLog would not be used for “clandestine surveillance.” However, DARPA’s own documentation on LifeLog noted that the project “will be able . . . to infer the user’s routines, habits and relationships with other people, organizations, places and objects, and to exploit these patterns to ease its task,” which acknowledged its potential use as a tool of mass surveillance.
In addition to the ability to profile potential enemies of the state, LifeLog had another goal that was arguably more important to the national-security state and its academic partners—the “humanization” and advancement of artificial intelligence. In late 2002, just months prior to announcing the existence of LifeLog, DARPA released a strategy document detailing development of artificial intelligence by feeding it with massive floods of data from various sources.
The post-9/11 military-surveillance projects—LifeLog and TIA being only two of them—offered quantities of data that had previously been unthinkable to obtain and that could potentially hold the key to achieving the hypothesized “technological singularity.” The 2002 DARPA document even discusses DARPA’s effort to create a brain-machine interface that would feed human thoughts directly into machines to advance AI by keeping it constantly awash in freshly mined data.
One of the projects outlined by DARPA, the Cognitive Computing Initiative, sought to develop sophisticated artificial intelligence through the creation of an “enduring personalized cognitive assistant,” later termed the Perceptive Assistant that Learns, or PAL. PAL, from the very beginning was tied to LifeLog, which was originally intended to result in granting an AI “assistant” human-like decision-making and comprehension abilities by spinning masses of unstructured data into narrative format.
The would-be main researchers for the LifeLog project also reflect the program’s end goal of creating humanized AI. For instance, Howard Shrobe at the MIT Artificial Intelligence Laboratory and his team at the time were set to be intimately involved in LifeLog. Shrobe had previously worked for DARPA on the “evolutionary design of complex software” before becoming associate director of the AI Lab at MIT and has devoted his lengthy career to building “cognitive-style AI.” In the years after LifeLog was cancelled, he again worked for DARPA as well as on intelligence community–related AI research projects. In addition, the AI Lab at MIT was intimately connected with the 1980s corporation and DARPA contractor called Thinking Machines, which was founded by and/or employed many of the lab’s luminaries—including Danny Hillis, Marvin Minsky, and Eric Lander—and sought to build AI supercomputers capable of human-like thought. All three of these individuals were later revealed to be close associates of and/or sponsored by the intelligence-linked pedophile Jeffrey Epstein, who also generously donated to MIT as an institution and was a leading funder of and advocate for transhumanist-related scientific research.
Soon after the LifeLog program was shuttered, critics worried that, like TIA, it would continue under a different name. For example, Lee Tien of the Electronic Frontier Foundation told VICE at the time of LifeLog’s cancellation, “It would not surprise me to learn that the government continued to fund research that pushed this area forward without calling it LifeLog.”
Along with its critics, one of the would-be researchers working on LifeLog, MIT’s David Karger, was also certain that the DARPA project would continue in a repackaged form. He told Wired that “I am sure such research will continue to be funded under some other title . . . I can’t imagine DARPA ‘dropping out’ of a such a key research area.”
The answer to these speculations appears to lie with the company that launched the exact same day that LifeLog was shuttered by the Pentagon: Facebook.
Thiel Information Awareness
After considerable controversy and criticism, in late 2003, TIA was shut down and defunded by Congress, just months after it was launched. It was only later revealed that that TIA was never actually shut down, with its various programs having been covertly divided up among the web of military and intelligence agencies that make up the US national-security state. Some of it was privatized.
The same month that TIA was pressured to change its name after growing backlash, Peter Thiel incorporated Palantir, which was, incidentally, developing the core panopticon software that TIA had hoped to wield. Soon after Palantir’s incorporation in 2003, Richard Perle, a notorious neoconservative from the Reagan and Bush administrations and an architect of the Iraq War, called TIA’s Poindexter and said he wanted to introduce him to Thiel and his associate Alex Karp, now Palantir’s CEO. According to a report in New York magazine, Poindexter “was precisely the person” whom Thiel and Karp wanted to meet, mainly because “their new company was similar in ambition to what Poindexter had tried to create at the Pentagon,” that is, TIA. During that meeting, Thiel and Karp sought “to pick the brain of the man now widely viewed as the godfather of modern surveillance.”
Peter Thiel speaks at the World Economic Forum in 2013, Source: Mirko Ries Courtesy for the World Economic Forum
Soon after Palantir’s incorporation, though the exact timing and details of the investment remain hidden from the public, the CIA’s In-Q-Tel became the company’s first backer, aside from Thiel himself, giving it an estimated $2 million. In-Q-Tel’s stake in Palantir would not be publicly reported until mid-2006.
The money was certainly useful. In addition, Alex Karp told the New York Times in October 2020, “the real value of the In-Q-Tel investment was that it gave Palantir access to the CIA analysts who were its intended clients.” A key figure in the making of In-Q-Tel investments during this period, including the investment in Palantir, was the CIA’s chief information officer, Alan Wade, who had been the intelligence community’s point man for Total Information Awareness. Wade had previously cofounded the post-9/11 Homeland Security software contractor Chiliad alongside Christine Maxwell, sister of Ghislaine Maxwell and daughter of Iran-Contra figure, intelligence operative, and media baron Robert Maxwell.
After the In-Q-Tel investment, the CIA would be Palantir’s only client until 2008. During that period, Palantir’s two top engineers—Aki Jain and Stephen Cohen—traveled to CIA headquarters at Langley, Virginia, every two weeks. Jain recalls making at least two hundred trips to CIA headquarters between 2005 and 2009. During those regular visits, CIA analysts “would test [Palantir’s software] out and offer feedback, and then Cohen and Jain would fly back to California to tweak it.” As with In-Q-Tel’s decision to invest in Palantir, the CIA’s chief information officer during this time remained one of TIA’s architects. Alan Wade played a key role in many of these meetings and subsequently in the “tweaking” of Palantir’s products.
Today, Palantir’s products are used for mass surveillance, predictive policing, and other disconcerting policies of the US national-security state. A telling example is Palantir’s sizable involvement in the new Health and Human Services–run wastewater surveillance program that is quietly spreading across the United States. As noted in a previous Unlimited Hangout report, that system is the resurrection of a TIA program called Biosurveillance. It is feeding all its data into the Palantir-managed and secretive HHS Protect data platform. The decision to turn controversial DARPA-led programs into a private ventures, however, was not limited to Thiel’s Palantir.
The Rise of Facebook
The shuttering of TIA at DARPA had an impact on several related programs, which were also dismantled in the wake of public outrage over DARPA’s post-9/11 programs. One of these programs was LifeLog. As news of the program spread through the media, many of the same vocal critics who had attacked TIA went after LifeLog with similar zeal, with Steven Aftergood of the Federation of American Scientists telling Wired at the time that “LifeLog has the potential to become something like ‘TIA cubed.’” LifeLog being viewed as something that would prove even worse than the recently cancelled TIA had a clear effect on DARPA, which had just seen both TIA and another related program cancelled after considerable backlash from the public and the press.
The firestorm of criticism of LifeLog took its program manager, Doug Gage, by surprise, and Gage has continued to assert that the program’s critics “completely mischaracterized” the goals and ambitions of the project. Despite Gage’s protests and those of LifeLog’s would-be researchers and other supporters, the project was publicly nixed on February 4, 2004. DARPA never provided an explanation for its quiet move to shutter LifeLog, with a spokesperson stating only that it was related to “a change in priorities” for the agency. On DARPA director Tony Tether’s decision to kill LifeLog, Gage later told VICE, “I think he had been burnt so badly with TIA that he didn’t want to deal with any further controversy with LifeLog. The death of LifeLog was collateral damage tied to the death of TIA.”
Fortuitously for those supporting the goals and ambitions of LifeLog, a company that turned out to be its private-sector analogue was born on the same day that LifeLog’s cancellation was announced. On February 4, 2004, what is now the world’s largest social network, Facebook, launched its website and quickly rose to the top of the social media roost, leaving other social media companies of the era in the dust.
Sean Parker of Founders Fund speaks during the LeWeb conference in 2011, Source: @Kmeron for LeWeb11 @ Les Docks de Paris
A few months into Facebook’s launch, in June 2004, Facebook cofounders Mark Zuckerberg and Dustin Moskovitz brought Sean Parker onto Facebook’s executive team. Parker, previously known for cofounding Napster, later connected Facebook with its first outside investor, Peter Thiel. As discussed, Thiel, at that time, in coordination with the CIA, was actively trying to resurrect controversial DARPA programs that had been dismantled the previous year. Notably, Sean Parker, who became Facebook’s first president, also had a history with the CIA, which recruited him at the age of sixteen soon after he had been busted by the FBI for hacking corporate and military databases. Thanks to Parker, in September 2004, Thiel formally acquired $500,000 worth of Facebook shares and was added its board. Parker maintained close ties to Facebook as well as to Thiel, with Parker being hired as a managing partner of Thiel’s Founders Fund in 2006.
Thiel and Facebook cofounder Mosokvitz became involved outside of the social network long after Facebook’s rise to prominence, with Thiel’s Founder Fund becoming a significant investor in Moskovitz’s company Asana in 2012. Thiel’s longstanding symbiotic relationship with Facebook cofounders extends to his company Palantir, as the data that Facebook users make public invariably winds up in Palantir’s databases and helps drive the surveillance engine Palantir runs for a handful of US police departments, the military, and the intelligence community. In the case of the Facebook–Cambridge Analytica data scandal, Palantir was also involved in utilizing Facebook data to benefit the 2016 Donald Trump presidential campaign.
Today, as recent arrests such as that of Daniel Baker have indicated, Facebook data is slated to help power the coming “war on domestic terror,” given that information shared on the platform is being used in “precrime” capture of US citizens, domestically. In light of this, it is worth dwelling on the point that Thiel’s exertions to resurrect the main aspects of TIA as his own private company coincided with his becoming the first outside investor in what was essentially the analogue of another DARPA program deeply intertwined with TIA.
Facebook, a Front
Because of the coincidence that Facebook launched the same day that LifeLog was shut down, there has been recent speculation that Zuckerberg began and launched the project with Moskovitz, Saverin, and others through some sort of behind-the-scenes coordination with DARPA or another organ of the national-security state. While there is no direct evidence for this precise claim, the early involvement of Parker and Thiel in the project, particularly given the timing of Thiel’s other activities, reveals that the national-security state was involved in Facebook’s rise. It is debatable whether Facebook was intended from its inception to be a LifeLog analogue or if it happened to be the social media project that fit the bill after its launch. The latter seems more likely, especially considering that Thiel also invested in another early social media platform, Friendster.
An important point linking Facebook and LifeLog is the subsequent identification of Facebook with LifeLog by the latter’s DARPA architect himself. In 2015, Gage told VICE that “Facebook is the real face of pseudo-LifeLog at this point.” He tellingly added, “We have ended up providing the same kind of detailed personal information to advertisers and data brokers and without arousing the kind of opposition that LifeLog provoked.”
Users of Facebook and other large social media platforms have so far been content to allow these platforms to sell their private data so long as they publicly operate as private enterprises. Backlash only really emerged when such activities were publicly tied to the US government, and especially the US military, even though Facebook and other tech giants routinely share their users’ data with the national-security state. In practice, there is little difference between the public and private entities.
Edward Snowden, the NSA whistleblower, notably warned in 2019 that Facebook is just as untrustworthy as US intelligence, stating that “Facebook’s internal purpose, whether they state it publicly or not, is to compile perfect records of private lives to the maximum extent of their capability, and then exploit that for their own corporate enrichment. And damn the consequences.”
Snowden also stated in the same interview that “the more Google knows about you, the more Facebook knows about you, the more they are able . . . to create permanent records of private lives, the more influence and power they have over us.” This underscores how both Facebook and intelligence-linked Google have accomplished much of what LifeLog had aimed to do, but on a much larger scale than what DARPA had originally envisioned.
The reality is that most of the large Silicon Valley companies of today have been closely linked to the US national-security state establishment since their inception. Notable examples aside from Facebook and Palantir include Google and Oracle. Today these companies are more openly collaborating with the military-intelligence agencies that guided their development and/or provided early funding, as they are used to provide the data needed to fuel the newly announced war on domestic terror and its accompanying algorithms.
It is hardly a coincidence that someone like Peter Thiel, who built Palantir with the CIA and helped ensure Facebook’s rise, is also heavily involved in Big Data AI-driven “predictive policing” approaches to surveillance and law enforcement, both through Palantir and through his other investments. TIA, LifeLog, and related government and private programs and institutions launched after 9/11, were always intended to be used against the American public in a war against dissent. This was noted by their critics in 2003-4 and by those who have examined the origins of the “homeland security” pivot in the US and its connection to past CIA “counterterror” programs in Vietnam and Latin America.
Ultimately, the illusion of Facebook and related companies as being independent of the US national-security state has prevented a recognition of the reality of social media platforms and their long-intended, yet covert uses, which we are beginning to see move into the open following the events of January 6. Now, with billions of people conditioned to use Facebook and social media as part of their daily lives, the question becomes: If that illusion were to be irrevocably shattered today, would it make a difference to Facebook’s users? Or has the populace become so conditioned to surrendering their private data in exchange for dopamine-fueled social-validation loops that it no longer matters who ends up holding that data?
Part 2 of this series on Facebook will explore how the social media platform has grown into a behemoth that is much more extensive than what LifeLog’s program managers had originally envisioned. In concert with military contractors and former heads of DARPA, Facebook has spent the last several years doing two key things: (1) preparing to play a much larger role in surveillance and data mining than it currently does; and (2) advancing the development of a “humanized” AI, a major objective of LifeLog.
Tyler Durden
Fri, 04/16/2021 – 22:20 - White House Dedicates $1.7 Billion To Tracking COVID Mutations Across US
White House Dedicates $1.7 Billion To Tracking COVID Mutations Across US
As President Biden’s COVID advisory team scrambles to turn the “fearmongering” dial about the threat posed by mutant strains of the virus that causes COVID-19, the White House is dedicating $1.7 billion in COVID relief funds to tracing the “variant” strains. This comes after Dr. Anthony Fauci and others have struggled to explain why the US lagged behind other western countries, such as the UK, in detecting and tracing the spread of these variants, which require more advanced analysis to identify.
The money, taken from last month’s $1.9 trillion stimulus package, will help the CDC and individual states monitor emerging variants by boosting the country’s capacity to sequence the virus’s genome and detect mutations, the White House said. It comes as the B.1.1.7 variant, also known as “the Kent strain” from where it was first sequenced in the UK, is raising alarms as it is now one of – if not the most – common strains in hotspots like Michigan and NYC.
B.1.1.7 and other variants are increasingly infecting younger children, prompting at least one respected epidemiologist – the University of Minnesota’s Michael Osterholm – to warn the press about a “brand new ball game” for fighting COVID (fortunately, Pfizer has been making swift progress in trials of its COVID-19 vaccine on increasingly youonger children).
The money will be used for collecting COVID-19 samples, sequencing their genomes to identify the strain, and sharing the data, according to a fact sheet provided by the White House, which pointed to these “new and potentially dangerous strains” in its statement. The investment also includes $400MM to establish six “Centers of Excellence in Genomic Epidemiology,” a partnership between state health departments and academic institutions for research and development of the new strains, while also providing $300MM to create a national bioinformatics system to share and analyze sequencing data. The administration will dole out the first portion of the money in early May, with a second tranche expected to be invested over the next several years.
“At this critical juncture in the pandemic, these new resources will help ensure states and the CDC have the support they need to fight back against dangerous variants and slow the spread of the virus,” White House COVID-19 Testing Coordinator Carole Johnson said in a statement.
The administration published a factsheet with a complete breakdown of funding by state.
* * *
Funding from American Rescue Plan will help CDC and Governors monitor, track, and defeat emerging variants that are currently threatening pockets of the country.
The original strain of COVID-19 comprises only about half of all cases in America today. New and potentially dangerous strains of the virus make up the other half. In order to improve the detection, monitoring, and mitigation of these COVID-19 variants, the Biden Administration is rapidly investing $1.7 billion from the American Rescue Plan to help states and other jurisdictions more effectively fight these mutations.
An essential component of the response to the emerging COVID-19 variants is increasing the country’s genomic sequencing — the process by which COVID DNA is decoded and potentially deadly mutations in the virus are detected. Today’s funding, allocated through the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), will help the CDC, states, and other jurisdictions more effectively detect and track variants by scaling genomic sequencing efforts. With the information from sequencing, the CDC and state and local public health leaders can implement known prevention measures to stop the spread.
In early February, U.S. laboratories were only sequencing about 8,000 COVID-19 strains per week. Since then, the rate of sequencing has increased substantially, strengthening the country’s ability to detect and respond to emerging and more contagious COVID-19 strains, like the variants currently sweeping through the Midwest and parts of the East Coast. The Biden Administration has already made a nearly $200 million investment to help increase genomic sequencing to 29,000 samples per week. Thanks to today’s funding from the American Rescue Plan, states and the CDC will expand that even further and, importantly, provide states with more resources to expand their own efforts to increase geographic coverage of sequencing to better detect emerging threats like variants. This will mean that both existing and any new COVID variants could be detected faster, before they grow prevalent.
Today’s announcement includes:
- $1 billion to expand genomic sequencing: This funding will help CDC, states, and other jurisdictions improve their capacity to identify COVID mutations and monitor circulation of variants. Specifically, it will allow CDC and jurisdictional health departments to conduct, expand, and improve activities to sequence genomes and identify mutations in SARS-CoV-2. Much of this work is done through CDC partnerships with the laboratory community and through state laboratories, and the funding will support the collection of COVID specimens, the sequencing of COVID viruses, and the sharing of the resultant data. A state-by-state breakdown of the initial $240 million in jurisdictional funding support is below.
- $400 million to support innovation initiatives including the launch of new innovative Centers of Excellence in Genomic Epidemiology: The funding will establish six Centers of Excellence in Genomic Epidemiology. These centers of excellence will operate as partnerships between state health departments and academic institutions, and today’s funding will fuel cutting-edge research into genomic epidemiology. For example, the partnerships could focus on developing new genomic surveillance tools to better track pathogens of public health interest with the objective of developing surveillance methods to be used more widely in the public health system. Areas of focus will likely include bioinformatic workflows and the critical integration of genomic and epidemiologic data.
- $300 million to build and support a National Bioinformatics Infrastructure: One of the challenges of building out the nation’s sequencing capacity is having the data system necessary to quickly and effectively access information and turn it into concrete actions to prevent the spread of viruses. Experts use bioinformatics and complex computing to connect the dots between how pathogens spread and mutate to help solve outbreaks. This investment will support bioinformatics throughout the U.S. public health system, creating a unified system for sharing and analyzing sequence data in a way that protects privacy but allows more informed decisionmaking. This funding also will support training to increase sequencing in clinical settings and expand CDC’s Bioinformatics Fellowship program.
USA Today pointed out that the US ranks 33rd in the world for its rate of sequencing, falling between Burkina Faso and Zimbabwe, according to COVID CoV Genomic, a group led by researchers at Harvard and MIT. The top three nations (Iceland, Australia and New Zealand) sequenced viral genomes at a rate 55 to 95 times greater.
Notably, the money is being announced one day after Pfizer CEO Albert Bourlas told reporters that Americans would “likely” need a third vaccine shot within 12 months (and as soon as six months) after their second dose, and possibly annual jabs every year after that. But how will the public know to be afraid of the new mutant strains if the US can’t monitor their spread?
Tyler Durden
Fri, 04/16/2021 – 22:00 - The US Air Force Has Big Plans For The Hexa "Flying Car"
The US Air Force Has Big Plans For The Hexa “Flying Car”
Submitted by South Front,
The Hexa is an electric vertical-takeoff-and-landing (eVTOL) wingless multicopter. It is developed by LIFT Aircraft, a Texas-based company. In May, the Air Force will start testing the “flying car” that was designed for the commercial market to be used in military missions, including rescuing troops, delivering cargo and conducting security checks over an airfield.
In late March, one of the flying cars was loaded on a HC-130J and was transported from Ohio to Texas. This was a test to prove that eVTOL aircraft fit to be transported by U.S. military cargo planes.
The initial test was with a single eVTOL, while a C-130H could carry up to four Hexa platforms, with newer C-130J models potentially able to transport five or six at a time.
The first eVTOL prototype was unveiled in February 2021, and the first production units were delivered to the US Air Force for testing and air-worthiness certification.
The Hexa isn’t exactly a flying car, it’s better described as a multi-rotor drone, which is considered an ultralight aircraft that doesn’t need a pilot’s license to fly.
Such eVTOL capable of landing without a runway could be used to ferry troops and supplies needed to stand up operations, while also providing a platform for crisis response. The Hexa will undergo tests for all of these.
Right now, Hexa’s abilities are limited and geared toward the commercial recreation market. The aircraft has room for one person and can fly for about 10-15 minutes and cover a range of 10-15 miles, depending on the payload. A person can learn to fly Hexa quickly because many of the flight systems are automated, but Lift plans to develop a fully automated version.
In the future, the platform could potentially serve as an armed overwatch aircraft to protect ground troops. Even in its current, limited capability, the Hexa could be useful. While it can’t carry as much weight as required to satisfy certain logistics missions, it could transfer smaller cargo.
eVTOL platforms with quiet electric engines and simple sustainment footprints could become key to the Air Force as it figures out how to operate away from large airfields, a concept known as agile combat employment, or ACE.
In a war situation against China or Russia, it is likely that US bases in Europe would quickly be destroyed, for a while or permanently. In response, the US Air Force wants to be able to shift to a disaggregated style of fighting, where discrete packages of aircraft are temporarily deployed to smaller airfields across the globe that may not have large runways or established amenities.
Tyler Durden
Fri, 04/16/2021 – 21:40 - Chinese Aluminum Price Soar To 11-Year Highs As Decarbonization Efforts Slash Energy To Smelters
Chinese Aluminum Price Soar To 11-Year Highs As Decarbonization Efforts Slash Energy To Smelters
Chinese aluminum prices moved higher Friday, hitting an 11-year high, exchange data showed, as Beijing embarks on the road to decarbonization, a move that has reduced energy to the power-hungry smelting hub located in Inner Mongolia, even as new capacity came on online, according to Mining.com.
The benchmark price for aluminum on the Shanghai Futures Exchange stood at 18,025 yuan ($2,764) per metric ton, an 11-year high.
In terms of dollars, SHFE aluminum futures printed at 2,800 per metric ton, a critical resistance level dating back more than a decade ago.
Analysts believe the price surge in aluminum is due to Bejing’s curb on aluminum output in the Xinjiang Uyghur autonomous region to reduce carbon dioxide emissions.
According to Mining.com,
Primary aluminum output in the world’s top producer was up 8.5% year-on-year at 3.28 million tonnes in March, the National Bureau of Statistics said, beating the previous monthly high of 3.27 million tonnes reached in December 2020.
High prices are incentivizing production, with Shanghai aluminum mostly holding above 17,000 yuan a tonne in March.
Prices hit an 11-year high of 18,460 yuan on Friday.
In July, aluminum for delivery was down 0.35% on Friday morning after futures touched $2.355 a tonne on the Comex market in New York.
Meanwhile, the output of a group of 10 nonferrous metals – including copper, aluminum, lead, zinc, and nickel – rose 12.7% year-on-year in March to 5.48 million tonnes, the bureau said.
However, daily aluminum output eased in March from the previous two months, Reuters calculations based on official data showed, dropping to around 105,800 tonnes per day versus 109,300 tonnes per day for January/February, a record.
“March’s record output is due to a 500,000 tonne per year ramp-up of new capacity in the first quarter, offsetting the Inner Mongolia curbs,” CRU analyst Wan Ling told Reuters.
“Some idle capacity has restarted or is going to restart, April production should be still a bit higher compared with March,” Wan said.
“Data do indicate that China still has a considerable appetite for commodities,” Commerzbank analyst Daniel Briesemann said in a note.
Consultancy AZ China estimates 279,000 tonnes of annual aluminum capacity across seven smelters were shut due to the energy curbs, exceeding its estimate of 130,000 tonnes of new capacity launched in China last month, all in Yunnan.
China’s two-decade run as an aluminum juggernaut is running out of road. Decarbonization initiatives have reduced power to smelters as some are having trouble keeping up with demand as the country’s manufacturing sector experiences a growth spurt.
Domestic supply-chain stress are certainly developing in China as green policies start to kick in.
… and the one question we have is how will base metals react if China’s credit impulse begins to slip?
A slowdown in credit creation would have dire consequences for commodity prices that have experienced a rip roar rally for nearly a year since the pandemic began following global central banks and countries pumping trillions of dollars into the respective economies.
Tyler Durden
Fri, 04/16/2021 – 21:20 - The CIA Used To Infiltrate The Media… Now The CIA Is The Media
The CIA Used To Infiltrate The Media… Now The CIA Is The Media
Authored by Caitlin Johnstone,
Back in the good old days, when things were more innocent and simple, the psychopathic Central Intelligence Agency had to covertly infiltrate the news media to manipulate the information Americans were consuming about their nation and the world. Nowadays, there is no meaningful separation between the news media and the CIA at all.
Journalist Glenn Greenwald just highlighted an interesting point about the reporting by The New York Times on the so-called “Bountygate” story the outlet broke in June of last year about the Russian government trying to pay Taliban-linked fighters to attack US soldiers in Afghanistan.
“One of the NYT reporters who originally broke the Russia bounty story (originally attributed to unnamed ‘intelligence officials’) say today that it was a CIA claim,” Greenwald tweeted.
“So media outlets – again – repeated CIA stories with no questioning: congrats to all.”
Indeed, NYT’s original story made no mention of CIA involvement in the narrative, citing only “officials,” yet this latest article speaks as though it had been informing its readers of the story’s roots in the lying, torturing, drug-running, warmongering Central Intelligence Agency from the very beginning. The author even writes “The New York Times first reported last summer the existence of the C.I.A.’s assessment,” with the hyperlink leading to the initial article which made no mention of the CIA. It wasn’t until later that The New York Times began reporting that the CIA was looking into the Russian bounties allegations at all.
One of the NYT reporters who originally broke the Russia bounty story (originally attributed to unnamed “intelligence officials”) say today that it was a CIA claim. So media outlets – again – repeated CIA stories with no questioning: congrats to all.https://t.co/4GbUXBCOpI
— Glenn Greenwald (@ggreenwald) April 15, 2021
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This would be the same “Russian bounties” narrative which was discredited all the way back in September when the top US military official in Afghanistan said no satisfactory evidence had surfaced for the allegations, which was further discredited today with a new article by The Daily Beast titled “U.S. Intel Walks Back Claim Russians Put Bounties on American Troops”.
The Daily Beast, which has itself uncritically published many articles promoting the CIA “Bountygate” narrative, reports the following:
It was a blockbuster story about Russia’s return to the imperial “Great Game” in Afghanistan. The Kremlin had spread money around the longtime central Asian battlefield for militants to kill remaining U.S. forces. It sparked a massive outcry from Democrats and their #resistance amplifiers about the treasonous Russian puppet in the White House whose admiration for Vladimir Putin had endangered American troops.
But on Thursday, the Biden administration announced that U.S. intelligence only had “low to moderate” confidence in the story after all. Translated from the jargon of spyworld, that means the intelligence agencies have found the story is, at best, unproven — and possibly untrue.
D’oh! US spy agencies basically admitted they lied about Russia supposedly paying militants in Afghanistan to kill American occupation forces.
Of course the entire Western media spread this lie for weeks, but don’t expect them to issue any corrections https://t.co/itOniutu0D
— Ben Norton (@BenjaminNorton) April 15, 2021
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So the mass media aggressively promoted a CIA narrative that none of them ever saw proof of, because there was no proof, because it was an entirely unfounded claim from the very beginning. They quite literally ran a CIA press release and disguised it as a news story.
This allowed the CIA to throw shade and inertia on Trump’s proposed troop withdrawals from Afghanistan and Germany, and to continue ramping up anti-Russia sentiments on the world stage, and may well have contributed to the fact that the agency will officially be among those who are exempt from Biden’s performative Afghanistan “withdrawal”.
In totalitarian dictatorships, the government spy agency tells the news media what stories to run, and the news media unquestioningly publish it. In free democracies, the government spy agency says “Hoo buddy, have I got a scoop for you!” and the news media unquestioningly publish it.
In 1977 Carl Bernstein published an article titled “The CIA and the Media” reporting that the CIA had covertly infiltrated America’s most influential news outlets and had over 400 reporters who it considered assets in a program known as Operation Mockingbird. It was a major scandal, and rightly so. The news media is meant to report truthfully about what happens in the world, not manipulate public perception to suit the agendas of spooks and warmongers.
Nowadays the CIA collaboration happens right out in the open, and people are too propagandized to even recognize this as scandalous. Immensely influential outlets like The New York Times uncritically pass on CIA disinfo which is then spun as fact by cable news pundits. The sole owner of The Washington Post is a CIA contractor, and WaPo has never once disclosed this conflict of interest when reporting on US intelligence agencies per standard journalistic protocol. Mass media outlets now openly employ intelligence agency veterans like John Brennan, James Clapper, Chuck Rosenberg, Michael Hayden, Frank Figliuzzi, Fran Townsend, Stephen Hall, Samantha Vinograd, Andrew McCabe, Josh Campbell, Asha Rangappa, Phil Mudd, James Gagliano, Jeremy Bash, Susan Hennessey, Ned Price and Rick Francona, as are known CIA assets like NBC’s Ken Dilanian, as are CIA interns like Anderson Cooper and CIA applicants like Tucker Carlson.
SUPERCUT:
A look back on how cable news went all in on the discredited Russian bounties story. pic.twitter.com/QaG9xAqiuR
— Daily Caller (@DailyCaller) April 15, 2021
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This isn’t Operation Mockingbird. It’s so much worse. Operation Mockingbird was the CIA doing something to the media. What we are seeing now is the CIA openly acting as the media. Any separation between the CIA and the news media, indeed even any pretence of separation, has been dropped.
This is bad. This is very, very bad. Democracy has no meaningful existence if people’s votes aren’t being cast with a clear understanding of what’s happening in their nation and their world, and if their understanding is being shaped to suit the agendas of the very government they’re meant to be influencing with their votes, what you have is the most powerful military and economic force in the history of civilization with no accountability to the electorate whatsoever. It’s just an immense globe-spanning power structure, doing whatever it wants to whoever it wants. A totalitarian dictatorship in disguise.
And the CIA is the very worst institution that could possibly be spearheading the movements of that dictatorship. A little research into the many, many horrific things the CIA has done over the years will quickly show you that this is true; hell, just a glance at what the CIA was up to with the Phoenix Program in Vietnam will.
In case anyone needs reminding, here’s a partial list of the ex-spooks who served as media figures in the Trump years: https://t.co/CJT8YGcvkN
— Matt Taibbi (@mtaibbi) April 16, 2021
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There’s a common delusion in our society that depraved government agencies who are known to have done evil things in the past have simply stopped doing evil things for some reason. This belief is backed by zero evidence, and is contradicted by mountains of evidence to the contrary. It’s believed because it is comfortable, and for literally no other reason.
The CIA should not exist at all, let alone control the news media, much less the movements of the US empire. May we one day know a humanity that is entirely free from the rule of psychopaths, from our total planetary behavior as a collective, all the way down to the thoughts we think in our own heads.
May we extract their horrible fingers from every aspect of our being.
* * *
New book: Notes From The Edge Of The Narrative Matrix.
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Tyler Durden
Fri, 04/16/2021 – 21:00 - Hunter Biden's Memoir Flops Despite Media Fluffing
Hunter Biden’s Memoir Flops Despite Media Fluffing
Hunter Biden’s memoir, Beautiful Things, has totally flopped – selling under 11,000 copies to date, according to Publishers Weekly.
The dismal sales come despite, as Sara Carter’s Douglass Braff notes, “the abundant media promotion from places such as CNN, CBS News, and ABC’s “Jimmy Kimmel Live!“ – especially about the memoir’s sex and drug content – in the lead-up to the book’s release.”
The book of President Joe Biden‘s youngest son debuted at twelfth place among hardcover nonfiction books. Some notable books that beat Hunter Biden’s memoir include National Youth Poet Laureate Amanda Gorman’s “The Hill We Climb: An Inaugural Poem for the Country” in first place with 42,318 copies and Fox News host Shannon Bream’s “The Women of the Bible Speak: The Wisdom of 16 Women and Their Lessons for Today” in second with 32,686 copies during the same timeframe.
His memoir did have a stronger showing on The New York Times’ Best Sellers list though, finishing its debut week in fourth place in the “Combined Print & E-Book Nonfiction” category. –Sara A. Carter
Braff also notes that Biden attempted to downplay the significance of the infamous laptop scandal broken by the New York Post in the run-up to the 2020 US election – telling Jimmy Kimmel that it’s a “red herring,” while falsely claiming that it had been deemed part of a Russian disinformation operation by the Director of National Intelligence’s office.
Of note, Donald Trump Jr.’s book Triggered: How the Left Thrives on Hate and Wants to Silence Us sold 70,000 copies in its first week, according to Neilsen BookScan, and infuriated liberals when it made the New York Times’ best seller list.
Tyler Durden
Fri, 04/16/2021 – 20:40 - F-35: Too Expensive To Use. Too Expensive To Lose
F-35: Too Expensive To Use. Too Expensive To Lose
Authored by Julian Macfarlane,
The F35 is the greatest boondoggle in American history, as one writer says, “too expensive to use, too expensive to lose”. Over its lifespan, it will cost the American taxpayer $1.7 trillion. An F35B costs $138 million dollars and over $36,000 an hour to operate.
Intended to replace the F16, the F35 is slow, maneuvers sluggishly and cannot fire its new lightweight Gatling without destroying the housing and the airplane. It suffers from 13 “class one” defects that endanger both the aircraft and its crew. And 871 flaws that must be corrected before it can be fully operational—in 5 years.
Still, the US has managed to force this aerial junk on a lot of its allies, most recently the UAE, which has prompted the Israelis who have two squadrons of the F35 and mostly use it for PR, to ask for the F22, which, of course, they can only afford to buy with American money.
Last year, there were reports that the Syrians had downed an F35 over Syria with a Soviet era S200. The Israelis claimed a bird did it—over Israel. Nobody really knows.
The Syrians certainly shot something down! And it wasn’t an…um…bird.
However, it is unlikely that the Israelis are using the F35 over Syria. Losing an F35 to the Syrians–especially to a large anti-Zionist Syrian crow – would be too big embarrassment. Most IDF strikes inside Syria seem to have been carried out by F16s, which are faster, carry more ordinance and have the maneuverability to avoid incoming missiles if they detect them early enough.
Another point….
Gen. Tod Wolters, who leads U.S. European Command, offered this explanation:
“You cannot operate an F-35 in the vicinity of an S-400. They won’t talk to each other, and what the two systems will attempt to do, certainly the S-400 against the F-35, is attempt to exploit the F-35’s capabilities.”
The US, of course, has been using the F22 in Eastern Syria and Iraq within range of Russian systems, which now reportedly can detect even this more capable stealth aircraft.
Yes, the Americans tried out the F35 in Afghanistan, since locals throwing rocks weren’t much of a threat. The sales point of the F35 is “stealth”, which is only fine–when your opponent doesn’t have much in the way of advanced radar equipment.
“Stealth” is not invisibility.
An S400 real time anti-stealth radar system can certainly pick up even a large bird-sized object, at 150 km, especially when moving at 700km per hour, which is a giveaway.
The Russians have yet to allow S300 or S400 launches in Syria thanks to a tacit agreement with the Israelis not to exacerbate regional tensions: so, it is not just that the very, very pragmatic Israelis don’t want to use the unreliable F35 over Syria, whose antiaircraft systems to be so much more sophisticated than, say, Lebanon—they don’t want to provoke the Russians.
The last time they did that, the Russians supplied the Syrians with the S300–albeit keeping control of these systems. The warning is obvious: there are redlines.
The Pentagon doesn’t really want this dog. Dogs don’t fly.
But, as in the Yeltsin years in Russia, the US government works for the nation’s oligarchs, a country for Big Tech, by Big Tech, of Big Tech.
Since the US has had to fight a war on its own soil, the nation’s “defense” industry is a malapropism: all its wars are offensive. If the weapons don’t work too well — it doesn’t matter–because the US doesn’t fight anyone but third world countries. The more expensive and complicated the weapons are, the better it is for he companies that make them. How else can a poor CEO buy that second island in the Caribbean and a new private jet?
It also doesn’t matter that the America lost to little Vietnam, ended up losing Iraq to Iran, and soon leave Afghanistan, its tail between its legs. It is even losing in Yemen.
Of course, bullying other countries is more of a problem when your equipment doesn’t work. The new USS Ford, super carrier in the South China Sea? It can’t launch its aircraft. The UK’s new carrier which is supposed to show the flag against China? Its F35Bs can’t fire their guns. In any case, carriers are nice targets for hypersonic missiles.
The Russians and Chinese do defense differently – because for them it actually is defense.
When Putin took over, he made it clear to the oligarchs who previously owned the country that they either deferred to the State, or got out. Some went to prison. Some got out. Russia is still very unequal but the Rich toe the line just as they do in China.
When the Ministry of Defense is not satisfied with a military product, either in terms of cost or performance, it simply cuts orders. This was the case with the Su57. Originally, the government had envisioned putting up to 250 of these aircraft into service by 2025. Now, Russia will get 76 aircraft at a 20% reduction in cost, with better engines, hypersonic weapons, electronics, improved stealth and general finish. And the Su57 will cost about $35 to $40 million each compared to the 138 million of the 35B or the $300 million of an F22. One reason for the discrepancy is that US companies expect the taxpayer to pay R&D and developmental costs, which are added to the flyaway cost. Of course, the companies use that R&D for lucrative commercial projects as well.
Russia doesn’t have money to spare. It is still recovering from the Yelsin years and massive inequality. So it keeps defense companies in line.
The Su57 is a good example but also the T-14 (Armata) tank, where orders were slashed until the contractor promised to a. reduce costs; b. address performance issues.
Putin made clear that Russia is a developing democracy. In the end, the people will rule, oligarchs or not.
By contrast, the US is an “inverted totalitarian state”, or, if you like a “managed” democracy. It is not really a modern state in germs of governance, since it is defined by an 18th Century constitution and institutions, designed to prevent rather than enable democratic rule. The US loved Yeltsin because his “system” was really theirs.
Tyler Durden
Fri, 04/16/2021 – 20:20 - How Putin's "Saber-Rattling" Forced A Biden Summit, Bypassing Kiev To Decide Ukraine's Fate
How Putin’s “Saber-Rattling” Forced A Biden Summit, Bypassing Kiev To Decide Ukraine’s Fate
As the leaders of France, Germany, and Ukraine hold an urgent meeting on Friday to discussing soaring tensions in eastern Ukraine and Russia’s largescale military build-up near the border, Kiev continues to charge Moscow with aggressively stoking conflict:
Addressing a news conference on Thursday, Ukrainian Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba condemned the Kremlin’s “aggravation of the security situation” and accused Russian pundits and officials of “openly threatening Ukraine with war and the destruction of Ukrainian statehood”.
And for Ukraine’s part, President Volodymyr Zelensky has been using the crisis to push hard for rapid NATO membership. In his latest statements on Thursday, he tweeted, “I fully agree with [President of Georgia] Salome Zourabichvili that it is time for concrete proposals for Ukraine and Georgia to obtain a NATO MAP and a plan to join the EU.”
And this followed a recent CNN interview wherein Zelensky demanded “more weapons, more money, and more support to join NATO” from Biden.
But given Biden’s recent offer to sit down with Putin for a bilateral summit this summer, which is still on the table, it appears Ukraine’s leadership has been effectively sidelined. As one FT piece underscored this week, Putin’s troop build-up has succeeded in pressuring the Biden administration for a coveted summit to decide the future of Ukraine.
“The summit format will also please the Kremlin by effectively cutting Kyiv out of any negotiations, and allow Putin to project the image of two global superpowers deciding the future fate of the conflict,” FT observed.
Imagine Trump had done this
https://t.co/MWrvMu7foq— Bruno Maçães (@MacaesBruno) April 15, 2021
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Here’s more from FT…
If Vladimir Putin’s decision to deploy tens of thousands of troops to Ukraine’s border in the past few weeks was driven primarily by a desire to get the west’s attention, he did not have to wait too long for his reward.
Hours after his defense minister on Tuesday admitted Russia had mobilised two armies and three paratroop divisions to positions close to the conflict-wracked frontier, US President Joe Biden phoned the Kremlin with an offer of a bilateral summit: a long sought-after prize for Putin who craves a seat at the world’s highest negotiating table.
…Those 50,000 extra soldiers, scores of tanks and other heavy weaponry spooked Kyiv and other European powers, and sparked a hurried response from Nato and the US amid fears over a potential outbreak of fighting between the two countries.
This wasn’t a stand-alone assessment, given also this week BBC came to a similar conclusion.
The BBC commentary underscored that the Russian troop build-up was never ultimately about some kind of hyped “invasion” of Ukraine – as Kiev officials have been shouting – but instead about bringing massive leverage to bear in forcing Biden’s hand.
Why Russia may not be planning invasion Ukraine fears https://t.co/WoNmYNWyuO
— BBC News (World) (@BBCWorld) April 14, 2021
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To the chagrin of the West’s Russia hawks, the BBC essentially pointed to a major diplomatic victory and ‘checkmate’ of sorts for the Russian side…
The build-up has been impossible to ignore: thousands of Russian troops deployed towards Ukraine; US warships reportedly heading for the Black Sea and Russia’s foreign ministry warning them off “for their own good”.
As the hostile rhetoric and military moves around Ukraine have intensified, Western politicians have begun fearing an open invasion and urging Russia’s Vladimir Putin to “de-escalate”.
Russia has refused: the defense ministry this week insisted its moves were in response to “threatening” Nato exercises in Europe.
Then Mr Putin got a phone-call from the White House.
And then, noted the BBC, Biden suggested a near-future face-to-face summit with Putin, which gives Russia the edge given it was the US side that first proposed it:
“In Putin’s game of brinkmanship, Biden blinked first,” argues journalist Konstantin Eggert, after Joe Biden made his first call to the Kremlin and proposed meeting Mr Putin “in the coming months”.
It’s just weeks after the US president agreed with an interviewer that Russia’s leader was “a killer”.
President Biden’s new move is now a new topic of debate – disaster prevention or a mistaken concession – but in the run-up to a summit, the risk of major military action by Russia certainly fades.
“That would be really unstatesmanlike: a slap in Biden’s face,” Mr Eggert told the BBC. “But the fact that it was Biden who suggested they meet does give Putin the edge.”
Or in other words, “In Putin’s game of brinkmanship, Biden blinked first”.
Biden’s hasty offer sparked widespread disappointment and anger among Russia hawks…
Biden must first hold a summit meeting with Ukrainian President Zelensky before he meets with Russian President Putin.
— Michael McFaul (@McFaul) April 15, 2021
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Eggert had this further to say, telling the BBC: “I think Putin attracted attention, he put himself in the focus not only of Europe but the US administration.” And concluded further of Putin, “He managed to scare them, and he likes doing that.”
But it still remains unclear how Moscow plans to react to Thursday’s major Russia sanctions imposed by Biden. Certainly the punitive actions are intended by Washington to maintain leverage over the Kremlin – but for now it likely means Putin will keep up the pressure in the form of a strong military presence in Crimea, the Black Sea, and along Ukraine’s border. The Kremlin has also reacted with a warning of “no de-escalation” – as Biden called for in his late Thursday address.
Tyler Durden
Fri, 04/16/2021 – 20:00 - The Ugly Truth About Printing-Press Money
The Ugly Truth About Printing-Press Money
Authored by MN Gordon via EconomicPrism.com,
Weeping and gnashing of teeth shall come…
We don’t know when, exactly. But we do know a certain catastrophe’s approaching. In fact, we can see it on the horizon.
Does anyone in Washington give a rip the nation’s beyond broke? Does anyone in Congress care that outright money printing is what’s financing their stimulus bills? Does House Financial Services Committee Chair Maxine Waters think it’s all a real hoot?
Surely, someone in the legislature is aghast at federal spending that’s gone completely out of control.
Are you aghast?
We are. But there’s nothing we can do to stop it. Nearly all remnants of fiscal conservatism have been quarantined from federal government.
The majority of the electorate have voted for generous gifts from the public treasury. They want free education, free food, free phones, free transportation, and free drugs. They want debt forgiveness. Most of all, they want free money.
Many representatives are pushing the President to give the voters what they want…and what the politicians have promised. Specifically, more stimmy checks. According to MoneyWise:
“More than 75 members of Congress say that until the pandemic is over, there should be regular stimulus checks. President Joe Biden is being urged to wrap them into the $2.3 trillion infrastructure spending plan he’s now promoting.”
Stimmy checks, as far as we can tell, have nothing to do with infrastructure. Yet that’s the beauty of perpetual stimmy checks in the interminable pandemic era. The legislature can “wrap them into” just about anything. All it takes is a simple stimmy check earmark.
Hemorrhaging Red Ink
The longer personal livelihoods are funded by government giveaways the more dependent people become. Those who were once self-supporting through their own work derived income are now reliant on stimulus…and generous unemployment checks.
Why work, when it’s much more lucrative to loaf and invite your soul?
Meanwhile, Washington’s hemorrhaging red ink. This week the U.S. Treasury Department released its Monthly Treasury Statement.
It’s unlikely Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen read it. But if she had she would’ve discovered the federal government has already racked up a $1.7 trillion budget deficit in fiscal year 2021.
The fiscal year extends through the end of September. The running budget deficit reported this week was through March – the halfway point. At this rate, we’re looking at a $3.4 trillion deficit for fiscal year 2021. This even tops the $3.1 trillion record deficit attained in fiscal year 2020.
The federal government ran a budget deficit of nearly $660 billion in March alone. In 2017 – just four years ago – the annual deficit was $666 billion. At the time, this was considered reckless and insane.
Now the federal government goes in the hole by $660 billion in one month and no one bats an eye. What’s more, Congress demands further spending, bigger deficits, stimmy check earmarks, and uncompromising fiscal insanity.
Where’s the money coming from?
By now anyone who’s bothered to ask is clued into where the money comes from. And from where it comes is flagrant deception…
The Ugly Truth About Printing Press Money
The Federal Reserve adds a notation to its balance sheet – now over $7.7 trillion – and the credit magically appears from thin air. The Fed then loans the freshly minted credit to the Treasury through the purchase of Treasury notes. The Treasury then directs this printing press money into Washington’s various spending programs.
This inflation of the money supply is inflation in the truest sense. And it comes with destructive consequences.
John Maynard Keynes, Fabian socialist and the godfather of modern day economic planning, in his 1919 work, The Economic Consequences of the Peace, wrote:
“By a continuing process of inflation, governments can confiscate, secretly and unobserved, an important part of the wealth of their citizens. By this method they not only confiscate, but they confiscate arbitrarily; and, while the process impoverishes many, it actually enriches some. The sight of this arbitrary rearrangement of riches strikes not only at security but [also] at confidence in the equity of the existing distribution of wealth.
“[…]. As the inflation proceeds and the real value of the currency fluctuates wildly from month to month, all permanent relations between debtors and creditors, which form the ultimate foundation of capitalism, become so utterly disordered as to be almost meaningless; and the process of wealth-getting degenerates into a gamble and a lottery.”
Could this continuing process of inflation explain the extreme divergence between today’s freshly minted bitcoin millionaires and the abundance of Hoovervilles in cities across the country?
Could it explain the extreme divergence in net worth between the average Congressional representative and the average plumber?
What about the extreme divergence between house prices and incomes…or the extreme divergence between market capitalization and gross domestic product?
The Dow Jones Industrial Average just eclipsed 34,000 – is this some kind of joke?
After asset price inflation and wild gambling and speculation comes consumer price inflation…the real wealth destroyer.
This is the ugly truth about printing press money. The ugly truth Fed Chair Powell and Treasury Secretary Yellen will never share as they champion the virtues of their policies of mass inflation.
Weeping and gnashing of teeth shall come.
Tyler Durden
Fri, 04/16/2021 – 19:40 - Not Just Court Packing: Biden's Supreme Court Commission To Consider Multiple Overhauls
Not Just Court Packing: Biden’s Supreme Court Commission To Consider Multiple Overhauls
Packing the Supreme Court isn’t the only overhaul under consideration by a Biden-appointed commission studying whether Democrats should change the rules because they didn’t win.
The 36-member commission created last week is expected to meet today for a ‘private and informal’ planning session, according to the New York Times, where they will likely split into five working groups to ‘develop research for the entire body to analyze a broad scope of issues.’
Changes under discussion include:
- Term limits
- Mandatory retirement ages
- Limiting the court’s ability to strike down acts of Congress
- Requiring the court to hear more types of appeals
- Limit its ability to resolve important matters before first hearing arguments and receiving full briefings
The Friday meeting, private and unannounced, will focus on a draft road map according to the Times, citing people familiar with the commission who spoke on condition of anonymity.
Their account makes clear that the panel’s intellectual ambitions go beyond the notion of expanding the court — or “packing” it — even though nearly all of the early commentary has focused on that.
…
Mr. Biden decided to create the commission to defuse the thorny political question of whether to endorse adding seats to the Supreme Court. Some liberal activists have called for the step in response to Republican power plays in 2016 and 2020 that yielded a 6-to-3 conservative advantage on the court, even though Democrats won the popular vote in seven of the past eight presidential elections. Many conservatives vehemently oppose the idea. -New York Times
As the Times notes, any legislation to expand the court could be blocked by a filibuster in the Senate, while Democrats lack sufficient support within their own caucus to successfully overcome the tactic. On Thursday, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi said that she did not intend to bring up a bill introduced this week by several Democrats which would expand the court to 13 justices.
Still, Pelosi believes Court Packing should be “considered” and supports Biden’s efforts to study the issue, before noting that changing the size of the court “has been done before” and that changes in the US economy “might necessitate such a thing.”
The structure of Biden’s commission, developed by co-chairs Bob Bauer – a NYU law professor who served as an attorney in the Obama White House, and Yale law professor Cristina M. Rodríguez, a former DOJ official.
There will be five working groups as described by the Times:
The first working group, they said, would assemble materials to set the stage for the commission’s work, including information on what problems have made changing the Supreme Court a matter of recurring debate, comparisons to historical periods in which there were serious calls for changing the court and criteria for evaluating arguments about changes to the court.
The second working group would gather materials about the Supreme Court’s role in the broader constitutional system, including as a final arbiter of major issues with a legal nexus. Among what it will prepare for are proposals for Congress to strip the court of jurisdiction over certain topics, and ideas such as requiring a supermajority to strike down an act of Congress and creating a mechanism for lawmakers to override court decisions.
The third working group would put together materials about length of service and turnover of justices on the Supreme Court, including proposals to create 18-year terms that are staggered so a seat comes up every two years or to impose a mandatory retirement age on older justices. Many other countries have such a safeguard.
The fourth group would develop materials about the membership and size of the Supreme Court. In addition to looking at the history of expansions and contractions of the number of justices by Congress, it will also examine other plans for reducing partisan tensions over the issue, like creating a nonpartisan commission to recommend potential justices or transforming the court into a rotating panel drawn by lottery from the ranks of sitting appeals court judges.
The last working group would collect materials about concerns about the Supreme Court’s case selection and review powers. These include the plummeting number of cases it resolves each year compared with what it did several generations ago, and its so-called shadow docket, when the court issues emergency orders and summary decisions that resolve important questions without full briefings and arguments.
Meanwhile, the Commission will also study whether the reforms could be accomplished via congressional statute or would require a Constitutional amendment.
What happened to just playing the cards you’re dealt?
Tyler Durden
Fri, 04/16/2021 – 19:20 - Florida Gov. DeSantis Says Lockdowns Were A "Huge Mistake"
Florida Gov. DeSantis Says Lockdowns Were A “Huge Mistake”
Authored by Ivan Pentchoukov and Jan Jekielek via The Epoch Times,
Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis issued a statewide stay-at-home order on April 1 last year locking down the Sunshine State for 30 days amid a global panic about the CCP (Chinese Communist Party) virus outbreak. Sitting in his office exactly a year later, he told The Epoch Times that the lockdowns were a “huge mistake,” including in his own state.
“We wanted to mitigate the damage. Now, in hindsight, the 15 days to slow the spread and the 30—it didn’t work,” DeSantis said.
“We shouldn’t have gone down that road.”
Florida’s lockdown order was notably less strict than some of the stay-at-home measures imposed in other states. Recreational activities like walking, biking, golf, and beachgoing were exempted while essential businesses were broadly defined.
“Our economy kept going,” DeSantis said. “It was much different than what you saw in some of those lockdown states.”
The governor nonetheless now regrets issuing the order at all and is convinced that states that have carried on with lockdowns are perpetuating a destructive blunder.
After the 30 days of the initial lockdown in Florida lapsed, DeSantis commenced a phased reopening. He faced fierce criticism at each stage from establishment media and his own constituents beholden to the lockdown narrative.
The governor fully reopened Florida on Sept. 25 last year. When cases began to rise as part of the winter surge he did not reimpose any restrictions. Lockdown proponents forecast doom and gloom. DeSantis stood his ground.
The governor’s persistence wasn’t a leap of faith. Less than two weeks after Florida’s full reopening in late September, scientists from Stanford, Harvard, and Oxford went public with the Great Barrington Declaration, which disavowed lockdowns as a destructive and futile mitigation measure. The declaration, which has since been signed by 13,985 medical and public health scientists, calls on public officials to adopt the focused protection approach—the exact strategy employed by DeSantis.
Despite dire predictions about the pandemic in Florida, DeSantis has been vindicated. On April 1, 2021, Florida ranked 27th among all states in deaths per capita from the CCP virus, commonly known as the coronavirus.
The ranking’s significance is amplified because the Sunshine State’s population is the sixth oldest in the United States by median age. California—the lockdown state often compared to Florida due to its lower per-capita death rate—is the sixth youngest. The risk of dying from the CCP virus is highest for people over 55, with the group accounting for 93 percent of the deaths nationwide.
While Florida is doing either better or relatively the same as the strict lockdown states in terms of CCP virus mortalities, the state’s economy is booming compared to the crippled economies in California and New York. Though less quantifiable, the human suffering from the lockdown-related rise in suicides, mental health issues, postponed medical treatments, and opioid deaths is undeniably immense.
“It’s been a huge, huge mistake in terms of policy,” DeSantis said.
“All I had to do was follow the data and just be willing to go forward into the teeth of the narrative and fight the media,” he added.
“As people were beating up on me, what I said was I’d rather them beat up on me than have someone lose their job. I’d rather have them beat up on me than have kids locked out of school. I’m totally willing to take whatever heat comes our way because we’re doing the right thing.”
Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis gives a thumbs up as he leaves a press conference where he spoke about the cruise industry at Port Miami on April 08, 2021 in Miami, Florida. (Joe Raedle/Getty Images)
‘Don’t Let Them Roll Over Us’
The Epoch Times spent a day embedded with DeSantis as he crisscrossed the state on April 1, jetting southeast from the seat of state government in Tallahassee to a press conference in Titusville and then back north to the Clay County Fair on the outskirts of Jacksonville.
Across dozens of encounters with Floridians from all walks of life, one trend persisted. People thanked DeSantis for his work and his policies. Business owners praised him for not shutting them down.
Chris Allen, the owner of Java Jitters, opened a coffee shop in Orange Park Mall during the pandemic.
“We could not have done that if it wasn’t for Ron DeSantis,” Allen told The Epoch Times after personally thanking the governor during an encounter at the Clay County Fair.
A staff member for Gov. Ron DeSantis holds a “DeSantis 2024, Make America Florida” hat at the Clay County fair on April 1, 2021. The staff member said the hat was handed to the governor by a fair attendee. (Ivan Pentchoukov/Epoch Times)
At the time of the interview, Florida’s unemployment rate was 4.7 percent compared to 6.2 percent nationally. Lockdown states like New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, and California had some of the highest rates in the country—8.9 percent, 7.8 percent, 7.3 percent, and 8.5 percent respectively.
“I have a tough time paying for a meal in Florida just because I saved a lot of these restaurants from oblivion,” DeSantis said. Hours after this claim, a curly fries stand at the fair declined to charge the governor.
DeSantis said some people get emotional when they meet him. Several of the interactions with the governor at the Clay County Fair resembled that description. An visibly moved elderly veteran urged the governor to not “let them roll over us.”
“If we hadn’t stood up, these people may not have jobs, the businesses may have gone under, the kids wouldn’t be in school, there’d be all these things,” DeSantis said.
“This really, really impacts people in a very personal way. And I don’t think anything prior to COVID that I’ve seen in politics can quite do it on this level. And it’s really unfortunate that there were governors that had power [who did] the opposite. It really shouldn’t depend on the governor.”
Reopening the state wasn’t as easy as lifting his own stay-at-home measures. When DeSantis issued the final reopening order in late September last year, he signed a companion order prohibiting local Florida governments from restricting people from working or operating a business. The order had far-reaching consequences across the state, especially in densely-populated, liberal-leaning locales where the local authorities imposed their own strict measures.
DeSantis adopted a hands-off approach to local regulations at first, thinking that voters would ultimately hold local authorities responsible. It became obvious eventually that some places would remain locked down despite the data showing that doing so would have no positive impact on the spread of the virus.
“They weren’t going to open this stuff up unless I pried it open,” DeSantis said.
“We had the data. We talked to some of the best scientists in the country,” DeSantis said, referring to Martin Kulldorff from Harvard, Jayanta Bhattacharya from Stanford, and Sunetra Gupta from Oxford.
“Every Floridian has a right to work. Every business has a right to operate.”
In areas that were forced to reopen as a result, the economies are now booming with new hotels and restaurants opening, DeSantis said.
DeSantis received a law degree from Harvard and is a textualist when interpreting the Constitution. He believes barring the local authorities from placing restrictions on the people and businesses was squarely within his authority.
“You can’t have 67 different minimum wages, or 67 different regulations on hotels. We are one state economy, and we need to have certain rules of the road,” DeSantis said.
Gov. Ron DeSantis delivers remarks at a press conference in Titusville, Florida, on April 1, 2021. (Screenshot via Epoch Times)
‘They Are Never Going to Admit They Were Wrong’
Standing behind the desk in his office in Tallahassee, DeSantis leafed through a folder of praise he’s received from around the nation and across the globe. Hanging on the walls around the relatively small space was a portrait of Abraham Lincoln, the Constitution, and the Bill of Rights as well as the uniform the governor wore as the captain of the Yale baseball team.
When asked why he chose Lincoln, DeSantis said the president is the best example of a leader who had to make difficult decisions in a time of crisis. When asked why some of the leaders today have continued with lockdowns even with ample evidence of their ineffectiveness, the governor theorized that the people involved have committed too much to the narrative and have made it impossible to change course.
“You have a situation where if you’re in this field, the pandemic, that’s something that you kind of prepare for and you’re ready for. And a lot of these people muffed it,” he said.
“When push came to shove, they advocated policies that have not worked against the virus but have been very, very destructive. They are never going to admit they were wrong about anything, unfortunately.”
Elected leaders aren’t the only ones to blame, according to the governor. The media and big tech companies played a major role in perpetuating fears about the virus while selectively censoring one side of the mitigation debate. DeSantis said the media and tech giants stood to benefit from the lockdown as people stayed home and consumed their products.
“It was all just to generate the most clicks that they could. And so that was always trying to do the stuff that would inspire the most fear,” DeSantis said.
Two weeks after the interview, an undercover video recorded by Project Veritas showed a technical director at CNN talking about the boost the network received due to its pandemic coverage.
“It’s fear. Fear really drives numbers,” CNN Technical Director Charlie Chester said. “Fear is the thing that keeps you tuned in.”
The fear-mongering worked, DeSantis said, pointing to CDC statistics showing that 4 out of 10 American adults delayed or avoided getting urgent or routine medical treatment in June 2020. The agency’s report said that the pattern may have contributed to the excess deaths reported during that period, due to preventable illnesses and injuries going untreated.
Emergency room doctors had reported that fewer people were coming in with cardiac-related chest pains while more were coming in with late-stage appendicitis, something that is usually caught much earlier. The pandemic has also led to a sharp decrease in cancer screenings and detections.
“When you have people too scared to go to the emergency room when they’re literally having a heart attack, that didn’t happen in a vacuum,” DeSantis said.
“Corporate media played a role in that, by really whipping up people into a frenzy.”
The profit motive wasn’t the only factor potentially driving the media’s slanted coverage, according to the governor. The pandemic hit the United States in an election year, presenting an opportunity to heap the blame on President Donald Trump.
“They viewed it as an opportunity to damage Trump. Obviously, they hated Trump more than anything,” DeSantis said.
Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis in his office in Tallahassee, Florida, on April 1, 2021. (Screenshot via Epoch Times)
‘Council of Censors’
In the April 1 interview, DeSantis criticized big tech companies for censoring critics of lockdowns. Less than a week after the interview, the governor himself became the victim of censorship. YouTube, without warning, scrubbed videos of a roundtable discussion between DeSantis and prominent scientists from Harvard, Oxford, and Stanford who assessed that lockdowns are ineffective.
The American Institute for Economic Research (AIER) was the first to flag the video’s disappearance. The original clip is now hosted on a different platform and appears along with a full transcript on the AIER website.
“Google and YouTube have not been, throughout this pandemic, repositories of truth and scientific inquiry, but instead have acted as enforcers of a narrative, a big tech council of censors in service of the ruling elite” DeSantis said in response to YouTube’s censorship during an April 12 video conference call with three of the scientists from the banned video.
“When they took down the video … they were really continuing what they’ve been doing for the past year: stifle debate, short-circuit scientific inquiry, make sure that the narrative is not questioned. And I think that we’ve seen already that that has had catastrophic consequences for our society.”
The takedown of the video suggests that Big Tech intends to keep exercising the awesome power it directed against Trump in the closing days of the previous administration. Twitter and Facebook banned the president, cutting off a direct line of communication between the commander-in-chief and tens of millions of Americans.
DeSantis thinks that the power monopolies have now is far more extensive than what the United States had witnessed at the turn of the century.
“What we’ve seen with the big tech and the censorship, they are exercising more power than the monopolies at the beginning of the 20th century ever could have exercised,” the governor said. “The type of power that they’re exercising now in some respects is even more profound than the type of power that government typically exercises.”
No End In Sight
Desantis believes the lockdown states may never fully reopen because the leaders there have invested so heavily in the narrative while the voters have grown fearful.
While restrictions are easing across the nation, only six states, including Florida, have fully reopened, according to a tracker maintained by USA Today. Eight states never issued a stay-at-home order.
“I think if your goal is no cases, then there may never be an end to it, because you’re never gonna have zero COVID,” DeSantis said, adding that a more pragmatic goal would be to aim towards a hospitalization rate indicative of a respiratory virus endemic.
“But I don’t know that they’re willing to accept that reality. I think they’re going to try to have no cases at all, which would basically mean there would never be a full end to these policies, which is scary.”
Tyler Durden
Fri, 04/16/2021 – 19:00 - More States Are Seeing Unused COVID Jabs Pile Up As Poor Countries Shut Out
More States Are Seeing Unused COVID Jabs Pile Up As Poor Countries Shut Out
The other day, we reported on an interview with from Dr. Scott Gottlieb, a former director of the FDA under President Trump who frequently appears in the press to offer analysis and commentary on the rollout of the COVID vaccine, along with federal COVID policy more broadly.
Yesterday, the focus of the interview was a criticism lodged by Dr. Gottlieb against the Biden administration’s target of 200MM Americans vaccinated by the end of the month. Hours after our post, Bloomberg News shared a startling piece of analysis: Across the US, unused vaccines are already starting to pile up. Should we see daily vaccination numbers continue to decline, that would suggest the demand cliff that Dr. Gottlieb anticipated has perhaps already arrived.
So far, 37% of American adults have gotten at least one dose, and the country is one of the world leaders in vaccinations. But even some states that are doing well are struggling with what Bloomberg described as “stubborn pockets” where uptake is low.
Bloomberg offered the state of Virginia – infamous for its purple blue-meets-red divide between the Washington DC suburbs and Richmond vs. the rest of the state – as a “microcosm” of the “demand gap” plaguing America.
In Virginia, for instance, 83% of vaccines supplied to the state have been used – but the number of people getting shots differs sharply from city to city. That difference is especially stark in Charlottesville and Lynchburg, separated by a mere hour’s drive on U.S. 29 past vineyards and open farmland.
“Virginia is sort of a microcosm of the country,” said Costi Sifri, director of epidemiology at UVA Health in Charlottesville. “We’re going to have this same type of challenge played out in every state in the country. How do we close the vaccine gaps that are going to occur geographically?”
In Charlottesville, a mostly Democratic area that is home to the University of Virginia, vaccine appointments are tough to snag even with two mass clinics right in town. In Lynchburg, 70 miles south and dominated by conservative Liberty University, open appointments at an old TJ Maxx are easy to find. The disparity has led to in-state vaccine tourism where residents in northern Virginia flock south to snap up shots that would otherwise go unused. The wide availability of vaccines also signals that areas like Lynchburg may be running out of residents willing to get vaccinated.
Bloomberg‘s choice of imagery here is particularly evocative. If you had to choose where to get vaccinated, which would you prefer: a jam-packed campus health center, or the musty back-rooms of a TJ Maxx?
And while you mull that over, consider this: nationwide, the percentage of vaccines going unused week to week has risen from 19% in February to more than 20% today. The rate varies substantially across states, with Alabama and Georgia seeing unused rates nearing 40%. And while Bloomberg humorously tiptoes around the politics factor,
Source: Bloomberg
Fortunately, federal officials are already working on a “solution”.
Federal officials are in the early stages of rethinking distribution. Vaccines have so far been doled out based on population.
“We’re going to go through stages, as we vaccinate higher and higher portions of populations, where it will make sense for us to continue to watch where vaccines are needed, how vaccines are distributed, the best way to reach more people,” Andy Slavitt, senior adviser for the White House’s Covid Response team, said at the end of March.
Meanwhile, doses pile up. West Virginia – lauded for its rollout of shots early on – has gone from using all but a tiny percentage of its supply in mid-February to 26% of doses unused, a daily average of 352,000 unused doses over the last week. Some states have never gotten their vaccination strategy in gear. Alabama, Georgia and Mississippi represent a band of southern states that have struggled to work through their supplies.
States don’t control all of the distribution inside their own borders. Mississippi says it has used 77% of the doses it has requested. But when the doses sent directly by the federal government to pharmacies and other locations are counted, only 65% of doses in the state have been used, according to Bloomberg’s analysis.
Taken together, the worst-performing quartile of states holds 14.1 million unused doses, meaning that 31% of doses delivered in those states are yet to be marked as used. In the best-performing quartile of states, only 11% of doses were unused.
While US states clearly have more jabs than they need, of the 700 million vaccine doses that have been distributed across the globe, over 87% have gone to high-income or upper-middle-income countries, while low-income countries have received just 0.2%. More than 100 countries around the world haven’t gotten their hands on a single dose.
Why can’t countries simply make their own vaccines? Well, it’s complicated, but one man is overwhelmingly responisble: Bill Gates. And his insistence on preserving vaccine-related IP, the focus of a battle over IP rights happening at the WTO.
Here’s another idea. With US vaccine supplies already outpacing demand, why don’t we start sending more of these vaccines abroad. While the US has promised jabs to Mexico and elsewhere, the global need is vast, and if the status quo endures, billions of people likely won’t have access to vaccines until 2024.
Tyler Durden
Fri, 04/16/2021 – 18:40 - Watch: Powerful Blast Rocks Latin America's Largest Explosive-Grade Ammonium Nitrate Plant
Watch: Powerful Blast Rocks Latin America’s Largest Explosive-Grade Ammonium Nitrate Plant
A powerful explosion has rocked the Enaex acid plant, which is located south of Calama, Chile, on Friday afternoon, according to Chilean news Meganoticias.
Enaex is the largest producer of explosive-grade ammonium nitrate in Latin America. The incident occurred within the acid plant where nitroglycerin is stored.
At the moment, the official number of injured is unknown. The mayor of Calama, Daniel Agusto, told CNN Chile that the powerful explosion “was felt in almost the entire city” and even “traffic was cut off.”
🔴 AHORA | Alcalde de Calama por explosión en planta Enaex: “Es un accidente de proporciones (…). Se trataría del material nitroglicerina”. https://t.co/E6QIJgKdbt pic.twitter.com/c9uyjdqoex
— CNN Chile (@CNNChile) April 16, 2021
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‘“There are about 25 injured who are being transferred to the Carlos Cisternas y del Cobre Hospital. Various gravity. The explosion was felt throughout Calama. It destroyed the Enaex acid plant. That plant that works with explosives is three kilometers from the houses in the city,” according to one Twitter user who also posted a stunning picture of the explosion.
Here’s a video of the explosion sending a large column of smoke into the atmosphere.
¡PRECAUCIÓN! #Calama (16:57 hrs) Información preliminar de bomberos indican que la explosión fue en la planta de ácido de la empresa Enaex. Hacemos el llamado a los pobladores a no acercarse al sector del accidente. Noticia en desarrollo. pic.twitter.com/YelDcLACy0
— TransporteInforma Región de Antofagasta (@TTIAntofagasta) April 16, 2021
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A video of the explosion as it was happening.
— MacaJaDina (@dina_maca) April 16, 2021
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Video from within the plant.
Fuerte explosión hace un momento se sintió en la ciudad de #Calama. Información preliminar indican que esta se produjo en planta de ácido de ENAEX Calama. Noticia en desarrollo. Se remeció toda la casa, es de esperar que no hayan personas heridas. 🙏 pic.twitter.com/lutgXDF2hD
— 🌸Ángel💜 (@angelbened) April 16, 2021
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Another view of the explosion.
Explosión en sector enaex #Calama. pic.twitter.com/MOw2958RcN
— Concejal Cristian Flores XY 328 (@titan_flores) April 16, 2021
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So does this mean Latin America’s largest producer of explosive-grade ammonium nitrate is offline?
Tyler Durden
Fri, 04/16/2021 – 18:26 - The Interesting Case Of 'The Zaïre'… The Question MMT Cannot Answer
The Interesting Case Of ‘The Zaïre’… The Question MMT Cannot Answer
Authored by Eric Nies via Disinthrallment.com,
The zaïre lived an interesting life.
The zaïre was the basic unit of currency for the Democratic Republic of the Congo and the Republic of Zaire (it’s back to the Democratic Republic of the Congo; I’ll just call it Zaire for ease) from 1967 until 1997. Seventy-three of the 79 series of zaïre banknotes featured Ziarian dictator, CIA stooge, and world champion kleptocrat Joseph-Desire Mobuto.
For its first two decades, the zaïre was surprisingly stable as far as Sub-Saharan currencies go. Between 1967 and 1987, the inflation vis-à-vis the dollar was only 98 percent. But then, things took a turn.
The Zairian economy had managed to stay afloat during decades of kleptomania, nepotism, and military spending by Mobuto and his cronies due to Western Aid and high prices for the various minerals mined in the Eastern Congo basin. Beginning around 1990, the combination of the collapse of the Soviet Bloc, falling copper prices, and deeper administrative ineptitude buffeted the economy.
As Gerard Prunier, French journalist and author of the excellent Africa’s World War: Congo, the Rwandan Genocide, and the Making of a Continental Catastrophe, explains:
From sickly, the Ziarian economy turned terminal…. Because imports remained at a fairly high level for some time while exports declined, the external debt had risen to $12.8 billion by 1996, representing 233 percent of GDP, or 924 percent of export capacity …
Perhaps the most preoccupying effect of this collapse was the quasi-disappearance of the monetary system. With inflation rate that the IMF calculated at an average of 2,000 percent during the 1900s, prices shot up in an insane way.
The Zairian consumer price index moved from 100 in 1990 to 4,130 in 1992 to just under 2,000,000 in 1993. Prunier continues:
The government started to print money as fast as it could, simply to keep a certain amount of fiduciary currency irrigating the economy. Bills were printed in ever higher denominations and put into circulation as fast as possible, and their rapidly shrinking real purchasing value would then wipe them off the market in a way that make even the German hyperinflation of the 1920s look mild In December 1992 the system finally imploded: the Z 5 million bill was refused by everybody and had a zero life span. The government then tried to force it through by paying soldiers’ salaries [with the inflated bills] but the army rioted when its money was refused in the shops.
So far it reads like one of the many hyperinflations throughout history. But then things get interesting. Mobuto, in a panic, demonetized the zaïre and issued the new zaïre, with an initial exchange rate of 1 new zaïre = 3,000,000 old zaïre.
A nation issuing new currency to attempt to staunch an inflationary hemorrhage is nothing new; Brazil did the same thing in the 1990s. However, the new zaïre suffered from the same hyperinflative tendencies as its predecessor except that in certain areas of Zaire the old zaïre resurfaced and began to be used again as a medium of exchange. For instance,
Kasai refused the new currency and kept using the old one, which regained a certain value simply by not being printed anymore.
In other words, even though the government and its central bank ruled that the old zaïre was without value and the full faith and credit of the Zairian government backed the new zaïre, the only currency with any value was the old zaïre—and the value had nothing to do with any fiat issued by the government, but instead the understanding of a sector of the population that because the old zaïre was no longer being printed, it could act as a reasonably safe store of value.
Finally, by 1994, the financial sector was operating entirely with foreign currencies. Meanwhile, Prunier reports,
As for the Congolese population … its tax burden increased out of all proportion, reaching a punishing rate of 7.5 percent of GNP outside the oil and mining levies.
The case of the zaïre provides strong anecdotal evidence discounting the fiat currency-obsessed Modern Monetary Theory (“MMT”).
MMT, which is growing in popularity, takes to the logical extreme the concept of fiat money, even to the point that proponents have argued government-issued currency is not subject to market forces and can be issued indefinitely. A fundamental aspect of MMT is the tenet that a central bank can always control inflation by pulling its own fiat currency from circulation by taxation. Thus, proponents such as Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and former Bernie Sanders advisor Stephanie Kelton claim neither inflation nor budget deficits are a significant concern.
MMT proponents have attempted to contest the arguments by such economists as Larry Summers that MMT is simply a recipe for hyperinflation by pointing out that a primary focus of MMT is keeping inflation in check by taxation (to reduce “excess demand”) and fiscal—as opposed to monetary—policy (such as an eternal zero Fed discount rate). But this is exactly where the zaïre is so relevant.
A basic presumption of MMT is that the government can keep control of “its” money – that through any number of tools, it can control inflation fiscally and thus print whatever money it needs for the here and now without the classical economic concern about hyperinflation. But fiat currency (all currency actually) only has value if it is perceived to have value, and a central bank cannot switch that subjective valuation on and off at will. Consider again what happened in Zaire:
(1) Due to internal and external forces, the corrupt government ran out of money and it turned on the presses. This was not due to the evil corporate bogeyman some MMT proponents blame, but simple increase in the money supply.
(2) Inflation and then hyperinflation hit to the point that the zaïre was virtually useless. The government’s attempt to prop up the zaïre, literally at gunpoint, failed as did a “punishing rate” of taxation—which MMT proponents argue is a primary tool to stop inflation.
(3) The central bank issued the new new zaïre and backed it while demonetizing the old zaïre. However, the government fiat meant nothing to the populace, who deemed the new zaïre worthless.
(4) Meanwhile, the demonetized zaïre, having been left for dead, was suddenly resurrected. There is no evidence I can find of any centralizing or guiding effort behind the choice of some Zairians to begin using the old zaïre again; rather, it appears to have been a spontaneous market reaction and people realized the presses had stopped, and with it, inflation.
The question MMT simply cannot answer is what happens when, due to monetary and fiscal gymnastics, the consumer simply stops trusting or using the currency. The Zairian central bank could not tax the populace enough to reduce “aggregate demand,” and its attempts to force a new currency on the populace immediately failed. Meanwhile, the older currency, which the government had specifically disavowed, was given value by the people—at least for a while. Under MMT tenets, this should not have happened; indeed, it should be impossible. And yet, it happened all the same.
Tyler Durden
Fri, 04/16/2021 – 18:20 - Punching Right: Liz Cheney Was Top Never-Trump Peddler Of Debunked 'Russian Bounties' Story
Punching Right: Liz Cheney Was Top Never-Trump Peddler Of Debunked ‘Russian Bounties’ Story
As Democrats seized on a now-debunked New York Times report that the Kremlin placed bounties on the heads of American troops in Afghanistan – blaming President Trump for deliberately downplaying the aggression to appease ‘Lord Putin’ (as the story goes) – Rep. Liz Cheney (R-WY) punched right, peddling the fabricated bounties story to any and all who would listen, according to The Federalist.
Fast forward ten months later, and the Daily Beast reports that a senior administration finally admitted: “The United States intelligence community assesses with low to moderate confidence that Russian intelligence officers sought to encourage Taliban attacks on U.S. and coalition personnel in Afghanistan in 2019 and perhaps earlier.”
“Low to moderate confidence” is another way of saying “unproven and potentially false, “in part because it relies on detainee reporting,” which is often unreliable.
Yet, Cheney pounced in an effort to undermine then-President Trump, while using the fake news to also lobby for a prolonged military presence in the region as the Trump administration was pulling troops out of Afghanistan.
If reporting about Russian bounties on US forces is true, the White House must explain:
1. Why weren’t the president or vice president briefed? Was the info in the PDB?
2. Who did know and when?
3. What has been done in response to protect our forces & hold Putin accountable?— Liz Cheney (@Liz_Cheney) June 28, 2020
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More via The Federalist:
Two days later, Politico, in an article titled, “Cheney takes on Trump,” wrote, “in her latest rebuke of Trump, Cheney openly questioned whether the president was aware of reports that the Russians offered Afghan militants bounties to kill U.S. troops and demanded the administration take a more aggressive posture toward the Kremlin.”
Cheney was persistent in pushing the story, much to the frustration of colleagues and even allies on Capitol Hill as she continued an inner-party crusade against the president in an election year from her position as House conference chair.
FWIW, quite a few people in recent weeks who generally like Cheney — including those not on the Hill — were extremely disappointed with how she worked so hard to help the NYT spread its false anti-Trump story about Russia bounties. https://t.co/rM1dbnMI6U
— Mollie (@MZHemingway) July 21, 2020
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On June 29, Cheney released a joint statement with Texas Republican Rep. Mac Thornberry perpetuating the claims U.S. intelligence eventually conceded were a fake news story after Trump left office.
“After today’s briefing with senior White House officials, we remain concerned about Russian activity in Afghanistan, including reports that they have targeted U.S. forces. It has been clear for some time that Russia does not wish us well in Afghanistan,” they wrote. “We anticipate further briefings on this issue in the coming days.”
Cheney also pursued an ulterior motive to advance an interventionist foreign policy by amplifying the story alongside Democrats, as chronicled here by Glenn Greenwald in the Intercept. The at-large Wyoming congresswoman capitalized on the report of Russian bounties to sponsor an amendment with Colorado Democratic Rep. Jason Crow to prevent the White House from reducing the number of troops in Afghanistan to below 8,000, action the Trump administration was actively preparing to finalize.
America’s adversaries should never question the will of the United States government or the American people to defend our interests, to protect the security of our nation, to protect our Armed Forces, and to respond when attacked or threatened. pic.twitter.com/czl22H8hrd
— Rep. Liz Cheney (@RepLizCheney) June 30, 2020
Read the rest of the report here.
Tyler Durden
Fri, 04/16/2021 – 18:00
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