Jun 17

Today’s News 17th June 2020

  • Norway Abandons COVID-Tracking App Over Privacy Fears
    Norway Abandons COVID-Tracking App Over Privacy Fears

    Tyler Durden

    Wed, 06/17/2020 – 02:45

    Norway’s health authorities suspended the use of its COVID-19 tracing app and deleted all location data collected amid new privacy criticism from the Norwegian Data Protection Authority (DPA), reported The Local. 

    The Norwegian Institute of Public Health (NIPH) launched the smartphone app Smittestopp (“infection stop”) in April was used to collect location data of COVID-19 carriers. 

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    The country’s data privacy watchdog raised several red flags with the app on Friday, indicating that it’s too “invasive” now that COVID-19 infection and death rates have slowed. 

    “Smittestopp is a very invasive measure, even in an exceptional situation where society is trying to fight a pandemic,” DPA said in a statement. “The legality of Smittestopp depends on the social benefits.”

    The NIPH responded to DPA’s criticism of the app and said:

     “We don’t agree with the DPA’s evaluation, but feel it is necessary to delete all data and put work on hold as a result of this. 

    “We will as a result weaken an important part of our preparedness against a spread in infection, as we now lose time for development and testing of the app,” NIPH said in a statement. 

    Norway has mostly avoided the pandemic versus other countries in Europe. The country has only seen 8,639 confirmed cases with 242 deaths. At the moment, there are only 16 people hospitalized with the virus, with just 4 in intensive care.

    COVID-19 Cases In Europe

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    COVID-19 Deaths in Europe

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    Smittestopp uses Bluetooth and GPS to track and detect users when they are near a COVID-19 carrier. The app was downloaded 1.6 million times, but active users have dropped to about 600,000 since confirmed cases continued to decline. 

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    DPA questioned the effectiveness behind Smittestopp, considering its low participation. NIPH said the pandemic is not over, and suspending the app’s usage could undermine the country’s effort to combat the spread. 

    Tracing apps have been controversial in Europe and elsewhere around the world — many have alleged these government-sponsored tracking apps infringe on people’s rights by collecting location data. 

    Earlier this month, the US government and law enforcement agencies used tracing apps and big tech to identify rioters. 

    The latest countries to implement tracing apps have been Singapore and Australia. 

    The war on COVID around the world has ushered in a massive surveillance state with tech weaponry that governments can deploy at any time: thermal imaging cameras, drones, contact tracing, biometric databases, etc.

    No one is safe from the government in a post-corona world — they’re watching everyone’s move. But in Norway — the tracing app has been turned off – however, with threats of a second virus wave “has arrived” — it’s only a matter of time before the app is turned back on. 

  • The Miracle Of Salisbury: The BBC's Enters 'Propaganda Hall Of Fame' With Skripals Story
    The Miracle Of Salisbury: The BBC’s Enters ‘Propaganda Hall Of Fame’ With Skripals Story

    Tyler Durden

    Wed, 06/17/2020 – 02:00

    Authored Craig Murray,

    It turns out that the BBC really does believe that God is an Englishman. When the simple impossibility of the official story on the Skripals finally overwhelmed the dramatists, they resorted to Divine Intervention for an explanation – as propagandists have done for millennia.

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    This particular piece of script from Episode 2 of The Salisbury Poisonings deserves an induction in the Propaganda Hall of Fame:

    Porton Down Man: I’ve got the reports from the Bailey house

    Public Health Woman: Tell me, how many hits?

    Porton Down Man: It was found in almost every room of the house. Kitchen, bathroom, living room, bedrooms. It was even on the light switches. We found it in the family car too. But his wife and children haven’t been affected. I like to think of myself as a man of science, but the only word for that is a miracle.

    Well, it certainly would be a miracle that the family lived for a week in the house without touching a light switch. But miracle is not really the “only word for that”. Nonsense is a good word. Bullshit is a ruder version. Lie is entirely appropriate in these circumstances.

    Because that was not the only miracle on display.

    We were told specifically that the Skripals had trailed novichok all over Zizzis and the Bishops Mill pub, leaving multiple deadly deposits, dozens of them in total, which miraculously nobody had touched.

    We were told that Detective Bailey was found to have left multiple deadly deposits of novichok on everything he touched in a busy police station, but over several days before it was closed down nobody had touched any of them, which must be an even bigger miracle than the Baileys’ home.

    Perhaps even more amazingly, as the Skripals spread novichok all over the restaurant and the pub, nobody who served them had been harmed, nobody who took their payment. The man who went through Sergei’s wallet to learn his identity from his credit cards was not poisoned. The people giving first aid were not poisoned. The ducks Sergei fed were not poisoned. The little boy he fed the ducks with was not poisoned. So many miracles. If God were not an Englishman, Salisbury would have been in real trouble, evidently.

    The conclusion of episode two showed Charlie Rowley fishing out the perfume bottle from the charity bin at least two months in the timeline before this really happened, thus neatly sidestepping one of the most glaring impossibilities in the entire official story. I think we can forgive the BBC that lie – there are only so many instances of divine intervention in the story the public can be expected to buy in one episode.

    It is fascinating to see that the construction of this edifice of lies was a joint venture between the BBC and the security services’ house journal, the Guardian. Not only is all round pro-war propagandist “Colonel” Hamish De Bretton Gordon credited as Military Advisor, but Guardian journalists Caroline Bannock and Steven Morris are credited as Script Consultants, which I presume means they fed in the raw lies for the scriptwriters to shape into miracles.

    Now here is an interesting ethical point for readers of the Guardian. The Guardian published in the last fortnight two articles by Morris and Bannock that purported to be reporting on the production of the drama and its authenticity, without revealing to the readers that these full time Guardian journalists were in fact a part of the BBC project. That is unethical and unprofessional in a number of quite startling ways. But then it is the Guardian.

    [Full disclosure. I shared a flat with Caroline at university. She was an honest person in those days.]

    Again, rather than pepper this article with links, I urge you to read this comprehensive article, which contains plenty of links and remains entirely unanswered.

    *  *  *

    Unlike the Integrity Initiative, the 77th Brigade, Bellingcat, the Atlantic Council and hundreds of other warmongering propaganda operations, Craig’s blog has no source of state, corporate or institutional finance whatsoever. It runs entirely on voluntary subscriptions from its readers – many of whom do not necessarily agree with the every article, but welcome the alternative voice, insider information and debate. Subscriptions to keep Craig’s blog going are gratefully received.

  • The Enemy Within: A Story Of The Purge Of American Intelligence
    The Enemy Within: A Story Of The Purge Of American Intelligence

    Tyler Durden

    Wed, 06/17/2020 – 00:05

    Authored by Cynthia Chung via The Strategic Culture Foundation,

    “Western Europe has only 20 to 30 more years of democracy left in it; after that it will slide, engineless and rudderless, under the surrounding sea of dictatorship, and whether the dictation comes from a politburo or a junta will not make that much difference.”

    – Willy Brandt (German Federal Chancellor, right before he stepped down in 1974)

    Believe it or not, but the dystopic view that democracy is dead is by no measure a new idea. However, what might disturb you is where this design, in its contemporary form, really germinated from.

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    The idea that democracy is in a crisis and needs to be replaced with a new form of “governance” did not originate from the outcries of an oppressed people demanding their rights to a decent life. We are not presently seeing an organic, grassroots process in reforming how government, that is, democracy will be “improved” upon. Rather, what we are seeing is a controlled disintegration of the very thing we think we are trying to uphold, and this destruction has been in the works for over 45 years.

    It is no coincidence that Samuel P. Huntington is very fond of the Willy Brandt quote “prophesising” the end of democracy (which was used at the beginning of both his books ‘The Crisis of Democracy’ and ‘Disaffected Democracies’), that is after all his purpose in life…to see to it that that prophecy comes true.

    In this paper I will go through how the Henry Kissinger crew successfully purged the last significant remnants of decency within the CIA and reshaped the government structure into the Deep State that we see it grotesquely throbbing as today.

    In this story, we will see how those prominent figureheads who prophesise the “end of democracy” have been the very orchestrators of its destruction.

    The First Purge of American Intelligence: The Dismantling of the OSS

    On March 4th 1933, President Franklin D. Roosevelt would be elected President of the United States, which would become a twelve year presidency, ending only due to his passing away. Roosevelt was an anti-imperialist who actively, and successfully, organised towards abolishing imperialism throughout the world.

    The Office of Strategic Services (OSS) was established by Roosevelt on June 13th 1942, under the direction of William J. Donovan, as a wartime intelligence agency. Its purpose was to collect and analyze strategic information required by the Joint Chiefs of Staff and to conduct special operations not assigned to other agencies.

    Contrary to how we think of American foreign intelligence today, the raison d’être of the OSS was to genuinely win the war (WWII) quickly and with the least amount of loss.

    However, FDR would pass away on April 12th 1945, and the OSS would be dismantled a mere five months after FDR’s passing and two weeks after the official end of WWII.

    On Sept 20th 1945, Truman infamously ordered the shutdown of the OSS, referring to it as a potential Gestapo , however, not with the intention to disband all foreign intelligence capabilities. The OSS would be replaced under the new banner of CIA, on Sept 18th 1947, and more importantly as a contingent to the National Security Council which was created on the same day. Refer to my paper on this.

    Many respectable and patriotic intelligence officers of repute, who were loyal to FDR’s vision, were also thrown out of the intelligence community with the disbanding of the OSS.

    In August 1949, the Soviet Union tested its first atomic bomb, several years before the 1953 date forecast by the CIA. As a response, the Joint Intelligence Committee submitted an estimate of the nature of the nuclear threat from the Soviets. JIC-502 claimed that once the Soviets had 200 atomic bombs, they could launch a surprise attack and defeat the U.S.

    These assertions were made without analysis of Soviet capabilities to actually deliver the weapons, let alone produce them at that rate. The estimates did not even attempt to analyze Soviet strategic intentions.

    JIC-502, titled “Implications of Soviet Possession of Atomic Weapons” and drafted Jan 20th 1950, turned out not to be an intelligence report at all but rather a sales pitch, claiming that a nuclear-armed Soviet Union had introduced the notion that “a tremendous military advantage would be gained by the power that struck first and succeeded in carrying through an effective surprise attack.”

    It was JIC-502 which would be the first to put forward a justification for the preventive first strike concept, supported by a massive military buildup under the pretence of pre-emptive war.

    NSC-68 would be drafted the same year, declaring that the U.S. was in the moral equivalent of war with the Soviet Union and called for a massive military buildup to be completed by 1954 dubbed the “year of maximum danger”, the year JIC-502 claimed the Soviets would achieve military superiority and be able to launch war against the U.S. This proposed military buildup would increase the defense budget from $10 billion to $40 billion from 1950-53.

    During this same period another security doctrine was drafted, titled “NSC-75: A Report to the NSC by the Executive Secretary on British Military Commitments”. The report concluded that if the British Empire collapsed, and Britain could no longer carry out these deployments, in defending the “free world” against the Soviets, the U.S. would not be able to carry out its current foreign policy, including NSC-68.

    It was thus concluded in the report that it would be more cost-effective to aid Britain in saving its Empire!

    If you were ever wondering why the CIA was constantly found paired with British Intelligence, starting from its very inception, in a series of coups in countries they had no reason to be in, now you know why.

    The U.S. had gone from an explicit mission to end imperialism worldwide under Roosevelt, to actively supporting and upholding British colonies and vassal states under Truman!

    This was all done under the pretence of protecting the “free world” from the evil boogeymen Soviets, whom Churchill decided to be labelled such in his Iron Curtain Speech. And thus, the interests of the British Empire were safeguarded by an abiding American stooge, as long as the narrative that all Russians were villains was believed.

    Interestingly, the CIA was not on board with the pre-emptive war strategy, as defined by JIC-502. In February 1950 the CIA responded in ORE 91-49, stating:

    “It is always possible…that the USSR would initiate a war if it should estimate that a Western attack was impending. [However], It is not yet possible to estimate with any precision the effects of Soviet possession of the Atomic Bomb upon the probability of war. The implications of atomic warfare, either militarily or psychologically, have not yet been fully appraised.” (emphasis added)

    In other words, the CIA was stating that JIC-502’s frantic lunacy in demanding a military buildup and first strike capability against the Soviets was groundless. That there was no data to support such a claim, and thus such a response would be a reckless and dangerous one.

    It became evident to those who wished to push through these permanent war policies that the CIA was going to need “stronger” leadership.

    At least, this was the argument made by the Dulles-Jackson-Correa Report which called for a strong CIA Director in the wake of the Cold War. Though Walter Bedell Smith, who would become CIA Director from 1950-53, did much to reorganise the CIA away from the pre-emptive war mongering, it was ultimately Allen Dulles who would take the CIA throne.

    It should not come as a surprise that Dulles had himself in mind the whole time when he was talking about the stuff that was needed for a “strong” CIA Director… however, he was not referring to a strong mind, but rather a strong stomach.

    Dulles would act as Director of the CIA from 1953-61, until he was fired by President Kennedy (along with the Deputy Director and Deputy Director for Plans), all three were caught essentially committing treason during the Bay of Pigs fiasco, refer to my paper on this.

    McCone would replace Dulles as CIA Director and would attempt to clear the CIA of its Dulles loyalists in the Bay of Pigs incident; unfortunately it would not be enough.

    During Dulles’ term as CIA Director, he did nothing less than entrench America’s role in exacting permanent warfare across the world against “communist insurgents”, with the never-ending Indochina wars lasting for over 35 years.

    Though Bedell Smith would only be CIA Director for three years, he would succeed, along with Donovan (founder of the OSS) to create the most strategically important departments within the CIA: the Office of National Estimates (ONE).

    Smith sought potential candidates for this new branch from those who had been thrown out of the intelligence community when Truman disbanded the OSS. Many of these “retired” intelligence officers had served in the OSS’ original Research and Analysis Branch; including William Langer and Sherman Kent who both played crucial roles in the running of ONE. Both Langer and Kent were reputable historians.

    It was recognised that there was a crisis in competent intelligence gathering and analysis that would in turn be used to shape reckless war mongering policies such as JIC-502, NSC-68 and NSC-75. As Kent would state, there were those in the CIA who were “seeking power through sacrificing the truth.”

    The formation of ONE was to be a major pushback on this type of groupthink within the intelligence community.

    Kent would comment on the issue of the agency’s security screening (McCarthyism was in full swing at the time) stating:

    “When an intelligence staff has been screened through [too finely], its members will be as alike as tiles on a bathroom floor – and about as capable of meaningful and original thought.”

    In summary, since the death of FDR there was a somewhat open battle between members of the intelligence community, which could be categorised as FDR loyalists vs Churchill loyalists (1). Although there was an attempt to expunge the most notable intelligence officers who remained anti-imperial, Bedell Smith was successful in bringing these men back in, under the reorganised department ONE, who would in turn be a form of sane leadership within the CIA.

    Unfortunately, the NSC did not share these views and there would be a second purge of the last remnants of true American patriots.

    The Second Purge of American Intelligence: The Deep State is Born

    From the moment Kissinger assumed the post of National Security Advisor to Nixon, he set out to centralize all intelligence estimates, diplomatic initiatives, and covert operations over figuratively and sometimes literal dead bodies of members of the CIA, Joint Chiefs of Staff, State Department and Congress.

    According to John Ranelagh in his book The Agency: The Rise and Decline of the CIA:

    “Very early in the Nixon administration, it became clear that the President wanted Henry Kissinger to run intelligence for him and that the NSC staff in the White House under Kissinger would control the intelligence community. This was the beginning of a shift of power away from the CIA to a new center: the growing NSC staff.”

    Kissinger would use the Watergate scandal, where the CIA was caught by Congress directly implicated in treasonous activities, as the impetus needed to form a new CIA, a secret branch away from the scrutiny of Congress.

    In 1978, Kissinger would launch the Intelligence Reorganization and Reform Act, which essentially worked to “clean house” of the intelligence community.

    In 1982, under the direction of Kissinger, President Reagan would sign NSDD 77 under Cold War duress, which would launch Project Democracy, a sardonic name for a Trojan Horse.

    NSDD 77 allowed Project Democracy the reins over “covert action on a broad scale” as well as overt public actions later to be associated with the National Endowment for Democracy (NED). The directive ordered the CIA to stay out of both the overt and covert part of Project Democracy, thus giving free reign to the Kissingerian “NSC apparatus”.

    Almost one year later, the uninformed and naïve Congress passed the NED Act in Oct 1983, and effectively signed off on wrapping duct tape around their heads.

    The structure of the NED essentially functions as a private CIA political operations arm of an invisible, secret government beyond accountability and beyond the reach of the law.

    Those who still had a degree of humanity as members of the intelligence community, and had survived the Kissinger purge, were simply kept in the dark about the cloak and dagger operations of the secret government branch.

    As for the department ONE, they would be disbanded in 1973 (the year Kissinger became Secretary of State) and replaced with a “group of experts” that would later form the National Intelligence Council in 1979. This would be the last purge of sane patriotic leadership within the intelligence community, left to the hyenas and jackals to run from thenceforth.

    In a 1991 interview, then NED President David Ignatius arrogantly stated “a lot of what we do today was done covertly 25 years ago by the CIA…The biggest difference is that when such activities are done overtly, the flap potential is close to zero. Openness is its own protection”.

    The Real “Crisis of Democracy”

    The Trilateral Commission was founded in the wake of Watergate and oil crisis of 1973. It was formed under the pretence of addressing the “crisis of democracy” and calling for a reshaping of political systems in order to form a more “stable” international order and “cooperative” relations among regions.

    Its formation would be organised by Britain’s hand in America, the Council on Foreign Relations, (aka: the offspring of the Royal Institute for International Affairs, the leading think tank for the British Crown).

    Project Democracy would originate out of a Trilateral Commission meeting on May 31st, 1975 in Kyoto Japan, where the Trilateral Commission’s “Task Force on the Governability of Democracies” findings were delivered. The project was overseen by Trilateral Commission Director Zbigniew Brzezinski and its members James Schlesinger (former CIA Director) and Samuel P. Huntington.

    It would mark the beginning of the end, introducing the policy, or more aptly “ideology”, for the need to instigate a “controlled disintegration of society.”

    The Trilateral Commission is a non-governmental body, its members include elected and non-elected officials scattered throughout the world, ironically coming together to discuss how to address the “crisis of democracy” in the most undemocratic process possible. It is an organisation meant to uphold the “interests” of its members, regardless of who the people voted in.

    You see, by the 1970s democracy was obviously broken, and someone had to put things back in order, right?

    This elite grouping of people decided that this approach would be the best for all democracies and just like that, it was brought into official policy across the western hemisphere.

    On Nov 9th, 1978, Trilateral Commission member Paul Volcker (Federal Reserve Chairman from 1979-1987) would affirm at a lecture delivered at Warwick University in England: “A controlled disintegration in the world economy is a legitimate object for the 1980s.” This is also the ideology that has shaped Milton Friedman’s “Shock Therapy”.

    By the time of Jimmy Carter’s Administration, the majority of the government was being run by members of the Trilateral Commission. But who runs the Trilateral Commission?

    Well, keeping in mind that this whole operation is run as an “open conspiracy”, in May 1981, Henry Kissinger who replaced Brzezinski as the head of the Trilateral Commission gave a speech at Chatham House describing his term as Secretary of State:

    “[The British] became a participant in internal American deliberations, to a degree probably never practiced between sovereign nations…In my White House incarnation then, I kept the British Foreign Office better informed and more closely engaged than I did the American Department…It was symptomatic.” (emphasis added).

    In his speech, Kissinger outlined the conflicting ideologies between Churchill and Roosevelt, and concluded with his support for the British worldview as the more superior of the two.

    Looks like the Churchill loyalists have won.

    Controlled Disintegration: And We All Fall Down

    In 1975 the CFR launched a public study of global policy titled the 1980’s Project. The general theme was “controlled disintegration” of the world economy, and the report did not attempt to hide the famine, social chaos, and death its policy would bring upon most of the world’s population.

    The study explained that the world financial and economic system needed a complete overhaul according to which key sectors such as energy, credit allocation and food would be placed under the direction of a single global administration. The objective of this reorganization would be the replacement of nation states.

    However, before this could occur, nation states would have to falter, or at least give off the impression of faltering.

    The failure of the nation state is not a natural phenomenon but rather is the outcome of a fascist coup; involving a banker’s dictatorship, economic looting and permanent warfare (the Cold War never ended) to hinder national industrial growth.

    Among the most effective strategies towards this end has been color revolutions, which just so happens to be the NED’s specialty practice and has included, to name a few, the nations of Yugoslavia, Georgia, Iraq, Lebanon, Burma, Iran, Egypt, Yemen, Ukraine and the ongoing Hong Kong protests.

    Wherever this strategy has unfolded, the target state is told by the international community that it has no right to intervene and is told to stand by as its nation is ransacked by locusts and its government ‘reorganised’.

    With the final purge of American intelligence and the formation of a secret government, rendering anything resembling a democratic process obsolete, unless someone can restart the engine fast, we will soon be confronted by Willy Brandt’s prophecy of finding ourselves rudderless, under a surrounding sea of dictatorship.

  • Visualizing How People And Companies Feel About Working Remotely
    Visualizing How People And Companies Feel About Working Remotely

    Tyler Durden

    Tue, 06/16/2020 – 23:45

    According to the U.S. Census Bureau, nearly one-third of the U.S. workforce, and half of all “information workers”, are able to work from home. Though the number of people working partially or fully remote has been on the rise for years now, the COVID-19 pandemic may have pressed the fast-forward button on this trend.

    With millions of people taking part in this work-from-home experiment, Visual Capitalist’s Nick Routley notes that it’s worth asking the question – how do people and companies actually feel about working from home?

    The Flex Life

    It’s no secret that people value freedom of choice. A whopping 98% of people would like to have the option to work remotely for the rest of their careers.

    Aside from working in sweatpants, what are the things people like about working from home?

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    A flexible schedule, the ability to work from any location, and no more commuting were the top reported benefits.

    Of course, not everything is positive about working from home. Here are some of the challenges people face as they work remotely.

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    The top issue faced by remote workers was “unplugging” from work. Without the clear-cut change of location and defined office hours, many people had a tougher time clearly dividing their personal and professional time.

    As well, the lack of person-to-person communication can be a challenge for some people. In fact, one-third of people were concerned that the full extent of their professional efforts wouldn’t be appreciated because of a lack of in-office contact.

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    For the majority of people, having tough conversations via phone or teleconferencing software was actually viewed as a positive development.

    Barriers to Implementing a Remote Work Policy

    Despite the popularity of remote and flexible working, not every company has embraced the concept. Here are some of the reasons why.

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    While there can be technical or security-related reasons behind remote work resistance, a major barrier is simple resistance to change. Over 50% of companies that didn’t have a flexible or remote workplace policy cited “longstanding company policy” as the reason. In other words, that is just the way things have always worked.

    Here are the reservations managers have with remote work:

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    Managers are worried that productivity and focus will be diminished if people are working in more informal locations, such as home or a cafe. Also, if people aren’t working in the same physical location, managers feel that team cohesiveness and company culture could suffer.

    On the flip side, the cost savings associated with remote work may win over many companies. Research has found that typical employer can save about $11,000 per year for every person who works remotely half of the time. As well, switching to virtual meets in some instances can also be a significant cost savings.

    Flexibility: The Ultimate Perk?

    Location flexibility isn’t just a way to keep current employees happy. Companies that don’t embrace flexible working may find themselves at a disadvantage when recruiting new talent. Nearly two-thirds of candidates say that having a choice of work location is a key consideration in choosing an employer.

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    Lockdown measures have highlighted the value of workplace flexibility – particularly for people with kids. A total of 86% of parents now want to work flexibly, compared to 46% pre-coronavirus.

    As the economy slowly begins to reopen, it remains to be seen whether or not COVID-19 accelerated inevitable trends in workplace culture. If so, taking Zoom calls in sweatpants may become the new normal for millions of workers.

  • Weaponization Of Food: Starvation To Manufacture Compliance
    Weaponization Of Food: Starvation To Manufacture Compliance

    Tyler Durden

    Tue, 06/16/2020 – 23:25

    Authored by Mac Slavo via SHTFplan.com,

    The elites are doing their best to cut the food supply chains in order to weaponized food.  At the end of the day, if they succeed, you will be trading your freedom for a small morsel of food.

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    The L.A. Times reported that “coronavirus outbreaks” at 60 food processing plants will be the cause of the supply chains breaking, and an inability to get food to store shelves. Prepare for a food shortage, as it looks like they will attempt to use hunger and food as a weapon in this game for your mind.

    It’s a grim reality that’s playing out across the country as COVID-19 spreads beyond the meat processing plants that have captured the national spotlight. At least 60 food-processing facilities outside the meatpacking industry have seen outbreaks, with more than 1,000 workers diagnosed with the virus, according to a new study from Environmental Working Group. –L.A. Times

    This is the horrible reality of participation in centralization and not being able to be self-reliant. The New World Order doesn’t care if you starve, it cares only that you bow down and consent to a life of enslavement. And they are weaponizing the food system and using COVID-19 as an excuse.

    The food shortages will come, and like the coronavirus panic, this has been manufactured by the elitists who want to control us. Is this what it’s going to take to get the rest of people to realize they’ve been controlled and enslaved by the very government who said they just want to keep them safe?

    Safety has always been the rallying cry of tyrants and that is no different now.  People all over the world are waking up to what the power-hungry elitists and politicians have done to us for decades, but many are still sleeping. Will it take these orchestrated food shortages to wake them up? Or will they continue down a path of slavery with no hope? –SHTFPlan

    Take the time to learn self-reliance right now and store some food.  It’s difficult to say when this will fully roll out, but it most definitely in their plans. Perhaps it’ll happen around the time of the faked “second wave” to really cause as much fear and panic as possible, which means expect it by this autumn.

    Obedience to the government won’t save you. Preparedness might.

    Farmers are coming out saying they have been told to “quit farming,” and are being forced to dump milk, kill chickens, and turn vegetable crops under. Why? Isn’t it obvious? To scare the public into accepting dependency on the government so they will remain in a constant state of fear and enslavement. But there’s a way out. If food shortages are coming, there is a way to prepare.

    Prepping For The Upcoming Government-Induced Food Shortages

  • New Zealand Ends COVID-Free Streak After Symptomatic Travelers Left Quarantine Early
    New Zealand Ends COVID-Free Streak After Symptomatic Travelers Left Quarantine Early

    Tyler Durden

    Tue, 06/16/2020 – 23:05

    It was on June 8 that New Zealand Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern declared of the country “we are ready now” to return to normalcy after it became COVID-19 free.

    New Zealand has since gone eight days with no known cases and 24 days without new cases; however, that’s come to an end as on Tuesday two new infections were reported. 

    It’s sure to evoke controversy given that in this instance a pair of travelers were allowed to break quarantine early.

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    New Zealand countryside, via AP.

    Reuters reports, “It took just eight days for New Zealand to lose its COVID-free status when two women who had been given permission to leave quarantine early after arriving from abroad tested positive for the coronavirus, authorities said on Tuesday.”

    Previously the country’s leaders and health authorities touted they had become the first country to ‘effectively eliminate’ COVID-19 through stringent measures, including stay at home orders that were in effect by late March, locked-down borders, and a strict two week quarantine observance for anyone who had traveled outside the country.

    In the instance of the pair of new cases, quarantine was broken early, and aggressive testing measures have returned for local population areas they were in contact with. Reuters reports based on local authorities “the two women were given compassionate exemptions, as they were traveling from the U.K. to visit a dying parent in Wellington.” 

    Apparently one women even had symptoms and yet was still allowed to forego the full quarantine period:

    One of the women exhibited symptoms consistent with COVID-19 before being released early but attributed them to a pre-existing condition. When they returned to quarantine, they both tested positive.

    The prime minister vowed a full investigation as fresh controversy erupts over health authorities clearly dropping the ball in this case.

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    New Zealand Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern, via Time.

    “Vigorous testing is now taking place across those who were in the quarantine facility at the same time, and those who may have had any, even the remotest chance of contact (with the women),” Ardern said in a statement posted to social media.

    It’s unclear to what extent lockdown measures may return to parts of New Zealand, or if others have been infected while the pair were outside quarantine. In total New Zealand has had 1,156 confirmed cases, including 22 deaths. Geography has certainly helped the nation, along with the inbound quarantine measures for anyone who had been abroad.

    Recall too that during the early months of coronavirus spreading in the West, wealthy Americans attempted to get into New Zealand while they still could, often taking private jets to luxury ‘doomsday’ shelters in the South Pacific paradise prepped for just such a purpose. 

  • On Vote-By-Mail
    On Vote-By-Mail

    Tyler Durden

    Tue, 06/16/2020 – 22:45

    Authored by J.Christian Adamas via The Gatestone Institute,

    Never before in the history of the country has the election process system been under greater attack. In the wake of the Coronavirus pandemic, heavily funded organizations and lawyers with fat trust deposits have been seeking to undo how we elect the President, Congress and state officials.

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    Like the rioters in the streets of American cities, they are taking advantage of a crisis to try to fundamentally transform American institutions.

    They are seeking to throw out state laws designed to protect the integrity of American elections.

    The first target of the election transformation was Congress. Soon after the pandemic reached our shores, House Democrats passed emergency legislation that would have federalized election process rules.

    The Constitution decentralizes how we run elections because decentralization promotes individual liberty. When elections are decentralized, no single malevolent actor can manipulate or control the outcome.

    During both the Bush and Obama administrations, I worked in the Voting Section at the United States Department of Justice. I witnessed firsthand how federal bureaucrats could manipulate, coerce and threaten state officials who did not conform to the bureaucrat’s sensibilities about how elections should be run.

    Naturally the federal government has a role in ensuring that elections are conducted in a way that complies with federal laws and the Constitution. For example, the 15th Amendment and the Voting Rights Act of 1965 do not allow discrimination on the basis of race.

    But apart from these limited federal carve-outs, the Constitution vests states with the power to run their own elections and set the qualifications to vote.

    The bill that passed the House would have mandated automatic vote by mail in every state. It would have mandated same-day voter registration as well as weeks of early voting. It would have banished voter photo identification laws. It would have legalized vote harvesting in every state. Other proposals in Congress would have allowed mail ballots to be counted even if they were not postmarked by election day.

    What the bills would actually do is foment chaos. The election would not be decided on election day. Millions of mail ballots would keep appearing, keep rolling in, until there were enough votes to make the difference. If there was a dispute, lawyers would steal the show, subjecting America to weeks of post-election court contests to force a particular outcome.

    Making all of this even worse are the hundreds of millions of dollars that leftist foundations dedicate to this process fight. There is money for media outlets to publish stories that voter fraud is a myth. They even lend struggling newspapers foundation-funded “reporters” to work for free, as long as they publish stories saying voter fraud is a myth.

    Of course, there is money for lawyers. When the House election transformation bill failed in the Senate– largely thanks to Majority Leader McConnell and Appropriations Chairman Richard Shelby (R-AL) — those trying to transform the elections rushed to the courts. The bill would have nationalized vote by mail, banned voter ID, and mandated that every state offer a month of early voting and allow same-day registration.

    Across the country there are dozens of lawsuits trying to force states to abandon state election integrity procedures. My organization has been involved in a number of them, and it is quite an eye-opener. In Virginia, for example, the League of Women Voters sued the state to force the end of the witness requirement on absentee ballots. They argued that finding a witness would be a violation of federal voting rights.

    Unbelievably, Virginia Attorney General Mark Herring capitulated and surrendered. The purported adversaries decided to enter into a collusive consent decree, tossing out the law.

    Remember, the duly elected legislature of Virginia — both the House and Senate — passed a witness requirement and an elected governor signed the bill. The agreement between the plaintiffs and defendants in the case of League of Women Voters of Virginia vs. Virginia State Board of Elections erased the democratic will of the people of Virginia manifested in law.

    This story is repeating itself all over the United States. Lawsuit after lawsuit is being filed to cancel state election integrity laws. One case in Texas actually claims the stamp you put on your absentee ballot is the same as a Jim Crow era poll tax.

    All of this diminishes the real fight for civil rights that occurred a half century ago.

    Lawyers are trying to accomplish in courts what could not be accomplished in Congress. Judges are being used as substitutes for the will of the people. People who seemingly would like to be able to manipulate election results are forum-shopping for the most sympathetic courts. And in some places, the plaintiffs and defendants are in agreement that state election laws should be struck down without contested litigation. The case is filed, and the states surrender.

    When I attended law school, this is not what they taught. Laws, at least we were told, represented the will of the people. They were to be respected. Lawyers, particularly lawyers for a state attorney general, are under an ethical obligation to defend a law, even if they did not agree with it.

    Yet in one hearing I attended in the Virginia litigation, the federal judge asked the Virginia Attorney General if they ever intended to file any pleading in court to contest the case. The lawyer hemmed and hawed. The answer should have been yes. Instead it was a successful attempt to obscure the answer.

    Virginia’s only response was a white flag.

    So now the same people who support the lawsuits around the country are still trying to move elections to an all-mail election. This would put the fate of the election into the hands of the same people who regularly deliver to you and your neighbor’s mail.

    Vote by mail might sound good, until you look at the data. The federal election assistance commission keeps tabs. Their data show that 28 million ballots mailed since 2012 simply vanished. They were sent out, but never came back and were counted. Some say they are in landfills, others figure they are in file cabinets. The truth is, we do not know. All we know is that the mail ballots never accomplished what they were intended to accomplish.

    It gets worse. Hundreds of thousands came back but had defects that prevented them from being counted. The voters who sent these ballots probably do not even know that their ballot was not counted after they sent it back.

    Mail voting also destroys the transparency of our elections. Observers from each side are unable to watch the process. Mail ballots are uniquely vulnerable to fraud because they are voted behind closed doors where third parties regularly attempt to influence the process. Senior citizens already enjoy rights to request an absentee ballot in every state.

    It surprises people to learn that in the middle of an Ebola epidemic in 2014, Liberia conducted an in-person national election. Ebola had a fatality rate of 46%, yet people still came into polling places and voted in person. The solutions were simple — sanitization protocols, distancing, disinfectant on surfaces.

    Putting the Presidency into the hands of the United States Postal Service would be a serious mistake. Some factions, however, do not care about mistakes. They care more about transforming an election system so they can transform a nation.

    *  *  *

    J. Christian Adams is President of the Public Interest Legal Foundation, at 501(c)(3) law firm devoted entirely to election integrity. He served on President Trump’s election integrity advisory commission and in the Voting Section at the United States Department of Justice.

  • Nuclear Warhead Reductions Continue Despite Global Tensions
    Nuclear Warhead Reductions Continue Despite Global Tensions

    Tyler Durden

    Tue, 06/16/2020 – 22:25

    The Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI) has released new data showing that the collective number of nuclear warheads has fallen slightly from 13,865 in early 2019 to 13,400 in January 2020. That decrease, as Statista’s Niall McCarthy notes, has occurred at a time of heightened global tension and SIPRI reported that the nine states possessing nuclear warheads are actively modernizing their stockpiles. For example, China is developing a triad involving land, sea and aerial delivery systems, Russia is pursuing the development of hypersonic weapons and both India and Pakistan are slowly increasing the size and diversity of their nuclear forces.

    Infographic: Nuclear Warhead Reductions Continue Despite Global Tensions | Statista

    You will find more infographics at Statista

    Russia and the U.S. possess more than 90 percent of the world’s nuclear warheads and the recent decline in the global inventory can be attributed to the retirement and dismantlement of weapons in both countries. That is primarily due to the 2010 New START Treaty which is set to expire early next year unless both parties agree to extend it. Negotiations have made no progress, primarily due to the U.S. government insisting China joins any future arms reduction agreement, a move Beijing has ruled out.

    In January of 2020, Russia had 6,375 nuclear warheads with 1,570 operationally deployed with the total number falling by 125 compared with early 2019. The U.S. has 385 fewer weapons than last year and it currently has around 5,800 in total with 1,750 deployed operationally. China has the third-highest number with 320, a figure that grew by 30 over the past 12 months. France and the UK round off the top five with 290 and 215 nuclear weapons, respectively.

  • CHAZ Occupier Suggests "Rounding Up All The White People" Into Work Brigades
    CHAZ Occupier Suggests “Rounding Up All The White People” Into Work Brigades

    Tyler Durden

    Tue, 06/16/2020 – 22:05

    Authored by Paul Joseph Watson via Summit News,

    A post that appeared on the subreddit for the Seattle ‘CHAZ’ autonomous zone that has been taken over by left-wing extremists suggests rounding up all the white people and organizing them into forced work brigades.

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    That’s right. Some of the very same people protesting against racism and slavery want to enslave people based on their skin color.

    So progressive!

    The discussion appears to be focused around identifying potential ‘white supremacists’ who are trying to infiltrate CHAZ, a 6 block area of downtown Seattle occupied by Antifa and BLM supporters after the police force fled their precinct.

    The area now seems to have been renamed ‘CHOP’ after some of the occupiers wanted to send a message to anyone who resisted that their fate would resemble what happened during the French Revolution when adversaries were beheaded.

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

    “I can help keep a lookout for them, how do they look like?” asks one CHAZ occupier. “What are the signs to identify them? I would think going up to ask them is dangerous.”

    “Anyone that is white,” says a respondent.

    “I genuinely don’t understand why we don’t just round up all the white people in CHAZ and put them to work tending the crops, and other such tasks,” responds another CHAZ militant.

    “Thing would be far more efficient with a large workforce and it would act as a way of keeping the white menace under control. We can have an armed supervisor to watch over them as they work so there’s no risk of any racist backlash.”

    Stalin would have been proud!

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    It was previously revealed that BLM occupiers were demanding white people each hand over $10 to their CHAZ comrades as a form of reparations.

    As we highlight in the video below, CHAZ has quickly descended into the chaos and violent anarchy we all fully expected, although the media still ludicrously describes it as peaceful and friendly.

    *  *  *

    My voice is being silenced by free speech-hating Silicon Valley behemoths who want me disappeared forever. It is CRUCIAL that you support me. Please sign up for the free newsletter here. Donate to me on SubscribeStar here. Support my sponsor – Turbo Force – a supercharged boost of clean energy without the comedown.

  • Scientists Discover "Mirror Image" Of Sun & Earth In Deep Space
    Scientists Discover “Mirror Image” Of Sun & Earth In Deep Space

    Tyler Durden

    Tue, 06/16/2020 – 21:45

    Western researchers have discovered a mysterious exoplanet less than twice the size of Earth orbiting around a distant Sun-like star that could support life, making it the closest analog to the Earth-Sun system.

    The discovery of the exoplanet KOI-456.04 orbiting the star Kepler-160 — was made by researchers at the Max Planck Institute for Solar System Research (MPS) in Germany and the US. The findings were published in Astronomy & Astrophysics, under the title “Transit least-squares survey III. A 1.9 R⊕ transit candidate in the habitable zone of Kepler-160…:” 

    “The star Kepler-160 is probably orbited by a planet less than twice the size of the Earth with a star-planet distance that could permit planetary surface temperatures conducive to life. The newly discovered exoplanet, which was found by a team of scientists led by the Max Planck Institute for Solar System Research (MPS) in Göttingen, is more than just another potentially habitable world.

    One of the key properties making it resemble the Sun-Earth system more than any other previously known world, is its Sun-like host star. Most of the Earth-like exoplanets known so far are in orbit around a faint red dwarf star emitting their energy mostly as infrared radiation rather than as visible light.

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    Most of the exoplanets from the Kepler mission are the size of Neptune and in relatively close orbits around their host stars, where temperatures on these planets would be far too hot for liquid surface water (third panel from above). Almost all of the Earth-sized planets known to have potentially Earth-like surface temperatures are in orbit around red dwarf stars, which do not emit visible light but infrared radiation instead (bottom panel).The Earth is in the right distance from the Sun to have surface temperatures required for the existence of liquid water. The newly discovered planet candidate KOI-456.04 and its star Kepler-160 (second panel from above) have great similarities to Earth and Sun (top panel). h/t MPS

    The light shed on KOI-456.04 by its Sun-like host star, however, is very much like the daylight seen on our home planet. Moreover, the orbital period of KOI-456.04 around its Sun-like star is almost identical to an Earth year,” read a statement from MPS. 

    What makes the KOI-456.04 discovery really interesting is that the plant is orbiting the star Kepler-160 at a comparable distance as Earth’s from the Sun — suggesting life could exist. This is a mirror image and the most similar to the Earth-Sun system of any exoplanetary system discovered so far. 

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     The green shaded area denotes the habitable zone… h/t MPS 

    The exoplanet is three thousand light-years from Earth and has yet to be officially confirmed — MPS said the probability of it being a real planet is 85%. 

    “It cannot currently be ruled out completely that KOI-456.04 is, in fact, a statistical fluke or a systematic measurement error instead of a genuine planet. The team estimates the chances of a planetary nature of KOI-456.04 to be about 85% pro planet,” MPS said.

    While KOI-456.01 is still considered a planetary candidate, the probabilities are high, according to the research, that this is the real deal. 

    As for other Earth-like planets, we noted earlier this year that NASA exoplanet astronomers detected bio-signatures of a planet that could support habitable conditions to potentially promote life.

    Instead of Mars, Elon Musk has to think outside of this solar system if he wants to continue wowing investors. 

  • Ron Paul: Is The "Second Wave" Another COVID-19 Hoax?
    Ron Paul: Is The “Second Wave” Another COVID-19 Hoax?

    Tyler Durden

    Tue, 06/16/2020 – 21:25

    Authored by Ron Paul via The Ron Paul Institute for Peace & Prosperity,

    Just a week or so ago the mainstream media and thousands representing the “medical community” told us we must throw out the “stay-at-home” orders and go to the streets to protest the death of George Floyd at the hands of the police. The Covid-19 virus will not bother people who are protesting this injustice, they said. The virus only attacks people leaving their homes to protest the stay-at-home orders.

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    Now, after thousands of businesses – many of them black-owned – have been reduced to rubble and innocent people in the inner cities no longer have anywhere to shop for the basic necessities of life, the mainstream media has backed off of its non-stop coverage of the protests. Suddenly last week they all simultaneously embraced a new fear story to terrify the masses: a “second wave” of coronavirus was among us. It was targeting those states that dared to “open up” their economies and begin a return to relatively normal lives.

    Texas, Florida, and California were singled out to scare the rest of the country into thinking that if you dare leave your homes you will catch coronavirus and die. There was a “spike” in coronavirus “cases” they claimed. Funny, just a month or so ago they were demanding that we massively increase testing, which would produce just that “spike” in coronavirus cases they are now using to scare authorities into reinstating the incredibly destructive stay-at-home orders.

    In the county here in Texas that includes Houston, the young judge who somehow seized the power to shut down the third largest city in the United States warns us that she may again shut down Fort Bend County to fight this “second wave” of cases. She even threatened to again pour millions of dollars into a “field hospital” at a Houston football stadium that did not see a single patient in the “first wave” of coronavirus. It’s hard not to wonder which politically-connected companies are reaping millions in contracts for an obviously un-needed hospital. Thousands of hospital beds in Houston are vacant, while cancer patients have been refused their screenings and desperately needed treatments.

    As former Congressman David Stockman points out, the actual coronavirus numbers do not in any way support the media assertion that a “second wave” of infection is cresting over Texas. Stockman informs us that in Texas the “reported infected case rate of 256 per 100,000 is just 10 percent  of the real ‘hot spot’ rate of 2,477 per 100,000 in the five boroughs of New York City; and its mortality rate of 6.2 per 100,000 population is just 3 percent of New York City’s 196 per 100,000 rate.”

    There are no “hot spots” in Texas. It’s just more media hype.

    It’s funny that they don’t dare mention Georgia, which has also opened its economy and has seen no “spike” at all.

    The same people who were demanding more testing are now screaming that we must shut the economy down again because these tests – which are notoriously unreliable – are showing more coronavirus cases. This is a disease that 99.9 percent of the people who are infected with survive! But 40 million people out of work and the thousands of lives that will end due to the shutdown are never mentioned.

    There is something else going on here and it is in no way related to public health.

  • Beijing Raises Emergency Alert Level As Lockdown Expands, Residential Compounds Sealed Off: Live Updates
    Beijing Raises Emergency Alert Level As Lockdown Expands, Residential Compounds Sealed Off: Live Updates

    Tyler Durden

    Tue, 06/16/2020 – 21:07

    Summary:

    • Beijing expands ‘partial lockdown’ to all residential compounds
    • China reports latest COVID numbers; 44 in total, 31 in Beijing
    • Brazil reports another record jump in new cases as total tops 900k
    • California reports another DoD decline in new cases
    • Texas cases jumped ~3% day over day
    • France reports another drop in new cases, deaths
    • House Panel launches probe into nursing homes over covid-19 deaths
    • NY sees hospitalizations hit lowest level since march
    • Texas hospitalizations climb 8.3%
    • Fla reports another jump in COVID-19 cases as total tops 80k
    • Beijing closes all schools, raises emergency response level to ‘II’
    • China tightens restrictions as another 40 cases confirmed
    • Chinese markets remove all imported salmon
    • Chinese customs officials now testing all imported meat and fish for COVID
    • Number of US states with rising COVID cases declines to 22 from 23
    • Global case total breaks above 8 million
    • Study finds only 50% of US care homes have been inspected for COVID-19 protocols
    • Deaths nearing 450k
    • UK study finds cheap preexisting steroid drug is COVID-19 ‘miracle cure’
    • Popular IMHE COVID-19 projections show 200k+ deaths likely by October

    * * *

    Update (2045ET): Now that Chinese officials are apparently released COVID updates twice a day, China’s NHC announced that Beijing had reported 31 new domestic cases, while a total of 44 new cases were found throughout China, as the pace of the outbreak appeared to quicken.

    Though the number of cases is still relatively insignificant (fewer than 200 new cases have been recorded since Friday), officials declared that the situation in the capital is “extremely severe” and have reimposed restrictions, cancelled sporting events and school, and revived at least some lockdown measures throughout the city of more than 20 million – not just the southwestern neighborhood where the outbreak supposedly originated.

    According to a statement published on a CCP government website, the Municipal Standing Committee of Beijing, the most powerful local entity, determined that new measures must be taken now that the new outbreak has spread throughout Beijing and on to other parts of China. The minutes of the meeting describe the “warlike” response effort that Beijing is rolling out to deal with this “very grim” situation.

    Officials reported that 31 new cases were uncovered in Beijing alone over the last 24 hours, all of them local. Across all of China, 44 cases – including the 31 in Beijing – were reported, with 11 of them identified as “imported” (presumably tied to these infectious imported salmon we keep hearing about). In addition to Beijing, officials are scrambling to contain an outbreak in Guangzhou, a southern port city not far from Hong Kong. The daily total is higher than yesterday’s, prompting one city official to declare that the situation in China is “extremely severe”.

    Several English-language newswires also seemingly caught up with Chinese-language reports from earlier in the day reporting that Beijing’s emergency response level had been raised to 2. The ‘partial lockdowns’ that officials had initially imposed on the area surrounding the market in Fengtai that has been identified as the epicenter of the outbreak has been expanded to all of Beijing, meaning that many residential compounds – at least those deemed to be in “high risk” areas – are now closed off to guests.

    Temperature checks and registration are required for entering residential compounds and those in areas with medium- and high-risk areas are barred from accepting visitors, according to a city government briefing Wednesday night

    * * *

    Update (1745ET): As the total number of confirmed cases in the country approaches the 1 million mark – though experts suspect the true number is already much, much higher – Brazil has set another daily record, reporting just under 35k cases. As President Jair Bolsonaro embarks on an anti-corruption crusade after months of practically ignoring the virus, Brazil has become the second largest outbreak in the world, and the only country that has come even close to the US in terms of confirmed cases and deaths.

    Here’s more from Bloomberg:

    Brazil’s response to the pandemic has been plagued by political infighting and a lack of national coordination that resulted in varying and often conflicting measures from state to state and even city to city. Quarantines and lockdowns implemented by local governments have been repeatedly criticized by President Jair Bolsonaro, who argues that the recession ahead will cause more harm than the virus to a population that often can’t afford not to go to work.

    Meanwhile, the economic toll of the pandemic continues to show in data. Retail sales fell the most ever in April, illustrating the devastation the outbreak is inflicting on consumption, which has historically been a key driver of Brazil’s economic growth. The dive follows record plunges from industrial production to formal job creation. Put together, the central bank is seen cutting its interest rate to an all-time low at Wednesday’s policy meeting.

    Brazil reported a record number of daily cases from coronavirus as the pandemic continues to rage across Latin America’s largest nation.

    The country, which trails only the U.S. in cases and deaths, reported 34,918 new cases, bringing the number of infections to 923,189. The data compiled by Brazilian states also showed 1,282 new fatalities, pushing the total toll to 45,241.

    The pandemic shows no signs of wavering as cases that were concentrated in capitals and the Southeast have spread inland and to poorer regions of the country of 210 million people. At the same time, several states and cities have started to lift quarantine orders in the past few weeks, sparking concern about a new wave of infections. Estimates from PUC University in Rio de Janeiro show cases will likely surpass 1.3 million by late June, with more than 60,000 deaths.

    The chart below illustrates how Brazil’s outbreak has continued to spiral out of control, while the situation in the US has plateaued.

    At this rate, Brazil will become the second country to get to 1 million cases by the end of the week, at the very latest.

    * * *

    Update (1430ET): Newswires have published a correction on the Texas numbers released a few minutes ago. Turns out, cases climbed 2.9% over the past 24 hours, not the 4% jump reported earlier.

    • CORRECT: TEXAS VIRUS CASES JUMP 2.9%, EXCEEDING 2.4% 7-DAY AVG

    Stocks ticked higher on the news.

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    * * *

    Update (1420ET): Once again, California’s daily figures offered traders some respite from a steady drumbeat of negative COVID-19 headlines from the US and China, as state public health officials said that the number of newly confirmed cases declined again over the past day.

    • CALIFORNIA VIRUS CASES RISE 1.4%, LESS THAN 7-DAY AVG 2.1%

    Yesterday, Gov Newsom claimed the state would stay the course with its phased reopenings as the positive testing rate had dropped below 5% and hospitalizations had stabilized.

    On the other side of the coin, Texas said cases confirmed increased by 4% over the last 24 hours, compared with a 7-day average of 2.2%, though the headline didn’t have quite the same impact on risk sentiment as we’ve seen in recent sessions, aside from a few negative ticks.

    • TEXAS VIRUS CASES JUMP 4%, EXCEEDING 2.2% SEVEN-DAY AVERAGE

    Still, Texas Gov Greg Abbott has pushed ahead with reopening, even as certain hot spots have considered the possibility of reviving a ‘stay at home’ order.

    * * *

    Update (1400ET): Earlier, we shared a Politico report showing that less than half of US long-term care facilities have been inspected for whether they’re prepared to handle an outbreak of COVID-19, in accordance with the law.

    Now, a panel led by House Democrats is launching an investigation.

    • HOUSE PANEL TO INVESTIGATE NURSING HOMES OVER COVID-19 DEATHS

    However, we don’t expect them to hold any political figures – particularly governors of major northeastern states – accountable for early policy ‘errors’.

    * * *

    Update (1320ET): The market has mostly shaken off a spate of negative COVID-19 headlines from morning trade as New York and Italy continued to report strong numbers.

    The most interesting piece of information shared by Cuomo was the results of the latest statewide surveillance testing, which found that approxmately 13% of New Yorkers would test positive for the antibodies.

    Hospitalizations and new cases continued to decline, with hospitalizations hitting their lowest levels since March, while testing told “a good story.”

    Watch de Blasio’s latest briefing here below:

    Notably, Cuomo also said Tuesday that playgrounds in NYC will remain closed into July, when social-distancing restrictions should ease as the city enters ‘Phase 2’.

    Italy carried out nearly 50k tests over the last day, reporting just 210 new cases and only 34 deaths, per the Italian press.

    * * *

    Update (1100ET): Losses have accelerated in US stocks following more drip-drip headlines out of Beijing, along with the latest figures on Texas COVID-19-linked hospitalizations, while the dollar strengthens as virus anxieties hammer futures even lower.

    • TEXAS VIRUS HOSPITALIZATIONS RISE 8.3%, MOST IN ALMOST 2 WEEKS

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    The CCP’s commitment to transparency in sharing these ‘warnings’ about the Beijing outbreak seems almost overdone, as these non stop drip-drip headlines hammer US stocks. It’s almost as if they’re saying these things solely to hammer the US market (what’s the point of announcing these measures when it’s the middle of the night in China?).

    As one market analyst noted, the news out of the US and Beijing has stoked fears of a second wave, briefly sending the S&P 500 to its LoD before stocks started to inch back higher.

    * * *

    Update (1035ET): The market just took a hit thanks to a double-whammy of COVID-19-related headlines. In one, Beijing officials reportedly raised the alert level in the capital city after reporting more than 100 new cases, many of them in parts of Beijing, over the past few days, triggering an overwhelming government response to crush the new outbreak, which officials have blamed on imported seafood.

    Schools across Beijing were also ordered to close as online classes resumed for all grades.

    Meanwhile, as a former data scientist fired by Florida’s Department of Health after refusing to doctor the state’s COVID-19 data ramps up her own alternative site providing the ‘real’ data, White House officials and Gov DeSantis have continued to insist that the rebound in new cases is due to an increase in testing, not the state’s reopening (despite the fact that this is obviously untrue), but the latest daily figures will make their excuses sound even less convincing.

    Officials also asked the people of Beijing not to leave the city unless absolutely necessary, and added that if they must leave, they should be tested for COVID-19 first.

    Florida reports 80,109 COVID-19 cases, up 3.6% from yesterday, while the state reported 2,993 deaths, an increase of 1.9% from yesterday, as total cases topped 80k.

    On Tuesday, the state reported a 3.6% increase in new cases, compared with the 7-day average of 2.5% from the week prior, sending stocks spiraling lower.

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    * * *

    Just before 10pmET last night, public health officials in Beijing announced that 40 new cases of the novel coronavirus had been confirmed across China, with 27 of those cases in Beijing. That’s roughly half of the 80+ cases reported across China over the weekend, as officials step up new measures to suppress the latest cluster, which the CCP has strived to blame on Europe.

    Notably, party officials have tried to blame the latest outbreak in Beijing on imported European salmon (officials say they initially detected the virus’s presence on a cutting board where imported salmon had been processed inside the Xinfadi market). As a precaution, officials closed 11 markets in the area and institute travel bans on “high risk” residents while closing residential compounds and placing tens of thousands of Beijing residents on partial lockdown as the city pushes to run more than 90k tests per day. .

    More bizarrely, customs officials have started testing all meat imports (even as China continues to suffer from a shortage of pigs thanks to the ‘pig ebola’ that swept the country’s farmers last year), while local officials have been tasked with “intensive” testing meat already on the shelf. Tests being used are the same nucleic acid tests being used on patients.

    Chinese state-controlled media have raved about the sudden dangers of salmon consumption, prompting markets across the country to toss imported salmon, wasting good nutritious imported seafood for the sake of protecting the new narrative. Further imports of the stuff have been banned (at least temporarily), as BBG reports.

    What’s more, Shanghai will quarantine everyone arriving in the city from mid- to high-risk areas of Beijing for 2 weeks, a city official announced Tuesday. Three bus terminals that handle highway bus traffic between Beijing and Shanghai have also been temporarily shuttered.

    As expected, the global outbreak reached a new milestone overnight, passing the 8 million case mark, as cases reached 8,005,294, according to Johns Hopkins University.

    The worldwide death toll, meanwhile, topped 435,662.

    As China and India engage in the most contentious border dispute in nearly 50 years, health officials in India reported 10,667 new infections over the past 24 hours, down from 11,502 the prior day, raising the countrywide total to 343,091, while the country’s fatalities neared the 10k mark (9,900, up 380 from Monday morning). India has seen new cases skyrocket since it started easing its restrictive lockdown.

    While the US and the American press have focused most of their attention on vaccine trials and remdesivir, another cheap already extant drug has reportedly been found to definitively reduce COVID-19-related mortality according to a new study from Oxford. Patients on ventilators – ie those in the worst shape – saw the biggest reduction in mortality. “It’s the only drug so far shown to reduce mortality…and it reduces it significantly.”

    Per the BBC, a cheap and widely available drug called dexamethasone has been found to help seriously ill patients suffering from COVID-19. UK experts say the low-dose steroid treatment is a major breakthrough in the fight against the virus as it reduced the mortality rate of the most vulnerable patients by one-third.

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    The news prompted a strong risk-on rally lifting US stock futures to session highs.

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    To be sure, Dr. Feigl Ding noted in a twitter thread that the results are promising, but that declaring the drug a “miracle cure” is a little premature.

    Still, the study found that the inexpensive drug significantly reduces mortality in the most seriously ill patients, while having little effect on patients who aren’t all that sick.

    During an interview on CNBC, Dr. Scott Gottlieb, the former FDA director, said the study was well-organized and its findings – that a low-cost steroid can significantly reduce mortality among the most seriously ill patients – represent a major breakthrough. He also offhandedly noted that the CDC had discouraged the use of steroids like Dexamethasone.

    After a wave of new coronavirus cases were reported in Tokyo over the past week, Japanese officials have set out to try and determine how extensively the virus penetrated Japanese society during its original run. Antibody tests reportedly suggest that 0.1% of Tokyo residents have been infected with the virus.

    South Korea reported 34 new cases Tuesday, down from 37 a day ago, raising its total infections to 12,155, with 278 deaths.
    New Zealand reports two new cases, both related to recent travel from the UK after PM Jacinda Ardern declared the country “coronavirus free” last week, though she warned that new infections could arise due to international travel and commerce.

    Moving on to the US, Politico reports that 1000s of nursing homes across the country have not been inspected to see whether staff are following proper procedures to prevent a deadly viral outbreak, after deaths in long-term care facilities accounted for a quarter of all COVID-19 deaths. Despite this, only a little more than half of the nation’s nursing homes had received inspections, according to data released earlier this month.

    As scrutiny of Florida’s testing data intensifies, Texas public health officials reported a pullback in newly confirmed cases on Monday, with new cases rising 1.4% vs. Prev. 7-day average of 2.3%.

    A few days ago, the Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation at the University of Washington raised its projections for COVID-19 deaths to 170k+ by the end of the summer. Now, it’s raising that forecast slightly to account for the surge in new cases in states like Florida and Texas. The new national forecast calls for 200k+ cases (201,129) by October, while death toll figures for Florida are expected to climb 186% to 18,675 from 6,559.

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    Though the number of new coronavirus deaths across the US has been trending downward, new cases have started to trend higher again as the new hotspots compensate for the drop in infections across the NYC greater metro area. Notably, the NYT removed California from its list of states where new cases are rising, as state officials saw the critical new cases number decline over the course of the past week.

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    Source: NYT

    Beijing will hold another press briefing at 8pm local time (8amET) as it returns to the 2-briefings-a-day schedule to which it adhered during the heyday of the outbreak in Wuhan, though it’s unclear how much of the briefing will focus on the virus given the renewed tensions with India.

  • Senate Panel Approves Funds For Live Nuclear Testing "If Necessary"
    Senate Panel Approves Funds For Live Nuclear Testing “If Necessary”

    Tyler Durden

    Tue, 06/16/2020 – 21:05

    Previously is was only in the realm of speculation whether the White House would actually move forward with recent confirmed “discussions” over resumption of live nuclear testing, which hasn’t been done in nearly thirty years, since the close of the Cold War and implementation of arms reduction treaties. 

    But now the Senate Armed Services Committee has just brought the US closer to resumption of testing, and appears to be moving forward with giving President Trump the option of pulling the trigger if the decision is made. 

    On Monday multiple reports confirmed that under an amendment by hawkish Republican Senator Tom Cotton of Arkansas, $10 million is to be set aside in preparation for live nuclear testing. 

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    Nuclear test file image, via NPR.

    The Hill reports the money would be used if needed to “carry out projects related to reducing the time required to execute a nuclear test if necessary,” according to the proposed measure, which was approved in a 14-13 vote related to a markup of the National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) last week.

    Per The Hill, the funds will be made available related to the Department of Energy and Department of Defense’s nuclear programs “if necessary” — which appears to be the big operative if in question.

    In May a senior Trump admin official told The Washington Post the idea of a US test is “very much an ongoing conversation.”

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    But internal White House discussions have reportedly resulted in severe pushback though Trump is said to favor new tests.

    Critics cite global proliferation concerns, also as multiple weapons treaties with Russia have lately collapsed after US pullout (such as the INF, Open Skies, and now even New START is said to be in danger), as well as the potential door opening to a new dangerous ‘nuclear arms race’ with China and Russia.

    Proponents are open to new tests, however, based on the belief that US “rapid test” could provide much needed leverage in jump-starting arms negotiations with Russia and China for a White House conceived new trilateral arms control deal. 

  • Harvard Professor: "Defunding The Police Is Not A Solution And Could Cost Thousands Of Black Lives"
    Harvard Professor: “Defunding The Police Is Not A Solution And Could Cost Thousands Of Black Lives”

    Tyler Durden

    Tue, 06/16/2020 – 20:45

    Authored by Steve Watson via Summit News,

    A Harvard university Professor has urged that defunding the police would cause more loss of life, citing figures showing that there are “450 excess homicides per year” when police are not able to do their jobs proficiently.

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    “Defunding the police is not a solution and could cost thousands of black lives,” professor Roland Fryer wrote in an email to the College Fix.

    Fryer has recently authored a research paper titled “Policing the Police: The Impact of “Pattern-or-Practice Investigations on Crime,” noting that police are less present when ‘viral incidents’ occur, meaning crime, including homicides increase… a lot.

    “Our estimates suggest that investigating police departments after viral incidents of police violence is responsible for approximately 450 excess homicides per year” the paper reads.

    “This is 2x the loss of life in the line of duty for the US Military in a year, 12.6x the annual loss of life due to school shootings, and 3x the loss of life due to lynchings between 1882 and 1901 – the most gruesome years.” it also notes.

    “If the price of policing increases, officers are rational to retreat,” the study concludes, adding “And, retreating disproportionately costs black lives.”

    Fryer has slammed the media for an “absolute refusal to grapple with the data” and says that there has been an “insistence” among journalists that he should not publicize his findings.

    Previously, Fryer published research concerning racial disparities in police shootings. His 2016 paper concluded that officers were more likely to shoot at white suspects than they were with black suspects, indicating little to no racial bias.

    “In officer-involved shootings in these cities, officers were more likely to fire their weapons without having first been attacked when the suspects were white,” Fryer’s paper read.

    “Black and white civilians involved in police shootings were equally likely to have been carrying a weapon. Both of these results undercut the idea that the police wield lethal force with racial bias,” Fryer also noted.

    Rather than defunding police, Fryer argues that community policing should increase, reasoning that this way officers can make more accurate distinctions between people when they have more frequent, non-confrontational interactions with them.

    The professor also suggests that investment should go toward “new technologies for police officers that allow them to do their jobs, safely, without lethal force against anyone.”

  • Amazon Employees Beware: World's First Warehouse Picker Robot Debuts 
    Amazon Employees Beware: World’s First Warehouse Picker Robot Debuts 

    Tyler Durden

    Tue, 06/16/2020 – 20:25

    Amazon is leading a robotics race that has transformed the warehouse industry. The online retailer employs hundreds of thousands of employees in its massive warehouse network, which has also invested heavily in robots and other automation technologies, suggesting some of these jobs will be eliminated. 

    Amazon warehouse workers must have an idea their jobs be taken over by robots, especially after the online retailer had an embarrassing several months during the virus pandemic, resulting in shipping delays and product shortages, due to a huge demand surge for online items, but also, employees contracted the deadly virus — resulting in some facilities to shut down for sanitation operations. 

    If white-collar workers at Amazon haven’t evaluated HAI Robotics, well, we might have found the perfect autonomous warehouse robot that will not just cut down labor costs and increase warehouse storage but will minimize virus spread with the elimination of the warehouse picker (the main responsibility of a picker is to gather products for order fulfillment). This could be very critical ahead of the second coronavirus wave as warehouses need to store more essential items and mitigate virus spread. 

    HAI notes in a press release, dated Monday (June 15), that it has debuted the world’s first carton-picking robot. The robot uses 3D visual recognition technology to identify goods without the need for codes, resulting in quicker inventory count through shelf scanning. It uses a telescopic fork to retrieve goods from warehouse shelving units. Here’s what the press release stated: 

    “The rising rental cost of warehouses has become a major issue for many companies. Warehouse managers are constantly looking for the most cost and storage-efficient solution. HAIPICK A42D is the world’s first double-deep ACR that optimizes space usage and increases storage density in warehouses. It can reduce the number of aisles by 50% while increasing storage density by 130%. Its telescopic fork can be customized for two rows of double-deep shelving. Its intelligent algorithm can be tailored to meet diverse business models.

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    “HAIPICK A42N is the world’s first carton-picking ACR. It uses cartons as the handling units rather than only totes. Its 3D visual recognition technology identifies goods without the need of codes, resulting in faster inventory count through shelf scanning. It supports multi-size carton/tote picking and can be applied to multiple business needs. The software platform is tailored to support case-picking and piece-picking. Cartons and totes can be reused to lower costs, the release said. 

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    This could be the robot Amazon uses to replace human pickers in its vast network of warehouses across the country. The online retailer can’t afford labor disruptions, like it did during the first wave of the pandemic. 

  • Progressive Tax States Lose People, Income To Flat And Zero Income Tax States
    Progressive Tax States Lose People, Income To Flat And Zero Income Tax States

    Tyler Durden

    Tue, 06/16/2020 – 20:05

    Submitted by Ted Dabrowski and John Klingner via Wirepoints.org,

    Flat and no-income tax states, as a group, are beating out progressive tax states in the contest for people and their incomes, according to the last decade of IRS migration data analyzed by Wirepoints. 

    The nation’s seventeen flat and no income tax states won a net 1.9 million residents and $120 billion in Adjusted Gross Income (AGI) from progressive tax states during the 2000-2018 period. That’s nearly a 4 percent AGI gain for the flat and no income tax states, based on their 2010 base of $3.3 trillion in AGI. A table with the individual winners and losers over the time period is provided below.

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    The net gains in AGI not only bolster the tax base the year in which they come in, but they also help all subsequent years. The gains pile up on top of each other, year after year.

    That means the country’s flat and zero income tax states, as a group, have accumulated $490 billion in AGI since 2010 from the nation’s progressive tax states, adding vibrancy, investment and tax revenues to the winning states.

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    States don’t change their income tax schemes often, so when they do, it’s a big deal. The change pits those who favor progressive taxes against those who want a flat tax or no income tax at all. Eight states don’t tax income at all in the U.S., while ten states have flat income taxes. Thirty-two states have some form of a progressive tax scheme.

    Connecticut was the last state to move to a progressive tax structure in 1996, while North Carolina (2013) and Kentucky (2018) changed to a flat tax more recently.

    Now some Illinois politicians want to abandon the state’s flat tax in favor of a progressive income tax. They argue, among other things, that higher taxes will bring more stability and people to the state. 

    But the movement of people and wealth across the country tells a different story. 

    The accumulated pattern over the past nine years is pretty clear. People are moving from progressive tax states to flat and zero income tax states. Of course, people move for a whole host of other reasons beside taxes: jobs, housing, family, weather, retirement, corruption, etc. Taxes are only one reason. But for many people, they are a big one.

    The wealth accumulation by the flat and zero-income tax states is all the more impressive considering there were just 17 such states (not including Kentucky) compared to 33 progressive tax states.

    Total gains

    The $120 billion total is the net transfer between the two groups of states. In terms of individual total wealth gained from migration, zero and flat income tax states make up seven of the top ten winners of net domestic migration. 

    Florida, a state with no income tax, has been the biggest winner by far. The Sunshine State has gained nearly a million net people and over $95 billion in AGI from other states since 2010.

    Zero-tax Texas is up next with a gain of $31 billion in AGI, followed by North Carolina with $16 billion. Two progressive tax states, Arizona and South Carolina are next, then non-progressive Washington, Colorado, Nevada and Tennessee. Progressive tax Oregon rounds out the top 10.

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    In contrast, the list of top losers is filled with progressive tax states. New York is the worst in the country; it has lost a net $55 billion in AGI to other states since 2010. Illinois, where politicians want to join the ranks of progressive-tax states, is next with a net loss of over $34 billion. Progressive tax California, New Jersey, Connecticut and Ohio are next. Flat tax states Massachusetts and Pennsylvania along with progressive Maryland and Virginia round out the top ten losers.

    The gains and losses states have experienced since 2010 aren’t trivial. Winning states have, on average, seen net AGI gains from other states equal to 10 percent of their 2010 base AGI. Once again, Florida takes the top spot with an in-migration gain equivalent to 20 percent of its 2010 AGI. Progressive tax South Carolina is next with a gain of 16.1 percent, followed by Texas with 15.7 percent.

    Illinois, meanwhile, lost the equivalent of 10 percent of its 2010 AGI to other states, the 2nd-worst loss in the nation behind Alaska.

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    What all this shows is that progressive tax states, if they’re attractive in other ways, can still win people and their incomes. And it shows that a flat tax state like Illinois can lose people if it’s corrupt, mismanaged and financially crippled.

    So no, taxes aren’t everything. But add a progressive tax scheme to the nation’s most mismanaged, most-indebted, near-junk-rated and highest taxing state in the country and you’re asking for trouble.

    Just follow the money.

  • Millions Of Jobs Lost From COVID-19 Are Never Coming Back
    Millions Of Jobs Lost From COVID-19 Are Never Coming Back

    Tyler Durden

    Tue, 06/16/2020 – 19:45

    As the world makes its way through the coronavirus pandemic together, questions are starting to surface about what the post-coronavirus global economy is going to look like.

    Among those questions is an obvious one: how many jobs that were lost due to the virus are going to remain permanently lost and, conversely, how many people will recover the jobs they once had?

    The answer looks grim. While there is hope that global financial stimulus could help people head back to work once the pandemic runs its course, there is a very real chance of “lasting damage” in many sectors, according to Bloomberg. 

     

    Fed chair Jerome Powell predicted last week that there will be “well into the millions of people who don’t get to go back to their old job.” He continued: “In fact, there may not be a job in that industry for them for some time.”

    Bloomberg has predicted that 30% of U.S. job losses between February and May were a result of reallocation shock. It suggests a swift labor market recovery, but one that will ultimately level off and leave millions unemployed.

    Among those most at risk are jobs in hospitality, retail, leisure, education and health. Brick and mortar retailers are also even further in the crosshairs of online retailers than they were prior to the pandemic. Hilariously, however, Bloomberg economists say the “markets are already pricing in the risk”.

     

    “50% of U.S. job losses come from the combination of lockdown and weak demand, 30% from the reallocation shock, and 20% from high unemployment benefits,” Bloomberg found.

    A report by the Becker Friedman Institute at the University of Chicago estimated 42% of layoffs that occurred as a result of the pandemic will be permanent. 

    Nicholas Bloom, professor of economics at Stanford University who worked on the study said: “There’s a massive reallocation shock. The recession hits different sectors differently. Some benefit and some fall.”

     

    Similarly, The Peterson Institute for International Economics said last week that the shock of the virus may necessitate even further government intervention, including wage subsidies. The Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development said last week that those laid off should be afforded government job training, in order to help a shift in industries, if necessary. 

    Sharan Burrow, General Secretary of the International Trade Union Confederation, concluded: “The pandemic has exposed the fault lines that already existed for working people and the economy. The ‘new normal’ requires a new social contract between governments and their citizens with the backing of the international community.”

  • Veteran CIA Analyst: How An Internet 'Persona' Helped Birth Russiagate
    Veteran CIA Analyst: How An Internet ‘Persona’ Helped Birth Russiagate

    Tyler Durden

    Tue, 06/16/2020 – 19:25

    Authored by Ray McGovern via ConsortiumNews.com,

    Four years ago on June 15, 2016, a shadowy Internet persona calling itself “Guccifer 2.0” appeared out of nowhere to claim credit for hacking emails from the Democratic National Committee on behalf of WikiLeaks and implicate Russia by dropping “telltale” but synthetically produced Russian “breadcrumbs” in his metadata.

    Thanks largely to the corporate media, the highly damaging story actually found in those DNC emails – namely, that the DNC had stacked the cards against Bernie Sanders in the party’s 2016 primary – was successfully obscured.

    The media was the message; and the message was that Russia had used G-2.0 to hack into the DNC, interfering in the November 2016 election to help Donald Trump win.

    Almost everybody still “knows” that – from the man or woman in the street to the forlorn super sleuth, Special Counsel Robert Swan Mueller III, who actually based indictments of Russian intelligence officers on Guccifer 2.0.

    Blaming Russia was a magnificent distraction from the start and quickly became the vogue.

    The soil had already been cultivated for “Russiagate” by Democratic PR gems like Donald Trump “kissing up” to former KGB officer Vladimir Putin and their “bromance” (bromides that former President Barack Obama is still using). Four years ago today, “Russian meddling” was off and running – on steroids – acquiring far more faux-reality than the evanescent Guccifer 2.0 persona is likely to get.

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    Here’s how it went down:

    • June 12: WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange announced he had “emails related to Hillary Clinton which are pending publication.”
    • June 14: DNC contractor CrowdStrike tells the media that malware has been found on the DNC server and claims there is evidence it was injected by Russians.
    • June 15: Guccifer 2.0 arises from nowhere; affirms the DNC/CrowdStrike allegations of the day before; claims responsibility for hacking the DNC; claims to be a WikiLeaks source; and posts a document that forensic examination shows was deliberately tainted with “Russian fingerprints.” This to “corroborate” claims made by CrowdStrike executives the day before.

    Adding to other signs of fakery, there is hard evidence that G-2.0 was operating mostly in U.S. time zones and with local settings peculiar to a device configured for use within the US, as Tim Leonard reports here and here.)

    Leonard is a software developer who started to catalog and archive evidence related to Guccifer 2.0 in 2017 and has issued detailed reports on digital forensic discoveries made by various independent researchers – as well as his own – over the past three years. Leonard points out that WikiLeaks said it did not use any of the emails G2.0 sent it, though it later published similar emails, opening the possibility that whoever created G2.0 knew what WikiLeaks had and sent it duplicates with the Russian fingerprints.

    As Veteran Intelligence Professionals for Sanity (VIPS) told President Trump in a memorandum of July 24, 2017, titled “Was the ‘Russian Hack’ an Inside Job?”:

    “We do not think that the June 12, 14, & 15 timing was pure coincidence. Rather, it suggests the start of a pre-emptive move to associate Russia with anything WikiLeaks might have been ready to publish and to ‘show’ that it came from a Russian hack.”

    We added this about Guccifer 2.0 at the time:

    “The recent forensic studies fill in a critical gap. Why the FBI neglected to perform any independent forensics on the original ‘Guccifer 2.0’ material remains a mystery – as does the lack of any sign that the ‘hand-picked analysts’ from the FBI, CIA, and NSA, who wrote the misnomered ‘Intelligence Community’ Assessment dated January 6, 2017, gave any attention to forensics.”

    Guccifer 2.0 Seen As a Fraud

    In our July 24, 2017 memorandum we also told President Trump that independent cyber investigators and VIPs had determined “that the purported ‘hack’ of the DNC by Guccifer 2.0 was not a hack, by Russia or anyone else. Rather it originated with a copy (onto an external storage device – a thumb drive, for example) by an insider. Information was leaked to implicate Russia. We do not know who or what the murky Guccifer 2.0 is. You may wish to ask the FBI.” [Emphasis added.].

    Right. Ask the FBI. At this stage, President Trump might have better luck asking Attorney General William Barr, to whom the FBI is accountable – at least in theory. As for Barr, VIPs informed him in a June 5, 2020 memorandum that the head of CrowdStrike had admitted under oath on Dec. 5, 2017 that CrowdStrike has no concrete evidence that the DNC emails published by WikiLeaks on July 22, 2016 were hacked – by Russia or by anyone else. [Emphasis added.] This important revelation has so far escaped attention in the Russia-Russia-Russia “mainstream” media (surprise, surprise, surprise!).

    Back to the Birth of G-2

    It boggles the mind that so few Americans could see Russiagate for the farce it was. Most of the blame, I suppose, rests on a thoroughly complicit Establishment media. Recall: Assange’s announcement on June 12, 2016 that he had Hillary Clinton-related emails came just six weeks before the Democratic convention. I could almost hear the cry go up from the DNC: Houston, We Have a Problem!

    Here’s how bad the problem for the Democrats was. The DNC emails eventually published by WikiLeaks on July 22, 2016, just three days before the Democratic convention, had been stolen on May 23 and 25. This would have given the DNC time to learn that the stolen material included documents showing how the DNC and Clinton campaign had manipulated the primaries and created a host of other indignities, such that Sanders’ chances of winning the nomination amounted to those of a snowball’s chance in the netherworld.

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    Clinton at the 2016 convention, via Wikimedia Commons.

    To say this was an embarrassment would be the understatement of 2016. Worse still, given the documentary nature of the emails and WikiLeaks’ enviable track record for accuracy, there would be no way to challenge their authenticity. Nevertheless, with the media in full support of the DNC and Clinton, however, it turned out to be a piece of cake to divert attention from the content of the emails to the “act of war” (per John McCain) that the Russian “cyber attack” was said to represent.

    The outcome speaks as much to the lack of sophistication on the part of American TV watchers, as it does to the sophistication of the Democrats-media complicity and cover-up. How come so few could figure out what was going down?

    It was not hard for some experienced observers to sniff a rat. Among the first to speak out was fellow Consortium News columnist Patrick Lawrence, who immediately saw through the Magnificent Diversion. I do not know if he fancies duck hunting, but he shot the Russiagate canard quite dead – well before the Democratic convention was over.

    Magnificent Diversion

    In late July 2016, Lawrence was sickened, as he watched what he immediately recognized as a well planned, highly significant deflection. The Clinton-friendly media was excoriating Russia for “hacking” DNC emails and was glossing over what the emails showed; namely, that the Clinton Dems had pretty much stolen the nomination from Sanders.

    It was already clear even then that the Democrats, with invaluable help from intelligence leaks and other prepping to the media, had made good use of those six weeks between Assange’s announcement that he had emails “related to Hillary Clinton” and the opening of the convention.

    The media was primed to castigate the Russians for “hacking,” while taking a prime role in the deflection. It was a liminal event of historic significance, as we now know. The “Magnificent Diversion” worked like a charm – and then it grew like Topsy.

    Lawrence said he had “fire in the belly” on the morning of July 25 as the Democratic convention began and wrote what follows pretty much “in one long, furious exhale” within 12 hours of when the media started really pushing the “the Russians-did-it” narrative.

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    Patrick Lawrence

    Below is a slightly shortened text of his article:

    “Now wait a minute, all you upper-case “D” Democrats. A flood light suddenly shines on your party apparatus, revealing its grossly corrupt machinations to fix the primary process and sink the Sanders campaign, and within a day you are on about the evil Russians having hacked into your computers to sabotage our elections …

    Is this a joke? Are you kidding? Is nothing beneath your dignity? Is this how lowly you rate the intelligence of American voters? …

    Clowns. Subversives. Do you know who you remind me of? I will tell you: Nixon, in his famously red-baiting campaign – a disgusting episode – … during his first run for the Senate, in 1950. Your political tricks are as transparent and anti-democratic as his, it is perfectly fair to say.

    I confess to a heated reaction to events since last Friday [July 22] among the Democrats, specifically in the Democratic National Committee. I should briefly explain …

    The Sanders people have long charged that the DNC has had its fingers on the scale, as one of them put it the other day, in favor of Hillary Clinton’s nomination. The prints were everywhere – many those of Debbie Wasserman Schultz, who has repeatedly been accused of anti-Sanders bias. Schultz, do not forget, co-chaired Clinton’s 2008 campaign against Barack Obama. That would be enough to disqualify her as the DNC’s chair in any society that takes ethics seriously, but it is not enough in our great country. Chairwoman she has been for the past five years.

    Last Friday WikiLeaks published nearly 20,000 DNC email messages providing abundant proof that Sanders and his staff were right all along. The worst of these, involving senior DNC officers, proposed Nixon-esque smears having to do with everything from ineptitude within the Sanders campaign to Sanders as a Jew in name only and an atheist by conviction.

    Wasserman fell from grace on Monday. Other than this, Democrats from President Obama to Clinton and numerous others atop the party’s power structure have had nothing to say, as in nothing, about this unforgivable breach. They have, rather, been full of praise for Wasserman Schultz. Brad Marshall, the D.N.C.’s chief financial officer, now tries to deny that his Jew-baiting remark referred to Sanders. Good luck, Brad: Bernie is the only Jew in the room.

    The caker came on Sunday, when Robby Mook, Clinton’s campaign manager, appeared on ABC’s “This Week” and … CNN’s “State of the Union” to assert that the D.N.C.’s mail was hacked “by the Russians for the purpose of helping Donald Trump.” He knows this – knows it in a matter of 24 hours – because “experts” – experts he will never name – have told him so. …

    What’s disturbing to us is that experts are telling us that Russian state actors broke into the DNC, stole these emails, and other experts are now saying that Russians are releasing these emails for the purpose of helping Donald Trump.

    Is that what disturbs you, Robby? Interesting. Unsubstantiated hocus-pocus, not the implications of these events for the integrity of Democratic nominations and the American political process? The latter is the more pressing topic, Robby. You are far too long on anonymous experts for my taste, Robby. And what kind of expert, now that I think of it, is able to report to you as to the intentions of Russian hackers – assuming for a sec that this concocted narrative has substance?

    Making lemonade out of a lemon, the Clinton campaign now goes for a twofer. Watch as it advances the Russians-did-it thesis on the basis of nothing, then shoots the messenger, then associates Trump with its own mess – and, finally, gets to ignore the nature of its transgression (which any paying-attention person must consider grave).

    Preposterous, readers. Join me, please, in having absolutely none of it. There is no “Russian actor” at the bottom of this swamp, to put my position bluntly. You will never, ever be offered persuasive evidence otherwise.

    Reluctantly, I credit the Clinton campaign and the DNC with reading American paranoia well enough such that they may make this junk stick. In a clear sign the entire crowd-control machine is up and running, The New York Times had a long, unprofessional piece about Russian culprits in its Monday editions. It followed Mook’s lead faithfully: not one properly supported fact, not one identified “expert,” and more conditional verbs than you’ve had hot dinners – everything cast as “could,” “might,” “appears,” “would,” “seems,” “may.” Nothing, once again, as to the very serious implications of this affair for the American political process.

    Now comes the law. The FBI just announced that it will investigate – no, not the DNC’s fraudulent practices (which surely breach statutes), but “those who pose a threat in cyberspace.” … it is the invocation of the Russians that sends me over the edge. My bones grow weary …

    We must take the last few days’ events as a signal of what Clinton’s policy toward Russia will look like should she prevail in November. … Turning her party’s latest disgrace into an occasion for another round of Russophobia is mere preface, but in it you can read her commitment to the new crusade.

    Trump, to make this work, must be blamed for his willingness to negotiate with Moscow. This is now among his sins. Got that? Anyone who says he will talk to the Russians has transgressed the American code. … Does this not make Hillary Clinton more than a touch Nixonian?

    I am developing nitrogen bends from watching the American political spectacle. One can hardly tell up from down. Which way for a breath of air?”

    A year later Lawrence interviewed several of us VIPs, including our two former NSA technical directors and on Aug. 9, 2017 published an article for The Nation titled, “A New Report Raises Big Questions About Last Year’s DNC Hack.”

    Lawrence wrote, “Former NSA experts, now members of Veteran Intelligence Professionals for Sanity (VIPs), say it wasn’t a hack at all, but a leak – an inside job by someone with access to the DNC’s system.”

    And so it was. But, sadly, that cut across the grain of the acceptable Russia-gate narrative at The Nation at the time. Its staff, seriously struck by the HWHW (Hillary Would Have Won) virus, rose up in rebellion. A short time later, there was no more room at The Nation for his independent-minded writing.

  • No V-Shaped Recovery? Cargo Vessel Calls Plunge At Singapore Port To Three Decade Low
    No V-Shaped Recovery? Cargo Vessel Calls Plunge At Singapore Port To Three Decade Low

    Tyler Durden

    Tue, 06/16/2020 – 19:05

    Singapore’s geographical location makes it one of the most important maritime trade lines connecting the global economy. It’s home to one of the largest ports in the world, on par with ones seen in Hong Kong, London, Shanghai, and Dubai. Port activity data via Singapore’s government is suggesting world trade has yet to recover, which means a V-shaped recovery in the global economy is unlikely in the back half of the year.

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    New data from the Maritime and Port Authority of Singapore (MPA) shows the number of vessel callings (otherwise known as port of call — an intermediate stop for a ship on its scheduled journey for cargo operation or taking on supplies or fuel) at the Port of Singapore sank in May to 3,059, the lowest since 1993, or near a three-decade low. 

    Containerized activity remained sluggish last month, despite the hopes for a recovery in world trade — Reuters notes shipping activity and bunker demand is expected to slump through June. 

    Blank sailings surged in the first week of June, with total blanked capacity nearing 4 million twenty-foot equivalent unit (TEU), research firm Sea-Intelligence said last week.

    A plunge in world trade has severely weighed on marine refueling, or bunkering, activity in Singapore. 

    “COVID-19 finally caught up in terms of bunker trend,” a Singapore-based bunker fuel trader told Reuters. 

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    Singapore bunker fuel sales volumes fell in May to 3.925 million tonnes, down 2% YoY, and -5% from April, reported MPA. 

    A.P. Moller-Maersk A/S, the world’s largest container line, warned not too long ago that world trade would continue to falter with declines extending well through 2Q20. 

    Maersk dashed all hope that a V-shaped recovery would be seen in the back half of the year, instead suggesting a U-shaped recovery is more plausible. 

    The World Trade Organization (WTO) published its Goods Trade Barometer in late May, which suggested a sharp contraction in world trade would extend through summer. 

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    Last week, the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) warned the COVID-19 pandemic triggered one of the most severe global recessions in nearly a century and will leave the world scarred for years. 

    OECD chief economist Laurence Boone wrote in the report: 

    “Most people see a V-shaped recovery, but we think it’s going to stop halfway. By the end of 2021, the loss of income exceeds that of any previous recession over the last 100 years outside wartime, with dire and long-lasting consequences for people, firms, and governments.” 

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    If Singapore ship arrivals don’t improve and bunker fuel demand doesn’t accelerate – then how can there be a global rebound in world trade in the back half of the year? 

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