Mar 18

Today’s News 18th March 2022

  • Huge Saharan Dust Storm Covers Europe
    Huge Saharan Dust Storm Covers Europe

    A massive dust storm originating from the Sahara Desert in Africa has covered parts of Western and Central Europe this week. 

    Strong winds from Storm Celia whipped up sand from the northwest coast of Africa and blanketed much of Portugal, Spain, and France, transforming skies into eerie shades of blood orange, worsening air quality, and leaving a layer of dust on everything. 

    On Tuesday, the European Environment Agency said dust concentrations in Spain were five times over their recommended limit for air quality. 

    “Air quality is recognized as being vital to human health as high concentrations of dust can have health impacts on the respiratory systems of all people in the affected regions and add to particulate matter air pollution from local sources,” stated Copernicus, the EU’s Earth observation program. 

    Here’s where most of the dust is expected to land through Friday. 

    Another weather model shows how dust particles spread throughout Europe, covering roads, houses, cars, and everything else. 

    The World Meteorological Organization published a series of tweets showing dust-coated ski resorts in Spain and Switzerland.

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    A combination of Northern Africa deserts and strong winds over the Mediterranean could mean Europe is prone to future dust events. 

    Climate alarmist Greta Thunberg has yet to unleash a tweetstorm linking European dust storms to climate change. She’s too busy telling the world to “stand with Ukraine.”

    So dropping bombs is the new green? 

    Tyler Durden
    Fri, 03/18/2022 – 02:45

  • Tony Blair: Promising Not To Have A Nuclear World War With Russia Is A "Strange Tactic"
    Tony Blair: Promising Not To Have A Nuclear World War With Russia Is A “Strange Tactic”

    Authored by Steve Watson via Summit News,

    Former British Prime Minister Tony Blair declared this week that the West ruling out a full scale war with Russia, which would almost certainly be nuclear, is a “strange tactic”.

    Blair, who presided over the abysmal invasion of Iraq in 2003 on false pretext of weapons of mass destruction, claims that Vladimir Putin is using NATO’s “desire not to provoke escalation” as a “bargaining chip against us”.

    In a post to his globalist think tank’s website, Blair writes “Maybe that is our position and maybe that is the right position, but continually signalling it, and removing doubt in his mind, is a strange tactic.”

    Ok, so strictly declaring world war three is off the table is a bad thing?

    “There is something incongruous about our repeated reassurance to him that we will not react with force,” Blair adds.

    Blair admits “I understand and accept that there is not political support for any direct military engagement by NATO of Russia,” but adds “we should be clear-eyed about what Putin is doing.”

    “Is it sensible to tell him in advance that whatever he does militarily, we will rule out any form of military response?” Blair further questions.

    Meanwhile, following the warnings of several other globalist figures that nuclear war is a real possibility, former Belgian Prime Minister and leading member of the European Parliament Guy Verhofstadt has declared that NATO needs reforming and that it should be done via the European Union and the creation of an EU-army.

    “We don’t need to abolish 27 national armies but we need to create on top of that a joint armed forces of the European Union,” Verhofstadt told reporters.

    He continued, “We need to establish, inside NATO a European pillar, I think NATO has to be reformed into a defence alliance of big continental organisations, a European one, a North American one, an Asian one, so like a triangle.”

    “I see a reform of NATO in a World Trade Organisation sort of way – a world defence community defending liberal democratic values,” he further emphasised.

    Kinda sounds like a… ‘new world order’?

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    Tyler Durden
    Fri, 03/18/2022 – 02:00

  • The Stagflation Trap Will Lead To Universal Basic Income And Food Rationing
    The Stagflation Trap Will Lead To Universal Basic Income And Food Rationing

    Authored by Brandon Smith via Alt-Market.us,

    This past week during a conference discussing Biden’s “Build Back Better” scheme House Speaker Nancy Pelosi was confronted with questions on skyrocketing inflation. After referring to higher gas prices as the “Putin Tax”, she went on to offer perhaps the dumbest (or most insidious) denial on the causes of inflation that I have ever heard. She stated:

    “When we’re having this discussion, it’s important to dispel some of those who say, well it’s the government spending. No, it isn’t. The government spending is doing the exact reverse, reducing the national debt. It is not inflationary.”

    Anyone with a basic understanding of economics and how central banks operate must have felt their brains explode when they heard this, I know I did. But before I get into the numerous reasons why this claim is completely false in every way, I want to give a warning – It’s very easy in this situation to assume that Pelosi and even Biden are making these arguments because they are too stupid to grasp the fundamentals of debt creation, money velocity and fiat. That said, never mistake evil for mere ignorance.

    All higher level representatives of the White House are briefed by economic experts (spin doctors) well before they answer any questions on inflation, and the things they say have been carefully scripted. It’s possible Pelosi mixed her lies up a little bit, but the narrative the establishment is trying to promote is well planned. Asserting that money creation is a counterbalance to inflation instead of the cause is not brilliant, but it’s not designed to convince many people, only create confusion.

    Let’s not forget that only last year these same people were telling the public that inflation was purely “transitory” and that there was nothing to worry about. Now they are trying to cover their tracks and the culpability of the Federal Reserve. I believe the goal here is to simply stall for time until the stagflationary collapse unfolds. They have the perfect scapegoat as they launch an economic war with Russia (and likely China in the near term), and the effects of this war will hurt the US and Europe far more than many realize.

    To quickly break down Pelosi’s bizarre statement I will make a couple of root observations:

    • First, paying down the national debt has NOTHING to do with reducing inflation. Even if you could somehow gather enough assets to pay off the national debt without creating new dollars from thin air the current inflationary problems would persist. There would still be the matter of the tens of trillions of dollars already fabricated and floating around the global economy. Inflation is directly related to money supply and money velocity. The national debt is secondary to the issue.

    • Second, we need to ask the most obvious question: If government spending “reduces the national debt” by paying it down, then why hasn’t the national debt gone down?

    The Fed and the US government created over $6 trillion in fiat money in 2020 alone, and the national debt only went higher. In fact, the explosion of the national debt correlates DIRECTLY to the amount of dollars created by the Fed to supply various stimulus policies and bailouts over the years. The national debt in 2008 at the onset of the credit crash was around $10 trillion. It took hundreds of years to reach that level. In the span of only 14 years of Fed money creation the debt has now TRIPLED to over $30 trillion.

    I’ll say it again – Government spending and Fed stimulus has tripled the size of our national debt in less than 14 years. And, of course, inflation has spiked as the amount of dollars injected into the global system causes the buying power of our currency to decline dramatically. More fiat dollars equals less buying power. This is reality.

    Also, using Russia as a scapegoat just doesn’t hold up on the logic meter. The assertion by Pelosi, Biden and many establishment leftists has been that blocking Russian oil to the US is leading to inflation in multiple sectors of the economy, but it’s “necessary” to stop Putin’s invasion of Ukraine. One might assume that we use a lot of Russian oil. We don’t.

    Russian crude oil only makes up 3% of US imports. Therefore, there is no way that sanctions on Russian oil are the cause of rising prices, nor do these sanctions have any effect on the Kremlin. Inflation was hitting 40 year highs back in December of last year, well before the war in Ukraine. In fact, news on the Fed’s interest rate hikes moves oil markets far more than news on Ukraine.

    To summarize, I have a special message for Nancy Pelosi: Please so us a favor and shut up, you blood sucking crone. The American people are smarter than you, and your propaganda script is full of holes.

    Onward to more important issues…

    This narrative is not only about protecting the Biden Administration, it is also about protecting the Federal Reserve. As former Fed Chair Alan Greenspan once openly admitted, the central bank answers to no one, and that includes government officials. Many theorize that it is actually the central banks and international banks that make the majority of policy decisions for government, and politicians have very little say in matters. I’m inclined to agree given the number of banking elites and globalist Council on Foreign Relations members that seem to permeate every single presidential cabinet (this includes Trump’s cabinet as much as Biden’s).

    Biden is an empty shell of a man barely able to maintain a semblance of sanity, who do you think really runs the country?

    I have been writing a lot lately about how establishment elites and globalists actually benefit greatly from a stagflationary crisis, as long as they are able to divert blame to other sources and are not targeted for retribution by the public. One of these benefits includes a cover event for an agenda that the World Economic Forum calls the “Great Reset,” which is essentially just another name for “New World Order.”

    Isn’t it marvelous that the government and media hailstorm of covid fear porn that was bombarding Americans only a few months ago has now suddenly vanished? What happened? Well, the establishment was defeated, that’s what happened. With conservatives and moderates in red states in the US and in nations around the world fighting back against the lockdowns and vaccine passports the globalists must have realized the battle in the long run was lost. Suddenly all talk of passports and medical tyranny is gone.

    I realize there are some people out there that give the globalists too much credit and still argue the covid scheme was some kind of success. These people are wrong. If you want to see what success looks like go to China, where hundreds of millions are still suffering from lockdowns today and no one can do anything without an up-to-date vaccine passport and QR code. In China the vax passports are also used for tracking of the population as well as an element of their social credit scores. This is what the globalists wanted for all nations including the US, and they didn’t get it. Therefore, it’s on to the next crisis.

    The stagflation threat worries me more than any other for a number of reasons, and it’s not just because of the potential for extreme poverty. As we all know, the strategy of “order out of chaos” is about creating enough desperation within a target population that the people are willing to give up their freedoms in exchange for a semblance of safety and normalcy. But what specific controls would the establishment seek out?

    Stagflation has the ability to trigger much higher prices in necessities, while it simultaneously drags GDP down along with wages, jobs, manufacturing, etc. There is also the very real threat of government price controls, which would suffocate production and reduce the supply of goods even further. We are not quite to this point yet, but the danger is approaching fast.

    There are two initiatives within the WEF’s Great Reset agenda that parallel stagflation almost exactly and I predict we will be hearing about them often in the coming year.

    The first initiative is the concept of Universal Basic Income (UBI); we heard a lot about this a few years ago but the idea didn’t stick too well with the American public. The truth, however, is that we already had UBI for a time in the form of “covid stimulus checks.” This helicopter money was funded by over $6 trillion in central bank fiat created from nothing, and then directly injected into citizen accounts. It was barely enough for people to live on by itself, but in conjunction with other welfare programs and unemployment checks millions of people were living the easy life at home for well over a year. The money was so easy that the policy actually triggered a national labor shortage.

    This small taste of UBI might have given people the wrong impression about such stimulus programs. After the covid programs the public might be led to believe that UBI would result in a carefree life with money to go around. By themselves without the benefit of other welfare programs, the covid checks would not have been enough to keep people housed and fed; the standard of living for the average person would have to fall dramatically for UBI to work at all. Enter stagflation…

    With economic decline crushing our living standards it could be easier for the establishment to lure the public into UBI. Along with communist-style price controls across the board (and a reduced population due to starvation and poverty) the public would be able to survive, but barely. There would no longer be such a thing as “personal wealth,” only the scraps that governments and bankers are willing to throw people. On top of that, resistance to authoritarianism would be nearly impossible. Once the government takes on the role of mommy and daddy and the the only source of food and housing for the citizenry they are far less likely to stand against any abuse the establishment wants to dish out.

    UBI is a candy coated trap which breeds dependency in a population. Free money is an addictive drug, and America just had a big taste during the pandemic.

    This leads us into the second WEF Great Reset program, which is the concept of the “shared economy.” The globalists think that you should own nothing, have no privacy, and be happy about it. The initial danger here involves rationing. A government cannot institute UBI measures during a stagflationary crisis without also instituting price controls, because otherwise the fiat stimulus used to provide the UBI checks would only create MORE inflation in prices. If UBI is meant to offset inflation but it creates more inflation, then UBI becomes useless. This is another little fact that people like Pelosi will try to gloss over when they claim that money printing helps “fight inflation.”

    When price controls are implemented manufacturing will implode further, because price controls mean producers of necessities will not be able to make much of a profit (or they will make no profit at all). There will be no incentive to produce among the people that actually know how to produce, and these people are not easy to replace. The supply of goods will not be able to meet demand.

    Naturally, the government will take the opportunity to limit the amount of goods any single person or family is allowed to purchase or stockpile through rationing cards.

    These kinds of measures have been used in the past, usually during wartime or under communist regimes. But in this case the rationing will be digital and permanent, and it will be designed to further control food and other resources as a means to prevent rebellion by the public. If you can’t store more than a week’s worth of necessities at any given time, then your ability to defy the government is nonexistent unless you know how to live off the land or have access to black markets. All they have to do is cut off your monthly UBI checks and ration account and watch you starve.

    I will cover solutions to these problems in an article coming soon. I think it’s important that people within the liberty movement and outside of the liberty movement start thinking about the scale of the crisis we are facing. It’s not just about economic disaster and adapting to the loss of supply chains and stable currencies; it’s not just about survival. It’s also about fighting back against the inevitable government response to the crisis. They will try to take advantage of people’s pain, and use it to lure those people into slavery. This cannot be allowed to happen.

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    Tyler Durden
    Thu, 03/17/2022 – 23:45

  • These Countries Import The Most Russian Arms
    These Countries Import The Most Russian Arms

    India is not only the biggest arms importer in the world, but, as Statista’s Katharina Buchholz details below, it is also the biggest customer to the Russian defense industry, data from the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute shows.

    Infographic: The Countries Importing Russian Arms | Statista

    You will find more infographics at Statista

    India’s dependence on Russian defense technology has been identified as one of the main reasons why the country did not speak out against Russia after the country invaded Ukraine at the end of last month and instead has attempted to remain neutral.

    Between 2017 and 2021, India received almost 28 percent of all Russian arms exports. 85 percent of the country’s military equipment is believed to be Russian or Soviet, according to the Journal of Indo-Pacific Affairs. Russia and India are also close on trade, with India relying on Russia for fertilizer and energy needs.

    Russia’s second-biggest customer over the past five years was China. Tension between the country and its neighbor India have been responsible for the perceived need for security in the region, tying India even closer to its arms trade partner Russia. China, on the other hand, also has a growing domestics weapons industry.

    Other countries having received large shares of Russian weapons in the past several years are Egypt and Algeria, receiving upwards of 10 percent each, as well as Vietnam, Kazakhstan and Iraq.

    Tyler Durden
    Thu, 03/17/2022 – 23:25

  • New Hampshire House Approves Over-The-Counter Ivermectin
    New Hampshire House Approves Over-The-Counter Ivermectin

    Authored by Alice Giordano via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours),

    New Hampshire took a giant step closer to becoming the first U.S. state to offer Ivermectin without a prescription on March 16.

    A health worker shows a box containing a bottle of Ivermectin, a medicine authorized by the National Institute for Food and Drug Surveillance (INVIMA) to treat patients with mild, asymptomatic or suspicious COVID-19, as part of a study of the Center for Pediatric Infectious Diseases Studies, in Cali, Colombia, on July 21, 2020. (Luis Robayo/AFP via Getty Images)

    By a 183 to 159 vote, New Hampshire’s Republican-dominated House of Representatives approved HB1022, which would allow pharmacists to dispense Ivermectin under a standing order, meaning anyone can go to a pharmacist and get the human-grade of the medication.

    NH Republican lawmaker Leah Cushman, a nurse, and the bill’s sponsor, told The Epoch Times in January that she “had absolutely no doubt lives will be saved if human grade Ivermectin was available to COVID patients.”

    “House Republicans sent a clear message today that we support expanding options for the treatment of COVID,” Cushman told The Epoch Times.

    She said its approval by the House also means people will not have to resort to buying human-grade Ivermectin from a foreign country in order to exercise their right to use the medication to treat their symptoms.

    Cushman added that the provision in the bill that safeguards doctors from any potential discipline—or an investigation by the state’s licensing board—for prescribing Ivermectin for COVID-19 takes “some of the political pressure” off them.

    The bill still has to win final approval from the Senate, but that is also Republican-controlled and so far its GOP lawmakers have shown they believe in the state’s Live Free or Die motto when it comes to treatment choices about COVID-19.

    Similar bills are pending legislative approval in Oklahoma, Missouri, Indiana, Arizona, and Alaska.

    In New Hampshire, the Ivermectin bill is one of several COVID-related proposals led by Republicans.

    The House Health, Human Services, and Elderly Affairs Committee, which narrowly voted “ought to pass” on the Ivermectin bill,  also approved a proposed ban on the enforcement of any federal vaccine mandate and rejected a bill that would have added the COVID-19 vaccine to immunization requirements for public school students.

    There has been a divide between NH Republicans and the state’s Gov. Chris Sununu, himself a Republican, over the COVID-19 virus with 13 protesters arrested last year after objecting to his push for the state to accept a total of $27 million in federal money to promote the COVID vaccine.

    Sununu, however, who gets the final say over the bill, has steadfastly remained an opponent to mandating the vaccine and was the only governor in the northeast to join a gubernatorial lawsuit against the Biden administration over its federal vaccine mandate directive.

    That called for anyone who worked at a company with 100 or more employees to be vaccinated against the virus.

    The U.S. Supreme Court blocked the directive but left in place Biden’s mandatory vaccine requirement for healthcare workers. It has also refused to decide the argument that religious exemptions should be a constitutional guarantee to the vaccine.

    Alternative treatments like Ivermectin have caused their share of controversy in New England.

    In Maine, a close neighbor to New Hampshire, the state suspended the medical license of one of the region’s—if not the nation’s—most prominent doctors for prescribing Ivermectin, Hydroxychloroquine, and other alternative treatments to the vaccine.

    Dr. Meryl Nass, a national expert on vaccine-induced illnesses, was also initially ordered to undergo psychiatric treatment, but the state’s medical licensing board withdrew that request.

    Like the NH bill, other state bills seeking to make Ivermectin available over the counter, call for a ban of such retaliation by state licensing boards against doctors or nurse practitioners who prescribe patients Ivermectin and other alternative treatments.

    In addition to Ivermectin, Oklahoma Senate Bill 1525 also proposes making Hydroxychloroquine available over the counter.

    “It’s incredible to me that the sole focus of the current administration and the Capitol’s ‘Science’ is on a vaccine that isn’t quite as ‘safe and effective’ as they make it out to be,” said Nathan Dahm (R-Broken Arrow), the bill’s primary sponsor.

     The Food and Drug Administration along with many doctors remain opposed to the use of Ivermectin against COVID-19, arguing it has not yet been proven as an effective treatment for the virus.

    Tyler Durden
    Thu, 03/17/2022 – 23:05

  • The Science Of Nuclear Weapons, Visualized
    The Science Of Nuclear Weapons, Visualized

    In 1945, the world’s first-ever nuclear weapon was detonated at the Trinity test site in New Mexico, United States, marking the beginning of the Atomic Age.

    Since then, as Visual Capitalist’s Govind Bhutada and Mark Belan detail below, the global nuclear stockpile has multiplied, and when geopolitical tensions rise, the idea of a nuclear apocalypse understandably causes widespread concern.

    But despite their catastrophically large effects, the science of how nuclear weapons work is atomically small…

    The Atomic Science of Nuclear Weapons

    All matter is composed of atoms, which host different combinations of three particles—protons, electrons, and neutrons. Nuclear weapons work by capitalizing on the interactions of protons and neutrons to create an explosive chain reaction.

    At the center of every atom is a core called the nucleus, which is composed of closely-bound protons and neutrons. While the number of protons is unique to each element in the periodic table, the number of neutrons can vary. As a result, there are multiple “species” of some elements, known as isotopes.

    For example, here are some isotopes of uranium:

    • Uranium-238: 92 protons, 146 neutrons

    • Uranium-235: 92 protons, 143 neutrons

    • Uranium-234: 92 protons, 142 neutrons

    These isotopes can be stable or unstable. Stable isotopes have a relatively static or unchanging number of neutrons. But when a chemical element has too many neutrons, it becomes unstable or fissile.

    When fissile isotopes attempt to become stable, they shed excess neutrons and energy. This energy is where nuclear weapons get their explosivity from.

    There are two types of nuclear weapons:

    • Atomic Bombs: These rely on a domino effect of multiple fission reactions to produce an explosion, using either uranium or plutonium.

    • Hydrogen Bombs: These rely on a combination of fission and fusion using uranium or plutonium, with the help of lighter elements like the isotopes of hydrogen.

    So, what exactly is the difference between fission and fusion reactions?

    Splitting Atoms: Nuclear Fission

    Nuclear fission—the process used by nuclear reactors—produces large amounts of energy by breaking apart a heavier unstable atom into two smaller atoms, starting a nuclear chain reaction.

    When a neutron is fired into the nucleus of a fissile atom like uranium-235, the uranium atom splits into two smaller atoms known as “fissile fragments” in addition to more neutrons and energy. These excess neutrons can then start a self-sustaining chain reaction by hitting the nuclei of other uranium-235 atoms, resulting in an atomic explosion.

    Atomic bombs use nuclear fission, though it’s important to note that a fission chain reaction requires a particular amount of a fissile material like uranium-235, known as the supercritical mass.

    Merging Atoms: Nuclear Fusion

    Hydrogen bombs use a combination of fission and fusion, with nuclear fusion amplifying a fission reaction to produce a much more powerful explosion than atomic bombs.

    Fusion is essentially the opposite of fission—instead of splitting a heavier atom into smaller atoms, it works by putting together two atoms to form a third unstable atom. It’s also the same process that fuels the Sun.

    Nuclear fusion mainly relies on isotopes of lighter elements, like the two isotopes of hydrogen—deuterium and tritium. When subjected to intense heat and pressure, these two atoms fuse together to form an extremely unstable helium isotope, which releases energy and neutrons.

    The released neutrons then fuel the fission reactions of heavier atoms like uranium-235, creating an explosive chain reaction.

    How Atomic and Hydrogen Bombs Compare

    Just how powerful are hydrogen bombs, and how do they compare to atomic bombs?

    The bombs Little Boy and Fat Man were used in the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki in 1945, bringing a destructive end to World War II. The scale of these bombings was, at the time, unparalleled. But comparing these to hydrogen bombs shows just how powerful nuclear weapons have become.

    Castle Bravo was the codename for the United States’ largest-ever nuclear weapon test, a hydrogen bomb that produced a yield of 15,000 kilotons—making it 1,000 times more powerful than Little Boy. What’s more, radioactive traces from the explosion, which took place on the Marshall Islands near Fiji, were found in Australia, India, Japan, U.S., and Europe.

    Seven years later, the Soviet Union tested Tsar Bomba in 1961, the world’s most powerful nuclear weapon. The explosion produced 51,000 kilotons of explosive energy, with a destructive radius of roughly 60km.

    Given how damaging a single nuke can be, it’s difficult to imagine the outcome of an actual nuclear conflict without fear of total annihilation, especially with the world’s nuclear arsenal sitting at over 13,000 warheads.

    Tyler Durden
    Thu, 03/17/2022 – 22:45

  • Homeowner Suing Michigan County Over Home Equity 'Theft' Appeals To 6th Circuit
    Homeowner Suing Michigan County Over Home Equity ‘Theft’ Appeals To 6th Circuit

    Authored by Matthew Vadum via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours),

    A widow is appealing to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 6th Circuit, a court ruling dismissing her claim that local governments in Michigan seized her family’s home over a tax debt and then refused to compensate her for the home equity in the property that she lost.

    Christina M. Martin, senior attorney, Pacific Legal Foundation (photo: Pacific Legal Foundation)

    The unfavorable ruling came despite the fact that the Michigan Supreme Court has ruled that counties may not keep for themselves as a windfall funds left over from the sale of real property for unpaid taxes, an unconstitutional practice the property owner’s lawyers denounce, calling it “home equity theft.”

    The case is “about a city using a predatory tax law as an engine for its other government purposes, and to enrich private companies,” Christina M. Martin, a senior attorney at the Pacific Legal Foundation (PLF), told The Epoch Times in an interview. PLF is a Sacramento, California-based national public interest law firm that represents injured clients free of charge.

    “So the government says that since it didn’t make any money, it doesn’t have to pay these property owners anything,” Martin said.

    “But the bottom line is, the government took these homes that were worth far more than any of the homeowners owed the government. And the government should have to pay just compensation for that surplus that it took.”

    The brief in the appeal (pdf), Hall v. Meisner, court file 20-cv-12230, was filed March 7 with the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 6th Circuit. The claim was dismissed in May 2021 by Judge Paul D. Borman, a Clinton appointee, on the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Michigan.

    According to the brief, the county took the homes of eight appellants to satisfy tax debts in amounts far below the value of their homes, receiving “a huge windfall at the expense of the homeowners.” The only compensation they received “was forgiveness of the debts that were worth much less than their homes.”

    The case goes back several years when Tawanda and Prentiss Hall fell behind on their property taxes and set up a payment plan with their local government so they would not lose their Southfield, Michigan, home where they lived with their children. Tawanda Hall is one of the eight former property owners suing in federal court.

    But Oakland County terminated the Halls’ plan when their tax debt stood at $22,642, and foreclosed on their home.

    Instead of selling the house at public auction, paying off the debt, and returning the surplus—minus interest and penalties—to the homeowners, the county used the Halls’ money to “enrich” a private company, Southfield Neighborhood Revitalization Initiative, LLC, which is managed by City of Southfield officials.

    “Through a series of legal transactions, the county took the Halls’ home (and the homes of seven other homeowners party to this case) and transferred it through the City of Southfield to the Revitalization Initiative, which sold it for more than $300,000. The Halls received none of the difference between the debt they owed and the sales price,” PLF said in a statement.

    This public-private arrangement was established in 2016 by a city resolution. Southfield relies on a state law allowing cities a “right of first refusal” to buy foreclosed homes from the county for the cost of tax debt. “The Southfield Non-Profit Housing Corporation reimburses the city for the amount of the tax debt, and turns the properties over to the for-profit Revitalization Initiative—for $1—to be fixed up and sold,” PLF said.

    Citing a Detroit News report, PLF stated that the “company generated as much as $10 million from 138 properties from 2016 to 2019 after covering more than $2 million in tax debts to acquire the properties from the city. The former owners of these properties lost everything and received nothing from the surplus value of the properties taken from them.”

    PLF stated that one court described the system as “troubling,” “shocking to the conscience,” and stated that it “rightfully breeds distrust among the electorate.”

    The saga took its toll on the Halls. “Six months after the family was forced to move, an exhausted and overworked Prentiss died from a brain injury sustained in an on-the-job fall—he was 52,” PLF said.

    According to PLF, the case is the latest in the firm’s ongoing work to take on home equity theft across the nation. The firm’s website states that when someone miscalculates a bill, “Typically, a late fee or a strongly worded warning follows. But do you know what happens if you miscalculate and underpay your property taxes—even by just a few dollars? In at least 12 states, the government will seize your property, sell it, and leave you with nothing.”

    PLF argues that a victory in this case would finish what the firm started in Rafaeli LLC v. Oakland County, when the Michigan Supreme Court ruled unanimously to end home equity theft through government foreclosure auctions.

    The Epoch Times reported on that ruling in July 2020. That court ruled that counties in Michigan may not keep for themselves as a windfall funds left over from the sale of real property for unpaid taxes.

    Court documents in that case indicated the plaintiff, who had bought the rental property in Southfield for $60,000, owed $8.41 in unpaid property taxes from 2011, which grew to $285.81 after interest, penalties, and fees. Oakland County foreclosed on the property for the delinquency, selling it at auction for $24,500, and keeping all the sale proceeds in excess of the taxes, interest, penalties, and fees.

    Oakland County, Michigan, Treasurer Robert Wittenberg commented by email on the new appeal.

    “Although the Oakland County Treasurer’s Office does not comment on pending litigation, we place a high priority on helping our residents and business owners to retain their properties while complying with Michigan law. Our commitment—to fulfill our statutory responsibilities, prevent tax foreclosure and the loss of property ownership rights in Oakland County—is unwavering.”

    The Epoch Times also reached out to the City of Southfield for comment on the new appeal but had not received a reply as of press time.

    Tyler Durden
    Thu, 03/17/2022 – 22:25

  • World's Top-Ranked Tennis Player May Need To Denounce Putin To Play At Wimbledon
    World’s Top-Ranked Tennis Player May Need To Denounce Putin To Play At Wimbledon

    The world’s top-ranked tennis player, Daniil Medvedev, could be banned from playing at Wimbledon unless he offers “assurances” that he isn’t a supporter of Russian President Vladimir Putin.

    Medvedev, along with other Russian and Belarusian tennis players, has been competing as a ‘neutral athlete’ at the BNP Paribas Open this week in the wake of the invasion of Ukraine. But the UK Sports Minister Nigel Huddleston says this isn’t enough, Eurosport reports.

    Huddleston said Tuesday that the government is in talks with the All-England Lawn Tennis Club regarding their stance for Wimbledon (the tournament doesn’t begin until June 27).

    He added that “nobody flying the flag for Russia should be allowed” to play in the famous Grand Slam tournament. In fact, the ban should probably go “beyond that” and bar any Russians who refuse to denounce their president (something that could carry criminal penalties back in Russia). The Wimbledon organizers are reportedly having talks on the issue.

    Tennis has so far stopped short of banning Russian players, however Russia have been banned from certain team competitions like the Davis Cup. Huddleston says the UK is looking at how to reach a “broad global consensus” with other countries about how Russian athletes should be treated.

    “We are looking at this issue of what we do with individuals and we are thinking about the implications of it, because I don’t think people would accept individuals very clearly flying the Russian flag, in particular if there is any support for Putin and his regime.”

    Medvedev, who is set to lose the world No.1 ranking to Novak Djokovic after losing to Gael Monfils at Indian Wells, said that if he had his druthers, he would simply go on “promoting tennis” wherever he plays. As for the invasion of Ukraine, it’s “tough to talk on”, he said.

    “It’s always tough to talk on this subject because I want to play tennis – play in different countries.”

    “I want to promote my sport, I want to promote what I’m doing in my country for sure, and right now the situation is that that is the only way I can play.”

    Meanwhile, Huddleston, the UK sports minister, said he will do everything in his power to ensure that Russia will not return to the international sporting stage for the foreseeable future.

    Tyler Durden
    Thu, 03/17/2022 – 22:05

  • US State Department Thinks It's An Authority On Fake News
    US State Department Thinks It’s An Authority On Fake News

    Authored by Adam Andrzejewski via RealClear Policy (emphasis ours),

    Some say America has a fake news problem. They might be on to something.

    Americans’ trust in our media is at one of its lowest points, and social media has made disinformation easy to spread. But as America is tackling its own fake news problem, our government is pretending to be experts on it in Zimbabwe. In fact, the U.S. is sending $100,000 to Zimbabwe to help that country tackle fake news, according to a grant notice from the U.S. Department of State.

    The grant description states that the goal of the grant is, “To improve and promote adherence to international best practice in implementing fundamental freedom of speech and the press freedom.”

    It encourages a three-pronged approach: Strengthening public understanding of freedom of speech and press freedom, improving media literacy to combat disinformation and increasing media sustainability, innovation and professionalization.

    The idea that the U.S. is an expert on disinformation, free speech, and combating censorship, and that it should be teaching them to other countries, is absurd.

    Between domestic debates on big tech censorship, the increasing polarization of news outlets, and increasing disinformation on social media, the U.S. has no business telling other countries the right way to do such things, let alone spending tax dollars to do so.

    The #WasteOfTheDay is presented by the forensic auditors at OpenTheBooks.com.

    Tyler Durden
    Thu, 03/17/2022 – 21:45

  • 3.5 Trillion Reasons To Brace For Tomorrow's Massive Quad-Witching Expiration
    3.5 Trillion Reasons To Brace For Tomorrow’s Massive Quad-Witching Expiration

    As Goldman’s head of FX sales Tony Pasquariello wrote last Friday, “next week is a huge one, featuring the FOMC on Wednesday and a major derivatives expiry on Friday.” And indeed, now that the Fed’s rate hike is officially a fact and in the rearview mirror, Wall Street traders are bracing for the week’s final fireworks.

    In the quarterly event known as “quad witching” (technically, it’s been “triple” since the close of OneChicago in September 2020, when single stock futures ceased trading, but for veteran traders it will always be quad), over $3.5 trillion of Index Options, Index Futures and Single Stock Options expire, either at the open of trade or at the close.

    Adding to the frenzy, at the same time more near-the-money options are maturing than at any time since 2019 meaning that highly caffeinated traders will actively be trading around those positions as they seek to capitalize on any drift away “pins” (we will have a full list of the stocks most likely to see significant volatility tomorrow morning).

    Furthermore, according to Goldman’s Rocky Fishman, investors will also be watching the ETN market given the substantial size of expiring VXX. As a reminder, the VXX – the single largest volatility-tracking ETN – has been trading at a 12% premium to its NAV since its issuer suspended creations…

    … and should the VXX rally strongly from its current level, its in-the-money call options would be large relative to shares outstanding.

    Tomorrow’s quad witching also coincides with a rebalancing of benchmark indexes including the S&P 500, a two-for-one special that leads to soaring trading volumes that rank among the highest of the year. According to an estimate from Howard Silverblatt, senior index analyst at S&P Dow Jones Indices, the rebalance in the index alone could spur $33 billion of stock trades.

    Traditionally, over the past year, “quad witches” have seen poor market returns, however heading into tomorrow’s option expiration, the S&P is posting the best 3-day return since the Dec 2020 election.

    So is the party about to end? As many contracts expire, Bloomberg notes that the key question is whether investors will rebuild their record holdings of index puts amid growth concerns and the war in Ukraine — or will they come out of their shells, and chase the market rebound with call contracts, creating a negative gamma meltup at a time when most dealers are still short gamma.

    Or will stocks tumble as trading desks such as JPMorgan “sell the rally” to naive investors who listen to the bank’s latest call to buy the dip.

    But while retail investors are confident they know how to trade tomorrow’s chaos, veteran traders are ducking for cover: “I’ve never seen an environment where you’ve had so many potential overhangs in the market that can not be controlled,” said David Wagner, a portfolio manager at Aptus Capital Advisors. “We’ll see if people can see to redeploy their puts.”

    If not, we may get an extension of the meltup as an avalanche of put closing sparks a delta cascade: exploding derivatives volume has been a fixture of the post-pandemic market — whipsawing underlying stocks in both directions, again and again. To strategists including Nomura’s Charlie McElligott, this week’s advance in the S&P 500 has again been amplified by the hedging activity of market-makers. And should we get another gamma squeeze, the S&P may soar.

    On the other hand, many of the usual catalysts for a melt up are missing: thanks to the recent surge in stocks, dealers are now flat gamma, meaning they no longer have to accentuate market trends..

    Meanwhile, thanks to the recent 3-day meltup, the negative delta has also been unwound faster than anticipated. Notably, as SpotGamma explains, yesterday saw a total lack of positive call deltas in the SPY & QQQ. You can see below that SPY traders were fairly heavy call sellers into the AM short-stock cover, and then after 1PM ET and through the FOMC flow was neutral. The QQQ chart was similar.

    Commenting on the same phenomenon, Nomura’s McElligott writes that the “Short Delta” hedge cover on the murdering of downside Puts led to move short-covering of client dynamic hedges in futures too, where for ES, the bank’s imbalance monitor showed what was the second largest day of “buy pressure” over the past month for all lot sizes, led by what looked like straight-up VWAP style buying-to-cover (slicing your order in the machine over “small lots”)

    Another reason why stocks could defy prevailing sentiment, which as the latest Fear and Greed index describes simply as “fear”…

    … is technicals and positioning. As Marko Kolanovic notes, current risk positioning is very light as a result of high and persistent volatility, and risk aversion caused by global geopolitical developments: “the AAII bull-bear indicator at -27 is near its 2020 lows and 2 standard deviations below average. Equity exposure for volatility sensitive investors – the largest and fastest group of investors (including insurance, risk parity, dynamically hedged portfolios, HF platforms, etc.) – is now in its ~5-10th percentile, and for this reason risks are skewed to the upside.” Meanwhile, with market sentiment weak and institutional-fund exposure to equities near mutliyear lows, caution in the derivatives market is everywhere. The 20-day average of the Cboe put-call ratio for equities, for example, hovers near a two-year high, which means that once again many are hedged and with little impetus to sell, stocks may simply melt up instead.

    For those asking which strikes matter the most now into Op-Ex / and what % of overall gamma is set to expire along with the current and max Gamma sensitivity, here is the answer courtesy of Nomura.

    SPX / SPY currently “pinning” btwn 4400 strike ($4.1B $Gamma), 4350 ($2.5B), 4300 ($2.4B); currently see ~43% of the $Gamma dropping-off for Friday’s expiration; currently at “Zero Gamma” level, “Max Short Gamma” at 4125 and -$17B per 1% move

    Source: Nomura

    QQQ $350 strike ($640mm $Gamma), $345 ($608mm), $340 ($595mm); currently see 56% of the $Gamma dropping-off for Friday’s expiration; currently at “Zero Gamma” level, “Max Short Gamma” at $314 and ~-$1.7B per 1%

    Source: Nomura

    IWM $200 strike ($471mm $Gamma), $205 ($274mm), $195 ($199mm); currently see 63% of the $Gamma dropping-off for Friday’s expiration; currently a modest “Short Gamma vs Spot” at -$100mm per 1% currently, “Max Short Gamma” at $192 and ~-$600mm per 1%

    Source: Nomura

    HYG $82 strike ($973mm $Gamma), $81 ($799mm), $80 ($477mm); currently see 58% of the $Gamma dropping-off for Friday’s expiration; currently still very “Short Gamma vs Spot” at -$1.0B per 1% move, “Max Short Gamma” at $79, -$1.2B per 1% move

    That is a lot of gamma to ‘unclench’.

    In any case, amid this cacophony of bullish and bearish catalysts, it is virtually impossible to come up with a coherent case for either sustained market upside or another sharp burst of selling: “We see a general trend of continued risk aversion among investors, and expectations that the stock market remains volatile,” said Steve Sears, president at Options Solutions. “There are so many major events that could change the market’s tempo that hedging and patient fortitude appears to be the message from the options market.”

    Tyler Durden
    Thu, 03/17/2022 – 21:25

  • White House Wants $22.5 Billion For More COVID Funding
    White House Wants $22.5 Billion For More COVID Funding

    Authored by Philip Wegmann via RealClear Politics (emphasis ours),

    At the beginning of the pandemic, the previous president had a vision – one his scientific advisors urged him to abandon. Not only did Donald Trump want the economy back open, he said that by Easter Sunday of 2020, “you will have packed churches all over the country.” It never happened, at least not on the scale he envisioned.

    Two years later, after millions of vaccines have been administered and the virus has receded from its peak, things look very different. A sign of the times: After two years, the White House plans to resume regular public tours. Doors are scheduled to open on Good Friday.

    As Biden officials smile about the poetry of that rhyming calendar, the White House is dealing with a political paradox: How to secure more COVID aid from Congress as the administration pivots away from the pandemic. It’s proving to be a hard sell.

    The same morning the White House announced a return to business as usual for tourists, the administration raised the alarm about a virus they believe is on the run. Cases are down 95% since the peak of the omicron variant. Hospitalizations have similarly plunged by 85%. More than 215 million Americans are already fully vaccinated. Yet officials warned on a call with reporters Tuesday morning that their pandemic coffers could soon be empty.

    “For months, we’ve made clear to Congress, on a bipartisan basis, that the funding for tests, treatments, and vaccines was drying up and that additional funds would be needed,” the official said.

    How much money do they need? The number administration officials floated was $22.5 billion. And if they don’t get it? White House budgeteers will make trims to the request. They warn, however, that the U.S. won’t have enough boosters or variant-specific vaccines “for all Americans,” according to a fact sheet provided by the administration. They won’t be able to buy monoclonal antibody treatments, either, and the current supply is expected to run out as soon as May. Without a cash infusion, they predict that the testing capacity will collapse.

    Governors were warned late Tuesday morning that the administration would be reducing the number of monoclonal antibody treatments by 30% within a week.

    Republicans say they aren’t necessarily opposed to more COVID spending. They just want to know where all the other COVID cash went first, as Sen. Richard Shelby explained to Politico. “There’s a doubt that they need this money with a lot of us,” explained the Alabama Republican. “I’ve said this for weeks, a real accounting of the money [already spent on COVID] that the American people deserve and then go from there. If there’s no money left, and it’s not hidden somewhere, and if they show a need, then you got, maybe, a persuasive case.”

    Asked if the White House would negotiate for a lower number, a Biden official gave an emphatic “no.” And when then asked if they would accept using different funds for their COVID priorities, the official demurred, saying only that “the money they provided over a year ago has been well spent, but we defer to Congress on the specific legislative approach.”

    It is a routine kind of squabble, albeit one that comes at the tail end of a once-in-a-century pandemic. The difficulty for Biden may be that the public is moving on after he pivoted away from the virus during his State of the Union address. Masks are increasingly uncommon these days. Dr. Anthony Fauci has receded from the cable news circuit. News of a land war in Europe now eclipses COVID coverage.

    White House Press Secretary Jen Psaki told RealClearPolitics that COVID funding was a necessity, despite the public’s shifting attention. “We’re in a different stage and we have a range of tools in order to fight the pandemic,” she explained, adding that in order to keep up that fight, “We need money.” A new subvariant of the virus, BA2 omicron, has already made it to American shores. It is apparently even more transmissible than the original Omicron strain, Psaki noted, but also treatable. “We need to have masks, tests, boosters, treatments for [the] immunocompromised in order to continue to treat the American people during a pandemic,” she said. “So, it remains urgent.”

    That urgency was underscored by breaking news Tuesday evening. At least nine Democrats had already tested positive for the virus after those lawmakers attended a party retreat last week in Philadelphia. The president was also at the event, but he tested negative Sunday night, Psaki told reporters. Then, Kamala Harris’ husband Doug Emhoff tested positive.

    The vice president had stood shoulder to shoulder with Biden earlier in the day at an indoor event, and she was expected to share the stage with the president at an event in the East Room of the White House to celebrate “Equal Pay Day.” The room was packed front to back, but Harris wasn’t there.

    “Earlier today, the Second Gentleman tested positive for COVID-19. Out of an abundance of caution, the Vice President will not participate in tonight’s event,” the White House announced just moments before Biden entered the room. “The Vice President tested negative for COVID-19 today and will continue to test.” The president shrugged off the news like it was routine.

    “Welcome to the White House,” Biden told the crowd that included House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and numerous members of his cabinet. “This is the biggest crowd we’ve had since we got here.” Only later, after a gaffe where he mistakenly said that “the first lady’s husband contracted COVID,” did Biden ask the mostly unmasked crowd to send to Harris “our love.”

    Tyler Durden
    Thu, 03/17/2022 – 21:05

  • "Looks Like Volcano" – Smoke From Massive Walmart Fire Seen From Space 
    “Looks Like Volcano” – Smoke From Massive Walmart Fire Seen From Space 

    A monstrous plume of thick black smoke soared into the sky on Wednesday after a Walmart distribution center caught fire in Indiana. The fire could be seen from miles away — and even spotted by meteorological satellites.

    Around 1300 ET Wednesday, Plainfield, Indiana firefighters arrived at the scene of a 1.2 million-square-foot Walmart distribution center entirely engulfed in flames. 

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    A photo from 30 miles away. 

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    By evening, more than 200 fight fighters from 24 agencies were battling the massive fire as millions of items, mainly consumer goods, burnt to a crisp and unleashed black smoke that could be seen from outer space.

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    The National Weather Service Indianapolis tweeted a short GIF of one of its satellites that picked up the black smoke. 

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    Here’s a still shot of the black smoke seen from space. 

    “We’re thankful to local emergency crews for their quick response and for helping us account for the safety of our associates and those at the facility,” Walmart told Bloomberg in an emailed statement. “We’d like to emphasize our gratitude to first responders for their efforts in maintaining the safety of everyone at the facility.” 

    The satellite’s-eye view of the toxic plume spreading across the state is absolutely shocking.

    No details have been released on disruptions to customers stemming from the loss of a major disruption center. 

    Tyler Durden
    Thu, 03/17/2022 – 20:45

  • 8-Year CIA Program Helped Provoke Russian Invasion: Report
    8-Year CIA Program Helped Provoke Russian Invasion: Report

    Authored by Dave DeCamp via AntiWar.com,

    CIA paramilitaries had been training Ukrainian forces on the frontlines of the Donbas war against Russian-backed separatists since 2014 and were only pulled out by the Biden administration last month, Yahoo News reported on Wednesday, citing former US officials.

    The CIA first sent a small number of paramilitaries to eastern Ukraine when the war started in 2014, which was sparked by a US-backed coup in Kyiv and the Donbas separatists declaring independence from the post-coup government.

    Illustrative image: Sky News

    As part of the training, CIA paramilitaries taught Ukrainian forces sniper techniques, how to operate US-provided Javelin anti-tank missiles, and how to avoid being tracked on the battlefield by using covert communications and other means. The former officials said at first the CIA was surprised at the capability of Russia and the separatists compared with US adversaries in the Middle East.

    The US military held similar training programs for Ukrainian forces in western Ukraine that have been publicly acknowledged. In January, Yahoo News revealed that the CIA had also been holding a US-based training program for Ukrainian forces. A former CIA official said the US-based program was training “an insurgency” and taught Ukrainians how to “kill Russians.”

    The secret CIA program in eastern Ukraine was much more provocative than the other training programs since it essentially meant the US was involved in a proxy war on Russia’s border. The former officials told Yahoo News that during the first year of the Trump administration, National Security Officials reviewed the program, which had begun under the Obama administration.

    The CIA paramilitaries were directed to advise and train but not participate in combat. Trump administration officials feared the authorities were too broad and that the mission was too ambiguous. One former official said questions that were asked included: “How far can you go with existing covert action authorities? If, God forbid, they’ve shot some Russians, is that a problem? Do you need special authorities for that?”

    The former official said that the Trump administration discussed what Russia’s redlines could be and determined the US support for Ukrainian forces fell within historically acceptable bounds. “There was a school of thought that the Russians spoke the good old language of proxy war,” the official said.

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    Despite the concerns, the secret program continued for years until February. The former officials said that when a Russian invasion became “increasingly acute,” the Biden administration pulled all CIA personnel out of Ukraine, including the paramilitaries. One former official said the Biden administration was “terrified of even clandestine folks being on the frontline.”

    Although it’s hard to know what the military situation looks like in Ukraine, the US claims Ukraine is putting up a much fiercer resistance than Russia expected. The former officials who spoke with Yahoo News suggested the resistance was in part thanks to the CIA training program. The US continues to fuel the fighting as President Biden has already pledged over $1 billion in new military aid for Ukraine since the invasion started.

    Tyler Durden
    Thu, 03/17/2022 – 20:25

  • US Wastewater Data Hint At Rising COVID Cases
    US Wastewater Data Hint At Rising COVID Cases

    America’s best early detection system for COVID is once again flashing a warning that cases are rising once again as the US continues to treat the pandemic like ancient history.

    According to Bloomberg, a wastewater network that monitors for COVID trends is warning that cases are once again rising in many parts of the US, according to a CDC analysis of the data.

    More than one-third of the CDC’s wastewater sample sites across the U.S. showed rising COVID trends in the period ending March 1 to March 10, though reported cases have stayed near a recent low. The number of sites with rising signals of COVID cases is nearly twice what it was during the Feb. 1 to Feb. 10 period, when the wave of omicron-variant cases was fading rapidly.

    Whether this increase will precipitate another surge in cases, or be remembered as a bump on the road to defeating COVID, remains unclear.

    Warmer weather in the US is allowing people to spend more time outside, and the natural and vaccine-induced immunity in the population should act as a natural bulwark against reinfection.

    “While wastewater levels are generally very low across the board, we are seeing an uptick of sites reporting an increase,” Amy Kirby, the head of the CDC’s wastewater monitoring program, said in an email to Bloomberg. “These bumps may simply reflect minor increases from very low levels to still low levels. Some communities though may be starting to see an increase in Covid-19 infections, as prevention strategies in many states have changed in recent weeks.”

    Bloomberg also had an opportunity to analyze the CDC’s wastewater data from more than 530 sewage monitoring sites. Most of the data reported during the 10-day window from March 1 to March 10.

    Of these sites, 59% showed falling COVID trends, 5% were roughly stable, but 36% were increasing. Rises or declines are measured over a 15-day period.

    Source: Bloomberg

    So far, the warning provided by the sewer networks hasn’t shown up in case numbers and the number of patients being hospitalized for COVID is still near recent lows.

    Source: Bloomberg

    According to the CDC’s latest community levels rating, 98% of the US is in places with a “low” community level rating. Those ratings, however, are based on case numbers and hospitalizations.

    Tyler Durden
    Thu, 03/17/2022 – 20:05

  • Watch: Lindsey Graham Calls For Putin's Assassination For Third Time
    Watch: Lindsey Graham Calls For Putin’s Assassination For Third Time

    Authored by Steve Watson via Summit News,

    Senator Lindsey Graham has TRIPLED down on calling for Russian leader Vladimir Putin to be assassinated.

    Speaking at a press conference, Graham said “I hope he will be taken out, one way or the other,” adding “I don’t care how they take him out. I don’t care if we send him to The Hague and try him. I just want him to go.”

    “It’s time for him to go,” Graham further said of Putin, echoing Joe Biden’s blurted remarks that “He’s a war criminal.”

    “I wish somebody had taken Hitler out in the ’30s. So yes, Vladimir Putin is not a legitimate leader. He is a war criminal.” Graham declared.

    Graham further proclaimed that Russia is “going to have zero future” under Putin, adding “I think the world is better off without Putin – the sooner the better, and I don’t care how we do it.”

    Watch:

    Graham has called for taking out Putin three times in the past three weeks now.

    During the press conference, Graham fielded yet more questions from reporters asking why the U.S. isn’t backing a NATO enforced no-fly zone over Ukraine.

    The Senator explained that it would basically mean a direct war with Russia, a factor that appears to be completely lost on the gutter press.

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    Tyler Durden
    Thu, 03/17/2022 – 19:45

  • Shenzhen Reopens Factories As COVID Cases Retreat
    Shenzhen Reopens Factories As COVID Cases Retreat

    That was quick.

    Just days after locking down Shenzhen, China’s biggest high-tech hub, CCP authorities have decided to allow most manufacturing businesses to reopen and resume production after shutdowns created chaos in the global supply chain. As we reported the other day, factories owned by Foxconn and other major tech manufacturers were idled due to the lockdown.

    Huang Qiang, deputy secretary general of Shenzhen’s government, said Thursday during a citywide press conference that mass screening had gone smoothly since the start of the planned week-long lockdown began on Monday. So far, there have been fewer confirmed cases from community screening in recent days and most new cases have been found among quarantined close contacts or areas placed under restrictions.

    On Thursday, Shenzhen reported 71 symptomatic cases and 20 asymptomatic cases, as China logged more than 2,400 local infections nationwide, a number that was even lower than the 3,000+ new cases reported on Wednesday, which in turn was lower than the 5,000+ number from Tuesday (which was also the largest daily tally since the Wuhan outbreak two years ago), according to SCMP.

    Huang said Shenzhen still faces the risk of new imported cases, or a resurgence from the virus that’s still spreading, especially in the city’s overcrowded urban villages.

    “We will keep conducting citywide mass screening…to quickly identify the infected and cut transmission links,” he said. “At the same time, we are building a strong line of defense against cases from outside the city.”

    He also said that the government has put getting factories and businesses up and running on the agenda.

    “We will organise the resumption of work and production in an orderly manner, guide enterprises in areas such as the disinfection of factories, monitoring employees’ temperature and improving ventilation in staff canteens,” he said. “We will also provide businesses with practical help to resolve problems like manpower, capital and raw materials.”

    Meanwhile, Shenzhen is also planning on relocating some families in Tangyan village in its Futian district for a 14-day centralized quarantine, after COVID cases were found earlier in the neighborhood.

    The area will be thoroughly disinfected and residents can return ‘in an orderly manner’ after a 14-day monitoring period. Designated teams will be put in place to cater to those who need additional care, like the elderly with chronic illnesses.

    Lockdowns have rattled China’s economy, creating a major threat to GDP growth, as the following chart from Goldman shows.

    With this in mind, it’s easy to understand why the CCP is scrambling to get factories back up and running as quickly as possible.

    Presently, all shops and businesses are closed in Shenzhen except for supermarkets and restaurants offering takeout. The shutdowns have strained China’s economy and hammered its stocks, prompting the CCP yesterday to announce that it would take steps to buttress the stock market after several brutal days in the red.

    Tyler Durden
    Thu, 03/17/2022 – 19:25

  • Victor Davis Hanson: 10 Realities Of Ukraine
    Victor Davis Hanson: 10 Realities Of Ukraine

    Authored by Victor Davis Hanson via Townhall.com,

    One — Reassuring an enemy what one will not do ensures that the enemy will do just that and more. Unpredictability and occasional enigmatic silence bolster deterrence. But President Joe Biden’s predictable reassurance to Russian President Vladimir Putin that he will show restraint means Putin likely will not.

    Two — No-fly zones don’t work in a big-power, symmetrical standoff. In a cost-benefit analysis, they are not worth the risk of shooting down the planes of a nuclear power. They usually do little to stop planes outside of such zones shooting missiles into them. Sending long-range, high-altitude anti-aircraft batteries to Ukraine to deny Russian air superiority is a far better way of regaining air parity.

    Three — Europe, NATO members, and Germany in particular have de facto admitted that their past decades of shutting down nuclear plants, coal mines, and oil and gas fields have left Europe at the mercy of Russia. They are promising to rearm and meet their promised military contributions. By their actions, they are admitting that their critics, the United States in particular, were right, and they were dangerously wrong in empowering Putin.

    Four — China is now pro-Russian. Beijing wants Russian natural resources at a discount. Russia will pay for overpriced access to Chinese finance, commerce, and markets. Yet if Russia loses the Ukraine war, goes broke, and as an international pariah is ostracized, then China will likely cut the smelly Russian albatross from its neck  – in fear of new Western financial, cultural, and commercial clout.

    Five — Americans are finally digesting just how destructive the humiliating flight from Afghanistan was. The catastrophe signaled to Russia, China, North Korea, and Iran that Western deterrence had died.

    No surprise that Russia sent missiles into a Ukrainian base near the Polish-NATO border. North Korea in January launched more missiles than in any month in its history. Iran sent missiles into Kurdistan. China announces daily it is just a matter of time until it absorbs Taiwan. The tens of billions of dollars of sophisticated weaponry sent to Ukraine by the West are still far less than what the U.S. military handed over to the terrorist Taliban.

    Six — The Ukraine war did not cause inflation and record gas prices. Both were already spiking by early February 2022.

    The cause was the Biden Administration’s year-long radical expansion of the money supply at a time of post-COVID, pent-up consumer demand. It foolishly continued de facto zero-interest rates. Its generous COVID subsidies for the unemployed discouraged a return to work, while slashing U.S. oil and gas production and pipelines.

    Prior to Putin’s invasion, Biden was quite publicly blaming greedy corporations, oil companies, COVID, and former President Donald Trump for the inflation he had birthed in 2021. And he was claiming undeniable high prices were only temporary or mostly an obsession of the elite.

    Seven — Putin did not invade during the Trump tenure, although he had been more aggressive under previous American leadership with his prior attacks on Georgia, Ukraine, and Crimea. Russia stayed still when oil prices were low, fuel supplies in the West were plentiful, and the United States was confident. When the U.S. was neither bogged down in optional military interventions nor led by a president predictably accommodating to Russian aggressions, Russia stayed quiet.

    Putin took note of increased NATO and U.S. defense spending. He feared low global oil prices and record American oil and gas production. He was wary after unpredictable American strikes against enemies like ISIS, Abu al-Baghdadi, and the Iranian General Qasem Soleimani.

    Eight — It is not “escalation” to send arms to Ukraine. The Russians far more aggressively supplied the North Koreans and North Vietnamese in their wars against America, without spreading the war globally. Pakistan, Syria, and Iran sent deadly weapons — many in turn supplied to them by Russia, North Korea, and China — to kill thousands of Americans during the Afghanistan and Iraq wars.

    Nine — Putin may never fully absorb Ukraine as long as it can easily be supplied across its borders by four NATO countries. The U.S. deadlocked in the Korean War, lost the Vietnam War, was stalled in Iraq, and fled Afghanistan in part because its enemies were easily supplied by nearby border friends on the assumption the U.S. could not strike such abettors.

    Ten — It is not “un-American” to point out that prior American appeasement under the Obama and the Biden Administrations explains not why Putin wished to go into Ukraine, but why he felt he could. It is not “treasonous” to say Ukraine and the United States previously should have stayed out of each other’s domestic affairs and politics — but still do not excuse Putin’s savage aggression. It is not traitorous to admit that Russia for centuries relied on buffer states between Europe — lost when its Warsaw Pact satellite members joined NATO after its defeat in the Cold War. But that reality also does not justify Putin’s savage attack.

    We should not rehash the past but learn from it — and thereby ensure Putin is defeated now and deterred in the future.

    Tyler Durden
    Thu, 03/17/2022 – 19:05

  • White House Appoints New COVID Czar As Cases Wane
    White House Appoints New COVID Czar As Cases Wane

    As COVID cases have declined dramatically across the US (although there have been some signs about a potential resurgence via wastewater monitoring), the Biden Administration has selected a new COVID czar who will be responsible with overseeing America’s return to the office (or at least so the Biden Administration hopes). 

    Ashish Jha

    Public health expert Ashish Jha, dean of the Brown University School of Public Health, will take over as the White House’s top COVID advisor be tasked with helping workplaces and schools “cope with COVID” as millions of workers and students readjust to in-person work and education, while also preparing for possible future waves and variants. Jha previously led research into the Ebola virus and has regularly served as a medical expert on television shows.

    The change comes as Pfizer and Moderna push for the authorization of a fourth COVID booster for Americans.

    Jha will succeed Jeffrey Zients, a former director of the National Economic Council during the Obama Administration, as the White House coronavirus coordinator.

    President Biden thanked Zients for his service, and praised Jha as one of the country’s leading public-health experts.

    “Jeff spent the last 14 months working tirelessly to help combat COVID,” Biden said. “He is a man of service and an expert manager. I will miss his counsel and I’m grateful for his service.”

    […]

    “Dr. Jha is one of the leading public health experts in America, and a well-known figure to many Americans from his wise and calming public presence,” Biden said. “And as we enter a new moment in the pandemic — executing on my National Covid-19 Preparedness Plan and managing the ongoing risks from Covid — Dr. Jha is the perfect person for the job.”

    But as Bloomberg noted, the change comes as Western Europe and South Korea have reported case spikes in recent days, suggesting the possibility of a fresh wave of infections.

    The change comes as the White House has been plagued by recent COVID infections.

    Vice President Kamala Harris’s husband, Doug Emhoff and eight House Democrats tested positive for coronavirus infections in recent days, and Biden’s plans to celebrate St. Patrick’s Day with Irish Prime Minister Micheal Martin were thrown into turmoil when the taoiseach tested positive on Wednesday. The White House has said the president is not a close contact of any of the individuals, and that he tested negative on Sunday.

    While Dr. Anthony Fauci has been the government official most closely associated with the COVID pandemic, he is technically the president’s chief medical advisor, along with his longtime role as director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases.

    One of Jha’s first tasks will be convincing Congress to approve new funding for the response. The administration sought $22.5 billion as part of an omnibus government funding package but talks collapsed as Republicans demanded spending offsets and questioned the need for new funds.

    Tyler Durden
    Thu, 03/17/2022 – 18:45

  • Reading Ability Of Children Plummets Compared To Pre-COVID Times
    Reading Ability Of Children Plummets Compared To Pre-COVID Times

    Authored by Paul Joseph Watson via Summit News,

    The reading ability of children has plummeted compared to pre-COVID times thanks to lockdown policies that led to the closure of schools, according to a new study.

    “A study by researchers from TU Dortmund has found that German children in the fourth grade of primary school are far less capable of reading than their predecessors who passed through the grade pre-pandemic,” reports Breitbart.

    A standard reading test taken by fourth graders from 2021 was compared to results using the same test from 2016.

    The number of children who had a reading level rated “good” to “very good” has dropped by 7 per cent while over a quarter of students who took the test in 2021 now have problems with reading comprehension.

    “If you express it in years of learning, the children are missing an average of half a year of learning,” said Dr. Ulrich Ludewig, who helped to lead the study.

    “If the change in the composition of the student body is taken into account, the gap while slightly smaller, the significant decline in mean reading ability remains.”

    With reading being a crucial aspect of every subject, the impact also had a knock on effect in other areas of learning.

    The study once again highlights the devastating impact that COVID lockdowns had on children and the morally vacant position of those who supported them.

    UNICEF previously warned that pandemic school closures led to a “nearly insurmountable scale of loss to children’s schooling” and that “intensive support” is needed to get kids back on track.

    As we previously highlighted, for many children, the damage could be permanent.

    Speech therapist Jaclyn Theek says that mask wearing during the pandemic has caused a 364% increase in patient referrals of babies and toddlers.

    “They’re not making any word attempts and not communicating at all with their family,” she said, adding that symptoms of autism are also skyrocketing.

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    Tyler Durden
    Thu, 03/17/2022 – 18:25

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