Jan 20

Today’s News 20th January 2021

  • Nord Stream 2 Completion "At Risk" After Fresh Trump Admin Sanctions, Gazprom Admits
    Nord Stream 2 Completion “At Risk” After Fresh Trump Admin Sanctions, Gazprom Admits

    Coming on Trump’s last full day in office, the US has slapped yet more sanctions on the Nord Stream 2 Russia to Germany natural gas pipeline as part of ongoing efforts to prevent its completion, specifically targeting a ship in involved in its final leg of construction.

    The Russian pipe-laying ship “Fortuna” and its owner will be subject to new sanctions according to a declaration by the US Treasury on Tuesday, specifically under the Countering America’s Adversaries Through Sanctions Act (CAATSA). Additionally the oil tanker Maksim Gorky and two Russian firms, KVT-Rus and Rustanker, were blacklisted.

    “The United States is not afraid to hold accountable those who continue to aid and abet this tool of Russian coercion,” Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said of the new measures in his last statements while on the job in the Trump administration.

    The new measures come as Gazprom has estimated that only 6% of the pipeline remains till completion. This is equal to about 150kim, which Russia has vowed to see through to finish.

    While prior US sanctions have been shrugged off, though sometimes with temporary stoppages, Gazprom and Russian officials are now sounding the alarm over the growing “risk” the project could be suspended altogether if more Washington sanctions are piled on:

    Russian state gas company Gazprom acknowledged there is a risk that its undersea pipeline to Germany could be suspended or cancelled after the United States on Tuesday slapped sanctions on a Russian ship involved in its construction.

    Germany’s Economy Ministry said it had been informed in advance of the new US sanctions against the Russian pipe-laying ship Fortuna and its owner. “We take note of this announcement with regret,” the ministry said.

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    While underscoring the state-owned company plans to finish, a fresh memorandum by Gazprom issued to investors noted that these latest sanctions could make “the implementation of the project impossible or unfeasible and lead to its suspension or cancellation,” according to TASS.

    Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov separately on Tuesday slammed the “crude and illegitimate US pressure” in the form of 11th hour Trump administration sanctons.

    “We closely follow the situation and analyze it as we continue work to finalize the project,” Peskov told reporters.

    Tyler Durden
    Wed, 01/20/2021 – 01:00

  • Escobar: Baghdad On The Potomac – Welcome To The Blue Zone
    Escobar: Baghdad On The Potomac – Welcome To The Blue Zone

    Authored by Pepe Escobar via The Saker blog,

    The season opening of the Joe and Kammy Regime Change Show could not be a more appropriate roomful of mirrors reflecting the self-described US “political elite”.

    The star of the Joe and Kammy Regime Change Show

    During the 2000s, I came face to face with Baghdad’s Green Zone multiple times.

    I always stayed, and worked, in the hyper-volatile Red Zone – as you may check in my 2007 book Red Zone Blues.

    We knew then that blowback would be inevitable.

    But still, we could never have imagined such a graphic simulacrum: the Green Zone fully replicated in the heart of imperial D.C. – complete with walls, barbed wire, multiple checkpoints, heavily armed guards.

    That is even more significant because it ends a full “new world order” geopolitical cycle: the empire started bombing – and cluster bombing – Iraq 30 years ago. Desert Storm was launched in January 17, 1991.

    The Blue Zone is now “protected” by a massive 26,000 plus troop surge – way more than Afghanistan and Iraq combined. The Forever Wars – which you may now relieve through my archives – have come back full circle.

    Just like an ordinary Iraqi was not allowed inside the Green Zone, no ordinary American is allowed inside the Blue Zone.

    Just like the Green Zone, those inside the Blue Zone represent none other than themselves.

    The D.C. Blue Zone map

    And just like the Green Zone, those inside the Blue Zone are viewed by half of the population in the Red Zone as an occupying force.

    Only satire is capable of doing poetic justice to what is, de facto, the Potemkin inauguration of a hologram. So welcome to the most popular president in history inaugurated in secret, and fearful of his own, fake, Praetorian Guard. The Global South has seen this grisly show before – in endless reruns. But never as a homegrown Hollywood flick.

    When in doubt, blame China

    Meanwhile, trapped inside the Blue Zone, the White House has been busy compiling an interminable list of accomplishments.

    Multitudes will go berserk relieving the appalling foreign policy disasters, courtesy of American Psycho Mike Pompeo; debunking the official narrative partially or as a whole; and even agreeing with the odd “accomplishment”.

    Yet close attention should be paid to a key item: “Colossal Rebuilding of the Military”.

    This is what is going to play a key role beyond January 20 – as Gen Flynn has been extremely busy showing evidence to the military, at all levels, of how “compromised” is the new Hologram-in-Chief.

    And then there’s the rolling, never-ending November 3 drama. Blame should be duly apportioned. Impeachment, digital witch hunts, rounding up “domestic terrorists”, that is not enough. “Foreign interference” is a must.

    Enter Director of National Intelligence (DNI) John Ratcliffe, adamantly stating that “the People’s Republic of China sought to influence the 2020 U.S. federal elections.”

    Ratcliffe was referring to a report sent to Congress on January 7 by the DNI’s Chief of the Solutions Division, or analytic ombudsman Barry Zulauf, side by side with an assessment about “foreign interference”.

    A legitimate question is why it took them so long to finish this report. And it gets wackier: the full intel on the report about foreign interference was scotched by none other than CIA higher-ups.

    The ombudsman states that the groups of analysts working on Russian and Chinese interference used different standards. Russia, of course, was guilty from the start: a categorical imperative. China had the benefit of the doubt.

    Ratcliffe actually states that some analysts refused to blame Beijing for election interference because they were – what else – Never Trumpers.

    So Langley, we’ve got a problem. Pompeus “We Lie, We Cheat, We Steal” Minimus is CIA. He qualifies the Chinese Communist Party as the greatest evil in the history of mankind. How would he not influence his minions to produce, by any means necessary, any instance of Chinese election interference?

    At the same time, for the Dem Deep State faction, Russia is perpetually guilty of…whatever.

    This rift inside the Deep State roomful of mirrors delightfully reverberates the Blue Zone/Red Zone schism.

    Needless to add, in both the ombudsman’s report and Ratcliffe’s letter, there is absolutely no hard evidence of Chinese interference.

    As for Russia, apart from election interference – once again, no evidence – the Dem Deep State Dementia apparatus is still busy trying to blame Moscow also for 1/6. The latest gambit centers on a MAGA chick who may have stolen Pelosi’s laptop from her office at the Capitol to sell it to the SVR, Russian foreign intel.

    The whole Global South – Baghdad’s Green Zone included – just can’t get enough of the greatest show on earth. Do they sell bananas in the Blue Zone?

    Tyler Durden
    Tue, 01/19/2021 – 23:50

  • Fire-Crotch? Gwyneth Paltrow's Vagina Scented Candle "Explodes", Sets UK Home Ablaze
    Fire-Crotch? Gwyneth Paltrow’s Vagina Scented Candle “Explodes”, Sets UK Home Ablaze

    To look back and think we thought things were weird in January 2020, when we first reported that Gwyneth Paltrow was selling a candle called “This Smells Like My Vagina”, is funny. Incidentally, once Covid-19 took hold of the year, Paltrow’s vagina-scented candle wound up turning into one of the more normal stories of the year.

    But not unlike the new year’s Covid mutations, the Paltrow-vagina-candle-story has also mutated for 2021. And neither mutation is good news.

    It was reported this weekend that one of Paltrow’s vagina-scented candles “exploded into flames” after a woman in the U.K. lit it in her living room. The woman had won the candle as a prize for a quiz, the New York Post reports. 

    The woman, 50 year old Jody Thompson, said: “The candle exploded and emitted huge flames, with bits flying everywhere. I’ve never seen anything like it. The whole thing was ablaze and it was too hot to touch. There was an inferno in the room.”

    She then said she “threw the flaming candle out the front door”. 

    “It could have burned the place down. It was scary at the time, but funny looking back that Gwyneth’s vagina candle exploded in my living room,” Thompson said. 

    As we noted last year, for just $75, perverts around the world can fool themselves into thinking they are living in the nether regions of the famous 47 year old actress by shelling out for and burning the candle, which according to Fox News actually is made up of geranium, citrusy bergamot and cedar smells. 

    The idea for the candle supposedly started as a joke and the product description online reads: “This candle started as a joke between perfumer Douglas Little and GP — the two were working on a fragrance, and she blurted out, ‘Uhhh … this smells like a vagina’ — but evolved into a funny, gorgeous, sexy, and beautifully unexpected scent.”

    Tyler Durden
    Tue, 01/19/2021 – 23:30

  • Biden’s DHS Pick To "Study" Whether To Keep Trump’s Border Wall
    Biden’s DHS Pick To “Study” Whether To Keep Trump’s Border Wall

    Submitted by Planet Free Will,

    On the same day Trump extended an emergency declaration at the southern border, Biden’s pick for secretary of the Department of Homeland Security, Alejandro Mayorkas, says that he will “study” whether the border wall constructed under the Trump administration will remain in place.

    “President-elect Biden has committed to stop construction of the border wall. It would be my responsibility to execute on that and I have not looked at the question of what we do with respect to the wall that has already been built,” Mayorkas said Tuesday during his Senate confirmation hearing.

    “I look forward to studying that question, understanding the costs and benefits of doing so, being open and transparent with you and all members of this committee, sharing my thoughts and considerations and working cooperative with you toward a solution,” he said.

    The incoming DHS Sec. says that he plans to work on “harnessing innovation and technology” for future border security as he believes a border wall may not be the most effective way to stop people from entering the country.

    President-elect Biden has stated that he would not construct “another foot” of border wall between the U.S. and Mexico when he assumes office.

    “There will not be another foot of wall constructed on my administration, No. 1,” Biden said in August. “I’m going to make sure that we have border protection, but it’s going to be based on making sure that we use high-tech capacity to deal with it. And at the ports of entry — that’s where all the bad stuff is happening,”

    As we highlighted earlier, President Donald Trump on Tuesday extended his declared emergency at the southern border to be in effect until February 2022. The order set in motion funding for the now 453 miles in length southern border wall after congress had folded on devoting money to the project in 2019.

    “The executive branch has taken steps to address the crisis, but further action is needed to address the humanitarian crisis and to control unlawful migration and the flow of narcotics and criminals across the southern border of the United States,” the President said in a statment, adding:

    For these reasons, the national emergency declared on February 15, 2019, and the measures adopted on that date to respond to that emergency, must continue in effect beyond February 15, 2021. Therefore, in accordance with section 202(d) of the National Emergencies Act (50 U.S.C. 1622(d)), I am continuing for 1 year the national emergency declared in Proclamation 9844 concerning the southern border of the United States.

    If further construction of the border wall ends under Biden, the U.S. southern border would remain largely open between Texas and Mexico.

    While both Biden and his incoming DHS Secretary tout a “high-tech” solution to securing the border, it is unclear what type of technology could prevent caravans of migrants, such as the one currently heading north through central American to the U.S., from breaching the largely open border.

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    Director of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) Thomas Homan said Monday that Biden’s immigration policies could cause “a surge at the border that we’ve never seen before.”

    “The criminal gangs have already figured out the transportation routes. The caravans are already loaded up and coming and more is going to come. You’re going to see a surge at the border that we’ve never seen before because of the words of Joe Biden,” Homan told Fox News.

    The poor economic conditions in Honduras is sending a wave of economic-migrants up through Central America in anticipation for the Biden Administration’s welcoming immigration policies which could place a moratorium on deportations and fast track millions of migrants to citizenship.

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    Tyler Durden
    Tue, 01/19/2021 – 23:10

  • CIA Director Gina Haspel Announces Resignation A Day Before Biden Enters Office
    CIA Director Gina Haspel Announces Resignation A Day Before Biden Enters Office

    After a 36-year career in the CIA the Trump-appointed director of the agency, Gina Haspel, has stepped down a day before Joe Biden’s inauguration.

    She took up the top post in 2018, replacing Mike Pompeo who moved to Secretary of State, and was the first woman to ever be named director. Her retirement is being reported as “widely expected” given tensions within the administration down to the last minute.

    “It has been the greatest honor of my life to lead this remarkable organization,” Haspel said in a message shared by the CIA on Twitter. There’s long been speculation she would be fired amid an increasingly soured relationship with President Trump, however she’s stayed largely in the background and has avoided publicly opposing or embarrassing the president.

    According to Yahoo News, “Haspel also reportedly resisted Trump’s last-minute attempts to install Kash Patel, a former aide to Republican Rep. Devin Nunes, a Trump ally, as CIA deputy director.” It was believed this was a strategy to push her out.

    Axios had recently detailed based on inside sources that Trump had “spent his last year in office ruminating over Haspel” and whether he should replace her based on perceived lack of loyalty.

    Biden has previously announced plans to nominate career diplomat William Burns as his pick for CIA director.

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    Most of Haspel’s career was spent abroad as an operations officer in a covert capacity. Her rising to the director in 2018 was the first time much of the American public had ever heard of her.

    She’s come under wide scrutiny for running a “black site” in Thailand during the post-9/11 ‘war on terror’ – where it’s believed she oversaw torture of terror suspects. 

    Tyler Durden
    Tue, 01/19/2021 – 22:50

  • Yellen's Opening Salvo Shows No Let Up In Tensions
    Yellen’s Opening Salvo Shows No Let Up In Tensions

    By Ye Xie, macro commentator at Bloomberg

    If there were any expectations for a quick reset of the tense U.S.-China relationship under the incoming Biden administration, Treasury Secretary nominee Janet Yellen dashed those hopes on Tuesday.

    At her confirmation hearing, Yellen said the U.S. is prepared to take on China’s “abusive” trade and economic practices, saying Beijing is undercutting American businesses by dumping products, subsidizing domestic companies and stealing intellectual property. These are harsh words, but they’re hardly surprising. After all, China-bashing has bipartisan support, as shown in a Morgan Stanley survey.

    Interestingly, just a day earlier, China’s top financial regulator rebutted accusations that the country is pursuing “state monopoly capitalism” that distorts market relations, as if to preemptively push back against the U.S. criticism. Guo Shuqing, chairman of the China Banking and Insurance Regulatory Commission, pointed out that government subsidies to state-owned enterprises were actually negative. Their tax burden is twice as much as private firms, which like foreign companies have enjoyed preferable taxation and fees. He added that it’s impossible for China’s banks to subsidize state-backed companies amid intensified competition in the credit market.

    The difference in U.S. and Chinese perspectives suggests that it won’t be easy to repair the trade relationship. The tariffs imposed on Chinese products during the Trump administration are likely to stay for a while, not least of all because the Biden administration is likely to prioritize domestic issues, such as Covid stimulus relief, in its early months.

    It’s also clear that technology will be a key area of competition between the two countries. During the hearing, Yellen called China the U.S.’s “most important strategic competitor” and urged America to strengthen its own economy by investing in infrastructure and research and development.

    It’s perhaps not a coincidence that tech firms account for a big chunk of companies that have been put on the U.S. black list in the final days during the Trump era, as shown in this chart compiled by economists at Natixis.

    Ironically, the strategic rivalry and tech competition means it may be necessary for investors to get exposure to both the U.S. and Chinese markets as positioning for what Blackrock described as a “bipolar” world. Small wonder that mainland investors are busy buying those sanctioned firms in Hong Kong these days.

    Tyler Durden
    Tue, 01/19/2021 – 22:30

  • "It's Killing Younger People" – New COVID Strain Reportedly Emerging Within Brazilian Amazon
    “It’s Killing Younger People” – New COVID Strain Reportedly Emerging Within Brazilian Amazon

    As warnings about the hyper-infectious COVID strains first isolated in the UK and South Africa ring out across the US, Europe and, well, the rest of the world, too, at this point, authorities in Brazil fear they may have a new strain on their hands that’s more infectious, and deadlier, than anything the world has seen previously.

    According to a report published by Brazilian outlet Universo Online, a surge in cases and deaths, particularly among younger patients, in the hard-hit Amazonian city of Manaus (situated in northwestern Brazil, on the banks of the River Negro) has drawn the attention of health professionals working on the front lines of the pandemic in the hard-hit Latin American powerhouse.

    Several officials with direct knowledge of the situation told UOL that a new “variant” – a mutated strain of the virus – may be responsible for harsher symptoms, and quicker onset times.

    But the most alarming shift has been a surge in deaths among younger people, who are dying now in greater numbers than in earlier waves of the outbreak in Manaus, which has long struggled with overburdened health-care resources.

    According to Manaus death records from the past 30 days cited by ULO, four out of ten deaths during that time involved patients under the age of 60 in the state.

    The UOL analyzed the latest data Transparency Portal of the registry offices. There were 710 deaths in the state (since it may still increase), of which 285 were people under 60 years old – or 40.1% of the total. Before that period, this percentage was 36.5%. “Without a doubt many more young people are dying. We are not just talking about a risk group: this is in all age groups, affecting babies, children, teenagers even without comorbidity”, points out the infectologist Silvia Leopoldina, who also works in the state public networks and municipal of Manaus. The doctor says there were changes in the behavior of the disease in the state. “Before, the first symptoms of severity appeared around the tenth day onwards. Now there are patients who, with seven, eight days, are involved in 75% of both lungs.”.

    One researcher told ULO that, while he couldn’t say for certain what it is, “something very different” is happening in Manaus right now.

    “Something very different is happening in Manaus. I don’t know if it is a new strain or if it is something different. But those on the front line are seeing an increase in the severity of the cases,” says infectologist and researcher Noaldo Lucena, who works in popular clinic, home care and public hospitals.

    The new infection and death numbers are so severe, he says, they go beyond the already known greater contagiousness of the new variant of the virus.

    “Clearly, we are facing an invisible being that is much more pathogenic and transmissible. Today whole families arrive with the symptoms at the same time, before it was one at a time.”

    Lucena added that patients in Manaus are also seeing more severe damage to their lungs.

    “This year, I have seen 150 more people here at the clinic and 300 more in the public service. I say that less than 2% of them had mild impairment. The rest were over 50%. Some with 70%, 80%, 90%, requiring immediate hospitalization and even ventilatory support,” he said.

    The lung damage is also becoming harder to detect on initial examination.

    “You auscultate the patient’s lungs and hear nothing. But when you see the tomographic image, you don’t believe how there is such a huge commitment with so little noticeable clinical repercussion.”

    While researchers are still working to confirm exactly what is causing the surge in deaths and severity in Manaus, the biggest fears remain: that new mutations of COVID-19 might be able to pierce through immunity from past infections, and the vaccine.

    Tyler Durden
    Tue, 01/19/2021 – 22:10

  • Media Cheers DC Under Military Occupation
    Media Cheers DC Under Military Occupation

    Authored by Michael Tracey via mtracey.medium.com (emphasis ours),

    Downtown Washington, DC is currently under what essentially amounts to military occupation. Streets are locked down, guarded by Army vehicles and blocked off by huge, garish checkpoints. Vehicular traffic is limited to motorists who can show papers demonstrating that, as one Guardsman told me, they are conducting “legitimate business.” (Apparently this includes Uber drivers and food delivery workers.)

    According to official estimates, 25,000 military personnel are now deployed to the area — on top of countless federal, state, and local law enforcement agents. Troops roam around carrying rifles with no ammo loaded. If you can manage to navigate on foot to the perimeter of the National Mall, you encounter an enormous fencing apparatus, complete with barbed wire.

    Question: does anyone with a media job find this situation to be worthy of some further inquiry? Or in other words, worthy of questioning the premise of why such an extravagantly intensive military presence is allegedly necessary? Is it proportionate to the scale of the purported threat? Has the nature of the threat itself — whatever that might be, exactly — been adequately probed to determine whether it is grounded in reality? Already a bunch of purported threats initially trumpeted across the media with the usual five-alarm-five hysteria have dissipated in short order, so there is perhaps some reason for doubt in that regard.

    Instead of applying a modicum of skepticism to this gigantic show of military force, much of which appears to be “security theater” in its purest form, our vaunted media is doing little other than cheering it on. And of course, inflating the threats being cited as justification for it. They can repeat over and over again that what occurred on January 6 at the Capitol was an “attempted coup,” and therefore everything and anything is justified to retaliate, but everyone with a brain by now should be able to recognize that the government was never at a greater than 0% risk of being overthrown that day. Fear-inducing terms like “insurrection,” “domestic terrorism,” “seditious conspiracy,” “armed rebellion,” and others have been marshaled intentionally to inure the public to extreme actions such as the swiftly-executed corporate censorship purge and now, the transformation of the country’s capital into a military fortress.

    It’s doubly odd because the deployment of military personnel to various cities last summer, though generally welcomed by locals and intended to quell what had genuinely been a sudden outburst of destructive chaos, was depicted by media members at the time as the rawest incarnation of violent fascism. The New York Times nearly imploded in a spasm of wild outrage. Suddenly though, this unprecedented militarization of DC is greeted by the same media hive-mind as the triumph of good over evil, light over darkness. It’s almost like the ultimate variable is not principled apprehension about the force of the state, but whose political priorities are being defended by such force — and who is being punished.

    *  *  *

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    Tyler Durden
    Tue, 01/19/2021 – 21:50

  • China Unveils New Attack Drone For "High-Threat Battlefield Environments" 
    China Unveils New Attack Drone For “High-Threat Battlefield Environments” 

    For the last couple of years, China has been exporting military drones into Europe and the Middle East, rapidly shrinking America’s military-industrial complex’s international drone market share. In the latest development of advanced Chinese military drones soon to hit the international markets is the WJ-700, a high-altitude, long-endurance, and high-speed armed reconnaissance drone, according to the Chinese state-run media Global Times. 

    WJ-700 successfully conducted its maiden flight test last week as the new drone has been “characterized by its large payload and ability to launch large munitions from outside hostile anti-aircraft fire coverage zone,” said Global Times.

    Third Academy of the state-owned arms firm China Aerospace Science and Industry Corp told Global Times in a written statement that the drone “integrates high altitude, high speed, long-endurance, and large load capacities, and focuses on the domestic and international market needs in the next five to 10 years.” 

    With a successful test flight and surely more testing ahead, the Academy said the groundwork has been laid out for the drone’s future series production. 

    “The WJ-700 is the only high-altitude, high-speed and long-endurance drone capable of executing both attack and reconnaissance missions in China, and is also a rare type in the world,” the Academy said.

    Wei Dongxu, a Beijing-based military expert who spoke with Global Times about the new drone, said the most distinguishing characteristic of the WJ-700 is that it will carry larger missiles outside of enemy anti-aircraft fire coverage zones. 

    The Academy said the drone offers operators the ability to switch between combat and wide-area reconnaissance areas at a moment’s notice in “high-threat battlefield environments.” We believe the Academy is referring to the militarized islands in the South China Sea that China has laid claim to as US warships continue to use “freedom of navigation” to sail through. 

    The unveiling of the WJ-700 is the latest installment of how China is rapidly expanding its defense industry. 

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    Multiple countries in the Middle East are already using Chinese military drones; the same goes for Europe. 

    American exceptionalism is slowly rapidly dying, China is catching up… and the world wants more inexpensive Chinese military drones. 

    Adding to the conversation about exceptionalism in the West declining, China is now expected to overtake the US as the world’s largest economy in 2028, five years earlier than previously thought, thanks to the coronavirus pandemic. 

    Tyler Durden
    Tue, 01/19/2021 – 21:30

  • Greenwald: The New Domestic War On Terror Is Coming
    Greenwald: The New Domestic War On Terror Is Coming

    Authored by Glenn Greenwald via greenwald.substack.com,

    The last two weeks have ushered in a wave of new domestic police powers and rhetoric in the name of fighting “terrorism” that are carbon copies of many of the worst excesses of the first War on Terror that began nearly twenty years ago. This trend shows no sign of receding as we move farther from the January 6 Capitol riot. The opposite is true: it is intensifying.

    ​

    We have witnessed an orgy of censorship from Silicon Valley monopolies with calls for far more aggressive speech policing, a visibly militarized Washington, D.C. featuring a non-ironically named “Green Zone,” vows from the incoming president and his key allies for a new anti-domestic terrorism bill, and frequent accusations of “sedition,” “treason,” and “terrorism” against members of Congress and citizens. This is all driven by a radical expansion of the meaning of “incitement to violence.” It is accompanied by viral-on-social-media pleas that one work with the FBI to turn in one’s fellow citizens (See Something, Say Something!) and demands for a new system of domestic surveillance.

    Underlying all of this are immediate insinuations that anyone questioning any of this must, by virtue of these doubts, harbor sympathy for the Terrorists and their neo-Nazi, white supremacist ideology. Liberals have spent so many years now in a tight alliance with neocons and the CIA that they are making the 2002 version of John Ashcroft look like the President of the (old-school) ACLU.

    The U.S. Department of Homeland Security website, touting a trademarked phrase licensed to it in 2010 by the City of New York, urging citizens to report “suspicious activity” to the FBI and other security state agencies

    The more honest proponents of this new domestic War on Terror are explicitly admitting that they want to model it on the first one. A New York Times reporter noted on Monday that a “former intelligence official on PBS NewsHour” said “that the US should think about a ‘9/11 Commission’ for domestic extremism and consider applying some of the lessons from the fight against Al Qaeda here at home.” More amazingly, Gen. Stanley McChrystal — for years head of Joint Special Operations Command in Iraq and the commander of the war in Afghanistan — explicitly compared that war to this new one, speaking to Yahoo News:

    I did see a similar dynamic in the evolution of al-Qaida in Iraq, where a whole generation of angry Arab youth with very poor prospects followed a powerful leader who promised to take them back in time to a better place, and he led them to embrace an ideology that justified their violence. This is now happening in America….I think we’re much further along in this radicalization process, and facing a much deeper problem as a country, than most Americans realize.”

    Anyone who, despite all this, still harbors lingering doubts that the Capitol riot is and will be the neoliberal 9/11, and that a new War on Terror is being implemented in its name, need only watch the two short video clips below, which will clear their doubts for good. It is like being catapulted by an unholy time machine back to Paul Wolfowitz’s 2002 messaging lab.

    The first video, flagged by Tom Elliott, is from Monday morning’s Morning Joe program on MSNBC (the show that arguably did more to help Donald Trump become the GOP nominee than any other). It features Jeremy Bash — one of the seemingly countless employees of TV news networks who previously worked in Obama’s CIA and Pentagon — demanding that, in response to the Capitol riot, “we reset our entire intelligence approach,” including “look[ing] at greater surveillance of them,” adding: “the FBI is going to have to run confidential sources.” See if you detect any differences between what CIA operatives and neocons were saying in 2002 when demanding the Patriot Act and greater FBI and NSA surveillance and what this CIA-official-turned-NBC-News-analyst is saying here:

    The second video features the amazing declaration from former Facebook security official Alex Stamos, talking to the very concerned CNN host Brian Stelter, about the need for social media companies to use the same tactics against U.S. citizens that they used to remove ISIS from the internet — “in collaboration with law enforcement” — and that those tactics should be directly aimed at what he calls extremist “conservative influencers.”

    “Press freedoms are being abused by these actors,” the former Facebook executive proclaimed. Stamos noted how generous he and his comrades have been up until now: “We have given a lot of leeway — both in the traditional media and in social media — to people with a very broad range of views.” But no more. Now is the time to “get us all back in the same consensual reality.”

    In a moment of unintended candor, Stamos noted the real problem: “there are people on YouTube, for example, that have a larger audience than people on daytime CNN” — and it’s time for CNN and other mainstream outlets to seize the monopoly on information dissemination to which they are divinely entitled by taking away the platforms of those whom people actually want to watch and listen to:

    (If still not convinced, and if you can endure it, you can also watch MSNBC’s Joe Scarborough and Mika Brzezinski literally screaming that one needed remedy to the Capitol riot is that the Biden administration must “shutdown” Facebook. Shutdown Facebook).

    Calls for a War on Terror sequel — a domestic version complete with surveillance and censorship — are not confined to ratings-deprived cable hosts and ghouls from the security state. The Wall Street Journal reports that “Mr. Biden has said he plans to make a priority of passing a law against domestic terrorism, and he has been urged to create a White House post overseeing the fight against ideologically inspired violent extremists and increasing funding to combat them.”

    Meanwhile, Congressman Adam Schiff (D-CA) — not just one of the most dishonest members of Congress but also one of the most militaristic and authoritarian — has had a bill proposed since 2019 to simply amend the existing foreign anti-terrorism bill to allow the U.S. Government to invoke exactly the same powers at home against “domestic terrorists.”

    Why would such new terrorism laws be needed in a country that already imprisons more of its citizens than any other country in the world as the result of a very aggressive set of criminal laws? What acts should be criminalized by new “domestic terrorism” laws that are not already deemed criminal? They never say, almost certainly because — just as was true of the first set of new War on Terror laws — their real aim is to criminalize that which should not be criminalized: speech, association, protests, opposition to the new ruling coalition.

    US Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) flanked by Rep. Adam Schiff (D-CA) (R) and Rep. Jerry Nadler (D-NY), speaks at a press conference on Capitol Hill (Photo by OLIVIER DOULIERY/AFP via Getty Images)

    The answer to this question — what needs to be criminalized that is not already a crime? — scarcely seems to matter. Media and political elites have placed as many Americans as they can — and it is a lot — into full-blown fear and panic mode, and when that happens, people are willing to acquiesce to anything claimed necessary to stop that threat, as the first War on Terror, still going strong twenty years later, decisively proved.

    An entire book could — and probably should — be written on why all of this is so concerning. For the moment, two points are vital to emphasize.

    First, much of the alarmism and fear-mongering is being driven by a deliberate distortion of what it means for speech to “incite violence.” The bastardizing of this phrase was the basis for President Trump’s rushed impeachment last week. It is also what is driving calls for dozens of members of Congress to be expelled and even prosecuted on “sedition” charges for having objected to the Electoral College certification, and is also at the heart of the spate of censorship actions already undertaken and further repressive measures being urged.

    This phrase — “inciting violence” — was also what drove many of the worst War on Terror abuses. I spent years reporting on how numerous young American Muslims were prosecuted under new, draconian anti-terrorism laws for uploading anti-U.S.-foreign-policy YouTube videos or giving rousing anti-American speeches deemed to “incite violence” and thus provide “material support” to terrorist groups — the exact theory which Rep. Schiff is seeking to import into the new domestic War on Terror.

    It is vital to ask what it means for speech to constitute “incitement to violence” to the point that it can be banned or criminalized. The expression of any political viewpoint, especially one passionately expressed, has the potential to “incite” someone else to get so riled up that they engage in violence.

    If you rail against the threats to free speech posed by Silicon Valley monopolies, someone hearing you may get so filled with rage that they decide to bomb an Amazon warehouse or a Facebook office. If you write a blistering screed accusing pro-life activists of endangering the lives of women by forcing them back into unsafe back-alley abortions, or if you argue that abortion is murder, you may very well inspire someone to engage in violence against a pro-life group or an abortion clinic. If you start a protest movement to object to the injustice of Wall Street bailouts — whether you call it “Occupy Wall Street” or the Tea Party — you may cause someone to go hunt down Goldman Sachs or Citibank executives who they believe are destroying the economic future of millions of people.

    If you claim that George W. Bush stole the 2000 and/or 2004 elections — as many Democrats, including members of Congress, did — you may inspire civic unrest or violence against Bush and his supporters. The same is true if you claim the 2016 or 2020 elections were fraudulent or illegitimate. If you rage against the racist brutality of the police, people may go burn down buildings in protest — or murder randomly selected police officers whom they have become convinced are agents of a racist genocidal state.

    The Bernie Sanders campaign volunteer and hard-core Democratic partisan, James Hodgkinson, who went to a softball field in June, 2017 to murder Republican Congress members — and almost succeeded in fatally shooting Rep. Steve Scalise (R-LA) — had spent months listening to radical Sanders supporters and participating in Facebook groups with names like “Terminate the Republican Party” and “Trump is a Traitor.”

    Hodgkinson had heard over and over that Republicans were not merely misguided but were “traitors” and grave threats to the Republic. As CNN reported, “his favorite television shows were listed as ‘Real Time with Bill Maher;’ ‘The Rachel Maddow Show;’ ‘Democracy Now!’ and other left-leaning programs.” All of the political rhetoric to which he was exposed — from the pro-Sanders Facebook groups, MSNBC and left-leaning shows — undoubtedly played a major role in triggering his violent assault and decision to murder pro-Trump Republican Congress members.

    Despite the potential of all of those views to motivate others to commit violence in their name — potential that has sometimes been realized — none of the people expressing those views, no matter how passionately, can be validly characterized as “inciting violence” either legally or ethically. That is because all of that speech is protected, legitimate speech. None of it advocates violence. None of it urges others to commit violence in its name. The fact that it may “inspire” or “motivate” some mentally unwell person or a genuine fanatic to commit violence does not make the person espousing those views and engaging in that non-violent speech guilty of “inciting violence” in any meaningful sense.

    To illustrate this point, I have often cited the crucial and brilliantly reasoned Supreme Court free speech ruling in Claiborne v. NAACP. In the 1960s and 1970s, the State of Mississippi tried to hold local NAACP leaders liable on the ground that their fiery speeches urging a boycott of white-owned stores “incited” their followers to burn down stores and violently attack patrons who did not honor the protest. The state’s argument was that the NAACP leaders knew that they were metaphorically pouring gasoline on a fire with their inflammatory rhetoric to rile up and angry crowds.

    But the Supreme Court rejected that argument, explaining that free speech will die if people are held responsible not for their own violent acts but for those committed by others who heard them speak and were motivated to commit crimes in the name of that cause (emphasis added):

    Civil liability may not be imposed merely because an individual belonged to a group, some members of which committed acts of violence. . . .

    [A]ny such theory fails for the simple reason that there is no evidence — apart from the speeches themselves — that [the NAACP leader sued by the State] authorized, ratified, or directly threatened acts of violence. . . . . To impose liability without a finding that the NAACP authorized — either actually or apparently — or ratified unlawful conduct would impermissibly burden the rights of political association that are protected by the First Amendment. . . .

    While the State legitimately may impose damages for the consequences of violent conduct, it may not award compensation for the consequences of nonviolent, protected activity. Only those losses proximately caused by unlawful conduct may be recovered.

    The First Amendment similarly restricts the ability of the State to impose liability on an individual solely because of his association with another.

    The Claiborne court relied upon the iconic First Amendment ruling in Brandenburg v. Ohio, which overturned the criminal conviction of a KKK leader who had publicly advocated the possibility of violence against politicians. Even explicitly advocating the need or justifiability of violence for political ends is protected speech, ruled the court. They carved out a very narrow exception: “where such advocacy is directed to inciting or producing imminent lawless action and is likely to incite or produce such action” — meaning someone is explicitly urging an already assembled mob to specific violence with the expectation that they will do so more or less immediately (such as standing outside someone’s home and telling the gathered mob: it’s time to burn it down).

    It goes without saying that First Amendment jurisprudence on “incitement” governs what a state can do when punishing or restricting speech, not what a Congress can do in impeaching a president or expelling its own members, and certainly not social media companies seeking to ban people from their platforms.

    But that does not make these principles of how to understand “incitement to violence” irrelevant when applied to other contexts. Indeed, the central reasoning of these cases is vital to preserve everywhere: that if speech is classified as “incitement to violence” despite not explicitly advocating violence, it will sweep up any political speech which those wielding this term wish it to encompass. No political speech will be safe from this term when interpreted and applied so broadly and carelessly.

    And that is directly relevant to the second point. Continuing to process Washington debates of this sort primarily through the prism of “Democrat v. Republican” or even “left v. right” is a sure ticket to the destruction of core rights. There are times when powers of repression and censorship are aimed more at the left and times when they are aimed more at the right, but it is neither inherently a left-wing nor a right-wing tactic. It is a ruling class tactic, and it will be deployed against anyone perceived to be a dissident to ruling class interests and orthodoxies no matter where on the ideological spectrum they reside.

    The last several months of politician-and-journalist-demanded Silicon Valley censorship has targeted the right, but prior to that and simultaneously it has often targeted those perceived as on the left. The government has frequently declared right-wing domestic groups “terrorists,” while in the 1960s and 1970s it was left-wing groups devoted to anti-war activism which bore that designation. In 2011, British police designated the London version of Occupy Wall Street a “terrorist” group. In the 1980s, the African National Congress was so designated. “Terrorism” is an amorphous term that was created, and will always be used, to outlaw formidable dissent no matter its source or ideology.

    If you identify as a conservative and continue to believe that your prime enemies are ordinary leftists, or you identify as a leftist and believe your prime enemies are Republican citizens, you will fall perfectly into the trap set for you. Namely, you will ignore your real enemies, the ones who actually wield power at your expense: ruling class elites, who really do not care about “right v. left” and most definitely do not care about “Republican v. Democrat” — as evidenced by the fact that they fund both parties — but instead care only about one thing: stability, or preservation of the prevailing neoliberal order.

    Unlike so many ordinary citizens addicted to trivial partisan warfare, these ruling class elites know who their real enemies are: anyone who steps outside the limits and rules of the game they have crafted and who seeks to disrupt the system that preserves their prerogatives and status. The one who put this best was probably Barack Obama when he was president, when he observed — correctly — that the perceived warfare between establishment Democratic and Republican elites was mostly theater, and on the question of what they actually believe, they’re both “fighting inside the 40 yard line” together:

    A standard Goldman Sachs banker or Silicon Valley executive has far more in common, and is far more comfortable, with Chuck Schumer, Nancy Pelosi, Mitch McConnell, Mitt Romney and Paul Ryan than they do with the ordinary American citizen. Except when it means a mildly disruptive presence — like Trump — they barely care whether Democrats or Republicans rule various organs of government, or whether people who call themselves “liberals” or “conservatives” ascend to power. Some left-wing members of Congress, including Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY) and Ilhan Omar (D-MN) have said they oppose a new domestic terrorism law, but Democrats will have no trouble forming a majority by partnering with their neocon GOP allies like Liz Cheney to get it done, as they did earlier this year to stop the withdrawal of troops from Afghanistan and Germany.

    Neoliberalism and imperialism do not care about the pseudo-fights between the two parties or the cable TV bickering of the day. They do not like the far left or the far right. They do not like extremism of any kind. They do not support Communism and they do not support neo-Nazism or some fascist revolution. They care only about one thing: disempowering and crushing anyone who dissents from and threatens their hegemony. They care about stopping dissidents. All the weapons they build and institutions they assemble — the FBI, the DOJ, the CIA, the NSA, oligarchical power — exist for that sole and exclusive purpose, to fortify their power by rewarding those who accede to their pieties and crushing those who do not.

    No matter your views on the threat posed by international Islamic radicalism, huge excesses were committed in the name of stopping it — or, more accurately, the fears it generated were exploited to empower and entrench existing financial and political elites. The Authorization to Use Military Force — responsible for twenty-years-and-counting of war — was approved by the House three days after the 9/11 attack with just one dissenting vote. The Patriot Act — which radically expanded government surveillance powers — was enacted a mere six weeks after that attack, based on the promise that it would be temporary and “sunset” in four years. Like the wars spawned by 9/11, it is still in full force, virtually never debated any longer and predictably expanded far beyond how it was originally depicted.

    The first War on Terror ended up being wielded primarily on foreign soil but it has increasingly been imported onto domestic soil against Americans. This New War on Terror — one that is domestic in name from the start and carries the explicit purpose of fighting “extremists” and “domestic terrorists” among American citizens on U.S. soil — presents the whole slew of historically familiar dangers when governments, exploiting media-generated fear and dangers, arm themselves with the power to control information, debate, opinion, activism and protests.

    That a new War on Terror is coming is not a question of speculation and it is not in doubt. Those who now wield power are saying it explicitly. The only thing that is in doubt is how much opposition they will encounter from those who value basic civic rights more than the fears of one another being deliberately cultivated within us.

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    Tyler Durden
    Tue, 01/19/2021 – 21:10

  • Federal Officials Warn "Mutant" COVID Strain Spreading In US As Cases Decline: Live Updates
    Federal Officials Warn “Mutant” COVID Strain Spreading In US As Cases Decline: Live Updates

    Summary:

    • University of California system to return to in-person classes in the fall
    • Federal officials warn that
    • US COVID deaths top 400K
    • Cases decline across US; NY releases latest data
    • US nears 400K COVID-linked deaths
    • Global cases: 95.7MM
    • UK vaccinates 6% of population
    • Brazil approves US, Chinese vaccines
    • Israel opens vaccinations to people in their
    • UK considering “all possible measures” as deaths spike
    • Germany extends lockdown to Feb. 14
    • California deaths down day over day
    • NY saw second straight daily drop over weekend
    • Swedish PM couldn’t rule out further restrictions

    * * *

    Update (2035ET): As cases decline across all four regions of the US, while Joe Biden holds a public memorial for the 400K people who have now died from COVID over the past year since the start of the pandemic, the head of the University of California system (located in a state with one of the most pro-lockdown stances), has seemingly bucked the trend by announcing the return to in-person education.

    In a statement, the office of the president said the university system intends to conduct 100% of its classes in person in the fall.

    The University of California Office of the President announced that it intends to hold Fall 2021 classes in person rather than online.

    The statement says that the school is making the change systemwide, and is “planning for a return to primarily in-person instruction” beginning in fall 2021.

    UC System President Michael Drake stated that “current forecasts give us hope that in the fall our students can enjoy a more normal on-campus experience.”

    “With robust research advancements and COVID-19 vaccines soon becoming available to students, staff, and faculty, UC is preparing to welcome students back to all its campuses this fall, while remaining vigilant in all critical prevention efforts and continuing to prioritize the health and well-being of the University community,” said the statement.

    The news comes as Dr. Fauci insists that, with Biden in office, it will be possible to blanket the country with immunity from the virus.

    A breakdown of COVID-linked deaths in Illinois shows that roughly 50% of those who succumbed were in long-term care facilities.

    On the federal end, even as cases decline in all four regions, the presence of the more contagious mutant strain of the virus is spreading among Americans and could become dominant by March,  according to federal public health officials cited by Joe Bidem, as the endless parade of warnings continues.

    * * *

    Update (1450ET): US COVID deaths have officially passed the 400K mark, the largest official death toll in the world, almost exactly one year after the first cases were confirmed in the US, marking the official start of the pandemic (even though the WHO dawdled on calling it that for a week or two).

    On Tuesday afternoon in New York, Johns Hopkins counted 400,002 deaths in the US, a death toll that’s higher than the number of American deaths in battle of any single war, according to the Department of Veterans Affairs, and is higher than World War II, the most deadly war for Americans, by about 108,000 deaths.

    * * *

    Update (1350ET): New York State just reported its latest numbers, and it looks like a trend that started late last week has persisted. Instead of the post-Christmas explosion of cases promised by Dr. Fauci, cases are falling across all regions of the US.

    Here are the latest numbers out of NY.

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    Also, Moderna shares took a hit earlier Tuesday after the company revealed it didn’t know how many jabs had been given from a batch of vaccines causing a higher than normal number of adverse reactions.

    As we noted earlier, Dr. Fauci is again making the media rounds to proclaim that hitting 100MM Americans vaccinated in his first 100 days is “entirely feasible”, and that it’s also possible to bring about herd immunity in the US by the fall, before the next flu season, even though these scientists don’t know exactly where the herd immunity threshold is.

    * * *

    As the US approaches 400K COVID-related deaths (at least, according to the official numbers) the focus Tuesday morning has shifted back to Europe, where Chancellor Angela Merkel has reached a deal with local leaders to extend Germany’s lockdown until Feb. 14.

    According to the latest numbers from Johns Hopkins, another 3.8K US patients in the US died of causes related to COVID-19, keeping the country on track to reach 400K deaths before Joe Biden’s Wednesday inauguration. Meanwhile, even after Pfizer and Moderna missed their vaccination target for year-end 2020 by a wide margin, Dr. Anthony Fauci team Biden’s promise of delivering 100MM doses of the vaccine in 100 days is “absolutely a doable thing.”

    A breakdown of new cases by state shows particularly harsh numbers in California, and parts of the Southeastern US.

    As the incoming Biden team continues to wrestle with the US vaccine rollout (as refusals climb to levels unexpected by the experts, at least among health-care workers), Israel continues to lead the world in the race to vaccinate its entire population, with eligibility expanded to those 40 and older, as the tiny Mediterranean county has now vaccinated 27% of its population.

    Meanwhile, the FT is once again hyping up the UK’s vaccination rollout, carefully planned by PM Boris Johnson and the NHS. According to the FT, the UK, which has “pulled ahead” of its western peers, has already vaccinated roughly 6% of its population.

    In stark contrast to this message, UK Foreign Secretary Dominic Raab said Tuesday that the UK is considering “all possible measures” as deaths top 1.2K for the fifth day in a row, something that experts have attributed to the mutant strain, which purportedly makes the virus more infectious.

    Meanwhile, yet another COVID strain “variant” may be emerging in Amazonia, in the Brazilian city of Manaus, which has seen a surge in younger patients dying.

    As far as vaccinations are concerned, the WHO recently selected vaccine “inequality” as the theme for its new annual report, which expanded on remarks from Dr. Tedros, the chief of the WHO, who called the vaccine rollout worldwide a “massive moral failure.”

    This, from an organization that has once again meekly obliged as Beijing once again denied access to investigators looking to figure out how the global viral outbreak began, and what exactly Beijing did wrong. With Beijing pushing vaccines from half a dozen Chinese companies, the question of access for various countries will likely come down to whether they receive the “rich” world Pfizer and Moderna jabs, or the vaccines from China and Russia.

    Underscoring all of this, Brazil has officially approved both the AstraZeneca COVID vaccine and the SinoVac jab as cases and deaths climb, and the total number of shots delivered worldwide nears 40MM, according to Bloomberg.

    Here’s some more COVID news from the US and Europe.

    California reported 432 deaths, fewer than 669 the previous day and below the 14-day rolling average of 490, according to the health department’s website. If the state were a country, its 33,392 total fatalities would rank it 16th, between South Africa and Poland. California added 42,229 new cases yesterday, surpassing the 2.94 million mark. The state’s 14-day positivity rate was 12.5%, little changed from the 14-day average (Source: Bloomberg).

    France reported 16,642 new cases on Sunday, the lowest daily increase in six days and less than the previous seven-day rolling average of infections of 18,148 (Source: Bloomberg).

    Virginia destroys its record for new infections Sunday, rising to a new daily high of 9.9K, state health data show (Source: Bloomberg).

    New York state reported 13.8Knew cases Sunday, the second daily drop after infections climbed to a record of just below 20K on Friday. Hospitalizations, a growing concern, fell slightly to 8.8K, as did the positive test rate, to 5.61% statewide, Governor Andrew Cuomo said in a statement. Another 172 people in the state died (Source: Bloomberg).

    Sweden’s Prime Minister Stefan Lofven says he can’t rule out further restrictions under a temporary new law (Source: Bloomberg).

    Tyler Durden
    Tue, 01/19/2021 – 20:52

  • The ECB Has Quietly Launched Yield Curve Control… Just Don't Call It Yield Curve Control
    The ECB Has Quietly Launched Yield Curve Control… Just Don’t Call It Yield Curve Control

    When the BOJ – that experiment guinea pig among “developed” central banks which now holds a record 133% of Japan’s GDP on its balance sheet and which simply can’t stop intervening or Japan’s economy will implode in an instant – launched Yield Curve Control in late 2016, most market participants knew that it was just a matter of time before this particular experiment came to every other “developed” central bank. After all, the world’s monetary experimentalists long ago found themselves permanently trapped by pushing yields to record low levels to enable a tsunami of debt by inflating a gigantic asset bubble and then hoping they can let some air out of the bubble occasionally, and let yields rise again, if ever so slowly in hopes of “renormalization.” Alas as the recent events of late 2018 showed, in a world that has over $300 trillion in debt, higher yields – and renormalization – are now impossible, which is why central banks can never stop their micromanagement of capital markets and the economy, and why digital currencies are coming as the current fiat regime is now effectively defunct.

    But first, it means that Japan’s Yield Curve Control will be attempted across the world.

    And while we wait for Jerome Powell to launch YCC in the US, which according to some may happen once the nascent inflationary spike pushes 10Y yields to 1.50% or higher threatening a crash in the bond market – and from there all other markets – it appears that the ECB has already launched a stealthy version of Yield Curve Control of its own, i.e., controlling and manipulating government bond yields which are only permitted to trade within a narrow range of parameters. Just two caveats: it’s “different” from the BOJ version of YCC, and whatever you do, don’t call it yield curve control.

    According to Bloomberg, the ECB “is buying bonds to limit the differences between yields for the strongest and weakest economies in the euro zone, according to officials familiar with the matter, with one person saying the central bank has specific ideas on what spreads are appropriate.”

    In other words, yield curve control. But since the ECB does not want to be associated with the stigma that trails the BOJ which, as everyone knows, will be the first central banks to capitulate, the European incarnation of bond market nationalization is called yield spread control.

    The ECB’s stealthy market manipulation strategy, which has never been disclosed previously in any official capacity, explains for example why the spread between Italian and German debt “has stayed remarkably stable despite the Italian government nearing collapse, after the central bank raised the pace of bond buying.” It also explains why rates volatility – both in Europe and by extension, in the US – has been is at record lows.

    As Bloomberg explains, “the latest insight into its strategy sheds light on how policy makers are navigating euro-area complexities that make publicly targeting bond levels difficult.” It also helps answer a long-running investor question: whether the central bank has specific levels in mind when it tries to cap bond yields. It turns out that the answer is no – instead the ECB is focusing on spreads between different countries.

    “It’s different to the so-called yield curve control deployed by the Bank of Japan and Reserve Bank of Australia, which have publicly announced numerical targets for specific yields. In the case of the BOJ, it aims for zero percent on the 10-year government bond.”

    The reason why the ECB, which could love to have the same luxury as the BOJ of pulling all yields to zero but can’t due to different fiscal regimes and different sovereign risks, can’t pursue an identical YCC is because ECB President Christine Lagarde has to manage the monetary needs of a currency union with 19 nations, each issuing their own debt.

    While that strategy is similar to yield curve control, “they’re calling it something different,” said Christoph Rieger, head of fixed-rate strategy at Commerzbank AG. “My feeling is that this is an important thing for the ECB, they’re looking at it and they’re actually envious of the BOJ. They would love to have something like that.”

    Why of course they would; and they would be even more envious of the USSR which would set all price levels by fiat and capital markets would no longer exist. But that too is coming, just not immediately.

    As for YCC, the BOJ was the first central bank to adopt the policy in 2016 as a stimulus tool to boost inflation (actually that’s not true: the Fed was running under a yield curve control regime in the 1940s to keep bond yields during and after World War II). The RBA followed suit, and announced last March it would keep three-year yields at around 0.25%, and in November reduced that to around 0.1%. U.S. Federal Reserve Vice Chair Richard Clarida said late last year it’s part of the toolbox, but the Fed is waiting for yields to blow out first before launching it as it would be one less key tool in the Fed’s “toolkit.”

    The YCC pledge has to be credible though…. or the central bank simply has to monopolize the entire bond market. The BOJ, which is the only price setter left in Japan does the latter. Meanwhile, as Bloomberg correctly notes, investors must believe the central bank will spend as much as needed to defend its policy, and that’s where the ECB runs into problems.

    For starters, it lacks a single bond to target. That’ll change soon when the European Union starts issuing joint debt to finance its 750 billion-euro ($909 billion) recovery fund, but that plan is a temporary one linked to the pandemic –  the ECB could run out of bonds to buy. The European central bank is also forbidden by EU law from directly financing governments. It has kept its bond-buying programs legal by imposing limits on what it can buy and for how long, but yield curve control is implicitly limitless.

    “There are a number of issues in opting for such a strategy, or adding this to the ECB toolbox,” said Katharina Utermoehl, an economist at Allianz SE. “This could bring out the idea that actually the ECB is doing monetary financing.”

    Which, of course, the ECB has been doing for years, but in a world where it is in everyone’s best interest to spread lies and pretend that rules are still followed, nobody pretends to notice.

    And speaking of pretending, even though the ECB has been engaging in spread control, the ECB is now pretending it may actually launch official yield curve control, and Bank of Spain Governor Pablo Hernandez de Cos said this month that it’s an “option worth exploring.”

    Hernandez de Cos suggested targeting a technical measure, the region’s overnight index swap curve. Other economists, such as ABN Amro’s Nick Kounis have proposed using an average euro-zone bond yield weighted by national gross domestic product.

    Both Hernandez de Cos and Executive Board member Isabel Schnabel say the Governing Council has never discussed formal yield curve control. And why would they if the ECB is already doing it, just under a different name.

    Hilariously, Bloomberg then pretends that someone actually cares about the long-term, and notes that “the measure does carry broader risks, such as encouraging reckless fiscal policy by relieving governments of some market constraints.” Uhm, guys, we are now well beyond that part: if you don’t believe us, just check out the price of bitcoin.

    Meanwhile, YCC always comes with a cost, even if it is delayed. As mentioned above, when the Fed and the U.S. Treasury agreed in 1942 to cap borrowing costs to fund the country’s participation in World War II, yields were just barely above 0%. Five years later, inflation has exploded in double digits amid the post-war boom and the central bank was forced to start pulling back. It is this inflationary deluge that assets which central banks don’t (yet) control like bitcoin, are sniffing out.

    Explicit yield goals also make exiting the policy a challenge. Investors are likely to dump bonds, driving up borrowing costs, the moment they perceive the target is about to be dropped. Hence why the Fed spent all of last week talking down the risk of QE tapering.

    Finally, in an amusing twist of semantics, Bloomberg naively concludes that “that may ultimately mean the ECB has an edge with what Lagarde has described as an “holistic” approach to maintaining favorable financing conditions.”

    “It’s not as explicit as the Japanese do it, but broader,” said Florian Hense, European economist at Berenberg. “Once it’s out that you explicitly control the yield curve, this commitment can be very expensive.”

    Well, the cat is now officially out of the bag, and whatever one calls it, the fact that it is only with the ECB’s explicit intervention that European yields haven’t blown out will mean that the moment there is even the tiniest whiff the ECB may be pulling back its intervention that we will have an epic crisis.

    Tyler Durden
    Tue, 01/19/2021 – 20:52

  • Democrats Fear Inauguration Violence… But Certainly Are Experts
    Democrats Fear Inauguration Violence… But Certainly Are Experts

    Via HumanEvents,com,

    In a CNN interview, Rep. Steve Cohen (TN-9) made the egregious accusation that because of its conservative majority, 75 percent of the National Guard might be inclined to attack during Joe Biden’s inauguration. 

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    “You know, I was thinking, the Guard is 90 some-odd percent, I believe, male; and only about 20 percent of white males voted for Biden. You’ve got to figure that in the Guard, which is predominately more conservative, and I see that on my social media and we know it, they’re probably not more than 25 percent of the people that are there protecting us who voted for Biden,” he said. 

    “The other 75 percent are in the class that would be, the large class of folks, who might want to do something. And there were military people and police who took oaths to defend the Constitution and to protect and defend who didn’t do it who were in the insurrection, so it does concern me,” he continued. 

    “The suspect group is large.” 

    If Trump and all other conservatives inherently and collectively encourage or incite violence, democrats are guilty by their own standards. 

    The Daily Wire put together a video exposing the countless times democrats and the left-wing Hollywood elite openly inciting violence against the president and conservatives. 

    Here are some examples: 

    House Speaker Nancy Pelosi: “I don’t even know why there aren’t uprisings all over the country. Maybe there will be.” 

    Eric Holder: “When they go low, we kick them.” 

    Sen. Cory Booker (D-NJ): “Go to the Hill today. Get up and please, get up in the face of some Congresspeople.” 

    Joe Biden: “They asked me if I would like to debate this gentleman. I said ‘No,’ I said ‘If I were in high school I’d take him behind the gym and beat the hell out of him.’” 

    Mickey Rourke: “I’ll meet him in a hotel room, any motherf***ing day of the week, and give hima  Louisville slugger. Kiss my motherf***ing a**.” 

    Madonna: “Yes, I have thought an awful lot about blowing up the White House.” 

    Rep. Maxine Waters (D-CA): “Let’s make sure we show up wherever we have to show up, and if you see anybody from that cabinet in a restaurant, in a department store, at a gasoline station, you get out and you create a crowd. And you push back on them. And you tell them they are not welcome. Anymore. Anywhere.” 

    Gov. Andrew Cuomo: “He can’t come back to New York. He can’t. He’s gonna walk down the street in New York, forget bodyguards, he better have an army if he thinks he’s gonna walk down the street in New York.” 

    Kathy Griffin: 

    pic.twitter.com/HG3wwVO8hm

    — Kathy Griffin (@kathygriffin) November 4, 2020

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    Rep. Ted Lieu (D-CA): “If the president does go ahead and fire Robert Mueller, we would have people take to the streets. I believe there would be widespread civil unrest because Americans understand that the rule of law is paramount.” 

    Johnny Depp: “When was the last time an actor assassinated a president? It’s been a while, and maybe it’s time.” 

    Big Sean: “If you put this round my neck, and I might just kill ISIS with the same ice pick that I murdered Donald Trump in the same night with.”

    Nancy Pelosi, again: “Sunday morning. I just came from Mass, but nonetheless I’ll just say this. If you’re in the arena, you’ve got to be ready to take a punch. You got to be ready to throw a punch, for the children.” 

    Sen. Jon Tester (D-MT): “Even in states where Donald Trump won big, that it does you any good running away from Donald Trump. I think you need to go back and punch him in the face. I mean, the truth is is this guy is bad for this country.” 

    Rep. Cynthia Johnson (D-MI): “So this is just a warning to you Trumpers. Be careful. Walk lightly. We ain’t playing with you. Enough of the shenanigans. Enough is enough. And for those of you who are soldiers, you know how to do it. Do it right. Be in order. Make them pay.” 

    Of course, those cases are all completely different… because #OrangeManBad.

    Tyler Durden
    Tue, 01/19/2021 – 20:30

  • Sub-Hunting Drone Completes Successful Test Off California Coast
    Sub-Hunting Drone Completes Successful Test Off California Coast

    The US Navy and General Atomics tested a Reaper drone for the first time ever with new submarine-hunting technology, according to Defense News.

    The General Atomics’ MQ-9A Block V Reaper drone dropped ten sonobuoys were used to track an underwater training target that mimicked a submarine. 

    The test was conducted in November. The MQ-9A Block V Reaper is part of a research and development project with the Navy’s Naval Air Systems Command.

    The successful completion of the test may lower submarine-hunting surveillance costs and divert more expensive human-crewed airplanes, such as the Boeing P-8 Poseidon, to more critical missions. 

    A General Atomics tear-off sheet shows the MQ-9A Block V Reaper has four pods that can carry up to 40 ‘A’ size or 80 ‘G’ size sonobuoys. During the test, the drone dropped sonobuoys to track an underwater target in real-time. 

    “This demonstration is a first for airborne antisubmarine warfare. The successful completion of this testing paves the way for the future development of more Anti-Submarine Warfare capabilities from our MQ-9s,” said General Atomics Aeronautical Systems President David Alexander in a statement. “We look forward to continuing collaboration with the US Navy as they explore innovative options for distributed maritime operations in the undersea domain.”

    Using drones for anti-submarine warfare could be the cheapest bet for the military to monitor the Pacific Ocean as China continues to expand its underwater capabilities. 

    Suppose the MQ-9A Block V Reaper is deployed in the future. In that case, courtesy of BofA is a map of US military bases and presence in the Pacific Ocean and, specifically, in proximity to China. 

    To sum up, the US Navy has likely found a new countermeasure against China’s growing fleet of underwater drones and submarines. 

    Tyler Durden
    Tue, 01/19/2021 – 20:10

  • The Empirical Case For A Mask Mandate Lacks Scientific Grounding
    The Empirical Case For A Mask Mandate Lacks Scientific Grounding

    Authored by Phillip Magness via The American Institute for Economic research,

    Last fall, the University of Washington’s Institute for Health Metrics Evaluation (IHME) published a headline-grabbing study with a politically appealing claim: if Americans would simply mask up when they ventured out into public, over 120,000 lives could be saved by the beginning of next year.

    As Joe Biden takes office later this week, he is widely expected to use executive orders to enact a 100-day long national mask mandate.

    Biden’s action is directly premised on the claims of the IHME study, which he has repeatedly alluded to in his public commentary. But is the science behind this claim sound?

    As I documented last fall, the IHME’s projections rested upon a simple data error. The IHME model begins from the assumption that only 49% of Americans were currently wearing masks in public. Increase the mask adoption rate to between 85% and 95%, it stands to reason, and you’ll save over a hundred thousand lives by reducing the spread of Covid-19. A national mask mandate, the authors implied, would do the trick.

    The IHME’s projections had a crucial problem however. The IHME took its 49% adoption figure from a months-old outdated survey at the beginning of the pandemic. As of late September when they made their projections, US mask adoption hovered at 80% nationwide. Instead of nearly doubling mask use rates, a national mask mandate would only increase compliance by about 5 to 15 percentage points. The number of lives that the mandate would save, it turned out, had been vastly exaggerated in the published report.

    The IHME’s director took exception to my criticism, though notably he did not dispute any of my math.

    “[Magness] is correct that our estimate of mask-wearing rates has increased” since the study’s publication, explained Christopher J.L. Murray in a letter to the Wall Street Journal.

    New data from the summer and early fall confirmed an increase in public mask adoption rates.

    Yet Murray continued: “[h]e is incorrect to suggest that this weakens the case for public policies that require masks.”

    In the roughly two months since this public exchange, the IHME’s mask model has undergone a curious transformation. Murray and his team quietly updated their figures to reflect the higher and more realistic mask-adoption rates. Furthermore, they extended these corrections retroactively to their model’s projections from the summer months.

    The chart below shows how the IHME mask model has shifted over time. The blue line depicts the actual US mask adoption rate, as tracked by the YouGov survey. It shows that US mask adoption rapidly increased in the spring until hitting about 80% in mid-July. From July until the present, it has held stable at the 80% level (parallel surveys by the CDC, Pew Charitable Trust, Carnegie Mellon University, and the Kaiser Family Foundation confirm these findings).

    The orange line shows the IHME’s mask model and forecast on September 21, which is the version it published in the journal Nature-Medicine. The yellow line shows the IHME’s subsequent upward revisions as of January 2021, which are now finally starting to converge with reality. Their estimates still fall slightly short of what the aforementioned surveys show, but as of January 18th the IHME model assumes that 76% of Americans wear masks in public – just shy of the 80% level.

    While the IHME team is to be commended for correcting their model to better reflect reality, these adjustments also mean that comparatively few additional gains remain to be had from bumping the mask-adoption rate upward to 85 or 95%. The most recent of the independent surveys – a study conducted by the Kaiser Family Foundation in December – even reports that 89% of Americans always or almost always wear masks in public, suggesting we are already at or near the targeted “universal adoption” threshold of the IHME model.

    The ongoing corrections to the IHME model have severely dampened the promised benefits of a national mask mandate. The figure below shows the IHME’s “lives saved” forecast under universal mask adoption with 95% compliance, as projected for 4 months out from its release date.

    Back in September, the IHME model projected over 120,000 lives would be saved by January under a mask mandate. Now it projects a much smaller 31,000 lives saved by the end of April.

    When reading these ever-shrinking projections, keep in mind that US mask adoption patterns have not meaningfully changed since the mid-summer of 2020, before the IHME even released its first “lives saved” estimate. It has stayed constant at roughly 80% throughout this entire time. The only apparent changes are the input data for the IHME model, which they updated in the wake of my critique to better approximate reality. The effect is to reduce the IHME’s “lives saved” projection at the 4-month mark to only one quarter of its headline-grabbing claim from back in the fall.

    These changes do not mean that masks lack effectiveness at the margins. They remain a precautionary hygienic response – particularly in certain indoor venues and around vulnerable people. Rather, the IHME’s model adjustments confirm what several of us have been pointing out since the mask mandate movement began in earnest last year. The main gains from masking have already been reaped. Americans rapidly adopted them last summer and have continued to use them at consistently high rates ever since. Adding a new national mask mandate on top of this practice will bring little if any additional benefit to what voluntary adoption already achieved, though it may foster a false hope in the exaggerated claims of an obsolete and erroneous model.

    Tyler Durden
    Tue, 01/19/2021 – 19:50

  • Pompeo Hits China With 11th Hour 'Genocide' Label For Its Treatment Of Uighur Minority
    Pompeo Hits China With 11th Hour ‘Genocide’ Label For Its Treatment Of Uighur Minority

    In some of his last official remarks as Secretary of State, Mike Pompeo on Tuesday lashed out a final time both at China and the incoming Biden administration. 

    He said China’s communist government is committing ongoing “genocide” targeting its minority-Muslim Uighur population in the Xinjiang region while underscoring that Biden policies are likely to only embolden China. It’s a significant eleventh-hour declaration against Beijing using the strongest language thus far on the issue (namely, the genocide label).

    Getty Images

    “If the Chinese Communist Party is allowed to commit genocide and crimes against humanity against its own people, imagine what it will be emboldened to do to the free world, in the not-so-distant future,” Pompeo said in the statement. 

    “While the CCP has always exhibited a profound hostility to all people of faith, we have watched with growing alarm the Party’s increasingly repressive treatment of the Uyghurs and other ethnic and religious minority groups,” Pompeo added.

    The issue has been highlighted in multiple reports both by international human rights organizations as well as in press reports. In particular over the past year there’s further been detailed descriptions of ‘re-education’ and forced labor camps in Xinjiang.

    Pompeo went on in his statement, describing Chinese authorities, to say: 

    “Their morally repugnant, wholesale policies, practices, and abuses are designed systematically to discriminate against and surveil ethnic Uyghurs as a unique demographic and ethnic group, restrict their freedom to travel, emigrate, and attend schools, and deny other basic human rights of assembly, speech, and worship.”

    And further: “The governing authorities of the second most economically, militarily, and politically powerful country on earth have made clear that they are engaged in the forced assimilation and eventual erasure of a vulnerable ethnic and religious minority group, even as they simultaneously assert their country as a global leader and attempt to remold the international system in their image,” he said.

    A so-called vocational training center in Xinjiang many are reportedly across the region where Chinese Muslims are sent for alleged ‘re-education’ programs:

    Interestingly the Trump administration has waited to level the genocide label till now, a mere day before Biden’s inauguration, as perhaps a final major effort to “box Biden in” when it comes to China. The issue of whether China’s treatment of Uighurs constitutes genocide had been studied and under intensive review by the State Department since at least last month.

    Any Biden reversals in terms of the Trump’s targeted sanctions on Chinese officials – particularly related to the Hong Kong issue – will make the Democratic administration look “soft”. But this is precisely what such statements as Pompeo’s latest are designed to do.

    Tyler Durden
    Tue, 01/19/2021 – 19:30

  • My Pillow CEO Says Bed Bath & Beyond, Kohl's To Stop Selling His Products
    My Pillow CEO Says Bed Bath & Beyond, Kohl’s To Stop Selling His Products

    Authored by Zacharty Stieber via The Epoch Times,

    My Pillow products won’t be carried in Kohl’s or Bed Bath & Beyond any longer, the company’s CEO says.

    CEO Mike Lindell said Monday that his company recently was notified of the discontinuance.

    “I just got off the phone with Bed Bath and Beyond. They’re dropping My Pillow. Just got off the phone not five minutes ago. Kohl’s, all these different places,” Lindell told Right Side Broadcasting Network.

    Kohl’s and Bed Bath & Beyond didn’t immediately respond to inquiries.

    Lindell said the actions came after groups like Sleeping Giant push companies to stop doing business with him.

    “It’s not their fault that they’re scared because they don’t realize these are fake people that are on, they’re going ‘we’re going to boycott your store if you don’t drop My Pillow.’”

    “People should go into the stores and say they support My Pillow,” he added.

    A general view of the Bed Bath & Beyond sign as photographed in Westbury, N.Y., on March 20, 2020. (Bruce Bennett/Getty Images)

    He also said his company is a good partner and has seen its direct sales increase 30–40 percent since Friday.

    Lindell drew attention last week by visiting the White House to meet with President Donald Trump. While there, notes he was holding were photographed and pictures of the notes were then circulated on social media. The notes suggested Trump declare martial law and move the chief of staff to acting Secretary of Defense Christopher Miller to acting CIA chief.

    Lindell told The Epoch Times that the notes contained suggestions from a lawyer and he was just the messenger. He said martial law wasn’t part of the five-minute discussion he shared with the president.

    The cancellation of Lindell’s products is the latest in punitive action taken against Trump and his supporters since the Jan. 6 breach of the U.S. Capitol. The president was banned from social media platforms and cut off by some banks, while some supporters have also been banned by Twitter and been fired by employers.

    Sleeping Giants, a leftist activist group, has ongoing campaigns to pressure companies to drop conservative and right-leaning websites, such as Breitbart News and Fox News. On Twitter, it trumpeted the news that Bed Bath & Beyond and Kohl’s dropped My Pillow, claiming Lindell played a part in motivating the breach of the Capitol by questioning the results of the 2020 election.

    “Honestly, how awesome would it be if we started selling Sleeping Giants pillows?” it added.

    Tyler Durden
    Tue, 01/19/2021 – 19:10

  • US Cuts Off Telephone Line To Russian Consulate In New York Day Before Inauguration
    US Cuts Off Telephone Line To Russian Consulate In New York Day Before Inauguration

    Russian state-run news agency RIA is reporting that the US has switched off to telephone line to Russia’s consulate in New York.

    RIA cited officials with the Russian diplomatic mission, who further said there’s been no connection for more than a day.

    Russian consulate in the Upper East Side of Manhattan

    However, RIA gave no further details. Speculation abounds given the timing of the apparent phone switch off, coming a mere day before Joe Biden’s inauguration.

    It also comes amid some Democratic leaders as well as the mainstream media actually attempting to tie the Capitol Hill riot of January 6 somehow to Russian intelligence and social media ‘influence ops’.

    In a follow-up to RIA’s initial reporting, Russia’s Sputnik confirmed the following:

    The Russian Consulate-General in New York has been completely cut off city telephone lines by the American authorities since 18 January, the diplomatic mission in the city has stated via its official Twitter account. The consulate added that it is occasionally also encountering issues with Internet connectivity.

    A source at the Russian mission in New York says US authorities are citing technical issues as the reason for the cut-off. According to the source, however, a two-day delay in the resumption of telephone services is “unheard of”. The diplomatic mission in the city has several telephone lines connected and all of them went dead at the same time, the source adds.

    Meanwhile in terms of the strangeness of the timing, there’s this bizarre continuing saga:

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    Sputnik notes further, however, that “This is not the first time the Trump administration takes actions against Russian diplomatic missions in the US. Back in 2017, Washington decided to close the Russian Consulate-General in San Francisco in response to the expulsion of American diplomats from Russia.”

    Tyler Durden
    Tue, 01/19/2021 – 18:50

  • China To Sanction US Officials For "Blatant Interference" In Hong Kong & Taiwan
    China To Sanction US Officials For “Blatant Interference” In Hong Kong & Taiwan

    Authored by Dave DeCamp via AntiWar.com,

    China announced it plans to sanction US officials as retaliation for measures Washington has taken over Hong Kong and for steps the Trump administration has taken to increase ties with Taiwan.

    Chinese Foreign Ministry Spokeswoman Hua Chunying said on Monday that the US was “blatantly interfering” in Hong Kong by sanctioning Chinese officials over arrests in the city.

    Last Friday, the US imposed sanctions on six Hong Kong and Chinese officials. In December, the US sanctioned members of Beijing’s legislature for their alleged role in crafting Hong Kong’s new national security law.

    Hua said Beijing will hit US officials and lawmakers who are “primarily responsible for the vile actions on Hong Kong” with reciprocal sanctions. “The US must immediately stop interfering in Hong Kong’s affairs and immediately stop using various pretenses to interfere in China’s internal affairs,” she said.

    Hua also said China will take action against US officials responsible for the increased ties between Washington and Taipei. Specific names of US officials that will be subject to punitive measures have not been given.

    The Trump administration has taken several steps to increase diplomatic relations with Taiwan as part of its hardline China policies. In the latest move, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo announced he was lifting State Department restrictions on official US contacts with Taiwanese officials.

    Hua said Monday that unspecified US officials would also be targeted by Beijing as they had “acted maliciously” on the Taiwan issue.

    Tyler Durden
    Tue, 01/19/2021 – 18:30

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