• Only Cold War Fools Hit Replay On Doomsday
  Only Cold War Fools Hit Replay On Doomsday

  Authored by William Astore via Common Dreams,

  In the early 1960s, at the height of America’s original Cold War with the Soviet Union, my old service branch, the Air Force, sought to build 10,000 land-based nuclear missiles. These were intended to augment the hundreds of nuclear bombers it already had, like the B-52s featured so memorably in the movie Dr. Strangelove. Predictably, massive future overkill was justified in the name of “deterrence,” though the nuclear war plan in force back then was more about obliteration. It featured a devastating attack on the Soviet Union and communist China that would kill an estimated 600 million people in six months (the equivalent of 100 Holocausts, notes Daniel Ellsberg in his book, The Doomsday Machine). Slightly saner heads finally prevailed—in the sense that the Air Force eventually got “only” 1,000 of those Minuteman nuclear missiles.

  Despite the strategic arms limitation talks between the U.S. and the Soviet Union, the dire threat of nuclear Armageddon persisted, reaching a fresh peak in the 1980s during Ronald Reagan’s presidency. At the time, he memorably declared the Soviet Union to be an “evil empire,” while nuclear-capable Pershing II and ground-launched cruise missiles were rushed to Europe. At that same moment, more than a few Europeans, joined by some Americans, took to the streets, calling for a nuclear freeze—an end to new nuclear weapons and the destabilizing deployment of the ones that already existed. If only…

  

  It was in this heady environment that, in uniform, I found myself working in the ultimate nuclear redoubt of the Cold War. I was under 2,000 feet of solid granite in a North American Aerospace Defense (NORAD) command post built into Cheyenne Mountain at the southern end of the Colorado front range that includes Pikes Peak. When off-duty, I used to hike up a trail that put me roughly level with the top of Cheyenne Mountain. There, I saw it from a fresh perspective, with all its antennas blinking, ready to receive and relay warnings and commands that could have ended in my annihilation in a Soviet first strike or retaliatory counterstrike.

  Yet, to be honest, I didn’t give much thought to the possibility of Armageddon. As a young Air Force lieutenant, I was caught up in the minuscule role I was playing in an unimaginably powerful military machine. And as a hiker out of uniform, I would always do my best to enjoy the bracing air, the bright sunshine, and the deep blue skies as I climbed near the timberline in those Colorado mountains. Surrounded by such natural grandeur, I chose not to give more than a moment’s thought to the nightmarish idea that I might be standing at ground zero of the opening act of World War III.  Because there was one thing I knew with certainty: if the next war went nuclear, whether I was on-duty under the mountain or off-duty hiking nearby, I was certainly going to be dead.

  Then came 1991 and the collapse of the Soviet Union. The Cold War was over! America had won! Rather than nightmares of the Red Storm Rising sort that novelist Tom Clancy had imagined or Hollywood’s Red Dawn in which there was an actual communist invasion of this country, we could now dream of “peace dividends,” of America becoming a normal country in normal times.

  It was, as the phrase went, “morning again in America”—or, at least, it could have been. Yet here I sit, 30 years later, at sea level rather than near the timberline, stunned by the resurgence of a twenty-first-century version of anticommunist hysteria and at the idea of a new cold war with Russia, the rump version of the Soviet Union of my younger days, joined by an emerging China, both still ostensibly conspiring to endanger our national security, or so experts in and out of the Pentagon tell us.

  Excuse me while my youthful 28-year-old self asks my cranky 58-year-old self a few questions: What the hell happened? Dammit, we won the Cold War three decades ago. Decisively so! How, then, could we have allowed a new one to emerge? Why would any sane nation want to refight a war that it had already won at enormous cost? Who in their right mind would want to hit the “replay” button on such a costly, potentially cataclysmic strategic paradigm as deterrence through MAD, or mutually assured destruction?

  Meet the New Cold War—Same as the Old One

  Quite honestly, the who, the how, and the why depress me. The “who” is simple enough: the military-industrial-congressional complex, which finds genocidal nuclear weapons to be profitable, even laudable. Leading the charge of the latest death brigade is my old service, the Air Force. Its leaders want new ICBMs, several hundred of them in fact, with a potential price tag of $264 billion, to replace the Minutemen that still sit on alert, waiting to inaugurate death on an unimaginable scale, not to speak of a global nuclear winter, if they’re ever launched en masse. Not content with such new missiles, the Air Force also desires new strategic bombers, B-21 Raiders to be precise (the “21” for our century, the “Raider” in honor of General Jimmy Doolittle’s morale-boosting World War II attack on Tokyo a few months after Pearl Harbor). The potential price tag: somewhere to the north of $200 billion through the year 2050.

  New nuclear missiles and strategic bombers obviously don’t come cheap. Those modernized holocaust-producers are already estimated to cost the American taxpayer half-a-trillion dollars over the next three decades. Honestly, though, I doubt anyone knows the true price, given the wild cost overruns that seem to occur whenever the Air Force builds anything these days. Just look at the $1.7 trillion F-35 fighter, for example, where the “F” apparently stands for Ferrari or, if you prefer brutal honesty, failure.

  The “how” is also simple enough. The vast military machine I was once part of justifies such new weaponry via the tried-and-true (even if manifestly false) tactics of the Cold War. Start with threat inflation. In the old days, politicians and generals touted false bomber and missile “gaps.” Nowadays, we hear about China building missile silos, as if these would pose a new sort of dire threat to us. (They wouldn’t, assuming that China is dumb enough to build them.) A recent New Yorker article on Iran’s ballistic missile program is typical of the breed. Citing a Pentagon estimate, the author suggests “that China could have at least a thousand [nuclear] bombs by 2030.” Egad! Be afraid!

  Yet the article neglects to mention America’s overwhelmingly superior nuclear weapons and the actual number of nuclear warheads and bombs our leaders have at their disposal. (The current numbers: roughly 5,600 nuclear warheads for the U.S., 350 for China.) At the same time, Iran, which has no nuclear weapons, is nonetheless defined as a serious threat, “an increasingly shrewd rival,” in the same article. A “rival” – how absurd! A nation with no nukes isn’t a rival to the superpower that nuked Hiroshima and Nagasaki in 1945, killing 250,000 Japanese, and planned to utterly destroy the Soviet Union and China in the 1960s. Believe me, nobody, but nobody, rivals this country’s military when it comes to apocalyptic scenarios—and the mindset as well as the ability to achieve them.

  On a nuclear spectrum, Iran poses no threat and China is readily deterred, indeed completely overmatched, just with the U.S. Navy’s fleet of Trident-missile-firing submarines. To treat Iran as a “rival” and China as a nuclear “near-peer” is the worst kind of threat inflation (and imagining nuclear war of any sort is a horror beyond all measure).

  The “why” is also simple enough, and it disgusts me. Weapons makers, though driven by profit, pose as job-creators. They talk about “investing” in new nukes; they mention the need to “modernize” the arsenal, as if nuclear weapons have an admirable return on investment as well as an expiration date. What they don’t talk about (and never will) is how destabilizing, redundant, unnecessary, immoral, and unimaginably ghastly such weapons are.

  Nuclear weapons treat human beings as matter to be irradiated and obliterated. One of the better cinematic depictions of this nightmare came in the 1991 movie Terminator II when Sarah Connor, who knows what’s coming, is helpless to save herself, no less children on a playground, when the nukes start exploding. It’s a scene that should be seared into all our minds as we think about the hellish implications of the weapons the U.S. military is clamoring for.

  In the late 1980s, when I was still in Cheyenne Mountain, I watched the tracks of Soviet nuclear missiles as they terminated at American cities. Sure, it only happened on screen in the missile warning center, driven by a scenario tape simulating an attack, but that was more than enough for me. Yet, today, my government is moving in a direction—both in funding the “modernization” of the American arsenal and in creating a new version of the Cold War of my Air Force days—that could once again make that old scenario tape I saw plausible in what remains of my lifetime.

  Excuse me, but where has the idea of nuclear disarmament gone? A scant 15 years ago, old Cold War hands like Henry Kissinger, George Schultz, and Sam Nunn, joined by our “hope and change” president Barack Obama, promoted the end of nuclear terror through the actual elimination of nuclear weapons. But in 2010 Obama threw that possibility away in an attempt to secure Senate support for new strategic arms reduction talks with the Russians. Unsurprisingly, senators and representatives in western states like Wyoming and North Dakota, which thrive off Air Force bases that bristle with nuclear bombers and missiles, quickly abandoned the spirit of Obama’s grand bargain and to this day remain determined to field new nuclear weapons.

  Not More, But No More

  This country narrowly averted disaster in the old Cold War and back then we had leaders of some ability and probity like Dwight D. Eisenhower and John F. Kennedy. All this new cold war rhetoric and brinksmanship may not end nearly as well in a plausible future administration led, if not by Donald Trump himself, then by some self-styled Trumpist warrior like former Secretary of State Mike Pompeo or Senator Tom Cotton. They would, I suspect, be embraced by an increasing number of evangelicals and Christian nationalists in the military who might, in prophetic terms, find nuclear Armageddon to be a form of fulfillment.

  Ironically, I read much of Red Storm Rising, Tom Clancy’s World War III thriller, in 1987 while working a midnight shift in Cheyenne Mountain. Thankfully, that red storm never rose, despite a climate that all too often seemed conducive to it. But why now recreate the conditions for a new red storm, once again largely driven by our own fears as well as the profit- and power-driven fantasies of the military-industrial-congressional complex? Such a storm could well end in nuclear war, despite pledges to the contrary. If a war of that sort is truly unwinnable, which it is, our military shouldn’t be posturing about fighting and “winning” one.

  

  I can tell you one thing with certainty: our generals know one word and it’s not “win,” it’s more. More nuclear missiles. More nuclear bombers. They’ll never get enough. The same is true of certain members of Congress and the president. So, the American people need to learn two words, no more, and say them repeatedly to those same generals and their enablers, when they come asking for almost $2 trillion for that nuclear modernization program of theirs.

  In that spirit, I ask you to join a young Air Force lieutenant as he walks past Cheyenne Mountain’s massive blast door and down the long tunnel. Join him in taking a deep breath as you exit that darkness into clear crystalline skies and survey the city lights beneath you and the pulse of humanity before you. Another night’s duty done; another night that nuclear war didn’t come; another day to enjoy the blessings of this wonder-filled planet of ours.

  America’s new cold war puts those very blessings, that wonder, in deep peril. It’s why we must walk ever so boldly out of tunnels built by fear and greed and never return to them. We need to say “no more” to new nuclear weapons and recommit to the elimination of all such weaponry everywhere. We had a chance to embark on such a journey 30 years ago in the aftermath of the first Cold War. We had another chance when Barack Obama was elected. Both times we failed.

  It’s finally time for this country to succeed in something again—something noble, something other than the perpetuation of murderous war and the horrific production of genocidal weaponry.  After all, only fools replay scenarios that end in doomsday.

  Tyler Durden
  Thu, 01/20/2022 – 00:05

• 'The Enigma': Sothebys To Auction Off Massive 555.55-Carat Black Diamond From Space
  ‘The Enigma’: Sothebys To Auction Off Massive 555.55-Carat Black Diamond From Space

  Sotheby’s Dubai has unveiled a 555.55-carat black diamond that’s believed to have come from outer space.

  

  Dubbed “The Enigma,” the rare jem was shown to journalists during a Monday press conference ahead of its anticipated sale by the auction house in February.

  According to NPR, Sothebys expects the diamond to fetch at least 5 million British pounds (US$6.8 million), and may accept cryptocurrency as a method of payment.

  Sophie Stevens, a jewelry specialist at Sotheby’s Dubai, told The Associated Press that the number five bears an importance significance to the diamond, which has 55 facets as well. –NPR

  “The shape of the diamond is based on the Middle-Eastern palm symbol of the Khamsa, which stands for strength and it stands for protection,” said Stevens. Khamsa means ‘five’ in Arabic.

  “So there’s a nice theme of the number five running throughout the diamond,” she added.

  From space?

  Black diamonds – known as a ‘carbonados’ are extremely rare, and are only found in Brazil and Central Africa. They are believed to have come from space after scientists analyzed their carbon isotopes and high hydrogen content.

  According to Stevens, “With the carbonado diamonds, we believe that they were formed through extraterrestrial origins, with meteorites colliding with the Earth and either forming chemical vapor disposition or indeed coming from the meteorites themselves.”

   

  Tyler Durden
  Wed, 01/19/2022 – 23:45

• How Good Is China's J-20 Stealth Fighter Jet?
  How Good Is China’s J-20 Stealth Fighter Jet?

  By Richard Bitzinger, an independent international security analyst. He was previously a senior fellow with the Military Transformations Program at the S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies (RSIS) in Singapore. First published in the Epoch Times.

  How good is China’s most advanced fighter jet, the J-20? The J-20 is a “fifth-generation” combat aircraft, which ostensibly puts it in the same league as the U.S. F-22 and F-35.

  

  Fifth-generation fighters have certain common characteristics: very low visibility (stealth), the ability to fly at supersonic speeds without using an afterburner (called supercruise), and, most importantly, a highly advanced radar and suite of avionics and onboard computers for “networked data fusion,” enabling situational awareness in the battlespace.

  Theoretically, a fifth-generation fighter jet is nearly invisible to ground-based air defenses and other aircraft, and it can detect and attack threats from far away.

  At the moment, most modern air forces fly what we call “fourth-generation” or “fourth-generation-plus” (4G+) combat aircraft. Fourth-generation fighters include the latest versions of the American-made F-16 and F/A-18 and Russia’s Su-30, while the Anglo-German-Italian-Spanish Eurofighter Typhoon, the French Rafale, and the Swedish Gripen are examples of 4G+ combat aircraft.

  Technologically, fourth-generation and 4G+ fighters date from the 1970s and 1980s, although most have undergone significant upgrades over the years. All are multirole aircraft, capable of both air-to-air and air-to-ground missions. They are highly maneuverable, use fly-by-wire flight controls, and can launch “fire-and-forget” active radar-guided air-to-air missiles. 4G+ fighters, in addition, possess a modicum of stealth and improved avionics, such as an active electronically scanned array (AESA) radar.

  In general, most fourth-generation and 4G+ fighter jets are basically the same. A Venn diagram of their capabilities would show a lot of overlap. The difference is mainly in the number of engines they have (one or two).

  So how does the J-20 stack up? In the first place, the J-20 is certainly the best fighter jet in the People’s Liberation Army Air Force (PLAAF), but this is a skinniest-kid-at-fat-camp kind of argument. The “best of the rest” of the PLAAF fighter force are the J-10—an indigenously developed combat aircraft initiated in the 1980s—and the J-11, basically a reverse-engineered Soviet Su-27, a plane that first flew in the 1990s.

  

  Although heavily upgraded over the years, the J-10 and J-11 are barely fourth-generation fighters. Going up against comparable combat aircraft flown by better-trained pilots (such as Taiwanese F-16s or Japanese F-15s), these planes would be in a decidedly perilous situation.

  Hence, the PLAAF’s need for the J-20. According to the Washington-based Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS), the J-20 is an advanced multirole stealth fighter fulfilling both air-to-air and air-to-ground combat roles.

  CSIS quotes a 2016 report by the U.S. Department of Defense that states that “the J-20 represents a critical step in China’s efforts to develop advanced aircraft to improve its regional power projection capabilities and to strengthen its ability to strike regional airbases and facilities.”

  A U.S. Naval War College report adds that the J-20, once deployed, would “immediately become the most advanced aircraft deployed by any East Asian Power.”

  That said, what we know—and just as importantly, what we do not know—about the J-20 throws a bit of cold water on these assessments. In the first place, details about the J-20’s design undercut assertions about its apparent stealthiness. For one thing, the plane is huge—more than 2 meters (about 6.5 feet) longer than the U.S. F-22—and it uses canards (winglets) at the front of the airframe for improved maneuverability. Both of these features make the J-20 more detectable by radar.

  Moreover, the J-20 appears to lack nozzle designs that reduce the heat signature coming from its engine exhaust. Therefore, the J-20 may only be stealthy “from the front,” according to aviation expert Richard Aboulafia,

  The J-20 is also likely underpowered. Early versions used a small Russian engine, which was later replaced by the indigenous WS-20 turbofan; this engine, however, has had its share of teething problems. It’s possible, therefore, that the J-20 is incapable of supercruise.

  Secondly, what we cannot see should also leave us questioning the aircraft’s capabilities. In particular, we cannot know what kind of radar, sensors, avionics, and computers that are internal to the J-20 or how good they are; we mainly infer from what we know about other fifth-generation fighters.

  CSIS, for example, claims that the J-20 is “slated” to carry a variety of advanced systems, including “an [AESA radar], a chin-mounted infrared/electro-optic search and track sensor, and a passive electro-optical detection system that will provide 360-degree spherical coverage around the aircraft.” This assessment, however, is based on the argument that “comparable systems” can be found on the U.S. F-35.

  

  It’s impossible, short of espionage, to know how good the systems inside the J-20 actually are (Western intelligence agencies might be privy to some of this information, but they’re not talking). It’s highly likely, however, that avionics on the F-22 and F-35—especially those systems for sensor and data fusion, situational awareness and connectivity—are head-and-shoulders above those of the J-20.

  Consequently, analysts like Aboulafia and John Venable of Heritage Foundation believe that the U.S. fifth-generation fighter would easily best the J-20 in a modern air-to-air contest, which is based on long-range “first look/first shoot” kinds of engagements, rather than any kind of “Top Gun” dogfight.

  The F-22, with its superior stealth, radar, and precision weapons, would “destroy [the J-20] instantly,” according to Aboulafia.

  It’s likely that the Chinese are aware of the J-20’s shortcomings, and perhaps that’s why the PLAAF has so far fielded only “limited numbers” of the aircraft. Still, it’s as dangerous to “under-guesstimate” the potential of the J-20 as it is to exaggerate its capabilities.

  The PLA has been able to appreciably narrow its military-technological gap with the West over the past 20 years or so. It’s incumbent on the West, therefore, to keep moving the “technological goalposts” in order to stay comfortably ahead.

  Tyler Durden
  Wed, 01/19/2022 – 23:25

• East Hampton Airport To Go Private, Ban Chartered Flights Over Noise Concerns
  East Hampton Airport To Go Private, Ban Chartered Flights Over Noise Concerns

  Private jet and helicopter charters into the East Hampton Airport could be a thing of the past as the town’s board is expected to take the public airport under private control by early March, according to Bloomberg. 

  The move will effectively ban millionaires who rent aircraft and only allow billionaires who own their jets to fly into the airport. 

  On Tuesday, Supervisor Peter Van Scoyoc released a statement that said the town’s board would deactivate the airport and reopen it as a limited facility where planes and helicopters can only land with permission. He said the shift would allow the town to have more oversight on air traffic which has surged in recent years, not just because of the pandemic (with folks moving out of NYC to The Hamptons) but also the rise of ride-share apps that make it easier to catch a helicopter or private plane flight. 

  

  The logic behind the privatization is limiting air travel to and from the airport because it has created constant noise and environmental pollution and disturbs some surrounding communities. 

  However, not everyone in the ultra-rich beach town, a playground for Wall Street elites, is enthused by the decision to take the airport private. About 80% of the residents in the Village of East Hampton oppose the move and say it would redirect air traffic to other towns and could hurt their local economy. 

  The airport is expected to close at the end of February and reopen under private control in early March. 

  Nothing is more laughable than the haves and the have-mores (or millionaires versus billionaires) of The Hamptons fighting over who gets to fly into the local airport. 

  Tyler Durden
  Wed, 01/19/2022 – 23:05

• The Last Days Of The COVIDian Cult
  The Last Days Of The COVIDian Cult

  Authored by CJ Hopkins via The Consent Factory,

  This isn’t going to be pretty, folks. The downfall of a death cult rarely is. There is going to be wailing and gnashing of teeth, incoherent fanatical jabbering, mass deleting of embarrassing tweets. There’s going to be a veritable tsunami of desperate rationalizing, strenuous denying, shameless blame-shifting, and other forms of ass-covering, as suddenly former Covidian Cult members make a last-minute break for the jungle before the fully-vaxxed-and-boosted “Safe and Effective Kool-Aid” servers get to them.

  

  Yes, that’s right, as I’m sure you’ve noticed, the official Covid narrative is finally falling apart, or is being hastily disassembled, or historically revised, right before our eyes. The “experts” and “authorities” are finally acknowledging that the “Covid deaths” and “hospitalization” statistics are artificially inflated and totally unreliable (which they have been from the very beginning), and they are admitting that their miracle “vaccines” don’t work (unless you change the definition of the word “vaccine”), and that they have killed a few people, or maybe more than a few people, and that lockdowns were probably “a serious mistake.”

  I am not going to bother with further citations. You can surf the Internet as well as I can. The point is, the “Apocalyptic Pandemic” PSYOP has reached its expiration date. After almost two years of mass hysteria over a virus that causes mild-to-moderate common-cold or flu-like symptoms (or absolutely no symptoms whatsoever) in about 95% of the infected and the overall infection fatality rate of which is approximately 0.1% to 0.5%, people’s nerves are shot. We are all exhausted. Even the Covidian cultists are exhausted. And they are starting to abandon the cult en masse.

  It was always mostly just a matter of time. As Klaus Schwab said, “the pandemic represent[ed] a rare but narrow window of opportunity to reflect, reimagine, and reset our world.”

  

  It isn’t over, but that window is closing, and our world has not been “reimagined” and “reset,” not irrevocably, not just yet. Clearly, GloboCap underestimated the potential resistance to the Great Reset, and the time it would take to crush that resistance. And now the clock is running down, and the resistance isn’t crushed … on the contrary, it is growing. And there is nothing GloboCap can do to stop it, other than go openly totalitarian, which it can’t, as that would be suicidal. As I noted in a recent column:

  “New Normal totalitarianism — and any global-capitalist form of totalitarianism — cannot display itself as totalitarianism, or even authoritarianism. It cannot acknowledge its political nature. In order to exist, it must not exist. Above all, it must erase its violence (the violence that all politics ultimately comes down to) and appear to us as an essentially beneficent response to a legitimate ‘global health crisis’ …”

  The simulated “global health crisis” is, for all intents and purposes, over. Which means that GloboCap has screwed the pooch. The thing is, if you intend to keep the masses whipped up into a mindless frenzy of anus-puckering paranoia over an “apocalyptic global pandemic,” at some point, you have to produce an actual apocalyptic global pandemic. Faked statistics and propaganda will carry you for a while, but eventually people are going to need to experience something at least resembling an actual devastating worldwide plague, in reality, not just on their phones and TVs.

  Also, GloboCap seriously overplayed their hand with the miracle “vaccines.” Covidian cultists really believed that the “vaccines” would protect them from infection. Epidemiology experts like Rachel Maddow assured them that they would:

  “Now we know that the vaccines work well enough that the virus stops with every vaccinated person,” Maddow said on her show the evening of March 29, 2021. 

  “A vaccinated person gets exposed to the virus, the virus does not infect them, the virus cannot then use that person to go anywhere else,” she added with a shrug. “It cannot use a vaccinated person as a host to go get more people.”

  And now they are all sick with … well, a cold, basically, or are “asymptomatically infected,” or whatever. And they are looking at a future in which they will have to submit to “vaccinations” and “boosters” every three or four months to keep their “compliance certificates” current, in order to be allowed to hold a job, attend a school, or eat at a restaurant, which, OK, hardcore cultists are fine with, but there are millions of people who have been complying, not because they are delusional fanatics who would wrap their children’s heads in cellophane if Anthony Fauci ordered them to, but purely out of “solidarity,” or convenience, or herd instinct, or … you know, cowardice.

  Many of these people (i.e., the non-fanatics) are starting to suspect that maybe what we “tin-foil-hat-wearing, Covid-denying, anti-vax, conspiracy-theorist extremists” have been telling them for the past 22 months might not be as crazy as they originally thought. They are back-pedaling, rationalizing, revising history, and just making up all kinds of self-serving bullshit, like how we are now in “a post-vaccine world,” or how “the Science has changed,” or how “Omicron is different,” in order to avoid being forced to admit that they’re the victims of a GloboCap PSYOP and the worldwide mass hysteria it has generated.

  Which … fine, let them tell themselves whatever they need to for the sake of their vanity, or their reputations as investigative journalists, celebrity leftists, or Twitter revolutionaries. If you think these “recovering” Covidian Cult members are ever going to publicly acknowledge all the damage they have done to society, and to people and their families, since March 2020, much less apologize for all the abuse they heaped onto those of us who have been reporting the facts … well, they’re not. They are going to spin, equivocate, rationalize, and lie through their teeth, whatever it takes to convince themselves and their audience that, when the shit hit the fan, they didn’t click heels and go full “Good German.”

  Give these people hell if you need to. I feel just as angry and betrayed as you do. But let’s not lose sight of the ultimate stakes here. Yes, the official narrative is finally crumbling, and the Covidian Cult is starting to implode, but that does not mean that this fight is over. GloboCap and their puppets in government are not going to cancel the whole “New Normal” program, pretend the last two years never happened, and gracefully retreat to their lavish bunkers in New Zealand and their mega-yachts.

  Totalitarian movements and death cults do not typically go down gracefully. They usually go down in a gratuitous orgy of wanton, nihilistic violence as the cult or movement desperately attempts to maintain its hold over its wavering members and defend itself from encroaching reality. And that is where we are at the moment … or where we are going to be very shortly.

  Cities, states, and countries around the world are pushing ahead with implementing the New Normal biosecurity society, despite the fact that there is no longer any plausible justification for it. Austria is going ahead with forced “vaccination.” Germany is preparing to do the same. France is rolling out a national segregation system to punish “the Unvaccinated.” Greece is fining “unvaccinated” pensioners. Australia is operating “quarantine camps.” Scotland. Italy. Spain. The Netherlands. New York City. San Francisco. Toronto. The list goes on, and on, and on.

  I don’t know what is going to happen. I’m not an oracle. I’m just a satirist. But we are getting dangerously close to the point where GloboCap will need to go full-blown fascist if they want to finish what they started. If that happens, things are going to get very ugly. I know, things are already ugly, but I’m talking a whole different kind of ugly. Think Jonestown, or Hitler’s final days in the bunker, or the last few months of the Manson Family.

  That is what happens to totalitarian movements and death cults once the spell is broken and their official narratives fall apart. When they go down, they try to take the whole world with them. I don’t know about you, but I’m hoping we can avoid that. From what I have heard and read, it isn’t much fun.

  Tyler Durden
  Wed, 01/19/2022 – 22:45

• Starbucks Joins Growing List Of Companies Abandoning Vax Mandate After SCOTUS Ruling
  Starbucks Joins Growing List Of Companies Abandoning Vax Mandate After SCOTUS Ruling

  Another company has abandoned its plans for a vaccination mandate and mandatory routine testing roughly one week after the Supreme Court killed President Biden’s plans to enforce a corporate vax mandate through OSHA.

  

  To wit, Starbucks has joined the ranks of American megacorps including General Electric in rejecting vaccine mandates by pausing its plans to require baristas to get vaccinated, or receive weekly testing. The decision was reported shortly before President Joe Biden blasted the SCOTUS ruling as a “mistake” during his Wednesday press briefing.

  Instead, Starbucks says it will “strongly encourage” baristas to get vaxxed while encouraging them to disclose their vaccination status. Culver said in the letter that more than 90% of workers already disclosed if they have been vaccinated. Meanwhile, the “vast majority” have been fully vaccinated, according to CNBC.

  Starbucks employs some 228K people across the US.

  Starbucks told employees on Wednesday it would no longer allow baristas to wear cloth masks to work. Instead, they have to wear at least one three-ply, medical-grade mask, or an N95, KN95 or KF94 mask. Furthermore, the company said that starting Thursday, it plans to temporarily expand its policy of requiring workers to self-isolation policy. That means baristas who are exposed at work, have ongoing close contact with someone who tests positive, have symptoms or have tested positive will be instructed to self-isolate, regardless of vaccination status. These workers will be eligible for Starbucks’ self-isolation pay for missed shifts.

  John Culver, the COO and the North American group president, said in the letter that more than 90% of workers had already disclosed if they have been vaccinated, and the “vast majority” have been fully vaccinated.

  “While the [Emergency Temporary Standard] is now paused, I want to emphasize that we continue to believe strongly in the spirit and intent of the mandate,” Culver said in a letter to the company’s baristas that was viewed by CNBC.

  We suspect Starbucks won’t be the last American corporate giant to announce that it is abandoning its vaccination requirement. The decision comes as new research out of Israel and South Africa illustrates just how ineffective mRNA vaccines are at preventing people from being infected with the omicron variant.

  Tyler Durden
  Wed, 01/19/2022 – 22:25

• US Has Stepped Up Aircraft Carrier Deployments In South China Sea
  US Has Stepped Up Aircraft Carrier Deployments In South China Sea

  Authored by Dave DeCamp via AntiWar.com,

  Reflecting the Pentagon’s new focus on China, US aircraft carrier strike groups almost doubled deployments to the South China Sea in 2021 compared to the year before.

  According to the Beijing-based South China Sea Probing Initiative (SCSPI), US carrier strike groups entered the South China Sea 10 times in 2021, compared with six times in 2020, and five in 2019.

  

  “The US military have drastically reinforced their military deployment in the South China Sea since last year, in terms of training scales, sorties and scenarios,” SCSPI director Hu Bo said Friday, according to The South China Morning Post.

  Hu said that the carrier training patterns have become “more complicated and unpredictable.” In the past, US warships typically entered the South China Sea through the Bashi Channel, a waterway between the Philippines and Taiwan. But Hu said over the past year, the US has diversified its routes, and the time span of the deployments varies.

  The US shows no sign of slowing down its carrier deployments to the South China Sea. The US Navy’s Seventh Fleet said Monday that the aircraft carrier USS Carl Vinson just wrapped up joint operations in the disputed waters with an amphibious group led by the USS Essex, a landing helicopter dock ship.

  “The USS Carl Vinson strike group fleet includes destroyers, frigates, submarines and supply ships. The new approach of warships sailing between island groups would also require US sailors to boost their skills in traditional terrestrial navigation,” the report underscored. 

  * * *

  F/A-18E & F-35C aboard the USS Carl Vinson, South China Sea. (📸Caden Richmond) pic.twitter.com/QCTm2VDtep

  — Air Power (@MIL_STD) January 17, 2022

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  Tyler Durden
  Wed, 01/19/2022 – 22:05

• Illegals Can Now Use Arrest Warrants As Identification To Fly: TSA
  Illegals Can Now Use Arrest Warrants As Identification To Fly: TSA

  Illegal immigrants worried about having proper identification to fly can now use an arrest warrant as an alternate form of ID when presenting to airport security, according to a TSA letter obtained by the Daily Caller.

  

  Responding to Republican Texas Rep. Lance Gooden’s Dec. 15 inquiry about illegal migrants flying across the country, TSA Administrator David Pekoske explained that certain Department of Homeland Security (DHS) documents may be considered acceptable forms of alternate identification for non-citizens, including a “Warrant for Arrest of Alien” and a “Warrant of Removal/Deportation.” -Daily Caller

  “TSA’s response confirms the Biden Administration is knowingly putting our national security at risk,” Rep. Gooden told the Caller, adding “Unknown and unvetted immigrants shouldn’t even be in the country, much less flying without proper identification.”

  The TSA’s Pekoske wrote: “TSA is committed to ensuring that all travelers, regardless of immigration status, are pre-screened before they arrive to the airport, have their pre-screening status and identification verified at security checkpoints, and receive appropriate screening based on risk before entering the sterile area of the airport.”

  More via the Daily Caller:

  Pekoske outlined that the alien identification number found on a DHS document is processed through one or both of the following databases: the U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) One mobile application or TSA’s National Transportation Vetting Center (NTVC).

  Individuals who use the alternate forms of identification undergo extra screening, according to the letter.

  Additionally, TSA said it screens passengers through its Secure Flight program before they enter airport security and board a plane to check if they are on terrorist database and other watch lists.

  *  *  *

  According to the TSA, it relies on agencies such as CBP or ICE, which issues documents to migrants that are used as alternate ID to ensure that the migrant “is the person whom the person claims to be.”

  Per the letter, if a person cannot be identified via a database search, an airport’s Federal Security Director (FSD) can initiate further screening, or decide to deny the person entry.

  Tyler Durden
  Wed, 01/19/2022 – 21:45

• Americans For War: Is The Ukraine/Russia Conflict A US Foreign Policy Goal?
  Americans For War: Is The Ukraine/Russia Conflict A US Foreign Policy Goal?

  Authored by Techno Fog via The Reactionary,

  Dare I say a dangerous truth, but there are politicians and analysts and journalists who want Russia to invade Ukraine.

  

  Not because these folks are “Putin apologists,” to quote a popular insult they use against the anti-war crowd. But because they see Russian actions as a pretext for U.S. intervention and perpetual U.S. presence in Ukraine, if not elsewhere. (Poke the bear and you’re the antagonist. Get attacked by the bear and you’re the victim.)

  How can Russian aggression best be used? For some, it is the justification for more troops and more weapons in Eastern Europe. NATO sees the opportunity to “reinforce its troop presence in the Black Sea and the Baltics.”

  Here in the States, former Obama Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense Evelyn Farkas advocates “U.S. leaders should be marshalling an international coalition of the willing, readying military forces to deter Putin and, if necessary, prepare for war.” Others argue for an aggressive military response or suggest the option of “U.S. boots on the ground.” Max Boot, a delusional journalist with a large platform, a silly fedora, and an appetite for war, promotes an urgent airlift of U.S. weapons systems to Ukraine. Boot goes so far as to issue a silly warning that Putin is attempting to resurrect the “evil empire.” If Boot believes these words, then he will eventually advocate the most extreme measures to counter Russia. Dangerous rhetoric indeed.

  If recent history is any indication, Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelenskiy certainly sees the current crisis, if you can call it that, as an opportunity. Last June, he tweeted “NATO leaders confirmed that Ukraine” will become a member of the Alliance.” This announcement came days before Biden’s scheduled meeting with President Vladimir Putin. In other words, it was planned. And while Biden’s response last summer was ambivalent on Ukraine joining NATO, more recently he assured Zelenskiy that “Kyiv’s bid to join the NATO military alliance was in its own hands.” This comment came after Putin’s warning that Ukraine’s admission to NATO is a “red line” for Moscow.

  Maybe the questions should have been how this crisis, the conclusion of which is unknown, could have been prevented. According to professor Stephen Walt, if the West had not “succumbed to hubris” and kept the promise to not include Ukraine in NATO, “Russia would probably never have seized Crimea.” Maybe it was hubris. Or maybe the U.S. anticipated Russia’s response and saw it as an opportunity to increase American influence?

  On that question of influence, and as to Russian concerns about NATO, watch this essential explanation by the late Stephen Cohen:

  While those supporting NATO expansion argue it is a defensive alliance, how is Moscow to react if those defensive weapons – with devastating offensive capabilities – are at its border and can strike targets within Russia in a matter of minutes?

  Is there any question that the U.S. would not tolerate Russian missiles at its border?

  These are issues that nations are entitled to answer, no matter if they are democratic or otherwise. (By no means does this ever condone wrongful conduct.) But you can’t observe such things in current America, dare you be accused of moral equivalence – or worse. Tucker Carlson makes these arguments and is branded a traitor by the media. Democrat operatives (with Ukrainian interests) demand he be prosecuted for treason for the crime of questioning our leaders. Even at National Review, a “conservative” publication, we see disgusting charges that “many of America’s most famous ‘nationalists’ don’t seem to be bothered by imperialism, so long as the imperialists speak Russian.” The standard attacks against those who dare challenge U.S. foreign policy orthodoxy.

  Let us assume that Russia believes Ukraine will eventually join NATO, or at minimum assesses there is a likelihood it occurs. From the Russian point of view, their response – the seizure of Crimea, the current build-up of forces at the Russia-Ukraine border – is defensive in nature. (Not that it justifies conduct.) There is some irony that Russia is now applying neo-conservative principles of preemptive warfare. The further irony is that the neo-conservatives now decry such actions.

  Allegations of False Flags

  Pentagon Press Secretary John Kirby alleges “Russia is already working actively to create a pretext for a potential invasion, for a move on Ukraine.” He claims they are planning “a false flag operation — an operation designed to look like an attack on … Russian speaking people in Ukraine, again, as an excuse to go in.”

  Maybe that’s true. Maybe it isn’t. The United States knows something about false flag operations, does it not?

  War hawks within the Trump Administration took advantage of a likely false flag operation in Syria to justify intervention. As reported by Aaron Mate, “A series of leaked documents from the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW) raise the possibility that the Trump administration bombed Syria on false grounds and pressured officials at the world’s top chemical weapons watchdog to cover it up.”

  And how are we to assess the Pentagon’s claims about Russia, considering its recent blunders and history of outright lies to Americans?

  The events of this past summer do not inspire confidence. General Mark Milley, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, testified there was no intelligence suggesting the quick collapse of the Afghan government to the Taliban. Reporting from the New York Times disputed that testimony, citing classified intelligence assessments predicting a “Taliban takeover of Afghanistan” and warning of “the rapid collapse of the Afghan military.”

  Ask yourself who is telling the truth, and you end up making a decision on which liar is to be believed. I’m not sure which is worse – General Milley lying, or the American intelligence community making such a catastrophic mistake. It’s a choice between personal failure and institutional failure.

  Or consider the American drone strike killed 10 innocent civilians in Kabul. Deaths to be blamed on intelligence reliance on bad sources (which might have been the Taliban) and bad information resulted in no punishment.

  Undoubtedly, the worst of it was the thousands of American lives lost in the war in Afghanistan. Young men and women volunteered to fight what our officials promised was a just and necessary war, a war we were allegedly winning. In reality, these U.S. officials were “making rosy pronouncements they knew to be false and hiding unmistakable evidence the war had become unwinnable.”

  To quote three-star Army General Douglas Lute:

  “If the American people knew the magnitude of this dysfunction . . . 2,400 lives lost,” Lute added, blaming the deaths of U.S. military personnel on bureaucratic breakdowns among Congress, the Pentagon and the State Department. “Who will say this was in vain?”

  The consequences of the lies and incompetence are still felt today. As the Russia-Ukraine crisis heats up, we have no idea whether American leadership is telling the truth.

  Tyler Durden
  Wed, 01/19/2022 – 21:25

• Supermarkets Report Food Shortages After Canada Imposes Trucker Vax Mandate
  Supermarkets Report Food Shortages After Canada Imposes Trucker Vax Mandate

  Overwhelmed supply chains and truck driver shortages worsened when Canada imposed new border mandates prohibiting unvaccinated American truckers. With low vaccination rates among US drivers, Canadian supermarkets are already reporting rising food inflation and shortages of certain products, according to Bloomberg. 

  Canada’s vaccine mandate for truckers came into effect on Saturday. The new rule requires US truckers to be vaccinated to cross the border. We warned earlier this week such a mandate would have “consequences.” 

  

  The vaccine mandate has exacerbated the shortage of truck drivers and made wait times at border crossings even longer. Eighty percent of trade between the US and Canada is transited by truck. America exports about 90% of Canada’s fruits and vegetables during the winter season. As shipments decline because only about half of US truck drivers are vaccinated, grocery stores report shortages.

  “We’re seeing shortages,” said Gary Sands, senior vice president of the Canadian Federation of Independent Grocers. “We’re hearing from members they’re going into some stores where there’s no oranges or bananas.'”

  The main concern is the mandate could create a domino effect and ripple through the already stressed supply chain. Logistical disruptions have been a significant source of soaring inflation. According to North American Produce Buyers, the cost of sending a truckload of fresh produce from Southern California to Canada is now $9,500, up from $7,000. That means companies are paying more for freight and will pass on costs to consumers. 

  Given the drop in eligible truckers, products bound for Canada will build in US warehouses with no place to go until new drivers are seen.

  The situation will only worsen on Jan. 22 when the US begins imposing its vaccine mandate on Canadian truckers. The Canadian Trucking Association warned the mandate would sideline up to 16,000 truckers. 

  Canadian truck drivers are furious with the US decision and have blocked the highway near the US-Manitoba international border to protest the new mandates. Videos posted on social media show the chaos playing out on the other side of the border. 

  Truckers Stage Protest Against Mandates At The U.S.-Canada Border at Emerson Manitoba pic.twitter.com/iBwZHHlTJC

  — BasedUK (@Based__UK) January 18, 2022

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  Here is another. pic.twitter.com/HEzKK0V8SF

  — Amy (@Amy41294821) January 18, 2022

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  Cross-border vaccine mandates will only make the supply chain more stressed to the point where it might break.

  Tyler Durden
  Wed, 01/19/2022 – 21:05

• Chinese Homebuilders Soar As Beijing Prompts Prisoner's Dilemma in Rescue Plan
  Chinese Homebuilders Soar As Beijing Prompts Prisoner’s Dilemma in Rescue Plan

  Just as we predicted last week, bonds and stocks of China’s beleaguered homebuilders surged Wednesday on reports that regulators are considering lifting restrictions on the companies’ access to cash from pre-sold properties tied up in escrow accounts. If implemented successfully, it could ease developers’ cash crunch.

  But, as Bloomberg Markets Live analyst Ye Xie writes, it won’t be all smooth sailing, and what needs to be addressed is the “prisoner’s dilemma” confronted by local governments. Those who were first to ease their grip on the local escrow accounts may face the risk that developers divert cash away and leave local projects unfinished. “Such concern may limit the incentives for local regulators to carry out the order from Beijing”, according to Xie.

  Bloomberg reported that releasing funds from the escrow accounts is part of a policy package regulators are contemplating to prevent the real-estate crisis from worsening. Reuters first reported the news, spurring a rally in struggling developers. Dollar bonds of Sunac China jumped 50% Wednesday.

  

  The discussion marks another step by Beijing toward stabilizing the housing market and keeping cash-strapped developers from failing. Meanwhile, as we noted yesterday, the PBOC’s dovish briefing Tuesday fueled speculation that mortgage rates could be lowered.

  As Xie explains, in China, when real-estate companies sell residential properties before construction is completed, they’re required to deposit the proceeds in supervised bank accounts. Proceeds from pre-sales generally make up more than half of developers’ cash inflows. Relaxation, therefore, opens up a channel for developers to raise funds, just when they have a mountain of bills and debt to pay in coming months.

  

  But Nomura’s economists Lu Ting, Jing Wang and Harrington Zhang are skeptical about how effective the new plan will be. The reason is simple: While the central government can provide the guidance, it’s the local governments that have the actual regulatory control over those escrow accounts. Developers’ financial challenges mean that local governments will be “quite cautious” about loosening their grip on the accounts.

  “We believe local governments do not have an incentive to be the first to ease their grip on their local escrow accounts,” wrote Lu in a note. “This is because developers in need of cash will move funds out of the first batch of eased escrow accounts, and those local government officials will have to take responsibility for failed construction projects in their regions as a result.”

  Last year, Lu attracted wide attention when he published a report drawing parallel between Beijing’s commitments to reining in the housing market and Paul Volcker’s epic but economically painful campaign to break the back of inflation in the U.S. in the 1970s. The report has so far been correct, and explained quite clearly why Beijing had no choice but to capitulate and ease to avoid an all out collapse of the housing sector.

  Tyler Durden
  Wed, 01/19/2022 – 20:45

• Djokovic Owns 80% Stake In Biotech Firm Working On COVID 'Cure'
  Djokovic Owns 80% Stake In Biotech Firm Working On COVID ‘Cure’

  Since being deported from Australia last week, men’s tennis champion Novak Djokovic has returned to Belgrade, where he lives with his family.

  Having inadvertently (or not) become the locus of the international debate about mandatory vaccinations, Reuters reported that Djokovic and his wife hold a combined 80% stake in Danish biotech firm QuantBioRes, which is working on developing a cure for SARS-CoV-2.

  

  QuantBioRes boss Ivan Loncarevic has described himself as an entrepreneur, he reportedly said the tennis player’s acquisition of the 80% stake was made in June 2020, but declined to say how much Djokovic shelled out for his stake.

  The firm said the company had about a dozen researchers working in Denmark, Australia and Slovenia. According to the Danish company register, Djokovic and his wife Jelena own 40.8% and 39.2% of QuantBioRes, respectively.

  Copenhagen-based QuantBioRes is aiming to develop a ‘peptide’ treatment against Covid-19 which would inhibit the virus from infecting human cells. Later this year, the company expects to launch clinical trials in the UK; it has around a dozen researchers working in Denmark, Australia, and Slovenia, Loncarevic explained.

  Djokovic has enjoyed phenomenal success – Forbes listed Djoko as one of the world’s top-50 highest paid athletes for 2021, tabulating his on-court earnings at $4.5MM. That number was dwarfed by the $30MM he supposedly earned off the court. His total career earnings are believed to be around €150MM ($170MM).

  Loncarevic stressed that the peptide treatment is a therapeutic designed to treat COVID; it’s not a vaccine.

  But as Djokovic moves deeper into his 30s, his quest to finally cement his position as the world’s greatest (male) tennis player – breaking his tie with Swiss legend Roger Federer – is running out of time.

  Djoko was hoping to play in the Australian Open and win, which would have netted him his 21st grand slam title, breaking his tie with Federer for most “grand slam” titles” won by a single (male) player.

  Looking beyond February, Djoko’s most immediate concern is the next grand slam tournament – the French Open in May.

  Unfortunately, the French sports ministry has already declared that there will be no exemptions to France’s new vaccine law.

  Tyler Durden
  Wed, 01/19/2022 – 20:25

• Jordan Peterson: Why I Am No Longer A Tenured Professor At The University Of Toronto
  Jordan Peterson: Why I Am No Longer A Tenured Professor At The University Of Toronto

  I recently resigned from my position as full tenured professor at the University of Toronto. I am now professor emeritus, and before I turned sixty. Emeritus is generally a designation reserved for superannuated faculty, albeit those who had served their term with some distinction. I had envisioned teaching and researching at the U of T, full time, until they had to haul my skeleton out of my office. I loved my job. And my students, undergraduates and graduates alike, were positively predisposed toward me. But that career path was not meant to be. There were many reasons, including the fact that I can now teach many more people and with less interference online. But here’s a few more:

  First, my qualified and supremely trained heterosexual white male graduate students (and I’ve had many others, by the way) face a negligible chance of being offered university research positions, despite stellar scientific dossiers. This is partly because of Diversity, Inclusivity and Equity mandates (my preferred acronym: DIE).

  

  These have been imposed universally in academia, despite the fact that university hiring committees had already done everything reasonable for all the years of my career, and then some, to ensure that no qualified “minority” candidates were ever overlooked. My students are also partly unacceptable precisely because they are my students. I am academic persona non grata, because of my unacceptable philosophical positions [emphasis by ZH]. And this isn’t just some inconvenience. These facts rendered my job morally untenable. How can I accept prospective researchers and train them in good conscience knowing their employment prospects to be minimal?

  Second reason: This is one of many issues of appalling ideology currently demolishing the universities and, downstream, the general culture. Not least because there simply is not enough qualified BIPOC people in the pipeline to meet diversity targets quickly enough (BIPOC: black, indigenous and people of colour, for those of you not in the knowing woke). This has been common knowledge among any remotely truthful academic who has served on a hiring committee for the last three decades.

  This means we’re out to produce a generation of researchers utterly unqualified for the job. And we’ve seen what that means already in the horrible grievance studies “disciplines.” That, combined with the death of objective testing, has compromised the universities so badly that it can hardly be overstated. And what happens in the universities eventually colours everything. As we have discovered.

  All my craven colleagues must craft DIE statements to obtain a research grant. They all lie (excepting the minority of true believers) and they teach their students to do the same. And they do it constantly, with various rationalizations and justifications, further corrupting what is already a stunningly corrupt enterprise. Some of my colleagues even allow themselves to undergo so-called anti-bias training, conducted by supremely unqualified Human Resources personnel, lecturing inanely and blithely and in an accusatory manner about theoretically all-pervasive racist/sexist/heterosexist attitudes. Such training is now often a precondition to occupy a faculty position on a hiring committee.

  Need I point out that implicit attitudes cannot — by the definitions generated by those who have made them a central point of our culture — be transformed by short-term explicit training? Assuming that those biases exist in the manner claimed, and that is a very weak claim, and I’m speaking scientifically here. The Implicit Association test — the much-vaunted IAT, which purports to objectively diagnose implicit bias (that’s automatic racism and the like) is by no means powerful enough — valid and reliable enough — to do what it purports to do.

  Two of the original designers of that test, Anthony Greenwald and Brian Nosek, have said as much, publicly. The third, Professor Mahzarin Banaji of Harvard, remains recalcitrant. Much of this can be attributed to her overtly leftist political agenda, as well as to her embeddedness within a sub-discipline of psychology, social psychology, so corrupt that it denied the existence of left-wing authoritarianism for six decades after World War II. The same social psychologists, broadly speaking, also casually regard conservatism (in the guise of “system justification”) as a form of psychopathology.

  Read the rest of Jordan Peterson’s op-ed at National Post…

  Tyler Durden
  Wed, 01/19/2022 – 20:05

• Here Are The Highlights From Biden's "Longer-Than-Expected" Press Conference
  Here Are The Highlights From Biden’s “Longer-Than-Expected” Press Conference

  Update (1800EET): In what seemed like an attempt to make up for the fact that this was only the second solo presser of his presidency, America’s geriatric Democrat-in-chief stretched his Q&A out for nearly two hours. In that time, he blamed a gallery of villains for the woes plaguing contemporary American society. They included: the virus (but – and this is important  – not the Communist-controlled one-party state that unleashed it), meat processors (for driving up prices on meat), Vladimir Putin and, of course, his predecessor, President Trump (but not Dr. Fauci, who helped finance the gain-of-function research that may have helped Chinese scientists create SARS-CoV-2).

  First of all, Biden admitted that he suspects Russia will attempt to invade Ukraine. But if they do, Biden promised that the economic costs will be extremely “heavy”. He has “never seen sanctions like the ones I’ve promised will be imposed” Biden said, referring to his rival, President Vladimir Putin.

  On the geopolitical front, Biden also said that the US isn’t yet ready to remove President Trump’s tariffs on China. Does he have a timeline for possible removal? “The answer is uncertain,” Biden said. His top trade official is working on it.

  And as oil prices continue their climb, Biden said he is doing everything he can to increase available supplies (everything except another release from the US SPR).

  Later, he said that it’s not too late for talks with Iran to yield another deal. “There is some progress being made,” but “it remains to be seen” if Tehran will make a deal, Biden said in a news conference Wednesday marking his first year in office.

  He also confirmed that VP Kamala Harris will be his running mate in 2024.

  Early in his opening statement, Biden said he wouldn’t simply accept the status quo as a “new normal”.

  “I’m not going to give up and accept things as they are now…some people call it a new normal. I call it a job not yet finished,” Biden said.

  He also acknowledged that it’s become “clear” to him that Democrats in Congress will need to break up the president’s tax and spending plans.

  While he claims to support the Fed’s political independence, Biden said that it’s probably appropriate for the central bank to “recalibrate” policy so as to effectively combat inflation. He also said his nominees to serve in senior roles at the central bank (including re-nominating Powell to serve as its chairman for another term) should be approved by the Senate right away.

  The No. 1 takeaway from the MSM is that Biden’s press conference was “longer than expected”. Many of his supporters celebrated this as evidence that the president can still ‘turn it on’ when he needs to.

  On length of Biden’s press conference: you cannot answer the question “are you competent?” you can only demonstrate it. That is what Biden did today, and did it in a slam dunk. Anyone who has ever dealt with a hostile reporter, it is a task, draining, takes mental acuity.

  — David Doak (@SouthPoint1000) January 19, 2022

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  Others gleefully mocked them for grasping for a positive.

  A hilarious number of people on here attempting to prop up Joe Biden’s press conference by complementing its length.

  “It may have been rambling and incoherent at times but boy was it long”

  — Kevin Dalton (@NextLAMayor) January 20, 2022

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  Now, we imagine Biden is rewarding himself with a glass of warm milk and a nap.

  * * *

  President Joe Biden is about to cap his first full 12 months in office by holding what has been described by the NY Post as only the second solo press briefing since the former VP returned to the White House.

  Readers can watch live below. The briefing is slated to begin at 1600ET:

  Biden is expected to discuss COVID, his dismal approval rating and a range of other topics.

  

  Biden has largely remained out of public view this week – stopping briefly to speak with reporters outside of the White House on Monday.

  On Tuesday, members of the White House attended an economic briefing and also called Finland’s President Sauli Niinistö to discuss tensions between Ukraine and Russia.

  Will Biden’s handling of the pandemic elicit tough questions from the press now that the omicron variant has sent cases and hospitalization rates to all-time highs this month? We think you probably know the answer…

  More than 855K US residents tested positive for COVID Monday, according to CDC data, nearly 3x last winter’s peak of just 294K cases on Jan. 8, 2021. And about 150K US hospital patients have COVID, besting the pre-omicron record of 133K “variant” cases recorded last January.

  To put this all in context: 352K Americans died of (or from) COVID in 2020 under Trump, while 474,000 Americans died of/from COVID in 2021 under Biden.

  Murderer! Right, Salon?

  

  Now, President Biden is running around trying to “take credit” for the dynamic drop in COVID cases.

  The impression that Biden has been asleep at the wheel has helped to drive Biden’s job approval rating lower; one recent Quinnipiac Poll tagged Biden’s approval rating at just 33%.

  President Biden’s overall approval rating in the last seven Quinnipiac polls: 49%, 46%, 42%, 38%, 37%, 36%, 33%.

  — Ryan Struyk (@ryanstruyk) January 12, 2022

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  If QPac’s numbers are that low, imagine what the “real” numbers might look like.

  If even the left-wing pollsters have numbers this bad for Biden, the real numbers must be even more horrific. https://t.co/LiV8S7f7O4

  — Mollie (@MZHemingway) January 12, 2022

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  Either way, Biden is cratering.

  

  The President only agreed to participate in Wednesday’s briefing after his top media advisors desperately implored him to get out there and speak directly to the American people.

  As Matt Taibbi writes via TK News:

  Joe Biden’s Awesome First Year

  To win an exhausted nation’s admiration, all Joe Biden had to do was nothing. Instead, he’s burning future votes like kindling…

  

  The Gallup agency released a picture of the comet that is the Joe Biden presidency on its first anniversary. This is what a one-year, 14-point party affiliation swing looks like:

  

  The pollsters put the numbers in context:

  Both the nine-point Democratic advantage in the first quarter and the five-point Republican edge in the fourth quarter are among the largest Gallup has measured for each party in any quarter since it began regularly measuring party identification and leaning in 1991.

  How great was life for Joe Biden a year ago? MSNBC’s John Heilemann compared him to Lincoln; PBS White House correspondent Yamiche Alcindor said the return of the Democrats “felt like we are being rescued from the craziness and now here are the superheroes to come and save us all”; Rachel Maddow went through “half a box of Kleenex” in joy; even Chris Wallace on Fox said Biden’s half-coherent inauguration speech was “the best inaugural address I ever heard,” JFK’s iconic “Ask Not” included.

  Biden looks bad. During the campaign, when he was challenging strangers to pushup contests and doing sternum-pokes in crowds while nervous aides bit their lips, you could make the argument he was merely in steep with his mental decline, which was okay. Against Trump the standard of “technically alive” worked for a lot of voters. Biden now looks like a man deep into the peeing-on-houseplants stage, and every appearance is an adventure.

  He might say, “Even Dr. King’s assassination did not have the worldwide impact that George Floyd’s death did,” or repeat his evolving fantasy about getting arrested with Nelson Mandela (who according to the president also later came to Washington to say, “You got arrested trying to see me!”), or let it slip that aides are shielding him from all news (a logical takeaway from his “Let’s Go Brandon, I agree” Christmas moment). Or, he might just collapse into syllable-piles before casting around in fright, like this gut-wrenching “Where’s Tim?” scene:

  It’s reached the point where MSNBC is permitting guests like Donny Deutsch to say things like, “He seems old.” In a panic, Party spokestool Paul Begala went on the network this week to deliver a real-life version of the old Mel Brooks “the peasants are revolting” joke, saying “the problem for the Democrats… is not that they have bad leaders. They have bad followers.”

  As Paul Begala said, “the problem with the Democrats…FF

  Biden has always been an easy punchline. A tumescent yeller with hair plugs is a magnet for comics.

  TK News subscribers can continue reading here.

  FInally, here are some questions that Biden might face during Wednesday’s briefing, courtesy of the Hill:

  1. Is Build Back Better dead? Are you willing to urge Democrats to pass pieces of it rather than the whole proposal?
  2. You have warned for several months that Republican laws like the one in Georgia represent an attack on democracy. Why then did you wait until last week to make a forceful push to alter the filibuster? And would you support reforming the Electoral Count Act if other efforts fail?
  3. What preventative measures is your administration looking at in order to prevent another test shortage and other pandemic-related measures should another variant arise? What do you say to criticism that your administration is reacting instead of being more proactive two years into the pandemic?
  4. Have you been satisfied with the messaging coming from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention? Can your administration improve the way it communicates about the pandemic to the American public?
  5. You and your advisers have predicted that inflation will be transitory, but with the costs of food, housing and other essential goods rising, how can you assure Americans that your administration is focused on addressing surging inflation?
  6. Last week, the Supreme Court struck down your sweeping vaccine-or-test mandate for large private businesses. Will that be the end of your efforts to mandate vaccines or are more actions on the table?
  7. You recently called the Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol an “insurrection” and an attempted “coup.” Do you believe the Justice Department should prosecute former President Trump for his role in the Jan. 6 riot?
  8. Can you commit unequivocally to running for reelection? Will Vice President Harris be your running mate? If you can’t commit unequivocally, who do you think should be the nominee if circumstances ultimately cause you to decide against running?
  9. Your press secretary, Jen Psaki, said Tuesday that Russia could launch an attack on Ukraine “at any point.” What is your administration going to do to punish Russia if it does so? Are you doing everything you can to try to force Russia to pull troops back from the border with Ukraine?

  Tyler Durden
  Wed, 01/19/2022 – 20:01

• Latest Tucker Carlson Ukraine Segment Sent Liberal Media & Political Elites Into Meltdown
  Latest Tucker Carlson Ukraine Segment Sent Liberal Media & Political Elites Into Meltdown

  Author and political commentator Michael Brendan Dougherty writes, “Defining Ukraine’s sovereignty and integrity as a core security interest of the United States, akin to possession of Massachusetts, is a form of insanity.” As a case in point, Clint Ehrlich has spent a significant amount of time in Russia and the broader region as a geopolitical researcher, making him somewhat a serious expert on the crisis. But his appearance on Tucker Carlson Tonight is now causing a collective meltdown among establishment pundits not seen since the height of the Russiagate hysteria in recent years. 

  Days ago Ehrlich wrote that “The world is perched on the edge of an abyss. We may soon see the worst combat in Europe since WW2 – killing thousands of people, and raising the likelihood of nuclear war. It didn’t have to be this way.” And on Wednesday he had this to say: “My segment last night on Tucker Carlson is having a bigger impact than I ever imagined. It’s causing pro-war pundits and politicians to lose their minds! Let’s catalog their meltdowns…

  * * *

  Clint Ehrlich chronicles the avalanche of ‘hate mail’ he’s received in less than 24 hours since his above segment with Fox’s Tucker Carlson…

  I don’t know who is this guy but he is indeed triggering all the right persons https://t.co/fDnGpAcFY8

  — Abd el-Kader (@PrincAbdElKader) January 19, 2022

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

  First, the man, the myth, the moron, Bill Kristol:

  

  ESPN anchor turned paranoid xenophobe, Keith Olbermann, says we’re traitors

  

  Four bad takes doesn’t make one good one, David French.

  

  Rick Wilson writes… this. He thinks “comrade” jokes are clever burns in 2022.

  

  Obama’s favorite speechwriter says we’re on the side of an “entho-nationalist authoritarian.”

  The first part of that claim shows he has zero idea about Russian domestic politics, btw. Clownworld insult.

  
  This famous #RussiaGate believer thinks the segment makes Fox News a “hostile foreign propaganda outlet.”

  

  The founder of the DailyKos now cheers on war with Russia from the Left!

  

  A sitting Congressman calls Tucker and I “right-wing agitators spewing Russian propaganda.”

  

  CNN’s chief White House correspondent says the segment was orchestrated by Russian intelligence

  

  Congressman who was seduced by a Chinese spy, now vocal about dangers of foreign influence!

  

  Will anyone have the courage to call you out for being a twit, Joe Walsh?

  

  This #resistance “fact checker” somehow ties my segment to …. January 6? How? Why?

  Not relevant, since these aren’t serious claims, just casual insults.

  

  This lawyer with a big following wants Tucker to be prosecuted as an unregistered foreign agent!

  

  Academic specializing in propaganda… hallucinates seeing propaganda. Shocking.

  

  Film critic wants Tucker arrested for being an agent of a hostile foreign power. You can’t make this stuff up.

  

  Jonah Goldberg claims Ukraine would not be under U.S. military control if it joined NATO.

  Apparently has no idea how NATO’s command structure works.

  
  DailyBeast columnist says my segment will be “all over Russian TV.”

  This is… actually true. But Russian TV shows American stories about Russia whether the takes are positive or negative.

  

  Being #NeverTrump now means anyone you disagree with is in league with Putin

  

  Hhmmmmm

  

  Ex-GOPer thinks being against war with Russia means we want to make America like Russia.

  Totally logical conclusion…!

  

  Natsec lawyer claims the segment “dusted off Soviet talking points.”

  

  CNN contributor doesn’t have a good enough burn about Putin, so she throws in vaccines.

  

  “Ebola expert” offers her takes on foreign policy. Results make you question her medical judgment.

  

  Reminder: The people who want to censor Tucker and me are the ones trying to make America MORE like Soviet Russia.

  

  More “comrade” jokes from these people. The 1980s called, they want their humor back.

  

  I’m sure this joke sounded better in your head.

  

  Because it sure seems like everyone in this thread is on the same page…

  Who’s controlling your teleprompter?

  

  Wow, I missed the craziest part of this tweet:

  Wow, I missed the craziest part of this tweet:

  She says our segment was “hybrid war,” so she wants Tucker prosecuted for *treason.*

  He would face the DEATH PENALTY. https://t.co/H7VWDfxKeA

  — Clint Ehrlich (@ClintEhrlich) January 19, 2022

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

  She says our segment was “hybrid war,” so she wants Tucker prosecuted for *treason.*

  He would face the DEATH PENALTY.

  Tyler Durden
  Wed, 01/19/2022 – 19:45

• 5G Network Deployment In The US Spawns Cluster Of Disruption
  5G Network Deployment In The US Spawns Cluster Of Disruption

  Authored by Jon Ostrower via theaircurrent.com (emphasis ours),

  Something is going on with Runway 10L at Palm Beach International Airport in Florida. Last week, a Bombardier-built CRJ200 regional jet on final approach had the strangest thing happen.

  

  The aircraft’s radar altitude abruptly ran down to zero, causing repeated loud aural warnings: PULL UP WHOOP WHOOP DON’T SINK TOO LOW GEAR. The flight landed without incident in good weather, but it wasn’t the first time. “Exact same location multiple times the past two weeks,” the pilot, who was on the flight deck for both anomalies, told The Air Current.

  The incidents were reported to the Federal Aviation Administration. It’s not known definitively if the radar altimeter behavior was related to pre-deployment testing of 5G telecommunication technologies, but the unexplained incident underscored the fears of aviators, as well as the confusion and increasing disruption that is now befalling U.S. commercial aviation.

  Subscribe to TAC

  International airlines like Emirates, Air India, Japan Airlines and All Nippon Airways have cancelled flights to select cities, citing the 5G C Band interference risk to their aircraft. Boeing on Monday night sent a so-called multi-operator message to carriers flying 777 and 747-8s and “recommends operators do not operate 777 airplanes on approach and landing to U.S. runways” with 5G C Band notices starting on January 19 unless there is an alternative means of compliance with FAA directives, according to guidance reviewed by The Air Current.

  “The above recommendation has been determined through the Boeing Safety Review Board and engineering pilot evaluation based on the uncertainty of the 5G operating environment,” the company wrote. The review board meeting was held on January 15. “Boeing recommends that operators develop contingency plans for their operations.”

  Boeing referred comment to the FAA after saying, like Airbus, it was working with an industry coalition to address the 5G deployment issue with U.S. regulators. The FAA did not respond to questions about the reported incident in Palm Beach.

  Scaling back activation

  The U.S. 5G network will be formally activated by Verizon and AT&T on January 19 in 32 states, but both companies plan to limit the deployment around major U.S. airports. “We have voluntarily decided to limit our 5G network around airports,” Verizon said in a statement Tuesday. AT&T said the same. “At our sole discretion we have voluntarily agreed to temporarily defer turning on a limited number of towers around certain airport runways as we continue to work with the aviation industry about our 5G deployment.”

  President Joe Biden in a statement thanked both companies for delaying their implementation at a “limited set of locations” to avoid any disruption around “key airports”, but that localized stand down came after Boeing’s Monday-evening recommendation causing international carriers to cancel flights to certain U.S. destinations.

  

  “We recognize the economic importance of expanding 5G, and we appreciate the wireless companies working with us to protect the flying public and the country’s supply chain. The complex U.S. airspace leads the world in safety because of our high standards for aviation, and we will maintain this commitment as wireless companies deploy 5G,” said U.S. Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg in a statement.

  Yet, the disruption is expected to continue even with the Verizon and AT&T move, according to industry officials. The airworthiness directive issued by the FAA on December 7 warning of disruption from 5G signals to radio altimeters is the guidance operators fly with, not a voluntary shift by telecom companies. “FAA limits define what can or cannot be done,” said one industry official.

  Now, the FAA is scrambling to add precision to its blanket directive from December, clearing each aircraft, its specific make and model of radio altimeter, and each airport and its surrounding 5G networks for safe operation.

  The FAA on Monday said it had cleared operations with two radio altimeter models found on Boeing 737, 747, 757, 767, MD-10/-11 and Airbus A310, A319, A320, A321, A330 and A350 models. Those cleared aircraft account for about 45% of the U.S. airline fleet.

  Notably missing from the FAA’s list are the 777 and 787, the backbone of the international fleet. The CEOs of the country’s largest airlines through Airlines4America, its chief lobbying group, wrote to the White House, FAA, DOT and Federal Communications Commission that “airplane manufacturers have informed us that there are huge swaths of the operating fleet that may need to be indefinitely grounded. In addition to the chaos caused domestically, this lack of usable wide body aircraft could potentially strand tens of thousands of Americans overseas.”

  Last month, both Boeing and Airbus urged telecom networks to delay the 5G implementation, while they evaluate any potential impact on radio altimeters that are integral to not only establishing a reliable height off the ground, but are part of the flight control and propulsion logic on aircraft like the 787 that are needed on every flight, regardless of weather conditions and visibility.

  The chaotic deployment is a black eye for the U.S. aviation regulator at a time when its focus since 2019 has been on the grounding of Boeing’s 737 Max and coordinating the jet’s return to service.

  This didn’t creep up on the aerospace industry nor Congress, whose documented concerns to the FCC about interference date back to 2018 and repeated published warnings. The Radio Technical Commission for Aeronautics (RTCA) issued an October 2020 report saying that the 5G frequencies operating “in the [2,700 to 3,900 Mhz] band will cause harmful interference to radar altimeters on all types of civil aircraft” and revealed a “major risk” to safe aviation operations.

  Radio altimeters on aircraft operate in the nearby 4,200- to 4,400-MHz frequency band, but regulators around the world have recommended a “guard band” around aviation operations to prevent any interference.

  The telecom companies, which purchased the rights to the spectrum for $81 billion without restrictions in February 2021, were sharply critical of the U.S. aviation regulator and industry. “They have not utilized the last two years they’ve had to responsibly plan for this deployment,” said AT&T in its Tuesday statement. 

  Both companies have pointed to the successful deployment of 5G networks in 40 countries, however, they have not been enacted without restrictions around airports. In October, Canada’s government told its telecom companies to offer a 550 to 700 MHz buffer for deployment of 5G networks around its largest airports, surprising the providers who spent $9 billion in July procuring the spectrum band for the next generation network, according to an October report in the Toronto Star.

  The FAA noted on its 5G guide that other countries, such as France, have implemented larger airport buffer zones and antennas are deliberately tilted downward to limit harmful interference with aircraft, in addition to lower 5G power levels.

  Elan Head and Howard Slutsken also contributed to this report.

  Write to Jon Ostrower at jon@theaircurrent.com

  Tyler Durden
  Wed, 01/19/2022 – 19:25

• Florida's Citrus Crop To Be Smallest Since WW2, Squeezes OJ Prices Higher
  Florida’s Citrus Crop To Be Smallest Since WW2, Squeezes OJ Prices Higher

  The first meal of the day may soon become more expensive for consumers as food inflation soars.

  A combination of citrus disease and adverse weather conditions have plagued Florida’s orange crop and may soon constrain supplies, which has already forced orange juice prices to multi-year highs as demand remains robust. 

  “You have your classical supply-demand mismatch,” Shawn Hackett, president of Hackett Financial Advisors, which specializes in agricultural commodities analysis, told CNN Bussiness. Due to dwindling supply, “much higher prices are coming to supermarkets,” he warned. 

  

  Last week, the US Agriculture Department issued a report about the state of Florida’s orange crop, revealing the Sunshine State will harvest only 44.5 million boxes of oranges this year, the smallest harvest since the 1944-45 season.

  “The Florida citrus crop is going to be one of the smallest crops since the 1940s,” said Judith Ganes, president of J Ganes Consulting, which offers commodities analysis to the food and agriculture industry.

  “It’s going to be even smaller than the production that occurred several years ago … when Hurricane Irma blew through Florida,” Ganes said.

  In what appears to be a citrus shortage developing, frozen orange juice futures have been squeezed higher, up more than 50% since the start of the virus pandemic. Prices are around $1.55 per pound as speculators could send prices to as high as $2. 

  

  Besides oranges, prices of other agricultural commodities have risen over the last year as supply-chain disruptions and or bad weather has kept inventory low. 

  

  Breakfast is becoming more expensive. Consumers are paying some of the highest prices for food in a decade as their real wages are wiped out by inflation. None of this has helped President Biden ahead of the midterms as his polling numbers drop to new lows. 

  Tyler Durden
  Wed, 01/19/2022 – 19:05

• Biden: "My Guess" Is Russia Will Invade Ukraine: "I Don't Know If Putin Decided What He Wants To Do"
  Biden: “My Guess” Is Russia Will Invade Ukraine: “I Don’t Know If Putin Decided What He Wants To Do”

  President Joe Biden’s Wednesday afternoon “solo” press conference spent a lot of time on the Russia-Ukraine crisis. While he consistently echoed prior assessments given via White House Press Secretary Jen Psaki (that an invasion could come “at any point”), the most interesting new statements from the president gave a bit more detail as to what he’s willing to do or not willing to do regarding “consequences”.

  The big question that remains is: given any “incursion” or “offensive” by Russia into Eastern Ukraine, will Biden order a military response in support of Kiev, or will the US stop short by merely ramping up sanctions? Biden began early in the Q&A with journalists by underscoring his belief that Putin is planning to invade Ukraine: “my guess is he will move in,” he stated.

  As Axios underscores, Biden then followed it with statements suggesting the White House really is still at the stage of ‘guess work’: “But as Biden himself acknowledged, it’s unclear whether Putin himself has decided what comes next.” He also made a distinction between a “minor incursion” and full-on “invasion” – reportedly angering Ukrainian officials.

  

  “I believe he’s calculating what the immediate short-term and the near-term and the long-term consequences of Russia will be. And I don’t think he’s made up his mind yet,” Biden stressed. He admitted that “I don’t know if Putin decided what he wants to do” – in a bit of a glaring contradiction to all the breathless admin official statements of the last two weeks asserting an “invasion” is coming. Hilariously, there was also this contradiction during the presser:

  Biden: Decision to invade Ukraine “will depend on what side of bed Putin get’s up on…”

  Biden later: “he’s calculating Russia’s interests”

  And here’s CNN detailing his words on an “incursion” vs. major invasion:

  But he suggested a “minor incursion” would elicit a lesser response than a full-scale invasion of the country.

  “I’m not so sure he is certain what he is going to do. My guess is he will move in. He has to do something,” Biden said, describing a leader searching for relevance in a post-Soviet world. “He is trying to find his place in the world between China and the west.”

  Biden’s prediction of an invasion is the firmest acknowledgment to date the United States fully expects Putin to move after amassing 100,000 troops along the Ukraine border.

  NOW – Biden on Russia invading Ukraine: “It depends on what it does. It’s one thing if it’s a minor incursion…”pic.twitter.com/vnkySSSX9f

  — Disclose.tv (@disclosetv) January 19, 2022

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

  That’s when Biden went through different US responses on the table…

  “He’s never seen sanctions like the ones I promised will be imposed if he moves, number one,” the president said. “It’s one thing if it’s a minor incursion and we end up having to fight about what to do and not do, et cetera.”

  “But if they actually do what they’re capable of doing with the forces amassed on the border, it is going to be a disaster for Russia if they further invade Ukraine. And that our allies and partners are ready to impose severe cost and significant harm on Russia and the Russian economy,” he added. This might include barring Russia from “anything that involves dollar denominations”; and notably in recent months the West has threatened to cut Russia off from SWIFT.

  Re: Biden in press conference suggesting a “minor incursion” by Russia into Ukraine would be met with a lesser response, CNN’s Matthew Chance (who’s in Kyiv) just reported that Ukrainian officials “watched those remarks with horror”

  — Steve Lookner (@lookner) January 19, 2022

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

  More of the president discussing different levels of a potential incursion…

  “If there is something that is where there’s Russian forces crossing the border, killing Ukrainian fighters, et cetera, I think that changes everything,” the President said. “But it depends on what he does, to what extent we’ll get total unity on the NATO front.”

  “It’s very important that we keep everyone in NATO on the same page. That’s what I’m spending a lot of time doing, and there are differences. There are differences in NATO as to what countries are willing to do, depending on what happens,” he added.

  Crucially, and perhaps somewhat disappointing for warmongers in mainstream media, Biden described that it’s more likely that any Putin-ordered action will be very limited in scope: 

  “The cost of going into Ukraine in terms of physical loss of life for the Russians — they’ll be able to prevail over time but it’s going to be heavy,” he said. “It’s going to be real. It’s going to be consequential. Putin has a stark choice. Either de-escalation or diplomacy. Confrontation and consequences.”

  “This is not all just a cake walk for Russia,” he went on. “Militarily, they have overwhelming superiority. And as it relates to Ukraine, they’ll pay a stiff price immediately, near term, medium term and long term if they do it.”

  Biden speculated Putin was not seeking “any full-blown war,” but said he did believe he was looking for some type of confrontation.

  “Do I think he’ll test the west? Test the United States and NATO as significantly as he can? Yes, I think he will. But I think he’ll pay a serious and dear price for it.”

  “He doesn’t think now will cost him what it’s going to cost him,” he said. “And I think he’ll regret having done it.”

  “The only thing I am confident of is that decision is totally, solely, completely Putin’s decision. Nobody else is going to make that decision. No one else is going to impact that decision. He’s making that decision. And I suspect it matters which side of the bed he gets up on in the morning as to exactly what he’s going to do,” Biden added.

  Putin is “calculating” – the president claimed: “I believe he’s calculating what the immediate short-term and the near-term and the long-term consequences of Russia will be. And I don’t think he’s made up his mind yet,” he said.

  UPDATE: #Ukraine – Russia

  • Ukraine: Russia’s build-up “almost complete”, 127,000 troops
  • Blinken meets Zelensky
  • UK sent anti-tank weapons
  • Canada sending special forces
  • GER could halt NordStream
  • Putin rejected Israeli mediation
  • Sherman 📞 #India’s FM Shringla

  — Joyce Karam (@Joyce_Karam) January 19, 2022

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

  The Ukrainian government reaction to Biden’s words at such a tense moment wherein Kiev believes some 120,000 Russian troops are stationed near the border is said to be one of “shock” and disappointment, per CNN further: 

  A Ukrainian official told CNN’s Matthew Chance that he is “shocked that the US President Biden would distinguish between incursion and invasion” and suggest that a minor incursion would not trigger sanctions but an invasion would.

  “This gives the green light to Putin to enter Ukraine at his pleasure,” the official added.

  The Ukrainian official said he’d never heard any nuance like this from the US administration before.

  “Kyiv is stunned,” he added, referring to the Ukrainian government.

  Biden hinted at disunity within NATO, which is something that hawks and pundits have feared… that Putin aims precisely to use the troop build-up to drive a wedge between the Western allies. 

  Meanwhile, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky himself has admitted much of the extreme war rhetoric is “big hype”. He said this to his own citizens…

  “The risks have not just existed for a day, and they have not become bigger. The only thing that has become bigger is the hype around them,” Ukraine’s President Zelenskyy says regarding threat of Russia invadinghttps://t.co/jGePxEpSPA

  — DAILY SABAH (@DailySabah) January 19, 2022

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

  Indeed, hopefully cooler heads prevail and can see through the jingoism and hype, perhaps giving diplomacy a chance based on the question of NATO expansion and mutually hammering out the key issue of missile placement in Europe.

  Tyler Durden
  Wed, 01/19/2022 – 18:45

• Supreme Court Rejects Trump Request To Block Release Of Jan 6 Records
  Supreme Court Rejects Trump Request To Block Release Of Jan 6 Records

  With only Justice Clarence Thomas publicly dissenting, the US Supreme Court ruled against former President Trump, rejecting the former president’s claims of executive privilege and refused to stop the National Archives from turning over four tranches of Trump presidential records to the January 6 Committee

  The National Archives can now turn over about 800 pages of material, including visitor and call logs, emails, draft speeches and handwritten notes.

  The order gives a major legal and political victory to the House select committee and its Democratic chairman, Representative Bennie Thompson of Mississippi, as Democrat seek to make a Trump run in 2024 impossible.

  Trump was seeking to override President Joe Biden’s decision to waive executive privilege over the documents. A federal appeals court said Biden’s stance and Congress’s need for the documents combined to outweigh Trump’s claims.

  In his pleading, Trump said SCOTUS needed to clarify the rights of ex-presidents to invoke executive privilege, but SCOTUS declined to do so, saying the lower court made clear that Trump’s EP claim would have failed “even if he were still president.”

  The full ruling is below (pdf link).

  21a272_9p6b by Zerohedge on Scribd

  Tyler Durden
  Wed, 01/19/2022 – 18:24

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