Nov 20

Today’s News 20th November 2020

  • Escobar: RCEP Hops On The New Silk Roads
    Escobar: RCEP Hops On The New Silk Roads

    Tyler Durden

    Thu, 11/19/2020 – 23:40

    Authored by Pepe Escobar via The Asia Times,

    Ho Chi Minh, in his eternal abode, will be savoring it with a heavenly smirk. Vietnam was the – virtual – host as the 10 Asean nations, plus China, Japan, South Korea, Australia and New Zealand, signed the Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership, or RCEP, on the final day of the 37th Asean Summit.

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    RCEP, eight years in the making, binds together 30% of the global economy and 2.2 billion people. It’s the first auspicious landmark of the Raging Twenties, which started with an assassination (of Iran’s Gen. Soleimani) followed by a global pandemic and now ominous intimations of a dodgy Great Reset.

    RCEP seals East Asia as the undisputed prime hub of geoeconomics. The Asian Century in fact was already in the making way back in the 1990s. Among those Asians as well as Western expats who identified it, in 1997 I published my book 21st: The Asian Century (excerpts here.)

    RCEP may force the West to do some homework, and understand that the main story here is not that RCEP “excludes the US” or that it’s “designed by China”. RCEP is an East Asia-wide agreement, initiated by Asean, and debated among equals since 2012, including Japan, which for all practical purposes positions itself as part of the industrialized Global North. It’s the first-ever trade deal that unites Asian powerhouses China, Japan and South Korea.

    By now it’s clear, at last in vast swathes of East Asia, that RCEP’s 20 chapters will reduce tariffs across the board; simplify customs, with at least 65% of service sectors fully open, with increased foreign shareholding limits; solidify supply chains by privileging common rules of origin; and codify new e-commerce regulations.

    When it comes to the nitty gritty, companies will be saving and be able to export anywhere within the 15-nation spectrum without bothering with extra, separate requirements from each nation. That’s what an integrated market is all about.

    When RCEP meets BRI

    The same scratched CD will be playing non-stop on how RCEP facilitates China’s “geopolitical ambitions”. That’s not the point. The point is RCEP evolved as a natural companion to China’s role as the main trade partner of virtually every East Asian player.

    Which brings us to the key geopolitical and geoeconomic angle: RCEP is a natural companion to the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI), which as a trade/sustainable development strategy spans not only East Asia but delves deeper into Central and West Asia.

    The Global Times analysis is correct: the West has not ceased to distort BRI, without acknowledging how “the initiative they have been slandering is actually so popular in the vast majority of countries along the BRI route.”

    RCEP will refocus BRI – whose “implementation” stage, according to the official timetable, starts only in 2021. The low-cost financing and special foreign exchange loans offered by the China Development Bank will become much more selective.

    There will be a lot of emphasis on the Health Silk Road – especially across Southeast Asia. Strategic projects will be the priority: they revolve around the development of a network of economic corridors, logistic zones, financial centers, 5G networks, key sea ports and, especially short and mid-term, public health-related high-tech.

    The discussions that led to the final RCEP draft were focused on a mechanism of integration that can easily bypass the WTO in case Washington persists on sabotaging it, as was the case during the Trump administration.

    The next step could be the constitution of an economic bloc even stronger than the EU – not a far-fetched possibility when we have China, Japan, South Korea and the Asean 10 working together. Geopolitically, the top incentive, beyond an array of imperative financial compromises, would be to solidify something like Make Trade, Not War.

    RCEP marks the irredeemable failure of the Obama era TPP, which was the “NATO on trade” arm of the “pivot to Asia” dreamed up at the State Department. Trump squashed TPP in 2017. TPP was not about a “counterbalance” to China’s trade primacy in Asia: it was about a free for all encompassing the 600 multinational companies which were involved in its draft. Japan and Malaysia, especially, saw thought it from the start.

    RCEP also inevitably marks the irredeemable failure of the decoupling fallacy, as well as all attempts to drive a wedge between China and its East Asian trade partners. All these Asian players will now privilege trade among themselves. Trade with non-Asian nations will be an afterthought. And every Asean economy will give full priority to China.

    Still, American multinationals won’t be isolated, as they will be able to profit from RCEP via their subsidiaries within the 15-nation members.

    What about Greater Eurasia?

    And then there’s the proverbial Indian mess. The official spin from New Delhi is that RCEP would “affect the livelihoods” of vulnerable Indians. That’s code for an extra invasion of cheap and efficient Chinese products.

    India was part of the RCEP negotiations from the start. Pulling out – with a “we may join later” conditional – is once again a spectacular case of stabbing themselves in the back. The fact is the Hindutva fanatics behind Modi-ism bet on the wrong horse: the US-fostered Quad partnership cum Indo-Pacific strategy, which spells out as containment of China and thus preclude closer trade ties.

    No “Make in India” will compensate for the geoeconomic, and diplomatic, blunder – which crucially implies India distancing itself from the Asean 10. RCEP solidifies China, not India, as the undisputed engine of East Asian growth amid the re-positioning of supply chains post-Covid.

    A very interesting geoeconomic follow-up is what will Russia do. For the moment, Moscow’s priority involves a Sisyphean struggle: manage the turbulent relationship with Germany, Russia’s largest import partner.

    But then there’s the Russia-China strategic partnership –which should be enhanced economically. Moscow’s concept of Greater Eurasia involves deeper involvement both East and West, including the expansion of the Eurasia Economic Union (EAEU), which, for instance, has free trade deals with Asean nations such as Vietnam.

    The Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) is not a geoeconomics mechanism. But it’s intriguing to see what President Xi Jinping said at his keynote speech at the Council of Heads of State of the SCO last week.

    This is Xi’s key quote:

    “We must firmly support relevant countries in smoothly advancing major domestic political agendas in accordance with law; maintaining political security & social stability, and resolutely oppose external forces interfering in internal affairs of member states under any pretext.”

    Apparently this has nothing to do with RCEP. But there are quite a few intersections. No interference of “external forces”. Beijing taking into consideration the Covid-19 vaccine needs of SCO members – and this could be extended to RCEP. The SCO – as well as RCEP – as a multilateral platform for member states to mediate disputes.

    All of the above points to the inter-sectionality of BRI, EAEU, SCO, RCEP, BRICS+ and AIIB, which translates as closer Asia – and Eurasia – integration, geoeconomically and geopolitically. While the dogs of dystopia bark, the Asian – and Eurasian – caravan – keeps marching on.

  • Argentina Approves "Confiscatory" Wealth Tax On Millionaires
    Argentina Approves "Confiscatory" Wealth Tax On Millionaires

    Tyler Durden

    Thu, 11/19/2020 – 23:20

    In an early glimpse of what wealth redistribution will look among developed nations in coming years, on Wednesday the lower house of Argentina’s Congress approved a bill seeking to raise 300 billion pesos ($3.75 billion) through a tax on the ultra rich to finance programs aimed at helping families hit by the COVID-19 pandemic.

    In a vote that passed 133 to 115 with two abstentions, people with more than $2.5 million in net worth – over 10,000 individuals – will make an “Extraordinary Solidarity Payment,” paying a one-off 2% flat tax. The tax would increase progressively as equity increases, under the proposal.

    “The level of concentration of wealth, in a few hands, is so strong that this contribution falls on less than 0.02 percent of the population,” said government deputy Fernanda Vallejos during debate. “About half of what is collected will be contributed by only 252 people, those who are at the top of the pyramid.”

    Government supporters took to the streets on Tuesday to show their support for the bill, with militant Peronist groups leading caravans of vehicles and marches on foot to Congress.

    The so-called “wealth tax” or “millionaire’s tax” bill – which the opposition slammed as “confiscatory” – may face a tougher time in the Senate, which will likely consider it before the end of the month, with the Frente de Todos coalition needing allies to support it.

    The one-time (for now) tax will apply to individuals whose declared assets exceed 200 million pesos (US$2.35 million), with a progressive rate of up to 3.5% for assets in Argentina and up to 5.25% on goods outside the country. According to AFP, between 9,000 and 12,000 people fall into that bracket in Argentina, a country with 40.9% of its 44 million inhabitants currently living in poverty. Unemployment stands at just over 10%, with the economy still yet to overcome a recession that began in 2018. Things have only worsened after the coronavirus pandemic, and the IMF estimates GDP will contract by 11% this year.

    The bill lays out that the “extraordinary contribution” will be a one-time measure and it indicates where the funds will be sent and what they will be used for. For example, it names development and production programmes for small and medium-sized businesses (SMEs), education projects and student scholarships, as well as the purchase of medical equipment.

    It establishes that 20 percent of what is raised from the levy will be used for medical supplies to attend the Covid-19 health emergency, with another 20 percent designated for SMEs, 15 percent for social development programmes, 20 percent for student scholarships and 25 percent for development programmes related to natural gas.

    President Alberto Fernández, who took office in December amid a recession that has been exacerbated by the pandemic, has sharply increased public spending to protect hard-hit families over recent months. More than 36,106 Argentines have died of COVID-19 so far, according to official data.

    The government hopes that the levy on large fortunes will help strengthen its fiscal outlook. Over the past eight months, the Fernández administration has allocated millions of dollars in aid to the private sector to alleviate the economic impact of the lockdown imposed to tackle the advance of the coronavirus, while raising social support payments for workers in the informal economy.

    The law provides for higher rates for assets located abroad, but offers relief for those who decide to repatriate them in whole or in part.

    Meanwhile, the opposition Juntos por el Cambio says it rejects the initiative, describing the idea as “confiscatory.” As debate got underway on Tuesday, deputies from the opposition coalition called on their peers to vote it down.

    “Argentina already has many taxes and very high tax evasion. Instead of creating new taxes, what must be done is the efficient collection for those that exist,” said opposition lawmaker Álvaro González.

    “The opposition is looking for arguments that go against the objective of this bill,” countered Peronist deputy José Luis Ramón. “They say that it is a tax but it is an extraordinary contribution and only this one time, due to the pandemic.”

    The business sector is also divided against the law. Generally, chamber groups and large firms reject the initiative, while small- and medium-sized businesses are more likely to back it.

    “The bill will end up decapitalising companies that invest, produce and sustain employment in a health emergency context,” complained the powerful Argentine Industrial Union. The contribution is for individuals with large fortunes and will not be imposed on companies.

    Argentina is hardly the first country to impose mandatory wealth taxes, with at least three European countries already levying a net wealth tax: Norway, Spain, and Switzerland. Belgium, Italy, and the Netherlands levy wealth taxes on selected assets, but not on an individual’s net wealth per se according to the Tax Foundation.

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    • Norway levies a net wealth tax of 0.85 percent on wealth stocks exceeding NOK1.5 million (€150,000 or US $164,000), with 0.7 percent going to municipalities and 0.15 percent to the central government. Norway’s net wealth tax constitutes around 1.1 percent of its total tax revenues and dates to 1892.
    • Spain’s net wealth tax is a progressive tax ranging from 0.2 percent to 2.5 percent on wealth stocks above €700,000 ($775,000), with rates varying substantially across Spain’s autonomous regions (Madrid offers a 100 percent relief). Spanish residents are subject to the tax on a worldwide basis while non-residents pay the tax only on assets located in Spain. The net wealth tax makes up only 0.5 percent of total tax revenues.
    • Switzerland levies its net wealth tax at the cantonal level and covers worldwide assets (except real estate and permanent establishments located abroad). The tax rates and allowances vary significantly across cantons. First implemented in 1840, the tax now constitutes around 3.6 percent of total tax revenue.

    Yet the success of wealth taxes is mixed at best, and as the next chart below shows, government revenue raised from wealth taxes is a tiny fraction of other tax revenues.

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  • Israel Resumes Bombing Targets In Syria
    Israel Resumes Bombing Targets In Syria

    Tyler Durden

    Thu, 11/19/2020 – 23:00

    Submitted by SouthFront,

    The Israeli Air Force is once again bombing targets in Syria amid growing turbulence in the Greater Middle East.

    Early on November 18, the Israeli Air Force conducted a series of strikes on targets in Syria. The Israeli Defense Forces (IDF) claimed that the strikes hit “warehouses, command posts and military complexes, and batteries of surface-to-air missiles” belonging to the Syrian Army and the Iranian Quds Force. In total, the strikes reportedly hit 8 targets including the following:

    • an alleged Iranian military complex near Damascus International Airport;

    • some mysterious secret military barracks which act as a housing complex for senior Iranian officials as well as visiting delegations;

    • a command post for Division 7 of the Syrian Army which allegedly cooperates with the Quds Force;

    • surface-to-air missile launchers which had fired in the direction of the Israeli jets during the strikes.

    The Israeli side claimed that the strikes came in response to the placement of explosive charges near the contact line between the Israeli-controlled part of the Golan Heights and Syrian-controlled territory. According to IDF Spokesman Brig.-Gen. Hidai Zilberman, the anti-personnel mines discovered on November 17th were actually planted several weeks before “by local Syrians under the command of Iranian Quds Force.”

    “We have long been prepared for the possibility of terror attacks in the northern sector,” Defense Minister Benny Gantz said commenting on the attack. “The IDF has the capabilities and the determination to respond severely to any incident both on the Lebanese and Syrian fronts… I say clearly: Syria is responsible for what occurs on its territory.”

    In their turn, the Syrian state media reported that the Syrian military had activated its air defense forces in response to the Israeli aggression claiming that a number of missiles were intercepted.  According to the Syian Ministry of Defense, three service members were killed and another one was injured as a result of the strikes. Sources loyal to Israel and militant groups operating in Syria claim that at least 10 Iranian-backed fighters were killed.

    Israel justifies its recent attack on Syria with the need to respond to Iranian-backed ‘terror plots’. A more realistic version would be that Tel Aviv, concerned by the reported loss of Donald Trump in the US presidential election, has been trying to exploit the potential last months of the Trump administration’s unconditional support to deliver as much damage as possible to its regional opponents.

    Meanwhile, according to reports in US mainstream media, Mr. Donald Trump, well known for his hardcore pro-Israeli stance, is now even considering a plan of strikes on Iranian nuclear objects before he possibly leaves office.

    Trump reportedly requested his top aides to provide him with “options” for attacking Iran’s main nuclear site, Natanz, as Iran continues to increase its stockpile of low-enriched uranium as a part of its gradual withdrawal from the 2015 nuclear deal, which the Trump administration had itself destroyed by unilaterally withdrawing from it. The main options, according to reports, are, as always, an old-school cruise missile strike or a massive cyber-attack. The Iranian leadership has already promised a ‘crushing response’ to any kind of aggression. And there can be little doubt that Iran, which already has the experience of shooting down US military drones over the Persian Gulf and launching ballistic missiles at US bases in Iraq, would turn its promises into reality.

    Especially if Mr. Trump is not able to challenge the outcome of the presidential election successfully in court and is forced to accept his loss, it does not look like the last months of the Trump administration are going to be marked by any kind of calm on the international scene.

  • Port Of Baltimore Officers Intercept 157 Stolen Cars In 2020 Bound For Africa 
    Port Of Baltimore Officers Intercept 157 Stolen Cars In 2020 Bound For Africa 

    Tyler Durden

    Thu, 11/19/2020 – 22:40

    Many of the container ships departing from the Port of Baltimore sail to West African countries. Organized crime gangs have found this out long ago, using the port as a convenient place to load their stolen vehicles, bound for places like Liberia and Nigeria. 

    In recent years, the U.S. Customs and Border Protection officers at the Baltimore Field Office have cracked down on the stolen vehicle trade. For this past fiscal year (Oct. 1, 2019, through Sept. 30, 2020), the Baltimore Field Office, covering the Port of Baltimore and the Port of Wilmington in Delaware, intercepted 157 stolen cars before they were shipped overseas.

    Fox45 News says the Baltimore Field Office “ranks second in the number of vehicles intercepted during that time … Only the New York field office recovered more.”

    The 157 vehicles represent a total value of $4.8 million. Fox45 News provides more details about where the stolen cars came from and where they were headed. 

    37 of the vehicles were stolen from Maryland. 16 others were stolen from Virginia. Nationally, the Office of Field Operations recovered 1,082 stolen vehicles, of which 833 were destined overseas.

    Most of the vehicles were being shipped to countries in Africa, including Benin, The Gambia, Ghana, Guinea, Ivory Coast, Liberia, Nigeria, Senegal, Sierra Leone, and Togo.

    The most expensive recovered stolen vehicle was a 2019 Land Rover Range Rover, valued at $114,175; it was destined for Guinea.

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    The oldest vehicles were a 1999 Nissan Frontier destined to Guatemala and a 1999 Lexis RX300 destined to Nigeria. -Fox45 News

    Last year, the Baltimore Field Office reported a “new record” in the number of stolen vehicles being shipped from surrounding ports. 

    As American cities become more violent, amid the socio-economic implosion, expect the stolen vehicle trade from US East Coast to Africa to continue to surge. 

     

  • Leftists Suggest "Re-Education Camps", "Firing Squads", & Banning Talk Radio To "Deprogram" 75 Million Trump Supporters
    Leftists Suggest "Re-Education Camps", "Firing Squads", & Banning Talk Radio To "Deprogram" 75 Million Trump Supporters

    Tyler Durden

    Thu, 11/19/2020 – 22:20

    Authored by Paul Joseph Watson via Summit News,

    Leftists responded to a Twitter thread asking “how do you deprogram 75 million people?” by suggesting Trump supporters should be interned in “re-education camps” and that all conservative talk radio should be banned.

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    “No seriously…how *do* you deprogram 75 million people? Where do you start? Fox? Facebook?” asked David Atkins (pronouns in bio), a regional director for California Democrats. “We have to start thinking in terms of post-WWII Germany or Japan. Or the failures of Reconstruction in the South,” he added.

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    Atkins went on to frame Trump voters as a “conspiracy theory fueled belligerent death cult against reality & basic decency” before issuing a veiled threat by stating, “People are gonna try to figure out how to defend themselves.”

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    While asserting the moral high ground, many of the response in the thread demanded outright tyranny or yet more censorship as a means of ensuring “the good guys” have their way.

    One verified user called for “Nuremberg trials.”

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    “I would look at Germany and see what they did about Nazis. Because you’re dealing with the same mentality,” said another.

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    “Reeducation camps for those salvageable,” said another. Firing squad for irredeemable malcontents. Round up entire families to ensure the disease doesn’t spread.”

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    “Generally speaking, I believe re-education camps are a good thing,” added another.

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    Another called for the removal of “radio talk show hosts from airwaves through rigorous application of hate speech laws.”

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    “Cut them off completely. End the flow of false information suddenly and immediately,” said another, calling for all right-wing news outlets to “die.”

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    Another respondent called for “banning Trump flags.”

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    Hans, are we the baddies?

    *  *  *

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  • Sidney Powell Says Trump Team Will Sue Officials "To Invalidate" Election Results… And An Inside Look Into Smartmatic
    Sidney Powell Says Trump Team Will Sue Officials "To Invalidate" Election Results… And An Inside Look Into Smartmatic

    Tyler Durden

    Thu, 11/19/2020 – 22:01

    Shortly before the Associated Press announced late on Thursday that Joe Biden had won the state of Georgia after its secretary of state said that Biden had remained ahead after a hand recount of the state’s 5 million presidential votes making him the first Democratic presidential candidate in 28 years to win the state pending any potential litigation by Trump, the president’s attorney Sidney Powell warned that a “flurry of lawsuits” await election officials who certify the results of the election which she believes are fraudulent.

    The former federal prosecutor, who is also Michael Flynn’s lead attorney in a case about lying to the FBI, told Fox Business host Lou Dobbs on Thursday that the Trump camp will press forward with legal action, targeting election officials as they certify the 2020 results in several key battleground states that have been called for President-elect Joe Biden. One of them would be Georgia’s Republican Secretary of State, Brad Raffensperger, who must certify the results by Friday.

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    Dobbs also asked if Trump’s llegal team will pursue legal action against Dominion Voting Systems and Smartmatic: “Are you pressing forward with legal action against them for those violations?” Dobbs asked.

    “Not against the company and the software,” Powell responded. “But the suits will be against the election officials to invalidate the results of the election and force it to the legislatures and the Electoral College and then the Congress if necessary.”

    As we reported earlier, Powell asserted that Dominion and Smartmatic are “inexplicably intertwined.” She appeared with former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani and other members of Trump’s election legal team at a press conference in Washington, D.C., to accuse Democrats of an elaborate plot by his opponents to “rig” voting machines in the presidential.

    During that conference, Giulianni said that he “can prove that [Trump] won Pennsylvania by 150,000 votes” and that “the people who did this have committed one of the worst crimes that I’ve ever seen or heard.” The former NYC mayor also said there is a pattern in the voting data that suggests “a plan from a centralized place” to commit voter fraud in Democrat-run cities.

    At the same time, Powell said President Trump “won by a landslide,” and that their legal team will prove it.

    “American patriots are fed up with the corruption from the local level to the highest level of our government,” she said. “We are not going to be intimidated. We are not going to back down. We are going to clean this mess up now. President Trump won by a landslide. We are going to prove it. And we are going to reclaim the United States of America for the people who vote for freedom.”

    Powell alleged a transnational conspiracy involving the “influence of communist money” from countries including Cuba, Venezuela, and “likely China” to overturn the presidential race via election software.

    Powell also said that the legal team has testimony from an insider who unearthed provable fraud regarding voting machines and software used in multiple states. The person said they worked with the Venezuelan military, outlining a conspiracy between Smartmatic executives, former socialist Venezuelan dictator Hugo Chavez, and election officials in the country years ago.

    The whistleblower said the “software and fundamental design of the electronic electoral system and software of Dominion and other election tabulating companies relies upon software that is a descendant of the Smartmatic Electoral Management System.”

    “In short, the Smartmatic software is in the DNA of every vote-tabulating company’s software and system,” the whistleblower said.

    Powell alleged that Smartmatic, Dominion, and others used technology on Election Day that was developed under Chavez’s regime years ago to “make sure he never lost an election.”

    On Monday, Powell posted some of her evidence on Twitter, which consisted of three screenshots of an affidavit that she said was signed by a former military official from Venezuela about elections there. According to her and excerpts from the affidavit, elections software company Smartmatic helped the Venezuelan government rig its elections by switching votes and leaving no trail. The military official said in the excerpts that the U.S. election was “eerily reminiscent” of what happened in Venezuela’s 2013 presidential election.

    “This person saw, by his own experience, exactly what was happening there was happening here,” Ms. Powell explained to Fox News on Monday.

    The accusations triggered the New York Times, which dragged by its anti-Trump bias was forced to suggest that Venezuela’s 2017 election was actually quite fair and open…

    Previous claims that Smartmatic’s voting machines were rigged in Venezuela have been disputed and are “unsubstantiated,” according to The Associated Press.

    … even though it was none other than the New York Times reporting in 2017 that “Venezuela Reported False Election Turnout” citing Smartmatic, whose machines were used in that particular Venezuela election and several previous ones.

    Smartmatic has denied any ties to Dominion, while Dominion said that it has “no company ownership relationships with the Pelosi family, Feinstein family, Clinton Global Initiative, Smartmatic, Scytl, or any ties to Venezuela.”  Dominion bought assets from a subsidiary of Smartmatic three years after it was sold. Smartmatic wrote on its website that it “does not have any ties to any governments or political parties in any country. It has never been owned, funded or backed by any government.”

    Which is odd, considering that Wikileaks has leaked several formerly confidential cables disclosing the murky background of Smartmatic. In fact, we urge everyone to read the July 10, 2006 classified cable titled “Caracas’ View of Smartmatic and its voting machines“ written by Robert Downes, the U.S. Embassy’s political counselor in Caracas at the time. Here is an excerpt:

    The Venezuelan-owned Smartmatic Corporation is a riddle both in ownership and operation, complicated by the fact that its machines have overseen several landslide (and contested) victories by President Hugo Chavez and his supporters.  The electronic voting company went from a small technology startup to a market player in just a few years, catapulted by its participation in the August 2004 recall referendum.  Smartmatic has claimed to be of U.S. origin, but its true owners — probably elite Venezuelans of several political strains — remain hidden behind a web of holding companies in the Netherlands and Barbados.  The Smartmatic machines used in Venezuela are widely suspected of, though never proven conclusively to be, susceptible to fraud.  The company is thought to be backing out of Venezuelan electoral events, focusing now on other parts of world, including the United States via its subsidiary, Sequoia.  End Summary.

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    Who Owns Smartmatic?
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    2. (C) Smartmatic was founded in the late 90s by three Venezuelans, Antonio Mugica, Alberto Anzola, and Roger Pinate.  According to Mugica’s conversations with poloffs in recent years, the three had developed a network capable of handling thousands of simultaneous inputs.  An early application was ATMs in Mexico, but the U.S. presidential election in 2000 led the group to consider electronic voting platforms.  The company formed the SBC consortium with Venezuelan telecom provider CANTV (at the time 28-percent owned by Verizon) and a software company called Bizta. Mugica said Smartmatic held 51-percent of the  consortium, CANTV had 47 percent, and Bizta, 2 percent (ref a).  The latter, also owned by the Smartmatic owners, was  denounced in June 2004 by the press for having received a US$200,000 equity investment from a Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela (BRV) joint venture fund called FONCREI; a Chavez campaign adviser was placed on the board as well.  Bizta reimbursed what it called the “loan” when it was made public and shed the Chavista board member.

    3. (C) Mugica has told Poloffs on several occasions that Anzola, Pinate, and he are the owners of Smartmatic, though they have a list of about 30 investors who remain anonymous. Jose Antonio Herrera, Anzola’s father-in-law (and first cousin to Venezuelan Ambassador to the United States Bernardo Alvarez), told poloff in 2004 the silent partners were mainly upper class Venezuelans, some of whom were staunch Chavez opponents.  There were rumors, however, that Smartmatic’s early profits came from  Venezuelan defense contracts supplied by then-Defense Minister Jose Vicente Rangel, whom Chavez later promoted to Vice President.  Perhaps coincidentally, the Vice President’s daughter, Gisela Rangel Avalos, was the head of the local corporate registry when Smartmatic was registered, which contributed to allegations of the Vice President’s involvement.  These unconfirmed rumors also suggested that one-time Chavez political mentor Luis Miquilena was also a shareholder in the company.

    4. (C) Mugica first approached the Embassy in 2004 when the company was bidding at the National Electoral Council (CNE) to provide a completely new electronic voting system.  Mugica pitched Smartmatic as a U.S. company registered in Delaware with offices in Boca Raton, Florida.  In fact, poloffs had several discussions with Mugica in the course of facilitating his L-1 inter-company transfer visa to work in the United States.  Mugica said the company’s corporate offices were in Boca Raton, but most of the research staff of some 70 employees remained in Caracas.  Smartmatic essentially purchased its electoral expertise by hiring veteran election observer AMCIT Jorge Tirado and his team of consultants. Tirado served as the interface between Smartmatic and the CNE for several elections.

    It only gets better…

    In May 2006, Mugica told Poloff Smartmatic’s corporate structure had changed (which had come out in press reports during 2005).  Mugica said that Smartmatic was now two different companies under a Dutch holding company.  U.S. setup was essentially the same, with Delaware registry and the Boca Raton accounting office overseeing U.S. operations. Smartmatic acquired the U.S voting machine company Sequoia Voting Systems on March 8, 2005, Mugica reported.  All U.S. election machinery is assembled in New York, he said.  Mugica noted that while their U.S. operations were important, more than half their sales were outside of Venezuela and the United States.  The other Smartmatic company was based in Bridgetown, Barbados, where Mugica said the international sales operation was located.  Most of the manufacturing for their electoral and other electronic machinery was done in China, Mugica said, with some component work also done in Taiwan.  Smartmatic also manufactures some items in Italy through the company Olivetti (which built the original Smartmatic machines for Venezuela).  The research and development shop was still located in Caracas, Mugica noted.

    And better…

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    A Shadow of Fraud
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    6. (C) Of course, the Venezuelan opposition is convinced that the Smartmatic machines robbed them of victory in the August 2004 referendum.  Since then, there have been at least eight statistical analyses performed on the referendum results. Most of the studies cross-check the results with those of exit polls, the signature drives and previous election results.  One study obtained the data log from the CANTV network and supposedly proved that the Smartmatic machines were bi-directional and in fact showed irregularities in how they reported their results to the CNE central server during the referendum.  (Note:  The most suspicious data point in the Smartmatic system was that the machines contacted the server before printing their results, providing the opportunity, at least, to change the results and defeat the rudimentary checks set up by international observation missions.  Since August 2004, the CNE has not repeated this practice.)  These somewhat conspiratorial reports perhaps serve to breathe life into a defeated opposition, but have never proved conclusively the fraud (refs b and c).

    And better…

    The Smartmatic machines suffered a major blow, however, when in a test prior to the December 2005 National Assembly elections an opposition technician was able to defeat the machine’s allegedly random storage protocols and, therefore, the secrecy of the vote.  The technician took advantage of the fact that the computerized machines used a Windows operating system.  A simple program downloaded from the Internet accessed underlying Windows files created “in order” as the machine processed Smartmatic’s “randomizing” software.  Although Smartmatic officials argued convincingly that such controlled results could not be feasibly replicated during a real election (ref d), the opposition parties boycotted.  Abstention rates soared to at least 75 percent and confidence in the CNE among opposition voters plummeted. The disastrous results left Chavez with 100-percent control of the National Assembly, an albatross around the neck of a leader trying to appear democratic.

    And even better…

    ——————-
    At Least Corruption
    ——————-
     
    8. (C) If Smartmatic can escape the fraud allegation, there is still a corruption question.  Well before Smartmatic, Venezuelan law had dictated that voting ought to be automated to limit fraud — the U.S. company ES&S and Spanish firm Indra had already sold systems to the electoral body.  When the new pro-Chavez CNE was named in September 2003, however, it immediately set out to replace all existing systems. Declaring the bid process to be an emergency (though there was as yet no referendum scheduled), the CNE bypassed normal procedures and initiated a closed bid process.  Smartmatic won the contract, which totaled at least US$128 million, including the delivery of 20,000 touch-screen voting machines (re-engineered lottery machines) yet to be built.  There were immediate questions about how a virtually unknown company with no electoral experience could have landed such a large contract.  Mugica asserted to poloff that everything was above board, though he conceded the company may have opened itself up to criticism by hiring a former interior vice minister named Morris Loyo to lobby the government.  There were additional allegations of impropriety in October 2005 when the press reported that Smartmatic had paid the bill of CNE President Jorge Rodriguez at an exclusive Boca Raton resort.  The company claimed Rodriguez had reimbursed them for the stay, during which Rodriguez reportedly examined an unspecified electoral system Smartmatic was developing. There were subsequent, unconfirmed rumors that Rodriguez was lobbying for Smartmatic in other countries.

    Until we get to the startling conclusion:

    Smartmatic is a riddle.  The company came out of nowhere to snatch a multli-million dollar contract in an electoral process that ultimately reaffirmed Chavez’ mandate and all-but destroyed his political opposition.  The perspective we have here, after several discussions with Smartmatic, is that the company is de facto Venezuelan and operated by Venezuelans.  The identity of Smartmatic’s true owners remains a mystery.  Our best guess is that there are probably several well-known Venezuelan businessmen backing the company who prefer anonymity either because of their political affiliation or, perhaps, because they manage the interests of senior Venezuelan government officials.

    This is all from a confidential State Dept cable written in 2006.

    Since then one can only imagine what fascinating changes have taken place to the org chart of the mysterious “riddle” that is the “de facto Venezuelan” Smartmatic, which emerged out of obscurity to win a top government contract in 2003, prompting the US State Department to ask “how a virtually unknown company with no electoral experience could have landed such a large contract.” What is more fascinating is how for so many years, this mysterious company was directly involved in one allegation of election fraud in Venezuela after another (whereby communist dictators Chavez and Maduro won in consecutive “landslides”) before it somehow made its way into the US.

  • We Need To Protect The Free Speech Of Dissident Doctors
    We Need To Protect The Free Speech Of Dissident Doctors

    Tyler Durden

    Thu, 11/19/2020 – 21:40

    Authored by ‘The COVID Physician’ via TheCritic.co.uk,

    Liberty. The right to be free from torture, inhumane and ill treatment; the prohibition of servitude; the right to liberty and security of person; the right to a fair trial; freedom of expression; freedom of thought, conscience, and religion; the right to privacy and a family life; freedom of association; freedom from discrimination; and policing by consent are all so pre-Covid-19. The governmental response to the coronavirus pandemic has massacred these fundamental human rights.

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    Weaselly Covid marshals in hi-vis vests now bark aggressively at me, telling me to “stand back!” and “cover your nose!”. I have stopped resisting or trying to placate them with reason. I have stopped trying to reassure them that I am a doctor. Their brows furrow: a dissident doctor is either not really a doctor, or is the worst kind of scum.

    We live in a strange world where minority activists campaign for commercial euthanasia: a world in which a select number of elected and unelected individuals dictate that 100 per cent of us are not allowed the liberty of taking the 0.06 per cent risk of a cost-free, natural death from a respiratory illness (a very common terminal event) at an average age of 82 years old. This is utter insanity while younger, fitter people commit suicide at rising rates under repressive lockdown restrictions, economies collapse, and other debilitating diseases continue to crush, kill and incapacitate the other 99.94 per cent.

    Matt Hancock currently champions the right of a small minority of the terminally ill to travel abroad for a Dignitas death, while denying everyone else the right to face the small risk of death by Covid-19 in order to live with dignity and freedom in the UK. How does this make any sense?

    Two Elephants in the Room

    (1) How did we get here?

    (2) How prevent it happening again?

    These are the two questions that surviving mainstream investigative journalists and parliament seem unable to address. Our masters have consistently turned focus to a question that has preoccupied us for months: How do we get out? With this emphasis, they made haste to our perpetual imprisonment. How can we be certain that the question being asked in private is not, rather, how can we capitalise on this situation?

    How did we get here?

    First it is worth asking from where did the virus originate? Evidence from the scientific community supports the hypothesis it may have been genetically engineered in a laboratory. In May 2020 Professor Luc Montagnier, the virologist who won the Nobel prize for discovering the HIV virus, has corroborated Indian scientists’ concerns from January 2020 that there are four distinct regions of the SARS-CoV-2 genome which appear to have been spliced in from HIV genomes.

    Dr Limeng Yan goes further to say that Covid-19 was intentionally developed as a bioweapon. What further intrigues is Dr. Robert Gallo, an Anthony Fauci contemporary at the National Institute of Health (NIH) and another heavyweight from the 1980s race to isolate the HIV virus, appears to have briefly weighed in against Limeng’s previous September 2020 paper on a lab chimaera theory. So, who are we meant to believe in this tangled web?

    The technological knowledge of biological weapons and their antidotes is in the select hands of a few private individuals, corporations and military facilities

    Did you know that following serious scientific concern, there was a US government moratorium on the NIH conducting dangerous and unethical virus “gain of function” (GOF) research inside the US? However, the US continued to fundcoronavirus research at the Wuhan BSL-4 lab in that moratorium period of 2014 to 2017. GOF research increases the danger of – and weaponises – viruses. Were you aware that funding for this comes from Professor Anthony Fauci’s National Institute of Health and the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Disease? Are you aware that the US has funded and supported virological research with inter alia China for over 15 years? Indeed, Sino-American GOF research sponsored by Fauci’s NIH and NIAID, involving Wuhan BSL-4 lab’s “bat-woman”, Zhengli-Li Shi, was allowed to continue during this moratorium.

    How prevent it happening again?

    To answer the second question of prevention, one must to again ask how we got to this point of global paralysis where the WHO, a largely unaccountable, undemocratic, sprawling supranational entity under the private influence of the Gates Foundation and Pharma calls the shots, strips us of our human rights and God-given liberty. In this brave new world, the technological knowledge of biological weapons and their antidotes is in the select hands of a few private individuals, corporations and military facilities.

    How is it that civilian, state-owned scientific apparatuses to protect the population are either non-existent or wholly inadequate? So much so that our governments must jump into the lap of the profiteering pharma-cartels and their sponsored universities. Why do our chief scientific advisor, chief medical advisor, and chief mathematic remodeller seem to have cartel tattoos on their CVs? Would you trust Big Pharma hitmen to advise and cure you?

    Wouldn’t it be better to have independent, accountable state-funded experts who would be less prone to the politicisation and profit motives that are destroying our way of life? Is this not preferable to the collusive, corrupt, and clandestine public-private partnerships such as SAGE? Even the establishment BMJ’s Executive Editor has belatedly come round to express serious concern about the “politicisation, corruption, and suppression of science.” As Michael Gove said (and subsequently retracted), “I think the people are fed up of experts in organisations with acronyms, saying they know what is best and getting it consistently wrong.”

    As for pandemic preparedness, the government (presumably in conjunction with the same global non-state actors) is said to have organised for a public health crisis such as the one we currently find ourselves in, yet it seems to want to keep the findings of the Operation Cygnus report under lock and key. Why?

    What did Sir Simon Stevens, CEO of NHSE say at a press conference on 5 May 2020? This shifty, career pen-pusher said he was quoting from ICU consultant, Dr Alison Pittard. This, in practice, means he was absolving himself of all accountability and responsibility for the statement. He said he had spoken to her the day before and she had said, “In the here and now we cannot stop cancer developing, in the here and now we can’t immediately prevent heart attacks or strokes … but we can reduce the spread of coronavirus in the community.”

    This is a problematic and fatally misleading statement. Stevens should be ashamed of himself for making a political soundbite out of Dr Pittard’s words; particularly when citing her name for added authenticity and protection.

    First of all, if my colleague said this, please understand she operates in a very compartmentalised, specialist ICU cocoon, at the sharpest end of a chronically under-resourced and stymied NHS service. She will be traumatised, sensitised and conditioned by Simon Stevens’ under-funding of her service and the clear excess deaths of March and April.

    Second, know that we can prevent cancer developing, and stop heart attacks and strokes. This is called screening, early diagnosis, early intervention and timely surgery; such things were normal daily phenomena before March. Drug companies devoted billions to tell us it was possible. Now, Simon Stevens, Dr Alison Pittard and Pharma tell us it is not possible and squander 2.4 billion pounds daily to a National Covid Service which is six times the daily budget of the entire NHS.

    Third, how can an ICU consultant’s well-meaning soundbite be the final word in community medicine? Is lockdown actually an effective way to stop the spread of this disease? That’s debatable, and not absolute. I agree we could suppress it and keep kicking the can down the road, culminating in higher periodic and seasonal spikes. But how and when (if ever) do we exit from her strategy – a snake oil vaccine? Alternatively, we could have been like Sweden and got it over and done with. I doubt the lay fact-checkers will bother analysing Simon Stevens’ parroted wisdom.

    A few days later in The Sunday Times, Chris Hopson, the chief executive of NHS Providers, aped mindlessly:

    You can’t stop someone having a heart attack or a stroke, but you can control the volume of Covid-19 patients by using lockdowns to reduce the infection rate… the NHS will certainly be arguing that the Government should be very cautious about coming out of lockdown.

    Covid-19 and Chicken Pox

    Now, imagine if a novel Chicken Pox descended on earth as if from nowhere, for that is how SARS-CoV-2 appears to have arrived. This parallel may help facilitate a common perspective. It could well have been far more damaging and certainly more terrifying than SARS-CoV-2. Imagine: no prior immunity, no prior sharing a lollipop at a pox party with a friend’s child to ensure broad, safe, and natural immunity before adulthood. Young adults, adults and the elderly would be dying en masse of multi-system pathologies. The pox marks would strike psychological terror; there would be no cure, no vaccine. Gradually, we would learn to cope with it, embrace it as a child, a rite of passage that you would rather have.

    As for me, I had unknowingly acquired immunity at some point in my life. I discovered this because I required serological proof to work on a hospital paediatric ward in my thirties. So, I am relieved my child has possibly had Covid-19 as probably have I. To see hundreds of schools and their young teachers refuse the low risk of opening shop and returning to work seemed to me a dangerous folly: no immunity, no education, no jobs, no future, no life. We desperately need a reservoir of resilient, naturally immune people to shield the non-immune, vulnerable and elderly. More chance of suppressing the virus this way than with a rushed vaccine. I may as well say it now before it becomes criminal to do so. The world has lost its mind.

    Dissident doctors, Thought Crimes & Arbitrary Injustice

    Many have asked why more doctors and nurses are not coming forward with an alternative truth, and why they are not openly doing so. First, understand the state apparatus (including the regulatory body for doctors, the GMC) which has set its immovable stall: Catastrophic Pandemic (no such thing), Philanthropic Lockdown, Wonder Vaccine.

    Then, take the extraordinary GMC assault on senior consultant surgeon’s right to free speech. Dr. Mohammed Adil was metaphorically lynched; swinging ominously off the GMC entrance from his redundant stethoscope – a gangland warning from the drug cabal to the rest of us. Then, recall what happens to an NHS whistle-blower, in spite of so-called whistle blowing protection laws, by familiarising oneself with the unbelievable scapegoating, cover-up, injustice and judicial “incompetence” doled out to Dr. Chris Day over 6 years and counting.

    Now appreciate that in 2016, for the first time since at least 2006 according to cases compiled by the GMC, a doctor, consultant eye surgeon John Brookes walked scot free from his disciplinary tribunal without any sanction at all, even though the tribunal found he was guilty of misconduct. His offence? A 15-month sexual affair with a current patient. Not even a one-month nominal suspension was suitable: he was deemed too “unique” in his surgical talents and too valuable to his patients. The GMC tribunal made an “exceptional circumstance” of his case. The tribunal went further in its sympathies and commented that this was a consensual and mutually supportive sexual affair – that was until the jilted patient tweeted his affront to Brookes’ hospital CEO.

    The GMC doesn’t do human rights for all, nor morals, ethics and Hippocrates per se anymore. It does duties. Duties are done for employers. No more egregious example of this was the GMC case of Dr. John Brookes. His case is paradigmatic of the damage, demoralisation and destabilisation of the medical profession. Ten years ago, it is likely he would have been removed from the GMC register for such an offence.

    But, what of Dr. Adil, chairman of the World Doctors Alliance? He is a colleague of Dr Heiko Schöning, the German medic arrested at Speaker’s Corner in Hyde Park on 26 September 2020. What did Adil do to warrant his arrest? After several months of witnessing global and local healthcare go down the chute and members of the public suffer, he courageously (some would say extremely inexpediently) spoke out on YouTube with admirable passion about the global assault on civil liberties, public health, the NHS and his own patients’ health by disproportionate government measures. He referred to the pandemic as a hoax. You may find the video here.

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    Dr. Heiko Schöning being arrested for speaking at Speakers Corner, Hyde Park, 26 September 2020.

    The GMC didn’t like it. It suspended him from his patients and his 30-year-long NHS career for 12 months, pending tribunal. No unique attributes, no “magic fingers”, no “consensual and mutually supportive” sexual relationship with a patient to help him avoid interim suspension nor the charge of exercising his legal right to free speech.

    I am not saying I agree with him. “Hoax” may not be the most appropriate word to use in this situation. Dr Limeng Yan uses “fraud”. But how do we know for sure? Perhaps it is a hoax in the sense that in our collective hysteria we are leading ourselves to fatal self-deception? How does the GMC know? It does not. It has blind faith in the state-pharma-media sponsored narrative. Remember, lone voices have spoken out before when Tony Blair asserted to the world that Iraq had weapons of mass destruction. History proved those lone, renegade voices to be right. Look at what then became of the middle east, then Europe and now the world. We believed in our politicians and not the experts. Recall the strange, horrid fate that befell principled weapons inspector, Dr. David Kelly.

    The GMC seems not to care if Dr. Adil is correct. Might is right. He stepped out of line and spoke his truth. He must be silenced and professionally ruined before another doctor speaks. His was not speech riddled with hate, but by an honest concern that the government’s response to this pandemic is not medically or scientifically sound.

    The GMC’s primary concern is its statutory responsibility and overarching objective as set out in the Medical Act 1983 (as amended), in particular the need:

    1. To protect, promote and maintain the health, safety and wellbeing of the public;

    2. To maintain public confidence in the profession;

    3. To promote and maintain proper professional standards and conduct for members of the profession.

    As the BMJ reported:

    A GMC spokesperson said: ‘The interim orders tribunal imposed an interim suspension on Dr Adil’s registration, following our referral, to protect patients and public confidence. This interim suspension remains in place while we consider concerns about Dr Adil’s fitness to practise.’

    Well, who says it protects patients and maintains public confidence to see the GMC violate the lawful free speech of a senior doctor? Thousands of the people have turned out to support him. He is only one among a quarter of a million registered doctors. Why is there so much concern over his influence? Let him speak and be heard. Surely, he must have something important to say to risk his life’s calling? However, that is why the GMC is concerned, he speaks with repute and authority, and therefore the GMC must undermine him.

    By denying him his democratic right to political, personal and professional expression, the GMC colludes to deny his right to be heard, and the right of the public to hear him. It denies him the right to seek the truth in open, democratic discourse, and the right to scrutinise the government and hold it to account. It denies diversity and equality of opinion. It denies him his livelihood, and needlessly detaches him from his life’s work and patients who rely on him.

    Orwell once said, “If liberty means anything at all, it means the right to tell people what they do not want to hear”. Well, welcome to a very veterinary Animal Farm.

    Violation and criminalisation of human rights is becoming quite the corona-craze for official and charitable bodies. The British Academy, the Royal Society, the GMC, the government, the police… who next? Jonathan Sumption in retirement from judicial office is now able to speak with an impunity and candour not afforded to Dr Adil. Like Adil, he is a lone renegade. He pointedly called out the indifference of so-called civil rights organisations such as Liberty – which has a history of intervening for the partisan rights of Remainers – when it comes to defending everyone else’s human rights.

    We now have the Labour party wishing to criminalise and censor our free speech. This time their leverage is “anti-vaxxers”, but even that term is problematic. I would imagine it is a defamatory slur designed by the corporate mandatory vaccine pushers who wish to smokescreen the fact that most objectors are manifestly not anti-vax. They are simply and reasonably against useless, unsafe, rushed and unproven pharmaceuticals where the profit-centric corporations are given state immunity from civil and criminal prosecution should the pharmaceutical be dangerous.

    This is aside from the very serious issues of common assault, treatment without consent, and the violation of patient choice. In the context of what we know about the risks of the virus, none of this is appropriate, nor proportionate. What we now have is a mainstream principal of discretionary free speech at the behest of one ideological blob. If you do not worship at that altar, your god does not necessarily get to be heard, and may as well not exist.

    Dr. Adil is not the first nor only doctor to accuse the WHO, Pharma and governments of a hoax pandemic. Did you know we had a relatively dry practice run of the orchestration of the apparatus to inflict terror on the world and fill the coffers of Big Pharma in 2009-2010 with swine flu? A German doctor and politician, Dr. Wolfgang Wodarg, accused the WHO of conspiring with Pharma to redefine and lower the threshold of declaring a pandemic.

     That brings me to another doctor who might equally be accused of “over-valued ideas” and occupying the other end of the so-called pandemic hoax spectrum. She argues for the embattled corporate propagandists Whitty, Vallance, Ferguson and Johnson. She is Dame Clare Marx, Chair of the GMC. This is what she wrote a week before Lockdown 2.0: [emphases in bold are mine].

    A GMC Love Letter

     27.10.20

    Your wellbeing matters – a message from Dame Clare Marx

    Experiences of this pandemic will not be uniform, but for sure, none of us will be left unchanged.

    Doctors have found themselves working at the edge of their comfort zone. Some of you have confronted harrowing situations. Some have made difficult decisions against a backdrop of uncertainty and fear. Some have been unable to give the care you wanted to give. 

    Now, on top of managing rising demand, a weighty backlog of elective work and the second wave of the pandemic, doctors are bracing themselves for the much-anticipated winter storm.

    We know that you and your teams are already weary. With barely time to process the events of recent months, many of you are now steeling yourselves for the inevitable challenges to come.

    That commitment and resolve requires a huge physical and emotional effort, some would say it’s an act of courage.

    We went into medicine to help people and to make things better. But we can’t do that without caring for ourselves too. Your wellbeing matters – to you, your patients and to us as your regulator.

    We want to support you so you can keep delivering the best possible care to patients. We’ve compiled helpful resources here to help you survive and thrive over the coming months.

    We all know that this will be a marathon, not a sprint.

    The nature of being a doctor is to go above and beyond to deliver the care our patients require. But doing that requires doctors to take their own wellbeing seriously.

    On behalf of the GMC, and as a doctor myself, I am immensely proud of the profession’s response to this crisis.

    Thank you for your continued dedication and professionalism. Please look after yourselves, and each other.

    Dame Clare Marx

    Chair of the General Medical Council

    When I received this call to arms, I had to step back in some amazement. I found it unrepresentative, patronising and inappropriate in many parts. This letter was innuendo and euphemism, wrapped up in a tissue of concern for our well-being. The problem was ill-defined – is doctors’ mental health failing due to an apocalyptic pandemic or due to the government’s lockdown and suspension of the usual NHS? Or is it the huge backlog she at least acknowledges?

    Non-dissident Doctors

    However, some doctors do seem immune from GMC scrutiny. Have the two doctors (Drs. Martin Landry and Peter Horby) involved in the Oxford Recovery trial been properly held to account for unusually high doses of hydroxychloroquine given to presumably vulnerable hospitalised patients with advanced Covid-19? This may have killed cheap, generic hydroxychloroquine’s early promise as a community prophylactic and early treatment in Covid-19 at low and normal doses, leaving the market wide open for expensive, novel, commercially exploitable vaccines and therapies. In fact, it may well have: watch Chief Medical Officer, Chris Whitty reject hydroxychloroquine as a result of Recovery.

    It could be argued that Recovery might have hastened the demise of some of its participants. But, still, it is Dr. Adil who remains the GMC’s prime target and public enemy number one of our dysfunctional state.

    How did Recovery receive ethical approval to give excessive doses to vulnerable patients in an advanced Covid-19 state with hydroxychloroquine when mainstream media was telling us hydroxychloroquine was dangerous and toxic at normal doses? The Recovery trial gave a massive 2400mg hydroxychloroquine in the first 24 hrs, and 800mg every subsequent 24 hrs for the next 9 days. Who proposed and approved these doses? The normal daily dose is 200-400mg, and it is a general pharmaceutical principle that patients with organ failure are sometimes given lower doses to avoid toxicity.

    Recovery concluded hydroxychloroquine had no effect on survival, but what if it did and this was masked by its potential toxicity? Emerging data from other studies tells us that hydroxychloroquine may have an effective role to in early stage Covid-19 at low/normal doses.

    Something doesn’t add up. It seems as if the Recovery trial result has caused a character assassination on hydroxychloroquine. Are none of my colleagues concerned about this? Surely, there is a case to answer for these doctors.

    What would GMC scrutiny make of Drs. Pittard, Whitty, Landry, Horby and Marx? Are they merely GMC-compliant, dutiful doctors; are they ethical and competent professionals; have their actions protected patients and public confidence or caused harm and grossly negligent deaths? What about their “fitness to practise”? These are the complex and challenging questions for the GMC that only a few lone renegades are willing to ask.

    What can we do? I would urge the public to make their views known to their MPs and copy in the GMC and the Free Speech Union. Submit FOIA requests to the GMC, hold it to account – it acts for you. Support the Free Speech Union, and protect yourself and others by joining it and donating to it. We live in interesting times, and I fear they are about to become more interesting.

  • FBI Arrests Ponzi Suspect After Daring Escape On Underwater Scooter
    FBI Arrests Ponzi Suspect After Daring Escape On Underwater Scooter

    Tyler Durden

    Thu, 11/19/2020 – 21:20

    A fleeing Ponzi scheme suspect is now in custody after a daring escape on a submersible scooter from FBI agents, reported CBS Sacramento.

    Court documents, filed with the U.S. Attorney’s office said Matthew Piercey, 44, a suspect in a $35 million Ponzi scheme, used a Yamaha Seascooter to evade FBI agents under the surface of Lake Shasta in Shasta County, California, after a high-speed car chase through the Redding area on Monday. 

    “Piercey spent some time out of sight underwater where law enforcement could only see bubbles. He remained in the frigid water for approximately 25 minutes. When Piercey finally emerged from the lake, law enforcement discovered that he had a Yamaha 350LI underwater submersible device.

    “Law enforcement arrested Piercey at that point, approximately an hour after their initial contact in Redding,” Assistant U.S. Attorney Christopher Hales wrote in the filing. 

    Piercery’s temporary underwater escape was made possible by a Yamaha 350LI Seascooter, able to travel at 130 feet below the surface for 75 minutes with speeds over 3.7 mph. 

    Piercery’s Yamaha 350LI Seascooter

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    Piercey has been indicted for operating an alleged $35 million Ponzi scheme through his Family Wealth Legacy and Zolla investment companies. According to Hales, very little investing was being done by the Ponzi suspect: 

    “Piercey often paid off his lines of credit, credit cards, and personal and business expenses with investor funds, and his companies did not generate revenue sufficient to cover overhead and expenses while still paying investors the returns they were promised or otherwise led to expect. Piercey entered a pattern of paying old investors lulling payments with new investor funds, while making various false and misleading statements, half-truths, and omissions to raise new money and to hide the constant downward financial spiral,” he said. 

    Piercey has been under the radar of FBI agents for more than a year. Attorney Josh Kons told CBS Sacramento that his clients are victims in the scheme. 

    “You know, you never know what is going through someone’s mind when they’re being pursued by the FBI,” Kons said. “And we kept investigating, and all of a sudden today, here he is trying to escape into a lake, using a submersible device.”

    Court documents revealed, “few if any, liquid assets remain to repay investors.” Piercey faces up to 20 years behind bars for the alleged fraud.

    According to CNBC who quoted data from the website Ponzitracker earlier this year, Ponzi schemes in 2019 totaled the highest amount since around the Great Recession. These types of schemes tend to unwind at the end of economic cycles. 

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    Today’s virus-induced recession will likely result in even more Ponzi schemes unwinding. 

  • The New Ruling Coalition: Opposition To Afghanistan Withdrawal Shows Its Key Factions: Greenwald
    The New Ruling Coalition: Opposition To Afghanistan Withdrawal Shows Its Key Factions: Greenwald

    Tyler Durden

    Thu, 11/19/2020 – 21:00

    Authored by Glenn Greenwald via greenwald.substack.com,

    The Trump era has engendered numerous fractures, one might say realignments, in the political order. Long-time ideological allies are now adversaries, and long-time political enemies are now in full-fledged coalitions. These shifts are not temporary or Trump-dependent but enduring, because they are grounded in shared core beliefs about the defining debates shaping our new politics and how to consolidate real power: call it the Lincoln Project Syndrome.

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    One major reason for this transformation is a fundamental difference in how to understand Trump: is he the primary author of America’s pathologies or merely a symptom of pathologies which long pre-dated him? Relatedly: is removing Trump from power a vital step in returning the U.S. to its previous status as a benevolent and law-abiding republic, or is isolating him as the principal cause of the nation’s woes a cynical propaganda tactic for whitewashing the sins of those who are actually responsible so that they can rebuild their reputations and again assume power? Were Trump’s policies some radical, unprecedented aberration from U.S. political tradition or, stylistic quirks aside, a standard continuation of it?

    How one answers those questions — along with whether one believed that the Kremlin had infiltrated the White House and assumed command of the levers of U.S. power through elaborate blackmail schemes or whether one recognized that this was a CIA-fabricated propaganda fraud excavated from crusty Cold War scripts — determined where one fell on many of the most contentious political debates over the last four years (my answer to all of the questions is the latter choice).

    That’s why the millions of Americans who, due to fear of Trump, began paying close attention to politics and consuming news products only in 2016 were such easy marks for peddling fear-mongering narratives and revisionism: because they lacked the crucial historical context in which to place Trump and understand his ascension to the presidency.

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    Cover of TIME Magazine, May 18, 2017; Cover of The New Yorker, Feb. 24, 2017

    But there is another critical debate, one that has rarely been conducted explicitly, that is also a key determinant of where one falls in this new alignment: what are the real power centers in the U.S., the ones most responsible for its worst acts and greatest dangers?

    There are many places where that answer resides. One can find it right now in the ongoing effort to denounce the Trump White House for attempting to remove troops from Afghanistan, where the U.S. has been fighting and shooting and bombing in a war now about to enter its 20th year. Take a look at who is demanding that those troops remain, and there you will find the real axis of power — all of its component parts — in the United States.

    This is not the first time the Trump administration has been condemned after unveiling its plans to withdraw troops from Afghanistan. In July, pro-war Democrats on the House Armed Services Committee, led by their Lockheed-and-Raytheon-funded Chairman Adam Smith, partnered with Congresswoman Liz Cheney and her pro-war GOP allies to block the use of funds for removing troops (not only from Afghanistan but also Germany), as part of a massive increase in military spending. The oppositional left-right coalition of anti-war Democrats such as Ro Khanna and Tulsi Gabbard and America-First Trump supporters such as Matt Gaetz were no match for the bipartisan pro-war coalition which attempted to block any end to the war.

    A crucial weapon which Smith, Cheney and the other anti-withdrawal Committee members wielded was a widely-hyped New York Times scoop published days before the Committee vote, which — in its first paragraph — announced:

    American intelligence officials have concluded that a Russian military intelligence unit secretly offered bounties to Taliban-linked militants for killing coalition forces in Afghanistan — including targeting American troops — amid the peace talks to end the long-running war there, according to officials briefed on the matter.

    Repeatedly citing this New York Times story, based on the claims of anonymous “intelligence officials,” the bipartisan pro-war wing of the Committee insisted that to leave Afghanistan now would be particularly inappropriate and dangerous in light of this dastardly Russian interference. (Top military officials and the commander in Afghanistan later admitted the bounty program “had not been corroborated by intelligence agencies and that they do not believe any attacks in Afghanistan that resulted in American casualties can be directly tied to it,” but by then, the job was done).

    And thus did this union of pro-war Democrats, Cheney-led neocons, the intelligence community and their chosen mainstream media outlets succeed in providing the perfectly crafted tool at the most opportune moment to justify blocking an end to America’s longest war. That is precisely the same coalition that drowned U.S. politics for more than three years in the sustained, monomaniacal disinformation campaign about Putin’s takeover of the U.S.

    As Trump again signals that he intends in the lame-duck session to withdraw troops from Afghanistan, this same united coalition is working desperately to block it. First, Democratic Senator Tammy Duckworth of Illinois angrily condemned the withdrawal plan with deranged reasoning: that Generals are against withdrawal (as though we have no civilian control of the military); troops will come home “in body bags” not by staying in Afghanistan but by leaving it; and that withdrawing U.S. forces after a mere nineteen years of fighting will endanger “our national security.”

    The new ruling coalition then stepped forward to fortify Duckworth’s demand that troops remain. Obama’s former National Security Advisor Susan Rice — reportedly slated to become Biden’s Secretary of State — pointed to the pronouncement by Brett McGurk, an early ruler of post-invasion Iraq and key advocate of the Bush/Cheney “surge” who now works (of course) for NBC News, denouncing Trump’s withdrawal plan as “diplomatic malpractice” that “erodes trust and confidence in the United States.” Playing the role of Liz Cheney in this debate was GOP Congressman Dan Crenshaw of Texas, who supported Rice and Duckworth by attacking independent Congressman Justin Amash for advocating troop withdrawal.

    From there, Bill Kristol — a key neocon ally of McGurk during the Bush/Cheney years who is also now a beloved MSNBC pundit — not only denounced the efforts to withdraw troops from Afghanistan but in general warned of the dangers of Trump’s attempt to remove troops from other parts of the world. As they usually do, Kristol’s pro-imperialism tweets went massively viral due to the large social media following he has amassed from MSNBC appearances and his liberal fan base:

    Here we see the new coalition of power that has formed during the Trump era: hawkish and corporatist Democrats, united when necessary with pro-war/neocon Republicans, Bush/Cheney operatives, the national security state and large corporate media outlets outside of Fox News.

    Democratic national security luminaries have spent the last four years formally uniting with Bush/Cheney neocons to prepare to take power in a new Democratic administration (though it must be remembered that neocons, as this 2014 New York Times Op-Ed by Jacob Heilbrunn explained, saw the writing on the wall long before Trump that the growing anti-war strain in the GOP (as evidenced by the success of Ron Paul’s candidacy) meant that their best hope for a posture of Endless War resided in re-migrating back to what they thought at the time would be the Hillary-run Democratic Party).

    The other key components of this coalition are Silicon Valley giants and Wall Street, both of which overwhelmingly donated to the Biden/Harris campaign and the Democratic Party generally. The primary weapon tech companies offer is not just huge sums of money — though that of course is welcomed and useful — but information control: I continue to regard the decision of Twitter and Facebook to block and suppress the ability to disseminate The New York Post story on Hunter Biden’s laptop as one of the most shocking and alarming events of the last four years: political censorship cheered by most of the pro-Biden press.

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    But that jarring pre-election internet censorship on behalf of this Democratic-led coalition is just the tip of the iceberg of what is to come. And the key players in that internet censorship campaign — the propagandists who will lay the groundwork for it — are the corporate U.S. media outlets who have long been and still are a key part of this ruling coalition.

    When Silicon Valley giants began to see the massive potential of social media platforms such as Facebook and Twitter, and even earlier when Google assumed dominance of search engines, they had no intention to censor content. Indeed, they wanted to renounce any responsibility to regulate discourse: not because they are noble (though many did have a libertarian belief in the value of a free internet) but because they wanted to assume the far more profitable and less burdensome model of AT&T: we are not a publishing company that decides what can and cannot be heard, but rather just a content-neutral platform for anyone to communicate (if Alex Jones calls Milo Yiannopoulos to plan a rally, nobody expects AT&T to terminate their call or service: that’s the hands-off model Silicon Valley giants envisioned).

    These companies began censoring the internet because that responsibility was foisted on them — principally by corporate media outlets that ginned up anger over the content they were allowing on their platforms, and then by Democratic Party politicians who blamed Facebook and Twitter (but not themselves) for their 2016 defeat.

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    Numerous media outlets — NBC News, CNN, The New York Times — now employ stables of reporters whose primary function seems to be to act as hall monitor tattletales over the internet, flagging whatever person or group think they deserves to be censored from social media and then petulantly whining that Facebook and Twitter are failing in their sacred duties to regulate discourse.

    Part of the motive is arrogant self-interest: ever since the emergence of Bush-era blogs, they have despised any ability of uncredentialed serfs to disseminate information outside of their benevolent control. Watch here as Vox writer Dave Roberts announces on a show this week that the public cannot possibly be trusted to communicate freely without “gatekeepers” — meaning people like him and his friends — deciding what can and cannot be heard:

    Read the rest of the report here.

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  • CDC Director: "All Schools Should Remain Open"
    CDC Director: "All Schools Should Remain Open"

    Tyler Durden

    Thu, 11/19/2020 – 20:43

    In a stunning rebuke to various governors across the nation who have kneejerked their authoritarian responses to the COVID casedemic and shut schools almost universally, today’s Trump administration Coronavirus Task Force briefing will come as a shocker.

    Having explained in detail how vaccines will be delivered to all Americans (as opposed to the less-priveleged priority of the Biden administration), CDC Director Bob Redfield dropped a “science” tape-bomb as he explained – using the science – why America’s schools should remain open!

     “At no time has the CDC suggested school should be closed…

    …All school should remain open. It is the safest place for children to be.”

    As NY, the largest school district in the nation, is set to close on a de minimus positivity rate, Redfield exclaims that following the data shows “there has been no intra-school transmission and we must make sure not to make emotional decisions when the data strongly supports making sure schools remain open.”

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    Redfield concludes:

    “It is counterproductive to close schools.”

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    After Redfield spoke, Dr. Elinore McCance-Katz, HHS Asst. Secretary (in charge of the nation’s mental health), reiterated his comments that schools must be open and that “we have tools to keep our schools open.”

    The reason is simple, she explained:

    “We know about the emotional distress, child abuse & neglect” that these lockdowns are causing.

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    We look forward to the Left’s “scientists” arguing their way out of this…After vowing to listen to the CDC ‘experts’, we assume now, given pressure from teacher’s unions, the Biden administration will politicize science some more.

    Watch the briefing here (Redfield begins around 1:43:00 in and is followed by McCance-Katz)…

    OPEN THE F**KING SCHOOLS AND GET THE KIDS BACK TO THEIR FRIENDS!

    And minutes after this statement from the CDC, this headline hits…

    *CALIFORNIA ORDERS 10 P.M. CURFEW FOR 94% OF STATE’S POPULATION

    Gov. Gavin Newsom has ordered a curfew for all California counties in the purple tier. The curfew will affect 41 of the state’s 58 counties — a vast majority of the population.

    The curfew, which the state is calling a “limited Stay at Home Order,” will be in effect from 10 p.m. to 5 a.m. starting Saturday.

    The restrictions between those hours will be similar to the stay-at-home order that was in effect in March. That means all non-essential work, movement and gatherings will have to stop in all purple tier counties. Advertisement – story continues below

    The curfew is set to remain in effect until Dec. 21 at 5 a.m.

    You cannot make this shit up! Show us the data Gavin that supports a 10pm curfew?

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  • Despite Vaccine Hope, Travel Spending Won't Recover Until 2024 
    Despite Vaccine Hope, Travel Spending Won't Recover Until 2024 

    Tyler Durden

    Thu, 11/19/2020 – 20:40

    Despite the positive news surrounding drugmaker Pfizer and Moderna’s COVID-19 vaccine development, along with encouraging results from Oxford-AstraZeneca’s vaccine, readers should realize that vaccines may not revert today’s chaotic world to pre-covid times.

    For instance, Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates warned Tuesday at the New York Times’ Dealbook conference that the virus pandemic will fundamentally reshape business travel and the office experience forever.

    Gates said, “my prediction would be that over 50% of business travel and over 30% of days in the office will go away.” 

    He added, “We will go to the office somewhat, we’ll do some business travel, but dramatically less.” 

    What Gates suggests is that structural change, such as video conferencing and remote working, will fundamentally change how corporations conduct business. These changes will have negative impacts on the travel industry and commercial real estate. 

    Given some of the structural changes in play – it’s becoming clear that a vaccine will not be the saving grace as pitched by Wall Street and the Trump administration. The freight train of structural change has left the station as a new economic order is being laid down for the decade ahead and will produce permanent declines for specific industries. 

    The air travel industry will be one of those to experience a slump that could last for years. Business travel, the backbone of air travel demand, as Gates explains above, will be halved. 

    For more clarity on this topic, the U.S. Travel Association (USTA) projects travel spending will decline by more than $500 billion in 2020 and may not recover back to pre-covid levels until 2024.  

    USTA said the dramatic decline in travel spending reflects the plunge in business travel. The group said the travel industry has lost 40%, or 3.5 million jobs, and warned more than one million jobs could be lost if additional government bailouts aren’t seen by year-end.

    The pessimistic forecast comes as vaccine headlines have generated buzz on Wall Street of an imminent economic recovery. Still, as we highlighted above, no matter what vaccines are commercialized and distributed, there are structural changes underway that will forever reshape how the economy functions.

    The development of vaccines is the old “chase the carrot” trick used by the government and Wall Street to remind people how these wonder drugs could take us back to pre-covid days. Just like a carrot was tied to a stick in front of a wagon’s mule to make them step forward and walk ahead … the mule was never able to reach the carrot. 

    Plain and simple – reverting to pre-covid days could be an unreachable goal. 

  • Trump Vs Biden: Will The Future Belong To The Patriots Or The Globalists?
    Trump Vs Biden: Will The Future Belong To The Patriots Or The Globalists?

    Tyler Durden

    Thu, 11/19/2020 – 20:20

    Authored by Matthew Ehret via The Strategic Culture Foundation,

    It is an undeniable fact that the republic has entered one of the most dangerous crises of its short existence. This is not only due to the disputed election results of November 3rd, but also to a multitude of other factors beyond American borders, including the global financial crisis which a certain pandemic has unleashed upon the world, and slide towards a major world war between great powers that has accelerated chaotically in recent years.

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    As unpopular as it might be to state in polite society, as of this writing it is still impossible to state with 100% certainty that Joe Biden will in fact be inaugurated on January 20, 2021. The simple reason for this is that verifiable evidence of vast partisan vote fraud tied to the highest echelons of British Intelligence have mount with every passing day with Dominion voting systems most recently accused of erasing 2.7 million Trump votes across the nation, and giving 220 000 pro-Trump votes given to Biden in Pennsylvania (along with hundreds of other vote counting anomalies and technology glitches across all major swing states). These and other major signs of mass vote fraud have giving rise to reasonable questions of the validity of the official results which will be taken to the courts as Gen. Michael Flynn’s Attorney Sidney Powell eloquently laid out recently.

    Trump, Biden and the Oncoming Meltdown

    By now most people reading this are aware (or should be aware) that the trans Atlantic financial system has been set to melt down under a $1.5 quadrillion derivatives time bomb being held together by a mix of wishful thinking, hyperinflationary money printing and vast unpayable securitized debts waiting to default. It should also come as no surprise that the Great Reset Agenda designed to coordinate the “post-COVID world order” has nothing to do with any actual pandemic, and everything to do with imposing a new bankers’ dictatorship onto the nations of the earth. If you are uncertain about these claims, I invite you to read my recent study “What the Great Reset Architects Don’t Want you to Know About Economics”.

    Both Trump and Biden profess to support American leadership to the world going into this storm, but both men operate on very much opposing paradigms of what this means, and what foreign policy tradition should be activated.

    Where Biden has championed the idea that “America should lead the world” in opposition to the dangerous rise in “authoritarianism, nationalism and illiberalism” giving the reigns of foreign policy over to a team packed with hawkish representatives of the Military Industrial Complex, Trump has done something different.

    On November 9 the incumbent president fired Mark Esper (possibly to subvert a planned coup) and instated General Christopher Miller to the position of Defense Secretary who has called for a total end to the 19 year Afghan war stating: “we are not a people of perpetual war. It is the antithesis of everything for which we stand and for which our ancestors fought. All wars must end.”

    Having vocalized his desires to return the USA to its traditional protectionist, non-interventionist agenda repeatedly over four years, Trump famously characterized the battle at hand as one of “patriots against the globalists.”

    And yet, despite these facts, many apparently intelligent people have celebrated that the “bad orange man” has finally been ousted and normality may once again occur.

    Hogwash.

    In an April 2020 Foreign Policy article, Joe Biden called for the re-assertion of American leadership of the world order stating that “for over 70 years, the United States under democratic and republican presidents, played a leading role in writing the rules” of the world order. Predicting the two possible scenarios that will befall the world should the USA continue to “abdicate our leadership” as Trump has done, Biden says that either: 

    1) Someone else takes America’s place as global hegemon that doesn’t “advance our interests and values or

     2) “No one will and chaos will ensue”.

    But wait a minute!

    Shouldn’t there be a third option in Biden’s crystal ball? What about the option of a world defined by sovereign nations working in win-win cooperation and mutual self interest? Sadly, from a zero-sum mind that can only think in “balance of power” terms, this third scenario cannot exist.

    The paradox for such little minds, however is that the very essence of America’s emerging from WWII in a leading position that Biden praises is entirely premised on the understanding that the world is more than a zero sum system.

    The Forgotten Multi-Polar Traditions of the USA

    From the drafting of the UN Charter in 1941, the formulation of the Bretton Woods system in 1944, to the UN Declaration of Human Rights in 1948, there is no doubt that there is very little that America has not directly influenced.

    While this leadership is undeniable and often objectively destructive as sin, it is too easily forgotten that the UN Charter, as outlined by Franklin Roosevelt was premised on the belief that America must never become an empire but merely help those in need by providing the means of industrial development. This was essentially understood as the internationalization of the New Deal which included social safety nets, bank regulation, productive work guarantees and infrastructure projects to all other nations aspiring independence across Africa, Asia and the Americas or struggling the heal from the destructive effects of the war.

    FDR’s vision for the IMF/World Bank mandates were never to reconquer poor nations under a new system of debt slavery and conditionalities, but to extend productive credit for long term megaprojects that were in the common aims of mankind and which angered Churchill immensely.

    Most importantly, this vision was premised on the need for a trust-based U.S.-Russia-China alliance that never would have permitted the emergence of a bipolar Cold War.

    Working alongside such anti-imperial co-thinkers as Republican leader Wendell Willkie, Vice President Henry Wallace, economist Harry Dexter White, confidante Harry Hopkins, Asst. Secretary of State Sumner Welles and Attorney General Robert Jackson (to name a few), this small but powerful group of patriots representing both parties, worked vigorously to ensure not only that the Wall Street/City of London Frankenstein Monster of Nazism would be put down but that Churchill’s vision of a restored British Imperial system would not succeed.

    The True Spirit of the United Nations

    Unlike the earlier “League of Nations” which intended to destroy all national sovereignty in the wake of WWI, the United Nations was always meant to become a platform for dialogue, and economic multilateral trust-building much more in harmony with the multipolar alliance now sweeping the world (and scaring the hell out of the thing that controls Joe Biden).

    If this is hard to believe, let me cite article one:

    “To maintain international peace and security, and to that end: to take effective collective measures for the prevention and removal of threats to the peace, and for the suppression of acts of aggression or other breaches of the peace, and to bring about by peaceful means, and in conformity with the principles of justice and international law, adjustment or settlement of international disputes or situations which might lead to a breach of the peace

    To develop friendly relations among nations based on respect for the principle of equal rights and self-determination of peoples, and to take other appropriate measures to strengthen universal peace;

    To achieve international co-operation in solving international problems of an economic, social, cultural, or humanitarian character, and in promoting and encouraging respect for human rights and for fundamental freedoms for all without distinction as to race, sex, language, or religion; and

    To be a centre for harmonizing the actions of nations in the attainment of these common ends.”

    These principles were expanded even further to the Universal Declaration of Human Rights on December 10, 1948 which re-iterated the founding principles of America’s Declaration of Independence- extending those unalienable rights to all mankind as FDR envisioned stating in its preamble:

    “Whereas recognition of the inherent dignity and of the equal and inalienable rights of all members of the human family is the foundation of freedom, justice and peace in the world,

    “Whereas disregard and contempt for human rights have resulted in barbarous acts which have outraged the conscience of mankind, and the advent of a world in which human beings shall enjoy freedom of speech and belief and freedom from fear and want has been proclaimed as the highest aspiration of the common people,

    “Whereas it is essential, if man is not to be compelled to have recourse, as a last resort, to rebellion against tyranny and oppression, that human rights should be protected by the rule of law,

    “Whereas it is essential to promote the development of friendly relations between nations,

    “Whereas the peoples of the United Nations have in the Charter reaffirmed their faith in fundamental human rights, in the dignity and worth of the human person and in the equal rights of men and women and have determined to promote social progress and better standards of life in larger freedom,

    “Whereas Member States have pledged themselves to achieve, in co-operation with the United Nations, the promotion of universal respect for and observance of human rights and fundamental freedoms,

    “Whereas a common understanding of these rights and freedoms is of the greatest importance for the full realization of this pledge,

    “Now, Therefore THE GENERAL ASSEMBLY proclaims THIS UNIVERSAL DECLARATION OF HUMAN RIGHTS as a common standard of achievement for all peoples and all nations, to the end that every individual and every organ of society, keeping this Declaration constantly in mind, shall strive by teaching and education to promote respect for these rights and freedoms and by progressive measures, national and international, to secure their universal and effective recognition and observance, both among the peoples of Member States themselves and among the peoples of territories under their jurisdiction.”

    These were the ideas that were meant to give life to the “Four Freedoms” first enunciated by President Roosvelt in 1941 and re-asserted by his anti-imperial Vice President Henry Wallace in 1942.

    Now admittedly this positive American foreign policy outlook which launched the post-war age is a far cry from anything the world has come to recognize in the USA since the emergence of the Cold War… and especially since the murder of John F Kennedy who had done much to resist America’s full takeover by this newly revised British Empire (which some have chosen in recent years to label “the deep state”).

    Much like the U.S. Constitution itself, these principles largely remained ink on parchment as a new age of Cold Warriors, Rhodes Scholars and Fabians directed from British Intelligence created NATO, divided the world among the lighter skinned haves and darker skinned have nots while unleashing a system of endless wars onto the earth under a new Pax Americana.

    These are the forces like Lord Mark Malloch Brown and George Soros who together have poured billions of dollars into promoting the post-nation state order using anti-UN Charter doctrines like Responsibility to Protect (R2P), overthrowing governments with color revolutions and running a current coup against President Trump.

    Today a small window is still open for a renewal of the forgotten traditions of the American republican traditions that were upheld by such leaders as John Quincy Adams, Lincoln, Grant, Garfield, McKinley, Harding, FDR and JFK. President Trump has clearly taken a stand in opposition to the reconquest of the republic by the deep state and it remains to be seen if the American people have the fortitude to do everything in their power to organize themselves in defense of the republic and civilization more generally.

  • WHO Officially Counsels Against Prescribing Gilead's Remdesivir To Treat COVID-19
    WHO Officially Counsels Against Prescribing Gilead's Remdesivir To Treat COVID-19

    Tyler Durden

    Thu, 11/19/2020 – 20:00

    The world mostly forgot about remdesivir it seems, after the badly overhyped medication developed initially by Gilead Sciences to treat ebola failed to show any efficacy in severely ill patients according to a massive WHO study.

    While the FDA nevertheless approved the medication, arguing the data had shown it had proven modestly effective in treating mild to moderate cases of the virus, the WHO had already made up its mind. And on Thursday evening, the WHO officially recommended that doctors shouldn’t prescribe the drug to treat patients suffering from COVID-19.

    This, despite all those assurances from Dr. Fauci that the drug, which prior to COVID had been a major money loser for Gilead, would revolutionize care related to the virus.

    Remdesivir was among the cocktail of medications delivered to President Trump, though the president largely credited his recovery to the antibody medication developed by Regeneron.

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    The recommendation is a so-called living guideline, which means it could be changed based on the fast-moving research. The WHO attributed its decision to four different studies involving more than 7,000 patients.

    “The antiviral drug remdesivir is not suggested for patients admitted to hospital with Covid-19, regardless of how severely ill they are, because there is currently no evidence that it improves survival or the need for ventilation,” an expert panel of the WHO wrote in the British Medical Journal on Friday.

    The WHO is also moving to suspend remdesivir from its prequalification list, something that will effectively make it impossible for developing countries to obtain the (apparently useless) antiviral.

    Gilead has so far refused to accept data showing remdesivir has little benefit for COVID patients. The company has already booked $873 million in remdesivir sales last quarter, and warned investors that Q4 could be a flop if remdesivir flops.

    It’s a shame, really: back in the spring, Gilead published every scrap of news about remdesivir, and practically every time they were rewarded with a pop not only in Gilead’s shares, but in the broader market. Sure enough, Gilead shares took a hit on the news, sliding nearly 2%.

    Too bad all those equity pumps were for nothing.

  • The Rise Of Voodoo Economics
    The Rise Of Voodoo Economics

    Tyler Durden

    Thu, 11/19/2020 – 19:40

    Authored by Jeff Thomas via InternationalMan.com,

    The new millennium has been marked by increasingly dramatic economic change…

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    Economics is (or should be) easy to understand. It’s essentially the production, consumption and transfer of wealth. The transfer of wealth normally takes place as a result of the balance between scarcity and demand.

    However, over the ages, there have always been those who have sought to alter or pervert economics for their own ends.

    In recent times, the scams created have become both more complex and more profitable and have been played on a grander scale. Taxation, debt creation and inflation have become key techniques in extracting wealth from people on a wholesale basis, generally without those people understanding that they are essentially milk cows waiting for Farmer Dimon or Farmer Powell to come out to the barn with the milk pail.

    As complex and confusing as modern economic milking has become, it is, in essence, simple in nature, if we can manage to see through the smokescreen.

    But as stated above, in recent decades, the game has taken on new dimension.

    An economic crisis of major proportions has been brewing, and now that the crisis has begun, the scam must be elaborated upon in order to pull it off, whilst protecting the scam artists from being blamed for what they’ve created.

    Never before have we witnessed such a level of flimflam – a proliferation of talking heads touting “economic principles” that have no foundation whatever.

    Whether it’s Modern Monetary Theory as a whole or any of the plethora of programmes that ride on its coattails – such as the Green New Deal, quantitative easing or the THRIVE agenda – around every corner there are new efforts that I regard as “Voodoo Economics.”

    The economic circus has arrived in town. And as with any circus, there are not only the main events, but distractions of every kind, created to maximise confusion.

    It might be said that the reigning priestess of Voodoo Economics is IMF Managing Director Kristalina Georgieva. As the Marie Laveau of the IMF, she has been highly visible of late, in presenting the IMF’s “Three Imperatives.”

    In her presentations, she speaks of these surefire problem solvers, not in economic terms, but in “woke” politically correct terms. In her introductions, she describes them as no less than the path to a “sisterhood and brotherhood” of humanity.

    The first of the Three Imperatives is “The Right Economic Policies.”

    She describes this rather vague category as “prudent macroeconomic policies” that include dramatically increased debt and “private sector participation.” This may be taken to mean a plan for the bill of increased debt to be passed to the private sector. (i.e., “We run up the tab; you pay the tab.”) This is the essence of the category, with most of the rhetoric being focused on buzzwords such as “resilience,” “competitiveness,” “confidence,” etc., which, although sounding encouraging, don’t offer any real explanation as to how the plan will be carried out.

    The Second Imperative is “Policies Must Be for People.”

    This sounds okay in principle, but again doesn’t really offer anything specific. She explains that it encompasses social re-engineering to reduce “disparities” and to accelerate gender equality. She further states that a move is necessary toward central funding for health and education, plus a digital economy that will be “critical for growth and development in the future.” Still, though, nothing specific. Mostly what we have here is feel-good platitudes.

    The Third Imperative is simply “Climate Change.” which she states is “posing profound threats to growth and prosperity.”

    A generation or two ago, those who watched the Miss USA contest would laugh as one contestant after another, when asked what her personal goal was, stated, “World peace.”

    The contestants offered no expansion on their comment, as to how they intended to accomplish this, which tended to brand the contestants as very pretty airheads.

    Fast-forward to the present time, and it’s no longer just the Paul Krugmans out there who are touting airhead notions of how to deal with the world economy. Everyone at the top – whether it’s Jamie Dimon, Jerome Powell or Kristalina Georgieva – is offering Voodoo Economics as the cure-all for the woes that have been created by the governments and central banks.

    In a sense, this is not new. John Maynard Keynes, having become a Fabian at his alma mater, the London School of Economics, wrote his 1936 book, The General Theory of Employment, Interest and Money, as a means by which collectivism could be created worldwide through the awarding of economic control to central governments.

    Not surprisingly, in the eighty-four years since its publication, it’s still a runaway hit with… governments. It’s rare if not impossible to find a government that does not wholeheartedly agree that it should be entrusted with all the wealth in the world and have the authority to decide how it should be parceled out.

    Of course, there’s a bit of a flaw in this concept, in that governments don’t actually create wealth. They may print currency, but wealth itself is created by those who invest their money in the creation of goods and services.

    Governments are essentially a form of parasite – a tapeworm that feeds off the host, the actual creator of wealth. Interestingly, Mister Keynes himself, just prior to his death in 1946 stated that his theory didn’t really work – that since government is not a disinterested party, it would not act in the interests of the economy, but in its own interests.

    The new IMF advert campaign, as presented by Ms. Georgieva, is utterly Keynesian. It essentially says, “The party isn’t really over. All that we need do is to print money and champion politically correct causes and we can once again fill the punchbowl.”

    As she points out, “Now isn’t the time to balance the books.”

    The new programme is short on actual explanation as to how the Voodoo Economics will be carried out, but it will come as an inspiration to those who, at a time when hope is in decline, are only too happy to jump to the next empty hope in order to avoid facing the fact that economic reality is knocking at the door.

    Mister Keynes did not write on economics as Adam Smith did. He wrote not on what economics is, but what he would like it to be if it were used to herald in collectivism.

    The fact is that economics, at its heart, is fairly straightforward. It’s the study of what really exists and will play out, regardless of the latest Voodoo that’s being peddled.

    As such, as the crisis that has now begun unfolds, those who choose to follow the Voodoo can expect to find themselves as casualties.

    There will be greater hope for those who choose reality, however more painful it may be to face.

    *  *  *

    The truth is, we’re on the cusp of a economic crisis that could eclipse anything we’ve seen before. And most people won’t be prepared for what’s coming. That’s exactly why bestselling author Doug Casey and his team just released a free report with all the details on how to survive an economic collapse. Click here to download the PDF now.

  • Google Searches For 'Reloading Ammo' Explode Amid Nationwide Shortage 
    Google Searches For 'Reloading Ammo' Explode Amid Nationwide Shortage 

    Tyler Durden

    Thu, 11/19/2020 – 19:20

    Americans are panic searching again. This time it’s not where to buy toilet paper online, but instead learning more about reloading ammunition as the virus pandemic and social unrest has sparked shortages of ammo and guns. 

    Ever since the first round of virus lockdowns that began in March, ammunition prices have surged because of unprecedented demand. Some of the hardest bullets to find this past summer, that is, if one wanted to purchase bulk, as we noted in April and August (see: here & here), was 9mm.  

    And, of course, a shortage and skyrocketing costs for factory-loaded ammunition forced many Americans to investigate alternative options in panic hoarding bullets.

    As shown below, an eruption in US internet searches for “9mm Reloading” can be seen. 

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    Reloading, also called handloading, is the process of making firearm cartridges by manually assembling the individual components rather than purchasing factory-loaded ammunition. Reloading can easily be done at home. 

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    In fact, for readers who are curious about reloading ammo, considering one day you might wake up to a Walmart headline where guns and ammo are banned – well, it might make sense to at least explore the option.

    A simple YouTube search of “how to reload 9mm” yields dozens of videos.

    You can bet a Biden presidency would result in increased pressure to ban guns and limit ammo. 

  • Joe Biden Leaves Cannabis Reform Out Of Updated Policy Pledges
    Joe Biden Leaves Cannabis Reform Out Of Updated Policy Pledges

    Tyler Durden

    Thu, 11/19/2020 – 19:00

    Authored by John Vibes via TheMindUnleashed.com,

    It appears that President-elect Joe Biden may already be falling short on some of his campaign promises. When the Biden campaign released their transition plan, advocates immediately noticed that reform of cannabis laws was not stated in the plan, despite many promises on the campaign trail. While drug law reform and cannabis legalization are not specifically mentioned in the plan, it is possible that these issues could fall under the umbrella of criminal justice reform.

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    The new page says Biden is working to “strengthen America’s commitment to justice, and reform our criminal justice system” and includes specific measures, such as a ban on police chokeholds and creating a national oversight commission to track law enforcement abuses, but cannabis legalization or decriminalization is mysteriously absent. 

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    His campaign site, which is still up and running, includes a section titled, “Plan for Black America” where he promises to “decriminalize the use of cannabis and automatically expunge all prior cannabis use convictions.”

    The fact that this language was in the pre-election press release but missing from the most recent ones has many activists very concerned.

    A Biden campaign spokesman told Marijuana Moment that “Nothing has changed,” and said that Biden has many important policy plans that are not officially listed on the website yet.

    Activists have good reason to be concerned that Biden won’t follow through on his promise, considering that he was one of the architects of the drug war and has been against cannabis legalization throughout most of his career.

    Despite the changing attitudes towards cannabis legalization, people arrested for cannabis still make up a significant portion of cases that come through the country’s criminal court system.

    According to the FBI’s recent Uniform Crime Report, more people were arrested for cannabis possession last year than for all violent crimes put together.

    The data showed that 545,602 people were arrested in the US for cannabis-related crimes last year. Meanwhile, just 495,871 people were arrested for violent crimes.

    Furthermore, the vast majority of the people who got arrested for cannabis were not accused of selling or trafficking the substance, but just for simple possession. 500,395 of the total cannabis arrests last year, or about 92%, were for possession, which is still more than the number of people who were arrested for violent crimes.

    Overall, cannabis arrests have been going down nationwide due to the spread of legalization. Last year, cannabis arrests were down by 18% when compared with 2018.

    As suspected, the FBI’s data showed that people were less likely to get arrested for cannabis in states where it was legal or available for medical use, with eastern states seeing far more arrests.

    According to the report, roughly 53% of all cannabis arrests last year took place in the northeastern part of the country, where cannabis laws are still catching up with the west.

    People of color are also at a greater risk of being targeted for cannabis arrests. According to a report from the ACLU, 2018 data showed that people of color were 3.6 times more likely to be arrested for cannabis possession than white people, despite using the substance at the same rates.

  • California Adds Curfew To Growing List Of Restrictions, Texas Sees Record Jump In COVID Cases: Live Updates
    California Adds Curfew To Growing List Of Restrictions, Texas Sees Record Jump In COVID Cases: Live Updates

    Tyler Durden

    Thu, 11/19/2020 – 18:41

    Summary:

    • LA County reports new record jump
    • Texas reports new record jump
    • California announces curfew on 94% of the state
    • New Hampshire imposes statewide mask mandate
    • France sees drop in hospitalizations for 3rd day
    • Rhode Island to impose 2 week pause next week
    • CDC warns Americans not to travel for Thanksgiving
    • Moderna CEO says vaccines can be made faster
    • Trump tweets on vaccines
    • AZ confirms vaccine safe and effective in older patients
    • Global cases top 56 million
    • World reports more than 600k new cases
    • Minnesota governor latest to close indoor dining
    • Finland faces rapid spike
    • Tokyo imposes emergency measures
    • NYC schools close
    • Russian cases top 2 million
    • Croatia plans 2nd lockdown
    • WHO Europe director says lockdowns are a ‘last resort’

    * * *

    Update (1835ET): Texas just posted 12,293 new cases in the last 24 hours, smashing its mid-July record, just hours after Gov Abbott said he wouldn’t impose a return to lockdown status on the Lone Star state.

    LA County also reported a “dangerous acceleration” in COVID spread with 5,031 new cases today, the biggest one-day increase on record.

    * * *

    Update (1750ET):  California Gov Gavin Newsom rolled out a new 2200-0500 curfew that will apply to the 94% of the state that’s now under the highest level of COVID restrictions.

    The new “limited stay at home order” (at least that’s what officials are calling it) will require all “nonessential” personnel to stay home overnight.

    It affects counties under the “purple” designation of the state’s new color-coded system – that’s about 94% of the state’s population.

    In the few hours that have passed since Rhode Island implemented its two week pause, Texas Gov Greg Abbott has spoken out and ruled out a return to lockdown status to combat surging virus hospitalizations across the second most-populous US state, while the head of the CDC openly declares that closing schools isn’t the answer for combating the nationwide viral resurgence.

    Elsewhere in New England, New Hampshire Gov Chris Sununu imposed a statewide mask mandate Thursday, saying it’ll help keep the economy open as infections rise to records.

    In Ohio, health officials published their first purple alert, the highest level on a four-tier warning system.

    Earlier, New York Gov Andrew Cuomo increased restrictions for several areas, including New Rochelle, a suburb known for being at the center of the state’s first major outbreak.

    In France, meanwhile, hospitalizations declined for a third day as officials proclaim that the new lockdown is starting to stifle infections.

    * * *

    Update (1355ET): The state of Rhode Island, which is, by land area, the smallest in the union, has just decided to impose a two-week “pause” (don’t call it a lockdown).

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    Starting Thursday, the governor has banned Rhode Islanders from socializing outside their households with members of more than one other household. On Thursday, data from the Health Department showed 921 new infections and a daily positivity rate of 5.8%, with 15,819 tests administered the previous day.

    * * *

    Update (1200ET): The CDC is urging the 50 million Americans planning to travel during the holiday season to instead stay home, and find ways to gather with their family members in a socially distanced way. Doctors and government officials are claiming that even gathering with one other household is too much of a risk. As WSJ points out, the warning has grown more urgent in recent weeks, shifting from officials discouraging travel and large gatherings to outright pleading with the public to stay put and stay away from others. States across the country, from California, to Michigan, to New York and elsewhere

    Some colleges and universities are ramping up COVID-19 testing ahead of the holiday, encouraging students to check if they are contagious before getting on planes and bringing the virus home with them. The University of Arizona conducted 34% more tests in the week ended Nov. 13 than it did in the prior-week period, promoting a “testing blitz.” Meanwhile, the State University of New York system is requiring all on-campus students—about 140,000 people—to be tested within 10 days before their departures.

    * * *

    Update (0930ET): Speaking at Bloomberg’s New Economy Forum earlier today, Moderna CEO and billionaire Stephane Bancel said even a modest investment could help his company create vaccines much more quickly during the next emerging epidemic. Moderna brought its vaccine from an idea to the verge of regulatory approval in roughly 300 days, Bancel said.

    However, if international health authorities invested in early testing of vaccines against 10 or 20 of the most-threatening emerging virus types, Moderna could potentially shave several months off those timelines next time around.

    During the panel, Bancel added that he expects the final results from the mRNA COVID trial to be ready in a week or so. Speaking about the trial, Bancel said he was “excited” about the data so far.

    “What makes me more excited is the fact that 11 people with severe disease, they were all on placebo,” Bancel said. That suggests that not only will the vaccine prevent almost all cases, but that the remaining few infections will be mild.

    However, people still need to employ public-health measures like wearing masks. “The vaccine is not a silver bullet,” he said.

    * * *

    Update (0750ET): President Trump tweeted that “VACCINES ARE COMING FAST!!!”

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    Stocks remain headed for a lower open still as the US faces more new restrictions ahead of next week’s Thanksgiving holiday.

    * * *

    AstraZeneca shares popped Thursday morning after Oxford, the company’s partner in its effort to develop a vaccine (known as “AZD1222”), offered some more details to flesh out the ‘Phase 2’ results it released last month. Though the outcome was already known, trial data was published in the Lancet today.

    After a long week of more meaningful vaccine headlines, the market wasn’t much impressed by Oxford reaffirming that the vaccine produced a strong immune response even in more vulnerable seniors.

    AZ’s adenovirus-vector vaccine is being tested in a combined Phase 2/Phase 3 trial, though it suffered some notable setbacks, including having its US-based human trial suspended for a month. A subject in one of the trials reportedly died, though it was later revealed that they had received the placebo vaccine.

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    Source: Bloomberg

    Late last month, the company confirmed the broad strokes of the Phase 2 findings (ie that the vaccine is safe and effective, particularly in older patients). And although Wall Street analysts responding to the news pointed out that this is merely a confirmation of what was previously known, given all the nasty rumors about the AZ vaccine, it seems AZ has decided to deliver a double-dose of this news to the public as skepticism of vaccines remains widespread.

    Although AZ shares saw a modest pop, US futures pointed toward a lower open on Thursday. Have markets wised up? Maybe. But for whatever reason, these latest headlines failed to produce the widespread reaction seen just the other day.

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    In other news, after the US surpassed 250,000 confirmed deaths last night, Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz announced new measures to combat the spread of COVID-19 in his state.

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    Walz is shutting down indoor dining at bars and restaurants, closing gyms and placing organized youth sports on hold for four weeks, on a day when Minnesota recorded nearly 70 new deaths. Like many other states, Minnesota is struggling with a dramatic increase in hospitalizations.

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    12 states reported more than 5k new cases on Wednesday, as the 7-day average for the entire US creeps toward 160k.

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    Internationally, the biggest news overnight comes out of Russia, which has just become the latest country to top 2 million cases, joining an exclusive club that includes only the US, Brazil, India, France and now Russia, with the fifth-most cases globally. As we reported yesterday, NYC schools are returning to remote-only Thursday, Tokyo is raising its alert level to the highest setting (as was previously announced), while South Australia initiated one of the toughest lockdowns ever imposed in the English-speaking world, as health officials claim the region has been afflicted by a particularly deadly strain of the virus.

    Globally, the world has topped 56.4 million cases after reporting more than 600k yesterday. The 7-day average for global cases remains at a record high.

    Here’s a roundup of coronavirus news from overnight and Thursday morning:

    Croatia, one of the few European Union nations that hasn’t imposed a second lockdown, is finally planning to tighten measures as cases reach new record highs (Source: Bloomberg).

    WHO’s Europe Director Hans Kluge said Thursday that lockdowns are last-resort measures and could be avoidable if mask usage tops 95% (Source: Bloomberg).

    After faring much better than most other countries this year, Finland is now facing a rapid escalation of the pandemic, health authorities warned (Source: Bloomberg).

    European Union leaders will today seek a common approach to lifting lockdowns ahead of the end-of-year holidays, according to a diplomatic note sent to national delegations before a scheduled virtual summit (Source: Bloomberg).

  • Calculate Your Real COVID Risk Based On Age And Health Picture
    Calculate Your Real COVID Risk Based On Age And Health Picture

    Tyler Durden

    Thu, 11/19/2020 – 18:40

    As the faulty-PCR-test-driven ‘casedemic‘ screams across America, the level of hysteria among media and leftist politicians is deafening. As a result of this ‘panic’, Americans face another round of draconian restrictions to their freedoms… because “science”.

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    There’s just one thing – there’s “science” on both sides of this discussion (though you wouldn’t know it based on the media’s coverage and censorship).

    So, for those who believe in real “science” and actual adult accountability, self-reliance, and responsibility, use the following calculator to understand your real risk of hospitalization, ICU admission, or death if you are exposed to COVID-19… (click the image to find the interactive calculator)

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    Source

    Perhaps, with that ‘knowledge’, Americans can make up their own minds on whether to accept the “guidances” from Democratic governors to hunker-down and talk in hushed tones to no one over Thanksgiving. As BofA writes:

    “…people have become tired of the weird world of social distancing and have started to take more chances. They are also tired of shutdowns and are increasingly willing to accept worsening public health for a more open economy.”

    We suspect, when armed with some real risk of COVID knowledge, Americans (left and right) may not be so fast to accept the authoritarian bureaucrats’ ‘solutions’.

  • Is A Double-Dip Recession On The Horizon?
    Is A Double-Dip Recession On The Horizon?


    Tyler Durden

    Thu, 11/19/2020 – 18:25

    Real Vision managing editor Ed Harrison is joined by editor Jack Farley to break down the economic impact of the partial lockdowns U.S. officials are implementing day-by-day as cases and deaths from COVID-19 spiral out of control. Ed evaluates the latest rise in joblessness claims, the exponential increase in hospitalizations, the looming expiration of the CARES Act, and the Fed’s emergency lending programs, ultimately concluding that a double-dip recession in the U.S. could be on the horizon. Lastly, Jack and Ed discuss China’s first negative-yielding bond (denominated in Euros) as well as Bitcoin’s continued surge. In the intro, Haley Draznin looks at the increase in U.S. jobless claims filed this week and its broader implications on the markets.

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