Today’s News 21st May 2021

• Dogs More Effective Than PCR Tests At Detecting COVID
  Dogs More Effective Than PCR Tests At Detecting COVID

  Scientists and public health officials have been looking at all different kinds of alternatives to individual rapid COVID-19 tests to detect the presence of the virus, and in their search, they’ve landed on some strange alternatives. Some have resorted to testing poop in public sewers to detect traces of the virus, a method that has proven reliable in detecting outbreaks.

  

  And as it happens, dogs – which have been used to sniff out everything from drugs to bombs – are also effective at sniffing out COVID-19, according to a new French study published by Bloomberg.

  The dogs’ ability to detect the virus was clocked at 97% sensitivity, a level that puts this method on par with the most reliable rapid antigen tests. The sniffing method was also found to be 91% specific – a technical measure of the dogs’ ability to correctly identify negative samples. This ‘sensitivity rating’ is higher than that of many 15-minute antigen tests, which tend to be better at ruling out infection than at finding it.

  And with Europe reopening its economy to vaccinated tourists on Wednesday, these study results couldn’t have come at a better time. As Bloomberg points out, virus-sniffing dogs could be widely deployed in airports, train stations or anywhere crowds amass to screen people, much like they’re used for detecting drugs or bombs. Using dogs also means COVID could be identified at just a fraction of a second in a non-invasive manner, and in an extremely inexpensive manner (in theory, it wouldn’t cost all that much to train the dogs, and the methods would be simple to those used to train drug and bomb-sniffing dogs).

  The trial was carried out at France’s National Veterinary School, according to Bloomberg, which shared some more details about the trial.

  The trial, which was conducted at France’s National Veterinary School in Maisons Alfort near Paris, collected sweat samples from the armpits of the participants with cotton pads that were locked into jars and gave them to at least two different dogs for sniffing. None of the dogs had prior contact with the volunteers. There were 335 people tested, of which 109 were positive in a PCR test that served as a control. Nine dogs participated, and the researchers didn’t know which samples were positive.

  In July, German researchers showed trained dogs were able to distinguish between saliva sampled from people infected with the virus and those who were not more than 90% of the time. Finland, Dubai and Switzerland have started training dogs to sniff out infections.

  The latest study was conducted between March 16 and April 9, and the Ile-de-France region helped fund the trial, contributing 25,000 euros ($30,500).

  Efforts to train dogs to sniff out COVID are underway across Europe, and the world. In the UK, a team from the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine are training six dogs in the hope that they will be able to detect COVID-positive people, even if they have no symptoms. In Finland, sniffer dogs have been working to detect infected travelers at Helsinki Airport since September.

  Tyler Durden
  Fri, 05/21/2021 – 02:45

• Anti-Israel Protests Across Europe Descend Into Anti-Semitism
  Anti-Israel Protests Across Europe Descend Into Anti-Semitism

  Authored by Soeren Kern via The Gatestone Institute,

  Pro-Palestinian demonstrations in cities across Europe have descended into unrestrained orgies of anti-Semitism after protesters opposed to Israeli military action in the Gaza Strip openly called for the destruction of Israel and death to Jews.

  The protesters, numbering in the tens-to-the-hundreds of thousands, include a hodgepodge of anarchists, hard-left anti-Israel activists and immigrants from the Middle East and North Africa. Many demonstrators — carrying flags of Muslim countries, including Algeria, Iran, Iraq, Lebanon, Tunisia, Turkey and Syria, as well as the green flag of the Islamist terrorist group Hamas and the black flag of global Jihad — have shouted Islamist chants such as ‘Allahu Akhbar’ (‘Allah is the Greatest’), and have openly called for Jews to be murdered or raped.

  The anti-Semitic nature of the anti-Israel protests is further evidenced by there having been no anti-China protests, despite overwhelming evidence that massive human rights abuses are being carried out by the Chinese Communist Party against millions of Uyghur Muslims in Xinjiang.

  Pro-Palestinian protesters, who also have been silent about the plight of Muslims in Afghanistan, Iran, Syria or Yemen, among other places, clearly are exercising selective outrage with their single-minded concern for Muslim human rights in Gaza.

  The spiraling anti-Semitism, and the apparent inability or unwillingness of European governments to stop it, has sounded alarm bells among Jewish communities in Europe, where anti-Jewish hatred is reaching levels not seen since the Second World War.

  The violence has also shed renewed light on the consequences of mass migration to Europe from Africa, Asia and the Middle East, and especially on the failure of governments to require newcomers to integrate into European society.

  Some European lawmakers and security officials are now calling for migrants who commit anti-Semitic hate crimes to be deported back to their countries of origin. Given the iron grip of political correctness in Europe, this is unlikely to happen. In any event, it may be too little, too late for Europe’s Jewish communities. The current crisis of anti-Semitism is a testament to the failure of European multiculturalism, which is making Jewish life in Europe increasingly unviable.

  Germany: Ground Zero for Anti-Semitism in Europe

  Since the clashes between Israel and Hamas began on May 9, anti-Semitic protests have been held in dozens of cities across Germany, where mostly Arab and Turkish protesters have been chanting anti-Israeli slogans, burning Israeli flags and threatening Jews.

  

  The current wave of protests appears to have begun in earnest on May 13, when a highly aggressive group of at least 200 people brandishing Palestinian and Turkish flags and shouting anti-Semitic slurs gathered in front of a synagogue in Gelsenkirchen. Police were deployed to prevent the mob from entering the building.

  North Rhine-Westphalia Interior Minister Herbert Reul vowed to prosecute the perpetrators:

  “I find it unbearable when anti-Semitic slogans are chanted on German soil. Our police are pursuing the perpetrators with all resoluteness so that they can be punished.”

  Synagogues and Jewish memorials have also been attacked in Bonn, Düsseldorf, Mannheim, Münster and Solingen.

  In Berlin, on May 15, at least 3,500 protesters gathered in different parts of the city to denounce Israel and Jews. Some brandished anti-Semitic slogans — “Israel Child Killers” and “Stop Doing What Hitler Did to You” — and chanted “Bomb Tel Aviv!“

  Some held banners describing Israel as a “genocidal settler state” and Zionism as racism. Others openly rejected Israel’s right to exist. A large red banner stated: “Palestine is sick and tired of paying the price for Europe’s Holocaust of the Jews.” Other banners called for the total elimination of Israel, which would be replaced by a “free Palestine” from the Jordan River to the Mediterranean Sea. Protesters attacked an Israeli film crew reporting on the protests.

  Nearly 1,000 police officers were deployed to break up the demonstrations. They were pelted with stones, bottles and firecrackers. A total of 93 officers were injured in the melees.

  Correspondent Peter Wilke, who was assaulted by the mob, said that most of the protesters were Arabs or Turks. Writing for the German newspaper Bild, he reported that the protests in Berlin were “a new dimension of hatred and violence.” He added: “Open, disgusting hatred of Jews and Israel, but not only: It was also hatred of our free, tolerant democracy. Uninhibitedly displayed!”

  Anti-Israel protests also took place in Bremen, Cologne, Frankfurt, Göttingen, Hamburg, Hanover, Leipzig, Osnabrück and many other German cities, where demonstrators chanted anti-Jewish slogans and burned Israeli flags.

  Bavarian Interior Minister Joachim Herrmann said that Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan is partially responsible for the anti-Semitic protests taking place in Germany:

  “These protests are predominated not by the far right, but rather by those who are Muslim oriented and provoked by the brutal speeches of President Erdoğan and others who believe that clashes must spread to German streets. If they do not possess German citizenship or permanent residence permits and if the laws allow, these people should leave our country.”

  Gerhard Schindler, a former head of Germany’s BND foreign intelligence service, warned that a red line of anti-Semitism had been crossed and that it cannot be ignored. In an interview Bild, he urged the government to deport migrants who commit anti-Semitic hate crimes in Germany:

  “The developments of the last few days are frightening and unbearable because they violate the German raison d’etre [Staatsräson]. Burning flags, throwing stones at synagogues, shouting anti-Semitic hate slogans on German soil — this is simply incompatible with our history.

  “Of course, we must not downplay anti-Semitism within the German population. But the anti-Semitism that we are seeing now among migrants is a fact that we have to face.

  “These people disregard our hospitality in two ways. On the one hand, by committing anti-Semitic crimes — insulting, threatening, depriving Israel of its right to exist. And secondly, by violating our basic socio-political consensus, namely that no anti-Semitic agitation should take place on German soil.

  “This is not a trivial offense. It affects the DNA of the German understanding of the state.

  “The security authorities can only address the symptoms. The basic cause of this problem is a social problem that everyone must address.

  “It is not enough that we address this fact openly. We also have to get those who abuse our hospitality out of the country.

  “We need these people to be better integrated. They are here, and we have to take care of them. But those who do not allow themselves to be helped must be removed from the country.”

  Scores of German political leaders have condemned the anti-Semitism. Apart from platitudes, however, few appear able or willing to take effective measures to remedy the problem — presumably because it would require them to admit that German multiculturalism is a failure.

  German Chancellor Angela Merkel, whose open-door migration policies have greatly contributed to the current situation, has so far refused to personally make a statement on the anti-Semitic violence raging in Germany. Instead, she had her spokesman, Steffen Seibert, issue an anodyne declaration, summarized in the following tweet:

  “Chancellor #Merkel sharply condemned the missile attacks against #Israel and anti-Semitic incidents in Germany. Our democracy will not tolerate anti-Semitic rallies.”

  German President Frank-Walter Steinmeier said:

  “Our Basic Law guarantees the right to freedom of expression and freedom of demonstration. But anyone who burns flags with the Star of David on our streets and shouts anti-Semitic slogans not only abuses the freedom to demonstrate, but also commits crimes that must be prosecuted.

  “Nothing justifies the threat to Jews in Germany or attacks on synagogues in German cities. Hatred of Jews — regardless of whom — we do not want and will not tolerate in our country.”

  German Foreign Minister Heiko Maas, one of Europe’s leading apologists for Iran’s Islamic regime, which is dedicated to the elimination of Israel, said:

  “All of us are called on to make it very clear that it is unacceptable if Jews in Germany — either in the streets or on social media — are made responsible for the events in the Middle East.”

  German Interior Minister Horst Seehofer issued a vague threat to crack down on anti-Semitism:

  “We will not tolerate the burning of Israeli flags on German soil and attacks on Jewish facilities. Anyone who spreads anti-Semitic hatred will feel the full force of the law. Germany must not be a safe haven for terrorists. The security authorities are wide awake and do everything to protect the people in our country. Jews in Germany must never again live in fear.”

  German Justice Minister Christine Lambrecht said:

  “This anti-Semitic hatred is shameful. I condemn the most recent attacks on Jewish synagogues and the burning of Israel flags here in Germany. The perpetrators must be identified and held accountable. Synagogues and Jewish institutions must be consistently and comprehensively protected.”

  Wolfgang Schäuble, Speaker of the German Bundestag, added:

  “Our country protects the freedom of expression and people can criticize Israel’s policies and protest against them, but there is no justification for anti-Semitism, hatred and violence. We will not allow the conflict to be carried on here at the expense of Jewish Germans.”

  Berlin Mayor Michael Müller, a major proponent of mass migration to Germany, tweeted:

  “The violent riots at the demonstrations in Neukölln are unacceptable and intolerable for a free and cosmopolitan metropolis — and they have no place in our society. We will take a resolute stand against violence, anti-Semitism, hatred and agitation and protect the people who are affected by it.”

  Meanwhile, Germany in 2021 is marking 1,700 years of Jewish life in the country, which is now home to approximately 200,000 Jews. Andrei Kovacs, a Jewish-Hungarian descendant of Holocaust survivors, and who is managing director of the association, “321-2021: 1700 Years of Jewish Life in Germany,” questioned the continued viability of a Jewish presence in Germany:

  “Sadly, what we are experiencing these days is part of a recurring pattern. Unfortunately, living with anti-Semitically motivated hostility to Israel is part of the everyday normality for German Jews. For many years it has been tolerated and often even supported by numerous people and organizations. As soon as Israel is forced to defend its existence, these forms of anti-Semitism break out again.

  “It is astonishing that, only 76 years after the Shoah, many people fail to understand that the Jewish state cannot accept a threat to its existence without being able to defend itself.

  “The anti-Semitic attacks of the past few days have once again made it clear how fragile Jewish life is in Germany — and how resentments can be misused for political purposes…

  “Unfortunately, when you see the pictures from Gelsenkirchen and other cities in Germany, it doesn’t feel like a respectful coexistence.”

  United Kingdom

  In London, a motorcade of cars with Palestinian flags drove past a Jewish community center on Finchley Road. A man, using a megaphone, shouted: “F*ck the Jews, f*ck their daughters, f*ck their mothers, rape their daughters and free Palestine.”

  At the same time, an estimated 100,000 people gathered in downtown London, where many chanted, “From the river to the sea, Palestine will be free.” One protester was filmed tearing apart an Israeli flag after he was unable to light it on fire because it was raining. An on-duty uniformed female police officer joined the protesters and shouted, “Free, free Palestine!”

  Later, dozens of members of Hizb ut-Tahrir, an Islamist movement dedicated to establishing an Islamic caliphate, waved the black flag of Islamic Jihad and held signs calling for “Muslim Armies” to “liberate” Jerusalem. A large banner stated: “Whole of Palestine is occupied and all of it must be liberated.” One protester openly called for jihad:

  “This goes out to the Muslim armies. What are you waiting for? Jihad is your responsibility. Wipe out the Zionist entity. How dare they occupy Muslim lands. How dare they. Have you no honor? We, the Muslims in the West, are with you. We don’t fear anyone but Allah.”

  In Manchester, a mob carrying Palestinian flags gathered in front a bagel shop at Arndale Center, a large shopping mall, where the crowd appeared to be targeting Jewish shoppers.

  As in Germany, politicians in Britain have condemned the anti-Semitism, but few appear to know how to stop it from spreading.

  British Prime Minister Boris Johnson tweeted:

  “There is no place for antisemitism in our society. Ahead of Shavuot [a Jewish holiday], I stand with Britain’s Jews who should not have to endure the type of shameful racism we have seen today.”

  Conservative MP Christian Wakeford said:

  “As the Member with the largest Jewish community outside of London, I have been contacted by constituents scared to take their children to synagogue due to the appalling scenes on the streets of the UK over the weekend.”

  MP Robert Jenrick added:

  “As the father of Jewish children it shocks me every time I take my children to synagogue or to their nursery to see individuals stood there in stab proof vests guarding the entrance to those places.”

  Elsewhere in Europe

  • Austria: In Vienna, pro-Palestinian protesters held signs stating, “Well done Israel, Hitler would be proud” and “The Nazis are still around, they call themselves Zionists now.” Other signs read: “F*ck Zionism,” “End Zionism,” and “It is Kosher to boycott Israel.” One protester shouted at pro-Israel counter-demonstrators: “Shove your Holocaust up your ass!”Dozens of people, including many youths, burst into applause.

  • Belgium: In Brussels, protesters chanted, “Khaybar, Khaybar, Jews, remember Khaybar, the army of Mohammed is returning.” The chant refers to the seventh century when Muslims massacred and expelled Jews from the town of Khaybar, located in modern-day Saudi Arabia. It is a battle cry for attacking Jews. Protesters also shouted, “Death to Jews.”

  • France: In Paris, thousands of people disobeyed a ban on protests. Mobs chanted slogans including “Death to Israel.” Police used water cannons to disperse the crowds.

  • Greece: In Athens, police used tear gas and water cannons against hundreds of protesters gathered in front of the American and Israeli embassies. Protesters held signs accusing Israel of “ethnic cleansing.” Other signs said: “Stop doing what Hitler did to you.” A protester tweeted: “Until we free Palestine from the river to the sea, we will not stop.” In Thessaloniki, leftist groups and anarchist collectives organized anti-Israel protests that were attended by at least 700 people.

  • The Netherlands: In Amsterdam, thousands of people protested against Israel at Dam Square, a central plaza that is the country’s main monument in remembrance for those who died in the Second World War. They carried signs accusing Israel of genocide and vowed that, “From the river to the sea, Palestine will be free.” In The Hague, protestors shouted anti-Semitic slogans, including “Jews are a cancer” and “Heil Hitler.”

  • Spain: In Madrid, thousands of hard left and Arab protesters, some chanting ‘Allahu Akhbar’ (‘Allah is the Greatest’), gathered in the city center and falsely accused Israel of committing genocide against Palestinians. In Oleiros, a municipality in the northern Spanish region of Galicia, local officials, misusing outdoor municipal billboards, posted messages stating, “Zionist Terrorism in Palestine,” called for Israeli leaders to be investigated for war crimes.

  Select Commentary

  Julian Reichelt, editor-in-chief of Germany’s top-selling Bild newspaper, in an essay titled, “Our Country is in Peril,” wrote:

  “What we saw on our streets on Saturday was nothing less than a historical threat. Enabled by our government, belittled by our public media, an anti-Semitic mob, which was clearly Arab-Muslim, marched through almost all major German cities and hatefully demanded the erasure of Israel.

  “On Saturday I took my own pictures of the demos and came to the bitter realization: We who want Jewish life in our country are losing. We may be more numerically. But those who want Israel and Jewish life erased from us rule the streets whenever they want.

  “They do not fear the police, they have nothing to fear from our federal government, they bring their children to these demonstrations and raise the next generation of Israel haters in Germany. Their youth culture and their rap music conjures up the murderous myths that Hamas also glorifies. Their idols fire rockets from Gaza at Tel Aviv while they hunt kippah wearers in Berlin and other cities.

  “It is not Islam, but rampant Islamism, that is making German cities an inhospitable, dangerous country for Jews, as has already happened in France and Sweden. Angela Merkel’s refugee policy, which no longer bothers to identify true war refugees, has imported hundreds of thousands of times an ideology that focuses on the Jew as an eternal enemy. Here she has fallen on the fertile ground of failed integration.

  “Their identification mark is a map from which Israel has been wiped out, and their followers carry this mark roaring through German cities. To be clear: you cannot carry these banners and at the same time pretend to recognize our constitutional state, one of the foundations of which is Israel’s right to exist. Only one or the other is possible. Too many streets were in the hands of people at the weekend who want a different Germany, a country without Jews.

  “‘We can do it!’ was Angela Merkel’s most famous refrain in the refugee crisis. It was also her promise that our country would not change fundamentally, would not be shaped by political-religious ideologies that sow death and annihilation elsewhere.

  “This promise was broken a thousand times over this weekend. I would finally like to hear what the Chancellor intends to do about it, what her personal, unequivocal words are to these Jew haters, what she wants to DO against the rise of this extermination ideology, before she leaves office.

  “Angela Merkel should take responsibility for what has become a threat to our liberal society and oppose it with all her might.”

  The chairwoman of the Liberal Jewish Community in Hanover, Rebecca Seidler, in an interview with Norddeutscher Rundfunk, said:

  “The escalating situation in Israel… has massive effects on the Jewish communities and institutions here in Germany. Jews are seen as representatives of the State of Israel and are held responsible…. I would like to emphasize that these anti-Semitic incidents in Germany are not about expressing criticism of the political actions of the State of Israel, but that we are dealing with massive anti-Jewish threats, which must be condemned in the strongest possible way….

  “Ultimately, it’s not a new phenomenon. It has always been the case that the situation in Israel always has an impact on Jewish life outside of Israel. As I mentioned, we are always seen as representatives of the State of Israel. It should also not be denied that the hatred of Jews is very strongly represented and anchored in Islamist milieus and is thus also expressed in Germany. Anti-Semitism has many faces, occurs in many social environments, and also has links between them, which can generate enormous energy. This aggressiveness, which we are experiencing here these days, is very worrying for us as a Jewish community.”

  In an interview with Die Welt, German-Egyptian political scientist and author Hamed Abdel-Samad said:

  “One can of course criticize the action of the Israeli police in Jerusalem and also the settlement policy. I have done this in the past. But when this criticism is used as a pretext to stir up hatred against all Jews, then the problem begins. If you criticize Israeli politics but glorify Hamas, the problem begins. And that’s exactly what happens in Germany. I think it has nothing to do with solidarity with Muslim victims. Muslims are victims every day in the Arab world: in Syria, in Iraq, in Yemen. A few days ago, a school in Afghanistan was bombed; 50 children died as a result of Taliban terror and there were no demonstrations by Muslims on the streets in Germany. And they didn’t shout: ‘F*ck the Taliban!’

  “There is a high level of emotionalism in this conflict. For Muslims, it is not the victims that are important, but rather: who is the perpetrator? If the perpetrators are Muslim terrorists, then it stays in the family. If the perpetrators are Israel or America, then this staged indignation occurs.

  “Turkish politics also play a role in this. Erdogan’s speeches, the Islamic associations here, Milli Görüs and so on. They stir up this hatred of Jews, even though they constantly complain about anti-Muslim racism or Islamophobia.

  “German politicians have not understood that immigration from Iraq and Syria, from the Arab countries, also brings more anti-Semitism to Germany. Anyone who says that is immediately branded as right wing and there is no fair discussion or debate about it. For me this is a racism of lowered expectations. Let us imagine that after every terrorist attack by Muslim terrorists, Germans take to the streets, besiege mosques and shout ‘Sh*tty Muslims.’ That would be right-wing extremism. That would be a Nazi, but when it comes from Muslims, they say: yes, the poor things. They are emotionally charged. No, that is racism of lowered expectations. I don’t expect the same from them what I expect from normal German young people. And that’s part of the problem.”

  When asked about anti-Semitism in the Arab world, Abdel-Samad replied:

  “People who come here also carry in their baggage many conflicts from their home countries. Anti-Semitism is part of the educational policy in the Arab world, so to speak. Hitler’s books are sold there as bestsellers. Conspiracies like the ‘Protocols of the Elders of Zion’ are among the best sellers there. And these people come here. And you are not allowed to even talk to them about such conflicts in schools or in integration courses. The anti-racism debate is also part of this problem, because Muslims or migrants are generally seen as a group as victims and only the White man is considered to be the perpetrator.

  “In the end, not even schools can talk about anti-Semitism or the Middle East conflict. Or about Erdogan or about Islamism. Even at universities, Muslim students refuse to speak about such topics. Universities should be a safe haven for opinions. But for many Muslim students, universities are now safe spaces from opinions and criticism, even though that is where we have to start. We need to talk to each other. We have to have controversial discussions on all issues, not just the Middle East conflict. Unfortunately, that doesn’t happen. We have a very poisoned culture of debate in Germany. You get the stamp of racist or Nazi if you address any grievances in immigrant milieus or with minorities. The racist is always White, but never a Muslim or a Black or a migrant. For me that is racism of lowered expectations.”

  On his Facebook page, Abdel-Samad elaborated:

  “Let’s imagine a mob made up of German youths shouting ‘Sh*tty Muslims’ and throwing stones and fire at mosques in Germany after a terrorist attack in Paris, London or Berlin. What would we call these youngsters? Correct: Nazis! What would the anti-fascists and anti-racists do then? They would stir up outrage and fear that the return of the little man with the funny mustache is imminent.

  “But why don’t you hear from them now? Why do they consider terms like ‘Gypsy Sauce’ [the name of a German gravy] to be racist, but ‘Sh*tty Jews’ to be harmless? Why do they freak out when you ask someone with a migration background where they come from, but do nothing when people are insulted and beaten because of their origin?

  “A. Because for them it’s not about people, it’s about ideology!

  “B. Because in their racism industry, minorities can only be victims, and only the White man can be Nazi and racist.

  “C. Because their anti-racism is deeply intertwined with anti-Americanism and anti-capitalism, so some of them even sympathize with Hamas.

  “This is not just a double standard in dealing with the issue of racism, it is racism by definition. Because the White man is generally regarded as a person who was born with the original sin of racism, while all other ethnicities and cultures are acquitted of this charge. This, too, is racism against minorities, who are only viewed as objects of the White man and do not have to take responsibility for themselves. It is racism of lowered expectations when one demands something different from German young people than from Muslim young people.”

  Writing for the German blog Tichys Einblick, commentator Michal Kornblum noted:

  “A large part of this mob consists of people who came here as refugees and brought their hatred of Jews with them and continued to expand it here. It is no secret that many mosques and also left-wing German associations provide the breeding ground for this. In Germany, the most diverse social currents converge in anti-Semitism and hatred of Israel.

  “Another indication of the failure of politics and the judiciary is that many young Muslims from families who have been living here for two or three generations are more radical and anti-Semitic than their parents and grandparents, who often maintain a more Western view of the world. When the acquired ‘made in Germany’ hatred of Jews meets up with the imported anti-Semitism from Arab countries, it results in the explosive atmosphere on German streets that we are currently experiencing….

  “In reality, we are still moving from phrase to phrase in the anti-Semitism debate. The popular saying ‘no place for anti-Semitism’ turns out to be one of the biggest lies, since anti-Semitism obviously takes up a lot of space in Germany. Repeating a phrase like a prayer wheel does not change the realities. In the same way, ‘whoever lives here must accept the Basic Law and Israel’s right to exist’ tends only to be said. I am not aware of any cases of expulsions or deportations for these reasons. The deportation of all anti-Semitic rioters who do not have German citizenship would be a logical step.”

  Writing for the blog Achgut, the German-Israeli writer Chaim Noll blamed German Chancellor Angela Merkel for the resurgence of anti-Semitism in Germany:

  “The open hatred of Jews has returned to Germany, from a direction that surprised many unsuspecting people. Gradually, the word ‘Jew’ has again become a swear word, an epitome of the contemptible, in schoolyards dominated by Muslims. This time the anti-Jewish resentment is not rooted in Europe’s anti-Semitic tradition, but in a different one. Which only a few Europeans took notice. Who would have bothered to study the Koran, the hadith or the Hamas charter twenty years ago? Who knew the countless passages in the religious literature of Islam that call for the contempt, persecution or extermination of the Jews?

  “The few who read about it remained silent, or if they voiced their concerns, were declared ‘Islamophobic’ and ostracized. In the meantime, in thousands of mosques and Koran schools, what Germans have for decades mutually been forbidden to do with heavy prison sentences, has spread unhindered. All the while, the same demon was allowed to flourish with impunity in its new environment. Numerous reinforcements have arrived since 2015, and hatred of Jews is in renewed bloom. The shouting at the demonstrations is getting louder from year to year. So far, no German Muslim has been punished for hating Jews or for openly inciting the murder of Jews, although this has happened again and again….

  “The pictures that are now going around the world document Germany’s new shame. Angela Merkel can take credit for the fact that in a country where hatred of Jews, although it existed, remained quiet or inaudible, the roar of pogroms can be heard again. She betrayed and sold out the German Jews. And not just the Jews. Also many Germans, for example, everyone who feels sympathy for Israel or for whom hatred of Jews is unbearable. By demonstratively abstracting critics of Islam in Germany, she created an atmosphere of fearful silence. Which, not unlike in the later years of the Weimar Republic, makes the roar of the Jew haters all the louder.

  “Angela Merkel will go down in history as the Chancellor who made open hatred of Jews in Germany possible again. She simply brushes aside decades of ‘coming to terms with the past,’ of popular education and trying to overcome a traumatic German defeat. Under her government one can in Germany again openly call for the murder of Jews and at the same time be subsidized by the state. In the small as in the large. Just as thousands of Jew-haters raging on German streets are supported by state funds, so is the terrorist organization Hamas on a large scale via obscure ‘relief organizations’ and NGOs, so that in the end every rocket that hits Israel also contains a part of German money. Angela Merkel is also silent on this.”

  The inimitable blog, Elder of Zion, wrote:

  “This isn’t about Gaza. We’ve never seen such hate after any Western action in Syria or Afghanistan. No British crowds marching through malls to protest airstrikes in Iraq.

  “This is bigotry in its most ugly, rawest form.

  “Gaza is an excuse to find a socially acceptable way to publicly express Jew-hatred while pretending that your hate is righteous.

  “And while it is more subtle, that is exactly what is behind nearly all the obsessive hate of Israel we see every day of every year. Nothing else explains this level of hate, and clearly it isn’t because of the supposed victims — Arab persecution of Palestinians is ignored by the anti-Israel crowd as well.

  “The way we know that anti-Zionism is antisemitism is that the anti-Israel Leftists who swear up and down that they are against antisemitism have not said a word about these incidents. And certainly, none of them have popped up and said they would protect the Jewish right to counter-protest or even walk around unmolested.”

  Tyler Durden
  Fri, 05/21/2021 – 02:00

• Brandon Smith: There Will Never Be A "Woke" US Military, Here's Why…
  Brandon Smith: There Will Never Be A “Woke” US Military, Here’s Why…

  Authored by Brandon Smith via Alt-Market.us,

  The social justice cult never sleeps, they are forever “woke”, and they want to own the US military. They want it so bad they are frothing at the mouth over it. Whether or not they actually get what they want is another matter entirely. The induction of Joe Biden into the White House has opened the door to a new propaganda narrative, and it goes a little something like this:

  “The military is rife with ‘white supremacists’ and extremists, and it needs to be purged to make way for more diversity…”

  One of Biden’s first actions upon entering the Oval Office was to use Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin as a foil to preach the critical race theory gospel and attack the current military framework as “racist”. Austin is black and he was a four-star general in the Army, so clearly there is not much racism holding minorities back in the armed forces. But ultimately this situation is not really about racism…

  

  The language of leftists and globalists can be rather confusing because they never mean exactly what they say. The word “diversity” generally means “more leftists/Marxists”, not more brown people. Leftists are incredibly racist towards any minority person that argues from a conservative or moderate position. The phrase “white supremacist” is usually a hatchet reference to all conservatives. So, to translate their woke gibberish, the goal of the Pentagon under Biden will be to divest the ranks of the military of conservatives and replace them with more regime friendly leftists.

  The goal of propaganda is often to create false word associations in the minds of the masses. The mainstream media constantly mentions “white supremacists”, “neo-nazis” and “extremists” within the same articles they mention “conservatives”. Though there is no evidence whatsoever to link the majority of conservatives with race identity groups, the hope within the establishment is that the conservative base in the US can be dismantled through guilt by manufactured association.

  Anyone who stands against the social justice mob is labeled “white supremacist”. Therefore, all conservatives are white supremacists, because the social justice cult controls who gets labeled. The social justice cult thus becomes the self anointed arbiters of who gets canceled and who does not. See how that works?

  As far as the military is concerned, the obvious intent is to link all conservative views with “extremism and racism”, thereby creating an artificial rationale for removing conservatives from the ranks or denying them the ability to sign up in the first place. The Pentagon is already openly discussing plans to comb through the social media histories of troops in order to root out those with “extremist backgrounds” (conservatives and constitutionalists). In theory, this would only leave devout social justice warriors behind. It is a political and ideological cleansing of the armed forces.

  The Cult of Woke is like a hive of parasitic termites that feeds its way through the various pillars of western society until they crumble; once a pillar is hollowed out, they move onto the next one, and the next one until the nation or civilization breaks apart completely. As the nation is destabilized, they then offer their own social model as a solution to the problem. Invariably, their model is one that eliminates all individual freedom and inherent rights in the name of collective “safety” and “equity”. It is totalitarianism posing as compassion.

  To be sure, the Department of Defense is fast-tracking the woke agenda. There’s no denying it after the latest promotional campaigns for military recruitment (not to mention the CIA’s bizarre ad campaign). Here is an example below which truly boggles the mind:

  Straight white men are noticeably absent from the Pentagon’s new series of commercials, and the people represented are a perfect pie chart of diversity hiring, even though the US is around 70% white and around 96% straight (according to Gallup).

  But who are these commercials really made for?  The Army admits they had to search a worldwide roster of soldiers, obtaining only 100 submissions that fit their woke criteria, and then filtered those submissions down to just a handful that met the diversity requirements of the marketing campaign. Some of the commercials are subtle, and some of them are not. The US campaign seems to be mimicking the “Snowflake” ad campaign used by the UK military in 2019 in a bid to attract what they call “Me Me Me Millennials”.

  Clearly, the percentage of soldiers that check most or all of the woke boxes is tiny. The commercials are also notably in cartoon form, because SJWs have a hard time absorbing information unless it is animated.

  Admittedly, there has been a quiet softening of military standards, including the reduction of boot camp training requirements. This is apparently meant to attract more women to the armed forces outside of the Air Force and Navy, as a majority of females have consistently failed basic physical standards. The US Army had to halt the “gender neutral physical fitness test” this year because women were failing at a rate of over 65% according to the Pentagon (they were failing at a rate closer to 85% according to instructors). The Army is now trying to establish a new “crossfit inspired” training routine in order to increase the success rate of women in boot camp.

  Women make up only 15% of active duty personnel among all the branches combined and are far more likely to leave service earlier than men. The data is cut-and-dry; trying to overtly appeal to women is a non-starter, particularly for the Army and the Marines.

  US Army training facilities have also recently been forced to remove the traditional “Shark Attack” from the first day of boot camp. The Shark Attack is basically a psychological wake up call, a way to send a message to recruits that they are no longer living in mommy and daddy’s basement and everything they do will now be scrutinized. Army brass felt that this tradition was “too abrasive” and that it needed to be “updated” with a kinder gentler first day program. In other words, the army wants to avoid upsetting people with weak dispositions so that they can increase recruitment stats.

  Within conservative and liberty movement circles there are rising concerns that globalists and leftists within our government are seeking to eliminate the principles of personal strength and merit because these elements are repellent to leftists. There is also the concern that the establishment intends to use a revamped “woke military” to subjugate the American public. While this might be the overall intention, I’m not all that worried, and here are the reasons why…

  The Numbers For A Woke Military Don’t Exist

  Globalists are very mindful of statistical realities, and they know that the current military dynamic is against them; hence their growing thirst for the wokification of our branches of defense. I want to remind conservatives that this is a good thing. They are trying to force social justice politics into the military because the military is the exact opposite of what they want it to be.

  For example, polling in 2016 showed that around 31% to 35% of the US military is Republican, while around 25% to 29% votes Democrat. But what about the remainder? The media often calls the remaining current serving voters “moderates” or “independents”. As it turns out, up to 40% of the military is actually libertarian or constitutionalist leaning according to polls.

  The mainstream media tries to hide this fact by only talking about “Republican votes” and “Democrat votes”, but the reality is that the vast majority of the military is conservative oriented, with values based in personal freedom and constitutionalism. That 40% of libertarians and constitutionalists is what the elites are really worried about. This is who they are referring to when they talk about “extremists” in the military.

  And what about the 25% to 29% of Democrats? That is the extent of the left’s hold within the general ranks of the military and it is improbable that most of these democrats are hard leftists. Further studies also show that the majority of veterans leaving the military identify overwhelmingly as Republican, conservative or “independent”, not as Democrat or leftist.

  This is probably why the latest social justice recruitment commercials by the Army are getting ratioed into oblivion by soldiers and the public alike. In response the Army YouTube page has shut down comments. Last I checked, the new LGBTQ and feminist inspired “Emma: The Calling” Army video had only 700 up-votes and over 33,000 down-votes. This is an epic fail. Where are all the hardcore social justice warriors just itching to join the military and “get some”? They don’t exist. The establishment is trying to appeal to a phantom demographic.

  The fact is, the only place you will find a preponderance of woke lunatics in the military is among the brass and sometimes in the officer corps; the leadership within the pentagon has been carefully groomed to create a leftist/globalist consolidation, and this has been going on for decades. Generals are for the most part politicians, not warriors (SPECIAL NOTE: Never trust retired generals or retired CIA agents, even if they claim to be on the side of liberty).

  While military leadership might go woke, this does not mean the rest of the military will, nor does it mean that troops will follow unconstitutional orders from such people.

  Leftists Don’t Want To Join Because They Cannot Cope With Meritocracy

  Not all of us are made for the military. To be clear, the military serves one basic purpose: It is a machine for killing people. The job of the military is to train the most efficient killers possible for the effective defense of the nation. It is not the job of the military to focus on “inclusion” or “intersectionality”. Anyone that says anything different is delusional or has an agenda.

  There are people that are born with the psychological traits and physical traits needed to fight effectively, and there are a whole lot of people out there who will never hack it. Finding the people with the right traits is something that the US military has mastered. This is undeniable.

  I also think that in our modern era of helicopter parents and equity training and participation trophies that the newest generation of Zoomers has been conditioned to be incredibly narcissistic as well as weak in mind and spirit, and the military is one of the last options left for these people to break that conditioning and become real adults instead of overgrown children. If you want to erase Woke cultism from our society just send all these kids to boot camp and they will be cured of their snowflake tendencies in a matter of months.

  There are of course constitutional concerns for military structure. America was never supposed to have a standing army in the first place; we were supposed to have local militias made up of every able bodied male citizen in a community. That said, I’ll be the first to admit that even within a militia system a warrior class is going to develop naturally. There will always be people who are set apart from everyone else in this regard.

  Another concern is the problem of leadership. As noted, today’s military leadership and American political leadership are not to be trusted, and for most warriors the question will always be this:

  “Will I be sent to fight and possibly die for a just cause, or a corrupt cause?”

  Under the current establishment war is indeed a racket, and most warriors will long for a real fight, a fight that is honorable. My personal conflict with the military is not the institution so much as the people in charge. I cannot fight for corrupt people.

  However, for leftists that avidly supported Barack Obama during his massive expansion of wars in the Middle East, the conflict is not about principles of leadership. No, their conflict is with the core values that make the military what it is. Trying to remove the merit based model from the US military will be extremely difficult. Social justice ideology and military standards of achievement are mutually exclusive; they cannot coexist in the same space. So, in order for the military to go full-on puritan the establishment would have to remove all the elements that make the military effective. They would have to destroy the military in order to “diversify” it.

  And maybe this is the ultimate goal. Maybe the globalists WANT to undermine the foundation of the US military with the intent to make America weak and easier to conquer. But then again, wherever there is a void, the physics of civilization seeks to fill it.

  The Establishment Is Unwittingly Creating A Counter-Military

  One positive outcome from the long running wars in Iraq and Afghanistan is that hundreds of thousands of veterans with extensive combat experience have come back home over the past 20 years, and most of them are conservatives. They are also very wary of the political dynamics in Washington DC. They know exactly what is going on in this country. Beyond this, any attempt to force social justice propaganda on the current serving is going to alienate more than 60% of soldiers. And while they are not legally allowed to speak out politically, they will not necessarily follow the Woke cult blindly and turn against their own.

  The establishment is now faced with a massive conundrum; by pressing their agenda within the military they are by default creating a separate and opposing military, one that could erase them from existence. Who would you put your money on? An army of limp-wristed, diversity obsessed progressives with velvet glove training? Or an army of battle hardened conservatives who walked through the pyre and came out the other side?

  Even if the objective is to debase the US military until it breaks apart, this does not mean America will go undefended. We would reorganize, perhaps as an unofficial militia system outside of federal control. In the end, a woke military cannot survive nor would it thrive; it would only inspire the revitalization of a liberty minded and free military force that would act as a counterpoint to the globalist agenda.

  *  *  *

  If you would like to support the work that Alt-Market does while also receiving content on advanced tactics for defeating the globalist agenda, subscribe to our exclusive newsletter The Wild Bunch Dispatch.  Learn more about it HERE.

   

  Tyler Durden
  Fri, 05/21/2021 – 00:00

• People Are Printing Weapons Disguised As Nerf Guns
  People Are Printing Weapons Disguised As Nerf Guns

  A couple of months ago, we noted deputies in a North Carolina drug raid seized cocaine, psilocybin mushrooms and marijuana, money, and a Glock 19 disguised as a Nerf toy gun. We weren’t quite sure if the seizure of the pistol, made to look like a harmless children’s gun, was an anomaly, but it appears today people are 3D-printing weapons that resemble Nerf guns. 

  Case in point, Twitter account “YoungBreezy” has printed a working 3D-printed gun that looks exactly like a Nerf gun. The weapon has a similar color scheme and even the Nerf logo printed on the side. 

  YoungBreezy appears to have taken the 3D-printed weapon to a range where he ran through an entire clip without the gun failing. 

  Never had a nerf blaster growing up, so I made my own.
  Thanks @NaviGoBoom @CtrlPew pic.twitter.com/1vMG6pzWyL

  — 🦀YoungBreezy🦀 (@M00BBB) May 15, 2021

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  He said, “What it looked like before. Muzzle thing (not a suppressor) and brace broke off. Had a couple of failures to extract, and towards the end, the trigger wasn’t resetting reliably. Other than that, the test went well. Bolt didn’t break this time, and it was pretty consistent.” 

  

  The gun appears to be the FGC-9, which stands for “f**k gun control 9 mm.” As we’ve noted, the FGC-9 can be printed entirely at home for the cost of $350, including the printer’s cost. During the print, YoungBreezy used plastic filament to mimic Nerf gun colors and added the Nerf logo on the side of the weapon. 

  Democrats and gun control activists have been terrified of a decentralized network of 3D printed gun advocates quickly mobilizing online, revolutionizing gun designs, sharing blueprints, advising, and building a community. There’s no easy way the federal government can halt this movement as President Biden, not too long ago, declared war on ghost guns.

  Last Friday, the Justice Department proposed a rule that changes the definition of a firearm to require 80% lower kits to include serial numbers. Lawmakers have also reintroduced a bill that they say would ban ghost guns. 

  Tyler Durden
  Thu, 05/20/2021 – 23:40

• Victor Davis Hanson: Why Does The Left Seemingly Hate Israel?
  Victor Davis Hanson: Why Does The Left Seemingly Hate Israel?

  Authored by Victor Davis Hanson, op-ed via The Epoch Times,

  With more than 3,000 rockets having been fired into Israel by Hamas recently, the Democratic Party seems paralyzed over how to respond to the latest Middle East war.

  

  It’s not just that they fear that “The Squad,” Black Lives Matter, the shock troops of Antifa, and woke institutions such as academia and the media are now unapologetically anti-Israel.

  They are also terrified that anti-Israelism is becoming synonymous with rank anti-Semitism.

  And soon, the Democratic Party will end up as disdained as the British Labour Party under Jeremy Corbyn.

  The new core of the Democrats, as emblemized by Reps. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez of New York, Ilhan Omar of Minnesota, and Rashida Tlaib of Michigan, has in the past questioned the patriotism of American Jews who support Israel, and occasionally has had to apologize for puerile anti-Semitic rants.

  The left in general believes we should judge harshly even the distant past without exemptions. Why then, in venomous, knee-jerk fashion, does it fixate on a nation born from the Holocaust while favoring Israel’s enemies, who were on the side of the Nazis in World War II?

  It wasn’t just that the Grand Mufti of Jerusalem, Amin al-Husseini, was a Nazi sympathizer. Egypt, for example, welcomed ex-Nazis for their hatred of Jews and their military expertise, including infamous death camp doctor Aribert Ferdinand Heim and Waffen-SS henchman Otto Skorzeny. The Hamas charter still reads like it is cribbed from Hitler’s “Mein Kampf.”

  The left claims it champions consensual government and believes the United States must use its soft-power clout to isolate autocracies. But the Palestinian Authority and Hamas refuse to hold free and regularly scheduled elections. If an Israeli strongman ever suspended free elections and ruled through brutality, U.S. aid would be severed within days.

  If history and democratic values can’t fully explain the apparent hatred of Israel on the left, perhaps human rights violations do. But here, too, there is another example of radical asymmetry. Arab citizens of Israel enjoy far greater constitutional protections than do Arabs living under either the Palestinian Authority or Hamas.

  Is the left bothered by the allies of Hamas? After all, most are autocracies such as Iran and North Korea.

  We return, then, to other reasons for the woke contempt directed toward Israel.

  In part, the Western left always despises the unapologetically successful—as if they are inevitably beneficiaries of unfair privilege. Underdog Israel was not so hated from 1947 to 1967. Then, it was poorer, more socialist, and in danger of being extinguished by its many neighboring enemies.

  But after the victories in the 1967 and 1973 wars, the Israeli military proved unconquerable in the region, no matter how large the numbers, wealth, and armaments of its many enemies.

  

  For the left, Israel’s current strength, confidence, and success mean it cannot be seen as a victim, but only as a victimizer. As its Iron Dome missile defenses knock down the flurry of Hamas rockets, and as its planes take out the military installations that launched those rockets, the left bizarrely believes Israel wins too easily and acts “disproportionately.”

  The left also has a strange idea of current “imperialism” and “colonialism.” The general rule is that Westerners cannot settle in numbers in the non-West. But the reversal is certainly not true. Millions of Middle Easterners are welcomed into Belgium, France, Germany, the UK, and the United States. Yet, Jews have been in what is now Israel since nearly the dawn of civilization. And their 1947 borders only grew after they were attacked and threatened with extinction.

  The left claims that its anti-Israelism has had nothing to do with anti-Semitism. But it is almost impossible now to make that distinction, when woke criticism obsesses over democratic Israel and ignores far greater oppressors and oppressed elsewhere.

  Why are there no demonstrations in major Western cities damning the Chinese government for putting 1 million Muslim Uyghurs in camps? Why are the world’s millions of former refugees—the Volga Germans, the East Prussians, the Cypriot Greeks—long forgotten, and yet the Palestinians alone are deified for being perpetually displaced?

  Our formal NATO ally, Turkey, received little global pushback for its treatment of the Kurds, or its frequent intolerance of religious minorities. Why does Israel alone always earn such venom?

  Hating democratic Israel while it’s under attack is not just a reflection of the new woke and ethically bankrupt left. It is also a symptom of a deeper pathology in the West, one of moral equivalence, amoral relativism, and self-loathing.

  

  [ZH: Victor Davis Hanson’s perspective is noteworthy given the fact  that today saw Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) introduce a resolution opposing the U.S. sale of $735 million in precision-guided weapons to the Israeli government, the Washington Post reports.]

  “At a moment when U.S.-made bombs are devastating Gaza, and killing women and children, we cannot simply let another huge arms sale go through without even a congressional debate,” Sanders told the Post in a statement.

  “I believe that the United States must help lead the way to a peaceful and prosperous future for both Israelis and Palestinians. We need to take a hard look at whether the sale of these weapons is actually helping do that, or whether it is simply fueling conflict.”

  Last week, before this bill, controversial lawyer Alan Dershowitz called Senator Bernie Sanders an “anti-Semite” and a “self-hating Jew” following an op-ed in the NYTimes titled, “The U.S. Must Stop Being an Apologist for the Netanyahu Government.”

  “But look what the internet allows us,” Dershowitz continued. “…you get the social media, supporting Hamas, The New York Times supporting Hamas, and it sends a very powerful message: do it again, kill children…kill civilians…commit war crimes, you’ll prevail on this because of the anti-Semitism…you can be a Jew and an anti-Semite. Biden has made some statements positively I commend them for that. But Bernie Sanders—who’s Jewish—is a self-hating Jew, a self-hating Jew who is willing to see Israel be defeated militarily by a terrorist group because he’s on the hard left.”

  

  [ZH: Which brings up one question we have seen raised numerous times in comments here and elsewhere online is various derivatives of “why do American jews democrat?”]

  The best – and least politically incorrect – explanation we have seen came from a Twitter thread by John Hayward:

  American Jews who vote Democrat should look at Dems rooting for Hamas and understand: this is all Critical Race Theory for them. It’s the brain rot that has utterly consumed their collective hive-mind. Oppressed brown people vs. evil rich white oppressors. 

  Jews are evil rich white oppressors to the left-wing hive mind – and yes, that includes American Jews who currently vote for them. They will grudgingly give you a limited parole from Critical Race Theory as long as they need your money and votes, and you pay tribute to CRT. 

  It should be more clear than ever, after the events in Israel and Gaza, that Jews are White Oppressors to the CRT hive mind. You’ll NEVER be People of Color. You’ll never sit atop the intersectional totem pole. You’re like Woke CEOs, receiving indulgences because you pay tribute. 

  The cost of that tribute will increase until you can’t pay it any more, the same way left-wing Israelis ought to have learned the “peace” they bought with concessions and giveaways was like a bubble mortgage. Now they have rockets flying at them from the land they gave away. 

  It will be the same way in America, as prosperity collapses and desperate left-wing groups scrabble for money and power. One day Jews will refuse to pay the tribute demanded by the Left, and you’ll snap back into the Evil White Oppressor slot reserved for you by CRT. 

  It already happens in Democrat cities during times of “civil unrest.” Soon all times will be times of civil unrest, and all American Jews will find themselves playing the Knockout Game with Critical Race Theorists. They’re telling you something by rooting for Hamas. Listen.

  [ZH: Sadly the hate from the Middle East has already spread to both coasts of the US]

  Authorities are investigating whether an attack on diners that occurred outside a Beverly Grove restaurant late Tuesday night was a Jewish hate crime.

  And jews on New York City’s Upper East Side were also attacked…

  Jews being attacked on Manhattan’s Upper East Side. Can’t say I didn’t see this coming 😞 @jews_of_ny pic.twitter.com/s3mqaqR7Fj

  — Michal Divon מיכל דיבון ميخال ديفون (@michaldivon) May 19, 2021

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  Palestinians throw some type of explosive device at Jews in Manhattan Diamond District. pic.twitter.com/icQW53lx71

  — Breaking911 (@Breaking911) May 21, 2021

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  [ZH: Former NYTimes writer Bari Weiss attempts to explain the anti-semitism of newly progressive leftists]

  *  *  *

  As Victor Davis Hanson concludes, hating Israel has become the surrogate Western way of hating oneself.

  Tyler Durden
  Thu, 05/20/2021 – 23:20

• First Images Of China Rover On Mars Released 
  First Images Of China Rover On Mars Released 

  The next battleground between the US and China is Mars. While space has always been a domain for superpower rivalry, the China National Space Administration (CNSA) successfully landed a rover, called Zhu Rong, on the Red Planet. Now two images have been sent back to Earth to show the success. 

  CNSA released a couple of pictures on its website of the rover, which touched down in the southern part of Utopia Planitia, a large plain on the northern hemisphere of Mars. Here are the first images from the rover since it landed on the Red Planet last Saturday. 

  “The first photograph, a black and white image, was taken by an obstacle avoidance camera installed in front of the Mars rover. The image shows that a ramp on the lander has been extended to the surface of Mars. The terrain of the rover’s forward direction is clearly visible in the image, and the horizon of Mars appears curved due to the wide-angle lens,” CNSA said. 

  

  “The second image, a color photo, was taken by the navigation camera fitted to the rear of the rover. The rover’s solar panels and antenna are seen unfolded, and the red soil and rocks on the Martian surface are clearly visible in the image,” CNSA said. 

  

  Space is no longer limited to the original Cold War superpowers (US & Russia). China has to been thrown into the mix after being the second country to land a rover on Mars. 

  NASA Administrator Bill Nelson congratulated China for successfully landing a rover on Mars and warned Congress of China’s competitive threat to US leadership in space.

  China is becoming more active in space, especially on the Red Planet, alongside the US who already has NASA’s Mars 2020 Perseverance probing for life. The US rover recently launched a helicopter, called Ingenuity, already performing five successful flights. 

  

  Mars will become the next domain for superpower rivalry because the planet has an abundance of rare metals that will power tomorrow’s economy. 

  Tyler Durden
  Thu, 05/20/2021 – 23:00

• Biden Hollows Out Trump-Era COVID Protections At The Border
  Biden Hollows Out Trump-Era COVID Protections At The Border

  Authored by Joseph Simonson via The Washington Free Beacon (emphasis ours),

  The Biden administration is preparing to gut COVID-19 safety restrictions on illegal immigrants and asylum seekers and essentially reverse the Trump administration’s pandemic health protections without public notice, according to documents circulating within U.S. Customs and Border Protection.

  

  While the Trump administration took a hardline approach to turning away immigrants to avoid “a serious danger of introduction of [a communicable] disease,” at the start of the COVID-19 pandemic, Customs and Border Protection is now quietly walking much of that guidance back. A May memo, reviewed by the Washington Free Beacon, highlighted a potential work-around of the safety measures. The memo, authored by senior staff at CBP, emphasizes the ability of “customs officers [to] determine [who] should be allowed into the United States.”

  Customs and Border Protection officials say the Biden administration is looking to liberally interpret that provision, which was initially meant for migrants with extenuating circumstances related to humanitarian concerns or political repression. Broadening the humanitarian exemption would constitute a de facto reversal of the Trump administration’s guidance on limiting migration into the country. The shift in policy would come as border patrol agents encountered 178,622 migrants in April, among the highest-trafficked months on record.

  “They’re keeping in place Trump’s order while broadening it enough to please left-wing activists,” a senior Customs and Border Protection official told the Free Beacon. “If they rescind Title 42, they can’t deport single men.”

  The memo says the federal officials “will be relying” on immigrant-related, nongovernmental organizations “to identify undocumented individuals potentially amenable to be exempted on humanitarian grounds.” Customs and Border Protection officials say essentially outsourcing immigration processing to NGOs could flood the country with migrants, many of whom never attend their immigration court hearings. Critics say activists from border organizations like the United Nations Refugee Agency and the Hebrew Immigrant Aid Society coach migrants on how to gain asylum status, rather than seek out the most vulnerable.

  Trump invoked Title 42, a little known provision that enables the executive branch to curtail border crossings during a public health crisis, in a March 2020 executive order. Left-wing advocacy groups call Title 42 a violation of international human rights treaties and have demanded the Biden administration reverse his predecessor’s invocation of it. The Biden administration claims the “streamlined” process of admitting immigrants will combat COVID-19 by reducing “the amount of time undocumented individuals spend in congregate settings, thereby reducing the risk of COVID-19.”

  Using an expansive view of the pandemic exemptions and partnering with NGOs will ensure that more illegal immigrants and asylum seekers will enter the country, according to the senior CBP official.

  “What the Biden administration is doing is giving them the ability to play both sides,” the official said.

  President Biden fulfilled a campaign promise by publicly instituting Title 42 exemptions for all migrant children, a decision many have blamed for the surge of unaccompanied minors at the southern border. Border agents could soon face a secondary surge—broad humanitarian exemptions would allow most families and children to claim asylum, regardless of whether they test positive for COVID-19 or other diseases. Single men, Customs and Border Protection officials say, would likely still face deportation unless they say they fear for their safety in their home country.

  The release of the memo comes as border patrol agents increasingly see what the New York Times dubbed “pandemic refugees” from countries as far away as India on the southern border. April numbers released by the government showed 30 percent of families found on the border came from countries other than Mexico, Guatemala, Honduras, and El Salvador—a 22.5 percent increase from April 2019.

  Tyler Durden
  Thu, 05/20/2021 – 22:40

• Pentagon Marches Towards AI Taking The Kill Shot 
  Pentagon Marches Towards AI Taking The Kill Shot 

  Dozens of autonomous war machines capable of deadly force conducted a field training exercise south of Seattle last August. The exercise involved no human operators but strictly robots powered with artificial intelligence, seeking mock enemy combatants. 

  The exercise, organized by the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, a blue-sky research division of the Pentagon, armed the robots with radio transmitters designed to simulate a weapon firing. The drill was conducted last August and expanded the Pentagon’s understanding of how automation in military systems on the modern battlefield can work together to eliminate enemy combatants. 

  “The demonstrations also reflect a subtle shift in the Pentagon’s thinking about autonomous weapons, as it becomes clearer that machines can outperform humans at parsing complex situations or operating at high speed,” according to WIRED. 

  

  Its undeniable artificial intelligence will be the face of warfare for years to come. Military planners are moving ahead with incorporating autonomous weapons systems on the modern battlefield. 

  General John Murray of the US Army Futures Command told an audience at the US Military Academy in April that swarms of robots will likely force the military to decide if a human needs to intervene before a robot engages the enemy. 

  Murray asked: “Is it within a human’s ability to pick out which ones have to be engaged” and then make 100 individual decisions? “Is it even necessary to have a human in the loop?” he added.

  Michael Kanaan, director of operations for the Air Force Artificial Intelligence Accelerator at MIT and a top voice on artificial intelligence in the military, told a crowd at the conference in the Air Force last week that computers are rapidly evolving in how they are identifying and distinguishing potential targets while humans decide to engage. 

  Lieutenant General Clinton Hinote, deputy chief of staff for strategy, integration, and requirements at the Pentagon, who was also speaking at the same event, said the great debate of the early 2020s is whether a soldier can be removed from the decision-making of an autonomous weapon.

  Timothy Chung, the Darpa program manager in charge of the swarming project, told WIRED that last year’s exercise was to explore when a human should be involved in the decision-making of autonomous systems. When faced with complex attacks, Chung said the robots could perform the mission better than humans because people aren’t quick enough to react. 

  “Actually, the systems can do better from not having someone intervene,” Chung added.

  Even as artificial intelligence is rapidly developing capability, keeping a person in the loop may be necessary for the time being as algorithms still need to improve where they can identify enemies with enough reliability. 

  This all comes down to the reliability of the algorithms to have a high level of accuracy when identifying and engaging the enemy. So far, the Defense Department policy on autonomous weapons states that these systems need to have human oversight. 

  … and for some forecasted timelines of when robots surpass human intelligence, Ray Kurzweil, Googles chief of engineering, said a few years back, it could be around 2029. 

  By the end of the decade, or even earlier, the Pentagon may allow autonomous weapons to take the kill shot without any human intervention. 

  Tyler Durden
  Thu, 05/20/2021 – 22:20

• Boom To Bust: How Inflation Turns Into Deflation
  Boom To Bust: How Inflation Turns Into Deflation

  Authored by Frank Shostak via The Mises Institute,

  In order to understand the effects of inflation it is helpful to understand that inflation is not a general rise in prices as such, but an increase in the supply of money which then sets in motion a general increase in the prices of goods and services in terms of money.

  

  Consider the case of a fixed stock of money. Whenever people increase their demand for some goods and services, money is going to be allocated toward these goods and services. In response, the prices of these goods and services are likely to increase—more money will be spent on them.

  Since we have an unchanged stock of money, less money can now be allocated toward other goods and services. Given that the price of a good is the amount of money spent on the good, this means that the prices of other goods will decline, i.e., less money will be spent on them.

  In order for there to be a general rise in prices, there must be an increase in the money stock. With more money and no change in the money demand, people can now allocate a greater amount of money toward all goods and services.

  According to Mises in Economic Freedom and Interventionism,

  Inflation, as this term was always used everywhere and especially in this country, means increasing the quantity of money and bank notes in circulation and the quantity of bank deposits subject to check. But people today use the term “inflation” to refer to the phenomenon that is an inevitable consequence of inflation, that is the tendency of all prices and wage rates to rise. The result of this deplorable confusion is that there is no term left to signify the cause of this rise in prices and wages. There is no longer any word available to signify the phenomenon that has been, up to now, called inflation. (p. 99)

  Inflation is a process in which the last recipients of newly created fiat money are impoverished while the early recipients of this money are enriched. This process of impoverishment is set in motion as a result of an increase in the money supply.

  This increase activates an exchange of nothing for something. This amounts to the diversion of real savings from the last recipients of the newly generated money to the early recipients.

  Now, if the growth rate of money supply stands at 10 percent while the growth rate of the production of goods and services also stands at 10 percent, the prices of these goods and services on average will increase by 0 percent. In popular thinking, this will be seen as if there is no inflation here.

  However, knowing that inflation is an increase in money supply, it’s clear that the rate of inflation is 10 percent. What matters here is not changes in the prices of goods and services but the increase in money supply. This increase sets the process of impoverishment in motion.

  How Much Inflation Is There?

  So what is the present status of inflation? By popular thinking, represented by the yearly growth rate in the Consumer Price Index (CPI), inflation stood at 2.6 percent in March, against 1.7 percent in February and 1.5 percent in March 2020. However, in terms of money supply, the growth rate of inflation stood at 69.2 percent in March against 13.4 percent in March 2020. Massive monetary increases have weakened the process of real savings formation. As a result, businesses’ ability to grow the economy has been severely impaired.

  Moreover, the ability of businesses to grow the economy has weakened further because of massive government spending, which has diverted real savings from businesses toward various nonproductive government projects. Note that government spending is only likely to strengthen in the near term. Because of this massive fiscal and monetary spending, the pool of real savings—the heart of economic growth—could be in serious trouble.

  Thus, a likely decline in the pool of real savings is expected to significantly weaken economic activity ahead; subsequently, the quality of banks’ assets will likely deteriorate. Therefore, the yearly growth rate of banks’ inflationary credit, or lending out of “thin air,” is poised to weaken visibly, thus putting pressure on the growth rate of money supply. This happens because as bank assets decline in quality, and as potential borrowers decline in value, banks lend less and put downward pressure on the money supply.

  Note that the yearly growth rate of money supply has already eased to 69.2 percent in March from 79.1 percent the month before. In the midst of a financial bubble—as we likely are now—even a slight softening in the growth rate of money supply could be fatal.

  

  Note: this graph shows changes in the TMS money supply measure.

  This is because bubble activities cannot stand on their own feet; they require support from increases in money supply that divert to them real savings from wealth generators. Also, note again that a major cause behind the possible decline in the pool of real savings is unprecedented increases in money supply and massive government spending. While the pool of real savings is still growing, the massive money supply increase is likely to be followed by an upward trend in the growth rate of the prices of goods and services. This could start early next year. Once the pool of real savings starts to decline, however—because of massive monetary pumping and reckless fiscal policies—various bubble activities are will plunge. This, in turn, is likely to result in a large decline in economic activity and in the money supply.

  Ironically, although money supply growth is immense right now, as a result of the possible burst of bubble activities the prices of goods and services could actually decline in coming years. That is, deflation will come as industry bubbles pop. This could occur as early as the second half of 2022. Yet the possibility of deflation hinges on whether the pool of real savings is declining, and this is notoriously difficult to observe.

  Tyler Durden
  Thu, 05/20/2021 – 22:00

• Lawmakers Demand Reinstatement Of Space Force Officer Removed For Denouncing Critical Race Theory
  Lawmakers Demand Reinstatement Of Space Force Officer Removed For Denouncing Critical Race Theory

  Authored by Isabel van Brugen via The Epoch Times,

  A group of Republican lawmakers on Wednesday sent a letter to the acting secretary of the U.S. Space Force, urging him to immediately reinstate a lieutenant colonel who was relieved of his command after publishing a book that warned of the spread of Marxism and critical race theory (CRT) in the military.

  

  Lt. Col. Matthew Lohmeier, a former instructor and fighter pilot, was relieved as commander of the 11th Space Warning Squadron “due to loss of trust and confidence in his ability to lead,” the Space Force said over the weekend.

  It came after he took part in podcasts to discuss his self-published book, titled “Irresistible Revolution: Marxism’s Goal of Conquest & the Unmaking of the American Military,” that warns against the spread of Marxism and CRT in the military.

  During an appearance on the podcast “Information Operation,” he criticized Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin’s agenda. The department deemed Lohmeier’s comments to be “partisan political activity.”

  In their letter (pdf), the two dozen Republicans expressed their alarm over the decision to relieve Lohmeier. They said it appears to reflect the development of an “increasingly politicized environment” in the Department of Defense, which has now manifested in the Space Force.

  The lawmakers criticized the use of euphemisms such as “diversity training” in describing CRT. Such terms, they said, are “grotesque distortions of reality.”

  CRT has gradually proliferated in recent decades through academia, government structures, school systems, and the corporate world. It redefines human history as a struggle between the “oppressors” (white people) and the “oppressed” (everybody else), similar to Marxism’s reduction of history to a struggle between the “bourgeois” and the “proletariat.” It labels institutions that emerged in majority-white societies as racist and “white supremacist.”

  Like Marxism, it advocates for the destruction of institutions, such as the Western justice system, free-market economy, and orthodox religions, while demanding that they be replaced with institutions compliant with the CRT ideology.

  Proponents of CRT have argued that the theory is merely “demonstrating how pervasive systemic racism truly is.”

  “Those leaders who are complicit with this poisonous philosophy which promotes racial essentialism and collective guilt in our beloved military will be judged by history accordingly,” the lawmakers wrote.

  “Promoting critical race theory will disrupt the good order and discipline in the Space Force and eviscerate our nation’s ability to attract patriotic talent to serve in uniform and fight our wars.

  Signatory Rep. Doug Lamborn (R-Colo.) said in a statement that the military should focus on threats to U.S. national security and “not pandering to one political ideology.”

  “I can’t imagine a better way to weaken ourselves in the midst of a great-power competition with China and Russia,” he added.

  “Lieutenant Colonel Lohmeier listened to the Secretary of Defense and stood up against extremism on the left. He should be praised for his courage.”

  Space Force officials didn’t immediately respond to a request by The Epoch Times for comment.

  Tyler Durden
  Thu, 05/20/2021 – 21:20

• Wharton Receives Anonymous $5 Million Bitcoin Gift
  Wharton Receives Anonymous $5 Million Bitcoin Gift

  Blink and you missed the biggest crypto crash since last March: having plunged as much as 40% on Wednesday, bitcoin is up 40% on Thursday almost wiping out all its previous day’s jarring losses, with ether up more than 50% off its lows. Which is good news not only for Tom Brady who BTFD, but for UPenn which according to Bloomberg was set to announce it received its largest ever donation in a cryptocurrency — $5 million in Bitcoin to support the activities of a research center at its Wharton school of business. Naturally, the donation which was anonymous, would have been much worse had bitcoin failed to rebound.

  Even though the majority of the gift is still in the form of Bitcoin, John Zeller, Penn’s senior vice president for development and alumni relations, was unmoved despite the surge in volatility.

  “There is protection for us on the downside,” Zeller told Bloomberg. “We have what we needed to support the budget and we’ll just see where it goes in the future.” Penn’s approach differs from that of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, which has accepted Bitcoin donations since 2016, and which immediately liquidates gifts received in the cryptocurrency.

  As Bloomberg notes, while Colleges typically sell gifts such as real estate and stocks right away to eliminate risks that come with holding and managing assets, in this case, the structure of the donation, which was received a few weeks ago, “allows Penn to capture any gains if the price of Bitcoin rises and protects it from losses if the value of the currency drops below that of the initial gift”, Zeller said.

  The portion of the $5 million still held in Bitcoin will be monetized over the coming years to meet the budgetary needs of the Stevens Center, which promotes education and research in the field of financial technology and is named after Ross Stevens, the chief executive officer of Stone Ridge Asset Management.

  “The beauty of this is the donor wanted to use Bitcoin as a vehicle and also had an interest in promoting it,” Zeller said. “For us, it is a bit of an experiment.”

  Tyler Durden
  Thu, 05/20/2021 – 21:00

• Beware The Rise Of Scamerica
  Beware The Rise Of Scamerica

  Authored by Roibert Wright via The American Institute for Economic Research,

  Scams, frauds, flim flams, and grifts are nothing new to America. In fact, confidence games were old hat when Clifton Wooldridge published his 1906 classic, The Grafters of America: Who They Are and How They Work, which describes common cons in fin de siecle Chicago. The recent death of notorious investment scamster Bernie Madoff should remind Americans that if it sounds too good to be true, it probably is. 

  

  As America descends into policy disarray, the scamming of others is increasing. Wire fraud is rampant, as is the impersonation of government workers, apparently because Americans now expect government officials to accost them for quick cash at least occasionally. I focus here on a much more insidious type of scam that also seems to be on the rise, something that I will politely refer to as “substandard work,” but that in informal adult conversation usually goes by a fecal four-letter word followed by “job.”

  Much of the substandard work being conducted across the country right now ultimately is the government’s fault, specifically a set of policies seemingly deliberately designed to induce Americans not to work: extra unemployment pay; major school systems remaining virtual until fall; bizarre summer camp masking requirements. The first entices lower income people to stay out of the labor market and the latter two make parents think twice, or thrice, about returning to work.

  As a result, many usually reliable businesses cannot find any workers, much less good ones. Robin Jones, a regional manager for a major fast food chain in the Upper Midwest, recently told me that April and May of this year have been the tightest labor market he can remember in his 43-year restaurant career, which includes stints in Arkansas, Missouri, Montana, South Dakota, Tennessee, Texas, and Wyoming. His back is giving out because his desk job has turned into a role as a stopgap line worker in the cheap taco wars. While he does what he can, he is only one man. The extreme dearth of workers means much longer wait times than usual and substandard service overall.

  A restaurant in a resort town in New Jersey recently purchased a robot called Peanut to deliver food to customers. It reportedly “can open kitchen doors, deliver orders to tables, and bus the dishes when everyone is done eating.” It works until it breaks down and doesn’t demand tips.

  The labor shortage is hardly restricted to food services. The pool business pictured below, for example, had a good reputation until recently, when it charged a friend of mine $260 to remove the cover from her pool. Just a regular cover. U.S. dollars, not Zimbabwean ones. Inflation is relatively high, but it ain’t that high! If the company had added some suddenly hyper-expensive chlorine to the pool, maybe it would have been okay but it appears the workers were inexperienced newbs flummoxed by simple problems. They removed and stored the cover successfully (bravo!) but couldn’t figure out how to get the pump pumping, got frustrated, and left. But they didn’t want to tell their new boss about their pathetic failure so they charged for the full spring opening service even though they didn’t provide it. Not so smart.

  

  All manner of employee malingering and moral hazard appear to be on the rise because every low wage worker knows that they can get fired one morning but hired elsewhere that same day, usually at higher pay. Although full official statistics are available only through 2019, it appears that sexual harassment and other types of employment-related complaints have increased of late. Some of the increase is due to stricter laws and enforcement and more awareness of workplace harassment issues but some may be due to employees hoping for a quick, lucrative settlement, confident that they will be able to find work elsewhere even if their claims are found meritless after investigation. Even remote workers are pressing harassment claims. Unwarranted harassment complaints are simply a more sophisticated type of pilfering than taking home office supplies or using Zoom rooms for personal use, which is also likely on the rise.

  Unlike the hapless pool company described above, some companies deliberately overbill lots of their customers less flagrantly, in the hopes that many won’t notice or care enough to complain. When some inevitably ask for refunds, such companies stall repayment or simply credit customers on the next bill and thereby finagle free loans. Investment bank Morgan Stanley got spanked for overbilling in 2017 but if inflation increases nominal interest rates will rise along with it, or if lending tightens due to various new banking regulations now in the works, more companies may give in to the temptation of cheap short-term financing by overbilling.

  Yet other companies with even deeper problems push boundaries between sharp business practices and outright fraud. They need to book business today or go under tomorrow and hence are unconcerned about bad reviews or negative publicity in the short run. 

  One such company that I personally recently fell victim to is a long distance moving and storage broker based in America. A portion of my possessions eventually made the long trip from South Dakota to the east coast but pickup was two weeks late, which cost me dearly, and dropoff was delayed several times as well, which inconvenienced my poor, hard working spouse. Maybe some bad luck was actually involved but over the month it took to complete the job, the moving broker told me more half-truths than Fauci has about Covid. An industry insider revealed to me its original sin: when they get a mark, I mean customer, on the phone, they pretend like they have scheduled a pickup when in fact they have simply estimated when they expect to be able to sell the contract to a long-haul shipper, who then gets blamed for the inevitable delays.

  Large, unexpected increases in the prices of inputs, from gasoline to timber, means that many construction contractors are also getting hit hard. They want to pass along the added costs, so owners need to watch out for “change order artistry,” sundry excuses contractors use to increase the contract price. When owners push back hard on change orders the contractor might not show up at all, or do substandard work/use substandard materials, so often it is better to negotiate a new price or not contract in the first place until some stability returns.

  The recent ransomware attack on Colonial Pipeline is more malicious than substandard work but the purported perpetrator, a shadowy group called DarkSide, claims to be a business that gives its “customers” incentives to improve their cybersecurity protocols. While the precise vector of the ransomware infection remains unknown or under wraps, Covid restrictions and/or the tight labor market is likely the root cause of the colossal cluster. As AIER’s Peter C. Earle pointed out last year, lockdowns make countries more vulnerable to attack and, as freezing Texans learned this past winter, more vulnerable to natural shocks as well.

  Natural immunity and vaccines have scotched Covid, at least in the U.S. If only Americans would develop immunities against overreaching government! Right now, Uncle Sam is more likely to stab you in the back than to have your back. Scamerica will grift ever more fraudulently until government sheds its paternalistic mask and once again lets children be children, employers employ, innovators innovate, teachers teach, and workers work.

  Tyler Durden
  Thu, 05/20/2021 – 20:40

• Survey Shows Half Of Non-Mask Wearers Will "Definitely Not" Consent To Being Vaccinated
  Survey Shows Half Of Non-Mask Wearers Will “Definitely Not” Consent To Being Vaccinated

  This looks like bad news for the CDC and the Biden Administration, which are desperate to entice more Americans to get vaccinated before international pressure forces the president to give away the entire US stock of vaccines (Biden announced yesterday that the US would send 20MM doses of vaccine that are authorized for emergency use in the US abroad for the first time as pressure from the international community grows).

  A recent survey found that half of Americans who don’t wear masks say they “definitely won’t” get vaccinated, according to the Kaiser Family Foundation.Half of non-mask wearers said they would “definitely not” get vaccinated, according to a survey taken the week of March 15.

  

  By comparison, the data, which was leaked to Bloomberg, found that 13% of those who wear a mask some of the time or never said they had gotten vaccinated, while 34% of those who do wear masks all or most of the time said they had been vaccinated. Half of non-mask wearers said they would “definitely not” get vaccinated, versus 7% of those who wear masks regularly.

  

  Source: Bloomberg

  The findings follow an announcement by the CDC allowing fully vaccinated people to ditch masks in most settings.

  President Biden celebrated the decision as offering Americans a stark choice: Either get vaccinated, or wear a mask.

  The only problem with this is that many of those who are skeptical of the vaccine also don’t wear masks.

  One analyst who spoke to Bloomberg said she was surprised by the resistance to the vaccine.

  “But I think what stands out is the share that say they definitely won’t get the vaccine among those who say they don’t wear masks,” Hamel said in an interview.

  What’s more, the survey data support what many Americans probably see as common sense – although nobody apparently told the White House or the CDC.

  The findings already indicate that people who say they don’t want the vaccine are much less likely to believe that masks are effective. “And so certainly that relationship between the attitudes towards the vaccine and attitudes towards other sorts of protective measures exist, particularly among that group that says they’re just definitely not going to get vaccinated,” she said.

  The CDC was widely criticized for spurring confusion with its latest guidance for individuals and businesses, as states are now deciding whether they will follow the CDC guidance or opt to wait.

  Some employers are already saying they will require new hires to be vaccinated, although most employers still concede that it would be illegal to require all employees to go out and get the vaccine. Ultimately, however, they might still be forced to rely on the honor system as medical privacy laws might prevent them from asking to see evidence of the shot.

  The polling company, KFF, which has been running polling data through its COVID Vaccine Monitor, used data on self-reported masking behavior and people’s belief in whether wearing a mask prevents the spread of the vaccine as the basis for these findings.

  Tyler Durden
  Thu, 05/20/2021 – 20:20

• To Get America Back To Work, Congress Needs Courage
  To Get America Back To Work, Congress Needs Courage

  Authored by Tarren Bragdon via RealClearPolitics.com,

  You don’t need a weatherman to know which way the wind blows. You also don’t need an economist to know what happens when the government pays people to stay home. Unemployment rose to 6.1% in April despite thousands of U.S. businesses desperate to hire — especially in the restaurant and hospitality industries.

  If you are a business owner in the United States, you already know exactly what’s happening. Employers nationwide are reporting empty job fairs and job interview no-shows. Local shops and restaurants have closed their doors to give exhausted employees a break from covering extra shifts indefinitely.

  In New Jersey, a mom-and-pop deli recently closed for good, “not because business is bad,” the owners explained. “We just can’t find anyone to work.” Restaurants ranging from McDonald’s to the high-end restaurants are offering cash to get people to show up to interviews, and they’re giving away hundreds of dollars in signing bonuses to encourage people to fill open positions.

  People are staying home because it pays more, thanks to the $300 weekly federal unemployment check bonus. Can you blame them? The weather is getting warmer, lockdowns are loosening, and they are collecting their highest paycheck in years without having to leave the couch.

  There are more job openings right now than before the pandemic hit the United States, yet in March there were 8.4 million fewer job positions filled and the number of applications was 13% below the pre-pandemic level.

  

  People are not in a hurry to go to work because the government is paying them to stay home. If Congress wants people to return to the real workforce, it needs to give them a pay cut.

  Allowing the $300 weekly unemployment bonus to expire this fall would immediately incentivize people to get back to work and would light a match under the economy. We’ve seen this before — in 2013, there was a federal extension program in place similar to today. In the middle of the Great Recession, people could collect unemployment benefits for as long as 99 weeks — almost two years. Congress expanded and extended these benefits nearly a dozen times between 2008 and 2012.

  When Congress finally refused to extend the program in 2013, unemployment dropped to the regular state maximum durations overnight, around 26 weeks in most states, fewer in some. Research shows 2.1 million to 2.6 million people went back to work due to the duration cut. More than half of people taking advantage of the extended benefits wouldn’t have participated in the labor market at all if the unemployment extension had stayed in place.

  Contrary to the myth that losing extended unemployment benefits would make people drop out of the labor force, millions of Americans began providing for their families once again. A majority — up to 80% — of all job growth in 2014 was attributed to Congress having the courage to end the federal unemployment extension.

  The economy kicked into overdrive almost immediately. Job growth accelerated by 50% and more than 3 million jobs were added in 2014 alone. The number of new job openings outpaced even the best pre-recession years by nearly 30%. As more people joined the workforce, the unemployment rate dropped, people started spending more money, businesses thrived, and employers ramped up hiring efforts.

  Economists called the economic boom an “employment miracle,” but it doesn’t take an expert to know why people suddenly returned to work. The government finally stopped paying them to stay home.

  Like most things in Washington, the best action government can take to accelerate the recovery is no action at all.

  Allowing the $300 weekly unemployment bonus to expire on time in the fall won’t require complicated legislative action — just courage.

  *  *  *

  Tarren Bragdon is the chief executive officer at the Foundation for Government Accountability.

  Tyler Durden
  Thu, 05/20/2021 – 20:00

• "That F*cking Lunatic": New Book Reveals Obama's 'Candid' Thoughts About President Trump
  “That F*cking Lunatic”: New Book Reveals Obama’s ‘Candid’ Thoughts About President Trump

  A new book called “Battle for the Soul: Inside the Democrats’ Campaigns to Defeat Donald Trump” by Edward-Isaac Dovere, a staff writer at the Atlantic, offers an inside look at what Barack Obama really thought about Donald Trump heading into the 2020 election.

  Obama, who had mostly remained publicly cordial with Trump after handing over the presidency to him in 2016 was, behind the scenes, being “candid” with his donors and advisers, the book says.

  This meant reportedly calling Trump a “madman”, a “racist, sexist pig”, “that fucking lunatic” and a “corrupt motherfucker”, according to The Guardian, who obtained a copy of the book that is set to be published next week.

  The book also says that Obama preferred Trump to Cruz as President, because “Trump was nowhere near as clever as the hard-right Texas senator”. Then, Trump won, prompting outrage from Obama, who reportedly said: “He’s a madman.” 

  

  Dovere also reported Obama as saying “I didn’t think it would be this bad” and “I didn’t think we’d have a racist, sexist pig.” 

  This was mixed in with the occasional comment calling Trump “that fucking lunatic”.

  Upon news breaking that Trump was speaking to foreign leaders, including Vladimir Putin, Obama reportedly said: “‘That corrupt motherfucker.”

  Conversely, Trump’s distaste for Obama is also well known, with the 45th President suggesting on more than one occasion that Obama’s incompetence was the sole reason he ran for President. Trump’s skepticism of Obama dates back to controversy he drummed up about the 44th President’s birth certificate after he won the presidency. 

  The book’s author, Dovere, has been known for his “candid” reporting, including once reporting that first lady Jill Biden suggest Kamala Harris “go fuck herself” after attacking President Biden during the Democratic Primaries. 

  Sounds like one big happy political family. 

  Tyler Durden
  Thu, 05/20/2021 – 19:40

• One Bank's Case For Bitcoin $500,000: The Fed's Balance Sheet Will Hit $40 Trillion In 2050
  One Bank’s Case For Bitcoin $500,000: The Fed’s Balance Sheet Will Hit $40 Trillion In 2050

  Yesterday, when bitcoin was crashing, ARK Invest’s Cathie Wood sparked some laughter (especially among the crypto bears) when in her interview with Bloomberg TV she presented her bitcoin price target: $500,000.

  While this was in keeping with Wood’s traditionally hyperbolic forecasts (like Tesla to $3,000 for example), one could make the argument that at least in 2020, the market did give Wood’s crazy forecasts the benefit of the doubt (if not so much in 2021). But more importantly, one could also make the argument that Wood may be right… even if she herself has no idea why.

  The real reason why one can make a case for bitcoin $500,000 (hardly very shocking: JPM’s “fair value” bitcoin price target has been $146,000 for months) comes from Deutsche Bank’s Jim Reid who in his Thursday chart of the day mocks the market’s taper fears, saying that “even after a taper this is far from the end of balance sheet expansion”, and forecasts that “if the Fed balance sheet to debt ratio stays at the post GFC average (c.30% vs c.38% current) then the Fed balance sheet would be around $40tn in 2050 from just under $8tn today.“

  In other words, we are looking at a 5x increase in the Fed’s balance sheet, one which would unleash an unprecedented tsunami of liquidity and even more unprecedented destruction of the fiat system (which is also why the Fed is planning on rolling out the digital dollar in coming years). And since the Fed’s balance sheet growing 5x means that other central banks would have to keep pace or else see their own currencies soar, we are looking at global central bank liquidity of roughly $100 trillion by 2050.

  Seen in this light, is a bitcoin market cap of $10 trillion (which is what it would be at $500,000), or just 10% of global central bank balance sheets, really that crazy?

  Here is Reid’s full note:

  Thinking about thinking

  Did the Fed minutes last night give the first hints that the Fed is thinking about thinking about tapering? Even the subtle language shift was enough to prompt an immediate c.7bps sell off in 10yr real yields. In this very heavily indebted world real yields are crucial to financial stability so it’s slightly concerning that “thinking about thinking” could have such an impact. It hints that the taper may not be straight forward when it eventually arrives.

  Having said that, I strongly suspect that even after a taper this is far from the end of balance sheet expansion. Today’s CoTD shows the path of US public debt in recent years with the CBO’s forecast out to 2051. We also show the Fed balance sheet.

  The debt will need to be funded and if the Fed balance sheet to debt ratio stays at the post GFC average (c.30% vs c.38% current) then the Fed balance sheet would be around $40tn in 2050 from just under $8tn today.

  Clearly the realized outcome won’t be a smooth upward line, but it’s hard to imagine what is likely to be a heavily-indebted future without substantial increases in the Fed’s balance sheet, irrespective of what happens in the next few quarters.

  

  Tyler Durden
  Thu, 05/20/2021 – 19:20

• Peddlers Of Russiagate Won't Take Truth For An Answer
  Peddlers Of Russiagate Won’t Take Truth For An Answer

  Authored by J. Peder Zane via RealClearPolitics.com,

  The Biden administration is vigorously pursuing key figures from the phony Trump/Russia collusion scandal that roiled the nation for four years. But instead of trying to punish the liars who perpetrated that fraud, it is targeting the truth-tellers who challenged and exposed the conspiracy to negate the 2016 election.

  

  Working from the same playbook used to smear dozens of Trump associates, the administration and its allies are planting stories based on blind quotes in friendly media outlets to seek revenge.

  On April 16, Washington Post columnist David Ignatius reported that the Justice Department is investigating Kash Patel – who had worked with Rep. Devin Nunes and later the Trump administration to reveal the Russiagate hoax – for the “possible improper disclosure of classified information.” Ignatius said he received the tip from “two knowledgeable sources” who “wouldn’t provide additional details.”

  Violating the bedrock principles of American justice and journalism, this article is an exercise in thuggery as the government uses a powerful media outlet to intimidate and besmirch a citizen without evidence. With nothing to respond to, how can Patel defend himself? If Patel is lucky, the federal government has only placed a sharp sword over his head that may not fall. If not, he might be dragged into a lengthy court battle that could drain his finances and also cost him his freedom.

  We don’t know if Patel broke the law, but note that the administration has shown no interest in pursuing former FBI leaders such as James Comey and Andrew McCabe, who improperly disclosed information regarding Russiagate.

  Trump’s former lawyer Rudolph Giuliani is also in the “cross hairs of a federal criminal investigation,” according to an April 29 article in New York Times that relied on “people with knowledge of the matter.”

  At issue, those anonymous sources say, is whether Giuliani was serving two masters when he counseled Trump to remove Marie L. Yovanovitch as the U.S. ambassador to Ukraine in 2019. “Did Mr. Giuliani go after Ms. Yovanovitch solely on behalf of Mr. Trump, who was his client at the time?” the Times reports. “Or was he also doing so on behalf of the Ukrainian officials, who wanted her removed for their own reasons?”

  I’ll leave it to the lawyers to determine the wisdom of bringing a case based on the parsing of tangled motives. What is clear is that the FBI is taking a thumb-screws page from the playbook of Special Counsel Robert Mueller, who deployed the little-used Foreign Agents Registration Act to pursue the white whale of collusion. As Lee Smith reported for RealClearInvestigations, just three people had pleaded guilty to FARA violations in the half-century before Mueller deployed it to pressure and punish Trump allies.

  And note, the FBI’s zeal to crack down on unregistered foreign agents does not extend to the president’s son Hunter Biden, who, Paul Sperry reported for RCI, “failed to register as a foreign agent while promoting the interests of foreign business partners in Washington, including brokering meetings with his father and other government officials.” It appears that we have two tiers of justice: one for Biden administration enemies, another for its family and friends.

  The targeting of Giuliani looks especially suspect and politically motivated after three main news outlets that have driven much of the false Russiagate coverage – the New York Times, Washington Post and NBC News – were forced to correct a recent story, once again based on anonymous sources, claiming the FBI had warned Giuliani in 2019 “that he was a target of a Russian disinformation campaign during his efforts to dig up unflattering information about then-candidate Joe Biden in 2019.” Giuliani was never given such a briefing.

  Considering the numerous instances in which the press published bogus information from “informed sources” during Russiagate, one has to ask why they continue to serve as vehicles for falsehoods. Fool me once, shame on you; fool me twice, shame on me. Fool me a dozen times and you’re not fooling me – we’re acting in concert.  As RCI editor Tom Kuntz has argued, journalistic integrity demands, at the very least, that these organizations tell their audience who exactly had misled them. Confidentiality agreements should not protect liars.

  A third example of the Biden administration’s effort to punish Russiagate figures is its renewed effort to put former Manafort associate Konstantin V. Kilimnik behind bars. In an extensive new article for RCI, Aaron Maté reports that the Treasury Department provided no evidence to support its recent claim that Kilimnik is a “known Russian Intelligence Services agent implementing influence operations on their behalf.” It also refuses to explain how it was able to discover the truth of Kilimnik’s identity, which the two most extensive Russiagate investigations – the 448-page Muller report and the 966-page Senate Intelligence report – failed to uncover.

  This absence of evidence has not stopped the peddlers of the Trump/Russia conspiracy theory from claiming vindication. Democrat Rep. Adam Schiff casts Treasury’s unsubstantiated claim as smoking-gun evidence of collusion. The New York Times reports that the claim demonstrates that “there had been numerous interactions between the Trump campaign and Russian intelligence during the year before the [2016] election.”

  Who needs proof when the government says it’s so?

  The FBI is also putting the screws to Kilimnik, offering $250,000 for information leading to his arrest on witness-tampering charges involving text messages he sent in 2018 to two people who have only been identified as “potential witnesses” involving Manafort’s lobbying work for Ukraine, not Russiagate.

  In an exclusive interview, Kilimnik told Maté, “I don’t understand how two messages to our old partners who helped us get out the message about Ukraine’s integration aspirations in [the] EU, and asking them to get in touch with Paul, can be interpreted as ‘intimidation’ or ‘obstruction of justice.’”

  Maté also reports that the $250,000 bounty on Kilimnik is more than double the amount the FBI is offering for information leading to the arrest of murder suspects.

  The Biden administration’s campaigns against Patel, Giuliani and Kilimnik suggest how the winners of the 2020 election are attempting to rewrite the history of Russiagate. Having been debunked and rebuked by their own investigators, the conspiracists are taking a second bite at the poisoned apple.  Using anonymous sources to make unsubstantiated charges in the nation’s most influential news outlets, they are seeking to punish people for the crime of exposing their malfeasance.

  Tyler Durden
  Thu, 05/20/2021 – 19:00

• 22 States Now Dropping $300 Weekly Unemployment Boost Amid Mounting Job Shortage
  22 States Now Dropping $300 Weekly Unemployment Boost Amid Mounting Job Shortage

  Republican governors in nearly half of US states have all announced plans to scrap beefed-up federal unemployment benefits they say have disincentivized workers to reenter the workforce.

  

  The shift away from the $300-per-week handout started earlier this month with Montana and South Carolina ending the boost. This week, Indiana, Oklahoma and Texas joined the fray to bring the total number of states to 22.

  According to the Epoch Times, “Alabama, Alaska, Arizona, Arkansas, Georgia, Idaho, Indiana, Iowa, New Hampshire, Mississippi, Missouri, Montana, North Dakota, Ohio, Oklahoma, South Carolina, South Dakota, Tennessee, Texas, Utah, West Virginia, and Wyoming—all plan to end the $300 boost, along with other federal unemployment benefit programs, at some point this summer.”

  On Monday, Texas Gov. Greg Abbott told the Biden administration that his state is “booming” and that employers are hiring in communities throughout the state.

  “In fact, the amount of job openings in Texas is far greater than the number of Texans looking for employment, making these unemployment benefits no longer necessary,” he wrote.

  

  Other states, meanwhile, have announced hiring incentives to get people back to work.

  New Hampshire’s Republican Gov. Chris Sununu said in a Wednesday tweet that “today we launched our SUMMER STIPENDS program to get people back to work, and announced we’re ending our participation in federal unemployment programs.”

  The Summer Stipends program offers $500 to $1,000 one-time bonuses for individuals who get a job that pays $25 an hour or less, and stay in that job for at least eight weeks.

  “Let’s get back to work,” Sununu said. –Epoch Times

  As we noted earlier today, despite the dismal payrolls print, initial jobless claims are just about to pre-COVID levels, with a better than expected 444,000 Americas filing for first-time unemployment benefits last week despite 8.1 million job openings.

  

  

  In an open letter to the nation’s governors, House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-CA) and several colleagues urged states to “put America back to work” by ending the weekly pandemic stipend.

  “Unfortunately, we are now seeing the negative consequences of these misaligned economic incentives,” reads the letter. “An estimated 40 percent of the unemployed now earn more staying at home than working, causing severe labor shortages across the country” and impacting several industries.

  

  And according to a recent report by the National Federation of Independent Business (NFIB), a record number of small businesses couldn’t find enough workers to hire in April.

  According to economists at Wells Fargo, on average, anyone who made less than around $34,000 per year was better off collecting unemployment benefits than returning to work.

  According to Sen. Marco Rubio (R-FL), “It’s not because people are lazy — not accusing anyone of being lazy — it’s because people are logical, because it’s logic that if you’re going to make close to or as much and in some cases more than what you do when you’re at work, you’ll go back to work when that expires.”

  Tyler Durden
  Thu, 05/20/2021 – 18:40

• Robinhood Introduces New Product To Give Retail Traders Direct Access To IPOs
  Robinhood Introduces New Product To Give Retail Traders Direct Access To IPOs

  A couple of months ago, we heard the first reports about Robinhood, SoFi and potentially other rival brokerages developing platforms to allow retail traders something that has, until now, been off-limits to mom and pop investors: access to IPO allocations of newly public companies.

  It looks like Robinhood is winning the race: According to CNBC, Robinhood will soon roll out a new product called “IPO Access” that will do just that: give amateur investors access to IPO shares. It’s the latest move to help “democratize” finance, as Robinhood likes to argue. CNBC reported that the company aims to “antagonize” Wall Street by breaking down one more artificial barrier for retail traders.

  

  Demand for IPO access among retail traders is high: IPO stock pops on the first day averaged 36% in 2020, according to Dealogic. Until now, these gains have been off-limits to retail traders.

  Traditional IPOs have also been criticized for being broken, with investment banks allotting shares to the same big clients who reap instate first-day gains. But with IPO Access, Robinhood clients will be able to request to buy shares at their IPO price range, and when the final price is set, clients will be able to follow through with the purchase, change their order, or cancel.

  The product will be rolled out over the coming weeks, and medical scrubs company Figs will be the first company to go public with some of its allocation delivered through Robinhood Access.

  Medical scrubs company Figs — which filed its paperwork to go public to the SEC on Thursday — will be the first company to offer its share on the Robinhood app.

  “We currently anticipate that up to 1.0% of the shares of Class A common stock offered hereby will, at our request, be offered to retail investors through Robinhood Financial, LLC, as a selling group member, via its online brokerage platform,” Figs said in its S1 filing document.

  “This is the first initial public offering to be included on the Robinhood platform and there may be risks associated with the use of the Robinhood platform that we cannot foresee, including risks related to the technology and operation of the platform, and the publicity and the use of social media by users of the platform that we cannot control,” the company added.

  To be clear: Robinhood won’t be underwriting deals; instead, it plans to partner with investment banks to gain access to the share allocation.

  SoFi announced similar plans to offer IPO allocations to retail traders, but unlike Robinhood, SoFi plans to act as an underwriter.

  Robinhood’s launch of Robinhood Access also raises questions about whether Robinhood customers will be able to purchase shares of the brokerage’s hotly anticipated IPO via the platform.

  If trading on Robinhood’s IPO day goes poorly, the company can just pull the plug.

  Tyler Durden
  Thu, 05/20/2021 – 18:20

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