Apr 22

Today’s News 22nd April 2021

  • Peak ESG: Exxon Proposing $100 Billion Taxpayer-Backed Carbon Capture Project
    Peak ESG: Exxon Proposing $100 Billion Taxpayer-Backed Carbon Capture Project

    Exxon is trying to cash in on some of the ESG hysteria that has gripped markets over the last 18 months by offering up the idea of a $100 billion hub to capture carbon dioxide along the U.S. Gulf Coast.

    And given all the hot money in ESG and the Biden administration’s propensity to print and throw cash at anything that sounds the slightest bit “green” without paying any rhyme or reason to cost/benefit, we can’t say we blame Exxon. 

    Exxon “along with a multitude of private and public partners” would build the facility to trap emissions from refineries and facilities along the Houston Ship Channel, the Houston Chronicle reported. The facility “could bury 50 million tons a year beneath the Gulf of Mexico by 2030”, the report notes. This is more than all CCS projects currently in operation. 

    The cost of such a facility had never made sense in the past, which is why Exxon is now lobbying for taxpayer money to engage in the project. “It will need government and private-sector funding, as well as enhanced regulatory and legal frameworks that enable investment and innovation,” the company said.

    The company had started a similar, smaller project in Wyoming last year, but it was put on hold due to (surprise) the economics amidst the pandemic. 

    And while Exxon is trying to tap into the ESG mania, Board Member Jeff Ubben has also been warning about some of the ESG products on the market. Back in March we noted that there probably isn’t much of a better weathervane on ESG investing than Ubben. Ubben was ahead of the curve in embracing the idea of ESG investing before it became the FOMO-investing-technique du jour for most of 2020 and 2021. 

    Back in January 2020, Ubben was praising BlackRock for its stance on climate change. “It is pretty exciting,” he said. “ESG, that’s the ticket that’s how we get the long-term back.” 

    But then in March 2021, just 15 months after his original comments, Ubben went on record in saying BlackRock’s ESG products “won’t address climate change”. 

    In what now was perhaps a bit of telegraphing and pre-planning, Ubben called them “misguided” last month and said he takes exception to the ESG products because “they don’t reward carbon-intensive companies that are reducing emissions”.

    Ubben said that simply buying ETFs because they have a high ESG score has a “very second or third derivative effect” on climate change.  

    And, of course, Ubben is right and is waking up to a reality that, eventually, we expect the rest of the market to open its eyes to. We have constantly documented the numerous “ESG” funds that have hilariously bought up names like Chevron, Exxon, Microsoft, Apple and other names that seemingly don’t have any “extra” added environmental benefits to them.

    Some ESG funds break down to look just like index funds. Others seem hilariously askew to be “ESG” focused. 

    Last month we wrote that Tariq Fancy, former chief investment officer for Sustainable Investing at BlackRock, wrote an op-ed in USA Today, admitting that Wall Street is greenwashing the financial world, making sustainable investing merely PR, which is a distraction from the problem of climate change.

    Fancy appeared later in the day on CNBC and stunned the always-ready-to-virtue-signal anchor by telling her that that “the financial services industry is duping the American public with pro-environment, sustainable investing practices.”

    Tyler Durden
    Thu, 04/22/2021 – 02:45

  • Is The UK's "War On Pubs" About Silencing Dissent?
    Is The UK’s “War On Pubs” About Silencing Dissent?

    Authored by Paul Joseph Watson via Summit News,

    A university teacher has published a fascinating article in which he argues that the shut down of pubs in the United Kingdom is about silencing dissent.

    The article by Sean Walsh, which was carried by LockdownSkeptics, questions why pubs are still semi-closed while other “non-essential retail” stores are allowed to fully open despite the fact that the entire hospitality industry was responsible for just 3 per cent of total COVID infections last year.

    “It’s tempting to conclude that the SAGE types are not worried that pubs are possible vectors of transmission, but that they are concerned that hospitality venues are potential theatres of dissent,” writes Walsh.

    He also notes that health bureaucrats seem to be intent on the British public remaining joyless as part of some demented puritanical drive to oversee the “crude sanitisation of our understanding of the human soul.”

    Walsh accurately identifies the pub not just as a place of fun and frivolity, but an organizing forum where populist sentiment takes shape.

    “It is in the pub that people can whisper conspiracy against a Government narrative. And conspiracies always require that the like-minded are allowed to gather. It is over a drink that the millionaire and the pauper can come together and compare notes,” he writes.

    “(Boris) Johnson is currently offering us a sinister inversion of what a pub is, one in which you are tracked, traced, audited, judged, and humiliated. The “road map”, in this industry at least, is one that leads you not into “normal” but into a “Twin Peaks” version of it,” adds Walsh.

    He concludes by arguing that if the government was trying to build a police state, one of the first things it would do is to “stamp on the enjoyment of the great unwashed and confiscate all mechanisms of dissent.”

    “The Government’s war on pubs is ticking both those boxes,” writes Walsh.

    One has to question whether government efforts to punish pubs while allowing throngs of crowds to gather outside retail outlets goes deeper than health considerations given the minimal contribution bars and restaurants had to the spread of the virus.

    Could the war on pubs have also been a deliberate attempt to prevent people from coming together to pierce the monopoly control the media wielded over the entire lockdown narrative?

    As we highlighted yesterday, many pub landlords are infuriated with the attack on their livelihoods, leading in one case to an owner kicking out Labour leader Keir Starmer after a heated confrontation about his party’s support for lockdown.

    *  *  *

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    Tyler Durden
    Thu, 04/22/2021 – 02:00

  • Iran Says "60%-70% Of Issues Resolved" In Vienna Nuclear Talks
    Iran Says “60%-70% Of Issues Resolved” In Vienna Nuclear Talks

    Israeli intelligence officials days ago told Axios that they beleive a restoration of US participation in the Iran nuclear deal (JCPOA) is as little as “weeks” away. Top Israeli officials have lately tried to lobby Washington against pursuing the ongoing Vienna talks. 

    “We are not very optimistic to say the least,” a senior Israeli official had said to Axios. “We will not be surprised if within weeks the US and other world powers sign a deal with Iran.”

    This assessment appears to be accurate, as the latest statement out Tuesday from Iranian President Hassan Rouhani indicates the negotiating sides have already resolved 60-70% of the key barriers that previously stood in the way of restoring the deal.

    Iranian Presidency/AFP

    In the face of recent Israel ‘sabotage attacks’ – particularly against the Natanz enrichment facility on April 11, which Tehran had denounced as “nuclear sabotage” – Iran’s leaders have remained resolute in seeing Vienna talks through, essentially boasting that Tel Aviv’s machinations will not stand in their way.

    The Times of Israel presented Rouhani’s latest words on the Vienna talks as follows: 

    The “negotiations have achieved 60-70 percent progress,” Rouhani said, according to the IRNA news agency.

    “If the Americans act honestly, we will reach a conclusion in little time,” he added.

    US statements have also suggested ‘positive’ signs but have still emphasized “a long road ahead”. “I think it’s fair to say we have more road ahead of us than in the rearview mirror,” US State Department Spokesman Ned Price said this week.

    It’s as yet unclear how quickly the US side said it’s willing to drop sanctions, which has been the firm and unwavering position of the Islamic Republic from the start. At this point for Rouhani to give such an optimistic assessment of “70 percent progress” on key issues, Washington must have vowed significant and rapid sanctions relief. 

    Meanwhile, with the writing on the wall for Tel Aviv, Israeli officials are now doing some damage control in terms of pressing for at least more far-reaching nuclear inspections and oversight as part of the US return to the deal. Israel is also attempting to spotlight Iran’s conventional ballistic missile program:

    Israel is lobbying the US to include improvements to the oversight of Iran’s nuclear program, the Kan public broadcaster reported on Tuesday night. Jerusalem is pushing for International Atomic Energy Agency officials to have greater powers in inspecting the nuclear sites, according to the report.

    Mossad intelligence agency director Yossi Cohen and National Security Adviser Meir Ben-Shabbat will both head to the US early next week to push the position on Jerusalem’s behalf, the report said.

    Recently the Biden administration reportedly told the Israelis to stop the covert attacks against Iranian assets which appear bent on derailing the Vienna process. 

    Israeli media reported over the weekend that in backchannel communications the White House voiced “displeasure” not only with recent covert attacks – particularly the April 11 Natanz nuclear site incident – but its willingness to ‘leak’ its culpability to the public.

    The next round of talks in Vienna are expected to commence in earnest next week.

    Tyler Durden
    Thu, 04/22/2021 – 01:00

  • Chris Hedges: The Unraveling Of The American Empire
    Chris Hedges: The Unraveling Of The American Empire

    Authored by Chris Hedges via ConsortiumNews.com,

    America’s defeat in Afghanistan is one in a string of catastrophic military blunders that herald the death of the American empire. With the exception of the first Gulf War, fought largely by mechanized units in the open desert that did not — wisely — attempt to occupy Iraq, the United States political and military leadership has stumbled from one military debacle to another. Korea. Vietnam. Lebanon. Afghanistan. Iraq. Syria. Libya. The trajectory of military fiascos mirrors the sad finales of the Chinese, Ottoman, Hapsburg, Russian, French, British, Dutch, Portuguese and Soviet empires. While each of these empires decayed with their own peculiarities, they all exhibited patterns of dissolution that characterize the American experiment.

    U.S. Army helicopter near Jalalabad, Afghanistan, April 5, 2017. (U.S. Army, Brian Harris, Wikimedia Commons)

    Imperial ineptitude is matched by domestic ineptitude. The collapse of good government at home, with legislative, executive and judicial systems all seized by corporate power, ensures that the incompetent and the corrupt, those dedicated not to the national interest but to swelling the profits of the oligarchic elite, lead the country into a cul-de-sac. Rulers and military leaders, driven by venal self-interest, are often buffoonish characters in a grand comic operetta. How else to think of Allen Dulles, Dick Cheney, George W. Bush, Donald Trump or the hapless Joe Biden? While their intellectual and moral vacuity is often darkly amusing, it is murderous and savage when directed towards their victims.

    There is not a single case since 1941 when the coups, political assassinations, election fraud, black propaganda, blackmail, kidnapping, brutal counter-insurgency campaigns, U.S. sanctioned massacres, torture in global black sites, proxy wars or military interventions carried out by the United States resulted in the establishment of a democratic government. The two-decade-long wars in the Middle East, the greatest strategic blunder in American history, have only left in their wake one failed state after another. Yet, no one in the ruling class is held accountable.

    Quagmires 

    War, when it is waged to serve utopian absurdities, such as implanting a client government in Baghdad that will flip the region, including Iran, into U.S. protectorates, or when, as in Afghanistan, there is no vision at all, descends into a quagmire. The massive allocation of money and resources to the U.S. military, which includes Biden’s request for $715 billion for the Defense Department in fiscal year 2022, a $11.3 billion, or 1.6 percent increase, over 2021, is not in the end about national defense. The bloated military budget is designed, as Seymour Melman explained in his book, The Permanent War Economy, primarily to keep the American economy from collapsing. All we really make anymore are weapons. Once this is understood, perpetual war makes sense, at least for those who profit from it.

    The idea that America is a defender of democracy, liberty and human rights would come as a huge surprise to those who saw their democratically elected governments subverted and overthrown by the United States in Panama (1941), Syria (1949), Iran (1953), Guatemala (1954), Congo (1960), Brazil (1964), Chile (1973), Honduras (2009) and Egypt (2013). And this list does not include a host of other governments that, however despotic, as was the case in South Vietnam, Indonesia or Iraq, were viewed as inimical to American interests and destroyed, in each case making life for the inhabitants of these countries even more miserable.

    (Illustration by Mr. Fish)

    I spent two decades on the outer reaches of empire as a foreign correspondent. The flowery rhetoric used to justify the subjugation of other nations so corporations can plunder natural resources and exploit cheap labor is solely for domestic consumption. The generals, intelligence operatives, diplomats, bankers and corporate executives that manage empire find this idealistic talk risible. They despise, with good reason, naïve liberals who call for “humanitarian intervention” and believe the ideals used to justify empire are real, that empire can be a force for good. These liberal interventionists, the useful idiots of imperialism, attempt to civilize a process that was created and designed to repress, intimidate, plunder and dominate.

    The liberal interventionists, because they wrap themselves in high ideals, are responsible for numerous military and foreign policy debacles. The call by liberal interventionists such as Barack Obama, Hillary Clinton, Joe Biden, Susan Rice and Samantha Power to fund jihadists in Syria and depose Muammar Gaddafi in Libya rent these countries — as in Afghanistan and Iraq — into warring fiefdoms. The liberal interventionists are also the tip of the spear in the campaign to rachet up tensions with China and Russia.

    U.S. State Department staff en route to Tripoli, Libya, Oct. 18, 2011. (State Department, Flickr)

    Russia is blamed for interfering in the last two presidential elections on behalf of Donald Trump. Russia, whose economy is roughly the size of Italy’s, is also attacked for destabilizing the Ukraine, supporting Bashar al-Assad in Syria, funding France’s National Front party and hacking into German computers. Biden has imposed sanctions on Russia — including limits on buying newly issued sovereign debt — in response to allegations that Moscow was behind a hack on SolarWinds Corp. and worked to thwart his candidacy.

    At the same time, the liberal interventionists are orchestrating a new cold war with China, justifying this cold war because the Chinese government is carrying out genocide against its Uyghur minority, repressing the pro-democracy movement in Hong Kong and stealing U.S. patents. As with Russia, sanctions have been imposed targeting the country’s ruling elite. The U.S. is also carrying out provocative military maneuvers along the Russian border and in the South China Sea.

    The core belief of imperialists, whether they come in the form of a Barack Obama or a George W. Bush, is racism and ethnic chauvinism, the notion that Americans are permitted, because of superior attributes, to impose their “values” on lesser races and peoples by force. This racism, carried out in the name of Western civilization and its corollary white supremacy, unites the rabid imperialists and liberal interventionists in the Republican and Democratic parties. It is the fatal disease of empire, captured in Graham Greene’s novel The Quiet American and Michael Ondaatje’s The English Patient.

    Aug. 9, 1998: U.S. embassy after attack, Nairobi, Kenya,  (IDF, CC BY-SA 3.0, Wikimedia Commons)

    The crimes of empire always spawn counter-violence that is then used to justify harsher forms of imperial repression. For example, the United States routinely kidnapped Islamic jihadists fighting in the Balkans between 1995 and 1998. They were sent to Egypt — many were Egyptian — where they were savagely tortured and usually executed. In 1998, the International Islamic Front for Jihad said it would carry out a strike against the United States after jihadists were kidnapped and transferred to black sites from Albania. They made good on their threat igniting massive truck bombs at the U.S. embassies in Kenya and Tanzania that left 224 dead. Of course, the “extraordinary renditions” by the CIA did not end and neither did the attacks by jihadists.

    Micro-Militarism

    Our decades-long military fiascos, a feature of all late empires, are called “micro-militarism.” The Athenians engaged in micro-militarism during the Peloponnesian War (431-404 B.C.) when they invaded Sicily, suffering the loss of 200 ships and thousands of soldiers. The defeat triggered successful revolts throughout the Athenian empire.

    The Roman empire, which at its height lasted for two centuries, created a military machine that, like the Pentagon, was a state within a state. Rome’s military rulers, led by Augustus, snuffed out the remnants of Rome’s anemic democracy and ushered in a period of despotism that saw the empire disintegrate under the weight of extravagant military expenditures and corruption.

    The British empire, after the suicidal military folly of World War I, was terminated in 1956 when it attacked Egypt in a dispute over the nationalization of the Suez Canal. Britain was forced to withdraw in humiliation, empowering Arab nationalist leaders such as Egypt’s Gamal Abdel Nasser and dooming British rule over its few remaining colonies. None of these empires recovered.

    “While rising empires are often judicious, even rational in their application of armed force for conquest and control of overseas dominions, fading empires are inclined to ill-considered displays of power, dreaming of bold military masterstrokes that would somehow recoup lost prestige and power,” the historian Alfred W. McCoy writes in his book In the Shadows of the American Century: The Rise and Decline of US Global Power: “Often irrational even from an imperial point of view, these micromilitary operations can yield hemorrhaging expenditures or humiliating defeats that only accelerate the process already under way.”

    The worse it gets at home the more the empire needs to fabricate enemies within and without. This is the real reason for the increase in tensions with Russia and China. The poverty of half the nation and concentration of wealth in the hands of a tiny oligarchic cabal, the wanton murder of unarmed civilians by militarized police, the rage at the ruling elites, expressed with nearly half the electorate voting for a con artist and demagogue and a mob of his supporters storming the capitol, are the internal signs of disintegration. The inability of the for-profit national health services to cope with the pandemic, the passage of a Covid relief bill and the proposal of an infrastructure bill that would hand the bulk of some $5 trillion dollars to corporations while tossing crumbs — one-time checks of $1,400 to a citizenry in deep financial distress — will only fuel the decline.

    February 2018: Die-in demonstration by Teens For Gun Reform in wake of the shooting at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida. (Lorie Shaull via Flickr)

    Because of the loss of unionized jobs, the real decline of wages, de-industrialization, chronic underemployment and unemployment, and punishing austerity programs, the country is plagued by a plethora of diseases of despair including opioid addictions, alcoholism, suicides, gambling, depression, morbid obesity and mass shootings — since March 16 the United States has had at least 45 mass shootings, including eight people killed in an Indiana FedEx facility on Friday, three dead and three injured in a shooting in Wisconsin on Sunday, and another three dead in a shooting in Austin on Sunday. These are the consequences of a deeply troubled society.

    The façade of empire is able to mask the rot within its foundations, often for decades, until, as we saw with the Soviet Union, the empire appears to suddenly disintegrate. The loss of the dollar as the global reserve currency will probably mark the final chapter of the American empire. In 2015, the dollar accounted for 90 percent of bilateral transactions between China and Russia, a percentage that has since fallen to about 50 percent. The use of sanctions as a weapon against China and Russia pushes these countries to replace the dollar with their own national currencies. Russia, as part of this move away from the dollar, has begun accumulating yuan reserves.

    The loss of the dollar as the world’s reserve currency will instantly raise the cost of imports. It will result in unemployment of Depression-era levels. It will force the empire to dramatically contract. It will, as the economy worsens, fuel a hyper-nationalism that will most likely be expressed through a Christianized fascism. The mechanisms, already in place, for total social control, militarized police, a suspension of civil liberties, wholesale government surveillance, enhanced “terrorism” laws that railroad people into the world’s largest prison system and censorship overseen by the digital media monopolies will seamlessly cement into place a police state. Nations that descend into crises this severe seek to deflect the rage of a betrayed population on foreign scapegoats. China and Russia will be used to fill these roles.

    The defeat in Afghanistan is a familiar and sad story, one all those blinded by imperial hubris endure. The tragedy, however, is not the collapse of the American empire, but that, lacking the ability to engage in self-critique and self-correction, as it dies it will lash out in a blind, inchoate fury at innocents at home and abroad.

    *  *  *

    This column is from Scheerpost, for which Chris Hedges writes a regular column twice a month. Click here to sign up for email alerts.

    Tyler Durden
    Wed, 04/21/2021 – 23:40

  • Russia Plans To Quit International Space Station By 2025
    Russia Plans To Quit International Space Station By 2025

    As tensions increase between Russia and the US, the Russian space agency has announced it will withdraw from the International Space Station (ISS) in 2025 and has already begun work on a space station of its own, according to BBC News. 

    The US and Russia jointly launched the ISS in 1998 and was hailed as significant steps to reconstruct souring relations between the cold war adversaries. But Russian officials have indicated they will pull out of the ISS by 2025. 

    The ISS is 23 years old and is rapidly aging, posing a danger for astronauts. ISS crew recently had to hunt for a mystery air leak. 

    “We can’t risk the lives [of our cosmonauts]. The situation that today is connected to the structure and the metal getting old, it can lead to irreversible consequences – to catastrophe. We mustn’t let that happen,” Deputy Prime Minister Yuri Borisov told state television this week. 

    Borisov said Moscow would give the US and other international partners “fair warning of our departure from the ISS in 2025.” 

    The head of Roscosmos State Corporation for Space Activities, also known as Roscosmos, Dmitry Rogozin, posted a video on the Telegram messaging app that said the “first core module of the new Russian orbital station is in the works,” intending to launch it into low Earth orbit by 2025. 

    News of the proposed withdrawal and build of the Russian space module comes after Moscow signed a memorandum with China to build a moon base that would either be on the lunar surface or in orbit. Russia previously turned down participating in the “too U.S.-centric” Moon-orbiting station. 

    For the US to maintain its hegemonic position, it must also have a dominant position in space. Essentially holding the “high ground,” though Russia backing out of the ISS by 2025 and building its own space station, along with pivoting towards China for moon projects, is precisely why the Pentagon’s newest branch, called Space Force, is focused on attempting to maintain Western dominance in space. 

    Tyler Durden
    Wed, 04/21/2021 – 23:20

  • The Covidian Cult Exposed: Six Conditions Of Mind Control
    The Covidian Cult Exposed: Six Conditions Of Mind Control

    Authored by CJ Hopkins via The Consent Factory,

    Back in October of 2020, I wrote an essay called The Covidian Cult, in which I described the so-called “New Normal” as a global totalitarian ideological movement.

    Developments over the last six months have borne out the accuracy of that analogy.

    A full year after the initial roll-out of the utterly horrifying and completely fictional photos of people dropping dead in the streets, the projected 3.4% death rate, and all the rest of the official propaganda, despite the absence of any actual scientific evidence of an apocalyptic plague (and the abundance of evidence to the contrary), millions of people continue to behave like members of an enormous death cult, walking around in public with medical-looking masks, robotically repeating vacuous platitudes, torturing children, the elderly, the disabled, demanding that everyone submit to being injected with dangerous experimental “vaccines,” and just generally acting delusional and psychotic.

    How did we ever get to this point … to the point where, as I put it in The Covidian Cult, “instead of the cult existing as an island within the dominant culture, the cult has become the dominant culture, and those of us who have not joined the cult have become the isolated islands within it?”

    To understand this, one needs to understand how cults control the minds of their members, because totalitarian ideological movements operate more or less the same way, just on a much larger, societal scale. There is a wealth of research and knowledge on this subject (I mentioned Robert J. Lifton in my earlier essay), but, to keep things simple, I’ll just use Margaret Singer’s “Six Conditions of Mind Control” from her 1995 book, Cults in Our Midst, as a lens to view the Covidian Cult through. (The italics are Singer. The commentary is mine.)

    Six Conditions of Mind Control

    1. Keep the person unaware of what is going on and how she or he is being changed a step at a time. Potential new members are led, step by step, through a behavioral-change program without being aware of the final agenda or full content of the group.

    Looking back, it is easy to see how people were conditioned, step by step, to accept the “New Normal” ideology. They were bombarded with terrifying propaganda, locked down, stripped of their civil rights, forced to wear medical-looking masks in public, to act out absurd “social-distancing” rituals, submit to constant “testing,” and all the rest of it. Anyone not complying with this behavioral-change program or challenging the veracity and rationality of the new ideology was demonized as a “conspiracy theorist,” a “Covid denier,” an “anti-vaxxer,” in essence, an enemy of the cult, like a “suppresive person” in the Church of Scientology.

    2. Control the person’s social and/or physical environment; especially control the person’s time.

    For over a year now, the “New Normal” authorities have controlled the social/physical environment, and how New Normals spend their time, with lockdowns, social-distancing rituals, closure of “non-essential” businesses, omnipresent propaganda, isolation of the elderly, travel restrictions, mandatory mask-rules, protest bans, and now the segregation of the “Unvaccinated.” Basically, society has been transformed into something resembling an infectious disease ward, or an enormous hospital from which there is no escape. You’ve seen the photos of the happy New Normals dining out at restaurants, relaxing at the beach, jogging, attending school, and so on, going about their “normal” lives with their medical-looking masks and prophylactic face shields. What you’re looking at is the pathologization of society, the pathologization of everyday life, the physical (social) manifestation of a morbid obsession with disease and death.

    3. Systematically create a sense of powerlessness in the person.

    What kind of person could feel more powerless than an obedient New Normal sitting at home, obsessively logging the “Covid death” count, sharing photos of his medical-looking mask and post-“vaccination” bandage on Facebook, as he waits for permission from the authorities to go outdoors, visit his family, kiss his lover, or shake hands with a colleague? The fact that in the Covidian Cult the traditional charismatic cult leader has been replaced by a menagerie of medical experts and government officials does not change the utter dependency and abject powerlessness of its members, who have been reduced to a state approaching infancy. This abject powerlessness is not experienced as a negative; on the contrary, it is proudly celebrated. Thus the mantra-like repetition of the “New Normal” platitude “Trust the Science!” by people who, if you try to show them the science, melt down completely and start jabbering aggressive nonsense at you to shut you up.

    4. Manipulate a system of rewards, punishments and experiences in such a way as to inhibit behavior that reflects the person’s former social identity.

    The point here is the transformation of the formerly basically rational person into an entirely different cult-approved person, in our case, an obedient “New Normal” person. Singer gets into this in greater detail, but her discussion applies mostly to subcultural cults, not to large-scale totalitarian movements. For our purposes, we can fold this into Condition 5.

    5. Manipulate a system of rewards, punishments, and experiences in order to promote learning the group’s ideology or belief system and group-approved behaviors. Good behavior, demonstrating an understanding and acceptance of the group’s beliefs, and compliance are rewarded, while questioning, expressing doubts or criticizing are met with disapproval, redress and possible rejection. If one expresses a question, they are made to feel that there is something inherently wrong with them to be questioning.

    OK, I’m going to tell you a little story. It’s a story about a personal experience, which I’m pretty sure you’ve also experienced. It’s a story about a certain New Normal who has been harassing me for several months. I’ll call him Brian Parks, because, well, that’s his name, and I no longer feel any compunction about sharing it.

    Brian is a former friend/colleague from the theater world who has gone full “New Normal” and is absolutely furious that I have not. So outraged is Brian that I have not joined the cult that he has been going around on the Internet referring to me as a “conspiracy theorist” and suggesting that I’ve had some kind of nervous breakdown and require immediate psychiatric treatment because I do not believe the official “New Normal” narrative. Now, this would not be a very big deal, except that Brian is impugning my character and attempting to damage my reputation on the Facebook pages of other theater colleagues, which Brian feels entitled to do, given that I am a “Covid denier,” a “conspiracy theorist,” and an “anti-vaxxer,” or whatever, and given the fact that he has the power of the state, the media, etc., on his side.

    This is how it works in cults, and in larger totalitarian societies. It isn’t usually the Gestapo that comes for you. It’s usually your friends and colleagues. What Brian is doing is working that system of rewards and punishments to enforce his ideology, because he knows that most of my other colleagues in the theater world have also gone full “New Normal,” or at least are looking the other way and staying silent while it is being implemented.

    This tactic, obviously, has backfired on Brian, primarily because I do not give a fuck what any New Normals think of me, whether they work in the theater world or anywhere else, but I am in a rather privileged position, because I have accomplished what I wanted to accomplish in the theater, and would rather stick my hand in a blender than submit my novels to corporate publishers for review by “sensitivity readers,” so there isn’t much to threaten me with. That, and I have no children to support, or administrations to answer to (unlike, for example, Mark Crispin Miller, who is currently being persecuted by the “New Normal” administration at NYU).

    The point is, this kind of ideological conditioning is happening everywhere, every day, on the job, among friends, even among families. The pressure to conform is intense, because nothing is more threatening to devoted cultists, or members of totalitarian ideological movements, than those who challenge their fundamental beliefs, confront them with facts, or otherwise demonstrate that their “reality” isn’t reality at all, but, rather, a delusional, paranoid fiction.

    The key difference between how this works in cults and totalitarian ideological movements is that, usually, a cult is a subcultural group, and thus non-cult-members have the power of the ideology of the dominant society to draw on when resisting the mind-control tactics of the cult, and attempting to deprogram its members … whereas, in our case, this balance of power is inverted. Totalitarian ideological movements have the power of governments, the media, the police, the culture industry, academia, and the compliant masses on their side. And, thus, they do not need to persuade anyone. They have the power to dictate “reality.” Only cults operating in total isolation, like Jim Jones’ People’s Temple in Guyana, enjoy this level of control over their members.

    This pressure to conform, this ideological conditioning, must be fiercely resisted, regardless of the consequences, both publicly and in our private lives, or the “New Normal” will certainly become our “reality.” Despite the fact that we “Covid deniers” are currently outnumbered by the Covidian cultists, we need to behave as if we are not, and hold to reality, facts, and real science, and treat the New Normals as exactly what they are, members of a new totalitarian movement, delusional cultists run amok. If we do not, we will get to Singer’s Condition 6 …

    6. Put forth a closed system of logic and an authoritarian structure that permits no feedback and refuses to be modified except by leadership approval or executive order. The group has a top-down, pyramid structure. The leaders must have verbal ways of never losing.

    We’re not there yet, but that is where we’re headed … global pathologized totalitarianism. So, please, speak up. Call things what they are. Confront the Brians in your life. Despite the fact that they tell themselves that they’re trying to help you “come to your senses” or “see the truth,” or “trust the Science,” they are not. They are cultists, desperately trying to get you to conform to their paranoid beliefs, pressuring you, manipulating you, bullying you, threatening you. Do not engage them on their terms, or let them goad you into accepting their premises. (Once they’ve sucked you into their narrative, they’ve won.) Expose them, confront them with their tactics and their motives. You will probably not change their minds in the least, but your example might help other New Normals whose faith is slipping to begin to recognize what has been done to their minds and break with the cult.

    Tyler Durden
    Wed, 04/21/2021 – 23:00

  • Syrian Missile Comes Close To Striking Israeli Nuclear Reactor, Israel Retaliates In Huge Escalation
    Syrian Missile Comes Close To Striking Israeli Nuclear Reactor, Israel Retaliates In Huge Escalation

    Overnight Israel’s military was put on high alert after alarms went off near Israel’s Dimona nuclear reactor site in the southern part of the country. 

    Reuters is reporting that “A Syrian surface-to-air missile exploded in southern Israel on Thursday, the Israeli military said, in an incident that triggered warning sirens in an area near the secretive Dimona nuclear reactor.”

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    It was an apparent Syrian response to a prior Israeli attack that targeted the Damascus suburbs. Israel says that it responded to the apparent retaliatory missile attack out of Syria.

    At the same time the Jerusalem Post has this overnight (local time) urgent headline: “Missile launched toward Israel from Syria, IDF responds with airstrikes.”

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    Via Reuters: View of the Israeli nuclear facility in the Negev Desert outside Dimona

    Reuters continues of the late Wednesday into overnight Thursday report: 

    There were no immediate reports of any injuries or damage in Israel. The military said that in response to the launch, it attacked several missile batteries in Syria, including the one that fired the projectile that struck its territory.

    Syria’s state news agency said Syrian air defences intercepted the Israeli attack that targeted areas in the Damascus suburbs. “Air defences intercepted the rockets and downed most of them,” the agency said.

    “A Reuters reporter about 90 km (56 miles) north of Dimona heard the sound of an explosion minutes before the military tweeted that sirens had gone off in the region,” the report continues. 

    “The errant Syrian missile was an SA-5, one of several fired at Israeli air force planes, according to an Israeli military spokesman. It did not hit the reactor, he added.”

    And Middle East Institute’s Danny Makki reports the following from on the ground in the Syrian capital of Damascus…

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    This appears a massive escalation in the years’ long war given it’s looking like Damascus targeted the highly sensitive and secretive Dimona site. 

    Syrian state media is now saying it actively “responded to Israeli aggression” which strongly suggests the launch into southern Israel was intentional – though this remains unconfirmed – also given the “response” also no doubt involved a volley of anti-aircraft missiles.

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    However, Israeli Defense Forces (IDF) are in the immediate aftermath seeking to somewhat downplay the incredibly dangerous and at this point mysterious incident, describing that a surface-to-air missile from Syria “overflew its target” and landed in southern Israel.

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    The big question remains the degree to which Syria was engaged in an act of “intentional” targeting of Israel’s secretive nuclear facility. 

    Damascus and Tehran could be drawing new “red lines” – also as Iran is feeling emboldened by “positive” progress as it engages Washington at the Vienna nuclear talks. 

    All of this comes at a moment of soaring tensions between Israel and Iran, which will likely see Israel engage in greater interventions and escalations with Iranian forces inside Israel, even after years of near-weekly aerial operations attacking inside Syrian territory. 

    Tyler Durden
    Wed, 04/21/2021 – 22:40

  • Canada Reveals It Paid White Helmets $4 Million Annually After It Cuts Ties
    Canada Reveals It Paid White Helmets $4 Million Annually After It Cuts Ties

    In another stunning revelation concerning the self-styled “independent” Syrian rescue and aid organization the White Helmets, Canada this week revealed that it has ended all funding for the controversial group yet without detailing why. 

    A bombshell new report in The Globe and Mail says only that the government of Canada, dubbed “one of the staunchest backers of the White Helmets”, ended support “shortly after the death of the group’s British co-founder, James Le Mesurier, who committed suicide in November, 2019.”

    White Helmets member waving al-Qaeda/Nusrah flag

    Le Mesurier had been mired in scandal and was subject of an in investigation over possible mishandling of donations which poured in from various Western governments and humanitarian groups. His suicide took place in murky circumstances: he was found dead reportedly from a fall on the street below the upstairs window of his apartment in Istanbul’s Beyoglu district on November 11, 2019.

    The White Helmets had also been caught on many occasions embedding with al-Qaeda in Syria and essentially served as their rescue arm (or “the Islamic State’s fire brigade” as ISIS kidnap victim John Cantlie once observed), while refusing to work in government areas despite claiming they are a ‘neutral’ NGO.

    But the reality all along was that this ‘humanitarian rescue group’ was a Western government-backed operation which served as an extension of the same external powers’ drive to overthrow Assad via covert support to jihadists on the ground. 

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    The Globe and Mail report reveals the following: 

    But Farouq Habib, deputy general manager of the White Helmets, told The Globe and Mail that Canadian funding of the organization – including specific funding for clearing mines and other unexploded ordnance, as well as money targeted at bringing more women into the organization – stopped at the end of 2019. Documents obtained by The Globe through an Access To Information request show Canadian support to the White Helmets was worth about $4-million per year, with final payments of just under $900,000 being made in March, 2020.

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    The United States also within the past few years become increasingly open in acknowledging it paid out multiple millions of dollars to the group. 

    Independent journalist Aaron Maté, who over the years has done much reporting on the White Helmets, noted that the revelations in the new Globe and Mail report should be “a huge scandal” – but is likely to get little further mainstream media attention. 

    Tyler Durden
    Wed, 04/21/2021 – 22:20

  • Washington State Mulls Bill To Ban New Gas Vehicle Sales By 2030
    Washington State Mulls Bill To Ban New Gas Vehicle Sales By 2030

    Washington State is on track to ban new gas vehicle sales by 2030.

    The policy change could be coming as the result of a new bill that recently passed which includes “goal of sharply reducing the number of new gas-powered vehicles in Washington” if conditions are met, KOMO News reported this week. 

    The Clean Cars initiative, which will bolster EV vehicles (that will likely be charged by coal power plants), could make Washington the first state to set such goals. Gov. Jay Inslee is mulling signing the bill, which would put the state five years ahead of California and Massachusetts in ICE vehicle bans.

    The bill says “the sale, purchase, or registration of non-electric vehicles ll passenger cars of model year 2030 or later registered in the state will be electric provided that the state adopts a road usage charge and at least 75 percent of the registered passenger vehicles in the state are participating in the program.”

    It would also make Washington the “first state to ban gas-powered vehicle sales through a bill passed by lawmakers, rather than by executive order”.

    The bill passed 25-23 in the state Senate and 54-43 in the house. It would thrust state utilities into preparing for an EV future, which would include significant infrastructure roll outs. 

    And what would a big government policy be without being appended to a brand new tax? The initiative only takes effect if the state also approves a tax on vehicle miles traveled, which would ostensibly help pay for new infrastructure, the report concluded. 

     

    Tyler Durden
    Wed, 04/21/2021 – 22:00

  • Doug Casey On The Shocking 2025 'Deagel' Forecast: War, Population Reduction, & The Collapse Of The West
    Doug Casey On The Shocking 2025 ‘Deagel’ Forecast: War, Population Reduction, & The Collapse Of The West

    Via InternationalMan,com,

    International Man: Deagel is a private online source for the military capabilities of the world’s nation-states. It recently released a shocking five-year forecast.

    The report analyzes countries by projected population size, GDP, defense budget, and more.

    In it, they predict a 70% reduction in the size of the United States population.

    This is a bold prediction. What are your thoughts on this?

    Doug Casey: I’ve got to say that I wasn’t familiar with Deagel – it keeps a low profile. Deagel is in the same business as Jane’s—which has been in the business of analyzing weapons systems for many decades.

    A look at the Deagel website, which is quite sophisticated, makes it clear we’re not dealing with some blogger concocting outrageous clickbait. It seems to be well-connected with defense contractors and government agencies like the CIA.

    They’ve predicted that about 70% of the US population, and about the same percentage in Europe, is going to disappear by 2025. It’s hard to believe that anybody in their position would make a forecast like that. There’s no logical business reason for it, especially since it was done before the COVID hysteria gripped the world. It stretches a reader’s credulity.

    Could it possibly happen? It would be the biggest thing in world history. Does it have a basis in reality, or is it just some bizarre trolling exercise? I’m not sure—it’s hard to take almost anything from any source at face value these days. But for the last several years, I’ve been saying that World War III would basically be a biological war. Of course, it will have substantial conventional, nuclear, space-based, and AI/computer elements as well, but its most serious component will be biological. Essentially, it will involve the use of bacteria and viruses to wipe out the enemy. The odds are that it will be between the US and China. But since anyone with a CRISPR in their garage can hack the genome and DNA of almost anything and anybody… there are no limits to the possibilities.

    Certainly, from the Chinese point of view, a biological war makes all the sense in the world. That’s because the Han Chinese share a lot of genetic similarities. Presumably, a bacteria or virus can be bred to favor the Chinese and take out most everybody else. The fact is that anything that can be done eventually will be done. It’s just the law of large numbers.

    Somebody might respond, “Well, that’s horribly racist.” Of course it’s racist. Notwithstanding rational and philosophical arguments against it, all ethnic groups and countries are quite naturally racist. A fear of different racial and ethnic groups has been bred into humans, as a survival mechanism, over the hundreds of thousands of years since we became biologically modern.

    All races and ethnic groups like to think that they’re “the best” or the most worthy, and that non-members are “other”, perhaps only marginally human. Biological warfare plays directly into feeling.

    Americans who—like everybody else—see themselves as “the good guys”, believe we’re immune to that. However, don’t forget that the US pioneered modern biowarfare. Fort Detrick, Maryland, has been an epicenter of it for over 70 years, and there are undoubtedly many other more clandestine sites where US government agencies are working on biological warfare. No doubt the Chinese and other major powers are working clandestinely as well. It’s not something anybody wants to advertise for many reasons.

    What shocks me is not that a biowar is being researched or even actively wargamed, but that a connected organization like Deagel is actually saying it publicly. It’s not like what goes on in the spook community is an open book.

    Deagel doesn’t explicitly say what, exactly, will cause the great die-off. But there are many advantages to biological warfare over other types of warfare, so it will probably be featured. It’s probably inevitable, now that the technology has made it practical.

    What are the advantages of biowar? What might wargaming generals like about it?

    • First, it doesn’t destroy materiel. That’s a huge plus. After all, what’s the point of conquering a country if all you have to show for it is a smoking radioactive ruin? That’s the major advantage of the neutron bomb, of course; it kills the people but limits damage to buildings. Bioweapons essentially make atomic weapons obsolescent.

    • Second, bioweapons can be structured to attack only certain racial groups. That’s potentially either a big advantage or disadvantage to China. The diverse population of the US could also be either an advantage or a disadvantage, depending on who strikes first. But, on the bright side, you can perhaps immunize your own population, or at least the military and “essential” workers, to control the damage.

    • Third, bioweapons are very cheap and easy to fabricate. Anyone with access to a good high school chemistry lab is in business. There’s no need for expensive and tricky U-235 or, for that matter, any of the junk toys the Pentagon spends hundreds of billions on.

    • Fourth, bioweapons don’t need sophisticated delivery systems; again, no need for B-2s, B-52s, cruise missiles, ICBMs, or any of that. A sick tourist or two, or a few packages sent in the mail, can get the job done.

    • Fifth, bioweapons, whether they’re viruses or bacteria, not only offer plausible deniability but the potential to blame a third party. You can launch an attack, and nobody can really be sure who did it. Or even that an attack is, in fact, being launched.

    There’s every advantage to biological warfare from an aggressor’s point of view. And, the aggressor doesn’t even have to be a nation-state, which is, of course, another excuse for governments to further clamp down on their populations, as COVID has shown. Guns are good self-defense weapons, and governments are trying to eliminate them; basement biowar labs are strictly offensive. Imagine the bureaucratic enforcement possibilities.

    International Man: In addition, Deagel included a lengthy disclaimer, which states:

    “After COVID, we can draw two major conclusions:

    1. The Western world success model has been built over societies with no resilience that can barely withstand any hardship, even a low-intensity one. It was assumed, but we got the full confirmation beyond any doubt.

    2. The COVID crisis will be used to extend the life of this dying economic system through the so-called Great Reset.”

    Doug, you’ve written extensively about the economic, political, cultural, and social decline in the US—long before it became a popular topic of discussion.

    Has anything changed in your perspective on the future of the US?

    Doug Casey: No. I’m afraid the election of actual Bolsheviks in 2020—and I don’t use that term lightly—has sealed its fate. Not to mention that the nomenklatura in most major cities and states are cut from the same cloth.

    In point of fact, the US is on such a self-destructive path that the Chinese don’t have to do anything in order to win. All they need to do is lay back and be quiet. The West is destroying itself.

    As for this COVID crisis, it impresses me as 80% hysteria, a bad flu season that has been blown out of proportion. It’s well known (insofar as anything can be known, considering the abysmal quality of reporting and the extreme politicization of the issue) that COVID mainly affects the elderly, the sick, and the obese. The average age of descendants is 80; however, the ages of those who die are rarely mentioned. The media reports the number of COVID cases constantly, but that’s as meaningless as counting who gets a common cold. Anyway, aren’t all those who get infected become immune? A virus—like the Hong Kong flu, the Asian flu, the Bird flu, and the Swine flu—goes viral, then goes away. Even the Spanish flu, which was actually serious, came and went without destroying the economy. Nonetheless, the public has been so terrorized that they’re panicking to take potentially dangerous experimental injections. Even though there are numerous cheap drugs that can mitigate the virus after diagnosis, they’re never prescribed. The opinions of physicians and world-class scientists who differ with Fauci—an overpaid lifelong government employee—are actively suppressed. However, this is a whole different subject.

    There is one thing I question about Deagel’s statement that you quoted: “The COVID crisis will be used to extend the life of this dying economic system through something called the Great Reset.” That’s a very odd statement because the crisis isn’t extending the life of the dying economic system. It’s putting the final nail in its coffin. It would be nice to hear how they figure that out, as COVID seems to be medically vastly overblown. The Great Reset has nothing to do with preserving the current economic system; it’s about formalizing a new one.

    Here’s a wild and crazy thought. What if the real problem isn’t so much the COVID virus itself.

    What if the real problem is the new vaccines. What if, after X number of months or years, they turn out to have very deadly effects? There’s a reason new drugs are tested over a period of years, which is far from the case here. Ted Turner, Bill Gates, and numerous others who think they’re “elite” have long said that the earth’s population ought to be reduced radically, perhaps by 80%. Is it too shocking to believe that some group would take advantage of this to cull the human population? It’s something that would be hard to believe even in a science fiction novel. But it now appears to be technically feasible. History is replete—overrun, actually—with psychos who try to destroy everybody once they get in power.

    In point of fact, science fiction is a much better predictor of the future than any think tank has ever been. So maybe there’s a Dr. Evil at large, anxious to eliminate deplorables and other undesirables. If he exists, I doubt today’s woke transgender version of James Bond can counter him. Who knows where this is going? But it’s the wrong direction, and the trend is still accelerating.

    International Man: The disclaimer in the Deagel report goes on to say,

    “The collapse of the Western financial system – and ultimately the Western civilization – has been the major driver in the forecast along with a confluence of crisis with a devastating outcome. As COVID has proven Western societies embracing multiculturalism and extreme liberalism are unable to deal with any real hardship.”

    Is the Western civilization seeing a confluence of crises coming together in a perfect storm?

    Doug Casey: That’s a very good point. It seems like everything is starting to happen at once and at a hyperbolically accelerating rate. While the worlds of science and technology are approaching Ray Kurzweil’s utopian Singularity, the worlds of politics and sociology are approaching a dystopian anti-Singularity.

    Let’s briefly look at the financial, economic, social, and political aspects of the potential collapse.

    We’re absolutely en route to a gigantic financial crisis, featuring the destruction of the US dollar. And with it, the savings of a large percentage of the planet’s people will be impoverished because their savings are in dollars. Much of the value people thought they had in stocks, bonds, real estate, pensions, and insurance could disappear.

    That’s bad enough, but what’s worse are the economic consequences. We’re likely to see wholesale unemployment, a collapse in business activity, and corporate bankruptcies, even while taxes go up radically. I’m increasingly of the opinion there will be a crack-up boom along the way; however, we might be entering that as we speak.

    What’s even worse are the social ramifications, such as critical race theory, which emphasizes the differences between race groups, creating actual race hatred. One consequence of the financial and economic upsets will be riots like those of 2020. The mass migration of people from alien cultures who don’t share Western values into the US and Europe is destabilizing. The US has, in fact, become a multicultural domestic empire.

    The political consequences are evident. The Biden people in Washington, D.C. are exactly the same personality types who took over Russia in 1917 or France in 1789. They aren’t going to let go of the apparatus of power now that they’ve got it. They will find a way to re-install themselves in 2024.

    What about the military? The US spends something like $1 trillion on defense annually, but nobody knows for certain. These budgets are complicated; military spending is hidden here, there, and everywhere. It doesn’t defend the United States; it just antagonizes foreigners. It’s also interesting that the Department of Defense is now trying to root out conservative political views from the rank-and-file soldiers.

    But let’s get back to what could collapse the populations of North America and Europe by over 50%. Perhaps Deagel is anticipating a serious collapse of complex society because food won’t be grown, processed, and sent to cities. Maybe COVID is seen as just a catalyst. Most people in today’s highly urbanized world, from cubicle dwellers to ghetto rats, are incapable of surviving for more than a week if supply chains break.

    International Man: The report also discusses a prediction regarding a potential war that involves Russia and China against the US.

    What are your thoughts on this? Is it likely that we’ll see a conflict of this kind during the 2020s?

    Doug Casey: As I said earlier, a war, at least with China, seems inevitable. It will likely be fomented by the US because, as the economy goes bad, governments always look for somebody else, an outsider, to blame.

    At this point—and I recognize this will outrage jingoists and nationalists—the US government is actually the most dangerous force on the face of the planet. Much more dangerous than the Chinese, the Russians, or anybody else. Why? The US government is unique in actively and aggressively looking for trouble absolutely everywhere, sticking its nose into everything. Only the US has troops in a hundred other countries and is fighting hot wars in several more.

    It’s said, for instance, that the Russians are aggressors because they may retake the Crimea and the Donbas region. Most Americans, who can’t even find these places on the map, are unaware that Crimea had been part of Russia since it was taken from the Ottomans in the 18th century and is mostly populated by ethnic Russians. Nikita Kruschev arbitrarily transferred it from the Russian SSR to the Ukrainian SSR in 1954 for personal political reasons shortly after Stalin’s death. The current problem started only after the US fomented a coup d’etat, a so-called color revolution, in Ukraine in 2014. It then made sense for Putin to retake it, much like the US tried to overthrow Castro after he ousted Batista.

    In any event, it’s a problem between Russia and Ukraine and none of our business. The Biden regime butting in is somewhat analogous to Russia threatening war over the US owning Puerto Rico. We don’t need a serious war with Russia over nothing.

    Taiwan is similar. Historically, it’s just a secessionist Chinese province—or not. Perhaps it’s a government in exile. But no matter; these are meaningless legalisms. Frankly, I’m on the side of Taiwan, but it’s none of our business whether they go to war with each other. US government intervention could easily start a conflict with China. It might end with the sinking of a couple of US carrier groups, or it might evolve into World War 3.

    And, of course, we’re still in Afghanistan, Central Asia, and the Middle East. Plus Africa and God knows where else. The US is unnecessarily and stupidly whacking hornet’s nests everywhere in the world, bankrupting itself and making enemies, setting the stage for something really significant.

    *  *  *

    The 2020s will likely to be an increasingly volatile time. More governments are putting their money printing on overdrive. Negative interests are becoming the rule instead of the exception to it. One thing is for sure, there will be a great deal of change taking place in the years ahead. That’s precisely why legendary speculator Doug Casey and his team released an urgent new report titled Doug Casey’s Top 7 Predictions for the Raging 2020s.

    Tyler Durden
    Wed, 04/21/2021 – 21:40

  • Argentine Soccer Legends File Suit To Avoid Country's New One-Time Wealth Tax
    Argentine Soccer Legends File Suit To Avoid Country’s New One-Time Wealth Tax

    The family of late soccer icon Diego Maradona has filed a court injunction to try and stop from paying a new wealth tax in Argentina.

    Maradona passed away last year and his heirs filed a formal complaint last week in a national appellate country to try and prevent having to comply with the tax levy.  

    Argentine soccer legend Carlos Tevez also filed a similar injunction last week. His lawyer, Juan Carlos Nicolini, told Bloomberg that they were focusing on whether or not the levy is constitutional.

    The two soccer legends are part of a “more than 100 presentations” to try and seek exemption from the tax after Argentina’s government passed the one time levy that affects about 13,000 people. 

    The tax is geared toward those with more than US $2.2 million in assets and the deadline to have paid the levy was last Friday.

    Ironically, Maradona had expressed support for the tax before his death, writing on his Instagram last year that “in this moment of crisis, help is needed from those of us who have most.”

    Lawmakers were hopeful the tax would raise about US $3.2 billion, but data shows that authorities had only received about 2% of that amount as of March. Instead, “dozens” of Argentines are challenging the tax in court. 

    And it seems like once again, overtaxation will create a burden (in this case, in Argentina’s judicial system and in administrative excess) where it sought to solve problems. Maybe President Biden – and, well, just about every single politician in New York and California – could learn from this example?

    Tyler Durden
    Wed, 04/21/2021 – 21:20

  • Manhattan To Stop Prosecuting Prostitution
    Manhattan To Stop Prosecuting Prostitution

    Wealthy financiers planning on fleeing New York City following the state’s latest tax hikes which are saddling the state’s richest with the highest tax rates in the country, have have just been given a reason to stay.

    The Manhattan District Attorney’s Office announced Wednesday that it will no longer prosecute prostitution and unlicensed “happy ending” massages, a major step toward decriminalizing prostitution in the US. The NY DA’s office is one of the most high-profile law enforcement organizations in the country, and it’s currently running an investigation into President Trump’s pre-political business life and trawling for evidence of crime.

    DA Cyrus Vance Jr., who famously accepted campaign donations from Harvey Weinstein before quashing a pre-#MeToo investigation into the movie mogul’s abuse of women, asked a judge Wednesday morning to dismiss 914 open cases involving prostitution, along with 5,080 cases in which the charge was loitering for the purposes of prostitution.

    LGBTQ activists have long called for the removal of the “loitering for the purposes of prostitution,” branding it the “walking while trans” law an claiming it led to the targeting of trans individuals by the police.

    Cracking down hard on prostitution was a major component of NYC’s campaign to clean up Times Square and other tourist hot spots during the late 1980s and 1990s. Later, Mayor Rudy Giuliani made it a key part of his “broken windows” strategy for fighting crime.

    The decision to effectively decriminalize prostitution – a “harm reduction” strategy pressed by far-left progressive groups – marks a major shift in the city’s law enforcement priorities.

    “Over the last decade, we’ve learned from those with lived experience and from our own experience on the ground: Criminally prosecuting prostitution does not make us safer, and too often, achieves the opposite result by further marginalizing vulnerable New Yorkers,” Vance said in a statement.

    To be sure, the DA’s office clarified that it would still prosecute Johns and pimps, along with sex traffickers. But it appears those efforts will focus on prosecuting traffickers, especially those who deal in underage victims.

    Manhattan isn’t the first US city to give decrim a shot. Manhattan will join Baltimore, Philadelphia and other jurisdictions in NYC that have declined to prosecute sex workers. Brooklyn doesn’t prosecute people arrested for prostitution but instead refers them to social services before they are compelled to appear in court — unless the district attorney’s office there is unable to reach them. The Brooklyn district attorney, Eric Gonzalez, in January moved to dismiss hundreds of open cases related to prostitution and loitering, and said that he would eventually ask that more than 1,000 be dismissed. The Queens district attorney, Melinda Katz, followed with a similar mass-dismissal in March.

    The news is likely to jumpstart the high-end escort business in the city, which has been struggling since the federal takedown of Backpage.com, which was seen as the premier site for prostitutes to seek clients online – though the Trump Administration targeted it after determining it was used by traffickers to pimp out underage girls.

    To sum up, while Florida has no state income tax, New York will soon have hookers and weed, and God only knows what’s next (mushrooms and blow, perhaps?) If nothing else, at least this might give the NYPD more resources to focus on a more pressing issue: the rise in violent crime over the past year.

    All this might convince hard-working bankers to spend more time in the Big Apple. After all, nobody wants to deal with the public embarrassment suffered by Patriots owner Robert Kraft when police raided his favorite South Florida rub n’ tug.

    Tyler Durden
    Wed, 04/21/2021 – 21:00

  • Daily Mail Sues Google Over Downranked Search Results
    Daily Mail Sues Google Over Downranked Search Results

    The owner of the Daily Mail newspaper and MailOnline website has filed a lawsuit against Google, which they accuse of having too much control over online advertising, and de-ranking Daily Mail articles in google search results, according to the BBC.

    The lawsuit claims that Google “punishes” publishers who don’t sell enough advertising space in its marketplace.

    Google has called the claims “meritless.”

    Associated Newspapers’ concerns stem from its assessment that its coverage of the Royal Family in 2021 has been downplayed in search results.

    For example, it claims that British users searching for broadcaster Piers Morgan’s comments on the Duchess of Sussex following an interview with Oprah Winfrey were more likely to see articles about Morgan produced by smaller, regional outlets.

    That is despite the Daily Mail writing multiple stories a day about his comments around that time and employing him as a columnist. –BBC

    [Try searching for any Zero Hedge articles about Wuhan labs or vaccine hesitancy]

    According to Daily Mail editor emeritus Peter Wright, Google’s tactics are “anti-competitive,” and that the Mail‘s search results were downranked after using online advertising techniques “which were allowing us to divert advertising traffic away from Google to other ad exchanges, which paid better prices – and this was their punishment.”

    “We think it’s time to call this company out,” he added.

    The Daily Mail online has over 75 million monthly unique visitors in the US alone, according to the lawsuit which was filed in a New York courtroom on Tuesday.

    According to Google, the lawsuit is without merit.

    “The Daily Mail’s claims are completely inaccurate,” said a Google spokeswoman. “The use of our ad tech tools has no bearing on how a publisher’s website ranks in Google search.”

    “More generally, we compete in a crowded and competitive ad tech space where publishers have and exercise multiple options. The Daily Mail itself authorises dozens of ad tech companies to sell and manage their ad space, including Amazon, Verizon and more. We will defend ourselves against these meritless claims,” she added.

    Google also faces an antitrust lawsuit from the DOJ and several states’ attorneys general.

    Tyler Durden
    Wed, 04/21/2021 – 20:40

  • The Price Of Plywood Is Absolutely Ridiculous; But It's Also A Sign Of The Times…
    The Price Of Plywood Is Absolutely Ridiculous; But It’s Also A Sign Of The Times…

    Authored by Michael Snyder via TheMostImportantNews.com,

    Would you pay $100 for a sheet of plywood?  I know that sounds absolutely crazy, but we are almost there.  The price of plywood has been soaring into the stratosphere in recent weeks, and analysts are telling us that it will remain high for the foreseeable future.  Memes about plywood have started to pop up all over social media, but this is no joking matter.  These extraordinarily high prices are causing a lot of pain in the homebuilding industry, and many Americans have had to postpone construction plans indefinitely.  Unfortunately, our national leaders continue to flood the system with even more new money, and that is going to cause even more extreme inflation in the months and years to come.

    Prior to the pandemic, any discussions about plywood on social media were likely to be painfully boring, but now everything has changed.  Thanks to skyrocketing prices, plywood has suddenly become a very hot topic, and one post on Facebook that circulated quite widely ended up getting national attention…

    “Food for thought — 3/4″ Plywood Standard:

    March 2020 – $37.98 /sheet

    February 2021 – $72.49 /sheet

    March 2021 – $83.49 /sheet

    April 2021 – $95.98 /sheet

    That is 252% price increase on one of the most used piece of common lumber for construction.”

    Not surprisingly, this post got flagged on Facebook for being “misinformation”.

    But then PolitiFact looked into this, and they confirmed that the price of plywood really has risen to such levels…

    Shawn Church, editor of Random Lengths, which publishes price data on the wood products industry, gave us figures for 23/32-inch plywood produced in the Pacific Northwest and the South.

    The price in the Northwest for Fir 23/32-inch sheathing for the first week of April was $1,610 per thousand square feet, up 287% from $560 a year earlier.

    In the South, the price of that panel was $1,500 per thousand square feet, up 230% from $455 one year ago.

    Personally, I could never see myself shelling out $100 for one piece of plywood, because that just seems nuts.

    But our world has become a much different place over the past year.  The system has been absolutely flooded with new money, and there is no going back to the way that things once were.

    Let me give you another example of the sort of extreme inflation that we have been witnessing.  According to the Guardian, an old pair of Kanye West’s Air Yeezy sneakers that are being auctioned off have been valued at one million dollars…

    Kanye West’s Air Yeezy sneakers are being auctioned for $1m, making them Sotheby’s most expensive shoe listing ever. They are expected to break the record set by a pair of Nike Air Jordan 1s worn by Michael Jordan, which sold for $615,000 last year.

    The black, size 12 Nike Air Yeezy 1 prototypes, designed by West and Nike’s Mark Smith in 2007, were groundbreaking. Aesthetically they altered the shape and form of sneakers in the decade that followed.

    Who in the world would be dumb enough to pay a million dollars for a pair of old sneakers?

    That is literally insane.

    Speaking of insane, Dogecoin now has a total market value of approximately 50 billion dollars…

    Dogecoin, which is pronounced dohj-coin, has already leaped to roughly 39 cents, up more than 8,000% for 2021 so far. That towers over the roughly 11% return for the U.S. stock market, which itself is getting criticism for rising too high. Collectively, dogecoins have a total market value of roughly $50 billion, according to CoinDesk. That puts it on par with Dow Inc. or Kimberly-Clark, which makes Kleenex and Huggies.

    Are you kidding me?

    Dogecoin doesn’t even pretend to be a serious cryptocurrency.  It was started as a total joke, and nobody ever thought that it would have any real value.

    But thanks to Elon Musk and other proponents, Dogecoin really has gone to the moon.

    In the end, I believe that Dogecoin will be the “Pets.com” of this financial bubble, but for the moment Dogecoin investors are loving life.

    Of course it won’t last, and those that are comparing it to “tulip mania” are right on target…

    “This is like a cross between a pyramid scheme and tulip mania,” one user on Reddit, named hazardousmeme, said in a discussion about Dogecoin after another user asked if it’s a safe investment. “Safe is the absolute last thing that this is.”

    “Let’s hope this goes up!” another Reddit user, Enough-Construction5, wrote after saying they bought $500 worth of Dogecoin. “Better than putting it into a slot machine!”

    No, it is exactly like putting it into a slot machine.

    Maybe social media hype can drive Dogecoin even higher, but eventually it is going to zero.

    So I hope that the guy that is currently holding close to 15 billion dollars worth of Dogecoin is able to sell while he still can…

    There is little we can add here that David Einhorn didn’t already say yesterday, but it’s probably worth noting for those keeping track of where in the bubble we are now, that in the magical world of dogecoin – a cryptocurrency that was specifically created as a joke spoof on the crypto concept and which has been promoted aggressive by such luminaries as Elon Musk – there is now a holder residing at address “DH5yaieqoZN36fDVciNyRueRGvGLR3mr7L” who owns 36,711,935,369.11 dogecoins or whatever the plural is, and whose holdings – which started accumulating back in Febriary 2019 – after the latest surge in dogegoin which has sent the joke crypto up 150% in the past 24 hours and 5x in the past week…

    … are worth just under $15 billion.

    In the old days, investing was all about fundamentals, and rational investors were often greatly rewarded.

    But now the “markets” are all about meme stocks, crypto speculation and following whatever moves the Federal Reserve is making.

    We are in the financial bubble to end all financial bubbles, and the eventual implosion of this epic bubble is going to be spectacular.

    But in the current environment, Dogecoin investors are laughing all the way to the bank, and a single deli in rural New Jersey can have a value of close to 100 million dollars.

    The markets are completely broken, and the current insanity on Wall Street will not last for much longer.

    On the other hand, the rampant inflation that we are witnessing is here to stay, and it is going to be a major issue in our society from this point forward.

    *  *  *

    Michael’s new book entitled “Lost Prophecies Of The Future Of America” is now available in paperback and for the Kindle on Amazon.

    Tyler Durden
    Wed, 04/21/2021 – 20:20

  • New International Travel Advisory Puts Airlines' Hopes For Summer Rebound At Risk
    New International Travel Advisory Puts Airlines’ Hopes For Summer Rebound At Risk

    Strong retail sales data from March helped underscore a sense of surging consumer demand in the US, driven in no small part by stimulus and enhanced benefits for the unemployed and under-employed, coupled with loans to businesses that have filtered through to their vendors and employees. With all this money sloshing around, it’s hardly surprising that Americans have shown their eagerness to travel after more than a year of being cooped up at home, as travel rates spiked during the Spring Break travel season.

    But as air traffic rates move lower again off their recent peak, the State Department created more anxiety for airlines and investors by announcing another wave of COVID inspired travel advisories that will encourage Americans to avoid travel to 80% of the world.

    With the US maintaining restrictions on cruises, domestic air traffic, along with travel to a handful of nearby foreign destinations like Mexico, is pretty much the only game in town for airlines. American Airlines announced yesterday that they’re bringing all pilots back to full time duty and even – for the first time since the pandemic – hiring new pilots for the first time.

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    But as Bloomberg pointed out, the rebound could lead to pitfalls: while discounters like Spirit Airlines and Frontier stand to benefit, those gains could come at the expense of big carriers who are more reliant on high-margin international flights.

    “Intrinsically, domestic flying does not make a profit,” said John Grant, chief analyst at OAG. “It is a lot more marginal than international flying where you’ve got lots of business travelers in business class paying expensive fares.”

    […]

    “If you’re a US airline, you’ve been able to recover some of that lost international demand by people being attracted to go to the southern states, to points like Florida, or Arizona or if they could do California,” OAG’s Grant said. While there are positive signs, “it still requires access to major international markets to solidify the recovery we’ve seen today.”

    With travel rates already declining in the US following the spring break and Easter travel season…

    Source: Bloomberg

    …industry analysts are now looking toward the summer to see whether the rebound in travel will be enough to justify airlines’ current lofty (relative to history) valuations

    Even as the airlines tout their expanded flight schedules, investors are growing uneasy about the recovery’s strength. A Standard & Poor’s index of the five biggest US carriers is in the midst of a 10-day losing streak, the longest on record going back to 1989.

    Source: Bloomberg

    And as traffic in states with big domestic hubs (like Texas, Florida, Illinois and Georgia) declines as airlines miss out on the high-paying first-class international travelers headed to London or Tokyo – US airlines are left to focus on how to entice more budget-conscious leisure travelers.

    Other international markets like India and Brazil remain out of reach and raging infections.

    Some major airlines are getting creative. For example, in an attempt to re-energize its international business, United is trying to tap Americans’ pent-up wanderlust with new seasonal flights to Iceland, Greece and Croatia. American, which is cutting back flights to South America, has been bolstering the domestic schedule – for example, with service to Orlando, Florida, from eight US cities this summer.

    Source: Bloomberg

    US airlines aren’t the only ones suffering from the drop in international travel. European tourism hotspots like Spain and Greece are bracing for yet another slow summer season, and some Spanish towns are rebelling against restrictive outdoor mask mandates that might ward off paying customers.

    Airlines are also beefing up another popular domestic route from New York to Miami and Ft Lauderdale. That will come in handy as rising taxes in New York and New Jersey – along with the sunny weather and alluring nightlife – drive more hedge funders and other financial industry high rollers to book a flight down south.

    Tyler Durden
    Wed, 04/21/2021 – 20:00

  • In First Since 2016, Japanese Investors Panic After Stocks Tumble… And BOJ Refuses To Buy ETFs
    In First Since 2016, Japanese Investors Panic After Stocks Tumble… And BOJ Refuses To Buy ETFs

    Something happened on Tuesday that hasn’t happened since 2016: Japan’s Topix index (which is widely viewed as more representative of Japanese equities than the Nikkei) tumbled by 1.2% in the morning session…. and the BOJ did not intervene.

    Why is this notable? Because – in a world where everyone is now completely used to Plunge Protection Teams and central bank bailouts as if it is a perfectly expected event –  this was the first time since at least 2016 that the Bank of Japan did not make an ETF purchase after the Topix fell more than 1% in the morning session.

    To be sure, the BOJ’s lack of intervention was to be expected: as a reminder, the central bank tweaked its ETF purchase program at the March meeting, with changes that came into effect in April. As part of its policy review, the BOJ on March 19 said it would buy ETFs as needed, scrapping the previously 6T yen annual target, but keeping its 12T yen upper limit on purchases

    Previously, the largest drop that has not led to the BOJ buying was the 0.89% full-day decline on Feb. 24; In other words, any time the Topix would drop by 1% or more, the BOJ would step in or else there would be a market crash. Furthermore, before this year, the BOJ typically bought if the Topix fell more than 0.5% in the morning session.

    But not this time.

    Which is why on Wednesday stocks, which were already sliding amid fears of fresh Japanese lockdowns due to new covid cases, there was a 2% puke in the market as a frentic Mrs Watanabe panicked that the BOJ had finally forsaken her and everyone else.

    However, realizing that two days in a row without ETF purchases would likely lead to a market crash, on Wednesday things got back to normal, with the BOJ buying 70.1BN yen of ETFs, the first purchase since March following the Topix index’s more than 2% decline in the morning session today.

    And so, with the BOJ “blinking” and indicating that it can’t possibly step away from plunge protecting for any extended period of time, expect Japanese stocks to soar when they reopen on Thursday, in the process assuring that when one day the BOJ’s interventions no longer work, the crash will be one from which nobody will ever recover.

    Tyler Durden
    Wed, 04/21/2021 – 19:40

  • Credit Suisse's Archegos Exposure Was Reportedly Over $20 Billion
    Credit Suisse’s Archegos Exposure Was Reportedly Over $20 Billion

    Just minutes after the SEC is reportedly “exploring how to increase transparency for the types of derivative bets that sank Archegos,” The Wall Street Journal reports that Credit Suisse Group AG had somehow allowed a massive exposure to investments related to Archegos Capital Management or more than $20 billion.

    While the bank has said that its losses on the positions amounted to $4.7 billion, WSJ, citing people familiar with the matter, reports that Archegos’ bets on a collection of stocks swelled in the lead-up to its March collapse, but parts of the investment bank hadn’t fully implemented systems to keep pace with Archegos’s fast growth.

    Some inside the bank who were familiar with Archegos’s exposure had thought it was a fraction of the roughly $20 billion figure, one of the people familiar with the matter said.

    As the ‘perp walk’ of various executives and risk managers at the historic Swiss bank grows longer, we suspect this is not the last we will hear, as Credit Suisse has said its dealings with both Archegos and Greensill need “substantial further review and scrutiny.”

    Finally, we note none of this is really surprising given that, as we just detailed, Bloomberg on Wednesday published an anonymously sourced story laying the blame for the Archegos blowup at the feet of Parshu Shah.

    Reportedly, thanks to a gutting of the compliance function at the bank, Shah, who served as the salesman in charge of nurturing the bank’s relationship with Archegos….had also been head of risk at the bank’s prime-services business.

    So, no wonder he never got the tap on the shoulder…

    Tyler Durden
    Wed, 04/21/2021 – 19:30

  • Indian Hospitals Running Out Of Oxygen As Daily COVID Deaths Top 2,000 For 1st Time
    Indian Hospitals Running Out Of Oxygen As Daily COVID Deaths Top 2,000 For 1st Time

    Asia is on track to report the most new COVID cases in April (adjusted for population) than any other continent as India’s “second wave” of COVID-19 is proving even more deadly than its first.

    COVID-19 cases are surging around the world, but already, India’s “second wave” of COVID-19 is proving even more deadly than its first. After days of reporting record daily tallies, India reported more than 2,000 COVID deaths in a single day, the health ministry said Wednesday. Coronavirus infections also rose by a record, increasing by 295,041 over the last 24 hours, the data showed. Total deaths reached 182,553, which, to be sure, is merely a fraction of the US’s 568,483 deaths (per Johns Hopkins data). Though experts suspect that India’s numbers are skewed by pervasive undercounting of deaths (while the US and other western countries are suspected of over-counting).

    India’s buckling health-care system is badly in need of government relief, and so the Indian government is planning to boost supplies of medical oxygen in coming days, according to the country’s Health Secretary Rajesh Bhushan. The government is also reportedly considering applications for oxygen imports from overseas suppliers. The decision follows the deaths of nearly 2 dozen patients in a hospital in Maharashtra, one of the most hard-hit areas of the country, which was caused by a leak in an oxygen tank, the Associated Press reported.

    Meanwhile, hospitals in Delhi, the Indian capital, said on Tuesday that they had enough oxygen left for just another eight to 24 hours, while some private clinics had enough for only four or five.

    CNN reported that India’s health-care system was “close to collapse”.

    “The volume is humongous,” said Jalil Parkar, a senior pulmonary consultant at the Lilavati Hospital in Mumbai, which has had to convert its lobby into an additional Covid ward. “It’s just like a tsunami.”

    Prime Minister Narendra Modi addressed the nation on Tuesday, acknowledging the country’s “very big battle” against Covid-19. He however appealed to states to “use a lockdown as their last option,” even as the capital New Delhi entered its first full day of a week-long lockdown, Jessie Yung and Vedika Sud report.

    On Monday, Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal warned that failing to halt movement in the city could lead to “tragedy.” When India went into lockdown last March, the mass exodus of migrant workers from the cities became one of the most enduring images of the country’s battle against the virus — and is believed to have helped to spread Covid-19 nationwide.

    What epidemiologists are describing as India’s “second wave” is hitting the country like a “tsunami’ as hospitals, graveyards and morgues all run out of space for the sick and the dead.

    “Things are out of control,” said Ramanan Laxminarayan, director of the Center for Disease Dynamics, Economics and Policy in New Delhi. “There’s no oxygen. A hospital bed is hard to find. It’s impossible to get a test. You have to wait over a week. And pretty much every system that could break down in the health care system has broken down,” he said.

    Despite all of this, Indian PM Narendra Modi urged local officials to impose new lockdowns only as a last resort during a national televised address yesterday.

    On Monday, Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal warned that failing to halt movement in the city could lead to “tragedy.”

    “Our healthcare system has reached its limit. It is now in a state of distress. It has not collapsed yet but it is in distress,” Kejriwal said. “Every healthcare system has its limits. No system can accommodate unlimited patients.”

    But experts fear it’s too little, too late, as positive patients compete for limited resources and mass gatherings threaten to spread the virus even further. Some families are turning to social media where they’re pleading with the public for donations or supplies – anything that might help secure treatment for an afflicted friend or family member.

    As demand for medications and vaccines surges, the Indian government has imposed an export ban. On Wednesday, health officials said it would be at least two months before exports of vaccines would be allowed to move forward, even as India’s Serum Institute moves to raise output to 100M doses of the AstraZeneca by July.

    Tyler Durden
    Wed, 04/21/2021 – 19:20

  • US Strategic Command Issues Random Warning Over Nuclear Strike
    US Strategic Command Issues Random Warning Over Nuclear Strike

    The US Strategic Command on Tuesday casually tweeted about US adversaries conducting a nuclear strike as their ‘least bad option.’

    “The spectrum of conflict today is neither linear nor predictable,” tweeted US STRATCOM, adding “We must account for the possibility of conflict leading to conditions which could very rapidly drive an adversary to consider nuclear use as their least bad option.“

    The ominous tweet from America’s top strategic defense and global strike command comes on the same day as STRATCOM commander Adm. Charles Richard warned the Senate Armed Services Committee that China’s nuclear capabilities are increasing rapidly, and they may be – for the first time – primed for use.

    Adm. Charles Richard, commander of U.S. Strategic Command, testifies at a Senate Armed Services Committee hearing on April 20, 2021. (via stripes.com)

    “I can’t get through a week right now, without finding out something we didn’t know about China,” Richard told Senators alongside Army Gen. James Dickinson – head of US Space Command who also said that China was among his top military concerns as they advance in space-based military technology, according to Stars & Stripes.

    STRATCOM’s tweet sparked panicked response from people wondering why the Biden administration would suddenly tweet about nuclear war as part of the agency’s annual Posture Statement – designed to inform Congress about the current status of affairs within the agency and around the world, according to Newsweek.

    “I feel like this isn’t something to spring on us in a tweet,” one woman replied.

    “What’s a worse option than nuclear?” another person asked.

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    Tyler Durden
    Wed, 04/21/2021 – 19:12

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