Jul 22

Today’s News 22nd July 2021

  • Pegasus Spyware Targeted French President Macron – "Extremely Serious" Breach Under Investigation
    Pegasus Spyware Targeted French President Macron – “Extremely Serious” Breach Under Investigation

    The latest victim who was targeted using the phone hacking spyware Pegasus has been revealed to French President Emmanual Macron – part of a growing list that’s said to include some 600 government officials and politicians from over 30 countries. Israeli tech firm and Pegasus-developer NSO Group is in damage control mode after an international consortium of news outlets has published dozens of stories exposing the hacks. Pakistan Prime Minister Imran Khan is also on the list.

    It’s believed that governments used the Israeli company’s military-grade hacking tools to access the phones of dissidents, activists and journalists in countries like UAE, Saudi Arabia, Morocco, and even Hungary. The fact that heads of state were also likely targeted suggests that customers also turned the powerful spyware against foreign rivals and enemies, or perhaps to get a leg up in major business or political negotiations. The Independent writes that the following 10 governments are believed to be NSO customers:

    Azerbaijan, Bahrain, Kazakhstan, Mexico, Morocco, Rwanda, Saudi Arabia, Hungary, India and the United Arab Emirates (UAE).

    AFP via Getty Images

    But in terms of world leaders also reportedly targeted, Macron may be the most visible and influential European figure thus far. 

    “French newspaper Le Monde reports that Moroccan intelligence services identified a phone that Mr Macron had been using since 2017,” BBC reports of the new revelation. However, Morocco has denied ever being a client of NSO, despite the country’s name being all over the recent reporting.

    The French presidency’s office has yet to confirm if Macron was a victim of a hack, and it’s as yet unclear if his phone was breached using Pegasus, but it called the allegations “very serious” if confirmed. 

    “If confirmed this would be extremely serious” – a statement from Macron’s office said while saying a major investigation is underway.

    According to the BBC, “Numbers on the leaked list are also said to include those of President Baram Salih of Iraq and South Africa’s Cyril Ramaphosa, as well as the current prime ministers of Pakistan, Egypt and Morocco, and the King of Morocco.”

    Saudi Arabia was behind an NSO spyware attack on Jamal Khashoggi’s associates and family both before and after his murder, according to the new revelations…

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    As we described previously, Pegasus is a very advanced malware that infects iOS and Android devices to allow operators of the spyware to copy messages, photos, calls and other data, including secretly activate microphones and cameras. Based on the investigation of leaks initially reported in Forbidden Stories, the leak contains a list of 50,000 phone numbers that have been identified as those of people of interest by clients of NSO since 2016.

    The list includes many close family members of one country’s ruler, suggesting he might have instructed the country’s intelligence agencies to explore the possibility of tracking and spying on their own relatives. Forbidden Stories has summarized the enormity of the leak and follow-up investigative reporting as follows:

    An unprecedented leak of more than 50,000 phone numbers selected for surveillance with Pegasus, a spyware sold by Israeli company NSO Group, shows how this technology has been systematically abused for years to spy on journalists, human rights defenders, academics, businesspeople, lawyers, doctors, union leaders, diplomats, politicians and several heads of states.

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    Likely we have only witnessed the tip of the iceberg in terms of both government officials and journalists and activists targeted, with the further obvious implication of Israeli intelligence being at the center of this – as The Washington Post has recently explored.

    Meanwhile, NSO Group has announced it’s shutting down all media inquiries related to the ongoing scandal…

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    Tyler Durden
    Thu, 07/22/2021 – 02:45

  • Klaus Schwab 'The Humanist' Versus Klaus Schwab 'The Terrorist'
    Klaus Schwab ‘The Humanist’ Versus Klaus Schwab ‘The Terrorist’

    Authored by Joaquin Flores via The Strategic Culture Foundation,

    The rising technocratic dystopia may appear to carry forward the legacy of social-democracy, though perversely, and therefore the utilization of Green parties and social-democratic parties in Europe to implement these is both predicted and rational.

    There are two men named Klaus Schwab, no doubt.

    One man named Klaus Schwab is seen by the true-believers, fachidiots, the liberal intelligentsia, the institutionally refined population, as a man who deeply cares about humanity. It seems they believe his warnings to be earnest even if uncannily and strikingly prescient. The World Economic Forum after all, must have been established out of great concern for humanity since it is propped up chiefly by the most humane institution in human history, the International Monetary Fund. This Klaus Schwab is a humanist.

    So perhaps this is precisely the case for the true-believers; those who accept at face value the new Schwabian ‘distinction’ we are asked to appreciate between a shareholder capitalism and a capitalism 2.0, a stakeholder capitalism.

    Then there is a second man named Klaus Schwab, who is seen by the rest of the world and the thinking people within it, for the monster that he is. A grimacing Klaus Schwab who appears on smartphone and tablet screens to warn of impending doom, no going back to normal, new pandemics which will strike very soon, and a wave of cyber-attacks. This Klaus Schwab is a terrorist at large, a character who like Dr. Fauci and Bill Gates appear like a central casting dispatch of Bond villains.

    For people who haven’t traded in basic social intelligence for social credit realize that if the person who is issuing warnings of catastrophes is best friends with the very same people who will go on to create those catastrophes, those aren’t warnings. Just like for Fauci who said in 2017 that a massive pandemic would strike within Trump’s term. Those are not warnings, they are threats. Schwab is the one delivering the threats; Schwab is the terrorist.

    Why is it so hard to understand that the WEF only does what’s in the interest of the IMF?

    How are we to understand shareholder capitalism from stakeholder capitalism?

    The idea of ‘socially responsible’ capitalism isn’t a new one. It represented the centrist wing of fascism some 90 years ago; it is to wit the embodiment of the last century’s corporatist and technocratic ideal until about the 1970’s with the introduction of Friedmanism. In that sense, we can say that the U.S. and EU existed on two separate trajectories, with more of the underpinnings of the EU based in the idea of social responsibility in the board room.

    In our past work in the section on corporate ideology and the state in The Great Reset Morality: Euthanization of the Inessentials , we discussed the bifurcation of the corporatist idea of social good, a type of stakeholder capitalism that existed alongside progressivist ideas. These were trumpeted as reasons that socialism was not necessary, since what was good for corporations was also good for society because these industrialists needed strong communities to create stable conditions, well paid workers to buy the products they produced. This was the era of capitalism before globalization. We also had believers in this ideal, like Henry Ford.

    Then came a new idea, increasingly prominent in the American discourse into the 1980’s – where only the bottom line mattered. We can say that the Friedman period that had crept into culture in the 70’s had finally hit mainstream.

    But ultimately, the old idea of social capitalism has come back in a new incarnation, a new branding, from the WEF – stakeholder capitalism and capitalism 2.0.

    A critical difference that cannot be underscored enough, however, is that there is no long-term plan for the ISA (Ideological State Apparatus) of stakeholder capitalism. They simply use the term ‘capitalism’ to maintain social and ideological continuity from the present incarnation of monopoly capitalism. But the aim is to manage a strictly post-capitalist society. This is however not the one envisaged by the left, but rather one which develops new coercive and depopulating technologies along a misanthropic path towards the transition of the plutocracy into a technocracy.

    Its true believers who assume that people are good when they say good things and make good promises, and entirely ignores centuries of peoples’ history or any insights into political and social theory: as Lord Acton, the British historian said: “All power tends to corrupt; absolute power corrupts absolutely.”

    There is a reason we are seeing a resurgence of this old type of corporate ideal. As sovereign governments and democracies cease to exist, then the Friedmanian concept of externalizing costs which is unshakably a part of the present paradigm, can no longer be the official ideology of the ruling class.

    In truth, they must maintain this cost-externalizing view, which is the foundation of and explanation for their misanthropic scheme. Paradigms are not shaken this way, they tend to crash and burn along with their adherents. This gives rise to what Pareto has called the rotation of elites. So, we can see that the present ruling class does not really embrace any change of tact. Rather, they see it as a new demagoguery.

    And so we superficially see ‘stakeholder society’ embraced by a new ruling technocracy especially in light of automation and the fact that most of the human population will be a surplus and redundant one. Naturally, a shareholder society must give way to talking points about a stakeholder society.

    And so we are asked to imagine that there is a revolutionary difference between the ‘old’ Friedmanian concept of the shareholder run society, is the new stakeholder run society. This happy talk began a few decades ago, when we were asked to embrace a ‘Capitalism 2.0’, capitalism with a friendly face, and so on. That has been the official ideology of social democracy in the post-war era, and for these reasons we see the European moderate left (what in the U.S. would be misframed as ‘far left’) can get behind the Great Reset agenda provided they ignore the actual needs or labor, whether organized or not.

    The Great Hypocrisy of the Great Reset

    The two men named Klaus Schwab are both voices in his reader. Any apparent focus on humanity, inclusion, improving living conditions, controlling the power of corporations in Schwab’s book ‘Covid-19: The Great Reset’, is cant lip-service to curry to the liberal-idealist segment of the institutionally refined population.

    The WEF hosts forums on ‘Combatting Global Poverty’, and publishes reports like ‘Poverty: the past, present and future’.  As the primary think-tank of the IMF, it should come as no surprise that the actual aims of the WEF are to provide progressive cover for the upwards redistribution of capital to the same lending institutions which they serve, while disguising this through the reversal and bifurcation of the language in the Orwellian sense of ‘doublespeak’.  And it has been the concentration of capital along upwards distribution vertices – real capital flight – that is chiefly responsible for global poverty.

    The World Economic Forum presents an upside-down world, one where their policy briefs and white papers voicing concerns about poverty are working in harmony with the IMF’s upwards distribution schemes. Reduction of the local power of sovereign states are framed as ‘anti-corruption’ and ‘transparency’. The austere reduction in access to health and human services in developing countries are viewed positively as economic growth indicators, despite the high causal direct relationship between austerity (via structural adjustment) and poverty.

    They present the developing world’s compliance with global governance, i.e. stability, as directly related to poverty eradication – when in reality these two vectors are inversely related.

    To wit, the more that countries comply with structural adjustment schemes, the more difficult it actually is to overcome poverty. The IMF had until now oriented its work towards geopolitical and geoeconomic monopolarity, with its own Trans-Atlantic hub as the loci of power.

    Now it appears that the IMF and its Trans-Atlantic hub have given up on their aim of re-establishing their monopolar moment of the 1990’s.

    It is true that many countries have made strides in overcoming poverty – this has been accomplished by struggling against the IMF, and creating alternatives to the IMF like BRICS. This is not to say that the countries behind BRICS are well intended, but that intentions here have little to do with the net benefit to borrowing countries introduced by the mere fact of a competing interest.

    Klaus Schwab’s book ‘Covid-19: The Great Reset’ is written in an identical fashion: lamentations over economic crisis faced by populations are better read as exaltations. Descriptions of a dangerous process of dystopia formation in that book, openly referring to ‘The Handmaid’s Tale’, ought to be read as actual ‘solution’ traps in the works.

    Mock Execution of Handmaids from the Dystopic drama series, ‘The Handmaid’s Tale’ – referred to in Schwab’s ‘Covid-19: The Great Reset’

    In Klaus Schwab’s book ‘Covid-19: The Great Reset’, any potential ‘abuses’, ‘crimes’, and ‘dystopic futures’ arising from the social policies of the Great Reset, are contemplated or at least mentioned. In The Macro Reset chapter, section 1.6.3, subtitled ‘The Risk of Dystopia’, (pg. 167) for example, nightmarish visions like television’s ‘The Handmaid’s Tale’, ‘Black Mirror’, and the critiques of data mining and surveillance in ‘Surveillance Capitalism’, by Shoshana Zuboff, are discussed.

    These dystopias are acknowledged as analogous to real and potential outcomes of the legislation and corporate policies that populations will suffer and endure at the hands of corporate and government policy as a result of the Great Reset.

    On full display here in microcosmic form, is the entire ISA (Ideological State Apparatus) of the technocracy and, for some decades, neo-liberalism itself – through the parties of the 2nd International, through the NGOs of Soros and U.S.-AID and the NED, etc., ad infinitum.

    Two Men Named Klaus Schwab

    Schwab must be understood as a sort of Dr. Mengele of organizational psychology, and also ideologue for a new system which uses trauma – terrorist acts and terrorist threats – to introduce a new acceptance of reality in a horrific parallel to Max von Sydow’s character Dr. Naehring in Shutter Island.

    Trauma is the point of entry, and prior crimes which have been made against humanity can be warped through this trauma into being crimes that humanity has made itself, and must now pay for and very dearly. The crimes of the ruling class against people are changed into crimes that the people have made and that the ruling class – the stakeholders (governments, NGO’s, institutions) must now correct. And the corrective measures will be punitive and disciplinary in nature.

    Because the progressive ideology (modernity’s ISA) recognizes its present defects, it attempts to divide itself from the actual system it supports. It can be both the legitimating ideology of a system, and the primary critic of that system towards an improved future system. It legitimizes itself today based on things it promises can be fixed in the future.

    Max von Sydow’s character ‘Dr. Naehring’ from the 2010 psychological thriller, Shutter Island

    The WEF does not really need to listen to and hear the population’s actual problems, it can rely on an academy filled with professional critics which the system’s own academies produced, which use a concoction of ideology and speculation to synthesize something resembling a recognition of the population’s problems. This created the illusion that the system was pluralist, when it was practicing a high form of demagogic social psychology and sociology.

    The technocracy of the modern plutocracy, as it transitions to a new kind of oligarchy, is similar to fascism in that it takes many of the tropes and discursive framings of anti-capitalism and social justice but in a way that punches downwards as fascism-in-power did, and weaponizes them in the interests of the decidedly anti-social and unjust technocratic leviathan.

    The technocracy is different from fascism in that it uses the actual left, and clearly not the populist right. This is evidenced in Trumpism in the U.S. or Le Pen in France, whose base opposes the lockdowns, mask and vaccine mandates, business closures, and prison-like quarantines of the Covid-19 Great Reset. Here, the rising technocratic dystopia may even appear to carry forward the legacy of social-democracy, though perversely, and therefore the utilization of Green parties and social-democratic parties in Europe to implement these is both predicted and rational.

    Worse still, center-right parties are also part of this scheme, and when they also move in lockstep with the Great Reset agenda, they can even receive positive press from the center-left (cultural left) establishment media which defines most of European and Western media at present.

    And yet again, these are all political parties that, with the rise of neo-liberalism and globalization, in the aftermath of the destruction of the USSR, have for three decades (or more) taken up the mantle of corporate-public synergy – in the actual tradition of various fascisms, while not acknowledging so.

    To refine this point with clarity: fascism and social democracy share a nearly identical conception of political economy (corporate-public synergy). If fascism is social democracy without pluralism nor a liberal conception of human rights – or rather – if social democracy is fascism but with pluralism and a liberal conception of human rights – then the technocracy founds itself on that shared political economy of fascism and social democracy as a starting point, merely paying lip service to pluralism and liberal conceptions of human rights while in fact using a fascist method of undemocratic and anti-pluralist governance. That is why we have two men named Klaus Schwab.

    A July 15th 2021 Newsweek clipping shows that the movement against the 2030 Agenda is framed as ‘right-wing’.

    Adding to this, the social media corporate technocrats who are committed to the Great Reset, use the imaginary threat of ‘the far right’, and now ‘vaccine hesitancy’, to pursue a censorship policy indistinguishable from totalitarianism (of either far left or far right).

    In viewing the cynical perversion which is Klaus Schwab’s Great Reset text, his criticism of the very system he is developing within the very same book which touts its merits and inevitability, is so as to absorb, bureaucratize, professionalize, manage, subsume, and overtake actual criticisms of the emerging dystopia, as a form of ‘self-criticism’. The end-notes are filled with references to articles by authors and thinkers who are opposed to the rising technocracy, which the World Economy Forum exists solely in service of.

    This gas-lighting ‘self-criticism’ is a method of control by the system over potential criticisms of the system. It is a contrived criticism, managed by the system and in service of the system, as it marches forward with those very same features being criticized, nonetheless.

    Because regular people no longer possess political power in systems where corporate rule has replaced constitutional republics, the devastating costs will be pushed downwards.

    For these reasons we can see that there are two men named Klaus Schwab.

    Tyler Durden
    Thu, 07/22/2021 – 02:00

  • Watch: California Shoplifters Stroll Out Of TJ Maxx With Arms Full Of Merchandise
    Watch: California Shoplifters Stroll Out Of TJ Maxx With Arms Full Of Merchandise

    In yet another example of California’s decline under Democratic leadership, two men were caught on film casually walking out of a suburban Los Angeles TJ Maxx store while carrying armfulls of merchandise – just seven months after LA District Attorney George Gascón announced his office would no longer prosecute misdemeanor crimes such as shoplifting.

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    The incident occurred at the TJ Maxx in Granada Hills. Neither man has been charged or arrested, though the LAPD continues to investigate the incident.

    “They didn’t even run out, they walked out,” said LAPD Sgt. Jerretta Sandoz in a statement to CBS LA. “And so, that’s sending a message that we, the criminals, are winning.”

    Sandoz, who serves as vice president of the Los Angeles Police Protective League, said she blames the incident on Prop 47, a 2014 referendum that lowered criminal sentences on crimes such as shoplifting. 

    “If they’re caught, they’re probably given the equivalent of a traffic ticket,” she told CBS LA. “So it’s not taken seriously.”

    “If you let these criminals think that they can go in and steal merchandise and steal things, what happens when someone tries to stop them,” Sandoz added. –Fox News

    Recall that Gascón is the same DA who in April dissolved or downsized the city’s hardcore gangs and narcotics units ahead of a spike in homicides to 13-year highs – for which LA County Sheriff Alex Villanueva directly blames him.

    The video illustrates the latest in a spate of shoplifting across the state. In San Francisco, business owners and security officials are decrying the “lawlessness” in the city caused by shoplifters.

    “This is really bad. I’ve been in the Bay area 20 years, I’ve never seen this,” a local security guard, J.C. Hernandez, told Fox News, adding “It’s just lawlessness … people are just openly coming in and stealing stuff.”

    Tyler Durden
    Thu, 07/22/2021 – 00:16

  • Whitehead's 'State Of The Nation': Still Divided, Enslaved, & Locked Down
    Whitehead’s ‘State Of The Nation’: Still Divided, Enslaved, & Locked Down

    Authored by John W. Whitehead & Nisha Whitehead via The Rutherford Institute,

    “A house divided against itself cannot stand. I believe this government cannot endure, permanently, half slave and half free. I do not expect the Union to be dissolved—I do not expect the house to fall—but I do expect it will cease to be divided. It will become all one thing or all the other.”

    – Abraham Lincoln

    History has a funny way of circling back on itself.

    The facts, figures, faces and technology may change from era to era, but the dangers remain the same.

    This year is no different, whatever the politicians and talking heads may say to the contrary.

    Sure, there’s a new guy in charge, but for the most part, we’re still recycling the same news stories that have kept us with one eye warily glued to the news for the past 100-odd years: War. Corruption. Brutality. Economic instability. Partisan politics. Militarism. Disease. Hunger. Greed. Violence. Poverty. Ignorance. Hatred.

    The more things change, the more they stay the same.

    Brush up on your history, and you’ll find that we’ve been stuck on repeat for some time now.

    Take the United States of America in the year 2021, which is not so far different from the United States of America during the Civil Rights era, or the Cold War era, or even the Depression era.

    Go far enough afield, and you’ll find aspects of our troubled history mirrored in the totalitarianism of Nazi Germany, in the fascism of Mussolini’s Italy, and further back in the militarism of the Roman Empire.

    We’re like TV weatherman Phil Connors in Harold Ramis’ classic 1993 comedy Groundhog Day, forced to live the same day over and over again.

    Here in the American police state, however, we continue to wake up, hoping each new day, new president and new year will somehow be different from what has come before.

    Unfortunately, no matter how we change the narrative, change the characters, change the plot lines, we seem to keep ending up in the same place that we started: enslaved, divided and repeating the mistakes of the past.

    You want to know about the true State of our Nation? Listen up.

    The State of the Union: The state of our nation is politically polarized, controlled by forces beyond the purview of the average American, and rapidly moving the nation away from its freedom foundation. Over the past year, due in part to the COVID-19 pandemic, Americans have found themselves repeatedly subjected to egregious civil liberties violations, invasive surveillance, martial law, lockdowns, political correctness, erosions of free speech, strip searches, police shootings of unarmed citizens, government spying, the criminalization of lawful activities, warmongering, etc.

    The predators of the police state have wreaked havoc on our freedoms, our communities, and our lives. The government does not listen to the citizenry, refuses to abide by the Constitution, and treats taxpayers as a source of funding and little else. Police officers shoot unarmed citizens and their household pets. Government agents—including local police—remain armed to the teeth and act like soldiers on a battlefield. Bloated government agencies continue to fleece taxpayers. Government technicians spy on our emails and phone calls. And government contractors make a killing by waging endless wars abroad.

    Consequently, the state of our nation remains bureaucratic, debt-ridden, violent, militarized, fascist, lawless, invasive, corrupt, untrustworthy, mired in war, and unresponsive to the wishes and needs of the electorate.

    The policies of the American police state continue unabated.

    The Executive Branch: All of the imperial powers amassed by Donald Trump, Barack Obama and George W. Bush—to kill American citizens without due process, to detain suspects indefinitely, to strip Americans of their citizenship rights, to carry out mass surveillance on Americans without probable cause, to suspend laws during wartime, to disregard laws with which he might disagree, to conduct secret wars and convene secret courts, to sanction torture, to sidestep the legislatures and courts with executive orders and signing statements, to direct the military to operate beyond the reach of the law, to act as a dictator and a tyrant, above the law and beyond any real accountability—were inherited by Joe Biden.

    Biden has these powers because every successive occupant of the Oval Office has been allowed to expand the reach and power of the presidency through the use of executive orders, decrees, memorandums, proclamations, national security directives and legislative signing statements that can be activated by any sitting president. Those of us who saw this eventuality coming have been warning for years about the growing danger of the Executive Branch with its presidential toolbox of terror that could be used—and abused—by future presidents. The groundwork, we warned, was being laid for a new kind of government where it won’t matter if you’re innocent or guilty, whether you’re a threat to the nation or even if you’re a citizen. What will matter is what the president—or whoever happens to be occupying the Oval Office at the time—thinks. And if he or she thinks you’re a threat to the nation and should be locked up, then you’ll be locked up with no access to the protections our Constitution provides. In effect, you will disappear.

    Our warnings continue to go unheeded.

    The Legislative Branch:  Congress may well be the most self-serving, semi-corrupt institution in America. Abuses of office runs the gamut from elected representatives neglecting their constituencies to engaging in self-serving practices, including the misuse of eminent domain, earmarking hundreds of millions of dollars in federal contracting in return for personal gain and campaign contributions, having inappropriate ties to lobbyist groups and incorrectly or incompletely disclosing financial information. Pork barrel spending, hastily passed legislation, partisan bickering, a skewed work ethic, graft and moral turpitude have all contributed to the public’s increasing dissatisfaction with congressional leadership. No wonder only 31 percent of Americans approve of the job Congress is doing.

    The Judicial Branch: The Supreme Court was intended to be an institution established to intervene and protect the people against the government and its agents when they overstep their bounds. Yet through their deference to police power, preference for security over freedom, and evisceration of our most basic rights for the sake of order and expediency, the justices of the United States Supreme Court have become the guardians of the American police state in which we now live. As a result, sound judgment and justice have largely taken a back seat to legalism, statism and elitism, while preserving the rights of the people has been deprioritized and made to play second fiddle to both governmental and corporate interests. The courts have empowered the government to wreak havoc on our liberties. Protections for private property continue to be undermined. And Americans can no longer rely on the courts to mete out justice.

    Shadow Government: Joe Biden inherited more than a bitterly divided nation teetering on the brink of financial catastrophe when he assumed office. He also inherited a shadow government, one that is fully operational and staffed by unelected officials who are, in essence, running the country. Referred to as the Deep State, this shadow government is comprised of unelected government bureaucrats, corporations, contractors, paper-pushers, and button-pushers who are actually calling the shots behind the scenes right now.

    Law Enforcement: By and large the term “law enforcement” encompasses all agents within a militarized police state, including the military, local police, and the various agencies such as the Secret Service, FBI, CIA, NSA, etc. Having been given the green light to probe, poke, pinch, taser, search, seize, strip and generally manhandle anyone they see fit in almost any circumstance, all with the general blessing of the courts, America’s law enforcement officials, no longer mere servants of the people entrusted with keeping the peace but now extensions of the military, are part of an elite ruling class dependent on keeping the masses corralled, under control, and treated like suspects and enemies rather than citizens. As a result, police are becoming even more militarized and weaponized, and police shootings of unarmed individuals continue to increase.

    A Suspect Surveillance Society: Every dystopian sci-fi film we’ve ever seen is suddenly converging into this present moment in a dangerous trifecta between science, technology and a government that wants to be all-seeing, all-knowing and all-powerful. By tapping into your phone lines and cell phone communications, the government knows what you say. By uploading all of your emails, opening your mail, and reading your Facebook posts and text messages, the government knows what you write. By monitoring your movements with the use of license plate readers, surveillance cameras and other tracking devices, the government knows where you go. By churning through all of the detritus of your life—what you read, where you go, what you say—the government can predict what you will do. By mapping the synapses in your brain, scientists—and in turn, the government—will soon know what you remember. And by accessing your DNA, the government will soon know everything else about you that they don’t already know: your family chart, your ancestry, what you look like, your health history, your inclination to follow orders or chart your own course, etc. Consequently, in the face of DNA evidence that places us at the scene of a crime, behavior sensing technology that interprets our body temperature and facial tics as suspicious, and government surveillance devices that cross-check our biometrics, license plates and DNA against a growing database of unsolved crimes and potential criminals, we are no longer “innocent until proven guilty.”

    Military Empire: America’s endless global wars and burgeoning military empire—funded by taxpayer dollars—have depleted our resources, over-extended our military and increased our similarities to the Roman Empire and its eventual demise. Black budget spending has completely undermined any hope of fiscal transparency, with government contractors padding their pockets at the expense of taxpayers and the nation’s infrastructure—railroads, water pipelines, ports, dams, bridges, airports and roads—taking the hit. The U.S. now operates approximately 800 military bases in foreign countries around the globe at an annual cost of at least $156 billion. The consequences of financing a global military presence are dire. In fact, David Walker, former comptroller general of the U.S., believes there are “striking similarities” between America’s current situation and the factors that contributed to the fall of Rome, including “declining moral values and political civility at home, an over-confident and over-extended military in foreign lands and fiscal irresponsibility by the central government.”

    I haven’t even touched on the corporate state, the military industrial complex, SWAT team raids, invasive surveillance technology, zero tolerance policies in the schools, overcriminalization, or privatized prisons, to name just a few. However, what I have touched on should be enough to show that the landscape of our freedoms has already changed dramatically from what it once was and will no doubt continue to deteriorate unless Americans can find a way to wrest back control of their government and reclaim their freedoms.

    So how do we go about reclaiming our freedoms and reining in our runaway government?

    Essentially, there are four camps of thought among the citizenry when it comes to holding the government accountable.

    Which camp you fall into says a lot about your view of government—or, at least, your view of whichever administration happens to be in power at the time.

    In the first camp are those who trust the government to do the right thing, despite the government’s repeated failures in this department.

    In the second camp are those who not only don’t trust the government but think the government is out to get them.

    In the third camp are those who see government neither as an angel nor a devil, but merely as an entity that needs to be controlled, or as Thomas Jefferson phrased it, bound “down from mischief with the chains of the Constitution.”

    Then there’s the fourth camp, comprised of individuals who pay little to no attention to the workings of government. Easily entertained, easily distracted, easily led, these are the ones who make the government’s job far easier than it should be.

    It is easy to be diverted, distracted and amused by the antics of politicians, the pomp and circumstance of awards shows, athletic events, and entertainment news, and the feel-good evangelism that passes for religion today.

    What is far more difficult to face up to is the reality of life in America, where unemployment, poverty, inequality, injustice and violence by government agents are increasingly norms.

    The powers-that-be want us to remain divided, alienated from each other based on our politics, our bank accounts, our religion, our race and our value systems. Yet as George Orwell observed, “The real division is not between conservatives and revolutionaries but between authoritarians and libertarians.”

    The only distinction that matters anymore is where you stand in the American police state.

    In other words, you’re either part of the problem or part of the solution.

    America is at a crossroads.

    History may show that from this point forward, we will have left behind any semblance of constitutional government and entered into a militaristic state where all citizens are suspects and security trumps freedom.

    Certainly, we have moved beyond the era of representative government and entered a new age: the age of authoritarianism. Even with its constantly shifting terrain, this topsy-turvy travesty of law and government has become America’s new normal.

    As long as we continue to put our politics ahead of our principles—moral, legal and constitutional—“we the people” will lose.

    And you know who will keep winning by playing on our prejudices, capitalizing on our fears, deepening our distrust of our fellow citizens, and dividing us into polarized, warring camps incapable of finding consensus on the one true menace that is an immediate threat to all of our freedoms? The government.

    As I make clear in my book Battlefield America: The War on the American People and its fictional counterpart The Erik Blair Diaries, when we lose sight of the true purpose of government—to protect our rights—and fail to keep the government in its place as our servant, we allow the government to overstep its bounds and become a tyrant that rules by brute force.

    Tyler Durden
    Thu, 07/22/2021 – 00:00

  • Russia Unveils "Checkmate": Its Latest, 5th Generation Stealth Fighter 
    Russia Unveils “Checkmate”: Its Latest, 5th Generation Stealth Fighter 

    Russian aircraft manufacturer JSC Sukhoi Company unveiled a new fifth-generation fighter jet that will supplement the Sukhoi Su-57 stealth fighter. Moscow plans to export the new fighter jet to countries around the world. Such was the buzz over the reveal that even President Vladimir Putin examined the Sukhoi Checkmate at the country’s annual MAKS Air Show on Tuesday. The new plane is expected to compete with the US Lockheed Martin F-35 Lightning II. 

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    According to RT News, Sukhoi said the first flight of the new jet is set to occur in 2023, and deliveries are to begin in 2026. 

    “We have been working on the project for just slightly longer than one year. Such a fast development cycle was possible only with the help of advanced computer technologies and virtual testing,” Yuri Slyusar, CEO of United Aircraft Corporation, said at MAKS.

    The Checkmate is a single-engine supersonic stealth fighter with internal weapon bays and short take-off capability. The maximum speed is Mach 1.8 with a 1,740-mile flight range. The total payload capacity is 16,300 pounds. 

    Russia’s Deputy Prime Minister Yuri Borisov expects Checkmate to be sold to China, India, Vietnam, and African countries. 

    He said foreign customers are expected to order up to 300 aircraft. 

    Borisov said one customer, who wanted to remain anonymous, showed strong interest in the jet. 

    The unveiling came one day after Sukhoi published a teaser video depicting pilots from around the world receiving the message, “It’s coming.:” 

    Checkmate is a much more affordable version of the SU-57 and cheaper than the Lockheed Martin F-22 Raptor and F-35, making stealth technology available for all. 

    Russia also plans to dominate the hypersonic weapons space with its latest test of the Zircon missile that is expected to be deployed with warships and submarines in the not too distant future. 

    Russia is catching up, having outfield the US in hypersonic weapons and could become an export giant of fifth-generation fighter jets in the back half of this decade.  

    Tyler Durden
    Wed, 07/21/2021 – 23:40

  • Cuba Demoted To "Not Real Socialism"
    Cuba Demoted To “Not Real Socialism”

    Authored by Art Carden via The American Institute for Economic Research,

    If the Socialist Party of Great Britain is an authority on such things, it is official: in light of recent anti-communist protests and civil unrest, Cuba has been demoted to “Not Real Socialism” and reclassified, along with the USSR and other failed socialist experiments, as “actually state capitalism.”

    La Revolucion, it appears, is moving into the last stage of what we might call the Niemietz Cycle in honor of Kristian Niemietz’s excellent-and-downloadable-for-$0 book Socialism: The Failed Idea That Never Dies (I review it here and here).

    The first stage is the “honeymoon” stage where things look like they’re going well. Contrary to what neoliberal naysayers might think, short-run successes seem to prove that socialism is viable. 

    In the second stage, which Niemietz calls the “Excuses-and-Whatabouttery” stage, mounting socialist failures are explained away as the products of a series of unfortunate (and entirely coincidental) events, like weather in the Soviet Union and Zimbabwe. In the case of Cuba, we’re told–as we have been hearing for six decades–that the country’s problems aren’t because of socialism. They’re actually because of the US embargo. If it weren’t for the embargo, we’re told, the regime would be stable and socialist Cuba would thrive.

    I think the embargo is a terrible idea that should be lifted immediately, as it has given Cuban communists a convenient scapegoat for their country’s problems. The embargo, however, is not what causes Cuba’s woes, and people blaming the embargo overlook the fact that Cuba trades pretty extensively with the rest of the world–how else do you think Canadian and Mexican merchants get the Cuban cigars they hawk to American tourists? It’s not because a Cuban Rhett Butler is smuggling them past a blockade. It’s because Cuba trades freely with the entire world. I suspect the US embargo hasn’t really hurt Cuba that much more than the “transgender bathroom” boycott hurt Target.

    The “embargo” story also doesn’t make a whole lot of sense in light of Marxish claims about imperialism and free trade. On one hand, we learn that “periphery” countries are poor because they trade freely with rich countries like the United States and welcome foreign direct investment. On the other hand, we learn that Cuba is poor because it cannot trade freely with the United States. I’m not sure how this works without a lot of auxiliary assumptions. It also ignores the conspicuous and inconvenient truth that the Cuban government restricts imports and has only lifted these restrictions for food, medicine, and toiletries “temporarily” in response to the protests.

    In the last stage of the Niemietz Cycle, the failures become too obvious to ignore or explain away, and the country is demoted to “not real socialism.” Western intellectuals fawned over Stalin’s experiment with socialism, and only after it became a conspicuous failure did we learn that “It wasn’t actually socialism; it was Stalinism, and if only Trotsky had been in charge instead of Stalin….”

    Cuba’s defenders have made much of its literacy programs and health care; however, 2018 research by Gilbert Berdine, Vincent Geloso, and Benjamin Powell shows that while Cuban health data aren’t exactly fake news, they aren’t exactly accurate, either. Even if the data are above reproach, there’s another important and uncomfortable question: if Cuba is a workers’ paradise, why are so many people trying so hard to leave? Migration patterns tell the clearest story. Cuba might provide asylum for high-profile American intellectuals and dissidents, but people “vote” overwhelmingly against socialism and for capitalism when they risk life and limb to get from Cuba to the United States. They may not be able to build a case from first principles explaining exactly why they prefer capitalism to socialism in a way that would satisfy a lot of intellectuals, but they demonstrate by their actions which system makes it possible for them to live as they see fit. Moreover, a few seconds with Google suggest to me that actually moving to and getting a job in Cuba would be really, really difficult, and if this website is correct that “A university professor can expect to earn in the region of CUP 1,500 (around US$68 per month),” I understand why so many intellectuals are perfectly happy to extol the virtues of Cuban socialism from comfortable offices and armchairs in the United States instead of lining up to live the collectivist dream.

    We can sit around all day and debate the merits and demerits of socialism, whether or not Cuba is “real socialism,” whether or not its apparent reclassification is a demotion or a promotion (as the Babylon Bee calls it), and what intellectuals think people should do and want. Alternatively, we can look at socialism’s miserable track record and try to learn from what people actually do and actually want. Retroactively saying “Actually, that isn’t real socialism” about the Cuban revolution won’t change the fact that people vote for freedom and against socialism in overwhelming numbers.

    Tyler Durden
    Wed, 07/21/2021 – 23:20

  • State Department's #2 To Visit China, Will Discuss "Areas Of Serious Concern About PRC Actions"
    State Department’s #2 To Visit China, Will Discuss “Areas Of Serious Concern About PRC Actions”

    The US State Department’s #2, deputy secretary of state Wendy Sherman, will meet Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi in Tianjin on July 25-26, after her trip to Mongolia. In a short statement on Wednesday, the US State Department said the discussions were part of “ongoing US efforts to hold candid exchanges with PRC officials to advance US interests and values and to responsibly manage the relationship”.

    US deputy secretary of state Wendy Sherman (centre) will visit China on her trip to Asia. Photo: AP

    “The deputy secretary will discuss areas where we have serious concerns about PRC actions, as well as areas where our interests align,” it said, referring to the People’s Republic of China.

    In an earlier statement, Washington said Sherman would go to Japan, South Korea and Mongolia, raising concerns that she would not make a stop in China. Analysts wondered if Sherman’s original schedule suggested lingering tensions between the two sides, following the catastrophic summit in Alaska in March.

    On Tuesday, the State Department said a trip to China by Sherman remained possible during her current tour of Asia if officials determined that a meeting between Sherman and her Chinese counterparts would be productive.

    “We’ve been clear that when it comes to the [People’s Republic of China], we will engage when it’s in our interests to do so, and we do remain interested in doing so in a practical, substantive and direct manner. That certainly remains the case,” department spokesman Ned Price said.

    According to SCMP sources, China was planning for Xie Feng, a foreign vice-minister in charge of US affairs, to meet Sherman. Xie was the foreign ministry commissioner in Hong Kong and has also been a foreign ministry “point person” on Xinjiang – two key issues troubling China-US relations. Wang would also receive Sherman but Washington was hoping she could have greater access to President Xi Jinping’s inner circle.

    Commenting on the upcoming meeting, Newsquawk notes that a scheduled meeting implies that sides are working towards de-escalating tensions, with some suggesting that such meetings could augur well for a future meeting between President Biden and President Xi. It also comes after the FT reported last week that China had denied the request for US Deputy Secretary of State Sherman to meet with her Chinese counterpart during a proposed visit to the country this week.

    The meeting is expected to serve as a precursor for a meeting between Secretary of State Blinken and China’s Foreign Minister Wang Yi, the source added. The meeting is reportedly to “touch base and for both sides to get a sense of where the relationship is going” and also comes as tensions remain heightened on several fronts.

    The US ramped up its rhetoric on the Xinjiang issue last week when it warned American companies with interests in the area risks breaking US law. Furthermore, the military landscape remains heated. Earlier this week, China said it “drove away” a US warship that trespassed Chinese territory in the South China Sea.

    Further, China warned the US of “serious consequences” after the US Air Force delivered “diplomatic mail” to the de facto US embassy in Taipei, with Beijing claiming that the US trespassed its airspace.

    The SCMP also notes that over the past week, US President Joe Biden and his administration have taken a number of measures that have angered Chinese officials, including a declaration on Monday, together with Britain and the European Union, that Beijing was behind this year’s cyberespionage attack on a Microsoft Exchange email server, This followed the sanctioning of seven Chinese officials which Washington said were responsible for undermining the autonomy of Hong Kong. Beijing denounced the sanctions and threatened to take strong retaliation.

    Meanwhile, the trade deal will likely not be revisited in a meaningful way next week as the trade representatives from both sides are not meeting, as far as the reports go.

    Thus, the meeting will be observed with a geopolitical lens, and the tone between the nations will be eyed. SCMP also suggested that this meeting could eventually pave the way for a summit between the two presidents – some have raised the possibility of a Biden-Xi meeting at the October G20 summit in Rome. A joint press conference or statement will be viewed as constructive.

    Tyler Durden
    Wed, 07/21/2021 – 23:00

  • First Somalia Airstrikes Of Biden Presidency As Congress Still Questioning Syria Strikes
    First Somalia Airstrikes Of Biden Presidency As Congress Still Questioning Syria Strikes

    The Pentagon has confirmed that President Joe Biden has carried out his first military strikes on the African continent, on Tuesday launching strikes on Somalia targeting al-Qaeda linked al Shabaab militants. “The Department of Defense can confirm that in coordination with the Federal Government of Somalia, US Africa Command forces conducted one airstrike against al-Shabaab in the vicinity of Galkayo, Somalia, today,” the Pentagon said.

    Pentagon spokeswoman Cindi King indicated the operation took place “in the vicinity of Galkayo, Somalia,” which is a city in the country’s center, according to The Hill. “A battle-damage assessment is still pending due to the ongoing engagement between al-Shabaab and Somali forces,” she said Tuesday.

    Aftermath of prior Al-Shabab terror attack, via AFP/Getty Images

    The Somali government has long been battling the Islamist insurgent group, which has in the past been responsible for hundreds of kidnappings as well as sporadic terror attacks on civilian areas of the war-torn country. The US military said it worked in coordination with the Somali government for Tuesday’s operation.

    It marks the third publicly confirmed Biden-ordered air strikes of his presidency, with the prior two launched in Eastern Syria along the Iraq border ostensibly against “Iran-backed militia” engaged in tit-for-tat attacks on American bases.

    According to The Hill, the last time US forces hit Somalia was on Jan. 19 – just before Biden was sworn into office – and after Trump had loosened the rules of engagement for drone strikes.

    Current US rules of engagement based on the stated policies of the Biden administration say that any planned airstrikes conducted outside Afghanistan, Syria, and Iraq have to be formally submitted to the White House to “ensure that the president has full visibility on proposed significant actions.” This means it’s most likely Biden personally signed off of the strikes.

    During the “global war on terror” years airstrikes in Somalia in grew, especially drone strikes, resulting in growing civilian casualties…

    Amnesty International and other human rights groups have previously urged a halt to America’s drone action in Somalia over mounting civilian casualties…

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    Alarmingly this suggests military commanders do have the option of ordering operations in these three countries without explicit approval from the commander-in-chief. While the US has long operated inside Iraq and Afghanistan at the invitation of the governments there, Damascus has long maintained that the US presence in Syria is a flagrant violation of its sovereignty.

    Some Congressional leaders – even among Democrats – have of late agreed, demanding that based on constitutional requirements he must submit notification to Congress. The same war powers debate could just as easily be had when it comes to Somalia, however, it probably won’t.

    Tyler Durden
    Wed, 07/21/2021 – 22:40

  • WeWork Paid Founder Adam Neumann More Than $2 Billion, New Book Reveals
    WeWork Paid Founder Adam Neumann More Than $2 Billion, New Book Reveals

    A pair of WSJ reporters have just released a new book, “The Cult of We”, yet another wild tale chronicling the exploits of WeWork founder and former CEO Adam Neumann. As one might expect, the book features several new revelations about Neumann and the extent of Neumann’s extraction of resources from his cash-burning ‘unicorn’, primarily in the form of compensation.

    In fact, the book reveals that Neumann extracted even more wealth than previously believed: entities he controlled made more than $2.1 billion from the company between its founding to the present day, including via stock sales, cash settlement payments and shares.

    Offering yet another example of how WeWork’s backers and bankers – particularly SoftBank and its chairman Masayoshi Son – enabled Neumann and his manic impulses, the WSJ reporters reveal that Neumann and a group of his closest associates sold shares during every funding round. He made roughly $500MM from these sales. In 2019, Neumann pocketed $300MM from additional share sales. Then in May, it was reported that Neumann received another award worth $245MM, bringing the total value of Neumann’s exit package to nearly $1 billion.

    Later, via a renegotiation of his exit package, WeWork agreed to pay out another $185MM as part of a non-compete agreement while also ‘renegotiating’ a $431.5MM line of credit secured by more than 19MM shares of WeWork stock owned by a Neumann controlled entity.

    Following years of whispered reports about his erratic behavior, everything fell apart for Neumann after WeWork relased its S-1, exposing that Neumann and his family would retain virtually complete control over the company. WeWork quickly modified the voting rights’ arrangement, but it was too late. The combination of WeWork’s mounting losses, Neumann’s behavior and the insanity exposed by the company’s “consciousness-elevating” S-1 prompted investors to balk. The company’s valuation quickly dropped from nearly $50 billion to less than $10 billion.

    WeWork finally went public this spring in a deal with a SPAC called BowX Acquisition Corp. Its investors managed to raise some institutional capital, and have been pitching WeWork as a reopening play, arguing that its “flex space” offerings will become even more popular in a world where ‘hybrid work’ becomes the norm, and where companies don’t want to commit to long-term leases.

    In addition to the staggering payouts received by Neumann, the book also revealed many other ridiculous details. During the company’s early days, Neumann openly fantasized about trying to become Israel’s prime minister. He also said he wanted to become “president of the world” later on, after the company had achieved its massive valuation.

    For an executive who cultivated a personality cult, Neumann had a new exit designed to his offices so he could avoid running into staff in the main lobby on his way to the elevators. When it came to interactions with real-life politicians, Neumann was often late or otherwise impertinent.  He once tried to schedule a last-minute meeting with Canadian PM Justin Trudeau, and nearly missed a meeting with British PM Theresa May because his wife reportedly wanted him to skip it.

    Neuman also grew paranoid as top executives started to push back against more of his decisions. As the Verge reports, after 2012, priorities shifted at WeWork and management became obsessed with increasing WeWork’s “valuation”, often at the expense of creating a profitable and sustainable business.

    In an interview with the Verge, one of the authors of “the Cult of We” quipped that “it still is kind of wild to me how Adam Neumann had the ultimate power to make all of this happen and do all the things he did when you have some of the most sophisticated financiers in the world behind him…How did they all get played?”

    They didn’t, of course. They were in on it the whole time. WeWork’s bankers were happy to see it load up on debt and venture capital. And when it came time for the IPO, they were more than eager to dump the shares on the public markets – right up until it became clear that Neumann had poisoned the well.

    Tyler Durden
    Wed, 07/21/2021 – 22:00

  • At Least 2 Iranian Protesters Shot As Water Crisis Grows: "Worst Drought In 50 Years"
    At Least 2 Iranian Protesters Shot As Water Crisis Grows: “Worst Drought In 50 Years”

    At least two have been killed after multiple nights of large-scale protests over severe water shortages in Iran’s southwest Khuzestan province. The region is said to be experiencing its worst drought in a half-century, which has devastated agriculture and livestock, and left many thousands of homes without water as families plea with authorities for a solution to the crisis. 

    Al Jazeera reports that the deaths came amid ongoing clashes with police: “Two young men were shot and killed during a second night of protests over water shortages in southwest Iran,” citing local reporting. People can be heard in social media videos chanting, “People are thirsty, we want water!”

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    Over the weekend Iranian authorities blamed “opportunists and rioters” for the violence, with a governor in the region, Omid Sabripour, telling state media:

    “During the rally, rioters shot in the air to provoke the people, but unfortunately one of the bullets hit a person present at the scene and killed him,” he said.

    The protests began last week, with Al Jazeera further noting that hugely provocative chants of “Death to the dictator” and “Death to Khamenei” were heard. 

    Already throughout the summer other parts of Iran have witnessed protests over severe electricity shortages leading to unplanned, intermittent blackouts – which Tehran officials have actually in some instances admitted is due in large part to mismanagement and neglect, while also blaming US-led sanctions.

    Both the energy and water crisis are deepening the outrage of the Iranian populace, particularly during a hot summer, and given apartment high rises in places like Tehran and other big cities are not designed to go long periods without air conditioning. The water protests have reached several cities in the oil rich southwest.

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    The regional news source Iran International previously explained that the country’s power consumption this summer “has topped 60,000 megawatts per day, a more than ten percent increase compared with last year, while electricity generation has remained the same at 50,000-56,000 megawatts.” And further the report noted:

    As electricity remains subsidized and cheap, there is no incentive for people to limit its use. It also makes Iran a magnate for cryptocurrency mining by huge computer farms that are consume perhaps up to ten percent of electricity supplies in the country.

    In recent months authorities have vowed to disrupt all illegal crypto mining, despite it once being a key way for the country to offset the severe US sanctions blow under the past Trump administration. 

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    The Associated Press recently emphasized that the water and electricity crises are closely intertwined: “The country has faced rolling blackouts for weeks now, in part over what authorities describe as a drought striking the nation.“

    “Precipitation had decreased by almost 50 percent in the last year, leaving dams with dwindling water supplies to fuel the country,” the report said.

    Tyler Durden
    Wed, 07/21/2021 – 21:40

  • If The US Wants To Beat China, Why Is It Copying China's Socialism?
    If The US Wants To Beat China, Why Is It Copying China’s Socialism?

    Authored by Mihai Macovei via The Mises Institute,

    Under the Biden administration the US continued escalating the economic and geopolitical frictions with China. At the recent G7 Summit in Carbis Bay, President Biden sought to rally a “united front” against China with traditional G7 allies and new ones such as Australia, India, South Korea, and South Africa and rebuked China on economic policies, human rights, and tensions in the East and South China Seas. The US also persuaded its G7 allies to back a massive infrastructure support package for developing countries. The so-called Build Back Better World Partnership (B3W) is a de facto rival to China’s Belt and Road Initiative (BRI). But it is far from obvious what the West stands to gain by emulating China’s exorbitant and highly controversial modern “Silk Road” venture.

    The US’s Ambitious Global Infrastructure Plan

    The B3W wants to mobilize “hundreds of billions of dollars of infrastructure investment,” in order to narrow an estimated infrastructure need of $40 trillion plus in the developing world. The B3W financing is expected to come from US budgetary instruments, such as the Development Finance Corporation and the United States Agency for International Development (USAID); from multilateral development banks (MDBs), such as the World Bank; and from the private sector and G7 partners. As the B3W is meant to challenge China’s project, we expect it to at least match the Chinese financial envelope, most commonly estimated at more than $1 trillion in investment and lending commitments so far. This is more than eight times higher than the nearly $113 billion in official development assistance and $22 billion in private sector investment provided by G7 countries for foreign infrastructure projects during 2015–19 (graph 1).

    Graph 1: G7 Infrastructure Development Assistance

    Source: Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS).

    In order to surpass China, the B3W aims at having a broader geographical coverage, a wider focus, and better project governance and standards. The BRI comprises a “Silk Road Economic Belt” trying to link China with Asia, Russia, and Europe by land, and a “Maritime Silk Road,” connecting China’s coastal regions with Asia, the South Pacific, Africa, and Europe, but its Western challenger aims at being global in scope. While the Chinese initiative is focused on traditional infrastructure projects—highways, railroads, ports, and power plants, the B3W wants to invest also in climate, health and digital technology. And because Chinese projects have been heavily criticized for lack of transparency, corruption, unsustainable debt and adverse environmental and social impacts, the B3W advertises itself as “a values-driven, high-standard, and transparent infrastructure partnership led by major democracies.”

    Holes in China’s “Silk Road”

    From its announcement in 2013, China’s megainfrastructure project has been met with suspicion in the West. Most important, it was feared that China had geostrategic ambitions to bring smaller BRI partners under its sphere of influence. It was also claimed that China was pursuing a “debt-trap diplomacy” in order to take over key strategic assets such as electric grids and ports, while the latter could be also used for military purposes.

    With time, many analysts realized that much of this criticism was exaggerated. First, almost 140 countries have signed on to the BRI as of this writing, of which eighteen are from the EU, showing that many governments find the Chinese deal beneficial. And although China has not financed in full the promised $1 trillion in projects so far, it did make $190 billion worth of investments and $390 billion in construction work (financed by Chinese loans in general) during 2014–18. This is more than the $467 billion of development loans provided by the World Bank during 2008–19. Second, while the number of requests for debt renegotiation and relief has increased, overseas asset seizures have rarely occurred. Third, many pundits concur that the BRI ports are commercially designed and almost impossible to employ militarily.

    Undeniably, China has been trying to enhance its political influence through the BRI, and is now perceived as the most influential economic actor in Southeast Asia and Africa. But resentments over some onerous projects, corruption scandals, and increasing debt burdens mean that such gains could be easily reversed, and China has started to improve its lending and investment standards. The BRI focus has been widened from traditional infrastructure to telecommunications, digital technology, and fintech. And China also expanded the BRI’s overarching goal to helping build a free trade and investment area which would accelerate economic growth for all partner countries.

    But BRI’s economic benefits are skewed in favor of Chinese construction companies at the expense of taxpayers. The BRI provided much business for China’s overstretched construction sector after the end of the domestic stimulus binge following the Great Recession. Almost 90 percent of the construction works funded under the BRI went to Chinese contractors, fueling criticism that the BRI creates unfair advantages for Chinese companies, which have become global leaders. Seven of the ten largest construction companies in the world by revenue were Chinese in 2017. At the same time, if China wanted to set a debt trap with the BRI, it seems that it is the country which has fallen into it. The pandemic has accelerated the already growing debt defaults and renegotiations and an estimated $94 billion, or a quarter of China’s overseas lending, has come under renegotiation so far (graph 2). It shows that the BRI’s most important lenders, i.e. China’s two main policy banks—the China Development Bank and the Export-Import Bank of China—have done a poor job of financing viable projects, for which the Chinese taxpayer is likely to foot the bill eventually.3 And given the sizeable amount of investments put on hold, scaled back, or cancelled, and the very low participation of private lenders, it is obvious that the BRI participating governments have made several bad investment decisions too.

    Graph 2: China’s Debt Renegotiation Cases

    Source: Rhodium Group Research.

    Over 2013–17, the BRI looked pretty successful and was growing fast in terms of contracts signed and loans. After high-profile contracts were cancelled and debt renegotiations surged, the project ran out of steam. China’s big banks started rethinking and reducing their overseas lending and the number of construction contracts went down too (graph 3). This was also driven by the deleveraging of Chinese banks after the large credit expansion following the global financial crisis. China’s large domestic growth stimuli weakened its external competitiveness and reduced current account surpluses and outward FDI (foreign direct investment). The balance of payments crisis of 2015–16, which was accompanied by a drop in international reserves of more than $1 trillion and imposition of capital controls, reduced China’s ability to fund the massive overseas demand for infrastructure projects and investment. In addition, domestic voices started to question why Chinese people, also relatively poor, should subsidize unprofitable capital investment overseas.

    Graph 3: China’s Overseas Construction Contracts

    Source: Rhodium Group.

    Should the West Go down China’s Road?

    Before pouring money into B3W, the US should heed important lessons from China’s BRI venture and its own past. First, trying to fill in the $40 trillion plus infrastructure gap in the developing world requires a massive amount of resources. Just printing trillions of US dollars will not be enough, because real savings, i.e., goods and services, will need to be transferred abroad as current account surpluses. In order to carry out mammoth BRI projects, China recorded large current account surpluses and drew on its huge international reserves. Japanese companies also have a long history of building infrastructure across Southeast Asia which was also backed by substantial current account surpluses for several decades. On the other hand, both the US and the UK have been running chronic current account deficits, while the euro area started to register small surpluses only a few years ago (graph 4).

    Graph 4: Current Account Balances

    Source: OECD Statistics.

    In addition, both the US and the EU are about to launch large domestic growth stimuli, including substantial green and digital investments, which are likely to strain further their feeble domestic real savings. Moreover, President Biden’s economic agenda includes important measures, such as tax and minimum wage hikes and higher social spending, that are likely to increase consumption while depressing economic activity and savings. Lastly, investment as a share of GDP is already relatively low in both the US and EU, calling into question the economic rationale for a government-led transfer of capital overseas (graph 5).

    Graph 5: Domestic Investment Ratios

    Source: World Bank Data.

    The second lesson is that BRI slowed down not only when domestic resources dwindled, but also when the wasteful projects and bad debts became visible. The US and its allies seem convinced that, unlike the BRI, their projects will be profitable and transparent. But this is not what history tells us. Jeffrey Tucker shows that the true intent of the much-hailed Marshall Plan was not to help foreign countries, but to internationalize the New Deal and for the American taxpayer to subsidize US corporates. The plan drained private capital out of the US economy, and the country fell into recession shortly thereafter. It also helped entrench unionism, welfare states, and heavy regulations in Europe. According to Ryan McMaken, the history of building transcontinental railroads in the US is also rife with crony capitalism and corruption. The track record of conditional development lending from the International Monetary Fund, the World Bank, and other institutions that are supposed to back the B3W is not spotless either. These institutions are rarely able to support viable projects and economic liberalization: given their role as global lenders of last resort, they must prop up foreign governments that are usually overbureaucratic and corrupt.

    In conclusion, if the US wants to strengthen its economic and geostrategic position versus China, it needs to apply the same free market principles that made it prosperous and powerful in the first place. Launching a second Marshall Plan, which mirrors China’s wasteful BRI, will only consolidate big government, crony capitalism, and corruption, eroding the US economy’s capital stock and competitiveness.

    Tyler Durden
    Wed, 07/21/2021 – 21:20

  • ​​​​​​​Record Droughts Plague Argentina As Parana River Hits 77-Year Low
    ​​​​​​​Record Droughts Plague Argentina As Parana River Hits 77-Year Low

    Record droughts plague Argentina, Brazil, Mexico, and Paraguay, threaten crops, water reserves, and economic recovery. 

    Concentrating on Argentina, water levels on the Parana River are at 77 years lows, according to Reuters. The river is a major transport route for agricultural exports and a source of drinking water, irrigation, and energy. 

    “Water levels in the Parana are at the lowest level since 1944, which requires a commitment from everyone to attend and act preventively and responsibly against this situation,” the Government of Argentina said. 

    About 80% of the country’s farm exports flow from ports along the Parana River. If shipping vessels can’t traverse the waterway, then farm goods would be landlocked. 

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    The top hemispheric factor contributing to drought conditions in South America is summer 2020 La Nina. It managed to push cold water in the eastern Pacific Ocean and reduced precipitation across the region. 

    Droughts threaten to damage crop yields in South American economies reeling from the virus pandemic and exacerbate the global food shortage pushing food prices higher. 

    S&P Global Platts expands more on the drought and impacts on the global food supply: 

    • Brazil — the second-largest corn exporter in the world — suffered severe drought during most of the corn-growing months and in addition to that, the southern part of the country was affected by frost toward the end of June, which exacerbated corn yield losses.
    • Persisting drought conditions in Brazil have trickled down to Argentina through the Parana river basin. Rainfall remained low across northern Argentina in recent months, where most agricultural activities are concentrated.

    Days ago, Argentina announced a $10.4 million relief fund to mitigate the impact of the drought. 

    S&P Global Platts also makes sense of the wild weather worldwide, contributing not to climate change but rather La Nina: 

    The latest forecast by the US Climate Prediction Center said La Nina will potentially emerge during September-November and last through the 2021-22 winter, with a 66% chance during November-January.

    The La Nina phenomenon, which is an occasional but natural cooling of the equatorial Pacific, is typically associated with above-normal rainfall in Southeast Asia, South Africa, India, and Australia, and drier weather in Argentina, Europe, Brazil, and the southern US.

    This all means that inflation is not “transitory” as the Federal Reserve and all their muppets have tried to convince the world – instead, it’ll be sticking around for some time as food prices will remain elevated. 

    Tyler Durden
    Wed, 07/21/2021 – 21:00

  • 'Zero COVID' Catastrophe: Participating Nations See New Records Across The Board
    ‘Zero COVID’ Catastrophe: Participating Nations See New Records Across The Board

    Authored by Jordan Schachtel via ‘Dossier’ substack,

    Zero Covid, the idea that heavy-handed government edicts and population controls can permanently eliminate a coronavirus from a country, is now failing spectacularly everywhere it is being tried.

    You might not read about it in western corporate press agencies, but Zero Covid nations are seeing explosions in Covid-19 cases across the board. The widely praised “success story” countries that followed the radical ideology that is Zero Covid have not only failed to contain a virus, but are now witnessing the uncontrolled spread of that virus in their population centers. The governments committed to this pseudoscientific, totalitarian adventure are scrambling for options, and responding by locking down their nations and further violating the rights of their citizens. The lid has flown off the Zero Covid pressure cooker, revealing the shortcomings of such a reckless ideological endeavor.

    Let’s take a look at how “Zero Covid” nations are holding up:

    Australia

    Australia is arguably the most dedicated large nation to a Zero Covid strategy. The country has been closed off from the vast majority of the world since the beginning of COVID Mania. Even many Australian citizens have been unable to enter or leave the country. 

    Australia has pursued so many lockdowns that it’s pretty much impossible to keep track of what number we’re currently at. Zero Covid has been an unmitigated disaster, as Canberra’s elimination strategy has unsurprisingly failed to permanently move cases to zero. 

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    On Thursday, Melbourne and Sydney, Australia’s two largest cities, enacted yet another lockdown. This will be Melbourne’s fifth lockdown in the span of a year and a half.

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    Australia’s lockdowns have been infamously ruthless.  In some places, lockdowns meant citizens were only allowed to leave their homes for one hour a day, and they were not allowed to travel outside of a certain radius from their homes. In many places, the act of protesting is illegal, and it will be met with by riot police. Australia has also enacted mandatory quarantine camps for citizens who are privileged enough to be allowed to return to the country.

    Vietnam

    Labeled a Zero Covid “success story” by the corporate press for its ultra stringent policies, cases are now exploding in Vietnam.

    The government, in full panic mode, has responded by locking down major cities, only for the case count to continue to move upwards.

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    South Korea

    Seoul set up one of the most intrusive Covid surveillance regimes in the world. Applauded by authoritarians as a country that had its priorities in order, South Korea was supposedly the model “contact tracing” nation. Today, South Korea is seeing record numbers across the board.

    This week, the country has seen record case loads. Zero Covid has failed, and the government has responded by restricting rights even further.

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    Singapore

    Once a Zero Covid nation in good standing with the radical ideologue “public health experts,” the government in Singapore wised up and decided last month to drop the idea of forever eliminating a minimally threatening endemic virus.

    China

    China is lying about its COVID numbers and just about everything else. The Chinese Communist Party claims to be a Zero Covid participant, but in reality, Beijing has been fooling the world about mitigation and suppression “successes” since day one of Covid Mania.

    Thailand

    Thailand, a widely praised “success story” for its strict lockdowns and other draconian policies in pursuit of Zero Covid, is setting its own Covid case records.

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    New Zealand

    New Zealand, which has been in a self siege since the beginning of 2020, remains completely committed to its Zero Covid elimination strategy. Like Australia, the country has set up quarantine camps for people who have been granted access to the nation. Due to isolation-related Covid “immunity debt,” the country is seeing skyrocketing hospitalizations among children, who are not threatened by Covid-19.

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    Free from Covid (for now), emergency rooms are said to be at a “breaking point” in the country, with the country dealing with unknown “winter illness.” It seems the Zero Covid fanatics have forgotten that there are still other ways to get sick.

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    Kiwi officials have not even commenced discussions over how long they will remain committed to their self siege strategy. Their closed borders have resulted in a massive shortage among hospital staff.

    Summary

    Every country that has embraced the radical notion of Zero Covid has ended up failing to contain a virus and/or failing to accept that the costs of attempting to contain a virus have been exponentially worse than the benefits of containing the virus. The promised “cures” have been infinitely worse than the disease. There are no longer any “success stories” involving nations using tyrannical means in an attempt to stop a virus. Zero Covid, as any rational person could have predicted a long time ago, has failed in spectacular fashion.

    Tyler Durden
    Wed, 07/21/2021 – 20:40

  • Thousands Of Olympics Ticket Buyers Have Personal Info Leaked Online
    Thousands Of Olympics Ticket Buyers Have Personal Info Leaked Online

    If you bought tickets to the Tokyo Olympics, you may want to change your passwords.

    On Wednesday, a government official speaking on condition of anonymity revealed that thousands of login IDs and passwords of ticket buyers for the Paralympic events were leaked online, as well as the login credentials for those who had used a volunteer portal for the Summer Games, according to Kyodo News.

    Meanwhile – said ticket holders going to be unable to attend the actual events due to coronavirus restrictions, angering local officials over the decision to move forward with the event.

    As The Sun notes:

    There is a growing backlash in the city over the Olympic Games getting the green light to continue.

    And there is huge anger over foreign athletes, dignitaries and media being allowed to attend despite the capital being in a state of emergency.

    Our stars have been warned to follow protocols and told to ‘not visit restaurants that are open after 8pm or that serve alcohol’.

    It comes after organisers highlighted reports of accredited personnel for the Games being spotted drinking in downtown areas or violating quarantines.

    Chiefs said the reports ‘have the potential to severely damage the reputation of the Tokyo 2020 Games and your organisations’.

    Local concern in Tokyo is mounting over staging the Games.

    Tens of thousands of foreign athletes, officials and journalists could accelerate infection rates and introduce more infectious variants.

    And in a survey published by the Asahi Shimbun newspaper, over half of the Japanese public do not want the Games to go ahead.

    According to a Asahi Shimbun poll, 68 percent of Japanese respondents doubt that the Games can be held “safe and secure”, a promise repeatedly made by Prime Minister Yoshihide Suga and the IOC.

    The ticket sale fiasco is just the latest mishap plaguing the Olympics – as dozens of athletes and others involved in the games have tested positive for COVID-19, breaking the venue’s so-called ‘bubble’ designed to protect against the disease, with several participants pulling out of the games. Meanwhile, the Olympics lost its largest sponsor this week, Toyota, which announced it wouldn’t attend the opening ceremony either.

    And in the last bit of bad luck for the games, a BEAR was spotted at the Fukushima softball venue – the first event of the games, according to The Sun, which notes that “Officers have confirmed that they had been unable to track down the giant beast – which has been identified as an Asian black bear.”

    Tyler Durden
    Wed, 07/21/2021 – 20:20

  • Israel Seeks To Invoke US Anti-BDS Laws Against Ben & Jerry's
    Israel Seeks To Invoke US Anti-BDS Laws Against Ben & Jerry’s

    Authored by Dave DeCamp via AntiWar.com,

    Israeli leaders are furious with the American ice cream company Ben & Jerry’s for announcing that it will stop selling products in the occupied Palestinian territories of East Jerusalem and the West Bank.

    Gilad Erdan, Israel’s ambassador to the US, sent letters to the governors of the 35 US states that have laws on the books against the Boycott Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) movement that calls for a global boycott to pressure Israel over its occupation and other human rights abuses.

    Wikimedia Commons

    “I ask that you consider speaking out against the company’s decision, and taking any other relevant steps, including in relations to your state laws and the commercial dealings between Ben and Jerry’s and your state,” Erdan said in the letter that he sent Tuesday, which he coordinated with Israeli Foreign Minister Yair Lapid.

    Erdan said Israel views Ben and Jerry’s decision as “the de-facto adoption of antisemitic practices.” Lapid made similar comments on Twitter. “Ben & Jerry’s decision represents shameful surrender to antisemitism, to BDS and to all that is wrong with the anti-Israel and anti-Jewish discourse,” the foreign minister wrote on Monday.

    Lapid also vowed to contact US governors in states with anti-BDS laws. “Over 30 states in the United States have passed anti-BDS legislation in recent years. I plan on asking each of them to enforce these laws against Ben & Jerry’s. They will not treat the State of Israel like this without a response,” he said.

    The anti-BDS laws, which Israeli officials lobbied states to pass, deny state funds to those who advocate for the boycott of Israel and require state contractors to sign oaths pledging not to boycott the Jewish state. The laws are a clear violation of the First Amendment and are always ruled unconstitutional when brought to court.

    Vermont, the state Ben and Jerry’s is based in, does not have anti-BDS laws on the books. It’s not clear how other states’ anti-BDS laws could affect Ben & Jerry’s, but Israeli officials are exploring other ways to go after the ice cream company.

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    Israeli Prime Minister Naftali Bennett spoke with the head of Unilever, a consumer goods company of which Ben & Jerry’s is a subsidiary. According to a statement from Bennett’s office, the Israeli leader told Unilever CEO Alan Jope that Ben & Jerry’s decision will have “severe consequences” and said Israel will take “strong action.”

    The US State Department on Tuesday reaffirmed that the Biden administration is against the BDS movement, but declined to comment on Ben & Jerry’s decision. “I don’t have a reaction to offer regarding the actions of a private company. More broadly what I would say is that we firmly reject the BDS movement, which unfairly singles out Israel,” State Department spokesman Ned Price told reporters.

    Disclosure: Antiwar.com has received donations in the past from Ben Cohen, the co-founder of Ben & Jerry’s

    Tyler Durden
    Wed, 07/21/2021 – 20:00

  • Russia Announces Bilateral Nuclear Arms Control Talks With Biden Administration
    Russia Announces Bilateral Nuclear Arms Control Talks With Biden Administration

    Coming off the “positive” June Biden-Putin summit in Geneva, Russian media is now reporting the resumption of direct nuclear talks between Moscow in Washington set for end of this month.

    “Russia and the United States have agreed to hold their first round of nuclear strategic stability talks on July 28 in Geneva, the Kommersant newspaper reported on Tuesday,” according to Reuters.

    Via Reuters

    Biden and Putin had initially agreed that bilateral dialogue on nuclear arms control and reduction remains a top priority during last month’s summit. This after during the Trump administration the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces (INF) Treaty was scrapped, after the US withdrew from it in 2019. New START was also on the chopping block.

    However, once Biden took office he scrambled to extend the New START nuclear arms reduction treaty with Russia, signing on to an immediate five year extension. 

    The supreme irony of course remains that it was Trump tearing up Cold War era treaties with Russia – all the while he was supposedly “Putin’s puppet” in the White House or something – while Biden is now busy seeking to restore direct dialogue (and then there’s also Biden also essentially greenlighting the completion of the Nord Stream 2 pipeline). 

    The AP had previously detailed based on the Geneva meeting: 

    The “strategic stability dialogue” would be a series of discussions designed to set the table for a negotiation by sorting out what exactly should be negotiated. More broadly, it would aim to reduce the risk of war between the world’s two largest nuclear powers.

    Biden said the goal is to work with Russia on “a mechanism that can lead to control of new and dangerous and sophisticated weapons that are coming on the scene now, that reduce the time for response, that raise the prospect of accidental war.” He said this was discussed in detail.

    Interestingly establishment media itself seemed hostile to any potential rapprochement between Putin and Biden along the lines of strategic arms reduction talks. Instead US journalists at the summit were more interested in seeing Biden aggressively “call out” Putin on alleged human rights crackdowns and abuses.

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    We wonder if the same journalist think avoiding the “prospect of accidental war” with Russia remains a good idea or bad idea, given they’ve spent the last five years stoking a jingoistic atmosphere of confrontation.

    Tyler Durden
    Wed, 07/21/2021 – 19:40

  • Rand Paul Asks DoJ To Investigate Fauci For Lying To Congress
    Rand Paul Asks DoJ To Investigate Fauci For Lying To Congress

    During an otherwise routine hearing before the Senate, Sen. Rand Paul and Dr. Anthony Fauci clashed once again over whether President Biden’s top COVID advisor had lied to Congress when he insisted back in May that the NIH hadn’t finance gain-of-function research at the Wuhan Institute of Virology (Dr. Fauci also furiously pushed back on the assertion that COVID-19 may have leaked from the lab, before suddenly changing his tune).

    A clearly frazzled Dr. Fauci hurled insults at Sen. Rand Paul (a medical doctor) – “you don’t know what you’re talking about”, he shouted. However, after the dust settled, several reporters, including a reporter for the Washington Post, stepped up to point out that Dr. Fauci was, in fact, wrong. As we reported as far back as March, the NIH – which Dr. Fauci has been in charge of for decades – helped finance ‘gain-of-function’ research involving bat coronaviruses (research overseen by Dr. Shi ‘Batwoman’ Zhengli) via a third-party: EcoHealth Alliance.

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    This organization took grant money from the NIH and funneled to the WIV. And the leader of this organization? Dr. Peter Daszak, the same man tasked with investigating the origins of the virus by the WHO.

    As Dr. Fauci’s attempts to mask his potential culpability in encouraging research that may or may not have contributed to the outbreak that led to the pandemic, Sen. Rand Paul took to Fox News a couple of times last night. And during a prime-time interview with Sean Hannity, he announced that he planned to write a letter to the DoJ and ask that Dr. Fauci be investigated for lying to Congress.

    “Is it your belief Senator that he lied to Congress and broke the law?” Hannity asks. “Yes,” Sen. Paul responds. “And I will be sending a letter to the Department of Justice asking for a criminal referral.”

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    During the interview, Paul explains that he has found multiple doctors and scientists to confirm that the research the NIH helped to finance at the WIV was, in fact, gain of function research – which was made illegal for the NIH to finance by the Obama Administration. What’s clear is that Dr. Fauci, who led the agency and has been a vocal proponent of gain of function research, as the Australian first reported back in May. 

    “The NIH funded the lab…but once the public figures out that they were doing very, very dangerous research there…once everybody puts this together, he realizes where the blame is going to attach. He has at least tangential responsibility…if this came from the lab he was funding, my God just imagine the moral culpability the man has.”

    Paul also cited Dr. Fauci’s obvious conflict of interest when it comes to the origins of COVID, and that “he doesn’t really have the judgment to be in the position he’s in.”

    Finally, the senator revealed that he has received “at least five death threats” related to his campaign to expose Dr. Fauci’s conflict of interest.

    During a different interview on Fox a few hours earlier, Sen. Paul explained how scientists had repeatedly confirmed that the research being done by Dr. Zhengli in Wuhan absolutely constituted gain of function research. “When you talk to other scientists, they’re saying it’s the epitomy of ‘gain-of-function’ research. Despite Dr. Fauci’s refusal to acknowledge this, it’s clear he has a significant “conflict of interest.”

    Given the impact that Sen. Paul’s comments have made, and the fact that mainstream reporters are starting to acknowledge that he has been, in fact, correct all along, we can’t help but wonder: is Dr. Fauci’s tenure as America’s unofficial COVID czar finally coming to an end? How much longer until he becomes a political liability for the Democrats – at which point he will almost certainly be fired, or forced to resign, as Biden & Co. claim that the “inherited” the doctor from President Trump.

    Tyler Durden
    Wed, 07/21/2021 – 19:25

  • Democrat Who Featured In Infamous 'Maskless Flight' Pic Calls For "Universal Mask-Wearing"
    Democrat Who Featured In Infamous ‘Maskless Flight’ Pic Calls For “Universal Mask-Wearing”

    Authored by Paul Joseph Watson via Summit News,

    Democrat Texas state Rep. Donna Howard, who appeared in the now infamous photo of maskless Dem lawmakers on a private jet, faced ridicule after she called for “universal mask-wearing.”

    Howard was one of 60 Texas Democrats who boarded a jet to Washington, D.C., to skip out on a vote on Texas’ election reform bill. A photo of the plane cabin shows Howard and several other passengers not wearing masks.

    Following the trip, where they met with U.S. officials, Howard along with 5 of her colleagues tested positive for COVID-19.

    She subsequently tried to deflect criticism by remarking, “TSA exempts private, non-commercial flights from the mask requirement.”

    “Unfortunately, the spike in infections from the delta variant became apparent immediately after our flight,” Howard continued.

    “Had we known at the time, we would have worn masks.”

    Now Howard is facing more mockery after she vehemently called for schoolchildren to be forced to wear masks in class.

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    “We need to follow the science here,” tweeted Howard. Texas needs to change course and allow for universal mask-wearing to prevent spread of the highly contagious delta variant, esp as children under 12 cannot get vaccinated yet.”

    Apparently, Howard is really keen for kids to wear masks but not too bothered about covering her own face, even in close proximity to numerous other people inside a confined space.

    “It’s OK when we do it!”

    As we previously highlighted, Dr. Anthony Fauci wrote in a February 2020 that a typical store-bought face mask “is not really effective in keeping out virus, which is small enough to pass through material.”

    His sentiment was echoed earlier this week by Dr Colin Axon, a SAGE advisor for the UK government, who told the London Telegraph that medics have given people a “cartoonish” view of how how microscopic viruses travel through the air, and the masks have gaps in them that are up to 5000 times bigger than COVID particles.

    “The small sizes are not easily understood but an imperfect analogy would be to imagine marbles fired at builders’ scaffolding, some might hit a pole and rebound, but obviously most will fly through,” Axon said.

    *  *  *

    Brand new merch now available! Get it at https://www.pjwshop.com/

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    In the age of mass Silicon Valley censorship It is crucial that we stay in touch. I need you to sign up for my free newsletter here. Support my sponsor – Turbo Force – a supercharged boost of clean energy without the comedown. Get early access, exclusive content and behinds the scenes stuff by following me on Locals.

    Tyler Durden
    Wed, 07/21/2021 – 19:20

  • Rockets Target Kabul Presidential Palace As US Afghan Draw Down Enters Final Days
    Rockets Target Kabul Presidential Palace As US Afghan Draw Down Enters Final Days

    Amid the US troop exit which is set to be ‘complete’ by August 31, based on Biden’s previously expressed timetable for withdrawal, Afghanistan’s presidential palace is already coming under rocket fire in what could be the early beginnings of a near-future Kabul offensive.

    “At least three rockets hit near the presidential palace on Tuesday shortly before Afghan President Ashraf Ghani was to give an address to mark the major Muslim holiday of Eid al-Adha,” The Associated Press reports. Later the Islamic State claimed responsibility for the attack through one of its regional propaganda channels.

    A vehicle near the scene was completely destroyed, and despite there being no reported injuries, Afghan police are alarmed at how deeply inside a secured part of the city the attackers reached. “The palace is in the middle of a so-called Green Zone that is fortified with giant cement blast walls and barbed wire, and streets near the palace have long been closed off,” AP notes.

    Near the site of attack, via AP

    There’s long been concern that the Taliban could soon be close enough to Kabul to initiate an offensive on the capital. US intelligence previously predicted that the national government could collapse, with Kabul potentially overrun within six months of the US forces withdrawal.

    Earlier this month President Biden declared with US troop exit more than 95% complete, but at the same time the Taliban has gobbled up territory at lighting pace. Referencing the ongoing onslaught in various parts of the country, Afghan President Ashraf Ghani said during a speech marking a major Muslim holiday: “The Taliban have no intention and willingness for peace.” He said further, “We have proven that we have the intention, the willingness and have sacrificed for peace.”

    On Wednesday Gen. Mark Milley, chair of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, held out hope that Afghan forces will eventually push back the Taliban. Speaking at a Pentagon press briefing, he said, “I don’t think the end game is yet written,” and specified that “A negative outcome, a Taliban automatic takeover, is not a foregone conclusion.”

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    He suggested that large gains in terms of physical territory taken does not equate to holding high population areas. His remarks struck a rare tone of optimist, as Politico relates of his words:

    Milley defended the strategy of the Afghan national security forces, who he said are consolidating to protect the major population centers, where most Afghan civilians are located.

    He contested the narrative that “the Taliban is winning,” saying the group is “propagating an inevitable victory” and “dominating the airwaves.”

    While “strategic momentum appears to be with the Taliban” right now, a lot could happen over the rest of the summer”, Milley said.

    “We’re going to find out, the levels of violence, does it go up, does it stay the same, there’s the possibility of negotiated outcome still out there, there’s the possibility of a Taliban takeover [and] any other number of scenarios,” Milley said.

    But the fact that insurgents are landing missiles in or near the high-secure Afghan presidential complex in Kabul doesn’t bode well for the near future. 

    The US is keeping some 650 security personnel in Kabul to protect the sprawling US embassy, but the question of air support to Afghan national forces who come under Taliban attack still remains an unsettled question.

    Tyler Durden
    Wed, 07/21/2021 – 19:00

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