Today’s News 22nd November 2022

• The Truth About Ivermectin
  The Truth About Ivermectin

  Authored by Marina Zheng via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours),

  Ivermectin has been hailed as a “wonder drug” and, according to the UNESCO World Science Report, a critical component of “one of the most triumphant public health campaigns ever waged in the developing world.”

  

  However, since the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic, the National Institutes of Health (NIH) and affiliated health authorities have vociferously recommended against ivermectin as a potential treatment for the virus.

  Though the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has approved ivermectin for human use in treating conditions caused by parasites, it has also insisted that ivermectin “has not been shown to be safe or effective” when it comes to treating COVID-19.

  In a social media message that has gone viral, the FDA labeled it as a drug for horses and not fit for human consumption: “You are not a horse. You are not a cow. Seriously, y’all. Stop it.”

  You are not a horse. You are not a cow. Seriously, y’all. Stop it. https://t.co/TWb75xYEY4

  — U.S. FDA (@US_FDA) August 21, 2021

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

  The post made headlines and was one of the FDA’s most successful social media campaigns. Yet, research findings seem to contradict the public health organization’s recommendations.

  A growing body of research shows that ivermectin is an essential treatment for COVID-19. Many doctors have praised the drug for its broad yet effective antiparasitic, antiviral, antibacterial, anti-inflammatory, anti-cancer, and autophagic properties.

  Ivermectin: Antiparasitic Beginnings

  Ivermectin made its name through its significant benefits in treating parasitic infections.

  In 1973, Satoshi Omura and William C. Campbell, working with the Kitasato Institute in Tokyo, found an unusual type of Streptomyces bacteria in Japanese soil near a golf course.

  In laboratory studies, Omura and Campbell discovered that this Streptomyces bacteria could cure mice infected with the roundworm Heligmosomoides polygyrus. Campbell isolated the bacteria’s active compounds, naming them avermectins, and the bacteria was thus called S. avermitilis.

  Despite decades of searching worldwide, researchers have yet to find another microorganism that can produce avermectin.

  It was changing one of the bonds of avermectin through a chemical process that produced ivermectin, which was proven successful in treating onchocerciasis and lymphatic filariasis, both of which are debilitating diseases common in the developing world.

  

  Though its broad antiparasitic functions are not well understood, it is known that ivermectin penetrates parasites’ nervous systems, turning off their neurons’ actions, possibly deactivating and killing them.

  As part of a donation campaign launched in 1988 by Merck & Co., Inc., the manufacturer of ivermectin, the drug was used in Africa to treat river blindness. Also called onchocerciasis, river blindness is a tropical disease caused by Onchocerca volvulus worms. It is the second-most common cause worldwide of infectious blindness.

  The Onchocerca worms mature in the skin of an infected individual (“the host”). After mating, female worms can release into the host’s skin up to 1,000 microfilariae a day; the female worms live for 10 to 14 years. The presence of these worms can lead to scarring in the tissues and, when microfilariae invade the eye, can cause visual impairment or complete loss of vision.

  The World Health Organization estimates that 18 million people are infected globally, and 270,000 have been blinded by onchocerciasis.

  When Merck distributed ivermectin in areas hardest hit by the disease, treatment benefited the residents’ overall health and led to economic recovery. Ivermectin replaced previous drugs that had devastating side effects.

  “Ivermectin proved to be virtually purpose-built to combat Onchocerciasis,” Omura wrote in a study he co-authored in 2011.

  Ivermectin has also proven effective against lymphatic filariasis, known as elephantiasis. Parasitic worms transmitted through the bite of an infected mosquito can grow and develop in lymphatic vessels, which regulate the body’s water balance. When certain vessels are blocked, the areas—typically the legs and genitals—can swell, with the legs enlarging to elephant-like stumps.

  Worldwide, more than 120 million people are infected, 40 million of whom are seriously incapacitated and disfigured.

  The World Health Organization listed ivermectin as an essential drug and has advised many countries to run annual campaigns to rid people of these parasites. Such recommendations are a solid testament to ivermectin’s safety.

  For their work, including the discovery of avermectin, in 2015, Omura and Campbell were among three recipients of the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine.

  It is an indispensable drug for the underdeveloped world, with about 3.7 billion doses administered as part of global campaigns during the past 30 years. To this day, ivermectin remains a staple drug of tropical areas and an essential drug in treating onchocerciasis, lymphatic filariasis, strongyloidiasis, and scabies.

  Ivermectin and COVID-19

  Analyses of studies on ivermectin have found it effective as a prevention, a treatment for acute COVID-19, and in advanced stages of infection by the virus.

  1. Ivermectin as a Prophylaxis

  Prophylaxis intervenes in the first phases of COVID-19 infection, which is mainly asymptomatic, when the virus replicates to increase its viral load—symptom onset occurs after the viral load peaks.

  Ivermectin can be effective in the early stages of infection. Outside the cells, ivermectin can attach to parts of the virus, immobilizing it and preventing it from entering and infecting human cells.

  Ivermectin can also enter the cell to prevent the virus from replicating. SARS-CoV-2 needs cell replication machinery to make more of the virus; ivermectin attaches and blocks a protein critical to this process, preventing viral production.

  Additionally, ivermectin can be absorbed from the skin and stored in fat cells for a long time.

  “Because it’s lipid soluble, it is stored and slowly released, [so] once you’ve taken a prophylactic dose, and I think it’s like the cumulative dose of about 400mg, that your risk of getting COVID is close to zero and you can actually stop it for a while,” said Dr. Paul Marik, a widely published critical care specialist with 500 peer-reviewed papers to his name, in an interview with The Epoch Times.

  

  Marik co-founded the Front Line COVID-19 Critical Care Alliance (FLCCC), a group of physicians formed in the early days of the pandemic and dedicated to treating COVID-19. According to interviews, many of the group’s doctors have successfully treated COVID-19 with ivermectin. The organization’s other co-founder, Dr. Pierre Kory, has written a book about ivermectin’s use and controversy during the pandemic.

  Dr. Sabine Hazan, a gastroenterologist with 22 years of experience in clinical research, told The Epoch Times that she would advise ivermectin use for only a short time in critical patients rather than recommending the use of it as a prophylaxis.

  Continuous use of ivermectin—as with all drugs—can make the body dependent on the drug rather than working to fix itself.

  2. Ivermectin for Early and Acute COVID

  Many peer-reviewed studies have found that ivermectin, when used by itself or in conjunction with other therapies in symptomatic patients, reduces ventilation time, time for recovery, and the risk of progressing to severe disease. (pdf 1, pdf 2, pdf 3)

  This is likely due to ivermectin’s anti-inflammatory role in multiple pathways, achieved by clearing out the viral particles by immobilizing them, reducing inflammation, and improving mitochondrial action.

  Suppose the early viral replication is not controlled and cleared out soon enough by the body’s immune system. In that case, the infection can become severe or even hyperinflammatory, possibly leading to systemic organ failures.

  Ivermectin can also directly interact with immune pathways, suppressing inflammation and reducing the chances of developing a cytokine storm. A cytokine storm occurs when the immune system is hyperactive and hyperinflammatory. Though ivermectin can help to clear out the virus and its particles, the inflammatory state of the tissues and the organs can often cause more damage than the virus itself.

  Ivermectin also likely improves gut health, which plays an essential role in immunity by preventing bacteria and viruses from infecting people via the gut.

  In a published study, Hazan hypothesized that ivermectin helps COVID-19 patients by increasing the levels of Bifidobacteria—a beneficial bacteria—in the gut.

  As the CEO and founder of her own genetic sequencing research laboratory, ProgenaBiome, Hazan noticed that the Bifidobacteria levels in her stools would increase after she took ivermectin. Critical COVID patients would have “zero Bifidobacteria,” which can often be a sign of poor health.  

  In her peer-reviewed study on hypoxic patients, she observed that COVID patients with low oxygen levels from the cytokine storms in their lungs would improve within hours of administering ivermectin.

  “When people die of COVID, they die from the cytokines—they couldn’t breathe anymore. It’s almost like an anaphylactic reaction. So when you give them ivermectin at the moment they’re about to crash, you’re boosting the Bifidobacteria [and increasing their oxygen],” Hazan said.

  She explained that ivermectin is a fermented product of Streptomyces bacteria. Streptomyces are within the same group Bifidobacteria are from, which may explain why ivermectin temporarily boosts Bifidobacteria.

  Ivermectin also helps with mitochondrial function. During severe COVID-19, patients often experience pulmonary dysfunctions due to lung inflammation, reducing oxygen flow. This can cause stress to the mitochondria, leading to fatigue, and, when severe, may cause cell and tissue death. Ivermectin has been shown to increase energy production, indicating that it is beneficial to the mitochondria.

  Furthermore, ivermectin can bind to the spike protein—a distinctive structural feature of the COVID virus which has a crucial role in its pathogenesis. In systemic disease, the spike protein can enter the bloodstream and bind to red blood cells to form blood clots. Ivermectin can prevent blood clots from forming in the body.

  3. Ivermectin for Long COVID and Post-Vaccine Symptoms

  The number of studies supporting ivermectin to treat long COVID and post-COVID-19 vaccine symptoms is limited. However, doctors treating these conditions have observed successful results with ivermectin.

  An Argentinian study published in March 2021 is the only peer-reviewed study evaluating ivermectin for long COVID.

  Researchers found that in patients reporting long COVID symptoms—including coughing, brain fog, headaches, and fatigue—ivermectin alleviated their symptoms.

  Mechanistically, ivermectin can improve autophagy. This process is usually switched off during COVID-19 infections. By switching autophagy back on, ivermectin can help cells clear remnant viral proteins out, returning stability to the cell.

  Like acute and severe COVID-19, chronic spike protein triggers inflammation, and ivermectin can reduce such responses by suppressing inflammatory pathways and lessening the damage to tissues and blood vessels.

  The Changing Public Health Messaging on Ivermectin

  The NIH’s stance on ivermectin has changed several times.

  Early in the pandemic, there was little information on ivermectin as a potential treatment for the virus.

  The first study that mentioned ivermectin as a potential COVID-19 treatment came from Australia in April 2020. Researchers administered ivermectin to SARS-CoV-2-infected monkey kidney cells in the laboratory and found the drug beneficial in very high doses. However, the researchers concluded that further study was needed. Many health agencies, including the NIH, the CDC, and other global health regulators concluded that ivermectin could kill the virus only at toxic levels.

  Even now, NIH’s statement on ivermectin for COVID-19 reads: “Ivermectin has been shown to inhibit replication of SARS-CoV-2 in cell cultures. However, pharmacokinetic and pharmacodynamic studies suggest that achieving the plasma concentrations necessary for the antiviral efficacy detected in vitro would require administration of doses up to 100-fold higher than those approved for use in humans.”

  In October 2020, the first clinical study showing the benefits of ivermectin was published by the journal CHEST. The study found ivermectin to reduce mortality rates in COVID-19 patients and garnered immediate attention.

  The study’s lead author, Dr. Jean-Jacques Rajter, is a critical care doctor specializing in pulmonary medicine.

  Rajter gave a testimony (pdf) of his findings to the Senate Committee on Homeland Security & Governmental Affairs in December 2020.

  The day after he saw the Australian study, one of his COVID patients dramatically deteriorated from breathing normally at room oxygen levels to requiring intubation. The patient’s son pleaded with Rajter to save his mother using whatever options available. Rajter recognized that  hydroxychloroquine would be ineffective in the advanced stages of COVID. After much deliberation, he tried ivermectin.

  “The patient deteriorated as expected for about 12 more hours but stabilized by 24 hours and improved by 48 hours. After this, two more patients had similar issues and were treated with the ivermectin-based protocol. Based on experience, these patients should have done poorly, yet they all survived,” the testimony read.

  More clinical studies were published, showing the benefits of ivermectin as a prophylactic treatment. (pdf 1, pdf 2).

  The findings encouraged the use of ivermectin among doctors desperate to find a cure.

  Meanwhile, by October 2020, research into COVID-19 vaccines and the use of remdesivir to treat the virus was already in full swing.

  According to the FDA, specific criteria should be met for the EUA (Emergency Use Authorization) to be granted for vaccines and medications, including that there are “no adequate, approved, and available alternatives.”

  Some doctors say that if ivermectin’s use for COVID had been approved, it would have made the EUAs for vaccines and remdesivir null and void.

  Following the Australian study, the FDA published a statement, “FAQ: COVID-19 and Ivermectin Intended for Animals,” highlighting the use of ivermectin in animals and advising against the use of ivermectin for COVID-19.

  The NIH also discouraged the use of ivermectin, albeit briefly. On Jan. 14, 2021, the NIH changed its statement, writing that there was no evidence to recommend or disapprove the use of ivermectin. However, in April 2022, the statement changed to strongly disapproving of using ivermectin.

  “We [Marik, Kory, and Dr. Andrew Hill, a virologist and consultant to the WHO] had a conference with NIH in January of 2021. We presented our data, and Andrew Hill presented the data he had done…there were a number of studies at that point, which were very positive,” said Marik.

  Health Authority Overreach

  Despite the NIH’s neutral statement on ivermectin for most of 2021, the FDA actively campaigned against using ivermectin in COVID-19 patients. On Aug. 26,  2021, the CDC sent an emergency warning against using ivermectin; a few weeks later, the American Medical Association and affiliated associations called for an end to ivermectin use.

  Many doctors were thus discouraged from using ivermectin, and pharmacies refused to prescribe it. State health agencies warned against using ivermectin, and medical boards removed the medical licenses of doctors who prescribed ivermectin, alleging misinformation.

  Yet using the FDA’s statement against ivermectin to ban its use in COVID-19 cases would be considered an overreach. Since the FDA approved ivermectin in 1996, this made the drug acceptable for off-label use.

  “The fact that it’s not FDA approved for COVID is irrelevant because the FDA endorses the use of off-label drugs at the clinician’s discretion,” said Marik.

  As an ironic side effect of the messaging on ivermectin, people suddenly found themselves unable to access ivermectin, and some turned to veterinary-grade ivermectin.

  Though veterinary ivermectin is the same product as medicinal ivermectin, the manufacturing standard is not the same as it is for human-grade pharmaceuticals.

  Contradictory Research and Campaigns

  Though the initial research in 2020 showed promising results for ivermectin, published studies reported conflicting findings by the following year.

  The NIH has funded many studies on the effectiveness of ivermectin, the most recent being ACTIV-6.

  Individuals can participate in the study once they develop COVID by selecting ivermectin from four other drugs. The drug was sent to them via mail. This method means that some people in the study could have recovered by the time they received the ivermectin.

  There are some controversies regarding this study.

  The first is that the authors changed the primary endpoints during the study, which is heavily frowned upon as it can affect the validity and reliability of the outcome.

  Initially, the primary endpoint was the number of deaths, hospitalizations, and symptoms reported at day 14.

  Read more here…

  Tyler Durden
  Tue, 11/22/2022 – 00:00

• AP Fires Reporter Who Risked Triggering WWIII With Polish Missile Misinformation
  AP Fires Reporter Who Risked Triggering WWIII With Polish Missile Misinformation

  Five days after the Associated Press cited an anonymous ‘senior US intelligence official’ in a story that claimed a Russian missile killed two Polish civilians, one of the two reporters behind the story was fired.

  

  Reporters James LaPorta (fired) and John Leichester (not fired) share the byline on the now-retracted report, which sparked an entire news cycle that included talk of invoking ‘Article 5‘ – the mutual defense agreement between NATO members – and which would have obligated other members to engage in collective defense, aka WWIII.

  As the day went on, President Biden popped out of a NATO / G7 briefing, and mumbled that “it’s unlikely” the projectile was fired from Russia. NATO then chimed in, saying it was more likely that the missile was fired by Ukrainian forces in self-defense (or was it?).

  AP later retracted the story, and issued the following correction which pinned blame on the anonymous intelligence official;

  In earlier versions of a story published November 15, 2022, The Associated Press reported erroneously, based on information from a senior American intelligence official who spoke on condition of anonymity, that Russian missiles had crossed into Poland and killed two people. Subsequent reporting showed that the missiles were Russian-made and most likely fired by Ukraine in defense against a Russian attack.

  According to Mediaite, AP requires two sources for confirmation on this type of reporting when both are anonymous. No word on who edited the piece or what their fate might be.

  On Monday, the Daily Beast reported that LaPorta had been sacked for erroneous reporting, while Leicester has, as of this writing, kept his job with the wire service.

  Remember when AP cited anonymous US intelligence officials to suggest that ZeroHedge was spreading Russian disinformation? Same energy, and wouldn’t be the first time ‘anonymous officials’ turned out to be bullshit.

  Meanwhile on James LaPorta’s Twitter feed…

  

  Tyler Durden
  Mon, 11/21/2022 – 23:40

• These Are The Most Stolen Vehicles In The US
  These Are The Most Stolen Vehicles In The US

  The National Insurance Crime Bureau (NICB) has released its annual Hot Wheels report which details the most stolen vehicle models in the United States.

  Notably, as Statista’s Martin Armstrong points out, while technology has reduced car theft over the past decades, it is experiencing something of a resurgence, primarily due to complacency from drivers.

  Thousands of cars are stolen across the U.S. every year because owners leave their keys or fobs inside their vehicles, inviting theft.

  In 2021, like in previous years, Honda has the undesirable reputation as the most-targeted car manufacturer. Interestingly, the Hondas most commonly stolen are far older than a lot of the other automobiles on this list. A 1997 Accord, for example, is the most commonly taken of that model, while the 2000 vintages of the Civic and the CR-V are seemingly the most vulnerable.

  

  You will find more infographics at Statista

  At the top of the list overall though are two pickups: from Chevrolet and Ford with a combined 96,000 thefts recorded last year. Here, the 2004 and 2006 models, respectively, are stolen the most.

  Tyler Durden
  Mon, 11/21/2022 – 23:20

• Victor Davis Hanson: The Strange Morality Of The Bay-Area Billionaire Left
  Victor Davis Hanson: The Strange Morality Of The Bay-Area Billionaire Left

  Authored by Victor Davis Hanson via AmGreatness.com,

  “Ya. Hehe. I had to be. It’s what reputations are made of, to some extent. I feel bad for those guys who get f—ed by it, by this dumb game we woke westerners play where we say all the right shibboleths and so everyone likes us.”

  – Sam Bankman-Fried

  

  The FTX Bitcoin empire of 30-year-old CEO Sam Bankman-Fried is in shambles. Or more specifically, his “dumb game” cryptocurrency exchange has destroyed thousands of lives. Electronically, he may have robbed perhaps a million investors, and along with them hundreds of large institutional investors. 

  Mysteriously, only after the conclusion of the midterm elections, did we suddenly learn that this left-wing “philanthropist” and benefactor of Democratic politics, this megadonor to the quid pro quo puff-piece media, this con artist protected from federal securities regulators, had drained off, lost, hidden, or spent billions of dollars of other people’s money. 

  As a result, the Bahamas-basking, tax-avoiding, polyamorous sybarite, and heartthrob of progressive moralists, now claims he has no wherewithal to honor his financial commitments to his own investors. Preliminary postmortem auditors sigh that they have never encountered a greater financial mess than what Bankman-Fried has left in his wake. 

  How does the most sophisticated financial system in the history of civilization allow a virtue-signaling nerd to nearly wreck it? Where were the Federal Trade Commission, the Department of Justice, the IRS, and all the other alphabet soup agencies that supposedly exist so that someone like Bankman-Fried does not? Where is Merrick Garland and his special prosecutors, the FBI with its televised SWAT swoops and leg irons?

  For all the performance-art boasts of simply doing good for others by doing far better for himself, Bankman-Fried may soon be revealed to be one of the great, dissolute con artists in American history. Like the infamous Charles Ponzi, “Bankman” may become our eponymous word in the 21st century for electronically driven, pyramid-scheme theft. 

  His Stanford-Silicon Valley moral veneer was shiny but otherwise razor thin. Yet Bankman-Fried told at least one truth when he explained to obsequious media what his ilk easily does to fool purported suckers who send him cash, while he avoided federal and media oversight: “This dumb game we woke westerners play where we say all the right shibboleths and so everyone likes us.” 

  Well, not everyone. Instead, he might qualify his “everyone” as the like-minded, cynical, left-wing politicos, the kindred media hacks at the Washington Post and New York Times, and brethren investor toadies who helped him render Bernie Madoff a small-potato sinner in comparison.

  Bankman-Fried had showered Joe Biden in 2020 with millions of dollars in campaign donations and did so again with larger sums to congressional candidates in 2022. His public relations arm of FTX exuded the usual virtue speak—including promised impending multibillion-dollar gifting—for utopian, Democratic, and progressive causes. And the media on spec gushed about their pet grunger as he sought to buy protection from Democratic fixers. 

  “Effective Altruism,” Ponzi-Style

  Yet Bankman-Fried is merely one in a long line of Bay Area social-justice hypocrites and frauds. They share in common loud but cynical left-wing politics. They choreograph their personas to win exemption from left-wing government regulators, to guarantee puff pieces from a toady media, and to romance the rich, left-wing elite. Consider how the Washington Post gushed of the scam artist: 

  Harnessing the enormous wealth created by FTX, the cryptocurrency exchange that Sam Bankman-Fried had founded, they undertook a project to spend potentially billions of dollars on pandemic prevention, a long-neglected priority on Capitol Hill even amid the coronavirus crisis. The plan, drawn from the brothers’ adherence to a philosophy called effective altruism, sought to maximize philanthropic giving in ways that can have the most impact.

  Bankman-Fried surely has had “the most impact.” If he had worn a suit, and said the wrong “shibboleths,” he would now be behind bars. 

  What were the moral seeds of FTX? Bankman-Fried grew up on the progressive, moralistic Stanford campus, the son of two crusading Stanford law professors who often wrote about morality and the dispossessed. 

  SBF, as he is known, was groomed and prepped at an exclusive nearby Hillsborough private academy before being packed off to MIT. Progressive souls like Bankman-Fried distrust capitalism so much that, in his case, he retreated to the Bahamas to maximize its rewards. There he embraced a hedonistic lifestyle, tax breaks and lack of regulations, all in order to better short taxpayers of hundreds of millions of dollars in income tax revenue. 

  Such vulture capitalism is predicated on the presumption that young, loudly left-wing Bay Area hipsters in ratty clothes are the cool “good guys” if they have deep Democratic pockets and talk of “equity” and “fairness.” And so, they use the system to defeat the system—defined in their view as toxic traditional mores and values.

  Indeed, Bankman-Fried’s mother, Stanford Professor Elizabeth Fried was a “utilitarian,” perhaps best defined as advocating any means necessary to achieve what she felt were the best ends for everyone. She moonlighted from her supposedly full-time job by running “Mind the Gap,” a central collection agency for Silicon Valley dark money to be funneled secretly to the “right causes.” The means of getting the millions was always excused by the ends of how it was used.

  Apparently, some of her fund’s wherewithal was dripped in by some in her son’s stash circle—or rather his investors’ cash. Mind the Gap’s specialty was funding “to get out the vote.” To understand these dark-money operations in 2020, simply reread Molly Ball’s obnoxious Time magazine story of February 2021—a long boast of how stealth left-wing money, a toady progressive media, an army of lawyers, and social media combined to change voting laws, modulate the Black Lives Matter/Antifa street protests, and warp dissemination of news to craft a good utilitarian “conspiracy” that saved us from Donald Trump. 

  Will the Bankman-Fried family now atone, and try to give back to the robbed and deluded any of the real money that was funneled into Democratic candidates from the massive fraud? Does the water flow uphill?

  So how can the progressive embryos of Silicon Valley, Stanford University, Bay Area prep schools, and progressive humanitarian politics birth such an utter fraud who destroyed so many? Rather the question might be reversed, how could all that not?

  Performance Art Grifting

  In the context of Bankman-Fried, we recall another kindred Bay-Area erstwhile momentary billionaire charlatan. Do we remember the now felonious and prison-bound young prodigy and Hillary-Clinton aficionado Elizabeth Holmes? She, too, was birthed and swam in similar Stanford-Silicon Valley waters. 

  

  GLENN CHAPMAN/AFP via Getty Images

  Her scheme was Theranos. That was the pretentiously named fake-blood testing corporation that duped some of the most powerful investors in the United States to fork over billions of dollars to a twentysomething con artist. Holmes, like Bankman-Fried, was sired in the orbit of Stanford. She eschewed the slob props of Banksman-Fried, and instead preferred copy-catting Steve Jobs’ slicker all-black outfits.

  Holmes assembled on her fake corporate board some of the biggest names associated with Stanford University and Silicon Valley, whose brands masked what was likely the greatest corporate medical fraud in American history.  

  There is a pattern here of the “good” people doing “good” things with their “good” money that turns out very badly for everyone else. 

  Silicon Valley multibillionaire and fellow leftist Mark Zuckerberg prefers T-shirts, sneakers, and jeans to the Bankman-Fried bum-look or Holmes’ Apple black-draped getup. He is now laying off thousands of Facebook employees as his Meta disaster erodes his stock value and takes his net worth down tens of billions of dollars. 

  But it was just two years ago that Zuckerberg answered the utilitarian call of fellow leftists to use his mega money and power to stop the prince of darkness, Donald Trump. So Zuck, as he is known, poured $419 million into pro-Biden left-wing activist groups. That unprecedented sum was used to absorb the work of state election officials in key precincts to ensure the right people voted in the right way to ensure the right winner.

  Leftists still brag how the good mega-money sandbagged dullard Republicans and helped to give Biden the election.  

  Zuckerberg recently confessed that his left-wing company had also worked with the FBI to suppress online social media expression. Translated, that meant that the FBI partnered with Facebook to quash news deemed not helpful to the Biden election cause, such as the all-too-true revelations from the incriminating Hunter Biden laptop that was falsely passed off as “Russian disinformation.”

  Is that a very liberal, civil libertarian thing to do—to weld the state and the media to punish political enemies and censor the news? Was the FBI-Facebook fusion a sort of “electronic insurrection” designed to warp democracy—absent the buffoonish cow horns and face paint? Might Zuckerberg have passed on channeling his dark money to “nonprofit” leftist organizations, and instead banked it to save a few of his now laid-off employees?

  This column could become endless if it referenced all the Silicon Valley and Stanford progressive politico saints with feet of clay. Do we remember Tom Steyer, the Silicon Valley zillionaire, Stanford University board member, and former left-wing green presidential candidate, who spent $191 million without winning a single delegate? 

  At least candidate Michael Bloomberg got a few delegates at roughly $18 million a pop for the hundreds of millions of virtuous dollars he blew up in 2020. Steyer used his 2020 campaign to lecture us on ending the fossil fuel economy—but only after he had made a fortune in financing dirty coal burning plants in the impoverished Third World. 

  Posh Virtue

  What is going on? 

  The 21st-century globalized economy saturated the corridor between San Francisco and San Jose with wealth never before seen or imagined. Its beneficiaries discovered a number of things about the arts of becoming and staying ultra-rich.

  One, they never needed to worry about the essentials of life that troubled the other 99 percent of the country—affordable fuel, food, and housing, safe streets, and a fair and legal immigration system. 

  Or to put it another way, they could pose as progressive utopians—preening their moral superiority to the media, pouring money into the Democratic Party, funding foundations and PACs devoted to woke causes, climate change, and diversity, equity, and inclusion—and all the time never subject to the ramifications of their own exalted agendas. 

  They could not have cared less about crippling $6 a gallon gas, the exorbitant kilowatt cost of air conditioning, out-of-reach $1,000-a-square foot bungalow housing, the mayhem on San Francisco streets, or the reparatory elite university admissions policies that drastically curtailed working-class male admissions. Their wealth guaranteed them leverage, and leverage ensured exemptions. 

  But Bay Area morality was not just a pragmatic matter of the exempt elite force-feeding utopia down the throats of others who had no such immunity. Boutique, rich leftism also provided penance for the anointed, a mechanism that alleviated any residual guilt of talking like Eugene Debs while living like Marie Antoinette. 

  The multimillionaire, social justice warrior House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) assumed, as one of the Bay Area’s liberal icons, that she had a right to break quarantine and sneak off to her private hairdresser, or cluelessly boast of her $13 a pint ice cream, home delivered to her $24,000 twin imported refrigerators—all in the midst of a near depression as the national COVID-19 shutdown ruined millions of small business and devastated the educations of tens of millions of children. 

  As a member of the classy Bay Area elite, she knew the bankrupt political morality of the Left all too well: acts like tearing up the Trump State of the Union speech on national television veneered her privilege and made her one of the proverbial good people fighting for us from one of her various mansions. 

  Bay Area ZIP codes have produced the now-familiar rich, liberal politicians whose exempt lives are not damaged by the ideology that damages others. Consider the billionaire Senator Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.), who for two decades was chauffeured by a Chinese spy while head of the Senate Intelligence Committee, or multimillionaire former Senator Barbara Boxer (D-Calif.), now ensconced in Rancho Mirage as a registered foreign agent for a Chinese surveillance firm, or multimillionaire Gavin Newsom, who bragged how the COVID lockdowns might greenlight “progressive capitalism,” as he pushed social distancing and mask-wearing—while he palled around with lobbyists, maskless, at the French Laundry.

  Sam Bankman-Fried is the ultimate dangerous and ridiculous expression of the most toxic and creepy culture in America. If he did not exist, someone like him would have to be invented.

  Tyler Durden
  Mon, 11/21/2022 – 23:00

• Do These Documents Prove That Call Of Duty Is A Government PsyOp?
  Do These Documents Prove That Call Of Duty Is A Government PsyOp?

  Authored by Alan Macleod via MintPressNews.com,

  Call of Duty: Modern Warfare II has been available for less than three weeks, but it is already making waves. Breaking records, within ten days, the first-person military shooter video game earned more than $1 billion in revenue. Yet it has also been shrouded in controversy, not least because missions include assassinating an Iranian general clearly based on Qassem Soleimani, a statesman and military leader slain by the Trump administration in 2020, and a level where players must shoot “drug traffickers” attempting to cross the U.S./Mexico border.

  

  The Call of Duty franchise is an entertainment juggernaut, having sold close to half a billion games since it was launched in 2003. Its publisher, Activision Blizzard, is a giant in the industry, behind titles games as the Guitar Hero, Warcraft, Starcraft, Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater, Crash Bandicoot and Candy Crush Saga series.

  Yet a closer inspection of Activision Blizzard’s key staff and their connections to state power, as well as details gleaned from documents obtained under the Freedom of Information Act, reveal that Call of Duty is not a neutral first-person shooter, but a carefully constructed piece of military propaganda, designed to advance the interests of the U.S. national security state.

  In the first five minutes the new Call of Duty has you pilot the missile that kills Soleimani lol

  — sad because the female faceapp of me isnt fuckable (@websiteidi0t) October 20, 2022

  MILITARY-ENTERTAINMENT COMPLEX

  It has long been a matter of public record that American spies have targeted and penetrated Activision Blizzard games. Documents released by Edward Snowden revealed that the NSA, CIA, FBI and Department of Defense infiltrated the vast online realms such as World of Warcraft, creating make-believe characters to monitor potential illegal activity and recruit informers. Indeed, at one point, there were so many U.S. spies in one video game that they had to create a “deconfliction” group as they were wasting time unwittingly surveilling each other. Virtual games, the NSA wrote, were an “opportunity” and a “target-rich communication network”.

  However, documents obtained legally under the Freedom of Information Act by journalist and researcher Tom Secker and shared with MintPress News show that the connections between the national security state and the video game industry go far beyond this, and into active collaboration.

  In September 2018, for example, the United States Air Force flew a group of entertainment executives – including Call of Duty/Activision Blizzard producer Coco Francini – to their headquarters at Hurlburt Field, Florida. The explicit reason for doing so, they wrote, was to “showcase” their hardware and to make the entertainment industry more “credible advocates” for the U.S. war machine.

  “We’ve got a bunch of people working on future blockbusters (think Marvel, Call of Duty, etc.) stoked about this trip!” wrote one Air Force officer. Another email notes that the point of the visit was to provide “heavy-hitter” producers with “AFSOC [Air Force Special Operations Command] immersion focused on Special Tactics Airmen and air-to-ground capabilities.”

  “This is a great opportunity to educate this community and make them more credible advocates for us in the production of any future movies/television productions on the Air Force and our Special Tactics community,” wrote the AFSOC community relations chief.

  Francini and others were shown CV-22 helicopters and AC-130 planes in action, both of which feature heavily in Call of Duty games.

  Yet Call of Duty collaboration with the military goes back much further. The documents show that the United States Marine Corps (USMC) was involved in the production of Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3 and Call of Duty 5. The games’ producers approached the USMC at the 2010 E3 entertainment convention in Los Angeles, requesting access to hovercrafts (vehicles which later appeared in the game). Call of Duty 5 executives also asked for use of a hovercraft, a tank and a C-130 aircraft.

  This collaboration continued in 2012 with the release of Modern Warfare 4, where producers requested access to all manner of air and ground vehicles.

  Secker told MintPress that, by collaborating with the gaming industry, the military ensures a positive portrayal that can help it reach recruitment targets, stating that,

  For certain demographics of gamers it’s a recruitment portal, some first-person shooters have embedded adverts within the games themselves…Even without this sort of explicit recruitment effort, games like Call of Duty make warfare seem fun, exciting, an escape from the drudgery of their normal lives.”

  Secker’s documentary, “Theaters of War: How the Pentagon and CIA Took Hollywood” was released earlier this year.

  The military clearly held considerable influence over the direction of Call of Duty games. In 2010, its producers approached the Department of Defense (DoD) for help on a game set in 2075. However, the DoD liaison “expressed concern that [the] scenario being considered involves future war with China.” As a result, Activision Blizzard began “looking at other possible conflicts to design the game around.” In the end, due in part to military objections, the game was permanently abandoned.

  FROM WAR ON TERROR TO FIRST-PERSON SHOOTERS

  Not only does Activision Blizzard work with the U.S. military to shape its products, but its leadership board is also full of former high state officials. Chief amongst these is Frances Townsend, Activision Blizzard’s senior counsel, and, until September, its chief compliance officer and executive vice president for corporate affairs.

  Prior to joining Activision Blizzard, Townsend spent her life working her way up the rungs of the national security state. Previously serving as head of intelligence for the Coast Guard and as Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice’s counterterrorism deputy, in 2004, President Bush appointed her to his Intelligence Advisory Board.

  As the White House’s most senior advisor on terrorism and homeland security, Townsend worked closely with Bush and Rice, and became one of the faces of the administration’s War on Terror. One of her principal achievements was to whip the American public into a constant state of fear about the supposed threat of more Al-Qaeda attacks (which never came).

  

  Before she joined Activision Blizzard, Frances Townsend worked in Homeland Security and Counterterrorism for the Bush White House. Ron Edmonds | AP

  As part of her job, Townsend helped popularize the term “enhanced interrogation techniques” – a Bush-era euphemism for torturing detainees. Worse still, Lt. Col. Steven L. Jordan, the officer in charge of the notorious Abu Ghraib prison, alleged that Townsend put pressure on him to ramp up the torture program, reminding him “many, many times” that he needed to improve the intelligence output from the Iraqi jail.

  Townsend has denied these allegations. She also later condemned the “handcuff[ing]” and “humiliation” surrounding Abu Ghraib. She was not referring to the prisoners, however. In an interview with CNN, she lamented that “these career professionals” – CIA torturers – had been subject to “humiliation and opprobrium” after details of their actions were made public, meaning that future administrations would be “handcuffed” by the fear of bad publicity, while the intelligence community would become more “risk-averse”.

  During the Trump administration, Townsend was hotly tipped to become the Director of National Intelligence or the Secretary of Homeland Security. President Trump also approached her for the role of director of the FBI. Instead, however, Townsend took a seemingly incongruous career detour to become an executive at a video games company.

  ENTER THE WAR PLANNERS

  In addition to this role, Townsend is a director of the NATO offshoot, the Atlantic Council, a director at the Council on Foreign Relations, and a trustee of the hawkish think tank, the Center for Strategic and International Studies, a group MintPress News has previously covered in detail.

  Funded by weapons companies, NATO and the U.S. government, the Atlantic Council serves as the military alliance’s brain trust, devising strategies on how best to manage the world. Also on its board of directors are high statespersons like Henry Kissinger and Conzoleezza Rice, virtually every retired U.S. general of note, and no fewer than seven former directors of the CIA. As such, the Atlantic Council represents the collective opinion of the national security state.

  Two more key Call of Duty staff also work for the Atlantic Council. Chance Glasco, a co-founder of Infinity Ward developers who oversaw the game franchise’s rapid rise, is the council’s nonresident senior fellow, advising top generals and political leaders on the latest developments in tech.

  Game designer and producer Dave Anthony, crucial to Call of Duty’s success, is also an Atlantic Council employee, joining the group in 2014. There, he advises them on what the future of warfare will look like, and devises strategies for NATO to fight in upcoming conflicts.

  Anthony has made no secret that he collaborated with the U.S. national security state while making the Call of Duty franchise. “My greatest honor was to consult with Lieut. Col. Oliver North on the story of Black Ops 2,” he stated publicly, adding, There are so many small details we could never have known about if it wasn’t for his involvement.”

  Oliver North is a high government official gained worldwide infamy after being convicted for his role in the Iran-Contra Affair, whereby his team secretly sold weapons to the government of Iran, using the money to arm and train fascist death squads in Central America – groups who attempted to overthrow the government of Nicaragua and carried out waves of massacres and ethnic cleansing in the process.

  REPUBLICANS FOR HIRE

  Another eyebrow-raising hire is Activision Blizzard’s chief administration officer, Brian Bulatao. A former Army captain and consultant for McKinsey & Company, until 2018, he was chief operating officer for the CIA, placing him third in command of the agency. When CIA Director Mike Pompeo moved over to the State Department, becoming Trump’s Secretary of State, Bulatao went with him, and was appointed Under Secretary of State for Management.

  There, by some accounts, he served as Pompeo’s personal “attack dog,” with former colleagues describing him as a “bully” who brought a “cloud of intimidation” over the workplace, repeatedly pressing them to ignore potential illegalities happening at the department. Thus, it is unclear if Bulatao is the man to improve Activision Blizzard’s notoriously “toxic” workplace environment that caused dozens of employees to walk out en masse last summer.

  After the Trump administration’s electoral defeat, Bulatao went straight from the State Department into the highest echelons of Activision Blizzard, despite no experience in the entertainment industry.

  

  Trump stands with then-CIA Chief Operations Officer Brian Bulatao at CIA Headquarters, May 21, 2018, in Langley, Va. Evan Vucci | AP

  The third senior Republican official Activision Blizzard has recruited to its upper ranks is Grant Dixton. Between 2003 and 2006, Dixton served as associate counsel to President Bush, advising him on many of his administration’s most controversial legal activities (such as torture and the rapid expansion of the surveillance state). A lawyer by trade, he later went on to work for weapons manufacturer Boeing, rising to become its senior vice president, general counsel and corporate secretary. In June 2021, he left Boeing to join Activision Blizzard as its chief legal officer.

  Other Activision Blizzard executives with backgrounds in national security include senior vice president and chief information security officer Brett Wahlin, who was a U.S. Army counterintelligence agent, and chief of staff, Angela Alvarez, who, until 2016, was an Army chemical operations specialist.

  That the same government that was infiltrating games 10-15 years ago now has so many former officials controlling the very game companies raises serious questions around privacy and state control over media, and mirrors the national security state penetration of social media that has occurred over the same timeframe.

  WAR GAMES

  These deep connections to the U.S. national security state can perhaps help partly explain why, for years, many have complained about the blatant pro-U.S. propaganda apparent throughout the games.

  The latest installment, Call of Duty: Modern Warfare II, is no exception. In the game’s first mission, players must carry out a drone strike against a character named

  The latest installment, Call of Duty: Modern Warfare II, is no exception. In the game’s first mission, players must carry out a drone strike against a character named General Ghorbrani. The mission is obviously a recreation of the Trump administration’s illegal 2020 drone strike against Iranian General Qassem Soleimani – the in game general even bears a striking resemblance to Soleimani.

  

  The latest Call of Duty game has players assassinate a General Ghorbrani, a nebulous reference to Iranian General Qassem Solemani, pictured right

  Call of Duty: Modern Warfare II ludicrously presents the general as under Russia’s thumb and claims that Ghorbrani is “supplying terrorists” with aid. In reality, Soleimani was the key force in defeating ISIS terror across the Middle East – actions for which even Western media declared him a “hero”. U.S.-run polls found that Soleimani was perhaps the most popular leader in the Middle East, with over 80% of Iranians holding a positive opinion of him.

  Straight after the assassination, Pompeo’s State Department floated the falsehood that the reason they killed Soleimani was that he was on the verge of carrying out a terror attack against Americans. In reality, Soleimani was in Baghdad, Iraq, for peace talks with Saudi Arabia.

  These negotiations could have led to peace between the two nations, something that the U.S. government is dead against. Then-Iraqi Prime Minister Adil Abdul-Mahdi revealed that he had personally asked President Trump for permission to invite Soleimani. Trump agreed, then used the opportunity to carry out the killing.

  Therefore,, just as Activision Blizzard is recruiting top State Department officials to its upper ranks, its games are celebrating the same State Department’s most controversial assassinations.

  This is far from the first time Call of Duty has instructed impressionable young gamers to kill foreign leaders, however. In Call of Duty Black Ops (2010), players must complete a mission to murder Cuban leader Fidel Castro. If they manage to shoot him in the head, they are rewarded with an extra gory slow motion scene and obtain a bronze “Death to Dictators” trophy. Thus, players are forced to carry out digitally what Washington failed to do on over 600 occasions.

  

  A mission from “Call of Duty: Black Ops” has players assassinate a hostage-taking Fidel Castro

  Likewise, Call of Duty: Ghosts is set in Venezuela, where players fight against General Almagro, a socialist military leader clearly modelled on former president Hugo Chavez. Like Chavez, Almagro wears a red beret and uses Venezuela’s oil wealth to forge an alliance of independent Latin American nations against the U.S. Washington attempted to overthrow Chavez and his successor, Nicolás Maduro, multiple times. During the sixth mission of the game, players must shoot and kill Almagro from close range.

  The anti-Russian propaganda is also turned up to 11 in Call of Duty: Modern Warfare (2019). One mission recreates the infamous Highway of Death incident. During the First Iraq War, U.S.-led forces trapped fleeing Iraqi troops on Highway 80. What followed was what then-Joint Chiefs of Staff Chairman Colin Powell described as “wanton killing” and “slaughter for slaughter’s sake” as U.S. troops and their allies pummeled the Iraqi convoy for hours, killing hundreds and destroying thousands of vehicles. U.S. forces also reportedly shot hundreds of Iraqi civilians and surrendered soldiers in their care.

  Call of Duty: Modern Warfare recreates this scene for dramatic effect. However, in their version, it is not the U.S.-led forces doing the killing, but Russia, thereby whitewashing a war crime by pinning the blame on official enemies.

  

  A mission in “Call of Duty: Modern Warfare” has players recreate the infamous highway of death

  “Call of Duty, in particular, has been flagged up for recreating real events as game missions and manipulating them for geopolitical purposes,” Secker told MintPress, referring to the Highway of Death, adding,

  In a culture where most people’s exposure to games (and films, TV shows and so on) is far greater than their knowledge of historical and current events, these manipulations help frame the gamers’ emotional, intellectual and political reactions. This helps them turn into more general advocates for militarism, even if they don’t sign up in any formal way.”

  Secker’s latest book, “Superheroes, Movies and the State: How the U.S. Government Shapes Cinematic Universes,” was published earlier this year.

  GAME OVER

  In today’s digitized era, the worlds of war and video games increasingly resemble one another. Many have commented on the similarities between piloting drones in real life and in games such as Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare. Prince Harry, who was a helicopter gunner in Afghanistan, described his “joy” at firing missiles at enemies. “I’m one of those people who loves playing PlayStation and Xbox, so with my thumbs I like to think I’m probably quite useful,” he said. “If there’s people trying to do bad stuff to our guys, then we’ll take them out of the game,” he added, explicitly comparing the two activities. U.S. forces even control drones with Xbox controllers, blurring the lines between war games and war games even further.

  The military has also directly produced video games as promotional and recruitment tools. One is a U.S. Air Force game called Airman Challenge. Featuring 16 missions to complete, interspersed with facts and recruitment information about how to become a drone operator yourself. In its latest attempts to market active service to young people, players move through missions escorting U.S. vehicles through countries like Iraq and Afghanistan, serving up death from above to all those designated “insurgents” by the game.

  Players earn medals and achievements for most effectively destroying moving targets. All the while, there is a prominent “apply now” button on screen if players feel like enlisting and conducting real drone strikes on the Middle East.

  U.S. Armed Forces use the popularity of video games to recruit heavily among young people, sponsoring gaming tournaments, fielding their own U.S. Army Esports team, and directly trying to recruit teens on streaming sites such as Twitch. The Amazon-owned platform eventually had to clamp down on the practice after the military used fake prize giveaways that lured impressionable young viewers onto recruitment websites.

  Video games are a massive business and a huge center of soft power and ideology. The medium makes for particularly persuasive propaganda because children and adolescents consume them, often for weeks or months on end, and because they are light entertainment. Because of this, users do not have their guards up like if they were listening to a politician speaking. Their power is often overlooked by scholars and journalists because of the supposed frivolity of the medium. But it is the very notion that these are unimportant sources of fun that makes their message all the more potent.

  The Call of Duty franchise is particularly egregious, not only in its messaging, but because who the messengers are. Increasingly, the games appear to be little more than American propaganda masquerading as fun first-person shooters. For gamers, the point is to enjoy its fast-paced entertainment. But for those involved in their production, the goal is not just making money; it is about serving the imperial war machine.

  Tyler Durden
  Mon, 11/21/2022 – 22:20

• Taibbi: YouTube Censors Reality, Boosts Disinformation – Part 1
  Taibbi: YouTube Censors Reality, Boosts Disinformation – Part 1

  Authored by Matt Taibbi via TK News,

  As subscribers by now are aware, I’m very upset about YouTube’s recent decision to censor a factually accurate video about “rigged election” comments produced for this site by Matt Orfalea. The company has given Matt a strike and labeled his/our work “misinformation,” an insult I’ve decided not to take lying down. I’m going to search for new ways to embarrass the company until they reverse their decision. As it happens, today offers an excellent opportunity.

  CBS This Morning today came out with a story claiming they obtained a copy of Hunter Biden’s laptop, sent for an “independent forensic review,” and determined it “appears genuine.” This follows up confirmation from The New York Times back on March 16th, and more importantly, the exhaustive earlier work of Politico reporter Ben Schreckinger confirming key emails in his book, The Bidens.

  Matt did an exceptional job back in March in the video above, compiling clips of people who went on air and with absolute certainty proclaimed the laptop “a lie,” “altered or fake,” “pure distractions,” and of course, “RUSSIAN DISINFORMATION.”

  Whether or not you thought the actual content of the story was important, the suppression of the Hunter Biden laptop affair was a crossroads moment in the history of modern censorship. YouTube played a major role in this event.

  This was a case in which major news media — including CBS, NBC, PBS, CNN, and countless other outlets — actively embraced disinformation, in the form of a group letter from 50-plus former intelligence officials saying the laptop story (they referred to a “laptop op”) had the “classic earmarks of a Russian information operation.” All the aforementioned news agencies fell for this, as did Twitter (which blocked access to it, in what then-CEO Jack Dorsey later admitted was a “total mistake”) and Facebook (whose increasingly adrift founder Mark Zuckerberg later told Joe Rogan the story was throttled down at the suggestion of the FBI).

  YouTube also pushed this disinformation campaign. It still does. Despite the total absence of evidence ever existing that the laptop was either fake or part of a Russian “information operation” and a growing pile of evidence that the laptop is real, YouTube continues to leave unmolested on its site countless videos promoting the conspiracy theory — that’s what it is, let’s be clear — that the laptop story is both bunk and an intelligence op.

  Here’s a brief sample of materials they still have up, unmarked as “misinformation” or “disinformation”:

  1. Are Trump allies peddling Russian disinformation about the Bidens? PBS October 16, 2020 Judy Woodruff: “Today we learned more about concerns expressed by the President’s most senior advisors, that the President’s personal attorney was peddling Russian disinformation.” Nick Schifrin: “The bottom line is we cannot confirm the story, Judy, but… the Biden campaign says that this is Russian disinformation, and disinformation experts I talk to tell me that pro-Russian actors have been packaging their disinformation next to apparently legitimate information.” The irony, of course, is that PBS and YouTube were the ones pushing disinformation here.

  2. Hunter Biden tabloid story raises disinformation campaign fears, CBS October 15, 2020 “Experts say it has all the hallmarks of information laundering…,” said correspondent Norah O’Donnell, before quoting former FBI agent Eric O’Neil saying, “This looks like your classic disinformation campaign.”

  3. US investigating if emails connected to Russia disinformation against Biden, CNN October 16, 2020 This is a beauty. Wolf Blitzer introduces correspondent Alex Marquardt by talking about how there are “fears that [the laptop story] could actually be part of Russia’s latest and very massive disinformation campaign in the US presidential election.” To which Marquardt answers, “Massive indeed Wolf,” before going on to “report” that “we are being told by two people who’ve been briefed on what the FBI is doing, that they’re looking into whether these unverified emails about Hunter Biden that were published earlier this week by the New York Post… are part of this bigger Russian disinformation effort in the 2020 election.” We have no proof this campaign existed, no proof this story was connected to it, and no proof of it being “bigger” than any other campaign. Unflagged by YouTube.

  4. Bash On Pushing Of Disinformation On Biden: This Looks, Walks, & Talks Like Russian Intelligence, MSNBC October 19.2020 This piece is extraordinary because it’s almost exactly the same message as the one written by the 50 “former” intelligence officers. Nicolle Wallace starts off humorously, scoffing at the idea that someone is “suggesting somehow that Joe Biden is a corrupt politician — one of the most vetted politicians in this country.” Jeremy Bash, a former CIA chief of staff now posing as a media figure, concurs. “This looks like Russian intelligence. This walks like Russian intelligence,” adding that the laptop story “looks like a classic Russian playbook, disinformation campaign.” If you go back and look, you will find countless instances of reporters using words like classic, hallmarks, earmarks, and disinformation campaign.

  5. Joe Biden on 60 Minutes, CBS. October 26, 2020 Remember, CBS just did a story contradicting their own earlier 60 Minutes piece in which Lesley Stahl berated then-President Trump that the laptop story “can’t be verified.” Indeed, CBS just by doing its new story proved that its previous position — that verification was impossible — was a lark. In their other 60 Minutes interview from that season, they soft-balled Joe Biden on the laptop story. CBS: “Do you believe [Hunter’s laptop] is part of a Russian disinformation campaign?” BIDEN: “It’s just what it is. It’s a smear campaign.”

  There are plenty more of these. If you want to widen the criticism to Google, these “Russian disinformation” stories still pop up high in searches (see here, here, here, here, and here, for instance). YouTube and Google now become exhibit A in the ultimate truth about any attempt to “moderate” content at scale. If you make even a good-faith effort to weed out “disinformation,” relying on official bodies to help, what you’ll be left with is… official disinformation.

  But this isn’t a good-faith effort to weed out untruths. YouTube has become a place that censors true content but traffics in official and quasi-official deceptions. It’s become indistinguishable from a state censorship bureau. If they feel they’re right about their decisions, they should be happy to explain themselves to people me. Until then, they can expect more love letters from this address.

  Subscribers should know I don’t believe in letting things like this go, but I also don’t believe in annoying faithful readers. In the future, if there are similar entries in this campaign, I’ll make them public but won’t clog your email with notices. The idea is to be a pain in Google’s backside, not yours.

  Subscribe to TK News

  Tyler Durden
  Mon, 11/21/2022 – 22:00

• Carriers In "Panic Mode' As Recession Bites, China Bookings Plummet
  Carriers In “Panic Mode’ As Recession Bites, China Bookings Plummet

  Byh Mike Wackett of The Loadstar

  Ocean carriers are said to be in “panic mode” as bookings from China to North Europe and the US west coast tank, causing FAK rates to plunge to new depths.

  Despite aggressive blanking that has reduced weekly capacity on the tradelanes by more than a third, the lines have failed to slow the precipitous fall in short-term rates and, are arguably fuelling the fire by offering sub-economic spot rates via their digital platforms.

  For example, rates from Shanghai, Tianjin and Shenzhen to the Le Havre-Hamburg range of container hubs in North Europe, of $1,000 per 20ft and $1,800 per 40ft are now widely available for prompt shipment.

  And some carriers are said to be prepared to reduce rates further for volume, and relax or even waive demurrage and detention conditions.

  The speed of the rate erosion on the Asia-North Europe tradelane is making a mockery of the spot market indices, which have been unable to keep pace; for instance, the lowest reading this week is Drewry’s WCI, which recorded a 14% decline, to $2,687 per 40ft, for its North Europe component.

  “The westbound market seems like it’s in panic,” a UK-based forwarding executive told The Loadstar this week.

  “I am getting approximately 10 emails a day from random agents offering very low rates. Today, I had $1,800 into Southampton, which is crazy; it seems to be panic,” he said. “There hasn’t been a Christmas rush on westbound and I put that down to the recession. As a country, we are not buying like we used to during the pandemic.”

  He said he was hearing that carriers were blanking sailings right up to Chinese New Year, which falls on 21 January, to drive up rates, but, he added, “personally, I don’t think that the volume is there”.

  He continued: “This is all reflected in the number of hauliers contacting us asking for work – again, emails every day saying they have capacity from all ports.”

  Meanwhile, on the transpacific, short-term rates from China to the US west coast are sinking to sub-economic levels, dragging down long-term rates as carriers are forced to offer customers temporary reductions on contract rates.

  

  Indeed, Israeli carrier Zim told The Loadstar this week it had been obliged to agree pricing reductions with transpacific contracted customers to protect its business.

  “The demand and volume was not there, so we had to deal with a new reality and engage with our customers,” said CFO Xavier Destriau.

  According to the latest reading of Xeneta’s XSI spot index, its US west coast component was flat this week, at $1,941 per 40ft, having declined by 20% so far this month, while east coast rates were down 6% on the week, according to Drewry’s WCI, at $5,045 per 40ft.

  The one bright spot for carriers remains the transatlantic, where lines continue to enjoy short-term rates of between $6,500 and $7,600 per 40ft from North Europe to the US east coast, according to the spot rate indices.

  However, the outlier tradelane is showing signs of succumbing to the general rate demise, as port congestion unwinds on the US east coast, the port of Liverpool resumes normal working after industrial action and, not least, that carriers are deploying more capacity.

  Tyler Durden
  Mon, 11/21/2022 – 21:40

• NY Times Takes Rare Look At Apparent Ukrainian War Crimes
  NY Times Takes Rare Look At Apparent Ukrainian War Crimes

  The New York Times has in an extremely rare moment (or perhaps more like unprecedented) conducted an in-depth visual investigation of a likely war crime against surrendered Russian troops conducted by Ukrainian forces. Multiple videos from different angles, including drone footage, emerged last week showing the incredibly disturbing scenes as Ukrainian forces were recapturing the village of Makiivka in the Luhansk region. 

  The videos show ten apparently unarmed Russian soldiers lying facedown on the ground, who early on are seen moving and in a position of surrender as at least four Ukrainian troops stand nearby outside of a house in a farmyard. 

  By the end of the footage, eleven Russians had been shot dead at close range, in what Russia says was a summary execution of people who at that point (based on their surrender) effectively become non-combatants based on accepted international laws of war. 

  

  The Russian Defense Ministry has said the videos confirm “deliberate and methodical murder” of its soldiers by the Ukrainian side, also with the Russian Foreign Ministry calling the act “merciless” and “shocking”.

  Surprisingly, the videos were initially made public by Ukrainian news sources and soldiers themselves, and were shared widely on social media, as they purportedly showed the ‘heroism’ of Ukrainian soldiers as they clawed back territory in eastern Ukraine. 

  But The New York Times described, “The videos show the grisly before-and-after scenes of the encounter earlier this month, in which at least 11 Russians, most of whom are seen lying on the ground, appear to have been shot dead at close range after one of their fellow fighters suddenly opened fire on Ukrainian soldiers standing nearby.”

  The United Nations has called for a formal investigation into the videos, with a statement from the UN Human Rights Office quoted in Reuters saying, “We are aware of the videos, and we are looking into them.”

  “Allegations of summary executions of people hors de combat should be promptly, fully and effectively investigated, and any perpetrators held to account,” the statement continued, in reference to people legally designated “outside of combat”.

  The Times report details the sequence of events beginning as follows:

  One soldier, with his rifle drawn, tentatively approaches the structure where the Russian soldiers are sheltering. The soldier with the machine gun provides cover. Several gunshots are heard — though it’s not clear from where — and the soldier slowly backs away from an outhouse, drawing out the Russian soldiers at gunpoint.

  

  The report comments that soon after the Russian soldiers emerge from the building, it is clear that an orderly surrender has taken place, with many of the prone Russian solders moving around on the ground after giving up their arms, clearly alive. 

  But soon after the entire scene turns to carnage:

  Two of the Ukrainians standing by appear to be relaxed and are pointing their rifles toward the ground…

  As an 11th Russian soldier emerges from the outhouse, he opens fire, aiming at one of the Ukrainian soldiers. The Ukrainians are taken by surprise. The cellphone camera jolts away as the Ukrainian soldier filming the scene flinches. A frame-by-frame analysis of what happens next shows the Ukrainian soldier standing beside him raise his rifle and aim toward the Russian gunman.

  By the time the dust settles, all of the Russian soldiers – and not just the gunman who emerged from the outhouse – lie dead, apparently shot in the head at close range, pools of blood forming around them.  

  “The video ends and it’s unclear what happens next. But a second aerial video of the location shows the bloody aftermath,” the NYT writes. “The Russian soldiers are lying motionless, apparently dead, most of them positioned as they were when they surrendered. Blood is pooling around them, and some appear to be bleeding from the upper body or head. The soldiers are dressed in the same uniforms with the distinctive red straps and blue marking.”

  

  The footage, as well as the NY Times’ confirmation of the event, is now going viral inside Russia, causing fury and an angry denunciations, while at the same time Ukrainian officials have suggested the initial surrender had been “staged” by the Russian side in order to set a trap for the Ukrainian soldiers. Kiev has rejected the charges of war crimes from Moscow.

  Russia has consistently complained that the West routinely ignores clear evidence of Ukrainian war crimes, while only putting Russian forces under the microscope. This NY Times investigation is an almost unprecedented moment where the “paper of record” is actually hinting that the Kremlin has a valid point.

  Tyler Durden
  Mon, 11/21/2022 – 21:20

• Hunter Biden Laptop Repairman Reveals "Chilling" Warning From FBI Agent
  Hunter Biden Laptop Repairman Reveals “Chilling” Warning From FBI Agent

  Authored by Jack Phillips via The Epoch Times,

  John Paul Mac Isaac, the laptop repairman who allegedly found Hunter Biden’s laptop, revealed Monday that he is working with Republican lawmakers as they prepare to investigate the younger Biden after taking the House majority during this month’s midterms.

  

  Mac Isaac alleged in a Monday interview with Fox News that an FBI agent gave him a “chilling” warning when he first interacted with the bureau after finding the laptop. The Delaware-based laptop repairman said he recalled telling one agent that he would change their names when he published his book.

  “That’s when Agent Mike turned around and told me that, in their experience, nothing ever happens to people that don’t talk about these things,” Mac Isaac said, claiming that it was a veiled threat to keep silent.

  “I have been dealing with retaliation from multiple fronts for the past two years when what I did was leaked to the country. I’m expecting it, and I’m going to expect it to continue,” he added to Fox News while promoting his book.

  Republicans, he said, should hold “the FBI accountable for colluding with our mainstream and social media to block a story, a real story with real consequence,” and they should “get to the bottom of what the Biden family was up to when Joe Biden was vice president.”

  On Monday, a lawyer for Hunter Biden, Chris Clark, told CBS News that Mac Isaac did not have Hunter’s “consent to access his computer data or share it with others.” Some analysts said that it may have been the first time one of Hunter Biden’s lawyers confirmed that he left the laptop at the Delaware computer repair shop.

  Earlier this year, Mac Isaac recalled to the New York Post about how Hunter Biden arrived at his shop in Wilmington, Delaware, in April 2019.

  “I’m glad you’re still open,” Hunter Biden allegedly told him. “I just came from the cigar bar, and they told me about your shop, but I had to hurry because you close at seven.”

  “I need the data recovered off these, but they all have liquid damage and won’t turn on,” Mac Isaac recalled him saying.

  Other Details

  It came as CBS cited an independent expert as saying that the data sourced from Hunter Biden’s laptop is genuine, coming about two years after the NY Post and other news outlets, including The Epoch Times, reported on it. It’s not clear why CBS decided to publish its report Monday.

  

  U.S. President Joe Biden (L) waves alongside his son Hunter Biden after attending mass at Holy Spirit Catholic Church in Johns Island, South Carolina on Aug. 13, 2022. (Nicholas Kamm/AFP via Getty Images)

  The Epoch Times has contacted the FBI’s press office for comment.

  After Republicans recaptured the majority in the House, top GOP lawmakers indicated that they will investigate bank records and claims by whistleblowers that show connections between Hunter Biden and President Joe Biden.

  With weeks to go before the 2020 General Election, the New York Post published information sourced from the laptop, showing what Republicans and other critics say are shady business deals between the Biden family and individuals linked to the Chinese Communist Party and Ukrainian energy firms. The younger Biden, in a 2019 interview, has denied that he did anything wrong but acknowledged that such deals created a negative outward impression.

  Rep. James Comer (R-Ky.), who is expected to chair the House Oversight and Reform Committee, told reporters last week that the committee will investigate not just Hunter Biden but also President Biden.

  “I want to be clear. This is an investigation of Joe Biden. That’s where the committee will focus in this next Congress,” Comer told reporters.

  “This committee will evaluate the status of Joe Biden’s relationship with his family’s foreign partners and whether he is a president who is compromised or swayed by foreign dollars and influence,” Comer said, adding that his committee has acquired suspicious activity reports filed by major banks.

  In response, the White House said in a statement last week House Republicans are engaging in partisan attacks against Biden’s family members. The administration accused the GOP of trafficking in “long-debunked conspiracy theories,” without elaborating.

  “President Biden is not going to let these political attacks distract him from focusing on Americans’ priorities,” Ian Sams, a spokesman for the White House Counsel’s office, told news outlets.

  Weeks after the 2020 election, the younger Biden said that Delaware prosecutors were investigating his tax affairs, although he hasn’t been charged with a crime. Since then, few details have been publicly disclosed about that investigation.

  As Republicans conduct their investigation, it’s not clear how many Americans will consider it a top priority.

  Fewer than 30 percent of voters said in a recent poll that Hunter Biden should be a top priority for the next Congress, with about 52 percent of Republicans expressing an interest in investigating him. For months, other polls showed that President Biden’s approval rating has remained largely underwater amid high inflation, fears of a recession, and a surge of violent crime nationwide.

  Tyler Durden
  Mon, 11/21/2022 – 21:00

• What Reopening? China's Covid Restrictions Are Actually Tightening
  What Reopening? China’s Covid Restrictions Are Actually Tightening

  By Ye Xie, Bloomberg Markets Live reporter and analyst

  After the initial market euphoria over China’s reopening from Covid lockdowns, reality is settling in. Reopening isn’t as easy as turning on a water tap. It takes months of preparation to increase hospital resources, put jabs in the arms of senior citizens and shift the public narrative about the pandemic.

  In fact, instead of loosening, China’s restrictions on social activities have strengthened in recent weeks. That should argue for investors to curb their enthusiasm.

  

  Confusion. Chaos. More than a week after Beijing fine-tuned its Covid Zero strategy, local governments are struggling to balance the need to control the pandemic while also limit the economic damage. Shijiazhuang, a closely-watched city that had experimented with a version of “living with the virus,” has reversed course, suspending schools and asking residents to stay at home for five days. As infections multiplied, subway rides in some big cities such as Beijing, Guangzhou and Chongqing have tumbled.

  The result is that Goldman Sachs’s Effective Lockdown Index has increased in recent weeks, despite Beijing’s new order to reduce the need for mass testing and citywide shutdowns.

  

  The reality is that conditions are just not there yet to allow Beijing to live with the virus.

  For example, officials have told hospitals designated to treat Covid patients to strengthen their capabilities, including increasing the share of ICU beds to 10%. To reach the target, China needs to add 30,000 ICU beds, a 50% increase from current levels, according to the estimate of Capital Economics’ Julian Evans-Pritchard. To put the number in perspective, only 6,370 ICU beds were added to hospitals nationwide in 2020.

  Reported severe cases and deaths remain low. The three deaths acknowledged over the weekend were all people over 87 years old with pre-existing illnesses. The bad news is that this is the most vulnerable part of the population Beijing is struggling to get vaccinated.

  Among those 80 years and older, only 66% have been fully vaccinated, and 40% have taken a booster, which provides comparable protection to two mRNA does. That’s considerably lower than the vaccination rate of at least 95% among other Asian countries, such as Singapore and South Korea, when they fully reopened the economy, according to Evans-Pritchard.

  China’s current vaccine coverage among this group of 36 million people is closer to Hong Kong’s when it suffered a deadly and disruptive reopening earlier this year.

  

  Tyler Durden
  Mon, 11/21/2022 – 20:40

• Qatar And China Make History With 27-Year LNG Supply Deal
  Qatar And China Make History With 27-Year LNG Supply Deal

  By Tsvetana Paraskova of OilPrice.com

  Qatar’s state firm QatarEnergy signed on Monday the longest-term contract in the history of the LNG industry in a deal to supply LNG to Chinese state energy giant Sinopec for 27 years.

  

  QatarEnergy will supply China Petroleum & Chemical Corporation (Sinopec) with 4 million tons per annum (MTPA) of LNG to China from the North Filed East (NFE) expansion project, just as global competition for LNG intensifies amid a European rush to secure non-Russian gas supply.

  “This is the first long-term SPA from the NFE project to be announced, and marks the longest gas supply agreement in the history of the LNG industry,” said Saad Sherida Al-Kaabi, Qatar’s Minister of State for Energy Affairs and President and CEO of QatarEnergy.  

  Qatar has traditionally preferred long-term supply deals with customers, at which Europe balked earlier this year. But more recently, even European companies have started negotiations for longer-term supply with LNG providers. 

  China, for its part, is looking to secure LNG to avoid more spot buying amid uncertainties over the Asian spot prices in the coming years. 

  Today’s sale and purchase agreement (SPA) also represents the first long-term LNG offtake agreement from the NFE Expansion project. Qatar’s North Field East and North Field South (NFS) projects are expected to come online in 2026 and 2027, respectively.

  Qatar announced last year the world’s largest LNG project, which is set to raise its LNG production capacity from 77 million tons per annum (mmtpa) to 110 mmtpa. The Gulf gas and oil producer also plans another expansion phase at the North Field, the world’s largest natural gas field, which it shares with Iran. The second expansion phase will be the North Field South Project (NFS), set to further increase Qatar’s LNG production capacity from 110 mmtpa to 126 mmtpa, with an expected production start date in 2027.

  Tyler Durden
  Mon, 11/21/2022 – 20:20

• "Users Have A Right To Know": Class Action Lawsuit Sheds Light Onto Google's Opaque Data-Mining Practices
  “Users Have A Right To Know”: Class Action Lawsuit Sheds Light Onto Google’s Opaque Data-Mining Practices

  It turns out that big tech companies may not be as committed to your privacy as their PR departments would have you believe – go figure.

  The latest example of this reality appears to be Google, who was revealed last week by MarketWatch to have data-mining practices that employees say that they sometimes “don’t understand and can’t describe”.

  The report cited a class action lawsuit alleging that Google “violated promises not to collect data of those using the browser without signing into their Google accounts”. Documents recently became unsealed in the case, offering a look into how privacy is discussed internally at Google. 

  In the lawsuit, one unnamed employee seemed to make it clear that Google’s privacy policies are opaque, stating: “I don’t have the faintest idea what Google has on me. The fact what we can’t explain what we have […] on users is probably our biggest challenge.” 

  

  “Users have a right to know,” one employee said. Another commented: “The reasons we provide are so high level and abstract that they don’t make sense to people.” A third employee said: “Consent is no longer consent if you think of ads as a product.”

  Additional employees seemed to solidify the ethos within the company. A former employee who recently left the company said: “I am more than willing to believe this is how executives talked to each other.”

  “Even people I was organizationally close to, knew well, and respected, were finding ways to justify that stuff to themselves,” they said about the company’s privacy teams. “The individual contributors [on Google’s privacy teams] are always idealistic people. Some of these quotes [from the case] look to me like things that idealistic people would say; others look like things management would say when the idealistic people aren’t around.”

  When asked by MarketWatch, Google responded to the report by stating that “privacy controls have long been built into our services and we encourage our teams to constantly discuss or consider ideas to improve them.” 

  As the report notes, ads are a material revenue generator for Google, making up $209.5 billion in sales for the company in its 2021 fiscal year. 

  Tyler Durden
  Mon, 11/21/2022 – 20:00

• What Elephant? AP Denies that There Is Any Evidence That Joe Biden Discussed Hunter's Business Dealings
  What Elephant? AP Denies that There Is Any Evidence That Joe Biden Discussed Hunter’s Business Dealings

  Authored by Jonathan Turley,

  For those of us who have written about the Hunter Biden scandal and the family’s influence-peddling operation for years, it is routine to read media stories denying the facts or dismissing calls to investigate the foreign dealings. However, this weekend, the Associated Press made a whopper of a claim that there is no evidence even suggesting that President Joe Biden ever spoke to his son about his foreign dealings. I previously discussed how the Bidens have succeeded in a Houdini-like trick in making this elephant of a scandal disappear from the public stage. They did so by enlisting the media in the illusion. However, this level of audience participation in the trick truly defies belief.

  

  The statement of the Associated Press at this stage of the scandal is breathtaking but telling: “Joe Biden has said he’s never spoken to his son about his foreign business, and nothing the Republicans have put forth suggests otherwise.”

  For years, the media has continued to report President Biden’s repeated claim that “I have never spoken to my son about his overseas business dealings.” At the outset, the media only had to suspend any disbelief that the president could fly to China as Vice President with his son on Air Force 2 without discussing his planned business dealings on the trip.

  Of course, the emails on the laptop quickly refuted this claim. However, the media buried the laptop story before the election or pushed the false claim that it was fake Russian disinformation.

  President Biden’s denials continued even after an audiotape surfaced showing President Biden leaving a message for Hunter specifically discussing coverage of those dealings. The call is specifically referring to these dealings:

  “Hey pal, it’s Dad. It’s 8:15 on Wednesday night. If you get a chance just give me a call. Nothing urgent. I just wanted to talk to you. I thought the article released online, it’s going to be printed tomorrow in the Times, was good. I think you’re clear. And anyway if you get a chance give me a call, I love you.”

  But who are you going to believe, the media or your own ears.

  Some of us have written for two years that Biden’s denial of knowledge is patently false. It was equally evident that the Biden family was selling influence and access.

  There are emails of Ukrainian and other foreign clients thanking Hunter Biden for arranging meetings with his father. There are photos from dinners and meetings that tie President Biden to these figures, including a 2015 dinner with a group of Hunter Biden’s Russian and Kazakh clients.

  People apparently were told to avoid directly referring to President Biden. In one email, Tony Bobulinski, then a business partner of Hunter’s, was instructed by Biden associate James Gilliar not to speak of the former veep’s connection to any transactions: “Don’t mention Joe being involved, it’s only when u [sic] are face to face, I know u [sic] know that but they are paranoid.”

  Instead, the emails apparently refer to President Biden with code names such as “Celtic” or “the big guy.” In one, “the big guy” is discussed as possibly receiving a 10 percent cut on a deal with a Chinese energy firm; other emails reportedly refer to Hunter Biden paying portions of his father’s expenses and taxes.

  Bobulinski has given multiple interviews that he met twice with Joe Biden to discuss a business deal in China with CEFC China Energy Co. That would seem obvious evidence. In addition, the New York Post reported on a key email that discussed “the proposed percentage distribution of equity in a company created for a joint venture with CEFC China Energy Co.” That was the email on March 13, 2017 that included references of “10 held by H for the big guy.”

  The Associated Press later revised the line after an outcry from some of us. It now ends “there is no indication that the federal investigation involves the president.”  The revision creates a new problem. Rather than simply stating the fact, AP seems to struggle to shield the President. There is every indication that “the federal investigation involves the president.” Not only is the President discussed in key emails under investigation, but the grand jury heard testimony that the “Big Guy” is Joe Biden.

  That brings us back to Houdini’s trick of making his 10,000 pound elephant Jennie disappear every night in New York’s Hippodrome. He succeeded night after night because the audience wanted the elephant to disappear even though it never left the stage.

  I previously wrote about how the key to the trick was involving the media so that reporters are invested in the illusion like calling audience members to the stage. Reporters have to insist that there was nothing to see or they have to admit to being part of the original deception. The media cannot see the elephant without the public seeing something about the media in its past efforts to conceal it.

  The media is now so heavily invested in the trick that they are sticking with the illusion even after “the reveal.” The Associated Press story shows that even pointing at the elephant — heck, even riding the elephant around the stage — will not dislodge these denials. This is no elephant because there cannot be an elephant. Poof!

  N.B.: This column was revised to add discussion of the AP revision of the line on the investigation.

  Tyler Durden
  Mon, 11/21/2022 – 19:40

• A Shocking 37% Of Real Estate Agents Couldn't Afford October Office Rent
  A Shocking 37% Of Real Estate Agents Couldn’t Afford October Office Rent

  The Federal Reserve has hiked 375bps in just six meetings this year. Mortgage rates have followed suit, skyrocketing from a low of 2.7% in February to 7.35% earlier this month. The aggressive tightening of monetary conditions has sparked an affordability crisis — sidelining millions of potential homebuyers while existing home sales crash to the worst level since 2008. 

  Higher borrowing costs triggered a sharp drop in mortgage applications and home sales in the back half of the year. Deal flow is drying up for many real estate agents, resulting in financial duress that may worsen into early 2023. 

  In October, a shocking 37% of real estate agents struggled to pay office rent — a 10% increase from the prior month, according to Yahoo, citing a new report via Redfin. The figure could worsen as the housing market rapidly cools via the Fed-induced demand side crunch. 

  Such rapid heating of the housing market during the pandemic era brought in an influx of new agents. The National Association of Realtors said membership hit an all-time high of 1.56 million in 2021 (pandemic boom year) — up from 1.49 million the year before. 

  While we don’t expect a similar 2008-09 housing crash, the Federal Reserve Bank of Dallas warned last week that home prices could plunge 20% next year due to affordability woes. 

  In October, existing home sales tumbled to 28.4% – its worst since 2008. 

  

  Absent the nadir of the COVID lockdowns, this is the lowest existing home sales SAAR since Dec 2011…

  

  Deal flow slump for agents comes as lagged Case-Shiller Index showed US housing prices dropped 1.3% from their June 2022 peak in August. This is the most significant monthly decline since the Lehman collapse.  

  

  The national home price index growth has slowed for five straight months (below 13% YoY for the first time since Feb 2021). The absolute drop in the growth rate of 2.62 percentage points is the largest ever…

  

  Researchers at Goldman Sachs aren’t as bearish as the Dallas Fed, expect a 5-10% slump from peak to trough in home prices — with their official forecast model predicting a 7.6% decline. 

  

  The unprecedented explosion in mortgage rates and freezing of the housing market is terrible news for all those newly minted agents during the pandemic. Mounting financial hardships and slumping deal flow, with the inability to service office rent, could result in many leaving the industry, perhaps, returning to their old bartending jobs. 

  Tyler Durden
  Mon, 11/21/2022 – 19:20

• Authorities Looking Into Oregon Report That Falsely Claims Sky-High Child COVID-19 Hospitalization Rates
  Authorities Looking Into Oregon Report That Falsely Claims Sky-High Child COVID-19 Hospitalization Rates

  Authored by Zachary Stieber via The Epoch Times,

  Authorities in Oregon say they’re looking into a report they published that falsely claims sky-high COVID-19 hospitalization rates among children.

  “We are working with the company that completed the report, Rede Group, to look into that data question,” Jonathan Modie, a spokesman for the Oregon Health Authority, told The Epoch Times in an email on Nov. 19.

  Modie said authorities would be able to provide an update as early as Monday.

  The report in question was produced by a firm called the Rede Group as a contractor to the health authority, as outlined in a Senate bill that was passed this year.

  The bill says that the authority “shall study the state’s public health response to the COVID-19 pandemic” and prepare various reports, including one that includes “a broad review of the COVID-19 pandemic” and identification of areas in the public health response to the pandemic that need improvement.

  

  The 725-page report includes multiple instances of misinformation, including the false claim that COVID-19 hospitalization rates among children were as high as 47.4 percent.

  In a graph, the report depicts the hospitalization rates as above 30 percent for all childhood age groups, with the highest being 47.4 percent among children aged 12 to 17 as of June.

  According to Oregon Health Authority (pdf), the hospitalization rate in 2021 among children aged 0 to 9 was just 0.9 percent and the hospitalization rate among those aged 10 to 19 was 0.6 percent. A report issued in July (pdf) looking at the first six months of 2021 had the percentages at 0.6 and 0.3, respectively.

  Hospitalization rates are the percentage of people who test positive for COVID-19 who were admitted to a hospital.

  Robb Hutson, a spokesman for the Rede Group, told The Epoch Times via email that he would have the company’s data team look into the matter.

  States across the country, as well as federal officials and media outlets, have repeatedly put forth COVID-19 misinformation during the pandemic, including exaggerating the risk the disease poses to people and hyping vaccine effectiveness.

  Eric Happel, a Nike employee who has criticized Oregon’s COVID-19 restrictions, flagged the false information in the new report.

  He said the graph on hospitalization rates “is so wrong that everyone in OHA should know it’s wrong,” adding that “this is just so incompetent it is beyond embarrassing.”

  Happel also said he did not appreciate how the report does not address how school closures, which took place in many U.S. states in 2020 and into 2021, affected children apart from saying health officials had to “balance the potential benefit” of such measures “against the serious ramifications,” including “creating social isolation.”

  Read more here…

  Tyler Durden
  Mon, 11/21/2022 – 19:00

• 9-12 More Months: How Long US Consumers Have Before The Bottom Falls Out
  9-12 More Months: How Long US Consumers Have Before The Bottom Falls Out

  During the Covid-19 pandemic, consumers socked away an unprecedented amount of cash thanks to government stimulus and a locked down economy. There was such a surplus that people were able to also pay down debt, buy new appliances, and take vacations once draconian lockdowns were lifted. And of course, businesses raised prices and hired more workers to meet the flood of demand.

  

  Now that we’re ‘enjoying’ inflation while wages have struggled to keep up, the question becomes – how long can consumers maintain this level of spending with their “excess” savings, which was estimated at $1.2 – $1.8 trillion heading into Q3 of this year?

  Around nine to twelve months, according to the Wall Street Journal.

  What’s more, consumers have already been loading up credit cards to supplement their incomes.

  

  A brief history of recent savings trends via the Journal;

  In 2019, before the pandemic hit, households saved 8.8% of their disposable income. That saving rate jumped to 16.8% in 2020, the highest annual saving rate on record, as government stimulus and unemployment benefits left many consumers flush with cash but with few opportunities to spend during lockdowns.

  In 2021 the saving rate moderated to 11.8%, and it has fallen further during 2022. The rate has been below 4% for seven straight months and in September it stood at 3.1%, near its lowest level since the 2008 financial crisis.

  In short; consumers are spending more and saving less of their monthly income thanks to inflation.

  

  What’s more, there are signs that consumers aren’t using their savings to pay down credit card debt like they used to – with the Federal Reserve Bank of NY reporting that credit card balances increased 15% YoY in the third quarter – the largest increase in more than two decades. Delinquencies, meanwhile, rose across all income groups.

  According to JPMorgan, at this rate the excess savings could be ‘entirely spent by the second half of next year.’

  Goldman economists estimate that households have depleted around 25% of their excess savings, and will have spent around 60% of it by the end of 2023.

  “The growth boost from strong balance sheets is probably mostly behind us but … elevated wealth levels will provide a backstop to spending for households that are hit with a negative economic shock,” they wrote last week.

  Analysts say a feature of this holiday spending season will be the divide between high-income households that still have savings and low-income households that have spent most of their rainy-day funds and are being squeezed by food, gasoline, and shelter inflation.

  Economists at the Federal Reserve last month said households in the top half of the income distribution held the lion’s share of excess savings in mid-2022 at $1.35 trillion, and the lower half of the income distribution held about $350 billion. -WSJ

  According to Joseph Brusuelas, chief economist at RSM US LLP, “It’s going to be an upscale holiday season, with strong spending in luxury names, experiential travel, upper-end resorts—and a more modest holiday season in bottom [income] quintiles.”

  Tyler Durden
  Mon, 11/21/2022 – 18:40

• CEO Of Ukrainian Crypto Firm Denies FTX–Ukraine Money-Laundering Allegations
  CEO Of Ukrainian Crypto Firm Denies FTX–Ukraine Money-Laundering Allegations

  Authored by Andrew Moran via The Epoch Times,

  Everstake, a Ukraine-based cryptocurrency firm, has been caught in the crosshairs of a controversial relationship involving Kyiv, Democrats, and the beleaguered FTX exchange that has captured the attention of Washington officials.

  

  As part of efforts to generate more funds for the war effort, the Ukrainian government launched “Aid for Ukraine,” a website that accepted cryptocurrency donations that would be converted into fiat money and then deposited at the National Bank of Ukraine. The contributions would be used to purchase a wide range of essential items, from medical supplies to military clothing.

  The Ministry of Digital Transformation partnered with FTX, Ukraine’s Kuna exchange, and Everstake to help facilitate crypto-denominated donations, which have totaled between $60 million and $100 million.

  Because of former FTX CEO Sam Bankman-Fried’s immense donations to Democrat lawmakers and the timing between the creation of the fund and President Joe Biden’s billions in financial and military assistance to Kyiv, there has been speculation of wrongdoing. Critics allege that Ukraine invested in FTX to funnel money to the Democratic Party.

  According to Everstake CEO Sergey Vasylchuk, it is a ridiculous assertion to think that the Ukrainian government would invest in private companies at a time of war and utilize critical resources for political payoffs, noting that Kyiv is “investing in the needs of families” with the aid it receives.

  “Technically, the Ministry of Digital Transformation mostly supported the information point of view,” he told The Epoch Times, adding that it was chaotic in the early days of the war, requiring the use of backups to receive funds.

  “It was messed up at the time,” the head of the staking service platform noted. “I never felt this was like a wonderful cheat. For me, when they say Ukraine invests in companies, I just ignore it.”

  Vasylchuk confirmed that he was never in contact with Bankman-Fried during the process, explaining that FTX maintained only a small role in the fundraising effort.

  “We have six people who were part of the compliance legal team” who helped get the Aid for Ukraine project off the ground, Vasylchuk averred.

  

  Sergey Vasylchuk, CEO of Everstake, a Ukraine-based cryptocurrency firm. (Courtesy of Everstake)

  Crypto has turned into a vital tool in the military conflict in Eastern Europe.

  In recent months, pro-Russia organizations have been accepting donations through cryptocurrency exchanges, raising millions of dollars in digital currencies that are then used to support Moscow’s military campaign.

  In the aftermath of the FTX collapse, there have been widespread concerns this would trigger a contagion effect. Cryptocurrency prices have plummeted, crypto-related firms have tumbled, and many parties that have been exposed to Bankman-Fried’s empire have experienced financial pressures.

  But Vasylchuk says that Everstake is weathering the storm because it maintains diversified assets and, depending on a treasure trove of web reports, the company uses various wallets to ensure the safety and security of its holdings.

  ‘UNITED24’

  Ukraine officials have also addressed the recent allegations, including Deputy Minister of Digital Transformation Oleksandr Bornyakov, who described the latest rumors as “nonsense.”

  “A fundraising crypto foundation @_AidForUkraine used @FTX_Official to convert crypto donations into fiat in March. Ukraine’s gov never invested any funds into FTX. The whole narrative that Ukraine allegedly invested in FTX, who donated money to Democrats is nonsense, frankly,” he wrote in a tweet last week.

  Aid for Ukraine was recently taken down and replaced with “UNITED24.”

  “UNITED24 was launched by the president of Ukraine, Volodymyr Zelensky, as the main venue for collecting charitable donations in support of Ukraine. Funds will be transferred to the official accounts of the National Bank of Ukraine and allocated by assigned ministries to cover the most pressing needs,” the new website states.

  The website also informed visitors that “we are looking for companies or enterprises that can help Ukraine with specific needs.”

  

  Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky during a meeting with the U.S. secretary of state in Kyiv on Sept. 8, 2022. (Genya Savilov/POOL/AFP via Getty Images)

  Washington Probing FTX-Ukraine Connections

  A growing number of U.S. officials are not convinced by these explanations.

  In a letter to Secretary of State Antony Blinken, several House Republicans, led by Rep. Troy Nehls (R-Texas), wrote that it had recently come to their “attention that billions of taxpayer dollars sent to Ukraine to assist with their war efforts were potentially invested in a crypto exchange that then made massive donations to Democrats” during the 2022 midterm election campaign.

  “While this partnership was touted as a way to assist Ukraine in cashing out crypto donations for ammunition and humanitarian aid, we have serious concerns that the Ukrainian government may have invested portions of the nearly $66 billion of U.S. economic assistance into FTX to keep Democrats in power—and keep the money coming in,” the lawmakers explained in a letter (pdf) exclusively obtained by FOX Business.

  “We sincerely hope the primary driver behind the billions in congressional assistance to Ukraine was not Democrats attempting to keep themselves in power, and that none of the missing funds were used as a passthrough to avoid campaign finance laws or end up in Democrat pockets.”

  A State Department spokesperson told the business news network that there is “no reason to believe that these reports are anything but pure falsehoods and misinformation.”

  The House Financial Services Committee, led by Reps. Patrick McHenry (R-N.C.) and Maxine Waters (D-Calif.), announced a bipartisan hearing into the FTX debacle and what it could mean for the digital asset economy. The committee plans to hear from Bankman-Fried and individuals involved in Alameda Research, Binance, and FTX.

  Tyler Durden
  Mon, 11/21/2022 – 18:20

• Iran Launches More Large-Scale Missile Attacks On Northern Iraq
  Iran Launches More Large-Scale Missile Attacks On Northern Iraq

  Iran has launched another round of attacks on Kurdish groups in northern Iraq in connection with ongoing anti-government protests inside the Islamic Republic. This as Iran’s own neighboring Kurdistan region has continued to be a hotbed of the now two-month long “anti-hijab” protests sparked by the death in police custody of a 22-year old Iranian Kurdish woman from Saqqez. 

  Iran’s elite Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) announced early Monday that it struck three areas of the northern Iraqi Kurdish region with drones and missiles the day prior, causing “heavy damage” on the camps. Tehran has said that “terrorist groups”.

  

  Iranian statement media said that 26 members Komala and the Democratic Party of Iranian Kurdistan were killed as a result. 

  Iran had first carried out a similar cross-border attack in September, which was said to have killed an American citizen who was a dual national. There were more reported Iranian strikes last week.

  The IRGC claims that the groups being targeted are behind weapons smuggling operations, as well as sabotage actions inside Iran, which aim to destabilize the country. 

  Like with the last major cross-border attack, the US Central Command condemned the fresh Iranian military aggression, saying the strikes violate Iraq’s sovereignty and “jeopardize the hard-fought security and stability of Iraq and the Middle East.”

  ⚡️Consequences of Iranian strike in Northeastern Iraq pic.twitter.com/CLYTNoK3K5

  — War Monitor (@WarMonitors) November 20, 2022

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

  Tehran has meanwhile been demanding that Baghdad take concrete action to disarm the outlawed Kurdish militia groups while holding open the possibility of more cross-border strikes.

  A Monday Iranian foreign ministry statement said its military had no choice to act to “protect its borders and security of its citizens based on its legal rights.”

  Tyler Durden
  Mon, 11/21/2022 – 18:00

• The Lords Of War: The Perils Facing Trump, Garland, & Smith In Washington's Legal Arms Race
  The Lords Of War: The Perils Facing Trump, Garland, & Smith In Washington’s Legal Arms Race

  Authored by Jonathan Turley,

  Below is my column in The Hill on the appointment of a special counsel to investigate former President Donald Trump. All of the three main players – Trump, Attorney General Merrick Garland, and Special Counsel Jack Smith – will face immediate challenges in the legal arm’s race unfolding in Washington.

  

  Here is the column:

  There seemed to be enough torpedoes in the water in Washington this week that you could walk across the Potomac without getting your feet wet. On Capitol Hill, the new House Republican majority announced a series of subpoena-ready investigations of President Biden and administration officials. At the Justice Department, Attorney General Merrick Garland appointed a special counsel to investigate former President Trump for possible crimes ranging from the 2020 election to the Jan. 6, 2021, Capitol riot to the Mar-a-Lago documents controversy.

  It was all reminiscent of the movie “The Lord of War,” in which a fictional arms dealer warns that “the problem with gunrunners going to war is that there is no shortage of ammunition.” The same appears true of rival government officials having no shortage of subpoenas.

  In this atmosphere of politically and mutually assured destruction, there are some immediate threats for the three main combatants:

  Attorney General Garland

  When he announced the appointment of Jack Smith to investigate Trump, Garland explained that “based on recent developments, including the former president’s announcement that he is a candidate for president in the next election, and the sitting president’s stated intention to be a candidate as well, I have concluded that it is in the public interest to appoint a special counsel.”

  In making that case for a Trump special counsel, however, Garland may have made a case against himself for refusing to appoint a Biden special counsel in the Hunter Biden scandal. Garland’s department is investigating potential wrongdoing that could involve the other referenced candidate, President Biden, in the Hunter Biden matter. That investigation should be looking at numerous alleged references to the president using code names such as “the Big Guy” in the context of receiving percentages on foreign deals and other perks. Yet Garland has refused to appoint a special counsel in an investigation that not only could prove highly embarrassing to the president but, in the view of some of us, could implicate him as well.

  Congressional Democrats repeatedly voted to block an investigation of this alleged multimillion-dollar influence peddling by the Biden family. House Republicans are now poised to look into these foreign deals — and how the Justice Department may have stymied or slowed any investigation before the 2020 election.

  While the special counsel appointment helps insulate Garland from claims about the use of his department for political purposes on any Trump charges, he may soon face new challenges, including possible contempt referrals if Biden officials or Democrats refuse to supply information or testimony to Republican House investigators. Garland has sharply departed from prior cases in which the Justice Department largely refused to prosecute such contempt referrals; he has been very active in pursuing Trump officials who failed to cooperate with Congress. He now may be asked to show the same willingness to pursue those who obstruct or defy House Republican investigations.

  Former President Trump

  The greatest threat clearly faces Trump himself. His announced intention to run for the presidency in 2024 may have expedited the appointment of a special counsel. With the expectation of a possible indictment, Trump may have wanted to frame the optics as a vendetta against a declared Biden opponent before his administration took any major step toward prosecution. Instead, it likely sealed the need for a special counsel.

  Trump already has declared the move to be political and says he will not “partake in” an investigation.

  A special counsel could make fast work of controversies such as Mar-a-Lago, which have been investigated for months and already have secured grand jury testimony. For Trump, having a special counsel in control, rather than an attorney general, may prove even more precarious. Some of the potential charges for unlawful transfer or possession of classified material historically have resulted in relatively minor charges. If this investigation produces the basis for an obstruction charge or misdemeanors, Garland might have been inclined to use his discretion to forgo prosecution and avoid political disruption or questions of bias. In contrast, after the expense and effort to create his office, a special counsel may feel less inclined to overlook a chargeable offense. The majority of people charged by former special counsel Robert Mueller faced relatively minor charges and served short terms in jail.

  Trump also will face practical barriers. Prosecutors usually start with the low-hanging fruit in an organization, to coerce people to cooperate by threatening criminal charges. On issues such as obstruction, Trump did not allegedly act alone; there were staff and lawyers who made what the FBI claims were knowingly false or misleading representations. Those individuals must now be viewed by Trump’s counsel as having potential conflicts of interest, including his former counsel. The only way to avoid conflicts or vulnerabilities is to assemble a largely new staff that was not involved in either the Jan. 6 or Mar-a-Lago episodes.

  That is the difference between “partaking” in a personal excursion and a criminal investigation: The latter does not depend on your participation.

  Special Counsel Smith

  Smith faces the unenviable task of investigating a presidential candidate less than two years before the election. Given the advanced stage of prior investigations, he could bring charges before Sept. 5, 2024 (or roughly 60 days before the election under Justice Department guidelines for election year filings). It is unlikely, however, that a charge against Trump could be tried in that time.

  However, Smith’s first test will be to avoid the initial mistakes of a predecessor, Mueller.

  Like Smith, Mueller was considered a natural choice as special counsel, given his extensive experience as a career prosecutor. However, Mueller’s investigation was undermined by his selection of a team — starting with his top aide, Andrew Weissmann, a controversial prosecutor who was accused of political bias. The investigation was further undermined by FBI personnel, including Special Agent Peter Strzok, who was later removed from the team and fired by the Justice Department; Strzok has since filed a wrongful termination lawsuit.

  Smith can avoid tripping a similar explosive wire by selecting a team that is defined by its prior professional expertise, not its prior political views or associations.

  He also needs to be wary of creative avenues to indict Trump. Smith was part of the prosecution team that convicted former Virginia Governor Bob McDonnell (R) on federal corruption charges in 2014. The Supreme Court unanimously overturned that conviction as having stretched the law beyond its breaking point. If Smith is going to be the first prosecutor to indict a former president, he needs to do so with unimpeachable evidence of an unchallengeable crime.

  Only one thing is certain in any of this: It will not end well.

  With both sides loading up staff and subpoenas, the start of the 2024 campaign season has all of the makings of an utter bloodletting. There will be ample support for both sides to fulfill their respective narratives — and no shortage of legal weapons — in this political war of attrition.

  Tyler Durden
  Mon, 11/21/2022 – 17:40

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