Nov 23

Today’s News 23rd November 2021

  • Syrian Christians Were Quietly Warned Before The War
    Syrian Christians Were Quietly Warned Before The War

    Authored by Brad Hoff via The Libertarian Institute, 

    Years ago I wrote about my first encounter with Syria as a young twenty-something year old fresh out of active duty service in the Marines: “My first visit to the region while desiring to study Arabic in 2004, just after completion of active duty service, and while still on the inactive reserve list, began a process of undoing every assumption I’d ever imbibed concerning Middle East culture, politics, and conflict.” I introduced in that fairly widely-read essay with the provocative title, A Marine in Syria, “An initial visit to Syria from Lebanon was the start of something that my Marine buddies could hardly conceive of: Damascus became my second home through frequent travel and lengthy stays from 2004 to 2010, and was my place of true education on the real life and people of the region.”

    I recounted that this first visit to Damascus was a mere one year after the US invasion of Iraq. “While fellow service members were just across Syria’s border settling in to the impossible task of occupying a country they had no understanding of, I was able view a semblance of Iraq as it once was through the prism of highly stable Ba’athist Syria.” A key personal detail I had left out of that account is that I met my now wife on that initial fateful trip. After I spent those early summers staying in Damascus, mostly seeing and traveling around the country with her, we married in 2006 at the historic St. John of Damascus Orthodox church just off ‘Straight Street’ in the walled Old City of Damascus. We began our life there during those better times.

    Ironically enough our first ever fierce argument happened on just our second or third date, during that 2004 trip. Discussing the raging Iraq War then unfolding across Syria’s eastern border while strolling in a public park, Reem said, “You know… the Americans are coming here next.” My immediate haughty laughter and scoffing dismissal of such a far-fetched scenario as the U.S. ever attacking Syria had angered and annoyed her. “Impossible,” I quipped, and implied that she and other Syrians that were then warning me of a near-future war on Syria could be chalked up to “Arab paranoia” which tends to assume a U.S. hidden hand and machinations behind every bad geopolitical event. In the early evening, surrounded by random other Syrians, we had a shouting match – with me actually defending America and George W. Bush’s “good intentions” – and with her warning me that Syria is top of the U.S. war machine’s target list. “A war on Syria is coming. The Americans are coming here – whether in a few years or more, they will target Damascus,” she said. “Israel will be part of it too.”

    (Image: Orthodox Patriarch of Antioch & All the East John X meeting with Russian Church & diplomatic representatives)

    Fast-forward to today, and a horrific decade-long war in Syria later… we live in Texas, and she still on occasion reminds me of “our first fight”. She was exactly right of course, tragically. She hadn’t been the only one: many of her Syrian Christian friends had – more than a half decade before the war unfolded in 2011 – tried to warn me that Washington is actively eyeing Syria for regime change “next” after Iraq.

    I believe it was when I was temporarily living in Damascus in 2005 that I began to believe her and her friends were on to something. One Friday night out we were in a big group of young professionals, and at dinner at a restaurant everyone was abuzz over the news of a very unusual government-authorized memo. It had circulated that week to all private businesses and entities in Damascus and major cities. All Syria-based companies were being warned by the Baath government of Bashar al-Assad that they must temporarily halt any new business dealings or implementing fresh contracts with US-based international companies, specifically dealings that would involve junkets where Westerners would be invited to spend any significant amount of time inside Syria.

    The allegation was that US and Western spies or assets were using business contacts to infiltrate Syrian companies and even government entities. At that dinner, my Syrian friends began to joke that “Brad might be CIA” – leading to lots of laughter, and admittedly a bit of discomfort (given that one of our friends actually harbored these suspicions all the way up till I married Reem and we started having children… this was apparently finally proof enough that it wasn’t all a “front”). 

    Dinner table banter and speculation over “a coming war for the Middle East” aside, that was the year CNN’s Christiane Amanpour told Assad to his face that regime change is coming for him. This was in a 2005 televised and archived interview, now for all posterity to behold…

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    Amanpour, it must be remembered, was married to former US Assistant Secretary of State James Rubin (until 2018), who further advised both President Obama and former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton. And of course it was during the Obama years that the massive CIA covert program to fund and train so-called “moderate rebels” – detailed and revealed in The New York Times as Timber Sycamore – kicked off (though given Assad is obviously still in power, the regime change efforts failed, with a brutal ‘sanctions warfare’ regimen taking its place).

    The point of these personal anecdotes and memories, which I’m sure are not unique to any Westerner that spent time in Syria during those perhaps “deceptively stable” pre-war years of the mid to late 2000s, is to say that these recollections are what in large part spurred my recent efforts to interview Syrians, and especially Syrian Christians, who had experienced or fled the war.

    I learned through these interviews, many of which are detailed in my new book Syria Crucified with co-author and friend Zachary Wingerd, that Syrian Christians in particular were so on edge during those opening years of the US occupation of Iraq precisely because Iraqi Christian refugees fleeing from across the border toward Damascus were actively warning Syrian Christians, “You are next!” 

    A number of Syrians had told us that years before the war started in 2011, they understood that not only was Syria top of the list for regime change, but that Christians in particular would be targeted in a planned sectarian war – just as in Iraq. Though it remains a story for another time, as it is still till this day too sensitive to discuss openly, I have gained confirmation from a handful of Syrian Christian individuals that in 2010 into early 2011 (just before the conflict started in Syria), U.S. intelligence officers were contacting them and very aggressively seeking their assistance – trying to make them assets. While these particular individuals are not featured or mentioned in my new book (again, given the sensitivity of the information and individual situations), I’ll just note that in every instance that I’ve been able to confirm, the U.S. case officers were told by the Syrians “screw off!” – or some variation thereof.

    Suffice it to say that some Syrian Christians had been essentially tipped off by U.S. intelligence operatives that something big was coming for Syria, again, significantly prior to the actual start of the war. In one glaring instance, an official from the then existent U.S. Embassy in Damascus (it closed in February 2012) tried to convince a well-liked local Syrian Christian man who had spent a career working for major American news outlets in the Middle East (thus he had a lot of high-level media contacts across the globe) to become part of the U.S.-recognized “political opposition” in Syria. Keep in mind this was before such an “opposition” body was even brought into existence.

    The focus on my own research into the plight of Christians during the war began in earnest all the way back in 2014, when I wrote the following for my now-defunct blog:

    One potential map of the Middle East, created by retired Col. Ralph Peters, envisions a future division according to Shia, Sunni, Kurdish regions, with absolutely no place for Christians, who will be “cleansed” through genocide or forced immigration. One article Peters wrote was called “Blood Borders” because he admitted that minorities would have to be killed off for his map to make sense! (Yes, as in well-known FOX News contributor Ralph Peters).

    Many have seen “Greater Lebanon” (which is extended far north beyond it’s actual boundaries up through Latakia in the “imagined map” below), as what would become a primarily Christian enclave after neighboring states would be emptied of the indigenous Christian presence…

    Or worse, during opening years of the war in Syria maps like the below emerged, with analysts suggesting Christians would have to flee to an Alawite “rump state”…

    I wrote further in that prior 2014 article about how some European Union countries were shipping weapons to jihadist insurgents while simultaneously offering Syrian Christians asylum if they left their war-torn homeland: 

    While some might understandably benefit by France’s latest offer [of political asylum for Middle East Christians], and this might be good for those individuals and families who have already suffered enough, the Orthodox Church Patriarchate has a firm understanding of the current and future designs of Western policy makers. Ethno-religious sectarianism was not a shaping reality for 20th century Arab nationalist movements, but is the long-term strategic plan of Saudi Arabia. Through the help of its closest ally, the United States, along with other western countries, the logic of sectarianism is being implemented, and there are few who understand the nature of the game.

    Syrian Church leaders had called it the West’s “Trojan Horse” plot vis-a-vis Mideast Christians: encourage Christian emigration from the region while at the same time covertly shipping in the very weapons that would be used to target Christians who tried to remain (given also that local Christians by and large stuck with the Assad government, which would prove a very “inconvenient” problem for U.S. policy given efforts to overthrow said government). This theory received some degree of validation when I wrote the below 2015 article based on a leaked classified Saudi cable – an article later circulated by WikiLeaks…

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    Our new book, Syria Crucified: Stories of Modern Martyrdom in an Ancient Christian Land provides ample testimony and examples confirming Syrian Christian suspicions that Washington had long been OK with “throwing Christians to the lions” while seeking to topple Assad (as a 2013 NY Times article put it).

    For example, we quote the Antiochian Orthodox Church’s Bishop of Baghdad and Kuwait, Ghattas Hazim, who described during the height of the Iraq War that “Christians are being slaughtered in Iraq and the West does not lift a finger to protect them.”

    At the height of the war, high-ranking Syrian Church leaders went to the White House to plead with then President Obama to abandon disastrous regime change policies…

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    This suspicion that the West was pursuing an unspoken agenda of initiating and exacerbating a sectarian conflict that would break apart Syria, ultimately leading to the liquidation of Syria’s ancient some two-million strong Christian community (like happened to a large degree in Iraq), was echoed by a Syrian Christian physician named Shaza, who Zac and I spoke to extensively.

    She had for decades been a practicing physician out of offices in Damascus, until she fled to the United States after her family was nearly killed by sniper fire and mortars as Al-Qaeda encroached on her neighborhood (the story is recounted in chapter 2), setting up checkpoints just minutes from her home and kids’ school. There are many similar stories that fill this new book, and I’ll end this meandering essay by providing one heart-wrenching example from the book below.

    Below is the Syrian doctor Shaza’s story, excerpted from the book…

    * * *

    As Shaza mused on the catastrophic shift from an idyllic life to one of upheaval, she recounted being given a forewarning of the Syrian Christian tragedy. As a physician Shaza ministered to those displaced due to the Iraq War: “I worked with the Iraqi refugees from 2003 to 2010 in a charity center. It’s a program done by the Church, but they are accepting all the people – Christians and Muslims.” Little did Shaza foresee that less than a decade into the future it would be Syrian Christians themselves caught in dire straits.

    Shaza related how a number of Iraq refugees tried to warn her:

    They talk about horrible stories. They’re kidnapping, killing, raping. When they trust me after a couple of years, they keep saying, “Have a plan B. They are going to do this with Syrian Christians.” I keep saying, “No, it will not happen.” They keep saying, “No, it’s going to happen, so think about what is your next step if it’s happened.” And we didn’t think about that. We never thought that this will happen in Syria. Most of the Syrians – they keep saying that it’s protected because it’s a strong region. I have been to Iraq and to Jordan, to Egypt, in the past as a tourist – I saw poor people. We never see them in Syria. We have no homeless people in Syria. It’s a prosperous country. It was a good country, but after, I think, 2006 or ’07 till 2010, we began to notice something. Maybe politics, maybe economic, I don’t know what’s the problem, but something happened, you know. Makes the people more poor so more suffer. They have these thoughts of revolution. I think that made them easily accepted this. 

    Figures gathered by the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) showed that by 2007 the number of Iraqi refugees that fled into Syria exceeded 1.2 million. Most of these were unregistered, meaning they had trouble being reached with international humanitarian aid or accessing Syrian government services. A report cited by the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) during that period underscored that displaced Iraqis were helped “mostly through local Church organizations.” The financial burden on Syria, whose population was less than twenty million, of abruptly absorbing over one million impoverished Iraqis in need of housing, health care, and education helps explain some of the economic decline just before the war that Shaza mentioned.

    She then pondered the origins of the early uprising in Syria and how rapidly it became militarized and internationalized:

    I keep thinking of the Free Syrian Army. I heard about some young people who have their thoughts of freedom. They believe in these thoughts, but they were like the chess pieces. Somebody is moving them for his own ideas… When they faced with the extreme Muslims, they lost their lives. Those extreme Muslims open the roads to the strangers to come. I can’t even imagine that Syrian people want to destroy our history, our old cities, our old things, because it means a lot for them as a Syrian. But for the strangers, it means nothing. It’s easy to destroy everything.

    * * *

    To read more, order the book Syria Crucified direct from the publisher, or through Amazon.

    Tyler Durden
    Mon, 11/22/2021 – 23:40

  • China's Orbital Bombardment System Firing Hypersonic Weapons Showed Unprecedented Capability, FT Says
    China’s Orbital Bombardment System Firing Hypersonic Weapons Showed Unprecedented Capability, FT Says

    Since the Financial Times reported China conducted two hypersonic tests over the summer, US officials have expressed concern about technological advances because no nation (except China) can propel a hypersonic weapon into space that can fly over the South Pole, rendering US missile defense systems useless. In other words: a possible checkmate. 

    In a new report via FT, People familiar with details of the July 27 test said China launched an “orbital bombardment system” rocket over the South China Sea while moving at five times the speed of sound. Pentagon experts are unsure how China managed to fire a hypersonic glide vehicle from the system while traveling at such speeds in space. It appears China has mastered a technology that Russia and the US have yet to acquire fully. 

    The orbital bombardment system could be a checkmate to the US because it flies over the South Pole, putting US missile defense shields out of reach. There’s also the issue of the hypersonic glide vehicle that is highly maneuverable and is hard to shoot down, which suggests the US is prone to a hypersonic missile attack from China. 

    FT reported last month that China conducted two hypersonic weapons tests, one on July 27 and another on Aug. 13. Both tests come as Beijing increases its nuclear capability and posture in the South China Sea, Taiwan Strait, and Pacific. 

    China’s Foreign Ministry denied reports that the country had tested a hypersonic weapon in space, saying “it was not a missile, it was a space vehicle.”  

    The Chinese embassy said it had no idea of a missile test. 

    “We are not at all interested in having an arms race with other countries,” said Liu Pengyu, the embassy spokesperson. “The US has in recent years been fabricating excuses like ‘the China threat’ to justify its arms expansion and development of hypersonic weapons.”

    Meanwhile, US Vice-Chairman of the Joint Chiefs General John Hyten told CBS News’ David Martin last week that China’s recent hypersonic missile test that went around the world “is a very significant capability that has the potential to change a lot of things.” 

    China’s hypersonic weapons tests suggest President Xi Jinping has or is on the brink of checkmate with the US when deploying advanced weapons. Orbital strikes from China on the US mainland via hypersonic glide vehicles could be a severe threat because US defense shields may not stop the weapons.

    Tyler Durden
    Mon, 11/22/2021 – 23:20

  • Letter To A Tyrant
    Letter To A Tyrant

    Authored by Margaret Anna Alice via ‘Through The Looking Glass’ Substack,

    I won’t bother to reason with you or appeal to your compassion – because you have none.

    You are a foul, fetid, festering, fiendish, fear-fomenting fecker devoid of soul, purpose, and meaning. No matter how many lives you masticate, hearts you shred, minds you menticide, and puppet strings you try to throttle us with, you will forever remain a hollow husk of a simulated human.

    I know you envy us our feelings. You seethe with rage, jealousy, loathing, terror, disgust, and every other malevolent emotion, but you are incapable of comprehending love, joy, friendship, warmth, and abiding peace.

    This letter isn’t to beg or plead or ask you to stop. This letter is to put you on notice. This letter is to tell you the people are waking, and it is you who have shaken us awake.

    You have sown the seeds of your own obliteration, and those seeds are germinating.

    None of your efforts to enshroud the sun, contaminate the soil, befoul the water, defile the oceans, toxify the air, autodarwinate seeds, sequester the food supply, extinguish species, or commodify the ecosystem can stop those seeds from bursting through the earth and winding their tendrils around your Nuremberged neck.

    In a way, we should thank you. You have shown your hand so recklessly because you were certain we would roll over. So confident were you in the psychological conditioning you subjected us to—following Biderman’s Chart of Coercion like a recipe—you expected us to jump in the pot voluntarily.

    You were half-right, sadly. But the fence-sitters are now witnessing the nuclear fallout from your detonation of The Great Democide, and they can no longer deny the torrent of reality acid-raining down upon us.

    Foolishly forgetting to administer the elite’s faux injections to the most visible tier instead of the commoners’ poison death shot was a clumsy fumble that’s too obvious to miss. You remembered a few celebrities like this one and this one but forgot the athletes, and now they’re collapsing in a pile on the field.

    And your victims, the ones you maimed, the ones you sterilized, the ones you failed to fell immediately, the ones whose loved ones you slayed, are speaking out about their suffering.1

    And now you’re coming for the children. Even the wokety-woke NPC Covidians aren’t buying it anymore:

    And then you have an FDA shill making this reprehensible statement about the decision to inject children aged 5–11, “We’re never gonna learn about how safe this vaccine is until you start giving it.”

    Well, we don’t have to wait to find out. A twelve-year-old child just died two days after receiving the Pfizer injection, and the autopsy proves it. And these fourteen children died of such conditions as pulmonary embolism, intracranial hemorrhage, cardiac arrest, and myocarditis post-injection—only to be swept under the rug by BigPharma toady CDC. And deaths of male children have jumped 86 percent in the UK since the vaxx rollout. It is estimated that nearly 800 children have been killed from the injection thus far, and you and your colluders are only ramping up the pedicide program.

    You are commanding that children—whose immune systems are at their most robust and who face virtually zero risk of dying from COVID—put their lives and long-term health at risk by undergoing an experimental injection lacking long-term clinical trials and with substantially greater evidence of harm than good.

    According to this risk-benefit analysis, you will “kill 117 kids to save one kid.” And the proposition that this injection will save a single child is extraordinarily generous considering the nonexistent threat COVID poses to children and the availability of highly efficacious early treatment protocols and historically safe drugs such as ivermectin.

    As more and more children fall prey to your Mephistophelian machinations, you will unleash the Mama and Papa Bears—and then you will see a mass upheaval like you’ve never imagined.

    You and your conniving cohorts are flaccid, feeble, frail-minded Frankensteins whose transhumanism won’t immortalize you as you fantasize. It will only render you deader inside than you already are.

    The White Rose Society is blossoming from the gravesides of those you have massacred, and your attempt to establish the Fourth Reich is faltering.

    You are shaking the hive. Prepare for the swarm.

    The more you crack down, the greater the whiplash.

    This is a love letter, straight from our heart:

    That isn’t a threat. It is a report from the frontlines. It is the retribution YOU are unleashing.

    I suggest you flee to your underground bunker and let the people get busy restoring the planet you have taken a wrecking ball to in the name of saving it.

    You have underestimated the resilience of the human spirit. You have boiled the pot too quickly. You have forgotten what survivors do when backed into a corner.

    I hereby invoke Thomas Wake’s epic curse from Robert Eggers’s work of artistic genius The Lighthouse (Prime Video, blu-ray, DVD) in which Willem Dafoe delivers the crowning achievement of his lifetime (Note: I cannot find a clip that permits playing outside of YouTube, but I assure you it is absolutely worth the click-through to watch this volcanic scene):

    Let Neptune strike ye dead, Winslow!

    Haaaaark! Hark, Triton! Hark!

    Bellow, bid our father, the sea king, rise from the depths, full foul

    in his fury, black waves teeming with salt-foam, to smother

    this young mouth with pungent slime …

    … to choke ye, engorging your organs till ye turn blue and

    bloated with bilge and brine and can scream no more …

    only when he, crowned in cockle shells with

    slithering tentacled tail and steaming beard,

    take up his fell, be-finnèd arm — his coral-tined trident

    screeches banshee-like in the tempest and plunges right through yer gullet,

    bursting ye, a bulging bladder no more,

    but a blasted bloody film now — a nothing

    for the Harpies and the souls of dead sailors to peck and claw and feed

    upon only to be lapped up and swallowed by the infinite waters of

    the dread emperor himself…

    forgotten to any man, to any time, forgotten to any god or devil,

    forgotten even to the sea… for any stuff or part of Winslow, even

    any scantling of your soul, is Winslow no more, but is now itself

    the sea.

    In the words of Bette Davis’s immortal Margo from All About Eve, “Fasten your seatbelts, it’s going to be a bumpy night.”

    *  *  *

    If you feel the work I am doing is worthwhile and want to make it possible for me to spend more time writing and researching in my aim to unmask totalitarianism and awaken the sleeping before tyranny triumphs, please consider supporting me, whether it be by subscribing, donating, buying me a coffee, or sharing my posts. I thank you for reading, thinking, sharing, and supporting my work in whichever ways you choose.

    Tyler Durden
    Mon, 11/22/2021 – 23:00

  • "Wait, What?" Even Reuters Tripping Out On 55-Year Delay To Release Pfizer Vax Data
    “Wait, What?” Even Reuters Tripping Out On 55-Year Delay To Release Pfizer Vax Data

    Last week attorney Aaron Siri of Injecting Freedom reported that the FDA is going to take 55 years, or until 2076, to disclose all of the data and information it relied on before approving Pfizer’s Covid-19 vaccine.

    The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) headquarters in White Oak, Maryland, August 29, 2020. REUTERS/Andrew Kelly

    Following its publication, we expected the usual constellation of conflicted neerdowell ‘fact checkers’ to shoot it down – or at least, spin what was going on.

    To our surprise, that wasn’t the case. In fact, Reuters – whose founder and former CEO sits on the board of Pfizer, looked into the matter and was apparently shocked:

    Here’s how they explain it:

    The 1967 FOIA law requires federal agencies to respond to information requests within 20 business days. However, the time it takes to actually get the documents “will vary depending on the complexity of the request and any backlog of requests already pending at the agency,” according to the government’s central FOIA website.

    Justice Department lawyers representing the FDA note in court papers that the plaintiffs are seeking a huge amount of vaccine-related material – about 329,000 pages.

    The plaintiffs, a group of more than 30 professors and scientists from universities including Yale, Harvard, UCLA and Brown, filed suit in September in U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Texas, seeking expedited access to the records. They say that releasing the information could help reassure vaccine skeptics that the shot is indeed “safe and effective and, thus, increase confidence in the Pfizer vaccine.”

    But the FDA can’t simply turn the documents over wholesale. The records must be reviewed to redact “confidential business and trade secret information of Pfizer or BioNTech and personal privacy information of patients who participated in clinical trials,” wrote DOJ lawyers in a joint status report filed Monday.

    The article explains how the FDA proposed releasing 500 pages per month on a rolling basis – informing the court that they only have 10 employees in the branch that would handle the review, and are currently processing around 400 other FOIA requests.

    “By processing and making interim responses based on 500-page increments, FDA will be able to provide more pages to more requesters, thus avoiding a system where a few large requests monopolize finite processing resources and where fewer requesters’ requests are being fulfilled,” wrote DOJ attorneys, citing other cases in which the 500 monthly page production was upheld.

    The plaintiffs, on the other hand, point out that the FDA has 18,000 employees and a budget of $6 billion – and “has itself said that there is nothing more important than the licensure of this vaccine and being transparent about this vaccine.”

    Since the first batch of documents were released, people have already noted some disturbing findings. What could the rest of the documents reveal?

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    Tyler Durden
    Mon, 11/22/2021 – 22:40

  • In Memory Of JFK: The First US President To Be Labeled A Terrorist & Threat To National Security
    In Memory Of JFK: The First US President To Be Labeled A Terrorist & Threat To National Security

    Authored by Cynthia Chung via The Saker blog,

    In April 1954, Kennedy stood up on the Senate floor to challenge the Eisenhower Administration’s support for the doomed French imperial war in Vietnam, foreseeing that this would not be a short-lived war.

    In July 1957, Kennedy once more took a strong stand against French colonialism, this time France’s bloody war against Algeria’s independence movement, which again found the Eisenhower Administration on the wrong side of history. Rising on the Senate floor, two days before America’s own Independence Day, Kennedy declared:

    “The most powerful single force in the world today is neither communism nor capitalism, neither the H-bomb nor the guided missile – it is man’s eternal desire to be free and independent. The great enemy of that tremendous force of freedom is called, for want of a more precise term, imperialism – and today that means Soviet imperialism and, whether we like it or not, and though they are not to be equated, Western imperialism. Thus, the single most important test of American foreign policy today is how we meet the challenge of imperialism, what we do to further man’s desire to be free. On this test more than any other, this nation shall be critically judged by the uncommitted millions in Asia and Africa, and anxiously watched by the still hopeful lovers of freedom behind the Iron Curtain. If we fail to meet the challenge of either Soviet or Western imperialism, then no amount of foreign aid, no aggrandizement of armaments, no new pacts or doctrines or high-level conferences can prevent further setbacks to our course and to our security.”

    In September 1960, the annual United Nations General Assembly was held in New York. Fidel Castro and a fifty-member delegation were among the attendees and had made a splash in the headlines when he decided to stay at the Hotel Theresa in Harlem after the midtown Shelburne Hotel demanded a $20,000 security deposit. He made an even bigger splash in the headlines when he made a speech at this hotel, discussing the issue of equality in the United States while in Harlem, one of the poorest boroughs in the country.

    Kennedy would visit this very same hotel a short while later, and also made a speech:

    “Behind the fact of Castro coming to this hotel, [and] Khrushchev…there is another great traveler in the world, and that is the travel of a world revolution, a world in turmoil…We should be glad [that Castro and Khrushchev] came to the United States. We should not fear the twentieth century, for the worldwide revolution which we see all around us is part of the original American Revolution.”

    What did Kennedy mean by this? The American Revolution was fought for freedom, freedom from the rule of monarchy and imperialism in favour of national sovereignty. What Kennedy was stating, was that this was the very oppression that the rest of the world wished to shake the yoke off, and that the United States had an opportunity to be a leader in the cause for the independence of all nations.

    On June 30th, 1960, marking the independence of the Republic of Congo from the colonial rule of Belgium, Patrice Lumumba, the first Congolese Prime Minister gave a speech that has become famous for its outspoken criticism of colonialism. Lumumba spoke of his people’s struggle against “the humiliating bondage that was forced upon us… [years that were] filled with tears, fire and blood,” and concluded vowing “We shall show the world what the black man can do when working in liberty, and we shall make the Congo the pride of Africa.”

    Shortly after, Lumumba also made clear, “We want no part of the Cold War… We want Africa to remain African with a policy of neutralism.“

    As a result, Lumumba was labeled a communist for his refusal to be a Cold War satellite for the western sphere. Rather, Lumumba was part of the Pan-African movement that was led by Ghanaian President Kwame Nkrumah (who later Kennedy would also work with), which sought national sovereignty and an end to colonialism in Africa.

    Lumumba “would remain a grave danger,” Dulles said at an NSC meeting on September 21, 1960, “as long as he was not yet disposed of.” Three days later, Dulles made it clear that he wanted Lumumba permanently removed, cabling the CIA’s Leopoldville station, “We wish give [sic] every possible support in eliminating Lumumba from any possibility resuming governmental position.”

    Lumumba was assassinated on Jan. 17th, 1961, just three days before Kennedy’s inauguration, during the fog of the transition period between presidents, when the CIA is most free to tie its loose ends, confident that they will not be reprimanded by a new administration that wants to avoid scandal on its first days in office.

    Kennedy, who clearly meant to put a stop to the Murder Inc. that Dulles had created and was running, would declare to the world in his inaugural address on Jan. 20th, 1961, “The torch has been passed to a new generation of Americans.”

    La Resistance

    Along with inheriting the responsibility of the welfare of the country and its people, Kennedy was to also inherit a secret war with communist Cuba run by the CIA.

    The Bay of Pigs set-up would occur three months later. Prouty compares the Bay of Pigs incident to that of the Crusade for Peace; the Bay of Pigs being orchestrated by the CIA, and the Crusade for Peace sabotaged by the CIA, in both cases to ruin the U.S. president’s (Eisenhower and Kennedy) ability to form a peaceful dialogue with Khrushchev and decrease Cold War tensions. Both presidents’ took onus for the events respectively, despite the responsibility resting with the CIA. However, Eisenhower and Kennedy understood, if they did not take onus, it would be a public declaration that they did not have any control over their government agencies and military.

    Further, the Bay of Pigs operation was in fact meant to fail. It was meant to stir up a public outcry for a direct military invasion of Cuba.

    On public record is a meeting (or more aptly described as an intervention) with CIA Deputy Director for Plans Richard Bissell, Joint Chiefs Chairman Lyman Lemnitzer, and Navy Chief Admiral Burke basically trying to strong-arm President Kennedy into approving a direct military attack on Cuba. Admiral Burke had already taken the liberty of positioning two battalions of Marines on Navy destroyers off the coast of Cuba “anticipating that U.S. forces might be ordered into Cuba to salvage a botched invasion.”[7] (This incident is what inspired the Frankenheimer movie “Seven Days in May.”)

    Kennedy stood his ground.

    “They were sure I’d give in to them,” Kennedy later told Special Assistant to the President Dave Powers.

    “They couldn’t believe that a new president like me wouldn’t panic and try to save his own face. Well they had me figured all wrong.”

    Incredibly, not only did the young president stand his ground against the Washington war hawks just three months into his presidential term, but he also launched the Cuba Study Group which found the CIA to be responsible for the fiasco, leading to the humiliating forced resignation of Allen Dulles, Richard Bissell and Charles Cabell. (For more on this refer to my report.)

    Unfortunately, it would not be that easy to dethrone Dulles, who continued to act as head of the CIA, and key members of the intelligence community such as Helms and Angleton regularly bypassed McCone (the new CIA Director) and briefed Dulles directly.

    But Kennedy was also serious about seeing it through all the way, and vowed to “splinter the CIA into a thousand pieces and scatter it to the winds.”

    * * *

    There is another rather significant incident that had occurred just days after the Bay of Pigs, and which has largely been overshadowed by the Cuban fiasco in the United States.

    From April 21-26th, 1961, the Algiers putsch or Generals’ putsch, was a failed coup d’état intended to force President de Gaulle (1959-1969) not to abandon the colonial French Algeria. The organisers of the putsch were opposed to the secret negotiations that French Prime Minister Michel Debré had started with the anti-colonial National Liberation Front (FLN).

    On January 26th, 1961, just three months before the attempted coup d’état, Dulles sent a report to Kennedy on the French situation that seemed to be hinting that de Gaulle would no longer be around, “A pre-revolutionary atmosphere reigns in France… The Army and the Air Force are staunchly opposed to de Gaulle…At least 80 percent of the officers are violently against him. They haven’t forgotten that in 1958, he had given his word of honor that he would never abandon Algeria. He is now reneging on his promise, and they hate him for that. de Gaulle surely won’t last if he tries to let go of Algeria. Everything will probably be over for him by the end of the year—he will be either deposed or assassinated.”

    The attempted coup was led by Maurice Challe, whom de Gaulle had reason to conclude was working with the support of U.S. intelligence, and Élysée officials began spreading this word to the press, which reported the CIA as a “reactionary state-within-a-state” that operated outside of Kennedy’s control.

    Shortly before Challe’s resignation from the French military, he had served as NATO commander in chief and had developed close relations with a number of high-ranking U.S. officers stationed in the military alliance’s Fontainebleau headquarters.

    In August 1962 the OAS (Secret Army Organization) made an assassination attempt against de Gaulle, believing he had betrayed France by giving up Algeria to Algerian nationalists. This would be the most notorious assassination attempt on de Gaulle (who would remarkably survive over thirty assassination attempts while President of France) when a dozen OAS snipers opened fire on the president’s car, which managed to escape the ambush despite all four tires being shot out.

    After the failed coup d’état, de Gaulle launched a purge of his security forces and ousted General Paul Grossin, the chief of SDECE (the French secret service). Grossin was closely aligned with the CIA, and had told Frank Wisner over lunch that the return of de Gaulle to power was equivalent to the Communists taking over in Paris.

    In 1967, after a five-year enquête by the French Intelligence Bureau, it released its findings concerning the 1962 assassination attempt on de Gaulle. The report found that the 1962 assassination plot could be traced back to the NATO Brussels headquarters, and the remnants of the old Nazi intelligence apparatus. The report also found that Permindex had transferred $200,000 into an OAS bank account to finance the project.

    As a result of the de Gaulle exposé, Permindex was forced to shut down its public operations in Western Europe and relocated its headquarters from Bern, Switzerland to Johannesburg, South Africa, it also had/has a base in Montreal, Canada where its founder Maj. Gen. Louis M. Bloomfield (former OSS) proudly had his name amongst its board members until the damning de Gaulle report. The relevance of this to Kennedy will be discussed shortly.

    As a result of the SDECE’s ongoing investigation, de Gaulle made a vehement denunciation of the Anglo-American violation of the Atlantic Charter, followed by France’s withdrawal from the NATO military command in 1966. France would not return to NATO until April 2009 at the Strasbourg-Kehl Summit.

    In addition to all of this, on Jan. 14th, 1963, de Gaulle declared at a press conference that he had vetoed British entry into the Common Market. This would be the first move towards France and West Germany’s formation of the European Monetary System, which excluded Great Britain, likely due to its imperialist tendencies and its infamous sin City of London.

    Former Secretary of State Dean Acheson telegrammed West German Chancellor Konrad Adenauer directly, appealing to him to try to persuade de Gaulle to back track on the veto, stating “if anyone can affect Gen. de Gaulle’s decision, you are surely that person.”

    Little did Acheson know that Adenauer was just days away from signing the Franco-German Treaty of Jan 22nd, 1963 (also known as the ÉlyséeTreaty), which had enormous implications. Franco-German relations, which had long been dominated by centuries of rivalry, had now agreed that their fates were aligned. (This close relationship was continued to a climactic point in the late 1970s, with the formation of the European Monetary System, and France and West Germany’s willingness in 1977 to work with OPEC countries trading oil for nuclear technology, which was sabotaged by the U.S.-Britain alliance.

    The Élysée Treaty was a clear denunciation of the Anglo-American forceful overseeing that had overtaken Western Europe since the end of WWII.

    On June 28th, 1961, Kennedy wrote NSAM #55. This document changed the responsibility of defense during the Cold War from the CIA to the Joint Chiefs of Staff and would have (if seen through) drastically changed the course of the war in Vietnam. It would also have effectively removed the CIA from Cold War military operations and limited the CIA to its sole lawful responsibility, the collecting and coordination of intelligence.

    By Oct 11th, 1963, NSAM #263, closely overseen by Kennedy[14], was released and outlined a policy decision “to withdraw 1,000 military personnel [from Vietnam] by the end of 1963” and further stated that “It should be possible to withdraw the bulk of U.S. personnel by 1965.” The Armed Forces newspaper Stars and Stripes had the headline U.S. TROOPS SEEN OUT OF VIET BY ’65.

    It would be the final nail in the coffin.

    Treason in America

    “Treason doth never prosper; what is the reason? Why, if it prosper, none dare call it treason.”

    – Sir John Harrington

    By Germany supporting de Gaulle’s exposure of the international assassination ring, his adamant opposition to western imperialism and the role of NATO, and with a young Kennedy building his own resistance against the imperialist war of Vietnam, it was clear that the power elite were in big trouble.

    On November 22nd, 1963 President Kennedy was brutally murdered in the streets of Dallas, Texas in broad daylight.

    With the assassination of Ngo Dinh Diem, likely ordained by the CIA, on Nov. 2nd, 1963 and Kennedy just a few weeks later, de facto President Johnson signed NSAM #273 on Nov. 26th, 1963 to begin the reversal of Kennedy’s policy under #263. And on March 17th, 1964, Johnson signed NSAM #288 that marked the full escalation of the Vietnam War and involved 2,709,918 Americans directly serving in Vietnam, with 9,087,000 serving with the U.S. Armed Forces during this period.

    The Vietnam War would continue for another 12 years after Kennedy’s death, lasting a total of 20 years for Americans, and 30 years if you count American covert action in Vietnam.

    Two days before Kennedy’s assassination, a hate-Kennedy handbill was circulated in Dallas accusing the president of treasonous activities including being a communist sympathizer.

    On November 29th, 1963 the Warren Commission was set up to investigate the murder of President Kennedy.

    The old Congressman Hale Boggs of Louisiana was a member of that Warren Commission. Boggs became increasingly disturbed by the lack of transparency and rigour exhibited by the Commission and became convinced that many of the documents used to incriminate Oswald were in fact forgeries.

    In 1965 Rep. Boggs told New Orleans District Attorney Jim Garrison that Oswald could not have been the one who killed Kennedy. It was Boggs who encouraged Garrison to begin the only law enforcement prosecution of the President’s murder to this day.

    Nixon was inaugurated as President of the United States on Jan 20th, 1969. Hale Boggs soon after called on Nixon’s Attorney General John Mitchell to have the courage to fire J. Edgar Hoover.

    It wasn’t long thereafter that the private airplane carrying Hale Boggs disappeared without a trace.

    Jim Garrison was the District Attorney of New Orleans from 1962 to 1973 and was the only one to bring forth a trial concerning the assassination of President Kennedy. In Jim Garrison’s book “On the Trail of the Assassins”, J. Edgar Hoover comes up several times impeding or shutting down investigations into JFK’s murder, in particular concerning the evidence collected by the Dallas Police Department, such as the nitrate test Oswald was given and which exonerated him, proving that he never shot a rifle the day of Nov 22nd, 1963.

    However, for reasons only known to the government and its investigators this fact was kept secret for 10 months.

    It was finally revealed in the Warren Commission report, which inexplicably didn’t change their opinion that Oswald had shot Kennedy.

    Another particularly damning incident was concerning the Zapruder film that was in the possession of the FBI and which they had sent a “copy” to the Warren Commission for their investigation. This film was one of the leading pieces of evidence used to support the “magic bullet theory” and showcase the direction of the headshot coming from behind, thus verifying that Oswald’s location was adequate for such a shot.

    During Garrison’s trial on the Kennedy assassination (1967-1969) he subpoenaed the Zapruder film that for some peculiar reason had been locked up in some vault owned by Life magazine (the reader should note that Henry Luce the owner of Life magazine was in a very close relationship with the CIA). This was the first time in more than five years that the Zapruder film was made public. It turns out the FBI’s copy that was sent to the Warren Commission had two critical frames reversed to create a false impression that the rifle shot was from behind.

    When Garrison got a hold of the original film it was discovered that the head shot had actually come from the front. In fact, what the whole film showed was that the President had been shot from multiple angles meaning there was more than one gunman.

    When the FBI was questioned about how these two critical frames could have been reversed, they answered self-satisfactorily that it must have been a technical glitch…

    There is also the matter of the original autopsy papers being destroyed by the chief autopsy physician, James Humes, to which he even testified to during the Warren Commission, apparently nobody bothered to ask why…

    This would explain why the Assassination Records Review Board (ARRB), reported in a July 1998 staff report their concern for the number of shortcomings in the original autopsy, that “One of the many tragedies of the assassination of President Kennedy has been the incompleteness of the autopsy record and the suspicion caused by the shroud of secrecy that has surrounded the records that do exist.” [emphasis added]

    The staff report for the Assassinations Records Review Board contended that brain photographs in the Kennedy records are not of Kennedy’s brain and show much less damage than Kennedy sustained.

    There is a lot of spurious effort to try to ridicule anyone who challenges the Warren Commission’s official report as nothing but fringe conspiracy theory. And that we should not find it highly suspect that Allen Dulles, of all people, was a member and pretty much leader of said commission. The reader should keep in mind that much of this frothing opposition stems from the very agency that perpetrated crime after crime on the American people, as well as abroad. When has the CIA ever admitted guilt, unless caught red-handed? Even after the Church committee hearings, when the CIA was found guilty of planning out foreign assassinations, they claimed that they had failed in every single plot or that someone had beaten them to the punch, including in the case of Lumumba.

    The American people need to realise that the CIA is not a respectable agency; we are not dealing with honorable men. It is a rogue force that believes that the ends justify the means, that they are the hands of the king so to speak, above government and above law. Those at the top such as Allen Dulles were just as adamant as Churchill about protecting the interests of the power elite, or as Churchill termed it, the “High Cabal.”

    Interestingly, on Dec. 22nd, 1963, just one month after Kennedy’s assassination, Harry Truman published a scathing critique of the CIA in The Washington Post, even going so far as to state “There is something about the way the CIA has been functioning that is casting a shadow over our historic position [as a] free and open society, and I feel that we need to correct it.”

    The timing of such a scathing quote cannot be stressed enough. Dulles, of course, told the public not to be distressed, that Truman was just in entering his twilight years.

    In addition, Jim Garrison, New Orleans District Attorney at the time, who was charging Clay Shaw as a member of the conspiracy to kill Kennedy, besides uncovering his ties to David Ferrie who was found dead in his apartment days before he was scheduled to testify, also made a case that the New Orleans International Trade Mart (to which Clay Shaw was director), the U.S. subsidiary of Permindex, was linked to Kennedy’s murder. Col. Clay Shaw was an OSS officer during WWII, which provides a direct link to his knowing Allen Dulles.

    Garrison did a remarkable job with the odds he was up against, and for the number of witnesses that turned up dead before the trial…

    This Permindex link would not look so damning if we did not have the French intelligence SDECE report, but we do. And recall, in that report Permindex was caught transferring $200,000 directly to the bankroll of the OAS which attempted the 1962 assassination on de Gaulle.

    Thus, Permindex’s implication in an international assassination ring is not up for debate. In addition, the CIA was found heavily involved in these assassination attempts against de Gaulle, thus we should not simply dismiss the possibility that Permindex was indeed a CIA front for an international hit crew.

    In fact, among the strange and murderous characters who converged on Dallas in Nov. 1963 was a notorious French OAS commando named Jean Souetre, who was connected to the plots against President de Gaulle. Souetre was arrested in Dallas after the Kennedy assassination and expelled to Mexico, not even kept for questioning.

    What Does the Future Hold?

    After returning from Kennedy’s Nov. 24th funeral in Washington, de Gaulle and his information minister Alain Peyrefitte had a candid discussion that was recorded in Peyrefitte’s memoire “C’était de Gaulle,” the great General was quoted saying:

    “What happened to Kennedy is what nearly happened to me… His story is the same as mine. … It looks like a cowboy story, but it’s only an OAS [Secret Army Organization] story. The security forces were in cahoots with the extremists.

    …Security forces are all the same when they do this kind of dirty work. As soon as they succeed in wiping out the false assassin, they declare the justice system no longer need be concerned, that no further public action was needed now that the guilty perpetrator was dead. Better to assassinate an innocent man than to let a civil war break out. Better an injustice than disorder.

    America is in danger of upheavals. But you’ll see. All of them together will observe the law of silence. They will close ranks. They’ll do everything to stifle any scandal. They will throw Noah’s cloak over these shameful deeds. In order to not lose face in front of the whole world. In order to not risk unleashing riots in the United States. In order to preserve the union and to avoid a new civil war. In order to not ask themselves questions. They don’t want to know. They don’t want to find out. They won’t allow themselves to find out.”

    The American people would do well to remember that it was first John F. Kennedy, acting as the President to the United States, who was to be declared a terrorist and threat to his country’s national security.

    Thus is it not natural that those who continue to defend the legacy of Kennedy should be regarded today as threat, not truly to the nation’s security, but a threat to the very same grouping responsible for Kennedy’s death and whom today have now declared open war on the American people.

    This will be the greatest test the American people have ever been confronted with, and it will only be through an understanding of how the country came to where it is today that there can be sufficient clarity as to what the solutions are, which are not to be found in another civil war. To not fall for the trapping of further chaos and division, the American people will only be able to rise above this if they choose to ask those questions, if they choose to want to know, to want to find out the truth of things they dared not look at in the past for fear of what it would reveal.

    “Whenever the government of the United States shall break up, it will probably be in consequence of a false direction having been given to public opinion. This is the weak point of our defenses, and the part to which the enemies of the system will direct all their attacks. Opinion can be so perverted as to cause the false to seem true; the enemy, a friend, and the friend, an enemy; the best interests of the nation to appear insignificant, and the trifles of moment; in a word, the right the wrong, the wrong the right. In a country where opinion has sway, to seize upon it, is to seize upon power. As it is a rule of humanity that the upright and well-intentioned are comparatively passive, while the designing, dishonest, and selfish are the most untiring in their efforts, the danger of public opinion’s getting a false direction is four-fold, since few men think for themselves.”

    -James Fenimore Cooper (1789-1851)

    We must dare to be among the few who think for ourselves.

    Tyler Durden
    Mon, 11/22/2021 – 22:20

  • Some Jobs Are Still In Huge Demand…
    Some Jobs Are Still In Huge Demand…

    As it turns out, while many employers are struggling to find workers, some jobs are still seeing huge demand from potential job-seekers.

    And one of those jobs, as it turns out, is in the field of Las Vegas exotic dancer.

    Now, keep in mind, strippers are known for traveling around the country, often on circuits as they move from town to town in search of fresh customers. But the other day, a strip club in Las Vegas was forced to cancel a planned audition as the local fire marshal feared an “Astroworld”-type situation.

    According to TMZ, Club Ice, a new strip joint in Vegas, and its owners hosted open tryouts for dancers this week at the Blume Lounge on the outskirts of town. We’re told more than 1,000 girls signed up to strut their stuff.

    However, the problem is that too many wannabe dancers (and wannabe patrons) crowded into the the Lounge, pushing from both the back and the front.

    In a video obtained by TMZ, viewers can hear one of the event organizers telling everyone to take a step back to avoid a possible “Astroworld” crush situation. He can be heard yelling at the crowd “Y’all gonna try and trample each other. Y’all not gonna be suing me, talking about ‘I let y’all do this s**t.'”

    Fortunately for the club owner, the Fire Marshall shut the whole thing down before it came to that.

    Tyler Durden
    Mon, 11/22/2021 – 22:00

  • CJ Hopkins: Pathologized Totalitarianism 101
    CJ Hopkins: Pathologized Totalitarianism 101

    Authored by CJ Hopkins via ConsentFactory.org,

    So, GloboCap has crossed the Rubicon.

    The final phase of its transformation of society into a pathologized-totalitarian dystopia, where mandatory genetic-therapy injections and digital compliance papers are commonplace, is now officially underway.

    On November 19, 2021, the government of New Normal Austria decreed that, as of February, experimental mRNA injections will be mandatory for the entire population. This decree comes in the midst of Austria’s official persecution of “the Unvaccinated,” i.e., political dissidents and other persons of conscience who refuse to convert to the new official ideology and submit to a series of mRNA injections, purportedly to combat a virus that causes mild-to-moderate flu-like symptoms (or no symptoms of any kind at all) in about 95% of the infected and the overall infection fatality rate of which is approximately 0.1% to 0.5%.

    Austria is just the tip of the New Normal spear. Prominent New-Normal fascists in Germany, like Der Führer of Bavaria, Markus Söder, and Minister of Propaganda Karl Lauterbach, are already calling for an allgemeine Impfpflicht (i.e., “compulsory vaccination requirement”), which should not come as a surprise to anyone. The Germans are not going sit idly by and let the Austrians publicly out-fascist them, are they? They have a reputation to uphold, after all! Italy will probably be next to join in, unless Lithuania or Australia beats them to the punch.

    But, seriously, this is just the beginning of the Winter Siege I wrote about recently. The plan seems to be to New-Normalize Europe first — generally speaking, Europeans are more docile, respectful of all authority, and not very well armed — and then use it as leverage to force the new pathologized totalitarianism on the USA, and the UK, and the rest of the world.

    I do not believe this plan will succeed. In spite of the longest and most intensive propaganda campaign in the history of propaganda, there remain enough of us who steadfastly refuse to accept the “New Normal” as our new reality.

    And a lot of us are angry, extremely angry … militantly, explosively angry.

    We are not “vaccine hesitant” or “anti-vax” or “Covid-denying conspiracy theorists.” We are millions of regular working-class people, people with principles, who value freedom, who are not prepared to go gently into the globalized, pathologized-totalitarian night. We no longer give the slightest shit whether our former friends and family members who have gone New Normal understand what this is.

    We do.

    We understand exactly what this is. It is a nascent form of totalitarianism, and we intend to kill it — or at least critically wound it — before it matures into a full-grown behemoth.

    Now, I want to be absolutely clear. I am not advocating or condoning violence. But it is going to happen. It is happening already. Totalitarianism (even this “pathologized” version of it) is imposed on society and maintained with violence. Fighting totalitarianism inevitably entails violence. It is not my preferred tactic in the current circumstances, but it is unavoidable now that we have reached this stage, and it is important that those of fighting this fight recognize that violence is a natural response to the violence (and the implicit threat of violence) that is being deployed against us by the New Normal authorities, and the masses they have whipped up into a fanatical frenzy.

    It is also important (essential, I would argue) to make the violence of the New Normal visible, i.e., to frame this fight in political terms, and not in the pseudo-medical terms propagated by the official Covid narrative). This isn’t an academic argument over the existence, severity, or the response to a virus. This is a fight to determine the future of our societies.

    This fact, above all, is what the global-capitalist ruling classes are determined to conceal. The roll-out of the New Normal will fail if it is perceived as political (i.e., a form of totalitarianism). It relies on our inability to see it as what it is. So it hides itself and the violence it perpetrates within a pseudo-medical official narrative, rendering itself immune to political opposition.

    We need to deny it this perceptual redoubt, this hermeneutic hiding place. We need to make it show itself as what it is, a “pathologized” form of totalitarianism. In order to do that, we need to understand it … its internal logic, and its strengths, and weaknesses.

    Pathologized Totalitarianism

    I have been describing the New Normal as “pathologized totalitarianism” and predicting that compulsory “vaccination” was coming since at least as early as May 2020. (See, e.g., The New Pathologized Totalitarianism). I use the term “totalitarianism” intentionally, not for effect, but for the sake of accuracy. The New Normal is still a nascent totalitarianism, but its essence is unmistakably evident. I described that essence in a recent column:

    “The essence of totalitarianism — regardless of which costumes and ideology it wears — is a desire to completely control society, every aspect of society, every individual behavior and thought. Every totalitarian system, whether an entire nation, a tiny cult, or any other form of social body, evolves toward this unachievable goal … the total ideological transformation and control of every single element of society … This fanatical pursuit of total control, absolute ideological uniformity, and the elimination of all dissent, is what makes totalitarianism totalitarianism.”

    In October 2020, I published The Covidian Cult, which has since grown into a series of essays examining New-Normal (i.e., pathologized) totalitarianism as “a cult writ large, on a societal scale.” This analogy holds true for all forms of totalitarianism, but especially for New Normal totalitarianism, as it is the first global form of totalitarianism in history, and thus:

    “The cult/culture paradigm has been inverted. Instead of the cult existing as an island within the dominant culture, the cult has become the dominant culture, and those of us who have not joined the cult have become the isolated islands within it.”

    In The Covidian Cult (Part III), I noted:

    “In order to oppose this new form of totalitarianism, we need to understand how it both resembles and differs from earlier totalitarian systems. The similarities are fairly obvious — i.e., the suspension of constitutional rights, governments ruling by decree, official propaganda, public loyalty rituals, the outlawing of political opposition, censorship, social segregation, goon squads terrorizing the public, and so on — but the differences are not as obvious.

    And I described how New Normal totalitarianism fundamentally differs from 20th-Century totalitarianism in terms of its ideology, or seeming lack thereof.

    “Whereas 20th-Century totalitarianism was more or less national and overtly political, New Normal totalitarianism is supranational, and its ideology is much more subtle. The New Normal is not Nazism or Stalinism. It’s global-capitalist totalitarianism, and global capitalism doesn’t have an ideology, technically, or, rather, its ideology is ‘reality’.”

    But the most significant difference between 20th-Century totalitarianism and this nascent, global totalitarianism is how New Normal totalitarianism “pathologizes” its political nature, effectively rendering itself invisible, and thus immune to political opposition. Whereas 20th-Century totalitarianism wore its politics on its sleeve, New Normal totalitarianism presents itself as a non-ideological (i.e., supra-political) reaction to a global public health emergency.

    And, thus, its classic totalitarian features — e.g., the revocation of basic rights and freedoms, centralization of power, rule by decree, oppressive policing of the population, demonization and persecution of a “scapegoat” underclass, censorship, propaganda, etc. — are not hidden, because they are impossible to hide, but are recontextualized in a pathologized official narrative.

    The Untermenschen become “the Unvaccinated.” Swastika lapel pins become medical-looking masks. Aryan ID papers become “vaccination passes.” Irrefutably senseless social restrictions and mandatory public-obedience rituals become “lockdowns,” “social distancing,” and so on. The world is united in a Goebbelsian total war, not against an external enemy (i.e., a racial or political enemy), but against an internal, pathological enemy.

    This pathologized official narrative is more powerful (and insidious) than any ideology, as it functions, not as a belief system or ethos, but rather, as objective “reality.” You cannot argue with or oppose “reality.” “Reality” has no political opponents. Those who challenge “reality” are “insane,” i.e., “conspiracy theorists,” “anti-vaxxers,” “Covid deniers,” “extremists,” etc. And, thus, the pathologized New Normal narrative also pathologizes its political opponents, simultaneously stripping us of political legitimacy and projecting its own violence onto us.

    20th-Century totalitarianism also blamed its violence on its scapegoats (i.e., Jews, socialists, counter-revolutionaries, etc.) but it did not attempt to erase its violence. On the contrary, it displayed it openly, in order to terrorize the masses. New Normal totalitarianism cannot do this. It can’t go openly totalitarian, because capitalism and totalitarianism are ideologically contradictory.

    Global-capitalist ideology will not function as an official ideology in an openly totalitarian society. It requires the simulation of “democracy,” or at least a simulation of market-based “freedom.” A society can be intensely authoritarian, but, to function in the global-capitalist system, it must allow its people the basic “freedom” that capitalism offers to all consumers, the right/obligation to participate in the market, to own and exchange commodities, etc.

    This “freedom” can be conditional or extremely restricted, but it must exist to some degree. Saudi Arabia and China are two examples of openly authoritarian GloboCap societies that are nevertheless not entirely totalitarian, because they can’t be and remain a part of the system. Their advertised official ideologies (i.e., Islamic fundamentalism and communism) basically function as superficial overlays on the fundamental global-capitalist ideology which dictates the “reality” in which everyone lives. These “overlay” ideologies are not fake, but when they come into conflict with global-capitalist ideology, guess which ideology wins.

    The point is, New Normal totalitarianism — and any global-capitalist form of totalitarianism — cannot display itself as totalitarianism, or even authoritarianism. It cannot acknowledge its political nature. In order to exist, it must not exist. Above all, it must erase its violence (the violence that all politics ultimately comes down to) and appear to us as an essentially beneficent response to a legitimate “global health crisis” (and a “climate change crisis,” and a “racism crisis,” and whatever other “global crises” GloboCap thinks will terrorize the masses into a mindless, order-following hysteria).

    This pathologization of totalitarianism — and the political/ideological conflict we have been engaged in for the past 20 months — is the most significant difference between New Normal totalitarianism and 20th-Century totalitarianism. The entire global-capitalist apparatus (i.e., corporations, governments, supranational entities, the corporate and state media, academia, etc.) has been put into service to achieve this objective.

    We need to come to terms with this fact. We do. Not the New Normals. Us.

    GloboCap is on the verge of remaking society into a smiley-happy pathologized-totalitarian dystopia where they can mandate experimental genetic “therapies,” and any other type of “therapies” they want, and force us to show our “compliance papers” to go about the most basic aspects of life. This remaking of society is violent. It is being carried out by force, with violence and the ever-present threat of violence. We need to face that, and act accordingly.

    Here in New Normal Germany, if you try to go grocery shopping without a medical-looking mask, armed police will remove you from the premises (and I am saying this from personal experience). In New Normal Australia, if you go to synagogue, the media will be alerted and the police will surround you. In Germany, Australia, France, Italy, The Netherlands, Belgium, and many other countries, if you exercise your right to assemble and protest, the police will hose you down with water cannons, shoot you with rubber bullets (and sometimes real bullets), spray toxic agents into your eyes, and just generally beat the crap out of you.

    And so on. Those of us fighting for our rights and opposing this pathologized totalitarianism are all-too familiar with the reality of its violence, and the hatred it has fomented in the New Normal masses. We experience it on a daily basis. We feel it every time we’re forced to wear a mask, when some official (or waiter) demands to see our “papers.” We feel it when when we are threatened by our government, when we are gaslighted and demonized by the media, by doctors, celebrities, random strangers, and by our colleagues, friends, and family members.

    We recognize the look in their eyes. We remember where it comes from, and what it leads to.

    It isn’t just ignorance, mass hysteria, confusion, or an overreaction, or fear … or, OK, yes, it is all those things, but it’s also textbook totalitarianism (notwithstanding the new pathologized twist). Totalitarianism 101.

    Look it in the eye, and act accordingly.

    Tyler Durden
    Mon, 11/22/2021 – 21:40

  • "Make Amazon Pay" Protests Could Spark Black Friday Chaos For Customers 
    “Make Amazon Pay” Protests Could Spark Black Friday Chaos For Customers 

    Amazon workers are preparing to strike or protest on Black Friday, ahead of Cyber Monday, in 20 countries as part of a movement called “Make Amazon Pay.”

    “We are workers and activists divided by geography and our role in the global economy but united in our commitment to Make Amazon Pay fair wages, its taxes, and for its impact on the planet.

    “On Black Friday 26 November 2021, from oil refineries, to factories, to warehouses, to data centres, to corporate offices in countries across the world, workers and activists are rising up in strikes, protests and actions to Make Amazon Pay,” the group’s website said. 

    The group’s “Common Demands'” the tear-off sheet said, “the pandemic has exposed how Amazon places profits ahead of workers, society, and our planet,” adding, “Amazon takes too much and gives back too little. It is time to Make Amazon Pay.”

    There’s been growing discontent among Amazon warehouse employees who barely make a living wage, work long and grueling shifts, and have limited benefits. Some warehouses have tried to unionize (see: here & here), but Amazon has squashed every attempt. 

    What irks warehouse employees, and Make Amazon Pay highlighted this in their video, is when founder Jeff Bezos told customers, employees “you guys paid for this,” referring to his recent outer space trip. 

    Make Amazon Pay has released a list of demands it wants for workers:

    <!–

    <!–

    //–>

    //–>

    Make Amazon Pay is being discussed in the anti-work subreddit. One post that discusses plans for a protest has 5k upvotes. The r/antiwork forum has been rapidly expanding this year, with more than 1.2 million members.  

    There’s no telling how many Amazon employees are set to strike or protest come Friday. Still, one thing is sure, any disruption to warehouses could cause logistical headaches for the largest e-commerce company in the world on the biggest shopping day of the year. 

    Tyler Durden
    Mon, 11/22/2021 – 21:20

  • Colorado Officials Scrapping "Sex Offender" Term, Citing "Negative Effects"
    Colorado Officials Scrapping “Sex Offender” Term, Citing “Negative Effects”

    Authored by Naveen Athrappully via The Epoch Times,

    A Colorado board voted on Friday to no longer recognize the term “sex offender” in official documentation for people who commit sexual offenses to reflect so-called “person-first” language.

    The Colorado Sex Offender Management Board (SOMB), which controls treatment standards for people convicted of sex crimes, voted 10–6 to call offenders “adults who commit sexual offenses” in its standards and guidelines for sex offenders.

    “The language change applies only to the SOMB Standards; the term ‘sex offender’ will continue to be used in Colorado statute and the criminal justice system, including courts, law enforcement and the Colorado Sex Offender Registry. The name of the SOMB itself will also remain unchanged,” the board stated in an announcement.

    The revision will be open to public comment for 20 days, after which the board will review public sentiment and discuss adjustments before ratifying the change during the next meeting, which is set for Dec. 17.

    The SOMB is a 25-member board made up of everyone from public defenders to prosecutors, created by the Colorado General Assembly in order to establish standards for treatment and management of adult and juvenile sex offenders. Its aim is to prevent them from recommitting crimes, while enhancing protection for victims.

    Treatment providers would have to follow the new guidelines when assisting sex offenders, and in other official communications. Although law enforcement and the criminal justice system do not fall within the purview of the latest language revision, some worry it’s a step in that direction.

    “Referring to me by a label for something I did half my life ago is inappropriate and downright offensive,” said Derek Logue to CBS 4 Denver. He preferred to be called “client,” which was one of the five terms the board considered.

    Kimberly Kline, a licensed counselor and chair of the board, told the Denver Post, “I think the biggest thing is research really shows us that assigning a label has the potential for negative effects in rehabilitation.”

    Kimberly Corbin, a rape survivor, told CBS 4 Denver:

    “It’s very, very damaging for those who people who are labeled when it has to do with gender, race, sexuality, ability, but those are not their choices, the biggest thing for me is these are choices that sex offenders make.”

    “I’m involved today after hearing that it would be improper or offensive in some manner for me to refer to the man who raped me as a sex offender,” Corbin added.

    Several attempts to change official language have been made throughout the country, including a sheriff in Dane County, Wisconsin, deciding to discard the term, “inmate,” and replacing it with “residents.” Last year, lawmakers were considering removing the phrase “sexually violent predator” from statutes but eventually backed away.

    The Colorado board will not drop “sex offender” from its own name as only the state Legislature has the right to change the name of the board.

    Tyler Durden
    Mon, 11/22/2021 – 21:00

  • Goldman: Another Fiscal Package Next Year Appears Likely
    Goldman: Another Fiscal Package Next Year Appears Likely

    Commenting on Friday’s passage of Biden’s BBB bill, Goldman’s Alec Phillips writes that the Biden fiscal agenda took two steps forward over the last week, as the President signed the “hard” infrastructure bill into law and the House passed its version of the “Build Back Better” (BBB) legislation. That said, those were arguably the easier parts of the legislative process and the hard part now begins, and according to Goldman, “Democratic leaders are likely to face a more difficult task in getting the BBB legislation through the Senate, and changes there look likely.”

    For one, Senate rules look likely to preclude some policies in the House bill. Some policies in the House-passed legislation are likely to violate Senate rules regarding what may be included in reconciliation legislation. Immigration policy changes, in particular, are likely run afoul of the “Byrd Rule” in the Senate, which prohibits provisions whose fiscal effect is “incidental to” the primary purpose of the provision. If these provisions are removed in the Senate, as seems likely, this would reduce net spending in the bill by around $115bn over 10 years.

    The political realities in the Senate are likely to lead to other changes. As Phillips explains, there are several items in this category, and there will probably be additional issues that arise over the next few weeks as the Senate debates the bill. Among the new benefits the bill provides, the most obvious areas where one or more Senate Democrats might object include:

    • Paid leave. After negotiations with centrist Democrats in the Senate, the White House omitted from its framework its prior proposal to provide a new federal benefit for paid leave. However, the House added the program back into its version, raising the cost of the bill by around $200bn. Sen. Manchin (D-W. Va) has indicated that he opposes a benefit program like the House proposes, and the Senate will likely scale back paid-leave benefits or remove them entirely from the bill.
    • Infrastructure and climate spending. The House-passed BBB legislation has around $28bn in “hard” infrastructure spending and tens of billions in funding for electric vehicles, on top of the amounts in the recently enacted infrastructure bill. There will be likely be some centrist Democratic opposition to including provisions that were supposed to have been dealt with only in the earlier infrastructure bill.
    • State and Local Taxes (SALT). The House-passed bill would allow taxpayers to deduct $80k in state and local taxes, up from $10k today, a tax holiday for the rich. The Senate looks likely to change the provision, potentially by fully reinstating the deduction for individuals with income under $400k or $500k and leaving the $10k cap in place for those with higher incomes. At this point, something along the lines of the potential Senate policy looks like the most likely outcome, though some combination of the two ideas also seems possible.

    The chart below shows Goldman’s comparison of fiscal proposals with new estimates of the House-passed legislation

    Goldman then argues that how the legislation offsets the cost of new spending could also change. Some revisions to the policies Democrats would use to pay for the legislation also seem likely, though it is less clear how these might change. Among the possibilities are:

    • Minimum tax on book income. The House-passed legislation includes a 15% minimum tax on book income, which President Biden proposed earlier in the year but had been put aside until recently. Taxing companies based on their financial statement income would represent a major step away from the current system that relies only on tax returns, and it could face some resistance in the Senate. While some version of this tax will likely make it into the final version of the bill, there is a greater chance that it will be changed or removed from the bill in the Senate than most of the other corporate tax increases. If the Senate did opt to drop the minimum tax proposal, it could reopen the debate on a modest corporate tax rate increase, though this does not appear very likely at the moment.
    • Surtax on upper incomes. The House proposal to impose a 5% surtax income over $10mn and another 3% on income over $25mn (for a total of 8%) will likely also change in the Senate, though it looks very likely that something similar will be in the final package. It is conceivable that another smaller surtax could be applied at a lower level of income in order to offset a broader SALT deduction, for example.
    • Drug pricing. Further changes to the Medicare drug pricing changes in the Senate are possible, as the affected industries are likely to continue to seek modifications in the 50-50 Senate. Again, the final bill is expected to follow the general contours of the House bill in this area, but incremental changes seem possible.

    A major complaint many have lodged against Biden’s BBB is that it uses a lot of timing gimmicks to reduce its true cost.

    To wit, with much of the bill spending likely to be front-loaded, some centrist Democrats will likely oppose the extent to which the House bill front-loads new spending, primarily by setting some policies to expire after 1 year (e.g. expanded child tax credit and earned income tax credit extension), 3 years (e.g. health insurance subsidies), or 6 years (e.g. child care and pre-kindergarten benefits). As shown in Exhibits 4, 5, and 6, the spending in the House bill is indeed more front-loaded than the tax increases and other means of offsetting the cost, which are slightly back-loaded over the 2022-2031 period.

     

    The Senate version of the bill will likely be a “little less” front-loaded than the House version.  Sen. Manchin has described some of the strategies the House bill uses as “shell games and gimmicks” and is expected push to reduce them in the Senate. That said, even if there are changes along these lines, expect only a modest effect on spending over the next few years. Some of the policies that the Senate might drop from the bill, like paid leave and immigration changes, have little impact over the next couple of years but removing them would make room to extend other policies for longer than they last under the House bill.

    Goldman also argues that it could be tough for lawmakers to set a hard limit on the top line amount of spending in the bill. Specifically, Sen. Manchin along with Sen. Sinema (D-Ariz.) have also suggested that new spending in the bill should be kept below a certain level—somewhere between $1.5 trillion and $1.75 trillion. However, the “size” of the bill is somewhat subjective. The Congressional Budget Office (CBO) estimate shows $1.64 trillion in new spending, similar to the range that centrist Democrats in the Senate have implied they might support. But that spending number omits more than $200bn in climate-oriented tax credits and nets $260bn in drug pricing changes (i.e., spending reductions) against the new spending. Taking those items into account, the new spending and tax benefits in the House-passed bill totals slightly more than $2 trillion over 10 years.

    If the Senate removes the House provisions on paid leave and immigration, the adjusted total would drop to around $1.75 trillion/10 years. Since the Senate might redirect some of these funds to other purposes, Goldman estimates that a total of $1.75 to $2 trillion over 10 years seems likely. Of course, the official CBO estimate of spending will probably be at least a few hundred billion below the actual amount of new spending and tax benefits because that’s what the CBO does.

    Another touchy topic is that the White House has made assurances that the legislation will not add to the deficit, but that is also subject to interpretation. CBO estimates the House-passed bill would raise the deficit by $367bn over 10 years, but this omits $207bn in increased revenues from increased funding for tax enforcement, suggesting that the bill would raise the deficit by only $160bn over 10 years (less than 0.1% of GDP over that period). The White House contends that tax enforcement would raise revenues by $400bn or more, which would mean that the bill would actually reduce the deficit slightly over ten years if true.

    Then there is the issue of bill passage and timing, and here a big wildcard is the debt ceiling, which will have to be addressed some time in late December. According to Goldman, the debt limit could delay Senate action on the BBB bill, or accelerate it, depending on how Democrats choose to address it. The two parties have taken the same positions ahead of the next debt limit deadline as they did ahead of the last one—Democrats believe Republicans should support a debt limit increase under “regular order” while Republicans believe Democrats should raise it alone via the reconciliation process. While their positions are the same, comments from Democratic lawmakers suggest somewhat greater openness to addressing the issue via reconciliation than the last time around, and we think this is the more likely approach.

    To use the reconciliation process, Democrats would need to first revise their budget resolution for fiscal year 2022, which already includes instructions for the BBB bill but does not instruct the relevant committees to raise the debt limit. Once Congress has revised the budget resolution, Democrats would then need to decide whether to pass a standalone debt limit increase or to combine it with the broader BBB bill. A standalone reconciliation bill could take several days to pass unless Republicans agree to an expedited process. Combining the debt limit with the BBB bill would be more efficient—it could even create a deadline for BBB passage in the Senate—but would have the disadvantage of directly linking the debt limit to the major fiscal legislation. At this point, separate bills seem more likely but either scenario is possible

    One final point: as Phillips concludes, another fiscal package next year appears likely:  According to the Goldman strategist, “as the final version of the BBB takes shape, discussion of another fiscal package has already begun.” The one-year extension of the expanded child tax credit (CTC) and earned income tax credit (EITC), through 2022, is likely to lead congressional Democrats to prepare legislation to extend it further. Goldman thinks that it is more likely than not that Congress extends the expanded child tax credit past 2022, though there is clearly some risk that it expires at that point. Congressional Democrats might also try to pass legislation to address some of the policies that do not make it into the BBB legislation, like a federal paid leave benefit or Medicare expansion. And while it is hard to rule out another (much more modest) fiscal package next year, Goldman would be surprised “if Congress manages to do much more than extend expiring policies at that point.” We, on the other hand, would be surprised if Congress does not manage to pass another substantial fiscal package, especially if we see a “surge” in covid cases into the winter with Democrats claiming that hardships will require another round of stimmies. Not surprisingly, the pieces are all starting to fall into place, with this headline hitting late on Monday:

    • 7-DAY DAILY CASE COVID CASE AVERAGE ROSE 18% FROM WEEK EARLIER

    This looming deflationary threat is also why anyone who really thinks the Fed will hike rates not once but twice in 2022 – an election year – may want to consider taking it easy on the booze and/or hard drugs.

    Tyler Durden
    Mon, 11/22/2021 – 20:40

  • Pentagon Confirms US Will Start Over-the-Horizon Mission In Afghanistan
    Pentagon Confirms US Will Start Over-the-Horizon Mission In Afghanistan

    Authored by Jason Ditz via AntiWar.com,

    Over the weekend, Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin talked up the long-promised “over-the-horizon” missions to keep attacking Afghanistan without being in Afghanistan.

    Austin said this would be part of a relentless focus on terrorism, talking of action coming against ISIS-K and al-Qaeda. US troops left Afghanistan after the Taliban routed the US-backed government in all major cities.

    Getty Images

    “We must work together to combat terrorism—including in Afghanistan from al-Qaeda, and from the malice and sectarian hatred of ISIS,” he said while addressing the International Institute for Strategic Studies’ (IISS) Manama Dialogue 2021.

    “And we’ll keep up our relentless focus on counterterrorism, even as we shift to an over-the-horizon concept in Afghanistan,” the defense secretary added.

    Even before the US left, officials talked about this sort of operation as a way to stay active in Afghanistan. It’s not at all clear what that would look like, or how sustainable it might be.

    However, the Taliban spokesman for Afghanistan’s defense ministry rejected the possibility that it would allow US military intervention, even if airstrikes targeting ISIS: “There are no outsiders in Afghanistan. We will not allow any country’s presence by any other means,” he said. But it remains a different question on whether the Taliban could do anything about it.

    It’s probably going to mean airstrikes with little targeting support. The Taliban has insisted that they don’t need help in fighting terror, and they’ve been active in anti-ISIS-K measures.

    “The truth is that none of these countries were honest regarding Afghanistan. They all were in Afghanistan for their own interests,” an Afghan political analyst, Abdulhaq Humad, said of the potential for the looming renewed US airstrikes in the country.

    Tyler Durden
    Mon, 11/22/2021 – 20:20

  • Billionaire Beef: Elon Musk And Jamie Dimon Have A Longstanding Feud, Report Reveals
    Billionaire Beef: Elon Musk And Jamie Dimon Have A Longstanding Feud, Report Reveals

    Talk about burying the lede…in a lawsuit…

    It looks like a recent lawsuit filed by JP Morgan against Tesla’s Elon Musk is apparently the first public indication of what has been a longstanding feud between Musk and JP Morgan CEO Jamie Dimon, according to a new report by the WSJ.

    At the heart of the feud has apparently been Musk’s spurning of JP Morgan in favor of working with other banks, the report says, adding that “conversations over the years between the two companies have often upset one side or the other”. 

    When Musk and Dimon have tried to clear the air, things have only gotten worse, the report says, leading to JP Morgan finally deciding that “it is better off without Tesla”. 

    Last week’s lawsuit, filed by JP Morgan and claiming damages of $162 million as a result of a trade the bank helped arrange in 2014, marks one of the first indicators of the feud to spill out into the public eye. 

    For a comparison of how seriously each part is taking the feud, the bank said last week: “We have provided Tesla multiple opportunities to fulfill its contractual obligations, so it is unfortunate that they have forced this issue into litigation.”

    And Elon Musk responded by telling the WSJ: “If JPM doesn’t withdraw their lawsuit, I will give them a one star review on Yelp. This is my final warning!”

    Photo: Axios

    The report notes that JP Morgan hasn’t worked on any Tesla deals since 2016, following its work on the company’s 2010 IPO and several transactions afterward.

    Tesla has generally selected Goldman Sachs for such transactions. Goldman has made about $90 million in deals from Tesla whereas JP Morgan has made about $15 million, the report says. 

    Meanwhile, the lawsuit that was just filed concerns warrants that JPM bought from Tesla. 

    From the WSJ:

    At the heart of the lawsuit are warrants that JPMorgan bought from Tesla as part of a large set of trades it helped set up for the company in 2014. Tesla would have to pay JPMorgan, in cash or stock, if the stock was trading above the agreed-upon price when the warrants expired in 2021.

    The contract, JPMorgan said, allowed JPMorgan to change that strike price if Tesla announced it was exploring a sale or other transactions, because that would affect the value of the warrants.

    In 2018, Mr. Musk tweeted that he had secured funding to take Tesla private at $420 a share. JPMorgan lowered the strike price and alerted Tesla, according to its lawsuit. When it became apparent there was no deal, JPMorgan moved the strike price higher again, but not all the way back to the original price.

    Tesla objected, according to the lawsuit, telling JPMorgan that its price adjustments were “unreasonably swift” and “opportunistic.”

    JP Morgan also reportedly balked at backing Tesla’s plan for EVs early on, citing concerns about the long-term value of EV batteries. The bank later approached Tesla about making JPM the primary lender for sales made at dealers, but Musk told the bank no.

    JP Morgan has instead recently signed such an agreement with Rivian; a move that will likely only continue to draw the ire of Musk. 

    Tyler Durden
    Mon, 11/22/2021 – 20:00

  • Texas AG Accuses Biden Admin Of Creating Border Crisis As Large Migrant Caravan Approaches
    Texas AG Accuses Biden Admin Of Creating Border Crisis As Large Migrant Caravan Approaches

    Authored by Naveen Athrappully via The Epoch Times,

    Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton has accused the Biden administration of not following federal laws and “inviting” illegal migrants by changing policies meant to discourage them from entering the country.

    Paxton’s comments come as a migrant caravan with almost 3,000 Haitians and Central Americans reportedly departed Tapachula, Mexico late last week and were heading towards the southern border, according to Mexican news reports and social media.

    Speaking to Fox News Live, Paxton described the situation as “deja-vu.”

    “The Biden administration is not doing what they need to do to stop this. As a matter of fact, they’re inviting it,” he said.

     “The border patrol is frustrated with having to deal with logistics and handling these families.”

    Paxton said border agents are risking their lives but “are not encouraged to do their jobs … or protect the border. They’re not allowed to have the resources that they need.”

    Led by Center for Human Dignity leader Luis Garcia Villagran, the migrant caravan plans to join up with former Arizona activist Irineo Mujica in Veracruz and other migrants before entering the United States.

    According to Customs and Border Protection (CBP) statistics, there have almost been 1.6 million illegal aliens apprehended during the fiscal year 2021. When migrants stopped at the border are included, the number comes to 2 million.

    “It’s clear to me that the Biden administration does not want to stop this,” Paxton said.

    “They have changed all the policies that stopped this,” referring to Trump’s “Remain in Mexico” program.

    Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton at a press conference in Anzalduas Park near McAllen, Texas, on April 28, 2021. (Charlotte Cuthbertson/The Epoch Times)

    In January, President Joe Biden paused deportations, stopped border wall construction, halted the Remain in Mexico program, repurposed Immigration and Customs Enforcement priorities, and reversed the ban on travel from terror-prone countries.

    Paxton said that his office had to sue the Biden administration seven times and that they had won, but the administration still hasn’t implemented the program for migrants to stay back in Mexico.

    Regarding whether it was fair to condemn the administration for drug dealers and criminals being part of the people coming in, Paxton said, “They know these cartels are gaining strength … They charge for almost everybody that crosses the border. You’re not getting across without paying the cartels … an average of $8,000,” according to estimates from Border Patrol.

    “The Biden administration knows this. They’re aiding and abetting the cartels for not only the transportation of drugs but also the transportation of human beings.”

    Paxton reiterated that if the administration just enforces laws passed by Congress, restricts migrants to Mexico, and deports criminals, there could be an immigration policy that works.

    U.S. residents living near the border have to bear the brunt of the issue while Americans elsewhere are currently not impacted, Paxton said. “They’re not going to be affected like the people on the border whose property is being damaged, who are scared to go out at night or sometime even in the day,” because they don’t know who’s crossing their properties, he said.

    “This is going to affect the entire nation because these people are moved around secretly, overnight on planes and buses … Some have COVID, some are drug-runners, potentially criminals, they could be terrorists. We don’t know … We aren’t able to keep track of them,” he said.

    The White House has dodged difficult questions relating to the border and has refused to call it a “crisis,” instead saying it’s focusing on the “root causes” of illegal immigration and that it’s seeking a “fair, orderly, and humane” immigration system.

    Last month, when asked by CNN whether he plans to visit the border, Biden said, “I guess I should go down. But the—but the whole point of it is: I haven’t had a whole hell of a lot of time to get down.”

    Biden met with Mexican President Andrés Manuel López Obrador on Thursday to discuss a range of issues of which one was migration.

    Tyler Durden
    Mon, 11/22/2021 – 19:40

  • BofA Is Bearish On Markets Ahead Of The 2022 "Rates Shock"
    BofA Is Bearish On Markets Ahead Of The 2022 “Rates Shock”

    For those who have been following BofA CIO Michael Hartnett’s sometimes disjointed thoughts and observations, dutifully jotted down in his weekly Flow Show report (and summarized here), it will come as no surprise that the Bank of America strategist has been turning decisively bearish in recent months (see BofA Chief Strategist: Markets Are About To Be Hit With Three Shocks; This Is How One Bank Will Trade The Bursting Of The Biggest Ever Asset Bubble In 2022; and ““2022: The Year Of The Rate Shock”: The Fed’s Policy Mistake Already Happened And Next Year Everyone Pays”).

    Even so, it was certainly helpful for Hartnett’s clients (and our readers) to be presented with a more structured and organized version of the CIO’s views for the year ahead, which is what he did overnight in his latest periodical The Thundering Word, titled appropriately “Fin de Siecle” in which he finally makes it clear that “we are market bearish” for many of the same reasons we have discussed previously namely that the “growth show” of 2020, which was followed by the “inflation shock” of 2021 will be followed by the “rates shock” in ’22 (as described here). The sharply higher rates, a taste of which we got today when real rates spiked following news that Powell will be renominated for another 4 years…

    … will tighten financial conditions via Wall St and/or policy action; and since asset prices are driven by rates & profits, with short rates rising in 2022 (as QE ends, threatening to invert the yield curve) and as EPS sharply slow…

    … Hartnett expects low/negative and  volatile asset returns in ’22 after 18 months of fat returns in crypto, credit & US equities.

    Hartnett’s bearish views aside, the strategist admits that BofA economists and strategists predict robust GDP growth with weak China the outlier; and while inflation is predicted to be above consensus like GDP it too should decelerate next 12 months; All this leads to the bank’s house view of 3 Fed rate hikes forecast in ’22 (unlike Morgan Stanley which stubbornly expects no rate hikes in 2022 and with more covid lockdowns on the way, may well be right) with 10-year Treasuries ending the year at 2%; BofA also expects the US dollar & oil to remain well-bid (oil peaks around $117/barrel in Q2), and gold will appreciate.

    So with that macro background in mind, here is Hartnett summarizing 2021, or “The Year Behind“…

    The Year Behind: ’21 started with an insurrection, ended with inflation, narratives flipped from political “blue waves”, China credit/regulatory crackdowns, institutionalization of cryptocurrencies, US infrastructure, supply-chain disruptions and so on, but 3 dominant investment themes were…

    • The Vaccine: number of global vaccinations against COVID-19 surged from 10 million jabs to over 7 billion; this in turn led to a “reopening” of the US & European economies and a surge in corporate profits (e.g. US EPS flipped from -20% in ’20 to 49% in ’21); at the same time the world was unable to say “end of COVID” and summer delta fear and “growth shock” in Aug/Sept engorged the bull via prolonging…
    • The Stimulus: policy makers added almost $9tn in policy stimulus this year ($4tn fiscal, $5tn QE) to the $23tn announced in ’20 ($15tn fiscal, $8tn QE); central banks remained exceptionally dovish & behind-the-curve, led by the Fed (see real rates); the vaccine & the stimulus led to…
    • The Inflation: excess stimulus/demand clashed with insufficient supply across a wide range of sectors and markets including transportation, energy, goods, services, housing and labor.

    2021 in Returns:

    • Inflation explains commodities (up 46% for best year since ’73) & government bonds (down 8% for worst year since ’49)…

    … as well as outperformance of energy & banks (Table 2).

    Excess liquidity helps explain the ascent of cryptocurrencies (a transformative technology).

    • Dovish central banks & V-shape in EPS explain splendid performance of stocks ($1.0tn of institutional flows to stocks in ’21), particularly US stocks which have outperformed the RoW by most since ’97 (19.8pps); note 10-year rolling outperformance of US stocks vs government bonds widest since 1964 (12.2pps).

    China & monetary tightening meant miserable performance of Emerging Markets (LatAm stocks relative to US just hit lowest level since LTCM crisis of 1998).

    * * *

    Which brings us to 2022: The Year Ahead, and the bank’s three scenarios

    Base case…

    • 2021-22 investment backdrop similar to early stagflation of late-60s, early-70s…period of inflation & interest rates breaking higher from secular low/stable trading ranges on back of high budget deficits, Vietnam, “Great Society” policies, civil unrest, political & acquiescent Fed; late-60s/70s “stagflation” winners were real assets, real estate, commodities, volatility, cash, EM, all of which held their own vs inflation; losers were bonds, credit, equities, tech, all of which ultimately struggled (see Stagflation Quilt chart below); we think we’re in the ’69-’71 period.

    • Hartnett is convinced 2020 was the secular low point on inflation and interest rates; last 2 great inflection points for bond markets were 1966, 1980…2020 watershed driven by social/economic shifts from Wall St to Main St, Deregulation to Intervention, Globalization to Isolationism, Wealth to Health, Capital to Labor…COVID simply the accelerator.
    • The CIO also believes that the 2020s will see secular bull markets in volatility & commodities beginning, while the bull market in stocks & credit ending (as shown in secular return charts 5-10); He also expects the US dollar to peak in 2022; note the “permanent portfolio” of 25/25/25/25 of cash, commodities, stocks, bonds appreciated 15.4% annualized in 2021 highlighting an era where greater diversification rewarded also beginning.

    • For 2022, Hartnett sees consensus bullishly positioned for another year of “stocks go up, bonds go nowhere, and Fed does nothing.” And indeed, BofA’s Bull & Bear Indicator does not suggest an immediate “short” opportunity but as in 2018 that can change quickly. Here Hartnett is quick to note that asset price sensitivity to central bank liquidity has been extremely high in past decade, and a global tapering has begun (G5 liquidity add was $8.5tn in 2020, $2.1tn in 2021, will be just $0.1 in 2022); meanwhile BofA’s global EPS growth model peaked at 40% in June, it is currently running around 30% and predicts further EPS deceleration to <10% in H1’22. “We are therefore bearish and believe capital preservation will grow as a theme in the year ahead.”

    Bull case…

    • This one should be self-explanatory: Lowest rates in 5000 years, 1000 rate cuts since Lehman, $32 trillion policy stimulus since COVID ($840 million per hour central bank asset purchases), global stock market cap up $60 trillion in 18 months, GDP >10%, CPI>5%, house prices >20%, largest worker shortages in 50 years…this most unconventional of cycles highly unlikely to follow a conventional path…the-mother-of-all bubbles in crypto & tech remains a “fat tail”.
    • More prosaically stock market upside could continue if it becomes clear in H1 that Fed determined to keep real rates deeply negative (expect a market narrative that the Fed can’t “bankrupt” US Treasury), and US monetary policy dictated by a credo of Wall St “too big to fail” (this goes without saying but a “big fall in credit & stocks prices quickest route to recession, civil unrest, institutional crisis and so on“).

    Bear case…

    • By far the biggest downside risk is Fed stays hawkish even if Wall Street corrects because fears of wage-price spiral grow; in addition a return of bond vigilantes across developed world (they returned in EM in 2021) causes bond & currency volatility.
    • Even more extreme downside risks include a crypto-derivatives crash, geopolitical events related to China & Taiwan, and that a receding liquidity wave exposes credit-events to the detriment of private & public equity.
    • Not even the bearish Hartnett expects these to materialize (just yet).

    Finally, this is how BofA will trade based on these views:

    • Macro trades: long US$, MOVE, VIX (tighter financial conditions); long quality, defensives e.g. staples, telco, big pharma (EPS deceleration); long oil, energy (inflation); long real asset (best inflation hedge), short copper/semis (IP lower); short PE/XBD (wider credit spreads).
    • Contrarian trades: long GT30 & gold (yield curve inversion/recession); long EM (spring peak in US dollar); long CRE/CMBS (global reopening); long China credit; long small cap value (hedge for US tech bubble); long income streams in commodity markets (dollar debasement); short Nasdaq (rates & regulation).

    Tyler Durden
    Mon, 11/22/2021 – 19:20

  • Waukesha Massacre Suspect Charged With Five Counts Of Murder
    Waukesha Massacre Suspect Charged With Five Counts Of Murder

    Update (1415ET): Despite what CNN is peddling, Waukesha police believe Sunday’s parade massacre was intentional.

    According to CBS Chicago, Darrell Brooks, 39, has been charged with five counts of murder. According to the police chief, the deaths were “not a terrorist event.”

    The dead range in age from 52 to 81.

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    More on Brooks’ past via CBS Chicago:

    CBS 2 found records for another ongoing case from July, 2020. He was charged with two counts of recklessly endangering safety with use of a dangerous weapon, and possession of a firearm/convicted of felony. He pleaded not guilty in this case.

    • In 2011 Brooks was found guilty on a resisting/obstructing an officer charge.
    • In 2010, he was found guilty on strangulation and suffocation felony charges in Wood County.
    • In 1999, he was found guilty on substantial battery-intend bodily harm, a felony.

    Waukesha Police Chief Dan Thompson gave no immediate details about the person or any possible motive.

    *  *  *

    Update (1320ET): The suspect in the Waukesha mass murder, Darrell Brooks Jr., was released on an ‘inappropriately low’ bail on November 11 in an unrelated case, after posting just $1,000 cash bail following charges of Second Degree Recklessly Endangering Safety, Felony Bail Jumping, Battery, Obstructing and Officer and Disorderly Conduct in an existing case against him, according to Milwaukee County DA John T. Chisholm.

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    Meanwhile, CNN is doing its best to push the narrative that Brooks – a BLM supporter whose social media accounts are riddled with anti-white hate speech, was simply fleeing a crime he had just committed and that slamming into the parade was an accident.

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    What’s more, Brooks was accused in his most recent case of “purposefully” running a woman over with his vehicle.

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    *  *  *

    Update (0830ET): As independent journalists and the MSM race to shape the narrative surrounding the alleged Waukesha attacker, one thread has exposed him as a potentially admitted child sex trafficker.

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    We’ll leave digging through the detritus to our readers.

    * * *

    Update (0600ET): Overnight, the City of Waukesha has confirmed that the body count for last night’s horrific attack at its Christmas parade has risen to at least five, while more than 40 have been injured. The local PD has also confirmed a person of interest is in custody, as we reported earlier.

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    The section of Main St. worst impacted by the attack will “not be open” before mid-day tomorrow.

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    The City Council has asked that all items intended for a memorial be placed at Veterans’ Park.

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    Overnight, the city said the scene was “still fluid”, but across the country, journalists and ordinary Americans are waiting on the next update after a man drove his Ford Escape through a barricade and onto the parade route of the city’s annual Christmas parade, causing immense damage and loss of life.

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    According to Red State, the NY Post and others, a person of interest has been identified as Darrell Brooks of Milwaukee. described as a “black man with dreadlocks” who was released on cash bail a few days ago.

    Audio recorded by local independent journalists off police scanner chatter has police identifying the suspect as a “lighter skin, black male, dreadlocks, possibly no shoes”, which matched the description from several outlets.

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    Info from the Wisconsin Courts page about Brooks shows his cash bond was posted just a few days ago; he is scheduled for a Zoom hearing just a few days before Christmas, according to WI court records.

    Tipsters have also stumbled upon a Soundcloud page allegedly belonging to Brooks which included rap tracks with anti-Trump lyrics. They also featured samples of Malcolm X.

    The question now, as Laura Loomer noted overnight, is who exactly paid for Brooks’ cash bail? Meanwhile, local authorities said the next press conference will be held at 1300 local time on Monday.

    * * *

    Update (2015ET): A person of interest has been taken into custody following today’s horrific attack at the Waukesha Christmas parade according to VOA News‘ Steve Herman.

    In addition to several fatalities, eleven adults and twelve ‘pediatric patients’ have been transported to local hospitals according to the fire chief.

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    Update (1940ET): Footage of the moment the SUV began plowing into parade participants has emerged.

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    A mass casualty event has occurred at the Waukesha, WI Christmas parade, after a red SUV allegedly broke through the police line, plowed through pedestrians, and began firing round out of the window. It is unclear at this time how many people have been injured or killed, however at least four people have been reported as having been hit and ‘not moving.’

    The driver has not been identified as of this writing.

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    According to WISN‘s Courtney Sisk, the SUV hit the “dancing grannies” before speeding off, leaving “at least four members” on the ground and were not moving. One of the group’s members reportedly flew ‘over the hood’ of the SUV.

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    “At the Waukesha Holiday parade and a car just broke through the police line, plowing through pedestrians and firing rounds out the window. Family and I are safe. Happened 20 feet in front of us,” wrote Twitter user Zach Heisler (@zrheisler).

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    Tyler Durden
    Mon, 11/22/2021 – 19:11

  • Biden Using Backdoor Rule To Pass Free College Agenda
    Biden Using Backdoor Rule To Pass Free College Agenda

    Authored by Gerard Scimeca via RealClearEducation.com,

    Americans by and large oppose giveaways to the affluent or privileged, which explains why they consistently oppose forgiving college student-loan debt.

    Eighty percent of Americans have no student loan debt, and those who carry debt are disproportionately millennials with advanced degrees – and higher earning potential.

    Easy loan forgiveness falls under the umbrella of the free college agenda championed by most Democrats, but strong opposition led the Biden administration to drop free college from the spending bill it proposed last month.

    Not to worry: Democrats discovered a backdoor to free college through an obscure and arcane Department of Education (DOE) rule.

    Known as Borrower Defense to Repayment (BDR), the rule existed as little more than a formality in the annals of the Federal Register, a stopgap to finalize the Federal Direct Loan Program. Through the first twenty years of its existence, it was implemented just five times, but it has now evolved into a battering ram for Democrats to get free college through the political barricades.

    In 2015, Corinthian Colleges, which enrolled over 100,000 students at its 100 subsidiary campuses, filed for bankruptcy. The school’s collapse coincided with growing momentum for the “cancel college debt” and “free college” campaigns, which had evolved out of the Occupy Wall Street movement of the early 2010s and found friendly supporters in Congress, such as Senators Elizabeth Warren and Dick Durbin.

    Under pressure from progressives, Obama Administration Secretary of Education Arne Duncan proposed an interpretation of BDR that would provide more leeway for the DOE to forgive loans. After restructuring the department with an “enforcement office” that would be staffed with attorneys and contractors, the Obama team issued its amendments to the Borrower Defense rule just days before the 2016 election.

    Among the changes, the Obama administration sought to require for-profit schools – which the Left abhors – to post a letter of credit if a lawsuit was filed. This obligation created a self-fulfilling cycle, whereby Title IV funding could be withheld from a college merely on the basis of unsubstantiated claims, a rule akin to forcing a business to post a bond from a bad Yelp review. This policy weaponized BDR against for-profit schools almost exclusively.

    The punch landed. Popular career-oriented institutions rely on federal aid far more than public or private institutions do. Three-quarters of students at two-year for-profit colleges receive student loans, for example, compared to just 18% of students at public two-year colleges. When the ITT Technical Institute was targeted by the Obama administration in 2016, it took just 12 days for the school to close its doors after the DOE withheld funds. 

    The Trump administration halted this policy, arguing that lowering the burden of proof lets any student dissatisfied with his education claim he was misled by his school and seek loan forgiveness. But the Biden administration has resurrected it.

    To date, President Biden’s Department of Education has approved over $1.5 billion in Borrower Defense claims for some 92,000 students at proprietary colleges.

    That’s not by chance. BDR has been narrowly promoted among students at for-profit institutions. A survey conducted by our organization in October polled students at five public and private colleges with the largest number of online students. We found that of those who received federal financial aid, nine in ten had never heard of BDR. A remarkable 82% believed they had been misled by their school, and 98% said they would be interested in filing a claim.

    These findings further confirm that what was created as a failsafe for students truly defrauded by their college or university has been converted into a political bludgeon against for-profit institutions and a free college giveaway. 

    Ironically, progressives’ politicization of BDR could undermine the significant investment that the U.S. has made to increase access to higher education. It would lead to less educational opportunity, particularly for disadvantaged and low-income students, less innovation and competition in the marketplace, and lasting damage to our economy, which desperately needs skilled workers.

    What should be clear by now is that easy loan forgiveness – putting no burden on students to demonstrate alleged deception on the part of the institutions they have attended – is merely a backdoor to hundreds of billions of dollars in free college tuition, courtesy of Americans who have paid off their own student loans or never had them in the first place. It’s a massive giveaway to the wealthy.

    Tyler Durden
    Mon, 11/22/2021 – 19:00

  • Two Of 17 Kidnapped Missionaries In Haiti Released, US Aid Group Says
    Two Of 17 Kidnapped Missionaries In Haiti Released, US Aid Group Says

    Two missionaries kidnapped by a dangerous street gang in Haiti last month have been released, according to a statement released by the US-based Christian Aid Ministries.

    “We have learned that two of the hostages in Haiti were released. We praise God for this! Only limited information can be provided, but we are able to report that the two hostages who were released are safe, in good spirits, and being cared for,” Christian Aid Ministries said Sunday.

    “While we rejoice at this release, our hearts are with the fifteen people who are still being held,” the statement also said.

    On Oct. 16, 16 Americans and one Canadia were kidnapped by Haitian gang 400 Mawozo while traveling by van in the country’s capital city of Port-au-Prince. Most of the missionaries are from Amish, Mennonite, and other conservative Anabaptist communities in the U.S. The Canadian is from Ontario. 

    Few details have been released by the missionary and the U.S. about negotiations to release the hostages. The U.S. doesn’t pay ransom for kidnapped citizens. 

    Haitian Justice and Interior Minister Liszt Quitel told CNN that captors are demanding $1 million per hostage, but there was no word on if the missionary paid to have the two released. 

    Kidnappings for ransom are widespread in Haiti. The Caribbean nation is the poorest in the Western Hemisphere. On a per-capita basis, it has the world’s highest rate of kidnappings. 

    According to NYTimes, F.B.I. and the State Department have worked with local authorities to free the missionaries. 

    The political turmoil in the country accelerated in early July when President Jovenel Moïse was assassinated. Then a powerful earthquake in mid-August devastated the country even further. 

    Haitian security forces are increasing efforts to combat gangs, but it would be an uphill battle with at least half of Port-au-Prince controlled by criminal organizations. 

    Tyler Durden
    Mon, 11/22/2021 – 18:40

  • The Benefit Of SARS-CoV-2 Natural Immunity In The Armed Forces
    The Benefit Of SARS-CoV-2 Natural Immunity In The Armed Forces

    Authored by Scott Sturman via RealClearDefense.com,

    The risks to soldiers, sailors, and airmen of contracting SARS-CoV-2 affect the readiness of military organizations. The condition of an individual’s immune status determines susceptibility to infection and is dependent on one’s pre-existing medical condition, the implementation of beneficial prophylactic treatments, and whether protection is conferred by natural immunity or vaccination. Commanders who assess and rationally address the problem will ensure the best possible health outcome for those under their command.

    The age of those serving in the military places them in a low-risk category for severe morbidity and death due to Covid. Without accounting for health risk factors, those 18-29 represent 0.56% of all U.S. Covid deaths to date, while those 18-49, a cohort representing most active duty personnel, account for 6.3% of the total. In this healthy patient population, the goal to achieve broad, long-lasting immunity against SARS-CoV-2 can be better achieved by naturally acquired immunity instead of relying on vaccines that require multiple boosters and do not confer sterilizing protection.

    Natural immunity is the gold standard of immunology. Exposure and subsequent recovery from a pathogen provide immunity due to antibodies and memory B and T cells. This protection is often lifelong and complete since one’s immune system develops antibodies against multiple antigens on the infectious organism. Traditional vaccines using live attenuated or killed inoculums also afford this level of protection. However, mRNA vaccines designed to induce antibodies against a single, highly mutating antigen require frequent booster shots, allow for breakthrough infections, and the ability to infect others.

    To date, there are over 100 high-quality studies that demonstrate the superiority or equality of natural immunity compared to vaccine induced immunity. Natural immunity critics point out that long-lasting immunity has not been proven; however, this is a disingenuous argument since persistent immunity has been shown as long as the observations have been conducted. Patients who recovered in 2003 from SARS-CoV-1, a close relative of SARS-CoV-2, remain immune eighteen years later. An article from Nature concluded that those with even mild symptoms due to SARS-CoV-2 will produce antibodies for a lifetime.

    The CDC traditionally recognized that patients who have contracted certain diseases do not require vaccination for those diseases. Examples include mumps, measles, rubella, and chickenpox-diseases where there is no benefit to vaccination after illness.  Studies published by the Cleveland Clinic and from Israel describe extremely low reinfection rates in patients who acquired and recovered from SARS- CoV-2.

    Pfizer admits that its mRNA vaccine induces antibody titers that wane rapidly after administration, thus requiring multiple boosters. Furthermore, vaccinated patients obtain high viral loads and are as infectious as non vaccinated patients, yet the CDC cannot demonstrate one case when a patient with natural immunity becomes reinfected with SARS-CoV-2 and transmits it to another person. Fully vaccinated countries have the highest incidence of new Covid cases. While protective against hospitalization and death, adverse reactions to mRNA vaccines exceed 850,000, including over 18,000 deaths, as reported in a recent summary of the Vaccine Adverse Event Reporting System (VAERS). The link between vaccine induced myocarditis and young males is widely established, prompting Germany and France to suspend all Moderna vaccinations for those under age 30. Those recovered from naturally acquired disease are more apt to experience side effects if vaccinated.

    Black and Hispanic vaccination rates lag behind Whites, yet these minorities die from Covid at numbers out of proportion to their respective vaccination rates. With the high numbers of minorities serving in the armed forces, commanders must be aware of the best medical options to ensure their health and ability to fulfill the mission. Blacks and Hispanics frequently have low serum vitamin D3 levels due to inadequate dietary supplementation or sun generated synthesis. Studies indicate that those who suffer severe symptoms or death from Covid often presented with low levels of serum vitamin D3. Routine supplementation with vitamin D3 prior to contracting Covid has a beneficial effect, particularly in patients at high risk.

    Natural induced immunity to SARS-CoV-2 offers a military advantage. Under these circumstances, the Department of Defense has at its disposal a fighting force at low risk for reinfection, protected against the severe effects of new variants, and not in need of endless booster shots. Requiring vaccinations that are potentially harmful and provide little medical benefit adversely affects reenlistment rates and degrades morale. Exempting Congress, their staff, and judicial branch of government from mandatory vaccination reeks of hypocrisy, and this double standard is palpable among those who serve. The argument that vaccinating low-risk groups is necessary to protect others is debunked in a recent Lancet study which noted, “fully vaccinated individuals with breakthrough infections have peak viral load similar to unvaccinated cases and can efficiently transmit infection in household settings, including to fully vaccinated contacts.”

    All members of the armed services should receive SARS-CoV-2 antibody testing, and if positive, be automatically exempted from Covid vaccination. Those who test negative and do not have medical risk factors should be placed on prophylactic vitamin D3 and encouraged to maintain an ideal body weight. There are a number of other widely discussed prophylactic and therapeutic options available, which are inexpensive, protective, and of low risk to patients. Commanders must insist that these alternatives be thoroughly explored, studied, and implemented if proven effective. The welfare of the country depends on those serving in the armed forces, and their health care must be based on non-political, scientifically based policies.

    Tyler Durden
    Mon, 11/22/2021 – 18:20

  • Cold Snap Sweeps Across China As Fears Of Energy Crisis Reemerge
    Cold Snap Sweeps Across China As Fears Of Energy Crisis Reemerge

    A massive cold blast is sweeping across most parts of China, unleashing snow, mixed precipitation, and dangerous wind. China’s energy crisis eased last month but could soon be ignited again by wicked winter weather. 

    According to the website weather.com.cn, which the China Meteorological Administration runs, more than 100 weather alerts are issued for the country as record-breaking cold temperatures spread further and further south. 

    The latest forecast shows a cold air mass has descended on the county. 

    By Sunday morning, a cold wave stretched from the west of Hebei province to the west of Henan province, causing temperature drops of between 4 C and 8 C in Shanxi province and Hebei, the center said. The Xinjiang Uygur autonomous region and parts of Gansu province also experienced temperature slumps of more than 10 C.

    On Monday, the cold air is expected to rapidly descend southward and affect most of the central and eastern parts of China, the center forecast.

    By Tuesday, the Bohai, Yellow, and East China seas will face strong winds of up to about 100 kilometers per hour, it said.

    The winds are expected to carry floating sand and dust to northern areas, including Beijing.

    Snow was forecast to hit the northeast from Sunday to Wednesday, with blizzards expected in Heilongjiang and Jilin provinces, the center said.

    New snow accumulation over the period is expected to reach up to 40 centimeters in Heilongjiang, adding to snow from last week.

    On Sunday, the Heilongjiang provincial government announced a Level II warning for weather disaster emergency response, the second-highest in a four-tier warning system.

    Fang Chong, the chief forecaster of the Central Meteorological Observatory, said a cold air mass is pouring into China from Siberia, Russia

    “This bout of cold wave will sweep across China faster than the previous one in early November because airflow is stronger under the current weather conditions,” Chong said. “The weather system is more complicated than before, with blizzards, rain, sand, and dust finding their paths in North and South China.”

    The world’s No 2 economy suffers from a severe energy crunch as coal and natural gas are in short supply. The government spent the last month ramping up the production of energy supplies in anticipation of cold weather. It also intervened in energy markets to suppress prices for power plants. 

    Unseasonably cold weather could spark the next round of coal shortages that would have severe knock-on effects throughout supply chains. 

    Even though China’s energy crisis has been eased, the government must continue stockpiling energy supplies to avoid electricity shortages amid rising demand. 

    A freezing winter could spell disaster for China’s economy if it doesn’t have enough energy supplies. 

    Tyler Durden
    Mon, 11/22/2021 – 18:00

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