- How Powerful Is Your Passport In A Post-Pandemic World?
How Powerful Is Your Passport In A Post-Pandemic World?
With COVID-19 cases falling in many parts of the world and vaccination programs ramping up at warp speed, international travel no longer seems like a distant dream.
The Henley Passport Index, which has been regularly monitoring the world’s most travel-friendly passports since 2006, has released its latest rankings and analysis.
Visual Capitalist’s Anshool Deshmukh details below that the most recent data provides insight into what travel freedom will look like in a post-pandemic world as countries selectively begin to open their borders to international visitors.
Prominent Countries Still Holding Strong
The rankings are based on the visa-free score of a particular country. A visa-free score refers to the number of countries that a passport holder can visit without a visa, with a visa on arrival, or by obtaining an electronic travel authorization (ETA).
Without considering the constantly changing COVID-19 restrictions, Japan firmly holds its position as the country with the strongest passport for the 4th year in a row.
This positioning is based on exclusive data from the International Air Transport Association (IATA)—with Japanese passport holders theoretically able to access a record 193 destinations from around the world visa-free.
The last time Japan didn’t hold the number one position was back in 2017, when it shared the 5th spot with countries like the United States, New Zealand, and Switzerland.
Singapore remains in 2nd place, with a visa-free score of 192, while Germany and South Korea again share joint-3rd place, each with access to 191 destinations.
Throughout the 16-year history of the Henley Index, EU countries have maintained a dominant position in the passport strength reports. Finland, Italy, Luxembourg and Spain all hold the 4th position while Austria and Denmark round up the top 5 with a visa-free score of 189.
The United States and the United Kingdom jointly share the 7th position with a visa-free score of 187 destinations. Canada, Mexico and Brazil hold the 9th, 23rd and 17th positions respectively, with Brazil experiencing a significant jump of eight places over the last 10 years.
Editor’s note: Visit the Henley Passport Index site for a full list and ranking of all countries around the world.
The Countries With The Least Travel Freedom
Afghanistan continues to be the country with the least amount of travel freedom, coming in last place (110th rank) with a visa-free score of 26 destinations. Iraq, Syria, Pakistan and Yemen have access to slightly more visa-free travel, but still linger at the bottom of the overall ranking.
The latest report indicates that the gap in travel freedom is now at its largest since the index began in 2006. Japanese passport holders can access 167 more destinations than citizens of Afghanistan, who can visit only 26.
The Biggest Gainers In a Decade
Over time, small annual moves in the Henley Passport Index can make a big impact—and in the last decade, countries like China and the UAE have been the biggest movers:
China has risen by 22 places in the ranking since 2011 by going from a visa-free/visa-on-arrival score of 40 destinations to now 77.
The most remarkable turnaround story on the index by far, however, is the UAE. In 2011, the UAE was ranked 65th with a visa-free score of 67 destinations. Today, thanks to the Emirates’ ongoing efforts to strengthen diplomatic ties with countries across the globe, it is now ranked 15th with a remarkable visa-free score of 174 destinations.
Tyler Durden
Thu, 06/24/2021 – 02:45 - England Set To Drop Face Mask Rules After Huge Economic Impact Revealed
England Set To Drop Face Mask Rules After Huge Economic Impact Revealed
Authored by Paul Joseph Watson via Summit News,
England is set to drop all face mask rules on July 19th after it was revealed that keeping such restrictions in place is costing the economy billions and will force many businesses to close.
“The requirement to wear facemasks on public transport and in shops will be replaced with guidance advising people to wear masks in certain circumstances, rather than compelling them,” reports the Times.
The decision follows the findings of an internal economic impact assessment produced by the government’s Events Research Programme which detailed the massive impact social distancing measures are having on businesses.
Politico Playbook reveals that, “keeping any measures would cost the economy billions and see many businesses close.”
Specifically, indoor seated venues such as the arts, cinemas and business events would achieve just 59 per cent of their 2019 turnover if restrictions remain, costing them a whopping £4.88 billion over the next year.
Even if the only remaining restriction kept in place is face masks, “The entire events industry would reach just 82 percent of its 2019 turnover. Indoor seated venues would get just 72 percent. Indoor non-seated just 65 percent. Outdoor non-seated venues would manage just 82 percent of their 2019 figure.”
The events industry as a whole is bringing in only 60 per cent of normal revenue under the current restrictions, which will likely continue until July 19th.
However, with some government advisers (namely a former Communist) pushing for restrictions to continue literally forever, don’t be surprised to see some of them reintroduced in the winter.
But with vaccine passports for pubs still being considered, any return of restrictions will likely only impact those who haven’t taken a vaccine.
This will then create a two tier society where those who for whatever reason haven’t had the jab will face discrimination and de facto lockdown for years to come.
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Tyler Durden
Thu, 06/24/2021 – 02:00 - One Nation Under Greed: The Profit Incentives Driving The American Police State
One Nation Under Greed: The Profit Incentives Driving The American Police State
Authored by John W. Whitehead & Nisha Whitehead via The Rutherford Institute,
“When plunder becomes a way of life for a group of men in a society, over the course of time they create for themselves a legal system that authorizes it and a moral code that glorifies it.”
– Frédéric Bastiat, French economist
If there is an absolute maxim by which the American government seems to operate, it is that the taxpayer always gets ripped off.
Not only are Americans forced to “spend more on state, municipal, and federal taxes than the annual financial burdens of food, clothing, and housing combined,” but we’re also being played as easy marks by hustlers bearing the imprimatur of the government.
With every new tax, fine, fee and law adopted by our so-called representatives, the yoke around the neck of the average American seems to tighten just a little bit more.
Everywhere you go, everything you do, and every which way you look, we’re getting swindled, cheated, conned, robbed, raided, pickpocketed, mugged, deceived, defrauded, double-crossed and fleeced by governmental and corporate shareholders of the American police state out to make a profit at taxpayer expense.
The overt and costly signs of the despotism exercised by the increasingly authoritarian regime that passes itself off as the United States government are all around us: warrantless surveillance of Americans’ private phone and email conversations by the FBI, NSA, etc.; SWAT team raids of Americans’ homes; shootings of unarmed citizens by police; harsh punishments meted out to schoolchildren in the name of zero tolerance; drones taking to the skies domestically; endless wars; out-of-control spending; militarized police; roadside strip searches; privatized prisons with a profit incentive for jailing Americans; fusion centers that collect and disseminate data on Americans’ private transactions; and militarized agencies with stockpiles of ammunition, to name some of the most appalling.
Meanwhile, the three branches of government (Executive, Legislative and Judicial) and the agencies under their command—Defense, Commerce, Education, Homeland Security, Justice, Treasury, etc.—have switched their allegiance to the Corporate State with its unassailable pursuit of profit at all costs and by any means possible.
By the time you factor in the financial blowback from the COVID-19 pandemic with its politicized mandates, lockdowns, and payouts, it becomes quickly apparent that we are now ruled by a government consumed with squeezing every last penny out of the population and seemingly unconcerned if essential freedoms are trampled in the process.
As with most things, if you want to know the real motives behind any government program, follow the money trail.
When you dig down far enough, you quickly find that those who profit from Americans being surveilled, fined, scanned, searched, probed, tasered, arrested and imprisoned are none other than the police who arrest them, the courts which try them, the prisons which incarcerate them, and the corporations, which manufacture the weapons, equipment and prisons used by the American police state.
Examples of this legalized, profits-over-people, government-sanctioned extortion abound.
On the roads: Not satisfied with merely padding their budgets by issuing speeding tickets, police departments have turned to asset forfeiture and red light camera schemes as a means of growing their profits. Despite revelations of corruption, collusion and fraud, these money-making scams have been being inflicted on unsuspecting drivers by revenue-hungry municipalities. Now legislators are hoping to get in on the profit sharing by imposing a vehicle miles-traveled tax, which would charge drivers for each mile behind the wheel.
In the prisons: States now have quotas to meet for how many Americans go to jail. Increasing numbers of states have contracted to keep their prisons at 90% to 100% capacity. This profit-driven form of mass punishment has, in turn, given rise to a $70 billion private prison industry that relies on the complicity of state governments to keep the money flowing and their privately run prisons full, “regardless of whether crime was rising or falling.” As Mother Jones reports, “private prison companies have supported and helped write … laws that drive up prison populations. Their livelihoods depend on towns, cities, and states sending more people to prison and keeping them there.” Private prisons are also doling out harsher punishments for infractions by inmates in order to keep them locked up longer in order to “boost profits” at taxpayer expense. All the while, prisoners are being forced to provide cheap labor for private corporations. No wonder the United States has the largest prison population in the world.
In the schools: The security industrial complex with its tracking, spying, and identification devices has set its sights on the schools as “a vast, rich market”—a $20 billion market, no less—just waiting to be conquered. In fact, the public schools have become a microcosm of the total surveillance state which currently dominates America, adopting a host of surveillance technologies, including video cameras, finger and palm scanners, iris scanners, as well as RFID and GPS tracking devices, to keep constant watch over their student bodies. Likewise, the military industrial complex with its military weapons, metal detectors, and weapons of compliance such as tasers has succeeded in transforming the schools—at great taxpayer expense and personal profit—into quasi-prisons. Rounding things out are school truancy laws, which come disguised as well-meaning attempts to resolve attendance issues in the schools but in truth are nothing less than stealth maneuvers aimed at enriching school districts and court systems alike through excessive fines and jail sentences for “unauthorized” absences. Curiously, none of these efforts seem to have succeeded in making the schools any safer.
In the endless wars abroad: Fueled by the profit-driven military industrial complex, the government’s endless wars are wreaking havoc on our communities, our budget and our police forces. Having been co-opted by greedy defense contractors, corrupt politicians and incompetent government officials, America’s expanding military empire is bleeding the country dry at a rate of more than $32 million per hour. Future wars and military exercises waged around the globe are expected to push the total bill upwards of $12 trillion by 2053. Talk about fiscally irresponsible: the U.S. government is spending money it doesn’t have on a military empire it can’t afford. War spending is bankrupting America.
In the form of militarized police: The Department of Homeland Security routinely hands out six-figure grants to enable local municipalities to purchase military-style vehicles, as well as a veritable war chest of weaponry, ranging from tactical vests, bomb-disarming robots, assault weapons and combat uniforms. This rise in military equipment purchases funded by the DHS has, according to analysts Andrew Becker and G.W. Schulz, “paralleled an apparent increase in local SWAT teams.” The end result? An explosive growth in the use of SWAT teams for otherwise routine police matters, an increased tendency on the part of police to shoot first and ask questions later, and an overall mindset within police forces that they are at war—and the citizenry are the enemy combatants. Over 80,000 SWAT team raids are conducted on American homes and businesses each year. Moreover, government-funded military-style training drills continue to take place in cities across the country.
In profit-driven schemes such as asset forfeiture: Under the guise of fighting the war on drugs, government agents (usually the police) have been given broad leeway to seize billions of dollars’ worth of private property (money, cars, TVs, etc.) they “suspect” may be connected to criminal activity. Then—and here’s the kicker—whether or not any crime is actually proven to have taken place, the government keeps the citizen’s property, often divvying it up with the local police who did the initial seizure. The police are actually being trained in seminars on how to seize the “goodies” that are on police departments’ wish lists. According to the New York Times, seized monies have been used by police to “pay for sports tickets, office parties, a home security system and a $90,000 sports car.”
Among government contractors: We have been saddled with a government that is outsourcing much of its work to high-paid contractors at great expense to the taxpayer and with no competition, little transparency and dubious savings. According to the Washington Post, “By some estimates, there are twice as many people doing government work under contract than there are government workers.” These open-ended contracts, worth hundreds of millions of dollars, “now account for anywhere between one quarter and one half of all federal service contracting.” Moreover, any attempt to reform the system is “bitterly opposed by federal employee unions, who take it as their mission to prevent good employees from being rewarded and bad employees from being fired.”
By the security industrial complex: We’re being spied on by a domestic army of government snitches, spies and techno-warriors. In the so-called name of “precrime,” this government of Peeping Toms is watching everything we do, reading everything we write, listening to everything we say, and monitoring everything we spend. Beware of what you say, what you read, what you write, where you go, and with whom you communicate, because it is all being recorded, stored, and catalogued, and will be used against you eventually, at a time and place of the government’s choosing. This far-reaching surveillance, carried out with the complicity of the Corporate State, has paved the way for an omnipresent, militarized fourth branch of government—the Surveillance State—that came into being without any electoral mandate or constitutional referendum. That doesn’t even touch on the government’s bold forays into biometric surveillance as a means of identifying and tracking the American people from birth to death.
By a government addicted to power: It’s a given that you can always count on the government to take advantage of a crisis, legitimate or manufactured. Emboldened by the citizenry’s inattention and willingness to tolerate its abuses, the government has weaponized one national crisis after another in order to expand its powers. The war on terror, the war on drugs, the war on illegal immigration, asset forfeiture schemes, road safety schemes, school safety schemes, eminent domain: all of these programs started out as legitimate responses to pressing concerns and have since become weapons of compliance and control in the police state’s hands. Now that the government has gotten a taste for flexing its police state powers by way of a bevy of COVID-19 lockdowns, mandates, restrictions, contact tracing programs, heightened surveillance, censorship, overcriminalization, etc., “we the people” may well find ourselves burdened with a Nanny State inclined to use its draconian pandemic powers to protect us from ourselves.
These injustices, petty tyrannies and overt acts of hostility are being carried out in the name of the national good—against the interests of individuals, society and ultimately our freedoms—by an elite class of government officials working in partnership with megacorporations that are largely insulated from the ill effects of their actions.
This perverse mixture of government authoritarianism and corporate profits has increased the reach of the state into our private lives while also adding a profit motive into the mix. And, as always, it’s we the people, we the taxpayers, we the gullible voters who keep getting taken for a ride by politicians eager to promise us the world on a plate.
This is a far cry from how a representative government is supposed to operate.
Indeed, it has been a long time since we could claim to be the masters of our own lives. Rather, we are now the subjects of a militarized, corporate empire in which the vast majority of the citizenry work their hands to the bone for the benefit of a privileged few
Adding injury to the ongoing insult of having our tax dollars misused and our so-called representatives bought and paid for by the moneyed elite, the government then turns around and uses the money we earn with our blood, sweat and tears to target, imprison and entrap us, in the form of militarized police, surveillance cameras, private prisons, license plate readers, drones, and cell phone tracking technology.
All of those nefarious deeds by government officials that you hear about every day: those are your tax dollars at work.
It’s your money that allows for government agents to spy on your emails, your phone calls, your text messages, and your movements. It’s your money that allows out-of-control police officers to burst into innocent people’s homes, or probe and strip search motorists on the side of the road. And it’s your money that leads to Americans across the country being prosecuted for innocuous activities such as growing vegetable gardens in their front yards or daring to speak their truth to their elected officials.
Just remember the next time you see a news story that makes your blood boil, whether it’s a police officer arresting someone for filming them in public, or a child being kicked out of school for attending a virtual class while playing with a toy gun, remember that it is your tax dollars that are paying for these injustices.
There was a time in our history when our forebears said “enough is enough” and stopped paying their taxes to what they considered an illegitimate government. They stood their ground and refused to support a system that was slowly choking out any attempts at self-governance, and which refused to be held accountable for its crimes against the people.
Their resistance sowed the seeds for the revolution that would follow.
Unfortunately, in the 200-plus years since we established our own government, we’ve let bankers, turncoats and number-crunching bureaucrats muddy the waters and pilfer the accounts to such an extent that we’re back where we started.
Once again, we’ve got a despotic regime with an imperial ruler doing as they please.
Once again, we’ve got a judicial system insisting we have no rights under a government which demands that the people march in lockstep with its dictates.
And once again, we’ve got to decide whether we’ll keep marching or break stride and make a turn toward freedom.
But what if we didn’t just pull out our pocketbooks and pony up to the federal government’s outrageous demands for more money?
What if we didn’t just dutifully line up to drop our hard-earned dollars into the collection bucket, no questions asked about how it will be spent?
What if, instead of quietly sending in our checks, hoping vainly for some meager return, we did a little calculating of our own and started deducting from our taxes those programs that we refuse to support?
As I make clear in my book Battlefield America: The War on the American People, if the government and its emissaries can just take from you what they want, when they want, and then use it however they want, you can’t claim to be anything more than a serf in a land they think of as theirs.
This is not freedom, America.
Tyler Durden
Thu, 06/24/2021 – 00:00 - Visualizing The World's Population By Age Group
Visualizing The World’s Population By Age Group
An aging population can have far-reaching consequences on a country’s economy.
With this in mind, Visual Capitalist’s Carmen Ang looks at the age composition of the global population in 2020 in the infographic below, based on the latest figures from the United Nations.
The Global Age Composition
Our global population is getting older, largely because of increasing life expectancies and declining birth rates.
In 2020, more than 147 million people around the world were between the ages of 80-99, accounting for 1.9% of the global population.
While that percentage may seem small, that particular demographic accounted for merely 0.05% of the population in 1950, meaning our world has a notably higher percentage of older people than it did 70 years ago.
Why is this significant? An aging population typically means a declining workforce and an increase of people looking to cash in their pensions. This can put pressure on the working class if taxes are raised.
Of course, an aging population can have positive impacts on society as well. For instance, elderly citizens tend to volunteer more than other age groups. And research has shown that older communities have lower crime rates. By 2050, the crime rate in Australia expected to drop by 16% as the country’s population gets older.
To mitigate some of the risks associated with a rapidly aging population, certain countries are working towards more sustainable pension systems, to support aging citizens while taking the stress off the working population.
Tyler Durden
Wed, 06/23/2021 – 23:40 - New Law Requires Florida Students To Be Taught About "The Evils Of Communism"
New Law Requires Florida Students To Be Taught About “The Evils Of Communism”
By Mimi Nguyen Ly of Epoch Times,
High school students in Florida will be required to learn about “the evils of communism” under one of three bills Gov. Ron DeSantis signed on Tuesday.
DeSantis signed the bills at a news conference at Three Oaks Middle School in Fort Myers. Two of the bills—HB 5 and SB 1108—focus on civics education, and the third—HB 233—requires freedom of expression at state colleges and universities. Specifically, HB 5 requires the Florida Department of Education to develop an integrated K-12 civic education curriculum that includes teaching students about citizens’ shared rights under the Constitution and Bill of Rights.
The measure also adds a requirement for public high schools to “include a comparative discussion of political ideologies, such as communism and totalitarianism, that conflict with the principles of freedom and democracy essential to the founding principles of the United States.”
In short, high schools must provide “instruction on the evils of communism and totalitarian ideology,” DeSantis said, noting that there are Florida residents who have escaped totalitarian regimes and communist dictatorships, such as from Cuba and Vietnam, to live in America.
“We want all students to understand the difference,” he said.
“Why would somebody flee across shark-infested waters … why would people leave these countries and risk their lives to be able to come here? It’s important that students understand that.”
HB 5 will also provide a “Portraits in Patriotism” library with resources that include personal stories of “real patriots who came to this country after seeing the horrors of these communist regimes,” DeSantis said.
The Republican governor also signed SB 1108, which requires state college and university students to undergo both a civic literacy course and a civic literacy assessment in order to graduate. Prior to this bill, students were only required to do one—either the course or the assessment.
High school students will also be required to take a civic literacy assessment. If they pass the test, they will be exempted from taking a civics test in college or university.
The bill also expands a “character development curriculum” for high school juniors and seniors to include instructions on how to register to vote.
In a statement, DeSantis said he was proud to sign the bills to prioritize civics education.
“The sad reality is that only two in five Americans can correctly name the three branches of government, and more than a third of Americans cannot name any of the rights guaranteed by the First Amendment,” he said.
“It is abundantly clear that we need to do a much better job of educating our students in civics to prepare them for the rest of their lives.”
The third bill DeSantis signed, HB 233, seeks to protect “intellectual freedom and viewpoint diversity” in postsecondary education.
It requires state colleges and universities to carry out annual assessments on intellectual freedom and viewpoint diversity at these institutions. The bill defines “intellectual freedom and viewpoint diversity” as “the exposure of students to, and the encouragement of students’ exploration of, a variety of ideological and political perspectives.”
The new law will also prohibit postsecondary schools from limiting students and staff members from accessing or observing “ideas and opinions that they may find uncomfortable, unwelcome, disagreeable, or offensive.”
“We obviously want our universities to be focused on critical thinking, academic rigor,” DeSantis told the press conference.
“We do not want them as basically hotbeds for stale ideology—that’s not worth tax dollars, and that’s not something we’re going to be supporting going forward.”
He noted, “It used to be thought that a university campus was a place where you’d be exposed to these sorts of ideas. Unfortunately, now the norm is really these are more intellectually repressive environments. You have orthodoxies that are promoted, and other viewpoints are shunned or even suppressed. We don’t want that in Florida. You need to have a true contest of ideas.”
“Students should not be shielded from ideas, and we want robust First Amendment speech on our college and university campuses.”
The trio of bills are the latest efforts by DeSantis’s administration focused on education in Florida.
In 2019, DeSantis signed an executive order that involved completely eliminating Common Core in Florida, a set of education standards for reading, writing, and maths in the majority of states since 2010.
The same order directed Education Commissioner Richard Corcoran to develop recommendations for the state legislature, including ideas to improve testing, and to “identify ways to really make civics education a priority in Florida,” DeSantis said back in 2019.
More recently, the Floridian governor supported the Florida Board of Education’s decision to ban the teaching of critical race theory in public schools.
Tyler Durden
Wed, 06/23/2021 – 23:20 - Is HAARP Firing Up? FAA Issues Warning About "Electromagnetic Radiation"
Is HAARP Firing Up? FAA Issues Warning About “Electromagnetic Radiation”
A longstanding topic of great speculation among curious minds is HAARP, a controversial Alaska-based research facility that studies the outermost layer of Earth’s atmosphere: the ionosphere.
HAARP (short for High-Frequency Active Auroral Research Program) has been at the center of wild speculation that its high-power radio frequency transmitter facility can control the weather. Though those claims have yet to be confirmed, conspiracy theorists say otherwise.
HAARP has fallen out of the news cycle in recent years for inactivity, but there’s reason to believe that it’s being fired back up for “scientific research.”
A notice to airmen (known as a NOTAM) was issued by the Federal Aviation Administration on June 17 with the beginning date of June 21 through June 25.
The NOTAM places “temporary flight restrictions” around Gulkana, Alaska, where the HAARP facility is located. It reads that planes are restricted from flying in the Gulkana airspace due to “electromagnetic radiation for scientific research.”
FDC 1/6022 ZAN AK..AIRSPACE GULKANA, AK..TEMPORARY FLIGHT RESTRICTIONS WI AN AREA DEFINED AS 2.5NM RADIUS OF 622333N1450902W (GKN007016.6) SFC-FL250 FOR ELECTROMAGNETIC RADIATION FR SCIENTIFIC RESEARCH. PURSUANT TO 14 CFR SECTION 91.137 (A)(1) TEMPORARY FLIGHT RESTRICTIONS ARE IN EFFECT. TRANSIT THRU THE AIRSPACE MAY BE AUTH BY HAARP COMMAND CENTER, TEL 907-822-5497 OR FREQ 123.3. ANCHORAGE /ZAN/ ARTCC TEL 907-269-1103 IS THE FAA CDN FACILITY. DLY 0400-1730 2106210400-2106251730.
If concerned citizens are correct and HAARP can, in fact, control weather or even weaponize weather – what could the government be up to?
Tyler Durden
Wed, 06/23/2021 – 23:00 - Bovard: The Deep State Defeat Of Donald Trump
Bovard: The Deep State Defeat Of Donald Trump
Authored by James Bovard via The Future of Freedom Foundation,
“The Trump–Deep State clash is a showdown between a presidency that is far too powerful versus federal agencies that have become fiefdoms with immunity for almost any and all abuses,” I wrote in an FFF article a year ago.
Since then, Donald Trump lost the 2020 election by fewer than 50,000 votes in a handful of swing states that determined the Electoral College result. There were numerous issues that could drive that relatively small number of votes. But machinations by the Deep State probably cost Trump far more votes than it took to seal his loss.
“The Deep State” commonly refers to officials who secretly wield power permanently in Washington, often in federal agencies with vast sway and little accountability. During Trump’s first impeachment, the establishment media exalted the Deep State. New York Times columnist James Stewart assured readers that the secretive agencies “work for the American people,” New York Times editorial writer Michelle Cottle hailed the Deep State as “a collection of patriotic public servants,” and Washington Post columnist Eugene Robinson captured the Beltway’s verdict:
“God bless the Deep State!”
The first three years of Trump’s presidency were haunted by constant accusations that he had colluded with Russians to win the 2016 election. The FBI launched its investigation on the basis of ludicrous allegations from a dossier financed by the Hillary Clinton presidential campaign. FBI officials deceived the FISA Court to authorize surveilling the Trump campaign. A FISA warrant is the nuclear bomb of searches, authorizing the FBI “to conduct simultaneous telephone, microphone, cell phone, e-mail and computer surveillance of the U.S. person target’s home, workplace and vehicles,” as well as “physical searches of the target’s residence, office, vehicles, computer, safe deposit box and U.S. mails,” as a FISA court decision noted. The FISA court is extremely deferential, approving 99 percent of all search warrant requests.
Leaks from federal officials spurred media hysteria that put Trump on the defensive even before he took his oath of office in January 2017. A 2018 Inspector General (IG) report revealed that one FBI agent labeled Trump supporters as “retarded” and declared, “I’m with her” (Clinton). Another FBI employee texted that “Trump’s supporters are all poor to middle class, uneducated, lazy POS.” One FBI lawyer texted that he was “devastated” by Trump’s election and declared, “Viva la Resistance!” and “I never really liked the Republic anyway.” The same person became the “primary FBI attorney assigned to [the Russian election-interference] investigation beginning in early 2017,” the IG noted.
FBI chief James Comey leaked official memos to friendly reporters, thereby spurring the appointment of Special Counsel Robert Mueller to investigate Trump. A 2019 Inspector General report noted that top FBI officials told the IG that they were “shocked,” “stunned,” and “surprised’ that Comey would leak the contents of one of the memos to a reporter. The IG concluded, “The unauthorized disclosure of this information — information that Comey knew only by virtue of his position as FBI Director — violated the terms of his FBI Employment Agreement and the FBI’s Prepublication Review Policy.” The IG concluded that by using sensitive information “to create public pressure for official action, Comey set a dangerous example for the over 35,000 current FBI employees — and the many thousands more former FBI employees — who similarly have access to or knowledge of non-public information.” The IG report warned that “the civil liberties of every individual who may fall within the scope of the FBI’s investigative authorities depend on FBI’s ability to protect sensitive information from unauthorized disclosure.”
But the only penalty that Comey suffered was to collect multimillion-dollar advances for his book deals.
The Steele dossier
In December 2019, another Inspector General report confirmed that the FBI made “fundamental errors” to justify surveilling the Trump campaign. The FBI refrained from launching a FISA warrant request until it came into possession of a dossier from Christopher Steele, a former British intelligence agent. The Steele dossier played “a central and essential role in the decision by FBI [Office of General Counsel] to support the request for FISA surveillance targeting Carter Page, as well as the FBI’s ultimate decision to seek the FISA order,” the IG report concluded. The FBI “drew almost entirely” from the Steele dossier to prove a “well-developed conspiracy” between Russians and the Trump campaign. The IG found that FBI agents were “unable to corroborate any of the specific substantive allegations against Carter Page” in the Steele dossier but the FBI relied on Steele’s allegations regardless.
The FBI withheld from the FISA court key details that obliterated the dossier’s credibility, including a warning from a top Justice Department official that “Steele may have been hired by someone associated with presidential candidate Clinton or the DNC [Democratic National Committee].” The CIA disdained the Steele dossier as “an internet rumor,” one FBI official told IG investigators.
Many if not most of the damning details involving Russiagate have still not been disclosed. But the occasional disclosures are doing nothing to burnish the credibility of the key players. On January 12, 2017, Comey attested to the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act court that the Steele dossier used to hound the Trump campaign had been “verified.” But on the same day, he emailed the director of national intelligence, James Clapper, “We are not able to sufficiently corroborate the reporting.” That email was revealed this past February, thanks to a multi-year fight for disclosure by the Southeastern Legal Foundation.
If the FBI’s deceit and political biases had been exposed in real time, there would have been far less national outrage when Trump fired Comey. Instead, that firing was quickly followed by the appointment of Special Counsel Robert Mueller to investigate the Russian charges. In April 2019, Mueller admitted there was no evidence of collusion. Conniving by FBI officials and the veil of secrecy that hid their abuses had roiled national politics for years.
Not one FBI official has spent a single day in jail for the abuses. In January, former FBI assistant general counsel Kevin Clinesmith was sentenced after he admitted falsifying key evidence used to secure the FISA warrant to spy on the Trump campaign. A federal prosecutor declared that the “resulting harm is immeasurable” from Clinesmith’s action. But a federal judge believed that a wrist slap was sufficient punishment — 400 hours of community service and 12 months of probation.
The Deep State defeated Trump in part because the president appointed agency chiefs who were more devoted to secrecy than to truth. Bureaucratic barricades were reinforced by judges who repeatedly defied common sense to perpetuate iron curtains around federal agencies.
Syria
Trump’s failure to extract the United States from the Syrian civil war was one of his biggest foreign policy pratfalls. Each time he sought to exit that quagmire, the Washington establishment and Deep State agencies pushed back.
When Trump tried to end CIA assistance to Syrian terrorist groups in July 2017, a Washington Post article portrayed his reversal in apocalyptic terms. Trump responded with an angry tweet: “The Amazon Washington Post fabricated the facts on my ending massive, dangerous, and wasteful payments to Syrian rebels fighting Assad.” That disclosure spurred a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request by the New York Times for CIA records on payments to Syrian rebel groups. The CIA denied the request and the case ended up in court.
CIA officer Antoinette Shiner warned the court that forcing the CIA to admit that it possessed any records of aiding Syrian rebels would “confirm the existence and the focus of sensitive Agency activity that is by definition kept hidden to protect U.S. government policy objectives.” Of course, “kept hidden” doesn’t apply to the CIA when it was engaged in “not for attribution” bragging to reporters. Washington Post columnist David Ignatius proudly cited an estimate from a “knowledgeable official” that “CIA-backed fighters may have killed or wounded 100,000 Syrian soldiers and their allies over the past four years.”
Federal judges, unlike Syrian civilians slaughtered by U.S.-funded terrorist groups, had the luxury of pretending the program didn’t exist. In a decision last July, the federal appeals court of the Second Circuit stressed that affidavits from CIA officials are “accorded a presumption of good faith” and stressed “the appropriate deference owed” to the CIA. The judges omitted quoting former CIA chief Mike Pompeo’s description of his agency’s modus operandi: “We lied, we cheated, we stole. It’s like we had entire training courses.”
Since Trump’s tweet did not specifically state that the program he was seeking to terminate actually existed, the judges entitled the CIA to pretend it was still top secret. The judges concluded with another kowtow, stressing that they were “mindful of the requisite deference courts traditionally owe to the executive in the area of classification.” Judge Robert Katzmann dissented, declaring that the court’s decision put its “imprimatur to a fiction of deniability that no reasonable person would regard as plausible.”
On February 9, another federal appeals court shot down a FOIA request from BuzzFeed journalist Jason Leopold who had sought the same records on the basis of Trump’s tweet. But the federal appeals court for the District of Columbia unanimously blocked Leopold’s request: “Did President Trump’s tweet officially acknowledge the existence of a program? Perhaps. Or perhaps not. And therein lies a problem.” The judges proffered no evidence that Trump had tweeted about a program that didn’t exist. The judges reached into an “Alice in Wonderland” bag of legal tricks and plucked out this pretext: “Even if the President’s tweet revealed some program, it did not reveal the existence of Agency records about that alleged program.” Since Trump failed to specify the exact room number where the records were located at CIA headquarters, the judges entitled the CIA to pretend the records didn’t exist.
Only a federal judge could shovel that kind of hokum. Well, also members of Congress and editorial writers, but that’s a story for another month.
* * *
In his final months in office, Trump repeatedly promised massive declassification which never came.
Was the president stymied by persons he had unwisely appointed, such as CIA chief Gina Haspel and FBI chief Christopher Wray? Or was that simply another series of empty Twitter eruptions that Trump failed to follow up? Instead, his legacy is another grim reminder of how government secrecy can determine political history.
Have Deep State federal agencies become a Godzilla with the prerogative to undermine elections? Unfortunately, there’s no chance that federal judges would permit disclosure of the answer to that question.
Former CIA and NSA boss Michael Hayden proudly proclaimed,
““Espionage is not just compatible with democracy; it’s essential for democracy.”
And how can we know if the Deep State’s espionage is actually pro-democracy or subversive of democracy? Again, don’t expect judges to permit any truths to escape on that score.
Secrecy is the ultimate entitlement program for the Deep State. The federal government is creating trillions of pages of new secrets every year. The more documents bureaucrats classify, the more lies politicians and government officials can tell. Federal judge Amy Berman Jackson warned in 2019, “If people don’t have the facts, democracy doesn’t work.”
Actually, it is working very well for the FBI, CIA, and other Deep State agencies.
Tyler Durden
Wed, 06/23/2021 – 22:40 - "It's Gotten So Bad" – Violence In Baltimore City Outpaces 2020 Numbers, Gov. Hogan Reacts
“It’s Gotten So Bad” – Violence In Baltimore City Outpaces 2020 Numbers, Gov. Hogan Reacts
Baltimore City continues to slide into a socio-economic disaster under liberal control. The latest murders and non-fatal shootings outpace 2020 numbers, according to new crime statistics.
Crime and statistics data from the Baltimore City Police Department (BCPD) show the current 160 homicides is 6% above last year’s figures for this time last year. Non-fatal shootings are up 18% year-to-date.
A Southwest Baltimore resident who wanted to remain anonymous for fear of retribution by local crime gangs told local news WJZ13 that “it’s just gotten so bad. You got to be scared to walk up and down the street, especially in the evening. Now, it’s broad daylight, too.”
“[Police] make their presence well-known, so it’s not like they are not here. I see police officers on every corner just about every night,” the person continued.
The situation in the city is so severe that Governor Larry Hogan had a recent meeting with newly elected Mayor Brandon Scott and Police Commissioner Michael Harrison. The governor said the meeting was “productive” but attributed the lack of consequences for petty crime to the surge in violence.
“When crime’s being committed right in front of police officers, when the state’s attorney refuses to prosecute half the crimes, we’re not going to fix the problem, regardless of how many meetings we’re going to have,” Hogan said.
This all comes as Baltimore City State’s Attorney Marilyn Mosby halted prosecuting minor traffic violations, prostitution, drug possession, and other minor offenses during the virus pandemic. In March, she held a press conference to declare that rough policing doesn’t prevent more violent crimes.
But months later, as summer begins, Mosby’s grand experiment is failing as Baltimore’s spending board approved more police funding.
If the pace of homicides continues, the metro area will experience more than 300 homicides by the end of the year. Shooting deaths have been elevated since the police killing of Freddie Gray in 2015.
The spillover in violent crime has reached the city’s most affluent areas, including Fells Point, located in the Inner Harbor district.
Readers may recall, earlier this month, 37 businesses in Fells threatened the mayor with not paying their taxes because they’re “fed up and frustrated” with the outburst of violence.
This is Fells Point, run by @Zeke_Cohen. The same Ezekiel that quote tweeted me weeks ago saying his district was in great shape. Go to his Facebook page, you will find his constituents cursing him out in the comment section. This will be Zeke’s last term. pic.twitter.com/UwIlwIpCMJ
— Kimberly Klacik (@kimKBaltimore) June 8, 2021
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Video of last night’s shooting in Fells Point, the second weekend in a row, this time with heightened police preened by demand of local businesses pic.twitter.com/s4t5esHck1
— Justin Fenton (@justin_fenton) June 14, 2021
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Just a clip of me standing up for Baltimore City residents against terrible leaders that have ruined such a beautiful city on Fox & Friends 🇺🇸
I will be visiting Fells Point this evening for dinner. It’s up to us. pic.twitter.com/xLP071CY5m
— Kimberly Klacik (@kimKBaltimore) June 15, 2021
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As we’ve noted, BCPD has stepped up patrols, closed-off streets, and set up a mobile crime command center in the bar and restaurant district to get a handle on the crime overflow.
One of the 37 concerned business owners is Bill Packo, who owns Barley’s Backyard and has been operating in Fells for three decades. He spoke with WJZ13 about the out of control violence and public drunkenness:
“It’s a shame. What they’re letting happen to Fells Point is what they let happen in the Inner Harbor, and now it has made its way here,” Packo said. “There’s alcohol being sold by individuals out there, drugs, and clearly we all know about the shootings that took place last weekend. But there needs to be some control out there. There is none whatsoever.”
If violent crime continues to spiral out of control in the city, affecting local commerce, businesses will start moving out to suburbia where life is pleasant and calm.
Former President Trump actively spoke about Baltimore. Why is the Biden administration choosing to ignore?
Tyler Durden
Wed, 06/23/2021 – 22:20 - Buzzfeed Nears Deal To Finally Go Public Via SPAC
Buzzfeed Nears Deal To Finally Go Public Via SPAC
After years of speculation about a public offering, Buzzfeed, the digital media company that revealed recently that much of its most popular content is produced by unpaid teenagers, is nearing a deal to go public via SPAC.
The deal, reported Wednesday evening by WSJ, will give the company enough of a bankroll to buy up other rival media firms, including Complex, a fashion- and media-based outlet. Buzzfeed hopes that it will come out on top in a wave of consolidation that will see it buy up several of its main rivals.
The SPAC deal is being struck by Buzzfeed CEO and founder Jonah Peretti and the company 890 5th Avenue Partners, a blank-check company named after the headquarters of Marvel’s Avengers superheroes and founded by investor Adam Rothstein, and it may be officially announced as early as this week.
Buzzfeed and a handful of digital media upstarts managed to raise hundreds of millions of dollars in venture capital via a series of funding rounds back in 2015 and 2016. Buzzfeed achieved a peak valuation of $1.5 billion after receiving $200MM from NBCUniversal. But by now, that money has probably mostly run out.
In the intervening years, investors have been forced to write down the value of some of these investments (like Disney writing down the entirety of its investment in Vice) as the media firms have mostly underperformed. Some, like Vox, have achieved modest success via scale by buying up rival brands left and right. But Buzzfeed’s attempts at consolidation haven’t worked out so well: the firm recently laid off a huge chunk of the HuffPo staffers who migrated to Buzzfeed following the deal.
Financial pressure has intensified for Buzzfeed, forcing it to trawl around for potential suitors. But even in the SPAC boom, which has slowed since the start of the new year, it appears many are approaching digital media with great trepidation.
In 2017, BuzzFeed missed its revenue target of about $350MM by some 15% to 20% and laid off about 100 employees in advertising sales and business operations. The company’s finances improved over the years as Peretti managed to keep expenses down. In 2020, BuzzFeed turned a profit for the first time since 2014, in part by cutting about $30MM in expenses.
Buzzfeed isn’t the only digital media player pursuing a SPAC. Whether this will be enough to win over investors remains to be seen. The biggest obstacle for Buzzfeed is that the digital advertising business is controlled by Google, Facebook and Amazon – the “Big three” – and independent media businesses have found it difficult to compete without selling paid subscriptions to subsidize their operations. Will Buzzfeed, a pioneer of the ‘free-to-all’ digital model, finally be forced to experiment with a paywall? And more importantly, would anybody actually pay?
Tyler Durden
Wed, 06/23/2021 – 22:00 - Ant Group Forced To Spearhead China's New National Credit-Scoring System
Ant Group Forced To Spearhead China’s New National Credit-Scoring System
Beijing has apparently figured out a way for Alibaba’s Ant Group to help compensate for founder Jack Ma’s public criticisms: the firm is being forced to partner with a bevy of state-controlled enterprises to develop China’s first credit-scoring system (apparently, Beijing prioritized the rollout of its “social credit” system over the more traditional version).
For decades now, Chinese financial institutions have been pining for a national system of credit scoring like the FICO system used in the US, despite the fact that Chinese consumers almost exclusively rely on mobile and electronic payments.
According to WSJ, the new entity, which could be established as soon as Q3 of this year, could result in Ant ceding some control over the voluminous data it has on the financial habits of Chinese citizens. More than one billion Chinese use Ant’s Alipay app to spend, borrow or invest their money. All this data collected by Ant is the company’s secret weapon. But instead of Ant hoarding the data for itself, talks are ongoing in which the Jack Ma-controlled Ant will is launching a joint venture with a state-owned company. The resulting firm would be licensed as a credit-scoring company.
Discussions about how these credit scores would fit into China’s national database of consumer information have continued.
The new venture with state-backed investors would override Ant’s previous attempts to spearhead a national credit-scoring system under its own brand, Zhima Credit. Ant started the brand six years ago, and once had ambitious plans of using Zhima to provide credit scores for Chinese citizens – but those hopes were dashed, and the division was instead relegated to being a loyalty program for Alipay customers.
While the PBOC already runs a Credit Reference Center that collects credit information about individuals and companies from banks and other financial institutions, it lacks data on many consumers who either don’t qualify for traditional bank loans or are “unbanked” for whatever reason. Fortunately, Ant, whose Alipay platform handled the equivalent of more than $17 trillion worth of transactions and originated loans to more than one-third of China’s population in the year to June 2020, has collected troves of consumer data for years.
Back in 2016, Alibaba was investing heavily in Zhima to try and make the division China’s premier credit-scoring database. The firm had been invited by the PBOC (along with a handful of rival firms) to try and create its own credit bureau. Ant hired people from Equifax to build the risk assessment and scoring system.
The company expected the PBOC to grant it a license to run the credit-scoring system after it had finished building out the system connecting lenders across the country to pool data on potential borrowers. But that never happened.
Instead, regulators cracked down on peer-to-peer lending platforms after some turned out to lack proper risk controls, or be outright scams. The PBOC also decided it no longer wanted a nationwide credit-scoring system run. The PBOC later tried to revive the credit scoring system, but found private firms to be less-than-willing partners.
With its ambitions curtailed, Zhima soon began to fade. Ant instead used the “Zhima scores” as the basis for a loyalty program for Alipay users. People with high scores could enjoy perks such as deposit-free hotel bookings and rentals of cars, bicycles and mobile power banks.
While Zhima likely won’t be a part of the new state-controlled credit-scoring system, WSJ said the state-controlled enterprises that are partnering with Ant to create the new system will likely benefit from all Zhima’s data.
Tyler Durden
Wed, 06/23/2021 – 21:40 - Baltimore Police Chief Links Recent Crime Wave To Staff Shortages, Gang Violence
Baltimore Police Chief Links Recent Crime Wave To Staff Shortages, Gang Violence
Authored by Lorenz Duchamps via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours),
Baltimore Police Commissioner Michael Harrison blamed a rise in violent crime and homicides in the most populous city in Maryland on “a number of issues,” including a shortage in staff.
A Baltimore police officer at a fundraising event in Baltimore, Maryland on Sept. 12, 2019. (Eric Baradat/AFP via Getty Images) Harrison noted during an interview with CNN on Tuesday that just like New York and all the other big cities across the nation, Baltimore is seeing a spike in violence, with 18 homicides recorded in just the past ten days alone.
“It’s a number of issues, it’s grouping gang violence, it’s retaliation from previous bad acts,” the commissioner explained.
“But we are seeing an increase in close acquaintance shootings and domestic violence shootings where people just have absolutely poor or no conflict resolution skills and are using guns to solve their conflicts.”
Baltimore Police Commissioner Michael Harrison, center, Baltimore Mayor Brandon Scott, second from right, confer at the scene of a deadly shooting in Baltimore, Maryland on June 16, 2021. (Kim Hairston/The Baltimore Sun via AP) Harrison also noted that he hopes the police force in the city, which is seeing roughly 230 officers short of its current budget, will see more “boots on the ground” to fight the crime spike and homicides.
“We are hiring, we are recruiting,” Harrison said. “We are using every resource available, we’re using all the time to force up and plus up the number, so we can have more officers.”
While stressing the departments’ dire need for more officers, the chief also said additional personnel is not just good for improving law enforcement in the city, but also needed to “build those relationships” within the community, noting that the department needs the community’s help in solving these murders so these bad actors can be held accountable for “terrorizing our community.”
The comments came as President Joe Biden plans to lay out new steps to stem a rising national tide of violent crime, with a particular focus on shootings, as administration officials brace for what they fear could be an especially turbulent summer.
President Joe Biden speaks during a meeting with FEMA Administrator Deanne Criswell and Homeland Security Adviser and Deputy National Security Adviser Elizabeth Sherwood-Randall, in the Roosevelt Room of the White House in Washington on June 22, 2021. (Evan Vucci/AP Photo) In a speech on Wednesday, Biden is to unveil a series of executive orders aimed at reducing violence, and he will renew his calls for Congress to pass gun legislation, aides said. Ahead of the speech, the Justice Department announced new strike forces aimed at tackling gun trafficking in five cities.
“Yes, there need to be reforms of police systems across the country. The president is a firm believer in that,” White House press secretary Jen Psaki said Tuesday.
“But there are also steps he can take as president of the United States to help address and hopefully reduce that crime. A big part of that, in his view, is putting in place gun safety measures … using the bully pulpit but also using levers at his disposal as president.”
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
From NTD News
Tyler Durden
Wed, 06/23/2021 – 21:20 - Is The Worst Finally Over: Automotive Chip Supply Expected To Ramp Up In Second Half Of 2021
Is The Worst Finally Over: Automotive Chip Supply Expected To Ramp Up In Second Half Of 2021
It looks like the ongoing semiconductor pain for the auto industry could finally be on the track to subsiding.
That’s because car chip vendors are now able to “ramp up output” thanks to more foundry house support coming online, Digitimes Asia reported overnight.
The report notes that some international automotive IC vendors have “notified their clients that they can expect more supplies in second-half 2021” as foundries expand production capacity.
For example, the report notes that “Globalfoundries has just broken ground for a 12-inch fab construction project in Singapore”.
Additionally, industry sources in Taiwan told Digitimes that delivery lead times are set to be shortened substantially from the over 50 weeks they were previously at.
It’s the first sliver of good news for the automotive industry since the semi shortage began as a result of the pandemic. Up until this report, projections for “returns to normal” looked pessimistic and gloomy not only from the automotive industry, but also from consumer electronics companies.
Recall, just two weeks ago, we noted that Flex, the world’s third-biggest electronics contract manufacturer, offered up the “gloomiest” forecast for the crisis yet. The company has more than 100 sites in 30 countries and works with major names like Dyson and HP.
Lynn Torrel, Flex’s chief procurement and supply chain officer, told FT: “With such strong demand, the expectation is mid to late-2022 depending on the commodity. Some are expecting [shortages to continue] into 2023.”
Revathi Advaithi, chief executive of Flex added that the shortage has prompted the company’s multinational customers to “take a far more serious look at restructuring their supply chains than the trade war between the US and China ever did”.
Adavaithi commented: “Most companies won’t make a decision to regionalize just on tariffs. They know it could be a short-term thing but things like the pandemic and escalation of shipping costs that impact the total cost of ownership drives regionalization.”
Flex’s pessimistic forecast follows that of Intel CEO Pat Gelsinger weeks ago, who we pointed out said that the shortage could last “a couple years”.
We noted in mid-May that Taiwan Semiconductor had plans of “doubling down” and vastly increasing its investment for production in Arizona. The chipmaking giant said at the time it was “weighing plans to pump tens of billions of dollars more into cutting-edge chip factories in the U.S. state of Arizona than it had previously disclosed”.
The company had already said it was going to invest $10 billion to $12 billion in Arizona. It now appears to be mulling a more advanced 3 nanometer plant that could cost between $23 billion and $25 billion. The changes would come over the next 10 to 15 years, as the company builds out its Phoenix campus.
Tyler Durden
Wed, 06/23/2021 – 21:00 - WHO Official Says Mask Mandates & Social Distancing Should Continue Indefinitely
WHO Official Says Mask Mandates & Social Distancing Should Continue Indefinitely
Authored by Paul Joseph Watson via Summit News,
A top WHO official says that mask mandates and social distancing should continue indefinitely in order to protect against new variants of COVID-19.
The comments were made on Sky News by Special Envoy on Covid for the World Health Organisation (WHO). Dr David Nabarro.
Nabarro suggested that there would be a long list of mutations of the Indian variant which would in some cases evade the protection offered by vaccines.
“We will go from Delta to Lambda and then on to the other Greek letters, that’s inevitable, and some of these variants will be troublesome,” he said.
“That issue of variants is what we are watching all over the world.”
WHO Special Envoy, Dr David Nabarro says variants of the virus will keep on coming and some “will be troublesome” for vaccine protection.#KayBurley
Get live #COVID19 updates: https://t.co/vnD7sLx2qm pic.twitter.com/saVLQmrGDM— Sky News (@SkyNews) June 23, 2021
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“I’m basically saying variants are going to go on coming. That’s part of life, we need to pick them up fast, we need to move quickly if we see them in a certain location, we need to build the management of variants into what we call our Covid-ready strategy, which is going to be the pattern for the foreseeable future,” he added.
According to Nabarro, mask mandates and social distancing need to remain in place for the foreseeable future “as part of our defence” against COVID, particularly in regions which have high infection rates.
As we highlighted earlier, England is set to drop all face mask rules on July 19 after it was revealed that they were having a massive negative impact on businesses and wiping billions off the economy.
Several government advisers have called for coronavirus restrictions to continue forever, not just to defend against COVID, but also to fight influenza.
Former Communist Party member and SAGE adviser Susan Michie said earlier this month that mask mandates and social distancing should continue “forever” and that people should adopt such behaviour just as they did with wearing seatbelts.
It never ends.
* * *
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Tyler Durden
Wed, 06/23/2021 – 20:40 - Insurers, Owners Of Stuck Container Ship Reach Deal With Suez Canal Authority
Insurers, Owners Of Stuck Container Ship Reach Deal With Suez Canal Authority
The Ever Given container ship could soon be released from Egyptian authority’s control after nearly three months following the vessel’s accident in the Suez Canal in March that closed the world’s most important shipping lane for six days. The Suez Canal Authority (S.C.A.) and the vessel’s owners have been bickering over settlement figures for canal disruptions. However, it appears an “agreement in principle” between the vessel’s owners and the S.C.A. has finally been reached.
On Wednesday, the container ship’s insurers released a statement confirming “an agreement in principle between the parties has been reached.” The vessel has been moored in Great Bitter Lake, a large saltwater lake in Egypt that is part of the Suez Canal, seized under Egyptian law until the vessel’s owners paid a settlement that was once nearly $1 billion.
“Following extensive discussions with the Suez Canal Authority’s negotiating committee over the past few weeks, an agreement in principle between the parties has been reached,” the UK P&I Club, a protection and indemnity insurance company wrote in a Wednesday press release. “Together with the owner and the ship’s other insurers we are now working with the S.C.A. to finalize a signed settlement agreement as soon as possible.”
UK P&I Club did not discuss exact details about the agreement. Over the last few months, Egypt demanded compensation of $916 million for the six-day disruption when Ever Given was stuck in the lower end of the canal. More recently, the insurer opposed a $600 million settlement.
According to the Egyptian newspaper Ahram Online, Egypt requested $550 million on the requirement that $200 million would be paid immediately. It’s still unclear what the current agreement in principle details.
After nearly three months and plenty of negotiations, it appears the Ever Given could soon be released from Egyptian control.
Tyler Durden
Wed, 06/23/2021 – 20:20 - Escape From Woke Metropolises
Escape From Woke Metropolises
Authored by Rob Dreher via TheAmericanConservative.com,
Last weekend in Chicago, there were 54 shootings, five of them fatal. This was one of the fatal shootings. Warning: it’s graphic:
Chicago shooting of Gyovanny Arzuaga and Yasmin Perez on June 19 as they drove with their flag, 1 killed, 1 critically wounded in Humboldt Park pic.twitter.com/p9YcaZJmWU
— 🇺🇸 Shavo 🇺🇸 (@d_shavo) June 20, 2021
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Look at these two dirtbags, just standing there filming it:
Last week, Chicago Mayor Lori Lightfoot, who is black, declared that racism is a “public health emergency” in her city, and diverted $10 million in federal Covid funds to fight racism.
Clearly, Chicago’s mayor has things well in hand, and has no problem at all facing reality. The Chicago Bears are thinking of relocating to a suburb for a bigger stadium, and Mayor Lightfoot seems more concerned about that than mass murders.Two years ago, she blamed Texas gun laws for Chicago’s killing sprees. But Chicago’s police superintendent said that same summer that the problem was that the cops keep re-arresting the same thugs, whom the criminal justice system recycle back onto the street.
This is what happens when you elect Woke Democrats to run your city.
By the way, Chicago’s DA Kim Foxx was backed by leftist billionaire George Soros, who has been pouring his money into electing progressive DAs in big cities. San Francisco DA Chesa Boudin is a Soros acolyte, as is Baltimore DA Marilyn Mosby.
All those cities are overrun by crime.
Reader Jonah R., who lives in suburban Maryland, left this comment:
On Thursday four young black men drove to a public elementary school in the mostly white, affluent DC neighborhood of Cleveland Park, where they fired more than 40 shots at the school in front of nearly 150 witnesses, hitting two construction workers who were renovating the building and fortunately not hitting any children only because they were in nearby trailer classrooms because of the renovation. The police chased them and caught them when they crashed their car. So far there appears to be no explanation for it other than four black dudes wanted to go randomly shoot up a white school. Let me know if this makes the national news where you live. I’m sure it won’t.
But this is what happens when criminals feel emboldened by anti-policing rhetoric.
In Baltimore, where the DA has implemented a policy of not prosecuting misdemeanors and low-level crimes, criminals are starting to enjoy a free-for-all environment. The tourist/bar/restaurant neighborhood of Fells Point has seen multiple shootings in the past couple weeks, with one triple shooting occurring just 25 feet from a group of police officers. Some local businesses are refusing to pay their taxes and are putting the money in escrow instead. The neighborhood, already a place for a fun night out at the bars, has been looking like Mardi Gras in recent weeks, but without the cops enforcing laws like they do in New Orleans during Mardi Gras. There’s footage of drunks jumping on police cars while the cops just watch. About a week ago, someone went into Fells Point late at night and just randomly shot a bunch of cars. Some restaurants whose owners had been desperate to reopen are closing at 9 p.m. so their employees can get home safely. Some businesses are hiring private security. Police are not enforcing open container laws, parking and traffic regulations, or laws against people openly selling drugs and liquor on the streets. Only in the past few days have the cops come in, but in pointlessly massive numbers, and they’ve closed streets and manned checkpoints, going to the opposite extreme, as if to spite the neighborhood peons who complained.
I haven’t checked the news from Minneapolis lately. Is the community of activist hobos that formed around the site of George Floyd’s death still illegally “occupying” the site and inviting anarchy? There were three fatal shootings there in their “autonomous zone” in 2020 and one fatal shooting so far this year.
How about a year of activists trying to burn down federal buildings in Portland? Plus, staffing of the Portland police is at its lowest in decades, and there’s been a huge surge of brazen gang violence. According to the AP, Portland disbanded its special unit dedicated to curbing gun violence because activists believed it disproportionately harmed black people.
This is what happens when the “defund the police” chant–which is, yes, a fringe activist fantasy–becomes policy because people are too afraid to stand up to aggressive activists. I live in a safe multicultural suburb, so I’m fine, but my friends and relatives in cities like DC, Baltimore, and New York are freaking out. You can’t for a minute pretend that the rhetoric of the past year didn’t play a role in this surge of violence in our cities.
Tyler Durden
Wed, 06/23/2021 – 20:00 - GOP Sees CRT Battle As Potent Weapon In Midterms
GOP Sees CRT Battle As Potent Weapon In Midterms
As viral videos continue to emerge of pissed off parents putting school boards in their place over Critical Race Theory (CRT) – which charges an entire demographic with a collective crime, uses it as grounds to frame individuals within that demographic as perpetrators of that crime, and then seeks to strip condemned individuals of rights, dignity and equal protection based on that charge (via @AurelianofRome) – Republican lawmakers see an opportunity heading into midterms.
In one blistering speech last week during a crowded district school board meeting in Illinois, parent Ty Smith, who is black, blasted CRT as an ideology that flies in the face of what Dr. Martin Luther King taught – instilling a fundamental tension and division between Americans.
“Critical Race Theory is pretty much going to be teaching kids to hate each other, how to dislike each other…,” he said.
More recently, parents in Loudoun County, Virginia – now “ground zero” in the fight against CRT, called out the “wokest and worst school board in America” this week, leading to arrests.
UPDATE: Parents protesting CRT at Loudoun County School Board meeting declared an unlawful assembly, at least two arrests made when some refused to leave right away
— Benny (@bennyjohnson) June 23, 2021
Now, according to The Hill, “some Republican candidates — like Glenn Youngkin, the party’s nominee for governor in Virginia and a former chief executive of the Carlyle Group — are using their opposition to critical race theory to paint themselves as defenders of traditional American values and patriotism.“
“Critical race theory is not an academic curriculum. It is a political agenda to divide people and actually put people into different buckets and then pit them against one another,” said Youngkin in a recent Fox News appearance. “Critical race theory will not be in Virginia’s schools when I serve Virginians as the next governor.”
Other Virginia Republicans are similarly jumping on the CRT bandwagon.
“A lot of parents have overheard their kids’ lessons during virtual school and they didn’t like what they heard. America has had to work through problems but is not a country full of racists, and we shouldn’t be teaching our kids that our nation is fundamentally racist,” said state delegate Jason Miyares (R), a GOP nominee for attorney general. “We can’t survive as a nation if we are raising an entire generation of children to learn to hate their country.”
Opponents of critical race theory have protested in several other Virginia school districts — Frederick County, Virginia Beach, Hanover County and Amherst County — all of which do not use the theory in their own curricula.
Youngkin’s opponent, former Gov. Terry McAuliffe (D), has dismissed the debate as a political fabrication that is not on the top of voters’ minds.“That’s another right-wing conspiracy,” McAuliffe said in audio apparently recorded by a tracker and reported by Fox News. “This is totally made up by Donald Trump and Glenn Youngkin. This is who they are. It’s a conspiracy theory.” -The Hill
“Critical race theory is an absolute disaster for the Democrats,” said Sen. Rick Scott (R-RL), Chair of the National Republican Senatorial Committee (NRSC). “Parents want their schools to teach what I got taught: Reading, writing and arithmetic.”
Tyler Durden
Wed, 06/23/2021 – 19:40 - The "Great Reset" Is Here, Part 1: The New Blueprint For Worldwide Inflation
The “Great Reset” Is Here, Part 1: The New Blueprint For Worldwide Inflation
Authored by James Rickards via DailyReckoning.com,
For years, currency analysts (myself included) have looked for signs of an international monetary “reset” that would diminish the dollar’s role as the leading reserve currency and replace it with a substitute, which would be agreed upon at some Bretton Woods-style monetary conference.
Now, it looks like the move towards the long-expected Great Reset is accelerating.
At the recent G7 summit in the UK, G7 leaders gave their blessings to a $100 billion allocation of IMF special drawing rights (SDRs) to help lower-income countries address the COVID-19 crisis.
President Biden fully supports the idea. The White House issued the following statement:
The United States and our G7 partners are actively considering a global effort to multiply the impact of the proposed Special Drawing Rights (SDR) allocation to the countries most in need…
At potentially up to $100 billion in size, the proposed effort would further support health needs – including vaccinations…
A separate press release from the same day continued the same sentiment, stating, “We strongly support the effort to recycle SDRs to further support health needs.”
In another development, IMF Managing Director Kristalina Georgieva said last Wednesday that she expected the fund’s governors to approve a $650 billion allocation of SDRs in mid-August.
What exactly are SDRs?
Basically, they’re world money.
In 1969, the IMF created the SDR, possibly to serve as a source of liquidity and alternative to the dollar.
In 1971, the dollar did devalue relative to gold and other major currencies. SDRs were issued by the IMF from 1970 to 1981. None were issued after 1981 until 2009 during the global financial crisis.
The 2009 issuance was a case of the IMF “testing the plumbing” of the system to make sure it worked properly. Because zero SDRs were issued from 1981–2009, the IMF wanted to rehearse the governance, computational, and legal processes for issuing SDRs.
The purpose was partly to alleviate liquidity concerns at the time, but it was also to make sure the system works in case a large, new issuance was needed on short notice. The 2009 experiment showed the system worked fine.
Since 2009, the IMF has proceeded in slow steps to create a platform for massive new issuances of SDRs and establish a deep liquid pool of SDR-denominated assets.
On January 7, 2011, the IMF issued a master plan for replacing the dollar with SDRs.
This included creating an SDR bond market, SDR dealers, and ancillary facilities such as repos, derivatives, settlement and clearance channels, and the entire apparatus of a liquid bond market.
A liquid bond market is critical. U.S. Treasury bonds are among the world’s most liquid securities, which makes the dollar a legitimate reserve currency.
The IMF study recommended that the SDR bond market replicate the infrastructure of the U.S. Treasury market, with hedging, financing, settlement and clearance mechanisms substantially similar to those used to support trading in Treasury securities today.
In August 2016, the World Bank announced that it would issue SDR-denominated bonds to private purchasers. Industrial and Commercial Bank of China (ICBC), the largest bank in China, will be the lead underwriter on the deal.
In September 2016, the IMF included the Chinese yuan in the SDR basket, giving China a seat at the monetary table.
So, the framework has been created to expand the SDR’s scope.
The SDR can be issued in abundance to IMF members and used in the future for a select list of the most important transactions in the world, including balance-of-payments settlements, oil pricing, and the financial accounts of the world’s largest corporations, such as Exxon Mobil, Toyota, and Royal Dutch Shell.
The basic idea behind the SDR is that the global monetary system centered around the dollar is inherently unstable and needs to be reformed.
Part of the problem is due to a process called Triffin’s Dilemma, named after economist Robert Triffin. Triffin said that the issuer of a dominant reserve currency had to run trade deficits so that the rest of the world could have enough of the currency to buy goods from the issuer and expand world trade.
But, if you run deficits long enough, you would eventually go broke. This was said about the dollar in the early 1960s. The SDR would solve Triffin’s Dilemma.
I wrote about SDRs and the global elite plans for them in the second chapter of my 2016 book, The Road to Ruin.
Over the next several years, we will see the issuance of SDRs to transnational organizations, such as the U.N. and World Bank, for spending on climate change infrastructure and other elite pet projects outside the supervision of any democratically elected bodies.
I call this the New Blueprint for Worldwide Inflation.
But Triffin’s Dilemma is not the only dynamic that’s pushing the world away from the dollar.
In Part 2, we show you why the weaponization of the dollar by the U.S. government is pushing the world to seek alternatives.
Tyler Durden
Wed, 06/23/2021 – 19:20 - Fully Vaccinated Israelis May Be Forced To Quarantine After Exposure To "Delta" Variant
Fully Vaccinated Israelis May Be Forced To Quarantine After Exposure To “Delta” Variant
As concerns about the threat posed by the “Delta” variant, a mutant strain of COVID-19 first discovered in India that’s believed to be much more dangerous than rival strains, intensify, Israeli health officials have just been given the authority to quarantine pretty much anybody who is exposed to “Delta”, even if the individual is already fully vaccinated, Reuters reports.
The heavy-handed decision comes after a warning by new Israeli Prime Minister Naftali Bennett on Tuesday over new outbreaks caused by “Delta” . Bennett complained that daily infections have been rising again in Israel after weeks of a low plateau credited to the country’s record mass-vaccination drive.
Under the updated Health Ministry directive, vaccinated or formerly infected people can be ordered to self-isolate for up to 14 days if authorities suspect they may have passed in “close contact with a carrier of a dangerous virus variant.”
This could include having been passengers on the same plane, the ministry said, a possible dampener on Israel’s gradual opening of its borders to vaccinated summer tourists.
Addressing the Knesset (Israel’s parliament), Health Minister Nitzan Horowitz said fines of “thousands of shekels” might be levied against Israeli citizens or residents who travel to countries blacklisted as high COVID-19 risks.
On June 16, the Health Ministry listed Argentina, Brazil, South Africa, India, Mexico and Russia as off-limits to Israeli citizens or residents unless they receive special permission.
Some 55% of Israel’s 9.3MM population have received both doses of the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine, and a steep drop in cases had prompted most economic restrictions to be lifted. But just days earlier, Israel announced plans to start vaccinating teenagers between the ages of 12 and 15.
Offering an example of how different countries are handling the potential threat posed by the “Delta” variant, analysts at Rabobank pointed out that the UK has a far larger presence of the Delta variant, but that hasn’t stopped it from allowing everyone to travel internationally from August; and Thailand, where COVID variants are also spreading, is opening up to tourism starting July 1 (in Phuket) and nationally beginning in October.
Meanwhile, Israel, which became the first developed nation in the world to vaccinate its population using mostly Pfizer doses, has already reinstated its mask rules after briefly removing them last week.
Tyler Durden
Wed, 06/23/2021 – 19:00 - Leading US Scientist Finds China Scrubbed Early COVID Data That Could Help Explain Origins
Leading US Scientist Finds China Scrubbed Early COVID Data That Could Help Explain Origins
A leading US expert in influenza viruses has discovered that early sequences of the coronavirus genome from a global database at the request of Chinese researchers.
Professor Jesse Bloom, who works at the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center in Seattle, found a project by Wuhan University which sequenced 34 positive COVID-19 cases from January 2020, as well as 16 cases in early February in which researchers looked into diagnosing a SARS-CoV-2 infection using a technique known as nanopore sequencing.
While the results of their researcher were published in March as a pre-print, and in June following peer review, the genomic sequences obtained during the course of their research – and uploaded to the US-maintained Sequence Read Archive (SRA) within the National Institutes of Health – were removed by a process that could have only taken place if the SRA staff were asked to do so, according to The Telegraph.
But when I went to Sequence Read Archive, I found entire project was gone! (Note that as detailed below, this does *not* imply malfeasance by NIH. Sequence Read Archive policy allows submitters to delete by e-mail request.) (3/n) pic.twitter.com/fEzOaVYZLZ
— Bloom Lab (@jbloom_lab) June 22, 2021
The sequences, which have been recovered from cloud storage and published in a pre-print, have been described by experts as “the most important data” on the origins of Covid-19 in more than a year.
The recovered data does not support either the “natural origins” or “lab leak” theory over the pandemic’s source, scientists say. However, it suggests the virus was circulating in Wuhan earlier than previously thought, and could perhaps point toward answers on the origins of Sars-CoV-2 – answers that could not only help end this pandemic but prevent the next one.
The emergence of the sequences also suggests there is more data from the early days of the epidemic that China is sitting on, and which may be recoverable by investigators.
Bloom writes in a lengthy Twitter thread: “Although events that led to emergence of #SARSCoV2 in Wuhan are unclear (zoonosis vs lab accident), everyone agrees deep ancestors are coronaviruses from bats. Therefore, we’d expect the first #SARSCoV2 sequences would be more similar to bat coronaviruses, and as #SARSCoV2 continued to evolve it would become more divergent from these ancestors. But that is *not* the case! Instead, early Huanan Seafood Market #SARSCoV2 viruses are more different from bat coronaviruses than #SARSCoV2 viruses collected later in China and even other countries. @lpipes @ras_nielsen give nice technical analysis at https://academic.oup.com/mbe/article/38/4/1537/6028993.”
Therefore, we’d expect the first #SARSCoV2 sequences would be more similar to bat coronaviruses, and as #SARSCoV2 continued to evolve it would become more divergent from these ancestors. But that is *not* the case! (8/n)
— Bloom Lab (@jbloom_lab) June 22, 2021
Same result if we use other bat coronaviruses like RpYN06 or RmYN02. To see this, go to https://t.co/4qZbDRjFvw for an interactive plot that allows you to select the bat coronavirus outgroup and mouse over points for strain details. (11/n)
— Bloom Lab (@jbloom_lab) June 22, 2021
There are also broader implications. First, fact this dataset was deleted should make us skeptical that all other relevant early Wuhan sequences have been shared. We already know many labs in China ordered to destroy early samples: https://t.co/3Uol5gdwON (16/n) pic.twitter.com/ajtm8SxfVu
— Bloom Lab (@jbloom_lab) June 22, 2021
The NIH confirmed that the removal of the data, telling the Telegraph that they had “reviewed the submitting investigator’s request to withdraw the data,” and removed it.
“The requestor indicated the sequence information had been updated, was being submitted to another database, and wanted the data removed from SRA to avoid version control issues,” said a spokesperson, adding “Submitting investigators hold the rights to their data and can request withdrawal of the data.”
Bloom published his findings on the preprint server bioRxiv.
Tyler Durden
Wed, 06/23/2021 – 18:44
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