Today’s News 31st December 2020

• COVID "Mutation" Stories Show That The Lockdowns Are Designed To Last Forever
  COVID “Mutation” Stories Show That The Lockdowns Are Designed To Last Forever

  Authored by Brandon Smith via Alt-Market.us,

  For many months now I have been warning that the design behind the pandemic lockdowns is a perpetual one; meaning, the lockdowns are MEANT to last forever. We can see this in the very commentary of the establishment elites that are pushing for the mandates; their most frequent argument being that the pandemic restrictions are the “new normal”. This assertion is outlined by globalists like Gideon Lichfield of MIT in his article ‘We’re Not Going Back To Normal’. In it he states:

  “Ultimately, however, I predict that we’ll restore the ability to socialize safely by developing more sophisticated ways to identify who is a disease risk and who isn’t, and discriminating – legally – against those who are.

  …one can imagine a world in which, to get on a flight, perhaps you’ll have to be signed up to a service that tracks your movements via your phone. The airline wouldn’t be able to see where you’d gone, but it would get an alert if you’d been close to known infected people or disease hot spots. There’d be similar requirements at the entrance to large venues, government buildings, or public transport hubs. There would be temperature scanners everywhere, and your workplace might demand you wear a monitor that tracks your temperature or other vital signs. Where nightclubs ask for proof of age, in future they might ask for proof of immunity—an identity card or some kind of digital verification via your phone, showing you’ve already recovered from or been vaccinated against the latest virus strains.”

  In my article ‘Waves Of Mutilation: Medical Tyranny And The Cashless Society’, I dismantled Lichfield’s arguments and outlined why the controls the establishment is attempting to put in place have been planned far in advance. The so-called “great reset” and “Fourth Industrial Revolution” has been in development since at least 2014 when the terms were first being injected into the mainstream economic media. The ideas of a cashless society, the “sharing economy”, biometric mass surveillance, social credit scores, etc, have all been part of the globalist agenda for decades. The coronavirus is merely a useful crisis for them to exploit as a rationale for the draconian measures they have always wanted.

  

  The plan was so predictable that I even pointed out at the beginning of the coronavirus outbreak that lockdowns would not end even if a working vaccination was developed because all they have to do is declare that a “new mutation” of the virus has been found which is resistant to existing treatments. Or, they could engineer a whole new virus and release it into the population in order to keep the Reset machine rolling forward.

  Not surprisingly, just as news hit the wires that the barely tested and highly suspect Pfizer and Moderna vaccines were being released to the public, reports have begun to trickle in of “more infectious” Covid mutations found in places like the UK, India and South Africa.

  I’m not sure how much more transparent the elites can get.

  Take the Pfizer vaccine now and you might receive an immunity passport for a few months, and then it will become void with every new mutation of the virus. So, you must then submit to ENDLESS vaccinations, many of then untested and potentially hazardous. As the former VP of Pfizer and other medical professionals have warned, these vaccines are like Russian Roulette and could cause an autoimmune response that leads to sterility or other harmful reactions.

  The vaccines themselves are a conveniently short lived solution even if they do work. They require multiple doses over the course of a month, and renewed vaccinations are to take place possibly every few months. Basically, it never ends. With the mutations and limited antibodies from the vaccines, the elites could keep the lockdowns and mandates in place for many years to come.

  The World Health Organization is making it clear that vaccination will not necessarily be considered a solution to viral spread. Meaning, even if you are vaccinated you will still be considered a potential carrier and transmitter of Covid, therefore the lockdowns and mask mandates will not stop. This begs the question – What’s the point of the vaccine?

  The WHO chief scientist cites the fact that there is not enough evidence to prove that the vaccines prevent transmission. By that logic, we could also argue that there is no evidence that the vaccines are 95% effective, or that they are safe in the slightest.

  In the meantime, the WHO and our friendly neighborhood fascist Dr. Anthony Fauci are consistently spreading the narrative that the “worst outbreak” is yet to come. Gotta keep that fear train chugging forward on the track to the “Great Reset”, right?

  For the people that actually believe that the covid crisis will end after mass vaccinations, I’m sorry to say, but you have been duped. Every single element of the establishment response and every public statement they make indicates that they plan to violate your civil liberties for a long time to come. Those promises of relief right around the corner? All lies. The claim that if you go along to get along everything will go back to normal? It’s a con. It is hollow rhetoric designed to make you shut up and submit to medical tyranny for just long enough that it becomes irreversible.

  I suspect they are hoping they can condition the public over the next few years to simply adapt to the controls until we forget what life was like before the pandemic and the reset. It seems, however, that the globalist reset plan is not going very well.

  The vaccines and the mutation news feel rushed, to say the least. Initially, the establishment said that it would take at least 18 months just to develop a vaccine for trials and testing, and that the lockdowns would continue well beyond that time frame until a majority of the population was shown to have immunity. Instead, they tossed out multiple vaccines within 6 months and the mutation narrative is already in the news.

  I believe this is because resistance to the pandemic lockdowns is growing and the number of people refusing to take the vaccines appears to be high. As they say, the revolution will not be televised, but it is still impossible to hide completely.

  In Europe, a huge percentage of the population (around 50% or more depending on the country) are hesitant to take the vaccine. In the US, polls show that at least 30% of the population will refuse outright, while 60% of people are hesitant about effectiveness.

  Even large numbers of health care workers are refusing the vaccine, and these are the people with the most pressure to submit or face consequences.

  Hilariously, the media is arguing that though there have been “some allergic reactions” to the shot, there is “no evidence of serious long term side effects”. Perhaps that is because there are NO STUDIES of the long term effects and there were minimal trials before the vaccines were released? I mean, is this not basic logic? Do they really think we are that dumb?

  So far it seems hundreds of millions of people are not that dumb. Surprisingly, even sheriffs and police across the country are openly refusing to enforce mandates and carry out color-of-law punishments against citizens that do not submit. This is really a huge obstacle for the globalists and their reset.

  The virus has produced a 0.26% IFR (Infection Fatality Ratio) among anyone not in a nursing home with preexisting conditions. Over 40% of Covid deaths are attributed to elderly people that were already suffering from numerous ailments. Only around 10% of people that end up hospitalized for covid suffer from long term health concerns (more than three months). And, only around 15% of ICU beds are in use across the US, meaning that the claims of over-capacity and full hospitals were nothing more than fear mongering all along.

  Consider the fact that hundreds of thousands of people already die each year from infectious diseases like the flu and pneumonia and Covid starts to seem far less threatening. It is certainly not an excuse for medical lockdowns and Orwellian contact tracing measures.

  On top of that, numerous studies are revealing that the lockdowns and the masks are completely ineffective in stopping the spread of the virus. The states and countries with some of the most strictly enforced mandates also tend to be the places with the highest infection spikes.

  Because of this, it makes sense that many people are refusing to comply with the mandates. The media claims we are conspiracy theorists that believe the virus “doesn’t exist”; this is not the case. In fact, I have long suspected that the narrative that the virus “doesn’t exist” was a psyop or strawman that would be used against the liberty movement later to discredit our resistance to medical lockdowns.

  Most of us are well aware the virus exists. Some of us have already dealt with it and recovered from it. What we are saying is that the CDC, the WHO and the medical community’s OWN STATISTICS show that Covid is not a threat to more than 99% of the population. If we are to accept their stats as even remotely accurate, then Covid becomes a non-issue for most people.

  Again, I will ask the question that the mainstream refuses to ask:

  Why is 99% of the population being told they must sacrifice their jobs, their businesses and their liberties in the name of making less than 1% of the population feel safer? Why not ask the 0.26% of the people under threat from the virus to volunteer to stay home so that the rest of us can get on with normal life? Why are we doing the opposite of what makes the most sense?

  The answer is that the pandemic response is about dominance, not public health. People are starting to recognize this, and they are about to revolt.

  So, the next logical step for the establishment if they really want to institute their reset agenda is to introduce a new threat. Meaning, they need a “mutation” of the virus or a completely new virus in order to create the kind of fear that is required to manipulate the public into going along with further control.

  Will a new and deadlier virus be found? Maybe. In most cases viruses tend to evolve into less deadly strains of the original. They also tend to balance out their rate of spread versus their rate of mortality. In other words, like any other creature, viruses evolve to survive, and a virus cannot survive if it kills off a majority of its potential hosts. So, they mutate to become more infectious, but invariably less deadly.

  If a “mutation” does show up on the scene that is more deadly than the current form of Covid-19, then I would be highly suspicious of its origins. What is most likely is that that the elites are in a panic and they are using the mutation narrative as a propaganda tool to illicit terror and conformity in the public. There may be no mutation at all, or the mutations will have no significant bearing on the death rate.

  Ironically, by rushing out the vaccines as well as the mutation stories, the elites have sabotaged themselves. They wanted to blitzkrieg the public with the lockdowns and they met heavier resistance than they expected. So, they put the vaccination program on a bullet train and now the public is wary of being injected with a vaccine model that is barely tested. Now, they are promoting the mutation bogeyman and this only makes people question why they should take any vaccine at all? If the virus is going to continually mutate then why take a questionable vaccine that could be useless in a matter of a months?

  All the mutation narrative does is further expose what the true agenda is – What the elites want is never-ending lockdowns. There is no program to save lives or flatten the curve. The entire health argument is utter nonsense. Nothing that has been done so far supports the notion that public health is the priority. Instead, what we are seeing is a mad dash towards totalitarianism using Covid as the excuse, and the effort is failing.

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  Tyler Durden
  Wed, 12/30/2020 – 23:40

• Xi's Feigned Economic 'Success' A Mounting 'Powder Keg' With World
  Xi’s Feigned Economic ‘Success’ A Mounting ‘Powder Keg’ With World

  “The gap between Xi’s confidence and the world’s grim reality is glaring,” analysis in Nikkei Asia Review recently observed. This need “to portray ‘success’ at party anniversary will be powder keg with the world.”

  The analysis begins, “When it comes to statements issued after key meetings of the Chinese Communist Party, what is not written – especially what has been deleted from previous statements – often carries much more significance than the complex language that remains.”

  Nikkei’s Katsuji Nakazawa has highlighted a key phrase which was indeed glaringly absent from a statement of President Xi’s released upon this year’s Central Economic Work Conference, which ran Dec. 16 through 18, focused on China’s economic management for 2021. The absence is quite telling.

  

  The prior year’s fundamental acknowledged concern for the Chinese economy’s near and future outlook as expressed by Xi — that it faces “downward economic pressure” — was this year quietly dropped from the statement. Nakazawa observed:

  A year has made a big difference. At the previous Central Economic Work Conference, which began on Dec. 10, 2019, Chinese President and party General Secretary Xi Jinping issued a warning using those words.

  Looking back, the conference was held weeks before the outbreak of the new coronavirus began to terrorize the global economy. Two days before the meeting, the first virus patient in Wuhan, Hubei Province, began showing symptoms, according to Chinese authorities.

  As it began to unfold, however, Chinese citizens and people around the world were left in the dark about the outbreak. Information did not surface, at least not widely, for a while.

  Belatedly, by January 20, Chinese health officials went public with their findings of “human-to-human transmission” in perhaps a first dire warning to the globe of just how serious the emerging pandemic was.

  In 2019 while likely having little clue as to the devastating impact of the coronavirus on both the national and global economy about to be unleashed, Xi still used those words: “downward economic pressure”… and yet now silence:

  A year later, and despite China and the world going through a historic bout of economic turbulence, Xi made no mention of and ignored any “downward economic pressure.” True, the Chinese economy is recovering, but something seems off.

  It hints at Xi’s desire to declare to the world that China has become “the only major economy with positive growth this year,” as the Central Economic Work Conference statement put it.

  In China, the country’s fight against the virus and its success in fending off the outbreak’s economic effects are already regarded as a part of history Chinese can be proud of. There is even a virus-themed exhibition being held in Wuhan.

  It was a very different world just a year ago: “When the party in 2019 talked of downward economic pressure, the biggest factor weighing on the Chinese economy was the impact of the country’s fierce economic confrontation with the U.S. and President Donald Trump.”

  Interpreting Beijing’s 2020 Central Economic Work Conference offers hints of China’s post-pandemic recovery path ahead. https://t.co/mSgQUoZIcD

  — The Diplomat (@Diplomat_APAC) December 24, 2020

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  “The 2019 Central Economic Work Conference came one month before Vice Premier Liu He, a close aide to Xi, flew to Washington and signed the ‘phase one” trade deal,’ Nikkei observes.

  And then, the “unimaginable coronavirus-related nightmares would go on to play out around the world. Trump, who leaves office in less than a month, failed to cope with the outbreak, allowing it to ravage the U.S. So far, the virus has killed more than 322,000 people in the country.” Now there’s certainly no “round two” trade talks anywhere in sight also amid a ratcheting Trump trade war and sanctions.

  Something seems very “off” in Xi’s portrayal of ‘success’ observes Nakazawa. Read the rest of the Nikkei analysis here.

  Tyler Durden
  Wed, 12/30/2020 – 23:20

• The Year In Which Comforting American Myths Were Ravaged
  The Year In Which Comforting American Myths Were Ravaged

  Authored by James Bovard via The American Institute for Economic Research,

  Thanks in large part to Covid lockdowns, this year has left vast wreckage in its wake, with ten million jobs lost, more than 100,000 businesses and dozens of national chains bankrupted or closed. Up to 40 million people could face eviction in the coming months for failing to pay rent, and Americans report that their mental health is at record low levels.

  But the casualty list for 2020 must also include many of the political myths that shape Americans’ lives. 

  

  Perhaps the biggest myth to die this year was that Americans’ constitutional rights are safeguarded by the Bill of Rights. After the Covid-19 pandemic began, governors in state after state effectively placed scores of millions of citizens under house arrest – dictates that former Attorney General Bill Barr aptly compared to “the greatest intrusion on civil liberties” since the end of slavery. Politicians and government officials merely had to issue decrees, which were endlessly amended, in order to destroy citizens’ freedom of movement, freedom of association, and freedom of choice in daily life. Los Angeles earlier this month banned almost all walking and bicycling in the city, ordering four million people to “to remain in their homes” in a futile effort to banish a virus. 

  The Rule of Law is another myth impaled by 2020’s dire developments. Courts have repeatedly struck down sweeping restrictions. Federal judge William Stickman IV invalidated some of Pennsylvania’s restrictions in a September ruling: “Broad population-wide lockdowns are such a dramatic inversion of the concept of liberty in a free society as to be nearly presumptively unconstitutional.” After the Michigan Supreme Court effectively labeled Governor Gretchen Whitmer a lawless dictator, she responded by issuing “new COVID-19 emergency orders that are nearly identical to her invalidated emergency orders,” as the Mackinac Center noted. How many governors and mayors have you seen on the television news being led away in handcuffs after their arrest for violating citizens’ rights this year? None.

  Another myth that 2020 obliterated was the notion that politicians spending more than a hundred billion dollars every year for science and public health would keep Americans safe. 

  The Centers for Disease Control utterly botched the initial testing regime, sending out bogus tests to state and local health departments and taking a month and a half to do what the Thai government achieved in one day. The Food and Drug Administration helped turn the coronavirus from a deadly peril into a national catastrophe. Long after foreign nations had been ravaged and many cases had been detected in America, the FDA continued blocking private testing. The FDA continued forcing the nation’s most innovative firms to submit to its command-and-control approach, notwithstanding the pandemic.

  The benevolence and compassion of public school teachers was another myth that 2020 obliterated. Teacher unions helped barricade school doors the same way that segregationist governors in the 1950s and 1960s refused to obey federal court orders to admit black students. The Chicago Teachers Union proclaimed: “The push to reopen schools is based in sexism, racism, and misogyny.” 

  Black and Hispanic students suffered much larger learning losses due to school shutdowns, leading former Education Secretary John King to warn of a “lost generation of students.” Despite a deluge of studies that showed that schools posed little risk of fueling the pandemic, teachers insisted that they were entitled to both their salaries and to stay at home as long as they considered necessary. 

  This was part of the collapse of the broader myth that the rulers and ruled have common interests. Among other splits, the response to the pandemic divided Americans into those who work for a living, and those who “work” for the government. Government employees in most states and at the federal level have been the Untouchables, continuing to draw full pay even when they were no longer even required to show up for work. One exception to this trend is government tax collectors, who continue commandeering as much as ever from citizens and property owners regardless of the collapse in public services in many places this year. 

  Another myth that perished in 2020 was that social media and the Internet could be a powerful propellant of free information. Instead, the biggest players pulled the most strings to suppress criticisms or dissent from the latest Covid policies promulgated by officialdom. On March 18, Twitter announced that, in response to Covid-19, it would ban tweets guilty of “denial of expert guidance” or “misleading content purporting to be from experts or authorities.” 

  The World Health Organization initially overestimated the Covid fatality rate by 50-fold but they remain Twitter-approved. Facebook recently launched far more aggressive policies, including directly contacting anyone who liked or commented on a piece that was later ruled erroneous by Facebook guardians and is refusing any ads that discourages people from getting vaccinations. Will they ban WHO’s chief scientist Soumya Swaminathan for declaring on Monday that there was “no evidence to be confident [vaccine] shots prevent transmission” of Covid? Google sought to suppress any doubts about lockdowns: “Most users in English-speaking countries, when they google ‘Great Barrington Declaration’, will not be directed to the declaration itself but to articles that are critical of the declaration,” a Spiked-Online analysis noted. 

  This year’s presidential election put a helluva dent in the credo that politicians rule with the “consent of the governed.” The pandemic provided the pretext to radically change voting procedures, spurring 65 million mostly unverified mail-in ballots. The New York Times warned in 2012 that “fraud in voting by mail is… vastly more prevalent than the in-person voting fraud that has attracted far more attention.” Many states solved that problem by “defining down fraud” and expunging the verification procedures previously used to routinely invalidate 20% or more of mailed-in ballots. The controversies around mail-in ballots, questionable software, ballot harvesting and other practices mean that a record number of Americans will doubt Joe Biden’s legitimacy even before he takes his oath of office. 

  Perhaps the saddest casualty of 2020 is the myth that average Americans cherish their personal freedom. Politicians continually shifted the rationale for lockdowns – from flattening the curve, to ending “community spread,” to reducing cases to near zero. Regardless of the proclaimed rationale, most people submitted without a fight, and usually without even a whimper. Politicians and bureaucrats fanned mass fears which quickly ripened into hatred of anyone who did not comply with the latest edict.

  States and cities across the country set up snitch lines that were soon deluged with complaints of people outside without a mask, meeting friends, or having more visitors in their homes than could fit in a phone booth. Many, if not most, people quickly acquiesced to the “new normal” where any government hack who recited the phrase “science and data” became entitled to rule their lives with an iron fist. 

  As the Harvard International Review warned, “The very methods that liberal democracies are currently using to effectively fight the virus are the same tactics that authoritarian leaders use to dominate their people. The tools that have been temporarily deployed in the fight against a once-in-a-lifetime disease may become permanent.” That was written on May 23, more than 15 million Covid cases ago – proof of the failure of lockdowns and pervasive restrictions to make Covid-19 vanish. But the miserable batting average of officialdom will vanish into the Memory Hole if politicians launch a campaign to make Covid vaccinations mandatory, complete with boundless vilification of anyone who balks at the injection. 

  Perhaps it has long been a myth that we live in a self-governing republic rather than a Leviathan Democracy where citizens merely make cameo appearances every few years at the voting booth. It is still possible that the catastrophic and pointless losses imposed by Covid crackdowns will finally awaken enough people to their growing subjugation. But the most dangerous myth is that Americans will finally become safe after they cease making any efforts to leash their rulers.

  Tyler Durden
  Wed, 12/30/2020 – 23:00

• Pompeo Poised To Put Cuba On Terrorism Sponsor List To Disrupt Biden Rapprochement
  Pompeo Poised To Put Cuba On Terrorism Sponsor List To Disrupt Biden Rapprochement

  The Trump White House has on multiple foreign policy fronts of late attempted to “box in” the incoming Biden administration – limiting its ability to roll back Trump policies – particularly on Iran and China.

  President Trump and Secretary of State Mike Pompeo are now poised to do the same on Cuba. This after it’s been widely reported in the past weeks that Biden’s team will seek for greater ‘normalized’ relations with the communist-run Caribbean country, which would involve rolling back current restrictions on travel, investment, and remittances.

  The New York Times has cited two US officials in a report Tuesday who say the US is preparing to once again place Cuba on the state sponsor of terrorism list. 

  

  Cuba had been formally delisted under Obama in 2015 during his attempt at rapprochement, which also saw a number of sanctions briefly removed. 

  A proposal for a return to naming Cuba as a ‘state sponsor’ has reportedly been prepared under the aegis of the State Department’s Bureau of Western Hemisphere Affairs, but for it to actually go through insiders say that the Counterterrorism Bureau would have to sign off.

  The other major hurdle would be the timeline, given the Trump admin is now running out of time to push it through, as CNN underscores:

  Whether Pompeo will approve the plan remains unknown, but a Biden administration reversal of the move could take months, the Times reported. Designation as a state sponsor of terrorism can trigger sanctions including “restrictions on U.S. foreign assistance; a ban on defense exports and sales; certain controls over exports of dual use items; and miscellaneous financial and other restrictions,” according to the State Department.

  But the problem could go the other way too, as The Hill on Wednesday notes of the original NYT report, “While Biden could quickly move to remove Cuba from the list upon taking office, the Times reported that this could require a months-long formal review process.”

  Confirmed: Secretary of State Mike Pompeo is looking to designate Cuba as a State Sponsor of Terrorism in the coming days, complicating Biden’s intentions of engaging with Havana, and once again working to erase a key Obama policy. Story coming.

  — Vivian Salama (@vmsalama) December 30, 2020

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  But this appears part of the Trump strategy to begin with: create enough massive hurdles for Biden with weeks just left as to disrupt plans to continue Obama’s policy of restored normalized relations.

  Previously any positive gains in restoring relations under Obama, which included the US embassy’s reopening in Havana in 2015, were reversed when in 2017 Trump barred Americans from traveling to Cuba and other punitive economic measures.

  Tyler Durden
  Wed, 12/30/2020 – 22:40

• Australian Authorities Ban New Year's Eve Kissing And Hugging To Stop COVID
  Australian Authorities Ban New Year’s Eve Kissing And Hugging To Stop COVID

  Authored by Paul Joseph Watson via Summit News,

  Authorities in Victoria, Australia have banned kissing and hugging on New Year’s Eve despite the fact that there have been no new cases of COVID-19 in two months.

  

  State Premier Dan Andrews said hugging and kissing should not take place during celebrations between anyone but immediate family members.

  “Just as Christmas was a little different this year, New Year’s Eve will be too,” the Victorian Government said.

  “Take some hand sanitiser with you, don’t share drinks with others and [new year] kisses and hugs should [only] be shared with those in your immediate family.”

  Quite how authorities expect to enforce such a measure is unfathomable.

  Kissing banned on NYE. The elites are just pissing themselves laughing at us now. pic.twitter.com/IFuWL76wsS

  — Garbage Human (@GarbyJooman3) December 28, 2020

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  There have been no new cases of COVID-19 in Victoria for two months, but the New Year’s Eve fireworks display in Melbourne has been cancelled.

  As we previously highlighted, Australians were subject to one of the most draconian lockdowns in the developed world.

  A pregnant woman was arrested in her own home for promoting a lockdown protest on Facebook while authorities also made home visits to people planning to attend.

  A new law would have also given police the power to arrest coronavirus “conspiracy theorists” if it was thought they may commit a crime in the future.

  In October, we also highlighted how four newborn babies in Adelaide, Australia died after being denied life-saving heart surgery due to coronavirus travel restrictions.

  *  *  *

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  Tyler Durden
  Wed, 12/30/2020 – 22:20

• Vaccine "Passports" Could Be Mandatory For Travel, Shopping And Even The Movies, CNN Says
  Vaccine “Passports” Could Be Mandatory For Travel, Shopping And Even The Movies, CNN Says

  The Covid-19 vaccine isn’t even in the hands of most Americans yet and already CNN is prepping the masses for the idea of a “vaccine passport”, which it says could be needed to travel, and even “shop and go to the movies again”. 

  “In order to do those activities, you may eventually need something in addition to the vaccine: a vaccine passport application,” an article from this week proudly proclaims. “Rest assured, the nerds are on it,” CNN playfully writes, possibly hoping to distract readers from the idea of authoritarian globalization with a joke or two. 

  The article notes that several technology companies have begun developing apps to upload details of vaccinations – as if the tech giants didn’t have enough of your data or enough information about you. These companies could require you to show your “credentials” at “concert venues, stadiums, movie theaters, offices, or even countries.”

  

  But don’t worry, the article notes, the Common Trust Network, “an initiative by Geneva-based nonprofit The Commons Project and the World Economic Forum” has partnered with several airlines to help with the project. Their app allows you to upload medical data that will generate a QR code for travel. Because nothing says “secure” quite like the World Economic Forum having access to your medical records. 

  Thomas Crampton, chief marketing and communications officer for The Commons Project, said: “You can be tested every time you cross a border. You cannot be vaccinated every time you cross a border.”

  IBM, possibly bored and looking for something to involve itself in other than gaming its annual effective tax rate and buying back stock, also developed its own app called “Digital Health Pass”.  It allows you to keep your credentials in a mobile wallet.

  Jenny Wanger, who leads the exposure notification initiatives for Linux Foundation Public Health, told CNN about challenges early on in coordinating a digital notification response to Covid-19: “I think where exposure notification ran into some challenges was more of the piecemeal implementation choices, lack of federal leadership … where each state had to go it alone and so each state had to figure it out independently.”

  

  The Linux Foundation has also partnered with IBM and CommonPass to help develop “universal standards” for a vaccine app. 

  Brian Behlendorf, executive director of Linux Foundation, said: “If we’re successful, you should be able to say: I’ve got a vaccine certificate on my phone that I got when I was vaccinated in one country, with a whole set of its own kind of health management practices… that I use to get on a plane to an entirely different country and then I presented in that new country a vaccination credential so I could go to that concert that was happening indoors for which attendance was limited to those who have demonstrated that they’ve had the vaccine.”

  He concluded: “It should be interoperable in the same way that email is interoperable, the same way that the web is interoperable. Right now, we’re in a situation where there’s some moving parts that get us closer to that, but I think there’s a sincere commitment from everybody in the industry.”

  “A point of entry — whether that’s a border, whether that’s a venue — is going to want to know, did you get the Pfizer vaccine, did you get the Russian vaccine, did you get the Chinese vaccine, so they can make a decision accordingly,” Crampton concluded.

  And we’re sure the front of the line to help lobby for these new draconian rules will look something like this:

  

  Tyler Durden
  Wed, 12/30/2020 – 22:00

• Trump Administration Approves $290 Million Bomb Sale To Saudi Arabia
  Trump Administration Approves $290 Million Bomb Sale To Saudi Arabia

  Authored by Dave DeCamp via AntiWar.com,

  The State Department approved a potential sale of Boeing-made precision-guided bombs to Saudi Arabia worth an estimated $290 million. The Trump administration notified Congress of the deal on Tuesday.

  Last week, the Trump administration moved forward with a plan to issue a license to Raytheon that would enable the weapons dealer to directly sell the Saudis a package of “smart” bombs worth approximately $478 million.

  

  President Trump has continued to arm the Saudis despite opposition to the sales in Congress. The opposition is mainly due to the US-backed Saudi-led war in Yemen, where the coalition frequently targets civilian infrastructure with US-made bombs. The coalition’s siege tactics have caused widespread disease, food shortages, and mass starvation.

  In 2019, Congress passed legislation to block arms sales to Saudi Arabia, which President Trump vetoed. The president also used his veto powers that year on a bill that called for an end to US involvement in the war in Yemen.

  The incoming Biden administration is expected to reevaluate the US-Saudi relationship. Joe Biden has said he will cut off arms sales to the Kingdom. But there is some concern that weapons sales will continue due to Biden’s pick for secretary of defense, Retired Army Gen. Lloyd Austin, who sits on the board of Raytheon.

  One major goal of these rushed arms sales is to bind the US national security establishment ever closer to the tyrannical regime in Saudi Arabia, creating a knot of deals and military ties that will be incredibly difficult for any future admins to unravel https://t.co/O0299Mo7Ik

  — Borzou Daragahi 🖊🗒 (@borzou) December 30, 2020

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  While Austin could be expected to advance the interests of the arms industry, it’s worth noting that he strongly opposed the Saudi’s intervention in Yemen in 2015 while he was the head of US Central Command. Austin opposed the intervention because Yemen’s Houthis were an intelligence-sharing partner of the US in the fight against al-Qaeda in the Arab Peninsula.

  The Trump administration also notified Congress on Tuesday of a potential sale to Kuwait of Apache helicopters and spare parts for the Patriot missile system worth an estimated $4.2 billion.

  Tyler Durden
  Wed, 12/30/2020 – 21:40

• Trump Declassifies Intelligence Report On Chinese Bounties In Afghanistan
  Trump Declassifies Intelligence Report On Chinese Bounties In Afghanistan

  The Trump administration is declassifying a US intelligence report that China offered to pay non-state actors in Afghanistan to attack American forces, according to Axios, citing two senior administration officials.

  

  Amusingly, Axios prominently disclaims the intel as ‘unconfirmed’ in their headline – a word which somehow escaped the MSM’s vocabulary when a nearly identical report came out in June regarding alleged Russian bounties on American soldiers, which remains — unconfirmed.

  According to the report, Trump was briefed on the ‘as-yet uncorroborated’ Chinese bounty intelligence on December 17, and discussed it with national security adviser Robert O’Brien the same day according to officials.

  “The U.S. has evidence that the PRC [People’s Republic of China] attempted to finance attacks on American servicemen by Afghan non-state actors by offering financial incentives or ‘bounties’” and said the National Security Council “is coordinating a whole-of-government investigation,” one official told Axios, who would not say if he was referring to the Taliban or other ‘non-state actors.’

  The same person said that the Trump administration received earlier intelligence regarding “PRC weapons illicitly flowing into Afghanistan.”

  The British and U.S. governments have previously complained about Chinese-made weapons being used by the Taliban.

  • The interest in Afghanistan stems in part from Beijing’s desire to prevent Chinese Muslim separatist groups from using the country as a base.
  • Afghan security officials recently discovered an alleged Chinese spy ring operating in the country apparently seeking to target Uighurs there, according to a Dec. 25 report from the Hindustan Times. -Axios

  It’s unknown if members of Congress or President-elect Joe Biden have been briefed, however Biden currently has access to the President’s Daily Brief (PDB). When contacted for comment, the Chinese embassy in D.C. didn’t respond to the news outlet, while President Trump is not believed to have discussed it with Chinese President Xi Jinping. Also unclear is when the alleged bounties were offered – though the source says it happened sometime after late February after the United States struck a deal with the Taliban.

  One senior official involved in the latest China discussions told Axios “Like all first reports, we react with caution to initial reports,” adding “any intel reports relating to the safety of our forces we take very seriously.”

  Following up on the briefing, officials conducted a Policy Coordinating Committee (PCC) meeting to discuss the intelligence. The meeting had two objectives; gain more insight from the intelligence community to verify the initial reports, and to consult with the intelligence and defense communities involved in the force protection posture for the remaining US forces in Afghanistan.

  

  More via Axios:

  Behind the scenes: The intelligence was included in the president’s briefing on Dec. 17, and Trump was verbally briefed on the matter by National Security Advisor Robert O’Brien, officials said.

  • Administration officials across multiple agencies are currently working to corroborate the initial intelligence reports.
  • Axios was not able to visually inspect any reports detailing the intelligence. A summary was described by phone by the officials.

  Why it matters: If this intelligence were to be confirmed, it would represent a dramatic strategic shift for China, and sharply escalate tensions between China and the U.S. If the intelligence does not prove accurate, it raises questions about the motivations of the sources behind it as well as the decision to declassify it.

  • China has long played a quiet diplomatic role in Afghanistan, inviting Afghan Taliban officials to Beijing to discuss plans for a peace deal and encouraging an Afghan-led solution, though Chinese-made weapons and financing have at times also flowed into the conflict there.
  • It seems “incongruous” that China would take such a provocative action in Afghanistan, Andrew Small, a senior fellow at the German Marshall Fund who specializes in China-Afghanistan affairs, told Axios.
  • Pursuing peace in Afghanistan is “one of the extremely rare areas where the US and China still have a willingness to work together on an area of importance,” Small said. “They know the drawdown is taking place. We’re not in the context where anything else needs to happen to US troops in Afghanistan. There is no reason to create additional pressure on US forces.”

  Tyler Durden
  Wed, 12/30/2020 – 21:20

• It's Interesting How The Violent Riots Of 2020 Ended Right After The Election
  It’s Interesting How The Violent Riots Of 2020 Ended Right After The Election

  Authored by Daisy Luther via The Organic Prepper blog,

  Lest people think that 2020 was only about Covid-19, lockdowns, and economic disaster, don’t forget about the protests, riots, and escalating exhibits of rage.

  

  The triggering event was the death of George Floyd. He was killed during an arrest on May 25th in Minneapolis, Minnesota. The entire thing was caught on video. It had all the potential to be a turning point with regard to police brutality and race – the nation was riveted and outraged.

  But then, as often occurs, the protests were co-opted. Extremists took over, extremists on the other side took umbrage, and  Mr. Floyd became a footnote.

  2020 devolved into ongoing violence in American streets that most of us haven’t seen in our lifetimes. Distinct sides were chosen, lines were drawn, and those who saw the middle ground were quickly shouted down while America burned.

  May

  Minneapolis immediately erupted into violent riots that turned deadly.

  Rioters set the police station on fire.

  Within a week of Mr. Floyd’s death, demonstrations had spread to 30 cities across the United States, many turning from peaceful protests to riots.

  Riots in Denver:

  Seattle was the site of particularly destructive and violent riots.

  In fact, protestors took over a six-block area in the Capitol Hill area of Seattle, driving out police and maintaining their presence there for months. They even strategically changed the name of the area to make it part of a bigger movement.

  June

  The National Guard was deployed to cities across the country in an attempt to quell the violence.

  Seattle:

  Atlanta:

  Los Angeles and Hollywood:

  In this article, a National Guardsman shared a personal account of what was really going on during the Seattle riots.

  July

  In July, police and rioters in cities across the country were engaged in violent clashes.

  Federal police squared off with rioters in Portland.

  August

  On August 23, fuel was added to the raging inferno when Jacob Blake was shot and killed by police in Kenosha, Wisconsin. At this point, the facts of the shootings were no longer relevant – any police violence against a black suspect was going to result in riots.

  By that evening, Kenosha was on fire.

  The destruction of Kenosha, a moderate-sized town, was shocking.

  We ran the first-person account of a Kenosha resident who said, “Everyone in the city was getting ready for a war.”

  Looting and rioting broke out in Chicago after another police shooting and the “Magnificent Mile” was trashed by angry mobs.

  It got so bad that Chicago Mayor Lori Lightfoot ordered the drawbridges raised.

  Interestingly, activists attempted to justify the looting as “reparations.”

  September

  By September 1st, riots occurred for the 95th consecutive day in Portland.

  Violence also erupted in Louisville, Kentucky when the Grand Jury declined to charge the officers accused of killing Breonna Taylor, a local paramedic, with homicide.

  These protests also spread across the nation.

  Some of those arrested in the New York City riots were entitled kids from wealthy families who were “enacting their revolutionary strategy.”.

  October

  In October, Walter Wallace was shot sixteen times by Philadelphia police during a mental health call after he refused to drop a knife.

  Looting soon followed the rioting.

  November

  While America braced itself for riots based on the outcome of the hotly contested US presidential election, these fears did not come to fruition. In fact, the violence has slowed down since the outcome (which is still being argued by attorneys for President Trump.)

  Did police shootings suddenly cease? Did racially-motivated violence end? Did the justice system radically evolve? Did everyone finally agree and settle their differences amicably?

  It’s almost enough to make a person ask questions about the widespread violence from May through October.

  Tyler Durden
  Wed, 12/30/2020 – 21:00

• UN Condemns Trump Blackwater Pardons As "Violation Of International Law"
  UN Condemns Trump Blackwater Pardons As “Violation Of International Law”

  Officials on a United Nations working group specializing in monitoring the role of mercenaries in conflicts on Wednesday blasted President Trump’s pardons last week of four Blackwater contractors convicted of murdering unarmed Iraqi civilians as “an affront to justice”. 

  “Pardoning the Blackwater contractors is an affront to justice and to the victims of the Nisour Square massacre and their families,” said Jelena Aparac, who chairs a UN working group on the use of mercenaries. “These pardons violate U.S. obligations under international law and more broadly undermine humanitarian law and human rights at a global level.”

  

  The committee of five UN experts further underscored that Trump’s move flies in the face of the Geneva Conventions, which obliges states to hold all war criminals accountable regardless of if they represent national forces or operate as private contractors. 

  The four men opened fire on a busy traffic square in Iraq in 2007, killing 17, in what became known as the Nisour Square Massacre. Fourteen among the killed had been unarmed civilians and innocent bystanders. Twenty others suffered injuries.

  Trump’s pre-Christmas pardons included Nicholas Slatten, previously convicted of first-degree murder, and Evan Liberty, Dustin Heard, and Paul Slough – convicted of voluntary and attempted manslaughter.

  The UN as well as other international critics of the pardons now fear private security contractors will be given greater license to “operate with impunity in armed conflicts”.

  

  The example could also embolden states to use mercenaries to do their ‘dirty work’ as proxies – for example contractors operating on behalf of the Saudis and UAE in the Yemen war.

  For its part the White House claimed to have had broad support from the American public in issuing the pardons, without citing any specifics to back it up.

  Tyler Durden
  Wed, 12/30/2020 – 20:40

• Los Angeles Seeks $3.9 Billion Bailout Despite Paying Its "Tree Surgeons" Up To $207,000
  Los Angeles Seeks $3.9 Billion Bailout Despite Paying Its “Tree Surgeons” Up To $207,000

  By Adam Andrzejewski, the CEO/Founder of OpenTheBooks.com. Originally published in Forbes,

  The Los Angeles area comprises the Hollywood movie studios, Beverly Hills, Muscle Beach, and a previously booming economy that trailed only New York City and Tokyo. The city is also home to powerful politicians such as U.S. Rep. Adam Schiff, Chairman of House Judiciary Committee; U.S. Rep. Maxine Waters, Chief Deputy Whip; and Mayor Eric Garcetti, the National Co-Chairman of Biden for President.

  

  However, LA itself is in trouble. Whenever we open the books, the city consistently ranks among the worst tax and spend offenders.

  Last year, there were 20,000 highly compensated city employees whose average pay exceeded $147,000 and cost taxpayers $3 billion. All of them made more than $100,000 and nearly 2,000 out-earned California Governor Gavin Newsom ($202,000).

  Our auditors at OpenTheBooks.com found painters making $113,943; “tree surgeons” trimming $207,058; police officers with an arresting $325,942; legislative analysts earning $399,631; firefighters hosing down $486,674; and “harbor boat pilots” swimming in $515,000.  

  Mayor’s Office – Mayor Garcetti cost taxpayers $269,375 in salary – $67,000 more than Gov. Newsom. Seven “deputy mayors” earned $1.44 million with individual salaries each exceeding $200,000. Chief of staff, Ann Guerrero, made $232,205– compensation out earning the mayor of Chicago ($216,000).

  Garcetti has an executive staff larger than 48 of the 50 state governors. The mayor employed 261 people last year for $20+ million in salary cost.

  While permanent staff enjoy handsome salaries, Garcetti also relies on unpaid labor. Although intern positions are available in dozens of departments working on issues such as homelessness, sustainability, and immigration, those internships are not compensated.

  The Police Department (LAPD) — Chief Michael Moore pulled down $590,764 last year – double dipping a $350,764 salary and a $240,000 pension. In 2018, Moore “officially” retired, but was rehired 30-days later. The golden handshake helped Moore capture a $1.27 million lump sum payout and another $170,000 check for unused sick and vacation days. Garcetti blessed the scheme.

  Last year, LAPD had 14,119 employees on the payroll with cash compensation totaling $1.6 billion. 9,280 employees earned $100,000+ and 451 officers made more than $200,000. The top five police officers, sergeants, and detectives made between $300,000 and $325,000 thanks to generous overtime benefits ranging from $129,256 to $152,807.

  

  The Fire Department (LAFD) — LAFD employed 3,934 last year and 3,409 made at least $100,000. Almost 30-percent of the payroll (1,128) made over $200,000. Generous overtime benefits spiked the pay: 540 employees made at least $100,000 in overtime alone. Extreme wildfires in the Los Angeles area in 2019, which continue in 2020, certainly contributed to the costs.

  The top ten firefighters cost the city $4.3 million—an average of $428,307 each. Firefighter Donn Thompson took home $486,674 in pay with $359,416 in overtime. Fire captain Charles Boswell earned $481,020 in compensation with $329,991 in overtime. Fire Chief Ralph Terrazas took home $332,952—and was still out earned by 67 LAFD colleagues. The total department payroll cost was $654.6 million.

  Housing and Community Investment Department—The agency aids people in poverty by administering Section 8 federal grants, rent stabilization policies, the housing code, and services to the homeless population with a 737-employee payroll costing $55 million. In 2020, the director, Rushmore Cervantes, brought home $254,937 and out earned the Secretary of U.S. Housing & Urban Development, Dr. Ben Carson, a cabinet-level position ($199,700). Furthermore, four assistant general managers earned more than $200,000.

  Despite the high pay and good intentions, the number of homeless people living in LA continued to escalate. Numbers from the city’s own census show 40,000 homeless persons (2020), up 14.2 percent from last year. A voter-approved $1.2 billion bond issue in 2016 promised 10,000 new apartments for the homeless. However, the actual number of units are now projected to be around 7,600 as construction overruns and consultant fees pushed the cost of some housing units to over $700,000 apiece.

  So, the problems seem to be getting much worse. Encampment complaints to city 311 reached nearly 100,000 calls in the 20 months between January 2019 and August 2020.

  

  Port of Los Angeles – Last year, chief port pilots John Dwyer ($515,991) and David Flinn ($503,360) out-earned eleven senior pilots whose pay averaged $417,000. Port pilots help incoming ships navigate the harbor and are the most highly compensated public employees in the city. The LA port also has their own police force. Top paid police lieutenant Nathanael Blair made $307,530 including $104,082 in overtime pay. Seven more lieutenants earned between $212,759 and $277,314 last year.

  The port authority has a public beach staffed by lifeguards from the county. Last year, 44 LA County lifeguards cost taxpayers $200,000 to $365,000 each – with free sunscreen allowance and other benefits. The agency responded to our comment request saying port pilot salaries are competitive with other ports; it is more costly to hire additional police officers compared to overtime costs; and the port does not pay or have authority over lifeguard staffing.

  City Council — There are fifteen city council districts in Los Angeles. Each has an elected member charged with levying taxes, authorizing public improvements, and passing ordinances, among other duties.

  Council members earn $207,000 annually – more than every member of the U.S. Congress except Speaker Nancy Pelosi ($223,500). Each office employs 22 to 36 aides. Last year, 58 city council aides took home over $100,000. Andrew Westall of Council District 10 was the top-paid aide ($193,886) and out-earned every state governor except Newsom.

  Sharon Tso is the chief legislative analyst to the city council. Appointed in 2014, Tso was paid $283,000. Last year, Tso’s pay spiked to $399,631, making her the 20th top-paid city employee.

  Public Works – In 2019, wastewater supervisor, James Pearl was paid-out $2.4 million from his judgement against the city. Pearl, a straight man, alleged sexual harassment from other men on the job at Public Works- Sanitation. The judge awarded Pearl $12 million. The city appealed the verdict; however, the award was affirmed.

  In the Street Services division, we found 37 “tree surgeons” and supervisors made between $100,000 and $207,058 last year. Known as tree trimmers in most communities, these surgeons and their supervisors trimmed off a lot of overtime: the top eleven earned overtime pay between $45,206 and $86,306.

  

  Los Angeles’s long-term financial situation looks bleak and the city is asking Congress for a $3.9 billion “coronavirus” bailout. For example, LA has guaranteed $64.3 billion in retirement benefits to public employees.

  Unfortunately, $10.7 billion in retirement benefits hasn’t been funded: pensions ($7.9 billion) and retiree healthcare ($2.8 billion). Therefore, each city taxpayer owes $4,000 just to cover the unfunded liability, according to data provided by fiscal accountability organization Truth In Accounting (2019).

  Los Angeles is a progressive utopia, so well-meaning fiscal hawks are going to have to cry a lot louder – or they won’t even have a voice at the table.

  NOTE: Every agency mentioned in the piece received two requests for comment.

  Tyler Durden
  Wed, 12/30/2020 – 20:20

• China Forces Drugmakers To Slash Prices By 51% To Be Eligible For Insurance Reimbursement
  China Forces Drugmakers To Slash Prices By 51% To Be Eligible For Insurance Reimbursement

  Whereas both the Obama and Trump administrations have been engaging in largely futile crusades with US pharmaceutical companies to force them to, if not cut prices, then at least slow the pace of price hikes, China shows how it’s done.

  As Caixin reports, drugmakers agreed to cut prices on some of their newest drugs in China by an average of 51% to become eligible for reimbursement under government-backed insurance plans. Some of most expensive drugs weren’t included in the annual negotiations for inclusion on the national reimbursement list, a signal to drugmakers from the National Healthcare Security Administration (NHSA), said Xiong Xianjun, director of the NHSA’s Medical Service Department, at a press conference Monday in Beijing.

  Most of China’s 1.4 billion population are covered by state-run basic medical insurance systems, which can provide 60% to 90% reimbursement for basic medical costs. The state insurance programs mainly cover services in public hospitals and common diseases. The list of medicines covered by the programs has been updated annually with new entries since 2017.

  That said, even though drug prices can be lowered after negotiations with the government, inclusion on the list can still mean big profits for drug companies as reimbursable drugs are more likely to be widely used.

  A total of 162 new drugs were involved in the talks. Of them, 119 were added for insurance coverage, including treatments for Covid-19 such as the antivirals ribavirin and arbidol, according to an updated catalog released by the NHSA.

  Chinese patients can now get reimbursement for 2,800 medicines, including 1,426 Western drugs and 1,374 traditional Chinese medicines. The new version of the drug-reimbursement list will be effective March 1. It means that Chinese citizens purchasing US drugs will be a price far, far lower than the price charged for the same drug stateside.

  For the first time in drug price negotiations, the state insurance fund slashed prices an average of 43% for 14 drugs whose annual sales exceed 1 billion yuan ($153 million) each.

  This year’s drug list also includes more cancer drugs known as PD-1 inhibitors, which use the body’s immune system to fight tumors. China has around 4 million new cancer patients and 2.8 million deaths from cancer annually. According to Caixin, in 2019, Tyvyt – co-developed by Suzhou-based Innovent Biologics and U.S. drug giant Eli Lilly – became the only PD-1 inhibitor to be included on the national reimbursement list. PD-1 inhibitors added this year include medicines developed by local companies BeiGene, Jiangsu Hengrui Medicine Co. and Shanghai Junshi Biosciences. Innovent’s Tyvyt was priced last year at 2,843 yuan ($433) for one dose. The prices of the newly added PD-1 inhibitors are lower than for Tyvyt, the NHSA’s Xiong said. The agency hasn’t disclosed prices for specific drugs.

  This year’s negotiation also sought to lower prices of drugs already included on the list as some of them were originally added without price negotiations, Xiong said.

  Tyler Durden
  Wed, 12/30/2020 – 20:00

• The Threat of Authoritarianism In The U.S. Is Very Real, And Has Nothing To Do With Trump: Greenwald
  The Threat of Authoritarianism In The U.S. Is Very Real, And Has Nothing To Do With Trump: Greenwald

  Authored by Glenn Greenwald via greenwald.substack.com,

  Asserting that Donald Trump is a fascist-like dictator threatening the previously sturdy foundations of U.S. democracy has been a virtual requirement over the last four years to obtain entrance to cable news Green Rooms, sinecures as mainstream newspaper columnists, and popularity in faculty lounges. Yet it has proven to be a preposterous farce.

  

  In 2020 alone, Trump had two perfectly crafted opportunities to seize authoritarian power — a global health pandemic and sprawling protests and sustained riots throughout American cities — and yet did virtually nothing to exploit those opportunities. Actual would-be despots such as Hungary’s Viktor Orbán quickly seized on the virus to declare martial law, while even prior U.S. presidents, to say nothing of foreign tyrants, have used the pretext of much less civil unrest than what we saw this summer to deploy the military in the streets to pacify their own citizenry.

  But early in the pandemic, Trump was criticized, especially by Democrats, for failing to assert the draconian powers he had, such as commandeering the means of industrial production under the Defense Production Act of 1950, invoked by Truman to force industry to produce materials needed for the Korean War. In March, The Washington Post reported that “Governors, Democrats in Congress and some Senate Republicans have been urging Trump for at least a week to invoke the act, and his potential 2020 opponent, Joe Biden, came out in favor of it, too,” yet “Trump [gave] a variety of reasons for not doing so.” Rejecting demands to exploit a public health pandemic to assert extraordinary powers is not exactly what one expects from a striving dictator.

  A similar dynamic prevailed during the sustained protests and riots that erupted after the killing of George Floyd. While conservatives such as Sen. Tom Cotton (R-AK), in his controversial New York Times op-ed, urged the mass deployment of the military to quell the protesters, and while Trump threatened to deploy them if governors failed to pacify the riots, Trump failed to order anything more than a few isolated, symbolic gestures such as having troops use tear gas to clear out protesters from Lafayette Park for his now-notorious walk to a church, provoking harsh criticism from the right, including Fox News, for failing to use more aggressive force to restore order.

  

  Virtually every prediction expressed by those who pushed this doomsday narrative of Trump as a rising dictator — usually with great profit for themselves — never materialized. While Trump radically escalated bombing campaigns he inherited from Bush and Obama, he started no new wars. When his policies were declared by courts to be unconstitutional, he either revised them to comport with judicial requirements (as in the case of his “Muslim ban”) or withdrew them (as in the case of diverting Pentagon funds to build his wall). No journalists were jailed for criticizing or reporting negatively on Trump, let alone killed, as was endlessly predicted and sometimes even implied. Bashing Trump was far more likely to yield best-selling books, social media stardom and new contracts as cable news “analysts” than interment in gulags or state reprisals. There were no Proud Boy insurrections or right-wing militias waging civil war in U.S. cities. Boastful and bizarre tweets aside, Trump’s administration was far more a continuation of the U.S. political tradition than a radical departure from it.

  The hysterical Trump-as-despot script was all melodrama, a ploy for profits and ratings, and, most of all, a potent instrument to distract from the neoliberal ideology that gave rise to Trump in the first place by causing so much wreckage. Positing Trump as a grand aberration from U.S. politics and as the prime author of America’s woes — rather than what he was: a perfectly predictable extension of U.S politics and a symptom of preexisting pathologies — enabled those who have so much blood and economic destruction on their hands not only to evade responsibility for what they did, but to rehabilitate themselves as the guardians of freedom and prosperity and, ultimately, catapult themselves back into power. As of January 20, that is exactly where they will reside.

  The Trump administration was by no means free of authoritarianism: his Justice Department prosecuted journalists’ sources; his White House often refused basic transparency; War on Terror and immigration detentions continued without due process. But that is largely because, as I wrote in a Washington Post op-ed in late 2016, the U.S. Government itself is authoritarian after decades of bipartisan expansion of executive powers justified by a posture of endless war. With rare exception, the lawless and power-abusing acts over the last four years were ones that inhere in the U.S. Government and long preceded Trump, not ones invented by him. To the extent Trump was an authoritarian, he was one in the way that all U.S. presidents have been since the War on Terror began and, more accurately, since the start of the Cold War and advent of the permanent national security state.

  The single most revealing episode exposing this narrative fraud was when journalists and political careerists, including former Obama aides, erupted in outrage on social media upon seeing a photo of immigrant children in cages at the border — only to discover that the photo was not from a Trump concentration camp but an Obama-era detention facility (they were unaccompanied children, not ones separated from their families, but “kids in cages” are “kids in cages” from a moral perspective). And tellingly, the single most actually authoritarian Trump-era event is one that has been largely ignored by the U.S. media: namely, the decision to prosecute Julian Assange under espionage laws (but that, too, is an extension of the unprecedented war on journalism unleashed by the Obama DOJ).

  

  The last gasp for those clinging to the Trump-as-dictator fantasy (which was really hope masquerading as concern, since putting yourself on the front lines, bravely fighting domestic fascism, is more exciting and self-glorifying, not to mention more profitable, than the dreary, mediocre work of railing against an ordinary and largely weak one-term president) was the hysterical warning that Trump was mounting a coup in order to stay in office. Trump’s terrifying “coup” consisted of a series of failed court challenges based on claims of widespread voter fraud — virtually inevitable with new COVID-based voting rules never previously used — and lame attempts to persuade state officials to overturn certified vote totals. There was never a moment when it appeared even remotely plausible that it would succeed, let alone that he could secure the backing of the institutions he would need to do so, particularly senior military leaders.

  Whether Trump secretly harbored despotic ambitions is both unknowable and irrelevant. If he did, he never exhibited the slightest ability to carry them out or orchestrate a sustained commitment to executing a democracy-subverting plot. And the most powerful U.S. institutions — the intelligence community and military brass, Silicon Valley, Wall Street, and the corporate media — opposed and subverted him from the start. In sum, U.S. democracy, in whatever form it existed when Trump ascended to the presidency, will endure more or less unchanged once he leaves office on January 20, 2021.

  Whether the U.S. was a democracy in any meaningful sense prior to Trump had been the subject of substantial scholarly debate. A much-discussed 2014 study concluded that economic power has become so concentrated in the hands of such a small number of U.S. corporate giants and mega-billionaires, and that this concentration in economic power has ushered in virtually unchallengeable political power in their hands and virtually none in anyone else’s, that the U.S. more resembles oligarchy than anything else:

  The central point that emerges from our research is that economic elites and organized groups representing business interests have substantial independent impacts on U.S. government policy, while mass-based interest groups and average citizens have little or no independent influence. Our results provide substantial support for theories of Economic-Elite Domination and for theories of Biased Pluralism, but not for theories of Majoritarian Electoral Democracy or Majoritarian Pluralism.

  The U.S. Founders most certainly did not envision or desire absolute economic egalitarianism, but many, probably most, feared — long before lobbyists and candidate dependence on corporate SuperPACs — that economic inequality could become so severe, wealth concentrated in the hands of so few, that it would contaminate the political realm, where those vast wealth disparities would be replicated, rendering political rights and legal equality illusory.

  But the premises of pre-Trump debates over how grave a problem this is have been rendered utterly obsolete by the new realities of the COVID era. A combination of sustained lockdowns, massive state-mandated transfers of wealth to corporate elites in the name of legislative “COVID relief,” and a radically increased dependence on online activities has rendered corporate behemoths close to unchallengeable in terms of both economic and political power.

  The lockdowns from the pandemic have ushered in a collapse of small businesses across the U.S. that has only further fortified the power of corporate giants. “Billionaires increased their wealth by more than a quarter (27.5%) at the height of the crisis from April to July, just as millions of people around the world lost their jobs or were struggling to get by on government schemes,” reported The Guardian in September. A study from July told part of the story:

  The combined wealth of the world’s super-rich reached a new peak during the coronavirus pandemic, according to a study published by the consulting firm PwC and the Swiss bank UBC on Wednesday. The more than 2,000 billionaires around the world managed to amass fortunes totalling around $10.2 trillion (€8.69 trillion) by July, surpassing the previous record of $8.9 trillion reached in 2017.

  Meanwhile, though exact numbers are unknown, “roughly one in five small businesses have closed,” AP notes, adding: “restaurants, bars, beauty shops and other retailers that involve face-to-face contact have been hardest hit at a time when Americans are trying to keep distance from one another.”

  Employees are now almost completely at the mercy of a handful of corporate giants which are thriving, far more trans-national than with any allegiance to the U.S. A Brookings Institution study this week — entitled “Amazon and Walmart have raked in billions in additional profits during the pandemic, and shared almost none of it with their workers” — found that “the COVID-19 pandemic has generated record profits for America’s biggest companies, as well as immense wealth for their founders and largest shareholders—but next to nothing for workers.”

  These COVID “winners” are not the Randian victors in free market capitalism. Quite the contrary, they are the recipients of enormous amounts of largesse from the U.S. Government, which they control through armies of lobbyists and donations and which therefore constantly intervenes in the market for their benefit. This is not free market capitalism rewarding innovative titans, but rather crony capitalism that is abusing the power of the state to crush small competitors, lavish corporate giants with ever more wealth and power, and turn millions of Americans into vassals whose best case scenario is working multiple jobs at low hourly wages with no benefits, few rights, and even fewer options.

  Those must disgusted by this outcome should not be socialists but capitalists: this is a classic merger of state and corporate power —- also known as a hallmark of fascism in its most formal expression — that abuses state interference in markets to consolidate and centralize authority in a small handful of actors in order to disempower everyone else. Those trends were already quite visible prior to Trump and the onset of the pandemic, but have accelerated beyond anyone’s dreams in the wake of mass lockdowns, shutdowns, prolonged isolation and corporate welfare thinly disguised as legislative “relief.”

  What makes this most menacing of all is that the primary beneficiaries of these rapid changes are Silicon Valley giants, at least three of which — Facebook, Google, and Amazon — are now classic monopolies. That the wealth of their primary owners and executives — Mark Zuckerberg, Jeff Bezos, Sundar Pichai — has skyrocketed during the pandemic is well-covered, but far more significant is the unprecedented power these companies exert over the dissemination of information and conduct of political debates, to say nothing of the immense data they possess about our lives by virtue of online surveillance.

  Stay-at-home orders, lockdowns and social isolation have meant that we rely on Silicon Valley companies to conduct basic life functions more than ever before. We order online from Amazon rather than shop; we conduct meetings online rather than meet in offices; we use Google constantly to navigate and communicate; we rely on social media more than ever to receive information about the world. And exactly as a weakened population’s dependence on them has increased to unprecedented levels, their wealth and power has reached all new heights, as has their willingness to control and censor information and debate.

  That Facebook, Google and Twitter are exerting more and more control over our political expression is hardly contestable. What is most remarkable, and alarming, is that they are not so much grabbing these powers as having them foisted on them, by a public — composed primarily of corporate media outlets and U.S. establishment liberals — who believe that the primary problem of social media is not excessive censorship but insufficient censorship. As Sen. Ed Markey (D-MA) told Mark Zuckerberg when four Silicon Valley CEOs appeared before the Senate in October: “The issue is not that the companies before us today is that they’re taking too many posts down. The issue is that they’re leaving too many dangerous posts up.”

  Sen. Ed Markey at tech hearing says: “The issue is not that the companies before us today is that they’re taking too many posts down. The issue is that they’re leaving too many dangerous posts up.” https://t.co/4au67uIp3P pic.twitter.com/HWRPRn2hHA

  — Caleb Howe (@CalebHowe) October 28, 2020

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  As I told the online program Rising this week when asked what the worst media failings of 2020 are, I continue to view the brute censorship by Facebook of incriminating reporting about Joe Biden in the weeks before the election as one of the most significant, and menacing, political events of the last several years. That this censorship was announced by a Facebook corporate spokesman who had spent his career previously as a Democratic Party apparatchik provided the perfect symbolic expression of this evolving danger.

  These tech companies are more powerful than ever, not only because of their newly amassed wealth at a time when the population is suffering, but also because they overwhelmingly supported the Democratic Party candidate about to assume the presidency. Predictably, they are being rewarded with numerous key positions in his transition team and the same will ultimately be true of the new administration.

  The Biden/Harris administration clearly intends to do a great deal for Silicon Valley, and Silicon Valley is well-positioned to do a great deal for them in return, starting with their immense power over the flow of information and debate.

  

  The dominant strain of U.S. neoliberalism — the ruling coalition that has now consolidated power again — is authoritarianism. They view those who oppose them and reject their pieties not as adversaries to be engaged but as enemies, domestic terrorists, bigots, extremists and violence-inciters to be fired, censored, and silenced. And they have on their side — beyond the bulk of the corporate media, and the intelligence community, and Wall Street — an unprecedentedly powerful consortium of tech monopolies willing and able to exert greater control over a population that has rarely, if ever, been so divided, drained, deprived and anemic.

  All of these authoritarian powers will, ironically, be invoked and justified in the name of stopping authoritarianism — not from those who wield power but from the movement that was just removed from power. Those who spent four years shrieking to great profit about the dangers of lurking “fascism” will — without realizing the irony — now use this merger of state and corporate power to consolidate their own authority, control the contours of permissible debate, and silence those who challenge them even further. Those most vocally screaming about growing authoritarianism in the U.S. over the last four years were very right in their core warning, but very wrong about the real source of that danger.

  Tyler Durden
  Wed, 12/30/2020 – 19:40

• Soybean Prices Fade From 6-1/2-Year High As Argentine Strike Ends
  Soybean Prices Fade From 6-1/2-Year High As Argentine Strike Ends

  On Wednesday, Chicago Board of Trade soybean prices flirted with a 6-1/2-year high on tight global supply as investors shrugged off a deal between Argentine soy crushers and oilseed workers. 

  On late Tuesday night, Argentina’s soy crushing companies signed an agreement with oilseed worker unions, ending the two-week strike over wages that halted all exports of soybeans from the South American country, according to Reuters. 

  “An agreement was reached with the oilseed workers’ unions in a meeting held at the Ministry of Labor, to lift the strike that had paralyzed port terminals and the agro-industrial complex,” Argentina’s CIARA soy crushing chamber said in a statement.

  CBoT soybean futures have been on a tear in the last couple of weeks, jumping more than 13% on supply concerns due to the Argentinean strike. Now with a deal, prices are beginning to fade the $13 per bushel line. 

  

  By comparison, CBoT soybean futures were trading around $9.40 per bushel when the U.S.-China Phase 1 trade deal was signed in mid-January. Now prices of beans are approximately 45% higher, hovering a little under $13 per bushel, or at six-year highs. 

  

  The meteoric rise in soybean prices was triggered by China’s strong demand this past summer when prices were trading at multi-year lows. 

  However, in late November, trade sources told Reuters that Chinese soybean importers and processors are preparing to cancel deals signed with U.S. firms for December and January shipments. 

  The sources explained that crushing margins have collapsed following an exponential rise in bean prices on Chicago futures.

  Tyler Durden
  Wed, 12/30/2020 – 19:20

• Biden's Brave New (Woke) World
  Biden’s Brave New (Woke) World

  Authored (satirically) by Titania McGrath via TheCritic.co.uk,

  Before 2020, the world was a bleak dystopia overrun by Nazis. It never ceased to amaze me how many Nazis I would encounter on a daily basis once I had decided that everyone but me was a Nazi.

  

  Thankfully, 2020 came along and changed everything.

  This was the year that intersectional identity politics went mainstream, and there is no going back. The gender-neutral genie is out of the bottle, and xe is fabulous.

  There were uprisings against systemic injustice, statues of straight white males were torn down, and Ben and Jerry’s reminded their customers how racist they all were in order to encourage them to buy more of their New York Super Fudge Chunk ice cream.

  This was all made possible because Covid-19 refused to spread during our mass protests, which just goes to show that even pathogens have gone woke.

  The world finally accepted that there are more than 400 genders, and that all of these have been persecuted throughout history. Even the ones we invented last week.

  Intersectional feminism triumphed over transphobia. All of a sudden, major companies were using phrases such as “menstruators”, “vulva owners” and “people with a cervix”. All of which is far more respectful to women: or, as I like to call them, bipedal gestation units.

  We are now living in a post-BLM world, where Critical Race Theory has been received as the hallowed truth that shall guide us towards salvation. At last, we are amplifying voices of colour that have been historically marginalised. (Except for the ones who don’t agree with defunding the police or dismantling capitalism, who are just white-adjacent scumbags that are best ignored.)

  Best of all, Joe Biden triumphed over that malevolent incubus Donald Trump. Already Biden has discovered a vaccine for Covid-19, which explains why he spent most of his election campaign in a basement.

  As we move into 2021, Biden’s brave message resounds throughout our new woke empire. It is time for healing. It is time for hope. Above all, it is time for unity.

  

  So let’s make a list of everyone who voted the wrong way and deal with them as soon as possible.

  Tyler Durden
  Wed, 12/30/2020 – 19:00

• "Pay Me In Bitcoin": NFL Star Russell Okung Coverts Part Of His $13 Million Paycheck To Crypto
  “Pay Me In Bitcoin”: NFL Star Russell Okung Coverts Part Of His $13 Million Paycheck To Crypto

  A litany of articles went out yesterday suggesting that NFL star Russell Okung was the first player to be paid in bitcoin. While that lede isn’t exactly true (Okung is converting his dollars to BTC after being paid in USD), it speaks to a larger point about Bitcoin’s growing adoption with the masses.

  Okung has been lobbying the NFL to be paid in bitcoin since 2019, where he publicly proclaimed his request on Twitter. But yesterday’s headline about him being paid in Bitcoin isn’t entirely true, according to the Verge. The NFL told the media outlet that it was “not accurate” and that “his people are converting some of the money into bitcoin”. Okung’s team, the Carolina Panthers, also confirmed he was being paid in dollars. 

  Paid in Bitcoin. https://t.co/Ey6oOcmLjA

  — russ (@RussellOkung) December 29, 2020

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  Okung’s claim on Twitter that he was “paid in bitcoin” appears to have been a push for a company called “Zap” that allows you to convert any percentage of your paycheck into bitcoin. Perhaps a deal with Zap is why Okung Tweeted 14 times on Tuesday about converting his paycheck to bitcoin, The Verge speculated. 

  Do it, now. pic.twitter.com/9eAJxcBxLi

  — russ (@RussellOkung) December 29, 2020

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  Regardless of whether there is a deal with Zap or not, it’s likely in Okung’s best interest to call attention to BTC – after all, the more people who adopt BTC, the higher the price will likely go. After all, when you are looking for bids, drumming up excitement on social media is one way to go about it. Perhaps that is what led to the not totally accurate headlines about Okung being paid in BTC on Tuesday:

  To generate that kind of excitement, it helps to have headlines like “First NFL player to be paid in Bitcoin” spread around the web. It certainly sounds more intriguing than “NFL player decides to spend 50 percent of his salary on Bitcoin,” right? It’ll be interesting to see if any of those headlines change overnight.

  Okung has reportedly converted half of his $13 million NFL salary into Bitcoin. 

  Regardless of his motivation, it is undeniable proof that BTC adoption continues to move in a positive direction. And make no doubts about it, Okung isn’t just some BTC shill – his Twitter leads on that he is far more “woke” than your average NFL player. Case in point:

  If you think elections are rigged wait until you learn about the US dollar.

  — russ (@RussellOkung) December 29, 2020

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  Tyler Durden
  Wed, 12/30/2020 – 18:40

• Remember, We're All In This Together…
  Remember, We’re All In This Together…

  Authored by Eric Peters via Eric Peters Autos,

  An easy way to establish the fatuity –  the evil – at the core of what’s going on would be to apply it universally.

  

  Every “lockdown” applies to everyone – including every politician and every government worker. If anyone is forced by decree to stop earning their living then everyone is forced to stop earning their living. The big box stores are shuttered, too.

  Aren’t we “all in this together”?

  

  Of course, “we” aren’t. There is the essential class – which issues and enforces the “mandates” – which it is important to constantly repeat are not laws but literally the arbitrary decrees of politicians grown fat, like blood-gorged ticks, with limitless power somehow acquired in the name of gesund – even though we’re healthy, thanks – and there is the rest of us, deemed non-essential.

  We are supposed to just make do; figure out a way to keep a roof over our heads and food in the ‘fridge – without a paycheck. Or a third of one. To pay 100 percent of our mortgages/rent and power bills and so on.

  Shutter our businesses; send our employees home to do nothing — while their bills pile up.

  The essentials  lecture, finger-point – and enforce. But never miss a paycheck. Which we are forced to pay for.

  Their bills do not go unpaid. There is no sacrifice by those demanding it – the usual practice of the coercive sector as distinct from the private sector. The latter can only ask for your business; the former can force you to close it – and then make you pay them for doing it.

  How about we all pay?

  Them and us – alike.

  If they decree we may not work, then they must be “in it” with us, together. No paycheck for us? None for them as well. No forcing us to pay for their paychecks, either. The taxes that pay for them held in abeyance until the cases! the cases! recede.

  If, in fact, that is truly what this is all about.

  In fact – literally – it’s not.

  

  This store is not “closed due to COVID.” It is closed by decree of “essential” government workers.

  As should by now be obvious to anyone still capable of rational thought. What conclusions can be drawn from the coercive class declaring itself essential – and us, not? From our being “locked down” – told by them we may not move without their permission, while they are free to move as they like?

  Ordered to accept economic death while they continue to feed – off of us?

  While we get to watch them ignore their own “mandates”?

  The restaurant owner in California who used his truck prevent an essential government worker from working was trying to make the point – to both the essential government worker and the essential government enforcers who came to make sure the essential government worker could go about his essential work.

  

  It is easy to be unctuous when there is no cost to you – and possibly much to gain.

  The essentials who are getting paid – by us – have more than just our money to pay their bills. The have our money to buy our losses. When a non-essential’s home goes into foreclosure or his business is shuttered, someone else is going to acquire the property. It will inevitably be someone with the means to pay for it.

  That will be someone who hasn’t been bled white. It will probably be someone essential, who has spent the past year bleeding the non-essentials white.

  Who, having taken everything away from the previous owner will now use the previous owner’s money – transferred via taxes – to own everything that was taken away.

  Probably at a fire-sale price, too.

  The same process is under way at the corporate level. The Big Box retailers were not locked down – which is why their profits have gone up (skyrocketed up) during the worst year – for us – since 1929. It is not hard to understand why. Wal-Mart and the rest were open while everything not Big Box wasn’t, by “mandate.”

  

  The non-essentials were forced to do business with the essentials. Forced to facilitate the transfer of wealth from local, privately owned stores to massive, shareholder-owned corporations, who sold the same stuff and were not attacked by swarms of gesundpolizei for allowing more than 10 people within their stores at a time.

  A simpleton should be able to draw the obvious conclusions.

  The essentials want to use the corporations as feed lots are used for cattle. We – the nonessentials – are to be herded onto these feedlots, where we will be obliged to be obliging, else no more “corn” for us. The essentials want to be able to partner with a handful of big corporations who will employ everyone who is still allowed to work and sell everything we’re still allowed to buy.

  When there are no alternatives, there are no options.

  

  When you can work for yourself or work for someone who owns the business you work for, you are much less under the thrall of a pyramidal hierarchy that mandates things which can be appealed – or avoided.

  When there is no work except corporate work, the corporations own you. And then the coercive sector controls you . . . via the corporations. Neat, sweet and not petite.

  It is all very essential – and has nothing to do with “stopping the spread.” If it did, then everything would be closed, everyone “locked down.”

  If, in fact, we are “all in this together.”

  Tyler Durden
  Wed, 12/30/2020 – 18:20

• Boston Dynamics Robots Learn How To Dance In Creepy New Video 
  Boston Dynamics Robots Learn How To Dance In Creepy New Video 

  On Tuesday, Boston Dynamics uploaded a video to YouTube of their robots creepily dancing to The Contours’ Do You Love Me.

  The video shows Atlas, Spot, and Handle – Boston Dynamics’ top robots, performing moves choreographed to the music. 

  The dance starts with Atlas, a bipedal humanoid robot, dancing to the music, and before you know it, another Atlas joins in. Then out of nowhere, robodog Spot hops in and starts dancing with the crew. 

  

  About halfway through the video, Handle, a warehouse robot, slides into the frame – as everyone is getting down with the catchy tune. 

  

  Tesla’s Elon Musk chimed in this morning after he watched the video. He tweeted:

  “Snake-head dog had my undivided attention until winder-head ostrich came gliding through all nonchalant.” 

  Snake-head dog had my undivided attention until winder-head ostrich came gliding through all nonchalant pic.twitter.com/dtPMdM3TQp

  — Elon Musk (@elonmusk) December 30, 2020

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  Box CEO Aaron Levie tweeted:

  “We’ve collectively learned nothing from sci-fi movies. This is definitely the moment we’re supposed to turn back.” 

  We’ve collectively learned nothing from sci-fi movies. This is definitely the moment we’re supposed to turn back. pic.twitter.com/i5QVGEeZ6G

  — Aaron Levie (@levie) December 29, 2020

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  The robots are impressive. They dance with remarkable accuracy, performing moves that only baby boomers would know how to do. 

  This is not the first time that the robotics company has demonstrated the dance capabilities of its machines. In 2018, it published a video titled “UpTown Spot,” where Spot got down with some funk.

  Maybe the elaborate dance party was celebrating the recent acquisition of Boston Dynamics by Hyundai. 

  “This is the beginning of The Terminator,” one commentator said on YouTube. 

  Another said, “Only need to get a human skin then there goes backup dancers job.. welcome to the unemployed.”

  Watch Full Video Here:

  Tyler Durden
  Wed, 12/30/2020 – 18:00

• As Anti-Cop Protests Continue, Americans Are Murdering Each Other In Record Numbers
  As Anti-Cop Protests Continue, Americans Are Murdering Each Other In Record Numbers

  Authored by Michael Snyder via The Economic Collapse blog,

  We have seen spikes in certain major cities before, but there has never been a year quite like this.  In 2020, murder rates have been soaring dramatically from coast to coast, and many are deeply concerned about what our big metropolitan areas will look like if this trend continues into 2021 and beyond.  The civil unrest that erupted in the aftermath of the death of George Floyd certainly contributed to the rising numbers, but authorities have been shocked that murder rates have remained so elevated all year long. 

  

  Americans are killing Americans in record numbers, and nobody seems to have a solution to this growing national crisis.

  Let’s take a look at some of the hard numbers. 

  In New York City, the number of murders has risen 41 percent compared to 2019…

  The city – heralded as the safest big city in America in recent years – has recorded 447 killings this year as of Tuesday, a 41 percent increase over last year and the largest number since 2011.

  The number of people shot has more than doubled last year´s total, nearing a 14-year high.

  At one time NYC was considered to be one of the safest cities in America, but those days are long gone.

  But at least New York is not as bad as Chicago.  In fact, the number of murders in Chicago this year is almost twice as high as the number of murders in NYC…

  At least eight people were killed and 30 more were wounded in citywide shootings over the extended holiday weekend, the Chicago Sun-Times reported Monday. Three people were shot and killed on Christmas Day.

  “We’re over 700 homicides by gun in Chicago this year and close to 800 total homicides for the year,” Chicago FOP President John Catanzara told Fox News Tuesday. “It’s reaching historic levels, and this when the city council and the mayor’s budget just cut over 600 jobs from the police department’s budget when crime is soaring. It’s ridiculous.”

  Out on the west coast, rates of violent crime seem to be rising faster than anywhere else.  For example, the number of shootings in Portland is up 116 percent compared to last year…

  Fox News reports based on local crime statistics that murders are surging in Portland, Oregon. “As of Christmas Eve, this year’s shootings had surpassed last year’s by more than 116%, with 393 shootings reported in all of 2019.”

  2020 numbers dwarf the prior year’s, having reached over 850 shootings. Among these are more single-year homicides than in any year over the prior nearly three decades.

  Almost everywhere you look, records have either already been broken or are in danger of being broken.

  In Philadelphia, if 15 people get murdered by January 1st they will break the all-time record which was originally established 30 years ago…

  A violent night pushes Philadelphia closer to reaching a grim milestone. The city could be on track to surpass the most homicides ever in a calendar year.

  The record is 504 homicides which was set in 1990 and with three days left to go in this year the city is has had at least 490.

  And in south Florida, the number of murders in Miami-Dade County has already broken the old record by a good margin…

  Officials recorded 272 homicides through Dec. 24 across Miami-Dade County, up 31 cases from all of 2019, records show. The year isn’t even over and it’s a recent high — up from 232 in all of 2017, and 252 in 2015.

  Many Republicans have pointed out that murder rates seem to be rising fastest in cities that are governed by Democrats.  In Atlanta, Mayor Keisha Lance Bottoms says that she is “open to suggestions” because at this point she is at a total loss for how to stop the dramatic escalation of violent crime in her city…

  Atlanta Mayor Keisha Lance Bottoms, a rising star in the Democratic Party who was recently considered for a position in President-elect Joe Biden’s cabinet, is coming under fire for her administration’s handling of a surge in violent crime in her city.

  Saying she was ‘open to suggestions’ on stopping the crime wave, the mayor was on the defensive over the holiday weekend after three people were fatally shot in the city, bringing Atlanta’s homicide count to its highest in more than two decades.

  Shall I share more examples, or do you get the point?

  To call this a “crime wave” would be a major understatement.  Compared to last year, carjackings in Minneapolis were up 537 percent last month.

  Just think about that.

  When something is rising 537 percent, you are talking about an exponential increase.

  Of course it might help if Minneapolis and other major cities were to actually increase police funding instead of decreasing it.

  You can put as much money into “mental health programs” as you want, but the truth is that very few criminals will ever be talked out of committing crimes.

  What keeps criminals from committing crimes is the fear of being caught and going to prison, and our politicians should never forget that.

  Also, the reality of the matter is that so many of our law enforcement resources are being wasted right now.  Instead of brutally assaulting a disabled veteran for not wearing a mask, our law enforcement personnel need to be out in the streets battling one of the greatest crime waves that we have ever seen in all of U.S. history.

  Our society is literally in the process of melting down all around us.  The thin veneer of civilization that we all take for granted on a daily basis is in grave danger, and many believe that very dark days are ahead for our country.

  If we are seeing this much violent crime now, what will happen when economic conditions in this country become far worse?

  Yes, reform is desperately needed in police departments all over the nation.

  But we should be incredibly thankful for the boys in blue, because they are putting their lives on the line for us on a daily basis.

  When someone is trying to break into your home, you will definitely want someone to be there on the other end of the phone when you dial 911.

  And the way things are going, more Americans than ever will be facing that sort of a scenario in 2021.

  *  *  *

  [ZH: One thing of note, as Daily Caller reports, nine of the ten cities with the highest murder rate increases and more than 20 killings hosted sustained Black Lives Matter protests and riots during the summer.

  Final national murder update of 2020:

  Murder up 36.7% in 57 agencies with data through at least September (though most have data through November). Murder up in 51 of 57, 37 of 58 agencies reporting murder up more than 30%.

  Spreadsheet here: https://t.co/vEhKHuFNrY pic.twitter.com/5HgVmwGmDS

  — Jeff Asher (@Crimealytics) December 29, 2020

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  These are evidence of what Manhattan Institute fellow Heather Mac Donald calls the Ferguson Effect, wherein anti-police protests and rioting lead to less proactive policing.

  The absence in police presence then leads to a spike in violent crime.]

  *  *  *

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

  Tyler Durden
  Wed, 12/30/2020 – 17:40

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