Today’s News 3rd December 2022

• Why China Sucks: It's A Beta-Test For The New World Order
  Why China Sucks: It’s A Beta-Test For The New World Order

  Authored by Brandon Smith via Alt-Market.us,

  For over a decade there has been an open globalist obsession with the Chinese governmental model – A love affair, if you will. Many top proponents of global centralization including Henry Kissinger and George Soros have praised China in the past and hinted that the communist country is burgeoning into a major player within the New World Order. Soros expressed this exact sentiment way back in 2009, around the time that China began courting the IMF and issuing trillions in Yuan based treasury debt in order to join their global currency initiative.

  

  Several years later, China was inducted into the IMF’s Special Drawing Rights basket. The CCP now avidly supports the creation of a new global currency system with the IMF in control.

  This is a reality I have been writing about for many years: China does NOT stand in opposition to global centralization under the control of western oligarchs. All they want is a prominent seat at the table when the “Great Reset” kicks off and total centralization begins. But the above information only suggests an economic relationship between China and the globalists. Does the alliance go even further than that?

  Recently, Klaus Schwab of the World Economic Forum gave an interview to the Chinese government controlled CGTN at the APEC Summit. In that interview, Schwab praises China as a role model for many other nations. This might shock some people considering China’s economy is faltering, with their global exports plunging in 2022 and their housing market in shambles. This decline is in large part due to global stagflation, but also due to their insane “zero covid” policy which has kept the nation under pandemic lockdown for years.

  Remember all those covid cultists who were cheering for China last year? Remember when they claimed that China was a perfect example on why lockdowns are necessary and proof that they work? Yeah, those people were morons.

  China’s economy is now in freefall with their manufacturing base under extreme stress from the mandates. Furthermore, it would appear that the Chinese populace is finally fed up with the draconian conditions and are rising up in revolt.

  In the video below, protests erupt at Foxconn’s flagship iPhone plant in China after workers marched out of the factory. They had been held there in quarantine against their will with poor working conditions and little food.

  The Chinese government sent hazmat clad troops to put down the rebellion while stomping protesters into the ground. Take note and remember this video when you hear about Apple’s hostility to Elon Musk’s free speech policies on Twitter – Apple loves authoritarianism, as do all globalist run corporations.

  China continues to terrorize the citizenry with secret police visits to vocal dissenters and fleets of drones hovering above city streets monitoring foot traffic and blaring propaganda messages. Some drones even spray unknown chemicals across entire city blocks. In the meantime, China has fully implemented digital vaccine passports systems tied to public venues and retail stores. You cannot function in a major Chinese city without an up-to-date vaccine passport or a negative covid test taken every couple of weeks.

  All of these events and conditions are often treated as disconnected or coincidentally associated. No one is asking the right questions. The big question being WHY? Why is the Chinese government sabotaging its own economy with lockdowns and oppressing the population to the point of open revolt (a rarity among the normally subservient Chinese people). Why keep the lockdowns going when it is clear to the rest of the world that the pandemic is over and that the lockdowns and masks never worked to begin with?

  I would ask CCP officials a simple question that many of us in America also asked our own government a over a year ago: If the vaccines work, why enforce mandates and lockdowns? If it’s because the vaccines don’t work, then why try to force the population to take the jab? Beyond that, if the masks and lockdowns work, then why is China facing yet another supposed covid infection wave?

  Obviously the CCP does not care about the well being of the average Chinese citizen. There is no logic to anything they are doing, just as there was no logic to anything Biden, Fauci and the CDC were doing in the US. The difference is, Americans were able to force the globalists in the US to abandon their mandate agenda, likely because we are heavily armed and they realized too many of us were non-compliant. In China, there is no civilian militia equivalent.

  The country was a dystopia before, now it is something different – It is an experiment in technocratic tyranny that is being taken to the extreme. China is willing to starve, arrest, beat and even kill people who they claim they are trying to protect from the virus.

  It is no mistake that nearly every policy China is implementing is a direct copy of policies suggested by the WEF and institutions like the Imperial College of London back in 2020 at the start of the outbreak. The globalists argued that “we are not going back to normal” and that the public would have to sacrifice many of our freedoms in order to stop the pandemic. In reality, none of their policies were effective in stopping the spread, but they were very effective at suppressing the populace. And in the case of China, nothing did ever go back to normal.

  The unspoken rationale, in my view, connects directly back to China’s long term relationship to the globalists and their desire to be a part of the New World Order, also referred to as the “multipolar world order”, the 4th Industrial Revolution, the Great Reset and a dozen other names. If you want to know the real globalist vision for the future, take a look at China today and then multiply the pain and suffering another hundred fold. China is a beta test.

  Perhaps it’s a test to see what level of tyranny people are willing to endure. Maybe a test of the functionality of different surveillance systems and control mechanisms. Maybe a practice run for the inevitable riots and rebellion that would occur in numerous countries and the best way to deal with them. Globalists like Klaus Schwab are not only interest in China as an economic role model, he sees China as a societal role model for much of the west, with some tweaks here and there.

  The problem for the establishment is that if there are visible examples of freedom despite covid, then other nations will start to question the necessity of their own lockdowns. Even the Chinese people are starting to fight back. They can’t implement their NWO one country at a time, they will have to oppress many countries at once.

  As I have been saying for the past year to some of the more nihilistic people in the liberty movement who think all it lost, understand that you are lucky to be living in the US right now and you should be thankful for the millions of conservatives that actively and vocally refused to comply with the mandates and vaccines. They saved the country from greater tyranny. If the globalists had got what they really wanted, we would look a lot like China right now.

  We hovered close to that black sun and danced with the devil, but we are not beaten.

  As it stands, China continues to represent a model of authoritarian dreams; a research study in mass psychological torture. Far from being a counter-point to the globalists, it is actually a globalist work in progress. Watch what happens there closely, because the evils perpetrated there will eventually be attempted here at home.

  *  *  *

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  Tyler Durden
  Fri, 12/02/2022 – 23:55

• Visualizing The World's Largest Hydroelectric Dams
  Visualizing The World’s Largest Hydroelectric Dams

  Did you know that hydroelectricity is the world’s biggest source of renewable energy? According to recent figures from the International Renewable Energy Agency (IRENA), it represents 40% of total capacity, ahead of solar (28%) and wind (27%).

  This type of energy is generated by hydroelectric power stations, which are essentially large dams that use the water flow to spin a turbine. They can also serve secondary functions such as flow monitoring and flood control.

  To help you learn more about hydropower, Visual Capitalist’s Marcus Lu has visualized the five largest hydroelectric dams in the world, ranked by their maximum output.

  

  Overview of the Data

  The following table lists key information about the five dams shown in this graphic, as of 2021. Installed capacity is the maximum amount of power that a plant can generate under full load.

  

   

  At the top of the list is China’s Three Gorges Dam, which opened in 2003. It has an installed capacity of 22.5 gigawatts (GW), which is close to double the second-place Itaipu Dam.

   

  In terms of annual output, the Itaipu Dam actually produces about the same amount of electricity. This is because the Parana River has a low seasonal variance, meaning the flow rate changes very little throughout the year. On the other hand, the Yangtze River has a significant drop in flow for several months of the year.

  For a point of comparison, here is the installed capacity of the world’s three largest solar power plants, also as of 2021:

  • Bhadla Solar Park, India: 2.2 GW

  • Hainan Solar Park, China: 2.2 GW

  • Pavagada Solar Park, India: 2.1 GW

  Compared to our largest dams, solar plants have a much lower installed capacity. However, in terms of cost (cents per kilowatt-hour), the two are actually quite even.

  Closer Look: Three Gorges Dam

  The Three Gorges Dam is an engineering marvel, costing over $32 billion to construct. To wrap your head around its massive scale, consider the following facts:

  • The Three Gorges Reservoir (which feeds the dam) contains 39 trillion kg of water (42 billion tons)

  • In terms of area, the reservoir spans 400 square miles (1,045 square km)

  • The mass of this reservoir is large enough to slow the Earth’s rotation by 0.06 microseconds

  Of course, any man-made structure this large is bound to have a profound impact on the environment. In a 2010 study, it was found that the dam has triggered over 3,000 earthquakes and landslides since 2003.

  The Consequences of Hydroelectric Dams

  While hydropower can be cost-effective, there are some legitimate concerns about its long-term sustainability.

  For starters, hydroelectric dams require large upstream reservoirs to ensure a consistent supply of water. Flooding new areas of land can disrupt wildlife, degrade water quality, and even cause natural disasters like earthquakes.

  Dams can also disrupt the natural flow of rivers. Other studies have found that millions of people living downstream from large dams suffer from food insecurity and flooding.

  Whereas the benefits have generally been delivered to urban centers or industrial-scale agricultural developments, river-dependent populations located downstream of dams have experienced a difficult upheaval of their livelihoods.

  – RICHTER, B.D. ET AL. (2010)

  Perhaps the greatest risk to hydropower is climate change itself. For example, due to the rising frequency of droughts, hydroelectric dams in places like California are becoming significantly less economical.

  Tyler Durden
  Fri, 12/02/2022 – 23:30

• Make Way For The Killer Robots: The Government Is Expanding Its Power To Kill
  Make Way For The Killer Robots: The Government Is Expanding Its Power To Kill

  Authored by John and Nisha Whitehead via The Rutherford Institute,

  “Crush! Kill! Destroy!”

  – The Robot, Lost in Space

  The purpose of a good government is to protect the lives and liberties of its people.

  Unfortunately, we have gone so far in the opposite direction from the ideals of a good government that it’s hard to see how this trainwreck can be redeemed.

  It gets worse by the day.

  For instance, despite an outcry by civil liberties groups and concerned citizens alike, in an 8-3 vote on Nov. 29, 2022, the San Francisco Board of Supervisors approved a proposal to allow police to arm robots with deadly weapons for use in emergency situations.

  This is how the slippery slope begins.

  According to the San Francisco Police Department’s draft policy, “Robots will only be used as a deadly force option when risk of loss of life to members of the public or officers is imminent and outweighs any other force option available to SFPD.”

  

  Yet as investigative journalist Sam Biddle points out, this is “what nearly every security agency says when it asks the public to trust it with an alarming new power: We’ll only use it in emergencies—but we get to decide what’s an emergency.”

  A last-minute amendment to the SFPD policy limits the decision-making authority for deploying robots as a deadly force option to high-ranking officers, and only after using alternative force or de-escalation tactics, or concluding they would not be able to subdue the suspect through those alternative means.

  In other words, police now have the power to kill with immunity using remote-controlled robots.

  These robots, often acquired by local police departments through federal grants and military surplus programs, signal a tipping point in the final shift from a Mayberry style of community policing to a technologically-driven version of law enforcement dominated by artificial intelligence, surveillance, and militarization.

  It’s only a matter of time before these killer robots intended for use as a last resort become as common as SWAT teams.

  Frequently justified as vital tools necessary to combat terrorism and deal with rare but extremely dangerous criminal situations, such as those involving hostages, SWAT teams—which first appeared on the scene in California in the 1960s—have now become intrinsic parts of local law enforcement operations, thanks in large part to substantial federal assistance and the Pentagon’s military surplus recycling program, which allows the transfer of military equipment, weapons and training to local police for free or at sharp discounts.

  Consider this: In 1980, there were roughly 3,000 SWAT team-style raids in the U.S. By 2014, that number had grown to more than 80,000 SWAT team raids per year.

  Given the widespread use of these SWAT teams and the eagerness with which police agencies have embraced them, it’s likely those raids number upwards of 120,000 by now.

  There are few communities without a SWAT team today.

  No longer reserved exclusively for deadly situations, SWAT teams are now increasingly deployed for relatively routine police matters, with some SWAT teams being sent out as much as five times a day. In the state of Maryland alone, 92 percent of 8200 SWAT missions were used to execute search or arrest warrants.

  For example, police in both Baltimore and Dallas have used SWAT teams to bust up poker games. A Connecticut SWAT team swarmed a bar suspected of serving alcohol to underage individuals. In Arizona, a SWAT team was used to break up an alleged cockfighting ring. An Atlanta SWAT team raided a music studio, allegedly out of a concern that it might have been involved in illegal music piracy.

  A Minnesota SWAT team raided the wrong house in the middle of the night, handcuffed the three young children, held the mother on the floor at gunpoint, shot the family dog, and then “forced the handcuffed children to sit next to the carcass of their dead pet and bloody pet for more than an hour” while they searched the home.

  A California SWAT team drove an armored Lenco Bearcat into Roger Serrato’s yard, surrounded his home with paramilitary troops wearing face masks, threw a fire-starting flashbang grenade into the house, then when Serrato appeared at a window, unarmed and wearing only his shorts, held him at bay with rifles. Serrato died of asphyxiation from being trapped in the flame-filled house. Incredibly, the father of four had done nothing wrong. The SWAT team had misidentified him as someone involved in a shooting.

  These incidents are just the tip of the iceberg.

  Nationwide, SWAT teams have been employed to address an astonishingly trivial array of nonviolent criminal activity or mere community nuisances: angry dogs, domestic disputes, improper paperwork filed by an orchid farmer, and misdemeanor marijuana possession, to give a brief sampling.

  If these raids are becoming increasingly common and widespread, you can chalk it up to the “make-work” philosophy, by which police justify the acquisition of sophisticated military equipment and weapons and then rationalize their frequent use.

  Mind you, SWAT teams originated as specialized units that were supposed to be dedicated to defusing extremely sensitive, dangerous situations (that language is almost identical to the language being used to rationalize adding armed robots to local police agencies). They were never meant to be used for routine police work such as serving a warrant.

  As the role of paramilitary forces has expanded, however, to include involvement in nondescript police work targeting nonviolent suspects, the mere presence of SWAT units has actually injected a level of danger and violence into police-citizen interactions that was not present as long as these interactions were handled by traditional civilian officers. 

  Indeed, a study by Princeton University concludes that militarizing police and SWAT teams “provide no detectable benefits in terms of officer safety or violent crime reduction.” The study, the first systematic analysis on the use and consequences of militarized force, reveals that “police militarization neither reduces rates of violent crime nor changes the number of officers assaulted or killed.”

  In other words, warrior cops aren’t making us or themselves any safer.

  Americans are now eight times more likely to die in a police confrontation than they are to be killed by a terrorist.

  The problem, as one reporter rightly concluded, is “not that life has gotten that much more dangerous, it’s that authorities have chosen to respond to even innocent situations as if they were in a warzone.”

  Now add killer robots into that scenario.

  How long before these armed, militarized robots, authorized to use lethal force against American citizens, become as commonplace as SWAT teams and just as deadly?

  Likewise, how long before mistakes are made, technology gets hacked or goes haywire, robots are deployed based on false or erroneous information, and innocent individuals get killed in the line of fire?

  And who will shoulder the blame and the liability for rogue killer robots? Given the government’s track record when it comes to sidestepping accountability for official misconduct through the use of qualified immunity, it’s completely feasible that they’d get a free pass here, too.

  In the absence of any federal regulations or guidelines to protect Americans against what could eventually become autonomous robotic SWAT teams equipped with artificial intelligence, surveillance and lethal weapons, “we the people” are left defenseless.

  We’re gaining ground fast on the kind of autonomous, robotic assassins that Terminator envisioned would be deployed by 2029.

  If these killer robots follow the same trajectory as militarized weapons, which, having been deployed to local police agencies as part of the Pentagon’s 1033 recycling program, are turning America into a battlefield, it’s just a matter of time before they become the first line of defense in interactions between police and members of the public.

  Some within the robotics industry have warned against weaponizing general-purpose robots, which could be used “to invade civil rights or to threaten, harm, or intimidate others.”

  Yet it may already be too late for that.

  As Sam Biddle writes for The Intercept, “As with any high-tech toy, the temptation to use advanced technology may surpass whatever institutional guardrails the police have in place.”

  There are thousands of police robots across the country, and those numbers are growing exponentially. It won’t take much in the way of weaponry and programming to convert these robots to killer robots, and it’s coming.

  The first time police used a robot as a lethal weapon was in 2016, when it was deployed with an explosive device to kill a sniper who had shot and killed five police officers.

  This scenario has been repeatedly trotted out by police forces eager to add killer robots to their arsenal of deadly weapons. Yet as Paul Scharre, author of Army Of None: Autonomous Weapons And The Future Of War, recognizes, presenting a scenario in which the only two options are to use a robot for deadly force or put law enforcement officers at risk sets up a false choice that rules out any consideration of non-lethal options.

  As Biddle concludes:

  “Once a technology is feasible and permitted, it tends to linger. Just as drones, mine-proof trucks, and Stingray devices drifted from Middle Eastern battlefields to American towns, critics of … police’s claims that lethal robots would only be used in one-in-a-million public emergencies isn’t borne out by history. The recent past is littered with instances of technologies originally intended for warfare mustered instead against, say, constitutionally protected speech, as happened frequently during the George Floyd protests.”

  This gradual dismantling of cultural, legal and political resistance to what was once considered unthinkable is what Liz O’Sullivan, a member of the International Committee for Robot Arms Control, refers to as “a well-executed playbook to normalize militarization.”

  It’s the boiling frog analogy all over again, and yet there’s more at play than just militarization or suppressing dissent.

  There’s a philosophical underpinning to this debate over killer robots that we can’t afford to overlook, and that is the government’s expansion of its power to kill the citizenry.

  Although the government was established to protect the inalienable rights to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness of the American people, the Deep State has been working hard to strip us of any claims to life and liberty, while trying to persuade us that happiness can be found in vapid pursuits, entertainment spectacles and political circuses.

  Having claimed the power to kill through the use of militarized police who shoot first and ask questions later, SWAT team raids, no-knock raids, capital punishment, targeted drone attacks, grisly secret experiments on prisoners and unsuspecting communities, weapons of mass destruction, endless wars, etc., the government has come to view “we the people” as collateral damage in its pursuit of absolute power.

  As I make clear in my book Battlefield America: The War on the American People and in its fictional counterpart The Erik Blair Diaries, we are at a dangerous crossroads.

  Not only are our lives in danger. Our very humanity is at stake.

  Tyler Durden
  Fri, 12/02/2022 – 23:05

• Has Smoking Lost Its Cool In The US?
  Has Smoking Lost Its Cool In The US?

  While lighting up a cigarette was once considered a sign of class and sophistication or, at the very least, an act of coolness, smoking seems to have lost some of its spark in recent years.

  As Statista’s Felix Richter notes, according to the Federal Trade Commission, 203.7 billion cigarettes were sold in the United States in 2020. While that marks a marginal increase over 2019 and the first uptick in 20 years, cigarette sales are still at their lowest level since the FTC started tracking them in 1963.

  

  You will find more infographics at Statista

  As Statista’s chart above illustrates, cigarette sales have declined more or less continuously over the past 40 years, dropping more than 50 percent since 2000 and almost 70 percent since smoking’s heyday in the early 1980s. In the meantime, cigarette advertising and promotional spending climbed from $1.2 billion in 1980 to $7.8 billion in 2020, most of the latter coming in the form of price discounts for retailers and wholesalers.

  The number of cigarette smokers in the United States has also dropped over the past four decades, albeit not quite at the same pace as cigarette sales. According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), an estimated 30.8 million adults in the U.S. were smoking cigarettes in 2020, down 40 percent from 51.6 million in 1980.

  Additionally, as Statista’s Martin Armstrong details below, cigarettes do not have the same pull factor for young Americans that they used to. Looking at Gallup survey data going back to 2001-2003, roughly one-third of young adults in the U.S. said they smoked cigarettes twenty years ago. Now though, in the period 2019-2022, just 12 percent confessed to a smoking habit.

  This downward trend isn’t confined to Americans with less mileage on the clock, either. Falls in cigarette smoking rates were registered across the board, with the second-largest decrease seen in the 30 to 49 bracket. That said, the lowest overall rate belonged to the oldest group of respondents in 2022. For the over 65s, enough wisdom seems to have been gathered over the years to mean that just 8 percent said they had smoked a life endangering cigarette in the past week – a decrease from the 14 percent recorded in 2001-2003.

  

  You will find more infographics at Statista

  That all being said, the positive news that smoking is on the decline needs to be taken with caution.

  As Gallup data also indicates, while young adults may be smoking less cigarettes, a significant share appear to have simply switched to a different vice. E-cigarettes, or vaping, are used by 19 percent of 18- to 29-year-olds. Although vaping eliminates the unpleasant smell emitted by cigarettes, the habit is far from healthy, is addictive and carries with it its own dangers and risk to life.

  Tyler Durden
  Fri, 12/02/2022 – 22:40

• Lavrov Announces Russia, China Are Stepping Up Military Cooperation
  Lavrov Announces Russia, China Are Stepping Up Military Cooperation

  Authored by Dave DeCamp via AntiWar.com,

  Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said Thursday that the US and NATO’s move to focus on countering China in the Asia Pacific has led to an increase in military cooperation between Moscow and Beijing.

  “We know how seriously the People’s Republic of China regards these provocations [by NATO in the South China Sea], let alone Taiwan and the Taiwan Strait. We understand that this playing with fire by NATO in that part of the world carries threats and risks for the Russian Federation,” Lavrov said at a press conference, according to TASS.

  

  In recent years, the US has stepped up its military presence in the South China Sea and near Taiwan, and some of its European allies have sent ships to the region, including the UK, France, and Germany.

  “It’s as close to our shores and our seas as it is to Chinese territory. So, our military cooperation with the People’s Republic of China is developing. We are holding joint exercises, both counterterrorism exercises and air patrolling exercises,” Lavrov said.

  NATO has identified China as a “challenge” to the alliance and has said it should forge stronger relationships with countries in the Asia Pacific, including Australia, South Korea, Japan, and India. Building new alliances in the region is a key aspect of the US strategy against China, as outlined by the Biden administration’s Indo-Pacific Strategy.

  Lavrov said that the US and NATO are trying to create an “explosive situation” in the Asia Pacific and pointed to the AUKUS military pact between the US, Britain, and Australia. Under AUKUS, Australia is expected to receive technology to develop nuclear-powered submarines, and the US will expand its military presence in Australia.

  China has previously warned that the Biden administration’s efforts to build alliances in the Asia Pacific could lead to a Ukraine-style “tragedy” in the region. “The United States has tried to create regional tension and provoke confrontation by pushing forward the Indo-Pacific strategy,” Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi said back in April.

  Chinese President Xi Jinping said Tuesday China is ready to work with Russia to forge closer partnership in energy cooperationpic.twitter.com/1j4zU9cB6k

  — Zhang Meifang张美芳 (@CGMeifangZhang) November 29, 2022

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

  The increasing military cooperation between Russia and China is a natural reaction to the similar pressure they are facing from the West. In a sign of the growing ties, Russian and Chinese bombers flew a joint patrol over the western Pacific on Wednesday.

  Tyler Durden
  Fri, 12/02/2022 – 22:15

• Watch: Russia Conducts Monster Of Missile Test In Kazakhstan
  Watch: Russia Conducts Monster Of Missile Test In Kazakhstan

  Russia has successfully test-launched a monster of a weapon system, identified as a new anti-missile defense platform under the national Aerospace Forces, at its Sary Shagan firing range in Kazakhstan.

  “The anti-missile defense system is in service with the Aerospace Forces and is designed to protect against air and space attacks,” the defense ministry said in a statement. However, the statement didn’t specifically name the missile that was tested.

  

  “The new missile defense system, after a series of tests, confirmed its inherent characteristics, and combat crews successfully completed the task, hitting the conditional target with the specified accuracy,” said the head of the Aerospace Forces’ anti-missile defense unit, Major General Sergei Grabchuk.

  Moscow has previously confirmed it is strengthening its missile defense capability surrounding the capital of Moscow, and has been conducting a series of tests with an aim of upgrading air defense of national territory.

  There’s speculation that Thursday’s test launch in neighboring Kazakhstan was the S-500, previously identified by the Kremlin as the next generation anti-air system to defend Russian cities.

  Footage published by the Russian MoD appeared to show a huge rocket…

  WATCH: #BNNRussia Reports

  The Russian Aerospace Forces have completed the launch of a new anti-missile missile defense system at the Sary-Shagan test site in #Kazakhstan, according to the Ministry of Defense (@mod_russia). pic.twitter.com/2iLOl0o6PT

  — Gurbaksh Singh Chahal (@gchahal) December 1, 2022

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

  In recent years, Russia has sought to show off to the world its growing arsenal of hypersonics as well, producing some stunning footage. The West has meanwhile accused Moscow of using hypersonic missiles in Ukraine.

  Fox News has recently reported that “Russia is looking to add more sophisticated weaponry to its stocks and ordered ‘several dozen’ Tsirkon hypersonic missiles this fall,” citing state media sources. “The order is reportedly set to be fulfilled by the end of 2023 and comes after the Kremlin order a ‘batch of Tsirkons’ during the summer of 2021.”

  Tyler Durden
  Fri, 12/02/2022 – 21:50

• Texas Bartenders To Be Trained As "First Responders" In Strategy To Reduce Fentanyl Deaths
  Texas Bartenders To Be Trained As “First Responders” In Strategy To Reduce Fentanyl Deaths

  Authored by Jana Pruett via The Epoch Times,

  More than a dozen bars in Texas will soon be stocked with naloxone and bartenders will be trained as “first responders” to administer the medication that can reverse an opioid overdose, Travis County Judge Andy Brown announced on Monday.

  “Today, I’m excited to share how we are taking life-saving steps that are more inclusive and meet people where they are,” Brown said during a press conference at the Star Bar in Austin. The event was live-streamed on KVUE News.

  The initiative is part of the county’s strategy to reduce accidental overdose deaths.

  “Travis County is working with nonprofits here and local nonprofits to provide bars and bartenders with Narcan, plus the training that is required to use it,” he continued. Narcan is one of the brand names under which naloxone is sold.

  Overdoses are the No. 1 cause of accidental death in the county. Fentanyl-related deaths were up 237 percent from 2020 to 2021, according to the Travis County Medical Examiner Annual Report 2021 (pdf).

  “In all of last year, we had 118 people who died in Travis County with fentanyl in their system. In the first six months, so just the first half of this year of 2022, we have matched that,” Brown told reporters.

  “So, we’re on track basically to double that number of overdose and fentanyl deaths this year.”

  Fentanyl was involved in 59 percent of overdose deaths in the first six months of 2022, up from 38 percent in 2021.

  In May, the Commissioners Court declared overdoses to be a public health crisis after data from the medical examiner’s report showed 308 overdose deaths from all drugs last year.

  

  The declaration allowed the county to set aside $350,000 for overdose prevention efforts, KVUE reported. An additional $150,000 will be used to increase the availability of naloxone.

  “Overdose deaths are a public crisis, and together we can do something about it, and we are doing something about it,” Brown said.

  Bar Staff Training as First Responders

  On Tuesday, the Commissioners Court will vote on a contract to create a partnership with community members as part of its plan to get Narcan into bars and other nightlife venues and provide peer-based support for those seeking help for addiction.

  The county started purchasing boxes of Narcan after the public crisis was declared.

  SafeHaven Harm Reduction, a local nonprofit, recently received 90 boxes of the medicine with plans to distribute it among 13 Austin bars.

  Christie Mokry, executive director at SafeHaven, said the group would be working with Austin bar owners “to train the bar staff to be first responders.”

  “And so the cool thing about what we’re doing is, other organizations are giving this specifically to people who use drugs or may be impacted and what we’re doing is enabling our community members to be first responders,” Mokry continued.

  Travis County District Attorney Jose Garza was also on hand at the event, urging community members to call 911 if they witness someone who is overdosing.

  “What we hope everyone understands is that everyone is capable of saving a life. If you have the training, if you have the tools you need, you can help keep our community safe,” he said.

  “I want to be clear that if you call 911 because you see someone experiencing an overdose, you will not be prosecuted here in Travis County. We need everyone to stay safe and stay alive, and we need your help to do that.”

  Brown said Travis County would also be introducing a “Week of Action” to increase awareness and decrease overdoses.

  The county provided additional data for fentanyl-related deaths in the first six months of 2022 compared to 2021:

  • Women’s overdoses involving fentanyl increased by 150 percent

  • Black residents’ overdoses involving fentanyl increased by 180 percent

  • Hispanic residents’ overdoses involving fentanyl increased by nearly 155 percent

  “The data is clear, fentanyl does not discriminate,” Brown added. “It can impact, and it is impacting, all of us.”

  Tyler Durden
  Fri, 12/02/2022 – 21:25

• The Top 100 Most Valuable Brands In 2022
  The Top 100 Most Valuable Brands In 2022

  Given the elusive nature of brands, determining a brand’s financial value is a difficult task.

  Despite a brand’s intangibility, it’s hard to deny just how effective a strong one can be at boosting a company’s bottom line.

  With this in mind, Brand Finance takes on the challenge of identifying the world’s most valuable brands in the world in its annual Global 500 Report. Visual Capitalist’s Carmen Ang, Nick Routley, and Pernia Jamshed created the graphic below, using data from the latest edition of the report, to highlight the top 100 most valuable brands in 2022.

  

  Editor’s note: This ranking measures the value of brands, which can be thought of as marketing-related intangible assets that create a brand identity and reputation in the minds of consumers. It attempts to measure this in financial terms, calculating what the brand is worth to the company that owns it. For more information on methodology, calculations, and sourcing, go to the bottom of this article.

  A Full Breakdown of the Most Valuable Brands

  With an increase of 35% since last year’s report, Apple retains its top spot on the ranking as the world’s most valuable brand, with a total brand value of $335.1 billion.

  This is the highest brand value ever recorded in the history of the Global 500 report, which has been published each year since 2007.

  As one of the world’s largest tech companies, Apple dominates the smartphone market, especially in the U.S., where more than 50% of operating smartphones are now an iPhone.

  Here’s a list of the 10 most valuable brands according to the report:

  

  After Apple, coming in a close second is Amazon with a brand value of $350.3 billion. This is not surprising, considering the tech giant has often found itself neck-and-neck with Apple in the rankings, and has even come in first place in previous editions of the report.

  One other brand worth highlighting is TikTok. The social media company saw a 215% increase in its brand value year-over-year, making it the fastest-growing brand on the entire list.

  Between 2019 and 2021, the platform saw its userbase skyrocket, growing from 291.4 million to 655.9 million in just two years. If this growth continues, TikTok could reach nearly one billion users by 2025, according to projections from Insider Intelligence.

  Most Valuable Sectors

  Over a third of the brands on the list fall into the tech and services sector. Combined, this category has a brand value of $2.0 trillion.

  

   

  Media is the second most valuable sector—19% of the top 100 brands fall under the media and telecoms sector, including Google, Facebook, and WeChat.

   

  COVID-19 is partly the reason for this, as media consumption increased throughout the global pandemic. For example, in the first nine months of 2021, Snapchat’s daily usage grew by 77%. Despite increased traction with users, it’s worth noting the company is now feeling the sting as the real world competes for attention spans once again and advertisers begin to ghost the app due to recession jitters.

  As pandemic restrictions fade out around the world, and murmurs of a global recession threaten global economic growth, next year’s report could see some big shifts in brand value.

  The Geography of Valuable Brands

  When looking at where these brands are based, we see that the United States and China account for 73 of the top 100 brands on the ranking. Even more surprising—just six countries make up 94% of the list.

  The growth of Chinese companies on the global stage is reflected in this visualization. As a point of comparison, a decade ago, only six Chinese companies made Brand Finance’s Top 100 ranking, and none of them were in the top 30 for brand value.

  

  Interestingly, European countries only make up 14% of the list, which is a testament to just how much Europe’s economic dominance has dwindled over the last few decades.

  Back in the 1960s, Europe accounted for nearly a third of the world’s total GDP. But by 2017, it had dropped down to 16%. According to a forecast by the Pardee Center of the University of Denver, the EU’s share of global GDP is expected to drop down to 10% by 2100.

  Of course, if history has taught us anything, it’s that a lot can change over the span of a century. How a ranking like this will look in coming decades is anyone’s guess.

  Tyler Durden
  Fri, 12/02/2022 – 21:00

• Scientists Claim To Have Created A Tiny Wormhole In The Quantum Realm
  Scientists Claim To Have Created A Tiny Wormhole In The Quantum Realm

  Authored by Elijah Cohen via TheMindUnleashed.com,

  For some who find the Fibonacci sequence used to entanglement qubits to be baffling, which is a crazy topic we published a video about here, you’d best grab onto something solid.

  

  Recently, a group of scientists discovered that quantum systems may mimic wormholes, theoretical shortcuts in spacetime, in that they permit the instantaneous transfer of information between distant places.

  Despite the fact that quantum particles are unaffected by gravity in the same manner that classical objects are, the study team believes their results may have ramifications for investigating quantum gravity. The study appeared this week in the journal Nature.

  “The relationship between quantum entanglement, spacetime, and quantum gravity is one of the most important questions in fundamental physics and an active area of theoretical research,” California Institute of Technology physicist Maria Spiropulu, the paper’s primary author, claimed in a press release. “We are excited to take this small step toward testing these ideas on quantum hardware and will keep going.“

  It’s time to take a breather. It should be made clear that the researchers did not really transmit quantum information via a spacetime rip, which in principle would unite previously disconnected parts of the universe.

  Think of it as folding a sheet of paper in half and sticking a pencil in between the folds. Since the paper represents spacetime, you may use it as a gateway to connect two seemingly inaccessible locations.

  In @Nature: making a traversable wormhole with a quantum computer. A qubit teleported across our Sycamore processor exhibits the dynamics expected from crossing a traversable wormhole, opening up possibilities to test quantum gravity theories. #GoogleAI https://t.co/I8sofabj8r https://t.co/lgedcmDVm7

  — Sundar Pichai (@sundarpichai) November 30, 2022

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

  In theoretical physics, there is a theory that posits wormholes are analogous to quantum entanglement, which Einstein notably referred to as “spooky action at a distance.” This indicates that the spins of entangled quantum particles characterize them uniquely, even at large distances. Due of their special bond, quantum particles make excellent teleportation prototypes.

  Separate research from 2017 showed that the gravitational description of spacetime wormholes is equal to the transfer of quantum information. The new group has been investigating the problem for themselves for some years.

  They aimed to demonstrate not just the equivalence of the two models, but also the possibility of describing information transmission in terms of either gravity or quantum entanglement. Scientists at Google were able to utilize its Sycamore quantum computer for the task.

  “We performed a kind of quantum teleportation equivalent to a traversable wormhole in the gravity picture,” said Alexander Zlokapa, a graduate student at MIT and a part of the team, in the release. “To do this, we had to simplify the quantum system to the smallest example that preserves gravitational characteristics so we could implement it on the Sycamore quantum processor at Google.”

  In an experiment that ticks most of the mystery boxes in modern physics, researchers announced they had simulated a pair of black holes in a quantum computer and sent a message between them through a “baby wormhole.” https://t.co/9wfYq2I2EB pic.twitter.com/S5Y7R12OZW

  — The New York Times (@nytimes) November 30, 2022

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

  A quantum bit (qubit) was introduced into a unique quantum system, and the scientists then saw data leaving the system.

  According to their paper, the information they had placed into one quantum system had exited the other system through the quantum counterpart of a wormhole.

  The researchers added that the teleportation of the quantum information was consistent with both quantum physical expectations and the gravitational knowledge of how an item would move through a wormhole.

  To see how this quantum information transfer could evolve in a more complicated experimental setting, the team aims to construct increasingly advanced quantum devices. It has been 87 years since Einstein and his collaborators first described wormholes; maybe by the time the concept reaches 100, scientists will have figured out how they work.

  Tyler Durden
  Fri, 12/02/2022 – 20:35

• Raytheon Reveals US Plan To Remove Anti-Air Systems From Gulf For Ukraine
  Raytheon Reveals US Plan To Remove Anti-Air Systems From Gulf For Ukraine

  Via The Cradle,

  The CEO of US weapons giant Raytheon Technologies, Gregory Hayes, revealed on Thursday that Washington is working with partner nations in West Asia to transfer a handful of their air defense systems to Ukraine.

  “The [Pentagon] is going to attempt to do some trading for us where we’ll take some from the [West Asian] countries that are our friends and some from our NATO allies, and try and get those into Ukraine early next year,” Hayes said, before adding that the weapons will be  “[backfilled] with new production over the next two years.”

  

  Hayes did not mention specific countries the US is discussing the plan with. Washington’s goal with this plan is to deliver National Advanced Surface-to-Air Missile Systems (NASAMS) to Ukraine within the next three to six months, to avoid a two-year wait for new ones from Raytheon’s factory.

  “Just because it takes 24 months to build, it doesn’t mean it’s going to take 24 months to get [to Ukraine],” he said.

  NASAMS are operated by five NATO members – Hungary, Lithuania, Netherlands, Norway, and Spain – as well as Oman and Qatar in West Asia, according to Defense Security Cooperation Agency records. Australia, Chile, Finland, and Indonesia also operate the systems.

  The White House reportedly approved the arrangement to transfer the air defense systems to Ukraine. However, a Defense Department spokesperson did not immediately respond to a request for comment by Politico.

  Hayes made the revelations just a day after the US army awarded a $1.2 billion contract to Raytheon for six NASAMS for Ukraine, which are part of the fifth Ukraine Security Assistance Initiative (USAI) package with a total value of $2.98 billion. Raytheon is also waiting in the wings for the approval of a $1 billion deal to provide Qatar with anti-drone systems.

  Since the start of the war in Ukraine in February, the US congress has approved $65.9 billion in Ukraine assistance through three separate supplemental funding packages.

  Just two weeks ago, US President Joe Biden asked congress for an additional $38 billion in Ukraine aid. If approved, this would bring the total amount of US taxpayer money Washington has funneled into the pockets of US weapon makers and Ukrainian authorities to $104 billion in less than a year.

  Tyler Durden
  Fri, 12/02/2022 – 20:10

• Watch Live: Air Force Unveils B-21 Raider Stealth Bomber
  Watch Live: Air Force Unveils B-21 Raider Stealth Bomber

  Update (2017ET): 

  Here is the first image of the B-21 Raider. 

  

  *   *   *

  Update (2000ET): 

  The wait is finally over. Northrop Grumman Corporation and the US Air Force are set to unveil the world’s first sixth-generation aircraft. 

  “The unveiling of the B-21 Raider will be a historic moment for our Air Force and the nation.”

  “We last introduced a new bomber over 30 years ago. As we look to the threats posed by our pacing challenge; we must continue to rapidly modernize. The B-21 Raider will provide formidable combat capability across a range of operations in highly contested environments of the future,” Air Force Chief of Staff Gen. CQ Brown, Jr., said.  

  Only a few artists’ renderings of the Air Force’s next strategic bomber have ever been released in the public domain. Defense One said the “tightly controlled rollout ceremony for the B-21 Raider is scheduled for 8 p.m. Eastern time.”

  Watch it here:

  *   *   *

  Northrop Grumman Corporation and the US Air Force are set to unveil the world’s first sixth-generation aircraft on Friday. 

  The B-21 Raider stealth bomber will be displayed at Northrop’s facility in Palmdale, California. There have been no photos, just renderings released in the public domain of the super secret aircraft that has been in development since 2015. 

  A team of more than 8,000 people from Northrop, 400 suppliers across 40 states, and the Air Force have been working on the B-21 program. 

  

  Northrop said the new stealth bomber “benefits from more than three decades of strike and stealth technology … and was developed with the next generation of stealth technology, advanced networking capabilities and an open systems architecture, the B-21 is optimized for the high-end threat environment.” 

  “The B-21 is the most advanced military aircraft ever built and is a product of pioneering innovation and technological excellence.

   “The Raider showcases the dedication and skills of the thousands of people working every day to deliver this aircraft,” Doug Young, sector vice president and general manager at Northrop Grumman Aeronautics Systems, said in a press release. 

  The plane, according to Northrop, will be the “backbone of the future for US air power” with new capabilities and advanced technology to deliver conventional and nuclear payloads. It will be able to “defeat the anti-access, area-denial systems,” the defense company said. 

  Northrop even called the new aircraft a “digital bomber.” Here’s why: 

  “Northrop Grumman uses agile software development, advanced manufacturing techniques and digital engineering tools to help mitigate production risk on the B-21 program and enable modern sustainment practices.”

  At least six of these new bombers are in various stages of final assembly and testing at the company’s plant in Palmdale. Tomorrow’s big reveal will be the first time public eyes have ever viewed a sixth-gen bomber in real-life. 

  Tyler Durden
  Fri, 12/02/2022 – 19:57

• Vaccinated People Make Up Majority Of COVID-19 Deaths: CDC Data
  Vaccinated People Make Up Majority Of COVID-19 Deaths: CDC Data

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

  Data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) showed that vaccinated and boosted people made up most of the COVID-19 deaths in August.

  

  Of the total 6,512 deaths recorded in August 2022, 58.6 percent of the deaths were attributed to vaccinated or boosted people, and seem to be a sign of a growing trend where vaccinated individuals are increasingly becoming the majority in COVID-19 mortalities.

  In January 2022, COVID-19 mortalities in the vaccinated was still the minority with 41 percent of the data related to vaccinated or boosted individuals.

  However, analysis of the CDC data from June and July showed over 50 percent of deaths were being reported in vaccinated individuals, with 62 and 61 percent reported respectively.

  “We can no longer say this is a pandemic of the unvaccinated,” Cynthia Cox, the vice-president of the Kaiser Family Foundation told the Washington Post in an article dated Nov. 23. 

  

  Cox, while in support of COVID-19 vaccination, gave three reasons that may explain why.

  One was that the majority of Americans have at least been given the primary series. Her second reason is that elderly, who have the greatest risk of dying from COVID, are also more likely to take up vaccinations.

  Cox’s final reason was that the potency of the vaccine will wane over time and as variants become more resistant, and therefore recommended more booster uptake.

  COVID-19 vaccination effectiveness has been shown to wane dramatically over the period of a few months, sometimes falling into negligible efficacy.

  Professor Jeffrey Townsend from Yale University, biostatistician, and lead author to a research study evaluating natural and vaccinated immunity against COVID-19, wrote in an email to The Epoch Times that at this stage in the pandemic, rather than comparing the vaccinated against the unvaccinated, it is more helpful to look at an individual’s time since last exposure instead, with exposures meaning vaccinations or infections.

  “Most people have had some kind of exposure, the time since last exposure, along with what the last exposure was, dictates the level of immunity and can explain most variation in susceptibility, morbidity, and mortality,” Townsend wrote.

  Currently, long term studies on immunity against COVID-19 have shown that whether a person is vaccinated or infected with COVID-19, their immunity wanes over time.

  Other research compared natural immunity with vaccinations often showed that vaccination tends to wane at a much higher rate than that of natural infection.

  Some scientists also posited that mRNA vaccines may interfere with the body’s natural immune response. Since the current technology used in mRNA vaccines may “hide the mRNA from cellular defenses and promote a longer biological half-life and high production of spike protein,” according to a June 2022 paper published in Food and Chemical Toxicology. The spike protein is the main pathogenic part of the SARS-CoV-2 virus.

  Clinicians Question ‘Pandemic of the Unvaccinated’ Narrative

  Internal medical physician and cardiologist Dr. Peter McCullough told The Epoch Times that the pandemic was only driven by the unvaccinated in 2020, where there were no vaccines available, and from 2021 it was mostly the vaccinated people who were dying from COVID-19. He reasoned that it is simply because the vaccine did little to control mortality.

  “[The CDC data] is far too late in drawing that conclusion, [the vaccinated] probably assumed the majority sometime during 2021,” said McCullough.

  In 2020, more than 385,000 COVID deaths were documented by the CDC, whereas in 2021, when vaccinations were rolling out, there were more than 463,000 COVID-19 deaths.

  By June of 2021, around 53 percent of the U.S. population had received their first dose and 44 percent were fully vaccinated.

  Yet there was little difference in COVID-19 mortality cases between the first half of 2021 and the second half, with over 244,000 cases (more than 50 percent of the whole year) reported from July to December.

  “It certainly can’t be a situation where we blame the unvaccinated for COVID deaths. And we certainly wouldn’t conclude that the vaccines made any impact on us as the majority of deaths happened during the era of vaccinations,” said McCullough.

  Data from other countries have also demonstrated higher rates of vaccinated patients being hospitalized with COVID as vaccination rates overall rose.

  As early as January 2022, hospitalization data coming out from the state of New South Wales (NSW) in Australia showed that a greater proportion of hospitalized patients were vaccinated. The vaccinated contributed to 50.3 percent of ICU presentations as compared to the 49.1 percent who were unvaccinated.

  NSW was the only state that continued to track and publicize the vaccine status of the people being hospitalized in Australia. It is one of the most vaccinated places; by Nov. 24, over 80 percent of people over the age of 16 received their first boosters.

  The most recent weekly data from NSW continued to show that the vaccinated make up the majority of COVID hospitalizations, ICU admission, and deaths. The most recent report, dated to Nov. 12, showed that unvaccinated patients contributed to 21 percent of COVID deaths, and less than 1 percent of hospitalizations and ICU admissions.

  However, it should be noted that there was only 24 cases of COVID deaths reported in the report, with 440 hospitalizations and 40 ICU admissions, suggestive of a decline in disease severity.

  Mortality data from Manitoba in Canada in the week July 31 to Aug. 6, 2022 also showed that while the boosted population made up 70 percent of all COVID mortalities, the unvaccinated contributed to less than 10 percent of deaths. This is with 43 percent of the population boosted.

  Reports out of the UK also showed similar findings. A report (pdf) published on March 31, 2022 showed that almost 73 percent of COVID mortalities were in boosted individuals while 10 percent were attributed to unvaccinated people. At the time, over 57 percent of the population received a booster shot and 73 percent received their primary doses.

  Unvaccinated Mortality Rates May Not Reflect the Whole Picture

  McCullough added that with the decrease in overall disease severity with Omicron, the data may not present an accurate understanding on COVID deaths.

  “The CDC death data has to be interpreted with caution, because they’re not adjudicated as dying of COVID. They can actually die with COVID.”

  The CDC’s website currently estimates that only 10 percent of COVID-19 deaths have COVID as the contributor of deaths. Therefore, there may be cases counted as a COVID mortality even if COVID was not the primary driver for the death.

  McCullough gave the example that a person may be admitted to the hospital for a heart attack and test positive on the COVID test from having contracted the disease 6 months ago.

  Read more here…

  Tyler Durden
  Fri, 12/02/2022 – 19:45

• Appeals Court Stops Special Master Review Of Documents Seized At Trump’s Mar-a-Lago Estate
  Appeals Court Stops Special Master Review Of Documents Seized At Trump’s Mar-a-Lago Estate

  Authored by Caden Pearson via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours),

  A federal appeals court on Thursday has put a stop to a special master’s external review of the thousands of documents seized from former President Donald Trump’s Mar-a-Lago estate.

  

  The ruling comes after a panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 11th Circuit heard from the Department of Justice (DOJ) and Trump’s lawyers on Nov. 22 regarding the government’s motion to remove U.S. District Judge Raymond Dearie as special master.

  This appointment of a special master by U.S. District Judge Aileen Cannon, a Trump appointee, barred the DOJ from getting their hands on the documents as they pursued a criminal investigation into Trump “pending resolution” of the review.

  The federal appeals court ruled that Cannon had no jurisdiction to exercise what’s known as equitable jurisdiction—or the authority of the court to act in the interest of fairness—in this scenario where an indictment hadn’t been announced and without showing that the seizure of documents was unlawful.

  

  Exercising equitable jurisdiction should only be “exceptional” and “anomalous,” the judges said. They noted that legal precedent had limited this jurisdiction with a four-factor test. Trump’s jurisdictional arguments “fail all four factors,” they said.

  In their opinion, the judges said they had considered their options: either “drastically expand” the availability of equitable jurisdiction for every subject of a search warrant, carve out an “unprecedented exception” in the law for former presidents, or apply their usual test.

  They chose to apply their usual four-factor test, noting that only the “narrowest of circumstances permit a district court to invoke equitable jurisdiction” and that this was “not one of them.”

  The appeals court judges remanded the district court to dismiss Trump’s civil action originally calling for the special master.

  “The law is clear,” the appeals court judges wrote in their opinion (pdf). “We cannot write a rule that allows any subject of a search warrant to block government investigations after the execution of the warrant. Nor can we write a rule that allows only former presidents to do so.”

  “Either approach would be a radical reordering of our caselaw limiting the federal courts’ involvement in criminal investigations,” the opinion continued. “And both would violate bedrock separation-of-powers limitations.”

  Jack Smith, a recently appointed special counsel, tasked with leading the investigation into whether the former president violated the Espionage Act and other federal laws through the handling of certain records, including papers with secret markings, brought the appeals court challenge.

  

  The DOJ is looking into any obstruction of justice by Trump, as well as any legal violations involving the removal of White House records.

  Read more here…

  Tyler Durden
  Fri, 12/02/2022 – 19:20

• Elon Musk Releases THE TWITTER FILES: How Twitter Collaborated With "The Biden Team" To Cover Up The Hunter Laptop Story
  Elon Musk Releases THE TWITTER FILES: How Twitter Collaborated With “The Biden Team” To Cover Up The Hunter Laptop Story

  In a greatly anticipated Friday night drop of what has was expected to be a cache of information involving the censoring of Hunter Biden’s notebook story days ahead of the 2020 presidential election, moments ago Elon Musk – who worked in collaboration with the notoriously independent gonzo journalist Matt Taibbi of “Vampire Squid” fame – has published the “Twitter Files.”

  Shortly before their release, Matt Taibbi sent the following email to his substack subscribers:

  Dear TK Readers:

  Very shortly, I’m going to begin posting a long thread of information on Twitter, at my account, @mtaibbi. This material is likely to get a lot of attention. I will absolutely understand if subscribers are angry that it is not appearing here on Substack first. I’d be angry, too.

  The last 96 hours have been among the most chaotic of my life, involving multiple trips back and forth across the country, with a debate in Canada in between. There’s a long story I hope to be able to tell soon, but can’t, not quite yet anyway. What I can say is that in exchange for the opportunity to cover a unique and explosive story, I had to agree to certain conditions.

  Those of you who’ve been here for years know how seriously I take my obligation to this site’s subscribers. On this one occasion, I’m going to have to simply ask you to trust me. As it happens, there may be a few more big surprises coming, and those will be here on Substack. And there will be room here to to discuss this, too, in time. In any case, thanks for your support and your patience, and please hold me to a promise to make all this up to you, and then some.

  Moments later Elon confirmed that he did, in fact, work with Taibbi:

  Here we go!! 🍿🍿 https://t.co/eILK9f3bAm

  — Elon Musk (@elonmusk) December 2, 2022

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

  And this is what Taibbi has been tweeting in the past few minutes (link here):

  1. Thread: THE TWITTER FILES

  2. What you’re about to read is the first installment in a series, based upon thousands of internal documents obtained by sources at Twitter.

  3. The “Twitter Files” tell an incredible story from inside one of the world’s largest and most influential social media platforms. It is a Frankensteinian tale of a human-built mechanism grown out the control of its designer.

  4. Twitter in its conception was a brilliant tool for enabling instant mass communication, making a true real-time global conversation possible for the first time.

  5. In an early conception, Twitter more than lived up to its mission statement, giving people “the power to create and share ideas and information instantly, without barriers.”

  6. As time progressed, however, the company was slowly forced to add those barriers. Some of the first tools for controlling speech were designed to combat the likes of spam and financial fraudsters.

  7. Slowly, over time, Twitter staff and executives began to find more and more uses for these tools. Outsiders began petitioning the company to manipulate speech as well: first a little, then more often, then constantly.

  8. By 2020, requests from connected actors to delete tweets were routine. One executive would write to another:  “More to review from the Biden team.” The reply would come back: “Handled.”

  

  9. Celebrities and unknowns alike could be removed or reviewed at the behest of a political party:

  

  10.Both parties had access to these tools. For instance, in 2020, requests from both the Trump White House and the Biden campaign were received and honored. However:

  11. This system wasn’t balanced. It was based on contacts. Because Twitter was and is overwhelmingly staffed by people of one political orientation, there were more channels, more ways to complain, open to the left (well, Democrats) than the right.

  

  12. The resulting slant in content moderation decisions is visible in the documents you’re about to read. However, it’s also the assessment of multiple current and former high-level executives.

  … Okay, there was more throat-clearing about the process, but screw it, let’s jump forward

  16. The Twitter Files, Part One: How and Why Twitter Blocked the Hunter Biden Laptop Story

  17. On October 14, 2020, the New York Post published BIDEN SECRET EMAILS, an expose based on the contents of Hunter Biden’s abandoned laptop:

  

  18. Twitter took extraordinary steps to suppress the story, removing links and posting warnings that it may be “unsafe.” They even blocked its transmission via direct message, a tool hitherto reserved for extreme cases, e.g. child pornography.

  19. White House spokeswoman Kaleigh McEnany was locked out of her account for tweeting about the story, prompting a furious letter from Trump campaign staffer Mike Hahn, who seethed: “At least pretend to care for the next 20 days.”

  

  20.This led public policy executive Caroline Strom to send out a polite WTF query. Several employees noted that there was tension between the comms/policy teams, who had little/less control over moderation, and the safety/trust teams:

  

  21. Strom’s note returned the answer that the laptop story had been removed for violation of the company’s “hacked materials” policy:  https://web.archive.org/web/20190717143909/https://help.twitter.com/en/rules-and-policies/hacked-materials

  

  22. Although several sources recalled hearing about a “general” warning from federal law enforcement that summer about possible foreign hacks, there’s no evidence – that I’ve seen – of any government involvement in the laptop story. In fact, that might have been the problem…

  23. The decision was made at the highest levels of the company, but without the knowledge of CEO Jack Dorsey, with former head of legal, policy and trust Vijaya Gadde playing a key role.

  24. “They just freelanced it,” is how one former employee characterized the decision. “Hacking was the excuse, but within a few hours, pretty much everyone realized that wasn’t going to hold. But no one had the guts to reverse it.”

  25.You can see the confusion in the following lengthy exchange, which ends up including Gadde and former Trust and safety chief Yoel Roth. Comms official Trenton Kennedy writes, “I’m struggling to understand the policy basis for marking this as unsafe”:

  

  26. By this point “everyone knew this was fucked,” said one former employee, but the response was essentially to err on the side of… continuing to err.

  

  27. Former VP of Global Comms Brandon Borrman asks, “Can we truthfully claim that this is part of the policy?”

  

  28. To which former Deputy General Counsel Jim Baker again seems to advise staying the non-course, because “caution is warranted”:

  

  29. A fundamental problem with tech companies and content moderation: many people in charge of speech know/care little about speech, and have to be told the basics by outsiders. To wit:

  30. In one humorous exchange on day 1, Democratic congressman Ro Khanna reaches out to Gadde to gently suggest she hop on the phone to talk about the “backlash re speech.” Khanna was the only Democratic official I could find in the files who expressed concern.

  

  31. Gadde replies quickly, immediately diving into the weeds of Twitter policy, unaware Khanna is more worried about the Bill of Rights:

  

  32.Khanna tries to reroute the conversation to the First Amendment, mention of which is generally hard to find in the files:

  

  33.Within a day, head of Public Policy Lauren Culbertson receives a ghastly letter/report from Carl Szabo of the research firm NetChoice, which had already polled 12 members of congress – 9 Rs and 3 Democrats, from “the House Judiciary Committee to Rep. Judy Chu’s office.”

  

  34.NetChoice lets Twitter know a “blood bath” awaits in upcoming Hill hearings, with members saying it’s a “tipping point,” complaining tech has “grown so big that they can’t even regulate themselves, so government may need to intervene.”

  

  35.Szabo reports to Twitter that some Hill figures are characterizing the laptop story as “tech’s Access Hollywood moment”:

  

  36.Twitter files continued:  “THE FIRST AMENDMENT ISN’T ABSOLUTE” 

  Szabo’s letter contains chilling passages relaying Democratic lawmakers’ attitudes. They want “more” moderation, and as for the Bill of Rights, it’s “not absolute”

  

  37. An amazing subplot of the Twitter/Hunter Biden laptop affair was how much was done without the knowledge of CEO Jack Dorsey, and how long it took for the situation to get “unfucked” (as one ex-employee put it) even after Dorsey jumped in.

  38. While reviewing Gadde’s emails, I saw a familiar name – my own. Dorsey sent her a copy of my Substack article blasting the incident

  

  39. There are multiple instances in the files of Dorsey intervening to question suspensions and other moderation actions, for accounts across the political spectrum

  40. The problem with the “hacked materials” ruling, several sources said, was that this normally required an official/law enforcement finding of a hack. But such a finding never appears throughout what one executive describes as a “whirlwind” 24-hour, company-wide mess.

  

  41. It’s been a whirlwind 96 hours for me, too. There is much more to come, including answers to questions about issues like shadow-banning, boosting, follower counts, the fate of various individual accounts, and more. These issues are not limited to the political right.

  42. Good night, everyone. Thanks to all those who picked up the phone in the last few days.

  *  *  *

  The release was telegraphed one week ago, when Musk acknowledged that revealing Twitter’s internal discussions surrounding the censorship of the New York Post‘s Hunter Biden laptop story right before the 2020 US election is “necessary to restore public trust.”

  This is necessary to restore public trust

  — Elon Musk (@elonmusk) November 24, 2022

  Recall that the Post had its Twitter account locked in October 2020 for reporting on the now-confirmed-to-be-real “laptop from hell,” which contained still-unprosecuted evidence of foreign influence peddling through then-Vice President Joe Biden – including a 2015 meeting with an executive of Ukrainian gas giant Burisma.

  Users who tried to share the link to the article were greeted with a message saying, “We can’t complete this request because this link has been identified by Twitter or our partners as being potentially harmful.”

  Then, days after Musk’s tweet, Twitter’s former head of Trust and Safety, Yoel Roth, admitted it was a ‘mistake’ to censor the Hunter Biden laptop story.

  In his first public appearance since becoming an ex-employee, Roth suggested that the Hunter Biden laptop story was simply ‘too difficult’ for Twitter to verify. Alternatively, the company could have perhaps simply trusted the Post, one of America’s oldest publications that doesn’t have a reputation for fabricating bombshell stories – like Twitter does with countless anonymous bombshells from other major publications.

  “We didn’t know what to believe. We didn’t know what was true. There was smoke,” Roth said during an interview at the Knight Foundation conference, as noted by the Epoch Times. “And ultimately for me, it didn’t reach a place where I was comfortable removing this content from Twitter.”

  “It set off every single one of my finely tuned APT28 ‘hack and leak campaign’ alarm bells,” he said, referring to a notorious team of cyberspies affiliated with Russian military intelligence. “Everything about it looked like a hack and leak.”

  When asked whether if it was a mistake to censor the story, Roth replied, “In my opinion, yes.”

  Would Roth have suppressed the story if it was a Don Jr. laptop full of incriminating evidence?

  * * *

  Finally, it will be very interesting to see which “independent”, “impartial” and “objective” members of the Mainstream Media cover the Twitter Files, which unlike all that Russia collusion bullshit, was a real and actionable attempt to interfere with US democracy by covering up one of the most explosive political stories of a generation, not to mention an event that would have swayed the 2020 presidential election. 

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

  Tyler Durden
  Fri, 12/02/2022 – 19:05

• LA County Experiences 1,200% Increase In Fentanyl Overdose Deaths Over 5-Year Period
  LA County Experiences 1,200% Increase In Fentanyl Overdose Deaths Over 5-Year Period

  Between 2016 and 2016, Los Angeles County experienced a 1,280% spike in overdose deaths from fentanyl, according to a recent report from the county Department of Public Health.

  

  In a joint statement, the LA County District Attorney’s Office (which regularly refuses to charge drug dealers) and the health department announced the creation of a working group to address the situation “through prevention, education and enforcement.”

  The ‘enforcement’ part will of course mark a radical departure from DA George Gascón’s ‘catch-and-release’ policy when it comes to criminals.

  According to the health department, there were 104 deaths in 2016 attributed to fentanyl, which ballooned to 1,662 in 2001.

  

  According to City News Service, black residents had the highest overdose rate based on the population, at 30.6 per 100,000 residents. White residents are overdosing at a rate of 22.5 per 100,000, while Latinos are at 11.1 per 100,000 residents.

  The overdoses also occurred much more frequently in less affluent areas – which came in at 38.4 deaths per 100,000 vs. 12.3 per 100,000.

  “Fentanyl overdoses are a significant and growing public health problem across the United States and in [the county], across sociodemographic groups and geographic areas,” reads the report, which adds “The increases among youth and the widening inequities between under-resourced and more affluent groups underscore the need to target prevention efforts to those at highest risk to decrease fentanyl overdoses and advance health equity in [LA County].”

  

  Gascón, acting like he isn’t a huge part of the problem, said in a statement that the working group is “bringing together the county’s public health experts, education leaders, community advocates, and law enforcement professionals to support and utilize evidence-based and effective approaches to stopping the toll fentanyl is taking,” Gascón said in a statement.”

  Tyler Durden
  Fri, 12/02/2022 – 18:30

• Antifa Defendants Arrested In Attack On Trump Supporters Take Plea Deals
  Antifa Defendants Arrested In Attack On Trump Supporters Take Plea Deals

  Authored by Brad Jones via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours),

  Six of 11 alleged assailants connected with Antifa, a far-left extremist group, have taken plea deals and pled guilty to charges related to violent attacks on supporters of outgoing President Donald Trump at a “Patriot March” in San Diego shortly after the 2020 election.

  

  Five defendants pled guilty on Nov. 18, just over a week after Erich “Nikki” Louis Yach was sentenced to four years and eight months in prison for his role in the violence near Crystal Pier in Pacific Beach on Jan. 9, 2021. Yach was the first of the 11 to be sentenced.

  Yach earlier pled guilty to charges of conspiracy, assault, and the unlawful use of tear gas.

  At his sentencing hearing, GG Hubbard, Yach’s spouse, urged the court to send Yach—a biological male who identifies as female—to a women’s prison. Yach has spent nearly the last two years in a men’s prison and will be credited for time already served.

  “I want to make sure she gets put in the correct facility according to her gender,” Hubbard told the court.

  Hubbard claimed Yach is “not violent” and said incarceration in anything but a women’s facility was “violating the law” and “political and fascist nonsense.”

  San Diego County District Attorney Summer Stephan announced in June that a criminal grand jury had two weeks earlier delivered 29 indictments against all 11 defendants, including “conspiracy to commit a riot, use of tear gas, assault with a deadly weapon, and assault by means likely to produce great bodily injury.”

  

  “Antifa uses force, fear, and violence to further their interests and suppress the interests of others. The objective of this conspiracy was to incite and participate in a riot,” the district attorney’s office said at the time.

  The defendants named in the indictments are from Los Angeles and San Diego counties and are all “affiliated with Antifa” according to a statement from the district attorney’s office last December. The named are Alexander Akridgejacobs, Jesse Merel Cannon, Brian Cortez Lightfoot Jr., Christian Martinez, Luis Francisco Mora, Samuel Howard Ogden, Bryan Rivera, Faraz Martin Talab, and Jeremy White.

  Antifa supporters posted on social media on Jan. 2, 2021 calls for a “counterprotest” and “direct action” against Trump supporters, and then a week later gathered with other “uncharged co-conspirators” dressed in black garb with Antifa insignia to confront those participating in the Patriot March, the office stated.

  According to the district attorney’s office, such alleged action included “assault, battery, assault with deadly weapons, arson, and vandalism.”

  Videos posted online showed one of the masked, black-clad protesters carrying an “Antifascist Action” banner and another with a sign saying “No Nazis in PB”—a reference to Pacific Beach—as the group of about 100 shouted “Racists go home!” at Trump supporters.

  

  “Antifa uses force, fear, and violence to further their interests and suppress the interests of others. The objective of this conspiracy was to incite and participate in a riot,” the district attorney’s office said.

  The indictments accused the Antifa-affiliated group of planning the attacks and using a baseball bat, flagpole, stun gun, and tear gas on their victims. They were also accused of throwing a wooden lawn chair at a woman.

  Prosecutors also allege some Antifa members in the crowd chased down several minors whom they thought were part of the Patriot March, sprayed them with mace, and pushed one to the ground. The victim was later transported to a hospital for treatment of a concussion.

  Other “victims included a journalist [taking] photos, a dog that was maced and a business that was also vandalized,” prosecutors said.

  The San Diego Police Department reported a total of 16 separate attacks on eight people.

  The Antifa rioters allegedly threw eggs, rocks and bottles and sprayed mace at officers after police declared the dueling protests an unlawful assembly and tried to disperse the crowd.

  All the defendants pleaded not guilty in June.

  None of the Trump supporters or other bystanders were charged with any crimes.

  “Video evidence analysis shows that overwhelmingly the violence in this incident was perpetrated by the Antifa affiliates and was not a mutual fray with both sides crossing out of lawful First Amendment,” the district attorney’s office stated in June.

  Tyler Durden
  Fri, 12/02/2022 – 18:12

• Minneapolis Settles With 12 Injured George Floyd Protesters, Police Barred From Arresting Lawful Protesters
  Minneapolis Settles With 12 Injured George Floyd Protesters, Police Barred From Arresting Lawful Protesters

  Authored by Katabella Roberts via The Epoch Times,

  The city of Minneapolis on Wednesday reached a $600,000 settlement with the American Civil Liberties Union of Minnesota (ACLU-MN) over alleged police mistreatment of protestors following the death of George Floyd.

  

  The lawsuit was filed in 2020 by ACLU-MN, Fish & Richardson P.C., and Gustafson Gluek PLLC on behalf of 12 protesters who were injured when they took to the streets to peacefully demonstrate.

  According to ACLU-MN, the class action lawsuit awards a $600,000 payment, to be split among the plaintiffs, and includes “numerous reforms.”

  Specifically, it bans the city from “arresting, threatening to arrest, or using physical force,” which includes the use of chemical agents, flash-bang or concussion grenades, and foam-tipped bullets to stop people from engaging in lawful protests or demonstrations.

  It also limits police use of chemical agents to disperse peaceful protests and requires that officers deployed to protests are wearing body cameras that are recording and are “unobstructed.”

  Plaintiffs in the lawsuit claim to have suffered an array of injuries, including bruising, “lingering respiratory issues from tear gas, and psychological trauma “due to Minneapolis police using “unnecessary and excessive force” to suppress the plaintiffs’ First Amendment rights to protests, including tear gas and rubber bullets.

  

  A police officer stands amid smoke and debris as buildings continue to burn in the aftermath of a night of protests and violence following the death of George Floyd, in Minneapolis, Minn., on May 29, 2020. (Charlotte Cuthbertson/The Epoch Times)

  

  Protesters face police as the latter move in with tear gas to take over the chaotic streets outside the Minneapolis Police 5th Precinct during the fourth night of protests and violence following the death of George Floyd, in Minneapolis, Minn., on May 29, 2020. (Charlotte Cuthbertson/The Epoch Times)

  They also alleged that officers often fired without warning or orders to leave.

  The plaintiffs claimed that the psychological trauma they suffered as a result of this “excessive force” had quashed their desire to protest in the future.

  Peaceful vs. Violent Expression

  

  Demonstrators gather for a rally in memory of George Floyd and Daunte Wright outside Cup Foods in Minneapolis, Minn., on April 18, 2021. (John Minchillo/AP Photo)

  Wednesday’s agreed settlement and injunction resolve two lawsuits filed in 2020 against the City of Minneapolis, Police Chief Medaria Arradondo, and various Minneapolis Police Department officers. Those lawsuits were later consolidated into one lawsuit.

  The settlement dismisses claims against individual officers.

  “People who are demonstrating peacefully should never be met with police violence as they were in Minneapolis during protests over MPD’s murder of George Floyd,” said ACLU-MN Legal Director Teresa Nelson in a statement.

  “Tear gas, foam bullets, and pepper spray became weapons for intimidating and hurting protesters, making it dangerous for people to exercise their First Amendment rights. We hope this settlement sends a message to law enforcement across Minnesota that this violation of our constitutional rights will not be tolerated.”

  

  A poster with George Floyd’s picture and a sign reads that “I Can’t Breathe” hang from a security fence outside the Hennepin County Government Center in Minneapolis, Minn. on March 31, 2021. (Kerem Yucel/AFP via Getty Images)

  Floyd, a 46-year-old black man, was killed in May 2020 by then-Minneapolis police officer Derek Chauvin during an arrest after Floyd allegedly tried to use a counterfeit $20 bill to purchase cigarettes.

  Chauvin held his knee against Floyd’s neck and back for approximately nine-and-a-half minutes as Floyd lay handcuffed and face-down on the pavement while, another officer, Thomas Lane, restrained his lower body and J. Alexander Kueng knelt on Floyd’s back.

  Video of the incident quickly went viral online, sparking protests across the country, in which thousands of peaceful protesters but also many non-peaceful rioters participated, resulting in damage to some businesses from looting and arson. Many of the protests continued into early 2021 and prompted calls to defund the police.

  

  A destroyed building still smolders near the Minneapolis Police 3rd Precinct the day after it was attacked and burned by rioters following the death of George Floyd, in Minneapolis, Minn., on May 29, 2020. (Charlotte Cuthbertson/The Epoch Times)

  

  State Police stand guard as smoke billows from buildings that continue to burn in the aftermath of a night of protests and violence following the death of George Floyd, in Minneapolis, Minn., on May 29, 2020. (Charlotte Cuthbertson/The Epoch Times)

  According to a report from Axios, the destruction that occurred as a result of the demonstrations was estimated to see at least $1 billion to $2 billion of paid insurance claims.

  Chauvin was convicted of second-degree murder, third-degree murder, and second-degree manslaughter charges in Floyd’s death in April 2021, and sentenced to more than 22 years in prison.

  The Epoch Times has contacted Minneapolis Police for comment.

  Tyler Durden
  Fri, 12/02/2022 – 17:22

• California Governor's Reparations Committee To Recommend $223,200 Per Descendant Of Slavery
  California Governor’s Reparations Committee To Recommend $223,200 Per Descendant Of Slavery

  California taxpayers may be on the hook for as much as $223,200 for each descendant of slavery living in the Golden State, in order to compensate them for “housing discrimination,” according to the New York Times.

  

  The nine-member Reparations Task Force, formed by California Governor Gavin Newsom, has been focusing on ways to counter the claimed housing discrimination. Overall reparations would cost approximately $569 billion to compensate the roughly 2.5 million black Californians for ‘setbacks’ between 1933 and 1977 – eclipsing the state’s $512.8 billion expenditure in 2021.

  “We want to see the land and economic wealth stolen from Black families all across this country returned,” said activist Kavon Ward.

  The panel is still mulling how payments should be made – with some suggesting tuition and housing grants, while others are suggesting cash. Final figures will be released in a 2023 report, which would then be up to the state Legislature to act upon the recommendations and figure out how to fund them.

  They have also identified four other reasons for reparations – mass incarceration, unjust property seizures, devaluation of black businesses and health care. The $223,200 figure only applies to housing discrimination.

  “We are looking at reparations on a scale that is the largest since Reconstruction,” task force member Jovan Scott Lewis, a Berkeley professor, told the Times.

  Every year for almost three decades, Representative John Conyers Jr. of Michigan introduced legislation that would have created a commission to explore reparations, but the measure consistently stalled in Congress. After Mr. Conyers retired in 2017, Representative Sheila Jackson Lee of Texas began championing the measure, which passed a House committee for the first time last year, but stalled on the floor.

  Underscoring the political hurdles, opinions on reparations are sharply divided by race. Last year, an online survey by the University of Massachusetts Amherst found that 86 percent of African Americans supported compensating the descendants of slaves, compared with 28 percent of white people. Other polls have also shown wide splits. -NYT

  The Times points to Russell City, California as an example of housing discrimination. The city, once home to many black families who fled racial terror, was bulldozed and repolaced with an industrial park. Former resident Monique Henderson-Ford told the Times she was paid $2,200 for her home – less than 1/3 of what she paid.

  “Imagine if the houses were still here,” she said, adding “We would all be sitting on a fortune.“

  Tyler Durden
  Fri, 12/02/2022 – 16:50

• Quinn: We Are Trapped In 'A Truman Show' Directed By Psychopaths
  Quinn: We Are Trapped In ‘A Truman Show’ Directed By Psychopaths

  Authored by Jim Quinn via The Burning Platform blog,

  “Whether in actual fact the policy of the boot-on-the-face can go on indefinitely seems doubtful. My own belief is that the ruling oligarchy will find less arduous and wasteful ways of governing and of satisfying its lust for power, and these ways will resemble those which I described in Brave New World. Within the next generation I believe that the world’s rulers will discover that infant conditioning and narco-hypnosis are more efficient, as instruments of government, than clubs and prisons, and that the lust for power can be just as completely satisfied by suggesting people into loving their servitude as by flogging and kicking them into obedience.” – Aldous Huxley – Letter to George Orwell about 1984 in 1949

  

  “There will be, in the next generation or so, a pharmacological method of making people love their servitude, and producing dictatorship without tears, so to speak, producing a kind of painless concentration camp for entire societies, so that people will in fact have their liberties taken away from them, but will rather enjoy it, because they will be distracted from any desire to rebel by propaganda or brainwashing, or brainwashing enhanced by pharmacological methods. And this seems to be the final revolution” ― Aldous Huxley

  When I step back from the day-to-day minutia and trivialities flooding my senses from all directions and media devices, it almost appears as if I’m living in a highly scripted reality TV program where the characters and plots are designed to create passions and reactions to support whatever narrative is being weaved by those directing the show. Huxley really did foresee the future as clearly and concisely as anyone could, decades before his dystopian vision came to fruition.

  Orwell’s boot on the face vision is only now being initiated because a few too many critical thinkers have awoken from their pharmaceutically induced stupor and begun to question the plotline of this spectacle masquerading as our reality. The mass formation psychosis infecting the weak-minded masses; relentless mass propaganda designed to mislead, misinform, and brainwash a dumbed down and government indoctrinated populace; and complete control of the story line through media manipulation, regulation, and censorship of the truth; has run its course. As Charles Mackay stated 180 years ago, the masses go mad as a herd, but only regain their senses slowly, and one by one.

  My recognition that the world seems to be scripted and directed by Machiavellian managers, working behind a dark shroud, representing an invisible governing authority, molding our minds, suggesting our ideas, dictating our tastes, and creating fear, triggered a recollection of the 1998 Jim Carrey movie – The Truman Show. The movie, directed by Peter Weir (Gallipoli, Witness, Dead Poet’s Society), had the surreal feel of Forest Gump, while beckoning the horrendous introduction of reality TV (Big Brother, Survivor), which poisons our shallow unserious society to this day. The plot of the movie focuses on individuality versus conformity, consumerism, voyeurism, reality versus manipulation, false narratives, the truth about the American Dream, and the dangers of surveillance in a technologically advanced society.

  

  Truman Burbank is the unsuspecting star of The Truman Show, a reality television program filmed 24/7 through thousands of hidden cameras and broadcast to a worldwide audience. Christof, the show’s creator seeks to capture Truman’s authentic emotions and give audiences a relatable everyman. Truman has been the unsuspecting star of the show since he was born 30 years prior. Truman’s hometown of Seahaven Island is a complete set built within an enormous dome, populated by crew members and actors who highlight the product placements that generate revenue for the show. The elaborate set allows Christof to control almost every aspect of Truman’s life, including the weather. The picture-perfect home, with picket fence and plastic people, is an attempt to convince Truman he is living the American Dream rather than in an inescapable dystopian techno-prison.

  

  To prevent Truman from discovering his false reality, Christof manufactures scenarios that dissuade Truman’s desire for exploration, such as the “death” of his father in a sea storm to instill aquaphobia, and by constantly broadcasting and printing messages of the dangers of traveling and the virtues of staying home. One cannot but acknowledge the plotline to keep Truman under control, obedient, and locked down in his controlled environment, with no escape hatch visible, as exactly the plotline used by our overlords during the Covid scam. Using fear to regulate your subjects is a familiar theme used by those controlling the narrative and pulling the strings behind the scenes of our glorious democracy of dystopia.

  The first task was to instill fear into the masses through fake videos, fake medical experts spewing fake “facts”, denying the reality masks, social distancing, and locking down the world did not stop a microscopic virus, while suppressing treatments which were clearly safe and effective (ivermectin, hydroxychloroquine) and forcing Fauci’s remdesivir and ventilators on patients – insuring their deaths. Truman’s life was built upon lies, deception, and fake narratives, controlled by a tyrannical director putting on a show to please his bosses and maximize profits. We are experiencing the same reality today.

  Since March 2020 we have been trapped in a dystopian reality show based on lies, deception, and fake narratives about a weaponized virus created in a lab funded by Anthony Fauci and utilized to further the totalitarian Great Reset agenda of Schwab, Gates and their ilk, while maximizing the profits of Pfizer, TV networks and filling the pockets of politicians, shills, and apparatchiks willing to sellout the people of our country for thirty pieces of silver.

  

  As the Truman Show approached its 30th anniversary, Truman began discovering unusual elements, such as a spotlight falling out of the sky in front of his house and a radio channel that precisely described his movements. He began to awaken to the fact he was nothing but a peculiarity trapped in a cage and constantly deterred from escaping at every turn, for the good of the show. He lived in a scripted world of conformity, where questioning the plot was not allowed, and the masses just played their parts.

  This is exactly how a dictatorship without tears uses technology, pharmaceuticals, and psychological manipulation to convince the masses to love their servitude. This is the reality show we have been living in during this 21st Century dictatorship dystopia of dunces. But this psychological phenomenon is not new to mankind, as Plato described an ancient Truman Show analog in the 6th Century with his Allegory of the Cave. The nature of human beings has not changed across the trials and tribulations of history.

  

  In the allegory, Plato describes a group of people who have lived chained in a cave all their lives, facing a blank wall. The people watch shadows projected on the wall from objects passing in front of a fire behind them and give names to these shadows. The shadows are the prisoners’ reality but are not an accurate representation of the real world. An enlightened man is like a prisoner who is freed from the cave and comes to understand the shadows on the wall are not reality.

  The ignorant inmates do not desire to leave their prison/cave, for it is the only life they know, and they fear reality. The fire and the puppets, used to create shadows, are controlled by artists. Plato indicates the fire is also the political doctrine taught by a nation state. The artists use light and shadows to indoctrinate the masses with the dominant doctrines of the times. Few humans ever escape the cave. Most humans will remain at the bottom of the cave, with a small few elevated as major artists, to project the shadows keeping the masses disoriented, confused and fearful.

  “Whereas the truth is that the State in which the rulers are most reluctant to govern is always the best and most quietly governed, and the State in which they are most eager, the worst.” ― Plato, The Allegory of the Cave

  

  “Most people are not just comfortable in their ignorance, but hostile to anyone who points it out.” ― Plato, The Allegory of the Cave

  

  The State is run by an eager group of psychopaths who are hell bent on destroying our civil society and common culture on behalf of globalists attempting to implement their Great Reset agenda, and enforcing it through technological surveillance, mind control through propaganda messaging, and strict management of the daily plot via mainstream media and social media censorship of the truth. As Plato contemplated fifteen centuries ago, most men will remain in their cave, believing shadows presented by their overlords is reality, never questioning their servitude or seeking the truth.

  Never has this fact been truer than during this covid pandemic reality show directed by our Christof – mass murderer Anthony Fauci. The willful ignorance of the masses was assumed by the covid controllers who cast shadows of fear and death on the cave walls of the locked down extras in this well-orchestrated reality show. Using a purposefully misleading PCR test to vastly overestimate “cases”, paying hospitals to classify all deaths as covid, and having the propaganda professionals at CNN, MSNBC and Fox showing Covid Death Counters on their screens 24/7 to terrify the masses into compliance was the Covid Show.

  

  Once the fear level was ramped to eleven on the control dial, the producers of this show introduced the miraculous Big Pharma vaccine antidote to save the day. Their script was so believable they were able to convince over 5 billion members of their captive audience to inject themselves with an untested, unproven genetic therapy, that didn’t prevent you from catching, transmitting, getting sick, being hospitalized, or dying from the Fauci funded Wuhan lab produced virus. But, as a dramatic twist to the tale, it seems the “vaccine” causes myocarditis, blood clots, infertility, miscarriages, heart attacks, cancer, and sudden death.

  

  Despite the obvious dangers and failures of these “vaccines”, those bullied into getting jabbed became so comfortable in their ignorance, they were easily persuaded to hate the unjabbed and wish for their deaths. Orwell’s “Two Minutes of Hate” was extended for over a year and continues to this day. Rather than think critically and question why annual flu cases averaged 35 million per year prior to 2020 but dropped to near ZERO during the covid “emergency”, the cave dwellers lashed out in anger at anyone questioning the plot, because to admit they were duped would destroy their self-esteem and decrease their virtue signal credits.

  The annual flu didn’t disappear. Covid was the annual flu, with a multi-billion-dollar marketing campaign. This wasn’t a pandemic, but an IQ test, and most people failed miserably. But the critical thinking unvaxxed are still considered the enemy of the state, especially since they have been proven right.

  

  Whether we are trapped in an artificial world produced in a dome, cave, or our current technologically advanced surveillance propaganda state, the goal of those controlling our false reality is to take away our freedoms, crush dissent, keep us ignorant of the truth, and treat us as plebs to be taxed and molded. Christof, whose name is supposed to invoke him being a god-like figure ruling over Truman’s world, declares Truman could discover the truth and leave at any time, while using every diabolical trick to keep that from ever happening, because his show generated revenues exceeding the GDP of a small country.

  Truman and ourselves are essentially prisoners in a vast production, and our overlords believe it is their duty to convince us to love our servitude and prefer our cells, because it is financially beneficial to the overlords and their crew.

  

  Our world is not fake, but it is tightly controlled by those running the show. Seemingly random events, plots, and subplots are manipulated to generate specific emotions and reactions by the public in order to achieve the objectives of those benefitting from the various storylines. They are molding our minds and forming our tastes through psychological and technological manipulation of our daily existence. Christof explained why most rarely discover the truth or question the world they live in – “We accept the reality of the world with which we’re presented. It’s as simple as that.”

  We have allowed men we have never seen to dictate how we live our lives, the choices we make, and which politicians and “experts” to believe, without ever putting in the effort to understand why we are being prodded to do so. We are locked in a self-imposed prison of desires, emotions, and needs through mass media messaging and a constant barrage of advertisements. Conformity and obedience are the desired traits sought by the ruling class, while individuality and skepticism are frowned upon and punished through social ostracism.

  We are conditioned from birth to believe what they tell us to believe. Government school indoctrination and mass media misinformation does the trick. Distracted by our techno-gadgets and ignorant of truth is how the globalist oligarchs methodically implement their Great Reset agenda. They are so convinced of the ignorance of the masses they openly proclaim their depopulation and techno-prison schemes with no fear of push back or retribution.

  

  The ending of the Truman Show is a lesson in resistance, persistence, and the strength of the individual, even in the face of a technologically advanced Big Brother state. It offers a message of hope, no matter how powerful our overlords appear to be. Refusing to obey or conform by one individual can inspire others to do likewise. Once Truman ‘awoke’ to his plight as a lab rat in a scripted show, he began to plot his escape. Using a makeshift tunnel in his basement, out of view of Christof’s cameras, he disappeared and forced the suspension of the broadcast for the first time in thirty years.

  

  Christof discovers Truman sailing away from Seahaven in a small boat, as he has overcome the fake conditioning of fear instilled in him by the man who supposedly loves him but traumatized him about the sea by faking his father’s death while at sea. Christof chooses to almost drown Truman by creating a violent storm to deter him from discovering the truth. Ultimately the storm ceases and his boat strikes the wall of the dome.

  This is exactly how our controllers treat the ignorant masses. They feed us stories designed to make us fearful and compliant to the exhortations of their paid experts. Paid to lie. Paid to misinform. Paid to persuade people a dangerous concoction is “safe and effective”. The evilness of using Sesame Street characters to convince four-year-old children they need this Big Pharma gene altering toxic brew, even though essentially ZERO children on earth died from covid, is a testament to the greed and malevolent impulses of those in power. Vast amounts of ever-increasing advertising revenue are what kept The Truman Show on the air for thirty years.

  

  The covid advertising campaign will never be topped, as Hollywood stars, top athletes, famous writers, rock legends, supposedly impartial journalists, and all the major networks said SHOW ME THE MONEY!!!! Everyone was for sale, and all they had to do was lie and say the jabs were “safe and effective”. Product placement was the money-making formula for the Truman Show, while hard selling a Big Pharma phony cure over the airwaves 24/7 using the tax dollars of the victims was the final solution of the Great Reset Cabal.

  The grand finale is a clash of the philosophies of reality versus false reality, as Truman discovers a staircase leading to an exit door. Christof speaks to Truman, claiming there was no more truth in the real world than in his artificial world, and he would be safe, with nothing to fear, in a world controlled by men invisible to him assuring him they have his best interests at heart. Truman chooses individuality, truth, risk, living a real meaningful life, and seeking honest relationships over a safe existence in a bubble where all decisions were made by others. Truman bows to the audience and exits, leaving Chistof to mourn the loss of his star and the revenue he generated. The ignorant masses watching the show cheer his escape and then ask, “what’s on next?” Plato captured the uncertainty and bewilderment Truman must have felt as he walked into the light.

  

  “Anyone who has common sense will remember that the bewilderments of the eyes are of two kinds, and arise from two causes, either from coming out of the light or from going into the light” ― Plato, The Allegory of the Cave

  This world of manufactured dystopian pleasure harkens more towards Huxley’s Brave New World, where pharmaceuticals and conditioning would keep the public seeking pleasure, pre-occupied with trivialities, distracted by materialism, unable to think critically, and reduced to passivity and egoism through the control of messaging by their controllers. Our efficient totalitarian state has gained complete control by convincing the masses to love their servitude and beg for more rules, restrictions, and reduction of liberties in the name of safety and security.

  

  Smart phones, smart cities, and smart streets are nothing more than code for spying on you and controlling you. Truman finally understood his liberty was his to choose and not Christof’s to give. There is a small minority of Americans who are realizing the same thing after two years of totalitarian measures designed to take away our freedoms and liberty. The question is whether enough will exit this tyrannical government produced show to make a difference. The future of mankind literally depends on the answer to this question.

  “Liberties aren’t given, they are taken.” ― Aldous Huxley

  

  “A really efficient totalitarian state would be one in which the all-powerful executive of political bosses and their army of managers control a population of slaves who do not have to be coerced, because they love their servitude.” ― Aldous Huxley, Brave New World

  Just as those controlling the Truman Show were not doing it for Truman’s benefit, but for their enrichment, those controlling the puppet strings of our society today had no interest in our health over the last two years, our financial well-being, our psychological well-being, or the peaceful rational functioning of our civilization. They have no interest in securing our border, reducing crime, holding fair elections, promoting peaceful solutions to global conflict, or allowing the truth to reach the masses. Their agenda has been and continues to be, the destruction of our civilized society, obliteration of our core standards and norms, depopulation of the planet, confiscation of our wealth, and ultimately our enslavement through technological shackles and chains.

  As Huxley noted decades ago, technology has just provided our civilization with a more efficient means of going backwards. Technology is being used by our controllers to monitor our movements, communications, and to surveil, distract, and amuse us to death. It is no longer a force for good, but a means to control us. They plan to use technology to disarm their citizens through increasingly authoritarian regulations, sold as keeping us safe from mass shooters.

  Their climate agenda isn’t about the climate, but about complete control of the masses. When government and their social media attack dogs monitor the citizens for “hate speech and misinformation”, and dole out retribution at their whim, our system is profoundly broken and extremely warped. They are supposed to answer to us. But these megalomaniacs have much bigger agenda.

  

  We’ve lost all sense of reality, reason, and truth in a profoundly abnormal world, created by those we allowed to ascend to power through the control and influence of shadowy globalist billionaires operating as an invisible government, with Deep State apparatchiks doing the dirty work. Schwab, Gates, Soros, the World Economic Forum, and whoever hides in the shadows behind these psychopaths, intend to control the entire world and steal all the wealth because they believe they are smarter, more ruthless, and know what’s best for the lowly peasants polluting their satanic playground planet.

  They know facts can be ignored when they’ve conditioned the masses to be willfully ignorant. They know they can lie without implications, but even more powerful, they can stay silent about the truth through censorship, suppression, and cancellation of truth tellers. The adaptation of the masses to this abnormal society, created by evil power-seeking men, is a form of mental illness – or as documented by Mattias Desmet in his book The Psychology of Totalitarianism – Mass Formation Psychosis.

  

   “The real hopeless victims of mental illness are to be found among those who appear to be most normal. Many of them are normal because they are so well adjusted to our mode of existence, because their human voice has been silenced so early in their lives that they do not even struggle or suffer or develop symptoms as the neurotic does. They are normal not in what may be called the absolute sense of the word; they are normal only in relation to a profoundly abnormal society. Their perfect adjustment to that abnormal society is a measure of their mental sickness. These millions of abnormally normal people, living without fuss in a society to which, if they were fully human beings, they ought not to be adjusted.” ― Aldous Huxley, Brave New World Revisited

  I know I will never adapt or adjust to this abnormal society. We certainly can’t change a system, so thoroughly rigged and controlled (e.g., 2022 Arizona election and the 2020 presidential election), through traditional means. Those in control can easily buy-off our politicians, scientists, doctors, academics, TV personalities, and journalists to spin whatever web they choose, enabling their despicable anti-human agenda of deviancy. The only viable solution is the individual solution of walking away from this phony world like Truman.

  

  Armed revolution is a non-starter, as the oligarchs have far more firepower, and the dissenters are unorganized and scattered. A form of ‘Irish Democracy’ where a silent dogged resistance, marked by the withdrawal from society, belligerence to authority and non-compliance with government dictates by millions of ordinary people would accomplish far more than rioting and armed revolution. Millions have already practiced a form of Irish Democracy by not masking, not social distancing, not getting jabbed, and taking control of their own health decisions.

  They have almost sealed the escape hatch in this dystopian paradise of pleasure and pain. They know their techniques of control through fear work like a charm. Their final task to achieve total control is central bank digital currencies (CBDC), where everything we buy and sell is tracked digitally, so taxes can be levied, your life tracked, and if you choose to dissent from government directives, your ability to utilize CBDCs will be turned off. Micro-chipping us is next on the agenda.

  We need to reduce our tax and digital footprint now. It might seem hopeless in going to battle against these vile, vindictive vermin, but the solution is to not play. Many have already walked away from the modern world, taking to the country – farming, homesteading, bartering, and only giving to Caesar the bare minimum. They’ve chosen a hard, but a far more fulfilling life.

  

  The more people who disassociate from their fake world, the weaker they get. As their hold on our lives weakens, they will lash out. This is why it is important to be armed. Direct armed confrontation with the establishment’s forces is foolish, but guerrilla tactics on land you know would start to eat away at the morale of the paid police thugs sent to enforce their dictates. The beast isn’t as strong as it portrays. It’s broke and its empire of debt is crumbling.

  If millions walk out the exit door, the beast will begin to starve and eventually die. Maybe a new, less complex, smaller, more community-oriented society could be born from the ashes. Tribe up with like-minded individuals with different skills, if possible. There is hope if enough patriots decide to regain their senses and walk away from this abnormal society, leaving our totalitarian Christofs to wallow in their failure to control the truly awoken.

  

  “Do not let the hero in your soul parish, in lonely frustration, for the life you deserved but never have been able to reach. Check your road and the nature of your battle. The world you desired can be won. It exists, it is real, it is possible, it is yours.” ― Ayn Rand, Atlas Shrugged

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  It is my sincere desire to provide readers of The Burning Platform with the best unbiased information available, and a forum where it can be discussed openly, as our Founders intended. But it is not easy nor inexpensive to do so, especially when those who wish to prevent us from making the truth known, attack us without mercy on all fronts on a daily basis. So each time you visit the site, I would ask that you consider the value that you receive and have received from The Burning Platform and the community of which you are a vital part. I can’t do it all alone, and I need your help and support to keep it alive. Please consider contributing an amount commensurate to the value that you receive from this site and community, or even by becoming a sustaining supporter through periodic contributions.

  Tyler Durden
  Fri, 12/02/2022 – 16:25

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