Feb 03

Today’s News 3rd February 2022

  • How NATO Empire-Building Set The Stage For Crisis Over Ukraine
    How NATO Empire-Building Set The Stage For Crisis Over Ukraine

    Authored by Brian McGlinchey via Stark Realities,

    In his farewell address, George Washington said, “It is our true policy to steer clear of permanent alliances with any portion of the foreign world.” What an offensive notion to Pentagon generals, weapon industry execs, DC think tankers and State Department bureaucrats, who, rather than avoiding permanent alliances, have been relentless in their quest to pile on new ones.

    That impulse is vividly exemplified by the dangerously provocative post-Cold War expansion of NATO, and its consequences are apparent in today’s Ukraine-centered tensions with Russia. NATO was created to oppose a Soviet empire that no longer exists. Had American presidents followed Washington’s sage counsel, they’d have spearheaded the dismantling of NATO upon the end of the Cold War. Instead, with America’s encouragement, NATO has nearly doubled its membership—from 16 countries when the Berlin Wall fell to 30 today.

    With each new member, the U.S. government and American service members are tied to another far-off tripwire: Under Article 5 of the NATO treaty, an attack on any member country compels other treaty members to come to its aid. It’s the epitome of what Thomas Jefferson called an “entangling alliance.”

    Not Shown: Montenegro (2017) and North Macedonia (2020)

    While the growth in the number of NATO countries and U.S. war commitments is unsettling, it’s the direction that’s been most troublesome: NATO expansion has marched the alliance relentlessly eastward, right up to Russia’s border.

    To get a sense of how that’s perceived in Russia, imagine if, after the collapse of the Soviet Union, Russia set out to reinvigorate the Warsaw Pact by inviting Mexico to join a military alliance created in 1955 to oppose NATO during the Cold War. Americans would find such a move equally perplexing and unsettling.

    The way NATO expansion proceeded, however, was even worse than that.

    An International Promise Broken, Over Emphatic Domestic Objections

    During the diplomatic maneuvers leading up to the reunification of Germany and the withdrawal of Soviet forces, Western leaders gave repeated assurances to Moscow that NATO wouldn’t grow eastward.

    The most prominent and emphatic assurance came from U.S. Secretary of State James Baker, in a 1990 meeting with Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev. Baker said, “If the United States keeps its presence in Germany within the framework of NATO, not an inch of NATO’s present military jurisdiction will spread in an eastern direction.”

    Several years later, however, NATO and President Clinton began considering just such an expansion—but not without controversy. American diplomat George Kennan, a towering figure in Cold War strategy who authored the policy of Soviet “containment,” was unequivocal in his opposition.

    In a 1997 essay published by The New York Times, Kennan said, “Expanding NATO would be the most fateful error of American policy in the entire post-cold-war era…Such a decision may be expected…to restore the atmosphere of the cold war to East-West relations, and to impel Russian foreign policy in directions decidedly not to our liking.”

    Kennan wasn’t alone. A bipartisan group of 50 foreign policy luminaries—including Cold War hawks like Paul Nitze and Robert McNamara—signed an open letter to President Clinton opposing NATO expansion.

    “Russia does not now pose a threat to its western neighbors and the nations of Central and Eastern Europe are not in danger…we believe that NATO expansion is neither necessary nor desirable and that this ill-conceived policy can and should be put on hold,” the group declared.

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    In 1999, Clinton and NATO plunged forward anyway—reneging on the assurances given to Moscow by their predecessors—and the first round of NATO’s post-Cold War expansion brought Poland, Hungary and the Czech Republic into the military treaty.

    Subsequent expansion waves added another 11 countries, and the mutually beneficial buffer of states between NATO and Russia grew ever slimmer, vanishing in part with the addition of Estonia and Latvia. Though Russia may have grudgingly accepted NATO’s membership nearly doubling since the end of the Cold War, it views the prospect of Ukraine membership far more gravely.

    That central factor in today’s tensions first came to prominence in 2008, when, at a summit in Bucharest, NATO officials considered bringing Ukraine and Georgia into the pact. “The George W. Bush administration supported doing so, but France and Germany opposed the move for fear that it would unduly antagonize Russia,” wrote University of Chicago professor and foreign policy expert John Mearsheimer.

    No invitations were extended, but in a compromise that tilted toward America’s position, NATO issued a full-throated endorsement of Ukraine and Georgia membership as an eventuality: “NATO welcomes Ukraine’s and Georgia’s Euro-Atlantic aspirations for membership in NATO. We agree today that these countries will become members of NATO.”

    William Burns—who was then U.S. ambassador to Ukraine and is now Biden’s CIA director—warned Washington about Russia’s deep unease over the prospect of Ukraine joining NATO. In a 2008 cable titled “Nyet Means Nyet: Russia’s NATO Enlargement Redlines,” Burns wrote:

    “Ukraine and Georgia’s NATO aspirations not only touch a raw nerve in Russia, they engender serious concerns about the consequences for stability in the region. Not only does Russia perceive encirclement, and efforts to undermine Russia’s influence in the region, but it also fears unpredictable and uncontrolled consequences which would seriously affect Russian security interests.

    Experts tell us that Russia is particularly worried that the strong divisions in Ukraine over NATO membership, with much of the ethnic-Russian community against membership, could lead to a major split, involving violence or at worst, civil war. In that eventuality, Russia would have to decide whether to intervene; a decision Russia does not want to have to face.”

    2014: A U.S.-Encouraged Coup in Ukraine

    As NATO flirted with Ukraine as a military partner, the European Union courted the former Soviet country as an economic one. These are divisive ideas within Ukraine, with a majority of ethnic Ukrainians supporting EU and NATO memberships and most ethnic Russians opposing them.

    In 2013 and 2014, the EU’s courtship would lead to bloodshed and the West-encouraged overthrow of democratically-elected, Russia-friendly Ukraine president Viktor Yanukovych. Yanukovych had been negotiating an economic deal with the EU, but scrapped it in favor of a counteroffer from Russia that included Moscow buying $15 billion of Ukrainian government bonds and slashing the price of Russian natural gas.

    Protests ensued and about a hundred protesters were killed. Western governments sensed an opportunity for a regime change that would install a government aligned with the West against Russia. Senator John McCain flew to Kiev and joined protestors in the streets, as did Obama Assistant Secretary of State Victoria Nuland and ambassador to Ukraine Geoffey Pyatt.

    As Yanukovych’s hold on power neared its end, Nuland and Pyatt were heard on a leaked phone call working to maneuver their favored politician, Arseniy Yatsenyuk, into power.

    “Yats is the guy,” said Nuland, who’d weeks earlier boasted that the United States had spent $5 billion after Ukraine’s 1991 independence to shape the country’s politics. When Yanukovych fled to Russia, Nuland’s goal was realized: Yatsenyuk became prime minister.

    Just two days after the coup, Ukraine’s parliament alarmed the country’s ethnic Russians by pushing through a bill—without debate—withdrawing permission for the use of Russian as an additional official language in regions where Russian minorities comprise at least 10% of the population.

    The anxiety of Russian and other ethnic minorities was compounded by the substantial presence of neo-Nazi elements in the Ukrainian nationalist movement. Given the devastating toll of Russia’s fight with Nazism in World War II, one can see how that’s a cause for unease in Moscow too.

    Ukraine’s abrupt transfer of power gave Russia something else to worry about: the Crimea peninsula, which is not only home to a majority-Russian population, but also Russia’s strategically vital warm-water navy base at Sevastopol.

    In 1954, Crimea was casually transferred from Russia to Ukraine by Soviet leader Nikita Kruschev, as a gift of sorts on the 300th anniversary of Ukraine’s unification with Russia. At the time, moving governance of Crimea from one part of the USSR to another seemed relatively inconsequential. The transfer became extremely consequential in February 2014, with the prospect that the new, Ukrainian nationalist government might move to terminate Russia’s lease of the navy base.

    Preempting that possibility, Putin ordered his forces to incorporate Crimea into Russia. With thousands of Russian troops already there on the navy base—and with the majority-Russian local population preferring Russian rule—the actual seizure was less dramatic than the media may have led you to believe.

    Elsewhere in Ukraine, however, the post-coup experience has been marked by violence and thousands of deaths, as Russian separatists in the eastern Donetsk and Luhansk regions seek to establish independent republics.

    The Russian concerns about the destabilizing effects of Western overtures to Ukraine, which were laid out by then-ambassador William Burns in his 2008 cable, have been substantiated. Meanwhile, though hapless U.S. interventionists may have hoped Ukrainian regime change would pry the Sevastopol navy base out of Russian hands, it’s only had the effect of giving Russia a firmer hold on it than before.

    NATO expansion illustrates an intrinsic drive of any governmental body—to continuously enlarge its power and budget.

    And in the Ukraine crisis, we vividly see what Richard Sakwa calls “a fateful geographical paradox: that NATO exists to manage the risks created by its existence.”

    Make no mistake, NATO also exists to enrich the weapons industry, at the expense of citizens whose lives are put in greater jeopardy by NATO’s empire-building, which fosters antagonism with a country armed with 4,500 nuclear weapons.

    To fully appreciate how intertwined NATO and weapons manufacturers are, consider this split-screen vignette from a 1997 New York Times story:

    “At night, Bruce L. Jackson is president of the U.S. Committee to Expand NATO, giving intimate dinners for senators and foreign officials. By day, he is director of strategic planning for Lockheed Martin Corporation, the world’s biggest weapons maker.”

    Poland joined NATO about two years after that story was published, and would go on to sign a deal to replace its Soviet-built fighter jets with 32 F-35A’s built by Lockheed Martin—at a price of $4.6 billion. That’s just one representative example. As NATO’s expansion and needless antagonism toward Russia continues fostering tensions, the arms money keeps flowing.

    Just last week, House Democrats—eager to demonstrate their firm resolve against an allegedly imminent Russian invasion that not even Ukraine anticipates—pushed for rapid passage of a military aid package, authorizing the spending of half a billion dollars the U.S. Treasury doesn’t have.

    The counterproductive NATO-EU flirtation with Ukraine has been winding on for 14 years. With Ukraine ranking 122nd-worst in the world in Transparency International’s Corruption Perceptions Index, NATO and the EU may wring their hands for years to come before ever tying the knot.

    Ukraine president Volodymyr Zelensky seems exasperated with it all. Speaking on Friday about the lingering uncertainty of Ukraine membership in NATO, he said, “We want specifics, we need to have something that we can count on… Well, give us the reasons. Okay, we are not in NATO—okay, tell us that we are not in NATO. Tell it openly: we will never be there.”

    Let’s tell Ukraine exactly that, and once again pursue Jefferson’s ideal of “peace, commerce, and honest friendship with all nations, entangling alliances with none.”

    Stark Realities undermines official narratives, demolishes conventional wisdom and exposes fundamental myths across the political spectrum. Read more and subscribe at starkrealities.substack.com

    Tyler Durden
    Thu, 02/03/2022 – 02:00

  • China Is Undermining The US Through Elite Capture: Author
    China Is Undermining The US Through Elite Capture: Author

    Authored by Frank Fang and David Zhang via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours),

    The United States is currently traveling down a losing path in its battle against China because the communist regime has co-opted many American elites in Washington, Wall Street, corporate America, and the U.S. tech sector, warned author Peter Schweizer.

    Chinese soldiers from the People’s Liberation Army wear protective masks as they march after a ceremony marking the 70th anniversary of China’s entry into the Korean War, at the Great Hall of the People in Beijing, China, on Oct. 23, 2020. (Kevin Frayer/Getty Images)

    Schweizer, who recently released his new book “Red-Handed: How American Elites Get Rich Helping China Win,” said that his book shows how appalling it is that some of the elites have been willing to “kowtow to the regime” just so that they have access to the Chinese market.

    “They should be embarrassed,” he added. “They seem to be all too happy to do the bidding for Beijing when it comes to American politics.”

    Schweizer made the remarks during a recent interview with EpochTV’s “China Insider” program. He is also the president of U.S.-based think tank Government Accountability Institute.

    “I think what’s important for people to keep in mind is that Beijing doesn’t have to lobby for its own interest, because there are so many powerful interests in the United States that will lobby on their behalf,” he said.

    The present course will only mean that China will replace the United States as the world’s top superpower, according to Schweizer.

    “Unless we start to take radical action, we will lose, there is no question in my mind,” he said. “We will lose because our elites will be happy to sell out, collect their money, and position themselves in elite positions for generations to come.”

    That outcome does not necessarily mean that the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) would occupy the United States, he added, but America as people know it will be very different.

    “For some people who say, ‘Look, that’s not my concern,’ this should be their concern,” he said. “Life here is going to be heavily influenced by what the regime in Beijing wants.”

    Washington

    One of the U.S. government officials named in the book is Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.), and how the longtime senator has come to the defense of the CCP while her husband, Richard Blum, reaped profits by inking business deals with Chinese firms with ties to the Chinese regime.

    In defending the Chinese regime, Feinstein compared the 1989 Tiananmen Square Massacre—where at least 10,000 people were killed by Chinese tanks and soldiers—to the 1970 Kent State shootings and the 1993 Waco siege in Texas, according to Schweizer’s book.

    “I was appalled as anyone by the tanks at [Tiananmen] Square, but three tanks of this government went into Waco and killed 29 children,” Feinstein said during a Senate hearing. “Now those are not analogous; they are different situations. It was wrong of our government, and it was wrong of the Chinese government.”

    In 1994, when the U.S. Senate was contemplating rescinding most-favored-nation trading status with China, Feinstein objected and said such a move would be “counterproductive” and would “inflame Beijing’s insecurities.”

    The book also explores the relationship between Feinstein and former Chinese leader Jiang Zemin, going back to the days when they were mayors in San Francisco and Shanghai, respectively. The book quotes the Los Angeles Times saying the relationship gave Blum “access to the normally impenetrable Beijing political system.”

    In 2000, Kam Kuwata, who was Feinstein’s then-spokesperson, was quoted in SFGate saying that Blum “has a right to do business and he’s never done anything wrong.”

    Silicon Valley

    “Beijing is very sophisticated in appealing not only to the pocketbooks of these players, but also to their egos,” Schweizer said, pointing to Microsoft founder Bill Gates as an example of the latter.

    In 2006, China’s state-run media outlet People’s Daily Online named Gates as one of 50 foreigners shaping “China’s modern development.” According to his book, Gates was the only true technologist on the list.

    “He’s a member of something called the Chinese Academy of Engineering (CAE), which sounds sort of friendly and nonpolitical. It’s actually, of course, an organization run by the [Chinese] Communist Party, and its goal is to advise the Chinese government on technology policy,” Schweizer said.

    Gates was one of 18 foreigners selected by the CAE to be one of its lifetime members in 2017, according to People’s Daily Online. The media outlet explained that the foreigners would be to “improve CAE’s status in the field of engineering.”

    The CAE supports the Chinese regime’s policies. In a 2018 article published on its website, CAE’s party committee stated that it provided “important scientific support” to the regime’s industrial blueprint of “Made in China 2025,” while endorsing its “Military-Civil Fusion” strategy and “Belt and Road” initiative.

    In June last year, Microsoft was in the middle of controversy when its search engine Bing yielded no results when users in several countries including the United States entered the query “tank man,” the iconic unidentified man who was pictured standing in front of a line of tanks leaving Tiananmen Square in 1989. Microsoft’s explanation for the empty search result, “accidental human error,” drew criticism from human rights organizations.

    The CCP

    In short, the Chinese regime doesn’t care if American politicians are Republicans or Democrats, as long as they are willing to do Beijing’s bidding, Schweizer said.

    “They don’t mind if American politicians talk about the Uyghurs occasionally, or say we should have a diplomatic boycott,” Schweizer said. “They’re fine with that.”

    “As long as you’re helping them on the main tenets of what they want, which is access to American finance and access to American technology, and a few other things.”

    Schweizer added: “That is the strategy they’re employing.”

    The Commission on the Theft of American Intellectual Property estimated in 2017 (pdf) that the U.S. economy suffers an annual loss of between $225 billion and $600 billion due to China’s intellectual property theft each year.

    Last year, FBI Director Christopher Wray said that the agency is opening one new China-related counterintelligence case every 10 hours, and has about 2,500 active investigations across the United States.

    “My sense of what people have to understand is, the nature of the Chinese regime is such that it cannot be trusted,” Schweizer said. “And I don’t think it can be trusted in its relationship with us and we need to keep that in mind with everything.”

    The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation and Feinstein’s office did not immediately respond to requests for comment. 

    Tyler Durden
    Wed, 02/02/2022 – 23:50

  • Pentagon Sends Destroyer, Stealth Jets To Defend UAE Amid Houthi Attacks
    Pentagon Sends Destroyer, Stealth Jets To Defend UAE Amid Houthi Attacks

    Following on the heels of the latest Houthi ballistic missile and drone attack to target the UAE, which was timed during the Israeli president’s first ever official visit, and which was the third major attack in under a month, the United States has announced it is deploying military assets to help defend its gulf ally.

    “The United States will send a guided-missile destroyer and fifth-generation fighter jets to the United Arab Emirates (UAE) in the wake of recent missile attacks by Yemen’s Houthi rebels, Washington’s top military official has said,” according to Al Jazeera.

    F-22 file, US Air Force

    US Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin informed Abu Dhabi Crown Prince Abu bin Zayed Al Nahyan in a Tuesday phone call that the Pentagon is deploying the “guided-missile destroyer USS Cole to partner with the UAE Navy before making a port call in Abu Dhabi.”

    The Pentagon phone transcript included a pledge for US fifth-generation fighter aircraft to defend and “assist against the current threat”. This will include F-22 Raptor and F-35 Lighting II stealth fighter jets. Austin stressed that it sends a “clear signal that the United States stands with the UAE as a longstanding strategic partner.”

    Prior attacks from Yemen came on January 17 and January 24, which left three foreign workers dead and multiple injured in the UAE capital. The Houthis have meanwhile vowed to expand their military operations against the country. Washington has long accused Iran of delivering increasingly sophisticated missiles and drones to the Shia Houthis, which is giving the militant group longer reach to hit places like Dubai. 

    One of the January missile and drone attacks launched out of Yemen reportedly resulted in a projectile impacting a facility that was a mere miles from a base where American troops were stationed. During that attack, which came last week, the US fired patriot missiles to intercept the inbound threat.

    UAE Patriot installations, U.S. Air Force via AP

    Meanwhile, the Houthis have vowed to destabilize the UAE, once thought among the safest and economically prosperous places in the Middle East: “The UAE ceases to be a safe place so long as the tools of the Israeli enemy in Dubai and Abu Dhabi are used against our people and our country,” said Houthi spokesman Yahya Al Saree in a televised announcement. 

    Tyler Durden
    Wed, 02/02/2022 – 23:30

  • America's $30 Trillion Debt In One Stunning Visualization
    America’s $30 Trillion Debt In One Stunning Visualization

    Earlier today we reported that for the first time ever, total US debt surpassed $30 trillion, and rising exponentially because at this point there is no way on earth this number will ever be contained, let alone drop contrary to the naive dreams of clueless politicians:

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    Since these numbers are simply too big for most to comprehend, here is a helpful visualization for what we are talking about courtesy of Demonocracy.info.

    And here again in video format:

    Tyler Durden
    Wed, 02/02/2022 – 23:30

  • Has The Red Carpet Been Rolled Out For A Mainstream Pivot On Ivermectin?
    Has The Red Carpet Been Rolled Out For A Mainstream Pivot On Ivermectin?

    Submitted by QTR’s Fringe Finance

    Just yesterday even more ivermectin controversy started: this time around joint nonclinical research being done with the drug by Japanese company Kowa Co Ltd.

    Except, instead of the “normal” ivermectin controversy – which consists of arguing over whether or not the drug is “horse paste” despite its discovery being nominated for a Nobel Prize for use in humans, it being including on the World Health Organization’s list of essential medicines and being dosed hundreds of millions of times to human beings by doctors – this week’s controversy was about how Kowa’s research was reported on Tuesday.

    Reuters initially ran the headline:

    “Japan’s Kowa says ivermectin effective against Omicron in phase III trial”.

    That headline was incorrect, and Reuters was forced to retract it. They re-ran the story with a title congruent with the facts:

    Ivermectin shows ‘antiviral effect’ against COVID, Japanese company says

    Both ivermectin advocates and detractors claimed victory on the day.

    The corrected Reuters headline

    Advocates claimed victory because it was yet another study – despite being a nonclinical joint study – that showed antiviral effects from the medicine in vitro. Ivermectin is already a well-known antiviral.

    Ivermectin skeptics like the Washington Post claimed the article was “botched”, but still were forced to admit the truth: the “actual news” was that ivermectin was found to carry an “antiviral effect” against Omicron and other coronavirus variants in joint non-clinical research.

    The facts as put forth in the corrected version of the Reuters article still seemed to be a net positive:

    Japanese trading and pharmaceuticals company Kowa Co Ltd on Monday said that anti-parasite drug ivermectin showed an “antiviral effect” against Omicron and other coronavirus variants in joint non-clinical research.

    The company, which has been working with Tokyo’s Kitasato University on testing the drug as a potential treatment for COVID-19, did not provide further details

    Kowa and Kitasato University appear to be in the midst of a clinical trial studying whether or not ivermectin is effective, though it was difficult to confirm the details due to a language barrier at the source of the information.

    A translated version of Kowa’s Japanese PR seems to confirm that ivermectin is in the midst of a clinical trial for Covid. Included in the translated PR were the following lines:

    It is expected to be applied as a therapeutic drug (tablet) for all new coronavirus infectious diseases.

    In this clinical trial, the dosage and administration already approved as a therapeutic agent for parasitic infections

    Although it is different, we are confirming its efficacy and safety in clinical trials.

    Kowa confirmed the clinical effect of ivermectin on SARS-CoV-2 and was one of the first to the public.

    But, let’s put aside the Kowa study for a second.

    What most people don’t know is that this Japanese trial, whether successful or not – whether clinical or nonclinical – would only serve to supplement robust data already available about ivermectin’s effectiveness on Covid-19.

    The website c19ivermectin.com keeps a running tally of such studies, and aggregates the data as it comes in.

    The website keeps a chronological log of studies, news, theories, of all types of information available about ivermectin that can be aggregated, including meta analyses, dating back to April of 2020. At most recent update, it includes 147 studies, 96 peer reviewed, 77 with results comparing treatment and control groups. (It currently includes the Kowa writeup, but has yet to correct the Reuters headline as of the time of this writing.)

    The website also notes that Ivermectin has been officially adopted for early treatment in all or part of 22 countries (39 including non-government medical organizations).

    And when the left undoubtedly writes this collection of data off as “anti-vaxx” (a label that is being tossed around with less care for its meaning than ‘white supremacy’ nowadays), remind them that the site also encourages the use of vaccines, stating:

    “Vaccines and treatments are both valuable and complementary. All practical, effective, and safe means should be used. Elimination of COVID-19 is a race against viral evolution. No treatment, vaccine, or intervention is 100% available and effective for all current and future variants. Denying the efficacy of any method increases mortality, morbidity, collateral damage, and the risk of endemic status.”

    Today’s blog post has been published without a paywall because I believe the content to be far too important to deny to anyone. However, if you have the means and would like to support my work by subscribing, I’d be happy to offer you 22% off for 2022:

    Get 22% off forever

    I don’t want to rehash the geographic locations that have had success using ivermectin against Covid – with Uttar Pradesh probably being the most obvious – but I do want to point out that it isn’t just this collection of data suggesting there may be efficacy.

    People are more than welcome to make up their own minds on what they think about ivermectin. Personally, regardless of whether or not the Japanese study was presented accurately or inaccurately at first by Reuters, it’s still my belief that it’s not going to matter in the future, because history will eventually side with the truth.

    And the truth, I believe, is that ivermectin very likely works to treat early stage Covid, as was suggested in Uttar Pradesh and as has been claimed by doctors like Pierre Kory. It may not be a “cure” or “work like magic”, but I believe through rigorous clinical studies in the years to come, it will be found to have had efficacy in early stage Covid.

    One thing is for sure: the truth is coming in the form of future data from clinical trials. There’s no getting around the fact that the controversy over ivermectin has led to a deluge of studies and that the results of these will eventually start pouring in.

    This leads me to the thought that if the powers that be know that ivermectin will likely show some efficacy, they also know the clock is ticking on how long they can hang on the “horse paste” narrative.

    I couldn’t help but think when this Japanese study popped up yesterday that the timing sure would be convenient now for the mainstream media to start a pivot on ivermectin.

    Now that Moderna has received official FDA approval for its vaccine and Pfizer is happily seeking Emergency Use Authorization to jab kids as young as 6 months – and now that major drug manufacturers have had their antiviral Covid pills approved – maybe it can finally be time to pump the brakes on the ivermectin hysteria and allow the truth and reason to nudge their way in.

    In other words, the fat pigs are finally finished stuffing their gluttonous faces at the trough of the FDA, stocked with newly-printed U.S. dollars. Unable to physically consume anymore, and noticing that all but a few molecules of feed are even left, they can now reluctantly relinquish their positions at the front of the line and waddle away, leaving the rest of the animals a chance to squabble over the remains.

    All of the major pharmaceutical companies (and their lobbyists) finally getting the approvals that they want for all of their Covid drugs may roll out the red carpet for us to finally embrace reality and the truth, which I believe is that ivermectin has efficacy.

    What we’re seeing now in the media is a massive pivot regarding Covid.

    With the emergence of omicron and many geographic locations around the world lifting their Covid restrictions – and most notably politicians understanding they can’t win an election by locking us in our homes, as George Gammon elaborated on for my subscribers the other day – the media pivot on Covid has been pronounced since 2022 began.

    And not unlike the pivot we’ve already seen on the lab leak and whether or not vaccines would end the virus, I’m expecting we see a similar pivot on ivermectin.

    Of course, I could be wrong. I don’t mind being wrong. I exist on the fringe, as my readers know. In the words of Peter Venkman:

    “If I‘m wrong, nothing happens! We go to jail – peacefully, quietly. We‘ll enjoy it!”

    Rebuttal to “Walter Peck Was Right” | Movie Fan Man: Cinema Connoisseur

    But if I’m not…and the narrative on ivermectin does in fact change to wind up as “Duh, of course ivermectin works and we’ve known it all along, it just doesn’t work as well as [insert big pharma drug here]” everybody responsible for suppressing over the last 2 years needs to be held accountable for what, in my opinion, may wind up amounting to crimes against humanity.

    At the highest levels, those perpetuating the narrative on Covid and what is and is not an acceptable treatment will need to face consequences. Useless mainstream media automatons like human hot air balloon Brian Stelter and lobotomized mimbo Don Lemon are almost too meaningless to even worry about at this point. Their viewers have already given up on them, and with good reason. Irrelevance is consequence enough.

    CNN Medical Analyst Debunks Joe Rogan's 'Crazy' Home COVID Treatments

    Look: this is all hypothetical. I’m assuming that the media and the mainstream will embrace ivermectin, which they may never do.

    There’s many of us out there that have looked at the facts on our own and understand that the drug likely has efficacy, but that doesn’t make us right.

    And I’m sure that, one more time, we can deal with the unpleasant circumstances of being right, but unheard or suppressed – it’s the way of the world when you challenge the global elitist narrative.

    But mark my words: if they try to shove it back in our face and act as though we all should’ve known it all along with an arrogance that only central planners can bring to the table – it’s then that I can assure you I will peacefully do my part to ensure that those in power are held accountable.

    Disclaimer: This is not a recommendation to seek any type of medical treatment. Always consult your medical professional for any and all Covid-19 questions. I exist on the fringe and I get shit wrong a lot. Do not make decisions based on my blog. The publisher does not guarantee the accuracy or completeness of the information provided in this page. These are not the opinions of any of my employers, partners, or associates. 

    Now read:

    1. Bill Maher Is Right: The Left Has Lost Its Mind

    2. George Gammon: Covid Is In The “Rearview Mirror” Only Because Politicians Know They “Can’t Win Votes Locking You In A Cage”

    3. This Potentially Generational Sector Opportunity Still Looks Ripe

    4. Millionaire Book-Writer And Professional Board-Sitter Chelsea Clinton Attacks Substack Authors As “Grifters”

    5. Spotify Has Officially Become The Battleground For Big Tech’s Censorship Civil War

    6. Waking Up And Derailing The Great Reset

    7. Inflation Is The Kryptonite That Will End Our Decades-Long Monetary Policy Ponzi Scheme

    8. Why Mainstream Media Is “Being Swallowed” By Joe Rogan: Interview

    Tyler Durden
    Wed, 02/02/2022 – 23:10

  • ECB Preview: Lagarde In The Hot Seat As Euro Inflation Has Never Been Hotter
    ECB Preview: Lagarde In The Hot Seat As Euro Inflation Has Never Been Hotter

    Submitted by Newsquawk

    The ECB policy announcement is due Thursday, February 3 with the rate decision at 12:45GMT/07:45EST, and press conference from 13:30GMT/08:30EST. Policy settings are set to be left unchanged after the path of tapering was announced in December. Focus will be on the press conference and how the Bank characterizes the inflation outlook over the short and medium-term, especially after Euro area inflation just hit an unexpected all time high.

    OVERVIEW: After a blockbuster release in December which saw the central bank announce a conclusion to PEPP at the end of March and subsequent beefed up APP, the upcoming meeting (not accompanied by economic projections) is set to see policymakers take stock of the Eurozone economic outlook whilst maintaining the current parameters of their policy tools. With the statement of the release set to be relatively unchanged, focus instead will fall on the accompanying press conference and how President Lagarde judges the inflationary outlook. With the Bank moving further away from its transitory inflation stance seen last year, ING judges that the ECB will need to convey its ability to tame inflationary pressures whilst avoiding a rush from “inflation patience” to “inflation panic”, as a move towards the latter could lead to an aggressive hawkish repricing in the market which is already at odds with ECB comms. Accordingly, it is no coincidence that a lot of the commentary in recent weeks has suggested that although the transitory narrative has moved on since last year, policymakers still expect inflation to decline throughout the coming year. It remains to be seen whether or not the ECB will leave the door open to a potential faster tapering of asset purchases under APP should inflation impulses prove to be more durable.

    PRIOR MEETING: As expected, policymakers opted to stand pat on rates. As had been signaled by the ECB, purchases under PEPP will cease at the end of March 2022. Reinvestments were extended until 2024 and purchases under PEPP could also be resumed, if necessary, to counter negative shocks related to the pandemic. On APP, as of Q2 2022, monthly purchases will be beefed up to EUR 40bln from EUR 20bln and then subsequently lowered to EUR 30bln in Q3 and back down to EUR 20bln in Q4 “for as long as necessary to reinforce the accommodative impact of its policy rates”. Elsewhere, policymakers opted to maintain the linkage between APP and rate increases whereby the Governing Council expects net purchases to end shortly before it starts raising the key ECB interest rates. At the press conference, President Lagarde noted that although there are near-term headwinds, activity in the Eurozone is expected to pick up strongly in 2022. On inflation, Lagarde stated that in the medium-term, inflation is expected to come in below target. This was reflected in the subsequent staff economic projections which penciled in 2023 and 2024 inflation at 1.8%. In the near-term, 2021 was upgraded to 2.6% from 2.4% and 2022 to 3.2% from 1.7%. In terms of the policy decisions made, Lagarde revealed that more than one member did not agree on the parameters, but there was a very large majority. On rates, the President continued to reaffirm that rates are unlikely to rise in 2022. Following the press conference, ECB sources revealed that it was the Austrian, Belgian and German governors who disagreed with parts of the ECB’s decision. The hawks were reportedly unhappy with extending the PEPP reinvestment to 2024 and not setting an APP end-date. They also disagreed on the inflation outlook and some stressed risks were to the upside.

    RECENT DATA: December CPI rose to 5.0% from 4.9%, whilst the core (ex-food & energy) ticked higher to 2.7% from 2.6%. The January headline metric is seen cooling to 4.4% from 5.0% with the core rate seen moving to the 2% mark. Q4 GDP slowed to 0.3% from the 2.2% growth seen in Q3 as the impact of Omicron and supply chain woes hampered growth. Timelier survey data from IHS Markit saw the EZ-wide Composite PMI slow to 52.4 from 53.3 with IHS noting “The Omicron wave has led to yet another steep drop in spending on many consumer-facing services at the start of the year, with tourism, travel and recreation especially hard hit”. On the employment front, the EZ-wide unemployment rate fell from 7.1% to 7.0% in December vs. a COVID peak of 8.4% in October 2020.

    RECENT COMMUNICATIONS: Since the prior meeting, a speech on January 8th by Germany’s Schnabel drew a lot of attention by noting that the green transition poses upside risks to medium-term inflation and suggesting that rising energy prices could require the ECB to act on policy. Schnabel added there have not been signs so far of broader second round effects from higher inflation. Elsewhere, President Lagarde on several occasions has remarked that the ECB does not see inflation spiraling out of control and that supply bottlenecks will stabilize throughout the course of the year. Chief Economist Lane also envisages a decline in inflation in 2022 whilst flagging expectations that inflation will move below the target in 2023 and 2024, adding that he is not seeing behavior that would indicate above-target inflation in the medium-term. Weidmann’s replacement Nagel commented on the inflation outlook noting that risks are skewed to the upside and the price surge is not entirely as a result of temporary factors. At the more hawkish end of the spectrum, Latvia’s Kazaks suggested on January 5th that the ECB is ready to raise rates and cut stimulus if necessary, adding the ECB will take action if the inflation outlook picks up and an early 2023 rate hike is a possible scenario. Interestingly, Simkus of Lithuania said that Russian-related tensions are a bigger cause for uncertainty than Omicron.

    BALANCE SHEET: In December, the ECB announced that purchases under PEPP will cease at the end of March 2022. Reinvestments were extended until 2024 and purchases under PEPP could also be resumed, if necessary, to counter negative shocks related to the pandemic. On APP, as of Q2 2022, monthly purchases will be beefed up to EUR 40bln from EUR 20bln and then subsequently lowered to EUR 30bln in Q3 and back down to EUR 20bln in Q4 “for as long as necessary to reinforce the accommodative impact of its policy rates”. Despite ongoing inflation angst in the Eurozone, there has been no indication from policymakers that the current plan is set to change. As it stands, UBS expects purchases under APP to conclude in Q1 2023. Although it will likely not be a feature for the upcoming meeting, there are clearly risks of an earlier than envisaged taper with policymakers likely to find the justification for continuing with asset purchases at current inflation levels a difficult one. Interestingly, in a recent research piece, ING found that EUR 187bln reduction in the ECB’s portfolio would impact 10Y Italian yields as much as a 25bp hike. At the other end of the spectrum, ING finds that German government bonds would care a lot more about a 25bp increase in the ECB’s deposit rate. So-much-so that quantitative tightening would largely be irrelevant in comparison.

    RATES/TIERING/TLTRO: The ECB is expected to stand pat on rates with the deposit, main refi and marginal lending rates to be held at -0.5%, 0.0% and 0.25% respectively with policymakers at pains to communicate that 2022 is unlikely to see a move on rates by the Bank despite markets pricing in a 10bps hike to the deposit rate by November. As it stands, the ECB’s current forward guidance reads that policymakers expect APP “to end shortly before it starts raising the key ECB interest rates”. Some desks are of the view that the inclusion of the word “shortly” is too restrictive and in the event that the GC has fulfilled its inflation objective, removing the word “shortly” could allow a quicker conclusion to asset purchases without having to commit to a subsequent rate hike. However, it is doubtful whether such a development will take place at the upcoming meeting. In terms of the rate path, RBC see a first 10bp deposit rate hike in March 2023, followed by a 15bp rate hike in September. RBC assumes that the ECB would indicate at that point that they could also start lifting rates by 25bps at a later stage in 2024. Elsewhere, policymakers will need to make a decision on the future of its TLRO programme. UBS expects this to be more of a factor for its March or April meeting with the Bank of the view that “the ECB will offer another series of TLTRO auctions as of/after June, albeit on somewhat less attractive terms, with the TLTRO pricing rising from as low as 50bp below the depo rate to in line with the depo rate.”. On tiering, the current multiplier will likely be hiked from the current level of six at some point, however, this will likely not be a feature of the upcoming meeting.

    PRESS CONFERENCE: With the statement of the release set to be relatively unchanged, focus instead will fall on the accompanying press conference which will offer President Lagarde an opportunity to take stock of recent economic developments. More specifically, markets will be eyeing how Lagarde judges the inflationary outlook. With the Bank moving further away from its transitory inflation stance seen last year, ING judges that the ECB will need to convey its ability to tame inflationary pressures whilst avoiding a rush from “inflation patience” to “inflation panic”, as a move towards the latter could lead to an aggressive hawkish repricing by the market which is already at odds with ECB comms. As it stands, markets fully price in a 10bps hike to the deposit rate by the October meeting, whilst ECB officials have been at pains to state that a hike is unlikely to take place until 2023. Lagarde will likely continue to suggest that this remains the plan, perhaps of greater interest will be whether or not she hints that asset purchases could be wound down at a faster rate than currently envisaged. ING suggests that doing this could help policymakers address the overall balancing act facing the ECB. From a more medium-term perspective, market participants will be cognizant of upside risks to the inflation outlook in lieu of recent comments from Germany’s Schnabel who cautioned that the green transition poses upside risks to medium-term inflation.

    SocGen raises two questions that it is looking to be addressed by the ECB on the inflation outlook:

    • 1) will core inflation be more closely anchored to the target than in the past?
    • 2) how far away is a neutral policy stance?

    SocGen suggests that the answer to these questions will be “contingent on the policymakers’ confidence that a shift has occurred, making tight labor markets generate higher wage growth”. SocGen does not believe that there will be sufficient evidence of this before the autumn.

    Elsewhere, some elements of the Q&A will likely center on how the potential Ukraine-Russia conflict could impact the ECB’s near-term price outlook, however, Lagarde will likely try and play down these potential impulses given that there is great uncertainty over how the situation will play out.

    Finally, here is the familiar ECB cheat sheet from ING

     

    Tyler Durden
    Wed, 02/02/2022 – 22:50

  • Trudeau Is Playing With Fire
    Trudeau Is Playing With Fire

    Authored by Laura Rosen Cohen via The Brownstone Institute,

    Canadian coronavirus lockdown policies have been, and remain, some of the most stringent and restrictive in the entire Western world. It may be a Commonwealth thing, given that Australia and New Zealand have also descended into unrecognizable islands of cruel and capricious public health tyranny. 

    In Ontario, citizens are now allowed to eat popcorn at movie theaters that only opened up again earlier this week on Monday at fifty percent capacity, and only because of comprehensive drubbing that the government was subjected to regarding this ridiculous, make-believe public health directive. 

    Life in Canada has been tedious, tyrannical, and indescribably punitive. That is why for many months throughout the pandemic, ordinary Americans and pundits alike have been looking north from the land of the free (red states at least) and pretty much sneering at Canadians, bereft as they are of the First and Second Amendments. The polite Canadians, they scoffed, without their guns and their freedom of speech, were a lost cause.

    And then one day, Prime Minister Trudeau pushed the nice Canadians a rule too far. 

    On January 15th, his minority government enacted a vaccine mandate for Canadian cross-border truckers – 80% of whom are already estimated to be vaccinated. So the truckers said the buck stops here. They quickly organized a grassroots campaign, set up a GoFundMe and sent a 40-mile long convoy to Ottawa, the capital city of Canada. It’s not an anti-vaccine thing, it’s an anti-mandates thing. And though the media would claim it’s a racist thing, the organizers are a Jewish guy named Benjamin Dichter and a Metis woman named Tamara Lich. The mandates for truckers were the straw that broke the Canadians’ back. The Truckers For Freedom Convoy is now camped out in Ottawa, demanding an end to all vaccine mandates, and to restore Canadian freedoms. 

    Interestingly, as the 50,000 truck convoy approached Ottawa from Vancouver, Trudeau Tweeted that he would need to self-isolate for five days because he had been in close contact with someone who had tested positive. And as the truckers and their supporters descended upon the city, he was whisked away with his family to an undisclosed location “for security purposes” and then promptly announced that he had tested positive for coronavirus (more isolation).  

    With over one million citizens at their capital demonstrating for freedom, and thousands of determined truckers saturating every single road around Parliament Hill, Trudeau offered no olive branch to the protesters. No, he would not meet with them, those racist, misogynists. Those Canadians with “unacceptable views” (like these guys here).

    No, instead of calming the waters and speaking with the people, he doubled down and began a series of grotesque verbal attacks on the multiethnic, multicultural demonstrators, with members of Indigenous peoples very highly represented. To add insult to injury, his federal Minister of Transportation concurrently announced that not only would the vaccine and cross border mandates remain, but plans were well underway for the government to implement an interprovincial vaccine mandate especially for truckers. Revenge, served cold. After all he has done for us, the peasants are ingrates! How dare the people not appreciate their Dear Leader? 

    Taking a page from the American January 6th playbook, the Canadian mainstream media (largely subsidized by the Canadian taxpayers) has chosen to highlight the lone kooks in the crowd with bad flags (precisely one Confederate and one Nazi) and added additional hatred toward the peaceful, orderly and patriotic protesters. Their American media counterparts are sneering with equal disdain. 

    With the Prime Minister still in hiding, whoops, sorry, “isolation,” one would think it would be the opportunity of a lifetime for Conservatives, particularly Her Majesty’s Loyal Leader of the Opposition, to, as Professor Jordan Peterson exhorted, to seize the day and put the screws to the Prime Minister, to rise to the occasion and lead. 

    Alas, there would be no Carpe Dieming from the blander than margarine O’Toole. And by flip-flopping at a time of national need, and not reading the political tea leaves has secured his political demise. He’s digging in his heels, but it’s over. The truckers haven’t gotten rid of the mandates yet, but they now have one notably political scalp to their credit: Erin O’Toole, the guy who impossibly lost to Justin Trudeau. 

    Government rhetoric against the demonstrators is escalating. The Liberal government and liberal Mayor of Ottawa are urging protesters to leave, but the truckers say they have enough supplies for a two-year campaign and will not be coming home until freedom has been returned and all mandates are canceled. 

    The tides are changing in Canada and public opinion appears to be with the convoy. Inspired by the Canadian truckers, American, European and Australian truckers are also starting their own freedom convoys. As unimaginable as it would have seemed just a few weeks ago, Canadians are now seen internationally as a “ray of sunshine” and an inspiration. 

    Will Justin Trudeau back down and negotiate? Capitulate? Or will Trudeau’s classless verbal attacks morph into physical retaliation against the mostly working class truckers, their supporters on the ground in Ottawa and the millions of Canadians who also disagree with him and his sweeping mandates and are demanding their freedom? Stay tuned. 

    Tyler Durden
    Wed, 02/02/2022 – 22:30

  • Hypocrisy At The Highest Levels: ATF Asks Judge To Close Hunter Biden Gun Inquiry
    Hypocrisy At The Highest Levels: ATF Asks Judge To Close Hunter Biden Gun Inquiry

    Submitted by The Machine Gun Nest (TMGN)., 

    A story not being covered by the corrupt corporate media over the past few years has been the story of Joe Biden’s Son, Hunter. Or maybe, more specifically, the story of Hunter Biden’s Handgun.

    Hunter Biden purchased a .38 Revolver from a Delaware gun shop on October 12, 2018. If you’re familiar with gun law or have bought a gun yourself, you’ll know that to purchase a firearm; you’ll have had to fill out an ATF Form 4473, also known as a Firearms Transaction Record. More on that later.

    Days later, on October 23, Hallie Biden (widow to Joe Biden’s son Beau) searched Hunter’s truck and found the handgun. She apparently feared for Hunter’s safety and decided to put the gun in a shopping bag and throw it in the trash outside a grocery store. During the same day, Hunter finds out about the gun disposal and notifies law enforcement of the missing firearm. The investigation that followed involved the Delaware State Police, Secret Service, the FBI, and later on, the ATF.

    Eventually, the revolver was found, turned into authorities by a man who routinely searched garbage cans in the area for recyclables. Interestingly according to a report from Politico, the Secret Service visited the gun shop where Hunter had purchased the firearm and asked to take the 4473 associated with the gun. The shop owner wisely refused this request, apparently “suspecting that the Secret Service officers wanted to hide Hunter’s ownership of the missing gun if it were ever to be involved in a crime.” Eventually, the gun shop owner did turn in the firearm transaction record to the ATF.

    Here’s where it gets interesting. Back in 2018, when this event occurred, Hunter Biden was famously addicted to drugs. (According to his memoir, he was smoking crack in 2018)

    On a Firearms Transaction Record, there’s a question on the form about drug addiction. It’s a yes or no question, and answering yes leads to disqualification of being able to purchase a firearm.  

    Now, we don’t know for sure how he filled out the form, and we certainly don’t know if he lied, but he did buy the gun and leave with it. The entire situation raises many questions, especially when you add that (as reported by TheBlaze) Hunter Biden’s Secret Service Protection ended in 2014.

    In November of 2020, David Codrea of AmmoLand did some real journalism and filed an FIOA request with the ATF & Secret Service to see if there was any firearms prosecution for this event or why there was no prosecution brought if not. The Secret Service and ATF attempted to deny Mr. Codrea’s FIOA request in different ways. The Secret Service provided an affidavit under penalty of perjury denying involvement, dismissing the FOIA case.

    The ATF, on the other hand, argued first that Mr. Codrea didn’t qualify as a journalist. (Which is on its face an admission that the powers that be only really take the astroturf corporate media seriously.) Then, they claimed that Hunter Biden’s privacy interests take precedence over the public’s need to know about the case.

    Mr. Codrea’s lawyer appealed the decision, but the DOJ backed the ATF in denying the appeal. Mr. Codrea’s lawyer filed a complaint to compel the ATF to answer the FIOA request. On January 30, 2022, the ATF asked for this FOIA request to be dismissed, asking for summary judgment. Here’s what they had to say:

    “Plaintiff seeks any records ATF might have about a firearms prosecution or about why no prosecution has been brought. Because confirming or denying the existence of any responsive records would reveal whether or not ATF conducted a criminal investigation involving Mr. Biden, and because Mr. Biden has a significant privacy interest in that information that is not outweighed by the public’s interest in disclosure, ATF followed its standard approach in such a case and properly asserted what is known as a Glomar response to the FOIA request based on FOIA’s privacy exemptions (…) Accordingly, ATF is entitled to summary judgment, as its Glomar response is the sole issue for resolution in this case.”

    This is one of the most powerful examples of how in the world of anti-gun politicians and their associates, the law only applies to the little guy and not to the ruling class.

    Take the Rare Breed FRT-15 situation we covered the other day. The ATF changes its mind, and all of a sudden average people become felons in possession of unregistered machine guns overnight. But if you are part of the ruling class, you might just get away with your “mistake.”

    The Hunter Biden situation raises some serious questions, but it definitely doesn’t come as a surprise for gun owners. We’ll be watching this situation to see the result; it’s good to see that people like Mr. Codrea are trying to hold those in power accountable.

    Tyler Durden
    Wed, 02/02/2022 – 21:50

  • Chinese Scientists Discover "Godsend" Antibody Cocktail That Can "Neutralize" Omicron
    Chinese Scientists Discover “Godsend” Antibody Cocktail That Can “Neutralize” Omicron

    After a long silence while Beijing insisted – more or less successfully – that SARS-CoV-2 had been annihilated in China, Chiese researchers have once again been producing a flurry of research on the virus’s origins, while also claiming new breakthroughs in treatment. They even went so far as to propose a new zoonotic link between the omicron variant and mice.

    On Wednesday, we saw that trend continue as a team of scientists from Fudan University claimed to have found a new “godsend” antibody that would magically neutralize omicron and all future strains.

    The “surprise” discovery was reportedly made while the team was investigating other strains of the virus, according to their research, which was published on Biorxiv.

    According to the leader of the team that carried out the research, the scientists crafted a new antibody cocktail synthesized from human cells produced in response to infections with other variants. To their complete and utter surprise, they found that the cocktail produced an antibody that can magically combat omicron.

    Professor Huang Jinghe of Fudan University said in an interview with the SCMP that the new cocktail fought omicron using a series of “combo moves” like in a video game. His team has developed eight different antibody cocktails that they claim are “highly potent” in a short period of time.

    As for what the Chinese intend to do with this research, that’s not clear – yet.

    “There are very few antibodies that can neutralize Omicron in the world. I feel like I’ve been hit by God’s grace,” Huang said.

    Despite being from different natural antibodies, “have collaborative roles in the neutralization process,” Huang and colleagues said in the paper. The team claims that it developed the cocktail for use on another illness which they refused to identify, before deciding that it had worked “pretty well” and so they should “give it a try” on omicron.

    The SCMP noted that antibody treatments have been widely used to fight the pandemic and treat millions of Americans using monoclonal antibody medicines produced by Regeneron and Eli Lilly.

    And while we applaud the Chinese for this experimental breakthrough, we can’t help but wonder if this antibody combo has been in the back of a lab refrigerator somewhere for the last 2 years.

    Readers can find their full report below:

    2022.01.30.478305v1.full(1) by Joseph Adinolfi on Scribd

    Tyler Durden
    Wed, 02/02/2022 – 21:30

  • Tens Of Thousands Of Tons Of Medical Waste Produced During COVID-19 Pandemic Threatens Health: WHO
    Tens Of Thousands Of Tons Of Medical Waste Produced During COVID-19 Pandemic Threatens Health: WHO

    Authored by Katabella Roberts via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours),

    The tens of thousands of tons of medical waste produced as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic poses a threat to human and environmental health, the World Health Organization (WHO) warned in a report on Tuesday.

    Protective equipment and medical supplies in a hospital in Houston, Texas, on July 16, 2020. (David J. Phillip/AP Photo)

    The extra waste is “threatening human and environmental health and exposing a dire need to improve waste management practices,” the United Nations health agency said.

    According to the agency’s report, approximately 87,000 tons of personal protective equipment (PPE) was ordered between March 2020 and November 2021 through a joint U.N. emergency initiative and shipped to countries, the majority of which ended up as waste.

    Authors note that over 140 million test kits have been shipped, with the potential to generate 2,600 tons of mainly plastic, non-infectious waste and 731,000 liters of chemical waste, which is the equivalent of one-third of an Olympic-size swimming pool.

    Furthermore, over 8 billion doses of vaccine have been administered globally, which has created 144,000 tons of additional waste in the form of syringes, needles, and safety boxes.

    The report only takes into account COVID-19 commodities procured through the joint U.N. emergency initiative and not the waste generated by the public or via other initiatives.

    The WHO noted that as the U.N. and countries across the world raced to secure supplies of PPE amid the pandemic, officials were less focused on safely and sustainably managing the waste that resulted from COVID-19 related health care.

    The agency is calling for “effective management systems” to be implemented, which includes guidance for health workers on how to safely and sustainably dispose of PPE and other health commodities after they have been used, noting that 30 percent of health care facilities are not equipped to handle existing waste loads.

    That figure was around 60 percent in less developed countries, the agency said.

    “It is absolutely vital to provide health workers with the right PPE. But it is also vital to ensure that it can be used safely without impacting on the surrounding environment,” said WHO emergencies director Dr. Michael Ryan.

    The risks associated with the lack of sufficient handling of such waste can lead to needle stick injuries, burns, and pathogenic microorganisms in health workers, and also impact communities living in areas near poorly managed waste disposal sites, increasing the risk of poor water quality and contaminated air when the waste is burned.

    “Significant change at all levels, from the global to the hospital floor, in how we manage the health care waste stream is a basic requirement of climate-smart health care systems, which many countries committed to at the recent U.N. Climate Change Conference, and, of course, a healthy recovery from COVID-19 and preparedness for other health emergencies in the future,” said Dr. Maria Neira, director of environment, climate change, and health at the WHO.

    The authors of the report set out a series of recommendations to help stem the threat to human and environmental health, including using eco-friendly packaging and shipping, safe and reusable PPE, and recyclable or biodegradable materials.

    They also called for more investment into ways to get rid of the waste without the need to burn it, such as autoclaves, a machine that is used to heat and destroy medical equipment, as well as investments in the recycling sector so that certain materials can be reused.

    The WHO’s report comes amid the Biden administration’s whole-of-government effort to tackle the climate crisis via the Build Back Better (BBB) initiative, a program that would see Washington invest around $550 billion in renewable energy and climate change initiatives.

    Tyler Durden
    Wed, 02/02/2022 – 21:10

  • It's Not The 1970s, It's Worse: This Is The Strongest Recovery In Commodity Prices On Record
    It’s Not The 1970s, It’s Worse: This Is The Strongest Recovery In Commodity Prices On Record

    As first discussed last June in “Will ESG Trigger Energy Hyperinflation” and again today “Woke Capital Won’t Save the Planet – But It Will Crash the Economy“, the “green”/ESG shift in politician thinking has unleashed an epic surge in commodity prices, which are propelling inflation higher and will likely force central banks to keep tightening until they trigger a recession and/or a market crash (probably both).

    Unfortunately, as Deutsche Bank’s Jim Reid writes in his chart of the day, given the start seen in 2022, there is no simply solution to what has been a broad-based social shift toward environmental “virtue signaling” and commodity prices will continue to cause increasing headaches for policy makers.

    As Reid notes, while these things can turn on a dime “there is no evidence that commodity prices are mean reverting as policy makers hoped in 2022 and are likely to continue to show strong YoY gains for some time to come even if they flatline from here.”

    So as today’s Chart of the Day from the Deutsche Bank strategist shows, of the 20 US economic cycles since 1914, this is the strongest recovery in commodity prices on record at this stage: it eclipses the two 1970s cycles largely due to the spikes back then occurring beyond year three of the 1970- and 1975- expansions (and also has a broader commodity composition beyond energy). In other words, this is not your grandparents’ 1970s inflation shock: it is way worse (for now).

    Meanwhile, as noted earlier, today’s Euro Area flash CPI at 5.1% YoY (vs initial expectations at 4.4%) wasn’t just a commodity story as core was up too.

    The danger, according to Reid, is that the longer commodity prices remain elevated the more second round effects kick in and expectations build.

    Surely, inflation will be the biggest theme at tomorrow’s ECB meeting, where Deutsche Banker says to expect a challenging press conference as the ECB is unlikely to change much as this is a non-forecast meeting. As a reminder DB expect lift off in December 2022 as one of four hikes over the subsequent year and a 1% terminal rate (more in our full ECB preview due out shortly).

    Tyler Durden
    Wed, 02/02/2022 – 20:50

  • Biden Ukraine 'Dealings' Back In Spotlight: NYT Sues For Emails; Memo Accuses Hunter Of 'Undercutting' Corruption Fight
    Biden Ukraine ‘Dealings’ Back In Spotlight: NYT Sues For Emails; Memo Accuses Hunter Of ‘Undercutting’ Corruption Fight

    As the 2020 election drew to a crescendo, bombshell reports of Biden family corruption were deemed verboten misinformation. 

    Both legacy, and social media, refused to cover credible reports of Joe and Hunter Biden’s involvement in everything from CCP-linked Chinese energy companies (10 for the big guy!), to footage of the now-president bragging about withholding $1 billion in a quid-pro-quo with Ukraine unless they fired their chief prosecutor, Victor Shokin.

    Which brings us to the first order of business – that a key component of Democrats’ impeachment thesis against President Trump was just debunked.

    Shokin, as it were, was investigating Ukrainian energy giant Burisma – which had hired Hunter Biden to the tune of $80,000 per month to sit on its board and act as a middle man between the company and DC lobbying firm, Blue Star Strategies.

    In January, 2019, Shokin stated that there were five criminal cases against Burisma founder Mykola Zlochevesky, including money laundering, corruption, illegal funds transfers, and profiteering through shell corporations while he was a sitting minister.

    Yet, *poof* – Shokin is fired. When the story entered the 2020 US election, Democrats insisted that Shokin was corrupt – and that “The firing of Shokin was universally urged by Ukraine’s benefactors,” as the Washington Post‘s Glenn Kessler dutifully reported three weeks before the 2020 US election.

    Shokin’s alleged corruption – for which there was zero evidence – was a key aspect of Democrats’ impeachment argument against former President Donald Trump – who had asked Ukrainian president Volodomyr Zelensky to investigate Joe and Hunter Biden’s dealings. Shokin’s successor, Yiuri Lutsenko, said in a January 2019 deposition that Shokin is ‘honest.”

    Yet during Trump’s impeachment, Democrats perpetuated claims that Shokin was corrupt, that his removal was justified, and then-Vice President Biden was simply carrying out official US policy.

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    Shokin’s alleged corruption was fabricated, however – as a leaked phone call between former Secretary of State John Kerry and former Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko not only confirmed that Shokin wasn’t corrupt, but explicitly detailed the quid-pro-quo for the $1 billion in loan guarantees.

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    Now, according to newly released State Department memos obtained by Just the News, six months before Biden had Shokin fired, the US State Department told the Ukrainian official that they were “impressed” with his anti-corruption efforts and fully supportive of his work.

    “We have been impressed with the ambitious reform and anti-corruption agenda of your government,” wrote then-Assistant Secretary of State for European and Eurasian Affairs Victoria Nuland to Shokin in a June 9, 2015 letter that was delivered to Shokin two days later by former US Ambassador Geoffrey Pyatt.

    Nuland, now President Biden’s undersecretary of state, wrote that “Secretary Kerry asked me to reply on his behalf” to let Shokin know he enjoyed the full support of the United States as he set out to fight endemic corruption in the former Soviet republic.

    “The ongoing reform of your office, law enforcement, and the judiciary will enable you to investigate and prosecute corruption and other crimes in an effective, fair, and transparent manner,” Nuland added. “The United States fully supports your government’s efforts to fight corruption and other crimes in an effective, fair and transparent manner.” -Just the News

    Trump’s impeachment defense never received this letter, according to GOP congressional investigators and Trump’s former impeachment defense lawyers.

    “We did not receive this. We should have received it. President Trump’s defense attorneys also should have received it,” said Sen. Ron Johnson (R-WI), who investigated Hunter and Joe Biden’s business dealings. “This just underscores how congressional oversight has really diminished over the years mainly because we don’t have enforcement powers,” he added.

    In other Biden family news, the New York Times is suing the State Department  to obtain emails from Romanian embassy officials sent between 2015 and 2019 which mention several international business people – including Hunter Biden and Tony Bobulinski – who made worldwide news in the home stretch of the 2020 US election when he revealed his business dealings with the Bidens, according to Politico.

    In May, 2017, Bobulinski agreed to spearhead a deal between the Bidens and a CCP-linked Chinese company – meeting with Hunter Biden and Rosemont Seneca partner Rob Walker “multiple times,” and meeting with former Vice President Joe Biden (‘the big guy’) twice.

    Speaking with Fox News‘ Tucker Carlson, Bobulinski described a May 2nd meeting at the Los Angeles Beverly Hilton with Hunter and Jim Biden. A short while later, Joe Biden reportedly showed up to the meeting “because they were sort of, wining and dining me, and presenting the strength of the Biden family to get me more engaged” in their China deal with CEFC “both in the United States and around the world.”

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    The Times‘ FOIA request also seeks information on Rudy Giuliani – who Trump sent hunting for dirt on Hunter’s dealings in Ukraine.

    And in a final bit of Bidengate developments, Just the News also reports that an email concealed from public view for more than five years reveals that a top US State Department official in Kyiv told his DC superiors that Hunter Biden’s business dealings in Ukraine “undercut” US efforts to fight corruption in the country.

    The email, obtained by Just the News, was written on Nov. 22, 2016 by former U.S. embassy official George Kent, one of the Democrats’ star witnesses in their first effort to impeach former President Donald Trump.

    It was classified “confidential,” the lowest level of secrecy, by then-U.S. Ambassador to Kiev Marie Yovanovitch, another of the Democrats’ impeachment witnesses, and was not produced as evidence to House lawmakers during impeachment. Contrary to federal law, the State Department failed to acknowledge the existence of the document to the court or to Just the News in its multiple Freedom of Information Act lawsuits against the State Department seeking records on Hunter and Joe Biden’s dealings in Ukraine.

    Most importantly, the email’s stark message directly conflicts with the narrative the mainstream media, State Department witnesses and Democratic congressmen gave the public two years ago, when they insisted Hunter Biden’s lucrative job with the allegedly corrupt Ukrainian gas company Burisma Holdings — while creating the appearance of a conflict of interest — had no impact on U.S. efforts to fight corruption in that country. -Just the News

    “The real issue to my mind was that someone in Washington needed to engage VP Biden quietly and say that his son Hunter’s presence on the Burisma board undercut the anti-corruption message the VP and we were advancing in Ukraine,” wrote Kent to multiple high-ranking officials in the State Department.

    Kent’s email also described “an intense pressure campaign by advocates for Burisma — including a former U.S. ambassador — to rehabilitate the Ukrainian company’s corrupt reputation and to get Ukraine prosecutors to drop their criminal investigations of the company,” according to the report.

    The email chain also showed that State officials were acutely aware that Hunter Biden had an affiliation with an American business partner also accused — and eventually convicted of — corruption.

    “I should note that there were two American members of the Burisma board: Hunter Biden and Devon Archer,” another State official on the email chain wrote Kent and Andrews. “Archer was recently indicted in a federal fraud case.” -Just the News

    For a complete list of Hunter Biden’s ‘crony-connected’ jobs, click here.

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    Tyler Durden
    Wed, 02/02/2022 – 20:30

  • $320 Million In Limbo After Second Largest DeFi Hack Ever
    $320 Million In Limbo After Second Largest DeFi Hack Ever

    One of the biggest bridges between Solana and other blockchains, Wormhole, has been hacked to the tune of around $320 milion – or 120,000 ETH potentially stolen, which would make it the second largest DeFi hack to date, according to Blockworks.

    In a Wednesday evening tweet, Wormhole confirmed the exploit, and pledged that “ETH will be added over the next hours to ensure wETH is backed 1:1.” The company did not elaborate on where they would get the Ether.

     The announcement came approximately 90 minutes after they announced that the wormhole network was “down for maintenance,” as they “look into a potential exploit.”

    As Blockworks explains:

    Wormhole is a protocol that allows users to bridge assets across blockchains. It has over $1 billion in total value locked and supports six blockchains: Terra, Solana, Ethereum, Binance Smart Chain, Avalanche and Polygon. 

    When a user transfers assets from one blockchain to another, the bridge steps in to lock the transaction and mint a wrapped version, such as wrapped ether (wETh), to its final chain.

    https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js“This demonstrates once again that the security of DeFi services has not reached a level that is appropriate for the huge sums being stored within them,” said Tom Robinson, co-founder of blockchain analysis firm Elliptic (via Bloomberg). “The transparency of the blockchain is allowing attackers to identify and exploit major bugs.”

    According to another forensics provider, TRM labs, around 96,000 of wETH tokens have been sent to the Ethereum blockchain.

    “No onward movement yet, but we are tracking the situation,” said TRM.

    Wormhole developers offered the hacker a $10 million bug bounty for exploit details and the return of the funds.

    Jump Trading Group announced in August that it bought Certus One, which helped develop Wormhole. Jump has said it is a founding code contributor to Wormhole. Certus One offers infrastructure services for proof-of-stake blockchains and has been an active participant in decentralized networks including Cosmos, Terra, Solana and next-generation Ethereum. -Bloomberg

    “As far as we can tell now, only wETH has been affected, no other tokens,” said a Wormhole admin who goes by d321d in a Telegram group, adding that the portal bridge is down before asking members to cease further action on the network.

    More via Blockworks‘ Jacquelyn Melinek:

    Some users reported stuck transactions, but the admin said that “as soon as the network is back up, you will be able to redeem the tokens you sent into the bridge.”

    The hacker transferred the stolen tokens from Wormhole to their wallet.

    While it’s not known how the hacker exploited the network, it took place over three different transactions around 2:00 pm EST on Wednesday, according to Etherscan data. 

    Wormhole sent an on-chain message to the hacker about an hour after the exploit, offering a reward for the return of the tokens. 

    “We noticed you were able to exploit the Solana VAA verification and mint tokens,” the message said. “We’d like to offer you a whitehat agreement, and present you a bug bounty of $10 million for exploit details, and returning the wETH you’ve minted.”

    Tyler Durden
    Wed, 02/02/2022 – 20:10

  • 3 Babbitt Shooting Witnesses Removed From FBI Most-Wanted List
    3 Babbitt Shooting Witnesses Removed From FBI Most-Wanted List

    Authored by Joseph M. Hanneman via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours),

    Three witnesses who were in the hallway outside the Speaker’s Lobby of the U.S. Capitol when Ashli Babbitt was shot were once wanted by the FBI, but their photos have disappeared from the FBI’s January 6 Most Wanted page.

    The FBI removed the photos of these three witnesses to the shooting of Ashli Babbitt from its Most Wanted list. (Graphic by The Epoch Times)

    The men, including one who tried to administer first aid to Babbitt while she lay bleeding on the floor, were initially listed on the most wanted page on April 16, 2021. They were assigned numbers 310, 311, and 312.

    On April 29, sometime after 6:45 p.m., their photos were scrubbed from the FBI list, according to an archived version of the FBI.gov website stored by the Wayback Machine at the Internet Archive. It is not clear why the photos were removed.

    The listing of “wanted” photos now skips from 309 to 313.

    It has been the FBI’s practice to leave photos on the page and label them with a red banner that says “ARRESTED” any time a person is taken into custody.

    These three men once on the FBI Most Wanted list were removed on April 29, 2021. (U.S. Department of Justice)

    One of the three men removed from the FBI list is a journalist who has covered riots and unrest around the country, according to journalist Tayler Hansen, who stood next to the man in the hallway on Jan. 6.

    “He is media. He’s a photojournalist,” Hansen told The Epoch Times.

    When Babbitt was shot by Capitol Police Lt. Michael Byrd at 2:44 p.m. Jan. 6, the photojournalist immediately rendered first aid, Hansen said.

    “Right as she got shot, he was the only one that reacted, and he immediately reached for his medical bag,” Hansen said. “He had a med bag on him, and started digging in it.

    A photographer and police officer give first aid to Ashli Babbitt on Jan. 6, 2021. The man at left was once wanted by the FBI. (Video Still/Sam Montoya for The Epoch Times)

    “He was the one who told me to grab a flashlight. He told me to turn my flashlight on so he could find her wounds,” Hansen said. “He was trying to help Ashli throughout the whole thing. He was one of the people the cops told to stop rendering medical aid to her.”

    The man told Hansen he had substantial emergency medical training and carried a first-aid kit in his backpack.

    “The way he handled that situation, I’ve never seen anything like it. He knew exactly what to do. He was the first one to react out of everybody,” Hansen said.

    After a few minutes, police ordered everyone to move away from Babbitt so they had room to render proper emergency medical care.

    Fifteen of the more than 50 witnesses to the shooting of Ashli Babbitt. The numbers indicate if they are on the FBI Most Wanted list or the list maintained by Sedition Hunters. (Graphic by The Epoch Times)

    The man has covered rioting in Portland and was present in Kenosha, Wis., the night Kyle Rittenhouse shot three men in self-defense during rioting over the police shooting of a black man armed with a knife in the summer of 2020, Hansen said.

    “I can imagine he’s seen some stuff and dealt with something like that in the past and that’s why he was so level-headed compared to everyone else in that room,” Hansen said.

    One of the other men removed from the FBI Most Wanted list is a still photographer, Hansen said. The third man, who carried a United States flag in the Speaker’s Lobby hallway, was among the first people to leave the area after Byrd shot Babbitt.

    Aaron Babbitt, Ashli’s husband, said the situation leaves him wondering.

    “I’d like an explanation as to why they’ve been removed,” Babbitt told The Epoch Times. “If there’s nothing nefarious, then that shouldn’t be a problem. The silence is, and has been, deafening.”

    The Epoch Times contacted the U.S. Department of Justice regarding the three men, but did not receive any response.

    Another 15 of the more than 50 witnesses to the shooting of Ashli Babbitt. The numbers indicate if they are on the FBI Most Wanted list or the list maintained by Sedition Hunters. (Graphic by The Epoch Times)

    This was not the first time a wanted person was removed from the FBI’s Jan. 6 Most Wanted list.

    A few days after the riot, the FBI placed a photo of Ray Epps on a “Seeking Information” poster, asking the public’s help identifying those who breached the Capitol. He was listed as Photograph #16. That photo has since been scrubbed from the FBI website. There is no longer a No. 16 on the list, which now skips from Photograph #15 to Photograph #17.

    Epps is seen on multiple videos on Jan. 5 and Jan. 6, encouraging Trump supporters to go into the U.S. Capitol before and after President Donald Trump’s speech. Epps has not been arrested or charged but met twice with the Congressional Jan. 6 select committee. His attorney has denied that Epps was an FBI informant or government agent.

    Most Witnesses Still Unidentified

    An analysis by The Epoch Times of footage from four videographers in the Speaker’s Lobby hallway indicates only about 25 percent of people present when Babbitt was shot have been identified by the FBI or charged by the U.S. Department of Justice.

    Twelve of the 55 people who were close enough to see and hear the shooting face charges for their involvement at the Capitol on Jan. 6, records show. They are among the more than 725 people arrested by the FBI in nearly every state on charges stemming from Jan. 6.

    Eight of the more than 50 witnesses to the shooting of Ashli Babbitt. The numbers indicate if they are on the FBI Most Wanted list or the list maintained by Sedition Hunters.

    Those present in the hallway who were charged for alleged violations of federal law include Zachary Alam, John Sullivan, Thomas Baranyi, Christopher Grider, Chad Jones, Samuel Montoya, Robert Packer, Uliyahu Hayah, Brian Bingham, Kurt Peterson, Alexander Sheppard, and Jason Comeau.

    Less than one-third of the 55 are listed as wanted by the FBI. The rest do not appear to be among the nearly 1,560 people on the FBI’s Jan. 6 Most Wanted website. Nearly 70 percent remain unidentified, more than a year after the fact.

    Columbus Doors Opened for Protesters

    Analysis of more Jan. 6 video shot inside the historic Columbus Doors showed at least five people who ended up in the hallway outside the Speaker’s Lobby first accessed the Capitol through the Columbus Doors.

    Surveillance video shows a protester—the FBI alleges it is George A. Tenney III— unsuccessfully tried to open the inner Columbus Doors from the inside by pushing his shoulder against them. When that failed, he turned around and appeared to be listening to someone off-camera. He then returned and was able to open the left door.

    Police rushed in and fought to stem the flow of protesters into the Rotunda. A high-pitched entry alarm rang. Protesters forced their way past two police officers at the door. “Open the other door!” someone boomed off camera.

    A female officer in riot gear was thrown to the ground to the left of the open door. A few protesters went to help her up, but another officer rushed and warned the protesters, “Get back! Get back!” The female officer was helped to the Rotunda, where she was seen leaning over with her hands on her knees.

    Back at the doors, a protester is ranted at a police officer guarding the inside of the Columbus Doors.

    “‘We’ve got a job to do?’ I don’t care what you said. That’s a poor excuse!”

    The officer asks the man, “You serve your country?”

    “Yeah I did, for five years, and that’s a poor excuse!”

    “So did I, for 25 years.”

    “That’s a poor excuse, ‘I’ve got a job to do.’ Give me a [expletive] break!”

    Agent of Chaos

    One of the men the Babbitt family is most interested in identifying is known online as #RedOnRed.

    He is seen on video in numerous places on the Capitol grounds on Jan. 6. On the ground level, he launched a long 2-by-4 through a window. On his way to the Speaker’s Lobby, he is seen doing martial arts kicks into wooden office doors. He was standing to the left of Babbitt when she climbed into a broken window and was shot.

    One video shows him with two hands on the arm of a police officer. “We’re not against you, we’re not against your family,” he says. “We love this country. You love your country. You love your family. We’re standing up together.”

    “Thank you,” the officer replies.

    “You’re welcome. We’re not the enemy.”

    #RedOnRed also appears on video by John Sullivan taken after Babbitt was shot.

    He approaches the camera and said, “It’s the second guy on the left shot her.”

    Sullivan replied, “Nobody else had a gun,” to which #RedOnRed said, “It’s the second guy on the left.”

    Tyler Durden
    Wed, 02/02/2022 – 19:50

  • White House Awkwardly Walks Back Warning Of "Imminent" Ukraine Invasion
    White House Awkwardly Walks Back Warning Of “Imminent” Ukraine Invasion

    On Wednesday the White House walked back its prior consistent assertions that a Russian invasion of Ukraine was “imminent”. Spokeswoman Jen Psaki and other admin had in the last week or more doubled down on the word (which included Blinken in media statements) even as Ukraine’s President Zelensky openly disputed the alarmist assessment, essentially telling Biden directly to ‘calm down’ the hyped rhetoric.

    Moscow too, blasted Washington’s “hysteria” – with Putin on Tuesday saying the US is trying to goad Russia and Ukraine into war in order to justify far-reaching sanctions and isolating the Russian economy. Here’s Psaki, straight-faced, awkwardly trying to explain her own sudden narrative shift after weeks of “the Russians are coming!”… 

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    “I used it once. I think others have used that once, and we stopped using it because I think it sent a message that we weren’t intending to send, which was that we knew that President Putin had made a decision,” Psaki said at an afternoon press briefing.

    “I would say the vast majority of times I’ve talked about it, I’ve said he could invade ‘at any time,’” she added, trying to obfuscate her own unambiguous prior messaging.

    Her reference of “others have used that once” is a clear attempt to shift blame. And obviously the ‘we didn’t intend to send this message’ half-hearted explanation and with no apology is absurd, given the clear meaning of the words, centered on “imminent”.

    CNN reviews of the fact that the administration was called out by its own allies: 

    The discrepancy caused some frustrations to break into the open. Last week, Psaki’s description of an attack as “imminent” drew anger in Kyiv. Ukrainian officials, including Zelensky, disagreed, and said the descriptions could cause panic and economic turmoil.

      “There is a feeling abroad that there is war here. That’s not the case,” Zelensky said during a news conference last Friday.

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      It wasn’t just in Ukraine, but mainstream US media a week ago issued a flood of fearmongering headlines suggesting WW3 with Russia was on the horizon. Based on the fake news coming from the White House of an “imminent” Russian invasion, the American public began bracing for yet another major foreign conflict which the beltway establishment seemed itching to get involved in.

      But now it’s being exposed increasingly as a classic “wag the dog” scenario. 

      * * * 

      Meanwhile, Tucker Carlson was the only major prime time network pundit to expose the “imminent” Russian invasion of Ukraine as fake news in real time…

      Tyler Durden
      Wed, 02/02/2022 – 19:30

    • Woke Capital Won't Save The Planet – But It Will Crash The Economy
      Woke Capital Won’t Save The Planet – But It Will Crash The Economy

      Submitted by Rupert Darwall, originally published in Real Clear Energy,

      Judged by BlackRock CEO Larry Fink’s latest letter, January 2022 might turn out to be the highwater mark of woke capitalism. Stakeholder capitalism is not “woke,” Fink says, because capitalism is driven by mutually beneficial relationships between businesses and their stakeholders. He’s right. What Fink describes is capitalism pure and simple, the stakeholder modifier adding nothing to the uniqueness of capitalism in harnessing competition and innovation for the benefit of all.

      Fink’s shift is more than rhetorical. Just three years ago, in his 2019 “Profit and Purpose” letter, Fink told CEOs that the $24 trillion of wealth Millennials expect to inherit from their Boomer parents meant that ESG (environment, social, governance) issues “will be increasingly material to corporate valuations.” Now Fink tells them that “long-term profitability” is the measure by which markets will determine their companies’ success, dumping the ESG valuation metrics he’d previously championed.

      Why, then, launch a Center for Stakeholder Capitalism, as BlackRock intends, and not simply a Center for Capitalism? “Your company’s purpose is its north star,” Fink says, echoing the Big Idea of his “Profit & Purpose” letter. BlackRock is the largest shareholder in Unilever. London-based Terry Smith, a top 15 Unilever shareholder, slammed Unilever’s top management for being obsessed with public displays of sustainability credentials at the expense of focusing on business fundamentals. In his letter to Fundsmith shareholders, Smith wrote, “a company which feels it has to define the purpose of Hellmann’s mayonnaise has in our view clearly lost the plot.” Ouch.

      The days of woke CEOs criticizing democratically elected politicians for, say, not mandating unisex bathrooms, also seem to be drawing to a close. CEOs should be thoughtful in how they address social issues, Fink says, advising them to show humility and stay grounded. But Fink himself has some way to travel along the humility road. He requires all companies BlackRock invests in to set short-, medium-, and long-term targets for greenhouse gas reductions – as if BlackRock is an enforcement arm of government and net zero is a done deal. “Incumbents need to be clear about their pathway [to] succeeding in a net zero economy,” he writes.

      Successful investing – the deployment of capital based on expectations of future returns – is grounded in realism, not make-believe. The failure of last year’s UN climate summit in Glasgow – the summit does not rate a single mention in Fink’s 3,000-word letter – makes it plain to any objective observer that the world will not reach net zero anywhere close to the prescribed date. Forcing companies to conform to a scenario that has virtually no chance of materializing destroys more than shareholder value: it makes all stakeholders worse off. In this respect, ESG investing is antisocial because it is detrimental to society.

      ESG investing won’t help the environment, either. Cutting off capital to publicly traded oil and gas companies will not reduce global greenhouse gas emissions. Fink knows this. “Any plan that focuses solely on limiting supply and fails to address demand for hydrocarbons will drive up energy prices,” he admits. Congress has not passed legislation to cap demand and is extremely unlikely to do so – a reality he is unwilling to accept.

      Three months ago, former Treasury secretary Larry Summers made a stunning intervention when he criticized central bankers for defining themselves by their wokeness, by their social and environmental concerns. “We’re in more danger than we’ve been during my career of losing control of inflation,” Summers said.

      High inflation is now the biggest threat to the economy. Woke central bankers and multitrillion-dollar institutional investors are peas in a pod when it comes to their culpability for rising prices. “We need to be honest about the fact that green products often come at a higher cost,” Fink admits. ESG pushes up the cost of energy, and central bankers’ ultra-loose monetary policies accommodate it.

      BlackRock’s embrace of woke investing puts it in an awkward and untenable position, as Fink’s partial retreat demonstrates. In November, Riley Moore, the state treasurer of West Virginia, and 15 other state treasurers wrote an open letter threatening collective action against financial institutions that boycott traditional energy industries in their states. Last week, Moore announced that West Virginia would not use BlackRock as part of its banking operations.

      BlackRock is also feeling the heat in Texas. On January 3 of this year (though it misdated the letter 2021), BlackRock wrote to Texas state legislators to say that it supports hydrocarbon producers because of their crucial role in supporting a successful energy transition – one that would put those companies out of business.

      The letter did not explain BlackRock’s vote to put anti-hydrocarbon directors proposed by Engine No. 1 – a tiny activist fund claiming to use ESG to drive economic value – on the board of Texas-based Exxon Mobil. Commenting on Exxon Mobil’s recent emissions pledges, Charlie Penner, who led the Engine No. 1 campaign, remarked that the company should not pursue projects that “only make economic sense if the world fails to meet its climate targets.” The world is on track to miss these targets by a country mile. Engine’s activism is not about investing; it is politics by other means.

      Wall Street billionaires make for improbable green revolutionaries. Credit Suisse fired chairman António Horta-Osório for breaking Covid quarantine rules. His transgressions, Brooke Masters commented, highlighted the common attitude among the world’s elite that rules are for other people. “Hundreds of supposedly green business executives and celebrities never seem to understand the hypocrisy of taking their fuel-guzzling yachts and private jets to climate change conferences,” she wrote. At some level, Fink seems to recognize the difficulty. Ensuring access to reliable, affordable energy is necessary, he says, “to avoid societal discord.” That means more investment in oil and gas.

      Thus, Larry Fink finds himself warning of the very danger that BlackRock’s woke investment policies will bring about. High inflation and squeezed living standards make it a safe bet that come this time next year, he will be running even faster in the opposite direction.

      Tyler Durden
      Wed, 02/02/2022 – 19:10

    • BLM Has 60 Days To Come Clean About Financials After California DOJ Sends Scorching Demand Letter
      BLM Has 60 Days To Come Clean About Financials After California DOJ Sends Scorching Demand Letter

      The leaders of Black Lives Matter have 60 days to produce information about the charity’s $60 million bankroll, according to a letter from the California DOJ to the activist organization obtained by the Washington Examiner.

      And as the Examiner notes, the letter comes just days after they uncovered that BLM has no known leader in charge of its giant war chest since its co-founder resigned in May – and that the Los Angeles address they list on their tax filings is wrong.

      “The organization BLACK LIVES MATTER GLOBAL NETWORK FOUNDATION, INC. is delinquent with The Registry of Charitable Trusts for failing to submit required annual report(s),” reads the letter from California AG Rob Bonta.

      BLM is also prohibited from “soliciting or disbursing charitable funds” in California until it submits its 2020 Form 990 and other financial records to the state, the California DOJ informed the charity Monday. The letter added that the Black Lives Matter Global Network Foundation, the legal entity that represents the national BLM movement, faces fines for “each month or partial month for which the report(s) are delinquent.”

      “Charitable assets cannot be used to pay these avoidable costs,” the California DOJ warned BLM. “Accordingly, directors, trustees, officers and return preparers responsible for failure to timely file the above-described report(s) are personally liable for payment of all penalties, interest and other costs incurred to restore exempt status.” -Washington Examiner

      If they fail to come clean, California may revoke BLM tax-exempt status and impose fees, in addition to holding directors personally liable.

      Meanwhile, the state of Washington ordered BLM to “immediately cease” fundraising in the far-left state until they similarly come clean about their finances. 

      In February of last year, BLM reported that it had closed out 2020 with $60 million in its bank accounts, however the charity refuses to say who’s been in control of its funds for the last eight months.

      In May, BLM co-founder Patrisse Cullors resigned amid a controversy over a homebuying spree. While Cullors co-founded BLM with Alicia Garza and Opal Tometi in the wake of George Zimmerman’s not guilty verdict in the Trayvon Martin death, she was the only one who remained with the foundation that took in $90 million last year, in the wake of George Floyd’s death while in police custody.  

      Cullors, a self-proclaimed Marxist – was branded a “fraud” after buying a $1.4 million home in a posh California neighborhood that’s 88% white.

      Various BLM chapters have been complaining about the organization’s lack of transparently as well. 

      In a December 2020 statement, the local chapters said:

      “Since the establishment of [Black Lives Matter Global Network Foundation], our chapters have consistently raised concerns about financial transparency, decision making, and accountability … we believe public accountability has become necessary.”

      The local chapters also said the Black Lives Matter Global Network Foundation appointed Cullors as its executive director against their wishes and without their knowledge, rendering her leadership illegitimate.

      “We, the undersigned chapters, believe that all of these events occurred without democracy, and assert that it was without the knowledge of the majority of Black Lives Matters chapters across the country and world,” the statement read.

      “Patrisse Cullors … became Executive Director against the will of most chapters and without their knowledge.”

      And now, they have 60 days to come clean or face consequences in the state of California.

      Tyler Durden
      Wed, 02/02/2022 – 18:50

    • The Ultimate Mashup Of The MSM Lab Leak 'Conspiracy' Shaming
      The Ultimate Mashup Of The MSM Lab Leak ‘Conspiracy’ Shaming

      Authored by Matt Taibbi and Matt Orfalea via TK News,

      After Covid-19 hit America’s shores, a question naturally arose: how did this happen? Most of us assumed the mystery would soon be unraveled, that the society of epidemiological detectives who found everything from the rat that transmitted Lassa Fever to the leak that caused viral outbreaks in Marburg and Frankfurt would nail down the origin of the pandemic.

      It didn’t happen. We were initially told something about bats, a weird animal called a pangolin, and a Chinese “wet market,” but never heard the full story. A combination of the virus originating in an authoritarian state and a sudden seizure of incuriosity among the international press corps led to a strange coverage détente, in which we weren’t told exactly what happened, but we were told all sensible people were sure of what didn’t happen. 27 scientists in The Lancet put it this way in mid-2020: “We stand together to strongly condemn conspiracy theories suggesting that COVID-19 does not have a natural origin.”

      As TK contributor Matt Orfalea pieces together in his latest hilariously disturbing trip to our recent past, the notion that Covid-19 did not originate in a lab became a mandatory talking point. This might have made sense, if epidemiologists had definitively identified the source of the disease. But they hadn’t, making the intensity of the press reaction both comical and suspicious.

      A common explanation for the propaganda is that once Donald Trump suggested the disease might have had a laboratory origin, it became mandatory to denounce the idea for political reasons.

      The Trump-said-it-so-it-must-be-wrong angle was also ubiquitous, as Orfalea shows here:

      In the main mashup, in a series of revealing montages, press figures are also shown wasting no time embracing the word-for-word conclusion of the Office of the Director of National Intelligence (DNI) that the disease was “not manmade or genetically modified.” The sections involving denunciations of Senator Tom Cotton are particularly interesting because Cotton was accused of “fanning the embers of a coronavirus conspiracy theory” just for including lab origin among the possible causes, even as he said natural origin was “most likely.” This showed that even considering a lab-origin hypothesis was, to press critics, now the same as advancing or embracing an idea they considered “debunked.”

      The idea that the disease may have originated in a lab suddenly became acceptable again last spring, when the likes of Dr. Anthony Fauci began entertaining the idea in public. Fact-checkers who’d issued fierce declarations about “conspiracy theories” backtracked. Internet platforms like Facebook that had been banning such assertions announced, “We will no longer remove the claim that Covid-19 is man-made or manufactured from our apps.”

      We still don’t know what caused the pandemic, but that’s not the issue here. The concept of telling the public you’re this certain of something when you quite obviously are not is at least somewhat new, both in politics and in media. The crucial problem shown in this reel is the complete absence of humility about the possibility of error. The most well-meaning scientists make mistakes — even the famous tale of the discovery of HIV’s “Patient Zero” later fell into question thanks to genetic analysis — and there was a time not long ago when no responsible press outlet would have declared any hypothesis off-limits before the mystery had been solved.

      Orfalea does a great job here using everything from Bill and Ted’s Excellent Adventure to Fahrenheit 451 to show the dangerously moronic certainty of modern propaganda. The origins of Covid-19 remain a mystery, but another Whodunit is why curiosity and the spirit of free inquiry have been made taboo in a business where those qualities were once prerequisites.

      *  *  *

      Subscribe to TK News by Matt Taibbi

      Tyler Durden
      Wed, 02/02/2022 – 18:30

    • Melinda French Gates Will No Longer Give Bulk Of Her Wealth To Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation
      Melinda French Gates Will No Longer Give Bulk Of Her Wealth To Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation

      Maybe it was a constant reminder of Bill Gates’ friendship with Jeffrey Epstein, or maybe she’s just made too many promises to too many pool boys – but Melinda French Gates is no longer going to donate the bulk of her wealth to the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation.

      French Gates made the change in late 2021 Giving Pledge letter following her divorce from Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates, however at the time she didn’t specify that it would go to the Gates Foundation, according to the Wall Street Journal.

      “I think philanthropy is most effective when it prioritizes flexibility over ideology—and why in my work at the foundation and Pivotal Ventures I’ll continue to seek out new partners, ideas, and perspectives,” she wrote.

      Still, French Gates says she still plans to give most of her fortune away, spreading it among various philanthropic endeavors, according to people familiar with the matter.

      She launched Pivotal Ventures in 2015 to focus on issues affecting women and families, including paid-leave policies and an effort to get more women into technology and public office. She has committed to give $1 billion over 10 years to Pivotal to promote gender equality.

      “I recognize the absurdity of so much wealth being concentrated in the hands of one person, and I believe the only responsible thing to do with a fortune this size is give it away—as thoughtfully and impactfully as possible,” she wrote in her new letter.

      The Gates Foundation is one of the world’s largest philanthropies with an endowment topping $50 billion. In July, Mr. Gates and Ms. French Gates said they would commit a further $15 billion to the endowment. It is possible that Ms. French Gates makes additional donations to the foundation even as she gives to other charities, one of the people familiar with the matter said.

      …

      The foundation recently added four members to its board of trustees in an effort to boost governance following its co-founders’ divorce. Ms. French Gates and Mr. Gates are the foundation’s co-chairs, though she has agreed to resign in 2023 if either of them decides they can no longer work together. Billionaire Warren Buffett, another major donor, was a trustee until he resigned in June 2021. -WSJ

      Bill Gates, meanwhile reiterated in his most recent Giving Pledge letter that most of his wealth will go to the Gates Foundation.

      “The foundation is my top philanthropic priority, even as my giving in other areas has grown over the years—primarily in mitigation of climate change and tackling Alzheimer’s disease,” he wrote.

      In July, there was talk of Bill Gates buying out Melinda’s share of the foundation which bears their name, according to the New York Times.

      Mark Suzman, the CEO of the Gates Foundation (which is the largest charitable foundation in the world) broke the news, while revealing that the foundation had been gifted an additional $15 billion in assets to be added to the $50 billion previously amassed in its endowment over two decades.

      Suzman added that if French decides she can’t continue to work with Gates after two years, that she would be gifted her own pool of capital to start her own foundation. In other words, if the two decide they can’t peaceably co-parent the foundation, Bill will buy out his ex-wife.

      Tyler Durden
      Wed, 02/02/2022 – 18:10

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