Jan 05

Today’s News 5th January 2022

  • China "Invents" Names For Territory Under India's Dominion, Expert Says
    China “Invents” Names For Territory Under India’s Dominion, Expert Says

    By Venus Upadhayaya of Epoch Times

    China has “standardized” the names of 15 places in Arunachal Pradesh, an Indian state on the border with Bhutan and Burma that the Chinese regime has attempted to claim and aggressively intruded upon for the past few decades. However, Indian Foreign Ministry spokesperson Arindam Bagchi said that assigning invented Chinese names to locations in the state won’t alter the fact that Arunachal Pradesh is and always will be an “integral part” of India.

    An Indian Buddhist monks approaches the Thupten Gatsal Ling Gunpa, a branch of Tawang Monastery, in Itanagar, capital of Arunachal Pradesh, northeast India

    India has governed Arunachal Pradesh since 1954, when the area was established as the North-East Frontier Agency (NEFA) under the British Raj. After the Sino–Indian war of 1962, relations between the two countries deteriorated and border disputes emerged. These have escalated in recent years with the Doklam standoff in 2017 and the bloody clash in the Galwan Valley in 2020.

    In 1972, India renamed the NEFA as Arunachal Pradesh, a federally governed territory, or Union territory, and in 1987, it was given the status of a state under the Indian constitution.

    However, since 2006, China has claimed the territory and refers to Arunachal Pradesh as “Zangnan,” or South Tibet. On Dec. 29, the Chinese Ministry of Civil Affairs said it had given formal Chinese names to 15 places in “Zangnan.” The announcement came days before China’s new land border law took effect on Jan. 1.

    The Chinese “standardized” names apply to eight residential areas, four mountain peaks, two rivers, and one mountain pass, according to Chinese state-run outlet Global Times.

    Along with assigning names, the Chinese regime has also set up an administrative structure for the area under Chinese counties and prefectures.

    These include Sengkezong and Daglungzong in Cuona County of Shannan Prefecture; Mani’gang, Duding, and Migpain in Medog County of Nyingchi Prefecture; Goling and Damba in Zayu County of Nyingchi Prefecture; and Mejag in Lhunze County of Shannan Prefecture.

    China’s claims on Arunachal Pradesh began in 2006, when then-Chinese Ambassador to India Sun Yuxi asserted, “The whole of Arunachal Pradesh is Chinese territory,” ahead of then-Chinese leader Hu Jintao’s official visit to India.

    Indian Army personnel keep vigilance at Bumla pass at the India-China border in Arunachal Pradesh

    “Lying Maps”

    Frank Lehberger, a sinologist specializing in CCP policies in Tibet and a senior fellow at the Indian think tank Usanas Foundation, compared the Chinese attempt with Soviet leader Joseph Stalin’s invention and perfection of “death by cartography.” Stalin personally redrew maps in the Central Asian Fergana Valley to ensure that all former Soviet republics in that region would remain dependent on the Soviet Union and would be shaken by inter-ethnic violence if they tried to declare independence.

    Lehberger pointed to delimitation exercises, also called “lying maps,” that he said Stalin followed for the purpose of automatically creating civil unrest, in case of a breakup of the Soviet Union.

    “Stalin drew those maps of the internal borders in the Soviet Union in such a way that they could not be detangled in case of the collapse of the Soviet Union and that border wars and civil wars would ensue almost automatically,” Lehberger said. “He got his wish. It happened there twice in 1990 and 2010, at the border of Kyrgyzstan and Uzbekistan, as well as in 2008 in Georgia, 2014 in Crimea, and 2021 in Armenia.”

    He added that on old and new Chinese maps, or on official lists of place names in Arunachal Pradesh, Itanagar, which is the state capital of Arunachal Pradesh, is nonexistent.

    Out of the 15 places recently named by China, The Epoch Times could locate the following on Google Earth: Duding (Tuting in India), Mani’gang (Monigong), Sengkezong (Senge), Daglungzong (Taklung Dzong), Migpain (Mipi H.Q.), Goling (Goiliang), and Damba (Dhanbari).

    While one location is labeled as Mejag in Lhunze County of Shannan Prefecture (known as Meyaba Rai), Lehberger called this fake because Google Earth shows the entire vicinity consists only of thick mountain forests. No dwellings or infrastructure, where civilians could permanently live, appear there.

    The first batch of six modified names for places in Arunachal Pradesh was given by the Chinese ministry in 2017, in what Indian media called a retaliatory move following a visit by the Dalai Lama. The state is also a seat of Vajrayana Buddhism and houses the four-century-old Tawang monastery, one of the biggest Buddhist monasteries in Asia.

    Lehberger told The Epoch Times that China’s attempt to assign names to places in Arunachal Pradesh is a practice that began even before Sun Yuxi’s statement, in the early 2000s.

    Lehberger, who has spent years researching Chinese maps of Tibet and Arunachal Pradesh, shared with The Epoch Times a 2005 map from an official Chinese atlas that includes the regime’s “invented names” for areas in Indian territory.

    “Here next to the nonexistent Itanagar on the Chinese map, you find only tiny ‘villages’ with fake names like ‘Ta-geng-si’ or ‘Duo-li.’ Similar sounding Indian place names do not appear anywhere in the vicinity of [the Arunachal Pradesh state capital of] Itanagar on Google Earth,” he said.

    Demonstrators shout slogans as they protest against China’s claim of six districts of Arunachal Pradesh state in New Delhi

    He added that the only indirect hint that the Chinese atlases provide for the existence of the state capital is the location of its eastern suburb of Doimukh. The Chinese phonetic spelling of this town is rendered on many Chinese maps as Duo-Yi-Mu-ke. He called it “a deliberate attempt to distract” from the existence of the capital city, which has a population of about 65,000 and is home to Arunachal Pradesh’s legislative assembly.

    By filling in place names in the Indian state, Chinese maps do not “look so empty for ordinary Chinese, who have no clue that since 1962 Arunachal belongs to India,” he said. The CCP can’t admit the existence of Itanagar as a metropolis in so-called South Tibet or Zangnan, because it’s bigger than the “supposed county seat of Cuona” from where the area is “supposedly” being administered.

    Neither “Ta-geng-si” nor “Duo-li” is among the 15 or so “standardized” names of places in what China claims as “Zangnan,” but Lehberger said that the 2005 map establishes that those two nonexistent places were already officially sanctioned by the CCP and its map-making departments.

    Lehberger pointed out another nonexistent village, supposedly south of the Dafla Range and a few kilometers southwest of the Dikrong Power House. While it’s marked on the 2005 official Chinese map of Tibet as “Wupang,” it doesn’t exist on Google Earth.

    “Call it the logic of the Chinese lies,” he said, adding that the “name standardization” is just the communist regime’s way of making those place names public on the international stage, a process it has been working on quietly for more than two decades.

    “People in India must wake up to what [the Chinese regime has] been doing already for decades.”

    He said the government of India should consider canceling the joint declaration it signed with China in 2003, when it recognized that the Tibet Autonomous Region was a territory of the People’s Republic of China. Doing so would theoretically render “null and void” any Chinese attempt to use its border law to redraw the line of actual control and steal more territory from India. The precedent for canceling such a declaration has already been set—by the Chinese regime itself.

    “China in 2020 did unilaterally abrogate an internationally binding agreement on the status of Hong Kong, guaranteed by the U.N.,” he said. “So there is a precedent already and it was initiated by the Chinese leadership.

    “This proves that the Chinese government and leadership are not willing to fulfill any international treaty obligations, be it with the UK regarding Hong Kong, or with India. Therefore, India should take this into account.”

    Tyler Durden
    Wed, 01/05/2022 – 00:05

  • Reuters Promotes More Fear Porn About "Omi-Cold"
    Reuters Promotes More Fear Porn About “Omi-Cold”

    As the Omicron variant, also referred to as “omi-cold,” spreads around the U.S., unleashing more fear porn fueled by corporate media, Reuters reports Walmart temporarily shuttered dozens of stores to sanitize them against the virus.

    Despite cases soaring, hospitalizations and deaths remain flat (and are even falling in many regions)…

    Reuters reports 60 Walmart stores across the U.S. were temporarily closed in December to sanitize them against the virus. Texas and New Jersey stores were closed for two days while cleaning crews sanitized facilities.

    “To present a safe and clean in-store environment for our associates and customers,” a company spokesperson told Reuters in a statement.

    Sixty sounds like a lot, but compared to total U.S. stores (4,700), it only represents just 1.27%.

    Reuters’ headline is undoubtedly an eye-catcher and seems intended to remind everyone of the early days of the pandemic when retailers closed up shop to sanitize.

    Perhaps this is more fear porn by Reuters, who is interested in keeping people in a state of high anxiety. As mRNA inventor Dr. Robert Malone tweeted before he was banned from Twitter, there is a “conflict of interest of the chairman of the board of Reuters (Jim Smith) who also sits on the board of Pfizer. “

    So could Reuters’ promotion of fear porn about a variant that is less severe be an eyeopener to an underlying objective to keep people hypnotized while they’re subliminally told get get vaccinated and multi-boosted. Seems like a well-coordinated agenda is being exposed. 

    Tyler Durden
    Tue, 01/04/2022 – 23:45

  • The United States Should Avoid Waging A Two-Front Cold War
    The United States Should Avoid Waging A Two-Front Cold War

    Authored by Francis P. Sempa via RealClear Defense (emphasis ours),

    The Biden administration appears to be heading in the direction of waging a two-front Cold War over Ukraine in Eastern Europe and Taiwan in East Asia, both of which could turn “hot” any day. The imprudence of such an approach should be obvious, but the great danger is that such “crises” could get out of hand before the leaders involved step back from the brink.

    Russia’s Vladimir Putin may want to extend Russia’s rule to Ukraine and other former Soviet republics, but he definitely wants to ensure the end of NATO expansion. China’s Xi Jinping, like all of his predecessors, wants Taiwan unified with the mainland, and while he would prefer to do it peacefully, he may be willing to risk war with the United States to achieve his goal–especially if he believes he can win such a war at an acceptable cost.

    That leaves the Biden administration, which to date has been sending mixed signals to both Russia and China. Administration spokespersons have warned of severe consequences should Russia invade Ukraine, but President Biden has stated that those consequences will be primarily economic in the form of sanctions. Meanwhile, President Biden has stated that the United States will defend Taiwan in the event of a Chinese attack, but administration spokespersons have walked that back and reaffirmed the U.S. policy of “strategic ambiguity.” This is a recipe for confusion, misunderstanding, and possibly war on two fronts.

    This muddled U.S. approach was highlighted at the recent Summit for Democracy, where the U.S. President portrayed international politics as a global struggle between democracies and autocracies and characterized the United States as democracy’s “champion.” Biden and other American democracy proponents appear to have forgotten the wise counsel of Secretary of State John Quincy Adams that America was the well-wisher of freedom to all but the champion only of her own. The U.S. democracy proponents have likewise forgotten the prudent diplomacy of Richard Nixon and Henry Kissinger that sought America’s geopolitical benefit to exploit the divisions and fissures between the two most powerful autocracies on the Eurasian landmass. And they have forgotten the wise and timeless counsel of Sir Halford Mackinder, the great British geopolitical thinker, who urged the democratic statesmen of his time to reconcile democratic ideals with geopolitical realities.

    Foreign policy and strategy involve understanding and prioritizing threats and then devoting the necessary resources to meet those threats. China clearly poses the greatest threat to U.S. national security interests in the Indo-Pacific region and beyond. The Biden administration’s focus should be there, and it should allocate resources accordingly. China’s President Xi needs to understand that he cannot forcibly annex Taiwan without incurring unacceptable costs in a war with the United States. “Strategic ambiguity” should be replaced by “strategic clarity.” Meanwhile, the U.S. should use diplomacy to wean Russia from China’s orbit, including foregoing any further expansion of NATO and avoiding the democracy versus autocracy rhetoric. High-sounding principles are no substitute for hard-headed realpolitik. Biden’s role model should be John Quincy Adams, or George Washington, or Richard Nixon, or looking across the oceans, Otto von Bismarck or Lee Kuan Yew–statesmen who understood geopolitical realities and who were unbound by so-called universal principles. Or perhaps, Biden could simply emulate Abraham Lincoln, who during the Trent Affair in the midst of the American Civil War, wisely cautioned his Cabinet and military advisers: “One war at a time.”

    *  *  *

    Francis P. Sempa is the author of Geopolitics: From the Cold War to the 21stCentury, America’s Global Role: Essays and Reviews on National Security, Geopolitics and War, and Somewhere in France, Somewhere in Germany: A Combat Soldier’s Journey through the Second World War. He has written lengthy introductions to two of Mahan’s books, and has written on historical and foreign policy topics for The Diplomat, the University Bookman, Joint Force Quarterly, the Asian Review of Books, the New York Journal of Books, the Claremont Review of Books, American Diplomacy, the Washington Times, and other publications. He is an attorney, an adjunct professor of political science at Wilkes University, and a contributing editor to American Diplomacy.

    Tyler Durden
    Tue, 01/04/2022 – 23:25

  • China Blasts US Claim It’s Expanding Nuclear Arsenal As False, Says Stop Using Satellite Snaps
    China Blasts US Claim It’s Expanding Nuclear Arsenal As False, Says Stop Using Satellite Snaps

    The US Defense Department in its latest annual review of China’s military capability outlined it’s expanding its nuclear weapons forces faster than previously predicted. The November report predicted the likelihood that China’s PLA will possess more than 1,000 nuclear warheads by 2030.

    On Tuesday, amid a major statement agreed upon by five nuclear-armed nations at the UN vowing to prevent nuclear war, Beijing has slammed Washington’s assessment of an increasing nuke arsenal in China, saying the assessment is untrue and ‘disregards facts’. 

    Director general of the Foreign Ministry’s arms control department, Fu Cong, had this to say Tuesday: “On the assertions made by U.S. officials that China is expanding dramatically its nuclear capabilities, first, let me say that this is untrue.” He repeated the longtime Beijing position that the country maintains the minimum level necessary for nuclear deterrence, also given China is a “no first use” nation. 

    Image: Xinhua via SCMP

    He said that for his country to joint nuclear reduction talks with the West, the two superpowers who possess by far the most in the world would have to drastically reduce their own arsenals first – namely the United States and Russia. 

    “We will be happy to join if they have reduced to our level,” Cong said. The top arms control official added, “the two superpowers need to… drastically reduce their nuclear capabilities to a level comparable to the level of China, and for that matter to the level of France and the U.K., so that other nuclear states can join in this process.”

    He particularly pointed out that China’s arsenal remains much, much smaller compared to what Washington has at its command. But again, this comes amid the backdrop of Western leaders complaining that China is the only country that’s actually on the increase in terms of its developing stockpile.

    And amid recent US and Western media reports that have put satellite images purporting to show nuclear silos in China front and center, the Chinese official asked the US and other to stop basing assessments on what he dubbed unreliable methods. The official dismissed the latest ‘evidence’ of expanding silos in the desert as but overhead images of “wind generators”.

    You will find more infographics at Statista

    “As for the silos, I have also read the reports on this matter, but they are conflicting reports; someone says that they are silos for rockets, someone else – that they are wind generators,” Fu Cong said further in the press briefing. 

    “I am not in a position to confirm any report. But I can say that it’s not a serious matter to try to calculate the size of China’s nuclear forces based on these satellite images.”

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

    Since last summer, there’s been a series of reports detailing silo expansion in remote parts of China based on satellite images produced by Planet Labs and others, which often drive headlines in the West, putting renewed pressure on Beijing to explain itself. 

    Tyler Durden
    Tue, 01/04/2022 – 23:05

  • The Death Of Truth
    The Death Of Truth

    Authored by Michael Snyder via The Economic Collapse blog,

    Over the past several days I have had some time to think, and my thoughts have repeatedly turned to the current state of the Internet.  For a couple of decades after it was popularized, the Internet was one of the greatest tools for free speech that the world has ever seen.  It allowed ordinary people like me to share truth on a massive scale with other ordinary people all over the planet.  I have always been grateful for that opportunity, but now our ability to share truth with one another over the Internet is being systematically eroded.  Nobody can deny that this is taking place, because it is literally happening right in front of our eyes.  Over the past decade, control of the Internet has become increasingly centralized. 

    The big tech companies have become exceptionally powerful, and they have become addicted to using that power to suppress speech that they do not like.

    This is an extremely dangerous trend, because the Internet has become the primary way that the vast majority of us communicate with one another.  It truly is our modern version of “the marketplace of ideas”, but now the big tech companies are absolutely determined to distort it into something else entirely.

    At this point, there are a whole host of ideas that you aren’t allowed to freely discuss on the Internet anymore.

    In fact, there are a whole host of questions that you aren’t even allowed to ask.

    When a society gets to a point where you aren’t even allowed to ask questions, that is a very clear sign that you are living under a very oppressive authoritarian regime.

    Years ago when they started banning various prominent voices we all knew that it wouldn’t end there.

    And it hasn’t.

    Today, the big tech companies have no problem banning literally anyone.  For example, Congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Greene just got permanently banned on Twitter…

    Twitter permanently blacklisted the personal account of a sitting member of Congress, Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA) over the New Year’s weekend. “Twitter is an enemy to America and can’t handle the truth,” Rep. Greene said, in a statement responding to the ban. “That’s fine, I’ll show America we don’t need them and it’s time to defeat our enemies.”

    Rep. Greene has one of the largest followings on social media of any Republican member of Congress. Prior to her ban, she had over 465,000 followers on Twitter, meaning the Republican party and conservative movement has lost one of its most influential accounts on the platform.

    Five years ago, if you told me that the big tech companies would start banning our politicians in Washington, I would have told you that you were crazy.

    But now nobody is safe.  Once Twitter and Facebook banned a sitting president, we all knew that there was no going back.

    Of course the pandemic has given the big tech companies an excuse to push their levels of censorship to even higher levels.  Just a few days ago, Twitter banned Dr. Robert Malone just before he was interviewed by Joe Rogan…

    Dr. Robert Malone played a key role in the invention of the mRNA vaccine, the type of vaccine that is being administered to many Americans in an effort to stave off COVID-19. Malone has often been critical of the use of the vaccines, as well those in the media and government who support them.

    He shared a great deal of research on his Twitter account, which had more than half a million followers.

    “We all knew it would happen eventually,” Malone said on his Substack. “Today it did. Over a half million followers gone in a blink of an eye. That means I must have been on the mark, so to speak. Over the target. It also means we lost a critical component in our fight to stop these vaccines being mandated for children and to stop the corruption in our governments, as well as the medical-industrial complex and pharmaceutical industries.”

    So now it appears that Twitter is preemptively banning people.

    We truly have entered “Minority Report” territory, and that is extremely chilling.

    Considering everything that has been happening with the pandemic, you would think that we would want to hear what one of the inventors of mRNA technology has to say.  Dr. Robert Malone has decades of experience, and he had been one of the most respected names in his field.

    But because he has viewpoints that don’t align with the official narratives being pushed by the pharmaceutical industry, he is being blacklisted by the big tech companies.

    If you think that you can get around all the censorship by simply refusing to use the big tech company platforms, you are wrong.

    Just consider this example.  Gateway Pundit is reporting that T-Mobile is literally erasing links to their articles from text messages…

    Hi Jim. In one of the screenshots you can see where my sister tried to send me your website link four times but I never got it. The other two screenshots it shows me sending a link to one of your articles, that’s the one with the picture of the fox in it. In the other screenshot from my sister it shows that she never received the link. The text message it still has the fox in it. I hope this helps. But what I realized is it’s actually just my boost T-Mobile carrier that’s blocking your links. I have a friend in the 949 area code and he was able to send it to his wife, however, I can only receive it in a group text. Let me know if you have any more questions. Thanks. Mark.

    I have had a similar experience with articles written by Mike Adams of Natural News.  When I try to send links to Natural News through Facebook Messenger, the links are simply erased from the messages somehow.

    That is the level of censorship that we are now facing.

    They literally want to control what we see, what we hear and what we think.  And of course this is setting the stage for a level of authoritarianism unlike anything we have ever seen before in all of human history.

    Without freedom of speech, all of our other freedoms will rapidly become meaningless.

    Sadly, at this point freedom of speech in the United States is getting pretty close to being completely wiped out.

    Our Republic is rapidly dying, and millions upon millions of Americans are cheering as it happens.

    The big tech companies have become the arbiters of truth, but most of the “truths” that they are relentlessly pushing are actually lies.

    I don’t know if there is a way out of this mess, but we must find one, because the future of our society hangs in the balance.

    *  *  *

    It is finally here! Michael’s new book entitled “7 Year Apocalypse” is now available in paperback and for the Kindle on Amazon.

    Tyler Durden
    Tue, 01/04/2022 – 22:45

  • Biden To Invest $1 Billion In Producers After Blaming Inflation On Greedy Meat Mongers
    Biden To Invest $1 Billion In Producers After Blaming Inflation On Greedy Meat Mongers

    Two weeks ago, the White House pinned the blame for rampant, not-so-transitory inflation felt by consumers across the board on the ‘greed of meat conglomerates.’

    An absurdity which came just four weeks after the world’s largest meat producer, Brazil’s JBS SA, warned that labor shortages are in fact holding back production.

    Meanwhile, Kamala Harris – the woman who’s just one heartbeat away from the Oval Office – has no clue what’s going on.

    “We have to address the fact that we have got to deal with the fact that folks are paying for gas, paying for groceries, and… need solutions to it. So let’s talk about that.”

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

    Yet, as adults in the room such as Michael Snyder noted last month, “the price of beef in the U.S. has risen more than 20 percent since last October,” which is “deeply alarming” – but get used to it:

    During the early portion of this crisis, Tyson Foods was reluctant to pass increasing costs along to consumers, but now we are being informed that they don’t intend to make the same mistake again…

    Stewart Glendinning, the chief financial officer of Tyson Foods, said that they have been slow to increase their prices, in line with inflation, but are now making up for the delay.

    ‘We expect to take continued pricing actions to ensure that any inflationary cost increases that our business incurs are passed along,’ he said, on the company’s quarterly earnings call.

    Sadly, this is just the beginning.  The price of meat is only going to go higher from here, and eventually it will get to a point where meat prices become exceedingly painful.

    Of course there are many that would argue that we are already there.

    *  *  *

    Which brings us to today – as the White House announced on Monday that it would peel off $1 billion for independent meat and poultry producers in order to ‘boost competition in the meat-processing industry and lower prices for consumers,’ according to CNN.

    The plan, which will dip into the $1.9 trillion Covid-19 emergency relief bill passed last year, will allocate up to $375 million in grants for independent processing plant projects, $275 million to partner with lenders to expand ‘business opportunities’ and increase access to capital, $100 million for workplace training, $50 million for R&D (?), and $100 million to reduce overtime inspection costs imposed on smaller processing plants.

    President Joe Biden on Monday will meet virtually with family and independent farmers and ranchers to discuss his administration’s plan to create “a more competitive, fair, resilient meat and poultry sector,” according to the White House. Attorney General Merrick Garland and Secretary of Agriculture Tom Vilsack will also attend the meeting.
     
    The announcement comes as food prices — particularly for beef — skyrocket and inflation remains a top concern of the White House. Persistent global supply chain issues and the emergence of the Omicron variant of Covid-19 threaten to prolong these rising prices. -CNN

    “Over the last few decades, we’ve seen too many industries become dominated by a handful of large companies that control most of the business and most of the opportunities — raising prices and decreasing options for American families, while also squeezing out small businesses and entrepreneurs,” reads a statement from the White House.

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    The Biden admin is also launching a whistleblower ‘portal’ so people can report potential meat-related greed within 30 days.

    US Chamber of Commerce chief policy officer, Neil Bradley, scoffed at the initiative.

    “It is pretty clear that the administration is attempting to use higher prices to justify their preexisting agenda to overturn decades of bipartisan consensus around antitrust and competition policy in favor of a ‘government-knows-best’ regulatory approach,” he said, adding “That isn’t economics, it is politics and sadly, such government intervention would likely further constrain supply and push prices even higher.”

    When do they just nationalize the industry?

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    Tyler Durden
    Tue, 01/04/2022 – 22:25

  • Life In Zero-COVID Antarctica
    Life In Zero-COVID Antarctica

    Authored by Willy Forsyth via The Brownstone Institute,

    In October of 2021, I deployed to McMurdo Station, Antarctica for the second time. Each austral summer, McMurdo Station becomes home to about 1,000 eclectic and wonderful people who are the workforce behind the National Science Foundation’s (NSF) United States Antarctic Program (USAP), which facilitates research with a logistical prowess on par with that of the US military. 

    Despite McMurdo’s remoteness and lack of the usual American amenities, there is normally a rich community life on this strange island. The community organizes yoga classes, cafes, art galleries, music festivals, craft fairs, holiday parties, and more.

    I was enamored by this social-scape during my first visit in 2017, but in 2021 community life at McMurdo has been unrecognizable due to the NSF’s Covid policies for the Antarctic. 

    While USAP research stations are some of the only populations in the world with zero Covid, residents of these stations live under stricter Covid precautions than many Western cities during peak waves of infection.

    In the time between my two Antarctic deployments, I received a Master of Public Health degree from Columbia University’s Mailman School of Public Health. There, I learned the importance of evidence-based public health interventions, of carefully analyzing health risks, of targeting interventions based on those risks, and of always considering unintended negative consequences. 

    So, throughout the pandemic, I have been baffled to see many public health professionals and scientific institutions advocate for broad, extreme, and unprecedented measures without supporting evidence. The NSF’s scientifically inconsistent Covid policies for Antarctica are the most prominent examples of this fallacy I have now experienced.

    The NSF formulated these polices early in the pandemic. Given the remote and resource-limited nature of Antarctica, the NSF recognized that Covid outbreaks in the intimate station populations would spread quickly and might easily overwhelm clinical capacities. And with aerial medical evacuation dangerously unreliable, the NSF smartly formulated policies to prevent Covid from reaching Antarctica and to mitigate its impact in case it did. 

    The policies begin with medical screening for health risks, which include known Covid risk factors. Deployers to McMurdo travel as cohorts that isolate in hotel rooms for three days, confirm a negative PCR test result, then fly on a private, direct flight to Christchurch, New Zealand. 

    When the first cohorts of the summer season arrived in September, there had been zero Covid cases on the entire South Island for almost a year. PCR tests and screenings for symptoms took place on arrival, days three, seven, and 12 during 14 days of strict isolation in Christchurch’s proven and effective “managed isolation and quarantine” (MIQ) facilities. US and Royal New Zealand Air Force aircrews subjected to the same isolation procedures as USAP cohorts then flew them to “the ice”. While at great expense, these sound, evidence-based procedures have to-date successfully kept Covid out of all USAP stations.

    It is after arriving to Antarctica where these policies go awry. Following passenger plane arrivals of Covid-free cohorts, the entire receiving station population must wear masks, social distance, and adhere to inconsistently and arbitrarily reduced capacities in public and recreational spaces for one week. 

    In October a new passenger plane arrived about every five days, protracting restrictions to the entire month. We were relegated to constant face coverings where we lived and worked and a loss of any social or recreational activities that usually preside at McMurdo Station – all in the absence of Covid. Even the most ardent mask supporters had become “anti-maskers”. 

    Beyond low morale, the policies contribute to immense operational and safety setbacks. The station population this season is small – around 500 – and has been slowly dwindling in response to the strict policies and a vaccine mandate that took effect one week after my cohort (with an 85% vaccination rate) arrived. Multiple written assurances that those who were non-vaccinated would not be medically disqualified, were reversed. Several workers in critical departments refused the vaccine and were sent home, many others quit due to the other extreme policies. Nearly all departments are now short-staffed.

    The station power plant is only about half-staffed. A power supply failure in the Antarctic environment means water sources could freeze and food would not be safely stored. The fire department was so short staffed they could not fully support the airfield where frequent flights may have to land in inclement weather on an ice runway. 

    This hazard legally barred the New York Air National Guard – who flies special ski-equipped LC-130s on essential cargo flights – from arriving on schedule, greatly impeding logistics and supply chains. They since arrived with a waiver but could not fly regular intracontinental missions for three more weeks until more firefighters from New Zealand arrived. 

    These avoidable, policy-derived setbacks contributed to three of six research projects in West Antarctica canceling before beginning, reducing total supportable research projects from the seasonal average of 60 down to 11, and caused the entire month of normal life in December to be robbed by mask-wearing and canceled holiday events. 

    These policies are dictated by the NSF’s mysterious Covid Control Board. As affected people have attempted to clarify questions or contact this Control Board, no one, at multiple management levels, has been forthright with the identity or public health qualifications of their members. USAP employees with unrelated administrative jobs have had time and energy absconded to develop Covid solutions for a population where Covid does not exist. Their policy is protecting no one from nothing. 

    When prodded about the senseless and inconsistent policies, USAP managers feebly attempt to defend them without providing any sort of evidence for their foundation. There are no references to any Covid research or CDC guidelines. Questions routed to the NSF leadership addressing these issues have gone unanswered. The real humans subject to these excessive policies have loud voices that are simply being ignored.

    There is no hope for life at McMurdo void of Covid precautions despite the strict isolation process en route, despite the now 100% vaccinated population, and despite screenings for comorbidities. A recent Covid outbreak at a Belgian research base with similar demographics and no reported health impacts beyond mild symptoms demonstrates the minimal risk of Covid itself while the negative impacts of the policies remain clearly evident. 

    Yet, workers are threatened with termination if they defy the illogical rules. The things that draw people to McMurdo station have been needlessly lost. Antarctic research – which provides some of our greatest insight for understanding the difficult problem of climate change – has been stymied, community members’ lives have lost value, and all these hindrances are driven not by scientific evidence, but by politics and optics. 

    USAP workers are being uniquely challenged in one of the most uniquely extreme, uniquely isolated, and uniquely Covid free places on earth. If an enterprise mostly created and funded by the NSF cannot utilize scientific reasoning and accept normalcy where there is no Covid, how can we trust our scientific institutions to seek to in the rest of the world, where Covid is here to stay?

    Tyler Durden
    Tue, 01/04/2022 – 22:05

  • World Powers Including Russia & China Pledge "Nuclear War Must Never Be Fought"
    World Powers Including Russia & China Pledge “Nuclear War Must Never Be Fought”

    A major declaration on the avoidance of nuclear war was issued Monday by the five permanent members of the United Nations Security Council in the form of a joint statement. Importantly, it included both the United States and Russia, as well as China. This as the question of nuclear reduction has been source of icy tensions between all three large powers of late.

    “We believe strongly that the further spread of such weapons must be prevented,” said permanent UNSC members China, France, Russia, the UK and United States. It added: “A nuclear war cannot be won and must never be fought.”

    Further it contained a pledged among members for each to “strengthen our national measures to prevent unauthorized or unintended use of nuclear weapons.” Crucially the statement comes after the collapse of key Cold War-era arms control treaties, especially the 1987 Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces (INF) Treaty signed between the Soviet Union and the US. 

    It also comes as China has lately been resistant to Biden administration efforts at initiating bilateral nuclear arms control and reduction talks. Beijing has just this week issued a call for the superpowers of the US and Russia to reduce their own massive stockpiles first, as a sign they are serious about entering such talks involving China, which currently doesn’t have more than a few hundred, compared to Washington and Moscow’s thousands.

    “As nuclear use would have far-reaching consequences, we also affirm that nuclear weapons — for as long as they continue to exist — should serve defensive purposes, deter aggression, and prevent war,” the statement reads. It also asserted that the “spread of such weapons must be prevented” and reaffirmed UNSC members’ obligations under the Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT).

    As Beijing likes to point out on this issue of “defensive purposes” – it’s only China and India that currently have a ‘no-first-use’ nuclear policy. UN Secretary-General António Guterres in making the announcement of the joint statement emphasized it was precisely toward preventing a nuclear arms race among rival powers. 

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

    In November, following the Biden-Xi remote summit, where nuclear proliferation was discussed, national security advisor Jake Sullivan had described that Biden “did raise with President Xi the need for a strategic stability set of conversations around the sorts of issues you just described… that needs to be guided by the leaders and led by senior empowered teams on both sides that cut across security, technology and diplomacy,” according to FT.

    Among the list of nuclear-related issues that is perhaps keeping Pentagon generals up at night remains both China and Russia’s rapidly advancing hypersonic missile capabilities. While Russia has appeared to be most advanced in this area, how far China’s program is along remains a bit of a mystery, with reports alleging last summer a groundbreaking successful China hypersonics flight and test. 

    Tyler Durden
    Tue, 01/04/2022 – 21:45

  • Facebook Reverses Course After Backlash For Permanently Locking Account Of Conservative Kids' Book Publisher
    Facebook Reverses Course After Backlash For Permanently Locking Account Of Conservative Kids’ Book Publisher

    Authored by Zachary Stieber via The Epoch Times,

    Facebook on Monday allowed a children’s book publisher access to its account after claiming it was permanently blocked from the social media platform.

    Facebook told Heroes of Liberty, the publishing company, that because of the “disruptive content” they posted, the account was locked for good.

    But Andy Stone, a communications officer for Facebook parent company Meta, said Monday night the ban was done in error.

    “This should not have happened. It was an error and the ad account’s been restored,” Stone wrote on Twitter.

    Heroes of Liberty focuses on books about historical and current figures who embody American values, including late President Ronald Reagan and Supreme Court Justice Amy Coney Barrett.

    Bethany Mandel, who founded the company, said it invested considerably in Facebook even before officially launching.

    “When Facebook shut down our account, we lost all the data that we carefully gathered for the last six months. We can’t communicate with the audience that we built. Our ad account is permanently disabled. The consequences to our business could be devastating,” Mandel said on social media before the account was restored.

    The ban was decried by a number of conservatives, including Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas) and Fox News analyst Brit Hume, who drew the response from Stone.

    “The books were about Ronald Reagan, Amy Coney Barrett, and Thomas Sowell. Facebook blocked ads for them claiming they violate a policy against ‘low-quality or disruptive’ content. What [expletive],” Hume wrote.

    Mandel said Tuesday that Facebook only told others that the account had been restored.

    “Facebook informed several people and several members of Congress that we’ve been reinstated. They never actually told *us.* But our account looks restored, for now. We’d like to be reassured it was a mistake and that we can safely invest there,” she wrote on social media.

    Tyler Durden
    Tue, 01/04/2022 – 21:25

  • Move Over Amazon: CBRE Just Bought A Nearly $5 Billion Logistics Property Portfolio
    Move Over Amazon: CBRE Just Bought A Nearly $5 Billion Logistics Property Portfolio

    Move over, Amazon…

    As the world of e-commerce and the associated shipping and logistics necessary to run such businesses expands, warehousing and shipping have become important commodities.

    Perhaps that’s why one of the largest sales of industrial properties used for these types of businesses has just taken place. CBRE Investment Management has reportedly agreed to buy a “a global portfolio of logistics properties” valued at nearly $5 billion, according to the Wall Street Journal, in a major bet that such properties will stay in demand. 

    The portfolio includes “more than 28 million square feet of warehouses, distribution centers and other logistics facilities in the U.S., U.K., Germany and Poland,” the report says. The properties are being built or developed by Ross Perot Jr.’s Hillwood Investment Properties, the report notes. 

    The portfolio was built in markets with large labor forces that are close to consumers. 

    Chuck Leitner, chief executive of CBRE Investment, said of the impact of Covid on e-commerce: “It’s made the price of real estate close to the consumer to be more worth it.”

    He continued, pointing out the portfolio’s advantages for e-commerce: “It’s a portfolio that was built and designed to be very responsive” to online retailers. 

    As of now, about 66% of the portfolio is leased and built. The remaining portion is still being developed or leased. 

    CBRE’s strong balance sheet “allowed us to move quickly,” Leitner said of the purchase. In 2021, industrial property was one of the best performing types of property. 

    Tyler Durden
    Tue, 01/04/2022 – 21:05

  • Israel Vows To Inform US On Major Deals With China
    Israel Vows To Inform US On Major Deals With China

    Authored by Dave DeCamp via AntiWar.com,

    According to a report from Haaretz, Israel has pledged to inform the US of any major deals it reaches with China and would reconsider such deals if Washington raised opposition.

    The US has become increasingly concerned over China’s infrastructure projects in Israel, and Biden administration officials have warned Israel against doing business with Beijing. Chinese investments were also a rare point of contention between Israel and the Trump administration.

    File image: IDF

    The Haaretz report said Israeli officials have been discussing how to approach China and are considering whether to stand by the US or stay “under the radar” so Israel doesn’t lose business with China.

    Further according to the report:

    Sources familiar with the matter said that Israel is taking a “business as usual” approach with China. Lapid recently met with the Chinese Science and Technology Minister Wang Zhigang as preparations for a mutual conference are underway.    

    While the US is discouraging Israel from doing business with China, it is not offering any alternatives. Israel has inquired about potential infrastructure investments from US companies but has not received any offers.

    “Israel has asked the US about alternatives to Chinese companies in the infrastructure sector, a move that yielded no results so far,” Haaretz writes. “A similar request was made to the U.K., and Israel hopes to advance mutual initiatives in the infrastructure sector with India and the United Arab Emirates as well.”

    The irony of Washington pressuring Israel and other allies not to do business with Beijing is the fact that China is the US’s top trading partner. Despite the robust economic relationship, the Pentagon and other US government agencies have declared China as the US’s top adversary.

    Tyler Durden
    Tue, 01/04/2022 – 20:45

  • US Launches Preemptive Strike On "Rocket Sites" Near Occupied Syrian Oil Fields
    US Launches Preemptive Strike On “Rocket Sites” Near Occupied Syrian Oil Fields

    Late in the day Tuesday (local time) the US military carried out what’s being described as a “preemptive strike” against rocket sites in eastern Syria that “posed a threat” – according to a US coalition official statement. 

    “The official, speaking on condition of anonymity, said the coalition saw several launch sites near the Green Village in Syria,” Reuters reports, referencing an American base in Deir Ezzor province. “The official did not specify from which country the coalition carried out the strike.”

    Illustrative, iStock

    The base that was being “threatened” is in Syria oil-rich eastern region, which for years American forces have occupied in support of Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF). In the same area lies the country’s largest oil facility, al-Omar oil field, as well as Conoco gas field – both under US-SDF control, something Damascus and Moscow have long condemned as an illegal occupation presence intent on blocking Syria from its own vital energy resources. 

    Over the past year the US base has seen occasional attacks, which is typically blamed by the Pentagon on “pro-Iran” militias, or also possibly Syrian national forces. 

    In this case too, at least one regional correspondent has been told by a coalition official that “Iranian militias” were targeted in the new strikes. 

    Most recently, in the past few months, the Pentagon has more often had to worry about its outposts near the Syria-Iraq border, with al-Tanf base in particular coming under recent drone and mortar attack.

    Such border region incidents are suspected as originating from either side of the border – with the Iraqi side seeing Iran-backed Popular Mobilization Forces recently stepping up small drone attacks.

    On Monday in Iraq, US forces came under drone attack at Camp Victory near the Baghdad airport. US forces in the region are on edge this week as large anti-American demonstrations are being held in major cities to mark the second anniversary of the killing of IRGC commander Qassem Soleimani. 

    And then on Tuesday drones threatened Ain al-Assad airbase in Iraq, where US troops are stationed – the same base hit by Iranian cruise missiles two years ago, days after the Jan.3, 2020 assassination by drone of Soleimani. 

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    The above footage captures the base’s anti-air defenses intercepting the drones in real-time.

    Tyler Durden
    Tue, 01/04/2022 – 20:25

  • Democrats Face Brutal Reckoning With Hispanic Voters
    Democrats Face Brutal Reckoning With Hispanic Voters

    Authored by A.B. Stoddard via RealClear Politics (emphasis ours),

    These days the Democratic Party is like a sad addict whose life has fallen apart, with too much to resolve and repair all at once. Sure, the aching hip and broken relationships can be put off for another day, but the lost job, wrecked car, and empty bank account require immediate attention. President Biden and the Democrats are — simultaneously — working to stave off the failure of his economic agenda, control a once-again rampaging pandemic, mitigate the effects of the worst inflation since 1982, and rescue democracy from new laws that permit the GOP to nullify the next election, all before they likely lose both chambers of Congress next year.

    Democrats Face a Brutal Reckoning With Hispanic Voters

    There are too many liabilities to count. But there is one new and glaring problem that has nothing to do with bickering factions in Congress, and cannot be explained away by global trends or the potency of election conspiracies and propaganda. A distinct group of their supporters is leaving them. Many Hispanic voters, long a reliable part of the Democratic coalition, have walked away. It is not — yet — a majority of them, but the numbers are dramatic. Biden won 750,000 fewer Hispanic voters in 2020 than Hillary Clinton did in 2016 — in an Electoral College victory he nearly lost by fewer than 45,000 votes in three states. Donald Trump improved his margin with these voters by eight percentage points in four years, according to an analysis by the Democratic firm Catalist — a larger swing than any among white, black or Asian voters.

    It gets worse. Biden’s approval ratings are awful across the board, but his support has eroded more among Hispanic voters than with any other racial group. A Pew/Marist poll from December showed his approve/disapprove numbers with Hispanic voters were 33/65, a net -32, while they were 40/56 with whites, a net of -16.

    A recent Wall Street Journal poll showed Hispanic voters splitting their support between both parties, with just 37% of them backing Democrats in the House of Representatives if the midterm elections were held today, compared to the 60% they gave Democrats last November. Republicans would also garner 37% if the election were today. While Biden won 63% of Hispanic voters in 2020, this poll showed they would split their support in a 2024 rematch, with 44% for Biden and 43% for Trump.

    Hispanic men are more supportive of Republicans than Hispanic women, and following the 2020 election some Democrats dismissed this as a temporary loss, an attraction to Trump’s strongman persona. But Democrats are wrong to delude themselves with such a fiction. The data shows Hispanic voters not only rejected the left’s embrace of socialism, but that they prioritized the issue of jobs and the economy over all else, even if they were critical of Trump’s stand on immigration and the border wall. Their focus remained the same a year later — Gov.-elect Glenn Youngkin won the Hispanic vote when he defeated Terry McAuliffe in Virginia, and Hispanic voters strongly disapprove of Biden’s handling of the economy. The WSJ poll findings showed that a negative outlook on the economy was seven points higher among Hispanic voters than it was for voters overall.

    So it isn’t surprising that, like most other voters, Hispanics do not see the American Rescue Plan as good policy, let alone the boon Democrats thought Americans would now be thanking them for. And like many voters, Hispanics too blame rising inflation on the Democrats’ spending bills.

    Amy Walter, publisher and editor-in-chief of the Cook Political Report, recently quoted an older Latina swing voter from a focus group she attended in November who said that while “there were people who need the stimulus, like those who were unemployed,” Democrats “gave money to everyone, including those who didn’t need it. And now we are all paying for it because everything is going up.”

    Layered on those differences, and the fact that many Hispanics are pro-life Catholics, is that the Democrats’ culture-war messaging is turning these voters off. Ruy Teixeira, a political scientist who has studied emerging trends in the Hispanic electorate, wrote in “The Liberal Patriot” that these voters do “not harbor particularly radical views on the nature of American society and its supposed intrinsic racism and white supremacy. They are instead a patriotic, upwardly mobile, working class group with quite practical and down to earth concerns.”

    Have Democrats managed to miss all of this, or do they not care? Is it possible Republicans figured out Hispanic Americans are not woke, and many do not consider themselves non-white, but Democrats did not?

    Democrats traditionally focus much of their election-time messaging on black voters, but in the first year of the Biden administration the party has sought to continue that outreach. Officials from the president on down have repeatedly highlighted the disenfranchisement of blacks by new Republican voting restrictions, especially in places like Georgia, calling those efforts a new era of Jim Crow, and Vice President Kamala Harris recently held an event on maternal morbidity rates, at which the White House issued a presidential proclamation marking “Black Maternal Health Week.”

    There is not an explicit message or agenda that speaks to Hispanics, despite the math. While the black vote is expected to stay stable, the Hispanic vote will increase as their population grows, and was 30% larger in 2020 than it was in 2016.

    It turns out that while Democrats were ignoring this demographic reality, even as Trump bellowed about the wall or Mexican rapists, Republicans deployed a strategy to address the growth of this voting bloc.

    The swing against Democrats last year — though it amounted to an eight-point gain for Republicans nationally — was much larger in some places like the Rio Grande Valley in Texas (12 points) and Miami-Dade County in Florida (20 points), according to EquisLabs in an analysis of the 2020 Latino electorate.

    In both of those places, Democrats, it turns out, were asleep at the wheel. Passed out actually.

    The Equis assessment described a unilateral disarmament by Democrats that bolstered Republicans with Hispanic voters in Florida and Texas. In those states, on the issues of socialism and control of the border, Republicans were communicating their message to these voters clearly and repeatedly while Democrats were absent.

    “Both are seemingly cases of neglect — where one side completely owns a highly salient issue without meaningful competition. We aren’t talking about ad spending in the last months of the election; we mean multiple years of attention — appearances, photo ops, press conferences, policy rollouts … boosted by local media that echo it,” stated an Equis Research report on the findings posted on Medium in December.

    Unless Democrats want to cede the Hispanic vote to Republicans, it’s high time they sober up.

    A.B. Stoddard is associate editor of RealClearPolitics and a columnist. 

    Tyler Durden
    Tue, 01/04/2022 – 20:05

  • CDC Director Walensky Flip-Flops On PCR Testing Guidance
    CDC Director Walensky Flip-Flops On PCR Testing Guidance

    CDC Director Rochelle Walensky appeared to majorly waffle on her agency’s controversial guidance to eliminate PCR testing at the end of Covid-19 isolation because the tests can remain positive for up to 12 weeks, long after a person is no longer contagious.

    Photo: Stefani Reynolds—The New York Times/Redux

    “The big CDC news,” said Late Show host Stephen Colbert, is that “y’all have now gone from recommending a 10-day isolation to a five-day isolation. Why the change?”

    To which Walensky replied that “probably about 80 to 90 percent of your transmissibility has happened in those first five days,” right before and after symptoms appear, “and we really want people to be sure if they’re gonna be home, they’re going to be home for the right period of time, when they’re maximally transmissible.”

    Colbert then hinted at discord within the Biden administration after Dr. Anthony Fauci suggested the CDC guidance may shift yet again.

    “In the UK they went from ten to seven days, but they are also recommending a negative test before considering yourself out of quarantine. Are we going to do that here? Because Dr. Fauci on CNN and ABC suggested that that’s under consideration. Is he talkin’ out both sides of his mouth over there, and you guys are telling him ‘put a cork in it, Tony!‘”

    Walensky’s answer, while confusing, appeared to contradict her agency’s new guidelines.

    “Deepest respect for Dr. Fauci,” Walensky replied. “Obviously, yes. Really important question. The FDA has authorized these tests, and they’re terrific tests for what they’re authorized for. So the FDA has authorized them for diagnosis, and what they said about these tests is they are best for diagnosis earlier in the disease course.

    “Are these the rapid antigen test?” asked Colbert.

    “Yes. So if you have access to a test. And you want to do a test at day five. And your symptoms are gone and you’re feeling well, then go ahead and do that test. But here’s how I would interpret that test. If it’s positive, stay home for another five days. If it’s negative, I would stay you still really need to wear a mask. You still may have some transmissibility ahead of you. You still should try not to visit grandma. You shouldn’t get on an airplane. You should still be pretty careful when you’re with other people – by wearing a mask all the time. “

    This entire response completely ignores the CDC’s justification for eliminating the tests – namely the potential 12 week positive result despite no ability to transmit to others.

    Watch:

    Tyler Durden
    Tue, 01/04/2022 – 19:45

  • Ron Paul: Taking Back Our Liberty In 2022
    Ron Paul: Taking Back Our Liberty In 2022

    Authored by Ron Paul,

    For those of us who value liberty, these past two years have been a bad dream. It seems like we fell asleep in early 2020 and woke up in 1984! They said that if we just put on a mask and stayed home for two weeks, we’d be able to return to normal. The two weeks came and went and instead of going back to normal they added more restrictions. These past two years have been a story of moving goalposts and “experts” like Anthony Fauci constantly contradicting themselves.

    Early on, in April 2020, I warned in an article titled “Next in Coronavirus Tyranny: Forced Vaccinations and ‘Digital Certificates,’” that the ultimate goal of the “two weeks” crowd was to force vaccines and a “vaccine passport” on Americans.

    My concerns were at the time written off as just another conspiracy theory. But less than a year later that “conspiracy theory” became conspiracy fact. I am not happy about being right on this. The introduction of vaccine passports was from the beginning my worst nightmare. The idea that you must “show your papers” to participate in society is a concept that is totally opposed to a free society. It is inhuman.

    The history of these past two years is that the worst ideas have been adopted by force and anyone questioning those ideas has been suppressed by force. We learned recently that Dr. Fauci and the director of the National Institutes of Health conspired to deliver a “quick and devastating take-down” of the esteemed scientists behind the Great Barrington Declaration. Were the Great Barrington scientists horribly wrong? Fauci and his boss could not have cared less. They were not interested in a debate. Their only goal was to shut down any opposing views. That’s not science. It’s ideology, politics, and probably self-interest.

    As my son Rand said on a recent Liberty Report, thousands of people died because Fauci refused to consider the proven effectiveness of natural immunity against Covid. He and his colleagues were determined to deny any outpatient treatments and insisted on vaccines as the only way out. Now, as we see the vaccines performing so poorly versus natural immunity, their whole strategy lies in tatters. Will anyone apologize to the relatives of all those who died?

    When we look back at these two years, hopefully one thing that will be remembered is how the institutions of state power have all lost their credibility. They have been exposed as frauds and worse.

    In a recent massively popular Joe Rogan interview with Dr. Robert Malone – inventor of the mRNA technology that is the backbone of the “vaccines” – Malone discusses the disturbing concept of mass formation psychosis, where fear and manipulation are used to drive a society mad in the service of a group of elites with an agenda. We saw it in Germany in the 1930s.

    As Charles Mackay wrote in the 19th century about the madness of crowds, humans go insane in groups but recover one at a time.

    What is to be done to defeat tyranny in 2022? We must continue to tell the truth. The truth is winning and the liars are losing. One by one their lies are being exposed. But it is not an easy task. Each of us in 2022 can do a little something to promote truth. Do what you can. The rewards are great!

    Tyler Durden
    Tue, 01/04/2022 – 19:25

  • Biden Disapproval Hits All-Time High As Agenda Faces Major Headwinds: CNBC
    Biden Disapproval Hits All-Time High As Agenda Faces Major Headwinds: CNBC

    President Biden’s disapproval rating hit a new high in December, with 60% of voters disapproving his handling of the economy, 55% on his handling of the pandemic, and 56% disapproving of his overall job as Commander-in-Chief, according to a new CBS/Change poll.

    Biden’s disapproval rating sat at 54% in early September, up from 49% in April.

    His approval rating currently stands at 44%, down from 46% in September and 51% in April, according to the report, which notes that this is the latest sign of trouble as the Biden admin looks to tackle a wide range of economic and political problems as midterm elections loom. In addition to scrambling to quell fears over inflation, Biden needs to resurrect his Build Back Better legislation, and beef up the country’s public health response as the omicron Covid-19 variant rapidly spreads.

    Frustrations over the economy are the main culprit behind Biden’s flagging popularity as nearly every demographic declared it their No. 1 issue.

    The economy was the top priority for men and women, every age cohort, Latino and white voters, and those with and without college educations. Black respondents, who named racism their chief priority, said the economy takes second place.

    Sixty percent of the survey’s 1,895 respondents said they disapprove of Biden’s handling of the economy, marking a six-point decline in approval from September.

    On personal economic issues, voters are even more likely to criticize the president. Some 72% disapprove of his handling of the price of everyday goods, while 66% disapprove of his efforts to help their wallets. –CNBC

    And as we noted on Sunday, Biden’s 2022 is shaping up to be a political disaster.

    For starters, Covid – the virus he vowed to ‘shut down’ the moment he entered office – is out of control. Just weeks ago, he warned the unvaccinated that they face a “winter of severe illness and death.”

    Yet the most vaccinated major US cities are setting new records for Covid infections, vaccinated athletes are collapsing across the world, and 2/3 of the Belgian staff at a fully-vaccinated antarctic base have Covid.

    Next, Biden and Congressional Democrats will attempt to revive the corpse of their $2 trillion Build Back Better agenda – while still facing opposition from moderate Democratic Senators Joe Manchin of West Virginia and Kyrsten Sinema of Arizona. Without their buy-in, the best Biden and crew can hope for is to salvage components of it into smaller chunks that the two moderates may or may not agree to.

    “To face this many genuine political fires, from a pandemic raging again to major legislation that might be finished, is the worst way to start a new year,” said Julian Zelizer, a professor of history and public affairs at Princeton University.” Just to add to the challenge, the midterm season will get fully underway, and it will be harder to persuade any politician to do something that poses electoral risk.“

    The White House will also grapple with supply chain issues and inflation in 2022, after repeatedly insisting it was ‘transitory’ throughout the second half of 2021.

    While the president’s party typically loses seats in Congress during a first-term election, present polling about Biden and Democrats suggest they could face a rout in November.

    That may be because members of both parties are growing more frustrated with inflation.

    Some 84% of those surveyed said the prices they see for everyday goods are higher than they were a year ago, while just 19% report earning more income over the same period. And only 23% say they believe inflation is starting to come down or will begin to decline soon. -CNBC

    “In addition to COVID, this is where Biden and his team fumbled the ball,” according to one Democratic strategist. “They denied there was a problem, and then they looked silly when they had to backpedal. They can’t do that kind of thing again. It looks bad.“

     

    Tyler Durden
    Tue, 01/04/2022 – 19:05

  • 3rd Chinese Scientist Pleads Guilty To Stealing Trade Secrets From Drug Maker GlaxoSmithKline
    3rd Chinese Scientist Pleads Guilty To Stealing Trade Secrets From Drug Maker GlaxoSmithKline

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

    A third former scientist at GlaxoSmithKline (GSK) has pleaded guilty to stealing trade secrets to benefit pharmaceutical company Renopharma, which was backed by Chinese regime funding, the Department of Justice announced on Monday.

    Signage for GlaxoSmithKline is seen on its offices in London, Britain, March 30, 2016. (Reuters/Toby Melville/File Photo)

    Lucy Xi, 44, formerly a resident of Malvern, Pennsylvania, is the third person to plead guilty in the scheme that involves three co-defendants, Yu Xue, Tao Li, and Yan Mei, to whom Lucy Xi was married.

    According to the DOJ, Xi and her co-defendants created Renopharma in Nanjing, China, to research and develop anti-cancer drugs.

    However, the three were also employed at British drug manufacturer GSK’s facility in Upper Merion, Pennsylvania, where they developed biopharmaceutical products.

    Prosecutors said they used their positions at the company to steal trade secrets from their employer to benefit Renopharma, which received financial support and subsidies from the Chinese regime.

    These products typically cost in excess of $1 billion to research and develop, United States Attorney Jennifer Arbittier Williams said in announcing Xi’s guilty plea.

    As per the DOJ, in 2015, Xi sent her husband a GSK document containing confidential and trade secret data and information, including a summary of GSK research into monoclonal antibodies—laboratory-made proteins that imitate the immune system’s ability to fight off infections, such as viruses—at that time.

    Xi allegedly wrote in the email: “You need to understand it very well. It will help you in your future business [RENOPHARMA].”

    Xi’s case was investigated by the FBI and is being prosecuted by Assistant United States Attorneys Robert J. Livermore and J. Jeanette Kang.

    “This defendant illegally stole trade secrets to benefit her husband’s company, which was financed by the Chinese government,” said U.S. Attorney Williams. “The lifeblood of companies like GSK is its intellectual property, and when that property is stolen and transferred to a foreign country, it threatens thousands of American jobs and jeopardizes the strategic benefits brought about through research and development. Such criminal behavior must be prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law.”

    Yu Xue, a doctor, her sister, Tian Xue, and Tao Li have all pleaded guilty for their roles in the scheme. Yan Mei, who is considered a fugitive by the U.S. government, currently resides in China.

    According to a 2018 press release by the DOJ, Yu Xue pleaded guilty to her charges of conspiring to steal trade secrets from GlaxoSmithKline at a U.S. district court in Pennsylvania in August 2018.

    Tao Li pleaded guilty to similar charges in September 2018.

    FBI agent Jacqueline Maguire noted that pharmaceutical companies like GSK invest a huge amount of time and money into developing new drugs and bringing them to the market.

    “When individuals steal valuable trade secrets concerning one of these drugs, it’s a threat both to that firm and beyond. After all, innovation like this propels the U.S. economy,” said Maguire, a special agent in charge of the FBI’s Philadelphia Division. “The FBI is committed to enforcing laws that protect the nation’s businesses from such theft. We will not permit American research and development to be scavenged for the benefit of other companies or countries.”

    Tyler Durden
    Tue, 01/04/2022 – 18:45

  • State Of Emergency Declared In Kazakhstan's Largest City After Fuel Price Riots, Internet Cut
    State Of Emergency Declared In Kazakhstan’s Largest City After Fuel Price Riots, Internet Cut

    Large-scale protests in Kazakhstan are growing more fierce by the day, with video emerging from major cities showing police vehicles being attacked and set on fire, as authorities try to clamp down on a third consecutive day of rage against a sudden rise in fuel prices after authorities lifted price caps on liquefied petroleum gas (LPG). 

    In what marks a very rare example of mass public dissent in the former Soviet republic which has one-party rule, protests which erupted last weekend centered in the oil-rich western Mangystau region have now spread across multiple towns and cities including several oil-producing hubs.

    Protests in Almaty today, via AP.

    Kazakh President Kassym-Jomart Tokayev is warning citizens against violating a blanket protest ban order, while also urging dialogue.

    Even before the energy crisis this week, large political assemblies were only permitted by filing a legal request from authorities, underscoring the unprecedented nature of people taking to the streets en mass. Overnight, authorities have declared a “state of emergency” for the city of Almaty. 

    Rapidly spinning out of control…

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    Local reports say a strict curfew of 11pm-7am has been imposed in Almaty. “Movements of private vehicles restricted. Entrance and exit from Almaty restricted,” sources say.

    Over the past days video footage has captured larger and larger crowds, in some cases appearing in the tens of thousands, taking over city streets.

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    “Calls to attack government and military offices are absolutely illegal,” Tokayev warned the country in a Tuesday video address. “The government will not fall but we want mutual trust and dialogue rather than conflict.”

    Yet judging by the on the ground footage continuing to spread on social media, and as protests reach the country’s largest metropolis of Almaty – despite what now appears a significant disruption in national internet services – President Tokayev’s appeal for calm is being met with rioting against security forces.

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    US regional sources have documented that “The price per liter of LNG jumped to 120 tenge (28 U.S. cents) at gas stations in Mangystau at the start of this year, compared with a price of 50-60 tenge (12-14 cents) in 2021.” Thus overnight the price of taxi fares at least tripled in many places.

    This in a country where the average household might make the equivalent of $250 a month, and where minimum wage equals just over $65 per month. There are now fears the crisis could get worse if protests grip oil-producing hubs to the point of affecting domestic output. 

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    Generally protesters have been demanding that the price of gas be brought back down to the 60 tenge range. 

    Meanwhile, mass arrests are being reported are expected to grow as the government struggles to stamp out the protests…

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    Last week, analysis in The New York Times linked the potential for coming unrest in Central Asian societies to Europe’s own energy price crisis: “Attracted by high prices, energy companies are instructing ships carrying liquefied natural gas to change their destinations from Asia to Europe, but even that switching may not be enough to replace Russian gas or significantly ease the crunch.”

    For now it appears the authorities are preparing for a major crackdown…

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    One big question that remains in terms of potential immediate impact on capital markets… For the past couple years Kazakhstan has had the highest uranium production in the world. For example in 2019, the country was responsible for a whopping 43% of the world’s uranium supply, and has remained hands down the top global producer. Needless to say, if the unrest grows to a full-blown political crisis, this could send uranium prices soaring.

    Tyler Durden
    Tue, 01/04/2022 – 18:25

  • Google Manipulates Results As "Mass Formation Psychosis' Searches Explode Due To Collapsing COVID Narrative
    Google Manipulates Results As “Mass Formation Psychosis’ Searches Explode Due To Collapsing COVID Narrative

    Authored by Matt Agorist via TheFreeThoughtProject.com,

    Those paying attention to the current situation regarding the establishment’s control on the narrative around Covid-19, have watched as anyone — including esteemed experts in the field — are censored into oblivion for attempting to put forth information that challenges the status quo. For the first time in recent American history, merely talking about alternative treatments for a disease is met with mass censorship by big tech. This is diametrically opposed to actual “science” and the opposite direction in which a free society should be moving.

    One of the people who has been censored the most is Robert W Malone MD, MS who is one of the inventors of mRNA & DNA vaccines. Dr. Malone has been outspoken about the way the establishment system is handling, or rather mishandling, the covid crisis.

    His Twitter account had grown to over a half million followers last week before the platform decided that his alternative views on the pandemic were a danger to the narrative. So they banned him.

    Instead of standing up for the free exchange of ideas by experts — which is how science works  — the left cheered for Malone’s censorship, calling him a kook while celebrating the tools of tyrants.

    Before Donald Trump came into office and caused mass hysteria over Russia, the left used to stand for freedom of speech. However, the flamboyant tyrant in the White House quickly eroded their respect for rights. Then, in 2020, Covid-19 arrived and the censorship campaign switched into overdrive.

    The left — armed with their militant “fact checkers” whose opinions are wielded like swords against anyone who challenges the official narrative — became the regime of authoritarian information controllers. After all, if you challenge their messiahs like Dr. Fauci, you challenge science itself — facts be damned.

    So what happened? Why did the left go from championing free speech for years — even supporting the speech of neo-nazis — to rabidly demanding the silencing of those who attempt to challenge team doom? Dr. Malone and others have a theory, and it’s called mass formation psychosis.

    “When you have a society that has become decoupled from each other and has free-floating anxiety in a sense that things don’t make sense, we can’t understand it, and then their attention gets focused by a leader or series of events on one small point just like hypnosis, they literally become hypnotized and can be led anywhere,” explained Malone on a recent interview with Joe Rogan.

    Malone then described how “leaders” can exploit this situation: “And one of the aspects of that phenomenon is that the people that they identify as their leaders, the ones typically that come in and say you have this pain and I can solve it for you. I and I alone. Then they will follow that person. It doesn’t matter whether they lied to them or whatever. The data is irrelevant.”

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    After Dr. Malone explained this concept of mass formation, developed by Dr. Mattias Desmet, professor of clinical psychology at Ghent University in Belgium, internet searches for “mass formation psychosis” began to exponentially increase. It appeared that Google, at one point, even attempted to skew the returned results, and it appears it is still happening.

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    Now, when you search for the phrase on Google, it returns articles by mainstream media outlets, like Forbes who took to making fun of Malone for even daring to suggest that this was the case. Apparently, large swaths of people calling for the unvaccinated to be put into camps, denied healthcare, and even killed, is not psychosis. It’s normal.

    It’s normal to completely dismiss the massive amounts of data in front of us, and instead opt for a fear-driven narrative that has caused suffering of epic proportions in populations whose risk of complications from covid are almost non-existent.

    If you search for the term on DuckDuckGo, however, Dr. Malone’s article from last month comes up. Bing, unlike Google, did not manipulate Malone’s article out of the search results either. 

    Though Google is hiding it and Forbes is downplaying it, mass formation psychosis is a plausible explanation for what is going on right now in Western society.

    According to Desmet, there are four basic conditions which need to be met for a society to be vulnerable to mass hypnosis. And we are meeting all of them.

    • The first condition is a lack of social bonding. Over the last five years, Americans have been torn in half by the Trump phenomenon and when covid arrived it pushed people into isolation that much further. As fearful individuals pine away in their homes with no social interaction, their lack of community has fallen to a depressing level.

    • The second condition for mass psychosis is a lack of meaning or purpose in one’s life. Desmet cites a Gallup poll done with people in 142 countries in which 63% of respondents admitted to being so disengaged at work that they were sleepwalking through their day, putting time but not passion into their work. What’s more, a recent poll of young people in the UK revealed that 89 percent of those aged 16-29, “believe that their lives have no meaning or purpose.”

    • Free floating anxiety is the third condition for mass psychosis and one need only look at the millions of prescriptions for anti-anxiety/depression medications in the country to realize that it is rife throughout the west. As Desmet points out, if people feel socially isolated and that their life has no meaning, their anxiety isn’t connected to a mental representation. This free-floating anxiety then creates deep psychological discontent.

    • Finally, the fourth condition needed for mass psychosis is prevalent levels of frustration and aggression. A quick stroll down Twitter lane and the amount of overt societal aggression becomes exceedingly clear. It has even manifested countless times in real life as pro-maskers attack anti-maskers and vice versa. The term “covid Karen” exists for a reason.

    One can reasonably argue that all four of these condition are easily met currently, which is fomenting a mob psychology. And as Desmet reminds us, this psychological phenomenon explains why so many have bought into a clearly illogical and unscientific narrative, and why they are willing to participate in the prescribed strategy like quadruple masking — “even if it’s utterly absurd,” Desmet says. “The reason they buy into the narrative is because it leads to this new social bond,” he explains. “Science, logic and correctness have nothing to do with it.”

    Sound familiar? How many times have people continued to cite the “experts” whose narratives have been proven false over and over again. How many times have wee seen people blindly follow these known liars simply because these liars offer them solidarity in their mutual psychosis.

    Even the FDA has fallen into this formation as they push vaccinations for 5-11 year old children despite no clear emergency for children. In spite of the lack of emergency, because these new community bonds have formed and team doom is under mass hypnosis, millions of parents eagerly await to inject their children with a vaccine that hasn’t even been approved for them.

    What, besides mass psychosis could explain the mainstream media scoffing at the 400,000 adverse reaction events from the covid vaccine reported to VAERS in the last year? How is it that these reported events, including 20,000 deaths posted to the system are written off as immediately unreliable — despite all previous data showing that it is likely a vast undercount?

    How is it that mainstream media and their supporters in team doom can justify myocarditis in children as some preservation of the greater good, without falling victim to mass psychosis? Without mass psychosis, why are people so willing to surrender their freedoms, submit to vaccine passports, and welcome a totalitarian police state with open arms?

    This behavior is not “normal.” Those under mass psychosis have simply formed a bond so strong that actual facts no longer matter — for they are now the virtuous ones. Anyone who doesn’t constantly virtue signal to the collective is an enemy. Through fact checkers, social media, and big tech control, this collective focusses their rage and hatred on those who have not fallen victim to the spell.

    Those not under the spell are evil, need to be locked up, arrested, and are deemed domestic terrorists by the collective.

    Critical thought, logic, and reason rest in their graves as mass psychosis maintains its grip on millions of fearful, anxious, and aggressive loners who have found their place in the virtuous and caring aggregate horde.

    While this outlook may seem bleak, the good news is that we can fight this mass psychosis by continuing to counter the narrative which is driving it, thereby shaking others out of their hypnosis by repeatedly exposing them to actual reality.

    What’s more, it means these horrific things that many people are saying online, like the unvaccinated should be excluded from society or locked up, isn’t necessarily coming from a place of evil, but it’s more of a psychological process their minds are doing to help them survive their false reality.

    *  *  *

    Click here to join The Free Thought Project resistance

    Tyler Durden
    Tue, 01/04/2022 – 18:05

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