Today’s News 6th October 2021

• Swiss Police Raid Credit Suisse Offices As Greensill Investigation Heats Up
  Swiss Police Raid Credit Suisse Offices As Greensill Investigation Heats Up

  Unsurprisingly given the large number of municipalities in Germany, Switzerland and elsewhere that invested in Greensill, either via Credit Suisse and its ‘trade finance’ funds, or by placing deposits with Greensill’s Bavaria-based bank. In the end, plenty of small towns were swindled by Greensill’s downfall – it wasn’t all wealthy individuals and sovereign wealth funds.

  And so, as the months have passed since Greensill filed for administration, prosecutors around the world have been ramping up investigations into the firm with a focus on fraud or wrongdoing perpetrated by its leaders, or its enablers (including banks like Credit Suisse that helped package and sell Greensill’s assets in their “trade finance” funds.

  

  Well, with the noose presumably closing around Greensill, the FT reports that Swiss police have raided the offices of Credit Suisse and seized documents relating to the collapse of Credit Suisse’s $10 billion in Greensill funds.

  The raid was ordered by Zürich’s cantonal public prosecutor. Credit Suisse acknowledged the raid to the FT, but the bank insisted CS wasn’t the target of the probe, and was merely cooperating with the probe into Greensill.

  However, the notion that CS might bear some criminal liability here isn’t all that far-fetched. It has already been established that Credit Suisse sold the trade-finance funds – packed with assets that were essentially a collection of invoices – to top clients by touting their high ratings and supposedly low risk structure.

  Long before Greensill’s collapse, it was revealed by the FT that the CS trade finance funds might be functioning, in reality, as a way to secretly (and perhaps illegally)  prop up SoftBank Vision Fund portfolio companies.

  Even the FT acknowledges that charges against Credit Suisse would be a problem for CS, especially on top of all the class-action lawsuits that have been filed.

  A number of class-action lawsuits have already been filed by angry investors. Criminal charges by Swiss authorities would be a significant fillip for their legal efforts, in which questions have been raised over the tight relationship between Credit Suisse and Greensill, and the amount of due diligence the bank did.

  Whatever prosecutors find in this trove of documents, we’re certainly waiting with baited breath to see what prosecutors in this case do next.

  Tyler Durden
  Wed, 10/06/2021 – 02:45

• Europe's Energy Crisis Presents A Real Danger
  Europe’s Energy Crisis Presents A Real Danger

  Authored by Daniel Lacalle,

  This week the wholesale price of electricity has exceeded the psychological barrier of 200 euros per megawatt hour in most countries of the European Union. Although the daily price currently only affects 15% of the energy sold, since the rest is locked for almost twelve months since last winter at much lower prices, it is a sign of future risk. Thousands of contracts are going to have to be revised with huge price increases in the next three months when the locked contracts expire.

  The price of liquefied natural gas (LNG) has soared to $34/mmbtu delivered in December and January. In comparable energy terms it would be about $197 per barrel of oil equivalent, according to Morgan Stanley. Meanwhile, the price of natural gas (NBP) has risen more than 200% in 2021.

  

  The price of CO2 emission rights has increased more than 1,000% since 2017, and more than 200% in 2021.

  This concept, which is a hidden tax for which the governments of the European Union are going to collect more than 21 billion euros in 2021, adds to the inflationary spike.

  These extraordinary tax revenues should be used to mitigate the price increases in consumer bills and avoid an energy crisis in Europe that will sink the recovery.

  Two key factors explain the rise in energy prices and in both there is a responsibility of governments:

  1. The forced closure of the economy is a key factor to understand the damage generated in the supply chains, and

  2. the prohibition of investment in gas resources and abandoning nuclear in Germany has led to a more volatile and expensive energy mix in peak demand periods.

  This, coupled with a political decision to impose a volatile and intermittent energy mix has left Europe much more dependent and exposed to gas price fluctuations.

  Renewable energies work 20% of the time and when they do not work, the only guarantee of supply is to use natural gas, which tends to happen as Asia demand rises and when its price has skyrocketed.

  Of course, demand is a very important factor, but we cannot forget that, in natural gas, as in coal, there is no supply problem. There is, in fact, excess capacity.

  Under normal circumstances, the price of natural gas and CO2 would have moderated once the base effect dissipated -in June-, but we forget the disastrous impact of monetary and government interventionism.

  The rise in CO2 emission rights is directly the fault of the tax voracity of European governments, which have massively limited the supply of these rights so that the price rises. Additionally, the increase of many goods and services is directly due to the massive money supply growth in 2020, well above the demand for money, generating inflation by political decree.

  I do not understand how the fiscal voracity of some governments blinds them to two important risks:

  1. an energy crisis that leaves businesses and families suffocated by a price increase caused by political decisions, and

  2. a massive reaction of the population against environmental policies when they see prices skyrocket due to planning errors (more volatile and intermittent energy mix and dependent on gas) and legislation (charging citizens with the full cost of environmental policies and making those who pollute pay, and those who do not, pay even more ).

  The most cautious estimates warn that the energy crisis can leave up to 25% of companies (small and medium enterprises, SMEs) in Europe in bankruptcy – since for them energy is 33% of their costs – and erode up to 1.5% of growth of the eurozone, which is already poor anyhow.

  

  Europe needs a balanced and non-ideological energy mix and a competitive energy transition where it is essential to have nuclear and natural gas as back-up where technology and competition drive competitiveness.

  Additionally, the Eurozone cannot create extractive mechanisms that destroy the purchasing power of citizens’ wages and savings and then blame others for inflation.

  What Europe needs is more competition, technology and innovation and less interventionism. This energy crisis is not going to be the fault of the market, but of the ideological stubbornness of politicians who ignore economic calculations.

  Tyler Durden
  Wed, 10/06/2021 – 02:00

• Whitehead: The Police State's Reign Of Terror Continues… With Help From The Supreme Court
  Whitehead: The Police State’s Reign Of Terror Continues… With Help From The Supreme Court

  Authored by John W. Whitehead & Nisha Whitehead via The Rurtherford Institute,

  “Rights aren’t rights if someone can take them away. They’re privileges.”

  – George Carlin

  You think you’ve got rights? Think again.

  All of those freedoms we cherish—the ones enshrined in the Constitution, the ones that affirm our right to free speech and assembly, due process, privacy, bodily integrity, the right to not have police seize our property without a warrant, or search and detain us without probable cause—amount to nothing when the government and its agents are allowed to disregard those prohibitions on government overreach at will.

  

  This is the grim reality of life in the American police state.

  In fact, in the face of the government’s ongoing power grabs, our so-called rights have been reduced to mere technicalities, privileges that can be granted and taken away, all with the general blessing of the courts.

  This is what one would call a slow death by a thousand cuts, only it’s the Constitution being inexorably bled to death by the very institution (the judicial branch of government) that is supposed to be protecting it (and us) from government abuse.

  Court pundits, fixated on a handful of politically charged cases before the U.S. Supreme Court this term dealing with abortion, gun rights and COVID-19 mandates, have failed to recognize that the Supreme Court—and the courts in general—sold us out long ago.

  With each passing day, it becomes increasingly clear that Americans can no longer rely on the courts to “take the government off the backs of the people,” in the words of Supreme Court Justice William O. Douglas. When presented with an opportunity to loosen the government’s noose that keeps getting cinched tighter and tighter around the necks of the American people, what does our current Supreme Court usually do?

  It ducks. Prevaricates. Remains silent. Speaks to the narrowest possible concern.

  More often than not, it gives the government and its corporate sponsors the benefit of the doubt, seemingly more concerned with establishing order and protecting government interests than with upholding the rights of the people enshrined in the U.S. Constitution.

  Rarely do the concerns of the populace prevail.

  Every so often, the justices toss a bone to those who fear they have abdicated their allegiance to the Constitution. Too often, however, the Supreme Court tends to march in lockstep with the police state.

  As a result, the police and other government agents have been generally empowered to probe, poke, pinch, taser, search, seize, strip and generally manhandle anyone they see fit in almost any circumstance.

  In recent years, for example, the Court has ruled that police officers can use lethal force in car chases without fear of lawsuits; police officers can stop cars based only on “anonymous” tips; Secret Service agents are not accountable for their actions, as long as they’re done in the name of “security”; citizens only have a right to remain silent if they assert it; police have free reign to use drug-sniffing dogs as “search warrants on leashes,” justifying any and all police searches of vehicles stopped on the roadside; police can forcibly take your DNA, whether or not you’ve been convicted of a crime; police can stop, search, question and profile citizens and non-citizens alike; police can subject Americans to virtual strip searches, no matter the “offense”; police can break into homes without a warrant, even if it’s the wrong home; and it’s a crime to not identify yourself when a policeman asks your name.

  Moreover, it was a unanimous Supreme Court which determined that police officers may use drug-sniffing dogs to conduct warrantless searches of cars during routine traffic stops. That same Court gave police the green light to taser defenseless motorists, strip search non-violent suspects arrested for minor incidents, and break down people’s front doors without evidence that they have done anything wrong.

  The cases the Supreme Court refuses to hear, allowing lower court judgments to stand, are almost as critical as the ones they rule on. Some of these cases have delivered devastating blows to the rights enshrined in the Constitution.

  By remaining silent, the Court has affirmed that: legally owning a firearm is enough to justify a no-knock raid by police; the military can arrest and detain American citizens; students can be subjected to random lockdowns and mass searches at school; police officers who don’t know their actions violate the law aren’t guilty of breaking the law; trouble understanding police orders constitutes resistance that justifies the use of excessive force; and the areas immediately adjacent to one’s apartment can be subjected to warrantless police surveillance and arrests.

  Make no mistake about it: when such instances of abuse are continually validated by a judicial system that kowtows to every police demand, no matter how unjust, no matter how in opposition to the Constitution, one can only conclude that the system is rigged.

  By refusing to accept any of the eight or so qualified immunity cases before it last year that strove to hold police accountable for official misconduct, the Supreme Court delivered a chilling reminder that in the American police state, “we the people” are at the mercy of law enforcement officers who have almost absolute discretion to decide who is a threat, what constitutes resistance, and how harshly they can deal with the citizens they were appointed to ‘serve and protect.”

  This is how qualified immunity keeps the police state in power.

  Lawyers tend to offer a lot of complicated, convoluted explanations for the doctrine of qualified immunity, which was intended to insulate government officials from frivolous lawsuits, but the real purpose of qualified immunity is to rig the system, ensuring that abusive agents of the government almost always win and the victims of government abuse almost always lose.

  How else do you explain a doctrine that requires victims of police violence to prove that their abusers knew their behavior was illegal because it had been deemed so in a nearly identical case at some prior time?

  It’s a setup for failure.

  A review of critical court rulings over the past several decades, including rulings affirming qualified immunity protections for government agents by the U.S. Supreme Court, reveals a startling and steady trend towards pro-police state rulings by an institution concerned more with establishing order, protecting the ruling class, and insulating government agents from charges of wrongdoing than with upholding the rights enshrined in the Constitution.

  Indeed, as Reuters reports, qualified immunity “has become a nearly failsafe tool to let police brutality go unpunished and deny victims their constitutional rights.”

  Worse, as Reuters concluded, “the Supreme Court has built qualified immunity into an often insurmountable police defense by intervening in cases mostly to favor the police.”

  For those in need of a reminder of all the ways in which the Supreme Court has made us sitting ducks at the mercy of the American police state, let me offer the following.

  As a result of court rulings in recent years, police can claim qualified immunity for warrantless searches. Police can claim qualified immunity for warrantless arrests based on mere suspicion. Police can claim qualified immunity for using excessive force against protesters. Police can claim qualified immunity for shooting a fleeing suspect in the back. Police can claim qualified immunity for shooting a mentally impaired person. Police officers can use lethal force in car chases without fear of lawsuits. Police can stop, arrest and search citizens without reasonable suspicion or probable cause.  Police officers can stop cars based on “anonymous” tips or for “suspicious” behavior such as having a reclined car seat or driving too carefully. Police can forcibly take your DNA, whether or not you’ve been convicted of a crime.  Police can use the “fear for my life” rationale as an excuse for shooting unarmed individuals. Police have free reign to use drug-sniffing dogs as “search warrants on leashes.” Not only are police largely protected by qualified immunity, but police dogs are also off the hook for wrongdoing.

  Police can subject Americans to strip searches, no matter the “offense.” Police can break into homes without a warrant, even if it’s the wrong home. Police can use knock-and-talk tactics as a means of sidestepping the Fourth Amendment. Police can carry out no-knock raids if they believe announcing themselves would be dangerous. Police can recklessly open fire on anyone that might be “armed.” Police can destroy a home during a SWAT raid, even if the owner gives their consent to enter and search it. Police can suffocate someone, deliberately or inadvertently, in the process of subduing them.

  To sum it up, we are dealing with a nationwide epidemic of court-sanctioned police violence carried out with impunity against individuals posing little or no real threat.

  So where does that leave us?

  For those deluded enough to believe that they’re living the American dream—where the government represents the people, where the people are equal in the eyes of the law, where the courts are arbiters of justice, where the police are keepers of the peace, and where the law is applied equally as a means of protecting the rights of the people—it’s time to wake up.

  We no longer have a representative government, a rule of law, or justice.

  Liberty has fallen to legalism. Freedom has fallen to fascism.

  Justice has become jaded, jaundiced and just plain unjust.

  And for too many, as I make clear in my book Battlefield America: The War on the American People and in its fictional counterpart The Erik Blair Diaries, the American dream of freedom and justice for all has turned into a living nightmare.

  Given the turbulence of our age, with its government overreach, military training drills on American soil, domestic surveillance, SWAT team raids, asset forfeiture, wrongful convictions, profit-driven prisons, corporate corruption, COVID mandates, and community-wide lockdowns, the need for a guardian of the people’s rights has never been greater.

  Tyler Durden
  Wed, 10/06/2021 – 00:05

• Which Countries Have The Most Nuclear Weapons?
  Which Countries Have The Most Nuclear Weapons?

  In theory, nuclear weapon stockpiles are closely held national secrets. The leading countries have rough estimates that aren’t regularly updated, newly nuclear countries keep their capabilities vague and unclear, and Israel has never officially confirmed a nuclear weapons program.

  But, as Visual Capitalist’s Omri Wallach details below, thanks to limited disclosures, records, and leaks, we can visualize the full extent (Editor’s note: Exact numbers of nuclear warheads possessed by countries are closely guarded state secrets, with the FAS estimate being the closest, most-used, and most-trusted international approximation available) of the world’s nuclear arsenal. This graphic uses estimated nuclear warhead inventories from the Federation of American Scientists as of August 2021.

  Based on these estimates, there are just nine countries with nuclear weapons in the world

  

  Nuclear Weapons, by Country

  The nuclear arms race has always centered around the U.S. and Russia.

  After the end of World War II and well into the Cold War, the world’s two superpowers raced to build more nuclear weapons (and more capable nuclear weapons) than the other.

  Even while international organizations lobbied for the end of nuclear proliferation, the world’s nuclear weapon stockpile grew to a peak of 70,300 total warheads in 1986.

  As arms agreements and non-proliferation treaties started to gain greater momentum, the U.S. and Russia cut back on stockpiles while new countries with nuclear weapons started to pop up.

  

  Despite reducing their stockpiles significantly since the end of the Cold War, Russia and the U.S. still own around 90% of all nuclear warheads in the world.

  Far behind them are China and France, which started testing nuclear weapons in 1964 and 1960 respectively. The UK has the fifth-most nuclear weapons today, though it was the third country in the world to develop them after the U.S. and Russia in 1952.

  The countries with fewer than 200 nuclear weapons are regional rivals India and Pakistan, which first tested nuclear weapons in the 1970s, and North Korea, which began to operate uranium fabrication plants and conduct explosive tests in the 1980s.

  Israel is also estimated to have fewer than 200 nuclear weapons, and reports have its weapons program dating back to the 1960s. However, the country has never confirmed or announced its nuclear capabilities.

  Countries With Nuclear Weapons, by Warhead Status

  Though the world has 13,132 nuclear weapons, that doesn’t mean they’re all ready to fire.

  Weapons (or “warheads”) are delivered by missile, and countries don’t keep all of their nuclear warheads primed for use. The estimation of nuclear stockpiles also clarifies whether warheads are considered deployed, reserved, or retired:

  • Deployed warheads are deployed on intercontinental missiles, at heavy bomber bases, and on bases with operational short-range delivery systems.
  • Reserve warheads are in storage and not deployed on launchers.
  • Retired warheads are still intact but in queue for dismantlement.

  

  Only four countries have officially deployed warheads, while the majority of the world’s nuclear stockpile is in reserve. This is partially due to estimates ranging from relatively transparent in the case of the U.S. to opaque and uncertain for countries like China and North Korea.

  But some countries are expected to further bolster their stockpiles. The UK government announced it would increase its stockpile to no more than 260 warheads, and U.S. intelligence expects China, India, and Pakistan to increase their stockpiles.

  Though the world’s nuclear stockpile will likely continue dwindling on account of U.S. and Russia retirements, the 2021 landscape of countries with nuclear weapons shows that proliferation is still underway.

  Tyler Durden
  Tue, 10/05/2021 – 23:45

• China's Belt And Road Faces Growing Opposition From Participating Countries As Debts Mount
  China’s Belt And Road Faces Growing Opposition From Participating Countries As Debts Mount

  Authored by Daniel Holl via The Epoch Times,

  China’s Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) is facing growing opposition from participating countries as their debts associated with Chinese projects mount, according to a recent study.

  

  Launched in 2013 by Chinese leader Xi Jinping, the BRI might be losing its impetus due to a debt-based backlash, according to a study from AidData, a research lab at William & Mary’s Global Research Institute.

  The study analyzed 13,427 projects backed by China in more than 165 countries over 18 years. The projects’ total value amounts to $843 billion.

  AidData found that 35 percent of BRI’s projects dealt with implementation problems, “such as corruption scandals, labor violations, environmental hazards, and public protests.”

  Brad Parks, one of the study’s authors, said “a growing number of policymakers in low- and middle-income countries are mothballing high profile BRI projects because of overpricing, corruption and debt sustainability concerns.”

  Global Expansion

  The BRI—which serves as a tool for the Chinese Communist Party’s (CCP) global expansion—finances enormous loans to developing nations for building infrastructure.

  The ostentatious projects have been described as being a part of so-called debt-trap diplomacy since the often unpayable loans will force the nations to repay China with goods or land.

  Chinese state-owned banks provide the countries with loans they can barely afford. The loans are then used to pay Chinese companies in order to build infrastructure, including the development of roads, ports, power plants, mines, telecommunications, or banking institutions.

  When the nations are unable to pay, they must grant China assets like long-term exploitation rights for natural resources, or leases of infrastructure built using the loans.

  

  A Chinese worker carrying materials for a project that is part of China’s Belt and Road Initiative in Laos, on Feb. 8, 2020 (Aidan Jones/AFP via Getty Images)

  According to AidData’s report, 42 low- and middle-income countries have public debt exposure to China that exceeds 10 percent of its gross domestic product (GDP).

  “China has used debt rather than aid to establish a dominant position in the international development finance market,” the report said.

  The report said that researchers estimated that a government of an average low-to-middle-income country participating in the BRI are underreporting its actual and potential repayment obligations to China by an amount that is equivalent to 5.8 percent of its GDP.

  “Collectively, these underreported debts are worth approximately $385 billion,” the report said.

  When agreeing to join BRI, countries expect the new infrastructure will boost their GDPs enough to not only to repay the debt, but also profit in the future. However, most nations do not become prosperous from the projects, according to Antonio Graceffo, an economics professor.

  Graceffo has argued that the poorest nations are overburdened with BRI debt, citing a Central Banking report that stated 23 percent of countries involved in the initiative said BRI debt is building external debt up to unsustainable levels.

  For instance, in December 2017 Sri Lanka leased the major Hambantota Port to Beijing for 99 years, due to its inability to pay BRI owed loans of $1.4 billion. This gave the CCP a key base in the Indian Ocean.

  

  A general view of the port facility at Hambantota in Sri Lanka, on Feb. 10, 2015. (Lakruwan Wanniarachchi/AFP/Getty Images)

  In an article published by the Gatestone Institute, Lawrence A. Franklin stated that BRI’s economic benefits—mainly in third-world countries—are questionable, and “a few of these bilateral packages appear contrived to imprison already impoverished states into realms of permanent economic vassalage to China.”

  Franklin further said that Beijing’s goals with BRI are not only economic but also strategic and political. Its “projects seem not designed so much to win new friends as to win new dependents, especially in areas either neglected by the West or in the Western sphere of influence.”

  AidData’s study also evaluated that since 2013, there were many suspensions and cancellations in BRI participant countries. Malaysia canceled $11.58 billion in projects, Kazakhstan nearly $1.5 billion, and Bolivia over $1 billion. It further states in some countries “there’s clear evidence of ‘buyer’s remorse’.”

  The report also mentions that China’s annual international development finance commitments are double that of the United States’ and other major countries.

  Meanwhile, in June, the United States announced a new G7 initiative Build Back Better World (B3W), whose objective is to supply developing countries with financial support to build infrastructure.

  “B3W is going to increase choice in the infrastructure financing market, which could lead to some high-profile BRI defections,” Parks said.

  Tyler Durden
  Tue, 10/05/2021 – 23:25

• Coffee Is America's Favorite Drink
  Coffee Is America’s Favorite Drink

  October 1 was International Coffee Day, created in 2015 to promote and celebrate the beverage.

  Katharina Buchholz points out that The Statista Global Consumer Survey shows that Americans are in fact quite fond of the drink. In the survey, coffee was named by more U.S. adults as a regularly consumed beverage than bottled water.

  

  You will find more infographics at Statista

  59 percent of respondents said they regularly drank coffee, followed by 58 percent who consumed bottled water.

  Almost as many people – 53 percent – said they regularly grabbed a soft drink. Alcoholic drinks – among those 21 years and older – proved less popular.

  Beer still beat wine at 31 percent vs. 28 percent popularity.

  Tyler Durden
  Tue, 10/05/2021 – 23:05

• The Cost And Irritation Of Abandoning Common Sense In Dealing With COVID
  The Cost And Irritation Of Abandoning Common Sense In Dealing With COVID

  Authored by Roger Kimball, op-ed via The Epoch Times,

  So, St. Anthony Fauci has come down from his mountain top with a new list of “thou-shall-nots” and the news that it is “too early” to say whether he will allow families and friends to congregate for Christmas.

  

  It is not too early for the body politic to engage in one gigantic spasm of retroperistalsis and expel that tyrannical medical pest from the community.

  After all, Dr. Fauci is the chap who tells anyone who will listen that, when it comes to vaccine mandates, “There comes a time when you do have to give up what you consider your individual right of making your own decision for the greater good of society.”

  Ah, yes, “greater good of society”—as defined, it goes without saying, by A. Fauci.

  It is long past time for this fomenter of hysteria to go. He has being terrorizing the American populace for decades.

  Give him a padded cell, a mirror, and a TV camera and he will be happy.

  Back in the 1980s, Fauci was a superspreader of the myth that an important vector for the transmission of HIV was heterosexual intercourse.

  For the last couple of years, he has been terrifying the public with tales from the crypt about the virus he helped develop with American taxpayer money for “gain of function” research in a Chinese virology lab in Wuhan.

  The fact that this Bela Lugosi of the medical establishment is also a publicity addict who can’t pass a television camera without primping and dispensing contradictory but depressing dicta makes him a public nuisance.

  You see his baneful influence everywhere.

  In our former newspaper of record, for example, The New York Times. 

  On Oct. 1, the Times ran one of its long emetic specials on COVID, the Delta Diaries.

  Deploying their signature mixture of nauseating human interest pabulum and tendentious statistics, they paid homage to the CCP virus for giving them something to write about now that Donald Trump is, for the time being, off the menu.

  According to the Times, the fact that the deaths of 700,000 people in the United States have been attributed to the virus means that it is now officially more deadly than the Spanish ’flu epidemic of 1918, which killed about 675,000 people in the United States.

  Remember the old saw about “lies, damned lies, and statistics”?

  The Times specializes in that wheeze.

  The CCP Virus can be serious, no doubt about it. But it represents a significant threat to a tiny part of the population, mostly the elderly, especially those with certain co-morbidities like diabetes and obesity.

  The Spanish ’flu, by contrast, cut a wide swathe through the young and healthy.

  The so-called Delta variant seems to be more infectious but less virulent than the original.

  It has affected some younger people, much to the delight of the Times and other members of Fauci fan club.

  But the Times story is just the Gray-Lady version of a domestic-strife story like those in the sensationalistic rags you see in the supermarket checkout line. “Betts and Andy on the Rocks: What Really Happened on Their Honeymoon.”

  Now on to those numbers.

  One critical distinction you won’t find mentioned in the Times cri-de-coeur is the difference between dying from the CCP virus and dying with it. Millions upon millions are infected.

  It is, after all, a very contagious virus.

  But not only is it the case that many who are infected experience mild or no symptoms, it is also the case that many who are infected with the virus and happen to die in fact die from other things.

  Remember the chap who was in fatal motorcycle accident, spread like jam across the highway, but had his death listed as due to COVID because the goo “tested positive”?

  Another set of numbers you rarely see in the reporting about COVID fatalities is the age of the people who died.

  The average life expectancy for males in the United States is around 78.

  If Mr. Smith, who suffers from diabetes and high-blood pressure, comes down with COVID and dies at 87, is his death due to COVID?

  You see why I like to say that the great thing about COVID is that it abolished death from old age.

  It also essentially abolished death from influenza.

  Generally there are anywhere from 20,000 to 40,000 deaths from the ’flu in this country per annum.

  Last year there were some 700. Amazing.

  The CCP virus is a seasonal respiratory virus. The key to public health regarding it is the achievement of herd immunity.

  Masks, lockdowns, and “social distancing” impede achievement of herd immunity.

  The Harvard epidemiologist Martin Kulldorff and Stanford’s Dr. Jay Bhattacharya got it exactly right when they wrote last spring that “The idea that everybody needs to be vaccinated is as scientifically baseless as the idea that nobody does. COVID vaccines are essential for older, high-risk people and their caretakers and advisable for many others. But those who’ve been infected are already immune.”

  At last, the clear voice of common sense—which is also, by the way, the voice of that “science” we’re supposed to be following.

  Messrs. Kulldorff and Bhattacharya go on to offer these wise observations:

  • “Vaccine passports are unjust and discriminatory.”

  • “Most of those endorsing the idea belong to the laptop class—privileged professionals who worked safely and comfortably at home during the epidemic.”

  • “Millions of Americans did essential jobs at their usual workplaces and became immune the hard way. Now they would be forced to risk adverse reactions from a vaccine they don’t need.”

  • “Passports would entice young, low-risk professionals, in the West and the developing world, to get the vaccine before older, higher-risk but less affluent members of society. Many unnecessary deaths would result.”

  • “The widespread use of vaccines against polio, measles, mumps, rubella, rabies and other pathogens has saved millions of lives. Vaccines are one of the most important inventions in human history—the reason that before last year many in the West had forgotten that infectious disease could pose a population wide threat.”

  • “Those pushing for coercive COVID vaccination threaten all this progress by undermining public trust in vaccines. In this sense, they are more dangerous than the small group of so-called anti-vaxxers have ever been.”

  What a pity that the media did not elevate experts like Martin Kulldorff and Jay Bhattacharya to the sacrosanct position it saved for Anthony Fauci.

  We all would have been saved a great deal of irritation not to mention economic ruin and political despotism.

  Tyler Durden
  Tue, 10/05/2021 – 22:45

• Visualizing The Rise Of Cryptocurrency Transactions
  Visualizing The Rise Of Cryptocurrency Transactions

  After Bitcoin and cryptocurrency’s wild bull run in late 2020 and early 2021, many holders are now using cryptocurrencies for their intended purpose: payments.

  In fact, as Visual Capitalist’s Niccolo Conte notes, every day, approximately $12 billion are transferred across the Bitcoin, Ethereum, and Litecoin blockchains, with millions of people using cryptocurrency for payments daily.

  This graphic sponsored by CoinPayments looks at the rising transactions of the Bitcoin, Ethereum, and Litecoin networks.

  

  Cryptocurrency Transactions are Rising in Value and Number

  While prices are often the focus when crypto is in the spotlight, transaction counts show how much a network is being used as a medium of exchange. In just over five years, daily transactions across the Bitcoin, Ethereum, and Litecoin networks increased sixfold, from just 250,000 to more than 1.5 million transactions a day.

  In mid-2017, Ethereum overtook Bitcoin in daily transactions as ETH was necessary to participate in ICOs (initial coin offerings), which fueled much of the speculation in the 2017 price run. With Ethereum still hosting thousands of ERC-20 and ERC-721 tokens on its blockchain today, its transaction counts have grown to be much higher compared to Bitcoin and Litecoin’s.

  Along with crypto’s rising transaction numbers, the average USD value per transaction has increased by a minimum of 4x over the past five years.

  

  Crypto Spenders are Searching for Merchants

  As transaction counts and values rise, merchants play a vital part in pushing forward the adoption of digital currencies for payments.

  Many cryptocurrency users consider merchant adoption as a key barometer of success for crypto adoption. While companies like AT&T, Namecheap, and Overstock already accept crypto payments, there are still many businesses around the world which don’t offer cryptocurrency as a method of payment.

  In a survey of over 8,000 U.S. consumers, 66.7% of crypto owners and 54.2% of non-owners said that not enough merchants accept cryptocurrency. Along with this, 47% of crypto owners said they seek out merchants that accept crypto for purchases, indicating clear demand for more crypto-accepting businesses.

  How Can Merchants Make the Most of the Crypto Boom?

  As the world embraces crypto, merchants need the in-store and online tools to be part of this next wave of commerce. Accepting crypto opens merchants up to an untapped audience of new consumers, eager to spend their crypto.

  CoinPayments makes it easy to start accepting crypto payments at online checkout and with POS systems, with features like auto-coin conversion and over 2,000 coins supported.

  Find out more about how the crypto market is growing, adapting to consumer needs, and the opportunity it presents to merchants around the world.

  Tyler Durden
  Tue, 10/05/2021 – 22:25

• Buchanan: Biden Becomes A Bernie Sanders Democrat?
  Buchanan: Biden Becomes A Bernie Sanders Democrat?

  Authored by Pat Buchanan,

  “We’ve got the president of the United States on our side,” said Sen. Bernie Sanders Sunday on ABC’s “This Week.”

  “Got 96% of the members of the Democratic caucus in the House on our side. We got all but two senators at this point in the Democratic caucus on our side. We’re going to win this thing.”

  The socialist senator from Vermont may be overly optimistic about how the party deadlock on Capitol Hill unfolds. But about the balance of forces inside the party, and the direction where it is headed, Sanders is probably not wrong.

  Progressive Democrats won the week.

  

  President Joe Biden confirmed it by casting his lot with the liberal-left on the sequencing of the $1.2 trillion infrastructure bill and $3.5 trillion social safety net bill pending in Congress.

  When Biden went to the Hill Friday, it was thought he was coming to rescue and liberate the Senate-passed infrastructure bill being held hostage by progressives until they got their way on the larger bill.

  Progressives had threatened to sink the roads-and-bridges bill in Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s House, unless they received solid assurances that both houses would simultaneously take up and approve the $3.5 trillion bill.

  When Biden reached the Hill, however, he threw in with the hostage-takers. He asked for a delay in House passage of his own infrastructure bill, until the demands of the progressives were addressed and met.

  Pelosi agreed and has put off any House vote on the infrastructure bill until the end of October.

  Biden had ditched the Biden Democrats and cast his lot with Sanders & Co. Let’s hold off voting on my own infrastructure bill, until we can also deliver what the progressives demand of us, he was saying.

  The real impediment blocking progress, Biden said, was two senators, Joe Manchin and Kyrsten Sinema, who are blocking the resolution of the issue, which is that all Democrats should agree to enact both bills.

  By capitulating to the progressives’ demand — which translates to, “Both bills or no bill!” — Biden revealed where he thinks the power in the party resides, where the future is, and what he wants as his legacy.

  This is not the first time Biden has moved left to accommodate a rising consensus. As vice president, though a self-proclaimed devout Catholic, Biden stepped out in front of Barack Obama to endorse same-sex marriage.

  During the 2020 campaign, Biden abandoned a lifetime belief about abortion and pledged to remove the Hyde Amendment — a restriction on federal funding of abortions — from federal law.

  Cradle Catholic Joe has become our most pro-abortion president.

  But while the moderate-versus-progressive faceoff could still end in a rout for the left, the probability is that the infrastructure bill becomes law and the social safety net bill ends up between Manchin’s $1.5 trillion ceiling and its current $3.5 trillion price tag.

  One way to solve the sticker-price problem is through subterfuge — reduce the duration from, say, 10 years to five, in the expectation that no future GOP administration would terminate an entitlement program upon which millions of Americans had come to depend for half a decade.

  As Milton Friedman reminded us, “Nothing is so permanent as a temporary government program.”

  Nevertheless, this is truly the “transformative” legislation that The New York Times depicted as providing “a cradle-to-grave reweaving of a social safety net.”

  This Build Back Better bill would provide family and medical leave for illness and the birth of a child, affordable child care during infancy, two years of universal pre-kindergarten, child credits and federal income tax credits, and two years in a community college.

  If passed in its present form, government will have an ever-present role in the life of a child, almost from conception until his or her early 20s.

  This would also include established programs of welfare, Medicaid, aid to education, subsidized housing, rent supplements, school breakfasts and lunches, and food stamps.

  If this bill does not die in the fall, what will America look like a few years hence?

  Government will have expanded in both size and the numbers of employees, and in relation to a shrinking private sector. A panoply of new programs will expand eternally with the cost growing inexorably. The dependency of U.S. citizens on their government will grow.

  And this doesn’t even touch upon another aspect.

  The IRS is to be expanded, and corporate taxes, estate taxes and capital gains taxes are to rise. Government will also step in to force a shift away from coal and oil and gas, with which the country is hugely endowed, to wager America’s future on solar and wind.

  Hopefully, Manchin and Sinema will employ the leverage they have to prevent the worst of the damage this historically high level of spending — with inflation already rising above 5% — will do.

  But as to whether the Democrats are a Bernie party or a Biden party, Joe settled that Friday with his capitulation.

  Tyler Durden
  Tue, 10/05/2021 – 22:05

• Poland Central Bank To Buy 100 Tons Of Gold In 2022
  Poland Central Bank To Buy 100 Tons Of Gold In 2022

  In a time when institutions are increasingly shifting away from fiat currency and looking toward cryptos, it is worth recalling that at least when it comes to central banks, there is no digital gold. There is just gold.

  To be sure, in a time of unprecedented economic and social turmoil, central bankers’ appetite for gold continues to grow, providing a bright spot for the traditional haven as investor interest ebbs. According to the World Gold Council, global reserves expanded 333.2 tons in the first half of 2021, 39% higher than the five-year average for the period. Strong purchases by Thailand, Hungary and Brazil stood out, with WGC analyst Louise Street predicting that If central banks continue to buy at the levels seen recently, it will provide a supportive element for the market.

  

  Alas, the past year has not been kind to gold and after rising above $2000 during the hyper-print phase of the covid pandemic, gold has steadily declined to the mid $1700s as a global surge in inflation has forced central banks to restart monetary tightening.

  

  However, for at least one central bank gold’s continued decline is welcome news, because according to Poland’s Gazeta Wroclawska, Governor Adam Glapinski – the head of the country’s central bank, the National Bank of Poland – plans to increase gold reserves by 100 tons next year to strengthen country’s financial stability.

  In the interview, Glapinski said his plan may take effect when he will be re- elected as Governor as his current term ends in mid-2022. However, in the same interview, the governor also said he plans to introduce 1,000 zloty banknote, an indication that the gold may be coming only to offset even more money printing down the line.

  No matter his intentions, however, Glapinski has been good for Poland’s gold reserves: during his term, the amount of gold in reserves has more than doubled to 229 metric tons.

  

  Tyler Durden
  Tue, 10/05/2021 – 21:45

• Hidden Bankruptcy: The Reality Behind Uncle Sam's Inflated Bar Tab
  Hidden Bankruptcy: The Reality Behind Uncle Sam’s Inflated Bar Tab

  Authored by Matthew Piepenburg via GoldSwitzerland.com,

  Below, we look at The hidden bankruptcy of the US in the wake of even more inflationary forces confirmed by cost-of-living-adjustments, Uncle Sam’s interest expenses, objectively unloved Treasuries and a roaring as well as convenient COVID narrative.

  

  Math vs. Double-Speak

  Given the fact that just about everything coming out of the mouths of debt-cornered policy makers requires a lie-detector and “double-speak” translator, we’ve been arguing since the moment the Fed began peddling the “transitory inflation” meme/myth to think differently.

  In short: It’s our view that inflation is a snowball growing, not melting.

  Toward this end, we’ve written and spoken at length as often as we can as to the many converging forces pointing toward rising inflation—from increased governmental guarantees (controls) over commercial bank loans, commodity super cycles to just plain economic realism, as inflation (and hence currency debasement) is the only tool left (beyond bankruptcy, taxation and “growth”) to service otherwise unsustainable debt levels: A hidden bankruptcy.

  But let us not stop there, as other inflationary storm clouds are on the horizon yet ignored (not surprisingly) by an increasingly clueless financial media.

  Another Glaringly-Ignored Inflation Indicator—COLA 2.2022

  In particular, we are thinking about the U.S. Cost of Living Adjustment (“COLA”) for 2022 which could easily reach 6%, the highest of its kind since 1982.

  It would seem that the U.S. Social Security Administration, unlike Powell, is aware of inflation, and therefore preparing (i.e., “adjusting”) for the same.

  As the price for entitlement obligations rises, so too will the level of money printing to pay for the same, a veritable vicious circle for rising inflation.

  Then there’s simple math.

  We’ve talked about the Realpolitik of negative real rates as the final and desperate way for debt-soaked sovereigns to service their debt.

  The signs of this are literally everywhere.

  If we take, for example, a 1.4% Treasury Yield and subtract a potential 6% COLA increase for Social Security, we get -4.6% real rates, which will be a boon for alternative stores of value like gold and silver or “currencies” like BTC (as well as farmland and high-end real estate, which is continuing to enjoy a debt-jubilee of negative 3% real (i.e., “free” mortgages).

  The necessary evil of negative real rates also speaks to the ongoing taper debate…

  Giving Clarity to the Taper Debate

  As tweets by twits pour across the electronic universe, it’s often important to notice what is not being “tweeted,” such as the interest expense on Uncle Sam’s national bar tab.

  As the financial world hangs on the edge of its seat to see if the Fed will taper its QE (i.e., money printing) program and send bonds (and stocks) to the floor and rates toward the sky, they’ve ignored some basic math and a key chart.

  Specifically, we are referring to the chart below representing the true interest expense on the debt bar-tab of a now fully debt-intoxicated Uncle Sam:

  

  With central-bank “accommodated” asset bubbles (from stocks to real estate to art) now at historically unprecedented levels, tax receipts flowing into the U.S. coffers from the ever-growing millionaire-to-billionaire class have been rising.

  This may seem good for that punch-drunk Uncle Sam, but what no one is talking about is that despite even those “capital gain” receipts, the interest expense (i.e., “bar tab”) in D.C. is now an astronomical 111% of those same tax receipts.

  In other words, U.S. tax income doesn’t come close to even paying interest (let alone that archaic concept known as “principal”) on growing U.S. debt obligations.

  Can anyone say, “Uh-oh?”

  Given the stark but ignored reality of unpayable U.S. debt, the implications going forward are fairly clear.

  First, the Fed will not be able to “taper,” as less QE will mean an even higher interest rate, and thus higher interest expense on debt it still can’t pay at today’s artificially low rates.

  Stated otherwise, a “taper” would only add helicopters of gasoline to a debt fire that is already burning the Divided States of America.

  Given the dangers of such a taper, it likely won’t happen because it can’t happen, and this means more money printing and hence more negative real rates creating a hidden bankruptcy ahead, a weaker USD and rising precious metal prices, among others.

  But What If the Fed Tapers?

  Alternatively, should the Fed somehow turn hawkish and taper its QE support in the face of a debt forest fire, Treasuries will sell off dramatically, rates will rise, markets will tank, and the USD will surge—not good for Gold, BTC or just about anything else.

  Does it Matter?

  But as we’ve also tried to make crystal clear, there is no way the Fed will taper QE liquidity before it sets up a back-channel for even more liquidity from the Standing Repo Facility, Reverse Repo Facility and FIMA swap lines, which are all just “QE” by other names.

  In simple speak, therefore, the “taper debate” is no debate, as the Fed has many liquidity tricks up its greasy sleeves.

  In addition to liquidity tricks, the Fed has some ugly bonds to buy.

  Embarrassing Treasuries

  As we’ve said so many times, the biggest issue today is unsustainable and embarrassing debt levels requiring inflation (hidden bankruptcy), compliments of policy makers rather than a viral pandemic narrative out of all proportion to its confused scientific truths.

  COVID has been an all-too timely and convenient pretext for blaming global debt ($300T) or U.S. public debt ($28.5T) on a flu rather than a sordid history of grotesque mismanagement from politico’s and bankers that was in play long before the first headlines out of Wuhan.

  Furthermore, COVID monetary and fiscal policy measures effectively became a (hidden) pretext for a second market bailout greater in scope (yet better in optics) than the post-Lehman bailout of those otherwise Too Big to Fail banks.

  In short, the façade (and branding) of a humanitarian crisis allowed a market-saving liquidity rescue (Bailout 2.0) to an otherwise Dead-on-Arrival bond market in late 2019.

  In case this sounds too controversial to consider, please follow the Treasury market rather than our bemused nouns and adjectives, not to mention our total lack of scientific/medical credentials.

  Bad IOUs

  Just like friends don’t accept IOUs from drug addicts, global investors heading into 2020 stopped buying Uncle Sam’s Treasuries.

  In simple-speak, Uncle Sam just seemed too debt-drunk to trust.

  As a result, his Treasury bonds, once seen as “safe havens,” were finally seen as “bad jokes”—akin to the paper coming out of equally discredited zip codes like Greece, Italy or Spain.

  For this reason, foreigners in a nervous 2020 (unlike a broken 2009) had not only stopped buying U.S. Treasuries, they were selling them.

  Yep.

  Months ago, smart voices from the Street, including Stan Druckenmiller, were warning about the implications of such a shift in financial consciousness/trust.

  Druckenmiller’s Astonishment

  Specifically, Druckenmiller spoke of something he’d never seen in over 40 years as a market veteran.

  That is, as stocks were tanking in the spring of 2020, he also saw the bond market lose 18 points in one day.

  This correlated fall in stocks and bonds was not, as everyone “tweeted,” a reaction to the fiscal profligacy of the CARES Act, but more sadly a very new trend by foreigners to get rid of increasingly discredited U.S. IOUs.

  Folks, this is a critical shift.

  For over two decades (including during the Great Financial Crisis of 2009), U.S. Treasuries (and the USD) were once seen as “safe” landing places for foreign money rather than a risky bet.

  Now, instead of seeing an annual average $500B inflow into U.S. bonds, we are seeing annual outflows of $500B…

  When you tack on a $700B current account deficit in D.C. to a net loss of $1 trillion in Treasury support, whose left to “fill the gap” and buy those unwanted IOU’s?

  You guessed it: The Fed.

  And how will they come up the money to cover these purchases?

  You guessed it again: They’ll mouse-click that “money” out of thin air to create a stealthy, hidden bankruptcy.

  Needless to say, such realism (i.e., objective math) puts a lot of pressure on the U.S. Dollar as the Fed is forced to create even more money at a record pace to buy otherwise unwanted Treasuries.

  But what kept the USD from falling in favor by end of 2020, if no one was buying our bonds but the Fed?

  Well, the short answer is that all that foreign money (from sovereign wealth funds and foreign central banks) once ear-marked for our once-credible U.S. Treasury bonds went instead into those massive U.S. digital transformation companies who benefited most from a locked-down new mad world, namely GOOG, ZOOM and MSFT etc.

  And how did Druckenmiller describe this shift?

  Simple. He called it a “raging new mania.”

  From Mania to Desperate

  Foreign money once reserved for “safe haven” bonds was (and is) pouring into an already over-sized equity bubble.

  By July, the USD had peaked, but after a peak comes, well…a fall for the Greenback—all very good for commodities, real estate, growth tech stocks and, of course, precious metals.

  Back to the “What If” of a Naked Taper

  But (and this is a very big “but”), what if the Fed were insane enough to taper QE without any back-door liquidity from foreign swap lines and the repo programs?

  Again, ugly Treasuries would get even uglier, tank in price, sending rates and the USD higher and gold lower, along with a sharp sell-off in risk assets—i.e., corporate stocks and bonds.

  But again, we don’t think this will happen, because as desperate as central bankers are, they are equally predictable.

  Predictable Behavior?

  That is, they know that such a naked taper (i.e., a taper without a back door repo or swap-induced liquidity) would cause rates to spike, and hence Uncle Sam’s bar-tab to default.

  As the Fed’s Vice Chair intimated last year, US Treasuries (Uncle Sam’s bar tab) are simply too big to fail.

  This means we can expect more liquidity (QE or repo/swap) and hence more, not less inflation.

  The Fed is stuck in a self-inflicted dilemma–between letting inflation rip (to partially service America’s bar tab and “declaring” a hidden bankruptcy) or watching markets sink to the bottom of time.

  For now, which choice do you think these banking, pro-market cabal thinkers will make?

  The Realpolitik of COVID

  Meanwhile, and regardless of one’s views on the vaccine mandates, case fatality rates vs. infection rates, or mask wearing vs. mask annoyance, no one needs our amateur medical advice.

  But looking at COVID as a policy tool rather than as controversial health issue, it’s also fairly clear that the powers that be will be milking this fear-porn-to-policy trick for all its worth for as long as its worth.

  Why?

  Again, COVID is a wonderful narrative to justify more debt and more instant liquidity (i.e., fiat monetary expansion) and hence more inflation to inflate away the debt of debt-drunk nations already fatally in debt pre-COVID.

  Rightly or wrongly, there are already scientists out of the UK (namely Oxford vaccine creator Sarah Gilbert) with more IQ-power and credibility than Fauci or Fergusson (admittedly not a high bar), who are already signaling that COVID will resemble little more than a common cold by next year.

  This, if true (and no one really knows anyway), would be good for the world—but would the policy makers like this?

  A post-COVID normal would be a boon to commerce and economic activity, and hence a boon to the velocity of money, which would kick inflation into ultra-high-gear.

  High inflation will mean higher rates, which scare debt-soaked politicians and central bankers, unless inflation rises higher than those rates and negative real yields become the norm, which, again, we think is the realistic (i.e., only option) for these financial magicians running our governments, lives and central banks.

  In such a scenario, gold will smile upon the inflation to come.

  In short, and however we look at it, inflation is the new norm, and negative real rates are no less so, regardless of how the taper or COVID debate plays out.

  As the future unfolds, gold, whose price is waiting for confirmation of such inflation, will only grow stronger as the “transitory” meme gets weaker by the day.

  Tyler Durden
  Tue, 10/05/2021 – 21:25

• Watch: DEA Agent, Gunman Killed In Gun Battle On Arizona Amtrak Train
  Watch: DEA Agent, Gunman Killed In Gun Battle On Arizona Amtrak Train

  A shocking video has surfaced on YouTube of Monday’s gun battle inside an Amtrak train stopped at an Arizona station between federal agents and a gunman. 

  A Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) agent was shot dead by a man who opened fire inside the second level of the double-decker coach. Agents conducted a routine sweep for drugs and guns on the train bound for New Orleans when the incident unfolded yesterday morning. 

  

  Tucson Police Chief Chris Magnus told reporters that a police officer on the platform who heard the gunfire was also shot. Besides the dead DEA agent, he said the gunman barricaded himself inside a train bathroom and was pronounced dead at the scene. There was no mention if the suspect took his own life or was killed by gunfire from either federal agents, police, or SWAT personnel. 

  YouTube channel “Virtual Railfan” captured the crazy shootout on video. They said:

  “Occasionally, we catch surprising events in front of our cameras, including wildlife, weather, accidents, weddings, silliness… and some much, much more serious. This was one of those. Our hearts and prayers go out to those affected by the shooting, and we continue to assist local, federal and railroad law enforcement to not only investigate, but to help prevent such tragedies in the future. For details as they emerge, please seek out a trusted news source.” 

  Here’s the video: 

  What remains a mystery is the motive behind the suspect’s action and if police found anything of interest after the shootout. There are more questions than answers. 

  Tyler Durden
  Tue, 10/05/2021 – 21:05

• "A Politically-Motivated Abuse Of Power" – GOP Rep. Rages At AG Garland's 'Weaponization' Of The DoJ Against Dissenting Parents
  “A Politically-Motivated Abuse Of Power” – GOP Rep. Rages At AG Garland’s ‘Weaponization’ Of The DoJ Against Dissenting Parents

  Update (1700ET): Republican Congressman for Colorado’s 4th District, Ken Buck, has penned an excellent reply for Garland’s overreach, taking apart the AG’s “weaponization” of the DoJ point by point…

  “Your memorandum is a politically-motivated abuse of power and displays a lack of reasoned, sound judgment… confronting parents to oppose the views of the Biden administration and its socialist agenda…”

  🚨My letter to AG Garland today:

  AG Garland is using the DOJ to intimidate and silence parents who are exercising their First Amendment rights. This is an egregious and unprecedented abuse of power. pic.twitter.com/ZSJ9ENjCu6

  — Rep. Ken Buck (@RepKenBuck) October 5, 2021

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  *  *  *

  One day after a North Carolina school board adopted a policy that would discipline or dismiss teachers if they incorporate critical race theory (CRT) into their teaching of the history of the United States, The Epoch Times’ Ivan Pentchoukov reports that Attorney General Merrick Garland on Oct. 4 announced a concentrated effort to target any threats of violence, intimidation, and harassment by parents toward school personnel.

  

  The announcement also comes days after a national association of school boards asked the Biden administration to take “extraordinary measures” to prevent alleged threats against school staff that the association said was coming from parents who oppose mask mandates and the teaching of critical race theory.

  Garland directed the FBI and U.S. attorneys in the next 30 days to convene meetings with federal, state, and local leaders within 30 days to “facilitate the discussion of strategies for addressing threats against school administrators, board members, teachers, and staff,” according to a letter (pdf) the attorney general sent on Monday to all U.S. attorneys, the FBI director, the director of the Executive Office of U.S. Attorneys, and the assistant attorney general of the DOJ’s criminal division.

  

  According to the DOJ, further efforts will be rolled out in the coming days, including a task force that will determine how to use federal resources to prosecute offending parents as well as how to advise state entities on prosecutions in cases where no federal law is broken. The Justice Department will also provide training to school staff on how to report threats from parents and preserve evidence to aid in investigation and prosecution.

  “In recent months, there has been a disturbing spike in harassment, intimidation, and threats of violence against school administrators, board members, teachers, and staff who participate in the vital work of running our nation’s public schools,” Garland wrote.

  “While spirited debate about policy matters is protected under our Constitution, that protection does not extend to threats of violence or efforts to intimidate individuals based on their views.”

  School boards across the nation have increasingly become an arena for heated debate over culture, politics, and health. Parents groups have ramped up pressure on boards over the teaching of critical race theory and the imposition of mask mandates. The debate is split sharply along political lines, with Democrats largely in favor of critical race theory and mask mandates, and Republicans opposing both.

  The amount and severity of the threats against officials are not known, but Garland’s letter suggests the phenomenon is widespread.

  Full AG Garland Statement (with our thoughts):

  MEMORANDUM FOR DIRECTOR, FEDERAL BUREAU OF INVESTIGATION; DIRECTOR, EXECUTIVE OFFICE FOR U.S. ATTORNEYS ASSISTANT ATTORNEY GENERAL, CRIMINAL DIVISION UNITED STATES ATTORNEYS

  FROM:       THE ATTORNEY GENERAL

  SUBJECT:    PARTNERSHIP AMONG FEDERAL, STATE, LOCAL, TRIBAL, AND TERRITORIAL LAW ENFORCEMENT TO ADDRESS THREATS AGAINST SCHOOL ADMINISTRATORS, BOARD MEMBERS, TEACHERS, AND STAFF

  In recent months, there has been a disturbing spike in harassment, intimidation, and threats of violence against school administrators, board members, teachers, and staff who participate in the vital work of running our nation’s public schools. While spirited debate about policy matters is protected under our Constitution, that protection does not extend to threats of violence or efforts to intimidate individuals based on their views.

  [ZH: But intimidating parents who dare to have the view that the nation’s founding fathers and the founding documents are not in fact systemically racist and does not want their children taught that is the case is ok?]

  Threats against public servants are not only illegal, they run counter to our nation’s core values. Those who dedicate their time and energy to ensuring that our children receive a proper education in a safe environment deserve to he able to do their work without fear for their safety.

  [ZH: “Dedication” to a “proper education” is admirable; indoctrination in Marxism is not]

  The Department takes these incidents seriously and is committed to using its authority and resources to discourage these threats, identify them when they occur, and prosecute them when appropriate. In the coming days, the Department will announce a series of measures designed to address the rise in criminal conduct directed toward school personnel.

  [ZH: What exactly is the crime?]

  Coordination and partnership with local law enforcement is critical to implementing these measures for the benefit of our nation’s nearly 14,000 public school districts. To this end, I am  directing the Federal Bureau of Investigation, working with each United States Attorney, to convene meetings with federal, state, local, Tribal, and territorial leaders in each federal judicial district within 30 days of the issuance of this memorandum. These meetings will facilitate the discussion of strategies for addressing threats against school administrators, board members, teachers, and staff, and will open dedicated lines of communication for threat reporting, assessment, and response.

  [ZH: We wonder how many local law enforcement officials, while busily watching for vaccine passport offenders, and mask-mandate refusers, will acquiesce to enforcing these new laws to protect the very people who are preaching that America’s systemic racism starts with the men (and women) in blue?]

  The Department is steadfast in its commitment to protect all people in the United States from violence, threats of violence, and other forms of intimidation and harassment.

  [ZH: Presumably intimidation and emotional harassment of young white boys and girls for their ‘whiteness’, privilege, and systemic racism is beyond that ‘protection’?]

  As Chris Rufo (@RealChrisRufo) tweeted: “The Biden administration is rapidly repurposing federal law enforcement to target political opposition.”

  The Biden administration is rapidly repurposing federal law enforcement to target political opposition.

  They want to reclassify dissent as “disinformation” and “domestic terrorism,” justifying an unprecedented intervention, both directly and in partnership with tech companies.

  — Christopher F. Rufo ⚔️ (@realchrisrufo) October 4, 2021

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  Rufo goes on to note that:

  “Neither the Attorney General’s memo nor the full Justice Department press release cites any significant, credible threat. This is a blatant suppression tactic, designed to dissuade citizens from participating in the democratic process at school boards.“

  

  Parents have led the charge against controversial issues such as Critical Race Theory (CRT), masking mandates and vaccine requirements.

  CRT holds that America is fundamentally racist, yet it teaches people to view every social interaction and person in terms of race. Its adherents pursue “antiracism” through the end of merit, objective truth and the adoption of race-based policies.

  This is Courtney Ann Taylor, a mother in Georgia. She’s one of the many parents who’ve HAD IT with mask mandates, especially for young kids in school.

  Share this video! pic.twitter.com/pyG3fYmgVI

  — Errol Webber (@ErrolWebber) April 22, 2021

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  In Loudoun County, Virginia, two parents were arrested in June for trespassing while protesting CRT and a transgender policy at the school district because they refused to leave the rowdy meeting that was declared an unlawful assembly.

  In July, a man was arrested at a school board meeting and charged with a felony because a gun reportedly fell out of his pocket, the Indianapolis Star reported. 

  In Utah, 11 anti-mask protestors were arrested on misdemeanor charges for allegedly disrupting a school board meeting in May, the Salt Lake Tribune reported. The protestors entered the school board meeting and shouted obscenities, which resulted in an early end to the meeting.

  Senator Tom Cotton  (@SenTomCotton) tweeted his thoughts:

  “Parents are speaking out against Critical Race Theory in schools. Now the Biden administration is cracking down on dissent.”

  

  Just this week, Ron Paul explained why it is so important for parents to control the education of their children:

  During last week’s Virginia gubernatorial debate, Democratic candidate Terry McAuliffe promised that as governor he would prevent parents from removing sexually explicit books from school libraries, because he doesn’t think “parents should be telling schools what they should teach.”

  McAuliffe’s disdain for parents who think they should have some say in their children’s education is shared by most “progressives,” as well as some who call themselves conservatives. They think parents should obediently pay the taxes to fund the government schools and never question any aspect of the government school program.

  School officials’ refusal to obey the wishes of parents extends to the anti-science mask mandates. Mask mandates are not only useless in protecting children from a virus they are at low risk of becoming sick from or transmitting, the mandated mask-wearing actually makes children sick! Yet school administrators refuse to follow the science if that means listening to parents instead of the so-called experts.

  Replacing parental control with government control of education (and other aspects of child raising) has been a goal of authoritarians since Plato. After all, it is much easier to ensure obedience if someone has been raised to think of the government as the source of all wisdom and truth, as well as the provider of all of life’s necessities.

  In contrast to an authoritarian society, a free society recognizes that parents have both the responsibility and the right to provide their children with a quality education that reflects the parents’ values. Teachers who use their positions to indoctrinate children in beliefs that contradict the views of the parents are the ones overstepping their bounds.

  Restoring parental control of education should be a priority for all who believe in liberty. If government can override the wishes of parents in the name of “education” or “protecting children’s health” then what area of our lives is safe from government intrusion?

  Fortunately, growing dissatisfaction with government schools is leading many parents to try to change school policies.

  “It is shameful that activists are weaponizing the US Department of Justice against parents,” Nicole Neily, president of Parents Defending Education told the Daily Caller News Foundation in response to the memorandum.

  “This is a coordinated attempt to intimidate dissenting voices in the debates surrounding America’s underperforming K-12 education – and it will not succeed. We will not be silenced.”

  Tyler Durden
  Tue, 10/05/2021 – 20:48

• We Have One Market Concerned About Valuations, And Another Where Price Discovery Is Broken
  We Have One Market Concerned About Valuations, And Another Where Price Discovery Is Broken

  By Ven Ram, Bloomberg markets commentator and analyst

  The first lesson that aspiring medical doctors are taught is simple: first, do no harm. Central banks may want to embrace the same principle.

  U.S. stocks have been wobbly of late, with both the S&P 500 Index and the Nasdaq Composite tumbling more than one standard deviation a handful of times in the past month. For reasons, consider a host of factors, including spiraling oil prices that are bound to ripple through the economy and push up prices of services and goods, the Fed’s looming taper, concerns about China and lofty valuations that have left investors second-guessing whether current elevated levels are viable.

  That is as it should be: markets are nothing but a series of dots plotted every day on the basis of information available then but only connected as a coherent sketch over time. That inherently means markets are volatile, but, oh, do they work beautifully over time as they adjust higher and lower to every new input in the economy.

  Juxtapose that against bond markets that have completely lost the plot. Here we are, on the cusp of taper and a possible series of rate hikes down the line, and while Treasury 10-year yields have inched higher somewhat of late, volatility in rates is nowhere what you would expect and seem completely divorced from concerns that are dogging stocks. Blame it, at least to a great extent, on the Fed’s unbridled balance-sheet expansion, with the monetary authority buying bonds at a breakneck pace of more than $1 million a minute.

  So we have one part of the market concerned about current valuations and correcting itself. Yet, we have another corner where price discovery is broken, and the principal difference as things stand between those two spaces is the overwhelming presence of a buyer at first retort masquerading as the lender of last resort.

  

  Markets function best when they are allowed to get on with their assigned task by themselves.

  Tyler Durden
  Tue, 10/05/2021 – 20:45

• GM's Autonomous Cruise Division May Hit $50 Billion In Revenue "Over The Next Couple Years"
  GM’s Autonomous Cruise Division May Hit $50 Billion In Revenue “Over The Next Couple Years”

  GM’s Cruise autonomy division, who is actually working on robotaxis (unlike another company who claimed to be doing so Tesla ) is now telling its investors its ride-hailing business could eventually reach $50 billion in revenue over the next couple of years.

  The company also plans on charging riders as soon as next year, Cruise Chief Executive Officer Dan Ammann is expected to say this week, according to Bloomberg. Ammann will also note that the company could expand in 2023 if California regulators allow it to. 

  GM is presenting its ride hailing business to investors on October 6 and October 7. The company will explain how ride hailing, mixed with EVs and connected technologies, could soon start increasing the automaker’s top line.

  Cruise has spent billions trying to get their technology to a jumping off point, so bringing in billions in revenue (or any revenue at all) would be a notable positive for the division. It has taken more time establishing approvals for robotic driving, which has, to this point, delayed revenue. 

  

  GM has a majority stake in Cruise. The company said it’ll try and use a modified version of the Chevy Bolt to begin charging for rides, pending California Public Utility Commission approvals. The company will also have its Origin autonomous shuttle in production by 2023, alongside of its Hummer EV and electric Silverado. 

  All eyes will be on Ammann this week, who will show how revenue for Cruise could eventually get to $50 billion. His presentation “will include updates on the automaker’s electric vehicle plans, its SuperCruise driver-assistance feature and how the company will use its Ultify software platform to generate more revenue from app-based services in cars,” Bloomberg reported this week. 

  Chris James, founder of Engine No. 1, an activist investor, said this week: “GM’s goal to go 100% electric by 2035 signals one of the largest transformations in the history of the auto industry and creates an opportunity to re-center the battery supply chain in America. The company’s early lead on battery technology, along with Mary Barra and the board’s leadership, creates tremendous advantages.”

  Tyler Durden
  Tue, 10/05/2021 – 20:25

• Taliban Raids ISIS Hideout After Kabul Mosque Bombing As US Mulls 'Cooperation'
  Taliban Raids ISIS Hideout After Kabul Mosque Bombing As US Mulls ‘Cooperation’

  Authored by Dave DeCamp via AntiWar.com,

  Taliban spokesman Zabihullah Mujahid said Monday that the Taliban raided a hideout for the Afghan ISIS affiliate, known as ISIS-K. He hailed a “decisive and successful attack,” he said. 

  Mujahid said the Taliban killed every ISIS fighter they found at the hideout in the northern Kabul neighborhood of Khair Khana, although he did not give a specific number. A source told Afghanistan’s TOLO News that 10 members of a family affiliated with ISIS-K were killed in the operation.

  

  The raid came after a Sunday bombing at a mosque in Kabul that killed five civilians. According to The Associated Press, nobody intially took responsibility for the Mosque attack, but ISIS-K was quickly suspected since it has been active. 

  But later as The Hill reported:

  ISIS-K, ISIS’s affiliate in Afghanistan, claimed responsibility for Sunday’s bombing, during which no Taliban fighters were killed, the group told The Washington Post. 

  The Taliban have been busy fighting ISIS-K since the US completed its withdrawal. Last week, the Taliban raided an ISIS-K hideout in the Parwan province, which is north of Kabul.

  ISIS-K has taken credit for several attacks against the Taliban in Jalalabad, the capital of Nangarhar province, where the terrorist group is mainly based.

  The US has hinted at further intervention in Afghanistan under the guise of fighting ISIS-K. While the Taliban has accepted help from the US in the past against ISIS-K, since the withdrawal, the Taliban said they don’t need any foreign help to fight the terrorist group.

  Working with the Devil? The Potential for U.S.-#Taliban Cooperation Against the Islamic State in #Afghanistan, by @JJSchroden & Alexander Powell via @WarOnTheRocks https://t.co/f4zb9ck3Jk

  — Andrej Matisak (@matisaksk) September 16, 2021

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

  There have been no known US airstrikes in Afghanistan since the August 29th Kabul drone strike that slaughtered 10 civilians, but the Taliban have accused the US of flying drones into Afghan airspace since then.

  Tyler Durden
  Tue, 10/05/2021 – 20:05

• Who's Running The Show? Kerry Tells French TV Biden 'Literally Not Aware' Of International Spat
  Who’s Running The Show? Kerry Tells French TV Biden ‘Literally Not Aware’ Of International Spat

  President Joe Biden was ‘literally not aware’ of the spat between the United States and France which was ignited by the Biden administration’s tri-lateral agreement with the UK and Australia over the exchange of submarine technology, according to Climate Envoy John Kerry.

  

  The spat was so bad that French President Emmanuel Macron briefly recalled his ambassador to the US.

  “[Biden] asked me. He said, ‘What’s the situation?’ And I explained- he had not been aware of that. He literally had not been aware of what had transpired,” Kerry said in an interview broadcast on French television. “And I don’t want to go into the details of it, but suffice it to say, that the president, my president is very committed to strengthening the relationship and making sure that this is a small event of the past and moving on to the much more important future.”

  John Kerry admits in interview with French TV that Joe Biden had no idea about the fallout with the French from the AUKUS sub deal.

  “He literally had not been aware of what had transpired” pic.twitter.com/EblvE05zKg

  — POLARIS (@polarisnatsec) October 5, 2021

  As Fox News notes, Kerry’s embarrassing admission caught the attention of Sen. Bill Hagerty (R-TN), who tweeted: “This could explain disastrous Afghanistan withdrawal & Biden Admin selling out Eastern European allies in NATO & Ukraine while waiving sanctions on Nord Stream 2 pipeline.“

  .@ClimateEnvoy John Kerry says @POTUS isn’t consulted on reactions of key US Allies. This could explain disastrous Afghanistan withdrawal & Biden Admin selling out Eastern European allies in NATO & Ukraine while waiving sanctions on Nord Stream 2 pipeline. https://t.co/RNaa2vsaJg

  — Senator Bill Hagerty (@SenatorHagerty) October 5, 2021

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

  More:

  Generally speaking

  — Lady Liberty 1776 🇺🇸❤🇺🇸 (@kmreid007) October 5, 2021

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

  John Kerry inspires confidence in the WH by revealing that Joe Biden ‘literally had not been aware of what had transpired’ with submarine deal https://t.co/Lj24B3fcW8

  — Twitchy Team (@TwitchyTeam) October 5, 2021

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

  Who’s running the show?

  Tyler Durden
  Tue, 10/05/2021 – 19:45

• Greenwald: Democrats, Media Do Not Want To Weaken Facebook, Just Commandeer Its Power To Censor
  Greenwald: Democrats, Media Do Not Want To Weaken Facebook, Just Commandeer Its Power To Censor

  Authored by Glenn Greenwald via Substack,

  “Whistleblower” Frances Haugen is a vital media and political asset because she advances their quest for greater control over online political discourse…

  

  Much is revealed by who is bestowed hero status by the corporate media. This week’s anointed avatar of stunning courage is Frances Haugen, a former Facebook product manager being widely hailed as a “whistleblower” for providing internal corporate documents to the Wall Street Journal relating to the various harms which Facebook and its other platforms (Instagram and WhatsApp) are allegedly causing.

  The social media giant hurts America and the world, this narrative maintains, by permitting misinformation to spread (presumably more so than cable outlets and mainstream newspapers do virtually every week); fostering body image neurosis in young girls through Instagram (presumably more so than fashion magazines, Hollywood and the music industry do with their glorification of young and perfectly-sculpted bodies); promoting polarizing political content in order to keep the citizenry enraged, balkanized and resentful and therefore more eager to stay engaged (presumably in contrast to corporate media outlets, which would never do such a thing); and, worst of all, by failing to sufficiently censor political content that contradicts liberal orthodoxies and diverges from decreed liberal Truth. On Tuesday, Haugen’s star turn took her to Washington, where she spent the day testifying before the Senate about Facebook’s dangerous refusal to censor even more content and ban even more users than they already do.

  There is no doubt, at least to me, that Facebook and Google are both grave menaces. Through consolidation, mergers and purchases of any potential competitors, their power far exceeds what is compatible with a healthy democracy. A bipartisan consensus has emerged on the House Antitrust Committee that these two corporate giants — along with Amazon and Apple — are all classic monopolies in violation of long-standing but rarely enforced antitrust laws. Their control over multiple huge platforms that they purchased enables them to punish and even destroy competitors, as we saw when Apple, Google and Amazon united to remove Parler from the internet forty-eight hours after leading Democrats demanded that action, right as Parler became the most-downloaded app in the country, or as Google suppresses Rumble videos in its dominant search feature as punishment for competing with Google’s YouTube platform. Facebook and Twitter both suppressed reporting on the authentic documents about Joe Biden’s business activities reported by The New York Post just weeks before the 2020 election. These social media giants also united to effectively remove the sitting elected President of the United States from the internet, prompting grave warnings from leaders across the democratic world about how anti-democratic their consolidated censorship power has become.

  But none of the swooning over this new Facebook heroine nor any of the other media assaults on Facebook have anything remotely to do with a concern over those genuine dangers. Congress has taken no steps to curb the influence of these Silicon Valley giants because Facebook and Google drown the establishment wings of both parties with enormous amounts of cash and pay well-connected lobbyists who are friends and former colleagues of key lawmakers to use their D.C. influence to block reform. With the exception of a few stalwarts, neither party’s ruling wing really has any objection to this monopolistic power as long as it is exercised to advance their own interests.

  And that is Facebook’s only real political problem: not that they are too powerful but that they are not using that power to censor enough content from the internet that offends the sensibilities and beliefs of Democratic Party leaders and their liberal followers, who now control the White House, the entire executive branch and both houses of Congress. Haugen herself, now guided by long-time Obama operative Bill Burton, has made explicitly clear that her grievance with her former employer is its refusal to censor more of what she regards as “hate, violence and misinformation.” In a 60 Minutes interview on Sunday night, Haugen summarized her complaint about CEO Mark Zuckerberg this way: he “has allowed choices to be made where the side effects of those choices are that hateful and polarizing content gets more distribution and more reach.” Haugen, gushed The New York Times’ censorship-desperate tech unit as she testified on Tuesday, is “calling for regulation of the technology and business model that amplifies hate and she’s not shy about comparing Facebook to tobacco.”

  Agitating for more online censorship has been a leading priority for the Democratic Party ever since they blamed social media platforms (along with WikiLeaks, Russia, Jill Stein, James Comey, The New York Times, and Bernie Bros) for the 2016 defeat of the rightful heir to the White House throne, Hillary Clinton. And this craving for censorship has been elevated into an even more urgent priority for their corporate media allies, due to the same belief that Facebook helped elect Trump but also because free speech on social media prevents them from maintaining a stranglehold on the flow of information by allowing ordinary, uncredentialed serfs to challenge, question and dispute their decrees or build a large audience that they cannot control. Destroying alternatives to their failing platforms is thus a means of self-preservation: realizing that they cannot convince audiences to trust their work or pay attention to it, they seek instead to create captive audiences by destroying or at least controlling any competitors to their pieties.

  As I have been reporting for more than a year, Democrats do not make any secret of their intent to co-opt Silicon Valley power to police political discourse and silence their enemies. Congressional Democrats have summoned the CEO’s of Google, Facebook and Twitter four times in the last year to demand they censor more political speech. At the last Congressional inquisition in March, one Democrat after the next explicitly threatened the companies with legal and regulatory reprisals if they did not immediately start censoring more.

  A Pew survey from August shows that Democrats now overwhelmingly support internet censorship not only by tech giants but also by the government which their party now controls. In the name of “restricting misinformation,” more than 3/4 of Democrats want tech companies “to restrict false info online, even if it limits freedom of information,” and just under 2/3 of Democrats want the U.S. Government to control that flow of information over the internet:

  

  The prevailing pro-censorship mindset of the Democratic Party is reflected not only by that definitive polling data but also by the increasingly brash and explicit statements of their leaders. At the end of 2020, Sen. Ed Markey (D-MA), newly elected after young leftist activists worked tirelessly on his behalf to fend off a primary challenge from the more centrist Rep. Joseph Kennedy III (D-MA), told Facebook’s Zuckerberg exactly what the Democratic Party wanted. In sum, they demand more censorship:

  This, and this alone, is the sole reason why there is so much adoration being constructed around the cult of this new disgruntled Facebook employee. What she provides, above all else, is a telegenic and seemingly informed “insider” face to tell Americans that Facebook is destroying their country and their world by allowing too much content to go uncensored, by permitting too many conversations among ordinary people that are, in the immortal worlds of the NYT‘s tech reporter Taylor Lorenz, “unfettered.”

  When Facebook, Google, Twitter and other Silicon Valley social media companies were created, they did not set out to become the nation’s discourse police. Indeed, they affirmatively wanted not to do that. Their desire to avoid that role was due in part to the prevailing libertarian ideology of a free internet in that sub-culture. But it was also due to self-interest: the last thing social media companies wanted to be doing is looking for ways to remove and block people from using their product and, worse, inserting themselves into the middle of inflammatory political controversies. Corporations seek to avoid angering potential customers and users over political stances, not courting that anger.

  This censorship role was not one they so much sought as one that was foisted on them. It was not really until the 2016 election, when Democrats were obsessed with blaming social media giants (and pretty much everyone else except themselves) for their humiliating defeat, that pressure began escalating on these executives to start deleting content liberals deemed dangerous or false and banning their adversaries from using the platforms at all. As it always does, the censorship began by targeting widely disliked figures — Milo Yiannopoulos, Alex Jones and others deemed “dangerous” — so that few complained (and those who did could be vilified as sympathizers of the early offenders). Once entrenched, the censorship net then predictably and rapidly spread inward (as it invariably does) to encompass all sorts of anti-establishment dissidents on the right, the left, and everything in between. And no matter how much it widens, the complaints that it is not enough intensify. For those with the mentality of a censor, there can never be enough repression of dissent. And this plot to escalate censorship pressures found the perfect vessel in this stunningly brave and noble Facebook heretic who emerged this week from the shadows into the glaring spotlight. She became a cudgel that Washington politicians and their media allies could use to beat Facebook into submission to their censorship demands.

  In this dynamic we find what the tech and culture writer Curtis Yarvin calls “power leak.” This is a crucial concept for understanding how power is exercised in American oligarchy, and Yarvin’s brilliant essay illuminates this reality as well as it can be described. Hyperbolically arguing that “Mark Zuckerberg has no power at all,” Yarvin points out that it may appear that the billionaire Facebook CEO is powerful because he can decide what will and will not be heard on the largest information distribution platform in the world. But in reality, Zuckerberg is no more powerful than the low-paid content moderators whom Facebook employs to hit the “delete” or “ban” button, since it is neither the Facebook moderators nor Zuckerberg himself who is truly making these decisions. They are just censoring as they are told, in obedience to rules handed down from on high. It is the corporate press and powerful Washington elites who are coercing Facebook and Google to censor in accordance with their wishes and ideology upon pain of punishment in the form of shame, stigma and even official legal and regulatory retaliation. Yarvin puts it this way:

  However, if Zuck is subject to some kind of oligarchic power, he is in exactly the same position as his own moderators. He exercises power, but it is not his power, because it is not his will. The power does not flow from him; it flows through him. This is why we can say honestly and seriously that he has no power. It is not his, but someone else’s. . . .

  Zuck doesn’t want to do any of this. Nor do his users particularly want it. Rather, he is doing it because he is under pressure from the press. Duh. He cannot even admit that he is under duress—or his Vietcong guards might just snap, and shoot him like the Western running-dog capitalist he is….

  And what grants the press this terrifying power? The pure and beautiful power of the logos? What distinguishes a well-written poast, like this one, from an equally well-written Times op-ed? Nothing at all but prestige. In normal times, every sane CEO will comply unhesitatingly with the slightest whim of the legitimate press, just as they will comply unhesitatingly with a court order. That’s just how it is. To not call this power government is—just playing with words.

  As I have written before, this problem — whereby the government coerces private actors to censor for them — is not one that Yarvin was the first to recognize. The U.S. Supreme Court has held, since at least 1963, that the First Amendment’s “free speech” clause is violated when state officials issue enough threats and other forms of pressure that essentially leave the private actor with no real choice but to censor in accordance with the demands of state officials. Whether we are legally at the point where that constitutional line has been crossed by the increasingly blunt bullying tactics of Democratic lawmakers and executive branch officials is a question likely to be resolved in the courts. But whatever else is true, this pressure is very real and stark and reveals that the real goal of Democrats is not to weaken Facebook but to capture its vast power for their own nefarious ends.

  There is another issue raised by this week’s events that requires ample caution as well. The canonized Facebook whistleblower and her journalist supporters are claiming that what Facebook fears most is repeal or reform of Section 230, the legislative provision that provides immunity to social media companies for defamatory or other harmful material published by their users. That section means that if a Facebook user or YouTube host publishes legally actionable content, the social media companies themselves cannot be held liable. There may be ways to reform Section 230 that can reduce the incentive to impose censorship, such as denying that valuable protection to any platform that censors, instead making it available only to those who truly allow an unmoderated platform to thrive. But such a proposal has little support in Washington. What is far more likely is that Section 230 will be “modified” to impose greater content moderation obligations on all social media companies.

  Far from threatening Facebook and Google, such a legal change could be the greatest gift one can give them, which is why their executives are often seen calling on Congress to regulate the social media industry. Any legal scheme that requires every post and comment to be moderated would demand enormous resources — gigantic teams of paid experts and consultants to assess “misinformation” and “hate speech” and veritable armies of employees to carry out their decrees. Only the established giants such as Facebook and Google would be able to comply with such a regimen, while other competitors — including large but still-smaller ones such as Twitter — would drown in those requirements. And still-smaller challengers to the hegemony of Facebook and Google, such as Substack and Rumble, could never survive. In other words, any attempt by Congress to impose greater content moderation obligations — which is exactly what they are threatening — would destroy whatever possibility remains for competitors to arise and would, in particular, destroy any platforms seeking to protect free discourse. That would be the consequence by design, which is why one should be very wary of any attempt to pretend that Facebook and Google fear such legislative adjustments.

  There are real dangers posed by allowing companies such as Facebook and Google to amass the power they have now consolidated. But very little of the activism and anger from the media and Washington toward these companies is designed to fracture or limit that power. It is designed, instead, to transfer that power to other authorities who can then wield it for their own interests. The only thing more alarming than Facebook and Google controlling and policing our political discourse is allowing elites from one of the political parties in Washington and their corporate media outlets to assume the role of overseer, as they are absolutely committed to doing. Far from being some noble whistleblower, Frances Haugen is just their latest tool to exploit for their scheme to use the power of social media giants to control political discourse in accordance with their own views and interests.

  Correction, Oct. 5, 2021, 5:59 pm ET: This article was edited to reflect that just under 2/3 of Democrats favor U.S. Government censorship of the internet in the name of fighting misinformation, not just over.

  Tyler Durden
  Tue, 10/05/2021 – 19:25

• FBI Counterterrorism Official Admits Agency Doesn't Track Antifa Violence
  FBI Counterterrorism Official Admits Agency Doesn’t Track Antifa Violence

  Last week, the FBI’s Assistant Director of Counterterrorism, Timothy Langan, admitted that the Bureau doesn’t track ‘Antifa’ violence – as they don’t consider the leftist group to be an ‘organization.’

  

  Via TownHall:

  In a congressional hearing last week titled “Confronting Violent White Supremacy (Part VI): Examining the Biden Administration’s Counterterrorism Strategy,” FBI Assistant Director of Counterterrorism Timothy Langan said that the Bureau doesn’t consider Antifa to be an “organization,” and as such does not have specific information on the group’s activities. 

  In response to a question about how much violence or domestic terrorism Antifa committed in recent years from Rep. Nancy Mace (R-SC), Langan had nothing to offer. 

  “Under the anti-government category or subcategory of domestic terrorism — would that include groups like Antifa or Black Lives Matter, folks who commit violence or acts of domestic terrorism?” Mace asked.

  “Well, we don’t identify groups but individuals’ actions,” Langan responded. “So if individuals are committing actions that would be in furtherance of anti-government or anarchist ideals then they would fall into that category.”

  Watch:

  Yet, in 2020 – under President Trump, FBI Director Chirstopher Wray told Congress: “We have seen Antifa adherence coalescing and working together in what I would describe as small groups and nodes,” adding that the bureau was conducting multiple investigations “into some anarchist violent extremists, some of whom operate through these nodes.”

  In September 2020, Wray said ‘Antifa is a real thing.’

  “Antifa is a real thing. It’s not a group or an organization. It’s a movement, or an ideology may be one way of thinking of it … And we have quite a number — and I’ve said this quite consistently since my first time appearing before this committee — we have any number of properly predicated investigations into what we would describe as violent anarchist extremists and some of those individuals self-identify with Antifa.”

  What’s more, in 2017 the FBI and DHS classified Antifa activities as “domestic terrorist violence.”

  Federal authorities have been warning state and local officials since early 2016 that leftist extremists known as “antifa” had become increasingly confrontational and dangerous, so much so that the Department of Homeland Security formally classified their activities as “domestic terrorist violence,” according to interviews and confidential law enforcement documents obtained by POLITICO. –Politico

  Yet, Langan made clear that the FBI isn’t taking Antifa seriously.

  “The director has previously described them as a ‘movement’ and there have been individuals that have associated or identified with Antifa that have conducted violent acts that we would categorize as anarchist,” he said, after Mace asked if he would classify Antifa as an anarchist group.

  Mace pushed back, asking “How many acts of violence or domestic terrorism has Antifa committed over the last two years?” To which Langan replied: “Since we don’t categorize Antifa, nor do we calculate or collate information regarding Antifa, that movement, we don’t have that.”

  Last August, then Attorney General William Barr said that Antifa is a “revolutionary group” bent on establishing communism or socialism in the US.

  “They are a revolutionary group that is interested in some form of socialism, communism. They’re essentially Bolsheviks. Their tactics are fascistic,” Barr told Fox News.

  Related:

  Antifa Plots Acid Attack At DC Free Speech Rally

   “We Know Where You Sleep At Night”: Antifa Mob Whose Founder Loves Assassination Targets Tucker Carlson At Home

  Watch: “Street Anarchy” As Antifa Attacks Portland Drivers That Don’t Obey

  Bay Area TV Anchor: “I Experienced Hate First Hand Today In Berkeley” From Antifa

  “Let’s Kill Some Cops”: Antifa Infiltrated By Undercover Trump Supporter, Recorded Plotting Attacks

  “Still Think This Is An Idea?” – San Francisco Free-Speech Marchers, Police Violently Attacked By Antifa

  Conservative Journalist Jack Posobiec Assaulted By DC Antifa

  The FBI, however, apparently agrees with Rep. Jerry Nadler (D-NY)…

  I ran into Jerry Nadler in DC and asked him to disavow the Antifa violence/rioting in Portland.

  His response?

  “THATS A MYTH” pic.twitter.com/veImyE2rju

  — Essential Fleccas 🇺🇸 (@fleccas) July 27, 2020

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  Tyler Durden
  Tue, 10/05/2021 – 19:05

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