Today’s News 7th November 2020

  • Escobar: Banana Follies – The Mother Of All Color Revolutions
    Escobar: Banana Follies – The Mother Of All Color Revolutions

    Tyler Durden

    Fri, 11/06/2020 – 23:40

    Authored by Pepe Escobar via The Asia Times,

    A gaming exercise of the perfect, indigenous color revolution, code-named Blue, was leaked from a major think tank established in the imperial lands that first designed the color revolution concept.

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    Not all the information disclosed here about the gaming of Blue has been declassified. That may well elicit a harsh response from the Deep State, even as a similar scenario was gamed by an outfit called Transition Integrity Project.

    Both scenarios should qualify as predictive programming – with the Deep State preparing the general public, in advance, for exactly how things will play out.

    The standard color revolution playbook rules usually start in the capital city of nation-state X, during an election cycle, with freedom fighting “rebels” enjoying full national and international media support.

    Blue concerns a presidential election in the Hegemon. In the gaming exercise, the incumbent president, codenamed Buffoon, was painted Red. The challenger, codenamed Corpse, was painted Blue.

    Blue – the exercise – went up a notch because, compared to its predecessors, the starting point was not a mere insurgency, but a pandemic. Not any pandemic, but a really serious, bad to the bone global pandemic with an explosive infection fatality rate of less than 1%.

    By a fortunate coincidence, the lethal pandemic allowed Blue operators to promote mail-in ballots as the safest, socially distant voting procedure.

    That connected with a rash of polls predicting an all but inevitable Blue win in the election – even a Blue Wave.

    The premise is simple: take down the economy and deflate a sitting president whose stated mission is to drive a booming economy. In tandem, convince public opinion that actually getting to the polls is a health hazard.

    The Blue production committee takes no chances, publicly announcing they would contest any result that contradicts the prepackaged outcome: Blue’s final victory in a quirky, anachronistic, anti-direct democracy body called the “electoral college”.

    If Red somehow wins, Blue would wait until every vote is counted and duly litigated to every jurisdiction level. Relying on massive media support and social media marketing propelled to saturation levels, Blue proclaims that “under no scenario” Red would be allowed to declare victory.

    Countdown to magic voting

    Election Day comes. Vote counting is running smoothly – mail-in count, election day count, up to the minute tallies – but mostly favoring Red, especially in three states always essential for capturing the presidency. Red is also leading in what is characterized as “swing states”.

    But then, just as a TV network prematurely calls a supposedly assured Red state for Blue, all vote counting stops before midnight in major urban areas in key swing states under Blue governors, with Red in the lead.

    Blue operators stop counting to check whether their scenario towards a Blue victory can roll out without bringing in mail-in ballots. Their preferred mechanism is to manufacture the “will of the people” by keeping up an illusion of fairness.

    Yet they can always rely, as Plan B, on urban mail-in ballots on tap, hot and cold, until Blue squeaks by in two particularly key swing states that Red had bagged in a previous election.

    That’s what happens. Starting at 2 am, and later into the night, enter a batch of “magic” votes in these two key states. The sudden, vertical upward “adjustment” includes the case of a batch of 130k+ pro-Blue votes cast in a county alongside not a single pro-Red vote – a statistical miracle of Holy Ghost proportions.

    Stuffing the ballot box is a typical scam applied in Banana Republic declinations of color revolution. Blue operators use the tried and tested method applied to the gold futures market, when a sudden drop of naked shorts drives down gold price, thus protecting the US dollar.

    Blue operators bet the compliant mainstream media/Big Tech alliance will not question that, well, out of the blue, the vote would swing towards Blue in a 2 to 3 or 3 to 4 margin.

    • They bet no questions will be asked on how a 2% to 5% positive ballot trend in Red’s favor in a few states turned into a 0.5% to 1.4% trend in favor of Blue by around 4am.

    • And that this discrepancy happens in two swing states almost simultaneously.

    • And that some precincts turn more presidential votes than they have registered voters.

    • And that in swing states, the number of extra mysterious votes for Blue far exceeds votes cast for the Senate candidates in these states, when the record shows that down ticket totals are traditionally close.

    • And that turnout in one of these states would be 89.25%.

    The day after Election Day there are vague explanations that one of the possible vote-dumps was just a “clerical error”, while in another disputed state there is no justification for accepting ballots with no postmark.

    Blue operators relax because the mainstream media/Big Tech alliance squashes each and every complaint as “conspiracy theories”.

    The Red counter-revolution

    The two presidential candidates do not exactly help their own cases.

    Codename Corpse, in a Freudian slip, had revealed his party had set up the most extensive and “diverse” fraud scheme ever.

    Not only Corpse is about to be investigated for a shady computer-related scheme. He is a stage 2 dementia patient with a rapidly unraveling profile – kept barely functional by drugs, which can’t prevent his mind slowly shutting down.

    Codename Buffoon, true to his instincts, goes pre-emptive, declaring the whole election a fraud but without offering a smoking gun. He is duly debunked by the mainstream media/Big Tech alliance for spreading “false claims”.

    All this is happening as a wily, old, bitter operator not only had declared that the only admissible scenario was a Blue victory; she had already positioned herself for a top security job.

    Blue also games that Red would immediately embark on a single-minded path ahead: regiment an army of lawyers demanding access to every registration roll to scrub, review and verify each and every mail-in ballot, a process of de facto forensic analysis.

    Yet Blue cannot foresee how many fake ballots will be unveiled during recounts.

    As Corpse is set to declare victory, Buffoon eyes the long game, set to take the whole thing all the way to the Supreme Court.

    The Red machine had already gamed it – as it was fully aware of how operation Blue would be played.

    The Red counter-revolution does carry the potential of strategically checkmating Blue.

    It is a three-pronged attack – with Red using the Judiciary Committee, the Senate and the Attorney General, all under the authority of codename Buffoon until Inauguration Day. The end game after a vicious legal battle is to overthrow Blue.

    Red’s top operators have the option of setting up a Senate commission, or a Special Counsel, at the request of the Judiciary Committee, to be appointed by the Department of Justice to investigate Corpse.

    In the meantime, two electoral college votes, one-month apart, are required to certify the presidential winner.

    These votes will happen in the middle of one and perhaps two investigations focused on Corpse. Any state represented at the electoral college may object to approve an investigated Corpse; in this case it’s illegal for that state to allow its electors to certify the state’s presidential results.

    Corpse may even be impeached by his own party, under the 25th Ammendment, due to his irreversible mental decline.

    The resulting chaos would have to be resolved by the Red-leaning Supreme Court. Not exactly the outcome favored by Blue.

    The House always wins

    The heart of the matter is that this think tank gaming transcends both Red and Blue. It’s all about the Deep State’s end game.

    There’s nothing like a massive psy ops embedded in a WWE-themed theater under the sign of Divide and Rule to pit mob vs. mob, with half of the mob rebelling against what it perceives as an illegitimate government. The 0.00001% comfortably surveys the not only metaphorical carnage from above.

    Even as the Deep State, using its Blue minions, would never have allowed codename Buffoon to prevail, again, domestic Divide and Rule might be seen as the least disastrous outcome for the world at large.

    A civil war context in theory distracts the Deep State from bombing more Global South latitudes into the dystopian “democracy” charade it is now enacting.

    And yet a domestic Empire of Chaos gridlock may well encourage more foreign adventures as a necessary diversion to tie the room together.

    And that’s the beauty of the Blue gaming exercise: the House wins, one way or another.

  • Mile-High Weddings For $28k As Struggling Aviation Industry Searches For New Cash Flows
    Mile-High Weddings For $28k As Struggling Aviation Industry Searches For New Cash Flows

    Tyler Durden

    Fri, 11/06/2020 – 23:20

    Global tourism might not recover until 2025 from the virus-induced downturn. Still, already, players in the travel and tourism industries, more specifically, aviation, are reinventing or adding new business segments to drive new cash flows amid the rout in travel. 

    Take, for example, Air Charter Service, a global aircraft charter broker, is offering the “Ultimate Wedding in the Sky” on a private jet for $28,000. The packages allow 16 guests, presumably the wedding party only, to board a sleek Bombardier Challenger 850 for up to two hours to say “I do,” according to Travel Pulse

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    “Sadly, many couples have had to abandon their original wedding plans due to COVID-19. At Air Charter Service, we wanted to offer a solution to enable our clients to still have their dream wedding celebrations,” group private jets director Andy Christie said. 

    “Our’ Weddings in the Sky’ experiences include all food and beverages and can be tailor-made to suit couples’ needs, whether they want to celebrate with close family and friends or elope, just the two of them. The flight route can be pre-arranged, so the aircraft can fly over areas of significance to those who are celebrating their marriage,” Christie said. 

    The new service appears to be filling a void for those who have had their weddings canceled this year or cannot find venues because the virus pandemic has resulted in public health orders limiting gatherings. This could be a very lucrative new segment for Air Charter, and a move to drive new cash flows amid the severe downturn in travel tourism worldwide. 

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    Other players in the aviation industry have also become creative in finding new methods to drive business. 

    Recently, Singapore Airlines transformed some of its parked commercial airline jets into restaurants. A hopeful move to raise revenues for the struggling Asian air carrier. 

    Just days ago, we outlined which global airlines were at the highest risk of insolvency. 

  • American Election Is Not A Reset For Better Global Relations
    American Election Is Not A Reset For Better Global Relations

    Tyler Durden

    Fri, 11/06/2020 – 23:00

    Via The Strategic Culture Foundation,

    One contradiction about the American presidential election is this: for all the intense media attention and commentary around the world one would expect the result to perhaps portend immense consequence. The mundane reality, though, is that there will be little of appreciable consequence for US relations with the rest of the world.

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    The United States will continue to conduct itself as if it is above international law, interfering in other nations’ affairs, abusing its privileged dollar fiat currency, and unilaterally using violence and war to enforce its objective when it deems necessary.

    Every American president over the past century has engaged in all of these criminal practices. How could we expect any difference with a change of face in a system dictated to by the same corporate power? Only when the system of power fundamentally changes then can we expect to see meaningful change towards the better.

    It looks like Democrat contender Joe Biden has won enough votes to gain the White House against incumbent Republican President Donald Trump. The idiosyncrasies of the American electoral system mean that tallying of votes drags on for several days beyond the official election date on November 3. Given the closeness of the race there will also be legal contesting of the results, especially from the Trump campaign which at an early stage has made dubious claims about ballot fraud.

    However, as noted above, it hardly matters who finally wins the White House and is inaugurated as the 46th president on January 20. Trump’s past four years have amply demonstrated that any hopes for an improvement in US-Russia relations have been dashed. Trump was not merely held hostage by a revival in Cold War anti-Russian prejudices among the Washington establishment. He lent his own personal touch to deteriorating bilateral relations with such policies as undermining arms controls negotiations as well as attacking Russian energy trade with Europe through the Nord Stream pipeline.

    For his part, Biden has voiced more vehement antagonism towards Russia than Trump. There are reasons to be wary of any new White House and how US foreign policy could become marginally even more aggressive.

    What is patently clear is how bitterly polarized and divisive US domestic politics have become. This is due to the historic failing of the two-party system which has, over decades, left whole swathes of the population, in particular the majority working class, alienated from the political class. There is irreparable distrust and distortion among the American populace. To the point where it would seem impossible for any nominal winner of the election to be able to command a mandate.

    A tried and trusted mechanism for galvanizing is to “unite” the people by rallying them around the flag against some designated foreign enemy. Given the increasing unwieldy, fractious nature of American society, it is all the more imperative for the US ruling class to impose some level of coherence in order to restore the essential authority of governing power. With this paramount need to shore up a sense of authority, it can therefore be expected that American foreign policy will become more aggressive and militaristic in the next four years.

    So any notion that the presidential election might permit some kind of benign reset in US global relations is woefully misplaced.

    The US ship of state has been on a sped-up course for collision and conflict for many years, if not decades. Changing a captain figurehead in the bridge is not going to change the baleful course that is determined by the power interests of Big Business, Wall Street and the Pentagon’s military-industrial complex in the pursuit of American capitalist profits.

    That being said, however, the rest of the world should not let its wariness of Washington’s misconduct allow it to become transfixed by America’s flailing global ambitions. The world has changed dramatically from the bygone days of the US as a formidable superpower. New centers of power have emerged in a multipolar world, in particular the paradigm shift in the global economy to China and Eurasia. Russia and China are steadily solidifying their strategic economic partnership. They will and should continue on this path of co-development with other nations, and let Washington stew in its own failures.

    In a very real way, the rest of the world should stop paying so much attention to the American spectacle. It’s like watching a “reality TV show” which has little consequence except sapping the viewer’s energy. Better to get off the proverbial couch and get on with building an alternative, real world.

  • Supreme Court Orders Pennsylvania To Separate Out Late-Arriving Ballots
    Supreme Court Orders Pennsylvania To Separate Out Late-Arriving Ballots

    Tyler Durden

    Fri, 11/06/2020 – 22:53

    by Epoch Times

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    U.S. Supreme Court Justice Samuel Alito late Friday ordered Pennsylvania election officials to segregate and separately count ballots that arrived after Election Day.

    Alito granted a request by the state’s Republican party to separate mail-in ballots received between 8 p.m. Nov. 3 and 5 p.m. Nov. 6 from those that arrived by Election Day, in accordance with state guidance. He ordered (pdf) that those segregated ballots must be kept “in a secure, safe and sealed container separate from other voted ballots.”

    The justice, however, did not order the counties to stop counting but instead ordered those ballots to be counted separately.

    The Republican Party of Pennsylvania had filed a request (pdf) earlier on Friday asking the court for an order to log, segregate, and not take any actions over mail-in ballots received after Election Day.

    The Republicans argued that the order was necessary because it was unclear whether all 67 county boards of elections were following Boockvar’s guidance issued on Oct. 28 (pdf) on ballot segregation. The filing stated that while 42 counties confirmed that they would follow the guidance, the 25 remaining counties had not responded to whether they were segregating late-arriving ballots.

    Moreover, Boockvar’s guidances are not legally binding on the county boards of elections, which means the counties may choose not to follow the guidance, the party added.

    The Republicans also raised concerns that Boockvar had reserved the right to change her guidance or to provide further direction over the ballots. They said that the secretary had done so when it issued new guidance on Nov. 1 (pdf) directing county boards to count late-arriving ballots.

    “In short, an order from the Court is badly needed. But given some county boards’ refusal to confirm that they are segregating ballots and the Secretary’s changing guidance, an order requiring segregation of ballots may not suffice to preserve RPP’s appellate rights,” the Republicans wrote.

    “An order at this juncture is necessary to preserve this Court’s jurisdiction to resolve this matter on the merits, as well as its ability to enter an appropriate remedy for this general election,” they added.

    The Supreme Court has yet to decide on whether to review the case at hand.

    Alito said in his order that he had not been informed that the guidance issued on Oct. 28, “which had an important bearing on the question whether to order special treatment of the ballots in question,” had been modified.

    He also directed any responses to the application by 2 p.m. Nov. 7.

  • MIT Develops AI Tool To Detect COVID By Listening To Coughs 
    MIT Develops AI Tool To Detect COVID By Listening To Coughs 

    Tyler Durden

    Fri, 11/06/2020 – 22:40

    MIT Researchers have developed an AI pre-screening tool that can accurately detect if someone has COVID-19 via audio of their cough. The breakthrough technology could be embedded into a smartphone app and distributed to the general population, used even before clinical testing to recognize if someone is infected. With the second coronavirus wave arriving in Europe and the US, the AI pre-screening tool could be an effective bet to screen for asymptomatic patients.

    The paper, titled “COVID-19 Artificial Intelligence Diagnosis using only Cough Recordings,” was recently published in the IEEE Journal of Engineering in Medicine and Biology, specifies that the AI pre-screening tool distinguishes asymptomatic people from healthy individuals through forced-cough recordings. 

    Lead researcher of the study Jordi Laguarta, and co-researchers Ferran Hueto and Brian Subirana, along with their team, used the AI tool to test tens of thousands of audio cough samples. Their AI tool had a 98.5% accuracy rating for identifying coughs from people with COVID-19, including 100% of coughs from asymptomatic people. 

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    Visual Summary: The AI model architecture shown enables a non-invasive, real-time solution for an unlimited throughput daily country-wide screening, outbreak monitoring, and viral/serology test pooling candidate selection at essentially no cost. As shown on the ROC curve, the model discriminates officially tested COVID-19 subjects 97.1% accurately with 98.5% sensitivity and 94.2% specificity, with a 100% asymptomatic detection rate and 88% accuracy on all subjects. These results are based on a dataset of 5320 subjects. h/t COVID-19 Artificial Intelligence Diagnosis using only Cough Recordings 

    According to MIT News, the researchers are planning to integrate the new AI tool into a smartphone app that would allow users to log in on a daily basis to record a cough and get real-time results of whether they’re infected or not. Upon FDA-approval, the app could be a transformative pre-screening tool. 

    The researchers said, “the effective implementation of this group diagnostic tool could diminish the spread of the pandemic if everyone uses it before going to a classroom, a factory, or a restaurant.” 

    They concluded: “Pandemics could be a thing of the past if pre-screening tools are always on in the background and constantly improved.” 

    What’s scarier than contracting the virus is the encroaching surveillance state. If the app is packaged up, cleared by the FDA, and distributed the millions, who exactly will be receiving this data?

    Will an app user who is flagged for a possible infection be monitored via the smartphone’s GPS?

    These are some of the questions readers should be asking. 

  • Scottish Man Arrested For Calling Politician A "Nazi"
    Scottish Man Arrested For Calling Politician A “Nazi”

    Tyler Durden

    Fri, 11/06/2020 – 22:20

    Authored by Simon Black via SovereignMan.com,

    Are you ready for this week’s absurdity?

    Here’s our weekend roll-up of the most ridiculous stories from around the world that are threats to your liberty, risks to your prosperity… and on occasion, inspiring poetic justice.

    Woman in labor wouldn’t go to hospital until she voted

    Last week when a woman went into labor, she had just one thing on her mind. It wasn’t the safety of her child, or even herself. Instead, her top priority was, “I need to vote!”

    Concerned that she wouldn’t be able to vote after giving birth, she had her husband stop off at an early voting center on the way to the hospital.

    She cast her ballot amid controlled intentional breathing to ease the pain of contractions.

    The media acted like this was a cute, feel good story about the importance of voting.

    In reality, it shows what you might call election derangement syndrome.

    In what world is voting more important than receiving the most prompt medical attention to ensure you and your unborn baby are as healthy as possible?

    Click here to read the full story.

    Kentucky state police train to be “ruthless killers”

    After a Kentucky State Police officer shot and killed a suspect, a lawyer filed an open records request.

    Amid the documents was included a training presentation for new cadets of the Kentucky State Police.

    The slideshow entitled “The Warrior’s Mindset” encouraged trainees to maintain “a mindset void of emotion” and become a “ruthless killer.”

    The slideshow also quoted Adolf Hitler… three times. That made Hitler the most quoted man in the presentation.

    One quote taken from Mein Kampf stated, “the very first essential for success is a perpetually constant and regular employment of violence.”

    And one of the closing slides of the presentation states without explanation, “Über Alles.”

    “Deutschland, Deutschland über alles,” means “Germany, Germany above everything,” and is part of a verse of the national anthem closely associated with the Nazis.

    Click here to read the full story.

    Scottish man arrested for calling politician a nazi

    Because of COVID lockdowns in Scotland, a man named Brian Smith was not allowed to attend his uncle’s funeral.

    In reaction, he sent a series of angry emails to the leader of the Scottish National Party, Nicola Sturgeon, who was responsible for the strict rules.

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    One of the profanity laced emails included images of Sturgeon depicted as a Nazi.

    For that, Smith was charged with “telecommunications offences” which typically involve threats and abuse… even though there were no threats made.

    Click here to read the full story.

    Hate crimes and public order bill would ban free speech in scots’ own homes

    Clearly it appears that free speech in Scotland is already dead, but the government is just getting started.

    In August we talked about a Scottish Hate Crime Bill that would outlaw “stirring up hatred.”

    The bill includes language that wouldn’t just make it illegal to use hate speech (in whatever way the government chooses to define this in its sole discretion).

    It would also make it illegal to use hate speech in a theatrical performance, or to possess “inflammatory material” which could “stir up hatred”.

    So basically the government could ban any book it wants, from “To Kill a Mockingbird” to the Bible.

    But just a few days ago, Scottish Justice Secretary Humza Yousaf whined that the legislation doesn’t go far enough.

    He testified that it should extend into the home and regulate what people say in private.

    This could make it illegal to make crude jokes, teach your children about biological gender, or even indicate your personal preference for one religion over another.

    Click here to read the full story.

    AOC pushes bill to introduce government banks across the US

    Everyone’s favorite Bolshevik member of Congress, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, has co-sponsored a bill called the Public Banking Act.

    It would create federally-funded, government-owned banks across the nation, to hand out loans at low interest rates to the “unbanked and underbanked.”

    But cities and states on the verge of insolvency could also take advantage of the easy taxpayer-funded loans provided by these banks.

    Since many of these governments shot themselves in the foot with COVID-19 lockdowns, tax revenue is down.

    This would allow them to continue irresponsible spending, and go further into debt to run basic operations, with little hope of ever paying the loans back.

    Sounds like another enormous debt bubble of bad loans to people and businesses unable to pay them back, with no collateral.

    What could possibly go wrong?

    Click here to read the full story.

    *  *  *

    On another note… We think gold could DOUBLE and silver could increase by up to 5 TIMES in the next few years. That’s why we published a new, 50-page long Ultimate Guide on Gold & Silver that you can download here.

  • Erdogan Fires Turkish Central Bank Governor, Launching Full-Blown Currency Crisis
    Erdogan Fires Turkish Central Bank Governor, Launching Full-Blown Currency Crisis

    Tyler Durden

    Fri, 11/06/2020 – 22:14

    Back in July 2019, when Turkey’s economy was in freefall and its inflation was soaring following a historic currency crash in mid-2018, and shortly after Erdogan became a de facto executive and unopposed ruler of Turkey, the Turkish president had a brilliant idea: take decades of monetary orthodoxy and flip them on their head. Faced with a lose-lose situation of slowing growth, runaway prices and a slumping lira, Erdogan conceived of what is now known as “Erdoganomics” or the bizarre epiphany that in order to fight inflation and keep the currency from plunging, all Turkey had to do was the polar opposite of what any other country in its position would do and cut rates, or as he put it, totally obliterating cause and effect, high interest rates cause inflation.

    To implement this truly “unique” vision, Erdogan fired the then-governor of the Turkish Central Bank, Murat Cetinkaya, who inexplicably refused to cut rates at a time when Turkish inflation was surging, and replaced him with an obedient lapdog, Murat Uysal.

    “We fired the previous central bank governor because he wouldn’t listen and we have decided to move on with our new friend,” Erdogan said in a speech at parliament in Ankara Tuesday. Erdogan said he told the new governor that “we are going to lower interest rates.”

    It worked for a while: Uysal delivered a bigger-than-forecast cut on almost all occasions, that he’s reduced rates since Erdogan appointed him in July, bringing the cumulative easing under his watch to 16 percentage points – including a record move in his first month on the job.

    For a while it worked: having cut rates by 16% in under a year, the Turkish economy had staged a modest rebound, but most importantly, inflation did in fact collapse, sparking quiet but agitated discussions across various corners of monetary academia, if Erdoganomics was not in fact right, and everything accepted as conventional by central banks was not upside down.

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    In the end, of course, it failed, and with the Turkish economy crippled by the global pandemic, with much needed tourism in freefall and accelerating a capital account crisis, the Turkish lira started to slide, and slide, and slide some more…

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    … until it eventually surpassed the Brazilian Real as the worst performing currency in the world, losing 30% of its value in 2020

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    But worst of all, instead of further cutting rates in line with Erdogan’s visions, the central bank ended its easing cycle and back in September, it resumed hiking, rising rates from 8.25% to 10.25%.

    While that rate hike was the only thing that prevented the lira from a far greater collapse, it also turned out to be one more rate hikes than Erdogan could handle, and late on Friday, Erdogan unexpectedly fired the governor of the country’s central bank – less than a year and a half after he did the exact same thing – and replaced him with a former finance minister.

    Murat Uysal was just 16 months into his four-year term at the helm of the central bank when he was dismissed by presidential decree in the early hours of Saturday, with no reason given although the reason was clear: instead of cutting rates to “stimulate” the economy and fight rising inflation, he hiked.

    That was all the Turkish president needed to know, and so he replaced one central bank figurehead with another, even more obedient figurehead, when he appointed Naci Agbal, who served as Erdogan’s finance minister between 2015 and 2018 and is now the head of the presidential budget office.

    So what happens next?

    Well, for one, the latest firing will cement the reality that the Turkish central bank is now merely a branch of Erdogan’s executive presidency, one where the higher the inflation the lower the interest rates. More importantly for Turkey and its residents, Erdogan’s action will trigger a new and even more acute crisis for the Turkish lira, now that it is clear that Erdogan will resume another aggressive rate cut cycle. Only instead of sparking growth, the imminent rate cuts will end up destroying any “carry” currency value the Turkish lira may have had to western investors, leading to what will be a historic dump, perhaps as soon as Monday.

    In short, we expect this to be the first salvo in what ultimately culminates as a full-blown currency crisis for the Turkish nation, and while Erdogan may try to impose capital controls, it won’t last for one simple reason: the Turkish central bank is almost out of FX reserves.

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    And once those are gone, the Turkish lira will promptly go bidless and will follow in the footsteps of the Venezuela bolivar.

  • The Next Area 51? Space Force Opens New Lab For Testing 'Novel Space Vehicles'
    The Next Area 51? Space Force Opens New Lab For Testing ‘Novel Space Vehicles’

    Tyler Durden

    Fri, 11/06/2020 – 22:00

    The US Air Force recently announced the opening of a new high-tech lab which it says will be used by the recently established Space Force (USSF) to test advanced materials and designs for space vehicles such as satellites and spacecraft.

    The new lab facility is located at Kirtland Air Force Base in New Mexico and is called Deployable Structures Laboratory (DeSel):

    “I’m excited to have a facility that was specifically built for testing novel deployable space structures,” the chief of the lab’s Integrated Structural Systems team Benjamin Urioste announced Monday.

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    View of Kirtland AFB, via US Air Force

    “With the push towards hybrid architecture and smaller satellites, high packing efficiency structures and the ability to bring large satellite capability to small satellites is more important than ever,” Urioste added.

    Further according to the press release:

    “This new class of high strain composite enabled structures requires new ground test facilities,” Urioste added. “Satellite deployments are nerve-wracking, one-shot endeavors and the high-fidelity ground testing that will take place in the DeSel is critical to ensuring on-orbit success.”

    Spacecraft Technologies Division chief Mark Roverse said the structures, made possible by high strain composites, “will enable new mission paradigms for the U.S. Space Force.”

    US rival powers like Russia have recently accused Washington of seeking to “weaponize the moon” and triggering a space arms race.

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    Space Force’s official doctrine according to its founding NASA and DoD memos include responsibilities of “developing military space systems and doctrine, as well as presenting space forces to support the warfighting Combatant Commands.”

    The new lab where experimental technologies will be developed was constructed at a bargain $4 million, and began in December 2019.

    Among the projects it’s expected to assist on includes work on eight “wide field of view” ballistic missile early warning satellites that primarily SpaceX and L3Harris Technologies will be building after they were awarded huge contracts in July.

  • Israeli Minister Warns Of War In Middle East If Biden Wins
    Israeli Minister Warns Of War In Middle East If Biden Wins

    Tyler Durden

    Fri, 11/06/2020 – 21:40

    Authored by Paul Joseph Watson via Summit News,

    Israeli Settlements Minister Tzachi Hanegbi warns that a Biden presidency could ignite war in the Middle East, while Egypt fears Biden would aid the resurgence of Islamists in the region.

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    Hanegbi pointed out that Biden has indicated he will resurrect America’s nuclear agreement with Iran which was cancelled by the Trump administration.

    For Israel, this would represent an existential threat to national security and drastically increase the chances of war with Tehran.

    “If Biden stays with that policy, there will, in the end, be a violent confrontation between Israel and Iran,” said Hanegbi.

    Meanwhile, other Middle Eastern countries such as Egypt are concerned that a Biden administration would mirror Barack Obama’s policies, which led to Islamists being empowered in the region.

    Obama spearheaded the disastrous interventions in Syria and Libya which led to the rise of ISIS and the international migrant crisis.

    Obama also suspended aid to Egypt after popular protests ousted Islamist President Muhammad Morsi in 2013.

    “Egyptians are likely to be concerned about a revival of Obama’s democracy agenda which meant actively encouraging political participation of Islamists,” reports Arab Weekly.

    So in other words, if Biden wins, Americans have at least four more years of disastrous foreign interventions to look forward to.

    *  *  *

    New limited edition merch now available! Click here.

    In the age of mass Silicon Valley censorship It is crucial that we stay in touch. I need you to sign up for my free newsletter here. Also, I urgently need your financial support here.

  • BET's Billionaire Founder Says Black People Get "Minimal Return" By Voting For Democrats
    BET’s Billionaire Founder Says Black People Get “Minimal Return” By Voting For Democrats

    Tyler Durden

    Fri, 11/06/2020 – 21:20

    During a Thursday interview with CNBC, BET founder Robert Johnson said the Democratic Party is offering “minimal” returns for the African American community. 

    “I think Black Americans are getting a little bit tired of delivering huge votes for the Democrats, and seeing a minimal return in terms of economic wealth and closing the wealth gap, the job creation and job opportunities,” Johnson told CNBC’s Hadley Gamble. 

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    “And Joe Biden was not an inspiring candidate for many Black Americans. And some of them stay at home. Some of them voted for Trump,” he added.

    Johnson, America’s first Black billionaire, doubts that Biden and the Democratic Party will enact policies that will lift African American communities out of poverty. 

    “Black people do not embrace Biden as he never articulated a policy that went directly to the concerns of Black Americans,” he said. “I don’t think Biden has that leadership quotient that’s going to allow him to do what is critical to bring the economy back, due to the trade-off between restoring the economy and fighting the pandemic.”

    Watch The Interview Here

    Early polling data, via AP VoteCast, shows President Trump raised his standing with Black voters over four years ago. Trump won 8% of the Black vote, about a 2 percentage-point gain on his 2016 number. Maybe this lends credibility to Johnson’s point about how folks in the Black community are “tired” of the Democrats underdelivering and are willing to try something new. 

    In June, Johnson said the racial wealth inequality had crippled the Black community. He proposed $14 trillion in reparations for slavery and criticized the Democratic Party for not doing enough. 

    “Damages is a normal factor in a capitalist society for when you have been deprived for certain rights,” he said. “If this money goes into pockets like the [coronavirus] stimulus checks… that money is going to return back to the economy” in the form of consumption. There will also be more Black-owned businesses, he added.

    Johnson has also praised Trump for his economic magic that stimulated the economy before the virus pandemic. 

    “African-American unemployment is at its lowest level… I give the president a lot of credit for moving the economy in a positive direction that’s benefiting a large amount of Americans.”

    No matter who wins the US presidential election, the political party that offers solutions to close the racial wealth and income gaps will be victorious in 2024. Our thoughts on the fix is that whoever wins will want to offer quick fixes, which could be People’s QE

  • The COVID-19 RT-PCR Test: How To Mislead All Humanity Into Accepting Societal Lock-Downs
    The COVID-19 RT-PCR Test: How To Mislead All Humanity Into Accepting Societal Lock-Downs

    Tyler Durden

    Fri, 11/06/2020 – 21:00

    Authored by Dr. Pascal Sacré via GlobalResearch.ca,

    It is time for everyone to come out of this negative trance, this collective hysteria, because famine, poverty, massive unemployment will kill, mow down many more people than SARS-CoV-2!

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    Introduction: using a technique to lock down society

    All current propaganda on the COVID-19 pandemic is based on an assumption that is considered obvious, true and no longer questioned:

    Positive RT-PCR test means being sick with COVID. This assumption is misleading.

    Very few people, including doctors, understand how a PCR test works.

    RT-PCR means Real Time-Polymerase Chain Reaction.

    In French, it means: Réaction de Polymérisation en Chaîne en Temps Réel.

    In medicine, we use this tool mainly to diagnose a viral infection.

    Starting from a clinical situation with the presence or absence of particular symptoms in a patient, we consider different diagnoses based on tests.

    In the case of certain infections, particularly viral infections, we use the RT-PCR technique to confirm a diagnostic hypothesis suggested by a clinical picture.

    We do not routinely perform RT-PCR on any patient who is overheated, coughing or has an inflammatory syndrome!

    It is a laboratory, molecular biology technique of gene amplification because it looks for gene traces (DNA or RNA) by amplifying them.

    In addition to medicine, other fields of application are genetics, research, industry and forensics.

    The technique is carried out in a specialized laboratory, it cannot be done in any laboratory, even a hospital. This entails a certain cost, and a delay sometimes of several days between the sample and the result.

    Today, since the emergence of the new disease called COVID-19 (COrona VIrus Disease-2019), the RT-PCR diagnostic technique is used to define positive cases, confirmed as SARS-CoV-2 (coronavirus responsible for the new acute respiratory distress syndrome called COVID-19).

    These positive cases are assimilated to COVID-19 cases, some of whom are hospitalized or even admitted to intensive care units.

    Official postulate of our managers: positive RT-PCR cases = COVID-19 patients.

    This is the starting postulate, the premise of all official propaganda, which justifies all restrictive government measures: isolation, confinement, quarantine, mandatory masks, color codes by country and travel bans, tracking, social distances in companies, stores and even, even more importantly, in schools.

    This misuse of RT-PCR technique is used as a relentless and intentional strategy by some governments, supported by scientific safety councils and by the dominant media, to justify excessive measures such as the violation of a large number of constitutional rights, the destruction of the economy with the bankruptcy of entire active sectors of society, the degradation of living conditions for a large number of ordinary citizens, under the pretext of a pandemic based on a number of positive RT-PCR tests, and not on a real number of patients.

    Technical aspects: to better understand and not be manipulated

    The PCR technique was developed by chemist Kary B. Mullis in 1986. Kary Mullis was awarded the Nobel Prize in Chemistry in 1993.

    Although this is disputed, Kary Mullis himself is said to have criticized the interest of PCR as a diagnostic tool for an infection, especially a viral one.

    He stated that if PCR was a good tool for research, it was a very bad tool in medicine, in the clinic.

    Mullis was referring to the AIDS virus (HIV retrovirus or HIV), before the COVID-19 pandemic, but this opinion on the limitation of the technique in viral infections, by its creator, cannot be dismissed out of hand; it must be taken into account!

    PCR was perfected in 1992.

    As the analysis can be performed in real time, continuously, it becomes RT (Real-Time) – PCR, even more efficient.

    It can be done from any molecule, including those of the living, the nucleic acids that make up the genes:

    • DNA (deoxyribonucleic acid)

    • RNA (Ribonucleic Acid)

    Viruses are not considered as “living” beings, they are packets of information (DNA or RNA) forming a genome.

    It is by an amplification technique (multiplication) that the molecule sought is highlighted and this point is very important.

    RT-PCR is an amplification technique.

    If there is DNA or RNA of the desired element in a sample, it is not identifiable as such.

    This DNA or RNA must be amplified (multiplied) a certain number of times, sometimes a very large number of times, before it can be detected. From a minute trace, up to billions of copies of a specific sample can be obtained, but this does not mean that there is all that amount in the organism being tested.

    In the case of COVID-19, the element sought by RT-PCR is SARS-CoV-2, an RNA virus.

    There are DNA viruses such as Herpes and Varicella viruses.

    The most well known RNA viruses, in addition to coronaviruses, are Influenza, Measles, EBOLA, ZIKA viruses.

    In the case of SARS-CoV-2, RNA virus, an additional specific step is required, a transcription of RNA into DNA by means of an enzyme, Reverse Transcriptase.

    This step precedes the amplification phase.

    It is not the whole virus that is identified, but sequences of its viral genome.

    This does not mean that this gene sequence, a fragment of the virus, is not specific to the virus being sought, but it is an important nuance nonetheless:

    RT-PCR does not reveal any virus, but only parts, specific gene sequences of the virus.

    At the beginning of the year, the SARS-CoV-2 genome was sequenced.

    It consists of about 30,000 base pairs. The nucleic acid (DNA-RNA), the component of the genes, is a sequence of bases. In comparison, the human genome has more than 3 billion base pairs.

    Teams are continuously monitoring the evolution of the SARS-CoV-2 viral genome as it evolves, through the mutations it undergoes. Today, there are many variants.

    By taking a few specific genes from the SARS-CoV-2 genome, it is possible to initiate RT-PCR on a sample from the respiratory tract.

    For COVID-19 disease, which has a nasopharyngeal (nose) and oropharyngeal (mouth) entry point, the sample should be taken from the upper respiratory tract as deeply as possible in order to avoid contamination by saliva in particular.

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    All the people tested said that it is very painful.

    The Gold Standard (preferred site for sampling) is the nasopharyngeal (nasal) approach, the most painful route.

    If there is a contraindication to the nasal approach, or preferably to the individual being tested, depending on the official organs, the oropharyngeal approach (through the mouth) is also acceptable. The test may trigger a nausea/vomiting reflex in the individual being tested.

    Normally, for the result of an RT-PCR test to be considered reliable, amplification from 3 different genes (primers) of the virus under investigation is required.

    “The primers are single-stranded DNA sequences specific to the virus. They guarantee the specificity of the amplification reaction. »

    “The first test developed at La Charité in Berlin by Dr. Victor Corman and his associates in January 2020 allows to highlight the RNA sequences present in 3 genes of the virus called E, RdRp and N. To know if the sequences of these genes are present in the RNA samples collected, it is necessary to amplify the sequences of these 3 genes in order to obtain a signal sufficient for their detection and quantification. ».

    The essential notion of Cycle Time or Cycle Threshold or Ct positivity threshold [16].

    An RT-PCR test is negative (no traces of the desired element) or positive (presence of traces of the desired element).

    However, even if the desired element is present in a minute, negligible quantity, the principle of RT-PCR is to be able to finally highlight it by continuing the amplification cycles as much as necessary.

    RT-PCR can push up to 60 amplification cycles, or even more!

    Here is how it works:

    • Cycle 1: target x 2 (2 copies)

    • Cycle 2: target x 4 (4 copies)

    • Cycle 3: target x 8 (8 copies)

    • Cycle 4: target x 16 (16 copies)

    • Cycle 5; target x 32 (32 copies)

    • Etc exponentially up to 40 to 60 cycles!

    When we say that the Ct (Cycle Time or Cycle Threshold or RT-PCR positivity threshold) is equal to 40, it means that the laboratory has used 40 amplification cycles, i.e. obtained 240 copies.

    This is what underlies the sensitivity of the RT-PCR assay.

    While it is true that in medicine we like to have high specificity and sensitivity of the tests to avoid false positives and false negatives, in the case of COVID-19 disease, this hypersensitivity of the RT-PCR test caused by the number of amplification cycles used has backfired.

    This over-sensitivity of the RT-PCR test is deleterious and misleading!

    It detaches us from the medical reality which must remain based on the real clinical state of the person: is the person ill, does he or she have symptoms?

    That is the most important thing!

    As I said at the beginning of the article, in medicine we always start from the person: we examine him/her, we collect his/her symptoms (complaints-anamnesis) and objective clinical signs (examination) and on the basis of a clinical reflection in which scientific knowledge and experience intervene, we make diagnostic hypotheses.

    Only then do we prescribe the most appropriate tests, based on this clinical reflection.

    We constantly compare the test results with the patient’s clinical condition (symptoms and signs), which takes precedence over everything else when it comes to our decisions and treatments.

    Today, our governments, supported by their scientific safety advice, are making us do the opposite and put the test first, followed by a clinical reflection necessarily influenced by this prior test, whose weaknesses we have just seen, particularly its hypersensitivity.

    None of my clinical colleagues can contradict me.

    Apart from very special cases such as genetic screening for certain categories of populations (age groups, sex) and certain cancers or family genetic diseases, we always work in this direction: from the person (symptoms, signs) to the appropriate tests, never the other way around.

    This is the conclusion of an article in the Swiss Medical Journal (RMS) published in 2007, written by doctors Katia Jaton and Gilbert Greub microbiologists from the University of Lausanne :

    PCR in microbiology: from DNA amplification to result interpretation:

    “To interpret the result of a PCR, it is essential that clinicians and microbiologists share their experiences, so that the analytical and clinical levels of interpretation can be combined.”

    It would be indefensible to give everyone an electrocardiogram to screen everyone who might have a heart attack one day.

    On the other hand, in certain clinical contexts or on the basis of specific evocative symptoms, there, yes, an electrocardiogram can be beneficial.

    Back to RT-PCR and Ct (Cycle Time or Cycle Threshold).

    In the case of an infectious disease, especially a viral one, the notion of contagiousness is another important element.

    Since some scientific circles consider that an asymptomatic person can transmit the virus, they believe it is important to test for the presence of virus, even if the person is asymptomatic, thus extending the indication of RT-PCR to everyone.

    Are RT-PCR tests good tests for contagiousness?

    This question brings us back to the notion of viral load and therefore Ct.

    The relationship between contagiousness and viral load is disputed by some people and no formal proof, to date, allows us to make a decision.

    However, common sense gives obvious credence to the notion that the more virus a person has inside him or her, especially in the upper airways (oropharynx and nasopharynx), with symptoms such as coughing and sneezing, the higher the risk of contagiousness, proportional to the viral load and the importance of the person’s symptoms.

    This is called common sense, and although modern medicine has benefited greatly from the contribution of science through statistics and Evidence-Based Medicine (EBM), it is still based primarily on common sense, experience and empiricism.

    Medicine is the art of healing.

    No test measures the amount of virus in the sample!

    RT-PCR is qualitative: positive (presence of the virus) or negative (absence of the virus).

    This notion of quantity, therefore of viral load, can be estimated indirectly by the number of amplification cycles (Ct) used to highlight the virus sought.

    • The lower the Ct used to detect the virus fragment, the higher the viral load is considered to be (high).

    • The higher the Ct used to detect the virus fragment, the lower the viral load is considered to be (low).

    Thus, the French National Reference Centre (CNR), in the acute phase of the pandemic, estimated that the peak of viral shedding occurred at the onset of symptoms, with an amount of virus corresponding to approximately 108 (100 million) copies of SARS-CoV-2 viral RNA on average (French COVID-19 cohort data) with a variable duration of shedding in the upper airways (from 5 days to more than 5 weeks) [19].

    This number of 108 (100 million) copies/μl corresponds to a very low Ct.

    A Ct of 32 corresponds to 10-15 copies/μl.

    A Ct of 35 corresponds to about 1 copy/μl.

    Above Ct 35, it becomes impossible to isolate a complete virus sequence and culture it!

    In France and in most countries, Ct levels above 35, even 40, are still used even today!

    The French Society of Microbiology (SFM) issued an opinion on September 25, 2020 in which it does not recommend quantitative results, and it recommends to make positive up to a Ct of 37 for a single gene [20]!

    With 1 copy/μl of a sample (Ct 35), without cough, without symptoms, one can understand why all these doctors and scientists say that a positive RT-PCR test means nothing, nothing at all in terms of medicine and clinic!

    Positive RT-PCR tests, without any mention of Ct or its relation to the presence or absence of symptoms, are used as is by our governments as the exclusive argument to apply and justify their policy of severity, austerity, isolation and aggression of our freedoms, with the impossibility to travel, to meet, to live normally!

    There is no medical justification for these decisions, for these governmental choices!

    In an article published on the website of the New York Times (NYT) on Saturday, August 29, American experts from Harvard University are surprised that RT-PCR tests as practiced can serve as tests of contagiousness, even more so as evidence of pandemic progression in the case of SARS-CoV-2 infection [21].

    According to them, the threshold (Ct) considered results in positive diagnoses in people who do not represent any risk of transmitting the virus!

    The binary “yes/no” answer is not enough, according to this epidemiologist from the Harvard University School of Public Health.

    “It’s the amount of virus that should dictate the course of action for each patient tested. »

    The amount of virus (viral load); but also and above all the clinical state, symptomatic or not of the person!

    This calls into question the use of the binary result of this RT-PCR test to determine whether a person is contagious and must follow strict isolation measures.

    These questions are being raised by many physicians around the world, not only in the United States but also in France, Belgium (Belgium Health Experts Demand Investigation Of WHO For Faking Coronavirus Pandemic), France, Germany, Italy, the United Kingdom, the United States and the United Kingdom. in Germany, Spain…

    According to them:

    We are going to put tens of thousands of people in confinement, in isolation, for nothing. » [22]. 22] And inflict suffering, anguish, economic and psychological dramas by the thousands!

    Most RT-PCR tests set the Ct at 40, according to the NYT. Some set it at 37.

    “Tests with such high thresholds (Ct) may not only detect live virus but also gene fragments, remnants of an old infection that do not represent any particular danger,” the experts said.

    A virologist at the University of California admits that an RT-PCR test with a Ct greater than 35 is too sensitive. A more reasonable threshold would be between 30 and 35, she adds.

    Almost no laboratory specifies the Ct (number of amplification cycles performed) or the number of copies of viral RNA per sample μl.

    Here is an example of a laboratory result (approved by Sciensano, the Belgian national reference center) in an RT-PCR negative patient:

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    No mention of Ct.

    In the NYT, experts compiled three datasets with officials from the states of Massachusetts, New York and Nevada that mention them.

    Conclusion?

    “Up to 90% of the people who tested positive did not carry a virus. »

    The Wadworth Center, a New York State laboratory, analyzed the results of its July tests at the request of the NYT: 794 positive tests with a Ct of 40.

    With a Ct threshold of 35, approximately half of these PCR tests would no longer be considered positive,” said the NYT.

    “And about 70% would no longer be considered positive with a Ct of 30! “

    In Massachusetts, between 85 and 90% of people who tested positive in July with a Ct of 40 would have been considered negative with a Ct of 30, adds the NYT. And yet, all these people had to isolate themselves, with all the dramatic psychological and economic consequences, while they were not sick and probably not contagious at all.

    In France, the Centre National de Référence (CNR), the French Society of Microbiology (SFM) continue to push Ct to 37 and recommend to laboratories to use only one gene of the virus as a primer.

    I remind you that from Ct 32 onwards, it becomes very difficult to culture the virus or to extract a complete sequence, which shows the completely artificial nature of this positivity of the test, with such high Ct levels, above 30.

    Similar results were reported by researchers from the UK Public Health Agency in an article published on August 13 in Eurosurveillance: “The probability of culturing the virus drops to 8% in samples with Ct levels above 35.”

    In addition, currently, the National Reference Center in France only evaluates the sensitivity of commercially available reagent kits, not their specificity: serious doubts persist about the possibility of cross-reactivity with viruses other than SARS-CoV-2, such as other benign cold coronaviruses.

    It is potentially the same situation in other countries, including Belgium.

    Similarly, mutations in the virus may have invalidated certain primers (genes) used to detect SARS-CoV-2: the manufacturers give no guarantees on this, and if the AFP fast-checking journalists tell you otherwise, test their good faith by asking for these guarantees, these proofs.

    If they have nothing to hide and if what I say is false, this guarantee will be provided to you and will prove their good faith.

    1. We must demand that the RT-PCR results be returned mentioning the Ct used because beyond Ct 30, a positive RT-PCR test means nothing.

    2. We must listen to the scientists and doctors, specialists, virologists who recommend the use of adapted Ct, lower, at 30. An alternative is to obtain the number of copies of viral RNA/μl or /ml sample.

    3. We need to go back to the patient, to the person, to his or her clinical condition (presence or absence of symptoms) and from there to judge the appropriateness of testing and the best way to interpret the result.

    Until there is a better rationale for PCR screening, with a known and appropriate Ct threshold, an asymptomatic person should not be tested in any way.

    Even a symptomatic person should not automatically be tested, as long as they can place themselves in isolation for 7 days.

    Let’s stop this debauchery of RT-PCR testing at too high Ct levels and return to clinical, quality medicine.

    Once we understand how RT-PCR testing works, it becomes impossible to let the current government routine screening strategy, inexplicably supported by the virologists in the safety councils, continue.

    My hope is that, finally, properly informed, more and more people will demand that this strategy be stopped, because it is all of us, enlightened, guided by real benevolence and common sense, who must decide our collective and individual destinies.

    No one else should do it for us, especially when we realize that those who decide are no longer reasonable or rational.

    Summary of important points :

    • The RT-PCR test is a laboratory diagnostic technique that is not well suited to clinical medicine.

    • It is a binary, qualitative diagnostic technique that confirms (positive test) or not (negative test) the presence of an element in the medium being analyzed. In the case of SARS-CoV-2, the element is a fragment of the viral genome, not the virus itself.

    • In medicine, even in an epidemic or pandemic situation, it is dangerous to place tests, examinations, techniques above clinical evaluation (symptoms, signs). It is the opposite that guarantees quality medicine.

    • The main limitation (weakness) of the RT-PCR test, in the current pandemic situation, is its extreme sensitivity (false positive) if a suitable threshold of positivity (Ct) is not chosen. Today, experts recommend using a maximum Ct threshold of 30.

    • This Ct threshold must be informed with the positive RT-PCR result so that the physician knows how to interpret this positive result, especially in an asymptomatic person, in order to avoid unnecessary isolation, quarantine, psychological trauma.

    • In addition to mentioning the Ct used, laboratories must continue to ensure the specificity of their detection kits for SARS-CoV-2, taking into account its most recent mutations, and must continue to use three genes from the viral genome being studied as primers or, if not, mention it.

    Overall Conclusion

    Is the obstinacy of governments to use the current disastrous strategy, systematic screening by RT-PCR, due to ignorance?

    Is it due to stupidity?

    To a kind of cognitive trap trapping their ego?

    In any case, we should be able to question them, and if among the readers of this article there are still honest journalists, or naive politicians, or people who have the possibility to question our rulers, then do so, using these clear and scientific arguments.

    It is all the more incomprehensible that our rulers have surrounded themselves with some of the most experienced specialists in these matters.

    If I have been able to gather this information myself, shared, I remind you, by competent people above all suspicion of conspiracy, such as Hélène Banoun, Pierre Sonigo, Jean-François Toussaint, Christophe De Brouwer, whose intelligence, intellectual honesty and legitimacy cannot be questioned, then the Belgian, French and Quebec scientific advisors, etc., know all this as well.

    So?

    What’s going on?

    Why continue in this distorted direction, obstinately making mistakes?

    It is not insignificant to reimpose confinements, curfews, quarantines, reduced social bubbles, to shake up again our shaky economies, to plunge entire families into precariousness, to sow so much fear and anxiety generating a real state of post-traumatic stress worldwide, to reduce access to care for other pathologies that nevertheless reduce life expectancy much more than COVID-19!

    Is there intent to harm?

    Is there an intention to use the alibi of a pandemic to move humanity towards an outcome it would otherwise never have accepted? In any case, not like that!

    Would this hypothesis, which modern censors will hasten to label “conspiracy”, be the most valid explanation for all this?

    Indeed, if we draw a straight line from the present events, if they are maintained, we could find ourselves once again confined with hundreds, thousands of human beings forced to remain inactive, which, for the professions of catering, entertainment, sales, fairgrounds, itinerants, canvassers, risks being catastrophic with bankruptcies, unemployment, depression, suicides by the hundreds of thousands.

    The impact on education, on our children, on teaching, on medicine with long planned care, operations, treatments to be cancelled, postponed, will be profound and destructive.

    “We risk a looming food crisis if action is not taken quickly.”

    It is time for everyone to come out of this negative trance, this collective hysteria, because famine, poverty, massive unemployment will kill, mow down many more people than SARS-CoV-2!

    Does all this make sense in the face of a disease that is declining, over-diagnosed and misinterpreted by this misuse of overly sensitively calibrated PCR tests?

    For many, the continuous wearing of the mask seems to have become a new norm.

    Even if it is constantly downplayed by some health professionals and fact-checking journalists, other doctors warn of the harmful consequences, both medical and psychological, of this hygienic obsession which, maintained permanently, is in fact an abnormality!

    What a hindrance to social relations, which are the true foundation of a physically and psychologically healthy humanity!

    Some dare to find all this normal, or a lesser price to pay in the face of the pandemic of positive PCR tests.

    Isolation, distancing, masking of the face, impoverishment of emotional communication, fear of touching and kissing even within families, communities, between relatives…

    Spontaneous gestures of daily life hindered and replaced by mechanical and controlled gestures …

    Terrified children, kept in permanent fear and guilt…

    All this will have a deep, lasting and negative impact on human organisms, in their physical, mental, emotional and representation of the world and society.

    This is not normal!

    We cannot let our rulers, for whatever reason, organize our collective suicide any longer.

    Translated from French by Global Research. Original source: Mondialisation.ca

    Dr Pascal Sacré is a physician specialized in critical care, author and renowned public health analyst, Charleroi, Belgium. He is a Research Associate of the  entre for Research on Globalization (CRG)

    *  *  *

    Professionals whose references and comments are the basis of this article in its scientific aspect (especially and mainly on RT-PCR):

    1) Hélène Banoun

    https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Helene_Banoun

    PhD, Pharmacist biologist

    Former INSERM Research Officer

    Former intern at the Paris Hospitals

    2) Pierre Sonigo

    Virologist

    Research Director INSERM, worked at the Pasteur Institute

    Heads the Virus Genetics Laboratory in Cochin, Paris.

    Participated in 1985 in the sequencing of the AIDS virus.

    3) Christophe De Brouwer

    PhD in Public Health Science

    Honorary Professor at the School of Public Health at ULB, Belgium

    4) Jean-François Toussaint

    Doctor, Professor of Physiology at the University of Paris-Descartes

    Director of IRMES, Institute for BioMedical Research and Sports Epidemiology

    Former member of the High Council of Public Health

  • GoFundMe Nukes Donation Page For Voter Fraud Investigation
    GoFundMe Nukes Donation Page For Voter Fraud Investigation

    Tyler Durden

    Fri, 11/06/2020 – 20:47

    Update 2045ET: And just like that, GoFundMe has nuked Matt Braynard’s donation page, which he was using to purchase data to analyze whether dead people and invalid absentee voters participated in the 2020 election. The page had raised over $220,000 for the effort.

    According to GoFundMe, Braynard’s fundraiser “attempts to spread misleading information about the election and has been removed from the platform. All donors will be fully refunded.”

    To be clear, GoFundMe has now interfered with efforts by an independent data expert to analyze potential fraudulent voting activity, suggesting that doing so is ‘spreading misleading information.’

    People can now donate on platform Give Send Go.

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    We can’t imagine GoFundMe’s ‘senior risk and compliance specialist’ Zachary Bright, or Director of Communications (and former Obama White House spokesman Bobby Whithorne’s support for Joe Biden had anything do do with it?

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    The company’s former VP of Communications and Policy, Daniel Pfeiffer, was another Obama staffer who has donated to Kamala Harris, Hillary Clinton and PAC ‘Swing Left.’

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    Perhaps it’s a culture thing?

    *  *  *

    Update 1655ET: Trump data director Witold Chrabaszcz is joining Braynard’s effort, according to an update on his GoFundMe page (the funds from which – now up to $217,000 – are still apparently being held hostage by GoFundMe).

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    Prior to joining the Trump campaign, Chrabaszcz worked as a strategist for the Republican National Committee for more than a decade.

    In an earlier update, Braynard said he now has a contract with a data vendor for the early voting and absentee voter data for all seven target states at a cost of $60,000. He’s trying to get a ‘big donor to float/cover until GoFundMe releases the funds.”

    He will also likely be able to run NCOA / SSDI data at a “*very good price*”

    *  *  *

    GOP political analyst and former Trump Data Chief Matt Braynard believes he can detect voter fraud by comparing absentee ballots and early voters to the Social Security Death Index and the National Change of Address Database.

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    Braynard – former analyst for pollster Frank Luntz – is the president of Braynard Group, which provides services for voter targeting, polling and fundraising.

    In order to accomplish this, Braynard will need up to $100,000 to purchase databases from data vendors. In a Thursday Twitter thread, he outlined his plan to audit the election in key states and launched a GoFundMe page which is currently under review (“Getting nuked still a possibility,” he says).

    After $100K was quickly raised, however, Braynard bumped the goal to to $250,000, with which he will establish “call centers that will run down any and all inactive/less active or moved voters who were marked as casting ballots,” adding “We’ll then get any who said they didn’t cast a ballot to sign an affidavits, and it all goes to law enforcement and the media.”

    Unfortunately, GoFundMe is currently holding the money hostage.

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    As of this writing, Braynard’s GoFundMe is up to just under $170,000. And in a Friday update, he says he’s been in touch with the Trump campaign (“but nothing more to say on that now”), has vendors lined up for Social Security and the Change of Address data, and is “Tracking down source data on Early Voters/ABS [absentee ballots]

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    Update: GoFundMe is still holding the money hostage:

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  • The Majority Of Advertising Dollars Are Now Being Spent Online
    The Majority Of Advertising Dollars Are Now Being Spent Online

    Tyler Durden

    Fri, 11/06/2020 – 20:40

    The Briefing

    • In the last decade, digital ad spend in the U.S. has surged

    • It’s estimated by GroupM that 49% of ad spend will have taken place online this year, but in 2021 that portion will surge to 54%

    • U.S. spending on pure-play internet advertising is expected to reach a whopping $151 billion by the year 2024

    • In contrast, more traditional forms of advertising have shown significant drops in popularity

    The Growth of Internet Ad Spend in America

    Ad spend in the U.S. generates billions in revenue – in 2019, the top 10 marketers spent over $41 billion on various forms of advertising.

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    While the ad industry has taken a significant hit in 2020 because of COVID-19, Visual Capitalist’s Carmen Ang notes that it’s projected to see overall growth in 2021, and a majority of this growth is expected to come in the form of internet advertising.

    Internet ads have surged in popularity over the last decade. Here’s a look at the total spend on pure-play internet ads since 2012:

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    While internet advertising has increased over the years, more traditional forms have nose-dived in percentage terms.

    For instance, ad spend on directories reached $6 billion in 2012. By 2024, they’re projected to generate merely $68 million in revenue.

    Like directories, newspaper and magazine spend have seen significant drops since 2012, with projected decreases on the horizon.

    »To learn more, read our full article: How Total Spend by U.S. Advertisers Has Changed, Over 20 Years.

  • Game-On For The Coup?
    Game-On For The Coup?

    Tyler Durden

    Fri, 11/06/2020 – 20:20

    Authored by Michael Anton via The American Mind,

    Strictly speaking, a coup is an illegitimate change of government by violent means. But what if you can do it without violence? To win without fighting is best, Sun Tzu says. An ostensibly (“mostly”) peaceful ouster from power is preferable to the use of force because it can much more easily be sold as “our democracy” at work.

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    National polls consistently predicted a huge Biden blowout. That they were wrong (again) is demonstrated by the facts that (a) the 2020 popular vote is, so far (California is not fully counted), a mere two-point spread, hardly a blowout; (b) Trump got a higher share of the vote than last time; and (C) Trump received far more total votes than last time.

    But it’s the swing states that matter. Here (again) Trump was supposed to lose – if not necessarily bigly in every case, at least widely.

    But throughout election day, the president consistently outperformed the polls. He crushed his 2016 performance in Florida. He also outperformed in Iowa, Ohio, South Carolina, and Texas. Senators he was supposed to drag down with him, including Joni Ernst, Lindsey Graham, and Mitch McConnell, won handily. Even Susan Collins, who was supposed to be sure goner and lose by at least three, won by nine. A party that was “certain” to lose the Senate has kept it and gained (so far) six seats in the House.

    Looking at states no one expected Trump to lose, his overperformance is even more stark. The polling average for West Virginia was Trump +17; he won it by 39. Kansas was estimated at +9; the result was +15.

    Throughout the day the president was also outperforming his expected result in key states such as Arizona, Georgia, Michigan, Minnesota, Nevada, North Carolina, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin. He even, for a time, looked like he was within striking distance in Virginia, a state Hillary Clinton won by five points in 2016. At one point the New York Timess “meter” had Trump’s chances in North Carolina at 92%. The needle was also sliding in the president’s direction in Arizona and Georgia, among others.

    And then, suddenly, the counting stopped in at least five states (or parts of states): Georgia, Michigan, Nevada, North Carolina, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin; all but one with a Democratic governor (coincidence, surely!). When has that ever happened? Well, it happened in Broward County, Florida, in 2018, when a dodgy Democratic election official appeared to be intervening, illicitly, on her party’s behalf. The process only got back underway when the state’s (Republican) governor intervened and had her removed from the process.

    But getting back to election night, some time in the wee hours, additional ballots were “found” and added to early totals which had Trump ahead. To no one’s surprise, those votes were overwhelmingly—literally as much as 100% in some batches—for Biden. According to Nate Silver, no one’s idea of a Trumpist, one tranche of 23,277 votes that turned up in Philadelphia were “all for Biden.” Absent some kind of harvesting or fraud (or both), that’s a logical and statistical impossibility.

    Through the night, all such ballots came from heavily Democratic areas posting unusually, improbably high turnout. 85% in Milwaukee? A city that turned out at only 61% in 2016, and even with Obama on the ballot in 2012, at 71%? But 85% for Sleepy Joe? According to one report, seven Milwaukee precincts returned more presidential votes than they have registered voters. Turnout in Wisconsin overall is alleged to have been 89.25%, more than five standard deviations for the state’s mean turnout since 1960—another statistical impossibility.

    One might also wonder why this urban Blue wave materialized only in close states. Milwaukee was way up but not Cleveland? Philly but not St. Louis? Granted Ohio and Missouri are Red, but their big cities aren’t.

    How It’s Done

    We’ve seen this movie before. This is how they beat Scott Walker in Wisconsin in 2018, Tom Foley in Connecticut in 2010, and Norm Coleman in Minnesota in 2008.

    Why stop the count? Because that’s the only way to know how many votes you need to “win.” Sure, you can just brute force things by backing up a truck full of ballots. But that looks bad. You might even end up counting more votes than there are registered voters in the state. Better to eke out a narrow win. As Joseph Kennedy, Sr. allegedly said to his second son, “I’m not paying for a landslide.”

    Speaking of the Kennedys, veteran political observer Theodore H. White—in their company on election night 1960—explained how it’s done. In Illinois, the race came down to

    downstate (Republican) versus Cook County (Democratic), and the bosses, holding back totals from key precincts, were playing out their concealed cards under pressure of publicity as in a giant game of blackjack….

    The AP ticker chattered its keys once more and reported: “With all downstate precincts now reported in, and only Cook County precincts unreported, Richard Nixon has surged into the lead by 3,000 votes.”

    I was dismayed, for if Nixon really carried Illinois, the game was all but over. And at this point I was jabbed from dismay by the outburst of jubilation from young Dick Donahue, who yelped, “He’s got them! Daley made them go first! He’s still holding back—watch him play his hand now.” I was baffled, they were elated. But they knew the counting game better than I, and as if in response to Donahue’s yelp, the ticker, having stuttered along for several minutes with other results, announced: “With the last precincts of Cook County now in, Senator Kennedy has won a lead of 8,000 votes to carry Illinois’s 27 electoral votes.”

    Later that evening, Kennedy told his friend Ben Bradlee of an early call from Daley, when all seemed in doubt. “With a little bit of luck and the help of a few close friends,” Daley had assured Kennedy before the AP had pushed out the count, “you’re going to carry Illinois.”

    Is that what happened last night? Sure looks like it. Plus ça change.

    To say nothing of other considerations, it’s hard to believe that an eight-point win in Ohio would be coupled with losses throughout the rest of the upper Midwest, or that historically deep purple Florida would go strongly for Trump while Georgia and North Carolina would not. Are those states really so unrepresentative of the American electorate?

    Stop the Steal

    The thing could (but will never) be proved. Those who ran the operation are also in charge of all the potential investigating agencies. There’s zero chance they will use any of that power to uncover their own malfeasance. Think a Biden Justice Department will look into it?

    Expect instead a media typhoon of propaganda insisting that the results are all legit, that any anomaly you think you see (or saw) is a “conspiracy theory,” or at any rate innocently explainable by mundane process details too boring to get into. Twitter is already slapping warnings on the accounts of those who point out irregularities. How long before they start outright suspensions?

    Will it work? That depends on the president and his allies and what they do. The odds and the forces arrayed against them are immense.

    What would I have them do? I’m no expert but the crew at Revolver has some good ideas:

    (1) challenge the late-night “finds” in the courts;

    (2) hold rallies in contested states;

    (3) urge GOP officials in close states to expose shenanigans and, if necessary, to refuse to seat Biden electors in the event of a fake count;

    (4) mount a campaign to marshal grassroots public opinion in the president’s favor. Convince the people that if in fact the election is in the process of being stolen, the president and his allies are going to fight the steal on their behalf.

    If middle America wants to prevent this election from being stolen, it will have to be willing to act—now. I know they are willing, but they need to hear from the President and his best surrogates. I’d get Trump on Tucker, tonight, to explain his plan.

    But in another sense, the Democrats’ plan won’t “work.”

    Even if the steal can be made to stick, half the country won’t accept it. That is, they’ll accept the reality that power is now in the hands of a party that took it by fraud. But they won’t believe that the election was fair or the outcome real. They will believe, or be confirmed in a belief that’s been brewing for a long time, that the system is rigged, the process is fake, the ruling class are liars, the government is illegitimate, and that they themselves are subjects and not citizens—anything but a free people with a say over its own destiny. If the ruling class can get away with this, they will be able to get away with anything. And they will know it.

    The irony will be that those who, over the last four years, have bleated the loudest about “our democracy” will have been most responsible for killing it off.

  • Watch Live: Joe Biden Delivers A Speech
    Watch Live: Joe Biden Delivers A Speech

    Tyler Durden

    Fri, 11/06/2020 – 19:58

    The Democratic presidential candidate’s campaign announced that he would be making an address this evening in prime-time but did not say where or what he plans to say.

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    Perhaps Biden and Harris were likely expecting at least one of their MSM partners to have “called it” for them by now, the count continues in Alaska, Arizona, Nevada, Pennsylvania, North Carolina, and Georgia.

    President Trump had some advice for Joe…

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    Of course, Biden will very carefully avoid any actual declaration of victory…

  • America's Recline And Flail Goes On
    America’s Recline And Flail Goes On

    Tyler Durden

    Fri, 11/06/2020 – 19:40

    Authored by MN Gordon via EconomicPrism.com,

    Ok, so, when your pally is a doorstep
    Step over him and coat
    When your mommy is a French press
    In a café called no hope
    Your belly aches
    On benches where buses never go
    Now tally up the misprints
    And tell them told you so

    – Tell Them Told You So, by Swingin’ Utters

    The Worst Job In The World

    Nothing’s shocking in 2020.  Not lockdowns.  Not pandemic hysteria.  And certainly not election chaos.  To the latter, it was expected all along.

    At the time of this writing, and perhaps with the aid of fraud, it appears Kamala Harris will be the next President of the United States.  Here we’ll pause to offer a word of congratulations.  Well done, Ms. Harris.  You’ve just signed up for the worst job in the world.

    No doubt, the rewards of being President, these days, are few and far between.  Just ask President Trump.  The work hours are terrible, the pay is far less than that of a corporate CEO, and you’re endlessly surrounded by shabby politicians.

    They laugh at all your dull jokes.  They tell you what you want to hear.  They expect to be rewarded with cushy Cabinet positions because they stumped for you in Cleveland or some other mistake of a place.

    What’s more, the hand towels aboard Air Force One have the shoddy over washed roughness of those at a turnpike Motel 6.  With the exception of being a flatus odor judge, we can’t think of a smellier job than being President of the United States.  Can you?

    There’s little privacy.  Newsrooms across the planet psychoanalyze your every facial expression; many conclude you’re mentally ill.  You can hardly wander the halls of your own home in your bathrobe – during night hours no less – without it making front page news.

    Our advice to Harris: Quit while you’re ahead.

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    More Fake Money

    By all honest measures, Harris doesn’t stand a chance.  The debt bomb ticking in Washington is past due.  No President can diffuse it.  No President even bothers trying.

    Congress hasn’t truly balanced the budget for over 50 years.  Day after day, year after year, Washington spends more than it takes in via tax receipts.  Public debt makes up the difference.  The situation is beyond reconciliation.

    The national debt in 1971, the year Nixon closed the gold window, was $398 billion.  By comparison, the deficit for 2020 alone was $3.1 trillion.  Add up the yearly deficits, and the national debt now stands at $27.2 trillion.  Add on all the unfunded liabilities promised by politicians over the years, including social security and Medicare Parts A, B, and D, and we’re facing a debt burden of $155.3 trillion.

    For many decades, annual budget deficits were financed by American and foreign investors via purchases of U.S. Treasury notes.  These days, as the empire reclines and flails, the Federal Reserve is the big buyer of Treasuries…using new credit that’s created from thin air.  These coordinated fiscal and monetary policies by the U.S. Treasury and the Fed deliver limitless government.

    Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, upon winning reelection for a seventh six-year term, said his top priority is passing a new economic stimulus bill before the end of the year.  He even wants the package to include bailouts for state and local governments.  A new stimulus bill would all but assure the 2021 budget deficit’s over $2 trillion.  The $2 trillion deficit, of course, would be financed by the Fed’s fake money.

    On Wednesday, Wall Street celebrated these fake money prospects by running the Dow Jones Industrial Average (DJIA) up over 367 points.  On Thursday, they bid the DJIA up another 542 points.  What to make of it?

    America’s Recline and Flail Goes On

    By and large, the tests facing America’s economy have little to do with markets and everything to do with central government.  Over the last 50 years, as the Fed and the Treasury colluded to rig the financial system in totality, wealth has become ever more concentrated in fewer and fewer insider hands.  The effect over the decade long expansion that ran from Q2 2009 to Q2 2020 has been a disparity that’s so magnified few can ignore it.

    This trend will be further intensified by the current depression, which most economists won’t acknowledge is already in full swing.  Bitterness and contempt for wealthy insiders is much higher than it was during prior business cycles.  Without question, this bitterness and contempt will increase to a fever pitch as the nirvana of stimulus is revealed to be a hallucination.

    Discontent throughout the broad population will take a financial crash and an economic collapse, and transform it into a complete societal breakdown.  Then the central government will fail the test of its making.

    Rather than employing small government and sound money solutions, the discord will provide Washington the perfect cover for a much larger central authority.  Harris will offer promises to fix things while delivering a much wider range of wealth inequality.

    Big government will grow bigger.  At the same time, dissatisfaction, disappointment, and discontent will simmer over into mass movements, often with little clarity of purpose or tangible objective.  Millennials, many having progressive socialist leanings, will demand big government solutions to problems of big government making.

    Yet life goes on.  America’s recline and flail goes on.  The currency debasement policies that prop up big government and zombie corporations – what is being called the reflation trade – is bullish for stocks, for now.  In practice, these policies are turning the dollar – the dollars you own – into bird cage liner.

    No.  Harris doesn’t stand a chance.  Neither does Trump.  Nor Biden.  Nor Obama.  Nor any other politician that steps into this mess.

    We don’t like it.  But we can’t deny it.  Nor can we resist it…

    There’s no stopping nature.  America’s recline and flail must run its course.

  • A Historical Divide: A 160-Year View Of The Gold-Oil Ratio
    A Historical Divide: A 160-Year View Of The Gold-Oil Ratio

    Tyler Durden

    Fri, 11/06/2020 – 19:20

    2020 has ushered in a new era of prices for two historically significant assets – gold and oil.

    The market has driven the pair in polar opposite directions breaking historical patterns. This year, as Visual Capitalist’s Aran Ali notes, gold brushed above $2,000 an ounce, while oil futures even went temporarily negative in the spring. The gold-oil ratio tells us how many barrels of West Texas Intermediate (WTI) are needed to buy an ounce of gold, serving as a price-based indicator of the relative value of these two important assets.

    Historically, the ratio has averaged between 10:1 and 30:1, This year it brushed above 90:1…

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    Here’s a look at the price of gold and oil over the last 6 months:

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    The Gold Story

    Traditional investing mantra tells us gold acts as an alternative investment, a haven if you will, that appreciates in price during tumultuous economic and financial times.

    Its limited quantity and physical storage properties serve as a hedge to much of modern finance that is increasingly digital.

    The COVID-19 pandemic, a subsequent slowdown in economic activity, and the debt-driven stimulus packages by governments globally are all factors in the recent gold rally.

    The Oil Story

    At the other end are the oil markets, which face both long and short-term headwinds. Long-term demand for oil has dwindled gradually as societies buff up their alternative and green energy initiatives.

    Shrinking activity during the pandemic was the short-term shock. Combined, the outcomes include oil futures going negative in spring, Chevron reporting a net income loss of $8.3 billion in the second quarter, and Exxon’s dumping from The Dow.

    As markets adapt to the volatile nature of 2020, only time will tell what the future holds for the gold-oil ratio.

    *  *  *

    Source: Goehring & Rozencwajg: Top Reasons to Consider Oil-Related Equities report and MacroTrends. Notes: Data is as of October 2020.

  • Spirit Airlines Flight Attendant Threatens To Have People Who Don't Wear Mask Arrested, Put On No Fly List
    Spirit Airlines Flight Attendant Threatens To Have People Who Don’t Wear Mask Arrested, Put On No Fly List

    Tyler Durden

    Fri, 11/06/2020 – 19:00

    Authored by Paul Joseph Watson via Summit News,

    A video clip shows a Spirit Airlines flight attendant threatening to put anyone who doesn’t properly wear their mask on a no fly list for life and have them arrested and jailed for 20 years.

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    “Once the door is closed, if we have to ask you more than once to cover your nose, mouth, put your mask on – we are not gonna be rude, we are not gonna be nasty – we are gonna simply take your seat number and your name and when we get where we are going, you will either be arrested, fined, but you will also be placed on a no fly list, meaning you will not be able to fly on any airline for the rest of your life,” says the flight attendant.

    He then adds that he doesn’t want “to do the extra paperwork,” before inviting anyone who doesn’t agree to leave the plane.

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    After referring to viral videos of passengers attacking flight attendants, the staffer, who says his name is Marrio, then claims, “Let me remind you, we are government officials, this is government property,” before threatening passengers who misbehave with 20 years in prison and a $250,000 dollar fine.

    There is no law that says people who improperly wear masks can be banned from flying for life.

    The flight attendant is clearly abusing their power and should be fired immediately.

    Meanwhile, Joe Biden wants a nationwide mask mandate, meaning such draconian behavior could be replicated on the streets of America.

    *  *  *

    New limited edition merch now available! Click here.

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  • Tehran Doubles Down On Biden As Preferred Candidate After Trump "Brought Iran To Its Knees"
    Tehran Doubles Down On Biden As Preferred Candidate After Trump “Brought Iran To Its Knees”

    Tyler Durden

    Fri, 11/06/2020 – 18:40

    It’s no secret that Iran is pinning hopes of its escaping the dire sanctions predicament that has put the Islamic Republic’s very economic survival in question on a Biden victory. Trump and Pompeo’s ‘maximum pressure’ campaign, which reached a peak when IRGC Quds Force general Qassem Soleimani was assassinated last January, also seems destined for eventual war should Trump cinch a second term.

    Closely watching the vote count and related controversies play out from afar, Iranian Foreign Minister Javad Zarif doubled on down on prior statements expressing optimism of a Democratic victory in Washington.

    “The statements by the Biden camp have been more promising, but we will have to wait and see. What counts is the behavior,” Zarif said earlier this week when asked which candidate seems more appealing.

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    Zarif admitted Trump’s sanctions has “brought Iran to its knees” yet without even the hint of producing regime change or coming anywhere close.

    The FM explained that while Iran remains ready to rejoin the 2015 nuclear deal brokered under Obama, which the Biden campaign has strongly suggested reentering, Tehran will “under no circumstances” pursue a new nuclear deal no matter who is in the White House next.

    “We can find a way to reengage, obviously. But reengagement does not mean renegotiation. It means the U.S. coming back to the negotiating table,” Zarif emphasized in the statements. He further denied recent DOJ and FBI claims that Iran is foremost among external actors seeking to meddle in the US election by hacking voter registration information. 

    Western pundits have recently highlighted that a Biden presidency would surely mark a “new beginning” in terms of resetting relations with Iran, which since the Trump administration withdrawal from the JCPOA in May 2018 have been on a war footing.

    While it’s clear Biden has the greater political capital with Tehran given his serving under Obama at the time the nuclear deal was negotiated and cemented, it remains a big unknown whether Iran would come back to conformity to enrichment caps stipulated under its terms. 

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