Nov 07

Today’s News 7th November 2021

  • How Media And Tech Elites Seized Control Of Elections
    How Media And Tech Elites Seized Control Of Elections

    Authored by David Gordon via The Mises Institute,

    Mollie Hemingway, an editor of the online magazine The Federalist, calls our attention in this well-researched book to a problem of vital significance. She is a supporter of Donald Trump, though not an uncritical one, and writes from this point of view, but whether you like the former president or not, you cannot ignore her message.

    She begins the book with a paradox. Almost all the polls predicted a decisive win for Biden in the November 2020 presidential election, but in fact the result, setting aside altogether the allegations of rigged voting by the former president and his supporters, was very close:

    “The political class, the corporate media, and their pollsters were all dramatically wrong, and yet Biden would eke out a presidential victory of just under 43,000 votes across three states, out of a total of nearly 160 million.” (p.36. All page references are to the Amazon Kindle edition.)

    Why were the polls so inaccurate?

    One answer would be mistakes in the way in polls were conducted, but Hemingway sees something more sinister in the errors. The inaccurate polls were part of a massive campaign by the government and corporate elite to ensure Trump’s defeat in the election.

    This campaign continued the efforts by the same elite to secure his defeat in the 2016 election; and, when those efforts failed, to derail his presidency.

    Hemingway stresses especially one tactic used in both the 2016 and 2020 elections. In previous elections, most voting took place on the appointed day in November, and although some people cast absentee ballots, these were of minor importance. No longer is this the case, and voting by mail now predominates.

    “’No excuse’ absentee voting allows citizens to cast their ballots early. With the widespread adoption of this practice in recent years, the United States can no longer be said to have an election day in the strict sense of the term. The country has a months-long voting season. . .In 2016, absentee and mail-in ballots accounted for roughly 33 million of the 140 million ballots counted. In 2020, more than 100 million of the 159 million ballots counted were cast prior to Election Day, including by early voting.” (p.222)

    This is of great significance, Hemingway says, because fraud is much easier with this sort of voting: it is much harder to verify signatures and voters’ addresses.

    If voting fraud is to be stopped, this requires vigilant election officials, and here is where the mass media elites enter the scene.

    Far from aiding in efforts to interdict fraud, the elites promote it through subventions to interested parties. Hemingway highlights the role of Mark Zuckerberg, who made large donations to private groups that acted in a partisan way to “help” election officials. “That’s to say nothing of the widespread privatization of election systems in key districts thanks to the efforts of leftist outfits funded by Mark Zuckerberg and other billionaires. Multi-million dollars grants to public election commissions, and the strings attached to them, were the means by which the left’s sprawling voting activist arm took over huge parts of the 2020 election. . .This private interference in the running of a national election had never before happened in the history of the country.” (p.xiii)

    These efforts to bias election results go hand-in-hand with the attempt by the same elites to control information that reaches the public. The media giants, such as Facebook, Twitter, and Google, relentlessly promoted items unfavorable to Trump and suppressed stories that could have helped him. As an example, damaging news about Hunter Biden and his corrupt dealing with Chinese officials that emerged in the final days of the campaign and was published in the New York Post was banned from Twitter.

    “Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey would eventually tell Congress and censoring the New York Post and locking it out of its Twitter account was a ‘mistake.’” (p.36)

    Hemingway’s focus is on the presidential campaign, but the censorship by the statist-corporative elite extends even further. Facebook and YouTube ban videos that criticize Covid-19 vaccinations and advance points of view that the proprietors of the platforms deem “misinformation.”

    The author is prepared for the objection that her charges of a leftist plot to derail Trump reflect the biased perspective of a partisan. In response, she points to a notable article in Time magazine in which those involved in the machinations admitted and took pride in what they had done.

    “Without agony or shame the magazine reported that ‘[t]there was a conspiracy unfolding behind the scenes’ creating ‘an extraordinary shadow effort’ by ‘a well-funded cabal of powerful people’ to oppose Trump. Corporate CEOs, organized labor, left-wing activists, and Democrats all worked together in secret to secure a Biden victory. . . Time would, of course, disingenuously frame this effort as an attempt to oppose Trump’s ‘assault on democracy,’ even as Time reporter Molly Ball noted this shadow campaign ‘touched every aspect of the election. They got states to change voting systems and laws and helped secure hundreds of millions in public and private funding.’ The funding enabled the country’s sudden rush to mail-in balloting, which Ball describes as ‘a revolution in how people vote.’” (p.36)

    What if anything can be done about this state of affairs? I do not think the solution lies mainly in stricter laws about voting and certainly not in governmental regulation of the mass media, which would only increase the power of the state. Rather. our aim ought not to be to make democracy “work better” but to use the example of corruption she has highlighted as a tool to help us throw into question altogether its value as a political and social system of organization, and defend in its stead a genuine free market society, along the lines set forward by Murray Rothbard and his followers, who include most notably Hans Hoppe.

    Hemingway is an assiduous researcher and, so far as I can discern, an accurate one. To my regret, I have been able to find only one outright error in the book. She says, “Five U.S, presidents since 1900 lost their bid for a second term. . . While each election is determined by unique factors, all five of these incumbents dealt with internal party fights or significant primary challenges. “(p.39) This is not true for Herbert Hoover, one of the five she mentions, who did not get significant Republican Party opposition in his quest for the 1932 nomination.

    By calling attention to what has happened to or political system in recent years, Mollie Hemingway strengthens our resolve to come up with something better.

    *  *  *

    Rigged! How the Media, Big Tech, and the Democrats Seized Our Elections, by Mollie Hemingway, Regnery Publishing, 2021, 432 pp.

    Tyler Durden
    Sun, 11/07/2021 – 00:00

  • NASA To Crash Spacecraft Into Asteroid, Testing Earth's Planetary Defenses
    NASA To Crash Spacecraft Into Asteroid, Testing Earth’s Planetary Defenses

    Asteroids orbit the Sun and sometimes come close to Earth. When these space rocks come within 30 million miles of Earth, NASA calls them Near-Earth objects (NEOs). On Nov. 23, the space agency plans to launch a spacecraft into Earth’s orbit that will eventually slam into an asteroid about a year from now, hoping to alter the space rock’s course. 

    NASA is currently making launch preparations for the Double Asteroid Redirection Test (DART) spacecraft to be catapulted into Earth’s orbit via a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket on Nov. 23. 

    NASA’s Planetary Defense Officer Lindley Johnson wrote in a press release: 

    “DART will be the first demonstration of the ‘kinetic impactor’ technique in which a spacecraft deliberately collides with a known asteroid at high speed to change the asteroid’s motion in space.

    “This technique is thought to be the most technologically mature approach for mitigating a potentially hazardous asteroid, and it will help planetary defense experts refine asteroid kinetic impactor computer models, giving insight into how we could deflect potentially dangerous near-Earth objects in the future.”

    Detecting potentially threatening NEOs is part of a larger-scale “planetary defense” program NASA plans to use the kinetic force of a spacecraft to deflect asteroids. It won’t be as exciting as the 1998 sci-fi thriller “Armageddon,” starring Bruce Willis, who landed a spacecraft on an asteroid headed to Earth and detonated a nuclear bomb, saving all of humanity. But the tiny, 1,200 pound DART will collide with a 4.5 billion-year-old asteroid, dubbed Dimorphos, measuring about 525 feet long, at 15,000 mph between Sept. 26 and Oct. 1, 2022.

    NASA hopes the impact of DART will slightly alter Dimorphos’ trajectory, causing it to have a new orbit. Here’s an infographic of the mission next year that will cost $330 million. 

    Nancy Chabot, the lead coordinator for DART, said, “you would just give this asteroid a small nudge, which would add up to a big change in its future position, and then the asteroid and Earth wouldn’t be on a collision course.” 

    Meanwhile, China has plans of its own to save the planet from a potential asteroid strike, which it outlined this past summer. The National Space Science Centre said it simulated 23 Long March 5 rockets deflecting an asteroid the size of the Empire State Building. 

    For the sake of US taxpayers, let’s hope this crazy idea can one day save humanity if an asteroid comes dangerously close to Earth.  

    Tyler Durden
    Sat, 11/06/2021 – 23:30

  • Shellenberger: Why Progressives Ruin Democrats
    Shellenberger: Why Progressives Ruin Democrats

    Authored by Michael Shellenberger via Substack,

    Since the election of Donald Trump as president in 2016, progressives have made the argument that taking back the presidency, the Congress, and winning swing states requires that Democrats move to the Left on social and economic issues, aggressively confront structural racism, and stand more firmly with longstanding allies like the teachers’ unions, environmentalists, and criminal justice reformers. 

    But the election of an underdog Republican candidate, Glenn Youngkin, as governor of Virginia on Tuesday night, the election of Republicans in state races in New Jersey and New York, and the repudiation of progressives in Seattle and Minneapolis on issues relating to criminal justice, suggest that voters in even liberal cities are turning against progressive policies and ideology, particularly on issues relating to race, education, and crime, as part of a backlash to “woke” ideology.

    Some progressives say this is a misreading of the evidence. Virginia’s Democratic gubernatorial candidate, Terry McAuliffe, is a Clinton-era Democrat, who ran on a centrist agenda. Progressive candidates won in other cities around the U.S., including in Boston. And, they argue, it was President Joe Biden’s unpopularity, partly due to the obstinance of moderate Democrats like Senators Joe Manchin and Krysten Sinema to Biden’s budget proposal, that is to blame for the Democrats’ electoral losses. 

    But progressive efforts to deflect blame don’t stand up under scrutiny. While it’s true McAuliffe ran on a moderate platform, he refused to acknowledge much less renounce the teaching of critical race theory in classrooms, opposed expanded parental involvement, and campaigned with the teachers union. While Boston’s new mayor promotes progressive policies she also supports shutting down open drug scenes. And progressive demands for expanded federal control over regional electricity markets prevented a budget deal from passing before the election, contributing to Biden’s poor approval ratings, and giving Democratic candidates little upon which to campaign.

    “I think Democrats have to look in the mirror now,” said CNN contributor, Van Jones, on election night. “I think Democrats are coming across in ways that we don’t recognize, that are annoying, offensive, and seem out of touch in ways that don’t show up in our feeds, in our echo chamber —”

    “When you’re talking about ‘our,’” interrupted Anderson Cooper, “you’re talking about Democrats?”

    “Democrats” confirmed Jones

    “Because,” said Cooper, “it seems annoying to a lot of people.”

    Former advisor to Barack Obama, David Axelrod, agreed. “I think the attitude [of Democrats] is important,” he said. “The Democratic Party has become a more college-educated and urban party coalition with minority voters and the messages tend to be moralizing.”

    “Moralizing,” agreed Jones. “Self-righteous.”

    “It’s, ‘We’re going to tell you what’s right,’” said Axelrod.

    Democratic political strategist James Carville was even more blunt. “What went wrong is stupid wokeness,” he told PBS. “Don’t just look at Virginia and New Jersey. Look at Long Island, Buffalo, look at Minneapolis, even look at Seattle, Washington. I mean, this ‘Defund the police!’ lunacy. This, ‘Take Abraham Lincoln’s name off of schools!’… people see that. And it really has a suppressive effect on all across the country on Democrats. Some of these people need to go to a woke detox center or something.”

    In the coming months and years, the rejection by voters of the progressive  agenda could extend to climate and environmental issues. Despite gasoline prices remaining high, progressives, including the Biden White House, remain opposed to expanded oil and gas production — at least in the U.S. — to lower them. Meanwhile, progressive climate change policies are increasing electricity prices, increasing blackouts, and resulting in greater dependence on imported foreign oil. 

    In truth, Carville, Axelrod, Jones and many others, including Obama himself, have been warning progressives that they had become too self-righteous, extreme, and shrill for years. Progressives have waved away, ridiculed, and even denounced such concerns as racist. And even after losing on Tuesday, many progressives took to the TV airwaves to assert that Democratic losses were due to racism.

    Progressives appear, in other words, determined to stick with an approach that is making Democratic candidates lose. Why is that?

    Luxury Beliefs

    Democratic and progressive elites often come across as out of touch. “I think Democrats are coming across in ways that we don’t recognize,” said Van Jones, because alternative views “don’t show up in our feeds, in our echo chamber.” 

    The sociologist Chistopher Lasch predicted as much in his 1995 book, Revolt of the Elites. “The physical segregation of the population is self-enclosed, racially homogeneous enclaves has its counterpart in the balkanization of opinion,” he wrote. “Each group tries to barricade itself behind its own dogmas.” Keep in mind that all of that was happening more than a decade before Twitter.  

    There is also tone deafness. In 2019 Prince Harry and Meghen Markle, other celebrities, and CEOs flew private jets, which produce eight to ten times the emissions as flying commercial, and stayed in yachts at a Google conference in Sicily to discuss climate change. In 2020, dozens of important policymakers around the world were caught violating their own covid regulations, and sometimes didn’t seem to care. When San Francisco Mayor London Breed was caught on video dancing at a packed night club without her mask on, she demonstrated no remorse. Breed told a television reporter that she was just letting off steam and people should lay off.

    Progressives wave away concerns of elitism. Earlier this year, Democratic Socialist Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez went, unmasked, to the swanky Met Gala, wearing a dress emblazoned with the words, “Tax the Rich,” and surrounded by masked help, including a man subserviently holding the dress train. Progressive “fact checkers” pointed out that somebody else paid for Ocasio-Cortez’s $35,000 ticket, as though that made her behavior less elitist.

    In Apocalypse Never, I wrote that the hypocrisy of Prince Harry and Markle and other celebrities ostensibly concerned about climate change was the ultimate power move because it allowed them to communicate that they followed a different set of rules from the plebes. My suspicions were proven correct in September when the couple once again flew back to L.A. in a private jet after attending a climate change conference in New York. “It’s really not a good look!” scolded Marie Claire. But perhaps it is a good look if good looks are about advertising social status. 

    A worse look is calling half of the country racist, which is what many progressives and Democrats have done since 2016. Since then, Latino support for Trump and Republicans grew significantly. In Virginia, it was independents and white women who voted for Biden who were decisive, and education, particularly the influence of Critical Race Theory, appeared to be a deciding issue. 

    Documentary filmmaker Christopher Rufo has brought to light a significant quantity of evidence showing the teaching in schools, and the training of public and private sector employees, of the principles of critical race theory, or CRT for short. These activities include segregating employees and students by race; teaching children and training employees that there are essential differences between races; and claiming that all white people are inherently racist. 

    The Virginia vote showed that CRT views are highly unpopular with many voters, including African Americans and Democrats. Americans still hold race-neutrality, not race-obsession, as our goal, and reject the progressive moral panic over race and racism. Why, then, do progressives and Democrats insist, simultaneously, and incoherently, both that CRT doesn’t exist, and that it is good?

    CRT is an off-shoot of critical theory, the most important Marxist intellectual tradition of the 20th Century. Critical theory includes thinkers including Herbert Marcuse, Angela Davis, and Antonio Gramsci. Critical theorists, including Gramsci, argued that Marxist socialists should try to occupy key positions in important social institutions, including universities, churches, and labor unions. The idea was that Marxists would have more power to transform social institutions from the inside as NGO professionals, journalists, teachers, professors, university administrators, and corporate human relations officers than as shouty protesters outside the system. 

    Fast-forward 50 years later, and CRT and climate change have become the dominant ideology of elites, and aspiring elites, known as the professional managerial class, including the progressive nonprofit sector, and the news media. Wokeism is a “luxury belief system” of the ruling class, according to sociologist Rob Henderson.

    “Luxury beliefs are ideas and opinions that confer status on the rich at very little cost, while taking a toll on the lower class,” Henderson argues.

    “In the past, people displayed their membership of the upper class with their material accoutrements,” he noted.

    “But today, luxury goods are more affordable than before… When someone uses the phrase “cultural appropriation,” what they are really saying is ‘I was educated at a top college.’.. Only the affluent can afford to learn strange vocabulary because ordinary people have real problems to worry about.” [my emphasis].

    Progressive, educated, and affluent people “promote open borders or the decriminalization of drugs,” writes Henderson, “because it advances their social standing, not least because they know that the adoption of those policies will cost them less than others.”

    That’s what’s occurred in San Francisco, Seattle, Portland, Los Angeles, and other Democratic cities. Progressive city council members and District Attorneys are allowing large open air drug markets to to persist so long as they remain in poor, historically black, neighborhoods.

    Unlike traditional religion, woke victimology seeks not universal morality, and laws, but rather one aimed at dismantling “the system.” It is for this reason that progressives are narrowly concerned with African Americans killed by the police rather than with the 30 times more African Americans killed by civilians. And the narrow concern among progressives for victims of “the system” is why progressives in San Francisco are allowing hundreds of people to die every year from drug overdose deaths, since the alternative requires working with the system.

    Progressive activists on CRT, criminal justice, and climate change don’t believe, in my experience, that they are adherents to a new religion, but rather that they are more compassionate and more moral than those who hold more traditional views. And that lack of self-awareness is part of why victimology is so powerful. But it may also be what makes it politically vulnerable.

    Progressives in recent years were on the rise in San Francisco, Seattle, Los Angeles, and nationally, but the governance of those cities is failing dramatically. Voters in California appeared willing to wave away growing public unhappiness when they rejected a proposed recall of Gavin Newsom in September. But Tuesday’s vote, including a vote in Seattle for a Republican as City Attorney, suggests that even many liberal Democrats are fed up with the “woke” victim-centered ideology that has taken over the party. 

    A Based Wokelash

    A few weeks ago Penguin published Woke Racism by Columbia University linguist John McWhorter, whose book has in common with San Fransicko the view that wokeism is a religion. In Woke Racism, McWhorter humorously ridicules the irrationality, immorality, and supernatural components of woke religion.

    McWhorter lampoons its contradictions. If whites move into black neighborhoods they are causing gentrification, which is racist, but if they move out of them they are engaging in “white flight,” which is racist. If whites appreciate black culture, they are engaging in “cultural appropriation,” but if they ignore it they are ostracizing. How can these beliefs, which McWhorter calls “the catechism of contradictions,” be part of the same woke religion? Because they’re all in service of singular goal of calling white people racist in order to gain cultural power.  

    One question I have long wondered about woke religion is why I could tomorrow declare myself a woman, and be praised for my bravery by progressives, but if I declared myself black, I would run out of Berkeley. Physically speaking, I have far more in common with a black man than a white woman. Why, then, does progressive morality hold that my becoming a woman is not only acceptable but laudable, whereas my becoming black is not only unacceptable but offensive?

    After I read Woke Racism, I realized the answer: because progressive trans activists have historically wanted to enlarge the number of people who identify as trans, whereas progressive black activists have wanted to stigmatize blacks for “acting white.” They are an entirely arbitrary and irrational reasons chosen, like McWhorter’s catechism of contradictions, to gain social and political power.

    Like other religions, wokeism promotes supernatural views. There is no evidence that climate change threatens human extinction, and yet progressive keep insisting that it does. Racism has declined dramatically over the last 200 years and yet progressives insist that it remains as powerful as ever, just more hidden, like a hidden demonic force. And sex is genetic and biological, and yet many progressives describe it as something that can be simply chosen at will, as though people are just random assemblages of body parts.

    Critics including Lasch, historian Michael Lind, and more recently, Democratic analysts David Shor and Ruy Teixeira, have been warning Democrats of the danger of becoming a party of moral relativism, and arguing that Democrats should emphasize the importance of intact families, race-neutrality, and economic growth. These warnings have been validated by strong evidence that the class-focused messages of Republicans, including Trump, have been winning over Latinos, and Tuesday’s elections.

    Climate alarmism has long created serious vulnerabilities for Democrats. “Very liberal white people care way more about climate change than anyone else,” Shor told The New York Times. “So when you talk about climate change, you sound like a weird, very liberal white person. This is why policy issues matter more than people realize. It’s not that voters have these very specific policy preferences. It’s that the policies you choose to talk about paints a picture of what kind of person you are.”

    And that was the case before the energy crisis. For weeks, the Biden White House has been pleading with the Saudis, the Russians, and other OPEC members to produce more oil and natural gas, even as it has restricted new oil and gas development in the United States. That doesn’t make sense, even to New York Times journalists.

    “What we are now seeing in soaring energy prices as we transition away from carbon is also a political risk for environmentalism,” argued conservative commentator Andrew Sullivan recently.

    “People notice unaffordable energy bills and gas prices very quickly. If they attribute that to the inconstancy of renewables — and in Europe, a sharp drop in winds was indeed a factor — then a populist backlash can happen.”

    Will Democrats moderate their agenda and attitudes in response to electoral defeat? Perhaps. Democrats may finally accept the advice of Carville, Jones, and Axelrod, and move away from the fringes and back toward the mainstream. In some parts of the U.S., Democratic candidates may reject CRT by name, embrace oil and gas production, and support greater parental involvement, including school choice, even though doing so would likely be opposed by the American Civil Liberties Union, Black Lives Matter, the teachers’ unions, and the Sierra Club.

    But the reaction to Tuesday’s election suggest that many other progressives will double down on off-putting attitudes and unpopular policies. After all, the progressive insistence that Democrats spend their social and political capital demonizing their opponents as racist, depicting criminals as victims, and portraying climate change as apocalyptic was never about creating a successful politics. It was about evangelizing for a new religion. 

    *  *  *

    Michael Shellenberger is a Time Magazine “Hero of the Environment,”Green Book Award winner, and the founder and president of Environmental Progress. He is author of just launched book San Fransicko (Harper Collins) and the best-selling book, Apocalypse Never (Harper Collins June 30, 2020). Subscribe To Michael’s substack here
     

    Tyler Durden
    Sat, 11/06/2021 – 23:00

  • California's Attempt To Hobble Gifted Students Over 'Racial Disparities' Starting To Backfire
    California’s Attempt To Hobble Gifted Students Over ‘Racial Disparities’ Starting To Backfire

    California’s attempts to eliminate accelerated math courses for gifted students was a terrible idea from the beginning. Now it’s beginning to backfire.

    Critics of the draft said the authors were punishing high achievers.Credit…Jim Wilson/The New York Times

    Premised on the absurd notion that naturally gifted asian and white students simply have better opportunities than black and brown students – as opposed to differences in study habits, parental involvement, and cultural values – a draft plan to overhaul how math is taught across the state has set off a fierce debate, according to the NY Times.

    Source

    The draft proposal rejects the notion that some students are naturally gifted, and recommends against shifting certain students into gifted programs in middle school. It also proposes that math should not be ‘colorblind’ – and that teachers should use math lessons to explore social justice, “for example, by looking out for gender stereotypes in word problems, or applying math concepts to topics like immigration or inequality.“

    What?

    Enter the backlash…

    Critics – including hundreds of Californians working in STEM fields who signed an open letter opposing the plan – say it would punish high achieving students by limiting options gifted programs. According to the letter, the draft constitutes “an endless river of new pedagogical fads that effectively distort and displace actual math.”

    Even in heavily Democratic California — a state with six million public school students and an outsize influence on textbook publishing nationwide — the draft guidelines encountered scathing criticism, with charges that the framework would inject “woke” politics into a subject that is supposed to be practical and precise.

    The battle over math pedagogy is a tale as old as multiplication tables. An idea called “new math,” pitched as a more conceptual approach to the subject, had its heyday in the 1960s. About a decade ago, amid debates over the national Common Core standards, many parents bemoaned math exercises that they said seemed to dump line-by-line computation in favor of veritable hieroglyphs. -NYT

    “Math is math. Two plus two equals four,” said Williamson M. Evers, a senior fellow at the Independent Institute and a former official with the Education Department during the administration of George W. Bush.

    Will the adults in the room prevail?

    Tyler Durden
    Sat, 11/06/2021 – 22:30

  • Iraq PM Survives Drone Assassination Attempt
    Iraq PM Survives Drone Assassination Attempt

    Iraq’s Prime Minister Mustafa al-Kadhimi was targeted in a “failed assassination attempt” after an explosive-laden drone struck his residence in Baghdad, Iraqi military said early Sunday. Kadhimi was unharmed in the attack and is in good health, the military said, adding that it was taking the necessary measures in connection with the failed attempt.

    Two government officials said Kadhimi’s residence had been hit by at least one explosion and confirmed to Reuters that the prime minister was safe. Security sources told Reuters that six members of Kadhimi’s personal protection force stationed outside his residence had been injured.

    Kadhimi took to Twitter soon after the attack and said he was fine and called for calm and restraint from the public.

    “The rockets of treachery will not discourage the believers… The steadfastness and insistence of our heroic security forces will not falter as they work to preserve the security of the people, achieve justice and enforce the law,” he said.

    “I am fine, praise be to God, among my people, and I call for calm and restraint.

    The attack which injured several members of Kadhimi’s personal protection, came after protests in the Iraqi capital over the result of a general election last month turned violent, according to Reuters which cited security sources. The groups leading protests and complaints about the result of the October vote are heavily-armed Iran-backed militias which lost much of their parliamentary power in the election. They have alleged voting and vote-counting irregularities.

    No group immediately claimed responsibility for the attack on Kadhimi’s residence in Baghdad’s fortified Green Zone, which houses government buildings and foreign embassies.

    Western diplomats based nearby in the Green Zone said they heard explosions and gunfire in the area.

    Supporters of Iran-aligned militia groups which have grown their power in parliament and government in recent years have alleged voter fraud and irregularities in counting the results of the Oct. 10 election.

    Protests by supporters of parties who dispute the results of the vote turned violent on Friday when demonstrators pelted police with stones near the Green Zone, injuring several officers. The police responded with tear gas and live gunfire, killing at least one demonstrator, according to security and hospital sources in Baghdad.

    Independent analysts say the election results were a reflection of anger towards the Iran-backed armed groups, which are widely accused of involvement in the killing of nearly 600 protesters who took the street in separate, anti-government demonstrations in 2019.

    Tyler Durden
    Sat, 11/06/2021 – 22:25

  • Global Elite "Fear A Rebellion Is Brewing", Says CEO Of Large Doomsday-Bunker Builder
    Global Elite “Fear A Rebellion Is Brewing”, Says CEO Of Large Doomsday-Bunker Builder

    Authored by Mac Slavo via SHTFplan.com,

    According to the CEO of one of the world’s largest doomsday bunker builders for the elitists, those who are in power currently fear a “rebellion” of those who they are ruling over.  

    Ron Hubbard, the CEO of Atlas Survival Shelters, while being interviewed by The Canadian Prepper tells us right away, the ‘bunker building business‘ is exploding as the elitists begin to fear the masses waking up.

    We know we are slaves, and those who have followed this blog know we aren’t “losing freedom” but we never had freedom.  What we are losing is the illusion that we are free. But the rest of humanity is finally waking up and evolving past needing masters to enslave them and steal the fruits of their labor. 

    This is a good thing, but we also know the rulers will not go down easily. As the year 2021 winds down, however, the doomsday bunker business is picking up and those who are buying these bunkers are the ones currently fearing the “great awakening” or the “apocalypse,” the lifting of the veil. They fear people finally realizing that they were born into slavery.

    Hubbard warns that one reason this is happening now is the globalists believe a “rebellion” is brewing in America and likely very near, with the American people growing increasingly angry with the entire establishment and those who control it. The system is failing. People are evolving mentally and many know they were not to be slaves.

    What the elitists want is massive chaos and division, which is why we are divided in every way possible. If we cannot get along and work together, they will achieve their goal.

    “The elites are almost exclusively building bunkers right now because they’re the ones that can afford it,” Hubbard says in the video.

    “America is within days, if not weeks of a rebellion. There is a panic buy of bunkers right now, especially in the United States.”

    He says it isn’t just in the United States either. This whole spirit of liberty and freedom from government has gone global.  They know they are losing control and all it’ll take is massive noncompliance, and people realizing they were not born to be slaves to any ruling class.

    We do not have to make this a violent rebellion, and even Hubbard admits that this won’t necessarily be a violent rebellion. But it will happen. As people face losing their jobs and everything they spent years working for, they will have no choice but to wake up to what is really going on.

    *  *  *

    H/T [Natural News] and [All News Pipeline]

    Tyler Durden
    Sat, 11/06/2021 – 22:00

  • Study Reveals 'Dramatic' Decline In All Three COVID-19 Vaccines' Efficacy Over Time
    Study Reveals ‘Dramatic’ Decline In All Three COVID-19 Vaccines’ Efficacy Over Time

    A study which analyzed the records of nearly 800,000 US veterans of all ages found that the three main Covid-19 vaccines experienced ‘dramatic’ drops in efficacy over six months, according to the LA Times.

    Between early March and Septemper, as the Delta variant rapidly became the dominant strain worldwide, the ability of Moderna’s two-dose vaccine to prevent infections dropped from 89% – 58%, Pfizer’s went from 87% – 45%, and J&J’s single-dose vaccine went from 86% to just 13%.

    The findings were published Thursday in peer-reviewed Science.

    That said, the vaccines’ ability to prevent death in older Americans remained somewhat robust over the same period, according to the report.

    Among veterans 65 and older who were inoculated with the Moderna vaccine, those who developed a so-called breakthrough infection were 76% less likely to die of COVID-19 compared with unvaccinated veterans of the same age.

    Older veterans who got the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine and subsequently experienced a breakthrough infection were 70% less likely to die than were their unvaccinated peers.

    And when older vets who got a single jab of the J&J vaccine suffered a breakthrough infection, they were 52% less likely to die than their peers who didn’t get any shots. -LA Times

    For veterans younger than 65, Pfizer and Moderna vaccines prevented death 84% and 82% respectively, while J&J recipients were 73% less likely to die vs. their unvaccinated peers. 

    Keep in mind, of course, we’re talking about a 70%+ reduction of a < 1% chance of death for Americans under the age of 54, 1.4% for those aged 55-64, and 2.7% for those aged between 65-74.

    This, of course, is on top of CDC Director Rochelle Walensky acknowledging last month that the vaccines don’t prevent transmission.

    Add perpetual boosters to the above, and it’s no wonder people – such as former Blackrock money manager Ed Dowd – are skeptical.

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    Tyler Durden
    Sat, 11/06/2021 – 21:30

  • 'Confidential' Crypto Transactions: Liquid For Bitcoiners
    ‘Confidential’ Crypto Transactions: Liquid For Bitcoiners

    Authored by Moritz Wietersheim via BitcoinMagazine.com,

    Hardcore Bitcoiners are understandably skeptical about Blockstream’s Liquid sidechain. But as the Bitcoin ecosystem grows, we’re going to need more services backed by Bitcoin that the Bitcoin network itself can’t provide. Liquid is a semi-centralized side chain that — crucially — has no unnecessary shitcoin. This blog series will discuss some of the use cases that are now possible through Specter Hardware and Specter Desktop’s integration with Liquid that might interest Bitcoiners the most.

    CONFIDENTIAL TRANSACTIONS

    The possibility of having fully private, on-chain hidden transactions in Bitcoin has been discussed for years. But don’t expect this to come anytime soon — if ever. The Bitcoin ecosystem is wary of experimentation on the Bitcoin base layer. We need to move slowly and be as careful as possible.

    Indeed, as Alex Gladstein recounts in his recent article, “The Quest For Digital Cash” for Bitcoin Magazine, cypherpunk Adam Back early on “realized it would be extremely difficult to implement CT [Confidential Transactions on Bitcoin], as the community understandably prioritized security and auditability over privacy.” So Adam Back and Greg Maxwell teamed up to found Blockstream, in large part to implement confidential transactions on a Bitcoin sidechain. That sidechain is called Liquid and has been running since November 2018.

    Confidential assets and transactions on Liquid keep the amount and type of assets transferred visible only to participants in the transaction. Yet they still cryptographically guarantee that no more coins can be spent than are actually available.

    Confidential Assets whitepaper. Just a few recognizable names in that list. Probably nothing.

    So as CoinJoin will continue to be a powerful tool in the privacy-focused Bitcoiner’s arsenal, it’s worth familiarizing yourself with the privacy features of Liquid confidential transactions. You “peg-in” some bitcoin to Liquid and receive an equivalent amount of L-BTC on the Liquid sidechain. Additionally, a growing number of exchanges will let you easily withdraw your bitcoin as L-BTC. You can then send your L-BTC confidentially to any recipient Liquid wallet. These transactions are inexpensive and very fast. The recipient can then deposit the L-BTC into their own Liquid-supported exchange or “peg-out” back to normal on-chain bitcoin.

    Give it a try in Specter with a small test amount. See what information can and cannot be traced as you move from Bitcoin to Liquid and across confidential transactions. You’re not gaining perfect privacy here, but certainly improved privacy.

    Someday, hopefully soon (hint, hint developers!) we’ll see a CoinJoin implementation that is built on Liquid confidential transactions. Any amount — of any asset! — go into the mix and whatever comes out would have no deterministic traceable link whatsoever. At this point you maybe would have near-perfect privacy at an even lower cost than current on-chain CoinJjoin implementations.

    PRIVACY BEST PRACTICES: COINJOIN, LIGHTNING, LIQUID

    Coinbase and other exchanges know how much bitcoin you bought and on which UTXOs these bitcoin sit. This data is shared with chain surveillance companies that are analyzing on-chain transaction paths, selling their services to malicious players. This data will sooner or later leak out or get hacked and will find its way to a darknet market.

    For financial privacy, any working capital operations with bitcoin of a company or an individual should be CoinJoined first and then pushed out for payment operations to Lightning and Liquid. For cold storage, bitcoin should be held in an on-chain wallet and not on the federated sidechain of Liquid. Lightning channels are for facilitating payments, not storing value. Lightning hot wallets have their private keys always online and still need improved hardware backend security. Meanwhile Liquid allows one to move high value amounts of bitcoin with confidential transactions, while keeping keys in air-gapped multisig wallets.

    Since the Bitcoin on-chain layer will become very busy and quite expensive to operate on, using Lightning and Liquid will not only be necessary for improved privacy, but also from an economic perspective to optimize for an efficient use of the Bitcoin blockchain. Frequent payment transactions will get pushed out to Lightning and Liquid, while on-chain transactions will happen for high-value hodling, CoinJoin, and settlement purposes.

    HOW TO GET STARTED:

     

    Tyler Durden
    Sat, 11/06/2021 – 21:00

  • Hong Kong's Most Prominent Global Newspaper Could Soon Come Under CCP State Control
    Hong Kong’s Most Prominent Global Newspaper Could Soon Come Under CCP State Control

    Hong Kong’s most globally visible and popular English language newspaper South China Morning Post could come under Chinese government control, as within the past days it’s emerged that its owner Alibaba Group is in talks with Bauhinia Culture Holdings, a Chinese state-backed firm.

    The talks which were widely reported at the end of this past week are secretive, with an Alibaba spokesperson later denying that there’s any intent of a sale. SCMP’s CEO Gary Liu and the media organization’s co-founder Joe Tsai sent a letter to employees after the reporting which originated in Bloomberg saying there are currently no plans for a change in ownership, denying the story.

    Alibaba acquired SCMP in 2015 for Alibaba for $266 million.

    But it’s well-known that Alibaba has of late come under intense pressure from the Chinese government over a number of its media assets, also amid Jack Ma’s own muzzling by Beijing following the great CCP tech crackdown which began in late 2019.

    The rumors regarding Beijing’s attempts to reign in SCMP have been swirling since last spring, for example when the following began to be reported: 

    When Ma’s Alibaba Group acquired the South China Morning Post in 2015 from a Malaysian tycoon, amid increasing signs that Beijing was tightening control of Hong Kong, fears swirled that the new ownership would undermine the English-language broadsheet’s editorial independence. But Ma and Gary Liu, CEO of the paper since 2017, promised the Post would maintain its editorial independence. Now Chinese government regulators wary of Alibaba’s influence that spans from retail and finance to media, have ordered it to sell off its media assets, including the Post, according to a report from the Wall Street Journal.

    And now fast-forward to November, and this past week, with Bloomberg detailing the following: 

    A sale to Bauhinia would potentially assuage the government’s concerns, as it is fully state owned. It also bolstered its presence in Hong Kong’s media scene in April when it agreed to buy a stake in Phoenix Media Investment Holdings Ltd., owner of local broadcaster Phoenix TV.

    Deliberations are ongoing and other state-backed entities could also consider submitting offers for SCMP, the people said. A deal may not materialize, they said.

    If such a change in ownership were to eventually materialize, it would mean Hong Kong’s most prominent international newspaper would be overseen by the Liaison Office of the Central People’s Government in the former British colony, effectively bringing it under mainland state control.

    HK activist groups are alarmed over the recent reports in an environment of a restrictive media and political clampdown…

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    This is further within a broader Hong Kong atmosphere of greatly tightened media control and censorship, particularly given that last month more legislation deemed an outworking of the 2020 national security law has gone into effect, which bans and penalizes media “found to be contrary to national security interests” – especially in the film and TV industry. Local China-backed censors have been reportedly cracking down on print media as well.

    Tyler Durden
    Sat, 11/06/2021 – 20:30

  • Study Warns 'Luxury' Pollution By Global Mega-Rich Is The Real Problem
    Study Warns ‘Luxury’ Pollution By Global Mega-Rich Is The Real Problem

    Authored by Jake Johnson via CommonDreams.org,

    The richest people on the planet, representing a small sliver of the total population, are emitting carbon dioxide at a rate that’s imperiling hopes of keeping global heating below 1.5°C, prompting fresh calls for government action to rein in “luxury” pollution and combat the intertwined crises of inequality and climate change.

    New research by the Institute for European Environmental Policy (IEEP) and the Stockholm Environment Institute (SEI) shows that by 2030, the carbon footprints of the wealthiest 1% of humanity are on track to be 30 times larger than the size compatible with limiting global warming to 1.5°C by the end of the century, the Paris Agreement’s more ambitious temperature target.

    Bezos: “We must conserve what we still have, we must restore what we’ve lost.” Image: EPA

    If current trends continue, the richest 1% will account for 16% of global CO2 emissions in 2030.

    The carbon emissions of the poorest half of the global population, meanwhile, “are set to remain well below the 1.5°C-compatible level,” according to the analysis, which was commissioned by Oxfam International and published Friday. The planet has already warmed by roughly 1.1°C, and scientists have said any heating beyond 1.5°C would have destructive consequences worldwide.

    “The emissions from a single billionaire spaceflight would exceed the lifetime emissions of someone in the poorest billion people on Earth,” Nafkote Dabi, Oxfam’s climate policy lead, said in a statement. “A tiny elite appear to have a free pass to pollute. Their oversized emissions are fueling extreme weather around the world and jeopardizing the international goal of limiting global heating.”

    “The emissions of the wealthiest 10% alone could send us beyond the agreed limit in the next nine years,” Dabi added. “This would have catastrophic results for some of the most vulnerable people on Earth who are already facing deadly storms, hunger, and destitution.”

    Authored by Tim Gore, head of the Low Carbon and Circular Economy program at IEEP, the new research paper notes that “while carbon inequality is often most stark at the global level, inequalities within countries are also very significant.”

    “They increasingly drive the extent of global inequality, and likely have a greater impact on the political and social acceptability of national emissions reduction efforts,” the paper reads. “It is therefore notable that in all of the major emitting countries, the richest 10% and 1% nationally are set to have per capita consumption footprints substantially above the 1.5⁰C global per capita level.”

    To slash the outsized planet-warming emissions of the global rich, the study calls on policymakers to pursue restrictions on mega-yachts, private jets, and recreational space travel. In a paper published last month, French economist Lucas Chancel estimated that “an 11-minute [space] flight emits no fewer than 75 tonnes of carbon per passenger once indirect emissions are taken into account (and more likely, in the 250-1,000 tonnes range).”

    “At the other end of the distribution, about one billion individuals emit less than one tonne per person per year,” Chancel observed. “Over their lifetime, this group of one billion individuals does not emit more than 75 tonnes of carbon per person. It therefore takes a few minutes in space travel to emit at least as much carbon as an individual from the bottom billion will emit in her entire lifetime.”

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    In addition to targeting sources of “luxury carbon consumption,” the analysis by IEEP and SEI also proposes restrictions on “climate-intensive investments like stock-holdings in fossil fuel industries.”

    “The global emissions gap to keep the 1.5°C Paris goal alive is not the result of the consumption of most of the world’s people: it reflects instead the excessive emissions of just the richest citizens on the planet,” Gore said in a statement. “It is necessary for governments to target measures at their richest, highest emitters―the climate and inequality crises should be tackled together.” Emily Ghosh, a scientist at SEI, agreed, arguing that “carbon inequality must urgently be put at the center of governments efforts to reduce emissions.”

    “Our research highlights the challenge of ensuring a more equitable distribution of the remaining and rapidly diminishing global carbon budget,” said Ghosh. “If we continue on the same trajectory as today, the stark inequalities in income and emissions across the global population will remain, challenging the equity principle at the very heart of the Paris Agreement.”

    Tyler Durden
    Sat, 11/06/2021 – 20:00

  • Veteran Dem Strategist Sums Up Liberals' Electability Issue: "They're Not Popular… They Need A Woke Detox"
    Veteran Dem Strategist Sums Up Liberals’ Electability Issue: “They’re Not Popular… They Need A Woke Detox”

    Is the pendulum finally starting to swing back in the direction of common sense?

    In the past few weeks, outspoken liberal comedian Bill Maher has been the unexpected voice of reason when it comes to truth-bombs for the left, slamming “gullible” millennials’ “stupid ideas” exclaiming “you’re the f**king nuts” to the woke, progressive, and increasingly vocal wing of the Democrat party.

    However, this week, following the electroral evisceration this week, more left-leaning public figures and talking heads have been brave enough to step forward and address the giant elephant in the room (of course that excludes anyone on MSNBC).

    Van Jones admitted that “Democrats are coming across as annoying and offensive and out-of-touch. I think there is a message here,” before reverting to trend and playing the race card in Virginia.

    Even David Axelrod faced reality: “The Democratic Party has become a more college-educated and urban party coalition with minority voters and the messages tend to be moralizing… and self-righteous… ‘we will tell you what is right’.“

    But it was veteran Democratic political strategist James Carville that was the most blunt.

    “What went wrong is stupid wokeness,” he said shocking his PBS interviewer, adding that “this, ‘Take Abraham Lincoln’s name off of schools!’… people see that. And it really has a suppressive effect on all across the country on Democrats.”

    “Some of these people need to go to a woke detox center or something,” said Carville, who advised former President Bill Clinton.

    “They’re expressing language people just don’t use and there’s a backlash and a frustration at that.”

    “We’ve got to change this and not be about changing dictionaries, and change laws,” he told host Judy Woodruff. They were “hurting the party” and “the very people you want to help.”

    Carville concludes, “these people have got to understand, [Democrats] are not popular around the country, people don’t like them… and they are annoying people… and people are voting because that is the only way they can disagree with all this.”

    However, these warnings to the woke mob are nothing new, they have just been de-amplified as social media mayhem shuts down any critical thinking. As Michael Shellenberger notes, “In truth, Carville, Axelrod, Jones and many others, including Obama himself, have been warning progressives that they had become too self-righteous, extreme, and shrill for years. Progressives have waved away, ridiculed, and even denounced such concerns as racist.”

    Of course, none of that will stop the most progressive who are now committed to their path. Here is AOC’s take on why they lost… simply put, the candidates were too ‘moderate’ and not ‘woke’ enough: “I think the results show the limits of trying to run a fully 100% super moderated campaign.”…

    Good luck with that strategy in 2022.

    Tyler Durden
    Sat, 11/06/2021 – 19:30

  • Majority Saying "Yes" After Elon Musk Asks Twitter If He Should Sell 10% Of His Tesla Stock
    Majority Saying “Yes” After Elon Musk Asks Twitter If He Should Sell 10% Of His Tesla Stock

    In response to the latest wealth redistribution proposal espoused by America’s socialist party which was formerly known as the Democrats, the world’s richest man, Elon Musk, said that “much is made lately of unrealized gains being a means of tax avoidance”, and so he created a Twitter survey in which he asked if his 62.5 million followers support him selling 10% of his Tesla stock.

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    The amount of stock in play is worth about $21 billion, based on Musk’s holdings of 170.5 million Tesla shares (the amount of stock Musk would sell is even greater if his options are included). The stock, which surged 74% this year on the back of one gamma squeeze after another, closed at $1,222.09 on Friday, just shy of an all time high.

    Four hours later, with over 1.2 million responses, a majority of the respondents so far, or 53%, have said supported such a sale. Perhaps they are unaware that such a sale would tank TSLA stock – as it is equivalent to 80% of the average daily trading volume for Tesla in the past three months – sending it plunging. Furthermore, the signal that Musk would send by liquidating a portion of his holdings in response to socialist wealth redistribution would propagate like wildfire across the market and result in a broader market crash.

    On the other hand, for Musk – who would be delighted to be “forced” to dump a significant portion of TSLA shares at the highest price ever – a favorable outcome which he can then blame on Democrats –  may be just what he desires even if it means next week we see a crash in the price of Tesla shares, one could then quickly spillover to the broader market, for which Musk can blame the Democrats again.

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    So for the sake of TSLA bulls, we hope the bulls find a way in the next 20 hours to fill the gap and reverse the answer to negative, or else next week we will see a lot of OTM calls expiring worthless, especially after Musk said that he would “abide by the results of this poll, whichever way it goes.”

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    Come to think of it, Musk’s ulterior motives notwithstanding, should the “Yays” have it and if TSLA stock plummets next week after the poll ends in 21 hours, the outcome would be an even clearer signal to Democrats that just in case last week’s catastrophic results in Virginia were not enough, getting a market crash in addition to everything else plaguing the US economy and society, would truly be the cherry on top that leads to a red avalanche next November, especially other billionaire CEOs follow in Musk’s footsteps in conducting a “Twitter test” on whether they too should send their stock freefalling.

    “We are witnessing the Twitter masses deciding the outcome of a $25B coin flip,” venture capitalist Chamath Palihapitiya said in response to Musk’s tweet.

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    Saturday’s tweet is the second time within a week that Musk has discussed selling Tesla shares. As we reported last week, on Sunday, Musk challenged a United Nations official who said just a small percentage of the billionaire’s wealth could help solve world hunger. He wrote that he would sell Tesla stock if the World Food Program could describe the accounting on his Twitter thread.

    And then there were the liberals, intent on confiscating redistributing the wealth of successful entrepreneurs, such as French economist Gabriel Zucman out of that socialist mecca the University of California at Berkeley, who tweeted that he was “looking forward to the day when the richest person in the world paying some tax does not depend on a Twitter poll.” For the sake of this country, we hope that day does not come.

    Tyler Durden
    Sat, 11/06/2021 – 18:53

  • "A Secular Shift": What The Black Death Tells Us About The Labor Market
    “A Secular Shift”: What The Black Death Tells Us About The Labor Market

    As wages rise sharply in the US, the labor supply response has disappointing. While unemployment is falling, labor force participation as well as hours worked are stagnating.

    As Deutsche Bank strategist Robin Winkler writes, there are many reasons as to why people might be unable to respond to rising wages, such as obstacles to returning to work. Another possible explanation is that people are looking through the ‘money illusion’: they understand that wages are barely rising in real terms.

    But there could be a more fundamental, if less intuitive, dynamic at work. According to Winkler, people’s preferences might have shifted from consumption to leisure. History suggests that the pandemic could have a lot to do with this.

    The Black Death resulted in more leisure, for the survivors

    It is not a deep law of economics that wages and hours worked move in tandem. In fact, according to Deutsche Bank, for most of human history people maximized leisure rather than income and consumption. Rising wages tended to coincide with people working less, not more. To wit, the most extreme example occurred in the aftermath of the Black Death, when real wages rose rapidly on account of a deep labor shortage.

    Much of this shortage of course resulted from the death toll of the pandemic. Importantly, however, even those workers who survived reduced their labor supply. Average hours worked collapsed in the 14th century as the following chart from DB shows.

    This was a major – if logical – factor in driving real wages higher, as well as in driving real rates lower. Indeed this has been the typical pattern following pandemics in the last millennium.

    Unlike modern economists, this pattern did not seem particularly paradoxical to people in the Middle Ages. Again, for centuries people maximized leisure rather than income. The reason is that where people opted for higher incomes, they struggled to spend it. Consumption goods were perennially in short supply throughout the Middle Ages, and services were close to non-existent for the broader population. It was only really in Northern Europe between 1600 and 1800, the period better known as the Industrious Revolution, that the relationship between wages and hours worked turned positive, before turning negative again in the late 1800s.

    When Adam Smith founded modern economics in 1776, it just so happened that the relationship had been positive for a few decades, leading him to consider this relationship as more natural than it had been for centuries.

    What to make of this data? Well, as Winkler tongue-in-cheek puts it, “fortunately, the Middle Ages are far away” although at the rate things are going in Washington, maybe not that far. Yet a more structural change Covid might have nudged people’s preferences toward a mind-set that was the norm for many centuries: prioritizing leisure over income at the margin.

    As the DB strategist concludes, “at best, this mindset will dissipate as excess savings are used up. At worst, there could have been a secular shift. If so, the pandemic’s negative impact on labor supply could have deeper roots than many policy-makers assume.”

    Tyler Durden
    Sat, 11/06/2021 – 18:30

  • COVID-19 Spreads To 31 Provinces In China, Residents Panic-Shopping, Communities Locked-Down
    COVID-19 Spreads To 31 Provinces In China, Residents Panic-Shopping, Communities Locked-Down

    Authored by Alex Wu via The Epoch Times,

    Just days before the ruling Chinese Communist Party (CCP)’s top conference, COVID-19 has spread to more than a dozen provinces in China.

    In a southern city, there were reports of people panic shopping, while in the northeast province Heilongjiang authorities forced the lockdown of residential neighborhoods.

    The communist regime’s National Health Commission reported 93 locally transmitted cases in one day on Nov. 3, which is the highest this year. With the largest number of cases, Heihe City in Heilongjiang Province reported 35 cases, and 51 local communities have been shut down.

    This comes as the ruling CCP’s conclave—the Sixth Plenary Session—is set to be held in Beijing on Nov. 8–11.

    Heihe City held an epidemic press conference on Nov. 2, saying that after the COVID-19 outbreak on Oct. 27, traffic checkpoints were set up on eight roads in and out of the city to strictly control people and vehicles leaving the local area. All hotels used as quarantine sites will be stationed by the epidemic control team and will be under 24/7 lockdown.

    For people quarantined at home, the authorities put seals on their doors or installed door sensors on their home and apartment doors to prevent them from going out. Since Oct. 27th, six nucleic acid tests for all residents in the city have been carried out.

    Meanwhile, reports in the southern Changzhou City of Jiangsu Province said residents have been panic buying food and supplies, emptying out local supermarkets, after a report of local COVID-19 cases.

    “People are mainly grabbing rice, cooking oil, instant noodles, and dried noodles,” said a staff member of a local supermarket.

    The Epoch Times has obtained a video showing residents panic buying at a supermarket in Changzhou.

    A shop clerk surnamed Liu (alias) at RT-Mart Supermarket in Wujin District of Changzhou City told the Chinese language Epoch Times that the panic buying began on the evening of the 2nd, and all the supermarkets were emptied out on the morning of Nov. 3. Liu said: “Now there is not much rice left in the supermarket, and the vegetable section has been emptied. The supermarket has placed an urgent (purchase) order, but it’s hard to tell if it will be supplied in time.”

    On Nov. 3, Changzhou City officially reported 3 new locally transmitted cases. The staff of the Market Operation and Consumption Promotion Office of the Changzhou Municipal Bureau of Commerce told local media that the panic buying in the city was mainly because of the COVID-19 outbreak, and the fear of food and supply shortage in the winter caused by a “Notice on Doing a Good Job in Maintaining Supply and Stabilizing Prices of Vegetables and Other Daily Necessities in the Market this Winter and Spring” issued by the Ministry of Commerce.

    Since the Chinese communist regime has consistently covered up the real situation of the COVID-19 epidemic in China since the start of the outbreak in Wuhan, official statistics may not reflect the real number of cases and deaths.

    Tyler Durden
    Sat, 11/06/2021 – 18:00

  • Texas, Florida Governors Pitch Shippers To Send Containers To Their Ports Amid California's Logjams
    Texas, Florida Governors Pitch Shippers To Send Containers To Their Ports Amid California’s Logjams

    Congestion at Southern California’s top ports is so severe that governors on the other side of the US advertise their ports are ready for businesses and can handle the overflow. 

    Bloomberg News observes multiple ports across the Gulf Coast and US East Coast are less congested than Los Angeles and Long Beach ports. The twin ports are the largest in the Northern Hemisphere and are responsible for 40% of US containerized volume. Currently, 79 vessels are waiting to offload at these ports, causing major supply chain disruptions. 

    In response to the congestion, Texas Gov. Greg Abbott launched a new campaign to reroute container ships at backlogged ports in California to the Lone Star state. He tweeted, “Texas ports are open & ready to help fix America’s supply chain backlog. We can get goods out faster & at a lower cost than California due to our centralized location.”

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    Last month, Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis called on shippers to reroute their vessels from backlogged West Coast ports to Florida, where the capacity to berth vessels and offload cargo is plentiful. 

    “We have to make sure people can go Christmas shopping as normal. We have to make sure that all the necessities are there,” DeSantis said. “And if it’s because ships are sitting off the coast somewhere else, and they can be rerouted here, and we can get all those shelves stocked, then we want to be a part of that solution.”

    However, there’s a significant obstacle with container ships rerouting from the West Coast. That issue, well, it’s time and will add an extra ten days to the sail due to an extra leg through the Panama Canal. But with wait times increasing across West Coast ports, it could be advantageous to head to other ports.

    Florida’s Port of Jacksonville could be the next best option for carriers as their facilities are one truck drive away from 100 million consumers. 

    “If you’re trying to move it to this side of the United States and you’re parked off the coast of California, those 10 days are now being eaten up,” East Coast, Florida Ports Council President Michael Rubin said. “They’re probably less than what you’re paying now.”

    Severe West Coast port congestion could be temporary reworking containerized flows into the US as overflow may be headed to less clogged terminals. This could be one way to alleviate supply chain disruptions that have resulted in surging inflation and product shortages nationwide. 

    Tyler Durden
    Sat, 11/06/2021 – 17:30

  • "People Don't Know The Special Fund Exists" – Feds Pay Zero Claims For COVID-19 Vaccine Injuries/Deaths
    “People Don’t Know The Special Fund Exists” – Feds Pay Zero Claims For COVID-19 Vaccine Injuries/Deaths

    By Adam Andrzejewski, CEO/Founder of OpenTheBooks.com. Mission: “Every Dime, Online, In Real Time.” First published in Forbes,

    In fiscal year 2021, the U.S. government paid $246.9 million in claims for vaccine-related injuries and deaths. Not a single payout was related to Covid-19 vaccines.

    Each person with a “provable” injury from a Covid vaccine could claim up to $379,000 from a special Covid vaccine fund set up by the federal government. The payout for death could be as high as $370,376.

    However, according to an OpenTheBooks.com investigation, the federal government didn’t pay a penny for Covid-vaccine claims.

    The special fund for these claims is called the Countermeasures Injury Compensation Program (CICP).

    There were only 1,357 claims filed that alleged “injuries/deaths from the Covid vaccines,” and 53 were listed as deaths, according to recent reporting by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS). By contrast, the self-reporting Vaccine Adverse Reporting System (VAERS) lists 16,310 deaths related to Covid vaccines. Of these, “5,326 of the deaths occurred on Day 0, 1,or 2 following vaccination[.]”

    The low number of applicants to the CICP fund for injuries or death from the Covid vaccine suggests that people don’t know the special fund exists.

    The “normal” vaccine fund, the National Vaccine Injury Compensation Program (VICP), has existed since 1988 and provides compensation for injuries or deaths associated with most vaccines routinely administered in the United States (such as pediatric and seasonal influenza vaccines), according to the Congressional Research Service.

    Last year, this fund paid out $246.9 million in vaccine-related injuries and deaths. Payouts include $250,000 for a vaccine-caused death and $250,000 “for pain and suffering and emotional distress.” A special vaccine court handles these claims.

    However, in the case of Covid-19 vaccines developed and approved under Project Warp Speed, deaths resulting from a Covid vaccine would pay out through the CICP and would pay more money than a vaccine-related death in normal times.

    Since the benefit for a death caused by a Covid-19 vaccine is $370,376 for fiscal year 2021 and $50,000 per year for lost employment income (with a lifetime cap to be “generally $379,000”). So, the death benefit is $120,376 higher than for other vaccines ($250,000).

    However, there is no equivalent to the VICP’s $250,000 “for pain and suffering and emotional distress” under the current Covid-19 parameters.

    Here are some other differences between the two vaccine-injury funds:

    1. No attorney fees. The Covid fund is not authorized to provide reimbursement for attorneys’ fees. Therefore, lawyers have less incentive to represent claims.

    2. Injured children receive small payouts. A Covid vaccine-injured child would only be reimbursed for “reasonable medical expenses.” Since the child survived and isn’t employed, there’s no other compensation.

    3. Narrow window to file a claim. The Covid fund allows a one-year window to file a claim whereas the regular vaccine fund has a three-year window.

    And sure enough, the CICP fund hasn’t paid out a dime in Covid-vaccine claims. HHS bluntly states online, “As of October 1, 2021, the CICP has not compensated any Covid-19 countermeasures claims.” 

    BACKGROUND:

    The federal government is still operating under the “public health emergency” declared by Trump administration HHS Secretary Alex Azar on February 4, 2020. This declaration created a different funding stream for claims from adverse reactions to vaccines.

    Congress established the Countermeasures Injury Compensation Program (CICP) as part of the PREP Act in 2005 to encourage the rapid development and deployment of medical countermeasures during a public health emergency. 

    The Public Health Emergency (PHE) declaration has been renewed multiple times, most recently by Biden Administration HHS Secretary Xavier Becerra, on October 15, 2021, effective October 18, 2021. (Under federal law, the declaration lasts 90 days and can be renewed).

    For the most part, since that February 4, 2020, declaration, “manufacturers, distributors, and health care providers are generally immune from legal liability (i.e., they cannot be sued for money damages in court) for losses related to the administration or use of covered countermeasures against Covid-19[,]” CRS reports.

    This liability protection enabled those industry players to shift into high gear to address the pandemic without fear of lawsuits. Under the PHE declaration, the CICP funds any lawsuits related to adverse reactions proven by victims or their families

    $246.9 million in non-COVID-vaccine-related claims (FY2021)

    According to the VICP’s latest report dated October 2021, $4.6 billion in total compensation has been “paid over the life of the program” (which began in 1988). From 2006-2019, 6,054 claims were compensated out of the 8,516 petitions for compensation that were “adjudicated by the Court[.]”

    According to the table included on page nine of the report, in fiscal year 2021 the U.S. government paid out $210.4 million to 722 petitioners, and, after adding in attorney’s fees the total U.S. taxpayer outlay was $246.9 million.

    With such a complicated and bureaucratic process in place, it’s no wonder that zero Covid-vaccine claims have been paid to victims or their families.

    NOTE:

    The vaccine injury/death compensation issue was first tipped to us by the prestigious Illinois watchdog organization, Edgar County Watchdogs. Learn more here.

    We reached out to Health and Human Services and a spokesperson replied. Review the entire response here.

    “The Countermeasures Injury Compensation Program (CICP) is working to process claims as expeditiously as possible. For the majority of COVID-19 countermeasure claims, including COVID-19 vaccine claims, the CICP is still waiting for records and documentation to be submitted. About 90 percent of claims are awaiting medical records for review. Requesters are permitted to submit the necessary medical records after the claim is filed and this is the most significant factor in the processing time for CICP claims.”

    *  *  *

    Additional Information

    • HHS Request For Benefits Form, Covid Vaccine Injury/Death Fund, here.

    • “Countermeasures Injury Compensation Program (CICP) Data, Aggregate Data as of October 1, 2021, HHS Health Resources & Services Administration.

    • Compensation Programs for Potential Covid-19 Vaccine Injuries Updated October 20, 2021, Congressional Research Service.

    • “Covid-19 Vaccine Safety in Adolescents Aged 12–17 Years — United States, December 14, 2020–July 16, 2021,” CDC Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report Weekly, posted online July 30, 2021, dated August 6, 2021.

    • National Vaccine Injury Compensation Program Data Report,- updated October 1, 2021, Updated monthly, and includes the number of petitions filed; adjudications compensated and dismissed; awards paid by type and amount; claims by vaccine; and adjudication categories by vaccine.

    Tyler Durden
    Sat, 11/06/2021 – 17:00

  • Evergrande Sold Two Gulfstream G650 Jets To Repay Foreign Creditors
    Evergrande Sold Two Gulfstream G650 Jets To Repay Foreign Creditors

    After weeks of setbacks in the insolvent company’s attempt to liquidate its assets and repay creditors, China Evergrande finally had some success in raising capital when it sold two of its private jets for more than $50 million last month; according to the WSJ the money from the sale was used to pay a foreign debt coupon and helped avert a default on its US dollar debt.

    According to WSJ sources, American aircraft investors bought the planes, both of which were Gulfstream G650 jets. The sales closed in October, the same month that Evergrande made two overdue bond-coupon payments shortly before 30-day grace periods on them expired.

    China Evergrande recently sold a Gulfstream G650ER jet similar to this one.

    After the sale, the Shenzhen-based Evergrande likely has at least two more jets it can use to repay debt: according to online records, the company had at least four jets recently and has one more on order. The property developer’s private jet fleet is the result of founder and chairman, Hui Ka Yan, splurge on luxury jets during the company’s heyday which he used to fly himself, Evergrande executives and others around the world. Other Chinese conglomerates like the formerly highflying HNA Group also boasted flashy private jets with luxurious interiors. They are all now bankrupt.

    Pre-pandemic flight records for one of Evergrande’s Gulfstream jets show it flew regularly from Guangzhou and Hong Kong to other major cities including London, Los Angeles and Boston. It also made trips to the islands of Saipan and Bali. The company sold that plane, a five-year-old G650ER ultralong-range aircraft that can seat 15 passengers, for less than $40 million in late October, the people familiar with the matter said. The buyer was Earth Air, a company backed by private aviation investors that operates out of Los Angeles and owns two similar Gulfstream jets.

    Alex Joya, president and partner at Earth Air, confirmed to the WSJ that his company recently purchased the plane but said he couldn’t disclose details of the transaction.

    The other Gulfstream offloaded by Evergrande was an older jet that sold for roughly $15 million, according to a person familiar with the matter. The buyer was Aviation Sales Associates, which operates out of California. A company representative declined to comment on the transaction.

    The two Gulfstream jets Evergrande recently sold were its smaller aircraft. The company is currently seeking a buyer for a much larger Airbus ACJ330 wide-body jet, according to an advertisement for it. That plane, for which Evergrande paid more than $220 million a few years ago, is sitting at Hong Kong International Airport, according to a person familiar with the matter. It has a highly customized “VVIP cabin interior” that includes a circular dining table surrounded by seats that can be converted into beds for sleeping, in addition to shower facilities, an entertainment lounge and bedrooms.

    It was designed to transport up to 40 passengers and 12 crew members. Commercial airlines often use Airbus A330 jets to fly more than 250 passengers.

    And since Evergrande faces billions in upcoming coupon and maturity payments, the airplane will soon have a new owner.

    It’s not just private jets that marked the peak of Evergrande’s debt-fueled lunacy: the company expanded aggressively for years (as it raked up some $300 billion in debt), buying hundreds of parcels of land across China, building giant high-rise residential developments and selling many apartments years before they were completed. Evergrande also branched out into theme parks, healthcare services and electric vehicles. It bought a professional soccer team in its home province of Guangdong.

    The spree left the Chinese property giant owing about $20 billion in outstanding dollar bonds (and far more domestically). Payments on several bonds are coming due over the next week.

    The company used proceeds from the sale of the two plans to avoid a default by making an interest payment in the last minute. On Sept. 23, Evergrande missed $83.5 million in coupon payments on about $2 billion in dollar-denominated bonds. Days later, it missed another $45 million coupon payment on $951 million in bonds. It then made good on both payments in late October.

     

    Tyler Durden
    Sat, 11/06/2021 – 16:30

  • Federal Appeals Court Blocks Biden's 'Big-Company' Vaxx-Mandate
    Federal Appeals Court Blocks Biden’s ‘Big-Company’ Vaxx-Mandate

    A federal court has issued a temporary victory in a lawsuit against the Biden administration’s coronavirus vaccine mandate issuing a stay on the controversial federal government regulation in Texas.

    “Yesterday, I sued the Biden Admin over its unlawful OSHA vax mandate,” Texas’ Republican Attorney General Ken Paxton tweeted Saturday.

    “WE WON. Just this morning, citing “grave statutory and constitutional issues,” the 5th Circuit stayed the mandate. The fight is not over and I will never stop resisting this Admin’s unconstitutional overreach!”

    As Fox News reports, earlier in the week, Paxton sued the Biden administration over the mandate and argued that the move to force workers at companies with over 100 employees to be vaccinated or undergo weekly testing is “flatly unconstitutional.”

    “Biden’s new vaccine mandate on private businesses is a breathtaking abuse of power,” Paxton tweeted Friday.

    “OSHA has only limited power & specific responsibilities. This latest move goes way outside those bounds. This ‘standard’ is flatly unconstitutional. I’m asking the Court to strike it down.“

    The Wall Street Journal reports that the New Orleans-based Fifth Circuit said it would quickly consider whether to issue an injunction against the vaccine and testing requirements, ordering the Biden administration to file initial legal papers by late Monday afternoon.

    A number of trade groups have issued warnings about the mandate, saying that it would exacerbate supply chain bottlenecks and staffing shortages nationwide.

    The White House remains confident the mandate will stand up to legal challenges.

    “We are very confident that it can,” White House Deputy Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre said.

    “As for the legal side of this, let me be crystal clear to avoid what appears to be possible misinformation or disinformation around the emergency temporary standard being a vaccine mandate. That would be on its face incorrect as has been explicit for months. It is a standard for safe workplace to either comply with weekly testing or to be vaccinated.”

    This decision comes as Sen. Josh Hawley (R-Mo.) said he’s joined an effort spearheaded by fellow Republican Sen. Mike Braun (R-Ind.) to block President Joe Biden’s private employer COVID-19 vaccine mandate under the Congressional Review Act, the process for Congress to scrap an executive branch rule. The Congressional Republicans, which include both Senate and House lawmakers, are seeking formal nullification of Biden’s mandate.

    Hawley said in a Nov. 5 press release that Biden’s mandate threatens to worsen the current labor shortage and supply chain issues, is an “unconstitutional infringement on the fundamental rights of American citizens” and “unlawfully bypasses established regulatory procedures.”

    “He is ignoring this basic principle by forcing employers to require their workers be vaccinated, undergo rigorous testing procedures, or be fired. It’s wrong, will make our nation’s economic challenges worse, and must not be allowed to go into effect,” Hawley said.

    Following today’s Federal Court of Appeals decision, we presume next stop will be SCOTUS to decide just how authoritarian the US Government can be.

    Tyler Durden
    Sat, 11/06/2021 – 15:48

  • Apple Hires Former Tesla Autopilot Software Executive For Its Self-Driving Vehicle Project
    Apple Hires Former Tesla Autopilot Software Executive For Its Self-Driving Vehicle Project

    The rift between Apple and Tesla looks like it could be heating up a bit.

    That’s because Apple has reportedly hired Tesla’s former Autopilot software director Christopher Moore for its self-driving vehicle team. 

    Moore will report to Stuart Bowers, another former Tesla employee, 9 to 5 Mac reported on Friday.

    While rumors have been abound about partners and whether or not Apple would even be participating in the auto market, it is now shaping up to look like the company’s “Project Titan” self-driving vehicle project is well underway.

    The project suffered a setback earlier this year when its former lead, Doug Field, left Apple for Ford. 

    Moore was known at Tesla for often rebutting claims by CEO Elon Musk about the performance of Tesla’s Autopilot. For example, he once told the California DMV that Elon Musk’s plans of reaching Level 5 Autonomy within a couple of years were “unrealistic”.

    Moore also indicated that Musk’s statements about autonomy didn’t “match engineering reality”.

    We have reported extensively about potential partners for Apple’s vehicle project.

    In February, we wrote that a rumored deal between Hyundai and Apple to work together had fallen through. Instead, it was rumored that Apple was potentially engaging with Kia for help in producing its car. 

    At the time, we noted Kia reportedly “approached potential partners about a plan to assemble Apple Inc.’s long-awaited electric car in Georgia,” according to Dow Jones. 

    The partnership between the two companies could involve a “multibillion-dollar investment”, despite the fact that a deal has not yet been finalized, we reported. Since then, few details have emerged about potential partners for Apple. 

    Tyler Durden
    Sat, 11/06/2021 – 15:30

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