- "It's Still Very Cool" – Dutch Club Unveils Post-COVID 'Social Dis-Dancing'
“It’s Still Very Cool” – Dutch Club Unveils Post-COVID ‘Social Dis-Dancing’
Tyler Durden
Mon, 06/08/2020 – 02:45The summer holiday season is underway across Europe, and countries are reopening their broken economies after months of coronavirus lockdowns. The European Union has advised member states to relax border restrictions in a bid to restart the travel and tourism industry. Already, the nightclubbing scene is popping off in the Netherlands but is unrecognizable in a post-corona world.
Clubbing and partying in Nijmegen, a city in the Netherlands’ province of Gelderland, near the German border, began this weekend with the opening of Doornroosje, an electronic dance music club.
Clubbers had to book in advance before stepping inside the facility and enjoyed a rave while sitting down. There were 30 seats on the dance floor, spaced about five feet apart. In pre-corona times, the floor would hold hundreds of fist-pumping millennials, but now, the club supports a few dozen ravers.
“I think it’s your perfect daily dose of music, like, 20 minutes is enough, yeah, sure, “Nuray Boga, 19, told Reuters. “It made me happy.”
Club promoter Jonatan Brand said local health authorities advised a sit-down only configuration on the dance floor with seats 5 feet apart. If confirmed COVID-19 cases and deaths continue to decline in the region, clubbers could one-day rave standing up.
“It’s still very cool,” Brand said. “People are still dancing, although they are on the chair, they’re fist-pumping, they’re moving their bodies, so — it’s great.”
The show on Saturday didn’t sell out — it appears ravers still don’t trust tightly packed clubs in a post-corona world, though the event was streamed online.
DJ Davy Brandts, a music performer, who headlined the show, said it was great to be back and see familiar faces.
If you’re wondering what a rave looks like in a post-corona world — check out the video below of Doornroosje:
As for the Belgian electronic dance music festival, Tomorrowland, well, the 2020 show is canceled but 2021 is going ahead as planned. About 400,000 ravers usually show up to the festival, though that number next year will likely be reduced for social distancing.
Could sit-down raves be the new normal for clubbing and the partying scene in the post corona world?
- EU Economy Traveling Along Same Worn Dead-End Road
EU Economy Traveling Along Same Worn Dead-End Road
Tyler Durden
Mon, 06/08/2020 – 02:00Authored by Bruce Wilds via Advancing Time blog,
With so many countries across the world facing difficulties, many people have yet to notice the Euro-Zone has become a place where hope goes to die. The last round of elections in the Euro-Zone should bring little comfort to those supporting a stronger Europe. Huge gains were made by forces seeking more power for the populist agenda. In short, it is a boost for the rights of individual nations to have more say in how they are governed. Two of the most pressing issues are that insolvent Italy struggles with a stagnate economy and Spain is coming apart politically with Catalan separatists defying Spain’s Prime Minister.
To avoid the union coming apart at the seams and a miserable future, the European Commission recently unveiled an unprecedented €750BN CoVid-19 recovery plan. It consists of €500 billion in grants to member states, and €250 billion would be available in loans. This means they are asking for the power to borrow. This is geared to tackle the worst recession in European history and shore up Italy. It would mean transforming the EU’s central finances to allow for it to raise unprecedented sums on the capital markets and hand out the bulk of the proceeds as grants to hard-pressed member states.
The Euro-Zone was already in deep trouble before CoVid-19 hit, the weakness that started in 2017 never ended. In the fourth quarter even Germany narrowly escaped recession. This could be blamed on the Brexit or Trade War but it goes beyond that, they abandoned all structural reforms in 2014 when the ECB started its quantitative easing program (QE) and expanded the balance sheet to record-levels. In 2019, almost 22% of the Euro Zone GDP gross added value came from Travel & Leisure, a sector that will unlikely come back anytime soon. Add this to weak exports and a banking sector that is totally decimated and everything points downward.
The Dollar Remains The Only “Real Option”
Roughly 80% of the Euro-Zone’s real economy is financed by the banking sector that carries more than 600 billion euro in non-performing loans. Considering that the Euro-Zone was already in contraction in the middle of the massive Juncker plan that pushed forward green policies, it is safe to assume a Green New Deal will not boost growth or reduce debt. Large investment plans that are politically directed generally do not do as well as planned. The Euro-Zone is in a state of “stagnation.” Figures show that as of 2017 not a single European company ranked among the top fifteen technology companies in the world. Still, more troubling is that of the top 50 global technology companies, only four are European.
Being uncompetitive sucks, unemployment is high, almost 30% of the Euro Zone labor force is expected to be under some form of unemployment scheme for years. France, Spain, and Italy, with important rules and tax burdens on job creation, may suffer large unemployment levels for longer. Another challenge is the region lacks technological and intellectual property making them less competitive than China and the U.S. They are simply out of tools to address the unprecedented bashing put upon the economy due to CoVid-19. It would also be a bad time to add massive monetary imbalances when demand for euros globally is shrinking according to the Bank of International Settlements.
To fund this €750BN package, the EU would borrow on financial markets and put in place a suite of proposed new EU taxes and levies to pay back the debt over the coming decades. These would hit everything from tech giants to single-use plastics. Bloomberg, reports Italy stands to receive 82 billion euros in emergency grants and up to 91 billion euros in low-interest loans. Spain also hit hard by the pandemic is in line for 77 billion euros of grants and up to 63 billion euros in loans. Greece could get 32 billion euros in grants and loans and France could get 39 billion euros in grants. Such a program gaining the backing of member states would be a “watershed moment” for the bloc. Financial burden-sharing has long been one of the thorniest issues holding back deeper integration within the union. It could go a long way to silent concerns about the lack of solidarity empowering populists and threatens the EU’s very survival.
If months ago you didn’t agree that political and economic problems in Italy and Spain posed the greatest threat to the EU it would be a good time to reevaluate your opinion now that both countries have been monkey hammered by CoVid-19. Last year a post on this site argued they had the potential to topple a struggling Euro-Zone. This argument is based on Italy’s debt dwarfing that of Greece. If Italy, one of the “Big Three” economies underpinning the Euro-Zone, defaulted on its debt the scale of such a crisis would be difficult to contain. Flipping attention towards Spain, the article pointed out how immigrants continuing to flow in from Northern Africa coupled with the Catalan Separatists movement has left Spain’s national government in disarray.
Italy remains the weakest link in the Euro-Zone and continues to weaken. Last year, in what could be considered a bold move the Italian Prime Minister signed a historic memorandum of understanding with Chinese President Xi Jinping in Rome. The agreement made Italy the first founding EU member, and the first G-7 nation, to officially sign on to Beijing’s “One Belt, One Road” (OBOR) economic development initiative. The ramifications flowing from Italy’s deal with China may, in the end, prove to be a deal with the devil that opens the floodgates and signals the end of the EU breaking apart the euro. China and Italy inked development deals covering everything from port management, science and technology, e-commerce, and even soccer.
This deal occurred before the covid-19 pandemic and since Italy’s debt situation has only grown worse. Integration into OBOR appeared to be an “any port in a storm” situation. Italy has found the EU less than supportive and lacking answers as to how they might kick-start growth. Much of the blame for this problematic alliance falls on Brussels and the EU for its failures to deal with worsening conditions within Italy. Now, adding to the problem is growing unease and fear within the EU when they look out at an expanding China that cranks out products at a cost far below those at which they can compete. Trade and deficits loom large in the minds of those watching this unfold. We can expect that China will exploit Italy and use it as a backdoor into the broader Euro-Zone market. Two omens this will go poorly for Italy are the IMF warnings of the potential of many of China’s OBOR funded projects going bust and China’s history of flexing its predatory business model.
While the ECB has sidestepped a major devaluation of the euro over recent years many of us skeptics believe it will ultimately collapse resulting in devastating side-effects for those holding the currency. Much of the problem is rooted in the fact the euro itself was constructed on a weak and flawed foundation. Any currency joining and binding states or countries together must allow for an adjustment to send back funds to its weakest part or eventually it will become so unbalanced it will fail. The United States does this by collecting taxes on a federal level and sending back money and aid to areas that are economically weak and need help. In the same way, the EU has still refused to deal with Greece’s mounting debt it, mainly Germany, cannot seem to accept that protecting the small depositors of European banks is the price to be paid for preserving social order and even the euro itself.
The truth is that in all reality Italy went bankrupt in summer 2011. At that time the ECB and political authorities in Europe agreed to create around the country’s finances an artificial market to give the impression of stability. More capital began fleeing to the north when Draghi started QE in 2015. The Italian central bank is dependent on the ECB and has to buy Italian government bonds. German investors have to exchange these bonds for euros in Italy and transfer the money via Target 2 to their German bank. The growing differences in the Target 2 balance sheet are the result of the Germans, who own the Italian bonds dissolving them in Italy and transferring the money to Germany. Italians have also added to the capital flight as they liquidate their bonds which increases the debt claim on the German side.
To be clear, Germany has no interest in “debt mutualization” where it would be forced to bail-out Greece, Spain, Portugal, and Italy. These claims are not covered by any securities. If Italy or Spain withdraws from the Euro-Zone, the Germans will be left holding worthless paper. Concern in Germany remains tepid only because Germans have great confidence in the Bundesbank. Draghi claimed that Target 2 has nothing to do with the movement of capital from country to country and the clearing balances cannot be overdrawn as long as no one leaves the Euro-zone. This translates into, Italy must not leave the Euro-Zone! Italy’s debt amounts to 2.3 trillion euros and its liabilities in Target 2 rose in June 2018 to 481 billion euros from 164.5 billion euros in 2015. This means that Banca d’Italia owes the Bundesbank almost half a trillion euros! Target 2 is a check that cannot be cashed.
This all swings back to the delicate manipulated balance of currencies which seem to be locked in a narrow trading range with the Fed assuming the role of the great enabler. Holding up all the really bad currencies in the world is not the job of the FED but the indication is that Central Bank manipulation has gone nuclear. The dollar’s strength is largely a result of many countries having adopted even worse policies than those America’s leaders have chosen to pursue but a strengthening dollar sends a signal that the global economy is unstable which is something central banks want to avoid at all costs. This accounts for why central banks are marching in lockstep using currency swaps and injecting more liquidity into the system to keep several currencies from failing.
Draghi is credited with saving the euro but may have only delayed its demise. Now the euro’s fate rests on the ECB’s new President Christine Lagarde. If she departs from his script, she will face fierce criticism but if she does not, the Euro-zone’s never-ending crisis will eventually spin out of control. Draghi’s stand the euro is indispensable and that even discussing its abolition is harmful seems to remain intact. Draghi’s attempt to save the Euro-zone by printing trillions of euros allowed Italy, Spain, and other stressed states to roll over their debts but has failed. Low-interest rates and easy money have not cured Europe’s problems, expect anti-EU sentiment to continue its growth.
- Coincidence Theorists See All Donut And No Holes In The Coronation Of The Cult
Coincidence Theorists See All Donut And No Holes In The Coronation Of The Cult
Tyler Durden
Sun, 06/07/2020 – 23:50Authored by Doug “Uncola” Lynn via TheBurningPlatform.com,
Over the past several decades Americans have viewed regularly televised dramatic episodes of political theater. The use of the word “episode” is especially appropriate because the dramatic scenes are sequential and continuously broadcasted onto electronic screens. The drama is designed to elicit emotion, foment anger, and unite or divide the nation in order to, ultimately, affect change.
The societal cataclysms we’re experiencing now could be naturally occurring – as the result of certain trends like demographics, technology, modernization, education, centralization, economic inequality, political platforms, or even systemic corruption and civilizational decay. On the other hand, it could be the upheavals are directed in consonance with scripts written by an inner circle of powerful people; and in accordance to the Hegelian Dialectic. How citizens view the changes realized by the United States over the last few decades, in particular, will depend upon their interpretations of probabilities and outcomes; or, rather, to the extent they believe in coincidence or conspiracy.
Many believe grand conspiracies are implausible because ambitious schemes so often fail and it’s inconceivable that scrupulous whistleblowers would refuse to expose the plans of powerful conspirators. And these objections have a ring of truth… unless, of course, the powerful few have only advanced those who’ve demonstrated allegiance while shunning, banishing, imprisoning, or “expiring” those who won’t fall in line. Perhaps this would explain why the likes of Brennen, Clapper, Comey, and McCabe continue about their book tours as Assange, Manafort, and Stone remain under lock and key.
In intelligence circles, we know control is administered via “need to know” compartmentalization and secured by constant surveillance. So perhaps blackmail and threats to individuals and loved ones are secret tactics used to compel loyalty. Even so, there have been U.S. presidents who have acted as whistleblowers at one time or another, including Lincoln, Wilson, Eisenhower, and Kennedy; each drawing attention to a nebulous Cult of Power acting as political puppet masters and pullers of purse strings. Or, as automotive magnate Henry Ford (1863-1947) once stated:
It is well enough that people of the nation do not understand our banking and monetary system, for if they did, I believe there would be a revolution before tomorrow morning.
It’s also a fact that modern mass media today is owned by a handful of corporations and, thus, under the control of a few billionaires. Could it be possible The Cult would collude to advance media narratives that further their interests while promoting agendas for their sole benefit? Of course it’s possible. Why wouldn’t they?
In America during the new millennium, Bush the Younger delivered The Patriot Act and the War on Terror. The Obama Administration witnessed the rise of the Tea Party and Occupy Wall Street. And from the time Donald Trump descended the escalator in 2015, the timeline has been a continuum of fascinating and unfortunate events.
In the spring of 2016, Broomhilda and her army of superdelegates swept the still smoking ashes of Bernieclaus right back up the nation’s chimney. In June of that year, the first FISA warrant on Trump was denied and that was followed by the infamous Snakes on a Plane meeting between Bill Clinton and then Attorney General Loretta Lynch. Seth Rich, a data analyst for the Democratic National Committee, was murdered in Washington D.C. the very next month.
However, in light of current events, now consider what also took place in the spring of 2016 and, seemingly, behind the curtain of the nation’s political stage: The inaugural ID2020 summit…
In May 2016, at the United Nations Headquarters in NY, the inaugural ID2020 Summit brought together over 400 people to discuss how to provide a unique digital identity to everyone on the planet, including the 1.5 billion people living without any form of recognized identification.
Indeed, 2020 vision has brought past occurrences into better focus.
Since the election of Trump, we’ve watched one political episode after another: election hacking, impeachment, a pandemic… and just like regular commercial breaks came the seemingly strategic school, church, synagogue, country music and garlic festival shootings; along with the occasional U.S Mail or Syria bombing . All of these episodes made for riveting and dramatic televised history.
Perhaps, therefore, the apparent onscreen murder of George Floyd now serves as the new facilitator as COVID-19 fizzles in the summer sun – at least until the Vitamin D depletions this fall and winter deliver sufficient reinfection rates to justify real societal lockdowns next time.
And, yes, be assured of this: COVID-19 will be back next season. In force and, once again, dominating the airwaves. In fact, we’re already seeing the previews as the country reopens. Pursuant to “data compiled by the New York Times” comes the following headline: “Texas, North Carolina, Arizona see rising cases as they reopen”:
The seven-day average in new cases in all three states has also been rising, according to data compiled by The New York Times.
…Texas and Arizona are both led by Republican governors, while North Carolina has a Democratic governor.
One reason for the increasing number of cases in all three states is that they are all seeing a significant rise in testing, which means more people carrying COVID-19 are being identified.
Yes. Operation Dark Winter® continues as headlines are broadcasted into computing devices around the globe: NEW HOT SPOTS ARE EMERGING!! NEW HOT SPOTS ARE EMERGING!!
It’s easy to assume COVID-19 cases will go down after lockdown orders lift across the country, but, unfortunately, the data suggests otherwise. New hot spots of COVID-19 are emerging across the U.S.
…It’s very important to be informed about your local data, Ryan Panchadsaram, former U.S. deputy chief technology officer at the White House during the Obama administration and co-founder of COVID Exit Strategy, tells Yahoo Life. He and other public health and crisis experts with experience stemming from their work at the White House and the Department of Health and Human Services and on the Ebola epidemic in West Africa, joined forces to create COVID Exit Strategy with the goal of tracking “each state’s progress toward stopping the spread of COVID-19,”…
Are these episodes naturally occurring as the result of a sick and dying nation? Or, could they be the magical media manifestations of the “Big Lie”?
Regardless, people all across the political spectrum have been fooled by their feelings while viewing what appears to be political ploys.
United States health “officials” are now warning that “a new surge in coronavirus cases” could occur following the protests over the death of George Floyd, a black man who was filmed while being murdered by police in Minneapolis. Paradoxically, the police report of the incident claimed Floyd “had coronavirus and died after cardiac arrest”.
Seriously? Is it just me or do you also hear the laughter cackling from behind the curtain? Either way, the question remains: Are we being psychologically manipulated by powerful people in order to affect political change?
Because it seems only those under hypnosis would deny that current events in the U.S. have been politicized. The Wall Street Journal, for example, has reported on the politicization of Coronavirus as it increasingly exacerbates “the Red-Blue divide”:
Two-thirds of confirmed coronavirus cases are in states with Democratic governors. When states are measured by the sheer number of coronavirus cases, six of the top seven have Democratic governors. Together, those six blue states have about half of the nation’s cases, though only about a third of its population.
Coronavirus deaths tell a similar story. Eight of the nine states with the most deaths due to the virus are states with Democratic governors. When measured by deaths per capita, eight of the top nine states also have Democratic governors.
….And it’s in the Senate where the imbalance between coronavirus impact and political clout is most acute. Those six hardest-hit blue states have more than half the country’s coronavirus cases, and a third of its population—yet only 12% of the votes in the Senate. It is almost a perfect formula for political tensions.
President Trump is straddling this red and blue divide. In sheer political terms, two of the hardest-hit states, Michigan and Pennsylvania, are critical to him because they happen to be swing states he carried in the 2016 election.
And now it’s being reported that President Trump’s reelection odds have taken a turn for the worse.
So why has COVID-19® selectively attacked blue states more than red ones? It could be a matter of blue states having a higher density population. Or, it could be just more political chicanery and for the same reason pallets of bricks have mysteriously materialized in cities prior to “protests” in the aftermath of the George Floyd snuff film.
Indeed. Every revolution starts with a spark; and the modern lockdowns, and uprisings, are televised.
As written in my last article, COVID-19® accomplished many political objectives:
The Coronavirus® pinprick collapsed the Economic Everything Bubble and deflected blame away from the bankers who blew it up. At the same time, it turned martial law into self-quarantine and abolished the First Amendment rights of American citizens including the free exercise religion, the freedom of speech, and the right peaceably assemble… all under the arbitrary mandates of Social Distancing®. Additionally, cash has been transitioned into a viral threat – thus paving the way to a new digital world order; and the end of privacy.
The televised outbreak also inflamed the fear and survival instincts of people in order to turn on each other while it massaged Wall Street and murdered Main Street. To be sure, supply lines have been centralized via Walmart and Amazon as Mom & Pop businesses were suffocated like George Floyd then set on fire.
For those with eyes wide open, it’s become obvious how chaos reigns while Operation Dirty Money® transitions the nations into a “cashless future” and a New World Order®:
The Almighty Dollar has lost some of its might in the time of COVID-19. While most struggling businesses will take payment in any form to make ends meet during the economic downtown, a minority reject cash, fearing that it could be a transmission vehicle for the SARS-CoV-2 virus. Some experts predict that the pandemic will accelerate a steady flight by American consumers away from dollars and cents…
…But a survey by the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation found that roughly 6% of the U.S. population, about 14.1 million adults, doesn’t have a checking or savings account, and thus can’t access funds online. That gap will have to be closed if America is ever to come closer to a cashless future.
But are these changes the result of coincidence or conspiracy?
Seriously… how could these long-desired objectives of The Establishment NOT be the result of conspiracy? Because, just like clockwork, as Coronavirus was shown to be bullshit… the channel was changed once again – this time, to cities on fire. So, whether by deception or never letting a crisis go to waste, the George Floyd drama has now assumed center stage; at least until the COVID-19 Show® returns next season.
The urban riots could be used to further degrade American institutions, infrastructure, economy, and societal unity – or be exploited as the means to lock down entire regions of the country, or worse, as an excuse to declare martial law nationally. It’s also possible a Fort Sumter moment could occur in the suburbs thus escalating the civil warfare to new levels. It’s not hard to imagine armed Caucasians defending their lives and property by mowing down ANTIFA and Black Lives Matter activists in the front yards of formerly quiet neighborhoods around the country. This would, in turn, trigger new proposed gun control measures by city, state, and federal authoritarians. Just in time and right on schedule.
This sort of Hegelian change meets the end of goals of The Cult because their ultimate desire is to rule over a diminished global population. This is not conspiracy, however, because the Malthusian dreams of the Cult are well-documented and even etched upon the Georgia Guidestones as # 1: “Maintain humanity under 500,000,000 in perpetual balance with nature.”
Certainly, The Cult desires a culling of the herd, so to speak, yet with the permission of those willing to be ruled. The aristocracy prefers servants and subjects, after all; and this would be the fate of the lower-caste slaves who survive.
So how might the Cult of Power get a majority of plebes to willingly surrender? By first activating their fear and survival instincts and then showing them how effective China’s authoritarian lockdowns have been – particularly in slowing the spread of coronaviruses and dampening burgeoning revolutions.
In viewing the maps of Asia on the John Hopkin’s dashboard , it does appear China’s authoritarian measures have stamped out coronaviruses like Raid® on bugs. At the same time, COVID-19 forced the Hong Kong protestors to shelter in place. However, in America, the U.S. Constitution has turned America red with the blood of innocents. Some might ask: Why did Trump, and so many careless governors, pander to those desiring their own selfish liberties over the very lives of others? Why did they reopen their states so soon? And why won’t weak-willed blue state mayors and governors protect the citizenry from lawless rioters?
Certainly, the red tide could ebb and flow until all boats are sunk. Unless enough people are awakened. Then, the haut monde would be forced to reassess their schemes.
In any case, even if American society continues to sink past the point of no return, I would also not be surprised if any future vaccinations would be voluntary instead of mandatory. Because if the deluded Luciferians (see “Luciferianism: A Secular Look At A Destructive Globalist Belief System”) are actually playing a cosmic chess match in their heads, then they want people to choose – and those who refuse to fall with them would, as a result, suffer societal ostracization, economic isolation, starvation, and death. The Vaccine-Deniers® would then occupy the lowest caste of the New World Order®. They would be the new Untouchables.
Certainly, therefore, the George Floyd riots are just another means of now sowing seeds of chaos to reap an orderly harvest later. The Cult must tear down what it wishes to rebuild in its own image.
The following video takes 12-minutes to view and its poetic presentation explores the “mechanics” of ritual, initiation, transformation, and change; and, especially, as applied to The Cult, language, and electronic programming.
For those who don’t wish to take the time to view the video, just know it addresses change as being facilitated via the three stages of an initiation ritual – and to the actual audio soundtrack of the COVID-19® outbreak:
1.) Isolation for Purification (suspension of the normal ways / surrender / sacrifice / masking / trauma)
2.) The Transition (the old self dies, descending into a state of liminality / fever dream / void in the middle / blank canvas)
3.) Integration into the New Reality (or Resurrection to the New Normal)
Recently, a blogger named Charles Eisenstein wrote an article named “The Coronation” and later responded to a critique of that article by writing another piece entitled “The Conspiracy Myth”. The latter article was, in turn, retweeted by the Chief Executive Officer of Twitter, Jack Dorsey.
In reading both articles, it appeared the author defined the allegorical donut without its hole in the center. After all, what is a “conspiracy” if not two or more people making secret plans? And what is a donut without a hole? All that remains is sugar, flour, water, leavening, oil and artificial flavors. But that’s what we see, feel, taste, and smell. Is that all there is? Or is there more?
Correspondingly, Eisenstein’s title of “The Coronation” is especially interesting given that “Corona” means “crown” and the word “coronation” is a portmanteau of “Corona Nation”.
: the act or occasion of crowning also: accession to the highest office
Has America recently been subsumed by those who would be our rulers? Or was the nation taken over long ago and now The Cult is simply making their reign official?
In truth, the answers to both of those questions are right on the money.
There is no denying the fix is in – or that the media and the tech titans are colluding with The Cult. One example of this is how the media has presented former software mogul and current World Health Guru, Bill Gates, as a “bogeyman of virus conspiracy theorists”:
False claims targeting billionaire philanthropist Bill Gates are gaining traction online since the beginning of the coronavirus outbreak, with experts warning they could hamper efforts to curb the virus.
Doctored photos and fabricated news articles crafted by conspiracy theorists — shared thousands of times on social media platforms and messaging apps, in various languages — have gone as far as accusing the Microsoft founder of creating the outbreak.
…”Bill Gates has always been a target of specific conspiracy communities,” said Rory Smith, research manager at First Draft, a non-profit that provides research and training for journalists.
Gates — whose eponymous foundation has spent billions of dollars improving healthcare in developing countries over the past 20 years — has become “a kind of abstract boogeyman”, said Whitney Phillips, an assistant professor at New York’s Syracuse University, where she teaches digital ethics.
“These conspiracies are powerful enough to drive down institutional trust around health organisations, and as a result, possibly drive down vaccination rates, which is worrying,” Smith said.
Yet, in that article, there was no mention of Gates’ involvement with vaccine production or the October 2019 “Event 201” exercise held in New York City – a live simulation of the actual coronavirus outbreak that occurred just weeks before the first cases were made public. Why, then, are these facts not deemed newsworthy by the mainstream media?
Would any coincidence theorists care to answer that question?
Because that’s how The Cult works. They selectively conceal pertinent information while censoring any media sources that report the truth.
Remember item # 7 from the Event 201 website’s recommendations page (the main text below with some of the fluff removed):
Governments and the private sector should assign a greater priority to developing methods to combat mis- and disinformation …
Governments will need to partner with traditional and social media companies to research and develop nimble approaches to countering misinformation. ..
National public health agencies should work in close collaboration with WHO to create the capability to rapidly develop and release consistent health messages. For their part, media companies should commit to ensuring that authoritative messages are prioritized and that false messages are suppressed including through the use of technology.
The video at this link below is from the “Plandemic” movie and features the cellular and molecular biologist, Judy Mikovits, Ph.D.
It is an absolutely stunning 26 minutes:
Link to 26-minute video of “Plandemic”
In the 16:15 – 18:45 segment of the video, Mikovits discusses Hydroxychloroquine as well as other COVID-19 treatments and, of course, her assessments digress from the Orwellian propaganda we’ve seen in the mainstream daily headlines. So when Yahoo.com recently illuminated smart devices around the globe on how Hydroxychloroquine shows no virus benefit and raises death risks, you can pretty much take it to the bank that Hydroxychloroquine is an effective treatment for COVID-19 and with minimal death risks. Especially, when a Yale epidemiologist says Hydroxychloroquine should be made “widely available and promoted immediately” and a Los Angeles physician has claimed the following:
Every patient I’ve prescribed it [Hydroxychloroquine] to has been very, very ill and within 8 to 12 hours, they were basically symptom-free.
But you WON’T find this type of information anywhere in the mainstream media because it stands in the way of the Event 201 recommendations, the vaccine agenda, big pharma profits, and the end goals of The Cult of Power.
Correspondingly, Trump’s heroic impeachment defender, professor Alan Dershowitz, has now claimed The State has the right to ‘plunge a needle into your arm’:
Harvard Law School emeritus professor Alan Dershowitz claimed in an interview that the government has a constitutional right under the 10th Amendment to forcibly vaccinate a citizen to curb the spread of a contagious disease.
“Let me put it very clearly, you have no constitutional right to endanger the public and spread the disease, even if you disagree. You have no right not to be vaccinated, you have no right not to wear a mask, you have no right to open up your business…”.
It’s just too perfect not to have been planned. Even if you don’t agree, at the very least, ask yourself this: What were the odds?
But you ain’t seen nothin’ yet.
The following video is 22-minutes in length. It is a production by a lady who acquired her Contract Tracing Certificate® and reveals the “stealth fascism of [Contact Tracing®] enforcement”.
In the above video, at around the 1:00 minute mark, you’ll see U.S. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi espouse the three “T’s” that are to be combined with COVID-19 Social Distancing®: Testing, Tracing, Treatment.
Positive tests for coronaviruses are to be turned over to a Contact Tracer® to make sure any infected people are isolated – even from their own pets! The “infected” must also prove to the Contact Tracer® they have the space to be isolated and if any children live in the household, the tracer is supposed to involve social services.
Anyone who tests positive for COVID-19 must not leave their home – even those who are symptom free. Moreover, for those who initially test positive, remain healthy, and are later released from quarantine, if they eat at a restaurant where another person is later determined to have been infected, then they all must submit to quarantine – including those who were released previously. Currently, in the state of California, employers of quarantined employees are held responsible for any workman’s comp through July 2020; and this will most likely be extended.
Furthermore, the tracers will consult with “infected” people to reference their social media accounts to gather information on everywhere they were recently and with whom they were in contact. Then, all of those people, even strangers in a restaurant, will be contacted.
Sick people are to be quarantined for 10 days and those without symptoms for 14 days – including the families of the “infected” for at least 14 days from their last contact with the “infected”.
The politicians and governors have publically claimed that Contact Tracing® is voluntary. But, for those who don’t immediately quarantine, a “detention order” may be issued and “enforced by the police” to “assure compliance”. Other options for non-compliance may include a court order. And those who are held in contempt of the court order may be “incarcerated, imprisoned at a quarantine site via electronic monitoring, and/or fined up to $2,000 a day”.
At the 8:30 – 9:30 segment of the video, a clip of Washington State Governor Jay Inslee is shown spinning “non-compliance enforcement” by referencing “family support personnel” who will tend to those in quarantine like state-conscripted nannies.
Next, the mole describes how tracers are to view privacy as being subordinate to the “greater good” and tells how positive tests will be entered into an electronic database – which, in an ensuing news clip, is revealed as “law-enforcement specific information” entered for purposes of “computer-aided dispatch”. In the same clip, Jaqueline Kirby of the El Paso County Colorado Sherriff’s Office admits that home addresses are flagged to identify those who have tested positive for COVID-19®.
Smart-phone apps are then discussed in the video as a means for businesses to track customers for their “safety”; at least until a centralized database with GPS tracking becomes available like currently used in China and North Korea. In countries like India and New Zealand, the apps are said to be voluntary but you can’t go anywhere, or buy anything, without the app. The video then reveals four U.S. states with Contact Tracing® software in place and how Google and Apple iOS updates allow Bluetooth beacons to assist tracing even without an app downloaded.
Towards the end of the video, the proposed HR 6666 legislation is discussed as potentially funding the Contact Tracing® initiative to the tune of $100 billion.
And, finally, if you only have time to watch one segment of the above video… view the clip of Ohio Governor Mike DeWine from the 20:04 – 22:34 mark. Here, a reporter reveals the “larger social agenda” behind COVID-19 that includes a “vision to rectify” the “structural violence of capitalism” that is seen as the root cause of “racism, gender inequality, xenophobia, and homophobia”. Next, the reporter asks Governor DeWine why he would choose to partner with those who demonize capitalism and whose goals seem to be “rooted in Liberation Theology based on Marxist ideals”. The Governor’s answer is quite illuminating, to say the least.
So it does appear COVID-19 is another blitz by the political left and the George Floyd riots are surely another prong of the same attack – even, at the very least, as a diversion for what is taking place with the Contact Tracing® initiative.
Without a doubt, Contact Tracing® must be killed in the cradle. If it’s allowed to grow and expand it will become a Marxist Social Justice® weapon of unparalleled power.
We’re in a war for survival and 75% of Americans have no clue as to what is actually happening. Normalcy bias is a bitch. Because history is rhyming and not in good ways. This purge has high-tech teeth.
And for those who believe Trump is real and about to drain the swamp: ask yourselves why he’s not dead as Kennedy or irredeemably publicly disgraced like Harvey Weinstein. Why has “Crossfire Hurricane” investigator U.S. Attorney John Durham not suffered the fate of Seth Rich or Julian Assange? The Cult could have also have pulled the plug on the economy without providing the president the cover of Coronavirus as an economic scapegoat. But that didn’t happen. Now Trump is running against the second-worst presidential candidate of all time; and after already having beaten the worst.
Again, what were the odds?
But, no matter the odds, they always favor the house. And this will remain true in November – regardless of who wins in the 2020 Elections. Those placing their hope in political solutions to the nation’s ills, will, as usual, be quite disappointed. How many House or Senate Democrats have we seen stray from the herd? Not one. Ever. Kavanaugh, Russiagate, Ukrainegrate, et al. Never.
And what about the Never Trump Republicans and RINOs (Republicans in Name Only)? Will they save the republic? No. The Uniparty lives to serve The Cult. Loyalty can be forced through fear, seduced by flattery, or may simply derive from a lust for conformity, money, sex, or power. But, no matter the reason, The Cult is being crowned as Trump tweets.
So question every headline at all times and act with the best knowledge you have.
Come out of the system.
Know that people will wake up when they wake up and, in the meantime, words can be cold drops of conceptual water splashed upon the faces of those still sleeping. Even so, be careful with whom you cast your pearls. Seek the like-minded and realize the Orwellian episodes on our screens were written by The Cult; and, consequently, the plotlines are intended to deliver these denouements: Control over those who consent and the depopulation of those deemed to be human ballast and the belligerent.
To The Cult, it’s not personal. It’s just time.
- Mapping Civil Unrest In The United States (2000–2020)
Mapping Civil Unrest In The United States (2000–2020)
Tyler Durden
Sun, 06/07/2020 – 23:25Protests are a regular feature of democratic society, but, as Visual Capitalist’s Nick Routley explores below, they can occasionally cross over from non-violent demonstrations into civil unrest. Even protests that are largely peaceful can still result in arrests, violence, police aggression, and property damage.
Visual Capitalist’s animated map below looks at the last two decades of civil unrest in the United States using lists compiled on Wikipedia.
Instances of civil unrest eventually leave the news cycle, and we rarely have the chance to examine the bigger picture or see where they fit within a nation-wide pattern.
From this map we can see that certain cities, such as St. Louis and Oakland, have been disproportionately impacted by civil unrest. As well, universities have also been hotspots for rioting, though often for much different reasons.
Looking back over two decades, we see that instances of civil unrest in the United States have fallen into roughly four categories:
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Economic and social injustice
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Sports and event related riots
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Politically motivated civil unrest
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Reaction to police actions
Let’s take a look at a prominent example in each of these categories, to get further context.
Examples of Civil Unrest, by Category
1. Economic and Social Justice
One of the most prominent examples in this category is the Occupy Wall Street movement. The protests began in September 2011 in Downtown Manhattan, and soon spread through cities throughout the world.
In 2016, the Dakota Access Pipeline protests grabbed headlines around the world as protesters faced off against armed soldiers and police with riot gear and military equipment. By the time camps were broken up the next year, hundreds of people had been arrested.
2. Sports and Event Related Riots
Between 2000 and 2010, the majority of incidents plotted on the map are related to sports and events. This includes major sporting events like the L.A. Lakers championship win in 2000, but also the University of Maryland riot of 2004, where rowdy post-game celebrations crossed over into arson and property damage.
A more recent example is the Philadelphia Eagles’ first-ever Super Bowl victory in 2018, where celebrations eventually got out of hand.
3. Politically Motivated Civil Unrest
The political divide has been growing in America for years now, but those differences more frequently resulted in confrontations and civil unrest in 2016. After the election of Donald Trump, for example, protests erupted in many cities, with riots breaking out in Portland, Oregon, and Oakland, California.
Of course, the “Bundy standoff” – an armed confrontation between supporters of cattle rancher Cliven Bundy and law enforcement over withheld grazing fees – showed that not all civil unrest takes place in America’s cities.
4. Reaction to Police Actions
Some of the biggest flashpoints seen in recent years have been in response to people who were killed by police.
In fact, more than half of the points on our map were a direct response to incidents in which a person – typically a black male – died at the hands of law enforcement officials. In previous years, the unrest that followed was typically confined to the cities where the death took place, but protests are now increasingly erupting in cities around the country.
The Situation Now
The death of George Floyd – the latest black male to be killed during an encounter with law enforcement – has had a ripple effect, spawning protests in cities around the United States and internationally.
As our map showing the history of civil unrest makes clear, excessive force from police against black citizens is nothing new. The data shows that black men have by far the highest risk of being killed in an encounter with law enforcement.
Until these systemic issues are addressed, history may not repeat exactly, but the rhyme will sound very, very familiar.
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- China Suspends Debt Repayments For 77 Developing Countries And Regions
China Suspends Debt Repayments For 77 Developing Countries And Regions
Tyler Durden
Sun, 06/07/2020 – 23:00Even as whispers of a grand debt jubilee grow in the developed world, China on Sunday announced the suspension of debt repayment for 77 developing countries and regions as “the nation is working with other G20 members to carry out the G20 debt relief initiative for low-income countries,” the Global Times reported, citing Chinese officials at a press briefing at the State Council Information Office. The debt moratorium comes after China announced in May it would provide $2 billion over two years to help other countries respond to the impact of the coronavirus pandemic.
Ma Zhaoxu, Vice Minister of Foreign Affairs, said that the fund will be not only include medical supplies, but also support other countries restart their economies and development. Ma made the comment at the press briefing to release the white paper titled “Fighting COVID-19 China in Action.”
China’s virtue signaling generosity did not end there: Ma added that China is negotiating bilateral aid with recipient countries in need in an equal manner to identify assisting projects to help developing nations improve public health standards, improve their livelihoods and resume their economies. In short, China is preparing for one massive debt-for-equity swap where China will simply end up holding the equity.
And speaking of taking over, China is doing everything in its power to get all global NGOs on its side, having made made multilateral donations to the World Health Organization of $50 million, and providing assistance to global organizations including the Global Alliance for Vaccines and Immunization. China also actively assisted in the fundraising event organized by the Solidarity Response Fund of the WHO in China; we can only imagine that’s the reason why the WHO transformed into China’s PR agency since the coronavirus outbreak.
- Media's 'Racial Injustice' Blind Spot: Over 30 Shot In Another Deadly Chicago Weekend
Media’s ‘Racial Injustice’ Blind Spot: Over 30 Shot In Another Deadly Chicago Weekend
Tyler Durden
Sun, 06/07/2020 – 22:35Though largely overlooked and ignored in the now 24/7 mainstream network coverage of racial injustice in America, Chicago witnessed another deadly weekend of inner-city black on black gang-related violence, with over 30 people shot.
“Three people are dead and at least 28 others have been injured in shootings across the city this weekend,” a Chicago NBC affiliate reports.
This after on the same Memorial Day weekend that George Floyd was heinously killed by police in Minnesota, Chicago had witnessed a whopping nearly 50 people shot in one of the city’s deadliest ever holiday weekends (where ten died from their wounds, including young people).
NBC 5 Chicago footage: “A man was killed and three others were critically injured in a shooting Sunday on the Near West Side.” At a moment “Black Lives Matter” chants can be heard overtaking most every major American city, the now weekly reality of dozens tragically dying in black-on-black crime in Chicago and some other large cities (a trend that tends to increase into the hot summer months) remains a huge ‘blind spot’ in terms of the current ideologically charged media debate and public discourse.
The mayor has some advice, however:
Chicago Mayor tells citizens to not use guns to defend themselves during riots…urges them to call police instead
ha… pic.twitter.com/yaIJ3f0cyx
— Lola Netty (@TXTrumpette89) June 7, 2020
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It also provides an uncomfortable example and opening for questioning the pervasive narrative of ‘systemic’ and ‘structural’ racism, and other core dogmas centered on the idea of rampant minority oppression and ‘white privilege’.
These are BLM’s sacred dogmas which tend to shut out any dissenting black voice like the below:
I’m a 33 year old black male and I have NEVER been oppressed. I eat, sleep and shit just fine like the next person. I can buy a car, I can buy a home, I can obtain a passport, I can WORK. I love this great country and proud to be an American. DAMN IT I’m not oppressed 🗣
— James (@James78141017) June 6, 2020
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But concerning these sacred dogmas — belief in which inevitably results in advocates necessarily perceiving black oppression everywhere — this is a moment where we should dare to ask the following question: do the core claims of the demonstrators in the streets stand up to empirical analysis and scrutiny?
One man did explore this below in an epic viral tweet thread. Here’s what he said:
“I will lose many friends over what I’m about to say. I will possibly be called a racist or even a white supremacist (even though I’m a brown man, who’s been beaten to a pulp by neo-Nazis wearing steel toed boots)…”
* * *
THREAD
I will lose many friends over what I’m about to say.I will possibly be called a racist or even a white supremacist (even though I’m a brown man, who’s been beaten to a pulp by neo-Nazis wearing steel toed boots).
But maybe, just maybe, the fact that I am getting 100% of
— (((Amir Pars))) (@AmirPars_) June 5, 2020
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…But maybe, just maybe, the fact that I am getting 100% of my information from the black scholars in the picture – The Great Thomas Sowell, Glenn Loury, Shelby Steele, John McWorther, Coleman Hughes, Kmele Foster and Thomas Chatterton Williams, allows me some room for thought?
I’ve been watching the narrative play universally over the heinous killing of George Floyd, and the complete and utter lack of facts about African Americans in The US has been infuriating.
Unfortunately, anyone who doesn’t submit to the dominant narrative will be called a heretic, a racist, a white supremacist etc.
Still, I can’t stop myself.
1. Black Lives Matter don’t care about black people. Want evidence? Name me a single time – just once – when they’ve protested against black people being killed by other black people? Whether in America or elsewhere?
Why is this relevant?Because the biggest cause of death for black men aged 15-45 in USA is… other black men. Compare to white people, where it’s traffic accidents for the younger portion and heart attacks for those over 35.
Or how about the black lives in Sudan, East Timor, Libya?Why do we only ever hear from BLM when it’s a white person killing a black person?
Total Chaos: Chicago Sees Deadliest Memorial Day Weekend In Years Despite Stay-At-Home Orders https://t.co/E29xGgDWIR
— FreeZerohedge (@freezerohedge) May 27, 2020
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2. Speaking of which – imagine if white people started doing the reverse. Imagine every time a white person was killed by a black person, there’d be protests, riots, looting and social media campaigns. First thing to notice is that it would be more frequent, because African Americans kill more white people in the US than white people kill African Americans. Now what?
Should we really start applying the race card every time there’s a murder involving more than one pigmentation? Where will it end?
3. Police killings. The video of the murder of George Floyd is so visceral, by showing the casual evil with which officer Derek Chauvin kills George Floyd. People are rightly outraged, and no one can honestly defend the officer, who rightly has been arrested and hopefully will spend his remaining years behind bars (although the prosecutor has been idiotic in moving the case from 2nd degree to first degree murder – a burden of proof they will most likely fail to provide).
But… The only reason people are up in arms about these is that the social media and MSM attention focuses disproportionately on these incidents when the victim is black and the officer isn’t. Don’t believe me? Let me prove it:
You’ve all heard of Tamir Rice – a 12 year old black boy who was murdered when brandishing a toy gun. It was all over the news, there were riots and marches, hashtags and universal condemnation all over the media. But how many of you have heard of Daniel Shaver?
A man–he happened to be white–followed precisely the white police officer’s instructions as he crawled toward the cop. The cop still shot the man dead. Jury acquitted cop. No one protested, media took no notice, no one even knows about this. https://t.co/3xch6lQPQI
— George Szamuely (@GeorgeSzamuely) June 2, 2020
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A white man who was showing his friends a scoped air rife used to exterminate birds who entered his store, and was killed for this?
You may remember the case of Sam DuBose, a black man who was shot dead for driving his car away from from the police. The exact same thing happened to before that to Andrew Thomas, a white man driving away from the police. None of you have heard of him.
Alton Sterling was a black man shot dead by the police when reaching into his pocket for his wallet – a travesty.
The same thing happened to a white guy named Dylan Noble. Sterling made national headlines, none of us heard a word about Noble. Loren Simpson was a white teenager who was shot dead by the police in eerily similar circumstances as George Zimmerman killed Trayvon Martin.
You’ve not heard of the former, but demanded justice for the latter. You’ve not heard of James Boyd, Alfred Redwine, Brandon Stanley or Mary Hawkes. But you’ve heard of Alton Sterling and Philando Castile.
Because the only times police killings make the news is when the victim is black and the officer isn’t. Here are the FBI, NCJRS and BJS statistics:
For every 10,000 black people arrested for violent crime, 3 are killed by the police.
For every 10, 000 white people arrested for violent crime, 4 are killed by the police.
In 2019, 49 unarmed people were killed by the police. 9 were black. 19 were white. The likelihood for a black person being shot by the police is as high as being struck by lightning.
Yet, we are seeing riots, every single post on Instagram and Twitter is in support of Black Lives Matter and denunciation of police in America…
4. “Systemic Racism” / “Institutionalized racism”.
Sound good, don’t they? Such powerful words… and completely inaccurate. First, let’s see what the claims being made are:
Both insinuate built-in racism within various official institutions (police, law, governments etc).
Yet, when they are challenged, by asking the proponents to provide *evidence* for these, nothing is provided. Name one single law that is targeting exclusively black people. Just one. There isn’t one.
If the police is “systematically” anti-black, explain how it is possible that 20% of the Police Force in America is black (African Americans in America constitute roughly 14% of the population, meaning that blacks are *overrepresented* within the police force!)?
Now, imagine how incredibly racist it is to say that the 100,000 plus black police officers are too stupid to know that they are working inside and within a racist institution? That really is racism. And none of them have come out and said anything???
None of them have gone on 60 Minutes and said “We are being trained to be racists”? Seriously?
How about governments? Well, let’s leave aside the fact that America just had a two-term black president (whose second name was Hussein, by the way).
Some of America’s worst run cities have black mayors, black governors and majority black councils. Look at two of the worst cities in America to be black in: Baltimore and Chicago. Why is it that a place where the people in power are black can be *worse* for the African American Community, than cities that aren’t run by black politicians? This is a knock-down argument.
5. Disparity.
People often look at the economic disparities between blacks and whites, and claim it to be evidence for institutionalized racism. It says something about the power of a narrative, when it has been debunked decades ago – by BLACK ECONOMISTS (like The Great Thomas Sowell) – yet the myth persists.
First of all, at no point in human history has any two groups of people had the same level of wealth or income as each other. It would be an absolute miracle to expect that people with different backgrounds, cultures, histories, values and ethics to have the same level of wealth.
This is even true within so called races – compare for example Black Americans (generational) vs Black Immigrants… particularly the ones from West Indies (Jamaica, Barbados etc.).
You couldn’t tell these people apart, just by looking at them, and whatever racism is in place for one group must by definition be applied for the second group.
But what they have is completely different values and work ethics (the Jamaicans arriving in the US does so commonly to achieve greater heights than what he or she can in their home country). Whatever level of systemic racism exists, they are subjected to it as much as the African American.
Yet, already in the 1970’s (!!!), when racism was far more prevalent than it is today, Black Americans from the West Indies were earning 58% more than the Black American whose generations go back centuries in the United States. How could that be, if there’s supposed to be such a thing as “systemic racism”?
Disparities are only proof of disparities. Just because Group X doesn’t have the same as Group Y, doesn’t mean that it’s explained by racism.
And why does this so called “White Supremacy” only run against one group of Black Americans? Why doesn’t it run against Asian Americans, who out earn White Americans by over 60%? Why doesn’t it apply to Jewish Americans? Or Indian Americans, all of whom earn more than… White Americans?? Maybe there’s something else going on…?
In 1965, Daniel Patrick Moynihan published his report “The Negro Family: The Case For National Action”, where he saw that African American households were 25% single mothers – a frightening statistic that would have devastating consequences. Since then, Jim Crow laws and Red Lining have all been removed from the books, Martin Luther King Jr. and The Civil Rights Movement made tremendous strides and we’ve now even had a black two-term president.
But, today, black households with no paternal figure, and only a single mother constitute SEVENTY FIVE PERCENT of all black households in America!!! SEVENTY FIVE!!!!
Now you tell me, which is the better explanation for young black children ending up in a life of crime – the lack of a father figure, or the mythical, non-explainable entity known only as “institutional racism”, which for some reasons doesn’t apply to Nigerian immigrants, to black immigrants from West Indies, to Indian people, to Jewish people, to Asian Americans…?
Read the rest of the Twitter thread, with source links, here.
- Study Finds Extreme Protests Turn The Public Away From The Cause
Study Finds Extreme Protests Turn The Public Away From The Cause
Tyler Durden
Sun, 06/07/2020 – 22:10Submitted by Simon Black of Sovereign Man
New research shows that public support for a protest movement wanes as the protesters get more extreme.
The study, published this year in the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, says even protesters who are part of the movement become disenfranchised by things like “inflammatory rhetoric, blocking traffic, and vandalism.”
One of the authors of the study said there is a strong backlash to extreme protesting.
For example, they “found extreme anti-Trump protest actions actually led people to not only dislike the movement and support the cause less, but to be willing to support Trump more.”
And the same held true across protest actions for both conservative and liberal causes.
What this means:
The evidence supports another study which found that since 1945, “nonviolent campaigns were more successful at bringing about large-scale political transformation than violent campaigns.”
Since America is likely at the very beginning of a stage of unrest, this is important information to keep in mind for protest leaders and activists.
But it also shows that those opposed to protests have something to gain by inciting violence.
With this knowledge, whoever wants to discredit a movement–whether local police or political opposition–need only to push the protesters to extremes.
* * *
Executive order threatens to strip tech companies of key legal protection
What happened:
Twitter placed warning labels on a couple of Trump’s tweets, warning users of false information.
Trump responded with an executive order that reinterprets a key section of the Communications Decency Act.
Section 230 of the law gives immunity to platforms which host content created by third-party users.
As long as a platform, like Twitter, makes an effort to remove illegal content, like child exploitation, they cannot be held legally liable for what users post.
But the executive order reinterprets that immunity.
It says that when these companies start removing or editing legal content, they are engaging in editing.
And that, Trump argues, makes all content the website’s own published material, for which they are legally liable.
What this means:
Essentially the executive order threatens to strip Twitter and Facebook of legal protection if they selectively silence certain voices.
That will open them up to being sued for damages, or being held otherwise legally liable, for what users post on the platforms.
Conservatives may think this is great in the short term, protecting them from being “deplatformed” by left-leaning tech companies. But in the long run, weakening Section 230 immunity could be a deathblow to a free and open internet.
A recent lawsuit by conservative platform PragerU against Google/YouTube argued that YouTube was censoring PragerU’s videos, rendering YouTube a “publisher” rather than a “platform” and therefore no longer immune under Section 230.
The suit also argued that YouTube should now be treated as a public utility and thus prohibited from engaging in viewpoint discrimination. The US Court of Appeals for the 9th Circuit rejected that argument in February.
* * *
Lawmakers want to stop the transfer of military surplus to police
What happened:
In the 1990s, a program began to transfer excess military equipment to police stations across the country.
Since then, $6 billion worth of weapons, armored vehicles, tents, and other surplus military equipment has flowed from the Pentagon, to local and state police agencies.
Now it is common at protests, even peaceful ones, to see things like armored “Bearcat” vehicles, humvees, and rocket launchers (repurposed for tear gas) used against protesters.
Some members of Congress are attempting to stop the practice with an amendment to the National Defense Authorization Act.
What this means:
The NDAA is the regularly re-authorized bill that allows police to, for instance, detain Americans accused of terrorism indefinitely without trial, even on American soil.
One of the co-sponsors of the amendment said, “The streets aren’t war zones. Our police officers aren’t military, and our citizens aren’t combatants.”
But that is exactly how the Pentagon has viewed the citizens ever since September 11, 2001.
The time is long past due to push back on the militarization of police.
- FBI Investigate Possible Link Between Recent Killings Of Law Enforcement In NorCal
FBI Investigate Possible Link Between Recent Killings Of Law Enforcement In NorCal
Tyler Durden
Sun, 06/07/2020 – 21:45Federal agents in the Bay Area are scrambling to figure out whether the seemingly random slaying of a sheriff’s deputy in an unincorporated part of Santa Cruz might be linked to the fatal shooting of a pair of federal agents in Oakland late last month, as well as a handful of other crimes, the LA Times reports.
On Saturday, Santa Cruz sheriff’s Deputy Sgt. Damon Gutzwiller, 38, was shot and killed in Ben Lomond, an unincorporated area near Santa Cruz. While pursuing a suspect, Gutzwiller and other officers, several of whom were also wounded, were ambushed by gunfire and explosives.
At the scene, authorities arrested and booked Steven Carrillo, a Sergeant on active duty at the nearby Travis Air Force Base.
Carrillo, 32, was a member of the 60th Security Forces Squadron, according to a Travis Air Force Base spokesman. And it also appears he might be the killer of several law enforcement officers during what appears to have been a multi-day spree.
Carrillo was repeatedly shot while being taken into custody and is reportedly in serious condition. It’s unclear whether the explosives found in his car were intended to be used during a broader attack. The FBI says it is looking into Carrillo’s possible involvement in several other crimes last month, including an attack on two Federal Protective Service agents in Oakland last month that left one dead, and one critically injured.
Damon Gutzwiller
It’s unclear whether Carrillo was acting alone, or if he might have been part of some kind of radical sleeper cell intent on sowing chaos during the protests. Carrillo arrived in the area in June 2018 when he transferred to Travis Air Force Base. One month earlier, his wife died from what police determined to be a suicide. Monika Leigh Scott Carrillo, who was also in the Air Force, was found dead in May 2018 while stationed in South Carolina.
The two had been married for nine years, and had two children together. Carrillo will be charged with murder, assault with a deadly weapon and several other charges.
Dozens gathered outside the sheriff’s office Saturday afternoon to pay tribute to Gutzwiller. His wife and child stood next to a photo of him and bouquets of flowers.
Gutzwiller’s colleagues described him as unusually patient, always smiling and cracking jokes, with a self-deprecating sense of humor. Hart said he reviewed Gutzwiller’s personnel file last night, and there hadn’t been a single complaint from the public against him in his 14 years in the department.
A Santa Cruz native, Gutzwiller’s colleagues say he was compassionate and a major asset to law enforcement in the area, thanks to his close links to the community and a reputation as a good cop. He was a loving husband and father.
And yet, these killings, like other killings of law enforcement and innocent bystanders over the past 2 weeks, have gone almost completely ignored by the mainstream media.
If there was a domestic terrorist roaming around NorCal shooting cops, don’t you think, dear reader, that the public might want to hear about it?
- Does Increased Violence Reflect An Energy Problem?
Does Increased Violence Reflect An Energy Problem?
Tyler Durden
Sun, 06/07/2020 – 21:20Authored by Gail Tverberg via Our Finite World blog,
Why are we seeing so much violence recently? One explanation is that people are sympathizing with those in the Minneapolis area who are upset at the death of George Floyd. They believe that a white cop used excessive force in subduing Floyd, leading to his death.
I believe that there is a much deeper story involved. As I wrote in my recent post, Understanding Our Pandemic – Economy Predicament, the problem we are facing is too many people relative to resources, particularly energy resources. This leads to a condition sometimes referred to as “overshoot and collapse.” The economy grows for a while, may stabilize for a time, and then heads in a downward direction, essentially because energy consumption per capita falls too low.
Strangely enough, this energy crisis looks like a crisis of affordability. The young and the poor, especially, cannot afford to buy goods and services that they need, such as a home in which to raise their children and a vehicle to drive. Trying to do so leaves them with excessive debt. If the affordability problem changes for the worse, the young and the poor are likely to protest. In fact, these protests may become violent.
The pandemic tends to make the affordability problem worse for minorities and young people because they are disproportionately affected by job losses associated with lockdowns. In many cases, the poor catch COVID-19 more frequently because they live and/or work in crowded conditions where the disease spreads easily. In the US, blacks seem to be especially hard hit, both by COVID-19 and through the loss of jobs. These issues, plus the availability of guns, makes the situation particularly explosive in the US.
Let me explain these issues further.
[1] Energy is required for all aspects of the economy.
Energy is required by governments. Energy is required to operate police cars. Energy is required to build schools and to operate their heating and lighting. Energy is needed to build and maintain roads. Tax revenue represents available funds to buy energy products and goods and services made with energy products.
Energy is needed for any type of business. Operating a computer requires electricity, which is a form of energy. Heating or cooling a building requires energy. Growing food requires solar energy from the sun; liquid fuel is used to operate farm machinery and trucks that transport food to the locations where it is sold. Human energy is used for some of these processes. For example, human energy is used to operate computers and farm machinery. Human energy is sometimes used to pick the crops, as well.
Wages paid by governments and businesses indirectly go to buy energy products of many kinds. Food is, of course, an energy product. The heat to cook or bake the food is also an energy product. Metals of all kinds are made using energy products, and lumber is cut and transported using energy products. With sufficient wages, it is possible to buy or rent a home, and to purchase or lease an automobile.
Interest rates indirectly reflect the portion of goods and services produced by energy products that can be transferred to parts of the system that depend on interest earnings. For example, banks, insurance companies and those on pensions depend on interest earnings. If interest rates are high, benefits to pensioners can easily be paid and insurance companies can charge low rates for their products, because their interest earnings will help offset claim costs.
Interest rates are now about as low as they can go, indicating a likely shortage of energy for funding these interest rates. The last time interest rates were close to current levels was during the Great Depression of the 1930s.
Figure 1. Ten-year and three-month US Treasury interest rates, in chart made by FRED.
[2] When there is not enough energy to go around, the result can be low commodity prices, low wages and layoffs.
This is not an intuitive result. Most people assume (low energy = high prices), but this is the opposite of what actually happens. The problem is that the amount workers can afford to pay for finished goods and services needs to be high enough to make to make production of the commodities used in making the finished products profitable. When affordability falls too low, the system tends to collapse.
We are really dealing with a two-sided problem. The prices of commodities such as oil, wholesale electricity, steel, copper and food tend to fluctuate widely. Consumers need these prices to be low, in order for the price of finished goods made with these commodities to be affordable; producers need the prices of these commodities to rise ever-higher, to cover the cost of deeper wells and more batteries, to try to partially offset the intermittency of solar and wind electricity.
Most people assume that the situation will be resolved in the direction of commodity prices rising ever higher. In fact, commodity prices did rise higher, until mid 2008. Then, something snapped; commodity prices have been falling ever-lower since mid 2008. In fact, ever-lower commodity prices have been a world-wide problem, causing huge problems for countries trying to support their economies with export revenues based on commodity production.
Figure 2. CRB Commodity Price Index from 1995 to June 2, 2020. Chart prepared by Trading Economics. Composition is 39% energy, 41% agriculture, 7% precious metals and 13% industrial metals.
Even before the lockdowns, low commodity prices were leading to low wages of those working in commodity industries around the world. These low prices also led to low tax revenue, and this low tax revenue led to an inability of governments to afford the services that citizens expect, such as bus service and subsidized prices for certain essential goods/services. For example, South Africa (an exporter of coal and minerals) was experiencing public protests in September 2019, for reasons such as these. Chile is a major exporter of copper and lithium. Low prices of those commodities led to violent protests in 2019 for similar reasons.
Now, in 2020, lockdowns have led to even lower commodity prices. At times, farmers have been plowing their crops under. Oil companies are laying off workers. The trend toward lower commodity prices had been occurring for a long time; the recent drop in prices was “the straw that broke the camel’s back.” If prices stay this low, there is a danger of falling production of commodities that we depend on, including food, metals, electricity, and oil. Businesses producing these items will fail, and governments with falling tax revenue will be unable to support them.
[3] Historical energy consumption data shows that violence often accompanies periods when energy production is not growing fast enough to meet the needs of the growing population.
Figure 3 shows average annual growth in world energy consumption, for 10-year periods:
Figure 3. Average growth in energy consumption for 10 year periods, based on Vaclav Smil estimates from Energy Transitions: History, Requirements and Prospects (Appendix) together with BP Statistical Data for 1965 and subsequent.
Economic growth encompasses both population growth and rising standards of living. Figure 4 below takes the same information used in Figure 3 and divides it into (a) the portion underlying population growth, and (b) the portion of the energy supply growth available for improved standards of living. During most periods, increased population absorbs over half of increased energy consumption.
Figure 4. Figure similar to Figure 3, except that energy devoted to population growth and growth in living standards are separated. A circle is also added showing the recent growth in energy is primarily the result of China’s temporary growth in coal supplies.
There are three dips in the Living Standards portion of Figure 4.
The first one, came in the 10 years ended 1860, just before the US Civil War. Most of us would say that was a period of violence.
The second one occurred in the 10 years ended 1930. This is the period when the Great Depression began. It came between World War I and World War II. This was another violent period of our history.
The third dip came in the 10-year period ended 2000. This was not a particularly violent period; instead, it reflects the collapse of the central government of the Soviet Union, leaving the member republics to continue on their own. There was a huge loss of demand (really, affordability) on the part of countries that were part of the Soviet Union or depended on the Soviet Union.
Figure 5. Chart showing the fall in Eastern Europe’s materials production, after the collapse of the central government of the Soviet Union in 1991.
[4] The world is facing a situation in which total energy consumption seems likely to drop by 5% per year, or perhaps more.
If we look back at Figure 3, we see that even in very “bad” times economically, energy consumption was rising. In fact, in one 10-year period, the average increase was more than 5% per year.
If the world economy is reaching a point in which we consumers, in the aggregate, cannot afford the goods and services made with commodities, unless commodity prices are very low, we will likely experience a huge drop in energy consumption. I don’t know exactly how much the annual change will be, but energy consumption growth and GDP growth tend to move together. We might guess that GDP growth is shifting to 5% GDP annual shrinkage, and energy consumption will be shrinking by a similar percentage.
Clearly, shrinkage of 5% per year would be far worse than the world economy has experienced in the last 200 years. In fact, for the 10-year periods shown in Figure 3, there has never been a reduction in energy consumption. Even if I am wrong and the shrinkage in energy consumption is “only” 2% per year, this would be far worse than the experience over any 10-year period. In fact, during the Great Recession, world energy consumption only shrank in one year (2009) and then by 1.4%.
History doesn’t give us much guidance regarding what impact a dramatic reduction in energy consumption would have on the economy, except that population reduction would likely be part of the change that takes place. If half or more of energy consumption growth goes toward rising population (Figure 4), then a shrinkage of energy consumption seems likely to reduce world population.
[5] What the world is really facing is a competition regarding which parts of the economy can stay, and which will need to be eliminated, if there is not enough energy to go around. It should not be surprising if this competition often leads to violence.
As I indicated in Section [1], all parts of the economy depend on energy. If there is not enough, some parts must shrink back. The big question is, “Which parts?”
(a) Do governments, and organizations that bind governments together, collapse? If countries are doing poorly, they will not want to contribute to the World Trade Organization, the United Nations or the European Union. Governments, such as the government of Saudi Arabia, could be overthrown, or may simply stop operating. In fact, any government, when it faces insurmountable problems, could simply stop operating and leave its functions to lower levels of government, such as states, provinces, or cities.
(b) Do pension plans stop operating? Are pensioners left “out in the cold?” How about Social Security recipients?
(c) Can international trade be kept operating? It is a big consumer of energy. Also, competition with low-wage countries tends to keep wages in developed nations low. Without international trade, many imported goods (including imported medicines) become unavailable.
(d) Which companies will collapse, leaving bonds holders and stockholders with $0? People who formerly had jobs with these companies will also find themselves without jobs.
(e) If the world economy cannot support as many people as before, which ones will be left out? Is it people in rich countries who find themselves without jobs? Is it people who find themselves without imported medicines? Is it the ones who catch COVID-19? Or is it mostly citizens of very poor countries, whose income will fall so low that starvation becomes a concern?
[6] The violent demonstrations represent an effort to try to push the problems related to the shortfall in energy, and the goods and services that energy can provide, away from the protest groups, toward other segments of the economy.
In an ideal world:
(a) Jobs that pay well would be available to all.
(b) Governments would be able to afford to provide a wide range of services to all, including free health care for all and reimbursement for time off from work for being sick. They would also be able to provide adequate pensions for the elderly and low cost public transit.
(c) Police would treat all citizens well. No group would be so poor that a life of crime would seem to be a solution.
As indicated in Section [2], back in 2019, before COVID-19 hit, protests were already starting because of low commodity prices and the indirect impacts of low commodity prices. One reason why governments were so eager to adopt shutdowns is the fact that when people were required to stay inside because of COVID-19, the problem of protests could be stopped.
It should be no surprise, then, that the protests are back, once that the lockdowns have ended. There are now more people out of work and more people who are concerned about not having full healthcare costs reimbursed. Social distancing requirements are making it more difficult for businesses to operate profitably, indirectly leading to fewer available jobs.
[7] Violent protests seem to push problems fueled by an inadequate supply of affordable energy toward (a) governments and (b) insurance companies.
In some cases, insurance companies will pay for damages caused by protesters. Eventually, costs could become too great for insurance companies. Most policies have exclusions for “acts of war.” If protests escalate, this exclusion might become applicable.
Governments of all kinds are already being stressed by shutdowns because when citizens are not working, there is less tax revenue. If, in addition, governments have been paying COVID-19 related costs, this creates an even bigger budget mismatch. Governments find themselves less and less able to pay their everyday expenses, such as hiring teachers, policemen, and firemen. All of these issues tend to push city governments toward bankruptcy and more layoffs.
[8] Dark skinned people living in America tend to be Vitamin D deficient, making them more prone to getting severe cases of COVID-19. Vitamin supplements may be an inexpensive way of reducing the severity of the COVID-19 epidemic and thus lessening its diversion of energy resources.
There are a number of reports out that suggest that having adequate Vitamin D from sunlight strengthens the immune system and helps reduce the mortality of COVID-19. Adequate Vitamin C is also helpful for the immune system for people in general, not just those with dark skin.
Dark skinned people are adapted to living near the equator. If they live in the United States or Europe, their bodies make less Vitamin D from the slanted rays available in those parts of the world than they would living near the equator. As a result, studies show that Vitamin D deficiency is more common in African Americans than other Americans.
Recent data shows that the COVID-19 mortality rate for Black Americans is 2.4 times that of White Americans. COVID-19 hospitalization rates are no doubt higher as well. Encouraging Americans with dark skin to take Vitamin D supplements would seem to be at least a partial solution to the problem of greater disease severity for Blacks. Vitamin C supplements, or more fresh fruit, might be helpful for all people, not just those with low Vitamin D levels.
If the COVID-19 impact can be lessened in a very inexpensive way, this would seem to be helpful for the economy in general. High-cost solutions simply divert available resources toward fighting COVID-19, making the overall resource shortfall for the rest of the economy, worse.
[9] Much more equal wages would seem to be a solution for wage disparity, but this doesn’t bring the wages of low earning workers up enough, in practice.
There are a huge number of low-earning workers in many countries around the world. In order to increase commodity prices enough to make them profitable for producers, we really need wages in all countries to be much higher. For example, wages in Africa and in India need to be much higher, so that people in these parts of the world can afford goods such as cars, air conditioning and vacation travel. There is no way this can be done. Furthermore, such a change would add pollution and climate change issues.
There is a fundamental “not enough to go around” problem that we do not have an answer for. Historically, when there hasn’t been enough to go around, the attempted solution was fighting wars over what was available. In a way, the violence seen in cities around the globe is a new version of this violence. Governments of various kinds may ultimately be casualties of these uprisings. Remaining lower-level governments will be left with the problem of starting over again, issuing new currency and trying to make new alliances. In total, the new economy will be very different; it will probably bear little resemblance to today’s world economy.
- Police Chief Forced To Resign After Supporting Citizens Who Armed Up Amid Riots
Police Chief Forced To Resign After Supporting Citizens Who Armed Up Amid Riots
Tyler Durden
Sun, 06/07/2020 – 20:55Lowell, Michigan Police Chief Steven Bukala was forced to resign on Thursday after 25 years with the force, after writing on Facebook in support of four young men who armed themselves against potential violent protesters.
Responding to phone calls that 2nd Amendment demonstrators were open carrying down Main Street, Bukala wrote on the Lowell Police Deparment’s Facebook page on Tuesday: “We are aware and no need to call us,” adding “We at the Lowell Police Department support the legally armed citizen and the Second Amendment,” according to WZZM13.
After a flood of complaints as part of what WZZM says was a “pattern of inappropriate behavior,” the city manager told Bukala to resign by 5 p.m. on Friday or be fired at 5:01 p.m.
A disciplinary action report from city manager Michael Burns said Bukala was directed to make the post so residents were aware of the demonstrators. But when Burns read the last line, it appeared to be a political position, “possibly escalating rhetoric.”
Burns asked him to remove that line, and Bukala responded with “This is a true statement.”
The post gained some traction within the community, and Burns described the social media activity around it as “hostile.” The official Lowell Police Department Facebook page also added to the statement and defended it in the comments.
“People!” started one comment, which said Lowell has had open carry demonstrators in town before. “Yes people are hypersensitive due to the riots and anarchists that have come to Michigan. They are exercising their right to open carry. No one has to agree or disagree.” The comment was signed “Chief.” –WZZM
Three days after a riot in Grand Rapids, Michigan, Bukala wrote on his personal Facebook page: “So these fine young men called me today. They wanted to exercise their Second Amendment rights and walk down Main Street. They saw what happened in Grand Rapids. They said it’s not going to happen here. We have your backs. I thanked them for letting me know they were in town and to call if they see something.”
A photo of four armed men, defended by Lowell Police Chief Steve Bukala, who said they wanted to defend their second amendment right and protect against protesters. (Photo posted on Facebook on June 2, 2020) via WOODTV On Thursday, the Lowell PD apologized on its Facebook page, writing “We have made mistakes on social media this week, starting with an ill-considered message posted on the Lowell Police Department Facebook page. We then defended this message, arguing with residents or dismissing their concerns.”
The PD apologized, adding “we must take this opportunity to listen and learn so we can work together to defeat racism and build a more just and equitable society. We can and must do better.”
According to the city manager, Bukala was cited for violating city policy, including “conduct unbecoming of a police officer,” adding “Personnel shall not allow personal feelings to influence their professional conduct.”
- The Shallow Deep-State Goes Deeper As It Moves Toward Martial Law
The Shallow Deep-State Goes Deeper As It Moves Toward Martial Law
Tyler Durden
Sun, 06/07/2020 – 20:30Authored by Edward Curtin via Off-Guardian.org,
I am not trying to be cute and play with words. That title is meant to convey what it says, so let me explain.
The people who own the United States and their allies around the world have a plan. It is so simple that it is extremely devious.
Their plan has been in operation for many years.
It has most people bamboozled because it is Janus-faced by design, overt one day, covert the next, but both faces operate under one controlling head. Some call this head the Deep-State. Even the Deep-State calls itself the Deep-State in a double fake. It is meant to make people schizoid, which it has.
The so-called Deep-State has been given many names over the years. I will not bore you with them, except to say that it was once called the power elite. They are the upper classes, the super wealthy who control the financial institutions, Wall Street, the intelligence agencies, the corporate media, the internet, the military, and the politicians. They are multinational.
They are the wealthy nihilists who care not one jot for the rest of the world. They operate in secret, yet also run above-ground organizations such as the World Bank (WB), the World Health Organization (WHO), the US Agency for International Development (USAID), etc. Their bloodstream runs on war, the preparations for war, and economic exploitation of the world.
All wealthy people are not party to their machinations, but they are almost always complicit in profiting from their crimes, unless they are very stupid. Or play stupid. Since I am talking about a great confidence game, that is quite common.
Other people, all other classes, the poor, middle-classes, even a portion of the upper middle classes mean nothing to the power elite unless they can serve their interests. They are always waging class warfare to maintain their domination and control. Their recent version of this class war is underway in the United States and in many other countries.
As of today, they are using race fears to create chaos and outrage to disguise their class warfare that is leading to the imposition of martial law. Soon they will shift back to the coronavirus fraud. Back and forth, in and out, now you see it, now you don’t.
By shutting down the world’s economy, they have destroyed the livelihoods of hundreds of millions of people and are creating poverty on a vast scale. Much famine and death will follow. In the United States alone, 40-45 million people have applied for unemployment insurance and job loss is the greatest since the Great Depression. The reason: a massive propaganda campaign created around Covid-19 fear porn.
This class war is not new, but it is conducted today at warp speed since these people control the technology that has allowed them vastly increased power.
In the USA, it is conducted as usual under the guise of Republicans versus Democrats, the two representative political factions that are the faces of the controlled “opposition,” who are actually allies in the larger confidence game. Keeping “hope” alive is central to their strategy. Mind control is what they do. Speed is their greatest ally. Race is central to their game plan. They always say they are protecting us.
It is all a lie. A show. Nothing but a spectacle for the gullible. A shadow play.
The current president, Donald Trump, is the choice of one faction of these psychopaths. This year, Joseph Biden, is the shaky presumptive choice of the other. Both are deranged puppets. Regular people fight over who is better or worse because they are living inside what Jim Garrison, the former District Attorney of New Orleans and the only person to ever bring a trial in the assassination of President Kennedy, long ago called “the doll’s house.”
It is a place where illusions and delusions replace reality. It is 24/7 propaganda. It keeps people engaged. It gives them something to argue about, one team to root for. It’s a sport. It is similar to Plato’s Cave. Fire has been replaced with electronic lighting and screens, but little has changed.
The sick system of exploitation is oiled and greased with the tantalizing bait of hope dangled for the masses. Shit slogans like “We are all in this together.”
But there is no hope for this system.
But when the propaganda is so slick that it creates a double-bind, people grasp at any neurotic “solution” out of frustration. As I write, huge angry crowds are out in the streets protesting the sick murder of a black man, George Floyd, by a white cop. Police infiltrators have started violent looting. Chaos reigns, as planned.
Such killings are routine, but someone turned a switch for this one when just yesterday operation corona lockdown with its fear and fake statistics had everyone cowering behind masks at home as the economic lives of vast numbers were destroyed in a flash.
For today, the masquerade is in the streets. Many good people are caught up in it. In a few days the scene will shift and we can expect another “bombshell.”
These surprises will keep happening one after another for the foreseeable future. Shock and Awe for the home crowd. The war come home. The controllers know you can’t wage war against the rest of the world unless you do so at home as well.
When one group within the deep-state won the internecine battle in 2016 and “shocked” the country with the election of the comical Trump, the other deep-state group called the Democrats, immediately set in motion a plan to try to oust him or to make it seem as if they were trying to do so.
The naïve thought this may happen, and their deluded yearning has been stretched until the 2020 presidential election, although some probably think Trump might go before then. He won’t.
So many people have destroyed their minds and relationships because they can’t see through the fraud.
Early in 2017, as the outgoing front man for the CIA/warfare/Wall St. state, Barack Obama, left his time bombs for the future. The pink pussy hats were sent out marching to open the show. Russia-gate was launched; eventually impeachment was tried. The Democrats. with their media allies, went on a non-stop attack.
It was all so obvious, so shallow in its intent, as it was meant to be. But millions who were in the doll house were outraged, obsessed, frantic with rage. They bought the con-game. Both those who hate Trump and those that love him have spent almost four years foaming at the mouth, breathless.
Trump was cast as the personification of evil. A relentless attack on Trump began and has continued all this time. It is pure theater. Trump remains at the helm, as planned, holding the Bible aloft in a style reminiscent of a Bible thumping Klansman from The Birth of a Nation. Only the ignorant thought it might have been different.
He knows how to perform his role. He is a fine actor. He outrages, spews idiocies, as he is supposed to do. That Mussolini style stance, that absurd hair, the pout. Just perfect for an arch-villain. It’s so obvious that it isn’t. Herein lies the trick.
And who profits from his policies? The super-rich, of course, the power-elite.
Who just stole 6-10 trillion dollars of public money under the hilariously named Cares Act? The super-rich, of course, the deep-state.
It was a bi-partisan bank robbery from the public treasury carried out under the shadow of Covid-19, whose phony hyped up numbers were used to frighten the populace into lockdown mode as the Republican and Democratic bank robbers smiled in unison and announced forcefully, “We care!” We are here to protect you.
Remember how Barack Obama “saved” us by bailing out Wall St. and the big banks to the tune of trillions in early 2009. Then waged unending wars. Left black Americans bereft. He cared, too, didn’t he. Our leaders always care.
Obama was the black guy in the white hat. Trump is the white guy in the black hat. Hollywood on the Potomac, as Gary Wills called it when Ronald Reagan was the acting-president.
Now Obama’s war-loving side-kick, the pale-faced, twisted talking Biden is seriously offered as an alternative to the Elvis impersonator in the White House. This is the false left/right dichotomy that has the residents of the doll’s house in its grip.
If you can’t see what’s coming, you might want to break out of the house, take off your mask, go for a walk, and take some deep breaths. The walls are closing in.
Knees will be on everyone’s necks in the months ahead.
- IceCap Asset Management: The Effectiveness Of Keynesian Economic Theory Has Reached Its End
IceCap Asset Management: The Effectiveness Of Keynesian Economic Theory Has Reached Its End
Tyler Durden
Sun, 06/07/2020 – 20:25Submitted by Keith Dicker of IceCap Asset Management, as excerpted from his latest monthly note, “The Law Of Holes”
Since the COVID Crisis accelerated in March, we estimate aggregate global losses and capital formation destruction to be $30 Trillion. We also estimate aggregate global stimulus to be up to $8 Trillion.
For $8 Trillion to offset $30 Trillion, we need to see a rapid recovery dominated by an increase in the economic multiplier. A quick and rapid recovery will allow many losses to recover. A slow and sluggish recovery will cause many losses to become permanent. This leads us to ask what is reasonable to expect for a recovery period and the economic multiplier?
The answer lies with the chart (next page) which details exactly how fast economic activity has been swishing around. M2 Velocity of Money chart produces 2 quite important messages.
Everything has limits
For starters, the maximum speed achieved was during the period 1995 to 2000, when it recorded the top speed ever recorded of 2.20. In other words, the current $8 Trillion in stimulus would swish around to the equivalent of $17.6 Trillion of stimulus for the global economy.
Considering we have $30 Trillion in estimated losses; it may take a bit more stimulus to truly recover. And even more importantly, to prevent many of these temporary losses from becoming permanent capital impairments.
Of course, the estimate of the multiplier is never perfect, and the estimate of stimulus and losses are indeed estimates. In other words, there are a number of moving parts which means IceCap’s perspective might be off.
However, consider what happened to the Velocity of Money from its peak in 2000 to current reading. It has collapsed from an all-time high of 2.2 to an all-time low of 1.4.
What we find interesting and what helps us determine our market perspective is appreciating the response by the World’s major central banks to the 2000 Technology Bubble.
The coordinated monetary response was achieved by reducing interest rates to the lowest levels ever recorded.
In effect, it was the first time in modern day monetary history, that central banks effectively reached the limits of Keynesian Economic Policy.
When this fact is overlaid with the fact that the Velocity of Money subsequently began a 20-year period of deterioration, it catches our attention.
Put another way, once the major central banks collectively cut interest rates to the lower bound, the effectiveness of Keynesian Economic Theory had also reached its end.
Fast forward to current day, this makes us wonder how the $8 Trillion in stimulus will be enough to prevent permanent capital losses from the COVID Crisis. Our conclusion: it won’t.
And because the $8 Trillion will be ineffective, and because the World’s policy makers continue to embrace Keynesian Economic Theory, we should expect to see even more deficit spending and bailouts, and even lower negative rates, and even more money printing to support credit markets.
The effectiveness of Keynesian Economic Theory has reached its end. Yet, the continuance of policy makers ignoring The Law of Holes, creates visibility and opportunity for the investment world.
* * *
And this is where The Law of Holes should be applied.
At every single event in this diagram, central banks and governments responded with increasingly more aggressive stimulus in the form of interest rate cuts combined with deficit spending.
And since each crisis was larger than the previous crisis, it meant each policy response was even larger than the previous policy response.
Continue reading in the full slideshow below.
- Note To Rioting Americans: Posting On Social Media After Curfew Is An Insta-Crime
Note To Rioting Americans: Posting On Social Media After Curfew Is An Insta-Crime
Tyler Durden
Sun, 06/07/2020 – 20:05In a continuation piece of Public Service Announcements for America’s rioting class (parts one, two, and three here), this evening we are focusing on how protesters should avoid posting on social media past curfew hours because police in some cities are monitoring feeds and will issue curfew citations.
Milwaukee CBS 58 provided at least one example of this, after protester Demetrius Griffin received a rather odd citation in the mail last week.
Griffin said he was shocked when he opened up his mailbox and found a $691 citation from the Milwaukee Police Department (MPD) detailing how he violated curfew. He spent the last five days marching and attending demonstrations and posted a series of images and videos on social media about what was happening on the ground, some of the postings suggested he violated Milwaukee’s 9 pm curfew.
According to the citation, MPD’s “Virtual Investigation Unit” was secretly monitoring Griffin and issued him an instant-citation with him not evening knowing until he opened up his mailbox days later.
“Something’s not right about it, so that’s what I feel,” Griffin said, referring to the citation, and how it was issued.
He went on to say the citation is a “scare tactic, they’re [MPD] trying to intimidate me.”
Milwaukee attorney Nicole Muller said she’s never seen a citation like this before but said others at the same rally received similar ones.
“We’ve received several inquiries from people who have not only received municipal ordinance violation tickets but also referrals and some criminal charges,” Muller said.
The citation does have Griffin’s driver’s license information and a signature by an officer, lending credibility that the citation is real, and suggests how ‘Big Brother’ is watching protesters’ every move. He said his First Amendment right was violated and trust in government is declining.
“They’re using stuff like this to make us shut up about our First Amendments because we are just out peacefully protesting,” said Griffin.
Muller said any protester who received virtual curfew citations “should not pay the fine, but it is important people don’t ignore the citation, and instead take it to court.”
“If you’re raising constitutional issues in litigating these citations, they need to be raised before your proceedings really start,” added Muller.
Muller has another piece of advice for America’s rioting class: “Before you go out and protest, get a name and number of an attorney and write it on your arm.”
- Futures Jump Above 3,200; Brent Surges As Dollar Selling Accelerates
Futures Jump Above 3,200; Brent Surges As Dollar Selling Accelerates
Tyler Durden
Sun, 06/07/2020 – 19:45The risk-on euphoria in the aftermath of Friday’s blowout payrolls report, errors and all, has continued on Sunday night – as hedge funds (net exposure at 2 year highs), joining the retail army – and S&P futures have jumped back above 3,200 and are on pace to not only take out Friday’s intraday high of 3,210.5, but to go green for the year.
Supporting the bullish sentiment was overnight news that China’s trade surplus surged to a record in May as exports fell less than expected, while imports tumbled driven by declining commodity prices sales. A Bloomberg report that AstraZeneca has approached Gilead about what would be the biggest health care deal in history, will likely spark a rally among other Merger Monday candidates.
Oil is also surging after six straight weeks of gains, as Brent rises above $43 following Saturday’s OPEC+ decision to extend oil output cuts for another month, coupled with Saudi Aramco’s decision to hike oil export prices by the most on record.
The dollar has continued its furious decline, with the DXY index just shy of where it started the year!
The EURUSD has continued its historic ascent, rising back over 1.13.
As Nordea writes earlier today, we have had nine days of higher highs in EUR/USD driven by a combination of reflationary vibes and increasing momentum for the “Next Generation EU” debt deal. If we get another high in the Monday session – and absent some dramatic reversal that appears inevitable – it would be the first streak of ten consecutive higher/highs since October-2010.
Investor now turn their attention to the Fed’s meeting on Wednesday, where Powell is expected to re-commit to using their “full range of tools” to support the U.S. economy during the pandemic, with some speculating that the Fed may also unveil Yield Curve Control to keep long-rates in check. At the same time, global governments are gradually easing their coronavirus lockdowns to revive growth while controlling the spread of Covid-19, even as millions of US protesters breached social distancing norms, potentially sparking a new round of infections, although good luck to anyone who tries to enforce another round of closures.
In other news, the Minneapolis police department will soon cease to exist as the local city counsel decided to disband it, in an ominous harbinger of the chaos that may soon come to every major American city.
- Barbarians At The Mall
Barbarians At The Mall
Tyler Durden
Sun, 06/07/2020 – 19:40Authored by Robert Weissberg via The Unz Review,
What can be done about the current wave of urban riots? The obvious answer is, sad to say, not much. Public officials with only a handful of exceptions are paralyzed to respond with the necessary force lest they be accused of brutality and provoke yet more rioting and violence. There is some good news, however. Evolution matters—homo sapiens have adapted and survived worse. Protecting society from chaos is far from hopeless though not immediately. Solutions are possible and need not cost a fortune or require draconian social engineering to domesticate a violent under-class.
Let’s start with architectural adjustments, bricks and mortar fixes to use a currently popular term, are guaranteed to perform as advertised for the simple reasons that rich people for millennia have successfully protected their property from violent rabble. We already possess formulae. Medieval castles with their moats and drawbridges, stone walls and narrow windows may not have been totally secure, but hard to imagine today’s screeching social justice warriors looting it. Urban planners of yesteryear knew how to safeguard a city—think Washington, DC and Paris–where a few well-placed troops could block unruly mobs marching on the capital. County seats in American Midwest towns typically have solid stone fortress-like, easily defended courthouses, built on hills, obviously designed to prevent debtors from seizing and then burning their mortgages (think Shays’ Rebellion).
This anti-looter architectural style has long been visible in “diverse” neighborhoods populated by a criminally inclined clientele. The distinctive and highly functional style features bars on the windows, cashiers secure inside bullet-proof plexiglass cages, and security cameras everywhere. Signs warn patrons that they are on camera and when these businesses close for the day, they are protected by steel shutters. Potential troublemakers know full well that the counter clerk is often armed, most cash is kept in an inaccessible safe and a large German Shepard frequently keeps the clerk company. Occasional news accounts tell of clerks shooting a would-be robber, so stick-ups are relatively rare.
If the threat of mass looting becomes commonplace, this “ghetto” defense style is easily extended to more mainstream establishments albeit with better optics. In a word, commerce would be “hardened.” Target, pharmacies and even liquor stores can build fortress-like stores with slits smash- proof glass windows and a single impenetrable steel blast front door that can be closed by remote control from company headquarters, if necessary. As with Medieval castles, employees can flee via hidden passageways and safely re-emerge blocks away. Totally secure “safe rooms” might be available if the staff and lingering customers are caught by surprise.
The modern mall—including downtown versions–will be totally re-designed to be entirely surrounded by windowless brick or concrete walls with a small number of quickly sealable entrances. Mall stores that have past histories of attracting looters—those selling sneakers, electronics, cell phones, for example, would be segregated to one section and if a riot occurred, a steel gate would be deployed to isolate them (high-priced Michael Jordans can be displayed only one shoe at a time with the second shoe kept at a secret off-premises location). Parking lots in the suburbs would have fewer points of entry and could quickly be closed to prevent the feeding fests that occur once it became known that a looting party was in progress. Access from public transportation, often the source of troublemakers, could be re-configured so as to better control entry.
The recent shift to e-commerce also provides major opportunities for risk management. Stores like Best Buy no longer need to have piles of self-service merchandise so alluring to the grab-and-run crowd. Stores need only display a single (securely chained) model of a TV or iPhone, and if ordered, it would be delivered same day at no charge via Amazon or FedEx. Want it now? Visit the customer fulfillment center, a bunker-like building behind a ten-foot wall a half mile distant. Going cashless could also be extended and thus reduce looter incentives to damage registers and safes while providing quicker access to customer payments.
Upscale, super-pricey stores that wish to keep their present ambiance can adopt a scorched earth approach, a military strategy that undermines the enemy by preemptively destroying anything of value—food, vehicles, industrial resources—before the enemy arrives. So, if the looters are milling outside a Gucci boutique, and the situation looks threatening, the staff will immediately spray paint or otherwise mutilate everything. This is not as draconian as it may seems since ultra-luxury stores stock minimal inventory (this conveys “exclusivity”) and extraordinary high store mark-ups limit actual monetary loss. Less obvious, these firms—Dior, Chanel, Fendi, Burberry etc.—anyway dread their brand being “ghettoized” so destroying them prior to theft is a wise business choice. Would-be looters are not that stupid—who would steal a shredded Prada or a Louis Vuitton purse?
This conversion is not as costly as it may initially appear. Savvy builders favoring this anti-looting style would enjoy an advantage in today’s struggling commercial real estate market. Brick and mortar stores relying on e-commerce for partial fulfillment would be smaller with and thus would pay less rent. A powerful incentive would be reduced insurance premiums and, as an added bonus, the insurance firms would research looter behavior to advise real estate developers. City ordinances can also legally require anti-riot measures (“public safety”) just as they currently demand fire doors and automatic sprinklers. Laws might be passed to limit the number of unaccompanied minors allowed into stores at any one time to prevent a critical mass of unruly teenagers.
Meanwhile, private security would be transformed. Gone would be the ubiquitous inoffensive, elderly “mall cop” terrified of racial profiling accusations and thus unable to deter young black troublemakers. Now fight fire-with-fire: hire security whose appearances terrify young would-be hoodlums. A few well-tattooed Mexican gangbangers might make white middle class shoppers slightly uneasy, but the message would unambiguous to blacks—don’t mess! Beefy Russians with gold teeth and thick accents would also do the trick.
Looters sense cowardice. During the 1960s a pet store in New York City’s “Spanish Harlem” (actually an Italian enclave) went absolutely untouched despite days of nearby looting and burning. Not a single parakeet was inconvenienced. Everybody knew that the store was mob-owned, and the Mafia was not easily intimidated by local punks.
The catalogue of adaptive responses to the breakdown of civil society is far more extensive than depicted here. Elon Musk and others can surely improve upon Tasers, pepper spray and tear gas. What about jamming or frying cellphones? During the 1960s I recall research on generating extra low levels sound waves that would induce an involuntary bowel movement. Concentrated cat urine might work better than tear gas. These would slow down any mob. The Covid-19 pandemic illustrates how people can quickly re-locate to secure persona safety, and telecommuting may take root not to escape disease but also to avoid young men outraged over America’s historic structural racism and economic inequality.
Evolution saves lives. Not even feckless politicians and race-mongers can stop adaptions to avoid mayhem. Civilized people for millennia have successfully deterred the barbarians, so we are just reawakening dormant responses. Keep in mind that the modern style professional police force is only a little more than 200 years old, so it is hardly a core requirement of civilization.
- California Dismisses National Guard After Week-Long "Occupation"; De Blasio Plans To Shift Funds From NYPD To "Youth & Social Services"
California Dismisses National Guard After Week-Long “Occupation”; De Blasio Plans To Shift Funds From NYPD To “Youth & Social Services”
Tyler Durden
Sun, 06/07/2020 – 19:22Update (1900ET): National Guard troops will be pulled out of California cities after a week-long deployment, according to the Associated Press.
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As the mayors of Chicago, Atlanta, NYC & other major cities cancel curfews, incidences of rioting have been reported in Brussels, as the protests have gone global for a third day.
“After nearly a week assisting civil authorities on the streets of California, soldiers with the California National Guard will begin transitioning back to their home armories,” the Cal Guard said in a statement, though a timeline for the pullout wasn’t provided.
Los Angeles Mayor Eric Garcetti said some troops would begin departing Sunday evening.
“A small number of units will be stationed nearby until June 10 to provide emergency support if needed,” he said.
Riots spread around the world, with some incidences of violence reported in London and Brussels.
In Iran, a street in Tehran was dedicated in George Floyd’s memory.
Meanwhile, a bit of levity in the UK:
A BIT OF LEVITY
pic.twitter.com/TsDrnhuiId— The_Real_Fly (@The_Real_Fly) June 7, 2020
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* * *
Update (1400ET): After years of clashing with the NYPD and the powerful police unions who hold sway over America’s largest police force, NYC Mayor Bill de Blasio has just announced a new policy that we imagine he has been secretly wanting to do for a long time: The mayor is planning to shift some funding way from police and toward youth and social services.
Critics immediately criticized the mayor for taking another step to return NYC to the bad old days.
This morning we committed to move resources from the NYPD to youth and social services as part of our City’s budget.
Our young people need to be reached, not policed.
We can do this AND keep our city safe.
— Mayor Bill de Blasio (@NYCMayor) June 7, 2020
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De Blasio won his original dark horse campaign by promising to reform the NYPD. Instead, he has mostly stoked acrimony with the cops, while failing to convince progressives that he is doing enough to implement the reforms they demanded. The latest crisis is giving de Blasio a chance to rectify that, but despite this, the mood inside city hall is said to be “one of despondence” as the city scrambles to prepare for Monday’s reopening as many departments see their relationships with the mayor’s office coming under unprecedented strain, per WSJ.
Meanwhile, Gov Cuomo expressed “concern” that the protests on Saturday, some of the largest yet, while few arrests were made and gatherings continued long into the night, might worsen the spread of the coronavirus as the city prepares to start its process of reopening on Monday, per BBG.
Responding to the left’s demands to defund police, a homeland security official told BBG that it’s “absurd” to talk about defunding police departments as a remedy for racial injustice.
Meanwhile, in the UK…
The man who defeated the Nazis…is now a Nazi?
* * *
Update (1225ET): As the battle against systemic racism goes global, demonstrators in Bristol have toppled a statute of Edward Colston, a British philanthropist who derived most of his wealth from the slave trade.
STATUE OF EDWARD COLSTON TOPPLED AND THROWN IN WATER AT BRISTOLpic.twitter.com/Kc5Gt0KxUL
— The_Real_Fly (@The_Real_Fly) June 7, 2020
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People in England just tore down a statue of slave trader Edward Colston and threw it in the river. The world has simply had it with racism.
— Palmer Report (@PalmerReport) June 7, 2020
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And just like that…racism has been destroyed.
* * *
Following another night of demonstrations across the US, and increasingly around the world, the NYT reported that “tens of thousands gathered in big cities like New York and Seattle and small towns like Vidor, Texas, and Marion, Ohio — in swelling crowds that have been multiethnic, spanning generations and overwhelmingly peaceful.”
Though we’re not 100% certain about that last bit, it’s definitely notable that the protest movement has spread from Europe, Australia and New Zealand on to Asia, Africa and elsewhere, as thousands around the world support American protesters with shows of “solidarity”.
Meanwhile, the coronavirus death toll in the US quietly surpassed 110,000 last night.
Though the outbreak has slowed to a crawl in many former hot spots like New York, elsewhere, signs of incipient outbreaks have begun to emerge.
Across New York City, peaceful demonstrators defied an 8 pm curfew as the NYPD mostly stepped aside, following a week of optically-terrible videos showing cops beating on kneeling protesters, badly injuring elderly protesters, and shooting journalists with “non-lethal” rounds. The police allowed the marches to continue long into the night, and in the morning, Mayor de Blasio tweeted that he would be lifting the curfew after seeing “the very best of our city”.
New York City: We are lifting the curfew, effective immediately. Yesterday and last night we saw the very best of our city.
Tomorrow we take the first big step to restart. Keep staying safe. Keep looking out for each other.
— Mayor Bill de Blasio (@NYCMayor) June 7, 2020
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Meanwhile, readers of the Wall Street Journal were greeting Sunday morning with a push alert heralding the results of the latest public opinion poll showing that Americans – by a 2-1 margin – are more troubled by the actions of the police in the killing of George Floyd and the ensuing protests,
Among Democrats, an overwhelming majority (more than 80%) support police reform, while, possibly for the first time, a majority of Republicans (52%) said they are also more troubled by the actions of the police. Though the partisan divide remains stark, it shows that the demonstrators have been largely successful in their goal of swaying public opinion.
What’s more: 80% of respondents said that – between the virus and the protests – their country is spinning out of control.
Americans by a 2-to-1 margin are more troubled by the actions of police in the killing of George Floyd than by violence at some protests, and an overwhelming majority, 80%, feel that the country is spiraling out of control, according to a new Wall Street Journal/NBC News poll.
The poll also reveals striking partisan divides in how Americans view a pair of unfolding national crises, including the unrest sparked by the killing of Mr. Floyd, the black Minneapolis man who was in police custody, and the coronavirus pandemic, responsible for more than 109,000 fatalities in the U.S.
Already, crowds have gathered in central Rome on Sunday morning for another day of demonstrations in London and other cities, as crowds chanted “Black lives matter” and “No justice, no peace,” thousands of people swelled Rome’s Piazza del Popolo, and in London, thousands gathered in several places. On Sunday morning, London Mayor Sadiq Khan praised the protesters, and denounced a “tiny minority” who resorted to violence.
The vast majority of protestors in London were peaceful. But this vital cause was badly let down by a tiny minority who turned violent. This is simply not acceptable, will not be tolerated and will not win the lasting and necessary change we desperately need to see. 2/3
— Sadiq Khan (@SadiqKhan) June 7, 2020
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As more members of the far-left abandon the push for police reform in favor of police abolition, President Trump has latched on to these claims and seized the opportunity to tarnish Biden using his increasing deference to the Democratic party’s progressive wing.
Not only will Sleepy Joe Biden DEFUND THE POLICE, but he will DEFUND OUR MILITARY! He has no choice, the Dems are controlled by the Radical Left.
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) June 7, 2020
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Trump also ordered the national guard to begin withdrawing from Washington DC, defying protesters who probably had hoped the president would urge an even more aggressive crackdown.
I have just given an order for our National Guard to start the process of withdrawing from Washington, D.C., now that everything is under perfect control. They will be going home, but can quickly return, if needed. Far fewer protesters showed up last night than anticipated!
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) June 7, 2020
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Meanwhile, one California man – a purported “deescalation expert” – sustained a potentially life-changing injury after police appeared to shoot him in the groin with a rubber bullet, necessitating emergency surgery.
A California man who has worked to help improve relations between the San Jose Police Department and people of color learned that he may not be able to have children after an officer shot him with a rubber bullet during a protest.
While attending a protest in San Jose on May 29, the man, Derrick Sanderlin, worked to prevent rising tensions and calm demonstrators and the police alike, he said in an interview this weekend.
While the mainstream press mostly brushed them aside, this weekend’s demonstrations were unfortunately pockmarked by violence perpetrated by deranged anarchists, who attacked a children’s hospital in Houston.
RIOTERS DESTROYING CHILDRENS HOSPITAL IN HOUSTONpic.twitter.com/ZyfOr8msAK
— The_Real_Fly (@The_Real_Fly) June 6, 2020
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Sometimes, peaceful protesters were on the receiving end: In one horrifying scene, a car drove into a crowd of protesters in Brooklyn.
CAR DRIVES INTO PROTESTERS IN BROOKLYN pic.twitter.com/aeJ3HayOx1
— The_Real_Fly (@The_Real_Fly) June 7, 2020
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Threats to burn down areas have been an unfortunate feature of many live-tv news interviews over the past 2 weeks, and Saturday night was no exception.
PROTESTER THREATENS TO BURN THE DIAMOND DISTRICT IN NYC WITH GASOLINE ON LIVE TVpic.twitter.com/qDxwzTksFs
— The_Real_Fly (@The_Real_Fly) June 6, 2020
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In one astonishing scene, protesters heckled Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey after he refused to commit to abolishing the Minneapolis Police Department.
ASTONISHING SCENE OF MOB ASKING MAYOR JACOB FREY IF HE’LL COMMITT TO GETTING RID OF POLICE
pic.twitter.com/UbyMZSTauX— The_Real_Fly (@The_Real_Fly) June 7, 2020
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Calls to ‘defund the police’ are spreading.
DEFUND THE POLICE, DC pic.twitter.com/eRIgBd1pTJ
— The_Real_Fly (@The_Real_Fly) June 7, 2020
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It wouldn’t be a nationwide protest without the antifas in Portland stirring up chaos, as usual.
LAST NIGHT, PORTLAND
pic.twitter.com/5nWwRc5Fze— The_Real_Fly (@The_Real_Fly) June 7, 2020
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While Philly saw another day of massive rallies, vigilantes came out to battle with demonstrators once again.
FISHTOWN PHILLY AT IT AGAIN. PROTESTERS NOT ALLOWED THEREpic.twitter.com/ANF6LtCy2Z
— The_Real_Fly (@The_Real_Fly) June 7, 2020
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Then there was this dude, who showed up to a rally in Toronto in blackface.
MAN SHOWS US TO BLM PROTEST IN TORONTO WITH BLACKFACE (later arrested)pic.twitter.com/oO26pxVGGJ
— The_Real_Fly (@The_Real_Fly) June 6, 2020
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He was reportedly later arrested.
- A Bounce Is Not A Recovery
A Bounce Is Not A Recovery
Tyler Durden
Sun, 06/07/2020 – 19:15The recent improvement in global PMIs and especially in employment in the United States have created a strong optimism in markets about the recovery.
However, it is important to be cautious about a V-shaped recovery when the leading indicators remain weak.
Eurozone PMIs (Purchasing Managers’ Index) came slightly above expectations in May, but remained in deep contractions both at the composite, manufacturing and services level.
We must remember that a bounce like the one we have seen only means that the rate of deterioration is slowing down, not that there is a recovery. All sectors remained deep in contraction in May, but almost with slower rates of decline.
At the global level, output indices rose from record April lows but still indicate a significant reduction in activity, led by Travel & Leisure and followed by transportation as well as Healthcare services, all showing record drops, according to Markit PMIs.
The United States’ job data for May was a strong positive surprise. However, the Bureau of Labor Statistics admitted it accidentally miscounted 4.9 million laid-off people as employed, bringing unemployment to 16.1%, which is still much better than the 19% figure estimated by consensus, but not as strong an improvement as the headlines suggested.
The main reason why we should remain cautious is because we now have evidence that Chinese activity has recovered at a slow pace, particularly in those sectors that are not supported by government spending plans. We must also take the bounce figures with prudence, as it is quite likely that most leading indicators will rise from the all-time lows of April, but high levels of unemployment in developed economies and an unprecedented increase in the output gap of most economies may damp the improvement in consumption and investment that so many analysts expect.
Unemployment will be key to regain optimism about the recovery. When we see developed economies recover the levels of job creation and employment rates seen prior to the Covid-19 crisis, we may have confidence in a stronger improvement in consumption. However, it is now clear that even in dynamic and strong economies like the United States, it will likely take between 8 to 10 months to recover the full level of employment seen in February. In The eurozone, this delay will likely be longer, up to 24 months.
Wages and savings are also key to believe in a rapid recovery. With the recent collapse of economic capacity utilization and the rise in inventories, it is hard to believe in a capital expenditure-led boost of the economy. Most companies will likely preserve cash and devote the next year to restoring the balance sheet, making it less likely to invest and hire at the same pace of 2019. Wages are unlikely to rise in this challenging corporate environment, but real wages -deducting the impact of inflation, even if it is low- may actually weaken in the forthcoming months. One thing that may support consumption in the following months is that the savings rate of households has risen, which might help support some spending in the months of July to September.
In the next months we will have to monitor employment as the key driver of any recovery. The only way to support a service and consumption-driven growth will be with a strong rise in hiring intentions and at least stable wage growth. It is extremely difficult to be optimistic in the current situation even considering the May data. Until September we will not be certain if the recovery is real. Most of the positive data until then may just be rises due to the base effect of a very poor April.
- "A Police-Free Future" – Minneapolis City Council Votes To Abolish Police Department
“A Police-Free Future” – Minneapolis City Council Votes To Abolish Police Department
Tyler Durden
Sun, 06/07/2020 – 18:45Update (2100ET): Here is the somewhat unbelievable statement from the Minneapolis City Council describing their “veto-proof majority” plans to create a utopian “police-free future”..
1. Decades of police reform efforts have proved that the Minneapolis Police Department cannot be reformed, and will never be accountable for its actions.
2. We are here today to begin the process of ending the Minneapolis Police Department and creating new transformative model for cultivating safety in Minneapolis.
3. We recognize that we don’t have all the answers about what a police-free future looks like, but our community does. We’re committing to engaging with every willing community member in the City of Minneapolis over the next year to identify what safety looks like for you.
4. We’ll be taking intermediate steps towards ending the MPD through the budget process and other policy and budget decisions over the coming weeks and months.
We cannot help but wonder if this is anything like what the constituents actually wanted as an outcome of the current racial-bias protestations.
As former AR Governor Mike Huckabee noted:
“I wish I had the U-Haul franchise in Minneapolis b/c all the same people will be bugging out to a place not run by loons and I could make a fortune renting one way trucks!”
And Texas Rep. Dan Crenshaw summed things up perfectly:
“This is dangerous, counterproductive, and deeply irrational. “Defund the police” is not a call from the fringes of the far left anymore. It has gone from a radical slogan to actual policy in a major American city, within days.”
* * *
In a stunning harbinger of things to come across the country, on Sunday afternoon, amid calls for defunding police departments countrywide, the Minneapolis City Council members went one further, and announced their intent to disband the city’s embattled police department, which has endured relentless criticism in the wake of the police killing of George Floyd.
BREAKING: Nine of the 12 members on the Minneapolis City Council have vowed they will work to end policing as the city currently knows it. Council Member Jeremiah Ellison promised the council would “dismantle” the department. https://t.co/OM0btcZbgG
— The Associated Press (@AP) June 7, 2020
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BREAKING: Minneapolis City Council members have announced their intent to disband the Minneapolis Police Department and invest in community-led public safety.
— ACLU of Minnesota (@ACLUMN) June 7, 2020
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“Community-led public safety” – is that like private militia for the wealthy and ____ for everyone else?
“We are here today because George Floyd was killed by the Minneapolis Police Department. We are also here because, here in Minneapolis and in cities across the United States, it is clear that our existing system of policing and public safety isn’t working for so many of our neighbors,” Minneapolis City Council President Lisa Bender said in a written statement Sunday. “Our efforts at incremental reform have failed.”
The City Council’s decision follows those of several other high-profile partners, including Minneapolis Public Schools, and the University of Minnesota, and Minneapolis Parks and Recreationto sever longstanding ties with the MPD.
The announcement today also arrives after several members of the Council have expressed a complete loss of confidence in the Minneapolis Police Department.
“We are going to dismantle the Minneapolis Police Department,” tweeted Council Member Jeremiah Ellison on June 4, pledging to “dramatically rethink” the city’s approach to emergency response.
We are going to dismantle the Minneapolis Police Department.
And when we’re done, we’re not simply gonna glue it back together.
We are going to dramatically rethink how we approach public safety and emergency response.
It’s really past due. https://t.co/7WIxUL6W79
— Jeremiah Ellison (@jeremiah4north) June 4, 2020
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In a TIME op-ed published the next day, Council Member Steve Fletcher cited the MPD’s lengthy track record of misconduct and “decades-long history of violence and discrimination”—all of which are subjects of an ongoing Minnesota Department of Human Rights investigation—as compelling justifications for the department’s disbandment. “We can resolve confusion over a $20 grocery transaction without drawing a weapon or pulling out handcuffs,” Fletcher wrote.
The last person to disband the police was Sting.
— God (@TheTweetOfGod) June 7, 2020
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As we reported earlier, Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey said last night that he opposed disbanding the police department at a protest organized and led by Black Visions Collective against police violence in the city. That answer earned him a thundering chorus of boos and chants of “Shame!” and “Go home, Jacob, go home!” The New York Times – which has become the unofficial media arm of the BLS movement, and which will certainly delighted by today’s outcome in Minneapolis – called the scene a “humiliation on a scale almost unimaginable outside of cinema or nightmare.”
Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey is asked whether he will defund the Minneapolis police department, and is subjected to the most intense walk of shame I’ve ever seen. pic.twitter.com/3ZsbrIjIA2
— Eamon Whalen (@EamonWhalen) June 6, 2020
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“The last Democratic mayor, Betsy Hodges, handled the murder of Jamar [Clark] poorly. We told her she was going to lose her job. And she did,” Miski Noor, a Black Visions Collective organizer, said on Frey’s refusal to disband the Minneapolis Police Department.
According to The Appeal, for years, “activists have argued that MPD has failed to actually keep the city safe, and City Councilmembers echoed that sentiment today during their announcement.”
MPD’s record for solving serious crimes in the city is consistently low. For example, in 2019, Minneapolis police only cleared 56 percent of cases in which a person was killed. For rapes, the police department’s solve rate is abysmally low. In 2018, their clearance rate for rape was just 22 percent. In other words, four out of every five rapes go unsolved in Minneapolis. Further casting doubt on the department’s commitment to solving sexual assaults, MPD announced last year the discovery of 1,700 untested rape kits spanning 30 years, which officials said had been misplaced.
While Minneapolis may be the first city to take this drastic action, it is hardly the last: the Council’s move is consistent with rapidly-shifting public opinion regarding the urgency of overhauling the American model of law enforcement. Since Floyd’s killing and the protests that ensued, officials in Los Angeles and New York City have called for making deep cuts to swollen police budgets and reallocating those funds for education, affordable housing, and other social services.
Law enforcement officers are not equipped to be experts in responding to mental health crises, often leading to tragic results—nationally, about half of police killings involve someone living with mental illness or disability. As a result, public health experts have long advocated for dispatching medical professionals and/or social workers, not armed police, to respond to calls related to substance use and mental health. Polling from Data for Progress indicates that more than two-thirds of voters—68 percent—support the creation of such programs, versions of which are already in place in other cities such as, Eugene, Oregon; Austin, Texas; and Denver, Colorado.
Well, all those residents of deeply liberal cities are about to get precisely what they want:
“Our commitment is to do what is necessary to keep every single member of our community safe and to tell the truth that the Minneapolis Police are not doing that,” Bender said Sunday. “Our commitment is to end our city’s toxic relationship with the Minneapolis Police Department, to end policing as we know it, and to recreate systems of public safety that actually keep us safe.”
We look forward to finding out just what these “systems” are, and while we know that wealthy residents will have little trouble in obtaining their own private security squads and militia – in fact, we are certain that Minneapolis Fed president Neel Kashkari will be among the first to take advantage of security alternatives even as the Fed’s actions continue to tea apart the nation leading to even greater wealth and income inequality that has culminated in the current social collapse, we wonder just who will protect the less affluent segments of society. For the answer we will keep a close eye on downtown Minneapolis, now police free, for a glimpse into the future of America’s inner cities.
Meanwhile watch as gun sales in Minneapolis – both legal and illegal – and in every other city across the country, explode.
- Major Bicycle Brand Suspends Sales To Police Claiming Bikes 'Weaponized' Against Protesters
Major Bicycle Brand Suspends Sales To Police Claiming Bikes ‘Weaponized’ Against Protesters
Tyler Durden
Sun, 06/07/2020 – 18:25The past couple weeks of George Floyd protests and unrest has produced the somewhat new phenomenon of some local restaurants and cafes in big cities like Atlanta or New York City refusing to serve police. This as a driving “anti-cop” ideology has been central in many instances where initially ‘peaceful’ demonstrations have broken out into violence and rioting.
But one 120-year old company has now suspended all sales of police bicycles to law enforcement departments nationwide amid activist claims that officers are using them as “weapons” against protesters.
Police in Miami using Trek bikes during protests against the death of George Floyd, AFP/Getty. The North American distributor of Fuji Bicycles BikeCo, said in a weekend statement: “to hear that there are instances where bicycles have been used as a weapon against those who are vulnerable, those speaking out against the unjust treatment of people of color, and those standing alongside them advocating change, has deeply upset our community, our company and the heart of the Fuji brand.”
“In the last week, we have seen our bicycles used in violent tactics that we did not intend or design them to be used for,” the company said, and vowed: “In an effort to work towards real change, Bike Co. the North American distributor of Fuji Bikes is suspending the sale of police bikes.”
However, some observers noted the Philadelphia-based company didn’t provide a single specific example of police using a Fuji bike as a weapon in the lengthy company statement.
A biker gang brutally beat these protesters in Philly today. pic.twitter.com/r1TzXrOpNW
— Morgan J. Freeman (@mjfree) June 5, 2020
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One police and law enforcement industry journal commented cynically in response:
Well, two can play this silly game. Law enforcement certainly has the right to “suspend” all purchases of Fuji Bikes forever.
There have been examples circulating on social media of police lines holding back large groups of protesters using bikes.
But it’s unclear whether these particular instances involve Fuji bikes, or other popular brands like Trek.
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