Ireland Archives - The Automatic Earth

THE PHOTO THEY CAN’T ERASE.

Long before politics turned Donald Trump into one of the most polarizing men in America, this moment happened.

In 1986, Trump stood alongside American legends Rosa Parks and Muhammad Ali as one of the inaugural recipients of the Ellis Island Medal of… pic.twitter.com/mmlzo47GUt
— Gunther Eagleman™ (@GuntherEagleman) August 27, 2026

I’m not terribly impressed with the coverage this gets.

• Trump Makes ‘Biggest Oil Deal in History’ Announcement (Sarah Anderson)

On Friday evening, Donald Trump announced that the United States and Venezuela have entered into an agreement on “the biggest oil deal in world history.”

“This deal is a huge win for both the American and Venezuelan people,” Secretary of State Marco Rubio added in a post on X. “It demonstrates how President Trump’s bold foreign policy is driving America First wins: securing stable reserves and low-cost oil in our Hemisphere and lowering gas prices here at home. For the Venezuelan people, this deal will bring nearly $100 billion in private investment, support thousands of high-paying jobs, and drive the reconstruction of Venezuela’s economy.”

This deal is a huge win for both the American and Venezuelan people.

It demonstrates how President Trump's bold foreign policy is driving America First wins: securing stable reserves and low-cost oil in our Hemisphere and lowering gas prices here at home.

For the Venezuelan… https://t.co/SMSRYGWmVb
— Secretary Marco Rubio (@SecRubio) August 28, 2026

The details of the contract have not been released, though there has been a lot of online chatter over the last couple of days. Currently, proceeds of Venezuelan oil sales go into a U.S. Treasury–supervised account, and Rubio and Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent control disbursement.
Venezuela holds the world’s largest proven crude reserves, about 303–304 billion barrels (roughly 19% of the global total). Output once topped 3 million bpd; it averaged about 941,000 bpd in 2025 and has recovered to roughly 1.23–1.25 million bpd in late August 2026 — the highest since early 2019 and up nearly 30% since January 2026 — after sanctions relief and cuts to the state’s take on many projects to 20–35% from around 83%.
As Moreno mentioned, China was the biggest buyer under Nicolás Maduro. The Maduro regime also supplied cheap oil to Cuba in exchange for intelligence and military training, as well as medical professionals from Cuba’s forced labor programs.
I do want to add that I hope Rubio is right and this will benefit the Venezuelan people as much as it does us. I’m in contact with several each week, and I know that morale isn’t especially high at the moment. They remain grateful to Trump and Rubio and the United States for removing Maduro, but their day-to-day lives haven’t changed much and, in some cases, have gotten worse. There are daily blackouts, etc.
The double earthquakes that struck in June didn’t do much to help with that, and they’re fed up with Delcy and ready to have elections and real leadership. Trump calling her “highly respected” in this announcement won’t go over too well, but it’s all part of the process. I hope to write more on what it will take to get there and what kind of progress is being made on that next week.

“.. Gulf-area exports of crude and petroleum products have rebounded sharply to between 15 million and 16 million barrels per day, up from a March low of 5 million to 6 million barrels per day.”

• “Dark” Tanker Fleet Shatters Iran’s Hormuz Stranglehold (ZH)

Brent crude futures initially jumped overnight after The Wall Street Journal reported that President Trump has no interest in reviving the memorandum of understanding (interim peace deal) reached with Iran in June. The war-risk premium in Brent has since faded in New York premarket trading amid mounting developments this week that major Gulf producers, including Kuwait and Qatar, are increasing tanker flows through the Strait of Hormuz. Emerging diplomatic traction between Oman and Iran has also further reduced the perceived risk of a prolonged disruption.

Reinforcing this week’s developments, new data from Daan Struyven, Goldman’s co-head of Global Commodities Research and head of oil research, show that Persian Gulf oil exports have recovered to more than two-thirds of prewar levels. Struyven wrote in a note late Thursday that Gulf-area exports of crude and petroleum products have rebounded sharply to between 15 million and 16 million barrels per day, up from a March low of 5 million to 6 million barrels per day.
He said crude flows remain 7 million to 8 million barrels per day below prewar levels, but the recovery has been strong enough to ease fears of a prolonged disruption at the world’s most important maritime chokepoint. Oil shipments through the Strait of Hormuz are estimated at 8 million to 10 million barrels per day. Traders surveyed by Bloomberg place that range much lower, at between 6 million and 8 million barrels per day.
“Although our estimates focus on total Gulf flows, the upward revisions suggest Strait of Hormuz oil transits are likely close to US officials’ 8-10mb/d estimates. The rise in dark crossings by specialized shippers and in ship-to-ship transfers shows that producers and shippers are adapting to the Middle East conflict,” Struyven told clients.
He noted, “Shipping markets now price in disruptions likely continuing well into 2027 (Exhibit 7). Still, potential additional dark flows and price-sensitive China net crude imports may moderate the upside to crude oil prices even if Mideast disruptions last longer. We continue to see greater price upside to European natural gas prices and deferred oil product prices in persistent disruption scenarios than for crude.”Readers by now understand that the energy crisis is not necessarily in crude oil but, in fact, in refined products, with the U.S. diesel crack spread trading at $93 per barrel Friday morning. The spread blew out last week, reaching a record above $100.
The takeaway from Goldman’s Struyven is that, even though the critical waterway has not fully reopened, a growing fleet of dark tankers is transiting the strait and defying Iran’s blockade. That raises the question we have asked in recent weeks: Is Iran’s geopolitical leverage over the Strait of Hormuz eroding? Overnight, Trump posted an image on Truth Social depicting the Strait of Hormuz as “New U.S. Territory.”

In late March, we cited a note from Zoltan Pozsar’s advisory firm, Ex Uno Plures, pointing out that Trump was “methodically building a portfolio of assets” to pressure China, including adding the Strait of Hormuz (read here). The question is whether Trump will stop at Hormuz or embark on another crusade in the Gulf and take Iran’s Kharg Island. This newly minted portfolio also includes Venezuela, where the U.S. is nearing a deal to secure long-term energy-producing assets in the country.

They only have to look -enough- like mines, and sailors will avoid them.

“.., 200 mine-like objects were cleared from the main shipping lane, but only around 11 were actual mines.”

• Iran Mined the Strait of Hormuz With… Trash Bags? (Stephen Green)

“If Iran mined the Strait of Hormuz, how come we haven’t seen any ships sunk or damaged by mines?” Good question. The answer seems to be less that ships veered away from mines and more that Tehran was largely bluffing with the mine threat, but the details — once again — veer straight into absurdity. Before we talk about questionable deployments and the bit about the trash bags (really!), a few words on mine warfare. Actually, I can start with just two words: It sucks.

Mines are easy to deploy, and difficult and dangerous to get rid of. They’re the ultimate waterway nuisance weapon, because just the threat of them can slow down or even halt shipping, and tie up valuable resources. And we never, ever have enough minesweepers. Back during the Cold War, we let our NATO allies deal with much of the Soviet mining threat, while our Navy focused more on ship and submarine threats to the sea lanes to Europe across the Atlantic. But then we won the Cold War, and our NATO allies let their minesweeping capabilities atrophy. If you’re wondering whether we stepped up our minesweeping game in response…
…yeah, no. But I digress, if only slightly. And Another Thing: During World War II against Japan in the Pacific, we launched a naval and mine warfare campaign to cut off Japan’s maritime trade in an effort to starve the Empire into submission. It was called Operation Starvation, and it was frighteningly effective. It’s the kind of thing our military can do when our idiot politicians remember to let them off the leash.
Tehran well knows that we don’t have enough minesweepers — and so does the rest of the world. The guys who own and captain multibillion-dollar tankers are perhaps painfully aware, which is one yuge reason why shipping through Hormuz slowed to a trickle after Tehran announced it was mining the strait back in March. “They’re firing on commercial ships, and they’ve mined large segments of Hormuz — international waters,” Secretary of State Marco Rubio told the Senate Foreign Relations Committee on June 2. “What they’re doing is unlawful and illegal,” Rubio said.
I’m a Rubio guy, but I don’t put much stock in statements like that last one. What’s “lawful and legal” is usually determined by the winner after the fact. What’s maybe the more pertinent question is what, exactly, did Tehran actually do to the Strait of Hormuz? Iran Watcher reported Friday that the “Hormuz minefield was largely a bluff built on decoys, while even the real mines were reportedly poorly deployed.”
“According to reporting cited by CNBC’s Brian Sullivan, shipowners said many suspected mines were decoys, including inflated trash bags,” the IW post continued. “Separate reporting citing U.S. officials said more than 200 mine-like objects were cleared from the main shipping lane, but only around 11 were actual mines.” What was I just saying about how tricky — or is that tricksy? — mine warfare is? “A small number of real mines mixed with decoys frightened shipowners, drove up war-risk insurance, and helped choke commercial traffic.” But that’s changing.
Traffic through Hormuz reportedly was up something like 400% over just two weeks — and that data is a week old. I wonder how much of that is due to the heroic efforts of our armed forces, and how much is due to shippers realizing that the mine threat turned out to be all bark and no boom. It also makes you wonder about Tehran’s recent boast of having doubled or even tripled drone production.

London and Brussels won’t like this.

• Trump Outright Dismisses Notion Putin Preparing To Attack A NATO State (ZH)

President Trump has added fuel to the fire of controversy and speculation over the question of why CIA Director John Ratcliffe made a surprise and highly rare trip to Moscow on Tuesday. Media accounts which seek to explain the nature of his meeting with top Kremlin intelligence officials, while apparently being snubbed by Putin in terms of a direct interaction, have shifted in days since the visit. The early ‘consensus’ was that he delivered a stern warning for Russia not to attack any NATO state. But President Trump has poured cold water on this explanation, appearing to dismiss it outright in his latest comments.

REPORTER: Did Ratcliffe delivered a warning to Russia not to attack NATO territory during his trip?

US PRESIDENT TRUMP: Well, I don't wanna comment on that, but they're not going to attack NATO. pic.twitter.com/TbAvq8NUJR
— Status-6 (War & Military News) (@Archer83Able) August 27, 2026

“I’ve had good talks with him. He’s not going to be attacking a NATO territory,” Trump said of Putin on Thursday while talking to reporters in the Oval Office. Trump didn’t answer specifically when pressed on if the president directed Ratcliffe to deliver a warning to Putin to not attack NATO. “I don’t want to comment on that but they’re not going to attack,” Trump said. While many times over the course of the Ukraine war, European heads of state have claimed that Russia is expansionist and seeks to attack countries in Europe beyond Ukraine, this has not ever been a public allegation of Trump, who has tended to downplay it as a possibility.
Trump did deny the reports centered on Ratcliffe in an interview with Axios Thursday, saying “Ratcliffe sees his Russian counterpart once every six months or once every year. They have a very good relationship. There was no message and there was nothing unusual.” And when asked over whether he’s concerned that Putin might attack NATO or deeper inside Europe, Trump replied, “I am not concerned … at all. There is no problem.” According to more: The president called Ratcliffe’s trip “standard business” and expressed puzzlement over the media accounts of it.
But the reality is that no CIA director has made such a trip in well over four years. The prior time was November 2021, when then-CIA Director William Burns traveled to Moscow to meet with senior Russian officials and issued a stark warning against invading Ukraine. It was also highly unexpected in terms of timing, given the stalemated nature of the Ukraine conflict, and the fact that zero peace negotiations are happening. There has not even so much as been any efforts at achieving a short-term ceasefire, akin to last year’s Christmas truce.
Trump in the Oval on Thursday declaring confidently that no, the Russians are not going to attack NATO: One theory on the motive for Ratcliffe’s trip, which has gained traction among independent analysts, is that it was focused on the Iran war amid allegations from US officials that Russia has assisted Tehran with targeting information on US troop and base whereabouts in the Mideast region.
At times throughout Operation Epic Fury, Tehran appears to have even targeted CIA stations. The bulk of American military assets and bases in the Gulf countries have suffered severe damage earlier in the conflict, resulting in a Pentagon troop drawback to safer areas. This is indeed a big deal if it is the case that Russia or China (or both) have handed the Iranians intel to help push back American bases and forces.

“. . . the worse they become, the more they blame you for it.” —El Gato Malo on the Lefty-left

• Welcome to FAFOland (James Howard Kunstler)

As the Democratic Party pulls out all the stops to make itself ridiculous, their proxy warriors in the federal judiciary play chicken with the executive branch on sane, uniform standards for mail-in ballots. The Democrats don’t want sane, uniform standards for mail-in ballots because they are insane. They want to “defend Democracy” with mail-in ballot chaos. Democracy is their flabby rubric for any artifice or subterfuge that beats a path to power so they can continue their racketeering operations. Yes, it’s that simple.

The president issued executive order (EO) 14399 in March directing the Postmaster General to make rules for federal mail-in / absentee ballots where chaos and cheating have prevailed since the Covid prank was used to vastly expand mail-in voting. These new rules include a standard envelope with a bar code to establish a coherent, trackable chain-of-custody for each ballot. Mail-in ballots have become the preferred vehicle for voter fraud based on motor-voter registration of non-citizens, “harvesting” of untrackable ballots, drop-box stuffing, and vote-counting machine shenanigans.
The EO requires states to submit lists of their voters to whom they intend to send mail-in ballots. The USPS is ordered to transmit mail-in ballots only from qualified voters listed on the state rolls, that is, matching ballots to qualified voters at real mailing addresses. Twenty-four states have sued to block all this. They refuse to submit their state’s voter rolls to the USPS. The lawsuit landed magically in the Boston court of Democratic Party activist federal judge Indira Talwani, who has blocked, lifted, and re-blocked the EO — reversing her own decisions. In the course of all that, SCOTUS ruled that Judge Talwani made procedural errors.
The matter remains unresolved. The point of all the legal rigmarole is to delay action so as to invoke the Purcell principle (from SCOTUS, 2006, Purcell v. Gonzalez), which established a judicial protocol (not a statute) that federal courts should avoid changing election rules close to elections. In other words, it’s a judicial suggestion. The case involving the twenty-four states could return to SCOTUS, or SCOTUS could decline based on Purcell.
Meanwhile, Congress does not return to full session (with the Senate) until September 14. Chances are slim-to-zero that they will manage to pass the SAVE Act, or that its provisions would be allowed to apply to the midterm election if, somehow, they did pass it. This leaves the president with only one option: to issue a National Security (NatSec) Executive Order to provide for coherent election procedure. That might include the provisions in the SAVE Act — voter ID, proof of citizenship — but could even go further to ban computerized tabulation machines, greatly restrict absentee ballots, and require results within twenty-four hours of one-only election day. Maybe even place ICE agents at polling places . . . the horror!
Such a NatSec EO would be immune from lawsuits in the federal court. On January 6, 2017 outgoing Homeland Security Sec’y Jeh Johnson (Obama admin) declared election infrastructure a critical part of government facilities “vital to our national interests.” In September, 2018, President Trump declared a national emergency (EO 13848) over the threat of foreign interference in US elections. Under the National Emergencies Act of 1976 (50 U.S.C. § 1622), a two-thirds majority in both houses of Congress is necessary to overturn such an EO. That September 2018 national emergency declaration was continued officially by “Joe Biden” and remains in-force. Good luck with that, Democrats.
Okay, so what happens then, when Mr. Trump invokes that NatSec EO on emergency election procedure sometime in mid-September after Congress fails? I will tell you: a constitutional crisis. The Democratic-led blue states will refuse to participate in the election. Yeah, they’ll go that far — because they are insane.
The president will respond forcefully, invoking the federal Supremacy Clause of the U.S. Constitution (Article VI, Clause 2), which states that federal law avails over the states. States can’t nullify or contradict it. The president might have to arrest some Democratic governors and hasten them into special military courts on insurrection charges. Henceforth, this will be known as the FAFO protocol.
Will there be riots? Probably, though just now Treasury Secretary Bessent is apparently considering the termination of tax exemptions — loss of 501(c)(3) status — for George Soros’s Open Society Foundations, the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR), and the Southern Poverty Law Center, and others who finance street actions by the Lefty-left. No money for snack shacks, water bottles, and Froggie costumes.
Will the country survive the trauma? I think so. The election will be held one way or another, even if it’s a month late. If anything, the midterm election might be the tombstone of the Democratic Party. The way things are tending, they’ve got nothing left but insurrection, and that’s probably not a winning move. Mr. Trump apparently loves renaming things geographical. Maybe he can change the USA to FAFOland.

“Despite criticism of a potentially lighter touch by DHS Secretary Markwayne Mullin, the numbers show that enforcement operations have only gone up. “

• ICE Arrests Nearly 50k Suspected Illegals In July Despite Complaints (JTN)

As Trump administration detractors continue protesting, blocking traffic and decrying “cruelty,” ICE last month quietly arrested nearly 50,000 people – the highest monthly total of Trump’s second term. The protests keep coming as the numbers keep climbing. Outrage, it turns out, is not a policy. Speaking about the $2,600 stipend given to illegal immigrants to voluntarily return to their home country, Tricia McLaughlin told Just The News, “I don’t think that there is a country in history that’s been so generous.”

McLaughlin, who served as the assistant secretary of public affairs at the Department of Homeland Security, continued, “So I’m so thrilled to see that the Trump administration continues to be successful, and we know we have two more years that we can continue to get these 10 to 15 million illegal aliens out of the country.” On Thursday, the administration announced that Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) made 49,571 arrests in July, the highest monthly total of President Donald Trump’s second term, according to agency data provided to the Deportation Data Project and analyzed by the Associated Press.
That was a 15% jump from 43,021 arrests in June and a 70% increase from 29,241 in February, after earlier city raids and fatal encounters in Minnesota sparked protests and a potentially souring public opinion on deportations. ICE reported more than 350,000 removals in fiscal 2026 through mid-July, putting the agency on pace to exceed recent annual totals. For the duration of Trump’s second term through the present, total removals now sit in a range of roughly 500,000 to nearly 900,000, depending on whether voluntary departures and other returns are included, according to both independent analyses and DHS statements.
Controversy led to efficiency
Detention bookings have exceeded 610,000 since Trump’s second-term inauguration. Large demonstrations erupted last summer after ICE raids in Los Angeles, drawing solidarity protests in multiple cities and criticism from Democratic officials who called the operations intimidation. Nationwide No Kings rallies in October 2025 reportedly drew millions. Smaller ICE Out protests, school walkouts and vigils have continued into 2026, often organized by immigrant-rights groups, Indivisible chapters and socialist organizations. Elected Democrats have joined some marches and accused the administration of targeting people without criminal records.
Then, after January’s fatal ICE-involved shootings in Minnesota sparked protests and a dip in arrests, Homeland Security Secretary Markwayne Mullin shifted toward lower-profile tactics. Operations moved away from televised city raids toward traffic stops, immigration check-ins, courthouse arrests and partnerships with state and local police. During Mullin’s Senate confirmation hearing earlier this year, he pledged to keep ICE out of the news headlines and said, “I do believe there is a better approach. … There is an approach that can happen, but we need partners.”
As a result, the figures show that enforcement has continued to rise even after the administration has reportedly shifted from high-profile urban operations to quieter tactics and partnerships with local police.Texas and Florida, which rely heavily on 287(g) agreements that allow for joint operations between ICE and state and local law enforcement accounted for a large share of July 2026 arrests. ICE also began focusing on individuals whose temporary protections, including Haitian Temporary Protective Status (TPS), had been revoked. Hiring continued, detention capacity expanded and arrests rebounded to record levels.
The inception of the largest deportation operation in history Upon entering office in 2025, Trump signed executive orders declaring a border emergency, expanding expedited removal nationwide and lifting Biden-era limits on interior enforcement. Officials set daily arrest targets that rose from 1,200 to as high as 3,000, directed ICE to operate at courthouses, workplaces and previously sensitive locations, and poured billions into hiring and detention beds.
High-profile operations began in cities including Los Angeles, Chicago and Minneapolis, as the administration also rapidly expanded 287(g) partnerships that deputize local police for immigration duties. Arrests more than quadrupled from late-Biden levels within months as the focus shifted from the border to people already living inside the country.

She’ll sell out to the highest bidder.

• AOC Reconnects With DSA As Socialist Tide Rises In The Democratic Party (JTN)

After she was first elected to the House of Representatives, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez allowed her membership in the Democratic Socialists of America (DSA) to lapse. But now, with the DSA’s recent electoral successes across the country generating new clout within the Democratic Party, the New York lawmaker has thrown her hat in the ring once again, with her eyes possibly fixed on higher office. This week, the national DSA confirmed to its own members that Ocasio-Cortez, who is a member of the Democratic Party, had once again become a “member in good standing” of the socialist organization.

“Previously, the representative joined DSA in 2018 with a one-year membership, which DSA’s national leadership recently noticed had lapsed, in 2019. She has since renewed her membership as of this month,” the DSA wrote in a message to its members. Ocasio-Cortez’s relationship with the DSA has been complicated. She has been a fixture of the New York City chapter, by far the organization’s largest and most influential branch, even as her membership in the national organization lapsed. Since 2024, Ocasio-Cortez has been endorsed by NYC-DSA, but not the national organization, according to City & State New York, which first reported her renewed membership.
The national DSA said it only became aware of the seven-year lapse after Ocasio-Cortez described herself publicly as a member of the New York City chapter specifically, rather than the national organization, a distinction that prompted national leadership to review her status internally. Ocasio-Cortez’s decision to formally rejoin the organization comes as its members wage an internal struggle over whether to endorse the lawmaker as its preferred presidential candidate in the fast-approaching Democratic primary. The New York chapter is reportedly at the forefront of efforts to push the wider organization to back her.
On Wednesday, NYC-DSA posted a photo of its leadership–chapter co-chairs Grace Mausser, Gustavo Gordillo and Jeremy Cohan–alongside Rep. Ocasio-Cortez. “While we get ready to send a whole new generation of socialists to Congress, NYC-DSA co-chairs & leaders caught up with our first socialist in federal office: @AOC. Democratic socialism is the future,” NYC-DSA posted to X. However, the DSA at large has become intensely divided over Ocasio-Cortez’s suitability as the organization’s flag bearer in the Democratic primary.
For example, the DSA’s Liberation Caucus, a Maoist faction of the group, last week “condemn[ed] Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez’s continued retreat from socialist politics and rejects any effort to present her as the future presidential standard-bearer for DSA …” Just the News reported. The group specifically cited the lawmakers’ vote for a bill that defended Israel’s right to exist and for meeting with leaders from the Jewish Council for Public Affairs. “In short, it was determined that she had failed to meet conditions concerning Palestine solidarity,” the Liberation Caucus said.
The national DSA itself withdrew its standing endorsement of Ocasio-Cortez last year for failing to vote to block $500 million in funding for Israel’s Iron Dome missile defense system while praising Rep. Rashida Tlaib, a DSA member, who voted to do so. But, as the DSA has vaulted itself into national prominence, first by Mayor Zohran Mamdani’s blockbuster campaign to win New York City’s mayor’s office and then by the organization’s unprecedented success in congressional primaries across the country, many of its leaders have mulled rehabilitating Ocasio-Cortez, seeing her as the group’s best chance to back a presidential candidate.
At the DSA’s national convention last month in Chicago, its members debated whether the organization should formally endorse a presidential candidate for the first time in 2028, with Ocasio-Cortez’s name circulating as the likeliest beneficiary, The Washington Post reported. DSA’s national leadership remains divided on the question, and the organization does not plan to begin a formal presidential endorsement process until early next year, leaving months of internal debate ahead before any commitment is made.
That divide reflects a broader tension in the relationship: Ocasio-Cortez has shown little appetite for embracing DSA’s more sweeping structural positions. Pressed by reporters last month on the organization’s push to abolish the U.S. Senate, she distanced herself from the proposal, calling it “a constitutional question” and arguing the chamber needs substantial reform rather than elimination. Asked directly whether she was angling for any endorsement, she told reporters she wasn’t currently running for any office. “I could run for dog catcher. So I think any situation is hypothetical,” she said.
Still, DSA’s national profile has grown considerably over the past year, buoyed in large part by Zohran Mamdani’s victory in the New York City mayoral race, which drew an influx of volunteers and national attention to the organization’s electoral machine. Democratic Party leadership, initially resistant, ultimately endorsed Mamdani after his win, even as national Democrats spent much of 2026 working to blunt the momentum of similarly DSA-aligned candidates in races elsewhere.
That expanding footprint, paired with a string of primary wins by DSA-backed candidates in several House districts, has raised the organization’s profile within Democratic politics heading into the midterms. Bolstered by the primary successes, the DSA went on a media blitz to share their vision for America. The group has not been shy about its radical vision, which includes policies like abolishing the senate, heavily restricting private markets, and abolishing police and prisons.
Establishment Democrats have sounded the alarm, warning that the DSA’s growing prominence within the party and policy proposals could spell electoral disaster. Democratic leaders have specifically accused DSA-affiliated candidates of exploiting the party’s ballot access to boost its own candidates at the expense of traditional Democrats, Just the News previously reported.

On our way to a US president named Muhammad.

• Abdul El-Sayed and the Piker Problem (Turley)

There was a curious moment this week when Michigan Senate nominee Abdul El-Sayed expressed shock that people were asking him about a “streamer in California” as he campaigns for the Senate in Michigan. That streamer is, of course, Hasan Piker. Despite El-Sayed’s disbelief, the questions stemmed from the fact that he brought Piker from California to campaign with him in Michigan and embraced him despite condemnations of Piker’s virulent antisemitism and violent rhetoric. However, the problem goes far deeper, as El-Sayed distances himself from views he has previously voiced.

It turns out that there are consequences to campaigning with a man who mocked the murder of a past critic and said that the United States deserved 9/11 (including responding to criticism of Piker in the primary by embracing him on election night at a rally). El-Sayed is not the only Democrat trying to get the media to stop asking him about his association.
Standing in front of a giant campaign billboard for El-Sayed, Rep. Debbie Dingell (D., Mich.) shot back at those asking about his association with a raving lunatic: “I am DONE. So don’t any reporter ask me again about Hasan Piker.” What is distressing is how many reporters will dutifully obey the command. Dingell added, “They’re trying to divide us, and we’ve got to stop letting them try to divide us.” However, it is not divisive for your Senate candidate to campaign with a raging antisemite who says that the United States deserved 9-11 and that Jews are asking to be attacked.
The problem for Dingell and others is not so easily resolved by commanding a supportive media to not ask about Piker, who recently said on his podcast that Jews are asking to be attacked if they openly support Israel. The problem is that El-Sayed has voiced equally disturbing and analogous views. El-Sayed was criticized for his response after a man attacked a Michigan synagogue in March. After condemning the attack, El-Sayed added that the Israeli military killed some of the attacker’s family in Lebanon, saying “hurt people hurt people.”
It sounds a bit like Jews are asking to be attacked. El-Sayed has also drawn criticism for declining repeatedly to answer whether Israel has a right to exist during a CNN interview in June. Much like Piker, El-Sayed has also engaged in violent rhetoric, promisung to “choke out” Republicans and referring to moderates like Pennsylvania Sen. John Fetterman (D) as ogres to have their heads cut off and put on pikes.
Refusing to answer questions about the association with Piker does not answer El-Sayed’s own views that align him with Piker. Ironically, all the attention to Piker has drawn attention away from El-Sayed’s own views. El-Sayed has extreme views that go beyond his position toward Israel and include wealth taxes, reparations, and radical changes to our constitutional system.
I grew up in a liberal, politically active Democratic family in Chicago. I no longer recognize that party today, including its anti-free-speech elements. Saying that you are a “Big Tent party” does not answer the question of whether the party stands for anything other than regaining power. There has to be some defining element to a party beyond power. El-Sayed is that defining moment.

Literally incredible.

• Two-Year Jail Term For Flying National Flags (MN)

Britain’s largest local authority has gone to the High Court to stop people hanging the Union Flag and the St George’s Cross from lampposts, with campaigners warning that a breach could mean up to two years behind bars. Birmingham City Council filed the application this week as the latest move in a year-long war on “unauthorised attachments.” The attachments in question are the flags of the country. The penalties being threatened include prison, unlimited fines, and seized assets.

Protesters who fly the Union Jack from lampposts could criminal proceedings if the injunction is granted. Former Metropolitan Police detective Peter Bleksley called it what it is. “It’s absolutely scandalous!” The Free Speech Union described the move as “truly mental.”

This is truly mental.

Birmingham City Council has applied for an injunction that could result in people who fly the Union Jack from lampposts being jailed for up to two years.

Threatening people with prison for displaying their national flag is a direct assault on freedom of… https://t.co/5kJdBCU1gv
— The Free Speech Union (@SpeechUnion) August 26, 2026

A year ago the same city was already ripping the colours down and calling it safety. Residents put them back up. The council has now decided a High Court order is the way to finish the job. On 26 August the council announced it had submitted an injunction application “as part of our ongoing work to prohibit unauthorised attachments on the highway, including flags and banners.” Green councillor Jane Baston, cabinet member for equalities, communities and social justice, said: “The Council is taking a lawful, proportionate and evidence-led approach to unauthorised attachments on the highway. This includes pursuing injunctive action based on the evidence gathered to date.”
She added: “Our priority is to protect public safety, staff and contractor welfare, community cohesion and the responsible use of public funds. We ask residents and community groups to support this approach and to ensure any displays are placed only where permission exists.” The authority insists the action “is not directed at any particular community, belief or viewpoint.” It says the installation and reinstallation of flags has had an impact on the public, and that officers have “witnessed incidents that have involved harassment, intimidation or obstruction during removal activity.”
The named targets give the game away. The application lists Raise the Colours co-founder Ryan Bridge, plus others associated with the campaign. Raise the Colours said it had not received or reviewed the papers and could not comment on the application. The group rejected “any suggestion that we are seeking to divide communities,” and describes itself as a “grassroots movement for unity and patriotism.”The nationwide campaign by the group to put the England flag back on the street is widely reported to have started in Birmingham last summer. The council spent the following year treating that campaign as a highways nuisance.
Now it wants a judge to make the nuisance a city-wide prohibition.Anti-flag campaigners in the city have been lobbying for exactly this. Brummies United Against Racism and Hate Crime applauded the legal bid, spoke of “thuggish behaviour,” and framed the flags as an attempt to “harass and intimidate residents of our proudly multicultural city.” So the national flag is an attachment. Opposition to it is cohesion. And a bankrupt council that spent more than a year failing to collect the bins has found the money and the energy to take patriotism to the Royal Courts of Justice.
Birmingham is taking a page from the book of Liberal Democrat-run Oxfordshire County Council, who won the first injunction of its kind, barring unidentified people from attaching England or Union flags to highway structures or painting flag imagery on roads.Council leader Tim Bearder celebrated. “This is a welcome judgement. We’re very pleased with the result,” he said, adding: “This sets a legal precedent and will hopefully deter people in not just Oxfordshire but around the country from partaking in this criminal activity.”
He described those putting the flags up as “very challenging people, not patriots.”Oxfordshire spent about £80,000 taking flags down and another £40,000 on lawyers, costs it said it intended to recover. Staff removing flags were said to have faced hostility so serious that some were told to wear face coverings and check vehicles for tracking devices after a worker’s home address was published.

Paul Craig Roberts touches on two themes: Ireland..

• Ireland Deleted (Paul Craig Roberts)

Evidence is plentiful that Ireland as an Irish nation has ceased to exist. Geographically, a country still remains, but it is not Irish. It is a multicultural tower of babel, one created by the Irish themselves.

University College Dublin has a School of Social Justice that grants Ph.D. degrees in Equality Studies, which alone shows how far Ireland has progressed into non-existence. One such graduate, an immigrant-invader from Nigeria, is the Irish government’s Special Rapporteur on Racial Equality and Racism. On a recent news broadcast she said that “we,” by which she meant immigrant-invaders, “have inherited this island,” and she urged Ireland to let go of their language. “We need teachers who don’t have to speak Irish.”
The panel of five women included three immigrant-invaders and two Irish ethnics, both of whom agreed with the immigrant-invaders that Ireland is no longer an Irish nation. The rapid replacement of white ethnics in the countries of the West has created belated awareness of The Camp of the Saints. In commenting on the Irish government official’s remark that it is time for Ireland to abandon its language, Bill Ponton observed:
“Jean Raspail got it right in The Camp of the Saints (1973), a political allegory about mass migration, Western guilt, and the collapse of a society’s willingness to defend its own institutions and identity. Raspail’s argument is that a civilization can destroy itself when it ceases to believe that it has a legitimate right to preserve its borders, culture, and way of life. In Raspail’s telling, the decisive weakness comes from inside the culture rather than from the migrants themselves.”

“I had no idea how feminized Irish politics had become.”:”

• Fair Irish Maidens (Bill Ponton)

I know that I can be oblivious to fashion trends until they surround me. Such was the case recently sitting on a beach when I noticed that every woman who walked by was covered with enough tattoos to earn her a spot in a carnival sideshow. The same thing occurred when I watched this video. I had no idea how feminized Irish politics had become. I was under the impression that Irish culture retained some masculinity. I guess it changed over the course of time.

There is a lot to say about this video, but the most prominent feature is the vocal Nigerian woman minister telling everyone on the panel to get over it because she and her kind were here to stay. It was even more distasteful having an Irish woman sit next to her with a look of bovine stupidity on her face nodding in agreement. Ireland’s centuries-long struggle for independence is to be forfeited to sub-Saharan migrants because the black Irish diversity czar dictates it. I had to ask myself why car bombs weren’t going off in front of every government ministry.
I know the answer to my question. The Irish men, like their counterparts in the EU, UK, Canada, and a good chunk of the USA, have been emasculated. With woke women and eunuchs in charge, everyone else is along for the ride. One that includes inviting in and providing for everyone in the third world who can make their way to your shore.
Jean Raspail got it right in The Camp of the Saints (1973), a political allegory about mass migration, Western guilt, and the collapse of a society’s willingness to defend its own institutions and identity. Raspail’s argument is that a civilization can destroy itself when it ceases to believe that it has a legitimate right to preserve its borders, culture, and way of life. In Raspail’s telling, the decisive weakness comes from inside the culture rather than from the migrants themselves.
So, like the colorful tattoos that have sprouted up in our midst like an infestation of crab grass or lice, I guess that I should get used to further lectures from Nigerian ministers with odd-looking hairdos.

.. and Huck Finn.

Huck says ‘nigger’.

A lot.

Of course today’s PC crowd can’t take that.

• A Disintegrating Tower of Babel (Paul Craig Roberts)

On August 24 the New York Times asked if we should read Mark Twain’s book, Huckleberry Finn? The writer, Sam Sifton, gives pros and cons. Sifton says that reading the book in prep school in NY City made him uncomfortable because the racial slur “nigger” appears more than 200 times. On the other hand, he quotes the literary critic Ruth Franklin who says the novel should still be taught because it is uniquely able to convey the structures of racism embedded in American society.

In other words, it is another weapon in the white liberal’s arsenal to prove that America is racist as the NY Times 1619 Project maintains. Notice that for Sifton and Franklin, the proof of racism is the use of the word “nigger.” As is universal among white people today, the use of this word imputes racism. This false imputation shows the ignorance of white people who have never lived among blacks, as Southern people have.
Black Americans were commonly present in our homes, as Hispanics are today in many American homes. They helped with household cleaning, with meal preparation, with caring for and raising children. You don’t employ people in these intimate roles whom you despise. Anyone who has ever lived among blacks, at least in the South, knows that “nigger” is the term they use to address one another. When white people used the term, it was just an act of using black Americans own language. If the term “nigger” is derogatory, why do black Americans use it to refer to one another?
When I was growing up, “nigger” was regarded as a term used by black Americans indicating familiarity. We were instructed to use more formal terms such as “colored person” or “negro,” both being terms used by negro organizations at the time. As I recall, the problem of a white person using “nigger” was that it was an assertion of familiarity that was limited to the race. In the 1980s and 1990s I relied on a black American woman to help run my household and to help raise a child. Her husband had a career as a US Army Sargent, and she was a formidable character. She called all of her relatives and friends “nigger.”
Huckleberry Finn was published in 1884. By the 1980s “nigger” was a forbidden word, worse than the F-word. I questioned Vivian. She said, “that’s just what we call each other.” Recently I heard from a reader who said he had just heard several black Americans referring to one another as “niggers.” The reader was astonished, because he knew if he used the word in reference to a black American it would be considered hate speech and would have consequences for him. He said that race now determined what words you could use. This shows how false is the racist paradigm of America created by white liberals.
My lifelong experience with white liberals is that they are overflowing with their moral superiority. They see themselves as free of racism, which they tried to limit to Southern whites. But having taught racial hatred, their students include all whites as racists. The white northern liberals are ensnared in the concept of “aversive racism.” They are ensnared in the NY Times “1619 Project,” which says America was racist long before there were any Southern cotton plantations. The racist interpretation of America is a false narrative. It has created racial disunity between black and white Americans, and has helped to transform America into a disintegrating Tower of Babel.

I readTom Sawyeras a kid. Later I picked up a series of books of Twain talking about life on the Mississippi. Love the man.

• Let’s talk about “Huckleberry Finn” (Sam Sifton)

People have been calling Mark Twain’s “Adventures of Huckleberry Finn” a great American novel for more than a century. Ernest Hemingway said that this story of a young white boy and an enslaved Black man floating on a raft down the Mississippi River was the very root of all American literature. “There was nothing before,” he wrote. “There has been nothing as good since.”

Did you read “Huck Finn” when you were young? I did, a long time ago at a fancy prep school in New York City, and if there were any discussions of the racial slur that shows up in it more than 200 times, I don’t recall them. The book was cast as satire, an important commentary on the horror of slavery, a meditation on compassion and irony. It sure was uncomfortable, though, when the teacher had us read passages from the book aloud.
Beware! In 2026, many students are upset by the slurs, and many educators are wary of a book that uses them and that could lead to job-endangering conversations, so they simply don’t assign it. For The New York Times Magazine today, the literary critic Ruth Franklin asks how — or whether — the novel should still be taught. She quotes a Twain scholar who compares “Huck Finn” to fugu, a Japanese fish so potentially poisonous that sushi chefs must acquire a license to serve it. “If it’s prepared right, it’s phenomenal,” the scholar said. “If it’s taught wrong, it can be toxic.”
So what might it mean, Franklin asks, for “Huck Finn” to be prepared right? Her answer, in part: “Over the past few years, I’ve been speaking to teachers and students who believe that “Huck Finn” still has a necessary place in the classroom, because it is uniquely able both to convey the structures of racism embedded in American society and to model how prejudice can be overcome. The book provides its own master class in critical thinking; as Toni Morrison wrote in an admiring introduction to the 1996 Oxford edition, “The brilliance of ‘Huck Finn’ is that it is the argument it raises.”
That word, though! “No student wants to hear it,” one college professor told Franklin. “It’s a form of violence.” And hear it they do. Franklin spent some time in a private school in Washington, D.C., where Samantha Goodwin, a white teacher, brought up Huck’s derogatory language about Black people in one of her classes: I could see the discomfort on some students’ faces. Finally, a white student responded. “It’s supposed to anger you,” he said.
“You feel like Huck has been taught that Black people aren’t human.” “You’re speaking nicely to the power of Huck as narrator,” Goodwin responded. “He doesn’t have the ability to take the next step and say: ‘Wait a second. Why did I believe that?’ But we get angry.” Which is fugu, I guess, prepared correctly: experiencing the novel emotionally while also appraising its critique of racism, and how that critique might fall short today. It matters when novels get us angry — and when they make us think.

An illustration of Jim and Huck by E.W. Kemble, from the 1885 first American edition of the book.

Yes, but …
Franklin worries that such an approach isn’t really scalable, at least outside elite schools. “It’s easy to see how the social dynamics could spin out of control in a classroom led by a teacher with less experience or skill or fewer resources,” she writes.
Moreover, it’s not as if all students will come around to understanding the value of the novel anyway. At the end of every school year, Goodwin, the Washington teacher, asks her students in an anonymous survey whether the novel should continue to be taught. Some say no. “It’s just racist,” one of them responded.
In 2011, one publisher printed an edition of the novel that omitted the slur. Black and white academics debated its merit for The Times’s opinion pages that year. Paul Butler, a Black law professor, recalled suffering through “Huck Finn” in high school and listening to his teacher’s tortured explanations of how the slur didn’t really mean the slur, “or meant it ironically, or historically, or symbolically,” he wrote. “Whatever. I could live my whole life fine if I never read that book again.”

https://twitter.com/MAGAVoice/status/2093443300158312897?s=20

The most powerful moving object ever made by humans https://t.co/1lfTGitGjx
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) August 29, 2026

Elon Musk was asked how fast AI is moving…

He answered by telling the most aggressive forecaster in tech he wasn't aggressive enough.

Musk: "I have to give credit to Ray Kurzweil in being actually remarkably accurate in his predictions. If anything, I think he was perhaps a… pic.twitter.com/WcNmwrSfVS
— AI Evolution (@AiEvolutio58513) August 27, 2026

https://twitter.com/MarioNawfal/status/2093187352092926204?s=20

Just gonna leave this here pic.twitter.com/9clweefg6s
— Nic Cruz Patane (@niccruzpatane) August 27, 2026

Tesla Cybercabs have officially gone Unsupervised in Austin, TX!

Cybercabs are now driving around the city without anyone in the vehicle. No steering wheel, no pedals.

LETS GO! pic.twitter.com/YoG2QiVa8c
— Nic Cruz Patane (@niccruzpatane) August 29, 2026

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Debt Rattle April 15 2026

Apr 152026

April 15, 2026 Posted by Raúl Ilargi Meijer at 9:25 am Finance Tagged with: Boasberg, FBI, Helmer, Holocaust, Iran, Ireland, Lincoln, Mamdani, MDCP, patriots, Pope Leo, Swalwell, Tulsi 74 Responses »

Thomas Cole The Course of Empire – Destruction 1836

• Over 20 US-Approved Ships Pass Through Hormuz (ZH)

• U.S. Says Israel and Lebanon Agree to More Peace Talks (New York Times)

• The Money in the Background of the Iran Conflict (CTH)

• Blood, Money, and The Trump Dynasty – Iran Shows How To Fight (Helmer)

• All in All, It’s Just Another Brick in the Wall Around China (Stephen Green)

• Appeals Court Terminates Criminal Contempt Proceedings Against Trump Admin (ET)

• FBI “Is Reviewing Closely New Allegations On Ukraine Impeachment Accuser” (JTN)

• Johnny Didn’t Bark – But Tulsi Did (CTH)

• Irish Patriots are Fighting Back (J.B. Shurk)

• Eric Swalwell and the Fall of a Made Man (Turley)

• Mamdani Pledges to Open First City-Run Store (Tuirley)

• American Pope Leo Has a Massive Case of TDS (Rick Moran)

• ‘Unwavering Commitment’ to Fight Hatred (Salgado)

• Remembering the Faith of Lincoln on the Anniversary of His Death (Tom Griffin)

https://twitter.com/_Postive_Vibes/status/2043732003951129020?s=20 https://twitter.com/ColorApril/status/2043807069581537616?s=20

BOMBSHELL: CIA Director John Ratcliffe REVEALS that John Brennan, James Comey and Hillary Clinton are headed for AN INDICTMENT over the Russia Collusion Hoax.

The SPYING, LYING and ELECTION RIGGING MUST END pic.twitter.com/7ixE1Bv2vc
— Liz Churchill (@liz_churchill10) April 13, 2026

CIA Director John Ratcliffe: “Adam Schiff covertly conspired with the fake whistleblower Eric Ciaramella in an attempt to overthrow the sitting President.” (2025)

The Inspector General CONFIRMED it.

Tulsi declassified the memos TODAY.

THIS COVER UP IS OVER pic.twitter.com/bo6OW0qRae
— Liz Churchill (@liz_churchill10) April 13, 2026

I love that Trump and JFK Jr. were good friends. pic.twitter.com/LtbV5bhiW9
— Mila Joy (@Milajoy) April 14, 2026

I was looking for coverage of why the US insists on a 20-year moratorium, and sees 5 years as too little.

When Trump said he wanted 100% (Jeffrey Sachs didn’t get it), this is what he meant.

“..such a timeframe is necessary to permanently limit Iran’s nuclear capabilities.”

• Over 20 US-Approved Ships Pass Through Hormuz (ZH)

5-Years vs. 20-Year Nuclear Moratorium

More info and color has been added in the wake of failed talks between the US and Iran in Pakistan, per The New York Times citing officials from both countries. Iran signaled Monday it would halt uranium enrichment for up to five years. The Trump administration rejected the offer, according to two senior Iranian officials and one US official who spoke to the Times. The US position, shaped in part by Vice President JD Vance, calls for a roughly 20-year suspension. Vance has argued such a timeframe is necessary to permanently limit Iran’s nuclear capabilities.
“The Iranians, in a formal response sent on Monday, said they would agree to up to five years, according to two senior Iranian officials and one U.S. official. Trump has rejected that offer, the U.S. official said,” writes NY Times. “The official said the U.S. has also asked Iran to remove highly enriched uranium from the country, and the Iranians have insisted the fuel stays inside Iran. But they have offered to dilute it significantly, so that it could not be used to produce a nuclear weapon,” the report adds.

Bits and pieces.

• U.S. Says Israel and Lebanon Agree to More Peace Talks (New York Times)

President Trump reiterated that Iran wanted to negotiate a deal, telling Maria Bartiromo of Fox News that the war was near its end. “I think it’s close to over, yeah, I mean I view it as very close to over,” he said when asked if the war had ended, speaking in a clip from the interview posted on Tuesday night. The president has previously indicated that the war was ending. In his address to the nation on April 1, he estimated that it should wind down within three weeks. His interview with Bartiromo is scheduled to air on the Fox Business channel on Wednesday morning.

[..] The U.S. military has completely stopped commercial traffic to and from Iranian ports, Adm. Brad Cooper, the Central Command leader, said late Tuesday. The blockade began on Monday but trackers showed several Iranian-linked vessels traveling through the Strait of Hormuz after that. It was unclear if those ships departed within a grace period. Intelligence experts have also observed ships using tactics to avoid detection in waters in and around the strait.
… uptick in ‘spoofing’ by ships near the Strait of Hormuz.
[..] Maritime intelligence experts are starting to see a new pattern of “shadow” activity in waters in and around the Strait of Hormuz since the United States naval blockade on vessels coming in and out of Iranian ports went into effect on Monday, suggesting that more ships seem to be adopting tactics to avoid detection than during the previous weeks of war.“Now, we are starting to see vessels going dark or using ‘zombie’ or random identification,” said Ami Daniel, the chief executive of Windward, a maritime intelligence data provider, in an interview on Tuesday.
In the weeks after the American-Israeli attack on Iran in late February, Iranian exports went “uninterrupted” and had “almost no need to go off radar,” Mr. Daniel said. But in the past 24 hours, more ships appear to be manipulating the global system intended to keep tabs on vessel activity and traffic, suggesting that some vessels linked to Iran are being “a bit more cautious,” he said. Under international maritime law, most large commercial vessels must travel with a transponder that automatically transmits the ship’s name, location, route and other identifying information. That includes a 9-digit number with a country code, which serves as a digital fingerprint for a ship.
Vessels in Middle Eastern waters that are now trying to hide their location or are otherwise falsifying information are employing methods that have been perfected by Russian “shadow fleet” vessels evading sanctions related to the invasion of Ukraine in 2022, some experts say. “Shadow fleet tankers have been experimenting with stateless ID numbers,” said John C.K. Daly, a nonresident fellow at the Central Asia-Caucasus Institute in Washington who has been tracking Russian shadow ships. “What the Russians have been doing is altering the numbers.”
When a ship is engaged in “spoofing,” as the practice is known, its captain can type in a false origin or destination or can pretend to be piloting another ship altogether. Vessels can also temporarily turn off their transponders, seeming to disappear in one place and reappear in another, sometimes with altered data. This approach has enabled Russia to keep up its energy exports and finance its war, generating up to $100 billion a year. It appears that vessels linked to Iran are using similar methods now, experts say. Some ships have gone dark, while sanctioned and falsely flagged vessels seem to still be active, a Windward report on Tuesday noted.
“Under previous enforcement frameworks, including the December blockade of Venezuela, sanctioned and stateless tankers were primary targets for interdiction,” the report said. “The continued movement of similar vessel profiles indicates that operators are testing the practical limits of enforcement in real time.” By manipulating the global system meant to illuminate ship movements, so-called ghost or shadow vessels may compound confusion about the state of the Strait of Hormuz, even if in the end they cannot breach the American blockade.
“Right now, the strait is a contested information environment,” said Erik Bethel, a partner at Mare Liberum, a maritime technology venture capital fund. Detection-avoidance tricksmay make it harder for the Navy to identify boats for interdiction. “A blockade is only as strong as the intelligence behind the interdictions,” Mr. Bethel said.The maritime system is complex. A vessel may be owned by one country, leased to another and travel under a third country’s flag of convenience, Mr. Bethel said. That makes determining who is truly behind any given journey a “really hard thing to do.”
Maritime intelligence companies and militaries use an array of sources to stitch together information about vessels, including optical satellites, radar satellites and radio frequencies. They also collect information being transmitted by sailors, sometimes unwittingly, through their own personal technology, like Fitbits and cellphones. Still, whatever ruses they employ, vessels off Iran might only get so far. It is difficult to get out to the open ocean via a waterway as narrow as the Strait of Hormuz without being detected.
A U.S. official said that more than 12 American military vessels were stationed in international waters in the Gulf of Oman. And on Tuesday, United States Central Command said that six merchant vessels had complied with directions by radio from U.S. forces to turn around and re-enter Iranian ports. “My expectation is that the U.S. Navy can sit out in the Gulf of Oman,” Mr. Daniel of Windward said. “I don’t think there’s a way to breach the blockade.”

“.. Trump has forced a hidden imperial system into the open “

• The Money in the Background of the Iran Conflict (CTH)

Promethean Action Follows the Money in the Background of the Iran Conflict. A generally good summary into some of the financial issues happening in the background of the dire Straits of Hormuz. Susan Kokinda highlights UK Prime Minister Keir Starmer declining to join an American blockade and claims Britain has lost control of the choke point. She details financial actions targeting Iranian money flows, including UAE arrests of IRGC-linked money changers, Treasury Secretary Bessent using Patriot Act Section 311 against a Zurich bank, and scrutiny of London-based crypto exchanges and Santander UK. She cites a UK military chief admitting Britain’s war planning has lapsed since the Cold War and links fuel disruptions and protests to the conflict, concluding Trump has forced a hidden imperial system into the open.

Trump Names the Hidden War — Britain Has No Cards Left

Helmer lost track too. Iran has nothing left to fight with.

• Blood, Money, and The Trump Dynasty – Iran Shows How To Fight (Helmer)

In the world in which President Donald Trump plans his future and the presidential dynasty of his sons to succeed him, the gunman believes he can take away both lives and bribes. Unless the victim catches him by surprise, outgunning him and those of his allies who have paid the price of his protection. It’s blood for money. This is the new stage of Iran’s war. It is the stage which the Iranian and pro-Iranian post-mortem analyses of the Islamabad negotiations have not disclosed; the stage which the US and Israeli propaganda organs cannot comprehend; the stage which the Trump dynasty’s rivals are afraid of, Vice President JD Vance in front.

This stage of Iran’s war is also an example to President Vladimir Putin and President Xi Jinping of the futility of paying bribes, as their advisors tell them; and the vulnerability of Trump and his sons to political defeat at home. [..] In the Iranian account of the Islamabad negotiations, there was initial progress in the expert-level negotiations on release of Iranian assets and relief of trade and financial transfer sanctions. No detail has leaked or been disclosed officially by either side. The Iranian negotiator was Central Bank Governor, Naser Hemati. The Iranian pre-conditions – an Israeli ceasefire in Lebanon and release of Iranian assets blocked in Qatar – were partly fulfilled, partly glossed over.
A US attempt to send two destroyers into the Hormuz Strait boomeranged as a test of the IRGC’s readiness to open fire, and the vessels reversed course. However, when the talks reached the level of the principals – Vice President JD Vance, Steven Witkoff, Jared Kushner for the US; Mohammad Bakr (Bagher) Ghalibaf, Abbas Araghchi, Ali Akbar Ahmadian, and Ali Bagheri Kani – the US side added new deal-breaking conditons, according to the account of Mohammed Marandi, one of the Iranian delegation’s official spokesmen. The first of these was Iran’s agreement to give up its entire civilian nuclear programme, not only its nuclear material enrichment capacities and stockpiles; the second was a US half-share in the Hormuz Strait regime tolls. Neither of these proposals was included in the 15-point plan sent by the US to Iran through Pakistan in the run-up to the ceasefire announcement of April 8.
According to the Israeli-American outlet Axios, “the U.S. proposed that Iran accept a 20-year moratorium on uranium enrichment during negotiations in Islamabad over the weekend, according to a U.S. official and a source with knowledge.” The second source was Israeli. There has been no Iranian confirmation.
Several US moves were also unexpected, according to Marandi. Vance had interrupted the negotiations to make repeated telephone calls to Washington, including one — the Iranian delegation claims — to Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. Vance has acknowledged in his brief press appearance at the conclusion that he had made calls “half a dozen times, a dozen times”. In the Iranian interpretation, Vance did not have a clear negotiating mandate for the negotiations, and lacked personal authority.

MDCP= Major Defense Cooperation Partnership

• All in All, It’s Just Another Brick in the Wall Around China (Stephen Green)

Last year, Chinese Communist Party boss Xi Jinping played the rare earths card, forcing President Donald Trump to slow his roll on decoupling from the Middle Kingdom. This year, Trump played the oil card against China — first in Venezuela, then in Iran — and he just slapped it on the table again in Indonesia. Their summit in Beijing next month already promised to be interesting, with the U.S. enjoying significant leverage over Venezuela, Iran in tatters, and the U.S. Navy taking charge of the Strait of Hormuz. Until very recently, both countries served as Beijing’s reliable sources of discounted oil. Today, Xi might ask, “Et tu, Indonesia?” If he spoke Latin, that is.

It might have seemed like one of those dry, bureaucratic, almost meaningless announcements on Monday, when War Secretary Pete Hegseth posted on X that the U.S. and Indonesia “are elevating our relationship to a Major Defense Cooperation Partnership.” According to a joint statement, the partnership covers “military modernization and capacity building,” “training and professional military education,” “exercises and operational cooperation,” and I can hear you snoring already.But a Major Defense Cooperation Partnership is kind of a big deal — and it’s aimed directly at China’s oil imports. China’s difficulties begin in the Strait of Hormuz, but they peak at Malacca.
Nearly two-thirds of China’s imports — largely the raw materials that keep its export machine humming — and a whopping 80% of its energy imports pass through Indonesia’s Strait of Malacca. But that hardly means Beijing minds its manners around its southern neighbor. While the two countries maintain a close strategic partnership, there are also persistent strains, particularly around Beijing’s claims in the South China Sea, Chinese fishing boat fleets intruding on Indonesian waters, resulting in naval tensions, and ongoing trade disputes. And here comes Washington — with no territorial ambitions and no invading fishing fleets — with an MDCP.
And Another Thing: Honestly, China is now so powerful and aggressive that its neighbors ought to be attracted to Washington like iron filings to a magnet. It took significant displays of American weakness and dithering — thanks, Obama and Biden! — for countries like Indonesia to have fallen even partly into China’s orbit in the first place.
An MDCP usually means regular joint military exercises, interoperability training, and streamlined access to U.S. weapons systems. In other words, even though an MDCP is less than a formal military alliance, it allows the U.S. and its partners to effectively act as allies, should the need arise. The MDCP with Indonesia, just announced by Hegseth, even includes military overflight access.= Unlike NATO, there’s no Article Five-type guarantee requiring us to come to Indonesia’s defense, but should the need arise to act against China, our two militaries ought to have enough familiarity with one another to make it work.
In response to Trump’s tariffs last year, Beijing used its control over the majority of rare earth processing to get a better deal. But rare earths aren’t actually all that rare, and the U.S. sits on major deposits. Our problem is that we outsourced the processing to China. We’re working to correct that mistake. When Trump and Xi meet in May, the balance between our two countries will have shifted significantly in our favor since 2025. Seen that way, our new defense partnership with Indonesia is just another brick in Trump’s Great Wall Around China.

BIG ruling against Boasberg et al.

• Appeals Court Terminates Criminal Contempt Proceedings Against Trump Admin (ET)

An appeals court has put a stop to criminal contempt proceedings initiated by a district judge against the Trump administration. In a brief, unsigned order on April 14, the Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit vacated a previous order by U.S. District Judge James Boasberg, and ordered him to terminate the contempt investigation he launched in December. The contempt proceedings stemmed from the deportation of illegal immigrants—suspected gang members—to El Salvador’s Terrorism Confinement Center, or CECOT, last year. Boasberg had ordered planes carrying those detainees halted and turned around, but the men were sent to El Salvador anyway.

The Trump administration had appealed Boasberg’s order all the way to the Supreme Court, which overturned his ruling. Despite that, Boasberg tried to hold members of the administration in contempt of his order unless they returned the suspected gang members to the United States. The appeals court blocked that move by vacating Boasberg’s first contempt order, but he decided to move ahead with a contempt investigation in November. “Undeterred, the district court is proceeding with criminal contempt for the government’s decision to transfer the plaintiffs to the custody of El Salvador,” the Appeals Court’s opinion reads.

“.. the so-called whistleblower behind the 2019 impeachment singled out Director Patel by name, relied on hearsay, submitted false claims, and had documented political bias — all of which was hidden from the American people..”

• FBI “Is Reviewing Closely New Allegations On Ukraine Impeachment Accuser” (JTN)

The FBI said Monday night that it is “closely” reviewing newly declassified memos showing the intelligence community kept secret for years evidence raising questions about the credibility and bias of the main accuser in President Donald Trump’s 2019 impeachment case. “The declassified impeachment memos show the so-called whistleblower behind the 2019 impeachment singled out Director Patel by name, relied on hearsay, submitted false claims, and had documented political bias — all of which was hidden from the American people,” FBI spokesman Ben Williamson wrote on his X account.

“This is the same playbook used during the Russia collusion hoax — which Director Patel exposed. The FBI has previously been reviewing these revelations closely and will continue to do so,” he added. The FBI was one of several agencies to react to a story Sunday night by Just the News that revealed the CIA analyst who alleged wrongdoing by Trump involving Ukraine policy was flagged for the “potential for bias,” had lied to investigators about a key fact and only had hearsay evidence to back his claims.
That evidence was kept from Trump’s impeachment proceedings by ex-Intelligence Community Inspector General Michael Atkinson, Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard said Monday. Gabbard accused the former watchdog of “weaponizing” the whistle-blower process to hurt Trump. The alleged whistleblower’s name was redacted from the newly declassified memos but has been identified in some media reports as retired CIA analyst Eric Ciaramella, who now works at a D.C. think tank and is a regular on a podcast critical of Trump policies.
Officials declined to publicly confirm whether Ciaramella was, in fact, the whistleblower when questioned by Just the News. Ciaramella has appeared on numerous podcast episodes put out by the anti-Trump Lawfare outlet. Benjamin Wittes, the editor-in-chief of Lawfare, appeared on multiple episodes with Ciaramella. Wittes was described by Politico in 2017 as “The Bard of the Deep State” and is a longtime Trump critic and a self-described friend of fired FBI Director James Comey and Strzok.

“The Lawfare impeachment crew, led by Adam Schiff, Jerry Nadler, Mary McCord, Dan Goldman, Barry Berke, Stephen Castor and Norm Eisen also weaponized the “ongoing investigation” classification to keep the CIA/ICIG report hidden during the impeachment effort.”

• Johnny Didn’t Bark – But Tulsi Did (CTH)

I’m going to try and keep this short. You can tell from the transcripts of the testimony from ICIG Michael Atkinson that at the time of his testimony, September 19, 2019 and October 4, 2019, the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence (HPSCI) was not in a classified session; simply closed-door. In fact, during the October 2019 deposition, Ranking Member Devin Nunes went out of his way to clarify the status of the hearing itself. Chairman Schiff reemphasized this was not part of the impeachment inquiry, simply a hearing to clarify questions from Republicans to ICIG Atkinson about the nature of the complaint created by CIA whistleblower Eric Ciaramella.

This is interesting, because that means at the time of the hearing itself in 2019 any one of the members could have immediately gone to the microphones and discussed all of the information gained from within the questioning. They didn’t. Later on, Chairman Adam Schiff classified the Atkinson testimony in order to bury it. The Lawfare impeachment crew, led by Adam Schiff, Jerry Nadler, Mary McCord, Dan Goldman, Barry Berke, Stephen Castor and Norm Eisen also weaponized the “ongoing investigation” classification to keep the CIA/ICIG report hidden during the impeachment effort.
President Trump was not even allowed to see/review the classified IC IG information that was being used to impeach him. Now, as you can see from the attendance above, John Ratcliffe was present for both Atkinson depositions. Despite his immediate silence, we know John Ratcliffe was concerned about the content within ICIG Atkinson’s statements as he relayed in a series of questions during a public hearing December 9, 2019. Ratcliffe questioned both Dan Goldman and Stephen Castor who were part of Adam Schiff’s staff and present during the October 2019, testimony of ICIG Atkinson.

John Ratcliffe knew all of the details from ICIG Atkinson’s testimony because he was present and part of the questioning during both sessions. Here’s where it gets interesting Following the failed impeachment effort (Senate acquittal), President Trump fired IC IG Michael Atkinson April 3, 2020, and then nominated John Ratcliffe to the position of DNI to replace Acting DNI Ric Grenell. The ICIG investigation of the alleged claims by CIA whistleblower Eric Ciaramella ended during the impeachment inquiry. Following the impeachment acquittal, and following the subsequent firing of Atkinson, all of the ICIG work product returned to the custodial review of the ODNI.
DNI nominee John Ratcliffe was confirmed by the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence on May 21 and sworn in on May 26, 2020. John Ratcliffe was now a constitutionally confirmed DNI with access to the full record and work product that led to the previous impeachment effort. Why didn’t DNI John Ratcliffe release the ICIG investigative material and CIA whistleblower report? Why did it take another six years and DNI Tulsi Gabbard to discover, dig out, declassify and release the material that was in the custodial review of DNI John Ratcliffe back in 2020?
Congressman Ratcliffe was in both Atkinson depositions during Sept/Oct 2019, and he knew the impeachment allegations were false. He essentially called out the HPSCI Democrat staff in December of 2019. Congressman Ratcliffe became DNI in May 2020 and knew the entire background of the IC IG material that was now at his fingertips. Ratcliffe knew President Trump was set up. Why didn’t John Ratcliffe release the evidence of it in 2020?
I might also note that following the 2022 midterm election, Republicans took back control of the House in January 2023.Why didn’t HPSCI Chairman Mike Turner (2023/2024) release the Atkinson transcripts to the public? Why didn’t HPSCI Chairman Rick Crawford (2025-present) release the Atkinson transcript in 2025, without the request of DNI Tulsi Gabbard. To be fair, former HPSCI Chairman Mike Turner might say that back in 2023 without the underlying CIA/ICIG report, the explosive Atkinson testimony didn’t have context…..
…. But that brings us back to the question of why DNI John Ratcliffe didn’t release the CIA/ICIG report as soon as he took office in 2020. Has the statute of limitations tolled? Johnny didn’t bark – Tulsi did!

“The spirit of revolution hangs in the air.”

• Irish Patriots are Fighting Back (J.B. Shurk)

So you say you want a revolution? Well, take a look at what’s happening in Ireland right now. Tens of thousands of farmers, truckers, and other fed-up “normies” are taking to the streets of Dublin to protest fuel taxes, mass immigration, and poverty-inducing “climate change” policies. For the most part, corporate news propagandists in both Europe and North America are intentionally ignoring the combustible situation. Just when I had begun to think that all the “fighting Irish” had moved to America, the Old Country has started to show signs of life. Perhaps there are still a few irascible pugilists willing to bash heads and take on the globalist empire after all.

Speaking of irascible pugilists, Irish slugger Conor McGregor issued a bit of an ultimatum to the ruling class after the government mobilized the military and sent tanks to intimidate the protesters: “One wrong move by government here, and you will see, at the very least, 250k Irish people descend on the capital in a blink. They must step down, there is no other way.” Declaring war against ordinary Irishmen isn’t a good look for an Irish Deep State that can’t be bothered to guard its borders from hordes of invading foreigners. While McGregor and his compatriots are out feeding protesters in the streets, the Irish government is hiking taxes on those who can least afford to pay them. “One wrong move” could spark a revolution.
Perhaps that’s why — after an initial show of force — Ireland’s globalist government appears to be trying to settle things down. Reports on the ground say that police officers have remained friendly with protesters. Some have suggested that Irish authorities are wary of following in the footsteps of Canada’s former prime minister, Justin Trudeau, when he exercised martial law powers to seize the bank accounts of and jail “Freedom Convoy” truckers protesting coercive COVID “vaccination” mandates. On the other hand, a lot of the Irish protesters have also described a sense that many of the law enforcement officers patrolling the streets appear to be on their side. If that’s the case, then Ireland’s political class may be worried about the effectiveness of siccing the military on a broadly-backed citizen uprising.
Although few people saw the present brouhaha coming, Ireland makes a natural “ground zero” in the war between Big Government globalists (aka, the “international rules-based order” club of World Economic Forum totalitarians) and ordinary citizens willing to defend their nation’s sovereignty and their own personal freedoms. For two decades, the globalists have been taking over Ireland and stripping it for parts. As a country that once took pride in its meaningful traditions, customs, family loyalties, and Catholic heritage, Ireland has been one of the globalists’ favorite targets for conquest.
If the “multicultural” atheists could convert Ireland into another globalist outpost devoid of religious or civilizational allegiances, they knew that they would collect a valuable scalp in their war against the West. Sadly, the globalists have been largely successful. By transforming a conservative, staunchly pro-life, Catholic nation into a “woke” re-education zone embracing abortion, “trans” surgeries for children, open borders, Islamic supremacy, and the fetishization of “diversity,” the World Economic Forum’s “Borg” hive mind gutted one of the most culturally rich nations on the planet and mounted Ireland’s head on globalism’s wall of slaughtered states.
Two months ago, free speech defenders Lorcán Price and Graham Linehan testified before the House Judiciary Committee concerning the mass censorship operation being run through the expanding Big Tech enclave in Dublin. There are over 32,000 NGOs in Ireland receiving billions of dollars in U.S. and E.U. grants meant to help shape public opinion. These organizations — one for every 155 Irishmen — represent the “information warfare” army that supports Europe’s globalist policies. Over 70% of Irish legislation is copy-and-pasted from bureaucratic edicts originating in the European Union. These laws include special incentives for illegal immigrants who arrive on Ireland’s shores. They also include “hate speech” laws that have been used to criminally prosecute Irish citizens who object to foreigners raping and murdering their children. The NGO-E.U. takeover of the Irish political system this century has drastically reshaped the country.
Once Christian Ireland now has constitutional protections for gay “marriage” and abortion up to a baby’s birth. Two years ago, Ireland’s globalist cabal nearly succeeded in removing all mentions of “women” from the national constitution, as well as nearly redefining “family” as a “durable relationship.” The Irish government continues to attack Ireland’s Catholic history, going so far as to depict Catholic saints as pagan goddesses in shameless acts of historical revisionism. Globalists continue to rename historic institutions due to ludicrous accusations that Irish clergymen and scholars had ties to slavery and “white supremacy.” As Irish writer Roger Berkeley sorrowfully observes, “Ireland shows what happens when elites, bureaucracies, and ideology override national identity.”
[..] What is clear is that ordinary people in nations across the West are becoming aware of the information war that has long been waged against them. For decades, they have been conditioned to believe false things: “Diversity is our strength.” “Islam is a religion of peace.” “Trans-women are real women.” “Sex is a social construct.” “Man-made climate change is killing the planet.” “New taxes will save the planet.” “Christianity is hate speech.” “Hate speech is a violent crime.” “Free speech requires government-moderated censorship.” “National sovereignty is fascist.” “Families promote white supremacy.” “Merit is white supremacy.” “Math, home ownership, mowed lawns, and punctuality are all forms of white supremacy.” “Equal rights require ‘Diversity, Inclusion, and Equity.’” “Unelected bureaucrats protect democracy.” “NATO must protect non-NATO Ukraine.” Et cetera ad infinitum.

That he was.

• Eric Swalwell and the Fall of a Made Man (Turley)

The resignation of Rep. Eric Swalwell (D., Cal.) came with one of the most spectacular falls in political history. Just days ago, Swalwell was the leading Democratic candidate for governor of California and positioned to be one of two final candidates (the other a Republican). He expected that, regardless of his unpopularity, California Democrats would never vote for a Republican. Now Swalwell has pulled out of the race, pulled out of Congress, and was even tossed out of the home of a billionaire who had been letting him crash there during the scandal. Swalwell continues to deny the allegations and pledges to fight them.

For the record, I have been one of Swalwell’s most vocal critics for the last ten years. Yet, while I am not surprised by the allegations, I am surprised by how quickly Swalwell was abandoned by his political patrons in Congress and the unions. In Washington, Harry Truman advised politicians that if you want a friend in this city, get a dog. However, even Swalwell’s dog Penny has yet to appear in public with him. Presumably, she is consulting with her own canine crisis team. Swalwell has spent his entire career protected by an enabling establishment and media. He was a made man in Washington, and those who made him protected him despite years of rumors and allegations of misconduct.
He was never much of a legislator. One 2025 study showed that he was outvoted in Congress by a colleague who had died months earlier. His value was his vicious signature. He was always first to a mob. When Sen. Susan Collins received death threats, it was Swalwell who mocked her. In running for governor, he not only pledged to arrest ICE agents but to deny them driver’s licenses and jobs. He trafficked in unadulterated rage to a nation of rage addicts. His greatest patron was Nancy Pelosi, who single-handedly saved Swalwell’s career when he was found to have had an affair with an alleged Chinese spy. She told the media, “I don’t have any concern about Mr. Swalwell.”
For most of the media, that was enough and they slinked away. When critics sought to remove him from the classified House Intelligence Committee, Pelosi shocked many by insisting that he remain in the sensitive position, lashing out at those “trying to make an issue of this.” Now, Pelosi and the media allies are gone. Even Swalwell’s friend, Sen. Ruben Gallego (D., Ariz.), has morphed into Claude Rains and proclaimed that he is “shocked” by the allegations. His former campaign chair, Gallego was shown in a picture bare-chested and riding camels with Swalwell on a luxury junket paid for by Qatar business interests. The photo has not aged well for Gallego any more than his earlier lament that the Democratic party “used to be the party of sex, drugs, and rock and roll.”
The abandonment of Swalwell is a familiar move of political triage. By letting Swalwell succumb to the scandal, Pelosi and others hope to protect the establishment from any blowback after years of enabling his career. The media, as usual, is complying. The media will cover a scandal involving a leading Democrat if there is no real alternative. What is interesting is how the Democratic establishment is now signaling that they want Swalwell destroyed — quickly and surgically. The media is content calling Swalwell a monster without delving into who created and released that monster. Swalwell is no self-made man. He is a made man of the Democratic establishment.
The alleged victims have lashed out not only at Swalwell but also at many in the establishment. They allege that they were rebuffed when they tried to bring their allegations to reporters. One independent reporter said that he had been raising similar allegations about Swalwell with California Democrats from before Swalwell was elected to Congress. He was also turned away. Swalwell had a use and that made his “appetites” irrelevant. If even half of these allegations are true, it shows the sense of license that Swalwell developed for years in Washington. He lost that political immunity this week and now faces real legal liability. That does not mean that Democrats will not try to control the damage. They want Swalwell to take a deal to avoid any investigations that will pull other Democrats into the vortex of the scandal.
They are counting on New York and California district attorneys to produce the type of controlled explosion seen in construction where a hotel is brought down without damaging the adjacent structures. The problem is Republicans may not just accept his resignation as the final act. They could call the women to testify and even call some of his congressional friends who took trips and partied with him. They could cite Swalwell himself for demanding such total transparency.

“La Marxista: Mamdani Pledges to Open First City-Run Store with Projected $30 Million Initial Cost “

Turley is not his biggest fan.

• Mamdani Pledges to Open First City-Run Store (Tuirley)

Mayor Zohran Mamdani used his “First 100 Days” speech this week to announce that he has kept his promise to create a chain of city-run stores . . . by pledging to open one store sometime “next year.” According to the New York Post, the city is planning to make an East Harlem location the first store at a cost of $30 million. It will be located in La Marqueta near Park Avenue. Hopefully, La Marqueta will be renamed La Marxista for clarity. It will follow a long line of failed state-operated and city-operated stores. Chicago’s mayor, Brandon Johnson, also pledged such city-run stores.

It is notable that the stores received such emphasis by Mamdani. It is not difficult to set up a grocery store, particularly when you run the city that approves permits and compliance conditions. It is not even difficult to set up a money-losing store as long as you have a city budget to pay for it. It is far more difficult to set up an independently sustainable store. In my book, “Rage and the Republic,” I discuss the rise of support for socialism and communism among young citizens who have no experience or memory with the failures of such systems in the 20th Century. I specifically discuss Mamdani and his policies. These are calls that are likely to increase with the emerging new economy:
With the rise of American socialism, there are new calls for state subsidies and even the establishment of state-run grocery stores in places like Chicago. Past efforts have been colossal failures, including the still-ongoing effort in Kansas City. Over seven years, KC Sun Fresh is gushing money with losses in 2024 at $885,000. The millions lost on this store are on top of the $17 million that the city paid to buy the entire strip mall. By 2025, many of the shelves were entirely bare, while private grocery stores were successfully operating in the area. Despite these failures, there are new calls in other states to create their own state-owned stores.
In New York City, socialist mayoral candidate Zohran Mamdani was heralded for his campaign to open up “government-owned, government-operated grocery stores” in 2025. There are also calls to subsidize key industries that are becoming less competitive in the global market—an effort that is unlikely to succeed as jobs are lost to cheap labor markets or automation. Since the city already owns La Marqueta, it can avoid paying rent. However, it will lose any rent that could be earned by renting the property to a business.
Mamdani pledged that these will be “stores where prices are fair, where workers are treated with dignity, and where New Yorkers can actually afford to shop at our stores…Eggs will be cheaper, bread will be cheaper, grocery shopping will no longer be an unsolvable equation.” Of course, that has not worked out that way in other cities. Governments are not known to be either efficient or competitive. The start-up costs of this first store will consume almost half of the budget for the original cost estimate for all five stores.
Soon, New Yorkers will be subsidizing grocery stores to artificially support the myth of socialism. In the Soviet Union, state-run grocery stores were the subject of gallows humor. The “reimagining” of grocery stores left shelves bare with only imagined essential products. The most widely told joke spread just before the fall of the Soviet Union:
A man walks into a shop. He asks the clerk, “You don’t have any meat?” The clerk says, “No, here we don’t have any fish. The shop that doesn’t have any meat is across the street.” As Mamdani demands a 10% property tax to fund his promises of free buses and other socialist programs, he is returning to the same socialist script. Of course, as the University of Chicago’s Milton Friedman noted, “If you put the federal government in charge of the Sahara Desert, in 5 years there’d be a shortage of sand.”

“.. was only put there by the Church because he was an American, and they thought that would be the best way to deal with President Donald J. Trump.”

• American Pope Leo Has a Massive Case of TDS (Rick Moran)

The papacy is one of the most unique institutions in the world. The pope is not “elected” in any meaningful sense. A bunch of older males who played the same kind of political games that Republicans, Democrats, Communists, and Socialists play to get ahead, to become “cardinal,” meet to fill a vacancy following the death of a pope. How a new pope is chosen is steeped in tradition and ritual. It’s all baloney. The pomp and circumstance were created to hide the simple fact that choosing a pope is no different than choosing a CEO or president of a large company. The assembled cardinals decide who should lead the church, the same way a board of directors chooses a new leader: someone who can best advance the goals and interests of the Catholic church.

There’s nothing holy about it. There’s nothing sacred in the process. It’s politics, plain and simple. Pope Leo XIV played the game exceptionally well in order to get elected last year. He had a huge obstacle to overcome; he is an American (and Peruvian), and there is a large faction in the Vatican that hates America. Leo was seen as a compromise candidate who, although close to the radical Pope Francis, who died in 2025, was not considered as confrontational as the former pope. That belief turned out to be very wrong.
In April 2025, the Italian newspaper La Repubblica stated that Leo was seen as a “cosmopolitan and shy figure” who was “appreciated by conservatives and progressives” within the church. The pope destroyed that illusion by going after Donald Trump in a very un-papal way. On Sunday, Trump let loose on Leo for his constant sermonizing. Of course, that’s what popes do, but Trump saw an opening to attack Leo on very secular grounds.
Truth Social:”I don’t want a Pope who thinks it’s OK for Iran to have a Nuclear Weapon. I don’t want a Pope who thinks it’s terrible that America attacked Venezuela, a Country that was sending massive amounts of Drugs into the United States and, even worse, emptying their prisons, including murderers, drug dealers, and killers, into our Country. And I don’t want a Pope who criticizes the President of the United States because I’m doing exactly what I was elected, IN A LANDSLIDE, to do, setting Record Low Numbers in Crime, and creating the Greatest Stock Market in History. “Pope Leo is WEAK on Crime and terrible for Foreign Policy,” Trump wrote.
“Leo should be thankful because, as everyone knows, he was a shocking surprise,” Trump said. “He wasn’t on any list to be Pope, and was only put there by the Church because he was an American, and they thought that would be the best way to deal with President Donald J. Trump.”
I don’t think there’s any doubt that the church considered an American for pope because Donald Trump was president. Trump’s roundup of illegal aliens was bound to cause friction with the Vatican. Leo tried to sound diplomatic in his response, which was, in itself, a shocking departure from tradition. Popes aren’t supposed to play the tit-for-tat political game.”I don’t want to get into a debate with him [Trump],” the U.S.-born pope said. “I don’t think that the message of the Gospel is meant to be abused in the way that some people are doing.” The pope is referring to Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth asking “the American people to pray “every day, on bended knee” for a military victory in the Middle East “in the name of Jesus Christ.” “
We are not politicians, we don’t deal with foreign policy with the same perspective he might understand it, Leo told reporters. The pope said that “to put my message on the same plane as what the president has attempted to do here, I think, is not understanding what the message of the Gospel is.” Leo has entered the political fray with his words and has lost the moral authority to comment as the leader of one billion Roman Catholics. Commenting as a famous religious celebrity is perfectly fine, but getting in the mud and rolling around with a politician should be beneath Leo and the papacy. “I do not look at my role as being political, a politician,” Leo said. “Too many people are suffering in the world today, too many innocent people are being killed, and someone has to stand up and say there’s a better way.

Holocaust Remembrance Day was Jan 27. Then why this? “Israel marks Holocaust Remembrance Day this year starting on the evening of April 13 into today, April 14.”

• ‘Unwavering Commitment’ to Fight Hatred (Salgado)

President Donald Trump issued a powerful message against antisemitism and a commitment to honoring the memory of Holocaust victims through a freer future in his message for Holocaust Remembrance Day. Israel marks Holocaust Remembrance Day this year starting on the evening of April 13 into today, April 14. While the Nazis killed political dissidents, Catholics, other Christians, and ethnic minorities, their death camps were most strongly focused on wiping out the Jewish people. In fact, the global Jewish population has never fully recovered since the Holocaust.

The Trump White House issued a message on April 13. “During the Days of Remembrance of Victims of the Holocaust, our Nation remembers the more than 6 million innocent Jewish lives taken in one of the most horrific atrocities and worst acts of anti-Semitism in human history; we commemorate the Roma and Sinti, Slavic and Polish people, persons with disabilities, Soviet prisoners of war, Jehovah’s Witnesses, people targeted for their sexual orientation, and countless others who were victims of the Holocaust; and we renew our unwavering commitment to ensuring that such evil is vanquished forever,” President Trump wrote.
Unfortunately, the fundamentalist Muslims who were allies of Hitler during World War II, because of their shared goal of destroying Jews, are more powerful than ever, somehow gaining the sympathy of the West every time they attack Israel and commit heinous atrocities. To give just one number for context, Hezbollah alone launched over 6,500 missiles, UAVs, and rockets at Israeli civilians during the first five weeks of Operation Epic Fury/Roaring Lion.
Trump continued, “On Yom HaShoah, we recall the horrors Nazi Germany inflicted across Europe during the harrowing years of the Second World War, where men, women, and children of many backgrounds were subjected to vicious acts of persecution, degradation, and death by methods beyond comprehension. Yet, in the midst of this unfathomable darkness, the resilience of the human spirit endured.” “From the outset of my Administration, I have taken decisive action to defend the God-given worth of every human being,” Trump affirmed. “By establishing the Federal Task Force to Combat Antisemitism, my Administration is bolstering coordination across federal agencies in an effort to prevent acts of hatred and violence in our streets and on our college campuses that were allowed to spread under my predecessor.”
He concluded: “I am directing the Department of Justice to relentlessly pursue those who threaten or harm Jewish Americans, and we will not stop until every case of terrorism perpetrated against the Jewish people is prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law.
As our Nation marks these Days of Remembrance, we honor the memory of all who were murdered and vow to never forget the victims of the Holocaust—the most heinous violation of human dignity in the history of the world. Together, we reaffirm our solemn obligation to stand guard against antisemitism in every form and carry forward the enduring legacy of the more than 6 million innocent souls of the Holocaust with vigilance and unwavering resolve. May the memories of all who perished forever be a blessing. Global antisemitism has been on the rise ever since Hamas committed the Oct. 7 massacre. Each one of us is responsible for seeing that “never again” is more than a slogan.

Forever ago, I read a biography of Abe. Which was John Hay’s POV.

• Remembering the Faith of Lincoln on the Anniversary of His Death (Tom Griffin)

On April 14, 1865, President Abraham Lincoln was shot in the head and killed by John Wilkes Booth at Ford’s Theatre during the showing of “Our American Cousin.” It was Good Friday. It is eerily fitting that the murder occurred on the most somber day of the Christian year. Lincoln mentioned God frequently in his presidency, and his journey with God was deeply connected to the gravity of his work during the Civil War.
Between his election in November 1860 and his inauguration in March 1861, several southern states seceded from the Union. In Lincoln’s First Inaugural Address on March 4, 1861, he spoke about how the nation must be firm in faith: “Intelligence, patriotism, Christianity, and a firm reliance on Him, who has never yet forsaken this favored land, are still competent to adjust, in the best way, all our present difficulty.” Here Lincoln showcased his distinctively American spirit. He believed that our nation was built on faith as well as love for both neighbor and country. Those qualities, in his view, can sustain the American people during tumultuous times.
In September 1862, during one of the most personally challenging parts of the Civil War, Lincoln wrote a private “Meditation on the Divine Will.” The Union had recently lost the Second Battle of Bull Run, and there were immense challenges ahead for the president. The country was tiring of the war. The growing death toll weighed heavily on the president. Had the time come to end the war? According to one of his White House secretaries John Hay, the letter was the president’s way of working through his confusion and stress about the most important decision of his life. Hay also noted that this letter was not meant to be seen by men, which is why we have only one section. Lincoln writes:
“The will of God prevails. In great contests each party claims to act in accordance with the will of God. Both may be, and one must be, wrong. God cannot be for and against the same thing at the same time. In the present civil war it is quite possible that God’s purpose is something different from the purpose of either party — and yet the human instrumentalities, working just as they do, are of the best adaptation to effect His purpose. I am almost ready to say that this is probably true — that God wills this contest, and wills that it shall not end yet. By his mere great power, on the minds of the now contestants, He could have either saved or destroyed the Union without a human contest. Yet the contest began. And, having begun He could give the final victory to either side any day. Yet the contest proceeds.”
The words above are filled with religious significance and depth. They relate the broken heart of a man—and a president—for his fellow countrymen. Faith demands that we be utterly honest with both ourselves and God. Lincoln’s meditation was more than a mere method to inform the president’s decision making; it was itself a prayer.
First, Lincoln writes that God’s will is victorious. To understand what that means for him, Lincoln then references a philosophical idea called “the principle of noncontradiction.” Most famously explained by Aristotle, the principle holds that two opposing claims cannot both be true in the same way at the same time. Therefore, either the south was right that human beings are not equal, and some can thus be owned by others. Or the north was right that the expansion of slavery—even its existence—is immoral because all human beings have dignity.
Second, Lincoln writes that the outcome of the war might be different from what either side hopes for. God often works in unexpected ways. God’s logic often makes itself known through challenging and confusing times. Though painful, this can ultimately teach us to rely on God and trust that providence will lead us through. Finally, the president’s meditation on God’s will does not seem to have resolved all Lincoln’s confusion. The war must continue, for now. This brings him much grief, but he knows that it is right.

You driving? Not on a public road any more. Go to a private circuit.

Every year, approximately 1.19 million people die in road accidents worldwide.

That’s like a massive, invisible pandemic killing over 3,200 people every single day.

When a deadly virus spreads, the world drops everything to develop a vaccine as fast as possible.

Tesla’s Full… https://t.co/kmeKSV7PU6 pic.twitter.com/SOX2waM0In
— Captain Eli (@TheCaptainEli) April 13, 2026

https://twitter.com/HungaryBased/status/2043743519664185462?s=20 https://twitter.com/NiohBerg/status/2043783291178782888?s=20

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— Nelly; (@nrqa__) April 13, 2026

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Debt Rattle May 2 2024

May 022024

May 2, 2024 Posted by Raúl Ilargi Meijer at 8:58 am Finance Tagged with: Blinken, Columbia, Ireland, Merchan, protest, recusal, soft power, Trump, Weissmann 47 Responses »

Edvard Munch Separation 1896

• Student Protests Among ‘Biggest Things’ in US in Decades – Scott Ritter (Sp.)

• ‘All Because Columbia Refuses to Divest’ (CD)

• The US Student Intifada: Palestine’s New Soft Power Leverage (Cradle)

• Google Workers Fired Over Israel Protests File Federal Labor Complaint

• Weissmann: “One Vote Away from … the End of Democracy” (Turley)

• The Death of Ireland and Replacement of the Irish People (Paul Craig Roberts)

• The Ukraine Conflict Is Spinning Out of Control (Paul Craig Roberts)

• Ukraine Must Defeat Russia To Join NATO – Zelensky (RT)

• China Humiliated Blinken But Blinken Kept Begging (Chang)

• Trump Campaign Slams Commission’s Refusal to Hold Earlier Debates (ET)

• Appeals Court Denies Trump’s Bid to Have Judge Merchan Recused (ET)

• BRIC-O-Rama: On The Road In Brazil, With An Eye On Russia-China (Pepe Escobar)

Watters

Jesse Watters slams Judge Merchan for his gag order on President Trump:

“The daughter's been paid by the Biden campaign, being paid by Adam Schiff who colluded with star witnes, Michael Cohen & Trump can't talk about it. Cohen can say whatever he wants but Trump is gagged. They… pic.twitter.com/8iJuF1Ha80

— Real Mac Report (@RealMacReport) April 30, 2024

KJP

Reporter: "Is he aware of the reports that a fair number of people arrested on college campuses are not students?"

KJP: "That is something for, obviously, local law enforcement to speak to. That is something that I can't speak to at this time."

Reporter: "So he's not aware of… pic.twitter.com/YNbMWjNJQR

— Real Mac Report (@RealMacReport) May 1, 2024

Kash Patel
https://twitter.com/i/status/1785699469457023055

LA
https://twitter.com/i/status/1785716980361625956

Model 3

Elon sacrificed everything to make Tesla successful.

In 2008/2009 during the great financial crisis, GM went bankrupt while Elon saved Tesla.

He was on the factory floor, working right beside everyone else. pic.twitter.com/mBdBjfSZDv

— Tesla Hype (@TeslaHype) May 1, 2024

The real measure of your wealth is how much you’d be worth if you lost all your money. – Benjamin Franklin

Scott Ritter: “I think these student protests right now are some of the most important things to have happened in American society in many, many decades..”

I didn’t know. Let’s see.

• Student Protests Among ‘Biggest Things’ in US in Decades – Scott Ritter (Sp.)

Last week, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said in a video address that the protests against his country on American universities that had then only recently sprung up were “antisemitic mobs” that had “taken over” college campuses. He called on US authorities to do more to stop them. The growing student protest movement against the continued bombardment of Gazans by the Israeli government is among one of the most important things to happen in the US in “many, many decades,” former UN inspector and military expert Scott Ritter told Sputnik’s The Critical Hour on Tuesday. “If you were an American like myself, who is not inclined to go out and protest and hold signs and disrupt things, man, we have to wake up,” he explained. “I have to wake up. We have to join these students one way or another and join their cause in letting the government know that we will not stand silent in the face of police oppression of the right of American citizens to speak out, to assemble, to hold their government [to] account.”

“I think these student protests right now are some of the most important things to have happened in American society in many, many decades,” Ritter emphasized. Tuesday night, what appeared to be hundreds of officers with the New York Police Department entered Columbia University in riot gear and military-grade vehicles, arresting approximately 300 people, according to New York City Mayor Eric Adams. That raid came after similar raids across the country, including in Texas, where 79 people, including some faculty members who joined students, were arrested. Meanwhile, a 65-year-old professor, Steve Tamari, was hospitalized after an officer at Washington University in St. Louis slammed him to the ground, breaking multiple ribs and his hand, according to a statement he put out from the hospital. More than 100 people were arrested in that protest. Colleges being a place for the free exchange of ideals is a critical part of our society, Ritter argued, adding that he believes the crackdown is designed to end this.

“As somebody who has taken an oath to uphold and defend the Constitution of the United States… I respect not only [the] students’ constitutional rights to free speech and freedom of assembly, I also recognize that college is one of the great zones of developing good citizens,” Ritter said. Over the weekend, presidential candidate Jill Stein was arrested at a protest. Stein says she was told she was being charged with assaulting an officer, but clarified in a later interview with journalist Glenn Greenwald that was not on her paperwork. Part of the purpose of colleges is “to create an incubator for the development of good citizenship, not compliant zombies,” Ritter explained, arguing that the US needs, “citizens who think, who empower themselves with knowledge and information and express that individually and collectively.”

At University of California, Los Angeles, a group of pro-Israeli protesters reportedly fired pepper spray and fireworks at student protesters during clashes. Witnesses claim that while the police were standing by, they did not intervene for hours. Ritter noted the US government is doing “just about everything possible wrong,” underscoring that the US “needs these students to come out and they’ve picked an issue, Gaza, which is the manifestation of the totality of all we do wrong as a government.” “When you go to university, we need you to become radical. We need you to think. We need you to exercise your brain and your spirit and your conscience. And [the government is] trying to suppress them because apparently we don’t want good citizens anymore,” the analyst concluded.

Overkill.

• ‘All Because Columbia Refuses to Divest’ (CD)

Hundreds of New York City police officers descended on Columbia University Tuesday night to arrest dozens of pro-Palestinian student protesters and dismantle a Gaza solidarity encampment that inspired campus protests across the United States, with demonstrators calling on their schools to divest from companies profiting off Israel’s devastating war. Police, some wearing riot gear, entered Columbia’s campus at the request of the university’s president, Minouche Shafik, who authorized the NYPD to “clear all individuals from Hamilton Hall and all campus encampments.” Video footage shows officers entering a campus building that students occupied hours earlier, renaming it “Hind’s Hall” after a 6-year-old girl who was killed by Israeli forces earlier this year. The Columbia Daily Spectator, the university’s student newspaper, reported that “as they entered the building, officers threw down the metal and wooden tables barricading the doors and shattered the glass on the leftmost doors of Hamilton to enter with shields in hand.”

“Several officers drew their guns, according to footage posted by NYPD Deputy Commissioner of Operations Kaz Daughtry,” the newspaper added. “At around 9:37 pm, officers led dozens of protesters out the entrance of Hamilton. The protesters’ hands were zip-tied behind their backs. The arrested individuals chanted, ‘Free, free Palestine’ as they were led away from the building.” Other footage shows NYPD officers forcing their way through students who locked arms in front of the occupied campus building. One cop is seen kneeing a student on the ground. Students reported that police used tear gas, which is banned in war, on demonstrators. “Tonight, my university called in a militarized police force—armed in riot gear, with guns drawn, deploying weapons banned under international law—to attack teenagers,” Lea Salim, a student member of Jewish Voice for Peace-Columbia/Barnard, said in a statement. “All because Columbia refuses to divest from the Israeli military and its genocidal campaign on the people of Gaza.”

As police set up barricades around the perimeter of the campus, onlookers gathered and chanted, “Let the students go!” in solidarity with the arrested demonstrators. Rep. Jamaal Bowman (D-N.Y.) said he was “outraged” by the police presence at both Columbia and the City College of New York, writing on social media that the “militarization of college campuses, extensive police presence, and arrest of hundreds of students are in direct opposition to the role of education as a cornerstone of our democracy.” “I call upon the Columbia administration to stop this dangerous escalation before it leads to further harm,” Bowman added, “and allow the faculty back onto campus so that all parties can collectively come to a solution that centers humanity over hate.”

In a letter to the New York City Police Department on Tuesday, Shafik—who is facing mounting calls to resign—requested that officers maintain a presence on Columbia’s campus “through at least May 17, 2024 to maintain order and ensure encampments are not reestablished.” The police crackdown on Columbia students is part of a broader wave of repression against campus protests that have emerged across the country in recent weeks as Israel’s assault on and forced starvation of Gaza civilians continues with no end in sight. Police actions, approved by the leaders of some universities and cheered on by right-wing government officials, have drawn international rebukes. In a statement Tuesday, United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights Volker Türk said he is “concerned that some of law enforcement actions across a series of universities appear disproportionate in their impacts.”

“..soft power can be more effective than hard power in achieving political outcomes, because it influences the preferences of others rather than forcing them to change through coercion.”

• The US Student Intifada: Palestine’s New Soft Power Leverage (Cradle)

On 18 April, students at Columbia University in New York initiated a sit-in on the campus lawn, protesting the Ivy League institution’s ongoing financial links to companies connected to Israel’s occupation of Palestine and its brutal war on Gaza. The demonstrations quickly spread to other top US universities, including New York University, Yale, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), and the University of North Carolina, as demands intensified for an end to both the war and support for the occupation state. This growing wave of US and global student activism is of vital importance: it represents the soft power ripple effects of the resistance‘s Operation Al-Aqsa Flood, and as with other historic, mass US student movements against South African apartheid and the Vietnam war, will likely begin to fray at American support for Israeli aggressions. For decades, the US has portrayed Israel as a beacon of democracy in a region dominated by authoritarian regimes, often citing it as “the only democracy” in West Asia to justify its unwavering support.

However, recent shifts in public perception, particularly among western youth, now increasingly portray Israelis as “terrorists” and “colonizers.” This sea change in the discourse, driven by the global spread of information and activism, will have a significant impact on the Zionist entity. Israel’s global reputation had already been tarnished by the time South Africa filed genocide charges against the state in the International Court of Justice (ICJ) earlier this year, the first time Israel has faced such accusations at this level. In March, the ICJ demanded that Israel take immediate, effective measures to ensure the entry of essential food supplies to Gaza’s residents, emphasizing the severe famine conditions already present. “Soft power” is defined by Joseph Nye as “the ability to get what you want through attraction rather than coercion or pressure.”

Joshua Kurlantzick, senior fellow for Southeast Asia at the influential Council on Foreign Relations, argues that “soft power can be more effective than hard power in achieving political outcomes, because it influences the preferences of others rather than forcing them to change through coercion.” This form of influence arises through culture, values, and policies that are universally attractive and morally legitimate – and, therefore, harder to contain. Decades of Tel Aviv’s “nation branding” or soft power initiatives in the west, geared at deeply entrenching the notion of Israel as “the only democracy” in West Asia that shared the occident’s “Judeo-Christian values,” aimed to justify Washington’s unconditional support for the occupation state. It took a show of Palestinian hard power, however, to unlock that narrative stranglehold in the west. Within weeks of Operation Al-Aqsa Flood, western populations began for the first time to see the real face of Zionism – unleashed in an overwhelming military assault on Gaza’s hospitals, universities, infrastructure, and civilian populations.

No Tech for Apartheid

• Google Workers Fired Over Israel Protests File Federal Labor Complaint

Dozens of Google workers who were fired for protesting the tech giant’s cloud deal with the Israeli government filed a complaint on April 29 with the National Labor Relations Board over their termination. The complaint, obtained by The Washington Post, alleges that Google violated the workers’ rights by “terminating and/or placing them on administrative leave in response to their protected concerted activity, namely, participation (or perceived participation) in a peaceful, non-disruptive protest that was directly and explicitly connected to their terms and conditions of work.” The workers are seeking reinstatement of their jobs and back pay, alleging that Google “unlawfully retaliated” against them for engaging in “peaceful” protest, Jane Chung, a spokesperson for No Tech for Apartheid, was quoted as saying by the New York Post.

No Tech for Apartheid, the group organizing the protests, claimed that Google fired more than 20 workers on April 23, including bystanders who were not participating. This adds to the 30 workers fired last week for their involvement in sit-in protests at Google offices in New York and Sunnyvale, California, bringing the total number of terminated workers to more than 50. Google did not immediately respond to a request for comment. The protests targeted a $1.2 billion deal known as Project Nimbus that provides artificial intelligence (AI) technology to the Israeli government. The fired workers contend that the system is being lethally deployed in the Gaza war. “Google’s aims are clear: the corporation is attempting to quash dissent, silence its workers, and reassert its power over them,” the group said in an April 23 statement. “In its attempts to do so, Google has decided to unceremoniously, and without due process, upend the livelihoods of over 50 of its own workers.” The activist group has vowed to continue organizing until Google meets their demands: that it “drop Project Nimbus and stop powering Israel’s genocide of Palestinians in Gaza now.”

Project Nimbus was signed in 2021. It involves joint cloud computing and AI services provided by Google and Amazon to the Israeli government. Google has said that the program is not being used for military or intelligence purposes. Google has said that it fired the workers after gathering details from coworkers who were “physically disrupted” and it identified employees who used masks and didn’t carry their staff badges to hide their identities. Google didn’t specify how many were fired. In a blog post on April 18, Google CEO Sundar Pichai hinted that workers will be on a short leash as the company intensifies its efforts to improve its AI technology at a pivotal moment in the industry and, potentially, history. He did not openly refer to a specific incident. “But ultimately we are a workplace and our policies and expectations are clear: this is a business, and not a place to act in a way that disrupts coworkers or makes them feel unsafe, to attempt to use the company as a personal platform, or to fight over disruptive issues or debate politics,” Mr. Pichai wrote. “We have a duty to be an objective and trusted provider of information that serves all of our users globally.”

Weissmann ran the Mueller probe.

• Weissmann: “One Vote Away from … the End of Democracy” (Turley)

When Robert Mueller appointed Andrew Weissmann as one of his top advisers, many of us warned that it was a poor choice. Weissmann seemed intent to prove those objections correct in increasingly unhinged and partisan statements. This week, he ratcheted up the rhetoric even further in claiming that the nation is “one vote away” from the end of democracy if the Supreme Court does not embrace the sweeping claims of Special Counsel Jack Smith. At the time of his appointment, many Republicans objected to Weissmann’s status as a democratic donor, including his reported attendance of the election night party for Hillary Clinton in 2016. My objection was not to his political affiliations but to his professional history, which included extreme interpretations that were ultimately rejected by courts. Weissmann was responsible for the overextension of an obstruction provision in a jury instruction that led the Supreme Court to reverse the conviction in the Arthur Andersen case in 2005.

Weissmann then became a MSNBC analyst and a professor at New York University. In his book, he attacked prosecutors for refusing to take on his extreme views. Weissmann called on prosecutors to refuse to assist John Durham in his investigation. Now he is predicting the end of democracy if the Court remand the immunity case for further proceedings. Weissmann told MSNBC anchor Jen Psaki on Sunday: “I think that it’s important to remember that at the outset, the court had already given Donald Trump the win that he was seeking, which is the delay of the DC trial.” So going into this, this was all upside for him. I mean, I think he had to be thinking, I’m making this really outlandish argument, with ramifications that couldn’t possibly be squared with the text and history. The text of the Constitution or the history of the presidency? So it’s all upside if the court would actually bite on this.

And so what was surprising is that there were justices who actually were taking this seriously. And it just was, frankly, shocking. Remember, going into this, the given was that private conduct was certainly not, immunized from criminal liability. What everyone’s talking about now is, hey, maybe they think that some of this is private and they can go forward, but that was what was given going into this. And the reason people are thinking that is because there seem to be four justices who were really taking Donald Trump’s claim of criminal immunity seriously. And we are. I mean, I know it sounds like hyperbole, but I think your opening is so correct that we are essentially, as Neil put it, one vote away from sort of the end of democracy as we know it with checks and balances. And to say it’s an imperial presidency that would be created is, it’s frankly saying it would be a king, he would be criminally immune. And that that is what is so shocking is how close we are.

And we are really on the razor’s edge of that kind of result. But for the chief justice. Just for the record, it sounds less “like hyperbole” than hysteria. The justices were exploring the implications of the sweeping arguments on both sides of the immunity question. What they were not willing to do (as does Weissmann) is simply dismiss any arguments of official status on the part of the accused. That would establish a dangerous ambiguity for the future as prosecutors claim that political statements are private matters for the purpose of prosecution. Ironically, Weissmann’s lack of concern for the implications of such an interpretation is reminiscent of his prior sweeping arguments as a prosecutor that led to the stinging defeat in the Anderson case.

Of course, there is another possibility is that the justices were not seeking the end of democracy. The Court was honestly trying to get this standard correct not just for this case but future cases. To do so, it will require a record on the underlying actions rather than the categorical threshold judgment made by the district court. The argument showed justices exploring how to avoid a parade of horribles on either extreme with a more moderate approach. As I previously noted, it has been almost 50 years since the high court ruled presidents have absolute immunity from civil lawsuits in Nixon v. Fitzgerald. That protection applied to acts taken “within the ‘outer perimeter’ of his official responsibility.”

The Conquest of Ireland and the UK Nears Completion

• The Death of Ireland and Replacement of the Irish People (Paul Craig Roberts)

Gaza is not the only genocide. Genocide is taking place all over Europe and in the US. All over Europe and the US governments prefer immigrant-invaders over their own citizens.“The migrants are eligible for free accommodation, free social welfare, free medical care, food, clothes, and various other perks. Whilst at the same time that the Irish government is facilitating mass immigration there are 14,000 Irish homeless people on the streets.” And many more homeless Irish citizens are on the way. Migrants are given free accommodation in hotels and country estates throughout the land, while the Irish people are seriously struggling to make ends meet in a rigged inflationary system, with a never-ending story of sky-high rents, high taxes, inflation, and an ongoing extremely serious accommodation crisis. Many young Irish citizens are left with little option but to live with their parents or emigrate to countries such as Australia as they cannot afford to live in their own country.

This is an extremely important article. It shows that the West is being intentionally destroyed by its own governments. The threat that all citizens in the West face comes not from Russia, China, Iran, but from their own government. Irish citizens who peacefully protest their replacement by immigrant-invaders are brutally beaten–even mothers and children–by police, which emphasizes the second class status of Irish ethnicity. “Many of the Irish police in balaclavas that are enforcing these tactics against the Irish people are not Irish at all, but are more akin to non-Irish hired mercenaries, or more like an EU army.” “The stark reality is the Irish government is not really the Irish government it is just a puppet of the EU bureaucracy. Ireland has been a fully controlled vassal state of the banker-controlled EU, in particular since the controversial (and rerun) Lisbon referendum 14 years ago, which hammered a nail in the coffin of Irish sovereignty.”

“..they are walking into Armageddon by betting that Washington is rational..”

• The Ukraine Conflict Is Spinning Out of Control (Paul Craig Roberts)

In my effort to awake humanity to its extinction in the nuclear war that is advancing upon us, I have pointed my finger at Putin and Xi’s mistaken belief that the way to avoid it is to ignore provocations and wait for Washington to come to its senses. This shows diplomacy at its highest level, but it is mistaken. The ignored provocations encourage more and worst provocations. The Asia Times, if the story can be believed, reports that NATO has begun deploying troops in Ukraine’s defense. “NATO is starting to deploy combat troops to Ukraine. Soldiers from Poland, France, the UK, Finland and other NATO members are arriving in larger numbers.“ Although Russia says there are over 3,100 mercenaries in Ukraine, these newly arriving troops are not mercenaries. They are in uniform, home country proclaimed via insignia.

They mostly are concentrated in the western part of the country, although in some cases they are close to the actual fighting in the east. “NATO is putting out the word these are not combat soldiers but are in Ukraine to operate sophisticated western hardware. But if they are firing at the Russians the only proper way to interpret their presence is that they are playing an active part in the shooting war.” It is the same plan as Washington’s intervention in Vietnam. What will the sequel be? Putin and XI are diplomats. But they have no comprehension of Washington. Their naiveness has blinded them to reality. Consequently, they are walking into Armageddon by betting that Washington is rational.

Cut it out.

• Ukraine Must Defeat Russia To Join NATO – Zelensky (RT)

Ukraine needs to defeat Russia on the battlefield in order to be admitted to NATO, President Vladimir Zelensky has said. The US-led alliance has made it clear earlier that Kiev cannot become a member while the fighting is ongoing. “I believe that we will be in NATO only if we win. I don’t think that we will be admitted to NATO during the war,” Zelensky said on Tuesday during a meeting with a group of military officers in Kiev. He explained that the admission of Ukraine would require unanimous approval by the alliance’s 32 members. Some members are reluctant to admit Ukraine in the midst of an ongoing armed conflict because “they feel the risks, while others are simply skeptical,” Zelensky argued. “Therefore, for Ukraine to be accepted into the alliance, we need victory.” He went on to add that eventual membership would secure Ukraine’s security and independence.

Ukraine formally applied to join NATO in September 2022. While NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg and individual members agree that Ukraine should someday become part of NATO, Kiev has not been presented with a concrete timetable. It is widely understood that the country will not be admitted until the conflict with Russia is resolved.v Stoltenberg, who visited Kiev on Monday, admitted to Reuters that the delays in promised weapons deliveries had “put a dent into the trust” between Ukraine and its foreign backers.

While the EU is struggling to find enough arms and ammunition for Ukraine’s wartime needs, the newest aid package from the US had been stuck for months in Congress due to political wrangling. The delays sparked worries in Kiev, with Zelensky openly warning that Ukraine would lose if ammunition shortages are not remedied. Ukrainian officials have blamed the slowdown of deliveries for last year’s failed counteroffensive, as well as more recent losses of cities in the east to the Russian army. Russia, for its part, has cited NATO’s continuing expansion eastward and the bloc’s military cooperation with Ukraine as one of the root causes of the conflict. Moscow considers NATO a threat to its national security and insists that Ukraine must become a neutral country.

“In substance, therefore, Blinken in Beijing continued talking about talking.”

• China Humiliated Blinken But Blinken Kept Begging (Chang)

It is not clear whether a Chinese official was at the Beijing airport to bid farewell to Secretary of State Antony Blinken as he ended his three-day visit to China on Friday, but the send-off was in any event low-key and Chinese leader Xi Jinping slighted America’s top diplomat at the end of his troubled stay. Also, China, literally and figuratively, did not roll out the red carpet for his arrival in Shanghai on Wednesday. Only a low-level official was on hand to greet Blinken as he stepped off the plane. “The Chinese government flouted international protocols at the airport on the secretary of state’s arrival in Shanghai and departure from Beijing,” Charles Burton of the Prague-based Sinopsis think tank told Gatestone. “It was petty.” “This was more than a slight,” Burton, a former Canadian diplomat who served in Beijing, said. “Aside from a calculated insult to the dignity of the United States, the move indicates Xi Jinping is making clear that the accepted norms of diplomacy will not be respected by China anymore.”

Blinken was in China to discuss the growing list of disagreements between Washington and Beijing. Not surprisingly, he did not accomplish anything there other than register America’s complaints on matters such as Beijing’s support for the Russian war effort in Ukraine and unfair treatment of U.S. companies. On every major issue, the U.S. and China take different sides, and the Chinese have clearly dug in. Blinken was reduced to begging. As a result, America is resorting to the dialogue-is-progress narrative. “I think it’s important to underscore the value—in fact, the necessity—of direct engagement, of sustained engagement, of speaking to each other, laying out our differences which are real, seeking to work through them, as also looking for ways to build cooperation where we can,” Blinken said to Chen Jining, Communist Party secretary of Shanghai, ahead of his talks in the Chinese capital.

After the end of fruitless sessions in Beijing—Blinken met with, among others, President Xi Jinping and Foreign Minister Wang Yi—all the secretary of state could do is highlight new dialogue issues. “I’m pleased to announce that earlier today, we agreed to hold the first U.S.-PRC talks on artificial intelligence to be held in the coming weeks,” he said at a press availability on April 26, as he wrapped up his trip to China. “We’ll share our respective views on the risks and safety concerns around advanced AI and how best to manage them.” Blinken’s comments repeated those of President Joe Biden after his November 15 meeting with Xi Jinping in Woodside, California. In substance, therefore, Blinken in Beijing continued talking about talking.

There is no question that AI is an important topic, especially when it comes to the control of nuclear weapons. Yet this does not mean the U.S. should seek an agreement with China on that topic. “The latest shambolic display by the Biden administration comes in the form of Secretary of State Antony Blinken groveling before China’s Ruler-for-Life Xi Jinping for a new set of protocols for governing the development of artificial intelligence between America and China, the two nations contributing the most to both the advancement of AI and its weaponization,” Brandon Weichert, a national security analyst at The National Interest, told Gatestone. “Although creating such protocols may sound like a good idea, it seems like a bad idea for Washington to unilaterally agree to limit its own activities.”

“..the first debate scheduled for Sept. 16 “will be the earliest televised general election debate ever held.”

• Trump Campaign Slams Commission’s Refusal to Hold Earlier Debates (ET)

The Trump campaign on Tuesday issued a rebuke of the Commission on Presidential Debates (CPD) refusal to move up its debate schedule until after millions of Americans have already cast their ballots, calling it “unacceptable” and a “grave disservice” to the electorate. In a statement, former President Donald Trump’s campaign representatives Chris LaCivita and Susie Wiles intensified criticism of the body that sponsors all general election presidential debates. Previously, they had requested debates to be held “much earlier” than the commission’s planned first debate in mid-September. The Trump campaign repeated its argument that voters deserve to hear from both candidates before they begin casting their votes.

“The Presidential Debate Commission’s schedule does not begin until after millions of Americans will have already cast their ballots. This is unacceptable, and by refusing to move up the debates, they are doing a grave disservice to the American public who deserve to hear from both candidates before voting begins,” the statement read. The statement comes after the nonprofit commission told Fox News that it would stick with its debate schedule, which was released last November. Four debates are planned: three presidential and one vice presidential.The first presidential debate takes place on Sept. 16 at Texas State University in San Marcos; the second takes place on Oct. 1 at Virginia State University in Petersburg; and the third takes place on Oct. 9 at the University of Utah in Salt Lake City.

The commission said that it “is proceeding with production and broadcast plans at its four debate sites as also announced on November 20, 2023.” Responding to the criticism, the CPD issued a statement on Wednesday, clarifying its decision-making process regarding the schedule for the 2024 debates. The commission noted that the first debate scheduled for Sept. 16 “will be the earliest televised general election debate ever held.” The selection of debate dates aimed to ensure accessibility for the American public, taking into account factors such as religious and federal holidays, early voting, and state ballot closing dates, according to the CPD.

“It’s a disgrace to our Country — They’ve taken away my Right to Free Speech.”

• Appeals Court Denies Trump’s Bid to Have Judge Merchan Recused (ET)

A New York state appeals court denied a request from former President Donald Trump to have his so-called “hush-money” judge removed. Lawyers for the former president sought a stay in the proceedings and the recusal of Judge Juan Merchan, who is overseeing the trial that will likely last for at least another month. Both the application for his recusal and for a stay in the case were denied on Tuesday without explanation by the New York State Supreme Court’s Appellate Division for the First Department. His lawyers had argued that the trial judge should be removed because he had acted out of his jurisdiction by refusing to recuse himself and restricting the number of docket entries, among other matters. “Now, upon reading and filing the papers with respect to the motion, and due deliberation having been had thereon,” Tuesday’s court order stated. “It is ordered that the motion is denied.”

In April, before the jury selection process started, Judge Merchan himself denied a request from President Trump’s attorneys to step down. Several days before that, the former president’s lawyers said in a hearing that the trial should be delayed, which the court also denied. “The unconstitutional effects of Justice Merchan’s rulings are causing ongoing, irreparable constitutional harms to Petitioner and the voting public and, if not stopped, will prevent Petitioner from receiving a fair trial,” Trump attorney Todd Blanche wrote in an application to the court. A judge, Ellen Gesmer, denied the application. Also last month, the state appeals court rejected another bid to stay the trial while the defense tried to move the trial away from Manhattan, arguing that they were concerned that the jury pool would be tainted. The court also rejected an appeal to pause the trial while President Trump appealed a gag order that was handed down by Judge Merchan earlier this year.

On Tuesday morning, Judge Merchan fined President Trump $9,000 for nine separate posts he made online that he believes violated the gag order. He further warned President Trump that he could be incarcerated if he continues to make the posts. Previously, President Trump and his attorneys argued that the gag order, which prohibits the former president from commenting on most people connected to the case, is a violation of his First Amendment rights. In a social media statement after the fines were handed down, President Trump wrote: “This gag order is not only unique, it’s totally unconstitutional. I am the Republican Candidate for President of the United States.” “This is a total Witch Hunt. Hours of sitting down and listening to nothing except EXONERATION AND LIES,” he continued. “The Trial is going like a speeding bullet, because the Judge is working hard to make all of his friends happy. Merchan is Rigged, Crooked and above all, and without question, CONFLICTED. It’s a disgrace to our Country — They’ve taken away my Right to Free Speech.”

Pepe left Asia.

• BRIC-O-Rama: On The Road In Brazil, With An Eye On Russia-China (Pepe Escobar)

I have just been immersed in an extraordinary experience: a mini-tour of conferences in Brazil encompassing four key cities – Sao Paulo, Rio, Salvador, Belo Horizonte. Full houses, sharp questions, fabulously warm people, divine gastronomy – a deep dive into the 8th largest economy in the world and major BRICS+ node. As much as I was trying to impress the finer points of the long and winding road to multipolarity and the multiple instances of frontal clash between NATOstan and the Global Majority, I was learning non-stop from an array of generous Brazilians about the current inner contradictions of a society of astonishing complexity. It’s as if I was immersed in a psychedelic journey conducted by Os Mutantes, the iconic trio of the late 1960s Tropicalia movement: from the business front in Sao Paulo – with its world-class restaurants and frantic deal-making – to the blinding beauty of Rio; from Salvador – the capital of Brazilian Africa – to Belo Horizonte, the capital of the third-wealthiest state in the Federation, Minas Gerais, a powerhouse of iron ore, uranium and niobium exports.

I learned about how China chose the state of Bahia as arguably its key node in Brazil, where Chinese investment is everywhere – even if Brazil is not yet a formal member of the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI). In Rio, I was presented with an astonishing work on Stoics Zeno and Cleanthes by essayist Ciro Moroni – delving among other issues into the equivalences between Stoic theogony/theology and the Hindu Vedanta – the tradition of culture, religion and sacred rituals in India up to the Buddha era.

And in a sort of psychedelic synchronicity, I felt like Zeno in the Agora as we debated the NATO proxy war against Russia in Ukraine at a lovely round pavillion – a mini-Agora – in fabled Liberty Square in Belo Horizonte, across the street from a fabulous exhibition of Treasures of Peruvian Art. Much to my astonishment, a Peruvian, Carlos Ledesma, flew in from Lima especially for my conference and the exhibition; and then he told me about the Chancay port being built south of Lima, owned 70% by COSCO and the rest by private Peruvian capital; that will be a sister port of Shanghai.

Chancay-Shanghai: APEC in action across the Pacific. Next November, there will be three nearly simultaneous key events in South America: the G20 in Rio, the APEC summit in Lima, and the inauguration of Chancay. Chancay will be boosted by no less than five rail corridors that may eventually be built – certainly with Chinese investment – from the agribusiness Valhalla in the Brazilian Center-West all the way to Peru. Yes, China is all over the place in its largest trade partner in Latin America – much to the despair of a Hegemon sending lowly functionary Little Blinken to Beijing to hear the letter of the new law by Xi Jinping himself: it’s cooperation or confrontation, a “downward spiral”. Your downward spiral.

Markkula

Apple’s first investor was Mike Markkula.

He put in $250,000 for 1/3 of the business.

Today, 1/3 of Apple is worth $875 billion.pic.twitter.com/fYzOkASvSm

— Jon Erlichman (@JonErlichman) May 1, 2024

Horse herd
https://twitter.com/i/status/1785657926448820571

Bugs
https://twitter.com/i/status/1785832474494279693

Rebel
https://twitter.com/i/status/1785599235297075474

Transform
https://twitter.com/i/status/1785594023543238942

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Debt Rattle November 19 2021

Nov 192021

November 19, 2021 Posted by Raúl Ilargi Meijer at 9:12 am Finance Tagged with: adverse reactions, antibody drug, Ardern, AstraZeneca, Greece, Ireland, Italy, lab leak, lockdown, masks, Pfizer 87 Responses »

Elio Ciol Via Portica, Assisi 1958

• Vaccinated Up To 9x More Likely To Be Hospitalized Than Unvaccinated (Kirsch)

• 29,934 Deaths, 2,804,900 Injuries in EU Database of Adverse Reactions (HIN)

• US Government Pays $5.29 Billion to Pfizer for Anti-Covid Pills (GR)

• AstraZeneca Covid-19 Antibody Drug Offers 83% Protection Over 6 Months (R.)

• Another Major Red Flag About Covid Vaccines And Death (Berenson)

• 93%-Vaccinated Ireland Has Gone Back Into ‘Partial Lockdown’ (ZH)

• Italian Governors Call For Unvaccinated to be Put Under Lockdown (SN)

• The Covid Lab Leak Theory Just Got Even Stronger (Sp.)

• Mood Darkens In New Zealand As Covid Restrictions Bite (G.)

• Comprehensive Review of Face Mask Studies Finds No Evidence of Benefit (DS)

• Mask Wearing Cuts New Covid-19 Cases By 53% (F.)

• Greek Lawyer Arrested For Spreading Covid Misinformation (K.)

• Greek PM: Unvaccinated Adults To Be Barred From All Indoor Public Venues (K.)

• Private Doctors In Northern Greece Ordered To Pitch In For A Month (K.)

Atlas

Dr. Scott Atlas to Tucker Carlson on working w/Fauci, Birx, & Redfield:

"I have never worked with people at this level in my career, and I'm not saying at a high level, I'm saying at a low level … I'm not sure these people could have been assistant professors where I worked." pic.twitter.com/bTTEtOnz9i

— Scott Morefield (@SKMorefield) November 18, 2021

9x may be a bit much. But hey, there’s an easy $1 million in it if you prove him wrong, or even just debate him and his team.

• Vaccinated Up To 9x More Likely To Be Hospitalized Than Unvaccinated (Kirsch)

It is hard to get good, honest data out of hospitals nowadays for some reason. I have no clue as to why that is. You’d think things would be more transparent. But Aaron Siri discovered someone who convinced their hospital to do something really unusual: track the vaccination status of each admitted patient to the hospital. Tracking was based on whether you got the vaccine or not, not “two weeks after you got the vaccine” which is a major definition difference. In short, honest tracking. You’ll never guess what happened so I’ll tell you. Siri wrote on his substack:

A concerned Physician Assistant, Deborah Conrad, convinced her hospital to carefully track the Covid-19 vaccination status of every patient admitted to her hospital. The result is shocking. As Ms. Conrad has detailed, her hospital serves a community in which less than 50% of the individuals were vaccinated for Covid-19 but yet, during the same time period, approximately 90% of the individuals admitted to her hospital were documented to have received this vaccine. These patients were admitted for a variety of reasons, including but not limited to COVID-19 infections. Even more troubling is that there were many individuals who were young, many who presented with unusual or unexpected health events, and many who were admitted months after vaccination. As you might expect, the hospital rewarded Deborah Conrad for her courage and leadership to expose the truth by firing her.

The message is clear: If you speak the truth, you will be pay the price. It is imperative that information that doesn’t align with the “narrative” be suppressed. This is why doctors don’t speak out. And it’s why I had to quit my job in high tech to speak out as well. But here’s the part Aaron didn’t point out that needs to be stated very clearly: The only way you can get those numbers is if vaccinated people are 9 times more likely to be hospitalized than unvaccinated It is mathematically impossible to get to those numbers any other way. Period. Full stop. This is known as an “inconvenient truth.”

Works as poorly as VAERS. Do they catch even 5%?

• 29,934 Deaths, 2,804,900 Injuries in EU Database of Adverse Reactions (HIN)

The European Union database of suspected drug reaction reports is EudraVigilance, and they are now reporting 29,934 fatalities, and 2,804,900 injuries, following COVID-19 injections. A Health Impact News subscriber from Europe reminded us that this database maintained at EudraVigilance is only for countries in Europe who are part of the European Union (EU), which comprises 27 countries. The total number of countries in Europe is much higher, almost twice as many, numbering around 50. (There are some differences of opinion as to which countries are technically part of Europe.) So as high as these numbers are, they do NOT reflect all of Europe. The actual number in Europe who are reported dead or injured following COVID-19 shots would be much higher than what we are reporting here.

The EudraVigilance database reports that through October 19, 2021 there are 29,934 deaths and 2,804,900 injuries reported following injections of four experimental COVID-19 shots. From the total of injuries recorded, almost half of them (1,311,861) are serious injuries. “Seriousness provides information on the suspected undesirable effect; it can be classified as ‘serious’ if it corresponds to a medical occurrence that results in death, is life-threatening, requires inpatient hospitalisation, results in another medically important condition, or prolongation of existing hospitalisation, results in persistent or significant disability or incapacity, or is a congenital anomaly/birth defect.”

A Health Impact News subscriber in Europe ran the reports for each of the four COVID-19 shots we are including here. It is a lot of work to tabulate each reaction with injuries and fatalities, since there is no place on the EudraVigilance system we have found that tabulates all the results. Since we have started publishing this, others from Europe have also calculated the numbers and confirmed the totals.*These totals are estimates based on reports submitted to EudraVigilance. Totals may be much higher based on percentage of adverse reactions that are reported. Some of these reports may also be reported to the individual country’s adverse reaction databases, such as the U.S. VAERS database and the UK Yellow Card system. The fatalities are grouped by symptoms, and some fatalities may have resulted from multiple symptoms.

“..the cost of the oral medication is lower, to the tune of $530, as opposed to the $700 that one course of the Merck pills costs.”

• US Government Pays $5.29 Billion to Pfizer for Anti-Covid Pills (GR)

The pharmaceuticals giant Pfizer has signed a $5.3 billion deal with the United States government to supply its anti-Covid Paxlovid pills to the American people, according to a statement released by the company on Thursday. This is enough to supply a total of 10 million courses of its antiviral drug, as the medication is placed before the US Food and Drug Administration for emergency authorization. The Pfizer pill is the second one to be developed to fight the coronavirus, after Merck’s Molnupiravir, which was placed before the FDA for review on October 11. Molnupiravir is already approved for emergency use in the United Kingdom. The Pfizer deal is nearly double the amount of the contract that the US inked with Merck although the cost of the oral medication is lower, to the tune of $530, as opposed to the $700 that one course of the Merck pills costs.

After recently telling the press that his corporation would file for approval “before Thanksgiving,” Pfizer CEO Albert Bourla put the results of laboratory tests before the FDA this week. According to the pharmaceuticals firm, Paxlovid is 89% effective in preventing hospitalizations and deaths in this who are at risk for severe Covid. President Joe Biden announced in a statement on Thursday “While this pill still requires a full review by the Food and Drug Administration, I have taken immediate steps to secure enough supply for the American people.” Like the coronavirus injections that hundreds of millions of Americans and other peoples around the world have received, the anti-Covid pills will also be easily accessible and free of any cost. Pfizer noted in its statement that it will begin deliveries of Paxlovid pills as soon before the year is out if it is authorized for emergency use by the FDA.

Market watchers noted on Thursday that Pfizer shares rose 1%, to $51.40 in early trading, while Merck shares were marginally lower. Reuters reports that Department of Health and Human Services Secretary Xavier Becerra stated that becoming vaccinated should still be a priority for Americans, but the anti-covid pills that may allow at-risk individuals to stay out of the hospital “could be a lifesaver.” The Pharma behemoth says that it has the capacity to manufacture 180,000 courses of treatment by the end of December; possibly more than 50 million courses of the anti-covid pill may be produced by the end of next year.

Antibody prophylaxis?!

• AstraZeneca Covid-19 Antibody Drug Offers 83% Protection Over 6 Months (R.)

AstraZeneca on Thursday cemented its lead in bringing a preventative Covid-19 shot for the non-infected to market for people who do not respond well to vaccines, saying its antibody drug cocktail offered 83% protection over six months. The injected therapy, called AZD7442 or Evusheld, had previously been shown to confer 77% protection against symptomatic illness after three months, in an earlier readout of the late-stage PROVENT trial in August. The Anglo-Swedish company also said a separate study in patients with mild-to-moderate Covid-19 showed a higher dose of AZD7442 cut the risk of symptoms worsening by 88% when given within three days of first symptoms.

The latest results from longer-term follow-ups potentially position AstraZeneca, like rival Pfizer as a future supplier of both Covid-19 vaccines and treatments, with AstraZeneca having said the therapy’s “real advantage” was as a preventative shot. “These new data add to the growing body of evidence supporting AZD7442’s potential to make a significant difference in the prevention and treatment of Covid-19,” Executive Vice President Mene Pangalos said in a statement.

“..3,939 of 4.03 million Swedes who received the second dose died less than two weeks later.”

• Another Major Red Flag About Covid Vaccines And Death (Berenson)

People appear to die at rates 20 percent or more above normal for weeks after receiving their second Covid vaccine dose, according to data from a huge Swedish study. The figures are buried in a preprint paper on vaccine effectiveness released last month. The headline finding of the paper was that protection against Covid, including severe cases, plunged after six months. The researchers did not explicitly examine deaths from all causes – which have risen since the summer in many countries that have highly vaccinated populations. But on page 32 of the 34-page report, a chart shows that 3,939 of 4.03 million Swedes who received the second dose died less than two weeks later.

Over a one-year period, that rate of death would translate into an annual mortality rate of about 2.5 percent a year – 1 person in 40 – almost three times the overall Swedish average. In a typical year, about 1 in 115 Swedes dies. Of course, that huge gap does not account for an important confounding factor: younger people, who have a much lower risk of death, were less likely to be vaccinated. But Sweden also provides detailed data on overall deaths nationally, making a crude baseline comparison possible. That data shows that from an average of about 1,650 Swedes died every week between 2015 and 2019 between April 1 and early August, the period in which almost all of those 4 million Swedes in the study received their second dose. Death rates hardly varied over those years.

In other words, during the spring and summer, Sweden normally has about 3,300 deaths every two weeks – not just in the people who received vaccines, but in all 10.6 million of its people. So let’s make an incredibly conservative assumption, one that strongly favors the vaccines. (The next couple paragraphs are a bit tricky, but I hope the payoff is worth taking the time to read and think through them.) Assume that the group of people who received vaccines were so much older and unhealthier than those who didn’t that they would have accounted for every single death in Sweden whether or not they were vaccinated. In other words, assume that even if the vaccines did not exist, every person in Sweden who died would have been part of that group of 4.03 million people the researchers tracked – while not one other person would have died.

In that case, those 4.03 million people “should” have about 3,300 deaths every two weeks. They CANNOT HAVE MORE – because all of Sweden does not have more. But the vaccines do exist. Those 4.03 million people received them. And in the two weeks after receiving the second vaccine dose, as a group, the researchers reported they had not about 3,300 deaths, but 3,939. And 3,939 deaths is about 20 percent more deaths than “should” have occurred in those two post-vaccine weeks. Again, the 20 percent figure understates the real gap, because in the real world some deaths will occur in the 6.6 million unvaccinated people too, so the actual baseline number for the vaccinated group is not 3,300 deaths but somewhat lower.

If this doesn’t spell “failure”, what does?

• 93%-Vaccinated Ireland Has Gone Back Into ‘Partial Lockdown’ (ZH)

Amid what’s being called a fourth wave of infections to hit highly vaccinated Ireland, the government on Tuesday unveiled new Covid-related restrictions at a moment many are now worried the country could be headed toward a full nationwide lockdown before Christmas. The new measures take effect Friday, despite government officials confirming that at least 93% of Ireland’s population of over 5 million people are fully vaccinated. This makes Ireland among the most vaccinated countries in the world, and yet similar to what the UK, Israel, and more recently Austria have experienced, infection rates are still exploding. The new Irish restrictions, which is being dubbed a semi-lockdown, include a nationwide midnight curfew, new ‘work from home’ guidelines encouraging all who are able to do their job from home, as well as stricter implementation of already existing Covid passes – which will now be required by law in cinemas and theaters.

Entering the holiday season, it’s the midnight curfew that’s especially controversial – given it will disproportionately hit pubs, restaurants, and entertainment venues the hardest. One bar industry organization, the Vintners’ Federation of Ireland (VFI), representing some 4,000 Irish pub-owners (or publicans), reacted as follows: “The news that restricted trading hours are set to be reintroduced is a hugely disappointing development for the many late-night pubs and night clubs many of whom will now be forced to shut just three weeks after reopening.” The statement spelled out that “The decision to introduce a new closing time of midnight will effectively close many late-night pubs and nightclubs. It will also seriously restrict other outlets at the most critical time of the year.

“Many of these have already survived over a year of on-and-off again forced closures since the start of pandemic, gutting the hospitality industry which is only just now starting to re-emerge. As has been the pattern, many Irish officials and pundits are blaming the unvaccinated, despite mainstream media outlets like Sky News pointing out the obvious: “The 14-day incidence of the disease currently stands at 959 per 100,000 people. This is despite having one of the most vaccinated populations, with around 93% of all adults fully vaccinated.” [..] So once again we are seeing an ultra-vaxxed society experiencing an uncontrollable surge in the virus, but the refrain of government leaders remains the same simplistic “solutions”: more restrictions, more vaccines, less freedom.

“The death toll is rising; the situation is serious. Vaccination is the only solution, there is no other,” said Babis.”

• Italian Governors Call For Unvaccinated to be Put Under Lockdown (SN)

Five Italian Governors have called for lockdown measures to be imposed on the unvaccinated, following the example of Austria, while Czech Republic and Slovakia are also moving to enforce similar measures. As we previously highlighted, after Austria placed the unjabbed under lockdown, preventing them from leaving their homes for anything other than “essential reasons,” police were seen patrolling supermarkets and highways checking resident’s vaccination status. Several states in Germany also announced that they would ban the unvaccinated from numerous venues. Now Italy’s unvaccinated population, which stands at around 7 million, could be about to face the same form of medical apartheid.

“Eventual new lockdowns should not have to be suffered by those who are vaccinated. Restrictions should only apply to those who are not immunized,” said Massimiliano Fedriga, the Governor of Friuli-Venezia Giulia in the northeast of the country. The Telegraph reports that, “His stance is supported by the governors of Tuscany, Calabria, Liguria and Piedmont.” Former Prime Minister Matteo Renzi echoed the demand, tweeting, “You’re not vaccinated? Then stay at home.” Outgoing Czech Republic Prime Minister Andrej Babis has also announced that the the unvaccinated will be banned from shops and restaurants, with the option to provide a negative test removed (despite the fact that the vaccinated can still transmit the virus). “The death toll is rising; the situation is serious. Vaccination is the only solution, there is no other,” said Babis.

“..to avoid the complication of signing up local subcontractors to their grants in those countries, they promised to send the samples to a laboratory they already funded. And where was this lab? Wuhan.”

• The Covid Lab Leak Theory Just Got Even Stronger (Sp.)

Two years in, there is no doubt the Covid pandemic began in the Chinese city of Wuhan. But there is also little doubt that the bat carrying the progenitor of the virus lived somewhere else. Central to the mystery of Covid’s origin is how a virus normally found in horseshoe bats in caves in the far south of China or south-east Asia turned up in a city a thousand miles north. New evidence suggests that part of the answer might lie in Laos. The search for viruses closely related to Sars-CoV-2 took a new turn in September when a team of French and Laotian scientists found one in a horseshoe bat living in a cave in the west Laotian province of Vientiane. Other related viruses had been found in Cambodia, Thailand, Japan and elsewhere in China, but this one, Banal-52, was different.

For the first time since the pandemic began, this was a virus genetically closer to the human Sars-CoV-2 virus than one called RaTG13, collected in southern Yunnan in 2013. RaTG13, which had been stored for six years in a freezer in a lab in Wuhan itself, is genetically 96.1 per cent the same as Sars-CoV-2; Laos’s Banal-52 is 96.8 per cent. The discovery of Banal-52 was greeted with relief by champions of the theory that the virus must have jumped into people in a natural spillover event, not an accident inside a laboratory. If Covid’s closest cousins are flitting about in bats in south-east Asia, then that sample in the freezer in Wuhan looks less suspicious. ‘I am more convinced than ever that Sars-CoV-2 has a natural origin,’ said Linfa Wang of Duke-NUS Medical School in Singapore, a close collaborator of the Wuhan scientists.

True, the Laos virus lacked a critical feature in a key part of a key gene that makes Covid so infectious: a special 12-letter segment of genetic text called a furin cleavage site. It’s a feature that has never been seen in a Sars-like virus, except for Sars-CoV-2. Apart from that, it seemed that the Laotian virus might have knocked the burden of proof back across the philosophical net into the court of the proponents of lab-leak. Then last month a bunch of emails, uncovered by a lawsuit from the so-called White Coat Waste Project, returned the ball right back over the net. They comprised an exchange between the American virus–hunting foundation, the EcoHealth Alliance and its funders in the US government. The scientists discussed collecting viruses from bats in eight countries including Burma, Vietnam, Cambodia and Laos between 2016 and 2019. But to avoid the complication of signing up local subcontractors to their grants in those countries, they promised to send the samples to a laboratory they already funded. And where was this lab? Wuhan.

“..a “wave” of disinformation tinged with violent rhetoric, QAnon-style conspiracy theories and far-right undertones.”

Ardern is just another Pfizer sales rep. She’s the one who provides the disinformation. Or does that graph look like a success to you?

• Mood Darkens In New Zealand As Covid Restrictions Bite (G.)

For more than a year, New Zealand’s “team of 5 million” stood largely united in the face of Covid-19. This month, as the country expanded vaccine mandates and a tougher roadmap of restrictions for the unvaccinated, that mood has splintered and darkened. Among a small but vocal sliver of the population, dissent has been turning ugly, with death threats against MPs and journalists, increasing protests, warnings from security services about Covid-prompted terror threats, and what researchers have called a “wave” of disinformation tinged with violent rhetoric, QAnon-style conspiracy theories and far-right undertones.

“We’re talking … your aunt and uncle type-people using language like Nuremberg 2.0, common law trials, like ‘the prime minister is a Nazi’ – these are quite extreme terms and terminologies,” says Kate Hannah, a research fellow at Te Punaha Matatini’s disinformation project, a research institute that monitors online extremism and rhetoric. Hannah says the team observed an incredibly rapid shift in both the volume and tone of disinformation circulating in New Zealand’s online communities since the Delta outbreak and level 4 lockdown began. “Since August 2021 to now, there has been almost a day-on-day increase in both the volume of production of misinformation products or things being shared, the level of engagement by communities … and also the tone,” she said. An unregulated online environment, particularly on chat app Telegram, she said, had “normalised – very, very quickly – content which is extremely violent.”

Some of that online chatter manifested in the flesh last week in a series of anti-vaccine mandate protests, several-thousand strong. While the protests were broadly peaceful, one police officer was bitten by a demonstrator, and a news outlet reported that one of their journalists had been harassed and pushed by protesters. The signs and slogans proffered by the crowds presented an odd blend of factions and allegiances – tino rangatiratanga [Maori sovereignty] flags alongside Nazi imagery, anti-vaccine mottoes, evangelical preachers, those calling for the prime minister’s arrest and execution. Hannah says that same blend is what researchers are seeing online – where the rhetoric and networks of vaccine-scepticism are acting as a “Trojan horse” for more extreme ideologies.

“People genuinely feel excluded from society – there are genuine grievances and genuine fears,” Hannah said. And the shifts in political rhetoric have accompanied the country’s material change in pandemic fortunes. While the country rode out most of 2020 as a Covid-free idyll, now it has had to reckon with months-long lockdowns, steadily growing case numbers, near-daily deaths, and the threat of lost jobs and freedoms for those who refuse vaccination.

Cases in New Zealand are up 2,686% in the three months since their most recent mask mandate, despite 91% of the eligible population being at least partially vaccinated and strict lockdowns

Weird that we’re still discussing the all-too-obvious.

• Comprehensive Review of Face Mask Studies Finds No Evidence of Benefit (DS)

The Cato Institute has published its latest working paper, a critical review of the evidence for face masks to prevent the spread of COVID-19. Entitled “Evidence for Community Cloth Face Masking to Limit the Spread of SARS- CoV-2: A Critical Review” and written by Ian Liu, Vinay Prasad and Jonathan Darrow, the paper is an admirably thorough and balanced overview of the published evidence on the efficacy of face masks. While even-handedly acknowledging and summarising the studies that show benefit, the authors overall conclusion is that: More than a century after the 1918 influenza pandemic, examination of the efficacy of masks has produced a large volume of mostly low- to moderate-quality evidence that has largely failed to demonstrate their value in most settings. At 61 pages in length, however, not everyone will make it through to the end, so here s a TL;DR, with some key quotes to serve as a handy overview. The paper is, of course, worth reading in full, though. Here’s the authors’ own summary in the form of the abstract:

“The use of cloth facemasks in community settings has become an accepted public policy response to decrease disease transmission during the COVID-19 pandemic. Yet evidence of facemask efficacy is based primarily on observational studies that are subject to confounding and on mechanistic studies that rely on surrogate endpoints (such as droplet dispersion) as proxies for disease transmission. The available clinical evidence of facemask efficacy is of low quality and the best available clinical evidence has mostly failed to show efficacy, with fourteen of sixteen identified randomised controlled trials comparing face masks to no mask controls failing to find statistically significant benefit in the intent-to-treat populations. Of sixteen quantitative meta-analyses, eight were equivocal or critical as to whether evidence supports a public recommendation of masks, and the remaining eight supported a public mask intervention on limited evidence primarily on the basis of the precautionary principle. Although weak evidence should not preclude precautionary actions in the face of unprecedented events such as the COVID-19 pandemic, ethical principles require that the strength of the evidence and best estimates of amount of benefit be truthfully communicated to the public.”

The authors open by recalling the initial advice on masks from the WHO and others and the pre-Covid evidence it was based on. “Until April 2020, World Health Organization COVID-19 guidelines stated that “[c]loth (e.g. cotton or gauze) masks are not recommended under any circumstance”, which were updated in June 2020 to state that “the widespread use of masks by healthy people in the community setting is not yet supported by high quality or direct scientific evidence”. In the surgical theatre context, a Cochrane review found “no statistically significant difference in infection rates between the masked and unmasked group in any of the trials”. Another Cochrane review, of influenza-like-illness, found “low certainty evidence from nine trials (3,507 participants) that wearing a mask may make little or no difference to the outcome of influenza-like illness (ILI) compared to not wearing a mask (risk ratio 0.99, CI 0.82 to 1.18).”

Considering mechanisms for transmission and thus modes of operation for masks, the authors review the evidence for aerosol transmission and find it very likely. They argue that the ability of masks to inhibit the passage of sufficient aerosols to protect the wearer or infect others, whether through tiny holes in the material or leaking round the sides, is limited. They write: [F]iltering capability is unlikely to be reliable surrogate for infection control, since exhaled air necessarily either leaks around a mask’s edges or passes through it. Such leakage has been shown to account for the vast majority (~5:1 ratio) of particle penetration of standardised surgical masks, and exhaled air easily passes around the edges of most cloth masks. One study of cloth masks simulated leakage and found that a hole equal to ~1% of the mask area decreased mask efficiency by over 60%…

But like clockwork, there’s always a different report. Cato vs BMJ. Just got to wonder what the logic is to justify 180º turn.

Nice detail: handwashing reduces incidence by the exact same percentage as masks, 53%.

• Mask Wearing Cuts New Covid-19 Cases By 53% (F.)

Mask wearing cuts the number of new Covid-19 infections by 53%, according to a new peer reviewed study in the British Medical Journal, which found the controversial and highly politicized precaution to be the single most effective tool against the coronavirus. Mask wearing, social distancing and handwashing are all effective at lowering the number of new Covid-19 cases, according to an analysis of evidence from 72 global studies that looked atg non-pharmaceutical public health measures. Mask wearing was the most effective public health measure at reducing the incidence of Covid-19, the study found, while physical distancing reduced incidence by 25%. Handwashing was found to reduce coronavirus incidence by 53%, though the researchers noted this finding was not statistically significant on account of the small number of studies that assessed handwashing.

The researchers said it was not possible to evaluate other public health measures—including quarantine, lockdowns and school closures—due to differences in the way studies assessing these interventions were designed and conducted. While evidence indicates the effectiveness of these more stringent measures, the researchers said the restrictions are not sustainable, have significant economic and social impacts and must be “carefully” assessed to weigh potential positives against negatives. Though masks have been a critical tool in curbing the spread of Covid-19 from early on in the pandemic, they have become a flashpoint in a culture war pitting individual liberties against the public good. In the U.S., mask mandates have spurred protests, conspiracies and been a hot button issue for politicians to jump on, even as cases and deaths soared.

Tensions have been so high that mask-related disputes have led to a number of violent altercations, some lethal, while some states have prevented local officials from putting their own rules requiring them in place. Getting the pandemic under control is likely to depend on both high vaccination coverage and ongoing adherence to effective and sustainable public health measures. More research will be needed to assess the effectiveness of public health measures in highly vaccinated populations, the researchers wrote. The lack of good research on public health measures to tackle Covid-19 is one of the “tragedies of the pandemic,” wrote professors Paul Glasziou, Susan Michie and Atle Fretheim in a linked editorial. “More and better research are needed.”

One of the reasons for the arrest is claiming “that the vaccines against Covid-19 have side effects”. Go figure.

• Greek Lawyer Arrested For Spreading Covid Misinformation (K.)

A Greek lawyer at the forefront of online anti-vaccination campaigns was arrested on Wednesday for spreading fake news about the pandemic on social media, in the first application of the new law passed in Parliament on November 12. Nikos Antoniadis is also accused of inciting disobedience — both of the charges are misdemeanors. The case file against Nikos Antoniadis was formed by the police’s cybercrime division after a complaint was filed containing evidence that allegedly showed the lawyer stating that there is no coronavirus, that the intubation of patients is done for no good reason and that the vaccines against Covid-19 have side effects. His arrest was ordered by the Athens Prosecutor’s Office, which has been conducting relevant investigations for a long time about the activities of anti-vaxxers. Antoniadis was later released and the prosecutor will decide whether to proceed with the prosecution or continue the preliminary investigation.

Damn the science.

• Greek PM: Unvaccinated Adults To Be Barred From All Indoor Public Venues (K.)

The government will impose more restrictions for those not vaccinated against Covid-19 from next week, Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis said on Thursday following a steep rise in infections in recent weeks. The measures were announced by Mitsotakis in a televised address to the nation and include barring unvaccinated citizens from all indoor spaces including cinemas, museums and gyms as of Monday, November 22. Mitsotakis said his plan was for Greece “to have a better Christmas this year than last year.” The new measures mean unvaccinated adults will no longer be able to access indoor venues by presenting a negative Covid test result. At present, unvaccinated adults are only excluded from indoor eateries.

He also said that the vaccination certificate for vaccinated persons over 60 years of age would cease to be valid seven months after the administration of the vaccine. Thus, this age group will be given one month to receive the booster vaccine. Staggered working hours would also apply in the public and private sectors in order to avoid overcrowding, especially at rush hour times and on public transport. Special provisions will apply for parents with schoolchildren. Mitsotakis also said controls would be ramped up. Private doctors would be requisitioned to support the National Health System, he added. The premier also said that unvaccinated churchgoers should have a negative laboratory test, as the Synod of the Orthodox Church of Greece has already called for.

They put 1000s of them on unpaid leave because of vaccine status, then say the system is overwhelmed.

Rumor has it that over 50% of police are unvaxxed. Wonder how they’ll deal with that.

• Private Doctors In Northern Greece Ordered To Pitch In For A Month (K.)

A decision by the Greek Health Ministry requisitioning the services of doctors in the private sector to help in state-run hospitals struggling under the burden of the fourth wave of the Covid-19 pandemic was published in the Government Gazette on Thursday. The decision is directed at medics active in regions of northern Greece, where hospitals are at their limits: Western, Central and Eastern Macedonia and Thrace, as well as Thessaly in central Greece. Authorities are asking for pulmonologists, pathologists and general practitioners stating that their services will be needed, initially, for a period of one month.

Up until Nov. 16, the ministry had secured the voluntary participation of only around 40 private doctors through the medical associations, with at least half of them registered in the previous 24 hours, prompting the activation of the requisition procedures as this this number was deemed unsatisfactory based on the needs of the hospitals. According to ministry estimates, more than 100 doctors in specific specialties are needed to support the National Health System (ESY) at this point.

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Debt Rattle January 13 2021

Jan 132021

January 13, 2021 Posted by Raúl Ilargi Meijer at 10:31 am Finance Tagged with: Covid19, Ireland, Israel, Japan, mass extinction, Parler, Pelosi, Pence, Ron Paul, Russiagate, Trump, Xi 61 Responses »

Alfred Wertheimer Elvis entering the Warwick 1956

• The Ireland Event (Ben Hunt)

• Japan To Suspend Entry Of All Foreigners (NHK)

• China Sees Growing COVID-19 Threat As More Cities Locked Down (R.)

• Ron Paul Criticized Social Media Censorship Before Being Blocked (Turley)

• How Silicon Valley Monopolistic Force Destroyed Parler (Greenwald)

• Pence Responds To Pelosi, Won’t Invoke 25th Amendment (Mike Pence)

• Trump’s Last Chance to Declassify Secrets of the Russia Collusion Dud (Maté)

• Israel Isn’t A Democracy, It’s An ‘Apartheid Regime’ – Rights Group (CNN)

• Upbeat Xi Says “Time And Situation On China’s Side” (ZH)

• Food Hampers In Wales As English Mum Posts Picture Of £30 Package (WO)

• Top Scientists: ‘Ghastly Future Of Mass Extinction’, Climate Disruption (G.)

“There is nothing the matter with Americans except their ideals. The real American is all right: It is the ideal American who is all wrong.”
– G.K. Chesterton

“..a 30x spike in Covid cases in Ireland over the span of two weeks in late December..”

• The Ireland Event (Ben Hunt)

And when I say “insane infection numbers” I mean a 30x spike in Covid cases in Ireland over the span of two weeks in late December, where the R number – the basic reproductive rate of the disease – went from something around 1.2 to something around 3. Where you suddenly went from a few hundred new Covid cases every day to more than six thousand cases every day. All in a country the size of Alabama (which, btw, currently has about 4 thousand cases every day). [..] I believe there is a non-trivial chance that the United States will experience a rolling series of “Ireland events” over the next 30-45 days, where the Covid effective reproductive number (Re not R0) reaches a value between 2.4 and 3.0 in states and regions where a) the more infectious UK-variant (or similar) Covid strain has been introduced, and b) Covid fatigue has led to deterioration in social distancing behaviors.

A single Ireland event is a disaster. A series of Ireland events on the scale of the United States is catastrophic. If this were to occur, I’d expect to see a doubling of new Covid cases/day from current levels in the aggregate (today’s 7-day average is 240k/day), peaking somewhere around 500,000 new daily cases before draconian economic shutdowns (more severe than anything we’ve seen to date) would occur in every impacted major metro area. Hospital systems across the country would be placed under enormous additional strain, leading to meaningfully higher case fatality ratios (CFRs) as medical care was rationed. Most critically, this new infection rate would far outpace our current vaccine distribution capacity and policy. Assuming that vaccines are preferentially administered to the elderly, aggregate infection fatality ratios (IFRs) should decrease, but the overall burden of severe outcomes (death, long-term health consequences) would shift to younger demographics.

Current US government policy rejects the possibility of an Ireland event, largely because of what I believe is a politically-motivated analysis by the CDC that models more than 100 million Americans already possessing Covid antibodies, prior to any vaccination effort. Using data from flu monitoring programs in prior years, the CDC models project that 70 MILLION Americans have already gotten sick with symptomatic Covid, but decided to just write it off as a bad cold and never got tested. I am not making this up. Add in another 10 million or so Americans who the CDC models as having already had asymptomatic Covid, add in the 23 million Americans who we know have had Covid, and voila! – per the CDC, one-third of the American population is already effectively immunized against getting Covid in the future. And obviously enough, if >30% of Americans are already effectively immunized against Covid because they’ve already gotten sick, then it’s very difficult to hit the Re numbers of 2.4 – 3.0 that Ireland is currently experiencing.

I think this model is wrong, and I think the CDC knows that it’s wrong. I think it’s wrong because the 2021 behavior of someone who thinks they might have Covid is very different from the 2015 behavior of someone who thought they might have had the flu, but the CDC assumes it is the same in their models. You don’t ignore Covid. You don’t just brush it off. I’d say that no one just brushes off Covid symptoms the way they might have brushed off flu symptoms in the past, but of course that’s not true. I’m sure there are millions of Americans who have, in fact, had symptomatic Covid and ignored it, particularly in spring and early summer when our national testing capability was pathetic. But 70 MILLION Americans? Twenty percent of ALL Americans? More than three times the number of known Covid cases? C’mon, man.

I think the CDC knows this model is wrong because if it were true – if they actually thought that one-third of Americans were already effectively immunized by having Covid antibodies – this would be an ENORMOUS factor in determining vaccination policy. Otherwise, you are going to be wasting one-third of your precious supply of vaccines on people who don’t need it. I think the CDC knows this model is wrong because if it were true, how do you make sense of Covid hospitalization rates?

Soon to come in a country near you.

• Japan To Suspend Entry Of All Foreigners (NHK)

The Japanese government plans to suspend the entry of all foreigners as the coronavirus continues to spread around the world. Japan halted all new arrivals of non-nationals last month after new strains of the coronavirus that are believed to be highly transmissible were confirmed in the UK and elsewhere. But it continued to allow entry by businesspeople from 10 Asian countries and Taiwan. The government plans to suspend the entry of travelers, regardless of whether a coronavirus variant has been detected in their country, as part of its tighter entry restrictions following the declaration of a state of emergency.

No foreigners will be allowed to enter Japan, except for special reasons, such as a relative’s funeral or childbirth. Prime Minister Suga Yoshihide said last week he plans to ban travel to and from countries and territories where a new strain of the coronavirus has been confirmed. But members of his party and others described the measure as confusing.

China’s nervous.

• China Sees Growing COVID-19 Threat As More Cities Locked Down (R.)

China has recorded the biggest daily jump in COVID cases in more than five months, despite four cities in lockdown, increased testing and other measures aimed at preventing another wave of infections in the world’s second biggest economy. Most of the new patients were reported near the capital Beijing, but a province in northeast China also saw a rise in new cases, official data showed on Wednesday, amid a resurgence that has seen more than 28 million people under home quarantine. The National Health Commission said in a statement that a total of 115 new confirmed cases were reported in the mainland compared with 55 a day earlier. This was the highest daily increase since July 30.

The commission said 107 of the new cases were local infections. Hebei, the province that surrounds Beijing, accounted for 90 of the cases, while northeastern Heilongjiang province reported 16 new cases. [..] Hebei has put three cities – Shijiazhuang, Xingtai and Langfang – into lockdown as part of the efforts to keep the virus from spreading further, while Beijing city authorities have stepped up screening and prevention measures to prevent another cluster from developing there. Heilongjiang province on Wednesday declared a COVID-19 emergency. The city of Suihua, which borders the provincial capital Harbin, put its 5.2 million people under lockdown.

Most of the cases in Heilongjiang have been found in Wangkui county, under Suihua’s jurisdiction, which had already been put into a lockdown earlier this week. Tieli, a city of about 300,000 people that borders Suihua, said on Wednesday it will not allow any people or vehicles to leave for three days as part of new COVID-19 prevention measurs.

An 85-year old apostle for peace. Boy, you guys screwed up.

• Ron Paul Criticized Social Media Censorship Before Being Blocked (Turley)

We have been discussing the chilling crackdown on free speech that has been building for years in the United States. This effort has accelerated in the aftermath of the Capitol riot including the shutdown sites like Parler. Now former Texas congressman Ron Paul, 85, has been blocked from using his Facebook page for unspecified violations of “community standards.” Paul’s last posting was linked to an article on the “shocking” increase of censorship on social media. Facebook then proceeded to block him under the same undefined “community standards” policy. Paul, a libertarian leader and former presidential candidate, has been an outspoken critics of foreign wars and an advocate for civil liberties for decades. He wrote: “With no explanation other than ‘repeatedly going against our community standards,’ @Facebook has blocked me from managing my page. Never have we received notice of violating community standards in the past and nowhere is the offending post identified.”

His son is Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.) tweeted, “Facebook now considers advocating for liberty to be sedition. Where will it end?” Even before the riot, Democrats were calling for blacklists and retaliation against anyone deemed to be “complicit” with the Trump Administration. We have been discussing the rising threats against Trump supporters, lawyers, and officials in recent weeks from Democratic members are calling for blacklists to the Lincoln Project leading a a national effort to harass and abuse any lawyers representing the Republican party or President Trump. Others are calling for banning those “complicit” from college campuses while still others are demanding a “Truth and Reconciliation Commission” to “hold Trump and his enablers accountable for the crimes they have committed.” Daily Beast editor-at-large Rick Wilson has added his own call for “humiliation,” “incarceration” and even ritualistic suicides for Trump supporters in an unhinged, vulgar column.

After the riots, the big tech companies moved to ban and block sites and individuals, including Parler which is the primary alternative to Twitter. Also, a top Forbes editor Randall Lane warned any company that they will be investigated if they hire any former Trump officials. The riots are being used as a license to rollback on free speech and retaliate against conservatives. In the meantime, the silence of academics and many in the media is deafening. Many of those who have spoken for years about the dark period of McCarthyism and blacklisting are either supporting this censorship or remaining silent in the face of it. Now that conservatives are the targets, speech controls and blacklists appear understandable or even commendable. The move against Paul, a long champion of free speech, shows how raw and comprehensive this crackdown has become. It shows how the threat to free speech has changed. It is like having a state media without state control. These companies are moving in unison but not necessarily with direct collusion.

“..exactly at the moment when it became the most-downloaded app in the country…”

• How Silicon Valley Monopolistic Force Destroyed Parler (Greenwald)

Critics of Silicon Valley censorship for years heard the same refrain: tech platforms like Facebook, Google and Twitter are private corporations and can host or ban whoever they want. If you don’t like what they are doing, the solution is not to complain or to regulate them. Instead, go create your own social media platform that operates the way you think it should. The founders of Parler heard that suggestion and tried. In August, 2018, they created a social media platform similar to Twitter but which promised far greater privacy protections, including a refusal to aggregate user data in order to monetize them to advertisers or algorithmically evaluate their interests in order to promote content or products to them. They also promised far greater free speech rights, rejecting the increasingly repressive content policing of Silicon Valley giants.

Over the last year, Parler encountered immense success. Millions of people who objected to increasing repression of speech on the largest platforms or who had themselves been banned signed up for the new social media company. As Silicon Valley censorship radically escalated over the past several months — banning pre-election reporting by The New York Post about the Biden family, denouncing and deleting multiple posts from the U.S. President and then terminating his access altogether, mass-removal of right-wing accounts — so many people migrated to Parler that it was catapulted to the number one spot on the list of most-downloaded apps on the Apple Play Store, the sole and exclusive means which iPhone users have to download apps. “Overall, the app was the 10th most downloaded social media app in 2020 with 8.1 million new installs,” reported TechCrunch.

It looked as if Parler had proven critics of Silicon Valley monopolistic power wrong. Their success showed that it was possible after all to create a new social media platform to compete with Facebook, Instagram and Twitter. And they did so by doing exactly what Silicon Valley defenders long insisted should be done: if you don’t like the rules imposed by tech giants, go create your own platform with different rules. But today, if you want to download, sign up for, or use Parler, you will be unable to do so. That is because three Silicon Valley monopolies — Amazon, Google and Apple — abruptly united to remove Parler from the internet, exactly at the moment when it became the most-downloaded app in the country.

If one were looking for evidence to demonstrate that these tech behemoths are, in fact, monopolies that engage in anti-competitive behavior in violation of antitrust laws, and will obliterate any attempt to compete with them in the marketplace, it would be difficult to imagine anything more compelling than how they just used their unconstrained power to utterly destroy a rising competitor.

Tucker Greenwald
https://twitter.com/i/status/1349174579105656833

They smell blood, this won’t stop them.

• Pence Responds To Pelosi, Won’t Invoke 25th Amendment (Mike Pence)

Dear Madam Speaker:

Every American was shocked and saddened by the attack on our Nation’s Capitol last week, and I am grateful for the leadership that you and other congressional leaders provided in reconvening Congress to complete the people’s business on the very same day. It was a moment that demonstrated to the American people the unity that is still possible in Congress when it is needed most. But now, with just eight days left in the President’s term, you and the Democratic Caucus are demanding that the Cabinet and I invoke the 25th Amendment. I do not believe that such a course of action is in the best interest of our Nation or consistent with our Constitution. Last week, I did not yield to pressure to exert power beyond my constitutional authority to determine the outcome of the election, and I will not now yield to efforts in the House of Representatives to play political games at a time so serious in the life of our Nation.

As you know full well, the 25th Amendment was designed to address Presidential incapacity or disability. Just a few months ago, when you introduced legislation to create a 25th Amendment Commission, you said, “[a] President’s fitness for office must be determined by science and facts.” You said then that we must be “[v]ery respectful of not making a judgment on the basis of a comment or behavior that we don’t like, but based on a medical decision.” Madam Speaker, you were right. Under our Constitution, the 25th Amendment is not a means of punishment or usurpation. Invoking the 25th Amendment in such a manner would set a terrible precedent.

After the horrific events of this last week, our Administration’s energy is directed to ensuring an orderly transition. The Bible says that “for everything there is a season, and a time for every purpose under heaven…a time to heal, … and a time to build up.” That time is now. In the midst of a global pandemic, economic hardship for millions of Americans, and the tragic events of January 6th, now is the time for us to come together, now is the time to heal. I urge you and every member of Congress to avoid actions that would further divide and inflame the passions of the moment. Work with us to lower the temperature and unite our country as we prepare to inaugurate President-elect Joe Biden as the next President of the United States. I pledge to you that I will continue to do my part to work in good faith with the incoming administration to ensure an orderly transition of power. So help me God.

Last chance for lots of things.

• Trump’s Last Chance to Declassify Secrets of the Russia Collusion Dud (Maté)

President Trump’s last days in office offer a final opportunity to declassify critical information on the Russia investigation that engulfed his lone term. Already voluminous public records – including investigative reports from Special Counsel Robert Mueller, Congress and the Justice Department’s inspector general – have established that Trump and his associates were targeted with a baseless Russian collusion allegation. The fraudulent claim originated with the Hillary Clinton campaign, was fueled by a torrent of false or deceptive intelligence leaks, and was improperly investigated by the FBI, potentially to the point of being criminal. Despite these disclosures, key questions remain about the origins and the spread of the conspiracy theory.

And with a Biden administration set to take office and Democrats taking control of both chambers of Congress, there are no guarantees that the ongoing probe of Special Counsel John Durham will fill in the remaining gaps. Both the CIA and FBI have been slow to produce much material that Trump reportedly wants declassified. They argue that disclosure would reveal sources and methods vital to national security. Such claims arouse skepticism because they have been used in the past to cover up malfeasance – as the public learned when deceptive FISA warrant applications used to spy on Trump campaign adviser Carter Page were finally released.

What’s striking here is that it’s CNN covering it.

• Israel Isn’t A Democracy, It’s An ‘Apartheid Regime’ – Rights Group (CNN)

Israel is no longer a democracy but an “apartheid regime” devoted to cementing the supremacy of Jews over Palestinians, the country’s best-known human rights group said in a report published Tuesday. B’Tselem, which until now has confined its work to scrutiny of human rights issues in the Palestinian territories, has now also decided to look at what it calls Israel’s “regime” between the River Jordan and the Mediterranean. “More than 14 million people, roughly half of them Jews and the other half Palestinians, live between the Jordan River and the Mediterranean Sea under a single rule,” B’Tselem said in a new analysis titled: “A regime of Jewish supremacy from the Jordan River to the Mediterranean Sea: This is apartheid.”

The human rights group says that the traditional view of Israel as a democracy operating side-by-side with a temporary Israeli occupation in the territories “imposed on some five million Palestinian subjects … has grown divorced from reality.” “Most importantly, the distinction obfuscates the fact that the entire area between the Mediterranean Sea and the Jordan River is organized under a single principle: advancing and cementing the supremacy of one group — Jews — over another — Palestinians,” B’Tselem said in its controversial analysis. Years of injustice against Palestinians, culminating in laws that have entrenched discrimination, mean that “the bar for labeling the Israeli regime as apartheid has been met,” B’Tselem said. The allegation that Israel is an “apartheid state” has often been dismissed by rightwing Israelis and their support groups as anti-Semitic. But this argument will be harder to make now that Israel has been labelled this way by such a well-respected Israeli institution, albeit one that enjoys only minority support in its home country.

“..build and maintain a “super-sized domestic market” to boost consumption…”

• Upbeat Xi Says “Time And Situation On China’s Side” (ZH)

While the political gridlock and alarmist headlines out of Capitol Hill as well as a dramatic Democratic move to impeach look to define Trump’s final week in office, Bloomberg notes that China’s President Xi Jinping is sounding “unusually upbeat”. According to the publication he issued an unusually upbeat assessment about China’s future, noting that “time and the situation” were on the country’s side in a new year marked by domestic turmoil in the U.S. The purpose of the speech before a top-level meeting of government officials in Beijing on Monday was to lay out the Communist Party vision over the next three decades, which included the presence of the Politburo Standing Committee, Beijing’s highest decision-making body.

“The world is in a turbulent time that is unprecedented in the past century,” Xi said, striking a tone which many pundits observed stood in contrast to recent more dire sounding warnings. “But time and momentum are on our side. This is where we show our conviction and resilience, as well as our determination and confidence.” And further according to the Monday remarks in the closed-door meeting: “At the same time, we must see clearly that, for now and until this upcoming period of time, while our country is at an important period of strategic opportunity for development, there will always be changes to our opportunities and challenges,” Xi was quoted as saying. “The extensiveness of these opportunities and challenges is unprecedented but, all in all, the opportunities we face outweigh our challenges,” he added, calling for unity, diligence and flexibility to achieve the party’s goals.

The cautious optimism continued, as South China Morning Post writes, while he made vague or remote references to both the pandemic and political turmoil and uncertainty afflicting the United States: In his speech, Xi also again emphasised Beijing’s new “dual circulation” economic strategy first announced in May amid global challenges brought by the pandemic and China’s slowing growth. “Only by being self-reliant and developing the domestic market and smoothing out internal circulation can we achieve vibrant growth and development, regardless of the hostility in the outside world,” Xi said. Elsewhere in the speech he continued urged that self-reliance would in part come through rapid technological innovation in order to build and maintain a “super-sized domestic market” to boost consumption.

Scum.

• Food Hampers In Wales As English Mum Posts Picture Of £30 Package (WO)

An investigation has been launched in England after images shared online showed “woefully inadequate” free school meal parcels sent to families. One mum criticised the free school meals scheme after she claimed she was sent just a few pounds worth of food to feed her children for 10 days. It was claimed the image of a £30 parcel contained just over £5 worth of food. Posting the image on Twitter, user Roadside Mum said: “2 days jacket potato with beans, 8 single cheese sandwiches, 2 days carrots, 3 days apples, 2 days soreen, 3 days frubes. “Spare pasta & tomato. Will need mayo for pasta salad. “Issued instead of £30 vouchers. I could do more with £30 to be honest.”

Footballer and campaigner Marcus Rashford tweeted another picture and wrote: “3 days of food for 1 family… Just not good enough. “Then imagine we expect the children to engage in learning from home. “Not to mention the parents who, at times, have to teach them who probably haven’t eaten at all so their children can… We MUST do better.” England children’s Minister Vicky Ford said she would be “urgently” look into the matter. England’s Department for Education wrote on Twitter: “We have clear guidelines and standards for food parcels, which we expect to be followed. “Parcels should be nutritious and contain a varied range of food.” Chartwells, the company which the mum in England said provided the parcel, said it will investigate.

The hamper received in Caerphilly (left) compared to the hamper received by a mum in England

Paul Ehrlich. Long time no see.

• Top Scientists: ‘Ghastly Future Of Mass Extinction’, Climate Disruption (G.)

The planet is facing a “ghastly future of mass extinction, declining health and climate-disruption upheavals” that threaten human survival because of ignorance and inaction, according to an international group of scientists, who warn people still haven’t grasped the urgency of the biodiversity and climate crises. The 17 experts, including Prof Paul Ehrlich from Stanford University, author of The Population Bomb, and scientists from Mexico, Australia and the US, say the planet is in a much worse state than most people – even scientists – understood. “The scale of the threats to the biosphere and all its lifeforms – including humanity – is in fact so great that it is difficult to grasp for even well-informed experts,” they write in a report in Frontiers in Conservation Science which references more than 150 studies detailing the world’s major environmental challenges.

The delay between destruction of the natural world and the impacts of these actions means people do not recognise how vast the problem is, the paper argues. “[The] mainstream is having difficulty grasping the magnitude of this loss, despite the steady erosion of the fabric of human civilisation.” The report warns that climate-induced mass migrations, more pandemics and conflicts over resources will be inevitable unless urgent action is taken. “Ours is not a call to surrender – we aim to provide leaders with a realistic ‘cold shower’ of the state of the planet that is essential for planning to avoid a ghastly future,” it adds. Dealing with the enormity of the problem requires far-reaching changes to global capitalism, education and equality, the paper says. These include abolishing the idea of perpetual economic growth, properly pricing environmental externalities, stopping the use of fossil fuels, reining in corporate lobbying, and empowering women, the researchers argue.

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Debt Rattle January 2 2021

Jan 022021

January 2, 2021 Posted by Raúl Ilargi Meijer at 10:06 am Finance Tagged with: Assange, audit, Covid19, Fauci, influenza, Ireland, Israel, paper dollars, Pence, vaccine, Yellen 53 Responses »

Pierre-Auguste Renoir Les Grands Boulevards 1875

• Israel Zooms Past 1 Million Vaccinations In Sprint To Vanquish Pandemic (ToI)

• 100s Of Israelis Get Infected With COVID19 After Receiving Pfizer Vaccine (RT)

• Fauci Says Mandatory COVID19 Vaccines Possible For Travel, School (NYP)

• Fauci Says US Will Not Delay Second Doses Of COVID Vaccine (G.)

• The Missing Flu Riddle: ‘Influenza Has Been Renamed COVID’ (JTN)

• 2 Minnesota Lawmakers Demand Nationwide Audit of COVID19 Deaths (ET)

• All Primary Schools In London To Remain Closed After U-turn (G.)

• Ireland Covid Cases Surge As Health Official Warns Virus Is ‘Absolutely Rampant’ (G.)

• Judge Rejects Election Lawsuit Against VP Pence (JTN)

• Janet Yellen Made Millions In Wall Street, Corporate Speeches (Pol.)

• Paper Dollars in Circulation Globally Spike amid Hot Demand (WS)

• Schumer Begins 2021 Promising To Fight – Then Immediately Surrenders (DP)

• Forecast 2021 (Jim Kunstler)

ISRAEL: 11.5%; UK: 1.39%; US: 0.84%; GLOBAL AVERAGE: 0.13%

• Israel Zooms Past 1 Million Vaccinations In Sprint To Vanquish Pandemic (ToI)

Israel has vaccinated 1 million people against COVID-19, more than a tenth of its population, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Friday, as the country’s inoculation drive cemented its status as the world’s most rapid thus far. Netanyahu was on hand to mark what he said was the millionth Israeli to receive a vaccine, in the Arab town of Umm al-Fahm. Netanyahu called it a moment of “great excitement.” “We are breaking all of the records. We brought millions of vaccines to the State of Israel,” he said. We are ahead of the entire world… with our excellent HMOs.” Arabs make up around 20 percent of Israel’s population and have been relatively slow to embrace the vaccination campaign, prompting Netanyahu to launch a series of visits to Arab localities, his first in years, in what is also seen by many as an attempt to score political points ahead of the March elections.

Netanyahu said that “it’s important for me that the Arab public in Israel will get vaccinated quickly” as “it’s saving lives.” He delivered the same message at a vaccination center in Tira, another Arab town, on Thursday. The Jewish state has so far greatly outpaced other countries, per capita, with 11.55% of the population inoculated, according to statistics from the Our World in Data website operated by Oxford University. Second place is held by Bahrain with 3.45%, followed by the UK with 1.39% (though the latter’s data is a few days old). The US stands at 0.84%. The world average is 0.13%. Israel is currently in its third nationwide lockdown to contain the outbreak. It has reported more than 426,000 cases and at least 3,338 deaths since the pandemic began.

Not great PR.

• 100s Of Israelis Get Infected With COVID19 After Receiving Pfizer Vaccine (RT)

With the vaccine not providing immediate immunity to the coronavirus, over two hundred Israeli citizens have been diagnosed with the disease days after getting the Pfizer/BioNTech jabs, local media reported. The number of those who got Covid-19 despite being vaccinated was at around 240 people, according to data from Channel 13 News. The Pfizer/BioNTech vaccine, which the Israeli health authorities rely on, doesn’t contain the coronavirus and can’t infect the recipient. But time is needed for the genetic code in the drug to train the immune system to recognize and attack the disease.

The course of the US-made vaccine requires two shots. According to the studies, immunity to Covid-19 increases only eight to ten days after the first injection and eventually reaches 50 percent. The second jab is administered 21 days from the first one, while the declared immunity of 95 percent is achieved only a week after that. And, of course, there’s still a five percent chance of getting infected even if the vaccine is at its full potential. Israeli news outlets which reported the figures urged the public to remain vigilant and thoroughly follow all Covid-19 precautions during the month after the first shot of the vaccine is administered.

The Jewish state is currently undertaking a massive vaccination campaign, which already saw over one million people or almost 12 percent of the population getting the Pfizer/BioNTech jab. That’s the largest span per capita in the world, according to Oxford University. The first phase of the program aims to immunize medics and elderly people before expanding on to other categories. Around one in a thousand people have reported mild side effects after the injection, including weakness, dizziness and fever as well as pain, swelling and redness in the spot where the shot was given. Only a few dozen of them required medical attention, the Health Ministry said.

A passport stating you had a jab that doesn’t protect people around you. Logic?

• Fauci Says Mandatory COVID19 Vaccines Possible For Travel, School (NYP)

Dr. Anthony Fauci said it’s possible that COVID-19 vaccines will become mandatory in order to travel to other countries or attend school. “Everything will be on the table for discussion,” Fauci, who will be chief medical adviser to President-elect Joe Biden, told Newsweek. The director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases stressed that it’s “not up to me to make a decision,” but added that “these are all things that will be discussed [under the Biden administration].” “I’m not sure [the COVID-19 vaccine] going to be mandatory from a central government standpoint, like federal government mandates,” Fauci said, though he added that he’s “sure” that some individual institutions will require the shot.

Fauci said vaccine requirements in schools are “possible,” but they would come from mandates at the state or city level. “A citywide school system might require it in some cities but not other cities. And that’s what I mean by things not being done centrally but locally,” Fauci said. In regard to travel, Fauci said the US could potentially issue COVID-19 vaccine passports — similar to the ones planned for Israel that would allow residents to travel abroad without being tested for coronavirus. The coronavirus vaccine might also become required by other countries to go there, Fauci said. “So we, in this country, don’t require [people] to get a yellow fever vaccine when you go someplace. It’s the place to which you are going that requires it,” he said.

The UK is playing around with what the producer says should be done.

• Fauci Says US Will Not Delay Second Doses Of COVID Vaccine (G.)

The American infectious disease expert Dr Anthony Fauci has said he does not agree with the UK’s approach of delaying the second dose of the Pfizer/BioNTech vaccine. On Friday, Dr Fauci told CNN that the United States would not be following in the UK’s footsteps and would follow Pfizer and BioNTech’s guidance to administer the second dose of its vaccine three weeks after the first. Despite an outcry from doctors, the UK’s chief medical officers defended their plans this week to delay the second dose of the Pfizer/BioNTech vaccine to patients, meaning people would now wait up to 12 weeks. The change is to prioritise giving more people their first dose.

Dr Fauci told CNN: “We know from the clinical trials that the optimal time is to give it on one day and for [the Moderna jab which is also approved in the US] wait 28 days and for Pfizer 21 days later.” He added that while you can “make the argument” for stretching out the doses, he would not be in favour of doing that. Pfizer and BioNTech also warned that the two doses were crucial to achieving maximum protection against Covid, saying that they did not have evidence that the first dose alone would protect patients after three weeks. In the UK, the new move will apply to people who were expecting to have their second dose of the Pfizer/BioNTech vaccine after 4 January. Patients getting the first jab of the newly approved AstraZeneca/Oxford vaccine will also have to wait up to 12 weeks.

The numbers are stark:

“This week one year ago, the positive clinical rate was 22%, where now it stands at 0.1%.”

• The Missing Flu Riddle: ‘Influenza Has Been Renamed COVID’ (JTN)

Rates of influenza have remained persistently low through late 2020 and into 2021, cratering from levels a year ago and raising the puzzling specter of sharply reduced influenza transmission rates even as positive tests for COVID-19 have shattered numerous records over the last several weeks. Where have all the flu cases gone? Epidemiologist Knut Wittkowski thinks he can answer the riddle. “Influenza has been renamed COVID in large part,” said the former head of biostatistics, epidemiology and research design at Rockefeller University. “There may be quite a number of influenza cases included in the ‘presumed COVID’ category of people who have COVID symptoms (which Influenza symptoms can be mistaken for), but are not tested for SARS RNA,” Wittkowski told Just the News on Thursday.

Those patients, he argued, “also may have some SARS RNA sitting in their nose while being infected with Influenza, in which case the influenza would be ‘confirmed’ to be COVID.” The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s weekly influenza surveillance tracker reports that the cumulative positive influenza test rate from late September into the week of Dec. 19 stands at 0.2% as measured by clinical labs. That’s compared to a cumulative 8.7% from a year before. The weekly comparisons are even starker: This week one year ago, the positive clinical rate was 22%, where now it stands at 0.1%. Those low numbers continue trends observed earlier in the year in which flu rates have remained at near-zero levels. The trend is not limited to the U.S. Worldwide, health authorities have all reported sharply decreased influenza levels throughout what is normally peak flu season in the northern hemisphere.

Of course you must have this.

• 2 Minnesota Lawmakers Demand Nationwide Audit of COVID19 Deaths (ET)

Two Minnesota legislators who believe their state’s COVID-19 death count is inaccurate are calling for a nationwide audit to find out how many people died from something other than the CCP (Chinese Communist Party) virus but were added to the pandemic death totals. Republican State Rep. Mary Franson said she has enlisted a team to examine data provided by Minnesota’s health department. Her team allegedly found that COVID-19 was blamed for some deaths clearly not linked to the respiratory disease. “We found clear-cut examples from the Minnesota Department of Health’s own files—public records—of suicide, a drowning, an auto accident where the passenger was ejected from the vehicle, we found dementia … and strokes,” Franson said during an interview with Fox News, adding that she was “so shocked at what I found that I just could not keep silent.”

“The citizens of our country are being led in fear, and that fear is leading them to make irrational decisions based on the governors with their shutdowns,” she added. “So we need this audit. We need the truth.” Franson was joined by Republican State Sen. Scott Jensen, a practicing physician. Jensen has become the subject of two state probes earlier this year for arguing that the federal and state guidelines on reporting COVID-19 deaths could pressure local authorities to misclassify and inflate their numbers, and that doctors and hospitals are motivated to do so for more health care dollars. “If you could hit a threshold of 161 admissions to your hospital with COVID-19 diagnosis between January and June, you received $77,000 of additional money for each one of those admissions” through the CARES Act, Jensen told Fox News. “I don’t think there’s any questions that reverse incentives have been created.”

Make it up as you go along.

• All Primary Schools In London To Remain Closed After U-turn (G.)

All primary schools in London are to remain closed for the start of the new term after the government bowed to protests and legal pressure from the capital’s local authorities. Under the government’s initial plan, secondary schools and colleges were set to be closed to most pupils for the first two weeks of January, while primary schools within 50 local authorities in London and the south of England were also told to keep their doors shut until 18 January. But the list omitted several London areas where Covid-19 transmission rates remain high including the borough of Haringey, whose leaders said they were prepared to defy the government and support any schools that decided to close to protect staff and pupils.

The protests from local authority leaders came to a head with a letter to the education secretary, Gavin Williamson, from nine London authorities asking for their primary schools to be closed to all except vulnerable children and those whose parents were key workers. The action provoked an emergency Cabinet Office meeting on New Year’s Day, which signed off on the revision, adding the remaining 10 London education authorities to the government’s “contingency areas”. Dr Mary Bousted, joint general secretary of the National Education Union, said primaries across the country should close. “What is right for London is right for the rest of the country,” she said. “It is time for the government to protect its citizens, and in particular its children, by shutting all primary schools for two weeks in order for the situation to be properly assessed, schools made much safer and children and their families protected.”

“The virus is absolutely rampant now in the community. Everybody is at extreme risk of contracting the virus.”

• Ireland Covid Cases Surge As Health Official Warns Virus Is ‘Absolutely Rampant’ (G.)

Ireland is bracing for 9,000 more Covid cases to be added to the official tally as the system struggles to handle a surge in positive results, with health officials warning hospitals will not be able to cope if the trend continues. The sharp rise in positive results led to delays in formal reporting, said Professor Philip Nolan from the National Public Health Emergency Team (NPHET), though he said it “does not affect case management or contact tracing or our overall monitoring and modelling of the pandemic”. On Thursday, NPHET estimated the number of positive tests still pending registration was 4,000, more than doubling to 9,000 the following day. On Friday, Ireland formally reported a daily record 1,754 confirmed cases, surpassing 1,500 daily cases for the fourth day in a row. Chief medical officer Dr Tony Holohan said the biggest worry was the rapid rise in hospitalisations.

“We are now admitting between 50 to 70 people a day to our hospital system. Unfortunately, we expect this to get worse before it gets better. Our health system will not continue to cope with this level of impact.” “We have also seen a significant increase in positive laboratory tests in recent days reflecting a true increase in the incidence of the disease as well as the delay in people coming forward for testing over the Christmas period. As our systems catch up with these effects it places significant pressure on our reporting system.” On New Year’s Eve, Ireland entered a level-five lockdown, with non-essential shops closing, a 5km travel limit, restrictions on household gatherings and schools staying closed. Paul Reid, CEO of the Health Service Executive (HSE), told RTÉ Radio 1: “The virus is absolutely rampant now in the community. Everybody is at extreme risk of contracting the virus.”

“..the Court lacks subject matter jurisdiction over this case and must dismiss the action..”

• Judge Rejects Election Lawsuit Against VP Pence (JTN)

A federal judge dismissed a lawsuit Friday night against Vice President Mike Pence filed by a Texas congressman seeking to reject Joe Biden’s electors when Congress certifies the election next week. U.S. District Judge Jeremy Kernodle ruled that Rep. Louie Gohmert lacked standing to bring the legal action that would prevent Pence from confirming Joe Biden’s electoral victory. “Plaintiff Louie Gohmert, the United States Representative for Texas’s First Congressional District, alleges at most an institutional injury to the House of Representatives. Under well-settled Supreme Court authority, that is insufficient to support standing,” the judge ruled.

“The other Plaintiffs, the slate of Republican Presidential Electors for the State of Arizona (the “Nominee-Electors”), allege an injury that is not fairly traceable to the Defendant, the Vice President of the United States, and is unlikely to be redressed by the requested relief. Accordingly, as explained below, the Court lacks subject matter jurisdiction over this case and must dismiss the action,” he added.

… and you ain’t in it..

• Janet Yellen Made Millions In Wall Street, Corporate Speeches (Pol.)

In the past two years, President-elect Joe Biden’s pick to be Treasury secretary, Janet Yellen, has raked in more than $7.2 million in speaking fees from Wall Street and large corporations including Citi, Goldman Sachs, Google, City National Bank, UBS, Citadel LLC, Barclays, Credit Suisse, Salesforce and more. Yellen’s financial disclosure is one of three filed by the Biden team at the end of 2020 that could become politically problematic with the left wing of the Democratic Party when confirmation hearings begin in January. A Biden transition official said they filed the forms “mid-week” before the Office of Government Ethics posted the forms late Thursday, New Year’s Eve.

Yellen, the former chair of the Federal Reserve, brought in nearly $1 million giving nine speeches to Citi alone. She earned more than $800,000 speaking to Citadel, a hedge fund founded by the Republican megadonor Ken Griffin. She also spoke to the law and lobbying firm Pillsbury Winthrop Shaw Pittman. In addition to Yellen, Antony Blinken, Biden’s nominee to be secretary of State, disclosed the clients he advised through WestExec Advisors, the consulting firm he co-founded with other Obama administration alumni. Those clients included the investment giant Blackstone, Bank of America, Facebook, Uber, McKinsey & Company, the Japanese conglomerate SoftBank, the pharmaceutical company Gilead, the investment bank Lazard, Boeing, AT&T, the Royal Bank of Canada, LinkedIn and the venerable Sotheby’s auction house.

The disclosures cracked open WestExec’s closely held client list, which the firm had previously refused to divulge. WestExec has paid Blinken nearly $1.2 million over the past two years, according to the filing, with another estimated $250,000 to $500,000 owed for his work this year.

To the mattresses.

• Paper Dollars in Circulation Globally Spike amid Hot Demand (WS)

The amount of “currency in circulation” – the paper dollars wadded up in people’s pockets and purses, stuffed under mattresses, or packed into suitcases and safes overseas – jumped again in the week ended December 30 to a new record of $2.09 trillion, according to the Federal Reserve’s balance sheet, where currency in circulation is a liability, not an asset. This was up by 16%, or by $293 billion, from February before the Pandemic. The amount has doubled since 2011. This amount of currency in circulation is a function of demand – and that demand has been red hot: US Banks have to have enough paper dollars on hand to satisfy demand at ATMs and bank branches.

Foreign banks will also request paper dollars from their correspondent banks in the US, or return unneeded cash to them. When there is demand for paper dollars, banks buy more of them from the Fed. They pay for them usually with Treasury securities they hold or with excess reserves they have on deposit at the Fed. The surge of paper dollars is a sign of hoarding, not of increased payments. In the US, the share of paper dollars for payments has been declining for years, replaced by electronic payment methods, such as credit and debit cards, PayPal, Zelle and similar systems, all kinds of smartphone-based payment systems, the automated clearinghouse (ACH) system, and checks every now and then.

During periods of uncertainty, people load up on cash, as they have done leading up to Y2K, during the Financial Crisis, and now during the Pandemic. But much of the hoarding of US dollars takes place overseas, with demand for those paper dollars then winding its way to the US banking system via the correspondent banks. These paper dollars also lubricate all kinds of corruption, drug trafficking, and other activities – and laundering this cash is a big profitable industry.

The stench….

• Schumer Begins 2021 Promising To Fight – Then Immediately Surrenders (DP)

Senator Bernie Sanders spent New Year’s morning making one last attempt to halt the defense bill in order to force Republican leader Mitch McConnell allow a vote on $2,000 checks — and Democratic leader Chuck Schumer spent the morning treating everyone like we’re gullible idiots. “I just took to the floor again to demand a vote on $2000 survival checks,” Schumer declared, and he slammed Republican lawmakers for objecting. He promised: “Democrats will not stop fighting.” Then moments later, Schumer and most Senate Democrats surrendered — live on C-Span for everyone to see, they obediently voted for McConnell’s motion to move forward the defense bill for final passage, so that the Senate can close down without any vote on the $2,000 checks. Most Democrats then voted for final passage as well.

Put another way: Schumer tweeted out his promise to fight for starving Americans, while knowing that moments later he would be on live television surrendering to Republicans. Democrats didn’t even muster enough votes on the procedural motions to keep it close enough to force Georgia incumbents Kelly Loeffler and David Perdue off the campaign trail to help McConnell — a scenario that could have provided a huge boost to Democratic candidates Jon Ossoff and Raphael Warnock, who have been campaigning hard for the $2,000 checks.

[..] Schumer, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and president-elect Joe Biden played particularly pernicious roles helping McConnell slash the original stimulus bill in half. And Schumer’s behavior today — pretending to be fighting hard, while voting with McConnell — was the icing on the cake. Liberal pundits and billionaire-owned media corporations outed themselves as absurdly-detached elitists — making the fake argument that the $2,000 survival checks might go to some people who don’t really need help, and the baffling claim that Americans will probably just save the checks because they can’t go to restaurants (which are still fully open in most states) or travel on airplanes (yes, people are still flying).

The only players who come off well in any of this are the handful of Democratic senators who had the guts to vote against all of McConnell’s key procedural motions (Sanders, Markey, Merkley, Warren, Wyden and Van Hollen) and rank-and-file House Democrats who were willing to use their power to pass the $2,000 checks (and yeah, Pelosi deserves some credit for quickly delivering the $2,000 checks amendment to the Senate).

A long column.

• Forecast 2021 (Jim Kunstler)

Life in the USA, and other “advanced” nations will reset, but not in the way that most people blabbering about “the Great Reset” think or say it will. Surely, there are groups, gangs, claques, and covens of people in the world who have some consensual agreement about how things might work, and how they would run them to their benefit, in their hypothetical ideal disposition of things. For instance, the so-called “Davos Crowd.” What are they? A convocation of bankers, market movers, politicians, business moguls, tech entrepreneurs, Hollywood catamites, black ops runners, and PR errand boys who have plenty of financial and political mojo in their own realms, but not enough collectively to carry out the kind of global coup that comprises the standard paranoid Great Reset fantasy.

That they meet-up in an ultra-luxurious setting out of a James Bond movie every year stokes terrific fascination, envy, anger, and paranoia that they are capable of anything beyond a festival of ass-kissing, mutual self-congratulation, and status-jockeying, which are the actual activities at the Davos meet-up. For another thing, in the USA, at least, there are too many pissed-off people with small arms, hardened by years of proffered bad faith and dishonesty from the political/media/higher-ed complex, to just bend over and take it up the back-door from a gang of seditious, would-be aristo-totalitarians with lèse-majesté dreams of nostalgie-de-la-boue Marxist redemption. If you have any doubt about how disruptive angry people with small arms and lots of ammo might be to condescending elites, just review the events in the Middle East the past twenty years and imagine those dynamics transferred to Kansas.

What does the “reset” fantasy supposedly include? A “new world order,” a phantasm of a unified world government, which is preposterous because the macro-trend at this moment of history worldwide is the opposite of consolidation and centralization of power, but rather breakup, downscaling, and re-localization. Why? As you saw in the Econ chapter, because the scale, pitch, and range of all our activities must be reduced to survive in the post-industrial conditions of resource and capital scarcity. And it will happen whether we like it or not and despite anybody’s objections. What else is in the Reset grab-bag? Supposedly a single world currency, also absurd for reasons already stated — unless you are talking about gold and silver, which may eventually become the universally-accepted medium of exchange (and store of value, index of price) if the post-industrial contraction is severe and destructive enough.

But fuggeddabowt “digital currencies,” especially in the USA because too many people are “un-banked,” or otherwise depend on cash-money in the informal “gray” economy of just-getting-by (and there will be a lot more of these types as the middle-class gets pounded further down into the mud), plus a large cohort of digitally-capable people just plain ornery about being herded into an IRS surveillance cul-de-sac — and the whole lot of them will fight like hell to prevent government-sponsored crypto-dollars from replacing what used to be considered money. And, if, in the unlikely event that rebellion fails, it’s back to gold and silver by default — and that might literally mean by default.

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Twisted Pair 2 – UK

Oct 022019

October 2, 2019 Posted by Raúl Ilargi Meijer at 1:23 pm Primers Tagged with: backstop, border, Boris, Brexit, Good Friday, Ireland, Leave, LeaveWithADeal, majority, parliament, Queen, Remain, SupremeCourt 8 Responses »

Salvador Dali Bather 1924

The US and UK are both at risk of severe legal challenges and hence “barrelling down towards great troubles” as I wrote yesterday in Twisted Pair 1 – US. The reasons are not exactly the same in both cases, but they’re close. It’s about who holds the ultimate power.

Before moving on to the UK’s specific issues, I want to share this from the BBC, one of many pieces yesterday that discuss President Trump talking to foreign leaders, and that all accuse him in one way or another of wanting to ‘dig up dirt’ about Joe Biden (something that could just as well be defined as trying to find out how Russiagate started).

This one is about Trump asking Australia for help because obviously there’s a strong connection to the country in the person of former Australia High Commissioner to the UK Alexander Downer, who claims Trump ‘aid’ George Papadopoulos told him in May 2016 that Moscow had dirt on Hillary Clinton. Papadopoulos has always denied saying it.

But it appears the world media have made it their task to vilify Trump’s efforts to investigate Russiagate, so expect much more of it. The article for instance also mentions Bill Barr talking to Italian and British intelligence. Yeah, they’re serious about wanting to find out what happened. I’d suggest you get used to that. But here’s what I want to share:

[..] while the Ukraine call is linked to the serious issue of potential influencing of an upcoming US election, the Australian one refers to events around a past election. White House spokesman Hogan Gidley suggested this was uncontroversial. “I’m old enough to remember when Democrats actually wanted to find out what happened in the 2016 election,” he said.

I thought that was pretty good. But on to Albion, where the legal mess is likely much bigger than in the States, because its laws are so opaque. Sure, NOW people are clamoring for a written constitution, but NOW is a tad late. I read the other day in a Dutch paper that Queen Elizabeth had asked her advisors if she could sack Boris Johnson, and couldn’t find coverage of it in any UK paper. Still can’t. Isn’t that curious? We’ll have to do with yesterday’s New York Post: “It was the first time in her 67-year reign that the Queen asked for clarification on how to dismiss a British prime minister, the report claimed.”

The Queen didn’t actually look to fire Johnson, she simply didn’t know the laws surrounding the topic, she wanted to know what her legal position is. And that seems to typify the entire situation unfolding in the country. Nobody has any idea who has the -ultimate- power to execute any far-reaching policies and decisions. That would appear to be a very dangerous conundrum, because it may allow the loudest, -physically- strongest and perhaps even most deceitful to prevail.

There was someone in a recent Automatic Earth comments section who listed all 11 UK Supreme Court judges and concluded they were all “Remainers”. That is a slippery slope too many. Because if you intend to disqualify the highest court in a country, you invite in anarchy. Now, you may favor “Leave”, but that kind of thing will surely come back to bite you in the face.

Besides, the Supreme Court decision to declare Boris Johnson’s prorogation of Parliament unlawful was the only one a highest court could possibly have made. Because Britain, like so many other western nations, is a parliamentary democracy. The only thing I’ve seen that looks like a constitution there says in eight words that parliament is senior to the monarch. That means it is senior to the executive branch as well. It has to.

Whereas a Scottish court ruled a few weeks ago that the prorogation decision was justiciable, and declared it unlawful, a lower UK court said it was non-justiciable, that is was up to Parliament, and that Parliament could “sit” whenever it wanted. But Parliament hasd just been prorogued, and therefore could NOT sit whenever it wanted. That lower court even contradicted itself: “Parliament is the master of its own proceedings. It is for parliament to decide when it sits. Parliament can sit before and after prorogation..”

So they have to make up their minds. It would be demonstrably silly if the Queen could fire the Prime Minister. It would be much less silly if Parliament could do it, though. Which would also be less silly than the Prime Minister being allowed to shut down Parliament with impunity in a parliamentary democracy. You have to look at the legal implications.

Now, the world is increasingly divvied up in antagonistic (i.e. twisted) pairs. In the US, if you don’t hammer Trump ten times a day and twice on Sundays, you get accused of effectively supporting him. In the UK, if you question Boris Johnson’s quest towards Halloween Brexit, you’re against ‘the people’, and their will. And that’s why we have laws. It’s just that British laws are terribly vague, and that’s why the courts became involved (as I predicted they would for a long time).

Today, Boris Johnson is sending a ‘plan’ to Europe that he has labeled ‘take it or leave it’. Which leads many to question his desire to reach a deal at all. More importantly, the European Union (Withdrawal) (No 2) Act 2019, aka the Benn Act, was passed by parliament last month and requires the government to ask for an extension until 31 January 2020 if no deal is agreed.

Boris has suggested he will ignore it. But that would mean the executive branch is effectively senior to the legislative branch. It would also mean the end of the parliamentary democracy that Britain has been for what is it, 400 years?! I have no horse in this fight or dog in this race, but that to me looks extremely dangerous. Be careful what you wish for.

The UK Supreme Court is in for the by far busiest time of its existence. And by the way, you can criticize the court, but only really by criticizing the way the judges on it are appointed, and then take action to change that way. If you try to question its credibility, however, you destroy the credibility of the entire judicial system, all of it.

Again, be careful what you wish for. It’s not hard to understand why and how people point to the 2016 Brexit referendum to justify a Brexit strategy, but they too will still have to follow the rules and laws, or they will create mayhem. That goes for both sides, of course, but for Boris Johnson to try and take the UK out of the EU in violation of the Benn Act would unleash a lot of disorder that he and his people may not fully comprehend yet

And there’s something else going on in the UK that I wrote about recently in “The Will of the People”, but which still doesn’t generate much interest. That is, this whole issue is no longer about Leave vs Remain, there is a third group, Leave But With A Deal. Ironically, the Leave side seeks to group these people in with the Remainers, which is both not honest and may not serve their own interests.

That is because Leave But With A Deal may well be the largest group out there. There are Tories and Labour supporters in it, plus independents and some LibDems, and they’re there for the taking for Boris. Only, they insist on a deal with the EU being in place. If there’s no such deal on October 19, they automatically become Boris’s opponents. But why would he let them? Why not get a serious deal on the table?

Johnson will attempt to blame the failure of his latest proposal, plus all previous ones, on the EU. But has Brussels been all that unreasonable in the negotiations? I’m no EU fan, but it’s an honest question. They have one large issue: Ireland. The Good Friday agreement is sacred for them, because it is for Ireland. And Boris today allegedly proposing some kind of border infrastructure regardless will not fly.

A difficult topic, for sure, but then we’re 3,5 years on from the referendum, and what has the UK done since then? London gives the impression that peace in Ireland is less important for them than it is for Brussels, and that is not wise. As former Northern Ireland negotiator Jonathan Powell said in a video I posted earlier today, what will happen is easy to predict:

Even if you just put in a camera on the border, the dissident Republicans will shoot at it. Then you put in police to protect the camera, they’ll shoot at the police. Next up is the army to protect the police, and so on and so forth. Perhaps a unified Ireland is a solution, though that will take time, but a hard Brexit certainly is not. But Boris appears to play games with this, suggesting there will have to be customs facilities some way or another: “Each of the IRA campaigns started as a border campaign”, says Powell.

A hard border undermines the basis of the Good Friday Agreement – Jonathan Powell told us in August.

But what does the former Northern Ireland negotiator make of reports of the PM's latest offering on the backstop? He joins us at 22:30https://t.co/Qhrwo8Aank #Newsnight pic.twitter.com/lr4XBw4l47

— BBC Newsnight (@BBCNewsnight) October 1, 2019

Summarized, we have this third group, not Leave or Remain but Leave But With A Deal, and they are being ignored and/or labeled Remain. Whereas they could be key to Johnson and his supporters’ desire to Leave. Look, Boris has no majority in Parliament anymore, not even if the DUP he apparently sucked up to vote with him. He needs something else but is running out of time.

Then again, Boris has pledged to Leave by Halloween. Now his personal credibility is at stake, and it’s become more important than the credibility of his party, of Parliament and even of the entire court system. Next up: the Queen. Who didn’t want to sack him but was royally miffed about him advising her to prorogate which put her in a very not amused position when her own Supreme Court declared her decision unlawful.

It would appear to be in Johnson’s own interest, if he wants to carry through Brexit, for him and his team to do a lot more homework. He’s already mightily miffed the Queen, the Supreme Court has accused him of attempting to push through an unlawful act, and he’s lost his party’s majority in Parliament.

Boris’s support may seem solid in his own party conference in Manchester today, but let’s hope he doesn’t get even more blinded by that than he already is, because the consequences could well be catastrophic. And of course I see, and understand, all the people who want the result of the referendum honored, but there’s a whole new ball game underway today, and it would be foolish to ignore that.

You can still go for Brexit, but Good Friday is a giant and unnecessary leap too far to achieve it. As is trying to make the executive branch claim seniority over the legislative one, or the Supreme Court, to achieve your goal. You can wish, but beware.

A Tale of Two Cummings

Aug 032019

August 3, 2019 Posted by Raúl Ilargi Meijer at 7:56 pm Finance, Primers Tagged with: backstop, Bernie, Biden, Boris, DNC, Dominic Cummings, Elijah Cummings, EU, Ireland, Nadler, Troubles, Trump, Tulsi 7 Responses »

Edward Hopper The long leg 1935

Last weekend, I noticed that two of the main newsmakers were both named Cummings, one in the US, the other in the UK. At first glance they don’t look like family, but I’ll readily admit I can’t be sure of that. What I do know is that both are symbolic of what’s wrong with the political systems they figure in.

Also last weekend, I saw a comment somewhere, think it was Twitter, that said something in the vein of: let’s hope the British don’t make the same mistake with Boris Johnson that the Americans made -and make- with Donald Trump, that is, labeling every single thing he does as “Bad”, because then they would lose all of their credibility, fast.

Elijah Cummings and Dominic Cummings. Not related.

And I thought: that could have been my comment, that’s how I look upon the whole political circus too. The entire blind demonization of Trump has only made him stronger, and the loss of credibility of the ‘accusers’ is a major factor in that. Not everything that goes wrong in America is Trump’s fault, it can’t be. But for large segments of the press, and their affiliated politicians, that has been the message for three years now.

And then you wake up one morning after -another- hearing, this time that of Robert Mueller, which you lost again, and you find that nobody believes you anymore, or cares, except for those who’d believe anything you say whatever it is anyway, and all of the time. But that also means you don’t reach anyone new, anyone not already in your echo chamber.

Right before the Mueller hearings, Jerry Nadler once again stated that Mueller had ‘very substantial evidence’ Trump is ‘guilty of high crimes and misdemeanors'”. But not one iota of any such ‘substantial evidence’ was addressed by Mueller in the hearings. And that hurts Nadler’s credibility to no end.

After three years, there’s no more time and space for empty allegations. Just watch Rachel Maddow’s plunging ratings. She lost some 25% of her viewers in the first half of this year. The Democrats would do well to take that into consideration before they speak out again. The latest episode a week ago started with Trump calling out Elijah Cummings (D-MD) on his comments about the border and telling him to take care of Baltimore first.

When Trump said Baltimore was rat infested, a million Democrats called him a racist for it, as in: he wasn’t talking about rats, he was really talking about black people. And subsequently we find out that Baltimore indeed has a substantial problem with rats, various other rodents, garbage, you name it. And one thinks: stop doing it, stop calling him names, stop calling every single thing he does “Bad”. Elijah Cummings has been one of many people doing just that.

Y’all need to stop it because you’re losing. You have been losing for those entire three years. You helped Maddow and the WaPo and NY Times make a fortune with their 24/7 empty allegations, but in the process you’ve been murdering your own party. If you want to fight Trump, you’ll have to do it with facts and evidence, mere innuendo no longer works, those days are gone. You need to change strategy, urgently, you have less than a year to do so.

And talking about the MSM, you also need to stop only watching and reading those sources. Because they don’t provide a wide enough picture, they put blinders on you. It’s what’s been so profitable for them. But not for your party, though it may seem to be.

But yeah, you look at the line-up of ‘candidates’, most of whom appear completely lost in the ‘field’, and you must wonder what 2020 will bring for your party. There’s Kamala and Biden on the right, and then there’s Bernie and Warren on the left. And you just know the DNC is going to pull another Bernie 2016 move. They don’t want the left, they don’t want the Squad, and they’re conspiring against Tulsi Gabbard too. It’s not the empire that’s coming for Tulsi, it’s the DNC.

If I were you, I’d first make sure the DNC gets no say in the choice of your candidate. I’d say disband the whole thing. They are responsible to a large extent for the losing pro-Hillary tactics that have made Trump that much stronger and got him elected. They are behind the whole Russiagate disaster, and the party must urgently distance itself from that. How you can do that without major internal cleansing, I don’t see.

If I were you, I would get rid of Nadler and Adam Schiff and Cummings and a whole lot more faces. Make a fresh start. As things are, the only people who will vote for you are those who would anyway, the echo chamber inhabitants. But the Democrats need additional voters too, swing voters, the already converted are simply not enough.

I see voices promoting an everything-on-red gamble for Michelle Obama, but that reeks far too much of desperation. Then again, betting on Biden or Kamala doesn’t look to be a winner either. The best person might well be Bernie, but the party made clear in 2016 they don’t want him. Personally, I would like to see a Bernie/Warren ticket, because it would give Americans a choice between truly different ideas and options.

Then again, Bernie keeps you far too close to being the War Party with his Russia comments. Americans deserve better. Embrace Tulsi Gabbard’s voice, even if you don’t want her as your candidate. The people love her, even if the DNC does not. She can get you votes you wouldn’t otherwise get. But overall, I don’t see much hope for you next year. Unless you manage to crash the economy before Christmas. Or Easter at the latest. How about Halloween?

If only because then there’s the other Cummings who made the news this week, Boris Johnson’s special adviser Dominic Cummings. I referenced the movie The Uncivil War a while back, and one thing I think I learned from it is that this Mr. Cummings doesn’t play second fiddles. He only agreed to run the VoteLeave campaign that in the end won the Brexit vote when he was given free rein. I think the same thing might have happened now.

He’s agreed to run Boris Johnson’s “Brexit by Halloween” program on the condition that nobody, very much including Boris himself, gets in his way. In 2016, Cummings pushed Boris forward because his polling data told him Nigel Farage was too unpopular and would cost too many votes (yes, the same Farage who has since pretended he was the big winner). But Cummings had no high opinion of Boris either, and still doesn’t.

What that adds up to is that the real boss in no. 10 is not even the PM nobody elected, it’s a guy who got handed the power by that unelected PM in a backroom meeting. And once Dominic Cummings has delivered Brexit, he’ll vanish into the shadows again, where he feels best. Given his past criticisms of Brexit, as well as the entire political system, it could all be more about the win, the kill, then about the value of what it will achieve. He’s not a politician anyway because he’s not a puppet. Cummings is a puppeteer. Boris, well, you get the picture.

Mind you, Brexit may well be a great idea. Just not this way, certainly not this way. The EU has turned into a very questionable club, no doubt. But does anyone at all have the idea that the UK will be well-prepared when they leave that club at Halloween? The thing I find problematic is that all UK laws, regulations, treaties over the past 40 years were agreed to in team efforts with Brussels. London signed them all.

That is a lot of laws and treaties and pieces of paper. Everything modern, everything that didn’t exist 40 years ago, think communications, internet etc. etc., will be part of that. Are they going to leave but still use all those thousands of pages of legislation anyway to regulate their “new” country? I don’t know how they see that, and frankly I don’t think they know either. They seem to just have been bickering amongst themselves for 3 years, and left preparation on the backburner.

Are their businesses prepared for reams upon reams of new paperwork, digital or not? I can’t be sure, but I don’t see it. And then there’s the Irish border, and the backstop. Westminster largely acts as if that’s a minor nuisance, and Paddy will fall into line, but today it’s not just a matter of talking to Dublin, but of talking to Brussels as well.

And you can despise the EU all you want, but they have no choice but to stand with Ireland. They can’t say: let’s ditch the backstop, that is not an option, Brexit would make the Irish border the border of the EU. And if Cummings and Boris want to head for a no-deal Brexit regardless, Good Friday will be as good as dead. Does Dominic Cummings really want to be held responsible for that? Hard to believe. Boris perhaps, but Cummings?

Boris and his people insist there won’t be new border crossings, that technology can save the day, and do the work away from the border. Haven’t seen them explain it though, and certainly not in any detail. But I did see a video the other day of someone involved in the Good Friday negotiations explaining what would happen.

He said, paraphrased: “you put cameras on -or near- that border, there’ll be militants shooting them down. Then you need police to protect the cameras, and they’ll shoot at the police. So you must bring in the army to protect the police, and you’re right back to the Troubles”. The Irish border is still a highly fragile combustible situation. And if Boris insists on not having a backstop, it’s hard to see how new Troubles can be avoided. The Good Friday Agreement came into effect less than 20 years ago, in December 1999.

The dysfunctional political systems Elijah Cummings and Dominic Cummings are part of may appear to be dysfunctional for different reasons. But the role of the media in both cases is very similar. The media wants to be -and define- the message, because that’s where the money is, and the power.

https://twitter.com/i/status/1156316342141759492

Debt Rattle August 2 2019

Aug 022019

August 2, 2019 Posted by Raúl Ilargi Meijer at 9:55 am Finance Tagged with: Boeing, ECB, Good Friday, IMF, Ireland, Maddow, pensions, rate cut, repression, savings, servile, tariffs, zombies 11 Responses »

Pablo Picasso Bathers with a toy boat 1937

• The Giant Sucking Sound of Financial Repression (WS)

• Dutch Bank ING Warns Against Further ECB Money Printing (R.)

• Trump’s $300 Billion China Tariff Threat Sends Markets Into Tailspin (G.)

• Rate Cut Odds Surge After Tariff Announcement (ZH)

• US Tariffs Risk Reviving Chinese Zombies (R.)

• The EU Has New People In Charge. It’s Not Good News For US Tech Firms (CNBC)

• EU Governments Seek Name For IMF Head (R.)

• Boris Johnson’s Commons Working Majority Cut To One (BBC)

• Expecting Ireland To Be Servile Is Part Of A Long British Tradition (G.)

• Irish Peace Is Too Precious To Be Squandered By The Brexit Ultras (G.)

• Boeing To Change 737 MAX Flight-Control Software To Address Flaw (R.)

• Rachel Maddow Ratings Tank After Collusion Narrative Implodes (Ryan)

The war on savings and pensions continues unabated. Central banks are in so deep there’s no way out anymore. But what happens when you want to, or have to, retire?

• The Giant Sucking Sound of Financial Repression (WS)

It’s called interest-rate repression. Or more poetically, financial repression. It’s where central banks manipulate interest rates down to where investments with little credit risk, such as Treasury securities, FDIC-insured savings accounts and CDs, pay little or no interest, or pay less interest than the rate of inflation. People such as savers and retirees, and institutions such as pension funds, that depend on this cash flow have lost their income stream. In addition, the purchasing power of their principal is getting gradually wiped out by inflation. How much money are we talking about? In the US alone, this interest rate repression impacts nearly $40 trillion. This includes savings products, Treasury securities, municipal bonds, and high-grade corporate debt.

$40 Trillion with a T. A 2% reduction across the board cuts this income by $800 billion a year. And this has had an impact. Central banks have accomplished this interest-rate repression by pushing short-term rates to zero or below zero, and by buying bonds and other assets to push long-term rates down too. These were emergency measures during the Financial Crisis that have become the “new normal,” as it has been called. This new normal has been going on for over a decade now. Other central banks, including the ECB and the Bank of Japan, pushed their policy rates below zero. This, in addition to vast asset buying binges by those central banks, produced $13 trillion in negative yielding bonds. But that’s a different universe of idiocy that we’re not going to get into today. We’re going to stick to US conditions.

To the Fed’s credit, it is the only major central bank that has raised its policy-rate target a bit, from near-zero to a range between 2.25% and 2.5%, which are still historically low rates. But it is under immense pressure by Wall Street and by the White House to cut rates again. So now we have this situation where short-term Treasury yields are low, and long-dated Treasury yields are even lower. How much money are we talking about here? Let’s see. There are $22 trillion in Treasury securities. They’re held by individuals and institutions, including insurance companies, pension funds, and the Social Security Trust Fund. Then there is high-grade corporate debt. The category of triple-A to single-A-rated debt is about $3.3 trillion. These yields have been pushed down too.

Then there are $3.8 trillion in municipal bonds outstanding. Many of them trade below US Treasury yields. For example, the GO bonds of California, which is not exactly a paragon of fiscal rectitude. During trading last Thursday, the California 10-year yield was 1.76%. This was about one-third of a percentage point below the US Treasury 10-year yield of 2.08% on the same day. Then there are $9.4 trillion in savings products, mostly savings accounts and CDs at banks. There are also about $3 trillion in checking accounts, payroll accounts, etc., but they’re not included here. These are just savings products. So let’s add these categories up: They amount to $39 trillion.

“There is no shortage of money in the market.”

• Dutch Bank ING Warns Against Further ECB Money Printing (R.)

Ralph Hamers made his plea as central banks redouble efforts to keep the cost of borrowing at historic lows to buoy the economy, a policy that weighs on bank profits and makes it costly to hold deposits. “I don’t think QE is a recipe to support an uncertain environment,” Hamers told journalists, referring to so-called quantitative easing to print fresh money. “There is no shortage of money in the market.” Although bankers have previously made similar complaints, Hamers’ blunt comments carry weight because his bank is one of Europe’s largest, with 38 million customers. ING, the largest Dutch bank, cautioned on Thursday that rock-bottom interest rates would pressure future earnings, as it announced a 1.4 billion euro net profit in the second quarter of the year.

“Looking ahead, we expect that persistently low interest rates will put pressure on net interest income,” Hamers said, referring to the bank’s chief earnings pillar from activities such as lending. European Central Bank President Mario Draghi has all but pledged to loosen monetary policy further amid a continued economic deterioration of Europe’s euro currency bloc, still grappling with the aftermath of a debt crisis. Officials recently told Reuters that an interest rate cut in September appeared certain, while government bond buys were also likely. Draghi recently said the outlook looked bleak as a global trade war hit Europe’s manufacturers.

Did he do it to push Powell?

• Trump’s $300 Billion China Tariff Threat Sends Markets Into Tailspin (G.)

Donald Trump’s surprise decision to escalate the trade war with tariffs on another $300bn of Chinese goods has sent global financial markets into a tailspin. After sharp falls on Wall Street in the wake of the US president’s announcement on Twitter on Thursday, Asian share prices plummeted on Friday morning as growing hopes that the world’s two economic superpowers would be able to reach a deal were dashed. In Tokyo the Nikkei was down 2.3%, with a similar fall in Hong Kong and Shanghai. The Kospi was down 0.8% in Seoul while in Sydney the benchmark ASX200, which passed its pre-global financial crisis all-time high on Tuesday, fell 0.3%. On the commodities markets the price of Brent crude oil plunged 7%, its biggest fall for four years, although it recovered 2.5% on Friday to $62.01.

Trump’s decision was also likely to increase the chances of another cut in US interest rates with the prospect of worsening trade with China forcing the Federal Reserve to loosen monetary policy again in September. It follows Wednesday’s 0.25% reduction, which was widely seen as not being enough to please the president who has been very vocal in calling for lower rates to boost the economy. As a signal of lower rates to come, the 10-year US bond yield fell almost 12 basis points on Thursday to 1.902%, hitting the lowest level since Trump won the presidential election in November 2016. The US dollar also fell and stockmarkets in Europe and the US were braced for a turbulent last day’s trading of the week. The FTSE100 is set to drop 1% at the opening and the Dow 0.3%.

“It’s very logical to conclude that if trade tensions increase, given what Powell said, that would be something he would look at to evaluate a further cut.”

• Rate Cut Odds Surge After Tariff Announcement (ZH)

Earlier today, we wrote a post titled “What Would It Take For The Fed To Not Cut Again?”, with Goldman providing a stylized answer, although in retrospect, the post should have been titled “What Would It Take For The Fed To Cut Again”, as that is what the market was far more concerned about after yesterday’s hawkish Powell press conference. In any case, Goldman hinted at the one specific catalyst that could force the Fed to cut more: “We also see risks in the other direction, especially on a significant escalation of tariffs against China.” To this, we said that “if an acceleration in the trade war with China is what the Fed will need to cut more, it’s pretty clear what that means for the chances of any trade deal between Washington and Beijing, since even Trump now understands that if he keeps escalating trade war with China, Powell will have no choice but to eventually cut to 0% (and lower).”

Just a few hours later, we were proven right in suggesting that an escalation in the trade war is inevitable and imminent when Trump tweeted that he would hike tariffs on $300BN in Chinese imports to 10% starting September 1, ending the tentative ceasefire with Beijing with a bang, and sending risk prices sharply lower. And yes, while Trump did suffer a modest drop in his favorite polling indicator – i.e., the stock market – which “cratered” as much as 1.5% below its all time high – far more importantly Trump also called Powell’s bluff, and effectively forced the Fed to prepare for more rate cuts as the trade war with China – which Powell explicitly highlighted as a condition that would result in more easing – is set to escalate further.

Late today, Bloomberg confirmed as much noting that traders “fixated on a timeline in which Powell seems to suggest cooling trade tensions reduced the need for future rate reductions — and a day later Trump revs the tensions back up”, just as we said he would. “It fits the pattern of a president bent on getting the central bank to submit, many thought”, the Bloomberg authors concluded. “Powell was very careful to say that he was looking at three things, one of which was global growth and the extent to which that is risked by trade tensions,” said Ellen Hazen, senior vice president and portfolio manager for F.L. Putnam, which has $2.2 billion under management. “It’s very logical to conclude that if trade tensions increase, given what Powell said, that would be something he would look at to evaluate a further cut.” Precisely, hence our prediction first thing this morning.

Really? Xi is going to build more bridges to nowhere?

• US Tariffs Risk Reviving Chinese Zombies (R.)

President Donald Trump is threatening new levies on $300 billion of Chinese goods entering the United States, after Shanghai talks proved inconclusive this week. That might not prod Chinese officials into striking a deal, but it is likely to raise some unwelcome zombies. Trump is among those who claim the Chinese economy is on the brink of the abyss. And it’s true that as a truce in trade negotiations gets more elusive the country’s business community is being forced to price in a new status quo. Their country has stumbled into a cold war with the world’s largest economy, a nuclear-armed military colossus that controls the world’s foremost trading currency. But a $13 trillion economy growing at 6.2% is hardly imploding, and a country where private consumption makes up roughly two-fifths of nominal GDP has padding against a downturn in trade.

Tensions exacerbate economic problems of China’s own making, though. There is a massive stack of non-performing debt incurred by government banks that mis-allocated capital after the global financial crisis. And there are still plenty of inefficient state-backed companies that compete with China’s private sector, driving down profitability across the board. If the new 10% tariffs kick in on Sept. 1 as Trump threatened on Thursday, President Xi Jinping may re-open a playbook that reformist officials have been trying to close. The central government has already pushed localities to ramp up infrastructure spending, and there may be more to come. Construction investment creates jobs immediately, and the government can order banks to lend, and order state firms to build.

Trump won’t like this.

• The EU Has New People In Charge. It’s Not Good News For US Tech Firms (CNBC)

New officials at the heart of the EU will likely keep America’s big tech firms under close scrutiny, experts have told CNBC. The European Commission — the EU’s executive arm — has fined companies such as Google for disrespecting its competition rules, it’s asked Ireland to collect unpaid taxes from Apple and is currently investigating Amazon. It has also proposed different laws that seek to limit online content and there’s little evidence that anything will change under the EU’s new leadership. Dexter Thillien, a senior industry analyst at Fitch Solutions, told CNBC via telephone Wednesday that Europe is keen to continue to be seen as the global leading force in tech regulation. Thillien explained that Europe saw a loophole in global tech regulation and felt the need to act.

“Europeans have all the negatives but none of the positives,” he said, referring to the fact that Europe has not created any large tech firms but has had to deal with the presence of Silicon Valley behemoths. “The European Commission has become more assertive making big tech companies pay their fair share of taxes. If anything, the incoming Commission looks even more determined to do so,” Florian Hense, an economist at Berenberg, told CNBC via email. Ursula von der Leyen, the president-elect of the Commission, said during a speech earlier this month that “if (tech companies) are making these profits by benefiting from our education system, our skilled workers, our infrastructure and our social security, if this is so, it is not acceptable that they make profits, but they are barely paying any taxes because they play our tax system.”

A European under Washington’s thumb.

• EU Governments Seek Name For IMF Head (R.)

European Union finance ministers are set on Friday to choose the bloc’s candidate to lead the International Monetary Fund from a list of four names, a spokeswoman for the French government said. The list includes Jeroen Dijsselbloem, the Dutch former head of euro zone finance ministers; Nadia Calvino, the Spanish economy minister; Olli Rehn, the Finnish central bank governor; and Bulgaria’s World Bank chief executive Kristalina Georgieva. Mario Centeno, the Portuguese chairman of euro zone finance ministers, said on Thursday he was pulling out of the race “in this stage of the process”, adding that he would be available if needed for a compromise solution.

Britain did not field a candidate because it could not come up with a name on time, a European official said. It had been expected to name a candidate and the deadline was extended by a few hours on Thursday to allow it to do so. France is leading the process to select a European candidate. The top job at the Washington-based global lender has historically been filled by a European. Outgoing IMF head Christine Lagarde is taking over from Mario Draghi as European Central Bank president.

is that enough to push through a no-deal Brexit?

• Boris Johnson’s Commons Working Majority Cut To One (BBC)

The Liberal Democrats have won the Brecon and Radnorshire by-election, leaving new PM Boris Johnson with a Commons working majority of just one. Jane Dodds overturned an 8,038 majority to beat incumbent Conservative Chris Davies by 1,425 votes. Mr Davies stood again after being unseated by a petition following his conviction for a false expenses claim. It was the first electoral test for Mr Johnson just eight days after becoming prime minister. It is the quickest by-election defeat for any new prime minister since World War Two.

Now, with the thinnest possible working majority, he will have to rely heavily on the support of his own MPs and his confidence-and-supply partners the DUP to get any legislation passed in key votes. It was also a bad night for Labour, whose vote share dropped by 12.4% as it was beaten into fourth place by the Brexit Party. The result means the Lib Dems now have 13 MPs. Ms Dodds, who is the Welsh Liberal Democrat leader, said: “My very first act as your new MP when I get to Westminster will be to find Mr Boris Johnson, wherever he’s hiding, and tell him to stop playing with the future of our community and rule out a no-deal Brexit.”

“Paddy should know his place..”

• Expecting Ireland To Be Servile Is Part Of A Long British Tradition (G.)

Boris Johnson’s approach to Ireland is part of an ignoble tradition in British politics. At its heart is the false assumption that superiority in resources and military prowess equates to a superiority in intellectual power and moral rectitude. In short, the idea that might is right and that, ultimately, Paddy should know his place. This assumption shaped and even, at times, dominated, policy on Ireland for centuries before independence. It runs through 19th-century British depictions of the Irish as incapable of self-government, unreliable, lazy and inferior. For Benjamin Disraeli, a British prime minister who shares some personal characteristics with the current incumbent, the Irish were “wild, reckless, indolent, uncertain and superstitious”.

Most obviously, this sense of superiority and a refined “moral” stance was clearly manifest in government policy during the Great Famine of 1845-49, which caused the deaths of more than one million people on the island of Ireland. This consistently damaging strain of thought continued into the 20th century, with British military and economic power often used crudely to address deep-rooted political conflicts in Ireland, which refused, and continue to refuse, to allow for simple solutions. Ireland, the thinking went, should be the handmaiden for glorious Britannia – and this servile position is for Ireland’s own benefit and ultimately serves Irish interests.

Of course, within this particular strain of British political thought, the history of violence and tragedy in Ireland is sometimes portrayed as a product of Irish recalcitrance – a tendency towards disorder and conflict that fails to recognise the beneficence of British policy on the island. Britain, it is often suggested, is a guarantor of Irish stability, addressing and suppressing the inherent conflicts in Irish society, rather than a highly disruptive force that has often recklessly pursued its own interests at a serious cost to its nearest neighbour.

“Tories of influence” told him privately that Leo Varadkar, Ireland’s taoiseach “isn’t bright” and “the Irish will blink”.

• Irish Peace Is Too Precious To Be Squandered By The Brexit Ultras (G.)

In The Ultras, the brutal, brilliant novel by Eoin McNamee set during the Troubles, the protagonist (based on the real-life undercover British intelligence officer Robert Nairac) finds himself in the company of dangerous men like himself. The Ultras plot terrible events and create dark polities while forcing everyone else to live with their consequences. “Ultra meaning beyond,” wrote McNamee. “Ultra meaning extreme.” The so-called war cabinet formed by the new British prime minister, Boris Johnson, and whose course the maverick arch-Brexiteer Dominic Cummings now charts, of course bears no resemblance to the characters in the war of the Ultras imagined by McNamee.

But the sheer velocity and ferocity of their opening salvoes about crashing out of the EU with no deal on October 31 unless the backstop – the insurance policy to avoid a hard border in Ireland – is abolished, raise the kind of alarm that we in Ireland have not felt since the dark years of the Troubles. The political fear is that this new breed of “Brexit Ultras” (Johnson’s cabinet with Nigel Farage’s Brexit party snapping at its heels) could deliberately pursue a no-deal EU exit at the expense of a volatile Irish peace. The sabre-rattling and pre-emptive blame-shifting of course is intended to shore up political support in the UK ahead of a possible general election, but also to intimidate Ireland into abandoning the backstop while shaking the unity of the EU27.

Europe, with its own demons to face, has its red lines too and will not sacrifice the single market or its external borders, or jeopardise the wider integrity of the European project. Ireland, and the fragile peace process that has been built over the past 20 years, falls between these two positions. And while it is still early days for the Johnson premiership, we have a deteriorated state of Anglo-Irish relations following his ascent to power. How real is the damaging rhetoric emanating from London and the anti-Irish tropes spewing from much of the British media? David Yelland, the former editor of the Sun, revealed that he had been shocked when “Tories of influence” told him privately that Leo Varadkar, Ireland’s taoiseach “isn’t bright” and “the Irish will blink”. “It seems, amazingly, that this is the actual policy of HMG under Johnson,” tweeted Yelland. “They are anti-Irish, arrogant, dangerous and wrong.”

Well, actually, they’re going to change hardware: a second flight control computer and a second angle-of-attack sensor. Both of which are altready on board, but not used.

• Boeing To Change 737 MAX Flight-Control Software To Address Flaw (R.)

Boeing Co plans further changes to the software architecture of the 737 MAX flight-control system to address a flaw discovered after a test in June, two people briefed on the matter said late on Thursday. The redesign, first reported by the Seattle Times, involves using and receiving input from both flight control computers rather than one. The move comes in response to an effort to address a problem discovered in June during a Federal Aviation Administration(FAA) simulator test. This is on top of earlier announced changes to take input from both angle-of-attack sensors in the MCAS anti-stall system linked to two deadly crashes that led to a global grounding of the plane.

Boeing still hopes to complete the software redesign by the end of September to submit to the FAA for approval, the sources said. For decades, 737 models have used only one of the flight control computers for each flight, with the system switching to the other computer on the following flight, according to people familiar with the plane’s design. The FAA said in June that it had identified a new risk that would need to be addressed before the plane could be ungrounded. Under a scenario where a specific fault in a microprocessor caused an uncommanded movement of the plane’s horizontal tail, it took pilots too long to recognize a loss of control known as runaway stabilizer, a Boeing official said at the time.

Crazy bag lady.

• Rachel Maddow Ratings Tank After Collusion Narrative Implodes (Ryan)

Once a shining beacon of hope for Russiagate true believers, it looks like Rachel Maddow has left her best days behind her; MSNBC’s conspiracy queen has seen her show plummet to fifth place in cable news ratings. What happened? You rise fast and fall hard in the fickle world of television. Just last April, Maddow overtook Fox News’ Sean Hannity to claim the title of most-watched host across cable news. She had become a reliable source for Russigate aficionados to get their daily dose of crazy. Sadly for Maddow, the latest data released by Nielsen shows her show in fifth place with a total audience of 2.4877 million viewers for July – behind Hannity, Tucker Carlson, Laura Ingraham and The Five (all Fox News shows).

For context, in January this year, Maddow still boasted an audience of nearly 3.3 million, which means she shed around 800,000 viewers in just six months. Maddow was also in fifth place among viewers in the 25-54 age range – the group most-favored by advertisers. Ouch. Once dubbed “the smartest person on TV” by Forbes (really), this is certainly not the big payoff Maddow was expecting, having dedicated three years of her career to breathlessly covering every twist and turn in the anticlimactic Trump-Russia “collusion” drama.

Ship with dolphins.Wall painting from Akrotiri, Thera island (Santorini), Greece.17th century BC.

Debt Rattle July 30 2019

Jul 302019

July 30, 2019 Posted by Raúl Ilargi Meijer at 9:28 am Finance Tagged with: backstop, blame game, Boris, Brexit, China, EU, globalism, hack, Huawei, Ireland, overshoot, sterling 11 Responses »

Odilon Redon The winged man (The fallen angel) 1880

• Pound Worth Just 85 Euro Cents At UK Airports (Ind.)

• Boris Johnson Refuses To Meet EU Leaders Unless They Scrap Backstop (G.)

• EU Rejects Dominic Raab’s ‘Easier’ No-Deal Brexit Claim (G.)

• Boris Johnson’s New Brexit Chief Wants To Scrap Workers’ Rights (Ind.)

• Things to Come (Kunstler)

• Fake Cash, Fake Accounting: China Regulators Halt 46 IPOs, Bond Offerings (WS)

• US Firms See Little Clarity On Huawei As US-China Talks Resume (R.)

• Capital One: Information Of Over 100 Million People In US, Canada Hacked (R.)

• The World is Not Enough (Statista)

• Lost Cities and Climate Change (SciAm)

In currency markets, sterling is still worth 10% more than the euro, not 15% less. Three years ago it was worth 25% more. Scary to think what a no-deal Brexit could do. Well, unless you’re a short seller.

• Pound Worth Just 85 Euro Cents At UK Airports (Ind.)

The pound has sunk well below €1 at Britain’s biggest airports – while the dollar is at parity. At the ICE desk at Heathrow airport on Tuesday morning, The Independent was quoted £117 for buying €100 – making each pound worth just 85 euro cents. At Gatwick airport on Monday night, the rate was £1 = €0.90. With commission added to a €100 transaction, the cost in sterling was £116. The interbank rate at 7am sank below £1 = €1.09, as the downward pressure on the pound continued. The currency market has marked down sterling as the prospect of a no-deal Brexit appears increasingly likely. At the peak of the holiday season, prices for British travellers will be at a two-year high.

The best rates for the euro found by The Independent were for “click and collect” transactions at London bureaux de change: €1.08 at branches of Thomas Exchange Global or ICE at Waterloo station. The interbank rate for dollars was £1 = $1.21, but Moneycorp at Gatwick airport was quoting parity: £1 = $1. Anyone changing £1,000 into the US currency and immediately back to sterling would lose over one-third of their money, receiving just £648.

I don’t see how they could scrap the backstop, Brussels must stand up for its member state, Ireland. No choice. For Brussels, Ireland is a full-fledged nation. For London, it still doesn’t appear to be.

• Boris Johnson Refuses To Meet EU Leaders Unless They Scrap Backstop (G.)

Boris Johnson is refusing to sit down for talks with EU leaders until they agree to ditch the Irish backstop from the Brexit withdrawal agreement, despite invitations to meetings from the German chancellor, Angela Merkel, and the French president, Emmanuel Macron. His official spokeswoman said the prime minister had made clear that he wanted to strike a deal, but that there was no point in holding face-to-face talks unless the EU agreed to reopen the agreement. But on a visit to the Trident nuclear base at Faslane in Scotland on Monday, Johnson painted a more optimistic picture of the prospects for talks, telling reporters there was “ample scope” to achieve a new deal.

He said: “We are not aiming for a no-deal Brexit at all. What we want is to get a deal and I’ve had some interesting conversations with our European partners. I’ve talked to [the European commission president] Jean-Claude [Juncker] and Angela Merkel and we’re reaching out today to [the Irish prime minister] Leo Varadkar. The feeling is, yes there’s no change in their position, but it’s very, very positive.” But he added: “They all know where we are: we can’t accept the backstop, it was thrown out three times, the withdrawal agreement as it stands is dead and everybody gets that. But there is ample scope to do a new deal and a better deal.”

While Johnson has spoken to Merkel and Macron, there are no plans to accept their invitations to visit without a change in their position on the backstop. Irish officials are understood to view the delay in contacting Varadkar as indicative of an unwillingness to enter serious talks. Varadkar is adamant that the backstop must stay to prevent a return to a hard border on the island of Ireland and preserve the integrity of the single market.

Remember this? We ignored the crimes, subversion, contempt of parliament. And now he’s in charge. Determined to take us out of Europe on Oct 31. By any means possible. That’s why he’s back.
Because Johnson knows:he’ll do *anything* to get it over the linepic.twitter.com/DHGc9kO8BS

— Carole Cadwalladr (@carolecadwalla) July 28, 2019

Blame Games ‘R’ Us.

• EU Rejects Dominic Raab’s ‘Easier’ No-Deal Brexit Claim (G.)

European Union officials have rejected Dominic Raab’s claim that negotiating a free-trade deal would be “much easier” after a no-deal Brexit. While the foreign secretary contends that leaving the EU without an agreement would ease the way to solving the disputed Irish border question, European sources fear a no-deal Brexit would trigger an acrimonious blame game. “It would mean the complete breakdown of political relations and I don’t think there would be much trust on the EU side with the Tories, or with the prime minister,” a senior diplomat said. “Eventually we would get around it because we are pragmatic, but this would be really, really bad, because of all the rhetoric around blaming.”

A second diplomat, speaking before Raab’s intervention, argued that all contact would cease after a no-deal Brexit. “Our phones will not be connected at that time … I don’t think they will be connected to someone who has reneged on their obligations,” they said. European officials agree that a precondition of talks would be a British pledge to honour the three core parts of the withdrawal agreement – citizens’ rights, the Irish border and the financial settlement. At the weekend, the EU budget commissioner, Günther Oettinger, told Der Tagesspiegel the UK’s credit rating would be hit if Boris Johnson carried out his threat not to honour payments promised to the EU. Tanja Fajon, the Social Democrat member of the European parliament’s foreign affairs committee, said: “To negotiate a free trade agreement usually takes years and I believe the UK doesn’t have that time after a no-deal Brexit.”

The UK has been instrumental in defining EU law for 40 years. Now they want to cherry-pick? That would put any future trade deals at risk. Unfair competition.

• Boris Johnson’s New Brexit Chief Wants To Scrap Workers’ Rights (Ind.)

Boris Johnson’s new Brexit chief wants to scrap Theresa May’s commitment to protect British workers’ rights, and has suggested Brexit is an opportunity to escape the EU’s “heavy labour market regulation”, The Independent can reveal. Just two months ago David Frost said he was opposed to the approach advocated “by the leaders of both major political parties”, and argued that EU rights should not automatically be written into law after Brexit. Mr Frost, former chief executive of the London Chamber of Commerce and Industry, was appointed last week by Mr Johnson to replace Olly Robbins as Downing Street’s EU chief, a role that will see him leading any future talks with Brussels.

“Business organisations have often in the past criticised the EU’s drift towards heavy labour market regulation,” Mr Frost said in May 2019 in an article reproduced on the London Chamber of Commerce and Industry website. “So I will take some persuading it will be a good outcome if the EU is able to set new UK labour market rules without any UK say – as currently seems to be envisaged by the leaders of both major political parties.” Theresa May committed the government to maintaining the current level of European Union workers rights, and also went even further, legislating for parliament to automatically be given votes on staying aligned with the bloc’s rules when future legislation emerges.

The “dynamic alignment” plans were unveiled by the government in a failed bid to get Labour MPs to back the withdrawal agreement. Additionally, during the transition period included in the withdrawal agreement, the UK would have to accept rights with no say at all, as rejected by Mr Frost. Brussels has also suggested the UK would have to stay aligned with future EU workers’ rights, as well as environmental and social legislation, past the end of the transition period – if it wants a trade agreement. Chief negotiator Michel Barnier has said the bloc would seek non-regression clauses to ensure Britain does not backslide on rules and try to undercut its neighbours.

“Now, there is just suspicion that we’ve reached the limits of borrowing. Soon it will be a fact and that fact will upend everything we’ve been doing. ”

• Things to Come (Kunstler)

The economic contraction ahead will put this borderline psychotic country through some interesting ch-ch-ch-changes. Mr. Trump now fully owns the Potemkin status quo of record stock markets poised against a withering rot of human capital at the core of an industrial society in sunset mode. Leadership at every corner of American life — politics, business, media — expects an ever-higher tech magical updraft of fortune from an increasingly holographic economy of mere fugitive appearances in which everybody can get more of something for nothing. The disappointment over how all this works out will be epic.

Globalism is wobbling badly. It was never what it was cracked up to be: a permanent new plateau of exquisitely-tuned international economic cooperation engineered to perfection. It was just a set of provisional relations based on transient advantage. As it turned out, every move that advantaged US-based corporations blew back ferociously on the American public and the long-term integrity of the social order. Sinister as it seems, the process was simply emergent: a self-organizing evolution of forces previously set in motion. And, like a lot of things in history, it seemed like a good idea at the time.

“Off-shoring” US industry jacked up corporate profits while it decimated working class livelihoods. In return, that large demographic got “bargain shopping” at Walmart, a life of ever-upward revolving debt, and dead downtowns. The country got gigantic trade deficits and government debt loads. In effect, globalism compelled America to borrow as much as possible from the future to keep running things the way they were set up to run. Now, there is just suspicion that we’ve reached the limits of borrowing. Soon it will be a fact and that fact will upend everything we’ve been doing.

What is real in China?

• Fake Cash, Fake Accounting: China Regulators Halt 46 IPOs, Bond Offerings (WS)

On Monday, Jinhe Biotechnology and Liande Automatic Equipment disclosed in filings that they had been ordered by the China Securities Regulatory Commission (CSRC) to suspend their plans to sell bonds. On Sunday night, four companies — Hunan Baili Engineering Sci&Tech, Jiaao Enprotech Stock, MLS Co., and Woer Heat-Shrinkable Material Co. – disclosed in filings that they had been ordered by the CSRC to suspend their IPOs in Shanghai and Shenzhen. Regulators also stopped four IPOs on Shanghai’s Star Market, which itself debuted just last week with great fanfare. The 25 stocks listed on it gained 140% on the very first day, followed by steep declines the second day.

[..] On Sunday, two companies disclosed that their bond offerings were stopped by regulators, according to Yicai. On Friday, seven companies disclosed that their bond offerings have been halted. In total, regulators suspended 46 IPOs and bond offerings, based on filings made at the Shanghai and Shenzhen stock exchanges, including Shanghai’s Star Market, as of Monday, according to the South China Morning Post. The reason: these companies had chosen Ruihua Certified Public Accountants as their auditors. Ruihua, the second largest audit firm in China, has been embroiled in scandals involving large amounts of fake data, including fake cash, on its clients’ books. The fakeness of this cash became obvious when these companies defaulted on debt that they could have easily serviced with the cash they claimed to have on their books but didn’t. And Ruihua had just signed off on those fake books.

“..the department has yet to respond to any of a total of around 50 license requests from about 35 companies..”

• US Firms See Little Clarity On Huawei As US-China Talks Resume (R.)

A month after President Donald Trump said he would allow U.S. companies to resume selling to blacklisted Chinese telecommunications giant Huawei HWT.UL, his administration has done little to clarify what sales will be permitted. The lack of clarity on what U.S. firms can supply to the world’s top producer of telecommunications equipment as long as it’s on a so-called “entity list” is likely to cast a shadow over this week’s U.S.-China trade negotiations in Shanghai. Trump had pledged to allow the sales as a goodwill gesture to President Xi Jinping when the two met last month and agreed to restart talks to try to resolve their year-long trade war.

China, for its part, agreed to restart large-scale agricultural purchases. U.S. chipmakers cheered Trump’s announcement, which administration officials clarified afterwards meant the government would issue export licenses in cases where there is no national security risk and where the items are “non-sensitive” and readily replaced by rivals. But the department has yet to respond to any of a total of around 50 license requests from about 35 companies, sowing uncertainty in the industry and in Beijing. “At this stage, there is mass confusion,” said William Reinsch, a former Commerce official, adding that the plan for case-by-case decisions “maximizes the uncertainty.”

No information is safe.

• Capital One: Information Of Over 100 Million People In US, Canada Hacked (R.)

Capital One Financial Corp said on Monday that personal information including names and addresses of about 100 million individuals in the United States and 6 million people in Canada were obtained by a hacker who has been arrested. The suspect, a 33-year-old former Seattle technology company software engineer identified as Paige Thompson, made her initial appearance in U.S. District Court in Seattle on Monday, the U.S. Attorney’s office said. According to a complaint filed in the District Court for the Western District of Washington at Seattle, Thompson posted information from her hack, which occurred between March 12 and July 17, on coding platform GitHub. Another user saw the post and notified Capital One of the breach.

Law enforcement officials were able to track Thompson down as the page she posted on contained her full name as part of its digital address, the complaint said. Capital One said it identified the hack on July 19. A representative for the U.S. Attorney’s office said it was not immediately clear what the suspect’s motive was. The incident is expected to cost between $100 million and $150 million in 2019, mainly because of customer notifications, credit monitoring and legal support, Capital One said. The hacker did not gain access to credit card account numbers, but about 140,000 Social Security numbers and 80,000 linked bank account numbers were compromised, Capital One said. Other personal information accessed included phone numbers and credit scores.

Are we immune to this yet?

• The World is Not Enough (Statista)

Earth Overshoot Day came on July 29 this year. This is the second time the day, which marks the time at which humanity has used up its allotment of natural planetary resources for the year, occurred in the month. It had occurred in August between 2010 and 2017. The day, whose existence is highlighted by the NGO Global Footprint Network, means that all humans on Earth for this year have already used up more natural resources than mother nature can reproduce annually. Emissions, but also of resources like wood or fish and the use of land for crops, are among the things counted in when calculating Earth Overshoot Day.

Industrialized nations have the biggest share in pushing its date forward, as seen in the organization’s country profiles. The U.S. is the biggest offender. If all nations lived like U.S. residents, the resources of five Earths would be needed each year in order for the natural environment to regenerate. The U.S. overshoot day is therefore on March 15. Australia, which had been ahead of the U.S. for some years, now had its overshoot day on March 31, with 4.1 “Earths” used annually. India was among the countries whose style of living would use up less than a whole Earth each year if practiced globally, which also has to do with poverty still being widespread in the country.

“The scariest thing about climate change is what it will make us do to each other.”

• Lost Cities and Climate Change (SciAm)

Not far from my grandmother’s house is a ghost city. At Angel Mounds on the Ohio river about eight miles west of Evansville, there are a few visible earthworks and a reconstructed wattle-and-daub barrier. There is almost nothing left of the people who build these mounds; in a final insulting erasure, the site is now named after the white settler family who most recently farmed the land. There are traces of other dead villages along the Ohio and Mississippi rivers, mounds scattered from present-day Indiana to Arkansas and Alabama. In southern Illinois, a few miles from the Missouri border, hidden among empty corn and soy fields, is the center of that dead civilization’s gravity: the lost city of Cahokia.

Cahokia was larger than London, centrally planned, the Manhattan of its day. Most people there would have come from somewhere else. There were defensive foundations, playing fields, and a magnificent temple. There would have been sacred ceremonies and salacious gossip. It must have been a very exciting place to live. And then, relatively abruptly, it ceased to exist. We know of the city only because of the physical traces left behind. Few stories of Cahokia have survived; it disappeared from oral tradition, as if whatever happened to it is best forgotten. The archaeological record shows traces of the desperation and bloodshed that almost always accompany great upheavals: skeletons with bound hands, pits full of strangled young women.

The North American Drought Atlas, a historical record of climate conditions pieced together from the rings of old trees, provides a hint of what might have happened. The tenth century CE, when the Cahokia civilization would have developed, marked a distinct shift in the regional climate from persistent drought to rainier conditions more suitable for agriculture, centralization, and civilization. But the good times were not to last. In the middle of the fourteenth century, the climate swung back toward drought. This shift was likely associated with shifting temperature patterns in the ocean that affected the jet stream, pulling cool air down from the Arctic and displacing rainfall patterns.

These changes are attributable to some combination of natural internal climate variability and externally forced changes from solar activity and increased volcanic eruptions. Their effects were profound. In Europe around the same time, a confluence of natural factors perhaps related and perhaps separate from the forces drying out the Mississippi Valley caused it to rain heavily in the summer of 1314. The rains continued into the winter, and then into the next year, and then the next. Crops rotted in the fields, and the entire continent went hungry. Contemporaneous historical records complain of rain and famine, villages forced to eat dogs and cats, the dead, and even each other.

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