Jan 282021
 


Gustave Courbet The cliffs of Étretat after the storm 1870

 

GameStop, AMC, 4 Other “Most Shorted Stocks” Jump 135% to 538% (WS)
GameStop’s Three Largest Shareholders Earn Over $2bn Amid Stock Surge (G.)
Putin Calls Out Big Tech In Davos (RT)
US Weighing Action Against Russia For Navalny Detention – Blinken (ZH)
Biden Freezes Arms Sales To Saudis & UAE (ZH)
Do The Democrats Really Want Unity? (Turley)
Indian Tribe: Biden Just ‘Attacked’ Our Sovereignty (TH)
Proud Boys Leader Was ‘Prolific’ Informer For Law Enforcement (R.)
German Minister Sees COVID19 Vaccine Shortage Well Into April (R.)
Farmers’ Protests Reflect Existential Crisis of Indian Agriculture (OffG)
Twitter Releases New Community-Based Tool To Find Witches (BBee)

 

 

WallStreetBets is back up. Today could be epic.

 

 

Only loneliness is safe.

 

 

Hedge funds have lost many billions because other people have taken over their game.

GameStop, AMC, 4 Other “Most Shorted Stocks” Jump 135% to 538% (WS)

What a hilarious show this zoo that has gone nuts has turned into. White House Press Secretary Jen Psaki came out today and said the White House “economic team including Secretary Yellen” were “monitoring the situation.” The situation being total utter mania in the most shorted stocks, such as GameStop and AMC. The SEC came out and said today it too is “actively monitoring” the options and equities markets. “Consistent with our mission to protect investors and maintain fair, orderly, and efficient markets…” which was when humongous laughter drowned out the rest. Did the SEC really say “efficient markets????” Hahahahaha. Fed Chair Jerome Powell, during the post-meeting press conference today, was asked right off the bat about the mania around GameStop and similar mania stocks, and he refused to comment.

This came after Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez tweeted in her inimitable style: “Gotta admit it’s really something to see Wall Streeters with a long history of treating our economy as a casino complain about a message board of posters also treating the market as a casino.” The mania revolves around the most shorted stocks, shorted by hedge funds that hoped to make a killing when those stocks collapse. Short sellers have to borrow the shares and sell them, hoping that their prices will collapse, and that they can buy them back for a song and close out their position with a huge profit. And a bunch of hedge funds jumped into this shorting of the-most-shorted-stocks business, and at one point the short interest of GameStop shares [GME] was over 140% of the float, which is ridiculous, and a sign that hedge funds were taking enormous risks.

They will all have to buy those shares to close out their positions. But who is going to sell them those shares? Well, folks figured this out, and they were ganging up on these hedge funds, organizing their Wall Street revolt on the social media, particularly on the WallStreetBets subreddit. Most of these stocks have a relatively small float – that’s why the hedge funds shorted them in the first place because stocks with a small float are a lot easier to manipulate, and Wall Street has long gotten fat off manipulating stocks. And those traders on Reddit also figured out that stocks with a small float are the easiest to manipulate if enough people got together. And they figured out that stocks that were massively shorted and didn’t have many sellers left could be driven up to the point where those that were short those stocks would panic-buy those stocks to cover their short positions and curtail their losses, and that panic buying, with no eager sellers on the other side, would trigger a huge surge in prices, which could wipe out those hated hedge funds.

Tucker Charles Payne GameStop
https://twitter.com/i/status/1354624888166772739

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But if these people sell, the WallStreetBets game could be up.

GameStop’s Three Largest Shareholders Earn Over $2bn Amid Stock Surge (G.)

The three largest shareholders in GameStop, the video game retailer at the center of a frenzied dual between Wall Street and small investors, have made more than $2bn from the company’s astronomic recent share rise. Stock in the company continued its vertiginous rise on Wednesday, hitting a fresh 52-week high of $354.83, making the 13% stake held by Ryan Cohen, 34, GameStop’s largest single shareholder, worth more than $1.3bn. Over the past two weeks, according to CNBC, Cohen’s net worth increased an average of $90m a day, or nearly $4m per hour, as GameStop stock has surged more than 1,550% this year alone. Other winners include Donald Foss, the 76-year-old founder and former CEO of Credit Acceptance Corp, a subprime auto lender. Foss bought 5% of GameStop early last year for around $12m. His stake is now worth more than $500m.


GameStop chief executive George Sherman has seen his 3.4% stake jump to a value of about $350m. On Reddit, where many of the small investors have strategized over their investments, small investors too have boasted of their outside gains from beating Wall Street. But some in Wall Street are also making huge gains. BlackRock, the world’s largest asset manager, owned 9.2m shares in GameStop at the end of December, according to a regulatory filing. If it still holds all those shares, they were worth more than $3bn on Wednesday. The gains comes as thousands of small investors have poured into the stock and forced Wall Street hedge funds, including Melvin Capital and Citron, which were betting on GameStop’s collapse, to take billions in losses.

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Shouldn’t this have come from western leaders?

Putin Calls Out Big Tech In Davos (RT)

Big Tech companies have become rivals to governments, but there are doubts over the benefits of their monopoly for society, Russia’s President Vladimir Putin said, during a virtual meeting of the annual World Economic Forum. “Where is the line between a successful global business, in-demand services and consolidation of big data – and attempts to harshly and unilaterally govern society, replace legitimate democratic institutions, restrict one’s natural right to decide for themselves how to live, what to choose, what stance to express freely?” Putin wondered.


Addressing the role of social media giants in the recent election in the US, the Russian leader pointed out that these companies “in some areas have de facto become rivals to the government.” Billions of users spend large parts of their lives on the platforms and, from the point of view of those companies, their monopolistic position is favorable for organizing economic and technological processes, Putin explained. “But there’s a question of how such monopolism fits the interest of society,” he stressed.

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Oh please…

US Weighing Action Against Russia For Navalny Detention – Blinken (ZH)

A day after the Senate confirmed President Biden’s nominee, veteran diplomat Antony Blinken, as the secretary of state, Blinken gave his first press conference Wednesday afternoon. Revealing where Biden’s foreign policy emphasis will be over the coming months, he came out swinging against Putin (who else?) and Russia (in addition to mention of Iran and China in the course of the briefing), voicing that the US is “deeply concerned” about jailed opposition activist and politician Alexei Navalny. Blinken said the US administration is now mulling “actions in response to his detention in Russia,” according to Reuters. He highlighted continued concerns for Navalny’s “security and safety”. To review, Navalny is serving a 30-day jail sentence for skipping probation related to a 2014 criminal conviction.

He recently returned to Moscow from Berlin where he had been recovering from an alleged nerve agent poisoning in August. He and German investigators have claimed it was part of a Russian intelligence assassination attempt on orders from Putin, with the Russian president brushing off the accusations given Navalny is “not important enough” to be a target of state security and intelligence services. Navalny is now urging his supporters to the streets in defiance of the government. “We have a deep concern for Mr. Navalny’s safety and security and the larger point is that his voice is the voice of many, many, many Russians and it should be heard, not muzzled,” Blinken said in his statements, also noting the US is not ruling out any punitive action on the table.

He further said he finds it striking that the Putin government is so “frightened of one man, Mr. Navalny” – in an echo of earlier comments he made. Blinken said in the press briefing: “It remains striking to me how concerned and maybe even scared the Russian government seems to be of one man, Mr. Navalny.” He said the Biden White House is closely watching the human rights situation inside Russia, following Saturday protests where hundreds were reportedly detained in demonstrations and clashes with police which were deemed ‘unauthorized’.[..] “Blinken said at his first press briefing after being sworn in that the Biden administration was reviewing how to respond to actions by Russia, including the alleged use of chemical weapons in an attack on Navalny, the Solar Winds cyber attack, reports of bounties on American forces and interference in U.S. elections.”

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Looks good at face value.

But WSJ: “U.S. officials said it isn’t unusual for a new administration to review arms sales approved by a predecessor, and that despite the pause, many of the transactions are likely to ultimately go forward.”

Biden Freezes Arms Sales To Saudis & UAE (ZH)

On Wednesday the Biden administration issued a freeze of all US arms sales to Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates at a moment Congressional scrutiny of America’s support to the Saudi-led coalition waging war in Yemen grows. US involvement in the war goes all the way back to the Obama administration, with Trump also in the last months of his presidency approving billions in new arms sales to the kingdom. In particular Lockheed Martin produced F-35 stealth fighters that were set to be transferred to the UAE the have been “temporarily” blocked along with munitions to the Saudis, among other sales. Prior reports suggested the prior Trump deal was to send as many as 50 advanced F-35 fighters to the UAE.


The AP cited officials who identified “that among the deals being paused is a massive $23 billion transfer of stealth F-35 fighters to the United Arab Emirates.” “That sale and several other massive purchases of U.S. weaponry by Gulf Arab countries had been harshly criticized by Democrats in Congress,” the report added. The State Department said of the “temporary pause” that it is “temporarily pausing the implementation of some pending U.S. defense transfers and sales under Foreign Military Sales and Direct Commercial Sales to allow incoming leadership an opportunity to review.” And Axios further details that “The sales of F-35 jets and attack drones to the UAE and a large supply of munitions to Saudi Arabia will be paused pending a review.” It added that it “signals a major policy shift from the Trump era, and may herald sharp tensions with both Gulf countries.”

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Well, yes, a unity where they get to call all the shots.

Do The Democrats Really Want Unity? (Turley)

Democrats are moving aggressively to muscle through an ambitious agenda in Congress that may raise serious constitutional questions and cause even greater political divisions. After noon, the real President Biden set to work on a host of executive orders. In the first two days, Biden signed almost three dozen new executive orders, ranging from stopping deportations of undocumented persons to extending a freeze on student loan payments, from mandating mask-wearing to guaranteeing access by transgender children to bathrooms and sports. Some of these executive orders, if implemented directly, could be challenged in court. However, Trump and other modern presidents have increasingly used such orders to set new priorities and policies.

What is happening on Capitol Hill is far more concerning. Democratic leaders are pushing Biden to act unilaterally, as did President Obama when faced with a divided Congress. Obama actually used his State of the Union address to declare his intent to circumvent the legislative branch after it refused to pass his legislation in areas such as the environment and immigration. Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) and other Democrats have called on Biden to simply cancel student debt up to $50,000 per student, wiping out billions in debt and potential federal revenue. That is a major unilateral decision when the national debt is approaching $28 trillion — one done without debate or deliberation. (In fairness, students are being crushed by such debt during the pandemic and, more importantly, Congress previously gave broad authority to the Education secretary over debt management.)

Other calls for sweeping new decisions, from immigration to wealth distribution, are more concerning. Democrats insist they won both houses and the White House and, as President Obama once said, “elections have consequences.” However, this election was not an overwhelming victory or endorsement. Rather, it shows a country divided virtually down the middle. While voters clearly rejected Trump and his controversial leadership, they voted widely for Republicans down the ticket. The House saw a significant loss of Democratic seats and has one of the slimmest majorities in modern history. The Senate is divided literally in half, and a majority is only possible with Vice President Harris voting to break ties on the floor.

Clearly, voters did not support the agenda of the far left, and many seem to have preferred divided government. Yet, many on the left do not want to wait for a broader mandate to implement sweeping changes. They are pushing for the District of Columbia to be made a state, likely adding a two-vote majority for Democrats in the Senate. At the same time, there is a push to end the filibuster. Many Democrats are calling for Schumer to end that long-standing protection of minority rights in the Senate. Schumer has refused to guarantee that he will protect the filibuster tradition, even though he demanded that it be preserved during years of Republican Senate control.

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“Indian lands are not federal public lands. Any actions on our lands and interests can only be taken after effective tribal consultation.”

Indian Tribe: Biden Just ‘Attacked’ Our Sovereignty (TH)

The Ute Indian Tribe, the second largest Indian reservation in the United States, sent a letter to Acting Secretary of the Interior Scott de la Vega about President Joe Biden’s executive order that put a 60-day moratorium on permits relating to onshore and offshore oil and gas development. Those permits also include drilling. According to the Tribe’s Chairman, Luke Duncan, the executive order will have a harmful impact on his people. He is asking for the Department of the Interior to make an exemption to the order, allowing for permits to take place on tribal lands. “Your order is a direct attack on our economy, sovereignty, and our right to self-determination,” Duncan wrote. “Indian lands are not federal public lands. Any actions on our lands and interests can only be taken after effective tribal consultation.”


Duncan called on de la Vega to either completely withdraw the executive order or amend it so tribal sovereignty laws are respected. Last year, Congress passed the Great American Outdoors Act, which reallocates fees from drilling on Bureau of Land Management lands to the National Parks Service and National Forest Service. The money is used for maintaining those parks and forests. According to the Colorado Sun, BLM currently has 26.3 million acres under lease to oil and gas producers. Not having new permits threatens conservation efforts across the country.

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That should make him popular…

Proud Boys Leader Was ‘Prolific’ Informer For Law Enforcement (R.)

Enrique Tarrio, the leader of the Proud Boys extremist group, has a past as an informer for federal and local law enforcement, repeatedly working undercover for investigators after he was arrested in 2012, according to a former prosecutor and a transcript of a 2014 federal court proceeding obtained by Reuters. In the Miami hearing, a federal prosecutor, a Federal Bureau of Investigation agent and Tarrio’s own lawyer described his undercover work and said he had helped authorities prosecute more than a dozen people in various cases involving drugs, gambling and human smuggling. Tarrio, in an interview with Reuters Tuesday, denied working undercover or cooperating in cases against others. “I don’t know any of this,” he said, when asked about the transcript. “I don’t recall any of this.”


Law-enforcement officials and the court transcript contradict Tarrio’s denial. In a statement to Reuters, the former federal prosecutor in Tarrio’s case, Vanessa Singh Johannes, confirmed that “he cooperated with local and federal law enforcement, to aid in the prosecution of those running other, separate criminal enterprises, ranging from running marijuana grow houses in Miami to operating pharmaceutical fraud schemes.” Tarrio, 36, is a high-profile figure who organizes and leads the right-wing Proud Boys in their confrontations with those they believe to be Antifa, short for “anti-fascism,” an amorphous and often violent leftist movement. The Proud Boys were involved in the deadly insurrection at the Capitol January 6.

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The vaccine wars have started. Get yourself some vitamin D.

German Minister Sees COVID19 Vaccine Shortage Well Into April (R.)

Germany’s health minister said on Thursday he expects the current shortage of coronavirus vaccines to continue well into April, as the government faced new criticism over the pace of its vaccination programme. “We will still have at least 10 tough weeks with a shortage of vaccine,” Jens Spahn said in a Tweet, adding that he wanted to call a summit of federal and regional leaders in Germany to discuss vaccinations. On Thursday, Germany’s top-selling Bild newspaper described the problems around procuring enough vaccines as a “scandal”. Spahn said he wanted to invite pharmaceutical companies and the manufacturers of vaccines to a meeting, to make sure that Europe gets its fair share of shots and to see where it was possible to do more to support the process.


He added that he recognised that producing vaccines was very complicated and building up production could not just be done in a few weeks if quality standards were to be upheld. On Tuesday, Spahn supported European Union proposals to set up a register of exports of COVID-19 vaccines, as tensions grow with AstraZeneca and Pfizer over sudden supply cuts just a month after the bloc started vaccinating citizens. Germany reported 17,553 new coronavirus cases on Thursday, bringing the total to 2,178,828, and another 941 deaths. [..] Germany is preparing entry restrictions for travellers from Britain, Brazil and South Africa, the interior ministry said on Thursday, as concerns of more contagious coronavirus variants are rising.

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800 million rural population.

Farmers’ Protests Reflect Existential Crisis of Indian Agriculture (OffG)

With over 800 million people, rural India is arguably the most interesting and complex place on the planet but is plagued by farmer suicides, child malnourishment, growing unemployment, increased informalisation, indebtedness and an overall collapse of agriculture. Given that India is still an agrarian-based society, renowned journalist P Sainath says what is taking place can be described as a crisis of civilisation proportions and can be explained in just five words: hijack of agriculture by corporations. He notes the process by which it is being done in five words too: predatory commercialisation of the countryside. And another five words to describe the outcome: biggest displacement in our history.

In late November 2018, a charter was released by the All India Kisan Sangharsh Coordination Committee (an umbrella group of around 250 farmers’ organisations) to coincide with the massive, well-publicised farmers’ march that was then taking place in Delhi. The charter stated: “Farmers are not just a residue from our past; farmers, agriculture and village India are integral to the future of India and the world; as bearers of historic knowledge, skills and culture; as agents of food safety, security and sovereignty; and as guardians of biodiversity and ecological sustainability.” The farmers stated that they were alarmed at the economic, ecological, social and existential crisis of Indian agriculture as well as the persistent state neglect of the sector and discrimination against farming communities.

They were also concerned about the deepening penetration of large, predatory and profit hungry corporations, farmers’ suicide across the country and the unbearable burden of indebtedness and the widening disparities between farmers and other sectors. The charter called on the Indian parliament to immediately hold a special session to pass and enact two bills that were of, by and for the farmers of India. If passed by parliament, among other things, the Farmers’ Freedom from Indebtedness Bill 2018 would have provided for the complete loan waiver for all farmers and agricultural workers.

The second bill, The Farmers’ Right to Guaranteed Remunerative Minimum Support Prices for Agricultural Commodities Bill 2018, would have seen the government take measures to bring down the input cost of farming through specific regulation of the prices of seeds, agriculture machinery and equipment, diesel, fertilisers and insecticides, while making purchase of farm produce below the minimum support price (MSP) both illegal and punishable.

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And anyone else you don’t like.

Twitter Releases New Community-Based Tool To Find Witches (BBee)

SALEM, MA—In a new, innovative way to handle the growing problem of witchcraft, Twitter’s Salem division has now released a community-based tool, Witchwatch, to crowdsource witch identification. “Instead of having all the decision-making of who is and who isn’t a witch in the hands of a few magistrates,” said Chief Magistrate William Stoughton, “we’re going to empower the community to identify all those who have had congress with the devil.” Anyone can apply to be a part of Witchwatch (though those who have previously been accused of witchcraft will be disqualified).


Participants in Witchwatch will receive a form on which they can write down suspected witches, supporting each accusation with evidence of witchcraft, such as unexplained illness or failing crops. = If enough different individuals accuse the same person of witchcraft, that person will have a “suspected witch” warning accompanying everything he or she says. And with even more accusations, the suspect will be burned at the stake.= “It’s a great system that’s already correctly identified witches in a few test markets,” Stoughton said. “We’ll soon release it throughout all of Salem and then hopefully after that, it can be used to combat the problem of witches worldwide.”

Read more …

 

 

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Oct 012020
 


Fred Stein Little Italy New York 1943

 

US Economy Plunged Over 31% In Q2 (RT)
This Overlooked Variable Is the Key to the Pandemic (Atl.)
James Comey’s ‘No Clue’ Routine On Russia Probe Exposes FBI In Distress (JTN)
Proud Boys & Antifa Are The Winners From The Presidential Debate (Turley)
Wall Street Responds To The “Shitshow” Debate (ZH)
Two Crucial Things Emerged From The First Presidential Debate (Widburg)
Charles Nenner – We Are in a Very Dangerous Period (USAW)
56 Million Americans Depended on Food Banks During the Pandemic (MPN)
Fed Study on Household Wealth Reveals Troubling Trends in American Inequality (MPN)
NATO Boss Stoltenberg Tells Georgia To ‘Prepare For Membership’ (RT)
New Details Of Sophisticated Spying Operation On Julian Assange Emerge (TH)
Trump Associate Ordered Huge Surveillance Of Assange Inside Embassy (Age)
The Arctic Hasn’t Been This Warm For 3 Million Years (PhysOrg)

 

 

 

 

 

 

Money to Biden
https://twitter.com/seamusbruner/status/1310950906968649729

 

 

Sounds like a lot. But it’s annualized.

US Economy Plunged Over 31% In Q2 (RT)

US GDP fell by a 31.4 percent annualized rate last quarter, marking the steepest drop in output since the government started keeping records in 1947, the Commerce Department said on Wednesday. The previous worst quarterly drop was observed in the first three months of 1958, when GDP fell 10 percent on an annualized basis. The new data reflects a slightly upward revision, with output previously reported to have contracted at a 31.7 percent pace during the period. “The decline in second quarter GDP reflected the response to COVID-19, as ‘stay-at-home’ orders issued in March and April were partially lifted in some areas of the country in May and June, and government pandemic assistance payments were distributed to households and businesses,” said the Bureau of Economic Analysis.

“This led to rapid shifts in activity, as businesses and schools continued remote work and consumers and businesses canceled, restricted, or redirected their spending,” it added. The US economy fell at a five percent rate in the first quarter, signaling an end to a nearly 11-year-long economic expansion, which was the longest in the nation’s history. Economists expect growth to slow significantly in the final three months of this year, to a rate of around four percent. The economy could plunge back into a recession if Congress fails to pass another stimulus measure, or if there is a resurgence of the coronavirus, they say.

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Superspreaders appear real. But we don’t recognize them.

This Overlooked Variable Is the Key to the Pandemic (Atl.)

By now many people have heard about R0—the basic reproductive number of a pathogen, a measure of its contagiousness on average. But unless you’ve been reading scientific journals, you’re less likely to have encountered k, the measure of its dispersion. The definition of k is a mouthful, but it’s simply a way of asking whether a virus spreads in a steady manner or in big bursts, whereby one person infects many, all at once. After nine months of collecting epidemiological data, we know that this is an overdispersed pathogen, meaning that it tends to spread in clusters, but this knowledge has not yet fully entered our way of thinking about the pandemic—or our preventive practices.

The now-famed R0 (pronounced as “r-naught”) is an average measure of a pathogen’s contagiousness, or the mean number of susceptible people expected to become infected after being exposed to a person with the disease. If one ill person infects three others on average, the R0 is three. This parameter has been widely touted as a key factor in understanding how the pandemic operates. News media have produced multiple explainers and visualizations for it. Movies praised for their scientific accuracy on pandemics are lauded for having characters explain the “all-important” R0. Dashboards track its real-time evolution, often referred to as R or Rt, in response to our interventions. (If people are masking and isolating or immunity is rising, a disease can’t spread the same way anymore, hence the difference between R0 and R.)

Unfortunately, averages aren’t always useful for understanding the distribution of a phenomenon, especially if it has widely varying behavior. If Amazon’s CEO, Jeff Bezos, walks into a bar with 100 regular people in it, the average wealth in that bar suddenly exceeds $1 billion dollars. If I also walk into that bar, not much will change. Clearly, the average is not that useful a number to understand the distribution of wealth in that bar, or how to change it. Sometimes, the mean is not the message. Meanwhile, if the bar has a person infected with COVID-19, and if it is also poorly ventilated and loud, causing people to speak loudly at close range, almost everyone in the room could potentially be infected—a pattern that’s been observed many times since the pandemic begin, and that is similarly not captured by R. That’s where the dispersion comes in.

There are COVID-19 incidents in which a single person likely infected 80 percent or more of the people in the room in just a few hours. But, at other times, COVID-19 can be surprisingly much less contagious. Overdispersion and super-spreading of this virus is found in research across the globe. A growing number of studies estimate that a majority of infected people may not infect a single other person. A recent paper found that in Hong Kong, which had extensive testing and contact tracing, about 19 percent of cases were responsible for 80 percent of transmission, while 69 percent of cases did not infect another person. This finding is not rare: Multiple studies from the beginning have suggested that as few as 10 to 20 percent of infected people may be responsible for as much as 80 to 90 percent of transmission, and that many people barely transmit it.

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A very strange performance. A few years ago, Comey said he remembered everything from his conversations with Trump. He wrote a book about the very things he now can’t remember, and he’s writing a second one.

“‘I don’t recall’ is the last defense of someone who has been painted into a corner.”

“All he is doing is putting himself in jeopardy or proving he was an incompetent director with no leadership skills..”

James Comey’s ‘No Clue’ Routine On Russia Probe Exposes FBI In Distress (JTN)

Time and again on Wednesday under the intense glare of the political spotlight, Comey claimed he had been kept in the dark or did not remember anything about essential developments in the Russia collusion probe that implied President Trump’s innocence. “That doesn’t ring any bells with me,” Comey answered when Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Lindsey Graham asked about a September 2016 referral to the FBI alleging Hillary Clinton and her campaign may have concocted the whole Russia collusion case against Trump to hide her own vulnerabilities. Similarly, Comey testified he either did not remember or was not told there were serious problems with the Christopher Steele dossier, that the dossier contained Russia disinformation, that Steele’s primary sub-source had disputed information in the explosive document or that the primary sub-source had previously been judged to be a possible Russian asset back between 2009 and 2011.

All those essential facts were kept from the FISA court, and Comey signed three FISA warrant applications approving surveillance targeting the Trump campaign and former adviser Carter Page without disclosing the flaws in the case. Senators reacted with incredulity. “Comey said he didnt kno abt problems w Page FISA b4 he approved again+again,” Sen. Charles Grassley (R-Iowa), one of the chamber’s longest serving members, tweeted in shorthand. “If true wheres his outrage that agents made him look foolish by w/holding details? I often tell new agency heads either u run agency or agency runs u Who ran FBI during Russiagate+Where is accountability?” Grassley repeatedly slammed Comey’s “no clue” answers as outrageous. Similarly, Graham repeatedly challenged Comey’s account, calling one of his answers “far-fetched.”

“A bunch of crap to be used against an American citizen,” Graham said, referring to now-disproven information in the Page FISA. “You don’t recall this?” “It doesn’t sound familiar,” Comey answered. Lawmakers weren’t the only ones in disbelief. Former senior executives of the FBI told Just the News that Comey’s testimony laid bare an institution in deep distress that either was keeping its director in the dark about one of the most explosive political cases of all time or engaging in a coverup of epic investigative misconduct that deceived the FISA court and the Congress. “‘I don’t recall’ is the last defense of someone who has been painted into a corner. If Comey was truly this ignorant of arguably the most consequential case in FBI history, then he was pathetically inept,” said Kevin Brock, the former assistant director for intelligence under Comey’s predecessor as director, Robert Mueller.

“But it is far more likely that he was provided with detailed briefings of such a high-profile case on a daily basis, as is routine tradition with FBI directors. Comey knows what he is forgetting,” he added. In his testimony, Comey chose to embrace the first theory — incompetence — telling senators the pattern of mistakes and misconduct identified in the Russia probe “reflects entirely on me” in his role as top executive at the FBI. When Sen. Ben Sasse (R-Neb.) called the problems identified in Justice Department Inspector General Michael Horowitz’s investigative report “really embarrassing,” Comey agreed while insisting none was intended to be criminal conduct.

Jeff Danik, a former supervisory FBI agent, said he fears Comey may have put himself in legal jeopardy with Wednesday’s testimony. “I do not understand him going on out there and putting himself in position where there are so many people who can claim you did know,” Danik said in an interview. “All he is doing is putting himself in jeopardy or proving he was an incompetent director with no leadership skills,” he added. “It’s like a general who says there was a battle plan and all these guys got killed, but it isn’t my fault, I’m just the general.”

Sean Davis Comey

Comey doesn’t remember anything

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The media make up accusations against Trump, that most people actually believe are true, and then they want to force him to deny them every single day, which keeps the attention on their made-up stories.

It worked miracles with the “very fine people” hoax, they still use that one. So why stop there?

Maybe Trump should have played it like Biden, and simply deny the Proud Boys exist.

Proud Boys & Antifa Are The Winners From The Presidential Debate (Turley)

Last night’s presidential debate left many of us in a deep depression over the state of our politics. Once again, the duopoly of power in this country has reduced a population of over 300 million to a two subpar choices. President Donald Trump’s conduct and comments have been rightfully denounced while Biden offered little beyond not being President Trump. There were however two clear and surprising winners last night: Proud Boys and Antifa. When pressed by moderator Chris Wallace on why he has not been more clear in calling for Democratic mayors and governors to crackdown on rioting (including the use of the National Guard), Biden simply said that he was not the president. However, not only is that irrelevant, Biden has been forceful in calling for other actions on these protests and other issues like the pandemic despite his private citizen status.

Yet, the most notable aspect of his exchange with Wallace was his reluctance to denounce Antifa. Instead, Biden referenced FBI Director Christopher Wray’s statement that Antifa was more of a movement than an organization. Biden simply dismissed the question with “Antifa is an idea, not an organization.” It was a telling and inaccurate statement. We previously discussed Wray statement. Wray was adamant: “Antifa is a real thing. It’s not a fiction” and, while it is not a conventional organization as opposed to a movement, they have arrested people who admit that they are Antifa.” I testified in the Senate on Antifa and its history of violence on our campuses and streets. As I have written, Antifa is indeed more of a movement than a specific organization, but it has members and associated groups.

Indeed, it has long been the “Keyser Söze” of the anti-free speech movement, a loosely aligned group that employs measures to avoid easy detection or association. Wray stated “And we have quite a number — and I’ve said this quite consistently since my first time appearing before this committee — we have any number of properly predicated investigations into what we would describe as violent anarchist extremists and some of those individuals self-identify with Antifa.” I have repeatedly emphasized that extreme right groups are also responsible for recent violence and Wray made clear that far right violence still dominates in terms of a threat profile. Moreover, I have opposed declaring Antifa a terrorist organization.

We have ample laws to deal with such extremist violence from the far left or far right. We do not need to rely on terrorism laws or most recently suggested sedition laws. Yet, Antifa is more than some “idea.” The Antifa Handbook discusses how it uses an association of groups, including self-identified Antifa groups, to carry out attacks on critics and those with opposing views. My greatest concern is that we need to take Antifa seriously as a virulent anti-free speech organization. There is a fair criticism of some politicians who have refused to denounce the group or even support it. Former Democratic National Committee deputy chair Keith Ellison, now the Minnesota attorney general, once said Antifa would “strike fear in the heart” of Trump. This was after Antifa had been involved in numerous acts of violence and its website was banned in Germany. His own son, Minneapolis City Council member Jeremiah Ellison, declared his allegiance to Antifa in the heat of the protests this summer.

Trump white supremacy
https://twitter.com/i/status/1311498659176108033

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Check out those polling numbers and tell me how confident you are that what you think is correct.

Wall Street Responds To The “Shitshow” Debate (ZH)

While Tuesday’s chaotic “shitshow” of a presidential debate between Trump and Biden revealed absolutely anything about either candidate’s core policies for the 2020-2024 period, it succeeded in raising analysts’ concerns about a bitter election and reinforced the view of slim prospects for further stimulus. As noted earlier, S&P futures fell as the debate left investors concerned that the election would indeed be bitterly contested well into the end of 2020 and perhaps into early 2021, however they have since erased all losses. This view was confirmed by Chris Weston, head of research at Pepperstone Group, who said that “what we’ve seen from the debate is the reinforcement that if Biden wins, Trump is not going to accept that. People positioned for an ugly contest afterwards have been validated….I don’t think we were expecting anything else from Trump. He continues to put that contested (result) risk premium back into the market.”

The confusion over the debate also meant confusion over who won. As Rabobank’s Michael Every writes, a CBS flash poll had Biden winning 48 – 41, and the CNN poll was 60 – 28. Yet a WGN poll, which is less partisan, saw Trump win 60 – 40, and Telemundo (US Spanish TV) viewers showed Trump winning 66 – 34 , all underlining that people see these things in very different ways. Rabo also quoted veteran Republican pollster Frank Luntz who tweeted that his sample group saw some undecided voters now convinced not to vote at all, with the most common refrain being “I’m so sad for our country.” Every also addressed the last question of the evening on the legitimacy of the upcoming election process, where Trump said “This will not end well,” talking of no winner for months, which “concluded the evening under the darkest cloud, suggesting political risk will linger on in the market’s mind.”

Cowen, Chris Krueger: Krueger wrote that he disagrees with the “notion that debate was a dumpster fire: by definition, dumpster fires are contained.” Biden cleared the low hurdle Trump set with “Sleepy Joe,” he said; “was it Romney vs. Obama in the first 2012 debate? No. But he didn’t fall off the stage like Bob Dole in the 1996 race either. So that — in 2020 — is a win.” He doesn’t see the election’s trajectory changing, as each side’s bases were appeased, and called another stimulus deal “very unlikely.”

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“My guess is that this October, the Trump administration is going to release one piece of evidence after another showing that the Democrat party, from Hillary to Obama, and from the FBI to the CIA to the DOJ, and everywhere in between, engaged in a massive, seditious conspiracy to overturn the results of the 2016 election”

Two Crucial Things Emerged From The First Presidential Debate (Widburg)

The short version of the debate is that Biden did well if one ignored that almost every other statement he made was a lie or fantasy; Trump dominated him, almost too aggressively; and Chris Wallace may have been the worst and most obviously biased moderator since Candy Crowley. Most significantly, though, Biden and Trump each made a critical point. Biden’s was a tacit admission that, if he is elected president, he will preside over the end of the filibuster, allowing Democrats to pack the courts and add two new Democrat-majority states. Trump’s point was that he’s holding damning evidence about the Democrats’ coup attempt.

[..][ You can see that Biden made a nonsense statement to avoid answering whether he will preserve the filibuster and the Supreme Court’s current system of nine justices. Shamefully, Wallace let him get away with not answering. Wallace surely understands that Biden’s handlers plan to end the filibuster so that they can pack the court and add D.C. and Puerto Rico as states. Packing the court ends the American experiment as we know it. It means that the Supreme Court will be a political body that will exist solely to put its imprimatur on Democrat policies. And for those who say, “Well, if they pack the Court, then Republicans will pack it more when they’re in power,” that’s sadly foolish.

If Democrats pack the Court, there are no more Republicans. The whole democratic republic will be over. Once Democrats pack the Court, they never again need to persuade American voters to support their policies. One of their first policies in that new era will be to add hard-left Washington D.C. and Puerto Rico as the 51st and 52nd American states. That means four more Democrat Senate votes and a permanent Democrat party majority. You see, the hard-left Democrat party views our American political system the same way Turkey president Recep Tayyip Erdogan viewed democracy before becoming a dictator for life: “Democracy is like a train. We shall get out when we arrive at the station we want.” This time around, once the Democrats win, they will change the rules so they can never lose again.

Heed this warning: If Biden wins, our constitutional America is gone. We will be a socialist country. If you don’t believe me, just read the Democrat platform. They’re not hiding their goals. Trump, though, might have some aces up his sleeve. When the subject of a “transition” came up (based on Biden’s assumption that he will win), Trump stated that he’d been denied a transition period. Instead, there was a coup attempt: ” There was no transition because they came after me trying to do a coup. They came after me spying on my campaign. They started from the day I won and even before I won. From the day I came down the escalator with our First Lady. They were a disaster. They were a disgrace to our country. And we’ve caught ‘em. We’ve caught ‘em all. We’ve got it all on tape. We’ve caught ‘em all”.

Maybe Trump’s exaggerating, but I don’t think so. And maybe he’s going to keep that evidence secret, but I don’t think that either. My guess is that this October, the Trump administration is going to release one piece of evidence after another showing that the Democrat party, from Hillary to Obama, and from the FBI to the CIA to the DOJ, and everywhere in between, engaged in a massive, seditious conspiracy to overturn the results of the 2016 election. Indeed, the information cascade has already begun with the release of DNI John Ratcliffe’s letter about Hillary’s conceiving of the Russia hoax.

Sean Davis Declassification

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” People go into gold and store it away for the worst case scenario. If banks don’t survive, they have the gold.”

Charles Nenner – We Are in a Very Dangerous Period (USAW)

Renowned geopolitical and financial cycle expert Charles Nenner called this market just 2% from the top in January. What does he think now? He likes gold and says he “made more money in gold than in stocks” in the past few months. Nenner says, “We are playing the long term gold market. We went out at $2,100 (per ounce), and the price target was $1,850 (on the downside). We hit $1,850 a couple of days ago, so we bought back in. We get in and out for a couple of hundred points, and it’s worthwhile. So, the gold cycle is up for much longer. $2,500 is the first target, and it could be we get higher targets. I do not believe in the stock market, most of the markets we do nicely in are the gold market, silver market, crude oil market, bond market and the dollar. It’s all very simple and normal, and the stock market is not going to end very well.”

Nenner is long the stock market now until close to the end of November. Nenner says the rising market may be signaling a coming Trump win in November. Nenner is not sure, but what he is very sure about is the stock market is way overvalued just like it was earlier this year. Nenner explains, “As you know, the stock market is still very much overvalued. One of the reasons is the ‘Buffett Indicator,’ and that is the value of the stock market compared to the value of the entire GDP, and it’s extreme. I think it’s more extreme than the 2000 bubble. If you want to buy low and sell high, you have to have indicators of what is low and what is high, and, for me, this is high. This is based on the fundamentals, but on the cycles, we can try to test the highs one more time. This is not going to end well because everybody will try to get into the market, and then the whole thing is over.”

Nenner thinks with all the unemployment and businesses going under permanently, it is not an inflationary environment, at least not yet. Nenner says, “I still think we are going into a deflationary environment, and that still makes sense. That is also why gold is up. Most people don’t understand that because they always look for inflation for gold to go up. I show them that most of the bull markets in gold are deflationary periods and not inflationary periods. When you have deflation, there is nowhere to hide, and it’s very cheap to hold gold. You are afraid for the financial system, and that’s why gold goes up. . . . Look what happened in real estate. You thought you were safe in real estate. Companies are not buying malls, and companies are not paying rent anymore, or they negotiate and they are not going to pay anymore. So, that’s also not a safe place. So, there is not much left. People go into gold and store it away for the worst case scenario. If banks don’t survive, they have the gold.”

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Not everybody has the gold, though.

56 Million Americans Depended on Food Banks During the Pandemic (MPN)

Amid a pandemic that has claimed the lives of over 209,000 Americans and caused widespread economic dislocation, tens of millions have been forced to rely on food banks to survive. A new report from the Pew Research Center found that 17 percent of the 13,200 people they surveyed said they had received food from a food bank or similar organization during the pandemic. Nationwide, that figure would amount to 56 million Americans. Unsurprisingly, those who identified themselves as “lower income” (35 percent) were far more likely to turn to food banks for help than those in the “upper income” bracket (1 percent). However, even 12 percent of “middle income” Americans admitted they needed outside help to put food on the table.

Black and Hispanic Americans were around three times more likely to need these services than white Americans. Pew’s research also sheds light on a number of other ways in which COVID-19 has harmed American society. 15 percent of respondents said that they had been made unemployed as a result of the fallout, with 25 percent of households having a member lose their job. One third of Americans have been forced to take a pay cut, 16 percent said they had had problems paying rent or mortgages, while a quarter could not pay other bills. As with food bank usage, these other problems were far more common among poorer households and people of color.

[..] Once only associated with enemy nations or with the Great Depression, bread lines have returned to the United States, although they often do not resemble classic images of lines of disheveled people. Today’s bread lines are as likely to be miles-long traffic jams or car parks filled with hungry drivers, sometimes waiting overnight for their turn at the drive through distribution centers. Overwhelmed charities work day and night, but have had to ration out deliveries. Even as food banks were cleaned out, fresh produce rotted on America’s farms. Many American farmers do not sell to a mass market. Instead, their produce is bought up by networks supplying universities, stadiums, or restaurants. But with many of those businesses shuttered, supply distribution networks broke down, leading to feast and famine.

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The Fed studies the inequality it has created.

Fed Study on Household Wealth Reveals Troubling Trends in American Inequality (MPN)

Millionaires and billionaires hold a remarkable 79.2 percent of the United States’ household wealth. That is according to a newly released triennial study into consumer and household finances from the Federal Reserve. The report paints a picture of an unequal America, where a small minority of the rich control the vast majority of household wealth. 11.9 percent of American households have at least $1 million in wealth. Overall, mean family wealth declined by three percent across the country between 2016 and 2019. However, the study notes, wealthy and highly educated families saw their fortunes rise, but households where the main breadwinner had not achieved a high school diploma saw their wealth fall.

In some parts of the country, one million dollars might not seem like an unusual price for a home. However, nationwide, the median home value dropped to $247,000 in 2020, with much more expensive properties rarer. Those merely having a mortgage on a million-dollar home do not qualify as owning $1 million in household wealth. At the same time, much of the country is living in serious poverty. Even before the COVID-19 pandemic, around 40 percent of Americans reported that they would be unable to cover a small $400 emergency such as a leaking roof or a car repair. In 2018, 14.3 million U.S. households were food insecure, meaning they had problems finding enough to eat. The coronavirus and the economic dislocation that it has caused has greatly exacerbated both poverty and inequality, meaning that the Federal Reserve’s study, based on data collected before the pandemic, is likely out of date and an underestimate of the problem’s severity.

In 2017, just three men — Bill Gates, Warren Buffet, and Jeff Bezos — held more wealth than the bottom half of America (164 million people). Since the pandemic began, all three have greatly increased their fortunes. Bezos, for example, has added over $73 billion to his since March alone. This is in stark contrast to tens of millions of people who lost their jobs, leading to a massive wave of de facto rent strikes across the country and a boom in demand for food banks.

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Stoltenberg is evil, which makes him perfect for NATO.

NATO Boss Stoltenberg Tells Georgia To ‘Prepare For Membership’ (RT)

NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg has urged Georgia to prepare to become a member of the US-led military bloc. On Tuesday, the premier of the former Soviet state Giorgi Gakharia was in Brussels to discuss closer cooperation. Georgia’s effort to join NATO began in 2005, just six years after it left the Russian-dominated CSTO. The integration of the Caucasus nation is seen by NATO leaders as having substantial strategic benefits, including extra Black Sea ports close to Russia. Earlier this year, an agreement between Tblisi and the bloc included joint exercises in the Black Sea and the sharing of more traffic radar data. “I urge [Georgia] to continue making full use of all the opportunities for coming closer to NATO and to prepare for membership,” Stoltenberg said, in a press conference.


“This is important for Georgia, and for NATO.”The secretary-general also noted that the bloc “supports Georgia’s territorial integrity,” calling on northern neighbor Russia to “end its recognition of the regions of Abkhazia and South Ossetia.” Abkhazia and South Ossetia are two de-facto states, recognized by most of the world as part of Georgia. According to Tbilisi, the two regions are actually occupied by Moscow.Speaking to RT, veteran Russian senator Aleksey Pushkov said that the potential induction of Georgia as a member means that NATO sees Russia as its main opponent. Pushkov, a member of the pro-Putin United Russia party, is the former chairman of the Duma’s Foreign Affairs Committee and is widely considered to be close to the Kremlin.

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“U.S. intelligence agencies were reportedly pleased with the level communication that was illicitly intercepted, but encouraged UC Global staff to acquire more – pointing to Assange’s team of lawyers as a “top priority.”

New Details Of Sophisticated Spying Operation On Julian Assange Emerge (TH)

The whistleblowers, henceforth referred to as Witness 1 and Witness 2, detailed the intricate workings of the sophisticated sting referred to by UC Global staff as “Operation Hotel” – they came forward with their testimonies after growing increasingly uneasy about its worsening criminality. Witness 2, an IT expert with the security firm, detailed how Morales had tasked him with replacing the CCTV cameras in the Knightsbridge-located embassy in May of 2017, instructing him to source cameras that allowed for clandestine audio-recording capabilities. His statement, which was produced at the Old Bailey in the fourth and final week of Assange’s U.S. extradition proceedings, reads: “In early December 2017, I was instructed by David Morales to travel with a colleague to install the new security cameras. I carried out the new installation over the course of several days.

“I was instructed by Morales not to share information about the specifications of the recording system, and if asked to deny that the cameras were recording audio. I was told that it was imperative that these instructions be carried out as they came, supposedly, from the highest spheres. “In fact, I was asked on several occasions by Mr. Assange and the Political Counsellor Maria Eugenia whether the new cameras recorded sound, to which I replied that they did not, as my boss had instructed me to do. Thus, from that moment on the cameras began to record sound regularly, so every meeting that the asylee held was captured. At our offices in UC Global it was mentioned that the cameras had been paid for twice, by Ecuador and the United States, although I have no documentary evidence to corroborate this assertion.”

Witness 2 also detailed how Morales had asked for him to arrange for the cameras to contemporaneously transmit the recordings so that UC Global’s “American friends” could have instant access. The whistleblower invented a number of excuses however, stating: “I did this because I did not want to collaborate in an illegal act of this magnitude.” Instead, the UC Global employee was instructed to travel to London every 15 days in order to collect the hard-drives, passing them to Morales who travelled to the U.S. just as frequently – often with his wife – in order to pass the recordings to contacts within the CIA. Morales was rumoured among staff to have been paid €200,000 EUR a month for carrying out the eavesdropping – colleagues noted how his spending had become lavish and noticeable, buying himself a new house and a number of flashy sports cars during the span of two years.

[..] U.S. intelligence agencies were reportedly pleased with the level communication that was illicitly intercepted, but encouraged UC Global staff to acquire more – pointing to Assange’s team of lawyers as a “top priority”. That was in addition to the airport-like screening equipment that was put in place, where every visitor into the Ecuadorean embassy had a photo of their passport taken, their belongings taken off them and sophisticated devices swiped data contained on their digital devices – all forwarded to a secure server somewhere in the United States.

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Sheldon Adelson is above the law.

Trump Associate Ordered Huge Surveillance Of Assange Inside Embassy (Age)

Witness One told the court that Morales exhibited a “real obsession” in monitoring Assange’s lawyers because “our American friends were requesting it”. Witness One terminated the relationship with Morales and sold all shares after realising the full scale of the operation. Witness Two, an IT expert who joined UC Global in 2015, said in a statement that once Trump had won the presidency, Morales won a contract to provide personal security to Adelson and personally provided services for the tycoon and his children when they visited Europe.Witness Two said in mid-2017, Morales asked him to establish a taskforce that would solely look after the technical aspects of the video surveillance network of the Ecuadorian embassy.

By the end of that year, Witness Two said he had installed new cameras in the embassy capable of recording sound and lied to Assange when he was asked if the new cameras picked up audio. The witness testified that orders were given to steal the nappy used on Assange’s son Gabriel because the Americans wanted to establish the baby’s paternity, correctly suspecting that it was Assange’s secret love-child. Witness Two refused and instead tipped off Stella Moris, Assange’s fiancee, to stop bringing the child to the embassy. Witness Two said in December 2017 Morales said that “the Americans were desperate” and had even suggested “that more extreme measures should be employed against the ‘guest’ to put an end to the situation of Assange’s permanence in the embassy”.

“Specifically, the suggestion that the door of the embassy could be left open, which would allow the argument that this had been an accidental mistake, which would allow persons to enter from outside the embassy and kidnap the asylee. “Even the possibility of poisoning Mr Assange was discussed, all of these suggestions Morales said were under consideration during his dealing with his contacts in the United States,” Witness Two said in the affidavit.

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The world also appears to warm up more at night.

The Arctic Hasn’t Been This Warm For 3 Million Years (PhysOrg)

Every year, sea ice cover in the Arctic Ocean shrinks to a low point in mid-September. This year it measures just 1.44 million square miles (3.74 million square kilometers) – the second-lowest value in the 42 years since satellites began taking measurements. The ice today covers only 50% of the area it covered 40 years ago in late summer. As the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change has shown, carbon dioxide levels in the atmosphere are higher than at any time in human history. The last time that atmospheric CO2 concentrations reached today’s level – about 412 parts per million – was 3 million years ago, during the Pliocene Epoch.


As geoscientists who study the evolution of Earth’s climate and how it creates conditions for life, we see evolving conditions in the Arctic as an indicator of how climate change could transform the planet. If global greenhouse gas emissions continue to rise, they could return the Earth to Pliocene conditions, with higher sea levels, shifted weather patterns and altered conditions in both the natural world and human societies. We are part of a team of scientists who analyzed sediment cores from Lake El’gygytgyn in northeast Russia in 2013 to understand the Arctic’s climate under higher atmospheric carbon dioxide levels. Fossil pollen preserved in these cores shows that the Pliocene Arctic was very different from its current state.

Today the Arctic is a treeless plain with only sparse tundra vegetation, such as grasses, sedges and a few flowering plants. In contrast, the Russian sediment cores contained pollen from trees such as larch, spruce, fir and hemlock. This shows that boreal forests, which today end hundreds of miles farther south and west in Russia and at the Arctic Circle in Alaska, once reached all the way to the Arctic Ocean across much of Arctic Russia and North America.


Because the Arctic was much warmer in the Pliocene, the Greenland Ice Sheet did not exist. Small glaciers along Greenland’s mountainous eastern coast were among the few places with year-round ice in the Arctic. The Pliocene Earth had ice only at one end—in Antarctica—and that ice was less extensive and more susceptible to melting. Because the oceans were warmer and there were no large ice sheets in the Northern Hemisphere, sea levels were 30 to 50 feet (9 to 15 meters) higher around the globe than they are today. Coastlines were far inland from their current locations. The areas that are now California’s Central Valley, the Florida Peninsula and the Gulf Coast all were underwater. So was the land where major coastal cities like New York, Miami, Los Angeles, Houston and Seattle stand.

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