GOV/MIL Main "Great Reset" Thread

(Germany)

In Berlin, the freedom fighters rule the streets. .10 min

IN BERLIN, THE FREEDOM FIGHTERS RULE THE STREETS.​

• WATCH

Omas for peace
Thank you to every OMA !!!
Oma = grandma :-)

View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rj4W-UXMF1A
1:48:50 min

Targets of Tyranny: How to Survive Being an Enemy of the State​

Glenn Beck
Premiered 2 hours ago
Glenn once warned that one day you’d wake up and not recognize your country any more. Are you there yet? Governments at every level have been weaponized against Americans. The FBI shows up in full tactical gear at the homes of pro-lifers, terrifying young children and grandmas for the "crime" of peacefully protesting abortion. The ATF surprises legal gun owners on their doorsteps, demanding to see their firearms. State governments are trying to sneak in laws that allow the sexual mutilation of children — without the parents’ consent. When we become confused as to what the government can and cannot do, we become numb to tyranny and take it on the chin, as we did with the COVID-19 mandates. And when the state comes knocking, we don’t know how to deal with it because we haven’t lived in that kind of country since 1791. Glenn warns we’re on the same road as every empire that ended in collapse. Glenn features the stories of everyday Americans who have experienced government tyranny firsthand: •A gun shop owner who encountered a bone-chilling inspection by the ATF •A father fighting for the right to see his twins after objecting to his 3-year-old son going through gender transition •A woman who had almost $1M seized from her bank accounts even though she and her husband were never charged with a crime •A couple who had their home raided by the FBI over a case of mistaken identity •An FBI agent who turned whistleblower after he became fed up with the abuses he saw over Jan. 6 raids. But tyrants can only exist when the people they are trying to subjugate forget that there are fundamental rights granted not by the state, but by a higher power. And we have the blueprint to stop tyranny dead in its tracks. The founders armed us with the tools — we just need to know how to wield them. So how do peaceful Americans stand up to tyranny that comes in the disguise of “law”? Glenn and a panel of legal experts including Sen. Mike Lee arm you with the answers — so you'll know what to do when the government comes knocking on YOUR door next.

Glenn's guests: *Andrew Flusche https://YouTube.com/AndrewFlusche *Steve Friend https://taibbi.substack.com/p/the-fbi... *Marilyn & Paul Hueper https://www.wethepeoplestand.org/ *Sen. Mike Lee https://www.lee.senate.gov/ *David Nagel https://www.blackmetalfirearms.net/ *Amy Nelson https://theriveter.co/ *Jenin Younes https://nclalegal.org/ *Jeff Younger https://www.facebook.com/helpsavejames

(Redacted 11/16 segments)

They want to F*ck up some Terfs | Redacted with Clayton and Natali Morris 25:58 min

They want to F*ck up some Terfs | Redacted with Clayton and Natali Morris​

Redacted News Published November 16, 2022

Trans activists clashed with women who want to assert their own biology, or TERFs as the activists call them. The protests turned perverted and violent and it highlights what the trans community does not want you to know: That trans people are more likely to harm others than be harmed by others.

^^^^^^
Wait! What did Bill Gates just say about COVID? Total lies | Redacted with Clayton Morris 11:24 min

Wait! What did Bill Gates just say about COVID? Total lies | Redacted with Clayton Morris​

Redacted News Published November 16, 2022

Bill Gates speaks about what he understood and did not understand during the pandemic as if he was a major decision maker. Why again is he a major decision maker? Who voted for him? And what are the financial conflicts that he and other wealthy people have with vaccine mandates?

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This is how they will control your money, Edward Snowden nailed it | Redacted with Clayton Morris 16:42 min

This is how they will control your money, Edward Snowden nailed it | Redacted with Clayton Morris​

Redacted News Published November 16, 2022

Governments and big banks are going to start testing regulated crypto currencies in the same week that crypto exchanges are falling like flies. This is not a coincidence! We told you that the government wanted its fingers in this pie and now they are coming up with ways to put their fingers in this pie.

Ed Dowd Gives His Assessment Of Economy As Deep Depression Appears Imminent 10:06 min

Ed Dowd Gives His Assessment Of Economy As Deep Depression Appears Imminent​

Bannons War Room Published November 16, 2022





^^^^^^
Ed Dowd Breaks Down Covid Vaccine: They Screwed It Up And Its Devastating 6:17 mn

Ed Dowd Breaks Down Covid Vaccine: They Screwed It Up And Its Devastating​

Bannons War Room Published November 16, 2022

Our Projects​

Analysis of excess mortality. Follow the link for viewing the different sections of the project which include: the methodology papers and the analysis of excess deaths for european countries, UK and the US.

Excess Mortality Project
Analysis of trends in disabilities. Follow the links to visualise our analysis of US disabilities using data from the BLS.

US - Disabilities Project
The V Damage project investigates the total damage inflicted by the global vaccine program. It encompasses two aspects: the human impact (deaths, disabilities and injuries) and economic impact.

V Damage Project
Demographics projects. These projects are related to demographic trends and/or their economic impact. The scope of the project includes research into fertility, deaths and migration.

Demographics Project
Other projects. We are actively seeking knowledge, data sources, collaborators to work with us on our current and other projects. Examples of projects under consideration are:

• Data gathering and investigation on vaccinations over the past century.
• Investigation into the human health effects of potable water fluoridation.
• Investigation into the limits of human lifespan.
• And others.

Steve Cortes: America's Housing Markets Has Been Destroyed By The Biden Regime 14:25 min

Steve Cortes: America's Housing Markets Has Been Destroyed By The Biden Regime​

Bannons War Room Published November 16, 2022

Crash and burn for the working class:





^^^^^
1:00:44 min

SPECIAL WITH DAVE ZERE AND STEVE CORTES​

RealAmericasVoice Published November 16, 2022

Rep. Matt Rosendale Wants To Restore The Lawmaking Process In Congress 13:07 min

Rep. Matt Rosendale Wants To Restore The Lawmaking Process In Congress​

RealAmericasVoice Published November 16, 2022

Rep. Matt Rosendale explains how he’s working to restore the law making process in Congress — where individual representatives actually participate in the lawmaking process.

Victoria Toensing's Advice For Exposing Justice System Corruption .45 min

Victoria Toensing's Advice For Exposing Justice System Corruption​

Just the News, No Noise Published November 16, 2022

Victoria Toensing shares how Republicans using counsel during hearings can best expose the abuses of the DOJ and FBI under the Biden administration.

This co

marsh said:

The Establishment Has Got to Go

redstate.com

The Establishment Has Got to Go
By Jeff Charles | 5:15 PM on November 14, 2022

Conservatives are still struggling to make sense of the Republican Party’s dismal performance in the midterm elections. Despite being expected to retake control of the House, the Democrats are keeping the Senate – and might even increase their advantage depending on how Georgia’s runoff election between Herschel Walker and Sen. Raphael Warnock turns out.

The right is now in a period in which it is trying to figure out what went wrong. There has already been much finger-pointing.

Some on the right blame former President Donald Trump for the GOP’s abysmal performance. They argue his choices when it comes to some of the candidates he endorsed were faulty. Others say the bad press surrounding the former president also had a deleterious effect on the party. The Democrats’ use of the riot at the Capitol building on Jan. 6, along with the FBI’s investigations, provided the left with fodder to use against Trump and, by extension, Republican candidates.

But others on the right believe the former president is only being used as a convenient scapegoat by those who are truly to blame: members of the establishment GOP. In fact, they are casting aspersions on two individuals who are seen as the main power players in the old guard: House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-CA) and Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY).

Sen. Josh Hawley (R-MO) posted a tweet arguing that the old GOP is on its last legs and it is time to move forward. “The old party is dead. Time to bury it. Build something new,” he tweeted.

View attachment 378472

National Review’s Andrew McCarthy expanded on this sentiment:

Ronna Romney McDaniel has got to go.

Kevin McCarthy has got to go.

Mitch McConnell has got to go.

Anyone who would vote for them to remain in their current positions has got to go.

Who’s with me?

View attachment 378473

When it comes to the GOP establishment vs. Trump, most Republican voters can easily see the establishment is more to blame. Yes, the former president made some questionable choices with candidate endorsements. But he was not in the captain’s chair of the GOP machine.

The performance of Republican candidates is under the purview of the party’s leadership. They are the ones responsible for ensuring there is enough funding going around to fuel the war machine. These are the folks who are supposed to make sure the GOP wins Congress.

Yes, the quality of candidates matters, but messaging is even more important. As I wrote previously, this is an area in which Republicans have always fallen short. In this season, they did what they always do: Criticize Democratic policies without offering a viable alternative. Indeed, even when McCarthy sought to create the “Commitment to America,” McConnell balked, insisting that the GOP stick with the usual “Democrats Bad” strategy.

McCarthy’s agenda was a step in the right direction, but again, the messaging was faulty. Shortly after his team rolled it out, we never heard about it again. GOP candidates railed to highlight the specifics of the plan and present it as an alternative to the silly proposals coming from the left.

But this is nothing new. This is precisely how Republicans have been campaigning for decades. Instead of talking about what they are for, they focus on what they are against. There is no way to blame this on Trump.

This is why there has been growing discontent with “McLeadership,” a term referring to McCarthy, McConnell, and McDaniel. J.R. Majewski, a Republican candidate who recently lost his bid to represent Ohio’s ninth congressional district, wrote a piece describing his lack of support from the Republican Party. He explained how they told him not to express support for Trump even though the former president was popular in his district.

They simply did not want me talking about him,” he wrote. “My staff would tell me the NRCC was angry, and that I needed to tighten it up on their messaging, or lose campaign funds. They hung this threat over our necks like the sword of Damocles.”

It seems the GOP was more concerned about Trump than about winning. This is the type of leadership we have in the party, and if we are going to move forward, they need to go.

But at this point, it appears both McConnell and McCarthy will face no serious challenges for leadership despite their apparent ability to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory, so conservatives might be in for yet another two years of inept messaging.

Click to expand...

This completely misses the 800 pound gorilla in the room; the most corrupt election in American history. The GOP couldn't have won with any candidate.

Voting is futile.

Crypto Fraud Exposes Woke Capitalism As A Scam​

Why do people keep falling for it?​

Michael Shellenberger
4 hr ago


Klaus Schwab, Executive Chairman, World Economic Forum; Sam Bankman-Fried, founder, FTX; President Bill Clinton

Sam Bankman-Fried, the founder of FTX, which was, until last week, the world’s second-largest cryptocurrency exchange, is today facing prison time for allegedly defrauding his customers of billions of dollars. Bankman-Fried, 30, donated to many progressive causes allied with the “effective altruism movement,” including pandemic prevention and response. He spoke at, and presumably donated to, the World Economic Forum’s Davos conference last May and the Clinton Foundation’s Clinton Global Initiative in September. Bankman-Fried is similar to Bernie Madoff in that both men used philanthropic giving, and the veneer of humility, to create a positive reputation while running pyramid schemes that should have set off red flags among investors, regulators, and journalists.

In truth, the Bankman-Fried scandal shows that all do-gooder capitalism should set off red flags. Bankman-Fried claimed he was only trying to get rich in order to raise money for charity, and investors and journalists overwhelmingly took him at his word, even while visiting him at his $40 million home in the Bahamas. “You were really good at talking about ethics for someone who kind of saw it all as a game with winners and losers,” a Vox reporter said to Bankman-Fried last night, to which he responded, “ya, hehe… I feel bad for those who get ****ed by it. By this dumb game we woke westerners play where we say all the right shiboleths [sic] so everyone likes us.”



Defenders of do-gooder capitalism say that socially-responsible investing, which was rebranded as ESG to refer to investing that takes environmental, social, and governance issues into account, has done a lot of good. They point to ESG investments in things like renewable energy, electric vehicles, and carbon offsets as proof that capitalism and philanthropy can co-exist.

But ESG has been rocked by scandal after scandal for greenwashing things that are bad for the environment, people, and democracy. Few carbon offsets actually reduce carbon emissions. Many are scams. Some pay landowners to not cut down trees they were never going to log. Others pay renewable energy developers who were already going to build wind and solar projects.

Most solar panels and electric car batteries are made in Xinjiang, China by incarcerated Uyghur Muslims. Solar projects require 300-600 times more land than nuclear or natural gas plants and are devastating fragile desert environments. And there is no waste disposal solution for used solar panels, a hazardous waste, which means they will be sent to landfills or dumped on poor nations. Even Bankman-Fried acknowledges that “ESG has been perverted beyond recognition.”

“Fraud” may seem like a harsh word for describing ESG, but Black’s Law defines fraud as an activity that relies on deception in order to achieve a gain, and ESG certifiers, and sellers of solar panels and solar projects, know perfectly well that their projects violate the letter and spirit of ESG. Representatives of the renewable energy industry for years claimed their products were cheaper than other energy sources even as they were lobbying Congress for $369 billion in subsidies. And many ESG funds exclude nuclear energy even though nuclear has the smallest environmental footprint of any energy source, pays higher wages than solar, and enjoys the strictest regulatory governance of any energy source.


Clinton with Bankman-Fried at the Clinton Global Initiative, September 17-19, 2022.

In truth, societies are much more vulnerable to ESG, renewable energy, and offset frauds than to con artists like Madoff and Bankman-Fried. The latter are caught as soon as the stock market crashes and their pyramid scheme collapses. ESG, renewables, and offsets, by contrast, continue to find customers despite scandal after scandal — as do the the Clinton Foundation and World Economic Forum. The Clinton Foundation is still holding pay-to-play conferences despite having been caught accepting $10 to $25 million from Saudi Arabia and $1 million from Qatar before and while, respectively, Hillary Clinton became Secretary of State. And the World Economic Forum’s founder, Klaus Schwab, was at the G-20 meeting this week despite revelations that WEF promoted FTX.

As such, the question is not why Woke frauds like Bankman-Fried do what they do, nor why they get caught, but rather why people fall for it. Why do such transparent efforts to buy public sympathy through greenwashing and woke-washing continue to work?

Wokeism Is The New “Greed Is Good”​

Andrew Ross Sorkin and Kate Rooney referring to Bankman-Fried as “the JP Morgan” and “Michael Jordan,” respectively, of crypto.

Over the spring and summer, as investors pulled their money out of cryptocurrencies, Bankman-Fried started bailing out cryptocurrency firms. He characterized his actions as altruistic. Many reporters uncritically accepted this interpretation. CNBC’s Jim Cramer called Bankman-Fried the “J.P. Morgan of this generation,” in reference to banker John Pierpont Morgan’s famous 1907 bail-out of failing banks.

“They call him the J.P. Morgan of crypto,” said CNBC’s Andrew Ross Sorkin of the influential show, Squawk Box, while introducing a September 16, 2022 profile of Bankman-Fried.

“Yeah, the Michael Jordan of crypto!” responded financial reporter Kate Rooney.

She went on. “He spent hundreds of millions of dollars to bail out struggling companies facing bankruptcy, liquidity issues — you name it. The CEO, though, lives a relatively understated life for a billionaire. He drives a Toyota Corolla to FTX's offices in The Bahamas. He lives with 10 roommates. And a golden doodle named Gopher sometimes sleeps under his desk on a beanbag chair.”

Rooney didn’t mention that Bankman-Fried’s home is valued at $40 million, even though she interviewed him in it. In fact, Bankman-Fried’s FTX allegedly spent $74 million on real estate in the Bahamas.

“You said FTX has a responsibility to seriously consider stepping into the time to save companies,” swooned Rooney. “Why did you have that sense of responsibility?”

In retrospect, there were red flags everywhere. In several interviews this fall, Bankman-Fried’s leg is shaking nervously. In 2020, Bankman-Fried admitted to using stimulants. “In general, probably half of all people or more should be taking meds of some kind, because they just make your life a lot better,” he told a podcaster. And in April, Bankman-Fried appeared to admit that his company was a Ponzi (pyramid) scheme to a Bloomberg reporter named Matt Levine.

“You start with a company that builds a box,” Bankman-Fried told Levine.

“Maybe for now actually ignore what it does or pretend it does literally nothing. It's just a box…. This box is worth zero obviously … But on the other hand, if everyone kind of now thinks that this box [cryptocurrency] token is worth about a billion dollar market cap, that's what people are pricing it at and sort of has that market cap.”

The interviewer, Matt Levine, a former investor and one of the leading crypto reporters in the U.S., interjected, “You're just like, ‘Well, I'm in the Ponzi business and it's pretty good,’” to which Bankman-Fried said, “I think that’s a pretty reasonable response… that's one framing of this. And I think there's like a sort of depressing amount of validity.” At that very moment, Bankman-Friedman appears to have been using FTX’s own cryptocurrency as collateral for lending FTX customer money to his hedge fund, Alameda Capital.

In retrospect he appears to be making something of a confession to Levine back in April. “Everyone's gonna mark to market,” said Bankman-Friedman. “In fact, you can even finance this, right? You put X token in a borrow lending protocol and borrow dollars with it. If you think it's worth like [not] less than two-thirds of that, you could even just like put some in there, take the dollars out [and] never, you know, give the dollars back.”

And yet, Levine writes, “I came away from that conversation bullish on FTX and Bankman-Fried. My view was, and is, that if you talk to a crypto exchange operator and he is like ‘crypto is changing the world, your old-fashioned economics are just FUD, HODL,’ then that’s bad. A wild-eyed crypto true believer is not the person to operate an exchange. The person you want operating an exchange is a clear-eyed trader.”

Levine’s not alone. In his various interviews, Bankman-Fried came across with humility and an “aw shucks” style while also communicating quiet confidence.

Six times, in response to questions from Chuck Todd of “Meet the Press” last September, Bankman-Fried said, silkily, “It’s a good question.” The way Bankman-Fried said it sounded like a compliment, like he was praising the journalist for his intelligence.

As such, Bankman-Fried was making a classic confidence artist move. In many cons, the confidence artist expresses his own confidence in his mark so that the mark will reciprocate by investing his confidence in the con artist. Humans are so wired to reciprocity that it feels rude not to feel confident in someone who has expressed confidence in us.

And con artists like Bankman-Fried and Madoff expressed progressive values broadly shared by elites, including journalists. On “Meet the Press,” Bankman-Fried told Todd that he was making pandemic prevention and response a key part of his “effective altruism” philanthropy. “Covid is one of the clearest examples of this,” he said, “where we did not as a country, or as a world, frankly, have a coherent strategy.”

Why, then, do frauds like Madoff and Bankman-Fried get away with it? And why do we keep trusting people like the Clintons and Klaus Schwab of the World Economic Forum?

Because many people, particularly liberal-minded investors, but also journalists and members of the voting public, want to trust them. Wishful thinking is powerful. We saw a similar dynamic with the fraud carried out by Theranos Founder Elizabeth Holmes. Rich and powerful people wanted to believe in her for the same reason people wanted to believe in Bankman-Fried.

And liberals especially wanted to believe Bankman-Fried. That’s because they tend to feel guiltier than conservatives and libertarians about their greed. They thus need Wokeism, an alternative religion, to justify it.

“Greed is good,” said the hostile takeover investor played by Michael Douglas in the 1987 classic, “Wall Street.” Douglas proceeded to give the standard justification of capitalism provided by Adam Smith in 1776. “Greed, in all of its forms — greed for life, for money, for love, knowledge — has marked the upward surge of mankind,” said the Douglas character.

Such a justification doesn’t work for liberals. They need to feel that their greed is good because their greed is altruistic. What hucksters like Bankman-Fried, the Clintons, and Klaus Schwab provide is a Woke justification for their greed.

​

Dozens Of Countries Launch ‘Carbon Footprint Trackers’ – Just Like The World Economic Forum Promised.​

BY: NATALIE WINTERS / WARROOM.ORG
by EDITOR
November 14, 2022

Dozens of countries have seen their leading financial institutions and banks launch “carbon footprint trackers,” ostensibly to combat climate change, for their clients.

The proliferation of the carbon tracking software follows the World Economic Forum (WEF) announcing that its member companies were working to implement a similar agenda as part of its broader climate change efforts. The WEF has also been accused of exploiting climate change to advance a social and political agenda rooted in “social credit scores” and digital identity tracking – similar to how the group weaponized COVID-19 to implement its “Great Reset” agenda.

Mastercard, for example, launched a “Carbon Calculator” feature that would “offer consumers an estimated carbon footprint for each of their purchases.”

Developed in collaboration with Swedish fin-tech Doconomy, it is currently used in 25 countries.

“By having clear insight into the effect your day-to-day footprint has on the planet, you can make small adjustments resulting in real change,” explains a summary of the Mastercard program.

Mastercard ‘Carbon Calculator’ Promo.

Canadian financial co-operative Vancity recently launched a program that will track the estimated carbon emissions of its Visa credit card holders.

“The Vancouver-based credit union says all Vancity Visa credit card holders will be offered the data, which will also include how their spending-linked emissions compare nationally and which purchases have the highest environmental cost,” explained an announcement.

The feature was developed in partnership with German fintech company ecolytiq.

Similarly, in Australia, Commonwealth Bank launched a program providing a “real-time carbon output” figure to 250,000 users.

“The first phase of the partnership will allow a select group of retail customers to view their carbon footprint via the CommBank app and offset their previous month’s transactions by purchasing carbon credits. This new feature will be available to all retail customers next year,” explained a summary of the program.

The press release continues:

“Our data capability will provide greater personalisation for customers overtime, including more granular information about their carbon footprint with the option to offset individual transactions.”

Carbon offsetting involves measuring how much carbon everyday activities, like driving your car, emit and then compensates your emissions through the benefits of green initiatives, such as Australian bushland regeneration.

The advent of carbon tracking software comes amidst a broader push from the WEF to roll out a broader digital identity tracking system.

^^^^^
(COMMENT: Obviously, they are working toward a rationing to reduce Western consumption of resources and to bring the standard of living down in equity with developing nations.)

Massachusetts Department of Public Health SECRETLY Colluded With Google To Auto-Install Contact-Tracing SPYWARE On Your Phone

By Alicia Powe
Published November 16, 2022 at 4:30pm

The Massachusetts Department of Public Health is facing a class action lawsuit after colluding with Google to repeatedly auto-install contact-tracing spyware on the smartphones of over a million Massachusetts residents without their permission or consent.

According to a class action lawsuit filed by the New Civil Liberties Alliance, a nonpartisan nonprofit civil rights organization, the Department of Public Health rolled out the contact tracing app it worked with Google to create in April 2021.

“The App causes an Android mobile device to constantly connect and exchange information with other nearby devices via Bluetooth and creates a record of such other connections. If a user opts in and reports being infected with COVID-19, an exposure notification is sent to other individuals on the infected user’s connection record,” the NCLA explains in the complaint, Wright v. Massachusetts Department of Public Health.

Initially, the app which obtains users private locations and health information was voluntarily installed.

But then in June, DPH ramped up its contact tracing program and allegedly began surreptitiously installing the surveillance app on residents’ phones.

“On June 15, 2021, DPH worked with Google to secretly install the Contact Tracing App onto over one million Android mobile devices located in Massachusetts without the device owners’ knowledge or permission,” the complaint states

The government agency and tech giant’s “misguided effort to combat Covid-19” is a brazen violation of civil liberties, state and federal law and the United States and Massachusetts Constitutions, the NCLA contends.

“Plaintiffs are individuals who own and use Android mobile devices and live or work in Massachusetts,” the nonprofit group states in the suit. “DPH installed its Contact Tracing App onto each of the Plaintiffs’ Android devices without their awareness or permission, which amounts to a computer crime under federal and Massachusetts law. See 18 U.S.C. § 1030(a)(2); Mass. Gen. Laws Ann. ch. 266, § 120F. No statutory authority supports DPH’s conduct, which serves no articulable public health purpose, especially since Massachusetts has ended its statewide contact-tracing program.”

“Conspiring with a private company to hijack residents’ smartphones without the owners’ knowledge or consent is not a tool that the Massachusetts Department of Public Health may lawfully employ in its efforts to combat COVID-19. Such brazen for civil liberties violates both the United States and Massachusetts Constitution, and it must stop now.

DPH’s contact tracing app is still employed by the government agency to date and is repeatedly reinstalled on plaintiffs’ cell phones after they delete it, surveilling their every move.

“When some Android device owners discovered and subsequently deleted the App, DPH would re-install it onto their devices,” the complaint states. “These secret installations not only invade owners’ reasonable expectation of privacy, but they also intrude upon owners’ property right in their mobile devices by occupying valuable storage space. Because the Massachusetts and United States Constitutions prohibit governmental entities from unreasonable searches and uncompensated takings, this Court should enjoin DPH’s unconstitutional scheme.

Approximately two dozen states used Google-created contract-tracing apps, but only Massachusetts secretly auto-installed the tracking software on its residents’ mobile devices without knowledge or consent, the NCLA asserts.

The Massachusetts Department of Health may be the only government agency under fire for colluding with Big Tech to devise a surveillance mechanism, but millions of Americans nationwide were also contact traced during the Covid pandemic by a voters analytics firm help Democrats target swing voters.

As the Gateway Pundit reported in October, Predict Wise tracked over 100 million Americans from their cellphones and assigned “Covid-19 decree” violation scores throughout the Covid lockdowns.

Millions Of Americans Assigned Secret ‘Covid Decree Violation’ Scores To Help Democrats Win Swing States

The firm assigned a Covid-19 decree score based on how much an individual adhered to lockdown restrictions and stayed home. “Compliers,” were assigned low Covid decree violation scores, while those who disregarded quarantine measures and traveled away from their homes were given high Covid decree violation scores.

After harvesting location data from tens of millions of US cell phones, PredictWise provided the data to its clients which include the Democratic National Committee, the Democrat Parties of Arizona, North Dakota, Ohio, Florida and South Carolina Democrat campaigns to develop campaign ads.

Biden Threatens to Veto Proposed Senate Resolution to End Covid-19 Emergency Declaration After 13 Democrats Voted with Republicans

By Jim Hoft
Published November 16, 2022 at 10:45am

On Friday, the Biden regime decided to extend the Covid public health emergency for the 12th time until at least April, as public health officials are preparing for another Covid surge this winter.

Biden keeps extending COVID Emergency so the Democrats can keep abusing their emergency powers.

The declaration allows the US to grant emergency authorizations for drugs, vaccines, and other medical countermeasures.

On Tuesday, the U.S. Senate voted to terminate the national health emergency declared in 2020 in response to the COVID-19 pandemic after almost three years of emergency-justified authoritarianism.

By a vote of 62 to 36, with 13 Democrats in favor, the Senate voted to rescind the emergency declaration.

It now goes to the House. It is not known if the House will consider the proposed resolution.

Below is the list of senators who voted to end the emergency declaration:



The White House Office of Management and Budget (OMB) said in a statement that Joe Biden has threatened to veto any legislation passed by Congress to rescind the national emergency declaration, according to Wall Street Journal.

According to OMB, revoking the emergency declaration would weaken federal response to future Covid-19 outbreaks.

“Preserving our ability to respond is more important than ever as we head into the winter, when respiratory illnesses such as Covid-19 typically spread more easily,” the statement said. “Strengthened by the ongoing declaration of national emergency, the federal response to Covid-19 continues to save lives, improve health outcomes, and support the American economy.

Twitter user, John DeFeo shared his opinion on this emergency power grab on Twitter.

Who uses COVID-19 messaging that provokes fear (at the expense of highlighting critical facts, useful nuance and evidence-based reasons for hope)?

Here is my opinion, explained via 12 personas, arranged from most lamentable to most contemptible.

The Charlatan The charlatan is the bad faith version of the huckster, exploiting tenuous connections to COVID-19 in order to claim expertise and authority, while using hyperbole to maximize personal attention, influence and reach. A politician with a lab coat.

The Partisan Opportunist The partisan opportunist sees a crisis, then exploits it, extends it and amplifies it such as to enact powers and legislation that he or she has been eager to deploy. The nature of the crisis is not relevant, just a means to a desired end.

The Gleeful Abuser The gleeful abuser, for lack of a better word, is a psychopath who uses the fear and chaos inherent in a crisis (pandemic, war, etc.) to cover for his or her intention of imposing harm on others. Uncommon, yet terrifying.

The Stunted Academic This is the accomplished doctor or scientist who has long-since been promoted to oversee others, and as a result, is informed by narratives more so than hands on experience. The bigger the team, the greater the chance to amplify a bogus narrative.

The Free Radical A co-dependent person who lacks a firm sense of self, and thus, derives his or her identify from movements. Zero-COVID is one of many hashtags, flags, emoticons and other ways of signaling values to strangers (in the absence of a firm personal code).

The Feckless Academic The feckless academic is handcuffed by status or funding. He or she often remains on the sidelines, yet may occasionally amplify low-quality COVID-19 research that, in fact, can be objectively refuted using his or her own corpus of existing work.

The Credentialed Grifter This doctor or scientist, who is ostensibly a well-compensated professional, uses social media to solicit tips, monetize COVID-19 content via affiliate links, or otherwise profit from newly-earned “influencer” status.

The Esteemed Narcissist The esteemed narcissist is intelligent and a high achiever, yet trapped in an early-childhood emotional state (often a result of verbal abuse). He or she is too fragile to admit wrongs: Blame-shifting, projection and gaslighting are the result.

The Traumatized Professional This doctor or scientist has suffered a personal loss and/or PTSD from working in a high stress, high risk environment. (It takes the utmost empathy and reasoning to question a brilliant survivor of trauma.)

The Good-Faith Huckster This epidemiologist or biostatistician earned a certificate in public health despite having little- to no-background in science, medicine or ethics. He or she offers COVID-19 guidance in good faith, but lacks the experience to see possible harm.

The Green Journalist This young journalist, who isn’t necessarily foolish, has been given a critically-important task (like fact checking) without guidance or sources. A natural instinct is to seek official commentary, thereby allowing officials to avoid accountability.

The Hypochondriac Specialist This atmospheric physicist or molecular biologist is highly intelligent and highly qualified, yet tends to portray disease avoidance as a primary goal in life (regardless of contextual risk). Brilliant, yet myopic.

US Has Sent a Net $309 Billion to Communist China This Year

COMMENTARY BY
Terence Jeffrey
November 16, 2022

Two weeks after he was inaugurated, President Joe Biden traveled over to the State Department to deliver a speech about his foreign policy.

One point he repeatedly stressed in that speech: He was not going to let the People’s Republic of China take advantage of the United States.

“American leadership must meet this new moment of advancing authoritarianism, including the growing ambitions of China to rival the United States,” Biden said at the beginning of his speech.

“We must start with diplomacy rooted in America’s most cherished democratic values: defending freedom, championing opportunity, upholding universal rights, respecting the rule of law, and treating every person with dignity,” Biden said.

“And we’ll also take on directly the challenges posed by our prosperity, security, and democratic values by our most serious competitor, China,” Biden declared.

“We’ll confront China’s economic abuses; counter its aggressive, coercive action; to push back on China’s attack on human rights, intellectual property, and global governance,” he said.

Then, Biden specifically focused on the well-being of the American working class—including how it related to U.S. relations with China.

“Every action we take in our conduct abroad, we must take with American working families in mind,” said Biden. “Advancing a foreign policy for the middle class demands urgent focus on our domestic … economic renewal.”

“If we invest in ourselves and our people,” Biden said, “if we fight to ensure that American businesses are positioned to compete and win on the global stage, if the rules of international trade aren’t stacked against us, if our workers and intellectual property are protected, then there’s no country on Earth—not China or any other country on Earth—that can match us.”

So, how has Biden done in his strategic aims to “push back on China’s attack on human rights” and keep “American working families in mind” in every action America takes abroad?

The State Department’s 2021 report on human rights in China, as this column has noted before, described the Chinese regime’s systematic attacks on the human rights of the Chinese people.

“Genocide and crimes against humanity occurred during the year against predominantly Muslim Uyghurs and members of other ethnic and religious minority groups in Xinjian,” said the State Department. “These crimes were continuing and included: the arbitrary imprisonment or other severe deprivation of physical liberty of more than one million civilians; forced sterilization, coerced abortions, and more restrictive application of the country’s birth control policies; rape; torture of a large number of those arbitrarily detained; forced labor; and draconian restrictions on freedom of religion or belief, freedom of expression, and freedom of movement.”

“Government officials and the security services often committed human rights abuses with impunity,” the report concluded.

While China continued to inflict these abuses on its own people, it also continued to run up a massive trade deficit with the United States.

In 2021, according to the Census Bureau, the United States exported only $151.442 billion in products to the People’s Republic while it was importing $504.935 billion. As a result, the United States ran a one-year bilateral trade deficit with the People’s Republic of $353.493 billion.

So far in 2022, the Census Bureau has published the international trade numbers for the nine months from January through September.

But things have not gotten better in U.S.-China trade relations. They have gotten worse.

In the first nine months of 2021 (when the U.S. was on its way to that 12-month deficit of $353.493 billion), the U.S. ran a trade deficit of $253.507 billion with China.

In the first nine months of this year, the U.S. has run a $309.230 billion trade deficit with China. That is up $55.723 billion—or about 22%—from the first nine months of last year.

This week, while attending the G-20 summit in Bali, Indonesia, Biden met with Xi Jinping, the general secretary of the Chinese Communist Party.

A report in The New York Times suggested that the Chinese government was happy with the outcome of the Biden-Xi meeting. Its headline said: “After the Biden-Xi meeting, Beijing signals optimism over relations with Washington.”

“An upbeat photo in China’s main newspaper and comments by the foreign minister suggested that Beijing believes its relationship with Washington could improve,” said the Times.

“The prominent position of the photo on the front page of China’s main official newspaper spoke volumes: In it, the nation’s leader, Xi Jinping, smiled and shook hands with President Biden against a backdrop of Chinese and American flags.”

The Times reported that Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi told reporters of the Biden-Xi summit: “This meeting was both a continuation of exchanges up to now, and augurs a new starting point.”

The new starting point that the United States should establish with Beijing is not one that will make the Chinese Communist Party happy. It should be one that will pressure China to stop its human rights abuses and eliminate the trade imbalance that in the first nine months of this year has resulted in the American people sending a net of $309 billion to a communist regime.

Here are some of the biggest FTX losers — along with its biggest Democrat beneficiaries

JOSEPH MACKINNONNovember 16, 2022

Democrat megadonor Sam Bankman-Fried lost his entire fortune in the Election Day collapse of his crypto exchange company, FTX. Bankman-Fried may be the single biggest loser in this most recent titan fall, but, an ESG champion to the bitter end, he has spread the misfortune around.

High-profile losers
Tom Brady and his ex-wife, Gisele Bündchen, each took an equity stake in FTX as part of a 2021 ambassadorial partnership. While Brady became a brand ambassador, Bündchen took on the role of FTX's environmental & social initiatives advisor.

Both promoted FTX in a series of commercials and other initiatives, such as this one:

View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uymLJoKFlW8
1:25 min

According to the Tampa Bay Times, Brady and Bündchen were both named in a class-action lawsuit filed in Miami's Southern District of Florida federal court on Wednesday, along with former NBA star Shaquille O'Neal, Golden State Warriors basketballer Stephen Curry, Los Angeles Angels baseballer Shohei Ohtani, "Shark Tank's" Kevin O'Leary, and "Seinfeld" co-creator Larry David.

The class-action complaint alleges that Brady and his ex-wife, like other brand ambassadors, were responsible for "misrepresentations and omissions" in the advertisements in which they told acquaintances to unwittingly throw their money away into "the FTX Ponzi scheme."

The suit, which claims that Bankman-Fried and his celebrity accomplices are behind losses to American consumers in the neighborhood of $11 billion, is presently seeking more than $5 million in damages.

Stephen Curry, named in the suit, signed onto a "long-term partnership" with FTX in September 2021 in exchange for an equity stake in the company, now worthless. Like Brady, Curry promoted FTX in advertisements.

Barron's suggested that Curry — who said in one advertisement, "[W]ith FTX I have everything I need to buy, sell, and trade crypto safely" — could now "lose big."

Anthony Scaramucci's investment company, SkyBridge Capital, which manages around $2.2 billion, was shaken up by the collapse. FTX Ventures acquired 30% of the firm last September.

Scaramucci, who lasted 10 days in the Trump White House, told CNBC that he had been "duped."

"He was giving me the money ... I was doing a lot of due diligence on him, but clearly not enough;" said Scaramucci per a TheStreet report.

Last last week, SkyBridge Capital tried to buy back the stake from the exchange.

Sequoia Capital had two funds invested in FTX.com and FTX US — the first at $150 million, the second at $63.5 million — Fox Business reported.

In a Nov. 9 statement, Sequoia indicated that its "exposure to FTX is limited," claiming that the $150 million loss "is offset by ~$7.5B in realized and unrealized gains in the same fund, so the fund remains in good shape."

The $63.5 million allegedly represented less than 1% of the second fund.

SoftBank previously fundraised for FTX, bringing in $400 million. A "minor investment" of under $100 million had been given to the company, which SoftBank plans to write off as a loss.

There are other sizable investors which are set to lose face and cash, including:

• the Ontario Teachers' Pension Plan, now facing a potential loss of $95 million;
• Chase Coleman's Tiger Global Management, down 44% in the first months of the year, invested with the OTPP in a December 2019 funding round that reportedly valued the company at $8 billion;
• Paradigm, which invested $278 million in FTX;
• Genesis, the derivatives of which business Fortune reported had $175 million locked up in FTX;
• Multicoin Capital, which has an estimated $863 million in crypto and other assets frozen at FTX; and
• Galaxy Digital, which claimed last Wednesday to have had a $76.8 million exposure to FTX.

Fortune Crypto reported that Altimeter Capital Management, Lightspeed Venture Partners, Iconiq Capital, Third Point, Insight Partners, and Thoma Bravo, among others, may also be fated to lose their investments.

It's not just big firms that have been left in the lurch. While the bankruptcy filing drawn up by FTX indicated that the company has over 100,000 creditors, CNBC reported that there could be more than one million creditors.

Democratic beneficiaries
Many may now associate FTX with loss and misfortune. The same may not be true for a legion of Democrats.

Prior to the collapse of FTX and his professional demise, Bankman-Fried made a name for himself as a Democrat megadonor.

TheBlaze previously reported that Bankman-Fried donated $10 million to then-candidate Joe Biden in 2020 and spent at least $39,826,856 this year in an effort to help Democrats win their House races.

Fox Business reported that in 2001 and 2022, Bankman-Fried donated roughly $38 million to Democratic candidates and leftist PACs.

FTX funneled $27 million through the leftist PAC Protect Our Future, accounting for nearly 95% of the funds raised by the PAC.

Citing Federal Election Commission filings, Fox Business noted that Bankman-Fried wired $9 million to the PAC in February and then made three subsequent donations collectively worth $18 million between March and June.

Another $1 million was donated to the PAC by top FTX executive Nishad Singh.

The group supported the following Democrats:

• Carrick Flynn (given $10.5 million), who ran to represent Oregon's 6th Congressional District and lost his primary to Andrea Salinas in May;
• Michigan state Senator Adam Hollier and Joshua Lafazan of New York (given $1.1 million), both of whom ran for Congress and failed in their respective primaries;
• and general election winners Reps. Lucy McBath of Georgia and Shontel Brown of Ohio, and Reps.-elect Jasmine Crockett of Texas, Valerie Foushee of North Carolina, and Robert Garcia of California (given over $1 million).

Fox Business indicated that the PAC also shelled out between $200,000 and $972,00 to several other leftist politicos, including Rep. Jesus Garcia (Ill.) and Reps.-elect Morgan McGarvey (Ky.), Maxwell Frost (Fla.), and Sydney Kamlager (Calif.).

In May, Bankman-Fried told Jacob Goldstein of "What's Your Problem?" that he was considering donating "north of $100 million" and up to $1 billion to Democrats in the 2024 presidential elections.

(Interesting.... I am reminded of the SNL old people's Alexa - "I don't know about that" View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YvT_gqs5ETk
2:40 min)



https://i0.wp.com/freedomfirstnetwo...X-Tied-to-Pedophile-Bl.jpg?fit=1280,720&ssl=1
https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/man-in-america-podcast/id1603141405 1hr 31 min

Is FTX Tied to Pedophile Blackmail Networks? It’s Much Worse Than You Thought​

by Man in America
November 16, 2022

The midterm elections just ended a week ago and in some states it just ended yesterday. They were a massive disappointment and people are starting to blame the RINO establishment in Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell and future Speaker of the House of representatives Congressman Kevin McCarthy. Although President Biden’s approval is below 35%, and over 70% of the nation believe the country is heading in the wrong direction, it leaves some to wonder how the GOP did so poorly, considering the conservatives received 5 million more votes than democrats did across the nation. This leaves people with the idea of what can we trust.

Now, if the election was disappointing enough, crypto billionaire Sam Bankman-Fried is under investigation after his crypto-company went bankrupt.

There are strong connections with Sam being one of the largest democrat donors in America along with strong allegations that he was using his company as a money laundering system for money to be laundered from his company to Ukrainian crypto systems then sent back to America and dumped into Democrat campaigns. Although the democrats had massive rejection of their policies by the masses via every major poll in America, they were still able to out fundraise the Republican Party almost four to one in virtually ever state.

With the recent revelations of Sam Bankman-Frieds company FTX, going bankrupt, all these allegations are coming out more than ever! There is even one report that there was a file called Trump-Lose which brings about massive speculation of why former President Trump’s name would even be a part of a massively liberal leaning company. If that wasn’t bad enough, there are strong rumors that this billionaire CEO, had ties to Jeffrey Epstein other paedophiles.

This is certainly a situation that has gotten completely out of hand and Sam may be looking at serious charges. Will the Establishment in Washington DC protect him or will they Jeffrey Epstein him too?

I think its safe to say, that crypto billionaire Sam Bankman-Fried was trying to be the crypto-federal reserve chairman and it all fell apart massively. The only real question is, will there be any real repercussions from this and who will get the axe. For more information surrounding this brand new scandal, please watch the video link above and follow Mr. Seth Holehouse and his show Man In America for the Truth!

Escobar: Russia, India, China, Iran - The Quad That Really Matters

WEDNESDAY, NOV 16, 2022 - 08:00 PM
Authored by Pepe Escobar,

Southeast Asia is right at the center of international relations for a whole week viz a viz three consecutive summits: Association of South East Asian Nations (ASEAN) summit in Phnom Penh, the Group of Twenty (G20) summit in Bali, and the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) summit in Bangkok.

Eighteen nations accounting for roughly half of the global economy represented at the first in-person ASEAN summit since the Covid-19 pandemic in Cambodia: the ASEAN 10, Japan, South Korea, China, India, US, Russia, Australia, and New Zealand.

With characteristic Asian politeness, the summit chair, Cambodian Prime Minister Hun Sen (or “Colombian”, according to the so-called “leader of the free world”), said the plenary meeting was somewhat heated, but the atmosphere was not tense: “Leaders talked in a mature way, no one left.”

It was up to Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov to express what was really significant at the end of the summit.

While praising the “inclusive, open, equal structure of security and cooperation at ASEAN”, Lavrov stressed how Europe and NATO “want to militarize the region in order to contain Russia and China’s interests in the Indo-Pacific.”

A manifestation of this policy is how “AUKUS is openly aiming at confrontation in the South China Sea,” he said.

Lavrov also stressed how the West, via the NATO military alliance, is accepting ASEAN “only nominally” while promoting a completely “unclear” agenda.

What’s clear though is how NATO “has moved towards Russian borders several times and now declared at the Madrid summit that they have taken global responsibility.”

This leads us to the clincher: “NATO is moving their line of defense to the South China Sea.” And, Lavrov added, Beijing holds the same assessment.

Here, concisely, is the open “secret” of our current geopolitical incandescence. Washington’s number one priority is the containment of China. That implies blocking the EU from getting closer to the key Eurasia drivers – China, Russia, and Iran – engaged in building the world’s largest free trade/connectivity environment.

Adding to the decades-long hybrid war against Iran, the infinite weaponizing of the Ukrainian black hole fits into the initial stages of the battle.

For the Empire, Iran cannot profit from becoming a provider of cheap, quality energy to the EU. And in parallel, Russia must be cut off from the EU. The next step is to force the EU to cut itself off from China.

All that fits into the wildest, warped Straussian/neo-con wet dreams: to attack China, by emboldening Taiwan, first Russia must be weakened, via the instrumentalization (and destruction) of Ukraine.

And all along the scenario, Europe simply has no agency.

Putin, Raeisi and the Erdogan track
Real life across key Eurasia nodes reveals a completely different picture. Take the relaxed get-together in Tehran between Russia’s top security official Nikolai Patrushev and his Iranian counterpart Ali Shamkhani last week.

They discussed not only security matters but also serious business – as in turbo-charged trade.

The National Iranian Oil Company (NIOC) will sign a $40 billion deal next month with Gazprom, bypassing US sanctions, and encompassing the development of two gas fields and six oilfields, swaps in natural gas and oil products, LNG projects, and the construction of gas pipelines.

Immediately after the Patrushev-Shamkhani meeting, President Putin called President Ebrahim Raeisi to keep up the “interaction in politics, trade and the economy, including transport and logistics,” according to the Kremlin.

Iranian president reportedly more than “welcomed” the “strengthening” of Moscow-Tehran ties.

Patrushev unequivocally supported Tehran over the latest color revolution adventure perpetrated under the framework of the Empire’s endless hybrid war.

Iran and the EAEU are negotiating a Free Trade Agreement (FTA) in parallel to the swap deals with Russian oil. Soon, SWIFT may be completely bypassed. The whole Global South is watching.

Simultaneous to Putin’s phone call, Turkiye’s Recep Tayyip Erdogan – conducting his own diplomatic overdrive, and just back from a summit of Turkic nations in Samarkand – stressed that the US and the collective West are attacking Russia “almost without limits”.

Erdogan made it clear that Russia is a “powerful” state and commended its “great resistance”.

The response came exactly 24 hours later. Turkish intelligence cut to the chase, pointing out that the terrorist bombing in the perpetually busy Istiklal pedestrian street in Istanbul was designed in Kobane in northern Syria, which essentially responds to the US.

That constitutes a de-facto act of war and may unleash serious consequences, including a profound revision of Turkiye’s presence inside NATO.

Iran’s multi-track strategy
A Russia-Iran strategic alliance manifests itself practically as a historical inevitability. It recalls the time when the erstwhile USSR helped Iran militarily via North Korea, after an enforced US/Europe blockade.

Putin and Raeisi are taking it to the next level. Moscow and Tehran are developing a joint strategy to defeat the weaponization of sanctions by the collective West.

Iran, after all, has an absolutely stellar record of smashing variants of “maximum pressure” to bits. Also, it is now linked to a strategic nuclear umbrella offered by the “RICs” in BRICS (Russia, India, China).

So, Tehran may now plan to develop its massive economic potential within the framework of BRI, SCO, INSTC, the Eurasia Economic Union (EAEU), and the Russian-led Greater Eurasia Partnership.

Moscow’s game is pure sophistication: engaging in a high-level strategic oil alliance with Saudi Arabia while deepening its strategic partnership with Iran.

Immediately after Patrushev’s visit, Tehran announced the development of an indigenously built hypersonic ballistic missile, quite similar to the Russian KH-47 M2 Khinzal.

And the other significant news was connectivity-wise: the completion of part of a railway from strategic Chabahar Port to the border with Turkmenistan. That means imminent direct rail connectivity to the Central Asian, Russian and Chinese spheres.

Add to it the predominant role of OPEC+, the development of BRICS+, and the pan-Eurasian drive to pricing trade, insurance, security, investments in the ruble, yuan, rial, etc.

There’s also the fact that Tehran could not care less about the endless collective West procrastination on the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), commonly known as Iran nuclear deal: what really matters now is the deepening relationship with the “RICs” in BRICS.

Tehran refused to sign a tampered-with EU draft nuclear deal in Vienna. Brussels was enraged; no Iranian oil will “save” Europe, replacing Russian oil under a nonsensical cap to be imposed next month.

And Washington was enraged because it was betting on internal tensions to split OPEC.

Considering all of the above, no wonder US ‘Think Tankland’ is behaving like a bunch of headless chickens.

The queue to join BRICS
During the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) summit in Samarkand last September, it was already tacit to all players how the Empire is cannibalizing its closest allies.

And how, simultaneously, the shrinking NATO-sphere is turning inwards, with a focus on The Enemy Within, relentlessly corralling average citizens to march in lockstep behind total compliance with a two-pronged war – hybrid and otherwise – against imperial peer competitors Russia and China.

Now compare it with Chinese President Xi Jinping in Samarkand presenting China and Russia, together, as the top “responsible global powers” bent on securing the emergence of multipolarity.

Samarkand also reaffirmed the strategic political partnership between Russia and India (Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi called it an unbreakable friendship).

That was corroborated by the meeting between Lavrov and his Indian counterpart Subrahmanyam Jaishankar last week in Moscow.

Lavrov praised the strategic partnership in every crucial area – politics, trade and economics, investment, and technology, as well as “closely coordinated actions” at the UN Security Council, BRICS, SCO and the G20.

On BRICS, crucially, Lavrov confirmed that “over a dozen countries” are lining up for membership, including Iran: “We expect the work on coordinating the criteria and principles that should underlie BRICS expansion to not take much time”.

But first, the five members need to analyze the ground-breaking repercussions of an expanded BRICS+.

Once again: contrast. What is the EU’s “response” to these developments? Coming up with yet another sanctions package against Iran, targeting officials and entities “connected with security affairs” as well as companies, for their alleged “violence and repressions”.

“Diplomacy”, collective West-style, barely registers as bullying.

Back to the real economy – as in the gas front – the national interests of Russia, Iran and Turkiye are increasingly intertwined; and that is bound to influence developments in Syria, Iraq, and Libya, and will be a key factor to facilitate Erdogan’s re-election next year.

As it stands, Riyadh for all practical purposes has performed a stunning 180-degree maneuver against Washington via OPEC+. That may signify, even in a twisted way, the onset of a process of unification of Arab interests, guided by Moscow.

Stranger things have happened in modern history.

Now appears to be the time for the Arab world to be finally ready to join the Quad that really matters: Russia, India, China, and Iran.

Techno-Authoritarianism Is Here To Stay: China & The Deep State Have Joined Forces

WEDNESDAY, NOV 16, 2022 - 08:40 PM
Authored by John & Nisha Whitehead via The Rutherford Institute,


The votes are in.

No matter who runs for office, no matter who controls the White House, Senate or the House of Representatives now or in the future, “we the people” have already lost.

We have lost because the future of this nation is being forged beyond the reach of our laws, elections and borders by techno-authoritarian powers with no regard for individuality, privacy or freedom.

The fate of America is being made in China, our role model for all things dystopian.

An economic and political powerhouse that owns more of America’s debt than any other country and is buying up American businesses across the spectrum, China is a vicious totalitarian regime that routinely employs censorship, surveillance, and brutal police state tactics to intimidate its populace, maintain its power, and expand the largesse of its corporate elite.

Where China goes, the United States eventually follows. This way lies outright tyranny.


China’s global influence, its technological reach, its quest for world domination, and its rigid demand for compliance are pushing us towards a world in chains.

Through its growing stranglehold on surveillance technology, China has erected the world’s first digital totalitarian state, and in the process, has made itself a model for aspiring dictators everywhere.

What too many fail to recognize, however, is that China and the American Deep State have joined forces.

As I make clear in Battlefield America: The War on the American People and in its fictional counterpart The Erik Blair Diaries, this is fascism hiding behind a thin veneer of open government and populist elections.

For all intents and purposes, we have become the embodiment of what Philip K. Dick feared when he wrote The Man in the High Castle, a vision of an alternate universe in which the Axis powers defeat the Allies in World War II, and “fascism has not simply conquered America. It has insinuated itself, with disturbing ease, into America’s DNA.”

Yet while Dick’s vision of a world in which totalitarianism has been normalized is chilling, our growing reality of a world in which the Deep State is not merely entrenched but has gone global is downright terrifying.

Our national flag may not boast the red and white stripes with a swastika on a field of blue as depicted in The Man in the High Castle, but be warned: we are no less occupied.

Two-Thirds Of French Want Stricter Immigration Policy' New Poll Shows

WEDNESDAY, NOV 16, 2022 - 11:00 PM
Via Remix News,

Nearly seven out of ten French people believe that the state should adopt a stricter policy regarding the reception of migrants, according to a poll by the CSA institute for CNEWS published on Tuesday.

A total of 67 percent of French people want a tougher immigration policy, a topic that remains at the heart of the current national debate after the country received boat migrants for the first time in its history and following the murder of 12-year-old Paris girl Lola, has was raped, had her throat slashed, and was stuffed in a suitcase by an Algerian illegal migrant.

Respondents to the survey were asked: “Would you like France to have a much stricter policy regarding the reception of migrants (i.e. to welcome fewer of them on our territory)?”

To this question, 67 percent said “Yes” while 33 percent of respondents said “No.”



The poll shows that men are more in favor of a firmer policy in terms of welcoming migrants on French territory than women — 69 percent of men surveyed answered favorably compared with 65 percent of women.

Opinions differed greatly by age with the 18-24 age bracket in favor of a more lenient approach (52 percent said “No”), while 73 percent of those aged 65 and older backed stronger border control. Overall, 72 percent of the over-50s are in favor.

When taking into account the political leanings of those surveyed, there is a striking divide between the left and the right — nearly two-thirds of those polled who feel aligned to the left (60 percent) are opposed to a tougher migration policy.

The figure rises to 64 percent among supporters of La France insoumise and 62 percent among those close to the Europe Ecologie Les Verts (EELV) party.

On the right, the situation is quite different — 94 percent of French people close to the right want to be stricter about the reception of migrants. A total of 97 percent of National Rally supporters want stricter immigration controls, as do 91 percent among Les Républicains voters.

It is not the only poll showing the French opposed to mass immigration, with past polls consistently showing the vast majority of French want a halt to immigration.

Africa Leads The World In Renewable Energy Consumption​

WEDNESDAY, NOV 16, 2022 - 11:45 PM

As Statista's Martin Armstrong shows in the infographic below, using data from the United Nations Energy Statistics Pocketbook 2022, the one region of the world where renewables play a truly dominant role in energy consumption is Africa.

You will find more infographics at Statista

Uganda, Central African Republic, Somalia and Democratic Republic of the Congo were the only countries in the world in 2019 to have renewable energy sources make up 90 percent of total consumption.

The latter even came close to 100 percent, with 96.2 percent. In contrast, advanced economies such as the United States (9.9 percent), Germany (17.2 percent) and Japan (7.9 percent), were still a long way from completing the shift to green energy.

A total of 28 countries are recorded to have had a share of less than one percent over the twelve month period. Among them, Kuwait, Qatar, Saudi Arabia as well as Hong Kong and the city-state Singapore.

Are Rent Controls Coming?​

THURSDAY, NOV 17, 2022 - 12:30 AM
By Russell Clark, author of the Capital Flows and Asset Markets blow and formerly CIO of Horseman Global

F@&K LANDLORDS​

As mentioned in a previous post, when I have looked at previous right to left, and left to right political swings, they seem to happen globally, and they seem to happen roughly at the same time. A global shift left happened in the 1930s, and kept shifting until 1970s, when it began to shift back to the right. We are now well into a shift back to the left, that began in 2016. As also highlighted, modern democracies are filled with checks and balances to slow political shifts, but they still happen.

China, with less checks and balances, can move much more quickly - and offers us view on the future here in the west. President Xi has proclaimed a policy to stop housing being used for speculation. Chinese policy has not been a happy policy for Chinese property developers.



I was talking to a friend in London, whose landlord was asking for 50% increase in rent. I asked how they justified such a big increase, and he said that the landlord needed rent to rise that much to pay their mortgage. As they had owned this property for a number of years, the implication was that the landlord was using the rent to pay an interest only mortgage and spending the rest. Searching Tiktok for “renting in london” will produce a stream of angry videos. The problem is that if you look at UK house prices, and compare to rent CPI, you can see that ever lower interest rates have acted to keep rent CPI under control.



To put it another way, rising mortgage rates create rising rents. The US National Association of Realtors calculate a qualifying income, that is the minimum income you need to qualify for a mortgage. With rising house prices and now rising mortgage rates, the qualifying income has risen from USD50,000 to over USD90,000 in two years.



Part of me looks at this and says well this is very bullish for landlords. A lot of potential homebuyers will be priced out of the market, and will need to become tenants, and rents will need to rise - which is what we are already seeing in London. The problem of course is that real incomes in the UK have not risen since 2007.



Asking more rent from people that have not seen a wage increase in 15 years seems politically toxic to me.

The current UK government is hoping to adopt the austerity policies of the Cameron era, that is to push real wages down, to make the UK more competitive and to keep interest rates down. There are what I would call pro-capital policies, and I would suggest they are dead in the water.

Nurses, postal service and train drivers have all announced strike actions, and personally I don’t blame them. How big is this strike action going to be? The OECD used to keep a track of days lost to industrial disputes but stopped publishing the data in 2011. The units are thousands - so peak strikes in 1979 cost nearly 12 million working days in September of 1979. How does current proposed strikes compare? The UK has 5.7 million public sector workers, with 1.88 million in the NHS alone. Assuming 20% participation, and with a seven-day strike, you easily get numbers seen in the early 1970s, with more than 7 million working days (of course a larger population now makes it not a perfect comparison), but we are talking big numbers.



Politicians being politicians will do whatever they need to do to stay in power.

Berlin has had rent controls in place since 2015 which has survived numerous legal challenges. Mayor of London, Sadiq Khan has spoken positively of rent control. Given that rising interest rates are actually pushing up rents - the opposite of the Bank of England’s intention, new policies are required. Rent control seems a vote winner to me, which makes it likely. Or in other words - **** landlords.

German Meat Industry Warn Of Empty Supermarket Shelves, Another 40% Jump In Meat Prices

THURSDAY, NOV 17, 2022 - 02:00 AM
Authored by John Cody via Remix News,

The German meat industry has warned of impending supply bottlenecks, especially concerning pork, and a board member is putting at least some of the blame on Germany’s current left-wing government, which is well-known for its attacks on meat and efforts to transition to a plant-based food supply.


One of the main factors affecting Germany’s meat supply, according to Kelliger, is the reduction of fattening pigs from livestock farmers. Others farmers have simply given up on production and are going bankrupt.


“Whether that will be 20, 30, or 40 percent cannot be quantified today — but it will increase significantly again,” said Kellinger. Such an increase would already be on the back of already substantial increases. Germany has experienced an overall 40 percent increase in food prices this year, including a 73 percent increase in potatoes. Further price jumps ahead could be disastrous for German consumers.

However, a dramatic increase in meat prices may actually fit with the agenda of the German government, which has been actively promoting a switch to a plant-based diet. Kellinger was not short on criticism for the government on the subject.


To back up his claim, he referred to analyses by GfK consumer researchers. In addition, a survey from 2016 found that 83 percent of Germans eat meat several times a week and over a quarter of the German population eats meat every single day.

Kelliger also slammed Federal Minister of Food and Agriculture Cem Özdemir, from the Green Party, for promoting a meat tax.


While Green politicians have condemned meat eating, the social reality is different, with nearly the entire German population eating meat on a regular basis. However, agricultural and green policies are stifling German meat production, making Germany wholly dependent on meat from foreign countries; this is creating a new dependence similar to Germany’s reliance on Russian gas, which turned out to be a catastrophic mistake.

“Germany is now the largest meat importer in Europe,” says Gereon Schulze-Althoff, VDF board member and senior sustainability and quality manager at the slaughterhouse Tönnies. “We are now at a point where we can calculate when we will no longer be able to provide ourselves with meat.”

FTX: The Dominoes Of Financial Fraud Have Yet To Fall

THURSDAY, NOV 17, 2022 - 04:20 AM
Authored by Charles Hugh Smith via OfTwoMinds blog,

Once assets are revealed as worth far less than claimed, insolvency is the inevitable result.

If you haven't plowed through dozens of post-collapse commentaries on FTX, I'm saving you the trouble: here's a distillation of what matters going forward. If you're seeking a forensic accounting of FTX, others have done this work already. If you're seeking an ideological diatribe, you won't find that here, either.

What you will find is insight into the real innovation of FTX: FTX compressed the entire playbook and history of financial fraud into one brief cycle of the credulous bamboozled, Charles Ponzi bested and creative accounting being revealed for what it really is, fraud.

All financial frauds share the same set of tools. The toolbox of financial fraud, whether it is traditional or crypto-based, contains variations of these basic mechanisms:


I have often recommended Herman Melville's novel The Confidence-Man for its masterful depiction of how The Confidence-Man persuades the skeptic that not only is The Confidence-Man trustworthy, but he is doing the mark a favor in taking his money.

Note that there are quasi-legal versions of some of these tools. The full exposure to the risks inherent in extreme leverage and illiquidity can be cloaked, buried in off-balance sheet assets and liabilities, etc., while pages of mind-numbing disclosures were duly signed by blinded-by-greed marks.

These quasi-legal versions are just as prone to unraveling and collapse as the blatantly fraudulent varieties. Properly disclosed leverage and illiquidity are just as prone to unraveling as undisclosed leverage and illiquidity.

Mismatches of duration, liquidity and risk are just as toxic to full-disclosure firms as they are to fraudulent firms.

This is why we can predict the dominoes of FTX's financial fraud have yet to fall. When there are mismatches in counterparty asset durations and liquidity, assets that theoretically cover loans that are called can't be sold or can only be sold at ruinous discounts.

Leverage works both ways, and so the 100-to-1 leverage that's so glorious when the $1 yields $100 in gains also triggers the mass liquidation of illiquid assets when small losses unwind all that leverage.

Everyone caught short by losses, redemptions and counterparty claims will be desperate to hide their exposure to insolvency. But humans are herd animals, and once the herd gets spooked, trust in assurances quickly plummets and all eyes are on counterparty risks and the actual market for lightly traded assets.

Once assets are revealed as worth far less than claimed, insolvency is the inevitable result. How far will the lines of toppling dominoes extend? Quite possibly much farther than the credulous believe possible.

From Crypto Carnage To A Financial Crash?​

THURSDAY, NOV 17, 2022 - 06:25 AM
Authored by Tuomas Malinen via The Epoch Times,

Cryptocurrencies have been on the doldrums since the ‘Crypto Carnage’ of Spring 2021. Over the weekend, a Bahama-based crypto exchange FTX Exchange collapsed. It will probably not be the last one.

Due to the massive financial speculation, induced by the credit (QE) programs of central banks, the crypto market grew into a hub of speculation. During their first global crash in spring 2021, it was rumored that some players had been engaged in speculation with leverage of 100x. That is, by borrowing 100 times the value of the underlying asset (cryptocurrency) and investing it back into the market. I have to admit that I had never heard of anything similar. In standard economic thinking, leverage of 12x was considered extreme. That “rule of thumb” was shattered in the crypto markets.

Now, the situation is a bit similar but different. Leverage used in the crypto market has most likely fallen from the previous extremes, but now the ‘Ponzi schemes’ are starting to reveal themselves in the crypto markets. Some crypto exchanges seem to have used the money invested there to speculate on assets or to other suspicious activities.

FTX Exchange​

To top of it all, the now defunct FTX Exchange released a note on Saturday stating that it had been hacked and hundreds of millions of dollars removed from its accounts. So, the situation with FTX Exchange looks like fraud. It has also been rumored to have dubious connections to the Democratic Party, but that may just be a political gimmick.


The FTX logo is seen on a computer in Atlanta, Ga. on Nov.10, 2022. (Michael M. Santiago/Getty Images)

I and the company I am running, GnS Economics, have warned about the instability of cryptocurrencies for some years. In a special report published in June 2021, we concluded that:

“While the technology itself is promising and even “revolutionary”, its application alone does not add a tremendous amount of value. Nobody owns blockchain technology and anyone can make a new cryptocurrency, and many have done just that. While artificial scarcity is induced by design for particular cryptocurrencies, there is no limit to the potential number of different cryptocurrencies. As a result, new competing cryptocurrencies are popping up with no end in sight. Which—if any—will survive in the medium or long run?”

Controlling Money​

When the current carnage in the crypto markets is over, and the dust settles, they are likely to face another existential threat from central banks and governments who want to control money. They may try to regulate the cryptocurrencies that survive the crash to death. Cryptocurrencies have thus, most likely, entered a battle from which only few will survive.

However, I don’t consider the all-but-necessary reshuffling of the cryptocurrency scene as the main foretelling of the current crypto carnage.

This is because the collapse of the crypto scene implies that speculation and leverage are being pulled from the financial system, starting from the most-speculative end, i.e., the crypto market.

There are three reasons for this: monetary tightening by the central banks, approaching recession, and the coming winter in Europe.

The last time central banks tried to diminish their global balance sheet, first asset and credit markets nearly crashed (in the turn of 2018/2019), and then the repurchase or repo markets imploded (September 2019). This event ended the global quantitative tightening. Now the central banks are trying to diminish their balance sheets from a much higher level. I wish them the best of luck, but I fear the worst.


A figure presenting the combined balance sheet of the Bank of Japan, European Central Bank, the Federal Reserve, the Fed Funds rate, and the major market events from Jan. 2018 to Dec. 2019. (GnS Economics, BoJ, ECB, Fed)


A figure of the balance sheets of the Bank of Japan, European Central Bank, the Federal Reserve, and the Peoples Bank of China in U.S. dollars. (GnS Economics, BoJ, ECB, Fed, PBoC)

I have been warning about the approaching recession for months. The European Commission now expects the Eurozone to fall into recession by the year-end, and it appears recession is also finally reaching the United States.

Recently, FedEx, the global logistic giant, announced it would start furloughing the workforce due to “current business conditions impacting volumes.” There probably cannot be a clearer sign of impending recession that a logistics company announcing workforce diminution during the main holiday season of the year.

According to the forecasts, winter will arrive in Europe (it has been long overdue) this week. It will most likely lead to another spike in energy prices and, in the worst case, to rolling blackouts or even energy lockdowns down the line. An energy crisis is likely (it has already) hit the industrial mainland of Europe, Germany, hard and it will continue to reverberate across our continent.
It is questionable will the financial sector be able to handle yet another series of shocks just three months apart. My fear is that the hit may start the next stage of the economic collapse that began already in 2020.
The fact is that the global financial sector is in dire straits, which is visible when one analyzes the sources of global liquidity (credit). I will return to these issues in more detail in my following posts.
In the meantime, I am urging everyone to continue preparing for the winter, which may be the darkest we have seen for a very long time.

US Single-Family Housing Permits Plunge To COVID Crisis Lows, Starts Slump​

THURSDAY, NOV 17, 2022 - 05:42 AM

With homebuilder sentiment collapsing, it should be no surprise that analysts expected housing starts and permits to tumble in October, and they were right with starts dropping 4.2% MoM and permits down 2.4% MoM...


Source: Bloomberg

That pushed the total number (SAAR) of building permits (forward looking) to its lowest since Aug 2020...


Source: Bloomberg

Breaking down the numbers, we see single-family housing starts plunge 6.1% MoM and single-family permits tumbled for the 8th straight month. Multi-family starts and permits also both fell (-0.5% MoM and-1.9% MoM respectively)...


Source: Bloomberg

Single-Family starts (SAAR) are at the lowest since May 2020...



Finally, given the further plunge in homebuilder future sales expectations, it appears housing starts have a long way to fall before any balance is found...


Source: Bloomberg

And that means dramatic pain ahead (and even, perversely, higher home prices as supply is constrained).

‘Look The Other Way’: Increase In Chinese International Students Raises National Security Concerns, Experts Say

Daily Caller News Foundation logo
REAGAN REESE
CONTRIBUTOR
November 16, 2022

The increase of Chinese international students attending U.S. universities presents an opportunity for the Chinese government to conduct espionage, experts told the Daily Caller News Foundation.

“You have students you’re sending students abroad, that are gathering up Western expertise, and then once that knowledge is there, they’re taking it home with them. Then obviously, probably working for some state or enterprise or something else where you’re still talking about American adversaries,” Ian Oxnevad, program research assistant at the National Scholars Association, told the DCNF.

“With an adversary nation like China, some of the STEM-related benefits are double-edged,” Dr. Anders Corr, the publisher of Journal of Political Risk, a peer-reviewed journal examining the impact of events such as war and terrorism, told the DCNF. “The regime in Beijing seeks to extract as much STEM knowledge as possible from the West, and they seek to use it to eclipse our own STEM and its critical role in the economic and military dominance of the democracies.

The increase in enrollment of Chinese international students in U.S. colleges raises national security concerns, experts told the Daily Caller News Foundation, as it presents a golden opportunity for the Chinese government to infiltrate American institutions.

International students’ enrollment in U.S. universities increased to approximately 948,519 in the 2021-2022 school year, with about 291,000 of those students being from China, according to a report by the Institute of International Education and U.S. State Department. Though many argue the influx of Chinese students brings economic benefits, it also presents an opportunity for the Chinese government to conduct economic espionage and even threaten national security, experts told the DCNF.

“With an adversary nation like China, some of the STEM-related benefits are double-edged,” Dr. Anders Corr, the publisher of Journal of Political Risk, a peer-reviewed journal examining the impact of events such as war and terrorism, told the DCNF. “The regime in Beijing seeks to extract as much STEM knowledge as possible from the West, and they seek to use it to eclipse our own STEM and its critical role in the economic and military dominance of the democracies. China has already outpaced our industrial strength by extracting it from the U.S. and allies since the 1970s, and now it is attempting the same scientifically.”

U.S. intelligence officials have long believed American universities to be a weak spot for security threats, such as espionage, noting that spies brought to campus through student visas are normally never caught, NBC News reported. Numerous Chinese students and professors working in the U.S. have been convicted of espionage-related crimes, using their university positions to steal intellectual property, scientific knowledge and technological innovations.

Peter Wood, president of the National Scholars Association, told the DCNF that the sheer number of Chinese students affords the PRC ample opportunity to weaken America from the inside.

“First, they make American college programs dependent on foreign powers,” Wood told the DCNF. “Last year China enrolled more than 290,000 students in U.S. universities – 30.6 of the total number of international students. What does it mean when our nation’s leading adversary contributes so much to the bottom line of many of our colleges and universities? It means the leaders of those universities look the other way when many of these students turn out to be agents of the Chinese Communist Party who are bent on acquiring U.S. technical expertise, cultivating close relations with our top researchers and engaging in outright theft of intellectual property.”

In the 2021-2022 school year, Chinese students made up around 30% of all international students in the U.S. as overall international enrollment rose 3.8%.

“A lot of our ideas, technology, research, innovation is incubated on those university campuses,” Bill Evanina, the top counterintelligence official in the Office of the Director of National Intelligence, told NBC News. “That’s where the science and technology originates — and that’s why it’s the most prime place to steal.”

The Trump administration made the presence of international students in American universities a national security priority and in 2020 cancelled the visas of more than 1,000 Chinese students who had connections to the Chinese military, according to a White House press release. The policy has been kept in place by the Biden administration, and denies visas to Chinese students if they attended certain Chinese universities and have ties to certain state organs.

Ian Oxnevad, program research assistant at the National Scholars Association, told the DCNF that universities are ways for China to bring Western knowledge back to their own country.

“From an economic espionage standpoint, that’s basically the softest target, in a lot of ways, at least historically,” Oxnevad told the DCNF.

“You have students you’re sending students abroad, that are gathering up Western expertise, and then once that knowledge is there, they’re taking it home with them,” he said. “Then obviously, probably working for some state or enterprise or something else where you’re still talking about American adversaries.”

However, many have argued that the acceptance of international students is essential to an effective diplomatic strategy.

Lee Satterfield, former Assistant Secretary of State for Educational and Cultural Affairs, told The Washington Post that international students at U.S. universities “is at the heart of people-to-people diplomacy and a foundational component of our U.S. foreign policy strategy to attract the top talent to the United States.”

The U.S. Department of State did not immediately respond to the DCNF’s request for comment.

Some days you need a strong mind and stomach for this thread. Thanks for your work, marsh.

Obama Foundation Event On ‘Disinformation’ Features Serial Spreaders Of Disinformation​

BRONSON WINSLOWCONTRIBUTOR
November 16, 202212:48 PM ET

• The Obama Foundation is hosting a forum Thursday where “disinformation” will be discussed by a group with alleged ties to spreading disinformation.
• The forum will be moderated by Renee DiResta, who allegedly helped sway elections through the use of bots and is connected to the censorship of stories about Hunter Biden’s laptop.
• Nikole Hannah-Jones, one of the panelists for the forum, is the author of the “1619 Project” which claims slavery was the primary cause of the American Revolution, a claim rebuked by historians and a group of college professors in a New York Times article.

The Obama Foundation is hosting a forum Thursday where “disinformation” will be discussed by a group with alleged ties to spreading disinformation and a historian who has been criticized by many in her field.

The “Tackling Disinformation, Protecting Democracy” forum, hosted by former President Barack Obama in connection with Columbia University and the University of Chicago, will be moderated by Renee DiResta, who allegedly helped sway elections through the use of bots and is connected the censorship of stories about Hunter Biden’s laptop. Nikole Hannah-Jones, one of the panelists for the forum, is the author of the “1619 Project” which claims slavery was the primary cause of the American Revolution, a claim rebuked by historians and a group of college professors in a New York Times article.

“[Nikole Hannah-Jones] erroneously claims that slavery was a primary cause of the American Revolution. She bases this claim on the Dunmore proclamation, where the British governor of Virginia offered freedom to slaves who fought for the royalist cause. She claims at one point that Dunmore’s proclamation induced George Washington to join the rebellion,” Phillip Magness, who authored a critique of the “1619 Project,” told the Daily Caller News Foundation.

“This is false though. Dunmore issued his proclamation in November 1775. But George Washington had already been named the commander-in-chief of the Continental army the previous June,” Magness continued.

In 2019, a group of professors from Princeton University, City University of New York, Brown University and Texas State University rebuked Hannah-Jones’s claim in a letter to the editor of The New York Times where the “1619 Project” was originally published.

“We are dismayed at some of the factual errors in the project and the closed process behind it,” the group said. “These errors, which concern major events, cannot be described as interpretation or ‘framing.’ They are matters of verifiable fact, which are the foundation of both honest scholarship and honest journalism,” the group said.

“Hannah Jones is a serial generator and purveyor of misinformation herself.

She has done so flagrantly in the cases I mentioned, and she becomes belligerent and personally abusive toward anyone who corrects her claims – even when she is unambiguously wrong on basic matters of fact,” Magness said.

Panel moderator DiResta previously served as an advisor to tech company American Engagement Technologies, which is credited with creating fake online personas to fight against the Republican vote in 2017, according to The Washington Free Beacon. DiResta denied involvement, yet moved to tech company New Knowledge, which was involved in the same disinformation project.

DiResta was also part of the Aspen Commission that released a report criticizing social media companies for failing to address disinformation, but did not reference the censorship of the Hunter Biden article, according to the Beacon. The founder of the commission, Craig Newmark, reportedly sponsored disinformation about Biden’s laptop.

Obama was cited for disinformation in 2012 after referring to an attack on the U.S. Consulate in Benghazi as the result of an unplanned protest spurred by a YouTube video taped in California. Obama’s claim was later undermined by Matt Olsen, the director of the multi-agency National Counterterrorism Center, who labeled the event a”terrorist attack,” stating that it was a planned surprise attack.

In another example, Obama told Americans in 2009 that Obamacare would not prevent anyone from keeping their current doctors.

DiResta, Hannah-Jones and the Obama Foundation did not immediately respond to the DCNF’s request for comment.

Michael Yon @MichaelYon
Nov 17, 2022 at 5:37am
Arrogance Kills
Our own government is using industrial strength psychological warfare — openly targeting Americans.

You are the target:

View: https://youtu.be/VA4e0NqyYMw
3:35 min
Ghosts In The Machine


^^^^^
Michael Yon @MichaelYon
Nov 17, 2022 at 5:24am
Drugs. Gimme Drugs!
17 November 2022
Arizona

Jack Posobiec posted the graphic on the drugs. I do not know the truth but can see something is wrong across America.

I responded on Gettr with the photos of two Generals, and this.
—-my response in mind dump form:

“As someone who spends more than 50% of my time overseas, the rest all over America…I can see something is wrong with behavior across America. Psychosis — or something — leaps out. Just bizarre behaviors that I do not normally see downrange. Here is totally normal.”

Another stand-out is severe arrogance among many Americans. An arrogance I normally only see with high-nosed Europeans, or Chinese leadership.
Arrogance dripping off many of our elected officials. Neck deep in pomp and pretense. Such as the drunken, arrogant ‘advisors’ surrounding @karilake. It’s all stage act.”

A problem or symptom is the fusion of ‘Hollywood’ behavior with politics. Politicians who prance around like Lady Gaga.”

“Prancers, Cancers, Dancers.”

"This Is Unprecedented": Enron Liquidator Overseeing FTX Bankruptcy Speechless: "I Have Never Seen Anything Like This"​

THURSDAY, NOV 17, 2022 - 07:10 AM

A few days ago we asked how much longer do we have to wait for the "first-day affidavit" in the FTX bankruptcy, traditionally the most detailed and comprehensive summary of how any given company collapsed into Chapter 11 (and in FTX's case, Chapter 7 soon, as this will soon become a full-blown liquidation)...


... and this morning we finally got our answer when it hit the docket (22-11068, U.S. Bankruptcy Court for the District of Delaware), almost a full week after FTX filed on Nov 11... and boy is it a doozy.

Because how else would one describe it when FTX's new CEO and liquidator, John Ray III, who also oversaw the unwinding and liquidation of Enron, admits that "Never in my career have I seen such a complete failure of corporate controls and such a complete absence of trustworthy financial information as occurred here."

And just in case his shock at FTX's fraud of epic proportions was not clear enough, he adds that "from compromised systems integrity and faulty regulatory oversight abroad, to the concentration of control in the hands of a very small group of inexperienced, unsophisticated and potentially compromised individuals, this situation is unprecedented."

According to Ray, he has located “only a fraction” of the digital assets of the FTX Group that they hope recover during the Chapter 11 bankruptcy. They’ve so far secured about $740 million of cryptocurrency in offline cold wallets, a storage method designed to prevent hacks. This is just a fraction of the $10-$50 billion in liabilities the company disclosed in its bankruptcy filing.

It gets better: Ray said that company’s audited financial statements should not be trusted, Ray said, adding that liquidators are working to rebuild balance sheets for FTX entities from the bottom up.

FTX “did not maintain centralized control of its cash” and failed to keep an accurate list of bank accounts and account signatories, or pay sufficient attention to the creditworthiness of banking partners, according to Ray.

Advisers don’t yet know how much cash FTX Group had when it filed for bankruptcy, but has found about $560 million attributable to various FTX entities so far.

Although restructuring advisers have been in control of FTX for less than a week, they’ve seen enough to depict the crypto company as a deeply flawed enterprise. Lasting records of decision making are hard to come by: Bankman-Fried often communicated through applications that auto-deleted in short order and asked employees to do the same, according to Ray.

Corporate funds of FTX Group were used to buy homes and other personal items for employees, Ray said.

Corporate funds were also used to buy homes and other personal items for employees and advisers, sometimes in their personal names.

"In the Bahamas, I understand that corporate funds of the FTX Group were used to purchase homes and other personal items for employees and advisors.

I understand that there does not appear to be documentation for certain of these transactions as loans, and that certain real estate was recorded in the personal name of these employees and advisors on the records of the Bahamas," Ray said, who also noted that the company didn't have appropriate corporate governance and never held board meetings. There was no accurate list of bank accounts and account signatories, as well as insufficient attention paid to the creditworthiness of banking partners.

The filing sheds light on the sloppy business practices, such as FTX employees asking to be paid through an online "chat" platform "where a disparate group of supervisors approved disbursements by responding with personalized emojis."

Below we excerpt some of the most notable highlights from the affidavit, which we embed at the bottom of the post and which everyone should read to get a sense of just how massive Sam Bankman-Fried's fraud was.

• I have over 40 years of legal and restructuring experience. I have been the Chief Restructuring Officer or Chief Executive Officer in several of the largest corporate failures in history. I have supervised situations involving allegations of criminal activity and malfeasance (Enron). I have supervised situations involving novel financial structures (Enron and Residential Capital) and cross-border asset recovery and maximization (Nortel and Overseas Shipholding). Nearly every situation in which I have been involved has been characterized by defects of some sort in internal controls, regulatory compliance, human resources and systems integrity.
• Never in my career have I seen such a complete failure of corporate controls and such a complete absence of trustworthy financial information as occurred here. From compromised systems integrity and faulty regulatory oversight abroad, to the concentration of control in the hands of a very small group of inexperienced, unsophisticated and potentially compromised individuals, this situation is unprecedented.
• For purposes of managing the Debtors’ affairs, I have identified four groups of businesses, which I refer to as “Silos.” These Silos include:
  • (a) a group composed of Debtor West Realm Shires Inc. and its Debtor and non-Debtor subsidiaries (the “WRS Silo”), which includes the businesses known as “FTX US,” “LedgerX,” “FTX US Derivatives,” “FTX US Capital Markets,” and “Embed Clearing,” among other businesses;
  • (b) a group composed of Debtor Alameda Research LLC and its Debtor subsidiaries (the “Alameda Silo”);
  • (c) a group composed of Debtor Clifton Bay Investments LLC, Debtor Clifton Bay Investments Ltd., Debtor Island Bay Ventures Inc. and Debtor FTX Ventures Ltd. (the “Ventures Silo”);
  • (d) a group composed of Debtor FTX Trading Ltd. and its Debtor and non-Debtor subsidiaries (the “Dotcom Silo”), including the exchanges doing business as “FTX.com” and similar exchanges in non-U.S. jurisdictions. These Silos together are referred to by me as the “FTX Group.
• Each of the Silos was controlled by Mr. Bankman-Fried.2 Minority equity interests in the Silos were held by Zixiao “Gary” Wang and Nishad Singh, the co-founders of the business along with Mr. Bankman-Fried. The WRS Silo and Dotcom Silo also have third party equity investors, including investment funds, endowments, sovereign wealth funds and families. To my knowledge, no single investor other than the co-founders owns more than 2% of the equity of any Silo.
• The diagram attached as Exhibit A provides a visual summary of the Silos and the indicative assets in each Silo. Exhibit B contains a preliminary corporate structure chart. These materials were prepared at my direction based on information available at this time and are subject to revision as our investigation into the affairs of the FTX Group continues.

There is much more information on each of these silos in the affidavit at the bottom of this post, but what we are curious about at this stage is what the Alameda balance sheet looks like: after all, that's what started this whole avalanche in the first place. Here are the details:

The parent company and primary operating company in the Alameda Silo is Alameda Research LLC, which is organized in the State of Delaware. Before the Petition Date (as defined below), the Alameda Silo operated quantitative trading funds specializing in crypto assets. Strategies included arbitrage, market making, yield farming and trading volatility. The Alameda Silo also offered over-the-counter trading services, and made and managed other debt and equity investments. In short, the Alameda Silo was a “crypto hedge fund” with a diversified business trading and speculating in digital assets and related loans and securities for the account of its owners, Messrs. Bankman-Fried (90%) and Wang (10%).

Alameda Research LLC prepared consolidated financial statements on a quarterly basis. To my knowledge, none of these financial statements have been audited. The September 30, 2022 balance sheet for the Alameda Silo shows $13.46 billion in total assets as of its date. However, because this balance sheet was unaudited and produced while the Debtors were controlled by Mr. Bankman-Fried, I do not have confidence in it and the information therein may not be correct as of the date stated.

The chart below summarizes certain information regarding the Alameda Silo’s consolidated assets as reflected in the September 30, 2022 balance sheet:


Silo’s consolidated liabilities as reflected in the September 30, 2022 balance sheet:



The problem, as we now know, is that the value of the assets was woefully overrepresented. But we'll get to that. First, let's look at the immediate history that led to the bankruptcy filing:

EVENTS LEADING TO CHAPTER 11 FILING

The Debtors faced a severe liquidity crisis that necessitated the filing of these Chapter 11 Cases on an emergency basis on November 11, 2022, and in the case of Debtor West Realm Shires Inc., on November 14, 2022 (collectively, the “Petition Date”). In the days leading up to the Petition Date, certain of the circumstances described in Part III below became known to a broader set of executives of the FTX Group beyond Mr. Bankman-Fried and members of his inner circle. Questions arose about Mr. Bankman-Fried’s leadership and the handling of the Debtors’ complex array of assets and businesses.

As the situation became increasingly dire, Sullivan & Cromwell and Alvarez & Marsal were engaged to provide restructuring advice and services to the Debtors.

On November 10, 2022, the Securities Commission of the Bahamas (the “SCB”) took action to freeze assets of non-Debtor FTX Digital Markets Ltd., a service provider to FTX Trading Ltd. and the employer of certain current and former executives and staff in the Bahamas. Mr. Brian Simms, K.C. was appointed as provisional liquidator of FTX Digital Markets Ltd. on a sealed record. The provisional liquidator for this Bahamas subsidiary has filed a chapter 15 petition seeking recognition of the provisional liquidation proceeding in the Bankruptcy Court for the Southern District of New York.

In addition, in the first hours of November 11, 2022 EST, the directors of non-Debtors FTX Express Pty Ltd and FTX Australia Pty Ltd., both Australian entities, appointed Messrs. Scott Langdon, John Mouawad and Rahul Goyal of Korda Mentha Restructuring as voluntary administrators.

At the same time, negotiations were being held between certain senior individuals of the FTX Group and Mr. Bankman-Fried concerning the resignation of Mr. Bankman-Fried and the commencement of these Chapter 11 Cases. Mr. Bankman-Fried consulted with numerous lawyers, including lawyers at Paul, Weiss, Rifkind, Wharton & Garrison LLP, other legal counsel and his father, Professor Joseph Bankman of Stanford Law School. A document effecting a relinquishment of control was prepared and comments from Mr. Bankman-Fried’s team incorporated. At approximately 4:30 a.m. EST on Friday, November 11, 2022, after further consultation with his legal counsel, Mr. Bankman-Fried ultimately agreed to resign, resulting in my appointment as the Debtors’ CEO. I was delegated all corporate powers and authority under applicable law, including the power to appoint independent directors and commence these Chapter 11 Cases on an emergency basis.

Cash management... or lack thereof:

The FTX Group did not maintain centralized control of its cash. Cash management procedural failures included the absence of an accurate list of bank accounts and account signatories, as well as insufficient attention to the creditworthiness of banking partner around the world. Under my direction, the Debtors are establishing a centralized cash management system with proper controls and reporting mechanisms.

During these Chapter 11 Cases, cash that the Debtors are able to locate and transfer to the United States without adverse consequences, including substantially all proceeds of the global reorganization effort, will be deposited into financial institutions in the United States that are approved depository institutions in accordance with the U.S. Trustee Guidelines. Each Silo will have a centralized cash pool, and the Debtors will implement appropriate arrangements for allocating costs across the various Silos and Debtors. The Debtors expect to file promptly a Cash Management Motion that will describe the new cash management system in more detail.

Because of historical cash management failures, the Debtors do not yet know the exact amount of cash that the FTX Group held as of the Petition Date. The Debtors are working with Alvarez & Marsal to verify all cash positions. To date, it has been possible to approximate the following balances as of the Petition Date based on available books and records:



The Debtors have been in contact with banking institutions that they believe hold or may hold Debtor cash. These banking institutions have been instructed to freeze withdrawals and alerted not to accept instructions from Mr. Bankman-Fried or other signatories. Proper signature authority and reporting systems are expected to be arranged shortly.

Effective cash management also requires liquidity forecasting, which I understand was also generally absent from the FTX Group historically. The Debtors are putting in place the systems and processes necessary for Alvarez & Marsal to produce a reliable cash forecast as well as the cash reporting required for Monthly Operating Reports under the Bankruptcy Code.

And now it gets really good: read this section on the company's "Financial Reporting"

The FTX Group received audit opinions on consolidated financial statements for two of the Silos – the WRS Silo and the Dotcom Silo – for the period ended December 31, 2021. The audit firm for the WRS Silo, Armanino LLP, was a firm with which I am professionally familiar. The audit firm for the Dotcom Silo was Prager Metis, a firm with which I am not familiar and whose website indicates that they are the “first-ever CPA firm to officially open its Metaverse headquarters in the metaverse platform Decentraland.

have substantial concerns as to the information presented in these audited financial statements, especially with respect to the Dotcom Silo. As a practical matter, I do not believe it appropriate for stakeholders or the Court to rely on the audited financial statements as a reliable indication of the financial circumstances of these Silos.

The Debtors have not yet been able to locate any audited financial statements with respect to the Alameda Silo or the Ventures Silo.

Part 1 of 2

Part 2 of 2

Next, human resources: even more insanity here.

he FTX Group’s approach to human resources combined employees of various entities and outside contractors, with unclear records and lines of responsibility. At this time, the Debtors have been unable to prepare a complete list of who worked for the FTX Group as of the Petition Date, or the terms of their employment. Repeated attempts to locate certain presumed employees to confirm their status have been unsuccessful to date.

Nevertheless, there is a core team of dedicated employees at the FTX Group who have stayed focused on their jobs during this crisis and with whom I have established appropriate lines of authority and working relationships. The Debtors continue to review personnel issues but I expect, based on my experience and the nature of the Debtors’ business, that a large number of employees of the Debtors will need to continue to work for the Debtors for the foreseeable future in order to establish accountability, preserve value and maximize stakeholder recoveries after the departure of Mr. Bankman-Fried. As Chief Executive Officer, I am thankful for the extraordinary efforts of this group of employees, who despite difficult personal circumstances, have risen to the occasion and demonstrated their critical importance to the Debtors.

... and better: here are FTX's "Disbursement Controls"

The Debtors did not have the type of disbursement controls that I believe are appropriate for a business enterprise. For example, employees of the FTX Group submitted payment requests through an on-line ‘chat’ platform where a disparate group of supervisors approved disbursements by responding with personalized emojis.

Digital Asset Custody

The FTX Group did not keep appropriate books and records, or security controls, with respect to its digital assets. Mr. Bankman-Fried and Mr. Wang controlled access to digital assets of the main businesses in the FTX Group (with the exception of LedgerX, regulated by the CFTC, and certain other regulated and/or licensed subsidiaries). Unacceptable management practices included the use of an unsecured group email account as the root user to access confidential private keys and critically sensitive data for the FTX Group companies around the world, the absence of daily reconciliation of positions on the blockchain, the use of software to conceal the misuse of customer funds, the secret exemption of Alameda from certain aspects of FTX.com’s auto-liquidation protocol, and the absence of independent governance as between Alameda (owned 90% by Mr. Bankman-Fried and 10% by Mr. Wang) and the Dotcom Silo (in which third parties had invested.

The Debtors have located and secured only a fraction of the digital assets of the FTX Group that they hope to recover in these Chapter 11 Cases. The Debtors have secured in new cold wallets approximately $740 million of cryptocurrency that the Debtors believe is attributable to either the WRS, Alameda and/or Dotcom Silos. The Debtors have not yet been able to determine how much of this cryptocurrency is allocable to each Silo, or even if such an allocation can be determined. These balances exclude cryptocurrency not currently under the Debtors’ control as a result of (a) at least $372 million of unauthorized transfers initiated on the Petition Date, during which time the Debtors immediately began moving cryptocurrency into cold storage to mitigate the risk to the remaining cryptocurrency that was accessible at the time, (b) the dilutive ‘minting’ of approximately $300 million in FTT tokens by an unauthorized source after the Petition Date and (c) the failure of the co-founders and potentially others to identify additional wallets believed to contain Debtor assets.

More as we read through the full filing, which is also embedded below:


Download this PDF

You were lied to again.​

Oops, looks like the science has changed.​

Peter Imanuelsen
10 min ago

Remember a few years ago when they told everyone to wear masks and lock themselves inside? Not only that, but do you also remember how they put up hand sanitizers everywhere?

It seemed like every store you went to there was a bottle of hand sanitizer at the entrance with signs telling you to sanitize your hands.

In fact, I still see them everywhere. Almost every store I go to there is a bottle of hand sanitizer, but I rarely see anyone use them anymore.

Now it turns out that they probably never helped with protecting against covid after all. Norwegian state media even wrote about this.

They say that there is little that shows that the use of hand sanitizer has contributed to help us avoid getting sick from covid. Because the virus infects in other ways.

Because covid doesn't spread very effectively on surfaces, using hand sanitizer doesn't do much at all. Instead covid is spread mainly in droplets through the air, where hand sanitizer obviously doesn't help.

According to the Norwegian Health Institute (FHI) covid primarily infect people by breathing in droplets containing the virus.

"The experience and research done during the pandemic show that hand hygiene has a low effect on covid infection" says Mette Fagernes, senior advisor at the Norwegian Health Institute.

The virus can infect through surface areas, but the risk for it is very low.

I never used the hand sanitizers at all. Here's the thing they don't tell you about han sanitizers. They are pretty bad for your skin. When I have used them in the past, my skin has become so dry that it begins to crack and bleed. It's obviously not a very good thing to walk around with open wounds on your hands when you want to avoid disease. Open wounds on your hands can increase the risk for infection. So in fact, hand sanitizers can be counter productive.

However...​

In Norway they are still recommending people to practice good hand hygiene, not to prevent covid, but to prevent other diseases.

Obviously having a decent hand hygiene is a good thing. Wash your hands after going to the toilet, or if your hands are dirty. But obssesively going around and using alcohol hand sanitizer every few seconds like a maniac is not a good idea.

I know of people who got problems with OCD after being pushed to use hand sanitizer. People have literally gotten mental health problems because of this insanity.

Think back 5 years ago. If you saw someone going around sanitizing their hands every few minutes, you would probably assume they had some problems. Now it has become normalized, and it was all for nothing.

So if they were wrong about hand sanitizer, where they wrong about anything else?

Extinction Rebellion Activists Have Worn Out Their Welcome And The Public Is Angry

THURSDAY, NOV 17, 2022 - 02:45 AM

When does activism for a cause turn into a narcissistic agenda for attention and self gratification? There's a fine line, and the Extinction Rebellion movement has surely crossed it with their incessant and self-indulgent drama.

This week, motorists in France were greeted with yet another Extinction group trying to glue themselves to the pavement of a major thoroughfare to block traffic in the name of stopping climate change. However, this time drivers did not simply sit around waiting for the police to arrive; instead, they began dragging the activists off the road by force.

View: https://youtu.be/hWvfm6ni2Dw
1:12 min

This incident is part of a growing frustration among normal people in response to climate cultism, with the Extinction Rebellion movement making up the bulk of the worst events. In the past several months there have been an increasing number of traffic disruptions and acts of vandalism. The most prominent actions include the attempted destruction of major works of art in national museums, many of them painted centuries before carbon “pollution” was an issue.

This too has prompted museums to become more aggressive in stopping activists from using vandalism as a means to get attention.

View: https://youtu.be/-Z26ldhlpOo
1:20 min

The inevitable outcome is obvious – The activists are going to start getting hurt. If the cause was based in reality then the hostility from the public might be diminished, but the cause is fraudulent. There is no man-made global warming and carbon pollution is not a threat to the future of the planet.

All the talk of global warming in the media might make people believe that the Earth is rapidly plunging into a hot cauldron of doom, but the truth according to the numbers of climate scientists is that the Earth's temperature has risen less than 1°C in the past 100 years. That's right, the Earth is supposed to be on the verge of Apocalypse because of less than ONE DEGREE of heat.



But what about context? Has the Earth ever been this hot before? And if so, what caused it?

In fact, the Earth has been much hotter in the past, and there is no evidence that carbon pollution was a singular trigger. Certainly, man-made carbon was not a factor in any previous heating event in the Earth's history.



So what is climate change hysteria and the Extinction Rebellion really all about? In the case of activists the issue is a need for rebellion and desperation for a cause. These are people who have far too much time on their hands and a feeling of inadequacy in life. In order to bring meaning to their hapless existence, they have attached themselves to the climate agenda without researching the circumstances and data.

In the case of the corporate media and global climate institutions funded by the UN and various governments, the issue is control. Climate change legislation along with carbon taxation gives the establishment the ability to micromanage almost all food production, manufacturing, resource development and energy usage. Not to mention, it creates an excuse for the implementation of population controls.

In a world where the UN and Extinction activists get their way, there might be a very real extinction involving mass reduction in energy output, the decline of the global economy and available agriculture. The world cannot sustain on green technology which is highly inefficient and incredibly costly. Oil, gas coal and perhaps nuclear power are the only practical resources to maintain our current civilization. But maybe that's the point?

Maybe the ultimate goal is to create a production environment that is so restrictive that only governments can manage it, while private businesses are forced out of the market. Maybe the goal is to make production and economy into a point of leverage that can be used to muscle the public into compliance with more authoritarian designs. Maybe climate change is nothing more than a springboard for tyranny.

As The Club Of Rome, a group of globalists sponsored by the UN, once stated in their book 'The First Global Revolution':

“In searching for a common enemy against whom we can unite, we came up with the idea that pollution, the threat of global warming, water shortages, famine and the like, would fit the bill. In their totality and their interactions these phenomena do constitute a common threat which must be confronted by everyone together. But in designating these dangers as the enemy, we fall into the trap, which we have already warned readers about, namely mistaking symptoms for causes. All these dangers are caused by human intervention in natural processes, and it is only through changed attitudes and behaviour that they can be overcome. The real enemy then is humanity itself.”

The quote comes from Chapter 5 of the treatise titled The Vacuum, which covers the concept of global government. It suggests that global warming and environmental hysteria are not actual threats, but fabricated dragons created for gullible activists to slay. Not only that, but these dragons are creations of human existence and subsistence. The only way to kill these paper thin dragons is total centralization, giving governments and global institutions ultimate power to “save humanity from itself.” How convenient for the globalists.

The activists on the the other hand as simply useful idiots being used to set fires to western civilization, to create havoc and inspire a sense of impending climate catastrophe that will never come. They might believe that once carbon controls are put in place they will have earned a seat a the table, or that their future's within the establishment edifice are assured. This is probably not the case. As history often shows with these kinds of movements, once the activists have served their purpose the elites do away with them.

Government Ministers at COP27 Call for More Ambitious Climate Action

15 November 2022

Delegates at COP27 attend the first high-level ministerial roundtable to discuss pre-2030 ambition

Government ministers attending a roundtable discussion delivered a collective call to urgently ramp up ambition on climate change across the board.

UN Climate Change News, 15 November 2022 – The first high-level ministerial roundtable on pre-2030 ambition took place at the UN Climate Change Conference COP27 yesterday, with a collective call to urgently ramp up climate action and support.

The roundtable, a new annual event to set the global direction on mitigation ambition and implementation that should be taken before 2030, opened with a stark report from UN Climate Change. According to the report, the world is way off track to stay below the Paris Agreement’s temperature goals.

The report showed implementation of current pledges by national governments would increase emissions by 10.6% by 2030 and put the world on track for a 2.5°C warmer world by the end of the century.

“This is the context we are in,” said UN Climate Change Executive Secretary Simon Stiell. “The world is bending the curve of greenhouse gas emissions downward, but these efforts remain woefully insufficient to limit global temperature rise to 1.5°C.”

According to the UN’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), greenhouse gas emissions must peak before 2025 at the latest and decline 43% by 2030 to limit global warming to 1.5°C.

“That’s peaking in two years, folks,” said Stiell. “If that is to happen, we have to send a clear signal from COP27 to policy makers, markets, and individuals – that this is happening.”

Stiell called for an ambitious mitigation work programme launched at COP27 that would reduce emissions faster, catalyze impactful action, and secure assurances from key countries that they will take immediate action to raise ambition and keep us on the path towards 1.5°C.

“The conference decision on the mitigation work programme – the decision that all Parties support – must reflect the level of urgency, the gravity of the threats we are facing, and the shortness of the time we have remaining to avoid the devastating consequences of runaway climate change,” said Stiell.

Jim Skea, the IPCC’s Working Group III Co-Chair, injected a sense of hope into the roundtable discussions by showing there are solutions in all sectors that can be deployed immediately to close the gap by 2030.

According to the IPCC, these mitigation solutions have the potential to halve emissions from 2019 levels by 2030 and cost less than USD 100 per tonne of carbon dioxide equivalent.

Pointing to the vast potential in the energy sector, for example, Skea said the costs of wind and solar have dropped dramatically in recent years. He also highlighted the huge potential of emission reductions in agriculture, land use and forestry, including better soil management and ecosystem restoration.

“We know how to do this,” said Skea. “It’s as if we’ve laid out all our tools on the tool bench but have yet to pick them up.”

Government ministers attending the roundtable delivered a collective call to urgently ramp up ambition across the board, with many developing countries stressing the need for support and sustained financial flows. Most ministers agreed the 1.5°C temperature limit is a “red line” that cannot be crossed.

An informal note that reflects the views expressed during the roundtable will be released in the coming weeks.

For more information, please contact LT-LEDS@unfccc.int.

View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bSpnKWguvPU
7:03 min

Gap between pledges and action sparks criticism at COP27 climate summit​

Nov 16, 2022

As nearly 200 countries negotiate at the COP27 climate talks on reducing emissions, there's a call for greater regulation and transparency around prior and future pledges. A United Nations report targets governments, corporations and banks for what's called "greenwashing," or making false or exaggerated claims of progress. Jamie Hannan of Fossil Free Media joined William Brangham to discuss.

^^^^^^^
View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7RLXj8qXuOY
6:00 min

Activists ask if COP27 is another 'greenwashing show' I DW News​

Nov 17, 2022


DW News

As the UN climate summit in Egypt nears its end, world leaders have been making major pledges on climate action. But activists are questioning if these promises mean anything, with gas deals on the rise and no progress on the limited promises of last year’s COP26. Meeting at a climate summit in the UK last year, world leaders from nearly 200 countries promised to tell the UN how they would cut pollution faster and sooner. But one year on, as they meet for the COP27 summit in Egypt, only 26 countries have done so.

View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ddv57MKBVuA
4:12 min

COP27 draft climate deal retains 1.5C limit, but many issues unresolved • FRANCE 24 English​

Nov 17, 2022


FRANCE 24 English

The first draft of a deal being hashed out at the COP27 climate summit in Egypt would keep a target of limiting global warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius, but leaves many of the most contentious issues in the talks unresolved ahead of a Friday deadline. FRANCE 24's Dave Keating reports from Egypt.

AG Minute audio on website 1:36 min

Rural Bankers Share Predictions on Farmland Values, Recession and the Economy​

By SARA SCHAFER November 17, 2022

For a sixth consecutive month, the rural economy has posted signs of weakness. That’s according to the Rural Mainstreet Index (RMI) from Creighton University.

For November 2022, the RMI sits at 45.7. That is up slightly from October’s 44.2. This was the fifth consecutive month the overall reading has fallen below growth neutral. The index ranges between 0 and 100 with a reading of 50 representing growth neutral and is generated by a monthly survey of bank CEOs in rural areas of a 10-state region dependent on agriculture and/or energy.

“The Rural Mainstreet economy is now experiencing a downturn in economic activity,” says Ernie Goss, who chairs Creighton’s Heider College of Business and leads the RMI. “Last month, almost one in four bankers reported that the economy was already in a recession.”

The region’s farmland price index rose to 68.2 from October’s 58. This was the 26th straight month that the index has climbed above 50.

However, 61% of bankers expect farmland prices to plateau at current prices, while 22% expect prices to decline in the next 12 months. The remaining 17% of bankers expect prices to expand, but at a slower pace.

The farm equipment-sales index jumped to a strong 59.5 from October’s weak 47.8. The index has risen above growth neutral for 22 of the last 24 months.

This month, bankers were asked if their bank was asking for greater upfront financial commitments for farm loans. Only 14% indicated an increase in such commitments. The remaining 86% reported no change in upfront commitments for farm loans.

The November loan volume index dropped to a still strong 65.8 from 76.8 in October, and the checking-deposit index increased to 48 from October’s 34.

“Higher farm input costs, greater farm equipment sales, and drought conditions in portions of the region supported strong borrowing from farmers,” Goss says.

Bankers were asked this month about their recommendation for the Federal Reserve’s interest rate action for the next several months. Thirty percent of bank CEOs recommend that the Fed cease raising rates. The largest percentage of bankers, 39%, recommend a half-percentage point increase (50 basis points) at its next meetings on Dec. 13-14.

“As the Fed has already raised rates six times (375 bps) in 2022, why not take a break in December and let the latest increase have time to settle itself?”
shared Jeff Bonnett, president of Havana National Bank in Havana, Ill. “A recession of some type seems imminent for the near future.”

The slowing economy, strong energy prices, higher borrowing costs and elevated agriculture input costs pushed the business confidence index down to 27.3 from 30.8 in October.

“This is the lowest reading for the confidence index since May 2020,” Goss says.

The RMI, which started in 2005, represents an early snapshot of the economy of rural agricultural and energy-dependent portions of the nation. It focuses on 200 rural communities with an average population of 1,300.

Flip Your Soil: Can Large Operators or Farmers in Drier Climates Successfully Use Cover Crops?​

Flip Your Soil Protecting Moisture 111722
By MICHELLE ROOK November 17, 2022

Video on website 1:21 min

Many larger farmers are apprehensive about using cover crops to Flip their Soil, and that is also true in drier climates. However, in Nebraska farmers have been successful at using cover crop for years.

In the southwest where they face moisture deficits nearly every growing season, farmers say cover crops provide cover and protect soil moisture. Plus, there are many other pluses for growers to consider. Nebraska farmer Adam Heskett says, "I think we've all been exposed to the benefits of cover crops, but it's actually taking that first step and not large scale. But find the field that maybe you have a problem with. Doesn't have to be big work with somebody in the industry that has knowledge and start integrating a few practices with those cover crops and don't give up."

And every farmer’s goals for cover crops are different, so formulate a plan.

Neil Dominy, Assistant State Conservationist for Partnerships, Nebraska Natural Resource Conservation Service says, "I believe you need to have purpose when you do it. So you should understand why you’re cover cropping, what you’re trying to do. Whether its for weed suppression, whether it is some additional grazing for cattle or whether its soil erosion, you want to protect your soil."

Dominy says when working with producers they take different approaches for those with livestock and without. And for those with cattle it’s easier to understand economically because they can recoup some of the cost through grazing.

^^^^^

Learning by Doing: Find out how cover crops, cost share practices can add value to your farm.​

November 17, 2022

Angela Knuth knows the farm she and her husband, Kerry, manage will look very different in the future.

That’s why the couple stays educated on trends in the industry and actively employs conservation practices on their fields, so their operation will be sustainable when their sons take over.

“Part of looking at conservation practices is to try to decrease the inputs as much as possible,” Knuth explains. “But it’s a learning curve. I think letting (our sons) have a say makes a huge difference in how much skin they have in the game.”

The Knuths are fourth-generation farmers, growing corn, soybeans, wheat, alfalfa, and oats near Mead, Nebraska. The Knuths pay attention to conservation, planting more than 700 acres of wheat cover crop last fall.

Working with the University of Nebraska in a cover crop cost-share setting helped open the door for the Knuths to try additional species.

“It got us out of our comfort zone,” Knuth says. “That paved the way for us to try more covers.”

Practical Farmers of Iowa Senior Programs and Member Engagement Director Sarah Carlson adds that producers often become more confident with some production practices like growing cover crops after talking with other farmers.

“Crop covers and small grains help farmers control their input costs,” she explains. “In the long term, they’re the better bet. It’s a way to get off the treadmill and get some power back. Every farmer should be able to do it on 50 percent of their acres, at least.”

Like many of their peers, the Knuths want to learn more about soil preservation.

That begins by helping other farmers learn the procedures and benefits of conservation practices.

Knuth says they have not always conducted soil tests and admits it is difficult to know how your farming practices are benefiting the soil without data to support it.

“There needs to be a lot of education to know what to look for, how to test, and what your goal is in building the soil,” Knuth says. “Each field is different. What’s your goal?”

Timely fertilizer application and placement can help farmers get the most production from a crop, and Knuth says they constantly monitor production history. Over the years, they’ve adapted application methods to better capture the nutrients fertilizer provides.

“Now we’re precision placing fertilizer,” Knuth explains. “The next step is building our own fertilizer through the cover crops or sequestering it. Then we want to back off even more, but we’ve got to add organic matter to the soil and build nutrients.”

Looking to the future, Knuth says conservation will take center stage as there are growing calls from the public for farmers to pay special attention to the impacts of their production practices.

“The consumer wants to know where their food comes from,” she says. “The connection between what you eat, healthy food, and healthy people is not going away. The noise just keeps getting louder.”

^^^Since Dust Bowl days, American farmers are used to Ag Days and Ag Tours. Ag Days will be a day or two if conference in off season where the local University Ag Extension office, USDA Conservation office and some vendors will put on slide shows and lectures on new techniques or practices to solve specific local farm issues - like weeds, pests, livestock disease. In spring and fall, there are usually show and tell field lectures to visit local farms and see crop test plots, conservation projects or some livestock issue/new practice. This is generally how new ideas are circulated through the local farming population.

Michael Yon @MichaelYon
Nov 17, 2022 at 2:59pm
Zelenksy Caught Lying after Deadly Ukrainian Missile Strike in Poland
Not our war. Our elections are being stolen. Border non-existent. Economy collapsing. Trillions stolen. CCP = massive threat.

Mr. T-shirt is just a lying actor, and thug, in a limited regional conflict that threatens to engulf the world and is already destroying Europe. Ukraine and Russia have been fighting for a century. Another forever war.

And they lie. Was this an honest error, or a false flag? Zelenksy definitely lied about it and is demanding more money from hungry Americans.

Two images, and a short video:

View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=09XWw9COKsY
1:06 min
Zelenskiy says he has 'no doubt' that missile that struck Poland was not Ukrainian

Guardian News

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy tells reporters that he has 'no doubt' that the missile that struck Poland and killed two people was not Ukrainian.

marsh said:

Dozens Of Countries Launch ‘Carbon Footprint Trackers’ – Just Like The World Economic Forum Promised.

Dozens of countries have seen their leading financial institutions and banks launch “carbon footprint trackers,” ostensibly to combat climate change,

warroom.org

Dozens Of Countries Launch ‘Carbon Footprint Trackers’ – Just Like The World Economic Forum Promised.​

BY: NATALIE WINTERS / WARROOM.ORG
by EDITOR
November 14, 2022

Dozens of countries have seen their leading financial institutions and banks launch “carbon footprint trackers,” ostensibly to combat climate change, for their clients.

The proliferation of the carbon tracking software follows the World Economic Forum (WEF) announcing that its member companies were working to implement a similar agenda as part of its broader climate change efforts. The WEF has also been accused of exploiting climate change to advance a social and political agenda rooted in “social credit scores” and digital identity tracking – similar to how the group weaponized COVID-19 to implement its “Great Reset” agenda.

Mastercard, for example, launched a “Carbon Calculator” feature that would “offer consumers an estimated carbon footprint for each of their purchases.”

Developed in collaboration with Swedish fin-tech Doconomy, it is currently used in 25 countries.

“By having clear insight into the effect your day-to-day footprint has on the planet, you can make small adjustments resulting in real change,” explains a summary of the Mastercard program.

Mastercard ‘Carbon Calculator’ Promo.

Canadian financial co-operative Vancity recently launched a program that will track the estimated carbon emissions of its Visa credit card holders.

“The Vancouver-based credit union says all Vancity Visa credit card holders will be offered the data, which will also include how their spending-linked emissions compare nationally and which purchases have the highest environmental cost,” explained an announcement.

The feature was developed in partnership with German fintech company ecolytiq.

Similarly, in Australia, Commonwealth Bank launched a program providing a “real-time carbon output” figure to 250,000 users.

“The first phase of the partnership will allow a select group of retail customers to view their carbon footprint via the CommBank app and offset their previous month’s transactions by purchasing carbon credits. This new feature will be available to all retail customers next year,” explained a summary of the program.

The press release continues:

“Our data capability will provide greater personalisation for customers overtime, including more granular information about their carbon footprint with the option to offset individual transactions.”

Carbon offsetting involves measuring how much carbon everyday activities, like driving your car, emit and then compensates your emissions through the benefits of green initiatives, such as Australian bushland regeneration.

The advent of carbon tracking software comes amidst a broader push from the WEF to roll out a broader digital identity tracking system.

^^^^^
(COMMENT: Obviously, they are working toward a rationing to reduce Western consumption of resources and to bring the standard of living down in equity with developing nations.)

Click to expand...

JO or the Ho will pardon him