"We Have 15,000 Samples In Wuhan ... Could Do Full Genomes Of 700 CoVs": Rand Paul Drops COVID Bombshell

  As we documented time and time again in the past, the Wuhan lab was fully integrated in a worldwide research project concerning the Covid Virus. 

  The good thing about Rand Paul is that he is a doctor and therefore understand what he is talking about. Likewise he has a grudge against Dr Fauci who insulted him publicly and will therefore do his utmost to uncover the malfeasance. 

  Considering the huge international damage this conspiracy has generated, it must be uncovered fully: The players, the research, the results, the virus escape, the pandemic, everything. Most of it has very little to do with China... It just happens that for convenience, the gene editing was taking place in Wuhan, a lab with a lower level of supervision which was probably the reason for the "accident". That at least is one theory but could there be more behind the story? We need to know! Not some bullsh*t about bats and wet markets!

"We Have 15,000 Samples In Wuhan ... Could Do Full Genomes Of 700 CoVs": Rand Paul Drops COVID Bombshell

Last week Senator Rand Paul (R-KY) wrote in a Tuesday op-ed that officials from 15 federal agencies "knew in 2018 that the Wuhan Institute of Virology was trying to create a coronavirus like COVID-19."

These officials knew that the Chinese lab was proposing to create a COVID 19-like virus and not one of these officials revealed this scheme to the public. In fact, 15 agencies with knowledge of this project have continuously refused to release any information concerning this alarming and dangerous research.

Government officials representing at least 15 federal agencies were briefed on a project proposed by Peter Daszak’s EcoHealth Alliance and the Wuhan Institute of Virology. -Rand Paul

Paul was referring to the DEFUSE project, which was revealed after DRASTIC Research uncovered documents showing that DARPA had been presented with a proposal by EcoHealth Alliance to perform gain-of-function research on bat coronavirus.

Now, Paul points to an email between EcoHealth's Daszak and "Fauci Flunky" David Morens from April 26, 2020 (noted days before by the House Select Subcommittee on the Coronavirus Pandemic), when the lab-leak hypothesis was gaining traction against Fauci - who funded EcoHealth research in Wuhan, and Daszak's orchestrated denials and the forced "natural origin" narrative.

In it, Daszak laments the "real and present danger that we are being targeted by extremists" (for pointing out that they were manipulating bat covid down the street from where a bat covid pandemic broke out), and called Donald Trump "shockingly ignorant."

He also told David that he would restrict communications "to gmail from now on," and planned to mount a response to an NIH request which appears to suggest moving out of Wuhan - to which Daszak says "Even that would be a loss - we have 15,000 samples in freezers in Wuhan and could do the full genomes of 700+ Co Vs we've identified if we don't cut this thread."

Which means Daszak, funded by Fauci, lied when he said "every single one of the SARSr-CoV sequences @EcoHealthNYC discovered in China is already published."

And Anthony Fauci concealed the '700 unknown coronaviruses' in Wuhan.

Semi Shock: ASML Craters As Orderbook Plummets After China Frontrunning Ends With A Bang

 To resume this article I cannot find a better quote than the Famous one from Sun Tzu in the Art of War: "Tactic without strategy is the noise before defeat!" Are Western politicians uneducated, incompetent, idiots or all of the above?

 Fighting China today is stupid, just as exporting all the jobs there during the last two decades was. But if you decide that a fight is necessary, it should at least be conducted intelligently, which means fewer stupid announcements and more strategy in the thinking. As the article makes clear indirectly: There is no strategy. 

 This reminds us of another fight in Ukraine which likewise should never have happened in the first place and is now, two years later on the verge of collapse. Different places, same incompetence, same result. 

Semi Shock: ASML Craters As Orderbook Plummets After China Frontrunning Ends With A Bang

Exactly three months ago, AI stocks were soaring, semiconductor names were flying and the tech sector was euphoric after Dutch chip giant ASML - the world’s sole producer of equipment needed to make the most advanced chips and Europe’s most valuable technology company - reported a record surge in its orderbook (just days after its Asian peer Taiwan Semi did the same)...

... and which the market immediately concluded, in its infinite stupidity, that this was the definitive confirmation of a flood of demand for AI chips and infrastructure with Bloomberg pouring oil on the fire, saying that the ASML results were "a sign that the semiconductor industry may be recovering" adding that "chipmakers are increasingly optimistic the sector’s outlook following a slump that dates back to the Covid-19 pandemic, with TSMC last week projecting strong revenue growth in 2024."

Not so fast, we countered and as we clearly warned in a January article titled "Tech Euphoria Sparked By ASML Surge To All-Time High On Flood Of Chinese Orders... There's Just One Problem"...

... the reason for the surge in ASML orders was that China, and its proxies in Taiwan and other Asian countries, has been flooding the market with chip purchase orders ahead of Biden's escalating China chip sanctions, knowing that the door is closing amid a barrage of sanctions limiting exports of high tech chips - and chipmaking devices - and that it needs to buy today what it may need for the next few years, if not indefinitely. (as explained in "Behind The Tech Meltup: A One-Time Chinese Chip Buying Frenzy To Frontrun Export Curbs").

And sure enough, China accounted for 39% of ASML’s sales in the fourth quarter and became the Veldhoven-based company’s largest market in 2023! Before speculation of chip sanctions, China accounted for only 8% in January to March.

So what? Well, such one-time buying spurts are - as the name implies - one-time... and as we reported 3 months ago, ASML has been targeted by the US effort to curb exports of cutting-edge technology to China, and Bloomberg reported that ASML exports to China have now effectively been halted, vaporizing whatever portion of the order backlog is thanks to China. This led us to conclude the following:

And so with China now scrubbed from the list of ASML clients - forget being its top customer - the question is who will fill the void. Luckily, demand for AI is keeping the chip sector afloat... or so the experts say, the same experts who fawned over ASML's result today which sparked a buying frenzy in the shares, which soared over 9% today, the biggest increase since November 2022, and hitting an all time high.

Good luck keeping that all time high with your largest customer now barred from future purchases by the State Department. As for "record AI chip demand", this quarter will prove very informative how much is real and how much is vapor once the volatility from China's erratic orderflow is finally removed.

So fast forward three months when "this quarter" is now in the history books, and this morning we got confirmation that everything we said was correct (and that the market, in its infinite stupidity wisdom, was wrong. Case in point: on Wednesday, ASML stock was one of the worst performers among the European tech sector, after the largest European company posted orders that fell short of analysts’ expectations, as Taiwanese chipmakers held off buying the Dutch firm’s most advanced machines.

Bookings at Europe’s most valuable technology firm fell 61% in the first quarter from the previous three months to €3.6 billion ($3.8 billion), wildly missing the market's ridiculous estimates of €4.63 billion, just as we said it would.

As Bloomberg notes, the world's top chipmakers like Taiwan Semi and Samsung Electronics held off new orders as manufacturer clients work through stockpiles of hardware used in smartphones, computers and cars. That’s hurting ASML, which also forecast sales this quarter below analyst expectations. And why did TSMC and Samsung over-order? Simple: they too, were expecting the flood of Chinese last-ditch orders, and were looking to frontrun it.

Well they did... and now everyone has a huge surplus of equipment!

Investors had expected TSMC to book significant EUV tools in the first quarter, according to Redburn Atlantic analyst Timm Schulze-Melander (but not according to ZeroHedge). The disappointment in orders leaves earnings and revenue for next year “vulnerable,” he said, confirming what we said one quarter ago when everyone was rushing to buy the stock on a one-off surge in orders.

The level of EUV orders is “extremely low,” indicating major ASML clients like TSMC, Samsung and Intel didn’t increase investments in the high-end equipment, Oddo BHF analyst Stephane Houri said. ASML saw the biggest slump in demand for its top-end extreme ultraviolet machines. Orders for them plunged to €656 million in the period from €5.6 billion in the previous quarter.

In other words, the frontrunning of China's order book is now dead and buried.

And now comes the hangover, ASML now sees sales in the current quarter between €5.7 billion and €6.2 billion, missing estimates of €6.5 billion before demand picks up. And while the company scrambled to reassure the market that "nothing is fucked here", and pushed demand into the second half as every company does when it misses quarterly expectations...

“Our outlook for the full year 2024 is unchanged, with the second half of the year expected to be stronger than the first half, in line with the industry’s continued recovery from the downturn,” Chief Executive Officer Peter Wennink said in a statement Wednesday. “We see 2024 as a transition year.”

... the market was less than willing to buy the BS this time, and with the company admitting that as much as 15% of China sales this year will be affected by the new export control measures - 50% is a more realistic number - the stock finally tumbled as the hangover finally arrives, if with a three month delay, and today the stock tumbled more than 6%....

A Generation Lost To Climate Anxiety

   If it was only climate anxiety! The Google generation has access to the whole knowledge of humanity but knows absolutely nothing which robs it of the ability to make sense of that knowledge. If AI has taught us anything at all, it is the value of context to give meaning to information. In any case, they've learned that everything is relative and depends on how you look at it. Utterly unable to consider other people's point of view if it differs from their own. What a brilliant starting point! Oh and yes, climate! We definitively have to do something about it! Fortunately Karl Swab and his friends at the WEF have some ideas which can easily be rephrased in a greener tone... How fortunate!

Authored by David Zaruk via RealClear Politics,

In a far-reaching new essay in The New Atlantis, the environmental researcher Ted Nordhaus makes a damning and authoritative case that while the basic science of CO2 and climate is solid, it has been abused by the activist class in service of a wildly irresponsible and unscientific climate catastrophism.

This reckless alarmism, saturated across the mainstream media and endlessly amplified by it, has had profound societal consequences. It has both distorted public understanding of the massive benefits the carbon economy makes possible and grossly exaggerated the risks of extreme events it allegedly makes more likely. 

As a result it has rendered reasonable debate on climate policy impossible, even as it has given cynical politicians an easy scapegoat for every social ill, drawing attention away from regulatory and institutional failures and laying blame instead at the feet of fossil fuel companies and other evil “emitters.” 

Perhaps most perniciously, as Nordhaus details, the doomsday prophesying of climate extremists has created hardened skeptics on one side who are increasingly suspicious of all public “expertise”, while at the same time infecting true believers on the other side with a crippling, pathological fatalism that has come to be referred to as “climate anxiety.”

Climate Anxiety

If there’s any flaw in Nordhaus’ damning and comprehensive analysis it’s that he undersells just how much damage the advent of “climate anxiety” has done already—and how much more it’s likely to do in years to come.

Yes, there’s the obvious cases of obnoxious and lawbreaking behavior, from climate iconoclasts defacing priceless works of art, to interrupting Broadway shows and sporting events, to gluing themselves to buses and holding up traffic on major thoroughfares.

But it runs much deeper than that.

Consider recent headlines: From Vox: “What to do when you’re completely overwhelmed by climate anxiety.” From The Guardian: “Climate anxiety adds to teenagers’ fears.” And the New York Times: “How Climate Change is Changing Therapy.” And perhaps most depressing of all, from the BBC: “Climate anxiety: 'I don't want to burden the world with my child.” The trend is so wide now that they have given it a name: birth strike.

And the data backs up the headlines—like the recent Finnish study of 6,000 subjects that showed people with “woke” beliefs have higher rates of depression. 

Developed countries are already facing real increases in mental health issues, many of them human-made and bound up in everything from the opioid crisis to the COVID pandemic. The manufacture of climate anxiety as an issue allegedly on par with those others is a dangerous distraction that draws resources away from solving these other mental health challenges.  

Innovative Solutions or More Activism?

Most of the real action on forestalling or mitigating the negative externalities created by the carbon economy is happening within industry itself. But instead of fueling a new generation of innovators and entrepreneurs to help produce these better, cleaner technologies, climate catastrophism has Gen Z curled up in a collective ball, while the likes of NPR tells its privileged listeners to "Let yourself feel the feelings — all of them" about our coming climate doom.  

Influencers like Greta Thunberg are motivating the young to pursue careers in political activism instead of research and innovation. It is easier to make the world angry through protest than to make it better by finding solutions.

Climate fear-mongering has created a dread so powerful it’s putatively putting people off of having children altogether, at a time when advanced countries are already facing precipitously declining fertility rates.

This bleak picture raises the question of exactly what’s in it for the eco-extremist purveyors of gloom. For Nordhaus, it’s akin to a religious mission. “Apocalyptic claims about an unfolding emergency, rather, serve a millenarian agenda”, he writes, “that variously demands that we abolish capitalism, bring about an end to economic growth, power the global economy entirely with wind and solar energy, feed the global population only with small-scale organic agriculture, and cut global emissions in half over the next decade or two.”

He doesn’t need to add that actually enacting that list of prescriptions would be both extremely unwise and largely impossible (and catastrophic). 

Political Opportunism

Nordhaus doesn’t go far enough. Because it doesn’t really matter whether drastic policy proposals would actually work if the real goal is just acquiring enough political power to dictate them. 

Left-wing political leaders have been using the specter of a “climate emergency” to justify the expansion of their powers for years—limiting consumer choice with product bans, picking winners and losers with boondoggle subsidies, and using lawfare to try and put energy companies out of business by abusing “public nuisance” laws, just to name a few. 

Even the political right is getting in on the action. Just recently a bipartisan group of U.S. Senators introduced the PROVE IT Act, a bill that pairs the Democrats’ long love of climate panic with Republicans' newfound love of protectionism and industrial policy.

Anyone who is paying close enough attention knows that these kinds of power plays are cynical, shortsighted, and counterproductive, but what we are collectively starting to realize is how much they’ve been enabled by the literal derangement of generations of well-intentioned folks by climate catastrophism.

The bitter irony is that there is good evidence the climate “experts” know better—like a recent study of 2,066 people that found that higher levels of scientific knowledge about the environment and climate change was associated with less climate anxiety.

When the famous teenage eco-activist Greta Thunberg snarled and sobbed at a UN climate conference that those in power had “stolen her childhood” she was absolutely right – just not in the way she thought...

All is not Lost

As the media reported children weeping in the streets during highly managed Extinction Rebellion or Just Stop Oil campaigns, shouldn’t there be some other direction for us to take? How can we motivate the next generation to be a force for innovation and positive change rather than feed them a steady diet of nihilism, hate, and anxiety? There are certain things that can be done to frame the future of humanity in a more positive light. 

Here are some ideas on how to stop malignant activism from eroding the hopes of humanity:

• Young people need positive mentors who are standing up to the pessimism with positive solutions. Scientists, professors, influencers need to focus on developing answers rather than acrimony.

• Positive stories need to be told. While the media focused on Greta as she sucked the hope out of the youth, other young people, like Boyan Slat, whose Ocean Cleanup achievements were legitimately inspirational, were largely ignored. Too bad the media is now funded largely by climate catastrophe foundations that promulgate pessimism. A new approach to media reporting, more transparent, more balanced, is overdue.

• Tech, business, and medical research sectors have venture capitalists who provide competitions and seed capital for young innovators to develop their ideas. Many recipients leave university to develop their ideas into successful companies. Very little like this exists for environmental health researchers. Rather there are a large number of bitter, under-funded postdocs who amplify the negativism.

• Tort reform in the US is necessary. Nordhaus highlighted how law firms were benefiting from the amplified public hatred of fossil fuel companies. Their lucrative anonymous payments to scientists, NGOs, foundations, filmmakers and the media via dark, donor-advised funds is poisoning an already toxic political arena.

• There needs to be better communication on the achievements and success stories of capitalism. The idea that the only solution to these climate challenges is to dismantle industry, restrict global trade, and block free markets is simply ludicrous.

These are a few of the necessary steps to help the public find a balance between humanity and environmental concerns. On climate issues, there needs to be more hope than horror, more imagination than resignation, and more inspiration than anxiety. With better stories and more responsible storytellers, the climate narrative can be reshaped from one of bitter acrimony to a challenge for innovators to once again push humanity forward.

The Evolution Of Intelligence

  Here is one way of looking at "intelligence". It is interesting although this is not the way I look at it as to my opinion this is far too human-centric and likewise conflates intelligence and consciousness. 

  Still, we can agree that the ability to ask questions and modify its representation of the world will be a quantum leap for AI. We haven't done this yet and I believe this is a good thing for when this happens we probably won't be able to control the result. Remember that a computer works and therefore thinks about a million times faster than we do. So once we open the door of open ended improvement, the progress may go from arithmetic to geometric to explosive: The Singularity!

The Evolution Of Intelligence

The expert consensus is that human-like machine intelligence is still a distant prospect, with only a 50-50 chance that it could emerge by 2059.

But what if there was a way to do it in less than half the time?

Visual Capitalist partnered with VERSES for the final entry in our AI Revolution Series to explore a potential roadmap to a shared or super intelligence that reduces the time required to as little as 16 years.

Active Inference and the Future of AI

The secret sauce behind this acceleration is something called active inference, a highly efficient model for cognition where beliefs are continuously updated to reduce uncertainty and increase the accuracy of predictions about how the world works.

 An AI built with this as its foundation would have beliefs about the world and would want to learn more about it; in other words, it would be curious. This is a quantum leap ahead of current state-of-the-art AI, like OpenAI’s ChatGPT or Google’s Gemini, which once they’ve completed their training, are in essence frozen in time; they cannot learn. 

At the same time, because active inference models cognitive processes, we would be able to “see” the thought processes and rationale for any given AI decision or belief. This is in stark contrast to existing AI, where the journey from prompt to response is a black box, with all the ethical and legal ramifications that that entails. As a result, an AI built on active inference would engender accountability and trust.

The 4 Stages of Artificial Intelligence

Here are the steps through which an active-inference-based intelligence could develop:

0. Systemic AI responds to prompts based on probabilities established during training: i.e. current state-of-the-art AI.

1. Sentient AI is quintessentially curious and uses experience to refine beliefs about the world. 

2. Sophisticated AI makes plans and experiments to increase its knowledge of the world. 

3. Sympathetic AI recognizes states of mind in others and ultimately itself. It is self-aware.  

4. Shared or Super AI is a collective intelligence emerging from the interactions of AI and their human partners.

Stage four represents a hypothetical planetary super-intelligence that could emerge from the Spatial Web, the next evolution of the internet that unites people, places, and things. 

A Thoughtful AI for the Future?

With AI already upending the way we live and work, and former tech evangelists raising red flags, it may be worth asking what kind of AI future we want? One where AI decisions are a black box, or one where AI is accountable and transparent, by design.

VERSES is developing an explainable AI based on active inference that can not only think, but also introspect and explain its “thought processes.”

Is the possibility of a (nuclear) World War real?

 I usually stay clear of Thierry Meyssan as his articles tend to include exaggerations and inaccurate information such as the use of nuclear weapons in Yemen below. (or in Beirut before.) Still his analysis is often knowledgeable and interesting. So here is his note on the Samson option.

Is the possibility of a World War real?

by Serge Marchand , Thierry Meyssan

 Atomic war is possible. World peace hangs on the finger of the United States, blackmailed by Ukrainian "integral nationalists" and Israeli "revisionist Zionists". If Washington doesn’t deliver weapons to massacre the Russians and Gazans, they won’t hesitate to launch Armageddon.

According to the Book of Judges, Samson is a Jew consecrated to God. He has vowed never to cut his hair and has fabulous strength. However, his mistress, Delilah, cuts off his braids while he sleeps, depriving him of God’s help and strength. He was taken prisoner by the Philistines, who gouged out his eyes and threw him into prison in Gaza. During a sacrifice to their god, when his hair had begun to grow back, he was placed between two columns in the palace. With his bare hands, he pushed them apart, causing the palace to collapse. He committed suicide, killing several thousand Philistines in the process.

The wars in Ukraine and Gaza have led several leading politicians to compare the current period with the 1930s, and to raise the possibility of a World War. Are these fears justified, or are they just fear-mongering?

To answer this question, we’re going to summarize events that are unknown to everyone, though well known to specialists. We shall do so dispassionately, at the risk of appearing indifferent to these horrors.

First, let’s distinguish between the conflicts in Eastern Europe and the Middle East. They have only two things in common:

 They represent no significant stakes in themselves, but a defeat for the West, which, after its defeat in Syria, would mark the end of its hegemony over the world.

 They are fueled by a fascist ideology, that of Dmytro Dontsov’s Ukrainian "integral nationalists" [1] and that of Vladimir Ze’ev Jabotinsky’s Israeli "revisionist Zionists" [2]; two groups that have been allies since 1917, but went underground during the Cold War and are unknown to the general public today.

There is, however, one notable difference between them:

The same fury is visible on both battlefields, but the "integral nationalists" sacrifice their own fellow citizens (there are hardly any able-bodied men under thirty left in the Ukraine), while the "revisionist Zionists" sacrifice people who are foreign to them, Arab civilians.

Is there a risk that these wars will become more widespread?

This is the will of both groups. The "integral nationalists" are constantly attacking Russia inside its territory and in Sudan, while the "revisionist Zionists" are bombing Lebanon, Syria and Iran (more precisely, Iranian territory in Syria, since the Damascus consulate is extra-territorialized). But no one responds: not Russia, Egypt or the Emirates in the first case, nor Hezbollah, the Syrian Arab Army or the Revolutionary Guards in the second.

All of them, including Russia, anxious to avoid a brutal retaliation from the "collective West" that would lead to a World War, prefer to take the blows and accept their deaths.

If war were to become widespread, it would no longer be simply conventional, but above all nuclear.

While we all know each other’s conventional capabilities, we are largely unaware of each other’s nuclear capabilities. The most we know is that only the USA used strategic nuclear bombs during the Second World War, and that Russia claims to have hypersonic nuclear launchers with which no other power can compete. However, some Western experts question the reality of these prodigious technical advances. Behind the scenes, what is the strategy of the nuclear powers?

In addition to the five permanent members of the Security Council, India, Pakistan, North Korea and Israel have strategic atomic bombs. All except Israel see them as a means of deterrence.

The Western media also present Iran as a nuclear power, which Russia and China officially deny.

During the Yemen war, Saudi Arabia bought tactical nuclear bombs from Israel and used them, but it does not seem to have them permanently at its disposal, nor to have mastered the technique.

Only Russia regularly conducts Nuclear War exercises. During last October’s exercises, Russia admitted to losing a third of its population in the space of a few hours, then simulated combat and emerged victorious.

Ultimately, all the nuclear powers have no intention of firing first, as this would undoubtedly lead to their destruction. The exception is Israel, which seems to have adopted the "Sanson doctrine" ("Let me die with the Philistines"). It would thus be the only power to imagine the ultimate sacrifice, the "Twilight of the Gods", dear to the Nazis.

Two critical works have been devoted to the Israeli military atom: The Samson Option: Israel’s Nuclear Arsenal and American Foreign Policy by Seymour M. Hersh (Random House, 1991) and Israel and the Bomb by Avner Cohen (Columbia University Press, 1998).

The military atom was never envisaged as a classic form of deterrence, but as an assurance that Israel would not hesitate to commit suicide to kill its enemies rather than be defeated. This is the Masada complex [3]. This way of thinking is in line with the "Hannibal Directive", according to which the IDF must kill its own soldiers rather than let them become prisoners of the enemy [4].

During the Six-Day War, the Israeli Prime Minister, the Ukrainian Levi Eshkol, ordered one of the two bombs Israel had at its disposal at the time to be prepared and detonated near an Egyptian military base on Mount Sinai. This plan was not carried out, as the IDF quickly won the conventional war. Had it gone ahead, the fallout would have killed not only Egyptians, but Israelis too [5].

During the October 1973 war (known in the West as the "Yom Kippur War"), the Defense Minister, the Ukrainian-born Israeli Moshe Dayan, and the Prime Minister, the Ukrainian Golda Meir, again considered the use of 13 atomic bombs [6].

Mordechai Vanunu’s revelations on the front page of the Sunday Times.

In 1986, a nuclear technician from the Dimona power plant, the Moroccan Mordechai Vanunu, revealed Israel’s secret military nuclear program to the Sunday Times [7]. He was kidnapped by Mossad in Rome, on the orders of the Israeli Prime Minister and father of the atomic bomb, Shimon Peres of Belarus. He was tried in camera and sentenced to 18 years in prison, 11 of which were spent in total isolation. He was again sentenced to 6 months’ imprisonment for daring to speak to the Voltaire Network.

In 2009, Martin van Creveld, Israel’s chief strategist, declared: "We have several hundred atomic warheads and rockets and can reach our targets in all directions, even Rome. Most European capitals are potential targets for our air force (...) The Palestinians must all be expelled. The people fighting for this goal are simply waiting for "the right person at the right time" to come along. Only two years ago, 7 or 8% of Israelis thought this would be the best solution, two months ago it was 33%, and now, according to a Gallup Poll, the figure is 44% in favor.

So it’s reasonable to assume that no nuclear power, except Israel, will dare commit the irreparable.

This is precisely what Heritage Minister Amichai Eliyahu (Otzma Yehudit/Jewish Force) envisaged on Radio Kol Berama on November 5. Referring to atomic weapons against Gaza, he declared: "It’s a solution... it’s an option". He then compared the residents of the Gaza Strip to "Nazis", assuring that "there are no non-combatants in Gaza" and that this territory does not deserve humanitarian aid. "There are no uninvolved people in Gaza".

These remarks provoked indignation in the West. Only Moscow was surprised that the International Atomic Energy Agency did not take up the matter [8].

It is very likely that this is the reason why Washington continues to arm Israel, even though it is calling for an immediate ceasefire: if the United States no longer supplies Tel Aviv with weapons to massacre the Gazans, the latter could use nuclear weapons against all the peoples of the region, including the Israelis.

In Ukraine, the "integral nationalists" planned to blackmail the United States with the same argument: the threat of nuclear or, failing that, biological weapons [9]. In 1994, Ukraine, which had a vast stockpile of Soviet atomic bombs, signed the Budapest Memorandum. The United States, the United Kingdom and Russia guaranteed Ukraine’s territorial integrity in exchange for the transfer of all its nuclear weapons to Russia and signature of the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons (NPT). However, after the overthrow of elected president Viktor Yanukovych in 2014 (EuroMaidan), the "integral nationalists" worked to re-nuclearize the country, which they saw as essential to eradicating Russia from the face of the earth.

On February 19, 2022, Ukrainian President Voloymyr Zelensky announced at the annual Munich Security Conference that he would challenge the Budapest Memorandum in order to rearm his country with nuclear weapons. Five days later, on February 24, 2022, Russia launched its special operation against the Kiev government to implement Resolution 2202. Its top priority was to seize Ukraine’s secret and illegal reserves of enriched uranium. After eight days of fighting, the civilian nuclear power plant at Zaporijjia was occupied by the Russian army.

Laurence Norman, the Wall Street Journal’s special envoy to the Davos forum on the Iranian nuclear issue, reported Rafael Grossi’s statement on the Ukrainian nuclear issue on Twitter, but did not publish an article on the subject. The information was confirmed by another journalist, this time from the New York Times, also on Twitter.

According to Argentina’s Rafael Grossi, head of the International Atomic Energy Agency, who spoke three months later on May 25 at the Davos Forum, Ukraine had secretly stored 30 tons of plutonium and 40 tons of uranium at Zaporijjia. At market prices, this stockpile was worth at least $150 billion. Russian President Vladimir Putin declared: "The only thing [Ukraine] lacks is a uranium enrichment system. But that’s a technical question, and for Ukraine it’s not an insoluble problem". However, his army had already removed a large part of this stock from the plant. Fighting continued for months. If the integral nationalists had still had them, they would have done what the "revisionist Zionists" are doing today: they would have demanded more and more weapons and, if refused, threatened to use them, i.e. to launch Armageddon.

Back to today’s battlefields. What are we seeing? In Ukraine and Palestine, the West continues to provide the "integral nationalists" and, to a lesser extent, the "revisionist Zionists" with an impressive arsenal. However, they have no reasonable hope of getting the Russians to back down, or of massacring all the Gazans. At worst, they can lead their allies to empty their arsenals, sacrifice all Ukrainians of fighting age and diplomatically isolate the puppet-state of Israel. As Moshe Dayan once said, "Israel must be like a mad dog, too dangerous to control".

Let’s imagine that these apparently catastrophic consequences are in fact their goal.

The world would then be divided in two, as it was during the Cold War, except that Israel would have become uninviting. In the West, the Anglo-Saxons would still be the masters, especially as they would be the only ones with weapons, their allies having exhausted theirs in Ukraine. Israel, isolated as it was in the late 70s and early 80s when it was only really recognized by the apartheid regime of South Africa, would still be fulfilling the mission it was originally entrusted with: to mobilize the Jewish diaspora in the service of the Empire, fearing a new wave of anti-Semitism.

This bleak vision is the only one that can keep the Anglo-Saxons from collapsing, and ensure that they will always have vassals, even if this will bear little relation to their power in the days of the "global world". This is why they have placed themselves in the current inextricable situation. The "integral nationalists" and "revisionist Zionists" are blackmailing them, but they intend to manipulate them to divide the world in two and preserve what they can of their supremacy.

Financial Forecast 2025-2032: Please Don't Be Naive

  Charles Hugh Smith offers a dismal perspective over the coming years and I still find him overly optimistic in that he believes the system will implode nicely, the economic soft landing applied to social science. The problem with the idea is that it has never happened in the past. What he describes is a projection of the current state of affairs as countries manage somehow to swim among imploding bubbles. This is indeed what Japan did for the last 30 years and what China is confronted to right now. As long as the global supply chain works, somehow, this is indeed a workable option. But sooner than later the global supply chain will break, probably due to war. Then assets will crash massively and suddenly we will find ourselves in a completely different paradigm. What is the likelihood of such a scenario? 

 Imagine a few bombs over Iran. A massive reaction and more effective bombing of Israel. The Samson-lite option (see the next article) used to dissuade the Mullah. The closing of the Hormuz Strait... Likelihood of happening: 50% Likelihood of transforming the World as we know it: 100%!  

 Or imagine Ukraine losing badly on the Eastern front, France sending a few soldiers who get killed, more NATO soldiers heading East...   Same likelihood of happening, about 50%.

PS: Isn't it what Gold at 2400, the Yen at 154 per USD and Oil above 90 are telling us?

Authored by Charles Hugh Smith via OfTwoMinds blog,

Rather than attempt to evade Caesar's reach, a better strategy might be to 'go gray': blend in, appear average.

Let's start by stipulating that I don't "like" this forecast. I'm not "talking my book" (for example, promoting nuclear power because I own shares in a uranium mine) or issuing this forecast because I favor it. I simply see it as the most likely trajectory of the global financial system, based on history and the dynamics of human systems. "Liking" it or not liking it has nothing to do with it: the opinions of Titanic passengers who didn't "like" that the ship was sinking didn't affect the outcome.

You already know the global financial system is untenable. In a nutshell, the expansion of production and consumption has been funded by the expansion of credit--money borrowed from future resources and income. The rate of expanding debt far surpasses the anemic rates of expanding production, and this rapidly expanding mountain of debt is perched precariously on the phantom collateral generated by The Everything Bubble, the astounding expansion of asset prices as those with the lowest cost access to credit have bid up every asset class, from real estate to gold to bitcoin to stocks to fine art.

All these assets are phantom collateral because they were bid up on the wings of cheap, abundant credit. History is rather decisive: all credit-asset bubbles pop, and the price of the assets round-trips back to pre-bubble valuations. As the bubble pops, credit shifts from being abundant and near-zero in cost to being scarce and dear.

The commercial real estate sector (CRE) is a real-time example of this dynamic. Half-empty buildings are being dumped at a fraction of their peak valuations, and then sold again for even less or abandoned to default and liquidation. This is how all bubbles pop; there is no other template supported by history. Humans cling to magical thinking and grasp at straws rather than face the unwelcome reality that the cycle has turned and there is no happy ending for those who believe the "real value" of an asset is the peak price at the top of the bubble.

Now that we understand the impossibility of keeping The Everything Bubble forever inflated, let's shift our attention to those tasked with keeping the system from collapsing. In my view, the closest analogy is police officers tasked with protecting the often ungrateful and undeserving while being plagued by do-gooders and naysayers who are safely isolated from the wretchedness they demand the cops deal with in a manner that meets with their refined approval.

In other words, us and them: only those who share the responsibility for protecting the often ungrateful and undeserving while being plagued by do-gooders and naysayers can understand. Outsiders know little of the realities and are often naive, basing their convictions on what they think "should happen" rather than the limitations of real life.

This will be the mindset of the authorities tasked with "saving" the system we all depend on--especially the wealthiest who have benefited the most. These is of course the class that feels most entitled to advocate for special treatment: we're rich and important, so you should listen to us and do what works for us.

In other words, like the do-gooders, naysayers and whiners telling the cops how to do their jobs. Those tasked with saving a system sliding toward an inevitable crisis will have little patience for obstructionists, however well-meaning. The attitude of those carrying the responsibility for saving the system will be: do your part, get out of the way, stop whining and be grateful we're saving the system for your benefit.

Let's now shift to a very common belief of "investors": foreseeing this crisis, we've piled up "hard money" assets that are safely hidden from the grubby, illegitimate grasp of authorities. When the crisis sweeps away the bubble, we'll still be rich, and we'll then scoop up all the bargain-priced assets, making ourselves even richer.

It gives me no pleasure to say the obvious: please don't be naive. Those who will be trying to save the system from collapse understand that every asset is only richly valued now because of the credit bubble. From their point of view, "investors" who are planning to preserve the bubble-valuation of their assets and then emerge to snap up everything for pennies on the dollar are, well, the enemy.

Another widespread belief holds that the hyper-wealthy always sneak through the wormhole and emerge with all their goodies intact. This fosters the idea that if they can do it, so can I. History offers examples on both sides: the great estates of the wealthiest Romans did not survive intact when the empire crumbled (or put another way, when control of the shards shifted to a new elite).

As the bottom 99.5% feel the squeeze, their rage at those at the top not paying their fair share will rise exponentially, and the political pressure on authorities to go after the hyper-wealthy will become too intense to ignore. Many of those trying to save the system will have already had enough of coddled billionaires, bankers and financier grifters.

Another conviction that will be revealed as naive is the faith that the rules will stay unchanged, allowing us to hoard our stash and emerge unscathed to scoop up the bargains offered by the less prescient. History is again rather definitive: the rules will change overnight, and continue changing, as needed. One "emergency measure" after another will be imposed and become normalized.

It's important to put ourselves in the shoes of those struggling with the impossible responsibility of keeping the system from collapsing. From their point of view, everyone trying to evade the wealth taxes, windfall taxes, special assessments, etc. are ungrateful whiners, as what will anyone have if the system collapses? We're doing you all a favor, taking only 10% in a wealth tax to preserve the 90% that remains yours.

Another point of naivete is what happens to obstructionists in a full-spectrum surveillance Corporate-state. China has shown other nation-states how to do it properly: every digital communication and transaction is monitored, and while VPNs and other gimmicks offer a few wormholes, the fundamental reality is: it takes an awful lot of effort to not leave a trail of crumbs, and at some point, is it worth all the effort? It's much easier to just pay the wealth tax, the windfall tax, grumble about it, and move on to enjoy life as best we can.

In China, the local authorities politely invite transgressors to tea, and offer a suggestion to mend your ways and keep your nose clean. Those who insist on mucking up the works after the kindly advice will be neutered one way or another.

The naivete also extends to ways to evade surveillance. We're all going to get by on barter. Really? Have you actually tried to exchange stuff with anonymous others? Like many encounters in online boards, people don't show up, they flake out or decide not to make the deal. It's tediously time-consuming and frustrating unless you already have a network of trusted contacts who do this kind of thing all the time.

In my experience, reciprocity with other trustworthy productive people works better than barter. Instead of haggling over price/value, just give stuff away. In a trusted network, whomever gets the free stuff will scrounge up something to give you for free in return. These networks tend to have a "node," an outgoing, friendly, trustworthy person who can find a welcoming home for whatever is being freely distributed, and pass around what's being given to those who gave freely of their surplus.

Another point of naivete is the belief that as an asset soars in value, the authorities will magically restrain themselves from noticing this juicy target. If we factor in history and human nature, we will conclude the opposite is more likely: the authorities will redouble their efforts to track and collect that which is Caesar's from those trying to evade the collection of everyone's "fair share."

Given the resources of the NSA et al., how plausible is it to think little old me is going to leave no digital crumbs as I go on my merry way? Thanks to automation of data scraping, it's going to get easier and cheaper to scrape data looking for miscreants trying to avoid paying "their fair share."

The whole idea of a wealth tax is it's a tax on all wealth, held anywhere in the world. So burying assets offshore only works as long as the authorities turn a blind eye to tax havens. As pressures mount, trusting the eyes to remain blind might not be as "sure-thing" as many seem to believe.

As specific assets soar in value, a "windfall tax" will become politically appealing. Since all this soaring wealth is unearned, shouldn't the fortunate owners pay a bit more due to the windfall nature of their unearned wealth? Of course they should.

The key point to understand is the system will have to grab enough collateral to fund itself while collateral evaporates in the deflation of the Everything Bubble. This will truly be a case of TINA--there is no alternative. Desperation will drive policy extremes few think of as possible, much less inevitable.

Something else that may be revealed as naive is the faith that moving to another nation-state will offer secure respite from those demanding we render unto Caesar that which is Caesar's. This faith overlooks the global reach of these dynamics: rampant inflation, the debasement of currency, the increasingly desperate need for collateral and revenue to keep the system from imploding, the rising cost of risk and credit, the scarcity of collateral, and so on. How will the nation-state we're moving to respond to these financial crises? What are the odds that they will magically escape the crisis, or come up with a painless solution that doesn't demand any sacrifices of residents? How secure will the rule of law and the wealth of foreigners be once push comes to shove?

In summary: to understand the next 8 to 10 years, start by having some sympathy for the fox and not just for the hare. Here we are, trying to save the system that everyone depends on, taking a modest 10% wealth tax, and the ungrateful wretches are whining and trying to evade paying their fair share.

Rather than attempt to evade Caesar's reach, a better strategy might be to go gray: blend in, look average: post photos of kittens and puppies, complain about the cost of groceries, drive a look-alike vehicle, live in an unremarkable house, render unto Caesar that which is Caesar's, forget about emerging as one of the rich who evaded Caesar and get on with enjoying one's private life focused on well-being, and as difficult as it may be, work up a little gratitude for those carrying the responsibility for keeping the system from collapsing. A system that degrades but coheres is a far better place to live than a system that completely collapses.

It gives me no joy to suggest please don't be naive, but a realistic appraisal of what happens when things unravel suggests there are few limits on "emergency measures" anywhere on the planet and it's best to plan accordingly and focus on what we can control rather than what we can't control.

Bread And Circuses: What It Means For Once-Great Nations

  A stunning parallel of bread and circus then (Roman time) and now. Well written and entertaining, and so, so true.

Authored by Nicole James via The Epoch Times,

Democracy, that ever-so-fleeting fancy, has a tendency to tumble into a bit of a tizz before it topples over, panting and gasping like a winded walrus.

John Adams, ever the prophet of doom, once quipped, “Democracy never lasts long. It soon wastes, exhausts and murders itself”—a sentiment echoing through the corridors of time.

And sounding much like the belch of a senator post-banquet in ancient Rome, where democracy was more a concept for philosophical banter than a practice.

Indeed, Rome, with all its pomp and voracious appetite for self-indulgence, serves as a cautionary tale. It’s a well-trodden path.

Once upon a time in Rome, there was Juvenal. Not your garden-variety naysayer, but a man whose tongue was so sharp, he could slice the moral fabric of society with a mere quip.

“Bread and circuses,” he scoffed.

“Keep the masses stuffed and entertained, and they won’t utter a peep against you.”

How a Great Empire Withered on Opulence

And so, Rome bloated, not just in the midriff but in its sense of self, as leisure became the national pastime.

Back then, over 200,000 souls, their fingers sticky from pastry, found the concept of lifting a finger (unless it was to signal for another helping) utterly foreign.

Rome was transformed into a grand stage, where almost every day was a festival, and the citizens were either performers, spectators, or busy in the vomitorium making room for the next course.

Naval skirmishes in makeshift lakes, chariot races that put the fast and furious to shame, and theatre so risqué it could make a statue of Venus look prudish, were all funded by the very people it was designed to distract.

Ninety-three days of sheer, unadulterated spectacle each year, turning Rome from a republic into an extravagant production, where democracy was but a whisper drowned out by the roar of the crowd.

Sound familiar?

A face-masked man walks by the ancient Colosseum in downtown Rome on Dec. 5, 2020. (Filippo Monteforte/AFP via Getty Images)

As the mighty arm of the empire began to resemble less of a fearsome gladiator and more of a feeble old man waving a stick at rambunctious youths, the calendar started to look like a mushroom farm after a spring shower, each new holiday popping up to toast to victories most had forgotten the taste of.

Seems positively contemporary, what with the world running out of calendar days and having to celebrate Easter Sunday on Trans Awareness Day, an event that surely had the ancients rolling in their extravagantly decorated sarcophagi, perplexed by the modern conundrum of “calendar overcrowding.”

Emperors, those illustrious leaders of men, were reduced to headline acts in this comedic opera, plastering on smiles and feigning a zeal for the games that could rival a wet sponge’s enthusiasm for a desert trek.

In this farce, the once hallowed ceremonies now resembled a confused shuffle of days, where the only thing more bewildering than the holidays themselves was the populace’s ability to keep track of what they were celebrating.

Gone were the days of the iron-fisted rule of Julius Caesar or the cunning Augustus. Now, the sceptre was in the shaky grasp of the likes of Commodus and Septimius Severus, whose reigns were as inspiring as a flat ale on a hot day.

Leadership, once a robust wine, had become a watery vinegar, with emperors inflating their egos and coffers, whipping up the populace into a frenzy with what amounted to little more than patriotic chest-beating and flag-waving.

(Africa Studio/Shutterstock)

The spectacles, meanwhile, morphed into a grotesque parade of the bizarre and the barbaric, a stark contrast to the fading reality of employment and land ownership—those became the stuff of fairy tales.

Even the steadfast Marcus Aurelius watched helplessly as the empire’s coinage became as flimsy as modern promises of fiscal restraint, shrinking in both size and worth.

Bread and Circuses of the Present

Leap forward to the present, and the circus hasn’t so much as ended as it has swapped costumes.

Today’s coliseum is filled with Drag Time Story Hours and a calendar so crammed with celebrations of every stripe of pride and culture that one might need a guide to navigate it.

Subsidies shower down like the finale of a firework show, ensuring the populace remains too stuffed on the bread and dazzled by the circus of reality TV outrages and viral sensations to notice the ground shifting beneath their feet.

In this grand festival of the now, one has to wonder if we’ve become spectators in our own version of Rome’s downfall, squinting at the bright lights, too entertained to notice we’re perched on the edge of history’s greatest pratfall.

Will the grand banquet of our times end in a burp of regret?

19 Retired Generals, Admirals File Supreme Court Brief Against Trump Immunity Bid

 Now, if you even wanted to know who the deep state is, here's a good list to start with! These are the Praetorian Guards of the Romans, functionaries who chose one another, not elected but who cannot be fired. Slowly, thanks to the skewed selection process, you end up with a large bunch of people who all think the same and behave in the same way. A giant echo chamber where the solution to every problem is to do more of what didn't work in the first place! 

 This is not specific to the US government, every single human institution works like that, including the EU, WEF and other Western financial institutions. But as the rot gets deeper, the system becomes more and more dysfunctional and this is obviously what we are seeing in the US right now. A geriatric president remotely controlled by god knows who (Tulsi Gabbard mentioned Hilary Clinton and Barack Obama and she may well be right there!) for god knows what policies. The road to riches for some and to ruins for the rest of us. American or not as when the American based order finally crashed, there may not be much order left anywhere else and as for the global supply chain. the ash heap of history will welcome it to join other flayed ideas.

Authored by Jack Phillips via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours),

More than a dozen former Defense Department officials, generals, and admirals filed a brief with the Supreme Court arguing against former President Donald Trump’s presidential immunity arguments.

(Left) Special Counsel Jack Smith delivers remarks in Washington on Aug. 1, 2023. (Right) Former President Donald Trump attends his trial in New York State Supreme Court in New York City on Dec. 7, 2023. (Drew Angerer, David Dee Delgado/Getty Images)

It comes as the U.S. Supreme Court is set to hear arguments on the former president’s assertions that he should enjoy immunity from prosecution for activity that he carried out while he was president. The former president invoked that argument after he was accused by federal prosecutors of attempting to illegally overturn the 2020 election results.

The amicus brief’s signatories include former CIA Director Michael Hayden, retired Admiral Thad Allen, retired Gen. George Casey, retired Gen. Charles Krulak, and more.

They claimed that granting President Trump immunity against criminal claims could lead to activity that put U.S. national security at risk.

“The notion of such immunity, both as a general matter, and also specifically in the context of the potential negation of election results, threatens to jeopardize our nation’s security and international leadership,” their brief stated. “Particularly in times like the present, when anti-democratic, authoritarian regimes are on the rise worldwide, such a threat is intolerable and dangerous.”

The arguments submitted by President Trump will “risk jeopardizing America’s standing as a guardian of democracy in the world and further feeding the spread of authoritarianism, thereby threatening the national security of the United States and democracies around the world,” the group added.

The former secretary of Defense under President Trump, Mark Esper, was critical of their submission to the Supreme Court, arguing during a CNN interview that he “would prefer to see retired admirals and generals not get involved.”

But President Trump’s lawyers have contended that the president’s office cannot function without immunity from the threat of prosecution because it could “incapacitate every future president with de facto blackmail and extortion while in office and condemn him to years of post-office trauma at the hands of political opponents,” arguing that such a phenomenon is playing out right now after the former president was indicted multiple times last year.

The U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals had earlier issued a ruling against President Trump’s arguments that he should be declared immune from prosecution. The appeals process, meanwhile, has put on hold the former president’s trial in Washington.

“A denial of criminal immunity would incapacitate every future president with de facto blackmail and extortion while in office, and condemn him to years of post-office trauma at the hands of political opponents. The threat of future prosecution and imprisonment would become a political cudgel to influence the most sensitive and controversial presidential decisions, taking away the strength, authority and decisiveness of the presidency,” according to President Trump’s filing issued last month.

The former president last October sought to have the charges dismissed based on his claim of immunity. U.S. District Judge Tanya Chutkan rejected those arguments in December.

“Even if some level of Presidential malfeasance, not present in this case at all, were to escape punishment, that risk is inherent in the Constitution’s design,” President Trump’s attorneys also wrote to the high court.

“The Founders viewed protecting the independence of the Presidency as well worth the risk that some Presidents might evade punishment in marginal cases,“ they said, adding that the Founding Fathers were ”unwilling to burn the Presidency itself to the ground to get at every single alleged malefactor.”

Special counsel Jack Smith has pushed for the U.S. high court to reject the former president’s claims of immunity, telling the justices that President Trump’s actions that led to the charges, if he is convicted, would represent “an unprecedented assault on the structure of our government.”

Former CIA Director Michael Hayden (Ret.) testifies during a hearing before the Senate Armed Services Committee on Capitol Hill in Washington on Aug. 4, 2015. (Alex Wong/Getty Images)

“The effective functioning of the presidency does not require that a former president be immune from accountability for these alleged violations of federal criminal law,” Mr. Smith wrote this week. “To the contrary, a bedrock principle of our constitutional order is that no person is above the law including the president.”

The signatories to the amicus brief include retired Army Gens. George Casey and Peter Chiarelli, retired Air Force Gens. John Jumper, Craig McKinley, and Charles Wald; retired Marine Corps Gens. Carlton Fulford, Charles Krulak, and Robert Magnus; retired Navy Admirals Steve Abbot, Samuel Jones Locklear, John Nathman, Bill Owens, and Scott Swift; and retired Coast Guard Adm. Thad Allen.

Several former civilian Pentagon officials signed onto the brief. They include former Army Secretary Louis Caldera, former Air Force Secretary Deborah Lee James, Navy Secretary Sean O’Keefe, and Navy Secretary Ray Mabus.

Backing President Trump, several GOP-led states filed a petition to the Supreme Court arguing that the justices should reverse the appeals court’s decision and grant the former president immunity in the cases.

WHO Official Admits Vaccine Passports May Have Been A Scam

  The Covid crisis was a warning shot showing us what happens when bad science meets political opportunity. Even the worst governments officially work for the good of their people, too bad that sometimes they have to "raze the village to save it!", including and especially when the "village" is the democratic part of it!

  And so it goes. Originally the idea behind the WHO to coordinate health policies between countries was a good one. Then someone, somewhere realized the opportunity to control policies remotely without oversight. Irresistible wasn't it?  

  This is what happens again and again if you look at history. Long periods of peace are ALWAYS used to misuse laws and undermine systems as people find weak spots and roundabouts. This is a feature of human nature, not a bug!

Authored by Paul D. Thacker via The Disinformation Chronicle (subscribe here),

The World Health Organization’s Dr. Hanna Nohynek testified in court that she advised her government that vaccine passports were not needed but was ignored, despite explaining that the COVID vaccines did not stop virus transmission and the passports gave a false sense of security. The stunning revelations came to light in a Helsinki courtroom where Finnish citizen Mika Vauhkala is suing after he was denied entry to a café for not having a vaccine passport.

Dr. Nohynek is chief physician at the Finnish Institute for Health and Welfare and serves as the WHO’s chair of Strategic Group of Experts on immunization. Testifying yesterday, she stated that the Finnish Institute for Health knew by the summer of 2021 that the COVID-19 vaccines did not stop virus transmission

During that same 2021 time period, the WHO said it was working to "create an international trusted framework" for safe travel while EU members states began rolling out COVID passports. The EU Digital COVID Certificate Regulation passed in July 2021 and more than 2.3 billion certificates were later issued. Visitors to France were banned if they did not have a valid vaccine passport which citizens had to carry to buy food at stores or to use public transport.

But Dr. Nohynek testified yesterday that her institute advised the Finnish government in late 2021 that COVID passports no longer made sense, yet certificates continued to be required. Finnish journalist Ike Novikoff reported the news yesterday after leaving the Helsinki courtroom where Dr. Nohynek spoke.

Dr. Nohynek’s admission that the government ignored scientific advice to terminate vaccine passports proved shocking as she is widely embraced in global medical circles. Besides chairing the WHO’s strategic advisory group on immunizations, Dr. Nohynek is one of Finland’s top vaccine advisors and serves on the boards of Vaccines Together and the International Vaccine Institute.

The EU’s digital COVID-19 certification helped establish the WHO Global Digital Health Certification Network in July 2023. “By using European best practices we contribute to digital health standards and interoperability globally—to the benefit of those most in need,” stated one EU official.

Finnish citizen Mika Vauhkala created a website discussing his case against Finland’s government where he writes that he launched his lawsuit “to defend basic rights” after he was denied breakfast in December 2021 at a Helsinki café because he did not have a COVID passport even though he was healthy. “The constitution of Finland guarantees that any citizen should not be discriminated against based on health conditions among other things,” Vauhkala states on his website.

Vauhkala’s lawsuit continued today in Helsinki district court where British cardiologist Dr. Aseem Malhotra will testify that, during the COVID pandemic, some authorities and medical professionals supported unethical, coercive, and misinformed policies such as vaccine mandates and vaccine passports, which undermined informed patient consent and evidence-based medical practice.

It’s Official: Reflation Is Here

 Look at the graph bellow, understand the dire strait of the US economy and contemplate why war is unavoidable. We recently spoke about the terrible state of the infrastructure, but the social and economic decay of America are just as advanced. So war it shall be. In any case the empire based on the petro-dollar is crumbling so the choice is between fading into oblivion and fireworks. We probably gonna get fireworks.

Authored by Jeffrey A. Tucker via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours),

For months and even years, the mainstream news has sought to spin terrible inflation news. It’s not so bad, it’s just transitional, it’s getting better, it’s not really a problem, and all your gloom about the value of the dollar is in your head. Truly, in the past fortnight, we have been inundated with articles suggesting that the public is dumb as rocks for thinking that inflation is still a problem.

A cyclist passes the Federal Reserve building in Washington, D.C., on Aug. 22, 2018. (Chris Wattie/Reuters)

Yesterday morning: boom! The upward trend for the entire first quarter was solidly confirmed. We could be entering a second wave. It was so bad that not even the two most influential venues could deny it. The New York Times reported, “Inflation Stronger Than Expected.” The Wall Street Journal reported, “Hot Inflation Report Weakens Case for Fed’s June Rate Cut.” The accompanying editorial is even better: “The Inflation Thief Rises Again.”

Truly, I’m stunned by the highly unusual and rather brazen truthfulness of these headlines. I don’t think we’ve seen that in three years. Which makes me wonder: Maybe the problem is even worse!

Here is a look at the inflation data as we see it now. The upward trajectory even from last summer is becoming apparent. The total loss of purchasing power in three years is easily 20 percent, but probably closer to 30 percent or more.

(Data: Federal Reserve Economic Data (FRED), St. Louis Fed; Chart: Jeffrey A. Tucker)

And that’s just from the official data, which is highly manipulated by messing up the pricing of housing and health insurance while excluding the cost of borrowing entirely. Adding those easily gets us back to double digits and perhaps exceeding what we experienced in 1979–1980, especially once you consider the sheer longevity of this mess.

In the 1970s, the devastation occurred in three distinct waves. Each time the trend improved, elites declared victory and the Federal Reserve moved in with rate cuts, thereby causing yet another round. Absolutely no one in charge anticipated the next wave. It came anyway.

Are we about to repeat this pattern?

(Data: Federal Reserve Economic Data (FRED), St. Louis Fed; Chart: Jeffrey A. Tucker)

It’s extremely spooky that the Fed has been angling for a rate cut for the past six months, just waiting for the chance. It’s bizarre. The whole idea of cutting rates comes from the notion of “countercyclical monetary policy.” You do it to stop a recession or dig out of one when it is happening.

Why would they talk about cutting rates now? Officially, we are doing well, in an upswing. To be sure, I don’t believe a word of it. The jobs data is a joke, and so is the output data. This is not recovery. It is possible to reconstruct the numbers in a way to show that we never left the recession of March 2020 and never recovered from lockdowns.

Regardless, based on official announcements of our rosy present, there is no case for a Fed rate cut now. The main motivation is more likely political: anything to help President Joe Biden win in November, because he is a proxy for the administrative corporate state that fears another populist revolt to take away their power. That’s why they want a rate cut.

There is no reason to doubt that the Fed is working against a Trump win. The central bank is part of the deep state, integral to the establishment in the United States and the world. It will use all its powers to game the election in a way that is institutionally protective of its interests. That means a big cut long before the election.

But in order to justify one, inflation does need at least to have the appearance of getting under control. They can claim it is happening all day, and they have done this for months and years. But it also helps when the data is there to back up such claims.

That is not happening. The consumer price index (CPI) data, even as manipulated as it is, is simply not cooperating with the very idea of rate cuts. As a result, the Fed keeps being put in the situation of suggesting that it is waiting to do so. But truly, it is getting rather late in the season for a rate cut to have any real impact on second- and third-quarter output numbers.

Wall Street recognizes this, which is why financial markets took a hard hit on the CPI data this week. It suggests that they are not going to get their fix of cheap money anytime soon. If that doesn’t happen, the stock market could come back to earth. Meanwhile, commodity prices are headed in the other direction, exactly as we might expect under inflationary conditions.

Gold and bitcoin are alive and on the move, further adding to market pessimism. Let’s face it: These assets perform well when there is no other hope out there. Even central banks are buying up gold and crypto as a safe haven.

Safe from what? That’s the great question right now. Just how bad could a financial calamity get? It’s time to start asking that question. At this point, there is no chance of crushing inflation. Monetary velocity is on an upswing, and there is still $5 trillion and more in unwarranted money printing sloshing around the U.S. economy and the world. That is still working its way through global and domestic prices.

Meanwhile, we face a stunning fiscal crisis, with interest on the debt on the verge of dwarfing every other budgetary item. The commercial real estate crisis in cities is getting worse in these waves of defaults that have begun and are certain to hit city after city in the coming year or two.

Regardless of what happens between now and November, this crisis will accelerate in 2025 to become absolutely beastly, exactly at the point where the ruling class will no longer be able to bamboozle the public with rising 401(k) and other investment funds.

If a genuine financial and stock-market crisis comes in 2025 amidst a new wave of inflation, look out. What people call the “populist revolt” of our times will be nothing like what will emerge. The possibilities are truly terrifying.

There’s no need just yet to become apocalyptic, but this much we can say for sure: Today’s inflation numbers reveal that our troubles are far from over. The standard of living is on the decline and worsening, hitting the middle class as never before, with home ownership out of the question for most people.

Why didn’t the experts anticipate all this fallout from the lockdown disaster? To put it bluntly, they are not experts. They are ham-handed, greedy, and stupid, and play their policy games without serious concern for the well-being of the public. A major difference today versus the 1970s is that people today know exactly who to blame. This is precisely why Washington has become a city of fear and loathing.