Category: zerohedge

Since the beginning of the 21st century, the surveillance state has utilized technology derived from Silicon Valley, such as facial recognition algorithms, to enhance society’s control. 

Authoritarian regimes and unscrupulous corporations are leveraging these technologies to track citizens, stalk criminals, and monitor employees, but what if this technology, rapidly advancing in the last couple of years, can determine a person’s political views? 

Imagine this; obviously, the Washington Metropolitan Area is lined with surveillance cameras, with some cameras that may already be employing facial recognition algorithms. Hypothetically speaking, what if these cameras could recognize an angry mob and accurately (to some degree) identify their political views by observing their faces and then alert authorities of potential social unrest in a specific area. 

While that technology has yet to be deployed, it may certainly exists. 

Researchers have developed a facial recognition algorithm that they claim can determine a person’s political views with reasonable accuracy. 

Stanford University’s Michal Kosinski conducted a study published on Monday in the Nature journal Scientific Reports.

“Ubiquitous facial recognition technology can expose individuals’ political orientation, as faces of liberals and conservatives consistently differ,” Kosinski said.

He trained the facial recognition algorithm to accurately guess a person’s political view with an accuracy rating of about 72%. To do this, the researcher trained an algorithm with over one million profiles from social media websites across the US, UK, and Canada. 

“Political orientation was correctly classified in 72% of liberal-conservative face pairs, remarkably better than chance (50%), human accuracy (55%), or one afforded by a 100-item personality questionnaire (66%). Accuracy was similar across countries (the U.S., Canada, and the UK), environments (Facebook and dating websites), and when comparing faces across samples. Accuracy remained high (69%) even when controlling for age, gender, and ethnicity,” he said.

Kosinski said the algorithm is “high predictability” in determining political views from viewing faces, which implies a notable difference between the facial images of conservatives and liberals. 

One of the most significant facial features that differentiate both political parties’ faces – aside from gender, age and race was head orientation and emotional expression. He also said liberals were more likely to stare directly at the camera and more likely to look surprised than disgusted.

Here are the procedures used to predict political orientation from facial images. And by the way, she’s a liberal. 

It was also explained that liberals tend to smile “more intensely and genuinely,” leaving them with a different wrinkle pattern as they age. Meanwhile, conservatives “tend to be healthier, drink less alcohol and smoke less, and have a different diet” – attributes that affected the skin’s health and texture.

The thought that algorithms can determine your political views from a quick scan of your face is a frightening one. 

Kosinski is known for his work with the data-mining firm Cambridge Analytica ahead of the 2016 US Presidential election. 

He also worked as an adviser on Faception, a company that uses facial recognition algorithms to determine if someone is a terrorist, pedophile, or a criminal.

China has been deploying facial recognition cameras for years to monitor its citizens. This sort of surveillance is coming to America – by the way – it’s already here. 

Perhaps wearing a face mask could render facial recognition cameras useless… 

Authored by Derrick Broze via TheLastAmericanVagabond.com,

Americans appear too divided and distracted to recognize that the architects of the Patriot Act and the failed War on Terror now have their sights set on the American homeland.

The first week of 2021 kicked off with chaos at the Capitol in Washington D.C. Was it a protest, a riot or an insurrection? Were there provocateurs, and if so, were they Antifa, the cops, and/or the Feds? As usual, everyone on the internet thinks they know the answer within ten minutes. Unfortunately, this genuinely leads to the spreading of unfounded theories – many based on nothing but speculation and emotion. But while the public is debating over theories and arguing amongst themselves, the newly emboldened Military Industrial Complex is eagerly anticipating the incoming Biden Administration as an opportunity to expand the War on Domestic Terror.

In the immediate aftermath of the “storming of the Capitol”, the media pundits, intelligence community, and politicians began foaming at the mouth in excitement over the chance to push through Domestic Terror legislation. Michigan representative Elissa Slotkin, also former Acting Assistant Secretary of Defense and CIA analyst, said, “the post 9/11 era is over. The single greatest national security threat right now is our internal division. The threat of domestic terrorism.” Slotkin went on to say that she urges the Biden administration to “understand that the greatest threat now is internal.”

The post 9/11 era is over. The single greatest national security threat right now is our internal division. The threat of domestic terrorism. The polarization that threatens our democracy. If we don’t reconnect our two Americas, the threats will not have to come from the outside. pic.twitter.com/ADgGcf7qEo

— Rep. Elissa Slotkin (@RepSlotkin) January 8, 2021

TLAV writer Whitney Webb responded to Slotkin’s comment by reminding the audience that, “before Congress, Elissa worked for the CIA and the Pentagon and helped destabilize the Middle East during the Bush and Obama admins. What she says here is essentially an open announcement that the US has moved from the “War on [foreign] terror” to the “War on domestic terror”.”

The Federal Bureau of Investigations (FBI) also reportedly released a bulletin warning that “domestic extremists” are planning a nationwide protest to stop Joe Biden from being sworn in as President. According to ABC News, “The FBI has also received information in recent days on a group calling for “storming” state, local and federal government courthouses and administrative buildings in the event President Donald Trump is removed from office prior to Inauguration Day. The group is also planning to “storm” government offices in every state the day President-elect Joe Biden will be inaugurated, regardless of whether the states certified electoral votes for Biden or Trump.”

Since the bulletin has not been publicly released the report should be viewed skeptically. However, it’s only one of many emerging reports and articles stoking the flames of civil war and internal chaos. The fact of the matter is that this is not a new attempt to demonize the American people. This current effort is simply a continuation of the effort to label Americans as terrorists that has been taking place since at least the mid-1990’s following the Oklahoma City bombing false flag. These efforts were expanded further after the attacks of 9/11. In fact, as most readers know by now, it was Joe Biden who wrote the anti-terror legislation in the 90’s which became the basis for the Patriot ACT after 9/11.

While the “War on Terror” launched by the George W. Bush administration was focused on imaginary enemies in Iraq, Afghanistan, Libya, Iran, Syria, and elsewhere, there has also been a steady push to focus on the American public. In the first years of the Obama administration we saw the rise of the “Tea Party” movement, the American Libertarian movement, and Liberal Progressives who opposed the war machine, the surveillance state, and the militarization of the police. Organizations like the Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC) did their best to label activists “extremists” for constitutionally protected activism and organizing. In 2010, the SPLC even came up with a “Patriot Hit List” of so-called extremists.

The post-9/11 era saw the creation of Fusion Centers; centralized systems that pool and analyze intelligence from federal, state, local, and private sector entities. The National Network of Fusion Centers was created after the 9/11 attacks to provide for more streamlined communication between federal and local agencies. The Fusion Centers have been criticized as violations of civil liberties and a danger to separation of federal and local governments. They have been exposed for targeting of protesters of the Dakota Access Pipeline and most infamously, in 2009 it was revealed that the Missouri Information Analysis Center (MIAC) was targeting supporters of third party candidates, Ron Paul supporters, anti-abortion activists, and “conspiracy theorists” as potential domestic extremists.

The 2010’s also saw the passing of the 2012 National Defense Authorization Act which included provisions allowing for indefinitely detaining Americans who have been labeled potential terrorists. Under these provisions, Americans lose the ability to have access to a lawyer and the right to a speedy trial. The measures were approved every year during the Obama and Trump administrations.

The truth is that the United States has long been pushing for a focus on Domestic Terror and Extremism, and regardless of what really happened at the Capitol on January 6, the event is being used as a way to justify the push for strengthening domestic terror legislation.

Another organization that is helping propel the “rise of domestic terror” narrative is the Center for Strategic & International Studies (CSIS), an organization with deep ties to the intelligence community and Western Military Industrial Complex. In October, the CSIS released a study claiming that two-thirds of the terrorist plots and attacks in the United States in the first eight months of 2020 were carried out by white supremacists and like-minded extremists. Coincidentally, journalist John Vibes recently reported that, “the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) is listed as the “most recent employment” for three selections on Biden’s Department of Defense agency review team: Kathleen Hicks, who is a former defense official under President Barack Obama, as well as Melissa Dalton, and Andrew Hunter.”

The most likely candidate for new domestic terror legislation is the “The Domestic Terrorism Prevention Act”, originally passed by the House in 2020, would create “dedicated domestic terrorism offices within the Department of Homeland Security, the Department of Justice, and the Federal Bureau of Investigation to analyze and monitor domestic terrorist activity and require the Federal Government to take steps to prevent domestic terrorism.”

Illinois Senator Dick Durbin has already promised to reintroduce the bill in the coming days. “Senate Democrats, along with the Biden administration, will work together to investigate, expose, and hold accountable domestic terrorism threats in our country,” Durbin and Sen. Minority Leader Chuck Schumer said in a joint statement. The bill also has support from the Anti-Defamation League and the Leadership Conference on Civil and Human Rights.

Another domestic terror bill that has previously been considered is the “Confronting the Threat of Domestic Terror Act”. The bill was introduced by Rep. Adam Schiff, who claimed that “the legislation is narrowly crafted and includes protections to ensure it is not misused.” However, the American Civil Liberties Union warned, “people of color and other marginalized communities have long been targeted under domestic terrorism authorities for unfair and discriminatory surveillance, investigations, and prosecutions. Law enforcement agencies’ use of these authorities undermines and has violated equal protection, due process, and First Amendment rights.”

This is a crucial time for the American experiment. Will the American people allow themselves to be divided to the point of calling for domestic terror legislation to be used on their neighbors, co-workers, friends and family? With the public inundated with fears of civil war, stolen elections, rampant disinformation, and general exhaustion with COVID-19 measures, it appears to be a very critical moment which may decide whether America is destined for a renewed desire for liberty, truth, and free speech, or an accelerated push towards tyranny.

Perhaps someone needs to ask Jerome Powell during his next congressional testimony: What kind of a recession are we in when women can’t even successfully sell nude photos online anymore?

Such is the case for a number of women who, the midst of trying to earn money during the pandemic, have turned to OnlyFans to try and sell explicit photos of themselves. Many of these women are still struggling, despite their extra “efforts”, according to the New York Times, who profiled several new creators who have taken to the platform to “provide for themselves and their families”. 

The NYT claims the pandemic has taken “a particularly devastating toll on women and mothers” because the pandemic has “wiped out” industries like restaurants and healthcare, where women “dominate”.

Angela Jones, an associate professor of sociology at the State University of New York at Farmingdale, said: “A lot of people are migrating to OnlyFans out of desperation. These are people who are worried about eating, they’re worried about keeping the lights on, they’re worried about not being evicted.”

One of these creators was Lexi Eixenberger, who started an account in November. The 22 year old has been laid off three times during the pandemic and was forced to drop out of dental hygiene school. She has only made about $500 from the platform so far.

Jones said of the platform: “It is already an incredibly saturated market. The idea that people are just going to open up an OnlyFans account and start raking in the dough is really misguided.”

The biggest successes on the platform are “often models, porn stars and celebrities who already have large social media followings,” the NYT says. They are able to use their other social media accounts as a funnel for business on OnlyFans. 

One success story has been Savannah Benavidez, who has made $64,000 in just 6 months. She quit her job as a medical biller after her 2 year old son’s day care shut down and she needed to stay home and take care of him. 

She told The Times: “It’s more money than I have ever made in any job. I have more money than I know what to do with.”

“It’s a full-time job on top of your full-time job looking for work. Fans want to see you posting daily. You’re always churning. You’re always taking pictures to post,” said 36 year old Elle Morocco of West Palm Beach. She joined the platform after being laid off as an office manager this past July. 

She has only made $250 on the platform so far, despite sometimes spending up to 8 hours a day managing her account. 

She also worries about what OnlyFans could do to her future job prospects. She said: “If you’re looking for a 9 to 5, they might not hire you if they find out you have an OnlyFans. They may not want you if they know you’re a sex worker.”

The Times cited two examples – one of a mechanic in Indiana and the other of a NYC medic – who both believed their OnlyFans account had negative consequences for their full-time jobs. 

Melany Hall, another creator, said she was happy to have made $700 on the platform since December. She said: “This is the first year I didn’t have to choose between the electric bill and Christmas presents for my kids. This is the first year I’ve been able to do it all by myself.”

But Barb Brents, a professor of sociology at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas, said there are risks that go along with sex work – despite it happening on a virtual platform. “Online sex work is a much more appealing alternative to many people than going on the streets or selling direct sexual services. That said, anybody getting into this kind of work needs to be aware that there are dangers,” she said.

Creators also have to deal with members posting their exclusive content elsewhere on the web – and some have even faced death and rape threats, the article notes.

OnlyFans currently has 90 million users and more than 1 million content creators. The platform takes a 20% cut of any pay that creators get, excluding tips that creators can get on other payment platforms. 

Authored by Dave DeCamp via AntiWar.com,

A new study estimates that President Trump’s trade war with China caused the loss of up to 245,000 American jobs.

The study from the US-China Business Council (USCBC) and Oxford Economics said a moderate reduction of tariffs on both sides could lead to an additional 145,000 US jobs and an increase in $160 billion GDP by 2025.

The USCBC is an organization that promotes US-China trade relations and is made up of about 200 US companies that do business in China. The USCBC announced the study in a press release titled, “Decoupling with China Not Economically Viable For Americans.”

“What we’ve seen over the past few years is that raising tariffs does little more than raise costs for American families and shrink their opportunities,” said USCBC President Craig Allen.

Reuters describes further of the study:

The group, which represents major American companies doing business in China, said the study by Oxford Economics also includes an “escalation scenario” which estimates a significant decoupling of the world’s two largest economies could shrink U.S. GDP by $1.6 trillion over the next five years. This could result in 732,000 fewer U.S. jobs in 2022 and 320,000 fewer jobs by 2025, it said.

The study comes as the Biden administration is deciding how to pursue trade policy with China. In December, Joe Biden said that he does not plan to “immediately” lift tariffs on Chinese goods or scrap President Trump’s Phase One trade deal.

Allen and the USCB are hoping Biden acts to lift tariffs. “If we don’t find ways outside of self-defeating tariff measures to address differences with China, American workers will continue to suffer,” Allen said.

In the wake of last week’s events in Washington, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, among others, began discussing the use of the 25th Amendment, amping up the hyperbole by voicing concerns about President Trump launching some kind of attack on a foreign adversary using nuclear weapons in order to create a state of emergency and halt the transition. Those concerns prompted her to contact the Pentagon’s leadership in order to receive assurances that safeguards are in place, assurances she reportedly received.

So, that got us wondering, if President Trump decided to launch a nuclear strike, how swiftly could he put things in motion? Would he have the sole power alone to launch a nuclear missile? According to an analysis undertaken by Bloomberg, the U.S. president’s power is absolute in this situation – he or she gives the order and the Pentagon is obliged to go along with it. It remains unclear if that has now changed given Pelosi’s reported contact with the Pentagon’s leadership.

This infographic, via Statista’s Niall McCarthy, provides an overview of the steps necessary to make a nuclear strike happen.

You will find more infographics at Statista

It can take as little as five minutes from the president’s decision to strike to intercontinental missiles launching from their silos. When it comes to submarine-launched weapons, however, it takes a little bit longer – approximately 15 minutes.

Authored by Zachary Yost via The Mises Institute,

By any measure, 2020 was not a very good year for human freedom. By now everyone is very familiar with the assaults on liberty stemming from measures ostensibly in the name of stopping the spread of covid and the way in which such measures have threatened the very existence of the social order. Beyond such obscene and unprecedented measures, 2020 also demonstrated that the leaders of our society are truly incompetent and bungling. The ineptitude is truly staggering, even for skeptics of the state. When surveying the wreckage of last year one can’t help but feel a sense of dread and apprehension for the long-term health of our civilization.

It is not only the state and its myriad of pathetic politicians and power-mad bureaucrats who are cause for concern. Culturally, the woke madness has been spreading like a malignant cancer throughout the body politic. Churches, universities, large companies, and cultural institutions have increasingly come under the sway of the reality-denying woke ideology. No doubt that a few hundred years in the future some enterprising author will make a fortune humorously documenting all the culturally accepted absurdities of our era, but unfortunately they are not so amusing to those of us forced to endure them.

Now, 2021 has opened with even more chaos and uncertainty as a riotous mob supporting Trump stormed the capital building. This crazed lunacy has only furthered the idea that we are on the decline, not to mention that it will serve as a convenient excuse for any number of further government crackdowns.

In short, disorder reigns.

Looking around at the wreckage and continued decay of our society, it is easy to become discouraged and even to begin to feel desperate. In such desperation, it may seem necessary to redouble our efforts to affect political change and “save the country” from its present disastrous course.

While such a position is easy to understand, I would posit that perhaps trying to roll back the state via electoral victory, which is what friends of liberty have consistently failed to do for decades, is not a viable strategy, and that it is actively contributing to the problem.

While it is popular and accurate to blame our societal elites for being pathetic and inept, the truth is that these leaders, both political and cultural, are reflections of us. Leaders who do not reflect the character of the people they lead will not be leaders for long. In the final accounting, it is not the words written down on the parchment of the Constitution that govern the United States. Rather, the true constitution of a people is the one that is written in their hearts. A badly written constitution will not be an obstacle to a virtuous and ordered people, just as the most brilliantly organized constitution will not save an unvirtuous and disordered people.

Perhaps, in the same way that the central government has sapped more and more of the strength and social power from all other institutions of social life, it has also sapped our attention and energies from where they truly belong. To what extent have efforts to stop the government merely made its job easier by leading us to neglect our families, churches, and communities? To what extent has it made us neglect our very own cultivation of virtue?

In the first chapter of The Art of War, Sun Tzu counsels that if the enemy “is in superior strength, evade him….Attack him where he is unprepared, appear where you are not expected.” Constantly attempting to seize the power of the state in order to reduce it has been attacking the enemy where he is strong and engaging on his terms. In a sense, we have let the central government determine the battlefield. Political power is not the only repository of power in society, yet we have chosen to constantly engage the state in that sphere and have consistently lost. Even supposed victories tend to merely be rearguard-holding actions to delay rather than defeat.

I would suggest that the time has come to consciously turn to an alternative strategy of cultivating social power outside of the state apparatus. Such an effort is likely to lead to much more success, although that is a low bar since the current strategy has led to no success at all. Unlike federal electoral politics, it begins with something entirely and completely under one’s control: oneself.

The key to the cultivation of alternative poles of social power begins with order, specifically the ordering of one’s own life. This is not an idea original to me. Canadian psychologist Jordan Peterson has recently popularized this idea in a secular manner with his refrain of “clean your room.” Less recently, though in a far more sophisticated manner that recognizes man’s spiritual nature, the political theorist Eric Voegelin has written voluminously about modern chaos as stemming from internal disorder that is the result of man’s loss of connection to the engendering experiences that serve to capture the truth of reality, the end result of which is the rise of totalitarian ideologies.

Instead of a more traditional concern with cultivating oneself, with looking after the beam in one’s own eye, modern man has become obsessed with everyone else on the planet. Even friends of human liberty have fallen prey to this tendency, from time to time, in our excessive investment of time and attention to political issues that are far removed from our actual lived existence. In doing so, we have neglected to build up alternative bases of social power in our families and communities.

One may respond that it is all well and good to order oneself, but that it is not enough or is even pointless in the face of the wider chaos that is engulfing the rest of society. However, it may be that such self-ordering is in fact the only thing that restores order to the rest of society. Philosopher Irving Babbitt argued that “there may be something after all in the Confucian idea that if a man only sets himself right, the rightness will extend to his family first of all, and finally in widening circles to the whole community.”

If dark and illiberal days truly are ahead, as it seems reasonable to consider at least as a possibility, then these localized bastions of ordered liberty will become more important than ever. Perhaps instead of letting strangers in state schools and who knows what kind of wackos on the internet raise one’s children, now is the time to take the plunge into homeschooling, or at the very least to invest time in their education and moral upbringing. Perhaps now is the time to develop friendly relations with one’s neighbors and to begin attending local township meetings. Perhaps now is the time to begin to invest one’s time and energy in what the sociologist Robert Nisbet called the intermediary groups and associations that serve as a buffer between the state and the solitary and weak individual.

This is not to say that federal politics should be ignored completely; the federal government is impossible to ignore thanks to the immense power it wields. But such engagement must not come at the cost of those areas of life that are truly under one’s control.

Disorder increasingly reigns across the land and with disorder inevitably comes oppression and the curtailment of our traditional rights and liberties. The restoration of order begins with oneself and one’s home. Societal order will not be restored until order is restored in the hearts of those who make up the society. Even if the pessimists are correct and our country is too far advanced down the path of decay and collapse that every other empire has trodden in history, the cultivation of personal order is still imperative for survival in the dark and chaotic days to come.

A second Democratic leader is pushing for loosening COVID-19 restrictions, just days before President-elect Biden is set to be sworn in.

Following on the heels of NY Gov. Andrew Cuomo’s call to “reopen the economy,” Chicago Mayor Lori Lightfoot is now of the opinion that bars and restaurants need to reopen for indoor dining “as quickly as possible.”

“I am very, very focused on getting our restaurants reopened. If we look at the various criteria that the state has set, we are meeting most if not all of those. So that’s a conversation that I will have with the governor,” she said at a Thursday press conference. “But I want to get our restaurants and our bars reopened as quickly as possible.“

“Let’s bring it out of the shadows, let’s allow them to have some recreation in restaurants, in bars, where we can actually work with responsible owners and managers to regulate and protect people from COVID-19, so I feel very strongly that we are very close to a point where we should be talking about opening our bars and restaurants,” she continued.

This would, as it turns out, help Chicago City Councilmember Tom Tunney (D), who was caught running an illegal ‘COVID Speakeasy‘ out of his Chicago restaurant last month.

Lightfoot’s call for reopening comes after she told people to cancel Thanksgiving with family, while the number of case counts across the state reversing higher over the last two weeks from a January 1 bottom. Meanwhile, while the Mayor is calling to reopen indoor dining (and gradually reopen schools), she oddly extended a stay-home advisory until January 22. We’re unclear on exactly which science she’s following.

The Chicago Tribune elaborates, saying it will ultimately come down to Governor. J.B. Pritzker (D) to make the call:

On Thursday, Chicago’s test positivity stood at 10%, according to city statistics. Under the current pandemic rules, the city would have to have a positivity rate of 6.5% or less for three straight days in order for restaurants and bars to reopen.

Ultimately, it’s Pritzker who will make the decision about when bars and restaurants can reopen for indoor service. The city can set rules that are stricter than the state’s but not rules that are looser.

A Pritzker spokeswoman said in a statement Thursday that Chicago’s coronavirus numbers aren’t there yet, but the governor would “look forward to her call” on the matter.

Pritzker, as you may recall, ignored Lightfoot’s “do not travel” order to  leave Chicago for Thanksgiving.

“As the governor announced last week, beginning tomorrow, regions who meet the metrics to go back to lower tiers in the resurgence mitigation plan will be allowed to do so,” said Pritzker spokeswoman Jordan Abudayyeh. “Currently, the city of Chicago and Cook County do not meet the metrics to return to previous tiers.”

Pritzker shuttered Chicago restaurants and bars for indoor dining in late October after the city surpassed the 8% benchmark for three straight days on average daily positivity.

Authored by Caitlin Johnstone via Medium.com,

It’s been obvious for a long time that the best way to stop the rise of right-wing extremism in America that everyone’s so worried about today is not to pass a bunch of authoritarian laws, but to reverse the policies of soul-crushing neoliberalism and domestic austerity which led to Donald Trump. Instead of doing this, the next president is already pushing a Patriot Act sequel and reducing the stimulus checks he’d promised the public before he’s even been sworn in.

President-elect Biden promised unambiguously that if voters gave the Democratic Party control of the Senate by electing Raphael Warnock and Jon Ossoff in Georgia earlier this month, checks of $2,000 would “go out the door immediately”. Warnock blatantly campaigned on the promise of $2000 checks if elected, literally using pictures of checks with “$2000” written on them to do so. This was not an unclear promise by any stretch of the imagination, yet when Biden unveiled the “American Rescue Plan” on Thursday, the number 1400 was written where the number 2000 should have been.

Boss: Here’s your check.
Employee: This is $1400. You said $2000 for the job.
Boss: Yeah but that’s minus the $600 I paid you for the last job. You’re welcome.

— Caitlin Johnstone ⏳ (@caitoz) January 15, 2021

The argument being pushed out at the moment is that when Democrats were blatantly promising stimulus checks of $2000 what they really meant was that Americans would receive $1400 on top of the $600 checks they’d received earlier, and everyone should have just known this somehow (perhaps via some sort of psychic precognition or sorcery). Which of course makes as much sense as someone hiring you to do a job for a given amount of money and then paying you the amount promised minus the amount you’d made at your last job.

It’s just so emblematic of US austerity policies, which are so normalized they don’t even use that word. Keep people stretched so thin that even a paltry $2000 after months and months of nothing can be spun as an excessively exorbitant indulgence which must be scaled back to keep it reasonable. In reality a grand total of $2600 in the richest nation on earth after all this time would still be a huge slap in the face, but generations of media spin have gone into keeping Americans from attaining that level of rightful entitlement.

So as of this writing the internet is full of angry Americans actually typing the words “$1400 is not $2000”, which is totally bananas. People should not have to say that the number 1400 is not the same as the number 2000. It feels like if my Twitter feed was full of people saying “Cars are not birds”, or “Pogs are not iPhones”, or “Mimes are not salad”. People should not have to make such self-evident clarifications.

But they apparently do need to make such clarifications, because scumbags like Adam Schiff are looking them right in the eye, sharing information that says “$1,400 checks” on it, and telling them that it says “$2000 relief checks”.

2 + 2 = 5.

So again, it’s pretty clear that America isn’t going to attempt to reverse the conditions which created Trump and all the extremist factions that everyone’s been freaking out about since the Capitol riot. Obama led to Trump, and the strategy going forward is to just keep tightening the neoliberal screws like both Obama and Trump did throughout their entire administrations. And, of course, to advance new “domestic terrorism” laws.

As we discussed previously, Biden has often boasted of being the original author of the Patriot Act years before it was rapidly rolled out amid the fear and blind obsequiousness of the aftermath of 9/11. Now in the aftermath of the Capitol riot we are seeing a push to roll out new authoritarian laws around terrorism, this time taking aim at “domestic terror”, which were also in preparation prior to the event used to manufacture support for them.

In a new article for Washington Monthly titled “It’s Time for a Domestic Terrorism Law”, Bill Scher argues against left-wing critics of the coming laws like Glenn Greenwald and Jacobin’s Luke Savage saying such “knee-jerk reactions” against potential authoritarian abuses fail to address the growing problem. He opens with the acknowledgement that “Joe Biden’s transition team was already working on a domestic terrorism law before the insurrection,” and then he just keeps on writing as though that’s not weird or suspicious in any way.

Scher lists among the growing threat of domestic terror not just white supremacists and right-wing extremists but “extremist left-wing domestic terrorism” as well. He approvingly cites Adam Schiff’s Confronting The Threat of Terrorism Act, which “creates a definition of domestic terrorism broadly encompassing plots that carry a ‘substantial risk of serious bodily injury’ along with an ‘intent to intimidate or coerce a civilian population’ or ‘influence the policy of a government by intimidation or coercion.’” The ACLU has unequivocally denounced Schiff’s bill, saying it “would unnecessarily expand law enforcement authorities to target and discriminate against the very communities Congress is seeking to protect.”

This is sketchy. Anonymous FBI officials basically tell NBC the violence at the Capitol could have been stopped if it wasn’t for free speech and the first amendment. They’re priming us for domestic terrorist laws.https://t.co/wJP7UhEIFB

— Dave DeCamp (@DecampDave) January 13, 2021

Known CIA asset Ken Dilanian has also been trotted out to make the case that Americans have too many rights for their own good, co-authoring an NBC article titled “Worried about free speech, FBI never issued intelligence bulletin about possible Capitol violence”.

“FBI intelligence analysts gathered information about possible violence involving the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6., but the FBI never distributed a formal intelligence bulletin, in part because of concerns that doing so might have run afoul of free speech protections, a current and two former senior FBI officials familiar with the matter told NBC News,” the article warns, making sure to inform readers that “experts say the lack of a domestic terrorism statute constrains the FBI from treating far-right and far-left groups the same as Americans who are radicalized to violence by Al Qaeda or ISIS ideology.”

We can expect to see more such articles going forward.

The only way to sincerely believe more Patriot Act-like laws will benefit Americans is to believe that the US will only have wise and beneficent leaders going forward, and the only way to sincerely believe the US will only have wise and beneficent leaders going forward is to be completely shit-eating stupid. The trajectory has already been chosen, and that trajectory is the one that has already given rise to Trump. Continuing along that same trajectory can only give rise to something far uglier, and that something far uglier will have whatever new authoritarian powers are added by Joe Biden.

They’re not actually worried about “domestic terror”, they’re worried about any movement which threatens to topple the status quo. They want to make sure they can adequately spy, infiltrate, agitate and incarcerate into impotence any movement which provides a threat to America’s rulers and the system which funnels them wealth and power at the expense of everyone else. The movements which most threaten this are not rightists, who are generally more or less aligned with the interests of the oligarchic empire, but the left.

This is who they’ll end up targeting going forward, and whatever Biden and Company wind up rolling out to fight “domestic terrorism” will help them do so.

*  *  *

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Dining restrictions and cold weather have derailed the restaurant recovery in December. 

Market research firm NDP Group, which tracks 75 restaurant chains, said transactions at major chains slumped 10% in December versus the same month one year ago. 

“Up until December, monthly restaurant transaction declines had been improving consecutively since April. November transactions were down just 8%,” CNBC said, citing the report. 

A reemergence of the virus pandemic, new indoor dining restrictions, and colder weather dissuaded patrons last month from returning. 

The full-service restaurant segment has been some of the hardest hit, unable to adapt, or has had a more challenging time overhauling their business models to accommodate delivery and takeout.

In April, the full-service segment saw transactions plunge by more than 70%. In December, transactions fell 30% due to indoor dining limitations or bans. 

UBS Evidence Lab found that even if these restaurants could pivot to takeout, many of these stores will still fall short of revenue to sustain operations. 

Some of the latest Bank of America consumer spending data shows chain restaurants are fairing much better than mom and pop ones. 

While the industry struggles and requests for more relief, the Bureau of Labor Statistics reported last Friday that food services and drinking places lost 372,000 jobs in December. 

Goldman Sachs pointed out that colder weather would accelerate infections. This means local and state governments would be forced to limit or continue the ban through early 2021, crushing the industry even further. 

With more than 110,00 restaurants already collapsed, the stage is being set for an epic bust in commercial real estate. 

Authored by Monica Showalter via AmericanThinker.com,

When the Capitol riots happened on Jan. 6, the blame of President Trump was all over. 

Supposedly, he was the instigator. Supposedly, he’d egged the rioters on. The tape of his urging his supporters to stay strong and fight was Exhibit A in the press, and with no skepticism whatsoever, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi declared Trump guilty and rushed a crazily hasty second impeachment just days before Trump’s exit. She declared it was all about holding Trump “accountable” and she added, that her explicit aim at the uselessly late date was to prevent him from ever running from public office again.

Never mind what the voters might want. In more ways than one, in Pelosi’s addled mind, their votes don’t count.

The press also rushed to judgment, even the Wall Street Journal’s editorial writers, claiming that Trump’s political capital and credibility was now gone and he’d never run for president again.

But as news of the arrests comes out, showing who these branded Trump so-called supporters are, the conventional argument is starting to splinter apart.

The arrests made in the riots case are starting to show the kind of people who like to riot, which is to say extreme leftists.

Start with this freak, as reported by Fox News:

A left-wing activist who told Fox News last week that he’d followed a pro-Trump mob into the Capitol in order to “document” the siege is now the subject of a criminal complaint in connection with his alleged participation, according to the U.S. Justice Department.

John Sullivan can allegedly be heard egging on protesters in video he provided to the FBI, according to a federal criminal complaint. He has also shared the video to his YouTube and Twitter accounts under the pseudonym Jayden X.

He was charged Thursday in federal court in Washington after being arrested by the FBI. He remains in custody in Toeele County, in his home state of Utah, on a U.S. Marshals Service hold request.

The Epoch Times reports that he was a Black Lives Matter activist. Andy Ngo notes that he’s been busted for BLM riot activity, too. GatewayPundit reported that he was caught on video bragging about posing as a Trump supporter.

He had a pal, too, from CNN. According to this report from TrendingPolitics:

On Thursday night, damning new footage showed CNN’s Jade Sacker inside of the Capitol with John Sullivan, the BLM member who was charged by federal prosecutors for inciting chaos on January 6th.

Sacker co-conspired with the liberal activist in order to cause chaos and make Trump supporters look bad.

The shocking video shows her and Sullivan celebrating and shouting “We did it!” when they got the footage they were looking for. When she asked Sullivan if he was filming, he said was going to delete it. He never did.

Trending Politics ran a tweet of the actual video, and described this:

As you can see, Sacker and Sullivan are overjoyed with the fact that they got footage of Trump supporters “rioting”.

“Is this not gonna be the best film you’ve ever made in your life?!” Sullivan asks her.

Verified twitter user Amuse breaks everything down in further detail in a series of tweets.

“To make this clear. CNN was embedded with BLM/Antifa pretending to be Trump supporters taping them incite a riot. This is freaking huge. If CNN is allowed to maintain its press access anywhere in DC there needs to be a serious overhaul of our entire system,” he tweeted.

BREAKING: CNN’s Jade Sacker penetrating the Capitol with a member of BLM/Antifa cheering, “We did it!” And then asking her conspirator if he was filming, he said he’d delete it, he lied. CNN was in on it. pic.twitter.com/FVhotiAwcP

— @amuse (@amuse) January 15, 2021

Here’s another one, who showed up with furs, and also got himself arrested. According to the New York Post:

Aaron Mostofsky was busted Tuesday at his brother’s house in Brooklyn by federal agents on multiple charges, including theft of government property for allegedly stealing a police riot shield and bulletproof vest, the source said.

Mostofsky, who is the son of Shlomo Mostofsky, a Supreme Court judge and a prominent figure in the Orthodox Jewish community, was photographed with both items.

Video circulating on Twitter following Mostofsky’s arrest shows FBI agents swarming the home and carting out what appeared to be the fur pelts and walking stick he had on him during the insurrection.

His politics? According to this report, registered Democrat.

Even the press is starting to notice that the pieces aren’t fitting together. Rather than a picture of all wicked and crazed Trump supporters, charging the Capitol, leftist news outfit Bloomberg reported that its survey of various parties involved, including those who died or were arrested, didn’t paint the desired picture. Conclusion?

Many of those shown in news footage had no party affiliation and voted sporadically, if at all. 

Bloomberg’s survey of the players showed that only the people who died of medical emergencies seemed to be fully normal Republican voters — the rest didn’t vote at all, voted sporadically, voted Libertarian, Independent or Democrat, and in general were fringe players. Bloomberg, missing that obvious conclusion, seemed to consider these mostly arrested characters “Trump’s people” and Trump’s “base,” in a bid to still pin the riots on Trump. But how anyone who votes Democrat or doesn’t vote at all could be a part of Trump’s rise and the huge crowds he draws was never actually explained. Trump supporters … vote for Trump. This isn’t rocket science.

More and more, it looks like Trump was framed. This, in addition to transcripts not bearing out the claims that Trump called for an attack on the Capitol, as well as the inconvenient timeline — the FBI put out warnings of plans for disturbances days earlier, and the attack on the Capitol began before President Trump finished speaking and probably uttered the words the Democrats literally impeached him on.  

It was a rush to judgment, a failure to look at facts. It happened in the aftermath of the event, and it turns out Trump had little or nothing to do with it. Even House Republican leader Kevin McCarthy blamed Trump for the riots. But he, too,disgracefully rushed to judgment, so we await his apology, please.

The rush to judgment, incidentally, didn’t affect just President Trump, who got a second impeachment from it. There were many rushes to judgment in this leftist hysteria.

Here’s a blameless man named David Quintavalle, a retired Chicago firefighter, who was falsely accused of being the person who hurled the fire extinguisher that killed police officer Brian Sicknick, who by the way, really was a Trump supporter.

According to The Patch of Chicago:

The retired Chicago firefighter from Mount Greenwood — whom social media trolls called a “terrorist” and accused of fatally wielding a fire extinguisher that killed a cop as a mob of Trump-supporting insurrectionists stormed the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6 — was grocery shopping and celebrating his wife’s birthday in Chicago, Patch has learned.

Twitter exploded with unsubstantiated claims Tuesday that Quintavalle — who retired from the fire department in 2016 after 32 years — was the bearded “#extinguisherman” in a surveillance video wearing a “CFD” stocking cap wanted for questioning and “soon to be arrested” by the FBI regarding the fatal beating of U.S. Capitol Police officer Brian Sicknick.

Quintavalle had all his receipts and proofs. But this is how the left’s rush to judgment went for him:

By Tuesday night, Quintavalle began getting angry calls from people saying he’s a “f—— murderer” who belongs in jail. TV news reporters had staked out his house. Chicago police dispatched a patrol car to keep watch overnight, as well, his lawyer said.

Some folks got ridiculed for tweeting that Quintavalle wasn’t “the guy” and his facial features don’t match those of the man wanted for questioning by the FBI. One post claimed that tweets disputing Quintavalle’s involvement in the U.S. Capitol insurrection were pushed by trolling Twitter “bots with practically no followers coming out of the woodwork.”

This is a hell of a sorry picture.

The facts will continue to roll out and the picture that emerges will likely start to show that these rioters were hardly “Trump’s people” as a rule, or people who were egged on by Trump. They were, in general, leftists, political fringers and people who like to go to riots. There remains to be news of whether and how this fiasco was plotted out but expect news of that to roll out. 

That leaves Congress and all the jerks who voted for impeachment of President Trump looking like boobs and losers. They’ve hitched their star to this leftist impeachment obsession, and now have seen it falling flat. Now they are about to sully and overshadow Joe Biden’s first days in office with increasingly discredited charges against President Trump and rest assured, the voters will notice just how bad it is. This rush to judgment will trash their own legacies for history.