No Surge In COVID Two Weeks After Mask Mandate Lifted In Texas

No Surge In COVID Two Weeks After Mask Mandate Lifted In Texas

Authored by Meiling Lee via The Epoch Times,

After two weeks of lifting its mask mandate and allowing businesses to open at full capacity, Texas is not seeing a surge of new COVID-19 cases.

Gov. Greg Abbott, a Republican, issued an executive order (pdf) that went into effect on March 10 to loosen COVID-19 restrictions. Although the government’s statewide mask mandate was lifted, individual businesses were still able to “limit capacity” or impose mask mandates at their own choosing.

But in Austin and Travis County, residents 10 years or older still have to wear a mask outside their home after a district judge refused to grant Attorney General Ken Paxton a restraining order that would have ended a mask mandate enforced by Travis County and Austin city officials. The trial is set to take place on March 26.

Texas had been witnessing a downward trend in COVID-19 cases and hospitalizations prior to Abbott’s announcement ending the restrictions.

COVID-19 is the disease caused by the CCP (Chinese Communist Party) virus.

The Texas Department of State Health Services (DSHS) posted on Twitter yesterday that Texas saw a seven-day average decrease in the daily number of new cases, hospitalizations, and deaths.

At the time the executive order was issued, March 2, new COVID-19 cases in the state stood at 7,240 cases, with a seven-day average of 7,259 cases. That number dropped to 5,350 cases by March 10 when the executive order came into effect and the economy fully opened.

Two weeks later on March 24, the number of daily new cases stands at 3,827, with a seven-day average of 3,401 cases.

Texas Governor Greg Abbott arrives for his COVID-19 press conference at the Texas State Capitol in Austin on March 29, 2020. (Tom Fox-Pool/Getty Images)

Abbott included in his order a provision for county judges across the state’s 22 hospital regions to “use COVID-19 mitigation strategies” if hospitalizations rise over 15 percent of “hospital bed capacity” for seven straight days.

“County Judges may not impose jail time for not following COVID-19 orders nor may any penalties be imposed for failing to wear a face mask. If restrictions are imposed at a county level, those restrictions may not include reducing capacity to less than 50% for any type of entity,” he added.

Abbott’s mask mandate rollback had attracted criticism from high-profile figures, including California Gov. Gavin Newsom and Dr. Anthony Fauci, a top adviser to President Joe Biden.

“We understand people’s need to get back to normal, and we’re going in that direction. But when you start doing things like completely putting aside all public health measures as if you’re turning a light switch off, that’s quite risky,” Fauci said during an appearance on CNN earlier this month.

“We don’t want to see another surge, and that’s inviting one when you do that.”

Mississippi also announced it was lifting COVID-19 related restrictions on March 2.

“Starting tomorrow, we are lifting all of our county mask mandates and businesses will be able to operate at full capacity without any state-imposed rules,” Republican Gov. Tate Reeves said on Twitter. “Our hospitalizations and case numbers have plummeted, and the vaccine is being rapidly distributed. It is the time!”

In Mississippi, new COVID-19 cases have also been steadily declining but not as much as in Texas.

There were 301 cases with a seven-day average of 582 on March 2. Two weeks later, Mississippi had 387 new cases and a seven-day average of 289 cases.

The state’s death toll is significantly lower than Texas, with four deaths on March 24 and a seven-day average of 6 deaths.

Texas saw 163 deaths on the same day, with a seven-day average of 123. This is down from March 10 which saw 202 deaths and a seven-day average of 190 deaths. Texas has around ten times the population of Mississippi.

At the time of publishing, more than six million Texan residents and 720,607 Mississippians have received at least one dose of the COVID-19 vaccine.

Tyler Durden
Fri, 03/26/2021 – 19:00

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Sanders Challenges Biden To Adopt Aggressive Tax Scheme Topping 65% For Wealthiest Americans

Sanders Challenges Biden To Adopt Aggressive Tax Scheme Topping 65% For Wealthiest Americans

Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT) is playing bad cop – introducing a tax plan that’s so aggressive that it makes Biden’s small-business-killing corporate tax hike look moderate in comparison.

Sanders, Chairman of the Senate Budget Committee, has proposed two new measures – one which would raise the corporate tax rate from 21% to 35%, far above the 28% Biden has proposed. It would also add stricter rules for taxing offshore profits, according to The Hill.

The second piece of legislation would supercharge the estate tax – lowering the threshold from $11 million to $3.5 million for single people, and from $22 million to $7 million for couples. It would also raise the tax rate to as much as 65% for estates over $1 billion.

Biden, on the other hand, would cap taxes on estates valued over $3.5 million at a flat 45%.

According to Sanders, Biden and Democrats need to be willing to go much further in taxing corporations and estates in order to pay for upcoming infrastructure and pandemic stimulus.

“We can no longer tolerate many large corporations making billions of dollars in profits to pay nothing in federal income taxes while about half of older Americans have no retirement savings and no idea how they will be able to retire with any shred of dignity or respect,” said Sanders at a Budget Committee hearing on the topic.

The proposals underscore how Sanders is continuing to push Biden to the left, as he did during the presidential primary race when he finished second to the president.

But the pressure creates a number of problems for Biden, who is seeking to pass legislation through a Senate with 50 Democrats and 50 Republicans.

If Biden does pursue the $3 trillion infrastructure and climate change package being contemplated, it’s not clear how much he’ll seek to pay for and how much will add to the deficit.

The White House is contemplating working with Republicans on at least part of the package to win a bipartisan victory, something some centrist Democrats have pressed him to do. –The Hill

Upcoming stimulus is likely to be split into a $2 trillion infrastructure bill, and a $1 trillion bill to address education, child care and poverty.

Republicans, meanwhile, are sounding the alarm on out-of-control spending following the passage of the $1.9 trillion American Rescue Plan earlier this month, which would bring the total debt from concurrent packages to nearly $5 trillion.

“We have engaged in an unprecedented amount of borrowing over the past year, which is exactly what we should have been doing,” according to MacGuineas, president of the Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget, in Thursday testimony before Sanders’ committee.

“This debt trajectory leaves us vulnerable on many fronts: it leaves people who depend on these important trust fund programs vulnerable given all the uncertainty; it leaves the economy vulnerable to economic shifts both here and abroad; and it creates a major national security threat as well,” she added.

The GOP itself passed $1.9 trillion in unfunded tax cuts in 2017 that added to the deficit. But it is unlikely to back new legislation that would add more spending that is unpaid for.

“In 2017 we did in fact cut taxes. We cut taxes in a way to make American corporations competitive with the worldwide rate,” said Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.), the top Republican on the Budget panel.

This insatiable desire by my friends on the left to grab as much money and power as they can is going to ruin the country. There has to be some balance,” he added. –The Hill

Sanders’ new bills make clear that any attempt by Biden(‘s handlers) to make generous concessions to the GOP will be met with pushback from his own party – which could cause friction in both the House and the Senate, where Democrats’ majorities are razor-thin.

“Despite what some of my Republican colleagues may claim, the reality is that when you take into account federal income taxes, payroll taxes, gas taxes, sales taxes and property taxes, we have, as a nation, an extremely unfair tax system that allows billionaires to pay a lower effective tax rate than public school teachers, truck drivers and nurses,” said Sanders, adding “That has got to change.”

Tyler Durden
Fri, 03/26/2021 – 18:40

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US Military Ordered ‘Clandestine Burning’ Of Toxic Chemicals In Poor Neighborhoods: Study

US Military Ordered ‘Clandestine Burning’ Of Toxic Chemicals In Poor Neighborhoods: Study

Authored by Kenny Stancil via CommonDreams.org,

New research conducted by environmental justice scholars at Vermont’s Bennington College reveals that between 2016 and 2020, the US military oversaw the clandestine burning” of more than 20 million pounds of Aqueous Fire Fighting Foam in low-income communities around the country—even though there is no evidence that incineration destroys the toxic “forever chemicals” that make up the foam and are linked to a range of cancers, developmental disorders, immune dysfunction, and infertility.

“In defiance of common sense and environmental expertise, the Department of Defense (DOD) has enlisted poor communities across the US as unwilling test subjects in its toxic experiment with burning AFFF,” David Bond, associate director of the Center for the Advancement of Public Action at Bennington College, said (pdf) in a statement earlier this week.

Noting that scientists, the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), and even Pentagon officials have warned that “burning AFFF is an unproven method and dangerous mix that threatens the health of millions of Americans,” Bond characterized the decision of the military to dump huge stockpiles of AFFF and AFFF wastewater into “a handful of habitually negligent incinerators” as a “harebrained” operation as well as a manifestation of environmental injustice.

“In effect,” he added, “the Pentagon redistributed its AFFF problem into poor and working-class neighborhoods.”

After months of compiling and analyzing data—obtained last year from the Pentagon and the New York State Department of Environmental Conservation—the team from Vermont launched an interactive website this week that publicizes for the first time the results of their investigation into all known shipments of AFFF to hazardous waste incinerators in the US.

The Bennington College researchers summarized their findings as follows:

  • Over 20 million pounds of the toxic firefighting foam AFFF and AFFF wastewater was incinerated between 2016-2020;
  • The US military, the EPA, and state regulators all expressed serious concern about the ability of incineration to destroy the toxic chemicals in AFFF during this time;
  • Six incinerators were contracted to burn AFFF. Each is a habitual violator of environmental law. Since 2017, three of the incinerators were out of compliance with environmental law 100% of the time while the other incinerators were out of compliance with environmental law about 50% of the time;
  • 35% of known shipments of AFFF (7.7 million pounds) was burned at the Norlite Hazardous Waste Incinerator in Cohoes, New York, located within a densely populated urban area and less than 400 feet from a public housing complex. Norlite burned 2.47 million pounds of AFFF and 5.3 million pounds of AFFF wastewater, which likely was burned in violation of its Resource Conservation and Recovery Act permit;
  • 40% of the national stockpile of AFFF (5.5 million pounds) was sent to “fuel-blending” facilities where it was mixed into fuels for industrial use. It is not clear where the AFFF-laden fuel went next, although the DOD contract stipulates incineration should be the endpoint; and
  • 970,000 pounds of AFFF was burned overseas.

AFFF contains contaminants known as perfluoroalkyl and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS); exposure to trace amounts of these synthetic chemicals is associated with a variety of detrimental health effects, and some have argued that PFAS are so risky that they not only endanger public health but threaten to undermine human reproduction writ large.

Click for interactive website

Jane Williams, chair of the Sierra Club’s National Clean Air team stressed: “We simply must stop burning PFAS compounds.”

“Attempting to burn these forever chemicals can generate highly toxic emissions which endanger the health of nearby communities,” she said. “Burning also releases gases which are powerful climate forcing chemicals.”

According to Williams, “EPA and DOD are both pursuing advanced technologies that can more effectively destroy these compounds without causing these unacceptable impacts.” The pursuit of alternative disposal methods raises the question, posed by the researchers on their website: “If incineration is an unproven means of destroying these toxins, is burning AFFF solving the problem or simply emitting it into the poor communities that so often surround incinerators in the US?”

According to the researchers, the military rushed to burn more than 20 million pounds of AFFF over the past four years because they feared the substance “would be classified as a toxic chemical (and with that designation, would require new safeguards and introduce new liability).”

In a column published Thursday in The Guardian, Bond explained:

While some states file suit against the manufactures of AFFF, the fingerprints of the US Armed Forces are all over the scene of the crime. When federal scientists moved to publish a comprehensive review of the toxic chemistry of AFFF in 2018, DOD officials called that science “a public relations nightmare” and tried to suppress the findings.

Beyond damning internal emails, the military is still in possession of a tremendous amount of AFFF. As the EPA and states around the U.S. begin to designate AFFF a hazardous substance, the military’s stockpiles of AFFF are starting to add up to an astronomical liability on the military’s balance sheet. Perhaps thinking the Trump administration presented an opportune moment, the Pentagon decided to torch their AFFF problem in 2016.

Despite AFFF’s extraordinary resistance to fire, incineration quietly became the military’s preferred method to handle AFFF. “We knew that this would be a costly endeavor, since it meant we’d be burning something that was engineered to put out fires,” Steve Schneider, chief of Hazardous Disposal for the logistics wing of DOD, said in 2017 as the operation got underway…

As the military was sending AFFF to incinerators around the country, the EPA, state regulators, and university scientists all warned that subjecting AFFF to extremely high temperatures would likely conjure up a witches brew of fluorinated toxins, that existing smokestack technologies would be insufficient to monitor poisonous emissions let alone capture them, and that dangerous chemicals might rain down on surrounding neighborhoods. Weighing out its own liability against the health of these communities, the Pentagon struck the match.

Judith Enck, former EPA regional administrator, said the data compiled by the Bennington College team demonstrate that “we have a national problem on our hands.”

“Congress needs to throw cold water on the Pentagon’s mad dash to burn toxic firefighting foam. There is no evidence that incineration destroys AFFF,” she added, calling for “a national ban on burning these forever chemicals.”

Tyler Durden
Fri, 03/26/2021 – 18:20

via ZeroHedge News https://ift.tt/3w1J944 Tyler Durden

Daily Briefing: The Battles in the Market: Big vs. Small, Stay-At-Home vs. Re-Opening

Daily Briefing: The Battles in the Market: Big vs. Small, Stay-At-Home vs. Re-Opening

Tommy Thornton of Hedge Fund Telemetry gives Real Vision’s Jack Farley a much-needed update on the “battles” in the market between mega-cap stocks that dominate the S&P 500 and the small-cap stocks in the Russell 2000 that have been ripping for months. Thornton analyzes the internals of the market, using DeMARK indicators to gauge exhaustion, and he looks at breadth, moving averages, and volatility. Thornton shares with Farley his view on bonds and energy stocks as well as Tesla, the ARK Innovation ETF, and specific stocks that are on his radar.

Tyler Durden
Fri, 03/26/2021 – 11:00

via ZeroHedge News https://ift.tt/3lYLE2G Tyler Durden

WHO Wuhan COVID Origins Report Delayed As China ‘Fights Tooth & Nail Over Each Sentence’

WHO Wuhan COVID Origins Report Delayed As China ‘Fights Tooth & Nail Over Each Sentence’

The World Health Organization (WHO) is delaying its report on the origins of COVID-19 because China is ‘fighting tooth and nail over each sentence,’ according to WHO advisory committee member Jamie Metzl.

“Just received confirmation that release of the WHO-organized int’l committee/Chinese gov’t report on #COVID19 origins has again been delayed,” Metzl tweeted Friday, adding “apparently as the Chinese side fights tooth & nail over each sentence. Anyone believe this compromise report can possibly be credible?”

On Monday, former deputy assistant secretary of state for East Asian and Pacific Affairs, David Feith, wrote in the Washington Post on Monday that WHO investigators “won’t be able to publish findings without official Chinese concurrence.

So will the final WHO report focus on the Wuhan Institute of Virology? Don’t count on it. Because the same WHO investigators who — responding to media inquiries — confirmed the existence of the sick lab workers immediately played down the importance of the information.

It was flu season!” WHO investigator Peter Daszak said on Twitter, though he provided no evidence that these lab workers had flu rather than covid.

How could such an important investigation risk its credibility by including possibly conflicted investigators? Well, the WHO investigation isn’t just a WHO investigation. It is a joint effort between the WHO, which convened some 19 international investigators, and the Chinese government, which selected 17 Chinese researchers and also had veto power over the foreign experts. The investigators won’t be able to publish findings without official Chinese concurrence.-WaPo

And as the Daily Caller reports, the delay follows the WHO’s refusal to release an interim report on COVID-19 origins amid growing concerns over the legitimacy of their investigation.

“Chinese experts received English version of the WHO report on Mar. 17. Whether the report will be released next week depends on discussions between Chinese & international experts,” a Chinese government spokesperson tweeted on March 19.

WHO team members also told the Wall Street Journal after “Chinese counterparts review it and make possible changes.”

The WHO did not respond to questions from the Daily Caller News Foundation on exactly how Chinese officials can change the report, but said through a spokesperson that “Once we have the date of the release of the report we will inform media.”

However, a group of scientists and academics, members of Congress and others have called for a separate, more independent investigation. (RELATED: Report: WHO Granted China Authority To Veto Scientists On Wuhan Mission) 

Discovering the virus’s origin is “critically important to both better addressing the current pandemic and reducing the risk of future ones,” the international group of scientists and academics wrote in an open letter on March 4. –Daily Caller

“Perhaps the WHO final report will supply evidence to justify the investigators’ apparent lack of interest in pursuing the lab-leak theory,” Feith wrote in the Post. “Does the WHO have the names of the [Wuhan Institute of Virology in China] lab researchers who fell ill? Were they interviewed? Has the WHO seen their medical records? Antibody test results? If so, will the information be included in the WHO report?”

Looks like we’ll just have and Xi what Beijing allows the WHO to conclude…

Tyler Durden
Fri, 03/26/2021 – 18:00

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Greenwald: CNN’s Defense Of Chris Cuomo’s Special COVID Privileges Is Grotesque

Greenwald: CNN’s Defense Of Chris Cuomo’s Special COVID Privileges Is Grotesque

Authored by Glenn Greenwald via greenwald.substack.com,

Ever since the COVID pandemic subsumed most countries on the planet, there have been numerous scandals and controversies relating to those who corruptly obtain medical privileges and other exemptions unavailable to ordinary citizens. These scandals typically arise when someone uses their wealth, power or connections to jump in front of others for access to potentially life-saving procedures or medications or grant themselves and their friends license to ignore what everyone else must endure.

CNN host Chris Cuomo (l) “interviews” his brother, Gov. Andrew Cuomo (D-NY), on CNN, May 6, 2020

Right now in Brazil, for instance, there is a burgeoning scandal from reports that a group of businesspeople with ties to the government arranged to purchase their own private stash of vaccines for use for themselves, families and friends in violation of the law. In the U.S., people were outraged when very young members of Congress were among the first to receive the vaccine (though the law permitted them to do so); those young Congressmembers justified their line-jumping on the ground that they were doing so selflessly to encourage others. Meanwhile, other members of Congress refused this privilege on the ground, as Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-MN) put it, that it is “shameful” for young lawmakers to believe they “are more important” than workers. Repeatedly in the U.S., politicians were caught exempting themselves from lockdown orders they were imposing on everyone else.

But those pale in comparison to the abuse of power by Gov. Andrew Cuomo (D-NY) and his brother, CNN host Chris Cuomo, as reported on Wednesday by The Albany-Times Union and The Washington Post. “High-level members of the state Department of Health were directed last year by Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo and Health Commissioner Dr. Howard Zucker to conduct prioritized coronavirus testing on the governor’s relatives as well as influential people with ties to the administration,” reported the Times-Union. “Members of Cuomo’s family including his brother, his mother and at least one of his sisters were also tested by top health department officials — some several times,” it added.

In particular, Gov. Cuomo abused state resources to ensure that his then-49-year-old brother, Chris, received fast COVID testing at a time when tests were very scarce. “The CNN anchor was swabbed by a top New York Department of Health doctor, who visited his Hamptons home to collect samples from him and his family,” The Post reported. The article also contains these damning details:

The same doctor who tested Chris Cuomo, Eleanor Adams, now a top adviser to the state health commissioner, also was enlisted to test multiple other Cuomo family members….The coronavirus test specimens were then rushed — at times driven by state police troopers — to the Wadsworth Center, a state public health lab in Albany, where they were processed immediately, the people said. At times, employees in the state health laboratory were kept past their shifts until late into the night to process results of those close to Cuomo, two people said.

All of this commandeering of state resources to provide the CNN host with very specialized medical attention occurred while “media reports were full of accounts from New Yorkers desperate to get tested — including some with symptoms and recent travel history who were turned away because of scarcity.”

For more than a year now, CNN’s promotion of “interviews” conducted by Chris Cuomo of his own brother — in which the CNN host repeatedly heaped lavish praise on Gov. Cuomo and even hyped him as a presidential contender while the Governor was corruptly and possibly criminally covering up COVID deaths — was one of the most glaring breaches of journalistic ethics imaginable. It was not cute or charming. It was corrupt. And it aggressively deceived CNN’s audience. That they knew it was corrupt was evidenced by the CNN host’s recent announcement that he would not cover his brother’s recent scandals: what conceivable framework makes it journalistically permissible for a news host to shower his own brother with praise, but then not cover his scandals?

But now Chris Cuomo is directly involved in a serious abuse of power scandal by his brother: in fact, he’s the prime beneficiary of that scandal. He sought special medical favors from his brother, depriving other sick people more in need of it than he, by exploiting the fact that his brother is Governor and thus rules the state. That’s a scandal by any measure — one involving not only the Governor but also the CNN host.

What’s even more remarkable is that on May 6 — just weeks after Gov. Cuomo provided special COVID testing and treatment for him — Chris Cuomo “interviewed” his brother and began the interviewing by noting that New York State lacks the resources to provide COVID testing to the public at large. So not only did they conceal that they had both just used state resources to get Chris that scarce testing, but they both acknowledged that there was a resource shortage to serve the general public, even as Gov. Cuomo was lavishing those resources on his own family. Just watch the first minute here:

Even worse, Cuomo spoke openly on CNN about his COVID diagnosis and what he was doing for it. But he concealed from the public the fact that the Governor of New York arranged for him to have special treatment and state-funded access to tests that were unavailable to most of the public. Indeed, Cuomo has been repeatedly caught lying over CNN’s airwaves about his COVID condition — such as when he was caught outside arguing with a cyclist while he claimed he was in quarantine with COVID, and another time when he was shaming people on air for not using masks while he was being warned by his own building that he would be fined if he continued to circulate there without a mask. But now something far worse is revealed: that he was the beneficiary of exactly the kind of abuse of power that journalists (at least in theory) exist to expose.

And yet CNN — which has spent the year relentlessly shaming anyone who is even slightly off-key when it comes to COVID — is defending and even glorifying what their host did in corruptly obtaining for himself medical care unavailable to the broader public. This is the statement the cable network provided to media outlets through its spokesman Matt Dornic:

We generally do not get involved in the medical decisions of our employees. However, it is not surprising that in the earliest days of a once-in-a-century global pandemic, when Chris was showing symptoms and was concerned about possible spread, he turned to anyone he could for advice and assistance, as any human being would.

Ponder what they are saying. It is unsurprising that someone in Chris Cuomo’s position would want special privileges. Of course it’s unsurprising: everyone has a motive for wanting special privileges for themselves. The same exact defense CNN offered here could be made if Chris Cuomo had instead bribed state officials to provide him special medical treatment unavailable to the general public, or if he had broken into the home of another sick person to steal their medication that he could not obtain for himself. It would be understandable that a person with COVID would want to do this, in the sense that it is a rational motive. But the fact that Cuomo had a rational motive for doing this does not make it less corrupt, unethical or amoral. There are all sorts of things that it may be “understandable” for us to want for ourselves that the law, morality and/or ethics nonetheless prevents us from obtaining.

CNN’s attempt to cast this as an invasion of Cuomo’s private medical decisions is insultingly dishonest. Nobody cares about this because they are interested in what took place in the intimate setting between Cuomo and his physician. The issue — obviously — is that this person who CNN presents as a “journalist” clearly abused his influence and power, along with his brother, by using state resources for his own benefit and jumping in front of a line that almost certainly deprived people more in need of getting COVID tests at a time when they were scarce. The issue is not Cuomo’s medical privacy but the abuse of power in which he participated with his brother, the Governor of New York.

The hubris here on the part of the Cuomos is tawdry but, for them, completely unsurprising. This entitlement complex is what one might expect from two boys who grew up as the children of a popular and powerful governor whose wealth and fame are due to their last name: a good reason for the taboo against nepotism and dynastic politics, which so often produces abuse of power. But CNN’s behavior is something else entirely.

How can a news outlet credibly claim to denounce and expose abuse of power by political officials when they defend the participation in such corruption by their own on-air talent? CNN is telling the public that they see nothing wrong with their rich and well-connected anchors exploiting public resources or connections to powerful politicians to corruptly obtain medical treatment at the expense of everyone else. That is as grotesque as it is damaging to CNN’s brand.

Tyler Durden
Fri, 03/26/2021 – 17:40

via ZeroHedge News https://ift.tt/3lW8aJo Tyler Durden

Axios Joins Buzzfeed In Pursuing SPAC Deal As Traffic Shrinks In Post-Trump Era

Axios Joins Buzzfeed In Pursuing SPAC Deal As Traffic Shrinks In Post-Trump Era

Axios, a privately held digital-media startup launched by former Politico journalists that made a name for itself during the Trump era for firing off rapid fire scoops (while occasionally demonstrating lax standards for rumors and hearsay), has become the latest big-name firm in the bombed-out media space to consider going public via SPAC.

Over the last year, headlines in the digital-media world have been pretty grim. Bustle, Vox, Group Nine, Buzzfeed (which acquired the Huffington Post, only to fire one-third of its staff) Vice and others have announced layoffs and cutbacks, and all have been rumored to be in talks about potentially going public via SPAC.

At this point in the cycle, the venture capitalists who eagerly backed these firms 8 years ago are probably now panicking about getting their money out. Some might interpret the fact that SPACs are trawling for media deals, especially now that President Trump is living a mostly quiet life in Palm Beach, as a sign that there are few attractive opportunities left in the market, and wanna be dealmakers are now scraping the bottom of the barrel.

But what makes all this even more entertaining is the fact that Axios has reported on the SPAC boom. Some of this reporting has been critical. Other, more recent reports, have been conspicuously credulous.

Here’s Axios in a piece entitled “Why fears of a SPAC bubble may be overblown” published on March 4:

Reasons for (relative) calm: Unlike traditional venture capital or equities investing, though, SPACs have numerous guardrails.

Some of them are structural. Redemption rights, IPO proceeds held in escrow via T-bills and the ability for unit-holders to rebuff a merger.

There also is pricing pressure from the small number of institutional investors that have come to dominate the PIPE market. For example, it’s not uncommon for a SPAC to win a bake-off by offering the highest price, only to renegotiate down after the letter of intent is signed. Not because the SPAC sponsor thinks it over-bid, but because the big PIPE players do.

“Target companies hate when this happens, but they’re in an exclusivity period once they’ve signed the LOI, so their only option is to negotiate or wait a while and start the whole thing over,” a SPAC banker explains.

Make of that what you will.

According to a report in the WSJ, the deal being discussed would have Axios merge with increasingly popular subscription-based sports website “the Athletic” in order to pursue a range of expansion options that could very possibly include a SPAC deal. While the decisions are reportedly “at an early stage” and “could fall apart”, one of the most salient characteristics of the SPAC boom is how quickly parties go from “just talking” to inking the deal and bringing in institutional money to inject even more capital via what’s known as a “PIPE”.

The business plan being bandied about would focus on selling premium subscription models, mostly to businesses and professionals.

Axios and the Athletic believe one potential growth area is selling subscriptions to businesses at a premium rate, according to the people familiar with the investor presentation. Mr. VandeHei and one of his co-founders, Axios President Roy Schwartz, helped create Politico Pro, a business-to-business publication, when they both worked at Politico.

One logical step to raise capital could be going public by merging with a blank-check company, also known as a special-purpose acquisition company, the people said. There are also other options under consideration, one of the people said, declining to be more specific. Subscriptions have been a focus of writers who have migrated to substack, patreon or other platforms catering to independent creators. But only a few major news media companies have been able to work, and even then only barely.

Axios’s own traffic has fallen since peaking right around the end of President Trump’s dramatic exit from office, falling 36% in February, according to data from SimilarWeb.

In a piece published just yesterday, Fox News pointed out that traffic at many major leftist news outlets including the NYT and Washington Post has fallen since Trump left office. What’s more, all companies that sell digital ads took a hit when ad rates cratered during the pandemic.

At this point, is the fact that we haven’t seen more digital media SPAC deals a sign that, without Trump, these businesses are so screwed that even SPAC dealmakers are squeamish?

Tyler Durden
Fri, 03/26/2021 – 17:20

via ZeroHedge News https://ift.tt/3u0nN5w Tyler Durden

It’s Officially Now An Offense To Leave England… & Other Absurdities

It’s Officially Now An Offense To Leave England… & Other Absurdities

Authored by Simon Black via SovereignMan.com,

Are you ready for this week’s absurdity?

Here’s our Friday roll-up of the most ridiculous stories from around the world that are threats to your liberty, risks to your prosperity… and on occasion, inspiring poetic justice.

It’s officially now an offence to LEAVE England

After four hours of debate yesterday in the House of Commons, the United Kingdom has approved an emergency measure that will, among other restrictions, fine Brits who LEAVE the country without a qualifying reason.

Ironically, the British government insists they can legally impose these new rules because of authority that was granted to them under a law called the Public Health Act… which just happened to be passed in… 1984.

Starting on Monday, anyone who leaves England must submit papers making a certified declaration of their reason for leaving. The authorities will then retain the discretion to fine travelers £5,000— nearly $7,000, if the reason isn’t valid.

The government has provided a list of 14 valid excuses, such as a professional football team traveling for a match. This is totally fine.

But someone who wants to attend a religious pilgrimage is forbidden to travel. So is someone who wants to visit an elderly parent they haven’t seen since 2019, unless it is a parent whom the traveler “reasonably believes is dying.”

How magnanimous.

By the way, these new rules come despite Members of Parliament acknowledging in debate yesterday that 95% of Brits over the age of 60 have been vaccinated.

This means that the most vulnerable population has been administered a vaccine that they insist is safe and effective.

So… why the harsh lockdown rules?

Click here to read the new rules.

NY crowd cheers blind obedience to public health officials

Tracey Edwards, a New York Public Service Commission appointee, appeared with New York Governor Cuomo last week to encourage total ignorance and unquestioning loyalty to the public health officials.

(The same officials who sent Covid infected patients to nursing homes, spreading the disease among the most vulnerable, and causing thousands of excess deaths.)

While encouraging people to take the vaccine, Edwards said:

“I’m not asking what’s in the infusion, I’m not looking up all of the ingredients in the infusion, I am sticking out my arm and I am taking the infusion — and that’s what we have to do.”

The crowd cheered in approval.

This is what the public is being sold: DON’T read any of the research and make up your own mind. DON’T have a conversation with your doctor to make an informed, medical decision. DON’T take even a moment to weigh potential costs and benefits.

Instead, you should be deliberately ignorant and happily do exactly what the public health overlords tell you, without question.

(These are the same New York public health officials who, by the way, sent sick patients into nursing homes, killed countless people, and then covered it up.)

Obey.

Click here to watch the clip.

California couple can’t move in to their home because of eviction moratorium

A couple paid the owner of a home in California $560,000 in cash in January 2020.

But that owner is still living inside the home today.

He has been able to take advantage of California’s Covid eviction moratorium to pocket the cash and continue living in the home rent free.

It’s hard to understand how the law could possibly apply to this situation, but the couple’s legal proceedings to take possession of their home have been stalled due to the ban on evicting tenants.

Just to be clear: this isn’t the tenant of the former owner. It is the former owner himself who refuses to leave.

Who would have thought that anyone would take advantage of California’s ridiculous laws?

Click here to read the full story.

You can now receive a Bachelor of Tolerance and Coexistence degree

A university in the United Arab Emirates has introduced a Bachelor of Tolerance and Coexistence degree.

The three year program offered by Mohamed Bin Zayed University for Humanities is the first of its kind in the world.

The university chancellor says the degree “develops students’ understanding and respect for different cultures, civilisations and religions, so they can act as ambassadors and build bridges of communication between cultures and civilizations.”

Of course, graduates should probably start the work in the UAE— a country where Shariah Courts where homosexuality, or any perceived blasphemy against Islam, can be punishable by imprisonment, or even death.

Click here to read the full story.

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On another note… We think gold could DOUBLE and silver could increase by up to 5 TIMES in the next few years. That’s why we published a new, 50-page long Ultimate Guide on Gold & Silver that you can download here.

Tyler Durden
Fri, 03/26/2021 – 17:00

via ZeroHedge News https://ift.tt/39ksM8Z Tyler Durden

At Least 10 Days For Normal Shipping To Resume After Suez Blockage Removed: Vortexa

At Least 10 Days For Normal Shipping To Resume After Suez Blockage Removed: Vortexa

With global supply chains on the edge of fraying, we just got more bad news moments ago when Bloomberg reported that efforts to dislodge the container vessel blocking the Suez Canal will take until at least Wednesday, a longer effort than initially feared, leading to even more disruption to global supply chains for everything from oil to grains to cars.

And while rescue efforts had initially been expected to last only a couple of days, the task of re-floating the 200,000-ton ship Ever Given, which is still firmly wedged across the vital maritime trade route, will require about a week of work and potentially longer, Bloomberg sources – who curiously wished to remain anonymous – said. 

Yet even it the ship is moved in less time, Arthur Richier from Vortexa had some more bad news: according to the senior freight analyst, the resumption of normal shipping through the Suez Canal will likely take a minimum of 10 days after a huge ship is moved and the artery is unblocked.

There is a backlog of about 300 vessels currently and with every passing hour, the gridlock will only increase. Vessels headed to the Suez canal are already changing course as it could take days to refloat Ever Given. 

Refinitiv data shows LNG tanker Pan Americas deviated from its route in the Atlantic Ocean on Mar. 24, likely due to Suez’s developments. The tanker appears to be headed around the Cape of Good Hope. 

Here are the main flows that Vortexa believes will be affected by the blockage:

  • Middle Eastern sour crude flows to Europe, although some oil can go through Sumed and potentially Israeli pipelines
  • Lighter and sweet crude from the Caspian and North Africa that go to Asian destinations as well as partly to the U.S.
  • Middle distillates and biodiesel destined for Europe and gasoline/blending components for the U.S.
  • Naphtha from Russia for Asian petchem producers, fuel oil from ARA/Russia, for bunkering in Singapore/East of Suez
  • U.S. LPG and ethane exports to Asia, especially India

The good news is that according to Vortexa “it’s questionable whether the missing fuel oil, naphtha and other light ends will really have impact in Asia in the short-term” as it “could be balanced by growing pressure on the regional middle distillate market that already sees record volumes in transit; may result in VLCC bookings to Europe around the Cape of Good Hope”, although as we will note in a follow up report, JPMorgan’s Kolanovic disagrees.

 

Tyler Durden
Fri, 03/26/2021 – 16:40

via ZeroHedge News https://ift.tt/3cvhGQN Tyler Durden

Who’s Shaking The Jar, Part 2: 2020 Was The Turning Point In History

Who’s Shaking The Jar, Part 2: 2020 Was The Turning Point In History

Authored by Jim Quinn via The Burning Platform blog,

In Part 1 of this article I documented the never ending false narratives used by those shaking the jar to keep us at each other’s throats. I will now show how 2020 was a turning point in history, with an accelerating decline of our empire in progress.

The numerous examples of how those holding the jar shake it to generate conflict and chaos to achieve their Machiavellian ambitions pales in comparison with what they accomplished during the fateful year of 2020. They began shaking the jar at hypersonic speed by weaponizing the annual flu, giving it a scary name and then faking data to scare the entire world into lockdowns and mandatory masking, even though “science” said neither of those “solutions” worked against viruses. And the science was right.

But that was not enough. They needed to reignite race wars by declaring the country is infected with systematic racism, even though we have spent $25 trillion on welfare programs since the War on Poverty began in 1965. The level of shaking in 2020 should make any critical thinking person pause and ask why. They really needed a huge distraction as cover for their real purpose. As usual, just follow the money. The global financial system was on life support and was in danger of flat lining, destroying the wealth of billionaire oligarchs, corporate titans, and the Wall Street cabal.

What appears to be happening is the last dying gasps of an empire of debt as it thrashes about using un-Constitutional means to control its subjects, while injecting trillions of fiat dollars as an adrenaline treatment for a terminal cancer diagnosis. As a last resort, initiating a global war with Russia and China would certainly distract the masses and keep them from realizing the true enemy within. Turning Washington DC into an armed encampment is not to protect the government from white supremacists. It is to protect the traitorous creatures in Congress and the White House from the citizens when this diabolical plan blows up in our faces.

Inflation is already raging, but the government and Fed tell you it is 1.5%. There are 261 million working age Americans and only 127 million are employed full-time, but the government tells you the unemployment rate is 6.2%, when more than 50% of those capable of working are not. The government will tell you GDP soared in the first quarter at 6%, when we are in the midst of a government created Depression, and the GDP calculation is nothing more than the government borrowing trillions from future generations and giving a minuscule portion to current generations, with the vast majority going into the pockets of billionaire oligarchs, Wall Street, and mega-corporations. The “economic recovery” narrative is entirely false, but the jar shakers know the plebs do not understand math.

The plumbing of our astonishingly crooked financial system began to fail in September 2019, with overnight Repo rates soaring to 10%. The Fed immediately leapt into action by restarting QE (aka No Banker Left Behind) to keep the depth of our debt predicament hidden from the public. A flu released from a Chinese bio-lab, which is highly non-lethal to anyone under 80 years old, has been utilized by the jar shakers to unleash a tsunami of digital fiat (aka debt) to prop up a system being smothered by too much debt.

Since March of 2020, our beloved legislators have added $4.5 trillion to the national debt, a 20% increase in one year. The Fed has done their part by jolting their balance sheet up by $3.5 trillion, an 85% increase in one year. The current administration is saying hold my beer, as they are busy adding another $4 trillion in the next year and the Fed will add another $2 trillion or so to their balance sheet. Meanwhile, hundreds of thousands of small businesses have been permanently destroyed, while Bezos and the rest of his billionaire buddies have increased their net worth by tens of billions. At least your grandma is earning .015% in her savings account, while her living expenses rise by 10%. Do you get it yet?

The Covid hysteria is a narrative that only comes along once in a century, and the jar shakers could not let this manufactured crisis go to waste. They are still milking it for everything they can, as Fauci warns of variants and whatever other gibberish designed to keep the masses frightened, obedient and compliant. The entire narrative is built upon falsity, misinformation, fear, fake data, and censorship – all to benefit Big Pharma profits, increase governmental control, and initiate the Great Reset. CDC guidelines, dozens of other scientific studies, and even the warning on every box of surgical masks, confirmed masks DO NOT protect you from viruses.

Fauci, head of CDC and the Surgeon General were not lying in March 2020 when they said masks do not protect you and should not be worn. They do not protect you from anything and all the data proves mask mandates did nothing to stop the spread. A virus is going to virus. The case counts skyrocketed in the winter when masks were being worn by 90% of the public. But as far as jar shaking, masks are the gift that keeps giving, as the mask worshiping cult attack non-maskers as granny killers.

Those with the common sense to realize masks are worthless theater and virtue signaling are scorned, ridiculed and ostracized by the ignorant maskers who believe everything they are told on the boob tube by self-proclaimed medical “experts. Wearing a mask gives mental weaklings a purpose in life. Masks were determined by those in control to be an ideal method of control and source of conflict to keep the plebs at each other’s throats. And it continues, despite unequivocal proof masks are useless.

The lockdown of the world by politicians following the direction of health care “expert” models has proved to be the absolute worst decision since the leaders of Europe thought the conflict started in July 1914 would be over in a few weeks. It is now clear the lockdowns were used as the main lever to undermine our democratic elections and remove Trump from office. The virus and lockdowns were used by the Deep State to ensure victory in November with an onslaught of fraudulent mail-in ballots in Democrat controlled swing states and cities.

The lockdowns were also exploited by the jar shakers to destroy small businesses and shift their revenues to mega-corporations like Amazon, Wal-Mart and Target. The destruction of the last vestiges of free market capitalism occurred in 2020, as the government, in collusion with the Federal Reserve, picked the economic winners (them) and losers (you), decided whether you were essential, redistributed wealth from the poor to the rich, set us on a path towards socialism, and laid the groundwork for the Great Reset.

The lockdowns did not slow, mitigate, or stop the spread of the virus in any way. They tell us to trust the science, but the masking and lockdowns were futile, destructive, and worthless. The rise and fall of cases followed the exact trajectory in states that locked down heavily (New York, California, Michigan) versus those that barely locked down or did not lock down at all (Florida, Georgia, South Dakota). They did not have more deaths per capita than the lockdown states, while not destroying their economy and the lives of their citizens. The untold psychological damage to our children and their educational regression can never be reversed.

But these totalitarian governors (Cuomo, Newsom, Whitmer, Wolf, Murphy) continue to act like despots, inflicting their arbitrary non-scientific based rules, regulations and mandates on the people, who have been propagandized into submission by the jar shakers. Dissenters like the owners of Atilis Gym in NJ and the Polish restaurant owner in Michigan are publicly tortured by the authorities with massive fines and jail time for attempting to keep their small businesses alive.

But it is safe to stand in line with three hundred people at Costco on a Saturday. The hypocrisy of these slimy politicians is capsulized in the picture of Newsom dining indoors at the most exclusive restaurant in California at $1,200 a plate while his subjects were locked in their homes.

The truth is you have a 99.7% chance of not dying from this virus, even if you contract it. Those are the facts as presented by the CDC, not conspiracy theorists. And based on the number of reported cases in the last year, you only had about a 10% chance of catching it, so your risk level is infinitesimal. It is less lethal than the annual flu to those under 50 years old.

If you are on deaths doorstep and your governor sticks infected patients into your nursing home, you are probably going to die with Covid, not from Covid. According to how they have classified other deaths, George Floyd died of Covid, not the fentanyl overdose that really killed him. The jar shakers needed high death counts to invoke fear and obedience, so they paid hospitals a bounty for all Covid classified deaths.

Fauci, Gates and their Big Pharma cohorts needed huge case counts and deaths to fast track their gene altering therapy, disguised as a vaccine. The solution was to ramp up testing to over 1 million tests per day to generate hundreds of thousands of false positives and report them as cases. It worked like a charm, as the experimental fast- tracked therapies will generate over $4 billion of profits for Pfizer in the first year, with billions more to come because we will be told it requires an annual booster shot.

Those in power are pushing, prodding, and propagandizing the masses to do their duty and get the jabs. An all-out media blitz of Hollywood stars and sports heroes are paraded before cameras getting the jab. Of course, Hank Aaron and Marvin Hagler are not able to do follow-up appearances.

The mainstream media and social media tyrants have been tasked with suppressing any information about adverse reactions and deaths from the jab. The censorship of studies proving ivermectin and hydroxychloroquine were highly effective in alleviating the symptoms of Covid by the Silicon Valley suppression sycophants resulted in the deaths of people who could have been saved. But these two safe drugs, with a long history of success, are extremely cheap, costing a few dollars per treatment. Big Pharma does not benefit, so Gates’ profits would evaporate and Fauci would not get his position on the Pfizer Board after writing his book about saving the world.

The most worrisome aspect of this whirlwind of vaccination propaganda is the complete disinterest among the masses about possible long-term side effects. A critical thinking individual should be worried the Big Pharma companies required the waiver of all liability for whatever unpleasant or lethal side effects their experimental gene therapies might inflict on unsuspecting dupes.

With “mister population control” Gates heavily invested in these vaccines, a conspiracy theorist like me wonders whether there is an ulterior motive to this mass vaccination assault for a flu with a 99.7% survival rate. Does the vaccine increase my odds of survival to 99.8% and at what cost? Have you been lied to, misled or misinformed by these leaders and “experts” in the last year?

As if the mandatory masking, lockdowns, and vaccine propaganda did not provide enough jar shaking in 2020, the controllers thought a nice race war would further facilitate their master plan of societal destruction, laying the groundwork for their build back better Great Reset. The entirely false narrative of systemic racism was rolled out after the death of an out-of-control felon high on fentanyl based on a partial video of a cop restraining him with a standard operating procedure technique and the death of a former EMT whose boyfriend was a drug dealer who opened fire on police as they entered their apartment.

These two dicey characters were elevated to sainthood by the professional race baiting hucksters and the Democrat controlled urban ghettos exploded in riots, looting and burning of businesses. Nothing reflects protesting systematic racism like stealing a 65-inch HDTV from Target in honor of George Floyd. After his six funerals and corporate America latching onto the anti-racism theme, with the media stirring the hate and vitriol, the entire summer was spent watching our cities burn at the hands of ANTIFA and BLM terrorists, funded by Soros.

White Americans watched this travesty play out on TV every night, wondering why the police were instructed by Democrat mayors to stand down, as their cities burned, and businesses were destroyed. Meanwhile, we were inundated with messages on TV informing all white people they are inherently racist, as corporations and universities bended the knee to this utter bullshit. The critical race theory nonsense and 1619 Project lies were pushed by fake news peddler academics and the usual suspects like Sharpton. Athletes making millions taking the knee during the national anthem to protest systemic racism was laughable.

Canceling anyone who failed to bow down before these race baiters became the cool thing to do among the low IQ liberal set. And it continues today unabated because there are too many cowardly white people unwilling to push back on the lies for fear of losing their jobs. Those controlling the narrative know they are winning so they have moved onto Dr. Seuss and Pepe Le Pew as the next step in destroying any remaining societal cohesion. The gender identity crap is also being ratcheted up to shake the jar and create mayhem and hatred. To what end?

When you are the midst of a whirling dust storm of lies, misinformation, and relentless propaganda it is tough to rise above it all to decipher what is really happening and who is telling the truth. From my perspective I see an empire in a death throes that doesn’t realize it’s dying. Everything happening, from the desperate financial measures being employed by central bankers, to the extreme political measures being inflicted upon the populace, the military actively participating in domestic issues and being used by politicians against citizens, the purposeful tearing of the social fabric by traitorous globalist forces, and the shredding of Constitutional rights with no dissent from a feckless judicial branch, are unambiguous signs of an empire in decline.

I believe the powerful oligarchs realize what is happening and are attempting to engineer a controlled demolition so they can build back better without sacrificing their wealth, clout, and hegemony over the masses. Their goal is for you to own nothing and be happy. And if you disagree, some time in the gulag will change your attitude. The unraveling of civilization we are experiencing was already underway but has been purposely accelerated by the jar shakers over the last year to create the environment for a Great Reset.

I strongly doubt the ability of these arrogant narcissistic psychopaths to engineer a controlled demolition of an empire, without creating a chaotic financial collapse in conjunction with a global conflagration. Historian Niall Ferguson observed all great powers have risen and fallen, usually over a lengthy time frame.

“Great powers, like great men, are born, rise, reign and then gradually wane. No matter whether civilizations decline culturally, economically or ecologically, their downfalls are protracted.”

Ferguson then pondered whether modernity could create the conditions for a rapid decline. What if the speed of the modern world also translates into the speed of declines? Ferguson understands any grain of sand falling on an unstable portion of the sand pile can lead to a catastrophic collapse:

“What if collapse does not arrive over a number of centuries but comes suddenly, like a thief in the night? Great powers are complex systems. There comes a moment when complex systems ‘go critical.’ A very small trigger can set off a ‘phase transition’ from a benign equilibrium to a crisis — a single grain of sand causes a whole pile to collapse.”

Lack of courage, political corruption, excessive greed, extreme levels of debt, decadence, social decay, technological addiction and consumerism has left our country teetering on the brink of disaster. Ferguson assesses the facts and concludes collapse of the American Empire is closer than most people think:

“Most imperial falls are associated with fiscal crises. Alarm bells should therefore be ringing very loudly for the United States. A complex adaptive system is in big trouble when its component parts lose faith in its viability. Empires behave like all complex adaptive systems. They function in apparent equilibrium for some unknowable period. And then, quite abruptly, they collapse.”

The jar shakers have been lulled into a false sense of security, as their non-stop efforts to foment discontent and create conflict among the ants has yielded tremendous success. What if the ants realized the real enemy was holding the jar and decided to combine forces and attack the true enemy with venomous poison? The real enemy has emerged from the shadows. Those twelve-foot walls, barbed wire and armed military personnel around the Capitol signify we are already the subjects of a military junta semi-dictatorship. They fear their citizens because they know what they are doing is designed to destroy the last remnants of a once proud Republic.

The totalitarian measures implemented at all levels of government in the last year were a test run to see how far they could push you. They are now convinced you will not push back, because you have not pushed back. The moment has arrived to regain our courage, fortitude, love for country, community standards, traditions, and moral code.

The path we are on is one of destruction, decay and servitude to powerful men who do not have your best interests at heart. The future appears bleak, but we are descended from rebels and dissenters. Our descent into darkness is not a forgone conclusion. The current path should be unacceptable to any citizen who cares about future unborn generations. It is time to fight for your country. If not now, then when? The enemy has revealed themselves. Do whatever you can to thwart their agenda. Our forefathers faced greater odds.

“Here in America, we are descended in blood and in spirit from revolutionists and rebels – men and women who dare to dissent from accepted doctrine. As their heirs, may we never confuse honest dissent with disloyal subversion.” –  Dwight D. Eisenhower

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Tyler Durden
Fri, 03/26/2021 – 16:20

via ZeroHedge News https://ift.tt/2O0DSsu Tyler Durden