Japan Plans To Provide COVID-19 Vaccine To All Citizens For Free Tyler Durden
Wed, 09/02/2020 – 23:45
Outgoing Japanese PM Shinzo Abe has made many of the same mistakes during the battle against COVID-19 as President Trump: After botching the handling of the “Diamond Princess” by allowing quarantines to be violated and the infection to spread, the Japanese government never followed up with stringent restrictions. Japan’s constitution forbids the type of lockdowns seen in Europe, China and the US. The state of emergency adopted by the government wasn’t nearly as robust a measure as what other countries tried.
And yet, Japan has a relatively low rate of infection. None of this really makes sense, considering that Japan’s aged population consumes more adult diapers per year than infant diapers. Still, in an effort to quell fears, the Japanese government is reportedly planning to offer a COVID-19 vaccine free of charge to any citizen who wants one, according to a report from Nikkei.
People at high risk of developing severe symptoms, particularly the elderly and health care workers, will receive first priority. The full cost will be covered in the national budget, meaning the central government will pay, saving local authorities from shouldering any expense. Exactly how the program will work will be decided by a panel of ‘experts’ convened by the Japanese government.
Currently, the Japanese government is negotiating with multiple pharmaceutical companies, including Pfizer, AstraZeneca, and others, as it seeks to build a massive stockpile of vaccines. The country’s goal is to eradicate the virus in Japan long before the 2021 Olympics in Tokyo.
via ZeroHedge News https://ift.tt/3lM32Hm Tyler Durden
On March 21, 1933, the Nazi-controlled Reichstag passed a law making it a crime to speak out against the government. The “Regulations of the Reich President for Defense from Treacherous Attacks against the Government of the National Uprising” made even the slightest expression of dissent from Nazi ideology a criminal offense.
This new law, among other totalitarian measures, was part of a process known as Gleichschaltung… the process of achieving rigid and total ideological coordination and uniformity in politics, culture, and private communication by forcibly repressing (or eliminating) independence and freedom of thought and expression.
GloboCap hasn’t done anything that heavy-handed in the course of rolling out the New Normal totalitarianism, but that’s mainly because they do not have to. When you control the vast majority of the global corporate media, you don’t need to pass a lot of ham-fisted laws banning all dissent from your totalitarian ideology. This isn’t the 1930s, after all. Over the last ninety years, the arts of propaganda, disinformation, and perception management have advanced to a point that even Goebbels couldn’t have imagined.
In Berlin, in the days leading up to the protests, government officials and corporate media propagandists did what officials and propagandists do… they relentlessly repeated their official narrative, namely, that anyone protesting the New Normal (or doubting the official Coronavirus narrative) is a “violent neo-Nazi extremist,” or “conspiracy theorist,” or some other form of existential “threat to democracy.”
This official narrative was originally disseminated following the August 1 protest in Berlin, the scale of which took the authorities by surprise. Tens or hundreds of thousands of people (depending on whose narrative you believe) gathered in the city to protest the New Normal and its increasingly absurd “emergency measures.” The German media, CNN, The New York Times, and other “respectable news outlets” uniformly condemned them as “neo-Nazis,” or insinuated that they were “neo-Nazi-sympathizers.”
Despite the finding of Germany’s Federal Office for the Protection of the Constitution that only “individual members of far-right-groups” had taken part in the August 1 protest, and that “far-right extremists had no formative influence on the demos,” both the German and international corporate media pumped out story after story about the ultra-violent neo-Nazi hordes that were about to descend on Berlin, again!
Der Tagespiegel, a major German newspaper, reported that the demo was being “infiltrated by Nazis.” Die Tagesschau, the German BBC, shrieked that “neo-Nazis are mobilizing!” RBB, another public broadcaster, reported that the “traveling circus of Corona-deniers” was heading straight for the city! (N.B. Any reference to any kind of “deniers” in Germany evokes Holocaust deniers, i.e., Nazis). Ver.di, the German journalists union, warned their members that they were expecting reporters to suffer “double-digit physical attacks.” And these are just a few of countless examples.
The American and UK corporate media also did their Gleichschaltungduty, disseminating the official “Nazis are Coming!” narrative. (I don’t need to do the citations, do I?) And, of course, Antifa joined in the chorus.
On Wednesday, three days before the demo, having successfully whipped the New Normal masses up into a state of wide-eyed panic over the imminent neo-Nazi invasion, the Berlin government banned the protests. The New Normal masses celebrated. A few concerns about … you know, democracy, were perfunctorily voiced, but they were quickly silenced when Interior Senator Andreas Geisel explained that abrogating the people’s constitutional right to freedom of assembly, and freedom of speech, and to petition their government, was not in any way a totalitarian act, but was purely a matter of “protecting the public health.”
For good measure, Geisel also added:
“I’m not willing to accept a second time that Berlin is being abused as a stage for Corona deniers, Reichsbürger, and right-wing extremists.”
The night before the demo, an administrative court overturned the protest ban. It didn’t really matter, as the authorities knew they couldn’t stop the demo in any event. Banning the protest was just part of the show (and the Gleichschaltung process the show was part of), meant to emphasize the existential threat posed by the bloodthirsty Nazi legion that was on its way to sack the city.
On Saturday, hundreds of thousands of protesters (the overwhelming majority of whom were not neo-Nazis, or Nazi-sympathizers, or any other kind of monsters) poured into the streets of central Berlin. The police surrounded them, trapping them on the avenues, closed off the side streets so they couldn’t get out, and, once again, tried to ban the protest on the grounds that they weren’t “social distancing.” Everyone sat down in the street. Cops stalked around in their masks and body armor, sweating heavily, and occasionally pushing people. Lawyers made phone calls. It was very hot. This went on for quite a while.
Eventually, the court instructed the police to let the demonstration go ahead.
And the rest is history… except that it isn’t.
According to the official narrative, there were no hundreds of thousands of protesters.
There were “tens of thousands,” and they were all “neo-Nazis,” and “Nazi-sympathizers,” and “Coronavirus deniers,” and “stark-raving mad conspiracy theorists.”
(Full disclosure: I was there with them, and, yes, indeed, there were some neo-Nazis among the hundreds of thousands in the streets, but, just like at the August 1 protest, these far-right boneheads were a small minority and not at all welcomed by the majority of the participants, no more than the Trotskyists and anti-Semites were welcomed at the 2003 anti-war protests before the US invasion of Iraq, although, yes, they were definitely there.)
In any event, hundreds of thousands of protesters made their way down Unter den Linden, through the iconic Brandenburg Gate, and onward to the main demonstration, filling the Straße des 17. Juni from the Brandenburg Gate to the Siegessäule. By now, I assume you’ve seen the pictures. Or maybe you haven’t. It’s actually fairly hard to find any photos in the media that give you any real perspective.
And, finally, we have come to the main event… which, of course, was not this enormous gathering of totally non-violent, non-Nazi people peacefully protesting the New Normal totalitarianism, nor the speech of Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. No, the “story,” the official main event, was the “Storming of the Reichstag building by Nazis.”
I’ll let Mathias Bröckers handle this part. Here’s an excerpt from his recent blog post:
Storming of Reichstag Averted – Democracy Saved!
How do you manage to delegitimize a peaceful mass protest against the corona measures in such a way that the media report not about a protest by hundreds of thousands, but about the “storming” of the Reichstag?
Quite simply: you approve an application by a group of Reichsbürger to assemble directly in front of the Reichstag (N.B. the official applicant for this assembly was Ex-NPD-member Rüdiger Hoffmann) and station only three policemen in front of the west entrance despite the large police presence everywhere in the area. Then you let a crazy Q-Anon-chick scream into the microphone that “Donald Trump has declared freedom,” that “the police have laid down their weapons,” and that “everyone should now occupy the steps of the Reichstag,” and, presto, you have the images you need to dominate the coverage … a mob of a few dozen people with Reichsbürger flags “storming the Reichstag.”
Never mind the fact that the massive demonstration at the Siegesäule (i.e., Victory Column) organized by Querdenken 711 had absolutely nothing to do with this incident, which was carried out by a right-wing-extremist splinter group. The demonstration had already been delegitimized as a protest staged by Reichsbürger extremists and tin-foil-hat lunatics in the days leading up to it, and now the visual confirmation was provided.
In a video of the lead-up to the “Reichstag storming” incident, Tamara K., a natural health practitioner, and pretty obviously a far-right wacko, is the “crazy Q-Anon-chick” in question. You can clearly hear her advising the crowd that “there are no more police here,” which the video confirms. Or rather, the few police that were there had left the building completely unguarded and pulled back to well behind this assembly of obviously far-right-extremist-type clowns (who, remember, had been granted official permission to stage their assembly at the steps of the Reichstag). This, despite the days and weeks of warnings of a “neo-Nazi invasion” from government officials and the corporate media.
Go ahead, call me a “conspiracy theorist.”
Anyway, once the Reichstag steps were thoroughly occupied by far-right loonies and the Reichsflagge were in the right positions (approximately four minutes into the video), the police finally arrived to mount their defense. It was touch-and-go there for a while, but at the end of the day, democracy triumphed. Naturally, there were plenty of journalists on hand to capture this historic drama and broadcast it all around the world.
And there you have it, the official narrative, which Saskia Esken, SPD co-leader, succinctly squeezed into a tweet:
“Tens of thousands of far-right radicals, Reichsbürger, QAnon followers, Holocaust deniers, anti-Semitic conspiracy theorists, and esoterics, who declare the media, science, and politicians ‘guilty’ and openly call for the storming of the Reichstag and a coup d’état. That is the 29 August Berlin demonstration.“
NJ Plans To Use HFT Tax To Pay For “Social Justice” Agenda Tyler Durden
Wed, 09/02/2020 – 23:05
After setting the stage for a new millionaire tax, and hiking gasoline taxes by 22.5%, New Jersey – which has emerged as the most hated state in the US – which is home to both the incorrectly named “New York” Stock Exchange (the TV studio may be located in Manhattan but the actual exchange with the microwave and laser towers is located in Mahwah) and the Nasdaq, proposed a tax on high frequency trading. Yet while both former taxes were meant to shore up the state’s depleted coffers, the purpose of the “hi-freq” tax was a mystery. That mystery was revealed earlier today when senior NJ administration officials said that revenue from a proposed tax on electronic Wall Street trading to expand his “social-justice agenda.”
NJ governor Murphy saw the potential windfall as a shot to expand what he calls his “stronger, fairer” agenda to close New Jersey’s wealth gap, according to the administration officials, who spoke on condition of anonymity because the legislation is in early stages. While to most this simply means even more backroom dealings in one the country’s most corrupt states, to Murphy this is the pursuit of nobility – Murphy prides himself in enacting free county college tuition for undocumented immigrants and expanding no-cost pre-kindergarten in needy communities. And by “free” we of course mean paid for in the form of soaring taxes from all other documented and legal residents.
Perhaps it’s only fitting that those who benefit the most from HFTs end up paying a few pennies on the dollar for every dollar they make frontrunning retail investors via their unofficial subsidiary, Robinhood (something which the regulators finally figured out today).
Additionally, Bloomberg reports that while any proceeds from levies on hundreds of millions of trades processed at data farms inside the state wouldn’t be scored for the fiscal year that starts Oct. 1, the bonanza from the first-of-its-kind state tax could ultimately become a long-term annual source of revenue for New Jersey.
Oh, and it would of course boost progressive appeal for Murphy, a Democrat and retired Goldman Sachs Group senior director, if he campaigns, as expected, for a second term next year. What is it about former Goldman execs – such as Jon Corzine – running the Garden State (right into the ground)? But we digress.
As reported previously, a bill sponsored by Democratic Assemblyman John McKeon calls for a quarter-of-a-cent tax on stocks, options, futures and swaps trading via northern New Jersey electronic data centers. McKeon, in an interview Wednesday, said the state could collect $10 billion annually from entities engaged in at least 10,000 transactions per year, which is about how many transactions HFTs make every second.
Naturally, Wall Street has revolted at the prospect of paying fractions of a cent every time it has to frontrun retail traders, and some industry executives said such a tax would raise nowhere near such projections, predicting it could undermine the functioning of markets and New Jersey’s standing as the center of U.S. financial-data processing. Servers are warehoused in Mahwah, Secaucus, Carteret and other locations.
McKeon, the Assembly sponsor from West Orange, described the quarter-of-a-cent rate as flexible — “a good placeholder, and now conversations take place.” He cast doubt on the ability of data centers to easily move from the Manhattan area, as trading speed can decay over distance.
“It’s not like they can flip a switch, and that’s one motivating factor to get them to work with us,” McKeon said. Within five years, he said, he expected that trades will be done wirelessly, a disincentive to build expensive new centers elsewhere.
In response, the NYSE has already threatened to depart the moment a tax was enacted: “We have data centers in various states and the ability to move trading outside of New Jersey in a business day,” said Hope Jarkowski, co-head of government affairs for New York Stock Exchange parent Intercontinental Exchange. Yes, Hope, but what happens when all the states in which you have data centers follow NJ in establishing a paywall for ultra fast trades which do nothing to make the market more efficient unless one counts surging flash crashes “efficiency.”
The major exchange operators previously have gone to court over proposals that they said would harm markets. NYSE, Nasdaq Inc. and Cboe Global Markets even took the extreme step of suing their main regulator, the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission, over a transaction-fee pilot program last year. They won.
“A financial transaction tax is a recycled idea with a lousy track record — all over the world,” said the Equity Markets Association, a trade group that represents the three companies.
The move by New Jersey would “cause unintended and irreparable harm to the U.S. capital markets,” Cboe said in a separate statement. “A transaction tax is a direct cost shouldered by investors, who will also end up paying for the price of diminished liquidity and wider spreads in our markets.”
Well of course those who would be taxes by the proposal would say that, and as for diminished liquidity, go shove it: there is already zero “liquidity” in this “market”. If anything, the market parasite that is HFT should be uprooted, Reg NMS should be torn apart, and broken markets should restart from scratch, ideally while eliminated the Fed. But we digress again.
In any case, while the Assembly bill hasn’t had a hearing scheduled, and neither has an identical version, sponsored by Senate President Steve Sweeney, New Jersey’s highest-ranking state lawmaker, at a Monday news conference Murphy said the concept “is something we like a lot,” although fraught with litigation risk.
But what the HFTax will really go toward is funding some of the ultra-liberal state’s massive underfunded pensions. New Jersey, one of the most indebted U.S. states, has unfunded pension and benefits obligations of well over $200 billion. The officials said some revenue ideally would go toward shoring up the state’s finances. But they also said the trades tax would help expand educational programs and finance new initiatives to boost middle- and low-income earners.
Murphy said such tax revenue couldn’t be counted on for the coming fiscal year because litigation almost certainly would hold up collections. But if the proposal withstood legal challenges, the administration officials said, it could fund such programs as “baby bonds” — $1,000 investment accounts for infants from lower-income families, to be used for education or to buy a home or start a business.
What was left unsaid is that by the time the babies turn 18, $1,000 won’t be enough to buy a hotdog thanks to the Fed’s new Average Inflation Targeting mandate.
via ZeroHedge News https://ift.tt/2EXvwwM Tyler Durden
At the beginning of the coronavirus pandemic, Apple and Google announced they would work together to develop a COVID-19 Exposure Notification API. Initially, access to the contact tracing software required users to download an app from their local health authorities and opt-in to receive Exposure Notifications.
The move is in large part due to a lack of adoption as health authorities have struggled to roll out their apps. The introduction of Exposure Notifications Express will eliminate the need for health authorities to develop and maintain their own app.
Only about 20 countries and regions have introduced contact tracing apps, while only six of 50 U.S. states have done so. Only half of U.S. states are even considering building their own contact tracing app.
“As the next step in our work with public health authorities on Exposure Notifications, we are making it easier and faster for them to use the Exposure Notifications System without the need for them to build and maintain an app,” Apple and Google said.
“Exposure Notifications Express provides another option for public health authorities to supplement their existing contact tracing operations with technology without compromising on the project’s core tenets of user privacy and security.”
Public health authorities can now simply submit a configuration file with their contact information and guidance, while users will be notified to opt-in once their state or region is available. Public health authorities will still be able to maintain other apps they’ve built if they choose to.
“Public health agencies are carrying an extraordinary load in managing the novel coronavirus response,” CEO of the Association of Public Health Laboratories Scott J. Becker said.
“Offering a turn-key solution such as EN Express can greatly reduce their burden and eliminate many of the up-front requirements of building an app and setting up servers.”
The software will be built into iOS 13.7, which was released yesterday, while the Android version will be available later this month on Android 6.0 or higher.
via ZeroHedge News https://ift.tt/2QLBxiK Tyler Durden
An Imported Ford Pickup In Australia Could Cost As Much As $60,000 Above MSRP Tyler Durden
Wed, 09/02/2020 – 22:25
The rising price of Ford pickup trucks in the U.S. is nothing compared to what Australians now have to pay to get one of the iconic pickups in their country. Premiums on imported Ford pickup trucks can now be as much as $60,000 above the sticker price, according to a new report by Ford Authority.
Since importing is the only option to get Ford trucks in Australia, where they are no Ford dealerships, a new Ford Super Duty or F-150 is likely to be marked up significantly, the report says.
It points out that a 2020 Ford F-350 Lariat equipped with Ford’s 6.7L Power Stroke diesel is listed as $172,750 Australian dollars (about $127,000 USD). In the U.S., the MSRP for the same truck is about half that price.
Australian importer Maracoonda Automotive also sold a 2020 Ford F-150 Limited equipped with Ford’s 3.5L EcoBoost V6 for about $170,000 Australian dollars. It also has a Tuscany F-150 that it is seeking to sell for $209,000.
As of now, the Ford Ranger is the only model pickup that is available widely in Australia without an import premium. But for those that want a medium duty or heavy duty truck – prospective owners will have to ask if paying a nearly $60,000 Australian dollar premium is worth it.
Meanwhile, imports from Europe could become fewer and further between, as we reported days ago that Ford was planning on slashing 10,000 jobs and closing 6 factories in Europe.
This news came days after it was announced that Ford would be replacing its CEO on relatively short notice.Ford said last month it had tapped Jim Farley to replace a relatively still-newly appointed Jim Hackett as CEO. Hackett replaced former CEO Mark Fields and, for the most part, has failed to inspire confidence during his tenure at Ford.
via ZeroHedge News https://ift.tt/2QQ3eHa Tyler Durden
It’s increasingly clear to even the average American that if riots come to your neighborhood, you’re on your own. The message received is increasingly be this:
if your plan is to wait until the police show up to provide “protection,” be prepared to wait a long time.
Consequently, as violence appears to surge in America’s cities, millions of Americans have become first-time gun owners.
Government Officials Aren’t Keeping Us “Safe”
There are two trends at work which are making Americans doubt government law enforcement is reliable and effective.
On the one hand, the public is witnessing nightly displays of looting, rioting, and general civil unrest.
At the same time, many police officers don’t appear particularly able or willing to defend the public against looters and rioters.
Homicide rates in New York, for example, have surged among accusations of a “police slowdown.” A number of police departments (including those in Los Angeles and Atlanta) are rumored to be using strategies such as the “blue flu” in which police personnel pretend to be ill as a negotiating tactic for obtaining political favors from lawmakers. But even when police personnel are able, there are not enough of them in most cases to truly address ongoing nightly violence in many cities. And in some cases, elected officials, like in Portland and Chicago, appear uninterested in confronting rioters with much enthusiasm at all.
It easy to see how ordinary Americans could look on current events with increasing alarm. On August 29, a man was allegedly murdered by at least one protestor among the many who have been protesting, rioting, and looting in Portland for more than three months. Two weeks ago, a truck driver sustained serious injuries, also in Portland, when he was attacked by a group of “protestors” while reportedly attempting to help a woman who was being robbed. Last week in Kenosha, protestors were seen attacking a teenager who had been attempting to protect businesses from looting and vandalism. The teen reportedly opened fire in self defense. In Washington, DC, a mob threatened restaurant patrons, and in Minneapolis, dozens of businesses have been burned and looted.
According to new estimates from the National Shooting Sports Foundation, using the FBI’s National Instant Background Check System, “there were over 12 million guns bought in the first seven months of 2020—up more than 70 percent over the same time span in 2019. This number is likely to include nearly 5 million first-time gun owners so far this year.”
Moreover, as noted in an unsigned editorial at the Wall Street Journal,
The FBI’s most recent gun-sale figures are stunning. They show that in July the bureau carried out 3.6 million background checks, the third highest month on record. [T]his translates to 1.8 million gun sales for July 2020—a 122% increase over July 2019. The 12,141,032 gun sales through this July is just shy of the 13,199,172 sales for all of 2019.
Statistically, it remains unclear that life for the average American is much more dangerous this year than it was over the past five years. After all, in 2014, the homicide rate in America hit a 51-year low. But the American public has never been one to sit back and conclude everything is fine just because homicides are relatively low.
After all, gun purchases were already surging even before the apparent killing of George Floyd touched off a wave of protests followed by riots and looting. Gun purchases that had been fueled by general uncertainty and anxiety over the Covid-19 panic soon became gun purchases fueled by far more immediate fears of violent crime.
Also notable is that many new gun owners are outside groups known as the usual suspects, when it comes to gun purchases. The NSSF reported that 58 percent of the new firearms purchases were by black men and women, while “women comprised 40% of first-time gun buyers.”
Millions Aren’t Buying the Usual Pro-Gun-Control Claims
Needless to say, these trends are going very much against the grain of the usual narrative employed by gun control advocates; a narrative that generally employs several main tenets we’ve seen many times. They include:
Government police agencies provide better protection than a private firearm ever could.
If you’re in danger, it’s best to call 911 and then wait.
If you buy a gun, the gun is more likely to kill someone you love, rather than stop a criminal.
America would be safer if fewer people had guns.
People who buy guns are mostly just rightwing hayseeds. Hillary Clinton calls these people “deplorables.”
And while opponents of private gun ownership rarely say this explicitly, the sum total of their narrative is this: only police and military personnel should own guns. The basic idea here is that private gun owners cannot be trusted, and that government officials will keep us safe. But as so often occurs when there are riots—as happened in both Ferguson (in 2014) and Kenosha (in 2020) police officers and other government “public safety” personnel mostly just protect government property. The private sector must just fend for itself.
Many Americans appear to have gotten the message.
via ZeroHedge News https://ift.tt/31ToqCE Tyler Durden
India’s Power Output Slumps For Sixth Straight Month As Recovery Falters Tyler Durden
Wed, 09/02/2020 – 21:45
India recorded the largest single-day spike (78,761) of new COVID-19 cases on Sunday since the pandemic began. The country is easing out of strict lockdowns despite an accelerating virus pandemic—a move to restart its crashed economy that saw a record plunge in second-quarter growth. But new power generation data from the government, seen by Reuters, reveals power usage in the western industrial region of the country continues to slump, a red flag that is suggestive of a faltering recovery.
For the sixth consecutive month, India’s electricity generation continued to decline in August, driven by a drop in power usage from western industrial states such as Maharashtra and Gujarat:
August power generation fell 0.9%, a Reuters analysis of daily load despatch data from federal grid operator POSOCO showed, slower than the 1.8% decline seen in July.
In the second half of August, electricity generation declined 4.5%, compared with a 2.6% increase during the first fifteen days of the month.
Power use during the second half of August in states such as Maharashtra and Gujarat, among the country’s largest electricity consumers, declined by about 15% each, compared to near parity compared to August 2019 during the first 15 days of the month. -Reuters
Reuters notes India’s annual electricity demand is expected to fall for the first time in four decades. The industrial sector accounts for half the country’s electricity consumption. This is just more bad news for the world’s fifth-largest economy by GDP will remain in recession through 2020. The world economy cannot recover without India.
A flare-up in geopolitical tensions between Indian and Chinese troops along the Line of Actual Control could be what the Modi government needs to distract the world from a severely damaged Indian economy.
via ZeroHedge News https://ift.tt/2Z2ZkiR Tyler Durden
In northeast Syria last week, a U.S. military vehicle collided with a Russian armored vehicle, injuring four American soldiers.
Both the Americans and Russians blame each other for failing to follow established rules of the road. Had an American been killed, we could have had a crisis on our hands.
Query: With the ISIS caliphate dead and buried, why are 500 U.S. troops still in Syria a year after Donald Trump said we would be pulling them out? What are they doing there to justify risking a clash with Russian troops who are in Syria as the invited allies of the Damascus regime of Bashar Assad, whether we approve of his regime or not?
Nor was this the only U.S.-Russian faceoff last week.
Over the Black Sea, two Russian military jets swept past the nose of an American B-52, one of the bombers on which the airborne leg of our strategic deterrent depends. The Russian Su-27s flew so close to the B-52 that their afterburners shook the eight-engine bomber.
What was a nuclear-capable B-52 doing over the Black Sea, which is to Russia what the Caribbean and Gulf of Mexico are to us?
That B-52 overflight of the Black Sea was part of an exercise in which six U.S. B-52s overflew all 30 NATO nations in one day — from the U.S. and Canada to Spain and the Balkans and to the eastern Baltic Sea — in a military exercise to test Russian air defenses.
At the end of August, the Russian navy conducted its own war games near Alaska, involving dozens of ships and aircraft, the largest such drill in these northern seas since Soviet times.
Russia’s navy chief, Adm. Nikolai Yevmenov, said 50 warships and 40 aircraft took part in the Bering Sea exercise, which involved multiple practice missile launches. Said the admiral:
“We are holding such massive drills there for the first time ever.”
As Trump rebuilt the U.S. military, Vladimir Putin reciprocated.
And, last week, Putin had a pointed warning for any nation that meddles in Belarus. With Alexander Lukashenko, the Belarusian autocrat facing huge and hostile demonstrations demanding he resign, Putin put out word that outside intervention to effect Lukashenko’s removal could cause Russian special forces to intervene.
The fall of Lukashenko from power, after 25 years ruling Belarus, could lead to a crisis as NATO allies Lithuania and Poland both border on the former Soviet republic of 9.5 million people.
Also in late August, on the other side of the world, China conducted a huge naval exercise in the South and East China seas and Taiwan Strait.
After an American U-2 overflew its ships during the exercise, Beijing denounced the “naked provocation” and test-fired four ballistic missiles into the South China Sea. Two of those missiles have been described as “carrier killers.” They are said to have been developed to attack aircraft carriers such as the 100,000-ton vessels that serve as the backbone of the fleets the U.S. Navy deploys in these same waters.
The U.S. has been sending its own warships into what an angry China claims are its territorial waters around the atolls and reefs it has fortified and converted into air and naval bases in the Paracel and Spratly islands.
What exactly is our ultimate goal here?
China has also been ramping up pressure on Taiwan by having military planes and warships circumnavigate the island and by sending aircraft across midpoint in the Taiwan Strait.
Taiwan recently purchased 66 US F-16s for delivery over the next 10 years. Yet, its armed forces are no match for Beijing’s. And China has put the world on notice that any move by Taiwan toward independence would cross a red line and be crushed by Beijing.
Is America prepared to fight China over fortified rocks and reefs in the South China Sea to which we have no territorial claim? Are we prepared to fight China to prevent the gradual absorption of Taiwan, which Richard Nixon conceded in 1972 we do not deny is a part of China?
In its confrontation with Iran, the U.S. seems about to suffer a setback in the Security Council. Our attempt to effect a “snapback” of U.N. sanctions on Iran, for violating the 2015 nuclear deal, seems certain to be rejected by our three principal NATO allies, as well as Russia and China.
How would Tehran’s victory in the U.N. over the U.S., which would open the door to sales and purchases of weapons by the ayatollah’s regime, be received?
Potential collisions between the U.S., Russia or China are not even back-burner issues this election year. Meanwhile, we are consumed by the coronavirus, the crashed economy, racial divisions and riots that have ripped apart cities like Portland, Seattle, Minneapolis and Kenosha since the Memorial Day death of George Floyd.
Still, Leon Trotsky had a point when he said, “You may not be interested in war, but war is interested in you.”
via ZeroHedge News https://ift.tt/31XCVW9 Tyler Durden
Trump Orders Feds To Begin Process Of Defunding New York, Portland And Other “Lawless” Cities Tyler Durden
Wed, 09/02/2020 – 21:08
The feud between Trump and liberal cities which encourage protests which seeking to defund the police escalated sharply on Wednesday, when the President ordered the federal government to begin the process of defunding New York City, Portland, Seattle and Washington, cities where officials allowed “lawless” protests and cut police budgets amid rising violent crime.
In a five-page memo sent to federal agencies on Wednesday whose subject is “Reviewing Funding to State and Local Government Recipients of Federal Funds That Are Permitting Anarchy, Violence, and Destruction in American Cities” and signed by Trump, the president orders them to report to the White House Office of Management and Budget on any funding that could be redirected. New York City, Portland, Seattle and even Washington, DC are among the initial targets of the measure.
“My Administration will not allow Federal tax dollars to fund cities that allow themselves to deteriorate into lawless zones,” Trump says in the memo, which mentions New York Mayor Bill de Blasio by name twice. To ensure the federal funding is not wasted or “spent in a manner that directly violates our Government’s promise to protect life, liberty, and property, it is imperative that the Federal Government review the use of Federal funds by jurisdictions that permit anarchy, violence, and destruction in America’s cities.”
In a tweet late on Wednesday, Trump followed up the memo by saying that his administration “will do everything in its power to prevent weak mayors and lawless cities from taking Federal dollars while they let anarchists harm people, burn buildings, and ruin lives and businesses. We’re putting them on notice today.”
My Administration will do everything in its power to prevent weak mayors and lawless cities from taking Federal dollars while they let anarchists harm people, burn buildings, and ruin lives and businesses. We’re putting them on notice today. @RussVought45
In the memo, Trump writes that the city of Seattle “allowed anarchists and rioters to take over six square blocks of the city, an area the unlawful occupiers renamed the “Capitol Hill Autonomous Zone” and then the “Capitol Hill Occupied Protest.” Notwithstanding the fact that law-abiding citizens live and work in the invaded area, the local government effectively endorsed this lawlessness and taking of property by, among other things, abandoning the Seattle Police Department’s East Precinct building and forbidding the police force from intervening to restore order. Tragically, the Mayor allowed the unlawful occupation to persist until two teenagers were killed and at least two other persons suffered gunshot wounds. On July 1, Seattle declared the protest zone dismantled.” He also denounced the “failed leadership” in Seattle whose Mayor Jenny Durkan tolerated the local anarchists until protesters – led by a city council member – came to her own doorstep.
Likewise for New York, the memo said that the city has refused to prosecute rioters, rejected the offer of federal help, and cut the police budget despite an “unconscionable rise in violence.”
In New York City, officials have allowed violence to spike. In late May and early June, State and local officials allowed looting to take place for over a week, resulting in damage to an estimated 450 businesses. As of August 16, there have been 896 shootings in New York this year, compared to 492 shootings during the same period last year. The shooting victims include children as young as 1 year old. Shootings have been rising in recent weeks, and police reported 244 shootings last month compared to 88 in July 2019 — a 177 percent increase. While violence has surged, arrests have plummeted. In a 28-day period during the months of June and July, arrests were down 62 percent from the same period in 2019. Amidst the rising violence, Mayor Bill de Blasio and the New York City Council agreed to cut one billion dollars from the New York Police Department (NYPD) budget, including by cancelling the hiring of 1,163 officers.
The memo also cites NYPD Commissioner Dermot Shea’s June disbandment of plainclothes units. “Police officials have cited this decision as a factor contributing to the rise in violence,” the memo says.
In Portland, Oregon “officials have allowed violent anarchists to unlawfully riot and engage in criminal activity on the streets, including the destruction of property.”
These rioters have repeatedly tried to destroy property in the city, including the Federal courthouse. They have attacked Federal law enforcement personnel protecting the Federal courthouse with Molotov cocktails, mortar-style fireworks, hard projectiles, and lasers that can cause permanent blindness. Over several days in July, the rioters set fires in and around the Federal courthouse. To date, at least 140 Federal officers have been injured in Portland.”
Trump then goes on to slam state and local officials in Portland who “have taken insufficient steps to protect the Federal courthouse, and initially rejected offers of Federal law enforcement assistance” even after the apartment building of Portland mayor was set on fire.
The nation’s capital was not spared from Trump’s wrath: he said that “Washington, D.C., Mayor Muriel Bowser allowed rioters and anarchists to engage in violence and destruction in late May and early June, requiring me to call in the National Guard to maintain law and order in the Nation’s Capital.”
Predictably, the memo slam the performance of Democratic mayors in each city, as well as state leaders:
“As a result of these State and local government policies, persistent and outrageous acts of violence and destruction have continued unabated in many of America’s cities, such as Portland, Seattle, and New York.”
OMB Director Russell Vought, who according to the Post “applauded the review in a statement” was told to issue guidance on “restricting eligibility of or otherwise disfavoring, to the maximum extent permitted by law, anarchist jurisdictions in the receipt of Federal grants” within 30 days, while AG Bill Barr was given 14 days to put together a list of “anarchist jurisdictions” that “permitted violence and the destruction of property to persist and have refused to undertake reasonable measures” to restore order.
Vought told the NY Post that “American taxpayers who fund the great programs that our cities rely on deserve to be protected by their local city officials.” He added that the administration was “exploring all options to ensure federal resources flowing to lawless cities aren’t being squandered.”
“The lack of law and order surrounding these riots, and response from local leadership, is a dereliction of duty. Our men and women in blue cannot be handcuffed by local leadership in their efforts to respond to riots and protect their fellow citizens.”
The memo was drafted prior to last week’s incidents following the Republican National Convention, when angry mobs attacked those in attendance, including Senator Rand Paul in part because Bowser refused to allow additional security.
After months of referring to the frequent rioting and looting merely as “peaceful protests,” mainstream media outlets began blaming the riots on Trump after they themselves admitted that it makes Democrats look bad in the polls. Democrat presidential nominee Joe Biden denounced “all violence” earlier this week, but Republicans accused him of in effect threatening Americans with more violence unless they vote for him.
* * *
In response to the memo, New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo wasted no time in slamming President Donald Trump, and in a scathing statement Wednesday night, Cuomo said from the point of view of NYC, President Donald Trump is the worst president in history amid his threats to defund the city.
“Look, the best thing he did for New York City was leave,” Cuomo said. “Good riddance, let him go to Florida, be careful not to get COVID.”
Cuomo also slammed Trump’s handling of the COVID pandemic and said he is the cause of coronavirus in New York.
“It is his negligence that brought it here and his arrogance that he won’t provide state and local funding to help states and cities recover from the pandemic that his negligence caused,” Cuomo said. When was asked what would happen if the federal funding goes away, Cuomo said that NYC receives roughly $7 billion a year in federal aid for housing, medical, health and homeland security funding.
“I think it’s because he is from New York City and New York City rejected him always,” Cuomo said. He was dismissed as a clown in New York City.”
He may be a clown, but he is the clown who controls the money, and for the sake of Cuomo, Trump better not get re-elected or else New York will soon transform into hellhole it was for much of the 1970s and 1980s.
via ZeroHedge News https://ift.tt/31Tg5Pm Tyler Durden
Americans Are Set To Ditch Hotels For Log Cabins This Labor Day Weekend Tyler Durden
Wed, 09/02/2020 – 21:05
Americans will be ditching hotels and resorts, along with popular travel destinations in major US cities this upcoming Labor Day weekend, seeking refuge in secluded lake homes or mountain cabins or homes in rural communities as the virus pandemic continues to rage, reported Yahoo Finance.
The shift in travel to rural communities has been absolutely devastating for major metropolitan areas that heavily rely on tourism. Hotel bookings are down 66% compared to this time last year, according to the American Hotel and Lodging Association. Major travel destinations from Oahu, Hawaii; Orlando, Florida; Miami, Florida; New York, New York; and San Francisco, California have seen unprecedented declines in travel and will see further drops this holiday weekend.
The virus pandemic isn’t the only reason why some folks will not vacation in metro areas. There are compounding issues such as depressionary unemployment, social unrest, and surging violent crime that has deterred people not just from traveling to but also triggered a mass exodus of city-dwellers who now are packing up their bags and moving permanently to suburbia. What’s also supercharging the exodus from cities is remote working.
Over the last six months, despite the pandemic led to nationwide lockdowns causing mass Airbnb cancellations, triggering a collapse in rental income for hosts – the company was forced to bail out Superhosts with company funds – there have been over 200,000 new hosts who have recently had their first bookings. Bookings, in a post-pandemic world, have surged across remote areas.
“Meanwhile, high-density urban centers now make up approximately 20% of Labor Day trips this year, dropping from 40% over the same weekend in 2019,” Airbnb said.
Top trending places on Airbnb this weekend include Hilton Head Island and Charleston, South Carolina; Big Bear Lake and Palm Springs, California; Scranton, Pennsylvania; and Fredericksburg, Texas.
Travel trends are quickly shifting this holiday weekend, from staying at hotels and resorts in popular metro areas to now rural communities for a handful of reasons mentioned above. This trend will persist for the remainder of the year and spillover into 2021.
Readers might be wondering what are the direct consequences of these travel shifts?
