Category: zerohedge

Authored by John Solomon via JustTheNews.com,

The piecemeal release of FBI files in the Russia collusion investigation has masked an essential fact: James Comey’s G-men had substantially debunked the theory that Donald Trump’s campaign conspired with Moscow by the time the 45th president was settling into the Oval Office, according to declassified memos, court filings and interviews.

And that means a nascent presidency and an entire nation were put through two more years of lacerating debate over an issue that was mostly resolved in January 2017 inside the bureau’s own evidence files.

The proof is now sitting in plain view.

In rapid fire sequence in January 2017, U.S. officials:

• received multiple warnings about the credibility of informant Christopher Steele and his dossier;

• affirmed key targets of the FBI counterintelligence investigation made exculpatory statements denying collusion to undercover sources;

• concluded retired Lt. Gen. Mike Flynn, Trump’s first national security adviser, was not engaged in collusion with the Russians.

The latter revelation has mostly escaped much notice, contained in a single sentence in a once-sealed court motion filed by Flynn defense attorney Sidney Powell that requested what is known as Brady material, or evidence of innocence.

That motion dated Sept. 11, 2019 requested access to “an internal DOJ document dated January 30, 2017, in which the FBI exonerated Mr. Flynn of being ‘an agent of Russia.’”

Flynn’s motion is confirmed by a 2018 letter obtained by Just the News between Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s office and defense lawyers. It shows the DOJ exoneration memo was written after Flynn had been interviewed by FBI agents in January 2017 and after the government learned the former Defense Intelligence Agency chief had kept his old agency briefed on his contacts with Russia, something that weighed heavily against the notion he was aiding Moscow.

“According to an internal DOJ memo dated January 30, 2017, after the Jan. 24 interview, the FBI advised that based on the interview the FBI did not believe Flynn was acting as an agent of Russia,” Mueller’s team wrote in the letter.

U.S. District Judge Emmett Sullivan so far has concluded that the exoneration of Flynn on the Russia collusion charge wasn’t relevant to his conviction since he pled guilty to a different crime, making a false statement to the FBI.

But for the American public, such a revelation is momentous. 

Less than two weeks into Trump’s presidency the FBI had concluded his national security adviser had not been working as an agent of Russia. While that was the view of federal law enforcement, the false storyline of Flynn as a Russian stooge was broadcasted across the nation, with leaks of his conversations with a Russian ambassador and other tales, for many more months.

In an interview with Just the News and its John Solomon Reports podcast, Powell confirmed she was provided by letter three sentences from the DOJ memo but has been unable to get the full document. 

“It’s just horrible,” Powell said. “They gave us a little three lines summary of it and the letter and told us it existed but have refused to give us the actual document, which I know means there’s a lot of other information in it that would be helpful to us.”

Powell also confirmed that Mueller was fully aware of a letter sent in early January 2017 to Flynn from Britain’s national security adviser raising concerns about Steele’s credibility.

The British government “hand-delivered” a letter to Flynn’s team that “totally disavowed any credibility of Christopher Steele, and would have completely destroyed the Russia collusion narrative,” Powell said.

Flynn himself has no memory of receiving the communique, but people around him at the time do and confirmed the existence of the document, Powell explained. Flynn was questioned about it during his debriefings by Mueller’s team, she added.

“I was told that a copy of the document would have been given to [then-National Security Adviser] Susan Rice as well,” she added. “So the Obama administration knew full well that the entire Russia collusion mess was a farce.”

Instead of responding to the British government’s warning by abandoning the Russia collusion narrative and sparing her client the years-long ordeal of being targeted for investigation, top U.S. intelligence officials hid the communication, Powell said.

Her account confirms information that Rep. Mark Meadows (R-N.C.) provided for a May 2019 article for The Hill.

Other significant red flags also emerged in January 2017 that the Russia collusion theory used by the FBI to open a Trump campaign-focused probe in July 2016 was simply wrong. So too was the evidence the FBI submitted to secure an October 2016 FISA warrant targeting Trump campaign adviser Carter Page.

According to information made public by Justice Department Inspector General Michael Horowitz and the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court, the FBI interviewed Steele’s primary sub-source around Jan. 7, 2017. That source disavowed much of the Russia collusion evidence attributed to him in the dossier, a fact the bureau hid from the court.

A recent order by FISC Chief Judge James Boasberg lays bare how devastating the revelation from Steele’s source was to the entire Russia collusion theory.

“Steele obtained this information from a primary sub-source, who had, in tum, obtained the information from his/her own source network,” the judge wrote.

“The FBI did not, however, advise DOJ or the Court of inconsistencies between sections of Steele’s reporting that had been used in the applications and statements Steele’s primary sub-source had made to the FBI about the accuracy of information attributed to ‘Person 1,’ who the FBI assessed had been the source of the information in Reports 95 and 102. The government also did not disclose that Steele himself had undercut the reliability of Person 1, telling the FBI that Person 1 was a ‘boaster’ and an ‘egoist’ and ‘may engage in some embellishment.'”

An FBI spreadsheet similarly found that nearly all of Steele’s information in the dossier was either false, could not be proved, or amounted to Internet-based rumor, making it mostly worthless as actionable intelligence.

Further eroding by January 2017 the FBI’s “mosaic” (former FBI Director James Comey’s term) of evidence cited for suspicions of collusion, the bureau had collected exculpatory statements in fall 2016 in which two central targets of the investigation — former Trump advisers Carter Page and George Papadopoulos — told undercover informants they were not colluding with Russia.

Boasberg’s ruling also slammed the FBI for hiding these statements from his court, saying they substantially undercut the FBI’s predicate for the investigation, including the now-disproven allegation that Page had altered the RNC platform at the 2016 nominating convention to help Putin.

“The government also omitted Page’s statements to a confidential human source that he intentionally had ‘stayed clear’ of efforts to change the Republican platform, as well as evidence tending to show that two other Trump campaign officials were responsible for the change,” the judge wrote. “Both pieces of information were inconsistent with the government’s suggestion that, at the behest of the Russian government, Page may have facilitated a change to the Republican platform regarding Russia ‘s annexation of part of Ukraine.”

The Horowitz report confirms the court’s finding in much greater detail.

Flynn was cleared of being a Russian agent in January 2017. That same month Steele’s dossier was both discredited by the British government and repudiated by his own confidential sources. And the FBI had evidence its two main Trump targets were innocent. All as President Trump was starting his first two weeks in office.

Congressional investigators are now looking at whether Comey’s approach to Trump at a Feb. 14, 2017 dinner at the White House may have been part of an effort to pivot away from the bogus Russia collusion investigation and lay a predicate for a new investigation focused on possible obstruction of justice. Those same investigators also are inquiring as to why Mueller’s final report did not more clearly spell out how the FBI’s collusion case fell apart in January 2017.

Wherever that congressional inquiry lands, there is now clear and convincing evidence that the country, the president and the courts were kept in the dark about an historic turnaround in the evidence in January 2017, even as defendants were being pressured to plead guilty to crimes unrelated to the collusion allegation. Time will tell whether those who kept this secret for two more years will be held to account.

The Pentagon’s most secretive military research department is developing a therapeutic “shield” that could provide a new way to boost American’s immunity to Covid-19, reported DefenseOne. 

The Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency’s (DARPA) Pandemic Prevention Platform (PPP) is not in search of a vaccine against the fast-spreading virus that is now considered a pandemic, but rather is developing an advanced therapy that seeks to boost the immune system of people until an actual vaccine is developed. The result could prevent hospitals from being overwhelmed by sick people. 

DARPA scientists working on PPP have been sequencing the B cells of a Covid-19 patient who has recovered. B cells, also known as B lymphocytes, are a type of white blood cell that produces antibodies that aid the immune system in its fight to fend off an invading microorganism.

“We are able to take a patient that has recovered from this pathogen [Covid-19], for example, and we are able to sequence many of their B cells. So those cells that make those antibodies that help protect you against those pathogens? We are now able to sequence all of those because of next-generation sequencing approaches,” Dr. Amy Jenkins, manager of PPP, told DefenseOne. 

If scientists can successfully sequence the B cells, they could create a new therapy with a “manufacturing timeline” in a little over three months, Jenkins said. It would buy some time, considering a proven vaccine is 12-18 months away. 

Authored by Caitlin Johnstone via Medium.com,

In an attempt to contain the Covid-19 pandemic the president of the United States has just announced a 30-day travel ban between the US and Europe, the super-rich are flying off to disaster bunkers, and the NBA has just suspended its season.

If this is the first you’re hearing of this, go ahead and read it again if you need to.

This is all news that came out minutes prior to this writing. There may have been many other immense news stories by the time you read it.

This is a level of disruption that the world hasn’t seen in generations. Normal things that had been a routine part of people’s entire lives are just not there for them now, whether it’s normal socializing, watching the basketball game, or buying toilet paper at the store.

I said the following last month in an article titled “2020 Is Going To Get Much Crazier. Prioritize Your Mental Health.”:

“As I said back in November, things are going to get weirder and weirder throughout the foreseeable future. We’re coming to a point in history where the only reliable pattern is the disintegration of patterns, and 2020 has come storming out of its corner swinging for the fences working to establish this pattern with extreme aggression. We’re not going to hit a point of stability or normality this year, we’re going to see things get crazier and crazier and crazier. I don’t know what’s going to happen, but I know it’s going to be nuts.”

And by Jove if that isn’t proving true in some bizarre and unexpected ways. I certainly wasn’t expecting the coronavirus to play a role in that unpatterning at the time — in fact I was dismissive of it when it first emerged — but we’re seeing a disruption in collective patterns and routines like nothing most of us can even recall.

Here’s what I said back in November:

I often hear people in my line of work saying “Man, we’re going to look back on all this crazy shit and think about how absolutely weird it was!”

No we won’t. Because it’s only going to get weirder.

It’s only going to get weirder, because that’s what it looks like when old patterns start to fall away.

The human mind is conditioned to look for patterns in order to establish a baseline of normal expectations upon which to plan out future actions. This perceptual framework exists to give us safety and security, so disruptions in the patterns upon which it is based often feel weird, threatening, and scary. They make us feel insecure, because our cognitive tool for staying in control of our wellbeing has a glitch in it.

When you’re talking about a species that has been consistently patterned towards its own destruction, though, a disruption of patterns is a good thing. Our ecocidal, warmongering tendencies have brought us to a point that now has us staring down the barrel of our own extinction, and that is where we are surely headed if we continue patterning along the behavioral trajectory that we have been on. Only a drastic change of patterns can change that trajectory. And we are seeing a change of patterns.

This great unpatterning is going to continue, in many wild and unexpected ways. And things are going to keep getting stranger.

All of humanity’s problems are the result of our collective conditioning patterns throughout history. Where there is pattern disruption, there is the opportunity for pattern divergence. Where there is movement, there are gaps. Where there are gaps, there is an opportunity for light to get through.

The clear-eyed rebel’s job, therefore, is to watch for opportunities to help lead us as a collective along a brand new, healthy trajectory. There’s no way to know in advance what those opportunities will look like, because predictability is premised on pattern consistency. But they will appear, from unpredictable and unanticipated new directions. Wherever you see a gap, your job is to pour as much truth and wisdom and health into it as you can possibly muster.

Watch for gaps in the armor of the establishment oppression machine. Watch for gaps in the deluded nature of our society. Watch for gaps in the patterns, and use your wisdom and creativity to assist them in unpatterning as the opportunity presents itself.

2020 is still just getting warmed up.

Eyes wide, beautiful people.

*  *  *

Thanks for reading! The best way to get around the internet censors and make sure you see the stuff I publish is to subscribe to the mailing list for my website, which will get you an email notification for everything I publish. My work is entirely reader-supported, so if you enjoyed this piece please consider sharing it around, liking me on Facebook, following my antics onTwitter, checking out my podcast on either Youtube, soundcloud, Apple podcasts or Spotify, following me on Steemit, throwing some money into my hat on Patreon orPaypalpurchasing some of my sweet merchandise, buying my books Rogue Nation: Psychonautical Adventures With Caitlin Johnstone and Woke: A Field Guide for Utopia Preppers. For more info on who I am, where I stand, and what I’m trying to do with this platform, click here. Everyone, racist platforms excluded, has my permission to republish, use or translate any part of this work (or anything else I’ve written) in any way they like free of charge.

Bitcoin donations:1Ac7PCQXoQoLA9Sh8fhAgiU3PHA2EX5Zm2

The Brazilian presidency has slammed initial reports Friday — originating in one of the country’s biggest newspapers citing “government sources” — saying President Jair Bolsonaro tested positive for Covid-19. Soon after the Brazilian presidency’s Facebook page officially said the test came back “negative,” despite Fox News and The Guardian among others reporting that he had the virus. Bolsonaro’s son also blasted the media reports as “too much lies”.

No doubt the White House breathed a sigh of relief, given Bolsonaro had just dined with President Trump Saturday night at Mar-a-Lago, but still a close call given a top aide among the Brazilian delegation did test positive Thursday. But guess who did come into contact with both Bolsonaro and the confirmed Covid-19 infected aide? 

Miami Mayor Francis Suarez confirmed Friday that he has tested positive for the new coronavirus.

Suarez, 42, said in a statement that he was not feeling any symptoms and advised anyone who shook hands with him or was close to him since Monday to self-isolate for 14 days.

“It is confirmed that I have the coronavirus,” Suarez told the Miami Herald earlier in the day Friday. “I did test positive for it.”

He’s been in isolation since Thursday after it was initially learned that Bolsonaro aide Fabio Wajngarten tested positive for it.

Worrisomely it remains that Suarez, along with Miami-Dade Mayor Carlos Gimenez, Sen. Rick Scott (R-Fla.) and President Trump, all hosted Boslonaro and his staff in south Florida this week, including at a major public event at the Forum Of The Americas at the InterContinental Miami, where Bolsonaro was awarded with the keys to the city.

My message to our residents in light of the news that I have tested positive for COVID-19. pic.twitter.com/gW9IziifQm

— Mayor Francis Suarez (@FrancisSuarez) March 13, 2020

This could have further implications in terms of potential spread in Miami, as NBC Channel 6 reports: 

NBC 6 has also learned that Miami commissioners, their staff, and city hall staff have been advised to self-isolate if they came in contact with Suarez. City hall was also decontaminated Thursday night, a source said.

A number of top city officials are now self-isolating after contact with both the Miami mayor and the Brazilian delegation.

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, your finances, and your prosperity… and on occasion, poetic justice.

Solved: why is Mississippi so fat? Jail time for diet advice

Mississippi is officially the fattest state in the US.

So Donna Harris thought she would help.

Donna has a bachelor’s degree in nutrition, and a master’s degree in occupational therapy, so she felt that she was more than qualified to offer a weight loss class.

Dozens of people signed up for it. But in the State of Mississippi, you either need a license to give diet advice, or you can only dispense government-approved nutrition information.

So the Mississippi Department of Health sent Donna a letter threatening her with jail time… all because she had the audacity to advise grown adults that they should eat more wholesome foods without first obtaining government permission.

Donna is now suing the state government for infringing on her First Amendment rights.

Click here to read the full story.

*  *  *

Cop leaves gun behind in school restroom

Three young girls found a handgun in the restroom of their elementary school.

Police were called to secure the pistol. They then realized that it actually belonged to another police officer.

The culprit was a Chicago cop who works security at the private school. She accidentally left the firearm behind after using the bathroom.

An internal affairs issue was opened, but authorities said the officer will likely not face charges.

Click here to read the full story.

*  *  *

Meanwhile – children with nerf guns charged with felony

While the Chicago police officer I wrote about in the previous section will not face charges for recklessness with an actual firearm, two ten year old boys were charged with a felony because of their NERF guns.

The kids thought it would be funny to aim the nerf guns at cars passing by. Probably a dumb idea. But they’re kids.

And, it’s pretty obvious that Nerf guns are toys. They’re brightly colored, plastic, and shoot big chunks of foam.

Still, one of the drivers called the cops… which pretty much sums up our snowflake society.

A reasonable police officer would probably shoo the kids back home, maybe even have a talk with their parents.

But these officers decided to arrest the ten year old boys, and charge them with felony menacing.

It took six months of court dates, classes, and community service to have the records expunged, and the family is just now going public with the story.

Amazingly enough, though, instead of being angry at the heavy-handed state, the parents were apologetic. They blamed the kids, saying their children don’t understand the modern world.

And because the police overreaction was “traumatic” to the boys, their parents plan to help rehabilitate the kids’ tarnished image of the justice system.

Click here to read the full story.

*  *  *

Antifa thug convicted of violent crime, then set free

Antifa is an organization which claim to be “anti-fascist.” But as this, and many other events demonstrate, they are actually the fascists.

Last week Antifa activist Jamal Oscar Williams was convicted of threatening to kill two Jewish men. This is a pretty serious crime (unlike 10-year old boys playing with nerf guns).

But even though he has a history of violent felonies, he’s been released without any prison time.

Williams was found to have threatened two Jewish men, approaching them and yelling, “Jews, Jews, Jews… give me your money.”

Williams then told them he had a gun and would kill them.

Days later, Williams followed the same men into the lobby of their apartment building, where he continued to harass them, and throw candy from the reception counter at them.

To be clear, Jamal Oscar Williams is the same guy who was caught on camera last year threatening Andy Ngo, a journalist who exposes Antifa violence.

So this is clearly habitual. But now, even after being convicted, he’ll walk free.

Click here to read the full story.

*  *  *

Maduro says Venezuelan women should have six kids to repopulate the homeland

The President of collapsing socialist nation Venezuela, Nicolas Maduro, thinks women need to have more kids.

Maduro specifically praised a woman who had six kids and encouraged all Venezuelans to do the same.

The problem he says, is that so many Venezuelans have left their homeland. (For some strange reason they went to find a home where they wouldn’t starve to death or be murdered by their government.)

Clearly, according to Maduro, the solution has nothing to do with government reform. Fertile women simply need to repopulate Venezuela, by giving birth to half a dozen kids each.

Of course, that might make food even harder to come by, now that all the pets and zoo animals have been eaten.

Click here to read the full story.

*  *  *

And to continue learning how to ensure you thrive no matter what happens next in the world, I encourage you to download our free Perfect Plan B Guide.

One hour after the close of another one of the most tumultuous weeks in Wall Street history, Bill Gates, the billionaire founder of Microsoft, resigned from the company’s board.

Earlier today, Gates stepped down from the board of Berkshire Hathaway, the conglomerate run by his friend and fellow billionaire, Warren Buffett. Both men have been in the press a lot lately amid the market turmoil (Buffett) and viral panic (Gates).

Gates, who gave up the chairman role in 2014 and hasn’t been the active leader of the company since 2008, stepped down from the board to dedicate more time to his philanthropic priorities.

He will continue to serve as Technology Advisor to CEO Satya Nadella and other Microsoft leaders.

Former Florida gubernatorial candidate Andrew Gillum was involved in a Friday morning meth overdose incident in a Miami Beach hotel room.

According to the Tallahassee Democrat, police arrived at a West Avenue hotel around 1 a.m., where they found Gillum – the former Tallahassee Mayor, and two men identified as Travis Dyson and Aldo Mejias, according to a Miami Beach Police Department report.

Paramedics were treating Dyson at the time for a possible overdose. Gillum was too inebriated to speak with officers, though he was later reported in stable condition with normal vital signs.

Police found plastic baggies of suspected crystal meth on the bed and floor of the hotel room, the report says. But Gillum, in a prepared statement issued shortly after news broke, denied using the drug and offered an apology.

See an unverified version of the complaint here, which claims that “Dyson was being treated for a possible drug overdose,” and was in “stable condition” before being transported to Mount Sinai hospital for medical treatment.

“Officers then made contact with two other males who were inside of the hotel room: Aldo Mejias (Complainant) and Andrew Gillum (Involved Other).

Mr. Mejias provided his credit card information to Travis Dyson to rent a hotel room for the night. Mr Mejias was to meet Mr. Dyson later in day. Travis Dyson rented the room at approximately 1600 hours on 3/12/2020. Mr. Mejias arrived at the hotel at approximately 2307 hours where he discovered Travis Dyson and Andrew Gillum inside the room under the influence of an unknown substance. Per Mr. Mejias, Mr. Dyson opened the hotel room door and immediately walked over to th ebed and collapsed in a prone position. Mr. Mejias observed Mr. Gillum inside of the bathroom vomiting. Mr. Mejias stated that he observed Mr. Dyson having difficulty breathing, prompting him to wake him up. Mr. Dyson then began vomiting on the bed and immediately collapsed again. Mr. Mejias began conducting chest compressions on Mr. Dyson and proceeded to contact police and fire rescue.

Officers then attempted to speak to Mr. Gillum. Mr. Gillum was unable to communicate with officers due to his inebriated state.“

pic.twitter.com/Ei98UgesC8

— SYUNSER ⭐❌⭐❌⭐ (@SLYUnser) March 13, 2020

Gillum – who has been rumored to be in the pool of potential Democratic Vice Presidential picks, said in a statement:

“I was in Miami last night for a wedding celebration when first responders were called to assist one of my friends. While I had too much to drink, I want to be clear that I have never used methamphetamines. I apologize to the people of Florida for the distraction this has caused our movement.”

Gillum then thanked “the incredible Miami Beach EMS team for their efforts,” and said “I will spend the next few weeks with my family,” adding “and appreciate privacy during this time.”

Authored by Michael Snyder via The Economic Collapse blog,

Fear of the coronavirus is causing shutdowns on a global scale like we have never seen before.  Just about every major sporting event that you can think of has been either canceled or postponed, schools and universities are keeping students away, global tourism is absolutely collapsing, churches are being shuttered, conferences and festivals are being taken off the calendar, businesses are asking workers to work from home, and even Disneyland is being closed down.  Over the past several days the wave of closings and cancellations has become an avalanche, and all of our lifestyles are going to be dramatically altered for the foreseeable future.

For the first few days, a lot of people are actually going to enjoy this “free vacation”.  After all, what kid doesn’t enjoy time off from school, and there are lots of Americans that relish the opportunity to work from home.

But as the weeks drag on and the economy grinds to a standstill, this “free vacation” will start evolving into a horror show.

The more this coronavirus spreads, the more restrictions we will see on human interaction throughout the western world, and that has very serious implications.

Yes, there is much that we can do through the Internet today, but most economic activity still requires at least some actual human interaction.  So when authorities restrict human interaction they are actually choking off trade.

I can’t think of too many other things that could trigger an economic collapse faster than a global pandemic could.  We had better pray that life will get back to normal in a few weeks, because a complete and utter economic nightmare is ahead if that does not happen.

Unfortunately, life is not likely to get back to normal any time soon.  The number of confirmed cases continues to grow at an exponential rate, and those that are getting infected now will be able to infect others for weeks to come…

Researchers looking at cases in China say patients could spread the virus for up to 37 days after they start showing symptoms, according to the study published in the British medical journal The Lancet.

On average, survivors still had the virus in their respiratory system for about 20 days and could presumably continue to spread the disease, researchers found.

So how long will it be before this pandemic is finally over?

Will it be months?

Could it be years?

Don’t forget, the Spanish Flu pandemic lasted from January 1918 to December 1920.

I think that Wall Street is starting to grasp the reality of what we are potentially facing.  On Thursday, we witnessed the largest single day stock market point crash in American history.  The Dow Jones Industrial Average was down 2,352 points, and that shattered the “old record” of 2,013 points that was just set on Monday.  Overall, the Dow was down 9.99 percent, and that was the biggest percentage decline since the nightmarish stock market crash of 1987.

Incredibly, European stocks did even worse on Thursday.  In fact, it was the worst day ever for stock markets in Europe.

We have never seen a time when the entire western world has been in the process of literally shutting down simultaneously.  The following is how a Slate article described what we are currently witnessing…

Virtually every activity that entails or facilitates in-person human interaction seems to be in the midst of a total meltdown as the coronavirus outbreak erases Americans’ desire to travel. The NBA, NHL, and MLB have suspended their seasons. Austin’s South by Southwest canceled this year’s festival and laid off a third of its staff. Amtrak says bookings are down 50 percent and cancelations are up 300 percent; its CEO is asking workers to take unpaid time off. Hotels in San Francisco are experiencing vacancy rates between 70 and 80 percent. Broadway goes dark on Thursday night. The CEOs of Southwest and JetBlue have both compared the impact of COVID-19 on air travel to 9/11. (That was before President Trump banned air travel from Europe on Wednesday night.) Universities, now emptying their campuses, have never tried online learning on this scale. White-collar companies like Amazon, Apple, and the New York Times (and Slate!) are asking employees to work from home for the foreseeable future.

On top of everything else, March Madness has been canceled for the first time ever…

The NCAA will not crown a men’s or women’s basketball champion in 2020.

Conceding defeat to the COVID-19 virus and a cascade of uncertainty about how bad its ongoing spread might impact public health across the United States, the NCAA announced Thursday all its winter and spring championships have been canceled after a series of moves across multiple sports leagues that foreshadowed the eventual arrival at this decision.

I can’t even imagine the heartbreak that many of those athletes are feeling right now.

They have been training all of their lives to fight for a championship, and now that opportunity has been taken away.

Sadly, just about every major sporting event has either been canceled or will be canceled shortly.

Of course the business world has been thrown into chaos as well.  Companies all across America are going to great lengths to minimize human interaction, and all sorts of non-essential activities are being eliminated.

Even a New York seminar entitled “Doing Business Under Coronavirus” has been canceled because of the coronavirus.

In the days ahead, the list of public gatherings that are still happening will probably be much shorter than the list of public gatherings that have been canceled.

All of this is being done to save lives.

But in the process, it is going to absolutely kill the economy.

At this point, President Trump is even thinking about imposing “travel restrictions within the United States”…

REPORTER: Are you considering travel restrictions within the United States, such as to Washington State or California? [Emphasis added]

TRUMP: We haven’t discussed that yet. Is it a possibility? Yes. If somebody gets a little bit out of control, if an area gets too hot. You see what they’re doing in New Rochelle, which is — which is good, frankly. It’s the right thing. But then it’s not enforced, it’s not very strong but people know that they’re being watched … New Rochelle, that’s a hotspot.

Can you imagine the giant temper tantrum that we would see if that actually happened?

Earlier today, the top headline on CNN was “America’s way of life changes indefinitely”, and for once they got it exactly right.

As long as this virus is spreading out of control, decision makers all over the western world are going to be afraid to resume normal activities.

Just think about it.  If you are a decision maker and you resume normal operations too quickly, someone could get sick and die.  Not only could that cost you your job, but it could also get you sued into oblivion.

In our overly litigious society, the threat of lawsuits is going to play a major factor in this crisis.  In fact, I am sure that some people are already in contact with their lawyers.

Hopefully the measures that are being taken will help to reduce the spread of this virus.  But as one of my good friends has pointed out, even if the U.S. was totally locked down for 30 days, this virus would just keep coming back into the U.S. from other countries that are not locked down.

So the truth is that we would need the entire globe to be completely locked down for an extended period of time to really defeat this pandemic, and that simply is not going to happen.

Many among the elite can see what is happening, and they are taking off in their private jets to their “holiday homes or specially prepared disaster bunkers”…

Like hundreds of thousands of people across the world, the super-rich are preparing to self-isolate in the face of an escalation in the coronavirus crisis. But their plans extend far beyond stocking up on hand sanitiser and TV boxsets.

The world’s richest people are chartering private jets to set off for holiday homes or specially prepared disaster bunkers in countries that, so far, appear to have avoided the worst of the Covid-19 outbreak.

Of course most of us do not have that option.

Most of us are going to have to ride this thing out right where we are, and that reality is causing a lot of people to completely panic.  Just check out what is happening in New York…

Panicked New Yorkers rushed to stock up on essentials forming long lines and clearing shelves of produce as Mayor Bill de Blasio declared a state of emergency in the city due the coronavirus outbreak.

He made the decision on Thursday afternoon saying the last 24 hours had been ‘very, very sobering’ and that the world had been turned ‘upside down’ in just a day.

The announcement immediately sparked furious panic shopping from New Yorkers as grocery stores across the city saw chaos and frantic stockpiling with residents fearing the worst.

Sadly, this is just the beginning.

As things go from bad to worse, we are likely to see fear and panic on a scale that is absolutely unprecedented.

But as I discussed yesterday, now is not a time for fear.

During any major crisis, cool heads and calm hearts are needed.  The days ahead are going to be full of challenges, and by God’s grace we shall do our very best to meet those challenges.

Chinese state media conspiracy theories and allegations which have suggested it was actually the United States that first infected Wuhan province with deadly coronavirus via a US Army covert operation were “made official” this week by words of Chinese Foreign Ministry Spokesman Lijian Zhao.

Lijian Zhao claimed in a tweet that “It might be US army who brought the epidemic to Wuhan,” citing prior televised testimony by CDC Director Robert Redfield in which he said that early COVID-19 cases were mistaken for regular influenza. 

The US State Department said on Friday it has summoned the Chinese ambassador to rebuke China’s “blatant, global” disinformation campaign on the novel coronavirus.

Chinese Ambassador Cui Tiankai leaving State. He was summoned earlier this morning. pic.twitter.com/u02KhwCrXK

— Rich Edson (@RichEdsonDC) March 13, 2020

Fox News reports: 

A senior State official told Fox News that Assistant Secretary for East Asian and Pacific Affairs David Stilwell called in Chinese Ambassador Cui Tiankai over China’s “blatant, global” disinformation campaign on the novel coronavirus.

Ambassador Tiankai was seen leaving the State Dept. building on Capitol Hill late this morning. He did give reporters any official comment on the meeting with US officials, which was no doubt testy. 

“Be transparent! Make public your data! US owe us an explanation,” Lijian had further demanded in the prior controversial statements which triggered the diplomatic row.

1. Chinese spox: We hope certain US officials could focus on domestic response & international cooperation instead of trying to shift the blame to China by denigrating Chinese efforts to fight the epidemic. This is immoral & irresponsible, & will not help mitigate COVID-19 in US. pic.twitter.com/YBA5fZhPsU

— Lijian Zhao 赵立坚 (@zlj517) March 13, 2020

But he wasn’t alone. Days ago China’s ambassador to South Africa also suggested Chinese cities which early on became the global epicenter of the outbreak were likely infected from the outside. 

“Although the epidemic first broke out in China, it did not necessarily mean that the virus originated from China, let alone ‘made in China,” Amb. Lin Songtian tweeted.

The English messages coming out of Chinese diplomats and officials in online social media statements appear deliberately aimed at a foreign audience, which is what has reportedly further angered Washington officials.

Amid the panic buying surge in the last 30 minutes of trading, sparked by Trump’s national emergency declaration, oil has soared higher after Trump said that he has asked the energy department to buy “large quantities of oil” for the Strategic Petroleum Reserve and to “fill it right to the top.”

With the reserve currently 635MM barrels full, that means there is over 90 million barrels that will soon be purchased by the US to fill up the SPR.

And since Trump’s demand means that there will be a forced buyer even as OPEC is an aggressive seller, oil quick spiked with WTI & Brent surging to session highs, boosting the energy sector and leading to an extension of gains in equities, while also helping the petro-currencies such as CAD, RUB, MXN catch a bid.