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Authored by Peter Koenig via GlobalResearch.ca,

Imagine, you are living in a world that you are told is a democracy – and you may even believe it – but in fact your life and fate is in the hands of a few ultra-rich, ultra-powerful and ultra-inhuman oligarchs. They may be called Deep State, or simply the Beast, or anything else obscure or untraceable – it doesn’t matter. They are less than the 0.0001%.

For lack of a better expression, let’s call them for now “obscure individuals”. 

These obscure individuals who pretend running our world have never been elected. We don’t need to name them. You will figure out who they are, and why they are famous, and some of them totally invisible. They have created structures, or organisms without any legal format. They are fully out of international legality. They are a forefront for the Beast. Maybe there are several competing Beasts. But they have the same objective: A New or One World Order (NWO, or OWO).

These obscure individuals are running, for example, The World Economic Forum (WEF – representing Big Industry, Big Finance and Big Fame), the Group of 7 – G7, the Group of 20 – G20 (the leaders of the economically” strongest” nations). There are also some lesser entities, called the Bilderberg Society, the Council on Foreign Relations (CFR), Chatham House and more.

The members of all of them are overlapping. Even this expanded forefront combined represents less than 0.001%. They all have superimposed themselves over sovereign national elected and constitutional governments, and over THE multinational world body, the United Nations, the UN.

In fact, they have coopted the UN to do their bidding. UN Director Generals, as well as the DGs of the multiple UN-suborganizations, are chosen  mostly by the US, with the consenting nod of their European vassals – according to the candidate’s political and psychological profile. If his or her ‘performance’ as head of the UN or head of one of the UN suborganizations fails, his or her days are counted. Coopted or created by the Beast(s) are also, the European Union, the Bretton Woods Organizations, World Bank and IMF, as well as the World Trade Organization (WTO) – and – make no mistake – the International Criminal Court (ICC) in The Hague. It has no teeth. Just to make sure the law is always on the side of the lawless.

In addition to the key international financial institutions, WB and IMF, there are the so-called regional development banks and similar financial institutions, keeping the countries of their respective regions in check.

In the end its financial or debt-economy that controls everything. Western neoliberal banditry has created a system, where political disobedience can be punished by economic oppression or outright theft of national assets in international territories. The system’s common denominator is the (still) omnipresent US-dollar.

“Unelected Individuals”

The supremacy of these obscure unelected individuals becomes ever more exposed. We, the People consider it “normal” that they call the shots, not what we call – or once were proud of calling, our sovereign nations and sovereignly elected governments. They have become a herd of obedient sheep. The Beast has gradually and quietly taken over. We haven’t noticed. It’s the salami tactic: You cut off slice by tiny slice and when the salami is gone, you realize that you have nothing left, that your freedom, your civil and human rights are gone. By then it’s too late. Case in point is the US Patriot Act. It was prepared way before 9/11. Once 9/11 “happened”, the Patriot Legislation was whizzed through Congress in no time – for the people’s future protection – people called for it for fear – and – bingo, the Patriot Act took about 90% of the American population’s freedom and civil rights away. For good.

We have become enslaved to the Beast. The Beast calls the shots on boom or bust of our economies, on who should be shackled by debt, when and where a pandemic should break out, and on the conditions of surviving the pandemic, for example, social confinement. And to top it all off – the instruments the Beast uses, very cleverly, are a tiny-tiny invisible enemy, called a virus, and a huge but also invisible monster, called FEAR. That keeps us off the street, off reunions with our friends, and off our social entertainment, theatre, sports, or a picnic in the park.

Soon the Beast will decide who will live and who will die, literally – if we let it. This may be not far away. Another wave of pandemic and people may beg, yell and scream for a vaccine, for their death knell, and for the super bonanza of Big Pharma – and towards the objectives of the eugenicists blatantly roaming the world – see this. There is still time to collectively say NO. Collectively and solidarily.

Take the latest case of blatant imposture. Conveniently, after the first wave of Covid-19 had passed, at least in the Global North, where the major world decisions are made, in early June 2020, the unelected WEF Chairman, Klaus Schwab, announced “The Great Reset”. Taking advantage of the economic collapse – the crisis shock, as in “The Shock Doctrine” – Mr. Schwab, one of the Beast’s frontrunners, announces openly what the WEF will discuss and decide for the world-to-come in their next Davos Forum in January 2021. For more details see this.

Will, We, The People, accept the agenda of the unelected WEF?

It will opportunely focus on the protection of what’s left of Mother Earth; obviously at the center will be man-made CO2-based “Global Warming”. The instrument for that protection of nature and humankind will be the UN Agenda 2030 – which equals the UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDG). It will focus on how to rebuild the willfully destroyed global economy, while respecting the (“green”) principles of the 17 SDGs.

Mind you, it’s all connected. There are no coincidences. The infamous Agenda 2021 which coincides with and complements the so-called (UN) Agenda 2030, will be duly inaugurated by the WEF’s official declaration of The Great Reset, in January 2021. Similarly, the implementation of the agenda of The Great Reset began in January 2020, by the launch of the corona pandemic – planned for decades with the latest visible events being the 2010 Rockefeller Report with its “Lockstep Scenario”, and Event 201, of 18 October in NYC which computer-simulated a corona pandemic, leaving within 18 months 65 million deaths and an economy in ruin, programmed just a few weeks before the launch of the actual corona pandemic. See COVID-19, We Are Now Living the “Lock Step Scenario” and this and this.

The Race Riots

The racial riots, initiated by the movement Black Lives Matter (funded by the Ford Foundation and Soros’ Open Society Foundation), following the brutal assassination of the Afro-American George Floyd by a gang of Minneapolis police, and spreading like brush-fire in no time to more than 160 cities, first in the US, then in Europe – are not only connected to the Beast’s agenda, but they were a convenient deviation from the human catastrophe left behind by Covid-19. See also this.

The Beast’s nefarious plan to implement what’s really behind the UN Agenda 2030 is the little heard-of Agenda ID2020. See The Coronavirus COVID-19 Pandemic: The Real Danger is “Agenda ID2020”. It has been created and funded by the vaccination guru Bill Gates, and so has GAVI (Global Alliance for Vaccines and Immunizations), the association of Big Pharma – involved in creating the corona vaccines, and which funds along with the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation (BMGF) a major proportion of WHO’s budget.

The Great Reset, as announced by WEF’s Klaus Schwab, is supposedly implemented by Agenda ID2020. It is more than meets the eye. Agenda ID2020 is even anchored in the SDGs, as SDG 16.9 “by 2030 provide legal [digital] identity for all, including free birth registration”. This fits perfectly into the overall goal of SDG 16: ”Promote peaceful and inclusive societies for sustainable development, provide access to justice for all and build effective, accountable and inclusive institutions at all levels.”

Following the official path of the UN Agenda 2030 of achieving the SDGs, the ‘implementing’ Agenda ID2020 – which is currently being tested on school children in Bangladesh – will provide digitized IDs possibly in the form of nano-chips implanted along with compulsory vaccination programs, will promote digitization of money and the rolling out of 5G – which would be needed to upload and monitor personal data on the nano chips and to control the populace. Agenda ID2020 will most likely also include ‘programs’ – through vaccination? – of significantly reducing world population. Eugenics is an important component in the control of future world population under a NOW / OWO – see also Georgia Guidestones, mysteriously built in 1980.

The ruling elite used the lockdown as an instrument to carry out this agenda. Its implementation would naturally face massive protests, organized and funded along the same lines as were the BLM protests and demonstrations. They may not be peaceful – and may not be planned as being peaceful. Because to control the population in the US and in Europe, where most of the civil unrest would be expected, a total militarization of the people is required. This is well under preparation.

In his essay “The Big Plantation”, John Steppling reports from a NYT article that a

“minimum of  93,763 machine guns, 180,718 magazine cartridges, hundreds of silencers and an unknown number of grenade launchers have been provided to state and local police departments in the US since 2006. This is in addition to at least 533 planes and helicopters, and 432 MRAPs — 9-foot high, 30-ton Mine-Resistant Ambush Protected armored vehicles with gun turrets and more than 44,900 pieces of night vision equipment, regularly used in nighttime raids in Afghanistan and Iraq.”

He adds that this militarization is part of a broader trend. Since the late 1990s, about 89 percent of police departments in the United States serving populations of 50,000 people or more had a PPU (Police Paramilitary Unit), almost double of what existed in the mid-1980s. He refers to these militarized police as the new Gestapo.

Even before Covid, about 15% to 20% of the population was on or below the poverty line in the United States. The post-covid lockdown economic annihilation will at least double that percentage – and commensurately increase the risk for civil turbulence and clashes with authorities – further enhancing the reasoning for a militarized police force.

China’s Crypto RMB

None of these scenarios will, of course, be presented to the public by the WEF in January 2021. These are decisions taken behind closed doors by the key actors for the Beast. However, this grandiose plan of the Great Reset does not have to happen. There is at least half the world population and some of the most powerful countries, economically and militarily – like China and Russia – opposed to it. “Reset” maybe yes, but not in these western terms. In fact, a reset of kinds is already happening with China about to roll out a new People’s Bank of China backed blockchain-based cryptocurrency, the crypto RMB, or yuan. This is not only a hard currency based on a solid economy, it is also supported by gold.

While President Trump keeps trashing China for unfair trade, for improperly managing the covid pandemic, for stealing property rights – China bashing no end – that China depends on the US and that the US will cut trading ties with China – or cut ties altogether, China is calling Trump’s bluff. China is quietly reorienting herself towards the ASEAN countries plus Japan (yes, Japan!) and South Korea, where trade already today accounts for about 15% of all China’s trade and is expected to double in the next five years.

Despite the lockdown and the disruption of trade, China’s overall exports recovered with a 3.2% increase in April (in relation to April 2019). This overall performance in China exports was nonetheless accompanied by a dramatic decline in US-China trade. China exports to the US decreased by 7.9% in April (in relation to April 2019).

It is clear that the vast majority of US industries could not survive without Chinese supply chains. The western dependence on Chinese medical supplies is particularly strong. Let alone Chinese dependence by US consumers. In 2019, US total consumption, about 70% of GDP, amounted to $13.3 trillion, of which a fair amount is directly imported from China or dependent on ingredients from China.

The WEF-masters are confronted with a real dilemma. Their plan depends very much on the dollar supremacy which would continue to allow dishing out sanctions and confiscating assets from those countries opposing US rule; a dollar-hegemony which would allow imposing the components of The Great Reset scheme, as described above.

At present, the dollar is fiat money, debt-money created from thin air. It has no backing whatsoever. Therefore, its worth as a reserve currency is increasingly decaying, especially vis-à-vis the new crypto-yuan from China. In order to compete with the Chinese yuan, the US Government would have to move away from its monetary Ponzi-scheme, by separating itself from the 1913 Federal Reserve Act and print her own US-economy- and possibly gold-backed (crypto) money – not fiat FED-money, as is the case today. That would mean cutting the more than 100-year old ties to the Rothschild and Co. clan-owned FED, and creating a real peoples-owned central bank. Not impossible, but highly improbable. Here, two Beasts might clash, as world power is at stake.

Meanwhile, China, with her philosophy of endless creation would continue forging ahead unstoppably with her mammoth socioeconomic development plan of the 21st Century, the Belt and Road Initiative, connecting and bridging the world with infrastructure for land and maritime transport, with joint research and industrial projects, cultural exchanges – and not least, multinational trade with “win-win” characteristics, equality for all partners – towards a multi-polar world, towards a world with a common future for mankind.

Today already more than 120 countries are associated with BRI – and the field is wide open for others to join – and to defy, unmask and unplug The Great Reset of the West.

The late financier Jeffrey Epstein’s 2008 Gulfstream G550 is now for sale in Florida, reported Daily Mail. 

The private jet has been listed for $16.9 million. Epstein owned three private jets, including a Boeing 727, known as the ‘Lolita Express‘, a Gulfstream IV, and the G550 now for sale. 

The G550 was manufactured in 2008 and refitted with a new interior and repainted dark blue several years ago. 

The tail number on the plane reads N212JE. The aircraft flew mostly between Epstein’s homes in Palm Beach, Manhattan, Paris, and into the US Virgin Islands. 

Daily Mail had published pictures from within the G550, courtesy of aircraft sales firm Equus, showing what it was like in the life of Epstein before he mysteriously died in jail, though ruled suicide by New York City Medical Examiner’s Office. 

Equus said the jet had flown 5,747 hours and made 1,348 landings, powered with twin Rolls-Royce turbofan engines, with the capability of carrying 16 passengers. 

Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) records show Epstein’s company, JEGE LLC, acquired the plane in August 2013, then transferred to another of his company’s in January 2018, called Plan D LLC. 

Flight data via ADSBExchange show the plane flew 107 flights between January 2018 and June 2019. 

Submitted by Peter C. Earle, an economist and writer who joined the American Institute for Economic Research in 2018 and prior to that spent over 20 years as a trader and analyst in global financial markets on Wall Street

In some states, the lockdown reopenings are being reversed. We are seeing a new round of state versus state blame-mongering and recriminations. The new benchmark for normalcy to return is January 2021. Why that date? As with many benchmarks over these months, it’s completely made up. 

We are supposed to believe that they know better than the rest of us, that government and not people and not medical professionals possess the essential knowledge we need. 

As writer Bari Weiss commented in her July 14th New York Times resignation letter (albeit referring to the influence of hyper-woke Twitter intellectuals): “Truth isn’t a process of collective discovery [anymore], but an orthodoxy already known to an enlightened few whose job is to inform everyone else.” 

Local knowledge, individual risk appetites, and personal responsibility are again being supplanted by the calculations and stratagems of technocrats. 

All of which reminds me of Charles McKay’s Extraordinary Delusions and the Madness of Crowds. This book focuses on financial bubbles, and a particularly interesting portion of  it discusses disease panics as exacerbated by the forecasting experts of the early modern period. They, like their modern day descendants, thrived in an era of top-down, deferred-to expertism; not armed with massive reams of data and analytical methods at their disposal, but the similarly arcane methods of scrying and divination. 

McKay sets the stage: The Great Plague of Milan, 1629 to 1631. In the role that today would be occupied by the media, Hollywood, or another source of perceived wisdom, a prophecy passed down for generations held that 

in the year 1630 the devil would poison all Milan. Early one morning in April, and before the pestilence had reached its height, the passengers were surprised to see that all the doors in the principal streets of the city were marked with a curious daub, or spot, as if a sponge, filled with the purulent matter of the plague-sores, had been pressed against them. The whole population were speedily in movement to remark the strange appearance, and the greatest alarm spread rapidly. Every means was taken to discover the perpetrators, but in vain. At last the ancient prophecy was remembered, and prayers were offered up in all the churches that the machinations of the Evil One might be defeated. 

Added to the fear of the disease were worries that a foreign government was at work, actively spreading the sickness.

Many persons were of opinion that the emissaries of foreign powers were employed to spread infectious poison over the city; but by far the greater number were convinced that the powers of hell had conspired against them, and that the infection was spread by supernatural agencies. In the meantime the plague increased fearfully. 

In a passage that reminds of early COVID-19 fears, long since dispelled: 

Distrust and alarm took possession of every mind. Everything was believed to have been poisoned by the devil; the waters of the wells, the standing corn in the fields, and the fruit upon the trees. It was believed that all objects of touch were poisoned; the walls of the houses, the pavement of the streets, and the very handles of the doors. The populace were raised to a pitch of ungovernable fury. 

“Snitch” policies directly reminiscent of present-day measures followed. 

A strict watch was kept for the devil’s emissaries, and any man who wanted to be rid of an enemy, had only to say that he had seen him besmearing a door with ointment; his fate was certain death at the hands of the mob. 

Violence predictably ensued.

An old man, upwards of eighty years of age, a daily frequenter of the church of St. Antonio, was seen, on rising from his knees, to wipe with the skirt of his cloak the stool on which he was about to sit down. A cry was raised immediately that he was besmearing the seat with poison. A mob of women, by whom the church was crowded, seized hold of the feeble old man, and dragged him out by the hair of his head, with horrid oaths and imprecations. He was trailed in this manner through the mire to the house of the municipal judge, that he might be put to the rack, and forced to discover his accomplices; but he expired on the way. Many other victims were sacrificed to the popular fury. 

Pity, in particular, poor Mora a “half a chemist and half a barber,” accused

…of being in league with the devil to poison Milan. His house was surrounded, and a number of chemical preparations were found. The poor man asserted, that they were intended as preservatives against infection; but some physicians, to whom they were submitted, declared they were poison. Mora was put to the rack, where he for a long time asserted his innocence. He confessed at last, when his courage was worn down by torture, that he was in league with the devil and foreign powers to poison the whole city; that he had anointed the doors, and infected the fountains of water. He named several persons as his accomplices, who were apprehended and put to a similar torture. They were all found guilty, and executed. 

(And in an era in which statues and monuments are being pulled down or defaced, “Mora’s house was [razed] to the ground, and a column erected on the spot, with an inscription to commemorate his guilt.”)

While the public mind was filled with these marvellous occurrences, the plague continued to increase. The crowds that were brought together to witness the executions, spread the infection among one another. But the fury of their passions, and the extent of their credulity, kept pace with the violence of the plague; every wonderful and preposterous story was believed. 

One Milanese resident described by McKay “had brooded over such tales till he became firmly convinced that the wild flights of his own fancy were realities.” Telling a story about an invisible phantom chariot and demonic laboratories, a story which at any other time would have been met with derision, was suddenly (as certainly occurs today) infused with credibility:

[T]he minds of the people were so impressed with the idea that scores of witnesses, half crazed by disease, came forward to swear that they also had seen the diabolical stranger, and had heard his chariot, drawn by the milk-white steeds, rumbling over the streets at midnight with a sound louder than thunder. The number of persons who confessed that they were employed by the Devil to distribute poison is almost incredible. 

In summary, although there was indeed a disease spreading in Milan, 

[a]n epidemic frenzy was abroad, which seemed to be as contagious as the plague. Imagination was as disordered as the body, and day after day persons came voluntarily forward to accuse themselves. They generally had the marks of disease upon them, and some died in the act of confession. 

The conclusion, according to McKay? The soothsayer prophecies, “by taking away the hope of recovery – that greatest balm in any malady – increased threefold the ravages of the disease.”  

Looking at the lockdowns and the consequent leveling of tens and perhaps hundreds of thousands of small businesses – and the myriad other costs that such a policy brings – one wonders: is there no probity? It’s clear that the architects of schemes will never apologize; well, not really. But will they be held accountable? 

Perennially, proposals are made that economists, data scientists, and other individuals with influential knowledge sets should, like medical doctors, have to take a Hippocratic Oath: an oath upholding fundamental ethics. 

While the original Hippocratic Oath did not, as it does now, require physicians to “First, do no harm,” the modern reach of technically-skilled elites via the media and policy should unquestionably bring that dictum. 

A Technocrat’s Oath would not be restrictive of the mere practice of model building, running simulations, or other present day vaticinations. Rather, it would come into force where and when the forecasts of those methods are passed to policymakers. For one thing, at least three requirements should be met; and all preferably publicly:

1. At least three major sources of inaccuracy – whether found in deficient sources of data, questionable assumptions, or estimates of sensitivity – must be expressed clearly – must be expressed clearly before and after a prediction is made;

2. A discussion of statistical inference must be accompanied by a discussion of causal inference (preferably an interdisciplinary one); and,

3. Any prognostication which does not prominently feature uncertainty as a growing factor over time must be summarily discarded. 

If professionals whose judgment can directly impact one person are bound to a strict moral code (in addition to bearing legal and reputational risk), shouldn’t technocrats informing the highest levels of government face considerably more stringent standards of practice?

Perhaps another of the many effects of telling two or three generations of young people that a university degree is of unquestionable value is an undue veneration of the expert class. Many of our grandparents and great-grandparents, who had a formidable assemblage of wisdom but only a fraction of our formal schooling, were naturally doubtful in the face of boundless pessimism or optimism – especially when offered free of charge by bureaucrats from lofty heights of the Federal edifice. It was the people who lived through the Great Depression who offered such succinct quips as “You get what you pay for (and less),” and “It’s always darkest before the dawn.” 

Whether by today’s standards or a medieval one, at a certain level of influence, unqualified prognostication is either ignorant, irresponsible, or deceptive. Pithy epigrams alongside basic skepticism, knowledge of personal hygiene, and a propensity to self-isolate in the face of illness have superintended the human relationship with microorganisms more than massive agent-based models ever will.

Despite the critical role she played in dissuading Amazon from bringing its “HQ2” to Queens (it was one of two sites chosen by the company after more than a year of searching), AOC triumphed over all of her Democratic primary opponents, including former CNBC reporter Michele Caruso-Cabrera.

And earlier this week, a progressive Democrat successfully primary-ed longtime Democratic incumbent in a district that encompasses parts of the Bronx and Westchester.

Although not every AOC-approved candidate in NYC has achieved this much, the city’s outsize community of mostly white college-educated “socialist organizers” has emerged as a political force capable of outmatching NYC’s ossified Democratic machine (shriveled after nearly 8 years of de Blasio’s ineptitude) Mayor De Blasio might be a committed progressive, but he’s not down for the revolution, man. The rose-emoji crew want to ensure that city offices are occupied by candidates that they approve. Which is why mayor-in-waiting Scott Stringer shouldn’t count his chickens before they hatch.

Though her career in Congress has been marked by staggering displays of ineptitude, she has succeeded in her main objective: normalizing crypto-marxist policies like a jobs guarantee, UBI and the sprawling ‘Green New Deal’. And although her progressive bloc only counts four members (“the Squad”, as they’ve come to be known), a fifth might be joining them in the next Congress if Bowman triumphs in November.

But after months of hard work in Washington, AOC is turning her attention back to NYC, with her latest campaign: A “wealth tax” to finance an emergency worker bailout fund for poor and undocumented New Yorkers.

According to Bloomberg, AOC’s proposed wealth tax would tax the wealthy on unrealized gains in their stock portfolios. Currently, investments typically aren’t taxed until they are sold and a profit (or loss) is realized.

New York would be the first state in the country to enact a wealth tax that targets wealth, instead of solely income (whether individual or corporate) and consumer spending. The state bill will be considered when the NY legislature returns from vacation on Monday.

“It’s time to stop protecting billionaires, and it’s time to start working for working families,” Ocasio-Cortez said in a video directed at Cuomo. The message spread on Twitter with the hashtag #MakeBillionairesPay.

Of course, there’s a small problem with AOC’s plan: the rich often hold large slugs of stock because of the power it bequeaths them to influence the board. For Jeff Bezos, his double-digit stake in Amazon is part of how he retains control over Amazon. If shareholders had tossed Bezos out during the aftermath of the dot-com bust, would Amazon shares be worth $3,000 a share today?

A wealth tax would be a massive disincentive for every wealthy individual or family who falls under its purview. Many would probably follow Carl Icahn to Miami, or another Sun Belt state where taxes are much, much lower.

As Lloyd Blankfein explains in a tweet. These types of extreme tax regimes often decrease tax revenue.

For states with already high rates, increasing tax rate doesn’t necessarily increase tax revenue. https://t.co/jwDl7uoJyr

— Lloyd Blankfein (@lloydblankfein) September 13, 2019

But as the public debate over the wealth tax advances, we suspect we won’t be hearing AOC delve into the finer points of tax policy. It’s much more effective to simply organize a protest and get all your media buddies to come out and photograph crowds with their “soak the rich” signs.

The protest began at Madison Square Park, where Jeff Bezos spent $96 million creating his Manhattan dream home.

From there, the small group marched to the Midtown offices of Governor Andrew Cuomo with a demand that has begun to grow louder as the pandemic grinds on: soak the super-rich.

Friday’s demonstration in New York, and others like it, haven’t reached anything near the level of the Occupy Wall Street movement a decade ago. But this time, protesters have a hometown advocate in Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, the progressive lawmaker who this week joined a campaign demanding Cuomo pass a billionaires’ tax for New York State.

“They take and take and take from our city and do not contribute, proportionally,” said Molly Glenn, 34, who works in construction and joined Friday’s protest. “You want to have an apartment here. You want to say that you are a member of the greatest city in the country. You should have to support the city.”

To be sure, the 100 billionaires living in NY state contribute more than half of the state’s annual tax haul.

And there’s a reason for that: She has no incentive to educate her voters on the drawbacks of driving away Amazon and the billionaires. Her political rhetoric plays on mass resentment of the wealthy. AOC’s willingness to pander to the “Occupy Wall Street” set by demonizing the wealthy is what made her stand out.

And what does it matter if the state’s coffers take a hit from all the wealthy leaving the state? AOC will forever be known as the socialist who drove out the billionaires like snakes. While the middle-class, college educated voters who comprise many of her most vocal supporters (think the hosts of the podcast Chapo Trap House) would never feel the sting of falling state revenues, the half of AOC’s district that’s Latino, and those who fall below the poverty line, might not be so forgiving.

After all, it wasn’t long ago that AOC rallied support for opposing Amazon by focusing on the billions of dollars in on-paper tax incentives. However, she never delved into the full story: That those incentives aren’t coming out of the state coffers, rather they’re a discount on a hypothetical tax rate that the company would be paying only if it met certain obligations relating to economic development. Whether the deal was too generous was up for debate, but AOC argued that tax reforms are wrong on principle.

With the state in desperate need of new revenue, we wouldn’t be surprised to see Gov. Cuomo, who has previously resisted more taxes on the rich, assent and agree to sign some version of AOC’s wealth tax proposal to help restore the state’s desperately low coffers.

The sad irony is that such a move might exacerbate the situation in the long term.

Goldman writes:

Reopening is on hold in most of the US, as states containing about 80% of the population have explicitly paused or taken targeted steps to reverse reopening. Over the past several days, Washington has placed its reopening on hold, and Pennsylvania has now ordered bars and nightclubs closed and imposed occupancy limits on restaurants events.

The number of new virus cases per day is either increasing or at very high levels in almost every state. While the acceleration of virus spread (Rt) has been less sharp than in the spring, it is still occurring at a rate that appears to be preventing state governments from pushing forward with economic reopening plans.

While recommended federal criteria for reopening include a declining trend in case growth, governments may also pay attention to the level of new cases, which is also still high in many states, in deciding when it may be appropriate to return to an easing in restrictions.

And here is Goldman’s latest state tracker:

Authored by Jim DeMint via RealClearPolitics.com,

America’s college campuses are the intellectual headwaters of the “woke” mob now poisoning the great rivers of freedom in our country. This mob has taken over the political left, devastated our cities and now threatens every American with traditional values and common-sense conservative views. 

Colleges and universities have been a bastion of liberalism and progressivism for so long it’s a cliché. But that cliché has led to complacency. Conservatives don’t like that college campuses have always been hotbeds of bad ideas – from communism to anti-Semitism to the so-called “critical theory” behind woke-ism. But the campus left has rarely been more than an irritant. Conservatives on the whole haven’t taken radical professors, brainwashed students and cowardly university administrators seriously because they were unserious people spouting unserious ideas.

Indeed, serious people on the left usually treated the academic left with the same kind of head-patting indulgence as everyone else. Since the 1960s, campus progressives had stopped bombing buildings, and instead spent their time making up words to show off their virtue, like “womyn,” “Latinx,” and “cis-gender.” The scholarship produced by woke academics in nonsense fields like anti-racism, critical gender theory, and ecofeminism never spilled out into broader political or cultural debates. Colleges were dismissed as sandboxes where children played and occasionally fought, but never did any real damage. The expectation was that, however outrageous college woke-ness was getting, no one would ever take it seriously in the real world, so there was no need to pay much attention. 

That turned out to be a mistake. 

Now we know that at least some of the children and adults steeped in the anti-American, anti-Christian, anti-truth narrative behind the “Awokening” do indeed take it seriously. Some have taken it so seriously they have launched a nationwide crime wave. After all, if everything they’ve been taught is true – that America is racist and evil, that the Constitution is a weapon of oppression, that conservative speech is violent while progressive violence is just speech – then it was only a matter of time before some Chads and Emilys broke out the Molotov cocktails. 

The wanna-be woke media covers up both their thuggish violence and their historical illiteracy (because mainstream media elites are among the most privileged people on planet Earth and would never survive if the mob ever turned on them). Democratic Party leaders look the other way – while rising left-wing stars like Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez praise the mob – for the same reason. If Nancy Pelosi or Chuck Schumer stood up to the mob, they’d lose. 

And so it’s up to Republican politicians to fight back. Luckily, for the first time in a long time, the Republican leader is a fighter. And the fight Donald Trump should pick is defunding colleges that promote this insanity. 

 President Trump could drive a stake through the heart of the woke mob in a single stroke, by disqualifying colleges and universities who stand with the mob from access to federal funding, which amounts to nearly $150 billion from taxpayers annually from federal loan programs and research grants. Schools around the country have been cracking down on religious and politically conservative, patriotic students and professors – policing speech and punishing “thought crime” as if in an Orwellian dystopia. They are joining campaigns against Israel. Male students accused of crimes are prosecuted without due process. Students and faculty are disciplined for, among other things, re-tweeting scientific facts inconvenient to the left. Radical trans activists are trying to force colleges to treat trans women as women, full stop – even in eligibility for women’s sports and access to women-only safe spaces. 

Additionally, it’s time for patriotic alumni to stop giving to universities out of nostalgia and demand a return to classical academic focus instead of woke brainwashing of our children. Each year, colleges and universities receive over $40 billion in private donations. And parents should seek out schools that reject the forced leftist agenda. A recent survey of Harvard faculty revealed that 99% of professors self-identify as very liberal to moderate, and only 1% admitted to having conservative-leaning views. 

These aren’t just toddlers squabbling in a sandbox. The campus-led assault on free speech and equal justice – to say nothing of objective truth – are a clear and present danger to freedom, justice, and our constitutional order. And they are inspiring a rising generation of pseudo-fascists whose tantrums, however ignorant, are quickly amassing a frightening criminal rap sheet. 

Washington should cut these frauds and thugs off the federal gravy train, and make their access to taxpayer money contingent on them actually serving the taxpayers and the republic. Let’s force holier-than-thou woke professors and deans to decide which they care more about, their culture war or their cash. 

I think I know how they’d answer.

COVID-19 case rates are increasing rapidly in most states in the US, however, as Statista’s Willem Roper notes, people are reacting to it much differently than when it first appeared in the country at the end of February.

For instance, while some states are closing down and requiring people to wear face masks, others are banning local officials from implementing mandatory face mask procedures. A new survey shows a few demographic facts on who’s wearing face masks who isn’t.

A new survey from Gallup shows 72 percent of U.S. adults say they either always wear a face mask or wear one often when going to public places.

You will find more infographics at Statista

Women, college graduates and Democrats responded the most that they often or always wear a face mask, while men, non-college graduates and Republicans had the highest percentages of those saying they either rarely or never wear a face mask.

Establishment health experts have overwhelmingly claimed that wearing face masks can help stop the spread of COVID-19. However, after admitting they lied about NOT wearing masks early in the pandemic, and questions over the virus’ transmission routes has led to growing mistrust of media and government officials has built a substantial coalition of people around the country who refuse to wear one.

Authored by Jason Ditz via AntiWar.com,

Amid a substantial US pullout from Afghanistan, the administration still doesn’t have a proper US Ambassador for that country. Reports, however, are that the short list includes a long-time war critic, Will Ruger.

Though not nominated yet, Ruger is undergoing vetting, and has been meeting with officials. The Vice President for Research and policy at the Charles Koch Institute, Ruger has frequently advocated ending the Afghanistan War.

Though the US is heading toward ending that war anyhow, with so many officials taking a wait and see approach, having a proper ambassador who is known to want a pullout would be a clear signal the administration intends to complete the process.

According to Politico:

Ruger, a Naval Reserve officer who served a year in Afghanistan a decade ago, is aligned with the president’s thinking about the U.S. footprint in the Middle East and the wars in Afghanistan and Syria, and has been especially vocal about getting out of Afghanistan.

“President Trump has correctly concluded that a full and speedy withdrawal of our troops is imperative,” he wrote in the American Interest in late May. “Our national interest isn’t served by continuing to wage a futile battle but by exiting it.”

The US is well ahead of its pullout schedule, down to about 8,500 troops in Afghanistan. Officials sayt hey want 4,000 by the election, and some are saying a complete pullout is possible by then.

In early June, dutifully doing its part to virtue signal along with the rest of the world, Cisco Systems hosted an “all hands on deck” meeting on race, hosted via videoconference. In the comments of the online forum, visible to everyone, some workers questioned the Black Lives Matter movement and were subsequently fired from their jobs, proving once again that you can have an opinion, as long as it’s the right opinion. 

Chief Executive Officer Chuck Robbins talked with Ford Foundation President Darren Walker, who is Black, and Bryan Stevenson, a Black lawyer and author who founded the Equal Justice Initiative, during the company’s June 1 meeting in front of 30,000 employees, according to Bloomberg. 

Several people spoke out online against Black Lives Matter during these online forums. For example, one employee wrote: “Black lives don’t matter. All lives matter,” while another wrote that BLM “reinforces racism”. A third employee commented: “People who complain about racism probably have been a racist somewhere else to people from another race or part of systematic oppression in their own community!”

Cisco says it fired a “handful” of workers for “inappropriate conduct” because it won’t tolerate racism. It also, apparently, won’t tolerate its employees opinions.

The “incident” at Cisco (read: people expressing well reasoned opinions) has been a microcosm of similar situations at other silicon valley companies, who are left to try and figure out how to posture to the public they are concerned about racism, while at the same time not laying off their entire staff. Some believe that protests at companies could be next if employees aren’t “trained” to think the right way. 

Kristen Clarke, the president and executive director of the Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights Under Law, said: “Employers should be striving for zero tolerance when it comes to racism and discrimination, period. The protests we’ve seen in the streets have become part of our new normal and will eventually make their way inside workplaces if employers fail to meet the moment.”

Cisco said that ultimately 237 comments of the 10,400 made during the videoconference “objected to what was being presented”, while the majority of comments praised management. On the video call, Cisco’s CEO was announcing a $5 million donation to “groups combating racism”. 

Francine Katsoudas, Cisco’s executive vice president and chief people officer, said: “I just felt sad to see it. I felt a ton of empathy. I knew that for the African-American and Black employees that were in the meeting, that it was heartbreaking to see that.”

She then tried to backtrack and justify the firings because they weren’t considered “legitimate debate”. Katsoudas said: “You have a framework where red absolutely is crossing the line. But if someone has a question or they don’t understand something, there’s a way for them to ask that question. We went through and just placed things on that spectrum.” 

The remarks were apparently so offensive they were “seared in the minds of some Black employees,” according to Bloomberg. One employee commented: “Wow…and these people work at Cisco?” If they are bold enough to say those things at work for all to see, imagine what is said behind closed doors.”

Yeah, it could be differing opinions!

“We still have work to do as a nation. I pray my daughters have a better world to live in soon,” another employee said.

Meanwhile, we pray our children have a world where their first amendment right hasn’t completely disintegrated over the next few years. But with the direction things are moving, it doesn’t look promising…