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Public health experts have repeatedly warned that COVID-19 conditions are set to worsen across the country before they get better. 

States and cities are reimposing strict social distancing measures, along with the increasing threat of lockdowns early next year if a Biden presidency is seen. 

The virus pandemic and strict social distancing rules have already fueled a mental health crisis among Americans. 

Months ago, we explained restrictions resulted in a dangerously sharp rise in mental illness. The CDC recently said disruptions to daily life during the pandemic lockdowns, anxiety about contracting the virus, and isolation at home have taken a deep toll on Americans’ mental health. 

As the second wave of the virus ravages nearly every state, real-time data of Americans’ mental health via Google Search trends of more than 400 health symptoms, signs, and conditions suggest that the mental health crisis continues to silently rage. 

Examining Google’s COVID-19 Search Trends symptoms dataset, we found recent searches for “anxiety,” “panic attack,” and “night terror” are on the rise in recent months, coinciding with the reemergence of the second coronavirus wave. 

Internet searches for “anxiety” have erupted across the country in recent months, breaching March’s highs in the summer period. As virus cases continue to hit records this fall, anxiety levels will also rise. 

Searches for “panic attacks” have also surged. 

Even “night terror” has risen above the levels from the beginning of the pandemic. 

The unintended consequences of the virus pandemic and socio-economic implosion of the country appear to be a public health crisis. 

Authored by Tho Bishop via The Mises Institute,

It is an overplayed cliché to refer to the insanity of the current year. Still, 2020 manages to surprise. It is increasingly looking like 2020 has created the greatest challenge to democratic legitimacy in the past century.

Yesterday was a truly remarkable day in American history.

The official legal team for President Donald Trump—led by Rudy Giuliani, Sidney Powell, and Jenna Ellis—outlined an argument that America’s elections were hijacked by a conspiracy involving Dominion voting systems, the Smartmatic corporation, and elected officials of both parties. The team claimed that these actors collaborated with foreign enemies of the president to ensure he lost the 2020 election, actively inflating the vote totals for Joe Biden. The evidence, they say, will include hundreds of sworn affidavits and other documents that will validate their accusations. They also implied that the Department of Justice is either actively involved in this plot or serving to protect those involved.

The press conference was heavy in bold and striking claims, but so far the legal team has not provided enough documentation to adequately vet the claims made. It is certainly true that questions existed about some of these voting systems prior to the election and that the official results include all sorts of unprecedented voting trends that have sparked questions about their statistical likelihood. Unlikely outcomes are not, however, impossible outcomes, and there are no accusations that any voting machines were illegally used without going through the legally required certification processes.

Any serious legal challenge by Trump’s campaign team will require significant evidence that they have yet to make available. Of course, if the claims are accurate, the case involves a crime that may be beyond the capabilities of America’s judicial system.

What the Trump campaign can legally prove, however, is almost a secondary issue at this point.

Yesterday’s press conference has entrenched the current American president in the position that his anointed successor is illegitimate and that he is the one who holds a democratic mandate to govern.

America has had controversial electoral outcomes before, such as the elections of 2000 and 1876, which ended up being decided by party leaders in a smoke-filled backroom (Republican Rutherford Hayes was given the presidency over Samuel Tilden in exchange for the repeal of Reconstructionist-era laws in the Southern states).

There are several key differences between these instances and the current political turmoil: you now have a populist sitting president, actively despised by the corporate press, who is simultaneously disliked by the establishment of his own party and passionately beloved by his base.

As I noted in an article a few days after the election:

regardless of the legal outcome, America is about to find itself with a president that will be viewed as illegitimate by a large portion of the population—and perhaps even the majority of some states. There is no institution left that has the credibility to push back against the gut feeling of millions of people who have spent the last few months organizing car parades and Trumptillas that their democracy has been hijacked by a political party that despises them.

The response we will receive from the corporate press, Very Serious pundits, and the various talking heads representing all the institutions that Trump has repeatedly mocked and belittled is obvious. Trump’s legal team is being dismissed as a bunch of partisan, sycophantic cranks spinning baseless conspiracy theories. Donald Trump is being portrayed as a spoiled, entitled man-child who would rather take down American democracy than admit he lost. His supporters will be dismissed and mocked as, at best, dumb suckers or, at worst, potentially violent right-wing extremists.

The problem is that, regardless of one’s opinion of Donald Trump or the specific claims made by his legal team, America’s elite and those in power have no credibility of their own.

For almost four years, the corporate press has propped up various false stories about the president while simultaneously propping up his political enemies and actively ignoring stories about the misconduct of Joe Biden’s son and potential conflicts of interest regarding the former vice president. The concerted effort to ask serious questions even forced journalists like Glenn Greenwald to ditch a media company he helped found.

At the same time, progressively-aligned Big Tech companies (many of which are staffed by former members of Kamala Harris’s political offices) have been taking an increasingly aggressive role in censoring and editorializing President Trump and his supporters.

Their claims that they have an ethical obligation to combat “misinformation” in the name of “democracy” are undermined by their willingness to actively assist the Chinese Communist Party in censoring dissidents.

Meanwhile, the professional political class in this country, lauded as “experts” by the bad actors mentioned above, has long mocked the notion of democratic oversight. An explicit example was offered just recently when Jim Jeffrey, a US envoy to Syria, gleefully disclosed to DefenseOne that American military leaders successfully maintained a larger military presence in the country than President Trump had ordered. The power of America’s professional bureaucracy goes beyond military matters, however, and the hope of much of America’s elite is that US policy will be increasingly influenced by their colleagues at the UN and other globalist institutions. Be it the Paris Accord or the Great Reset, many American progressives increasingly view very serious policy matters as issues too important to be entrusted to American voters.

Further still, America’s political environment has become so polarized and hostile that you have many elected officials in positions of influence who openly despise large swaths of the American population. For example, Arizona’s secretary of state—the woman in charge of election integrity in the state—described Trump’s base as “neo-Nazis” in 2017. Given her public statements, why would any Trump supporters have any faith in a governing body she influences to count votes? Meanwhile, the secretary of state in Michigan was a former employee of the Southern Poverty Law Center, a left-wing hate group.

It would, of course, be wrong to suggest that the elites of the American left are alone in their hatred of their political enemies. While the Left has tended to be more violent in recent years, there are many Republican voters who consider the political left immoral, un-American, and a threat to their families. The difference is that, outside of a few levers of federal power held by the Republican Party, the American right does not have nearly the same institutional support that the Left does currently.

It appears that 2020 may be the year that finally proves that the façade of democracy is not enough to maintain a unified political body. The election process does not inevitably lead to compromise and tolerance, but rather ends in those in power and those who are politically vanquished. When the losers of elections do not view their loss as a genuine reflection of democratic will, but rather an illegitimate coup, it is difficult to maintain governance over a population. Joe Biden appointing John Kasich–type Republicans will do little to soothe and reassure those who view a Biden presidency as little different than an occupational force.

This is why Ludwig von Mises viewed political decentralization and secession as a necessary component of liberal democracy. The proper objective of the democratic process was the peaceful transfer of power reflecting changes in the political will—political self-determination—rather than some form of civil worship of the will of the majority. When political differences become irreconcilable, true political decentralization allows for the breaking of political unions.

Will that end up being the ultimate result of the position of Trump’s legal team? Who knows. Trump and a few lawyers will certainly not be enough to overturn the official results or to successfully spur a Trump secession movement. What will be interesting is how the institution of the Republican Party will respond to the escalating rhetoric of the president.

Under President Obama, the Republican Party remained civil and submissive while its Tea Party base discussed ideas like nullification and a convention of states. The sterility of the traditional GOP is likely a major reason why Donald Trump was able to take over the party. How much of the modern GOP will continue to follow the forty-fifth president, and how many will end up being perfectly content with being partners with Joe Biden?

What we can be sure of is that it will be much harder for Biden to win over many of the 70+ million Americans who voted for Donald Trump earlier this month.

As COVID-19 cases surge pushing hospitalizations to levels unseen since the start of the pandemic, hospitals around the country are facing a staffing crisis. According to Bloomberg, 1 in 5 American hospitals anticipates a “critical staffing shortage” within a week’s time, according to DHHS.

Midwestern states like Missouri, Wisconsin and North Dakota have reported the highest share of hospitals worried about staffing shortages as deaths and hospitalizations soar.

In a phrase that’s reminiscent of coverage from back in the spring, when hospital workers in some of NYC’s most unloved neighborhoods were wearing trash bags instead of PPE, Bloomberg warned that a dearth of doctors and nurses could risk pushing the mortality rate even higher. Frontline workers are “vulnerable to the consequences of overwork”, Bloomberg reported. In an example of just how bad it can get, readers might remember a rash of doctor suicides in NYC, and in other places as well. 

Source: Bloomberg

What’s more, given the staffing issues, hospitals around the country are bracing for a “holiday spike”, forcing health care workers to spend yet another holiday away from their families.

The biggest problem this time around is that rural areas in the Midwest and elsewhere that were largely spared earlier in the year are now seeing outbreaks in their communities, which have in some cases badly strained the more threadbare facilities available in these areas.

Here’s an example: Sprawling, sparsely populated Siskiyou County along California’s northern border hit a milestone this week. After months of dodging a major COVID-19 outbreak, seven people were hospitalized with coronavirus infections and the number of available ICU beds in the county briefly dropped to zero, which sent local public health officials into a full-blown panic.

Management at the hospital pleaded with the townspeople to wear their masks and wash their hands, advising that more infections would inevitably lead to a surge in deaths.

Another major difference this time around: During the spring and summer, the outbreaks were largely confined to a specific region of the country, allowing resources and staff to be ‘spread around’ from states with low numbers to states with high numbers. The problem is that right now, all 50 states are seeing their outbreaks accelerate. While the Midwest has been battered, Chicago hasn’t benefited from the federal resources or the help from nearby states that New York did back in the spring.

That’s one reason that makes the recent increase in deaths more concerning, since if the numbers continue to rise, there won’t be any ‘cavalry’ for struggling states to call.

“Earlier in the year, we were able to redeploy staff and resources to these hot spots,” one official said. “We really were talking about hot spots. The problem now is when every place is a hot spot, you lose the ability to redeploy. And that’s as simple as that.”

Fortunately, Pfizer confirmed on Friday that it has submitted its paperwork for an emergency-use authorization for its vaccine, which should be administered to the first non-trial patients by mid-December, the company said.

Authored by MN Gordon via EconomicPrism.com,

The big news organizations say Joe Biden’s the next president of the USA.  That claims of election fraud and fixing are baseless.  Do you believe them?  Do you trust them?

Regardless, Biden’s acting as if.  He’s talking to foreign leaders.  He’s meeting with vaccine makers.  He’s making big plans.  He’s planning big things.  But, apparently, he’s not progressive enough.

This week, for example, an organization called Justice Democrats accused Biden of appointing corporate-friendly insiders.  They say these “corporate-friendly insiders […] will not help usher in the most progressive Democratic administration in generations.”

Certainly, Biden’s getting plenty of advice.  The political puppet has left many strings to be pulled.  Elizabeth Warren and Chuck Schumer want Biden to erase the first $50,000 of a person’s student loan debt.  According to Schumer, “Joe Biden can do that with the pen as opposed to legislation.”

Will Biden listen to them?  Will he listen to progressive superstar Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez?  On Monday, Ms. Ocasio-Cortez, tweeted:

“Student loan forgiveness is good, actually.

“We should also push for tuition-free public colleges to avoid this huge debt bubble from financially decimating ppl every generation.  It’s one of the easiest progressive policies to ‘pay for,’ w/ multiple avenues from a Wall St transaction tax to an ultra-wealth tax to cover it.”

Wow!  Biden hasn’t even moved into the White House and things have gone stoopid silly.  Where to begin?

Cut It Off

Without question, the student debt crisis is a disgrace.  There are roughly 45 million student loan borrowers who owe on the order of $1.6 trillion.  Most of this debt is from federal student loans.

The federal government is responsible for this mess.  It supplied the credit that distorted the world in this way that would have otherwise been impossible.  The gas of massive amounts of federal student loans inflated a higher education bubble…and an industry of entitled, fake intellectuals.

The business model generally requires signing credulous 18-year-olds up for massive amounts of government backed student loans.  These young adults have been told since before they could count that college was the magical path to a bright future.  But as tuition costs ran higher, propelled by more and more student loans, the value proposition no longer penciled out.

Yet forgiving student loans rewards a corrupted education industry.  It allows colleges and universities to perpetuate in inflated product.  Hence, rather than forgiving student debt, as the progressives desire, we offer another novel approach.  That is, cut off government sponsored student loans.  Scuttle the gravy train that supplies universities with undeserved wealth.

Now what would happen to all these high paid professors and fancy country club style college campuses without all this government sponsored debt?  For starters, tuition prices would fall.  Professor salaries would also fall.  And college campuses would adjust to their more modest means.

Would the product – the education – be inferior?  Not for the technical disciplines that matter.  Smaller budgets, however, would help trim the fat, and eliminate many of the nonsense quack ‘studies’ courses.  These courses have little redeeming value and only exist because they’re funded by an abundance of federal student loans.

Tuition-free public colleges at the expense of the rich, on the other hand, would certainly result in an inferior education.  They would turn college into an extension of high school.  Grades 13 through 16 would become daycare for young adults.  Students would graduate as unprepared as today’s 12th graders.  What a ridiculous waste of time and money.

The U.S. Government Will Inflate To The Bitter End 

The point is, $1.6 trillion in government sponsored student loan debt has piled up like a rush-hour wreck on the 405 Freeway through west Los Angeles.  This is a problem of the governments making.  And government solutions will only make things worse.  Here’s why?

Forgiving student loan debt with the stroke of a pen does not make it go away.  Debt, remember, is unearned money that’s borrowed from the future.  It must either be repaid or defaulted on.  Given that this is government sponsored debt, the act of erasing it merely transfers it from student borrowers to the American public – that’s you.

And how will the American public pay for it?  U.S. government revenue for fiscal year 2020 was $3.42 trillion.  Yet spending was $6.55 trillion.  The difference – a $3.13 trillion deficit – was made up with debt.

Nancy Pelosi is currently pushing for Congress to adopt her $3.4 trillion coronavirus bailout package.  Tack on $1.6 trillion for student loan forgiveness and we’re up to $5 trillion.  And that’s before accounting for Medicare, agriculture, defense, social security, transportation, veterans affairs, and the many other federal programs.  And what about all the other demands Biden somehow owes?

The Justice Democrats are calling “for Biden to create an Office of Climate Mobilization on Day 1.”  What an Office of Climate Mobilization is, exactly, is unclear.  But it sounds expensive.  And guess who will get to pay for it?  You will.

You see where all roads lead back to, right?

The dead end of dollar debasement.  The U.S. government will inflate to the bitter end.  And Creepy Joe – with the progressives egging him on – is just the man for the job.

Tune in for this special edition of the Daily Briefing to hear from Ed and Raoul live at 4:30 PM ET. Raoul will provide an update on his macro thesis, trades he’s bullish on, and answer questions from the audience.

You’ve heard of “super spreaders” but what about “super emitters”? 

According to the woke vernacular, that a term reserved for those frequent-flyers who a recent study found represent just 1% of the world’s population yet who have caused half of aviation’s carbon emissions in 2018. This excludes the “wokest” of virtue-signalling super emitters – those who fly around the globe in ultra-emitting private jets, lecturing the rest of the world about the dangers of global warming. We can only imagine that if those were also included, then the number would be revised from 1% to 0.01%.

According to a study by Stefan Gössling at Linnaeus University in Sweden, only 11% of the world’s population took a flight in 2018 and 4% flew abroad, and predictably US air passengers have by far the biggest carbon footprint among rich countries. Its aviation emissions are bigger than the next 10 countries combined, including the UK, Japan, Germany and Australia, the study reports (it wasn’t clear if China was excluded because of a far backroom exchanges of yuan/bitcoin).

The research, published in the journal Global Environmental Change, collated a range of data and found large proportions of people in every country did not fly at all each year – 53% in the US, 65% in Germany and 66% in Taiwan. In the UK, separate data shows 48% of people did not fly abroad in 2018. Yet it is these people who will be hit just as hard by whatever “green” tax is coming by our new socialist overlords.

On average, North Americans flew 50 times more than Africans in 2018, 10 times more than those in the Asia-Pacific region and 7.5 times more than Latin Americans. Europeans and those in the Middle East flew 25 times further than Africans and five times more than Asians.

Of course, the real culprit is not the US but China, although this woke study conveniently ignored the footprint of Beijing (which may or may not have funded the study): while the analysis showed the US produced the most emissions among rich nations, China does not make data available.

What was most interesting, however, is that the study showed that an elite group enjoying frequent flights had a big impact on CO2 emissions, and yet according to conventional wisdom everyone should be punished in the form of higher taxes, prices, etc when the transgressions of a handful of woke virtue-signalers are most responsible for rise in airplane-linked emissions.

Naturally, since this was a study on climate change, socialism wasn’t far behind: Dan Rutherford, at the International Council on Clean Transportation and not part of the research team, said the analysis raised the question of “equality.”

“The benefits of aviation are more inequitably shared across the world than probably any other major emission source,” he said. “So there’s a clear risk that the special treatment enjoyed by airlines just protects the economic interests of the globally wealthy.”

The frequent flyers identified in the study travelled about 35,000 miles (56,000km) a year, Gössling said, equivalent to three long-haul flights a year, one short-haul flight per month, or some combination of the two.

Things got really silly when the researchers somehow estimated the “cost of the climate damage” whatever that means, caused by aviation’s emissions at $100BN in 2018. The absence of payments to cover this damage “represents a major subsidy to the most affluent”, the researchers said. “This highlights the need to scrutinise the sector, and in particular the super emitters.”

So what do the socialists researchers suggest? Why taxes of course.

A levy on frequent fliers is one proposal to discourage flights. “Somebody will need to pay to decarbonise flight – why shouldn’t it be frequent flyers?” Rutherford said. But Gössling was less enthusiastic, pointing out that frequent flyers were usually very wealthy, meaning higher ticket prices may not deter them.

“Perhaps a more productive way is to ask airlines to increase the share of [low carbon] synthetic fuels mix every year up to 100% by 2050,” Gössling said. A mandate for sustainable aviation fuel starting in 2025 is backed by some in the industry.

Yup: at this point the “scientists” were reduced to bickering over who should be taxed more to solve the world’s problems. What neither of them appears to realize is that whatever the so-called “cost of climate change”, the Fed will meet all of it by printing an even greater amount and then depositing it into the digital dollar accounts of those deemed “virtuous” enough by the world’s socialist overlords.

Finally, do the wealth-redistributionist “researchers” do as they preach and stop flying themselves? Apparently not: “I’m not saying I’ll never fly again. But if I can avoid it, I really, really try,” Gössling said whimsically.

Authored by Jacob Hornberger via The Future of Freedom Foundation,

President Trump has announced that he is ordering a partial withdrawal of U.S. troops from Afghanistan and Iraq during the waning days of his administration.

Why only partial? And why now in the waning days of his presidency? After all, when Trump campaigned in 2016. his expressed aim was to bring all the troops home from those two countries. He repeatedly vowed to bring an end to America’s “forever wars.”

There is a simple explanation for Trump’s failure, one that unfortunately so many Americans are loathe to consider: It’s not the president who is in charge of foreign policy. Instead it is the Pentagon and the CIA that are in charge.

Trump had four years to bring home those troops. Clearly he wanted to. The reason he didn’t – the reason he still can’t – is because the Joint Chiefs of Staff and the CIA won’t let him.

Longtime readers of my blog know that I have periodically referenced a book titled National Security and Double Government by Michael J. Glennon, who is a professor of law at Tufts University and served as counsel to the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. He knows what he is talking about. I highly recommend his book.

Glennon’s thesis is a simple one:

The real power of the federal government lies with the national-security establishment – namely the Pentagon, the CIA, and the NSA.

They permit the president, the Congress, and the Supreme Court to maintain the veneer of power.

That veneer is unimportant to the Pentagon, the CIA, and the NSA.

What’s important to them is who holds the power, not who appears to hold the power.

Trump’s inability to bring the troops home from Afghanistan and Iraq provides confirmation of Glennon’s thesis. Trump wanted to bring them home. He vowed to bring them home. He had four years to bring them home. He was unable to do so. The Pentagon and the CIA simply would not permit it.

In his Farewell Address in 1961, President Eisenhower warned about the danger to America’s democratic processes from what he called the “military-industrial complex.”

That was almost 60 years ago. As we have seen with President Trump, the national-security state has grown ever more powerful since then.

It’s not quite an aircraft carrier though the AP has awkwardly dubbed it an ‘aircraft-carrying ship’ but it’s not a conventional warship either.  

Iran’s Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC) has unveiled a new domestic produced multirole warship capable of carrying up to dozens of aircraft, drones, helicopters and missiles with rapid roll-on/roll-off capability. 

Named the Shahid Roudaki after a ‘martyred’ IRGC Navy commander, state media described it as an “oceangoing warship capable of carrying aircraft” and is the latest in a rollout of major weapons systems built inside Iran while the country is under biting US-led sanctions. 

The Drive described it as a new “unorthodox” warship in Iran’s arsenal that will engage in long-range operations: 

The various weapons and other systems that are seen on the deck in pictures from the ceremony at least visually reflects the warship’s purported mission spectrum, as a multipurpose vessel for long-range operations. From bow to stern, the weapons visible on deck comprise eight anti-ship cruise missiles in four twin container launchers, six Ababil-2 unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs), a single Bell 412 helicopter, four speedboats, and a 3rd Khordad surface-to-air missile system on a road-mobile transport-erector-launcher plus what appears to be an associated command vehicle. Iranian media reports that the vessel is also equipped with a three-dimensional phased-array radar, plus “advanced communication systems for electronic warfare.”

New “multirole” vessel was adopted in service of the of IRGC Navy. Looks like there the idea is that it’s the floating platform for various weapons, reconnaissance assets, etc., depending on the need. On photos there on deck – 3rd Khordad SAM, Ghadir\Ghader ASM, Ababil-2 UAV etc pic.twitter.com/FMvbfCbZiN

— Yuri Lyamin (@imp_navigator) November 19, 2020

It measures 150 meters long at a displacement of 4,000 tons, and according to the IRGC is currently “ready to carry out missions”. 

According to statements cited in the Associated Press, it shows Iran is preparing to beef up its presence in in Indian Ocean, where the US and its global allies currently have dominance:

The commander of the Guard’s navy, Adm. Ali Reza Tangsiri, suggested his forces wanted to move beyond the waters of the Gulf into deep-water patrolling. Typically, the Guard covers the waters of the Persian Gulf, while Iran’s navy patrols the Gulf of Oman and beyond.

“Presence and assignments in the Indian Ocean is our right,” Tangsiri said.

The ship appears to be an answer to U.S. Navy patrols in the region by its Bahrain-based 5th Fleet. U.S. aircraft carriers routinely travel through Mideast waters. Iran sees those missions, as well as Israel’s expanding presence in the region, as a threat.

The new ship does not specifically belong to the Iranian Navy but to the IRGC Navy, though the two often coordinate action and operate side-by-side. 

It’s also believed the ship could enable more rapid IRGC deployment deeper in Persian Gulf waters, given it carries the type of fast boats typically used by the elite force anytime it intercepts or encircles US ships, as has happened in the recent past.

While Iran possesses small submarines and domestic-made mid-sized battleships, it has nothing even close to a large aircraft carrier such as is possessed by major powers like the US, China, Britain, and Russia. 

Authored by Michael Snyder via The End of The American Dream blog,

What if all of the assumptions that people are making about this COVID pandemic are completely wrong?  When Pfizer announced that they had developed a successful vaccine for COVID, the world cheered.  And then when Moderna announced that they had developed a successful vaccine for COVID, the world cheered even more.  But COVID has been mutating, and scientists assure us that it will keep mutating.  So what happens if the vaccines that are being developed end up being completely useless against new mutant strains of the virus?  Would that put us all the way back to square one (or even worse)?

To put this problem into perspective, let’s talk about the flu for a moment.  Every year, health authorities come up with a flu vaccine that they think will be effective against the variation or variations of the flu that they believe will be dominant in that particular year.  Most people simply assume that a “flu shot” will provide them with complete protection against “the flu”, but that is actually not true at all.  In some years the match between the flu vaccine and the variations of the flu that are running around is pretty good, and some years that is definitely not the case.  The following comes from the official CDC website…

During years when the flu vaccine is not well matched to circulating influenza viruses, it is possible that little or no benefit from flu vaccination may be observed. During years when there is a good match between the flu vaccine and circulating viruses, it is possible to measure substantial benefits from flu vaccination in terms of preventing flu illness and complications. However, even during years when the flu vaccine match is good, the benefits of flu vaccination will vary, depending on various factors like the characteristics of the person being vaccinated, what influenza viruses are circulating that season and even, potentially, which type of flu vaccine was used.

At this point, Pfizer and Moderna both seem convinced that their vaccines will be effective against the dominant strain of COVID that is currently sweeping across the globe.

But what if a new strain becomes dominant?

In Denmark, a new strain of COVID that is being passed to humans from minks was considered to be so dangerous that the government actually announced that they would kill all 17 million minks in the entire nation…

The government of Denmark shocked the world a few days ago when it announced it would slaughter as many as 17 million minks in the country, effectively destroying the entire mink fur industry in the country. The officials opted for this radical option because of the novel coronavirus, as the pathogen developed a potentially dangerous mutation inside the captive mink population. Reports from the country said that the mutated coronavirus has already infected at least 12 people. Researchers are worried that the new strain might be so dangerous that it could effectively render the current COVID-19 vaccine candidates useless. A new report now delivers more troublesome news, as some researchers think that the mutated coronavirus strain has pandemic potential. Others, meanwhile, are calling for calm.

Thankfully, after a tremendous uproar the Danish government decided not to kill all the minks.

But this strain is still spreading, and as the quote above noted, this new strain “could effectively render the current COVID-19 vaccine candidates useless”.

In other words, if this Denmark strain becomes dominant it may force the vaccine companies to go back to the drawing board.

Meanwhile, we just learned that “a fast-spreading new strain of COVID-19” has popped up in Australia…

South Australia is battling a fast-spreading new strain of COVID-19 as it prepares for a six-day lockdown to attempt to contain the virus.

A COVID-19 cluster in Adelaide’s north grew to 22 on Wednesday as thousands of people continued to flock to testing stations.

The reason why authorities decided to lock down all of South Australia for six days is because this new strain appears to be far more contagious than previous strains…

A strain of Covid-19 behind an outbreak in South Australia may be spreading up to five times quicker than normal, officials fear.

Concerned health bosses say the incubation period — how long it takes for someone to show symptoms after getting infected — was ‘very very short’.

Professor Nicola Spurrier, chief health officer for South Australia, claimed people are becoming contagious within 24 hours of catching the virus. She said the particular strain behind the outbreak had ‘certain characteristics’.

If it is true that this new strain spreads five times more rapidly than older strains, it could easily become dominant.

And if that happens, the vaccines that have been developed may not be of any use at all.

We just don’t know at this point.

But what we do know is that COVID will continue to mutate in the months and years ahead, and that could potentially create massive headaches for vaccine developers.

As for the vaccines that have already been created, some experts are pointing out that there is so much that is unknown about them.

Most people assume that these new vaccines are similar to other vaccines that they have previously taken, but that is definitely not true.

These new vaccines are in an entirely new class all by themselves.  They are known as “messenger RNA” (mRNA) vaccines, and they work by hijacking the protein-making machinery in your cells…

When Moderna was just finishing its Phase I trial, The Independent wrote about the vaccine and described it this way: “It uses a sequence of genetic RNA material produced in a lab that, when injected into your body, must invade your cells and hijack your cells’ protein-making machinery called ribosomes to produce the viral components that subsequently train your immune system to fight the virus.”

“In this case, Moderna’s mRNA-1273 is programmed to make your cells produce the coronavirus’ infamous coronavirus spike protein that gives the virus its crown-like appearance (corona is crown in Latin) for which it is named,” wrote The Independent.

I certainly do not want my cells “hijacked”, and nobody has any idea what the long-term effects will look like.

And even if you take one of these new vaccines, it could end up doing no good for you at all if a different strain emerges and becomes dominant.

Unfortunately, I believe that we have entered an era of global pandemics, and I am convinced that all of this enthusiasm about the vaccines that have been developed is completely misguided.

We know that COVID will continue to mutate, but we have no idea at all if the current vaccines will be effective against those future strains or not.

If fighting diseases was easy, we would have eradicated the common cold and the flu long ago.

But we haven’t, and we won’t be eradicating COVID either.

Even now, dangerous new strains of COVID are emerging, and I have a feeling that it is going to be COVID that is going to have the last laugh.

*  *  *

Michael’s new book entitled “Lost Prophecies Of The Future Of America” is now available in paperback and for the Kindle on Amazon.

While millions of Americans are unemployed, also have food and housing insecurities, Paycheck Protection Program (PPP) fraud exploded across the country this summer because there were virtually no checks and balances, allowing criminals to file fraudulent loans. 

It comes hardly any surprise that the latest PPP fraud scheme involves seven individuals across two states who were charged in a Houston federal indictment unsealed Tuesday for their involvement in a scheme to obtained upwards of $16 million in PPP loans, according to ABC13 Houston. 

The federal indictment, unsealed Tuesday, accused the group of using PPP loans to buy luxury goods and exotic cars such as Porsches and Lamborghinis.

“These defendants allegedly participated in a scheme to capitalize on the pandemic by filing at least 80 fraudulent PPP applications and enriching themselves by $16 million, spending it on luxury items such as a Porsche and Lamborghini automobiles,” Acting Assistant Attorney General Brian Rabbitt said in a press release. “The department and our law enforcement partners will continue to aggressively pursue those who would seek to illegally exploit the ongoing national emergency for their own benefit.”

The indictment named seven defendants who appeared in front of U.S. Magistrate Judge Andrew M. Edison on Tuesday. 

“Amir Aqeel, 52, and Pardeep Basra, 51, both of Houston, Texas; Rifat Bajwa, 51, of Richmond, Texas; Mayer Misak, 40, of Cypress, Texas; Mauricio Navia, 41, of Katy, Texas; and Richard Reuth, 57, of Spring, Texas.” 

Prosecutors said the defendants had submitted fraudulent PPP loan applications by inflating the number of employees and average monthly payroll expenses. To do this, they also submit fraudulent bank records and federal tax forms. PPP loan applications were also submitted on behalf of companies the defendants controlled. Other loan applications were submitted via third party entities. 

“The indictment further alleges the defendants laundered a portion of the fraudulent proceeds by writing checks from companies that received PPP loans to fake employees. Those that received checks included some of the defendants and their relatives, according to the charges. The fake paychecks were then allegedly cashed at Fascare International Inc. dba Almeda Discount Store – a cash checking company Azeemuddin owned.”

In total, the defendants wrote more than 1,100 fake paychecks, collecting around $3 million in PPP loans that were deposited at Azeemuddin’s business.

“Today’s indictment describes significant abuse of public funds meant for struggling American businesses and families,” said Special Agent in Charge Laurie L. Younger of the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation OIG.

The problem with the PPP program is that with little checks and balances, it fueled an unprecedented explosion of fraud. 

We noted in July that a Flordia man used PPP loans to purchase a 2020 Lamborghini Huracan. 

A California man fraudulently obtained $860,000 in PPP loans and fled the country. 

Another man used PPP loans to buy Bitcoin. 

Even JPMorgan employees were accused of pocketing U.S. coronavirus relief funds. 

All of this happened despite the DOJ warning about early signs of PPP fraud in April, around the time the program began to disperse the loans.