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Over the past decade, the one common theme despite the political upheaval and growing social and geopolitical instability, was that the market would keep marching higher and the Fed would continue injecting liquidity into the system. The second common theme is that despite sparking unprecedented asset price inflation, prices as measured across the broader economy – using the flawed CPI metric and certainly stagnant worker wages – would remain subdued (as a reminder, the Fed is desperate to ignite broad inflation as that is the only way the countless trillions of excess debt can be eliminated and has so far failed to do so).

The Fed’s failure to reach its inflation target – which prompted the US central bank to radically overhaul its monetary dogma last month and unveil Flexible Average Inflation Targeting (or FAIT) whereby the Fed will allow inflation to run hot without hiking rates – has sparked broad criticism from the economic establishment, even though as we showed in June, deflation is now a direct function of the Fed’s unconventional monetary policies as the lower yields slide, the lower the propensity to spend. In other words, the harder the Fed fights to stimulate inflation, the more deflation and more saving it spurs as a result (incidentally this is not the first time this “discovery” was made, in December we wrote “One Bank Makes A Stunning Discovery – The Fed’s Rate Cuts Are Now Deflationary“).

In short, ever since the Fed launched QE and NIRP, it has been making the situation it has been trying to “fix” even worse while blowing the biggest asset price bubble in history.

And having recently accepted that its preferred stimulus pathway has failed to boost the broader economy, the blame has fallen on how monetary policy is intermediated, specifically the way the Fed creates excess reserves which end up at commercial banks instead of “tricking down” all the way to the consumer level.

To be sure, in the aftermath of the covid pandemic shutdowns the Fed has tried to short-circuit this process, and in conjunction with the Treasury it has launched “helicopter money” which has resulted in a direct transfer of funds to US corporations via PPP loans, as well as to end consumers via the emergency $600 weekly unemployment benefits which however are set to expire unless renewed by Congress as explained last week, as Democrats and Republicans feud over which fiscal stimulus will be implemented next.

And yet, the lament is that even as the economy was desperately in need of a massive liquidity tsunami, the funds created by the Fed and Treasury (now that the US operates under a quasi-MMT regime) did not make their way to those who need them the most: end consumers.

Which is why we read with great interest a Bloomberg interview with two former Fed officials: Simon Potter, who led the Federal Reserve Bank of New York’s markets group i.e., he was the head of the Fed’s Plunge Protection Team for years, and Julia Coronado, who spent eight years as an economist for the Fed’s Board of Governors, who are among the innovators brainstorming solutions to what has emerged as the most crucial and difficult problem facing the Fed: get money swiftly to people who need it most in a crisis.

The response was striking: the two propose creating a monetary tool that they call recession insurance bonds, which draw on some of the advances in digital payments, which will be wired instantly to Americans.

As Coronado explained the details, Congress would grant the Federal Reserve an additional tool for providing support—say, a percent of GDP [in a lump sum that would be divided equally and distributed] to households in a recession. Recession insurance bonds would be zero-coupon securities, a contingent asset of households that would basically lie in wait. The trigger could be reaching the zero lower bound on interest rates or, as economist Claudia Sahm has proposed, a 0.5 percentage point increase in the unemployment rate. The Fed would then activate the securities and deposit the funds digitally in households’ apps.

As Potter added, “it took Congress too long to get money to people, and it’s too clunky. We need a separate infrastructure. The Fed could buy the bonds quickly without going to the private market. On March 15 they could have said interest rates are now at zero, we’re activating X amount of the bonds, and we’ll be tracking the unemployment rate—if it increases above this level, we’ll buy more. The bonds will be on the asset side of the Fed’s balance sheet; the digital dollars in people’s accounts will be on the liability side.”

Essentially, the Fed is proposing creating a hybrid digital legal tender unlike reserves which are stuck within the financial system, and which it can deposit directly into US consumer accounts. In short, as we summarized “The Fed Is Planning To Send Money Directly To Americans In The Next Crisis“, something we reminded readers of on Monday:

There still appears to be some confusion about the endgame. The Fed itself spelled it out.

The Fed Is Planning To Send Money Directly To Americans In The Next Crisis: “by getting money to consumers you can limit the depth and duration of a recession”https://t.co/bG03TxiviT

— zerohedge (@zerohedge) September 22, 2020

So this morning, as if to confirm our speculation of what comes next, Cleveland Fed president Loretta Mester delivered a speech to the Chicago Payment Symposium titled “Payments and the Pandemic“, in which after going through the big picture boilerplate, Mester goes straight to the matter at hand.

In the section titled “Central Bank Digital Currencies”, the Cleveland Fed president writes that “the experience with pandemic emergency payments has brought forward an idea that was already gaining increased attention at central banks around the world, that is, central bank digital currency (CBDC).”

And in the shocking punchline, then goes on to reveal that “legislation has proposed that each American have an account at the Fed in which digital dollars could be deposited, as liabilities of the Federal Reserve Banks, which could be used for emergency payments.“

But wait it gets better, because in launching digital cash, the Fed would then be able to scrap “anonymous” physical currency entirely, and track every single banknote from its “creation” all though the various transactions that take place during its lifetime. And, eventually, the Fed could remotely “destroy” said digital currency when it so decides. Oh, and in the process the Fed would effectively disintermediate commercial banks, as it would both provide loans to US consumers and directly deposit funds into their accounts, effectively making the entire traditional banking system obsolete. Here are the details:

Other proposals would create a new payments instrument, digital cash, which would be just like the physical currency issued by central banks today, but in a digital form and, potentially, without the anonymity of physical currency. Depending on how these currencies are designed, central banks could support them without the need for commercial bank involvement via direct issuance into the end-users’ digital wallets combined with central-bank-facilitated transfer and redemption services. The demand for and use of such instruments need further consideration in order to evaluate whether such a central bank digital currency would allow for quicker and more ubiquitous payments in times of emergency and more generally. In addition, a range of potential risks and policy issues surrounding central bank digital currency need to be better understood, and the costs and benefits evaluated.

The Federal Reserve has been researching issues raised by central bank digital currency for some time. The Board of Governors has a technology lab that has been building and testing a range of distributed ledger platforms to understand their potential benefits and tradeoffs. Staff members from several Reserve Banks, including Cleveland Fed software developers, are contributing to this effort. The Federal Reserve Bank of Boston is also engaged in a multiyear effort, working with the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, to experiment with technologies that could be used for a central bank digital currency. The Federal Reserve Bank of New York has established an innovation center, in partnership with the Bank for International Settlements, to identify and develop in-depth insights into critical trends and financial technology of relevance to central banks. Experimentation like this is an important ingredient in assessing the benefits and costs of a central bank digital currency, but does not signal any decision by the Federal Reserve to adopt such a currency. Issues raised by central bank digital currency related to financial stability, market structure, security, privacy, and monetary policy all need to be better understood.

To summarize, the wheels are already turning on a plan that sees the Fed depositing “digital dollars” to “each American”, a stunning development that essentially sees the Fed bypass Congress, endowing the Central Bank with targeted “fiscal stimulus” capabilities, and which could lead to a dramatic reflationary spike as it is the lower income quartile segments of US society that are the marginal price setters for economic goods and services. And having already implemented Average Inflation Targeting, the resulting burst of inflation would be viewed by the Fed as insufficient on its own (as it would have to persist for a long time over the “average” period whatever it may end up being), to tighten monetary policy. In fact, even as inflation rages – which some alternative inflationary measures to CPI suggest it already is – the Fed will have a semantic loophole in explaining just why it needs to keep inflation scorching hot even as the standard of living in America collapses to the benefit of a handful of asset holders.

Why? The CBO showed the answer yesterday:

Absent a massive burst of inflation in the coming years which inflates away the hundreds of trillions in federal debt, the unprecedented debt tsunami that is coming would mean the end to the American way of life as we know it. And to do that, the Fed is now finalizing the last steps of a process that revolutionizes the entire fiat monetary system, launching digital dollars which effectively remove commercial banks as financial intermediaries, as they will allow the Fed itself to make direct deposits into Americans’ “digital wallets”, in the process also making Congress and the entire Legislative branch redundant, as a handful of technocrats quietly take over the United States.

Authored by ‘Austrian Peter’ via The Burning Platform,

A reader recently wrote me a long letter on how he feels about all this ‘Plandemic’ stuff.  I thought it would be good to share it as there is so much in it which rings bells of truth for me…

[emphasis ours]

I’ve just woken up after reading ZeroHedge late into the night. I awoke with the conviction that Covid is being used to roll out a police state:

They know it’s not deadly, it’s no longer spreading and Lockdown is killing off the few small businesses which remain viable. Yet Boris now insists upon banning the assembly of more than 6 people. He has recalled some petty bureaucrats to act as street enforcers and requested people become snitches who report on their neighbours for any breaches of these guidelines. This automatically means we must now all fear our neighbours, or strangers who take our car number. How better to destroy the mutual trust upon which society is built?

Just think if one were to refuse to bend the knee.  In Australia and Spain the police have been caught using excessive force against those not wearing masks. Intimidating isn’t it? I’m thinking I may have to start using one. Yet the science is clear – masks offer no protection.

So we know these new restrictions are not being driven by the authority’s concern for our health. And what is the difference between where we are now and making it normal for the police to come to your door and arrest you for a breach of their protocols? What is the difference between where we are now and an oppressive police state?

There is only one difference between now and full-on state oppression:  A change in the Zeitgeist.

They need an event that will change the mood of the people – an event or a series of events that make us afraid of ‘them’. A psychological shock that will give the police the conviction that things are so bad ‘a little force is necessary’ to ensure things don’t get out of control. And then, magically, the current ‘temporary restrictions’ become state oppression. What could that game changer be?

Imagine this November: The US has 100 cities descending into what looks like the start of civil war as patriots turn out to stop Antifa burning down Middle America. Kamala Harris is calling for the army to ‘evict’ Trump because he refuses to leave the White House on the grounds that he won the popular vote while the mail-in ballots were fraudulent.

For the Brits, Brexit has caused problems at the ports – among other things some foodstuffs are not getting through. Germany’s economy has cratered after the EU stopped them exporting cars to the UK (Trumps already tariffed them), and the EU’s bank has insisted Germany let the 500 non-viable, medium sized biz (currently kept alive with emergency funding) go bankrupt.

Deutsche Bank collapses and this initiates a global banking crisis. Europe has no way of saving its banks as all the European economies are so damaged and 20% of workers have already been laid off.  It’s a Greek style banking crisis on steroids. People are pulling out cash in the expectation of daily cash limits. Physical gold will have already disappeared from the market place. So any biz with money in the bank is frantically buying bitcoin in an attempt to avoid their working capital being ‘bailed in’.

The banks will have already pulled the plug on their most vulnerable customers – the airlines – so virtually no planes are flying. Dover is jammed up with lorries lining the approach roads. So no one can leave Blighty.  And if you did, the emergency measures intended to pre-empt Covid’s Second Wave require you to be kept in quarantine at your destination. Locked down in a hotel, under military guard (as in NZ), for 4 weeks at your own expense and with frequent testing to ensure you are not a carrier. With full bio-metric data being collected and filed on an EU wide register. In practice this means that travel becomes so fraught that escape from your homeland is just about impossible.

You get the gist?  November could be the end of world as we know it’ (TEOTWAWKI).  But my point is this: Why are we looking at such a catastrophe if their goal is not a police state? No one destroys the globe’s economy and creates the conditions for a 10 year Greater Depression by accident. This has to be a planned, intentional destruction of much of global civilization.

The evidence is overwhelming. This civilization has been purposefully destroyed. Right now we’re in an unreal time (like the beautiful summer just before WW1’s carnage).  It’s like Wiley E Coyote who has gone over the cliff, is still running but not yet started to fall. But when we fall, how will people react as they realize that they will never work again, never pay off the mortgage, never collect their pensions?  If we have state oppression and economic chaos by Christmas then what will be the next stage of their takeover?

The world’s economy is already doomed. The already broken supply chains ensure it can only get worse.  Once the derivative market goes, and banks can no longer fund the credit lines crucial for importers and exporters, then trade will collapse and thus food supplies cease.

It would seem to be inevitable that America is going to see more conflict as the Dems & Soros show no signs of wishing to abort their colour revolution. Maybe in 2021, maybe a year or two later, but there will come a time when a credit shortage leads to deflation. So the banks will print more and then rain down helicopter money which will lead to inflation. And then the currencies will start collapsing. Many people understand that this is inevitable. But what happens when people come to accept that money isn’t go to be worth the paper it’s printed on?  And thus keeping a job may not be worth the danger of leaving your house or of leaving safety.

I summarise one of last night’s articles:

“the beasts of burden don’t rebel, they just no longer show up. Not showing up can take a number of forms: early retirement, sick leave, a demand to work halftime, a workers’ compensation stress leave, and of course, resignation and quitting as in: “take this job and shove it”.  They slip noiselessly into the cracks and crevasses and once they’re gone, there’s nobody left to replace them.”

“As the Vital Few 4% realize the system no longer works for them and opt out, this will have an out-sized effect on the 64%, most likely urban dwellers, highly dependent on increasingly brittle, fragile services that depend on the Vital Few for their functionality. Think of London’s tube train drivers phoning in sick – ideology won’t matter.

Those dropping out may be Conservative or Progressive or they may have lost interest entirely in politics and all the other circuses that serve to distract the populace from the crises dissolving the glue that held the system together. “So I won’t get rich, that dream died a long time ago.”  What I’m interested in now is getting my life back and getting the heck out of Dodge as things fall apart.”

The rich will escape to their holiday cottages. The poor will riot – but what then?  As the social facade cracks, and the economic system breaks, there is neither a society nor an economy to fall back on. By Christmas it will be obvious that normality has gone for ever.

So what will ‘they’ do with millions of unemployed, frightened people?  If  ‘they’ leave the internet on then the people will start to organize – first politically – but when that doesn’t work, riots and then finally revolution. Turn it off and they will riot without being organized. Turn off phones and all hell will break out. Don’t turn them off and the kids will organize against the state – trash cars or burn down the local police station.  Have you noticed how some police stations look like forts?

My point is that it’s very hard not to see ‘events’ hitting the fan this November. And once they do it’s very hard to see life ever going back to stability, let alone ‘normality’. Rather, there will be an overwhelming need to control {oppress} the population before they take over the state. But what do you do with millions of unemployed in a failed economy who are doomed to losing their currency, long term poverty and probably food shortages. There is only one thing ‘they’ can do. Kill them.

Ideally, for the elite, Covid’s Second Wave will have a higher morbidity rate. Enough to steadily reduce the population but not so fast they can’t be buried in plague pits. It would have to be bad enough to justify a harsh Lockdown but it’s difficult to see that being feasible without giving the people electricity, internet & food and the money to pay for it. And even then it’s only a temporary fix as Lockdown can’t last for ever. Permanent Lockdown would soon destroy the currency which will mean no electricity or food.

Maybe Covid-19 v1.0 was supposed to kill off more people but it failed. Or maybe it worked as intended – they didn’t want to risk killing off too many in case the Lockdown failed and we revolted. But I don’t see they have much choice now. ‘The Fourth Turning’ will be turbulent until 2025 and things won’t really be resolved until 2030. How are they going to manage us for another 10 years? How will they control us? Feed us?

They can start a war but no one is going to turn up. Fight a war for the elite? Use a gun to kill people you don’t know?  That’s not going to happen. And they need to preserve the professional soldiers to ‘maintain the peace’ in the cities. So what options do they have but to release a more potent bio-weapon – nuclear war perhaps?

One of the scary things about working through ‘their’ options is that they don’t have many. Things have gone too far – they’ve destroyed the world’s economy. The system is stuffed. What are ‘they’ going to do with 2bn unemployed people. Even if there is enough food but the US has a developing dust bowl, Africa’s suffered huge locust devastation, and China’s preparing for food shortages. How do unemployed people pay for it?  Who can give them money without destroying the currency or if the currency is already destroyed?

A simple thing like the current fall in the number of sunspots is indicating an immediate future of colder weather and lower crop yields. Add into that, fuel shortages for agricultural machinery, lack of fertilizer – Nitrogen is made by burning lots of oil, lack of supply lines, and loss of credit lines. With people in Lockdown ‘they’ would be relying on a planned economy (not a free market) which is going to be inefficient. A planned economy is completely incapable of ensuring a stable food supply when there are shortages and the world is chaotic.

It’s not even feeding our cities that will be prime problem. It will be feeding the cities in Mexico and North Africa. They can’t cope with food price inflation. But they won’t starve – they’ll flood into the USA or cross the Mediterranean – lucky us!  And what will Erdogan in Turkey do to feed his people – nothing good!  If there are real food shortages then note that there are huge Muslim populations in France & Sweden, Turks and refugees in Germany, Pakistani ghettos in UK and plenty more where they all came from.

I’m feeling concerned. The problem is I can’t see Brexit solving our problems. Sure, it may not exacerbate them as much as I fear. November’s events may not trigger us into a state of oppression. But do you see my point?  Things have got so bad, they can only get worse. November is bound to see some changes and they may well trigger a change in the Zeitgeist, though how significant depends on ‘events, dear boy, events’.

But whatever happens I think it’s virtually guaranteed that both the economy and society will keep on deteriorating.

Do you think I’m right?

Will November be the tipping point?

Is there any way back?

Will there be anything to go ‘back’ to?

Or else, is it a case of:  “we’re doomed, I tell ya, doomed”.  And what happens when more people work out that the elites have created a situation where their only option is to rapidly reduce the population! Famine will lead to uncontrollable social conflict, perhaps with Muslims massacring whites in general or the local Jewish populations in particular. I think that much conflict could see ‘them‘ lose control.

Thus it’s hard to see any other viable method than a bio-weapon. Agenda 21 could be implemented on schedule. And if not, the solution will need to be applied within a few years, certainly before 2025.  Timing may depend on vaccine production as there will have to be at least enough vaccine for essential workers, the police, the military and the management class if the elite are to retain control.

Britain is scrambling to avoid a second lockdown after its first one six months ago, with PM Boris Johnson just introducing expanded new social distancing rules across the UK, as the government’s top adviser Sir Patrick Vallance warns “the epidemic is doubling roughly every seven days.” 

Specifically the latest surge in COVID-19 cases at current rates could mean 50,000 cases a day by mid-October, Vallance warned at the start of the week. In introducing new measures to fight the spread Tuesday night, Johnson urged citizens to “summon discipline, resolve and a spirit of togetherness.” The new measures will last a whopping six months with warnings of “a difficult winter” — also at a moment total infection numbers approach the half-million mark (as of Wednesday: 409,729 people tested positive since the start, including 41,862 deaths).

However all the dire pandemic predictions have naturally resulted in a surge of panic buying, similar to what happened across the West and in the United States as lockdowns hit last Spring.

“Supermarket bosses have urged shoppers not to start panic buying, while Asda is bringing in 1,000 safety marshals, as the industry braces for a potential change in shopping habits ahead of new lockdown restrictions,” The Guardian reports late Wednesday.

Discount supermarket chains Tesco and Aldi urged customers this week not to start stockpiling goods, saying was “unnecessary” and seeking to calm fears of disruption in supply chains. 

Aldi in the UK, for example, posted a public statement saying:

“There is no need to buy more than you usually would. I would like to reassure you that our stores remain fully stocked and ask that you continue to shop considerately.”

“We have remained open for our customers throughout the pandemic and will continue to have daily deliveries, often multiple times a day, across all of our products.”

And CEO Dave Lewis of the popular store Tesco said in a televised interview that Britons should not panic: “The message would be one of reassurance. I think the UK saw how well the food industry managed last time, so there’s very good supplies of food,” he said, describing an improved plan for rapid restocking.

“We just don’t want to see a return to unnecessary panic buying because that creates a tension in the supply chain that’s not necessary,” he added.

Via NPR: If the U.K.’s rate of new coronavirus cases doubles four more times, Chief Scientific Advisor Sir Patrick Vallance said, “you would end up with something like 50,000 cases in the middle of October per day.”

Given the record number of new cases, the sense of fear and panic is not likely to abate in the short term:

New UK coronavirus cases hit 6,178 on Wednesday, according to the latest government data. The number is the highest daily level since 1 May, when the UK was in full lockdown.

Here were the numbers as of the prime minister’s Tuesday night address:

Local UK grocery stores have reported they’ve started hiring and stationing extra security personnel in preparation to monitor both numbers of shoppers at once, and mask and other guidelines. 

Authored by Shaurya Malwa via Decrypt.co,

In brief

• Three power plants in Iran will soon offer their electricity outputs to interested Bitcoin miners.

• The move comes after a July ruling enabled power plants to legally mine Bitcoin.

• Iran has turned to Bitcoin mining as a potential source of income amidst broader economic worries.

Three major power plants in Iran will soon offer their energy outputs exclusively for Bitcoin mining, the country’s Thermal Power Plant Holding Company (TPPH) announced on Monday, as per a report on local news outlet Tehran Times.

Irani power plants receive benefits and subsidies from the government on their fuel supplies, which are in turn used to produce power. And while they were earlier barred from mining cryptocurrencies, a new ruling in July allowed power plants to engage in the business—albeit after gaining necessary government approval, licenses, and complying with the tariffs set for crypto mining.

The TPPH now wants a slice of that pie. It said it will soon offer a tender for the electricity output of three power plants for the purpose of Bitcoin mining.

 “The necessary equipment has been installed in three power plants of Ramin, Neka, and Shahid Montazeri, and the auction documents will be uploaded on the SetadIran.ir website in the near future,” said TPPH head Mohsen Tarztalab.

Tarztalab said that the sale of electricity to Bitcoin miners presented a new, stable way of generating profits in the electricity sector.

He added the three power plants will only use their expansion turbines for the purpose of Bitcoin mining, which uses natural gas to produce power and is a cheaper alternative to liquid fuels like gas oil.

Such turbines are not connected to the national grid—which distributes power across the country for commercial purposes—and will be wholly used by the power plans to mine Bitcoin instead, explained Tarztalab.

Bitcoin adoption for a reason

The July ruling is said to be a savior for the country’s electricity industry. Repeated price hikes and the obligation to supply electricity at stable prices to subscribers has created falling profits for Iranian power producers in the past, the report noted.

Iran’s adoption of Bitcoin comes at a time when the country grapples with a bleak economic outlook and international trade sanctions imposed by influential governments, such as the US, over its controversial nuclear power program.

However, Bitcoin mining is providing them a new way for them to generate income, it added. And mining is a big opportunity.

Iranian ministers said in 2019 that regulated, industrial-scale Bitcoin mining can pull in, annually, an estimated $8.5 billion.

As highlighted by the latest edition of the European Drug Report, Sweden is the country with the most drug-induced deaths per million of the population in Europe.

In 2018, 81 people died per million inhabitants, ahead of the United Kingdom’s 76 drug-induced deaths per million. Finland and Ireland jointly had the third-highest death rate with 72 deaths per million.

You will find more infographics at Statista

As tragic as these figures are, Statista’s Niall McCarthy notes that they pale in comparison with the toll of America’s opioid crisis.

In 2018, the U.S. experienced 314.5 drug-related deaths per million of its population and it lost more inhabitants to drugs than the next 20 countries combined.

Authored by Steve Watson via Summit News,

A disturbing testimony from a psychiatrist outlines that Wikileaks founder Julian Assange is in such a bad state in prison that he should be considered at ‘high risk’ of suicide.

The Daily Mail reports that Professor Michael Kopelman testified during an extradition hearing in London that Assange has “begun making preparations to end his own life including confessing to a Catholic priest, drafting farewell letters to his family and drafting a will.”

Kopelman, emeritus professor of neuropsychiatry at King’s College London, also said that Assange told him he experienced hearing voices in his head saying “we’re coming to get you.”

“He reported auditory hallucinations, which were voices either inside or outside his head, somatic hallucinations, funny bodily experiences, these have now disappeared,” Kopelman said.

“He also has a long history of musical hallucinations, which is maybe a separate phenomenon, that got worse when he was in prison,” the psychiatrist added.

“The voices are things like, “you are dust, you are dead, we are coming to get you”. They are derogatory and persecutory,” he continued, adding “They seem to have diminished. Subsequently the musical hallucinations have also reduced, and the somatic hallucinations have disappeared.”

Kopelman even noted that Assange “reported a near-death experience and wondered if the CIA would find a way to get him or mess with his head” noting that this “may or may not” be paranoia.

Kopelman warned that “The risk of suicide arises out of clinical factors…but it is the imminence of extradition and or an actual extradition that would trigger the attempt, in my opinion.”

Assange is languishing in Belmarsh, a notoriously horrid maximum security prison housing murderers and terrorists. For much of the time since being arrested on leaving the Ecuadorian embassy, Assange has been kept in solitary confinement. He is also heavily medicated.

The wikileaks founder faces extradition to the US, where he would be charged with an 18-count indictment related to hacking computers and conspiracy to obtain and disclose national defence information.

Professor Kopelman also noted during the hearing that Assange has been depressed “certainly throughout the time I’ve been seeing him.”

“It’s fluctuated a bit, his appetite has fluctuated, he’s had persistent problems with sleep and his mood state is worst in the early hours of the morning and that’s stayed consistent,” Kopelman added.

“Mr Assange was very reluctant to talk about his suicidal ideas and plans because he feared he would be put on constant watch or isolation,” the psychiatrist further explained.

The report notes that the QC for the US government argued that Assange is ‘exaggerating’ his psychiatric symptoms and ‘self reporting’ suicidal ideas, and that Kopelman is an ‘advocate’.

“I’m a psychiatrist, you’re a lawyer. I make my diagnoses on my criteria,” the professor is said to have replied.

Assange’s QC reportedly read out a list of multiple times, at least ten, that Assange had requested the Samaritans suicide prevention helpline number between August and November 2019.

Assange has been in the prison since April of last year:

Since much of the media is now centred around generating outrage and deplatforming dissent, “journalists” don’t have to worry about being targeted by the establishment because they no longer do actual journalism.

That’s why they’re all cheering Assange’s arrest today.

— Paul Joseph Watson (@PrisonPlanet) April 11, 2019

Hillary Clinton responded to the arrest of Julian Assange by laughing and joking about it. https://t.co/xCDg5MjtAh

— Paul Joseph Watson (@PrisonPlanet) April 12, 2019

Julian Assange is now so ill he can barely talk. This is how society treats its transgressors.

— Paul Joseph Watson (@PrisonPlanet) May 29, 2019

Julian Assange is still isolated, medicated and silenced in Belmarsh prison. Don’t forget about him.

— Paul Joseph Watson (@PrisonPlanet) September 12, 2019

Julian Assange is literally dying in solitary confinement and no one really cares. Everyone who helped Trump get elected was targeted and virtually destroyed, and has there been an adequate response?

— Paul Joseph Watson (@PrisonPlanet) November 26, 2019

Julian Assange is still dying in prison for the crime of doing journalism and virtually no journalist on the planet cares.

They’re too obsessed with defaming and deplatforming their ideological enemies because journalism is dead.

And so might Julian Assange be pretty soon.

— Paul Joseph Watson (@PrisonPlanet) November 30, 2019

Julian Assange: “I’m slowly dying here.”

He is sedated, in solitary 23 hours a day.

He’s in a prison meant for dangerous criminals & terrorists.

All for the crime of journalism.

If the Chinese had done this to a dissident, there’d be outrage.

Where are the protests?

— Paul Joseph Watson (@PrisonPlanet) December 31, 2019