Tag: finance

Authored by Michael Snyder via TheMostImportantNews.com,

A COVID vaccine is not even available yet, but the mainstream media is already full of stories about whether or not it is legal for employers to fire employees that refuse to take it.  To me, this is not even a debate that we should be having.  It would be fundamentally anti-American and morally reprehensible for any employer to fire someone for choosing not to get vaccinated.  Unfortunately, the mainstream media does not see things that way, and they are interviewing lots of legal experts that are assuring employers that it is perfectly legal to fire people that don’t want to get vaccinated. 

For example, the following comes from a CNBC article…

“In general, yes, employers are able to mandate the vaccine when it becomes available with, of course, a bunch of caveats,” says employment lawyer Lindsay Ryan, listing possible exemptions for those with specific medical conditions and those with sincerely held religious convictions.

If religious convictions really did protect employees, that would be great.

From my perspective, any employee that refuses to get vaccinated based on a sincerely held religious conviction should definitely be shielded from being fired under federal law.

Unfortunately, the CNBC article goes on to explain why federal law is probably not going to protect any person of faith from mandatory vaccination requirements…

Ryan emphasizes that state laws regulating what constitutes reasonable accommodations for religious groups vary significantly, but that “under federal law, employers don’t have to grant a religious accommodation if doing so would result in more than a de minimis cost to the operation of the business.”

“De minimis” is Latin for “of minimum importance” and is used in law to refer to a total so small that it is not even recognized. Given how significantly the pandemic has impacted businesses, Ryan says “this is a pretty low standard.” Meaning, many employers will likely have legal ground to require vaccination.

In other words, under federal law there is hardly any protection at all for workers that wish to refuse the COVID vaccine.

Other major news outlets have been publishing similar stories.  This excerpt comes from a piece that was published by Reuters…

Gostin and five other health law experts said private companies in the United States have broad liberties to set health and safety standards, which would allow them to mandate vaccinations as a condition of employment with some exceptions.

It is almost as if there is a coordinated effort to make employers across the country aware that they can issue such mandates.

A little over a decade ago, the U.S. Occupational Safety and Health Administration ruled that employers could make vaccines mandatory during the swing flu pandemic, but of course that crisis faded rather rapidly and so very few employers actually went in that direction.

But now it appears that COVID-19 is going to be with us for quite a while, and some employers have already decided that they are going to make vaccination mandatory for all employees…

Just a few months into the coronavirus pandemic, Holly Smith had already made up her mind. She was not going to reopen her restaurant to diners until there was a vaccine. She just didn’t think it was safe. When she shared the decision with her staff, they asked: Would the vaccine be mandatory?

Yes, she said. It would be.

“I’m not going to open until I can indeed be sure that everyone on my staff is vaccinated,” says Smith, chef and owner of Cafe Juanita in Kirkland, Wash. “The immediate people on the team — you’ve got to take care of them. If you don’t take care of them, they cannot help you take care of business.”

If some of her employees do not want to take the vaccine, they will be hitting the bricks.

And as I have detailed repeatedly in recent weeks, it is not easy to find another job in this economy.

The good news is that most employers will likely be hesitant to mandate vaccines because of the potential of pushback from their employees.  According to a recent Gallup survey, 42 percent of all Americans do not plan to get a COVID-19 vaccine…

Americans’ willingness to be vaccinated against COVID-19 rebounded a bit in October, as seen in Gallup polling conducted before Pfizer/BioNTech and Moderna made promising announcements about the likely effectiveness of their coronavirus vaccines. Fifty-eight percent of Americans in the latest poll say they would get a COVID-19 vaccine, up from a low of 50% in September.

It is estimated that there are 328 million people living in the United States right now, and 42 percent of 328 million is 137 million.

If those 137 million people stand up for their God-given rights, we almost certainly will not see widespread vaccine mandates.

But will they?

We shall see.

In the months ahead, there is going to be so much public pressure to get vaccinated, and the CDC plans to aggressively promote their vaccination campaign.

They even plan to distribute “buttons or stickers” so that people that have been injected can advertise that fact to others…

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention is planning to offer health care providers a template they can use to print buttons or stickers that would advertise a person’s vaccination status. The idea is that the button would be handed out to patients after they receive their vaccination shots.

The effort is part of a “toolkit” that the CDC plans to provide healthcare systems to “educate and promote vaccination,” a CDC spokesperson told ABC News.

In addition, within the past few days Barack Obama, George W. Bush, Bill Clinton and Joe Biden have all committed to being vaccinated publicly…

President-elect Joe Biden said he would publicly take a vaccine when it’s available to encourage the public to get vaccinated, joining three former presidents who recently pledged to do the same.

Biden said he’d “be happy” to join former Presidents Barack Obama, George W. Bush and Bill Clinton in getting the vaccine in public to prove it is safe.

That would seem to be quite a public relations coup for the pharmaceutical companies, but if any of them has any sort of an adverse reaction to the vaccine it will rapidly transform into a public relations nightmare.

Of course the truth is that nobody really knows what the long-term side effects of taking COVID vaccines will be for the population as a whole.

As I have discussed previously, this entirely new class of mRNA vaccines has never been tried before, and those that line up first to get a COVID vaccine will be the guinea pigs.

*  *  *

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

Politico reports on Friday what appears to be the Trump admin’s final house cleaning of Pentagon top civilian ranks. 

Multiple members of the Defense Business Board, the members of which are appointed annually by the Secretary of Defense to help streamline interaction with the defense private sector, were notified by White House email that they have been unexpectedly terminated.

Two former board members described it as Trump’s final “clean out” of Pentagon leadership during the remaining few weeks of his term.

Reports Politico:

Members of the board received a brief email from Joshua Whitehouse, the White House liaison to the Department of Defense, that simply said, “if you are receiving this e-mail, your membership on the Defense Business Board has expired or is coming to an end.”

“This e-mail serves as notice that we will be nominating new board members,” the notice continued. “We appreciate your service to the Department and your country.”

The now fired board members said they had no heads-up or warning whatsoever of the impending action. The email notification came seemingly out of nowhere.

“A number of board members have been terminated with a form letter. In my experience, I was very surprised that the White House would, at the eleventh hour, adjust an advisory board that for 19 years has had a record of nonpartisan support with the department,” the until today board chairman Michael Bayer, described to Politico.

“This kind of a move really will weigh heavily on people on the future and their willingness to serve on these outside advisory boards if they’re going to be subjected to political loyalty test. It’s unprecedented. I’m just saddened,” Bayer added.

One well-known retired Admiral blasted Trump’s move as an “over-the-shoulder shot while exiting the door”…

A wise person would not do this over-the-shoulder shot while exiting the door. Shows smallness.
Pentagon fires business advisory board members in latest purge https://t.co/zVhzjbT0q0 via @politico

— Admiral Mike Franken (@FrankenforIowa) December 4, 2020

It comes after a spate of top resignations and firings which began during election week, even as votes were being tallied, and led to the biggest but not unexpected sacking of prior Defense Secretary Mark Esper. Last week nearly a dozen big names including former Secretaries of State Henry Kissinger and Madeleine Albright and former House Majority Leader Eric Cantor were pushed out of a similar civilian leadership council called the Defense Policy Board.

The dramatic sudden removals also come as the White House ramps up pressure on both China and Iran down to the very last weeks and days ahead of Biden’s inauguration on January 20.

Despite the unprecedented polarization in Congress, fiscal stimulus is slowly progressing with Politico reporting this morning that it is quite likely that a Covid relief bill will come together. “It will be small and targeted, including PPP, unemployment, restaurant assistance (deductions) and a bit more.”

Latest headlines confirmed as much, when Nancy Pelosi said she and Senate Republican leader Mitch McConnell hope to combine a coronavirus relief measure with an omnibus spending package. House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer said he plans to talk to McConnell today about a relief package, adding that “If $908 billion over four months is what we agree on then we ought to pass it.”

While more information on the fiscal stimulus is expected to emerge heading into this weekend, where policymakers on both sides will hold stimulus discussions, it is now almost certain that a hypothetical package will be tagged alongside the omnibus spending bill that will set to be voted on December 11.

Incidentally, the base case of several banks is for a roughly $1 trillion fiscal package, which would be the last major tranche of COVID-related fiscal stimulus, while consultancy ACG Analytics believes the final deal will be somewhere in the middle of the bid/ask, or around $750, and that could be it until 2022, as per Larry McDonald’s Bear Traps Report:

Senate Majority leader (Mitch) is at 600bln and Romney (GOP Centrist leader) is 908bln.  750bln might get done and that might be all the fiscal for Biden unless GA turns or 2022 brings a dem majority. The risk is if it’s too big now we might get nothing in Q1 in terms of a larger package. We think the GOP works with Biden until the 2022 midterms, after that the austerity camp takes over into the 2024 election, we defer to ACG in Washington on all Things Fiscal.

And speaking of the latest Bear Traps report, below we republish an interesting take from a “large hedge fund CIO” client of Larry McDonald’s:

“After talking to all the consultants in Washington, here’s my take.

The big political surprise coming is Biden works with the political center to achieve substantial centrist legislation in a variety of ways — to the frustration of the far left.

There will be no Green new deal, confiscatory tax law changes, defunded police, mass forgiveness of student loans or single payor health.  There will NOT be 2 new states, Supreme Court-packing, etc even if the senate goes 50-50.

There will be an infrastructure bill (with Green energy emphasized), changes to taxes on foreign corporate earnings, police reform and other attempts to reduce institutional racism, forbearance on hardship student debt, fixes to Obamacare. Etc.

People who think McConnell can bring the Senate to a halt and reject every proposal are nuts.  If he (McConnell) does that 2022 will be a bloodbath for Republicans (Senate 51-49 now, + the GOP is less than 7 seats away from taking the House, they will NOT risk this momentum).

There are several Republicans like Romney, Murkowski, Collins, Ernst, Purdue, and Tillis that can realize they have a ton of power to support a centrist agenda.”

Authored by Rick Moran via PJMedia.com,

A new study shows that American media outlets have been far more negative in their coverage of the coronavirus than the media in other nations.

Not surprisingly, negative stories of Donald Trump and the pandemic were more likely to be published than positive stories about what was happening with the coronavirus. Indeed, since most of the media was obsessed with Trump, the good news about vaccines or treatments was often buried or unwritten.

Washington Examiner:

“Ninety one percent of stories by U.S. major media outlets are negative in tone versus fifty four percent for non-U.S. major sources and sixty five percent for scientific journals,” reads the working paper’s abstract.

“The negativity of the U.S. major media is notable even in areas with positive scientific developments including school re-openings and vaccine trials. Media negativity is unresponsive to changing trends in new COVID-19 cases or the political leanings of the audience.”

The paper was written by researchers at Dartmouth College and Brown University. They examined over 20,000 news reports from the 15 top U.S. media outlets and 39 international sources.

They concluded that “U.S. major media outlets are much more negative” when publishing similar stories to “non-U.S. sources.”

Also, it appears the teacher’s unions did their job well.

“There is a similar disconnect between U.S. major media reporting on school reopenings and scientific findings on the same topic; the reporting is overwhelmingly negative, while the scientific literature tells a more optimistic story,” the researchers wrote.

The paper cites a study on school reopenings and COVID-19 infections that found “infection rates among students remain low” and that “schools have not become the super-spreaders many feared.” The researchers note that an analysis of the available evidence painted a similar story, yet 90% of “school reopening articles from U.S. mainstream media are negative versus only 56 percent” of foreign media coverage.

The aforementioned coverage of Donald Trump was a large reason for the negative stories. In fact, the statistics are eye-popping.

“U.S. major media stories that discuss the benefits of social distancing or alternatively the benefits of mask wearing are less numbers than stories about President Trump not wearing a mask,” the researchers wrote.

“Similarly, the terms ‘Trump and hydroxychloroquine’ receive more media coverage than do all stories about companies and researchers developing vaccines.”

The paper found that “mentions of COVID-19 vaccines” or “any names of the top ten institutions or companies working on” a vaccine were mentioned in 1,371 stories. But during the same time period, the researchers found “8,756 stories involving Trump and mask wearing and 1,636 stories about Trump and hydroxychloroquine.

The lecturing, hectoring media that went on and on about Trump’s mask-wearing was appalling when you consider that other stories of far more importance were given short shrift.

Part of the reason for the avalanche of negative stories was no doubt an effort to “sex up” the coverage in order to scare people. If there is one overriding, titanic failure of the American media in its coverage of the coronavirus it was its deliberate and calculated effort to create an atmosphere of hysteria about the coronavirus.

There was political calculation in this approach, knowing that scaring people about the virus would drive opposition to Trump.

A criminal defense attorney for 17-year-old Kyle Rittenhouse has stepped back from the case after prosecutors raised questions over his links to an “unregulated slush fund” for the teen, according to the Chicago Tribune.

On Thursday, hours after prosecutors sought to block Los Angeles civil lawyer John M. Pierce from representing Rittenhouse against a murder charge and other counts stemming from an August 25 shooting incident in Kenosha, Wisconsin, Racine lawyer Mark Richards told the Tribune in an email that “I will be counsel for Kyle in the criminal matters,” while Pierce (and his colleague, Andrew Calderon) “won’t be.“

Pierce, who prosecutors say had no income last year, monthly expenses of $49,581, and debt of $1.2 million, was sued in July over allegations that he failed to pay rent on a $1.3 million home in Ventura County, California.

“This creates a potential conflict of interest for attorney Pierce,” states the motion. “Given his own substantial personal debts, his involvement with an unregulated and opaque ‘slush fund’ provides ample opportunity for self-dealing and fraud. The more that the Foundation raises in donations, the more he may personally benefit. Money that should be held in trust for the defendant may instead be used to repay attorney Pierce’s numerous creditors.”

In Setpember, Pierce claimed he was going to step away from the #FightBack Foundation to avoid any appearance of a conflict of interest.

FYI, just stepped off official #FightBack Foundation board to 100% focus on freeing Kyle and avoid any appearance of $$ conflict. All good. #FightBack #FreeKyleRittennhouse #fakenews #USA https://t.co/Nuhkhqyf7D

— John Pierce (@CaliKidJMP) September 5, 2020

Hours after the prosecution filed its motion, however, Pierce tweeted “Effective immediately I am taking over all civil matters for Kyle including his future defamation claims. I will also be orchestrating all fundraising for defense costs. The terrific Mark Richards will proceed in Wisconsin.”

So that it does not take Kyle’s supporters by surprise, effective immediately I am taking over all civil matters for Kyle including his future defamation claims. I will also be orchestrating all fundraising for defense costs. The terrific Mark Richards will proceed in Wisconsin.

— John Pierce (@CaliKidJMP) December 3, 2020

Pierce’s partner in the #FightBack foundation is Rittenhouse attorney Lin Wood of Georgia – who tweeted last week that the foundation had “successfully raised $2M cash bail for Kyle Rittenhouse & funded over $300K for his attorney’s fees & expenses. The foundation used approx. $400K of its general funds for Kyle.”

2. #FightBack also donated $100K to #WalkAway & $20K to @carterwpage.

I donate my time pro bono & take no compensation for my efforts on behalf of #FightBack.

The foundation is dedicated to helping preserve, protect & defend our Constitutional rights.

— Lin Wood (@LLinWood) November 29, 2020

Read the rest of the report here.

By Joseph Jankowski of PlanetFreeWill,

Just one day after the United Kingdom became the first western nation to approve the inoculation, Pfizer CEO Albert Bourla says that he is “not certain” that the company’s vaccine will prevent people from carrying and spreading the virus to others.

In a Thursday night interview with NBC, the CEO expressed confidence in the ability “to send vaccines within 24 hours basically [anywhere] in the U.S.” after receiving emergency use authorization from the Food and Drug Administration, but he remains unconfident in the vaccine’s ability to be a silver bullet against people carrying and transmitting COVID-19.

“Even though I’ve had the protection, am I still able to transmit it to other people?” NBC’s Lester Holt asked, to which Bourla responded: “I think this is something that needs to be examined. We are not certain about that right now.”

On whether someone can still transmit the virus after vaccination, Pfizer Chairman & CEO Dr. Albert Bourla tells @LesterHoltNBC: “I think this is something that needs to be examined. We are not certain about that right now with what we know.” #Dateline

— NBC News PR (@NBCNewsPR) December 4, 2020

Last month, Pfizer announced that its vaccine – developed along side BioNTech – proved over 90% effective in giving immunity. Although this statistic on its face sounds remarkable, researchers have warned that the clinical trials did not assess whether the vaccine can prevent the virus from spreading.

“We have no knowledge about whether it prevents you from actually acquiring the infection at all,” Dr. Larry Corey, a virologist at the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center, told Business Insider.

The FDA is expected to make a decision on emergency use authorization as soon as December 10.

Moncef Slaoui, the top adviser on the US government’s Operation Warp Speed, predicted on Wednesday that more than 100 million Americans would be vaccinated against COVID-19 within the next 100 days.

Considering the lack of confidence from not only the Pfizer CEO, but also researchers in the field, about the potential inability of the vaccine to prevent infections and the spread of the virus, it will remain to be seen how many people actually take the jab.

A poll from STAT and The Harris Poll showed in November that 6 in 10 Americans said they are somewhat or very likely to get a Covid-19 vaccine if doing so would lower the risk of becoming infected by about half.

Polls out of the UK show that some 67% of people say they are “likely” or “very likely” to receive the vaccine if it were voluntary, however, if the shot was to be made compulsory, this figure fell to 65%.

The UK is expected to begin giving Pfizer’s shots to a portion of the population next week.

CNN anchor and the network’s chief national security corresponding issued a surprising and alarming statement on Thursday. Jim Sciutto wrote on Twitter:

As Chinese military activity around Taiwan continues to ramp up, a senior administration official tells me, “We are watching very closely and would be ready for anything including a grave miscalculation by the PRC. We’re definitely watching them.”

He added at a moment Trump continues to chip away at Beijing through a series of unprecedented ‘blacklisting’ measures, as well as new visa restrictions against Communist Party members and their families (which includes tens of millions of Chinese citizens total) that American defense officials think geopolitical flashpoints involving Chinese ‘aggression’ are about to boil over.

“Sooner or later they’re willing to push things to a boiling point over Taiwan as they did in Hong Kong and on border with India,” the official is cited further as saying to CNN’s Sciutto. “It’s coming.”

Meanwhile, the Pentagon is reportedly proceeding with plans to establish (or in a sense resurrect) a new 1st Fleet for the US Navy to better monitor the expansive Indian Ocean region and ultimately deter China.

Watch this space:

As Chinese military activity around Taiwan continues to ramp up, a senior administration official tells me, “We are watching very closely and would be ready for anything including a grave miscalculation by the PRC. We’re definitely watching them.” 1/

— Jim Sciutto (@jimsciutto) December 3, 2020

Currently the Navy’s 7th Fleet is responsible for covering a massive stretch of ocean from where it is based in Yokosuka, Japan. This includes the maritime expanse from waters corresponding to where the India-Pakistan border is, all the way to Hawaii.

Last month the Secretary of the Navy Kenneth Braithwaite said the DoD is working on it under his direction.

“We can’t just rely on the 7th Fleet in Japan,” Braithwaite said at the time, and crucially added, “We have to look to our other allies and partners like Singapore, like India, and actually put a numbered fleet where it would be extremely relevant if, God forbid, we were to ever to get in any kind of a dust-up.” 

Authored by Jonathan Turley,

Below is my column in USA Today on the implications of the appointment of U.S. Attorney John Durham as a Special Counsel.  House Intelligence Committee Adam Schiff and other Democrats have already denounced the move and called for the next Attorney General to consider rescinding the appointment.  While Schiff previously called for legislation to protect Special Counsel Robert Mueller to complete his work without interference from the Attorney General, he ramped up the rhetoric against Durham as leading a “politically motivated investigation.”

Durham was previously praised by Democrats and Republicans alike as an independent, apolitical, and honest prosecutor. Here is the column:

Attorney General Bill Barr made two important evidentiary decisions yesterday that delivered body blows to both President Donald Trump and President-elect Joe Biden. First, Barr declared that the Justice Department has not found evidence of systemic fraud in the election. Second, he declared that there was sufficient evidence to appoint United States Attorney John Durham as a Special Counsel on the origins of the Russia probe. The move confirmed that, in a chaotic and spinning political galaxy, Bill Barr remains the one fixed and immovable object.

By appointing Durham as a Special Counsel, Barr contradicted news reports before the election that Durham was frustrated and found nothing of significance despite Barr’s pressure. Some of us expressed doubts over those reports since Durham asked for this investigation to be upgraded to a criminal matter, secured the criminal plea of former FBI lawyer Kevin Clinesmith, and asked recently for over a thousand pages of classified intelligence material.

Under the Justice Department regulations, Barr had to find (and Durham apparently agreed) that there is need for additional criminal investigation and “[t]hat investigation or prosecution of that person or matter by a United States Attorney’s Office or litigating Division of the Department of Justice would present a conflict of interest for the Department or other extraordinary circumstances.” He must also find the appointment in the public interest.

Notably, the investigation of Clinesmith is effectively completed. So, what is the criminal investigation and what is the conflict?

Developing conflicts

Presumably, the conflict is not in the current administration since it would have required an earlier appointment. The conflict would seem to be found in the upcoming Biden administration.

Some conflicts developing seem obvious as Biden turns to a host of former Obama officials for positions, including the possible selection of Sally Yates as Attorney General. Yates was directly involved in the Russian investigation and signed off on the controversial surveillance of Trump associate Carter Page. She now says that she would never have signed the application if she knew what she knows today.

Durham is now authorized to investigate anyone who may have “violated the law in connection with the intelligence, counter-intelligence, or law-enforcement activities directed at the 2016 presidential campaigns, individuals associated with those campaigns, and individuals associated with the administration of President Donald J. Trump, including but not limited to Crossfire Hurricane and the investigation of Special Counsel Robert S. Mueller, III.” 

The list of the names of people falling within that mandate is a who’s who of Washington from Hillary Clinton to James Comey to . . . yes . . . Joe Biden.

Bizarrely, reports have claimed that Trump was irate at the move as a “smokescreen” to delay the release of the report. That ignores not just the legal but political significance of the action. From a political perspective, the move is so elegantly lethal that it would make Machiavelli green with envy.

Over the last few months, Democrats appeared to be laying the foundation to scuttle the Durham investigation as well as any investigation into the Hunter Biden influence peddling scheme. House Intelligence Committee Chairman Adam Schiff (D-Calif.) denounced the Durham investigation as “tainted” and “political.” On the campaign trail, Biden himself dismissed the “investigation of the investigators.” Over in the Senate, Democrats joined in the mantra with Sen. Amy Klobuchar, D-Minn., and others denouncing the continued investigations.

By converting Durham into a special counsel, Barr makes it harder to fire him. It is not uncommon for presidents to replace all U.S. Attorneys with political allies. Durham however is now a Special Counsel and his replacement or the termination of his investigation would be viewed as an obstructive act. Indeed, when Trump even suggested such a course of action, he was accused of obstruction by a host of Democratic politicians and legal experts.

The appointment also makes a public report more likely. While Durham already secured a conviction, prosecutors do not ordinarily prepare reports. Special counsels do.  Moreover, with the Mueller report, virtually every Democratic leader demanded that the report be released with no or few redactions. The Trump administration waived most executive privileges and released most of the report except for grand jury information. Even that was not enough for figures like Speaker Nancy Pelosi:

“I have said, and I’ll say again, no thank you, Mr. Attorney General, we do not need your interpretation, show us the report and we can draw our own conclusions.”

 House Judiciary Committee Chair Jerry Nadler demanded the release of the “full and complete Mueller report, without redactions, as well as access to the underlying evidence.”

The Durham appointment will now force Democrats to answer why they do not support the same public release of the report so that voters can “draw our own conclusions.”

Complicating Sally Yates’ nomination

The move also complicates the nomination of Sally Yates, who is widely cited as a front-runner for the position of Attorney General. Yates would be placed in an even more precarious position than Jeff Sessions who recused himself to avoid even the appearance of a conflict of interest at the state of the Trump administration. Yates has a clear and obvious conflict. She played a role in the earlier Russian investigation. That investigation was based in part on the “Steele dossier,” a report by a former British spy which has been shown to be unreliable and flawed. American intelligence warned that Steele’s main source was a likely Russian agent and the dossier may have been used for Russian disinformation. While the Clinton campaign repeatedly denied funding the dossier during the election, reporters later showed that it lied after finding a money trail through Clinton’s campaign legal counsel. Most recently, it was disclosed that President Obama was briefed on an American intelligence report that Clinton had ordered the creation of a Russian collusion story to take pressure off her own scandal involving her private server. Yates testified recently that she has no recollection of these warnings and does not recall knowing about the funding of the Steele dossier.

Yates would have no choice but to recuse herself in dealing with the Durham investigation. However, if the Biden administration used her designated deputy to scuttle the investigation or the report, the Biden administration will have done what Trump never actually did. All of those columns and speeches contorting the language of the obstruction statute would come back to haunt the Democrats.

It is, to use the words of fired Special Agent Peter Strzok, the ultimate “insurance policy” that Durham will be allowed to complete and release the facts of his investigation. Worse yet, the Democrats themselves made the case for him to do so.

Summary:

• More than 10 states broke COVID records yesterday
• Pennsylvania reports more than 11K new cases as outbreak surges
• CCP official claims 600MM vaccine doses are ready to go
• New York hospitalizations top 4K
• Texas reports 4th-straight day of 10K+ new cases
• Delaware issues stay home advisory
• Colo. warns of more than 4.4K COVID deaths this month

* * *

Friday marks the end of what has been a brutal week for the US COVID-19 outbreak, with lockdowns imposed by LA Mayor Eric Garcetti, followed by California Gov Gavin Newsom’s decision to ratchet up restrictions in four out of five of the official regions (the Bay Area apparently being the lone exception).

Then yesterday, just minutes before the close, Pfizer dropped an unsettling warning about issues with raw materials that cut its delivery target for year-end by 50%.

According to the COVID-19 Tracking Project, the headline number for new daily cases came in at 163k on Thursday, which is slightly lower but roughly in line with the record numbers seen earlier this week.

More than 10 states broke their daily records yesterday, according to the CTP: AK, AR, AZ, DE, IN, MA, ME, NJ, PA, RI, and VT. CTP clarified that while AZ appears to show a higher daily count on Dec. 1, that was actually due to a data backlog from the Thanksgiving holiday week.

Pennsylvania has officially joined the camp of states that are nearing a ‘tipping point’ in terms of the rapidly surging numbers, after reporting 11,406 cases yesterday.

As we wait for Friday’s numbers, which will likely confirm that the past week has been the worst week yet for the US as we near the harsh winter months, expected to trigger what CDC Director Robert Redfield has warned could be the worst health crisis ever.

Outside of the US, the biggest story on Friday appears to be news out of China that the CCP already has 600 million doses of COVID-19 vaccines ready to go. A top CCP official tasked with overseeing China’s vaccination programs offered up the claim during comments to the press on Friday. Remember: Since each patient needs two doses, that would be enough to vaccinate 300 million people, less than a quarter of China’s population. China has already admitted to vaccinating at least 1 million individuals under its “emergency” authorization, pushing international scientific standards to new extremes.

Here’s a roundup of COVID-19 news from overnight:

• New York’s hospitalizations topped 4,000 for the first time since May (Sources: Newswires).
• Texas saw its fourth straight day of 10K+ new virus cases, the longest streak since the peak of the initial outbreak in July (Source: Johns Hopkins).
• Delaware issued a stay-at-home advisory, halting in-person learning at schools, prohibiting winter sports competitions and requiring people to wear masks indoors if mixing with another household.
• Colorado said the virus could kill as many as 4,400 in the state this month (Source: Newswires).
• A Glaxo-backed vaccine showed strong immune response in an early trial (Source: Newswires).
• Tokyo Gov. Yuriko Koike asked citizens to avoid unnecessary outings and refrain from venturing out as much as possible to help stanch a new surge in coronavirus infections (Source: Bloomberg).

Authored by Pat Buchanan via Buchanan.org,

In early August 1990, Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein invaded and occupied Kuwait and declared it to be his nation’s lost 19th province.

Said George H. W. Bush, “This will not stand!”

Translation: Get out of Kuwait, Saddam, or we will come over there and throw you out.

Six months later, after a five-week air assault on Iraq, a U.S.-led army of 500,000, in a 100-hour ground war, sent Saddam’s legions back up the road to Basra and Baghdad.

President Bush was a serious man.

A decade later, Barack Obama warned Syria’s Bashar Assad that if he used chemical or biological weapons in his civil war, this would cross his “red line” and Obama would respond.

Thus, when chemical weapons were used, allegedly by the regime, Obama prepared to make good on his warning.

Unfortunately for Obama, Americans arose in protest against his taking us into Syria’s civil war and Congress balked at authorizing an attack, though Secretary of State John Kerry pleaded and promised that the U.S. strike would be “unbelievably small.”

When America did nothing after Obama’s red line was crossed, U.S. credibility suffered.

In April 2018, after Assad allegedly used chlorine gas in his civil war, Trump joined our NATO allies in launching 120 cruise missiles.

Presumably, U.S. credibility was reestablished.

Of late, Joe Biden and Donald Trump’s foreign policy team have both been drawing red lines and warning Iran and China not to cross them or they’d face U.S. military action, even at risk of a wider war.

Trump has reportedly put out word that any killing of an American anywhere in the Middle East, traceable to Iran or its proxies, will result in U.S. action against Iran itself.

A general of the Iranian Republican Guard has reportedly warned Iran’s militia allies in Syria, Lebanon and Iraq to hold off any attack on Americans so as not to give Trump an excuse to launch a war.

Other red lines have lately been drawn.

In a Nov. 12 phone call with Prime Minister Yoshihide Suga, Joe Biden apparently agreed that the U.S.-Japan security treaty of 1960 covers the Senkaku Islands controlled by Japan but claimed by China. Almost every day of 2020, China has sent ships into the waters around the Senkakus.

Said Suga, “President-elect Biden gave me a commitment that Article 5 of the US-Japan security treaty applies to the Senkaku Islands.”

If taken literally, this means the U.S. would treat a Chinese attempt to seize these rocks as we would treat a Chinese attack on the Japanese Home Islands.

The newest red line was drawn by Trump’s national security adviser Robert O’Brien.

A year ago, a Chinese ship smashed up a wooden trawler with two dozen Filipino fishermen aboard near Reed Bank in the South China Sea. Fortunately, the Filipinos were rescued by a Vietnamese fishing boat. Reed Bank is also claimed by China.

On a trip to Asia, O’Brien told Philippines officials that the U.S. does not recognize the Chinese claim, and they should go ahead and exploit the resources around Reed Bank. And if Philippine vessels come under attack, our mutual security treaty dating to the 1950s will be invoked and America will come to the defense of the Philippines.

What this sounds like, indeed, appears to be to Beijing, is a U.S. commitment to fight to defend Manila’s claims to shoals, reefs and rocks in the South China Sea. Earlier this fall, Manila announced plans to restart oil and gas exploration around Reed Bank.

O’Brien said bluntly of the territories around Reed Bank:

“They belong to the Philippine people. They don’t belong to some other country that just because they may be bigger than the Philippines they can come take away and convert the resources of the Philippine people. That’s just wrong.”

O’Brien added:

“Any armed attack on Philippine forces aircraft or public vessels in the South China Sea will trigger our mutual defense obligations.”

Beijing is visibly angered by the U.S. assertions that they have no legitimate claim to the Senkakus in the East China Sea or to the Manila-claimed islets, reefs and rocks in the South China Sea, and that the U.S. military will take the side of Tokyo and Manila in a collision with China.

Red lines are, at root, war guarantees. And, often, the result of issuing such war guarantees is that they are called in and lead to wars that are sometimes fatal to the great powers that issue them.

In 1914, Kaiser Wilhelm issued his famous “blank check” to his Austrian allies to punish the Serbs for complicity in the assassination of their archduke. Austria’s attack on Serbia led to World War I, and the end of the Kaiser’s Hohenzollern dynasty.

In late March of 1938, Neville Chamberlain gave an unsolicited war guarantee to Poland, to come to its defense if the Polish colonels refused to negotiate with Berlin over the German port of Danzig.

How did that one work out for the Brits?