Did Obama Defense Deputy Lie To Protect Her Fraudulent Russiagate Sources?
Newly declassified congressional transcripts from the Russia investigation include testimony from former Obama administration defense official, Evelyn Farkas, who testified under oath that she lied in an MSNBCinterview when she claimed to have evidence of “the Trump staff dealing with Russians,” and said that the Obama administration was “trying to also get information to the hill” because the incoming Trump administration would try to hide the (nonexistent) evidence.
During closed-door testimony on June 26, 2017, however, Farkas – who was the Clinton campaign’s senior foreign policy adviser – admitted she had nothing.
In an exchange with former Rep. Trey Gowdy (R-SC), Farkas is pressed on why she said ‘we’ when she said ‘if they found out how we knew what we knew about their staff dealing with Russians.’
…how did this non-resident fellow at the Atlantic Council, member of the Council on Foreign Relations, and former deputy assistant secretary of defense for Russia, Ukraine and Eurasia, gain knowledge of intelligence regarding members of Trump’s team and their relations with Russia, when she was the senior foreign policy advisor for Presidential candidate Hillary Clinton?
Farkas was the prime driver behind the anti-Russia phobia inside the Pentagon during the Obama years — shilling hard for the Ukraine — requesting that the President send them anti-tank missiles — which, essentially, would mean outright war with Russia. –iBankCoin
Given all we now know, Occam’s razor suggests that Farkas, while working for the Clinton campaign, was fully aware of the work of Christopher Steele – the former UK spy paid by the Clinton campaign (through their lawyers and Fusion GPS) to fabricate the infamous dossier used by US intelligence to paint Donald Trump as an agent of Russia.
That said, who exactly did she mean by “we” during that interview? And who was scrambling to leak evidence to the hill?
Based on the MSNBC interview, Farkas obviously knew something. But instead of going down that particular rabbit hole during congressional testimony, she thought the best option was to simply say she lied.
Once the government’s ability to sustain its enforcement with money created out of thin air vanishes, the entire order vanishes along with it.
The era of waste, greed, fraud and living on borrowed money is dying, and those who’ve known no other way of living are mourning its passing. Its passing was inevitable, for any society that squanders its resources is unsustainable. Any society that makes private greed the primary motivator and priority is unsustainable. Any society that rewards fraud above all else is unsustainable. Any society which lives on money borrowed from the future and other forms of phantom capital is unsustainable.
We know this in our bones, but we fear the future because we know no other arrangement other than the unsustainable present. And so we hear the faint echo of the cries of alarm filling the streets of ancient Rome when the Bread and Circuses stopped: what do we do now?
When the free bread and entertainments disappeared, people found new arrangements. They left Rome.
The greatest private fortunes in history vanished as Rome unraveled. All the land, the palaces, the gold and all the other treasures were no protection against the collapse of the system that institutionalized corruption as the ultimate protector of concentrated wealth.
The most zealously guarded power of government is the creation of money, for without money the government cannot pay the soldiers, police, courts and administrators needed to enforce its rule. Western Rome created money by controlling silver mines; in the current era, governments create money (currency) out of thin air.
Once the government’s money loses purchasing power, the system collapses. And so in the final stages of Rome’s decline, Imperial orders still flowed to distant legions, but the legions no longer existed; they were only phantom entries on Imperial ledgers.
Our “money” is also nothing but phantom entries on digital ledgers, and so its complete loss of purchasing power is inevitable.
Without “money,” the government can no longer enforce the will of its self-serving elites: orders will still flow in a furious flood to every corner of the land, but the legions to enforce the institutional corruption will be nothing but phantom entries on Imperial ledgers.
Once the government’s ability to sustain its enforcement with money created out of thin air vanishes, the entire order vanishes along with it. The destruction of the value of central bank-created “money” is already ordained, for there is no limit on human greed and the desire to maintain control, and so governments will create their “money” in ever-increasing amounts until the value has been completely leached from the phantom digital entries.
The outlines of a better world are emerging, an arrangement that prioritizes something more than maximizing private gain and institutionalizing the corruption needed to protect those gains. We will relearn to live within our means, and relearn how to institutionalize opportunity rather than corruption designed to protect elites.
We will come to a new understanding of the teleology of centralized power, that centralized power only knows how to extend its power and so the only possible outcome is collapse. (I explain these dynamics in my book Resistance, Revolution, Liberation: A Model for Positive Change.)
We will come to understand technology need not serve only monopolies, cartels and the state, that it could serve a sustainable, decentralized economy that does more with less, i.e. a DeGrowth economy.
The Federal Reserve will fail, just as the Roman gods failed to sustain the corrupt and bankrupt Roman elites. A host of decentralized, transparently priced non-state currencies will compete on the open market, just like goods, services and commodities. The Fed’s essential role– serving the few at the expense of the many, under the cover of creating currency out of thin air–will be repudiated by the implosion of the economy as all the Fed’s phantom “wealth” evaporates.
The outlines of a better world are emerging. Do you discern them through the smoke as the last frantic phantoms of an unsustainable system issue orders to reverse the tides of history as they dissipate into thin air?
Silver Coin Premiums Soar: Signal “Alt-Money” Demand As Re-Opening Recovery Hype Fades
Silver is the matrix of precious metals:
on the one hand, it is an industrial metal, critical to the production process in many of the world’s most in-demand products;
and on the other hand, it has been ‘money’ for millennia, playing second-fiddle as a spending ‘asset’ relative to gold’s ‘wealth’.
The question is always, which of these demand/supply attributes is more prevalent at any one time.
Right now, is it the “blue pill” of blissful ignorance that an economic recovery is imminent and v-shaped; or is it the unpleasant truth of the “red pill” that this is the beginning of the end of the current system and a post-COVID world will look very different (and require protection).
Well, we may have the answer.
The price of silver coins is surging (‘Monetary’ demand) as futures prices sink (‘industrial’ demand), somewhat shunning the hope-filled hyping of stocks’ recovery off the lows in March…
And in fact, this is the largest (physical) silver coin premium since Bernanke disappointed the markets in 2011 and since Lehman sent investors scrambling…
In ancient Greece during the age of Pericles, gold was valued at 14x silver. In ancient Rome, Julius Caesar valued gold at 12x silver.
It remained this way for centuries.
Even in the earliest days of the United States, eighteen centuries after Caesar, The Coinage Act of 1792 established a ratio of 15:1.
(According to the law, one US dollar is supposed to be 24.1 grams of silver, or 1.6 grams of gold. So those pieces of paper in your wallet are not dollars– they are technically “Federal Reserve Notes”.)
In modern times there is no longer a fixed ratio between gold and silver, though its long-term average over the last several decades has been between 50:1 and 80:1.
This is a lot higher than in ancient times… but the circumstances are obviously different.
Today, gold is still widely used as a reserve by central banks and governments around the world. And investors still buy gold as a hedge against inflation and uncertainty.
Silver, on the other hand, as we detailed above, has countless industrial applications; it’s a critical component in everything from mobile phones to automobiles to solar panels.
Like gold, silver is also a hedge against inflation and uncertainty.
But silver’s demand fundamentals are more heavily influenced by overall economic health. If the economy is in recession, silver prices can fall because there’s less demand from industry.
Gold, on the other hand, doesn’t follow that pattern. In 5 out of the last 6 recessions, in fact, gold has increased in price.
That’s why recessions, and extreme turmoil, can lead to a massive spike in the gold/silver ratio. Gold goes up, and silver stays flat (or falls).
Just prior to World War II as Hitler launched his invasion of Poland, the ratio spiked to 98:1.
In 1991 as the first Gulf War began, the ratio again reached 100:1.
Today we’re back again in that territory; as of this morning, the ratio is 110:1, and it’s been as high as 120 or more in recent weeks.
This ratio may stay elevated for a while, or even go higher.
But in the past, the ratio has always returned to more traditional levels. Always. Even when the world was facing Adolf Hitler or the Great Depression.
So it stands to reason that, if they keep printing money (which they already are), and the ratio eventually returns to its historical range, the price of silver could really skyrocket.
…and it won’t be due to the economy.
And in case you need more reassurance that the “recovery” is not coming anytime soon, Goldman’s “re-opening” basket is significantly struggling to outperform.
Global silver demand nudged higher in 2019 thanks to a 12% increase in investment demand as retail and institutional investors focused their attention on the long-term investment appeal of the white metal according to a report highlighted in the latest edition of the Silver Institute’s Silver News.
According to the World Silver Survey 2020, total demand inched higher by 0.4% despite the trade war. Investment demand grew to 186 million ounces, the largest annual growth since 2015. Exchange-traded product holdings stood at 728.9 million ounces at year-end, up by 13%, achieving the largest annual rise since 2010. Meanwhile, silver mine supply fell for the fourth straight with output declining by 1%.
At its core, silver is a monetary metal. It tends to track with gold over time. And it has historically outperformed gold in a gold bull market.
During the current coronavirus lockdown, I’d pay good money to see just one public official be asked:
“How many lives are you willing to sacrifice to prevent one coronavirus death?”
Thomas Sowell has repeatedly written that in a world of scarcity there are no solutions, only tradeoffs. The lockdown debate has thus far focused on that tradeoff as one between saving lives versus a temporary blip in the economy.
As Tom Woods wrote recently, “We heard it from Andrew Cuomo, governor of New York, and plenty of people since then: if we save even one life with all these draconian measures, it will have been worthwhile.”
But there’s so much more to it than that.
The lockdown itself is costing lives, perhaps more so than the virus itself.
Opponents of the lockdowns do themselves a disservice in focusing almost exclusively on the importance of “reopening the economy,” as if financial self-interest were the only reason to lift stay-at-home orders and risk an acceleration of COVID-19 spread and deaths.
“The focus on saving ‘just one life’ from the coronavirus, as Cuomo put it in March, to the exclusion of all other considerations likely will prove a catastrophic failure of policymaking.”
“The devastation to individuals’ ability to flourish or even survive may soon become irreversible,” she added.
Indeed, the lockdown itself poses significant health risks of its own, including countless deaths. The public has been bombarded with constantly changing models purporting to show the massive amount of coronavirus hospitalizations and deaths that will ensure should lockdown restrictions be lifted.
But where are the models projecting the deaths and suffering resulting from the lockdown itself? Why are our rulers so intent upon keeping those tradeoffs from entering the public debate over the lockdown?
Research has clearly shown a positive correlation between increased unemployment and suicide rates. A study published by The Lancet found that “the relative risk of suicide associated with unemployment was elevated by about 20–30%” in their study period.
The study further attributed roughly forty-five thousand suicides per year worldwide to the mental and psychological toll of unemployment.
The hope for many laid-off workers is that their unemployment will be temporary, but there remains great uncertainty about just how long this will last. The longer this economic shutdown and its consequences last, the more suicides there will be.
Loss of life from substance abuse will also increase. As the substance abuse rehab clinic Recovery Ways notes, “One study from 2017 found that every time unemployment rises by one percentage point in a given county, the rate of opioid deaths increases by 3.6 percent and the rate of emergency room visits increases by seven percent.”
And in a very bitter case of irony, the anxiety and stress caused by the reaction to fight the spread of the coronavirus can actually weaken the immune system and make people more vulnerable to contagion. As reported at Healthline.com:
But if you repeatedly feel anxious and stressed or it lasts a long time, your body never gets the signal to return to normal functioning. This can weaken your immune system, leaving you more vulnerable to viral infections and frequent illnesses. Also, your regular vaccines may not work as well if you have anxiety.
Also accompanying the global economic crisis triggered by the coronavirus lockdowns will be mass starvation. Although the US will suffer increased deaths from the economic hardships, the pain felt globally will be far more severe.
economic hardship experienced by families as a result of the global economic downturn could result in hundreds of thousands of additional child deaths in 2020, reversing the last 2 to 3 years of progress in reducing infant mortality within a single year.
Warning of a “pandemic of starvation, illiteracy and poverty” resulting from the government lockdowns, this April 22 New York Times article noted that in third world nations, “Polio eradication campaigns are being suspended. The same is true of vitamin A distribution, which saves children’s lives and prevents blindness. School feeding programs have often been shut down along with schools.”
In Bangladesh, the article noted a survey that found that “Four in 10 respondents had three days’ worth of food at home or less.”
The mass hysteria and panic is also leading many people with serious health issues to dangerously avoid hospitals because of unwarranted fear of infection. Such avoidance can lead to serious and sometimes irreversible illnesses that were entirely preventable.
Moreover, as a Stanford doctor wrote in this article in The Hill, “People are dying because other medical care is not getting done due to hypothetical projections.”
“Most states and many hospitals abruptly stopped ‘nonessential’ procedures and surgery,” the doctor wrote. “That prevented diagnoses of life-threatening diseases, like cancer screening, biopsies of tumors now undiscovered and potentially deadly brain aneurysms.”
“Cancer patients deferred chemotherapy. An estimated 80 percent of brain surgery cases were skipped. Acute stroke and heart attack patients missed their only chances for treatment, some dying and many now facing permanent disability,” he continued.
Tom Woods further pointed out an article in the UK’s Sunday Express that concluded that “increased cancer fatalities will result from the redeployment of health resources caused by COVID hysteria.”
According to Richard Sullivan, a professor of cancer and global health at King’s College London and director of its Institute of Cancer Policy, “The number of deaths due to the disruption of cancer services is likely to outweigh the number of deaths from the coronavirus itself.”
The government’s response to the threat of the coronavirus has been unprecedented. The question of whether or not the response has been warranted has boiled down to saving lives versus “restarting” the economy. Many opponents of the near universal lockdowns have been accused of wanting people to die just to save a few points in their Wall Street portfolios.
This is absurd.
The lockdown is costing lives. A lot of them. The economic fallout will cause more waves of deaths, especially among poorer nations. Preventable deaths and health problems are spiking, because scarce medical resources are being reserved for predicted waves of COVID-19 cases that largely aren’t materializing.
In a recent tweet, libertarian podcaster and comedian Dave Smith posed the question that needs to be asked but is thus far being ignored:
Sadly, it’s beginning to look more and more like our rulers don’t even want to publicly acknowledge these tradeoffs, or that they ever will.
Nothing in life is free; there are always tradeoffs. That includes the coronavirus lockdown. Saving “just one life” from the coronavirus is not costless. Unfortunately, the true nature of these costs is being ignored and reduced to mere temporary economic inconvenience.
As Woods concluded, “It isn’t just that we want to go out and get a haircut, as these geniuses keep saying. It’s that we’re against destruction.”
Spain Prepares To Lift Lockdown Monday As Russia Celebrates 75th Anniversary Of Nazi Defeat Indoors: Live Updates
Summary:
Russia nears 200k cases as country celebrates 75th anniversary of Nazi defeat
Belarus holds parade commemorating victory, with thousands bunched close together
Spain prepares to lift lockdown on Monday for vast majority of country
South Korea moves to contain latest cluster
New study finds combo of 3 powerful antivirals effective at treating COVID-19 patients
Aide to Ivanka Trump tests positive
* * *
After rejecting Madrid’s bid to move into the next phase of the lockdown, Spain’s socialist-led government is preparing to lift the most-stringent restrictions from its 2-month lockdown for most of its citizens starting Monday.
PM Pedro Sánchez pleaded with the Spanish people to take as many precautions as possible when business reopen and people pour out of their homes for the first time in months as one of the most strict lockdowns in Europe is officially wound back. Though suspicions about under-counting of cases and deaths linger, the viral tide as clearly started to wane (most of the outliers depicted in the chart below coincide with revisions).
During a speech, Sanchez said people should “take precautions as if they were infected” and called for “total caution and prudence” from those living in regions where the lockdown will be loosened. More than 50% of Spain’s ~50 million population will transition out of lockdown on Monday, when restaurants and bars will be allowed to serve clients outdoors, shops selling non-essential merchandise iwll be allowed to reopen without appointment and small private gatherings of up to 10 people can be held.
However, as we mentioned above, the country’s worst-hit areas (cities including Madrid and Barcelona) will have to wait at least another wee. Spain hopes to completely lift the lockdown for the whole country in a series of stages by mid-July.
Spain’s ministry of health said 179 people had died in the past 24 hours after contracting coronavirus, in figures released on Saturday, one of the lowest totals since the lockdown was imposed in mid-March. On Saturday, the health ministry reported a jump of just 0.27% to 223,578.
As we reported last night, the global coronavirus case total topped 4 million, while deaths topped 275k…
…Even as the single-day total yesterday came in below 90k (according to data from Johns Hopkins), marking a slowdown from earlier in the week.
Russia cancelled a military parade that had been planned to commemorate the 75th anniversary of the end of WWII as its outbreak spirals out of control, with the number of confirmed cases has pushed Russia into No. 5 biggest outbreak worldwide, just behind the UK.
In a subdued celebration, President Vladimir Putin laid roses at the Eternal Flame war memorial as millions of Russians, unable to attend public processions, instead uploaded pictures of war-era family members and shared old war stories online. Moments after Putin’s speech commemorating one of the most important non-religious holidays on the Russian calendar, public health officials confirmed another 10,817 cases, bringing Russia’s total to just below 200k, with nearly 2k deaths reported.
Acting virtually alone among the members of the CIS, Belarus went ahead with a massive military parade, drawing a crowd of thousands of people despite mounting concerns about the spread of the virus in the former Soviet State. Belarus’s longtime leader Alexander Lukashenko is one of a handful of leaders who, like Brazil’s Bolsonaro, have denied the seriousness of the virus.
Putin said Russia will “certainly celebrate this anniversary extensively and solemnly, as usual”, pledging the processions will be held at a later date.
We’ve been following an outbreak in Seoul involving a 29-year-old who partied in one of the city’s most exclusive nightclub districts, eventually infecting 14 others. To try and suppress this latest cluster, the Seoul city government on Saturday ordered clubs and bars to shut after a spate of infections in the city’s popular Itaewon entertainment district, official media reported. New case confirmations in South Korea remain negligible; most of them involve travelers just arriving in the country, who must complete a 14-day quarantine.
Before we go, a small study – the results of which have been published in the Lancet – carried out with just 127 patients in Hong Kong has found that a combination of 3 powerful antivirals showed promising results.
Here are two sections from the paper’s summary:
Findings
Between Feb 10 and March 20, 2020, 127 patients were recruited; 86 were randomly assigned to the combination group and 41 were assigned to the control group. The median number of days from symptom onset to start of study treatment was 5 days (IQR 3–7). The combination group had a significantly shorter median time from start of study treatment to negative nasopharyngeal swab (7 days [IQR 5–11]) than the control group (12 days [8–15]; hazard ratio 4·37 [95% CI 1·86–10·24], p=0·0010). Adverse events included self-limited nausea and diarrhoea with no difference between the two groups. One patient in the control group discontinued lopinavir–ritonavir because of biochemical hepatitis. No patients died during the study.
Interpretation
Early triple antiviral therapy was safe and superior to lopinavir–ritonavir alone in alleviating symptoms and shortening the duration of viral shedding and hospital stay in patients with mild to moderate COVID-19. Future clinical study of a double antiviral therapy with interferon beta-1b as a backbone is warranted.
Just the latest study finding that “kitchen-sinking” patients with powerful antivirals appears to be one of the most effective strategies at treating patients in serious condition.
Finally, in the US, an aide to Ivanka Trump tested positive for COVID-19, according to a Friday evening announcement. Staffers for President Trump and VP Pence have also tested positive.
“Unprecedented Crisis” – Global Luxury Goods Market Collapses, No Recovery For Years
New findings published in “Bain & Company Luxury Study 2020 Spring Update” this week suggest a collapse in the global luxury goods market is underway with no recovery for several years, shredding any hope that a V-shaped recovery will be seen in the back half of 2020.
The report says the plunge of travel and tourism in all key markets has triggered “an unprecedented crisis” for companies operating in the luxury goods space. Claudia D’Arpizio, a Bain & Company partner and lead author of the report, said jewelry, watches, cosmetics, clothes, and accessory sales will drop 25% in 1Q20, and continued lockdowns across the world will lead to further declines in 2Q20. Those declines, she noted, could be in excess of 50-60% in the three months ending in June. Her full-year estimate is a contraction between 20-35%.
“There will be a recovery for the luxury market but the industry will be profoundly transformed,” she wrote. “The coronavirus crisis will force the industry to think more creatively and innovate even faster to meet a host of new consumer demands and channel constraints.”
The report notes a strong start of the year in all key regions (Mainland China, Europe, America) was eventually derailed by virus-related shutdowns of businesses and lockdowns across the world. The collapse of the travel and tourism industry, due to flight restrictions, amplified the chaos currently experienced by industry players.
Though online sales “remained resilient,” she said, adding that, traditional brick and mortar stores saw rapid declines in sales in many parts of the world. As economies reopen, luxury goods shops will have social distancing in mind:
“As consumers slowly emerge from lockdowns, the way they see the world will have changed and luxury brands will need to adapt,” said Federica Levato, Bain & Company partner and report co-author of the report. “Safety in store will be mandatory, paired with the magic of the luxury experience: creative ways to attract customers to store, or to get the product to the customer, will make the difference.”
The report anticipates that a recovery in the industry to 2019 levels might not be seen until 2022-2023. The global luxury goods market might return to growth in the years after. What the authors are saying is that there’s no V-shaped recovery for luxury goods this year – suggesting consumers will remain pressured by job losses and sagging growth in a post-corona world.
D’Arpizio said the Chinese would account for nearly 50% of all luxury goods purchases by 2025.
It’s not just luxury goods that are slumping at the moment. We noted this week that luxury real estate in many regions is experiencing slumping sales and price declines.
White House On ‘High Alert’ As 11 Secret Service Agents Currently Positive For COVID-19
In the most alarming revelation yet that coronavirus is getting ever closer to severely impacting the White House, Yahoo News has unveiled documents showing that nearly a dozen US Secret Service members have tested positive for COVID-19.
A Department of Homeland Security (DHS) internal memo or ‘daily report’ showed the Secret Service currently has eleven active cases of the virus (as of this past Thursday night) — this after it was learned Friday that Katie Miller, a spokesperson for Vice President Mike Pence, tested positive for coronavirus. And the day before, Trump’s personal military valet was confirmed positive, prompting the president to indicate he would be receiving daily tests as opposed to weekly, according to The Hill.
“According to the DHS document, along with the 11 active cases there are 23 members of the Secret Service who have recovered from COVID-19 and an additional 60 employees who are self-quarantining,”Yahoo News reports. “No details have been provided about which members of the Secret Service are infected or if any have recently been on detail with the president or vice president.”
File image via Reuters
All of this has reportedly put the White House on “high alert” over possible further spread of the virus. While the Secret Service is a relatively small agency compared to all other major protective law enforcement and intelligence gathering agencies (chiefly monitoring threats against the president and US leaders, as well as investigating and preventing counterfeiting), it also maintains field offices and personnel across the country and even in foreign countries.
Only a single COVID-19 case among Secret Service personnel had been officially reported by the agency earlier in March, however, the new revelation of both active infections and 23 total recoveries suggests the spread was much more pervasive than previously acknowledged.
“To protect the privacy of our employees’ health information and for operational security, the Secret Service is not releasing how many of its employees have tested positive for COVID-19, Nor how many of its employees were, or currently are, quarantined.”
The statement further emphasized the Secret Service will continue to strictly adhere to CDC protocol. Last week the administration said that new precautions include that anyone coming near the president is tested.
Vice President Mike Pence on a Rochester, Minn. hospital tour on h April 28, where he came under fire for not wearing a mask in accord with hospital policy, via CNN.
However, there’s been growing criticism and controversy over Secret Service agents being seen working at the White House without masks, along with neither Trump nor Pence opting to wear masks.
Further precautions the White House has identified includes frequent temperature checks of personnel in and around the complex, regular reviews of symptom histories, widespread hand sanitizer usage and availability, as well as social distancing.
Meanwhile, the new report of the outbreak among Secret Service, considered the closest line of security defense immediately surrounding the president and top admin officials at all times is sure to unleash a new storm of controversy.
As separate reports from the start of this week underscored: “there are regularly held large events with unmasked attendees in close quarters at the White House — including inside the Oval Office, which is the president’s inner sanctum.Many Secret Service employees on the White House grounds are among those who are not wearing masks.”
At present, there is no vaccine for the coronavirus. That means that one of the two paths to immunity is blocked. The other path is “herd immunity,” in which a critical mass of infection occurs in lower-risk populations that ultimately thwarts transmission.
Herd immunity is the only path that is currently available. Let that sink in for a minute. The only way our species can effectively resist the infection is through the development of specific antibodies or sensitized white blood cells. In other words, the only way we can lick this thing is by the majority of the population getting the infection and thereby developing immunity to future outbreaks.
That being the case, one would assume that the government’s policy would try to achieve herd immunity in the least painful way possible.
(Young, low-risk people should go back to work if they so choose.)
But that is not the government’s policy, in fact, the government’s policy is the exact opposite. US policy encourages people to remain at home and self quarantine until the government decides to lift the lockdown and allow some people to return to work. This policy assumes that the infection will have vanished by then, which of course, is extremely unlikely. The more probable outcome is that– when people return to work– there will be another surge in cases and another spike in deaths. We will have shifted the curve to a future date without having flattened it. We will have inflicted catastrophic damage on the economy and gained nothing. This is an idiotic policy that goes nowhere.
After 6 weeks of this nonsense, many people are getting fed-up and demanding that the lockdowns be ended. In response to the public outcry, many governors are planning to restart their economies and lift the restrictions. What this means, is that, after wasting a month and half on a failed strategy, many states are ready to follow in Sweden’s footsteps with one critical difference, they’re not going to have a team of crack epidemiologists carefully monitoring their social interactions to see if a wave of new Covid cases is going to overwhelm the health care system. That means that things could get out of hand fast, and I expect they will. As we said in last week’s column, the lockdowns must be lifted gradually, that is crucial.
“You have to step down the ladder one rung at a time”, says Senior Swedish epidemiologist and former Chief Scientist of the European Center for Disease Prevention and Control, Johan Giesecke. In other words, slowly ease up on the restrictions and gradually allow people to get back to work. That is the best way forward.
There is also the question of whether herd immunity will be sufficient to fight off reinfection. This question was posed to Giesecke in a recent interview in which he was asked:
“Why are you gambling that herd immunity will protect your people from re-infection?”
Giesecke answered,
“There has not been a single proven case of anyone getting a second infection from the virus….so far there have been no reinfections….If you have it once you don’t get it again….There will be herd immunity, that’s clear, and it will last over the period of this outbreak.”
The interviewer then asked Giesecke why he was so certain that surviving the infection would produce herd immunity?
“Because it’s a coronavirus,” Giesecke said, “and we know about 6 other coronaviruses, so why would this one be special? ….At present, 30% of the population of Stockholm is immune or has already had the infection. We do not have herd immunity today, but to go from 30% to 50% will only take weeks.“
Giesecke candidly admits that he cannot be absolutely certain that infection survivors are immune, but he strongly believes that they are. (Please, excuse my choppy transcription o f the taped interview.)
Giesecke again:
“When you (in the US and elsewhere) ease the lockdowns you will have more deaths…We will not have as many deaths because we will have herd immunity by the time the other countries start to lift their lockdown which means the virus won’t spread much more in Sweden, whereas you will have a higher number of cases and deaths.”
If Giesecke is right, then Sweden is on the path to “normal” while the US is still chasing its tail, still following a policy that is clearly counterproductive, and still listening to self-appointed pontiffs like Bill Gates who obviously want to drag this thing out forever so he can implement his vaccination-surveillance panopticon. This needs to change. The safety and well-being of the American people should take precedence over the Hodge-podge of competing interests and conflicting agendas that have shaped the current policy. Now take a look at excerpt from an article at the National Review:
“Spring is in the air, and it is increasingly found in the confident step of the people of Sweden. With a death rate significantly lower than that of France, Spain, the U.K., Belgium, Italy, and other European Union countries, Swedes can enjoy the spring without panic or fears of reigniting a new epidemic as they go about their day in a largely normal fashion.
Dr. Mike Ryan, the executive director of the World Health Organization’s Emergencies Program, says: “I think if we are to reach a new normal, I think in many ways Sweden represents a future model — if we wish to get back to a society in which we don’t have lockdowns.”
The Swedish ambassador to the U.S., Karin Ulrika Olofsdotter, says: “We could reach herd immunity in the capital” of Stockholm as early as sometime in May. That would dramatically limit spread of the virus.
…Dr. Anders Tegnell, the chief epidemiologist of Sweden… heroically bucked the conventional wisdom of every other nation and carefully examined the insubstantial evidence that social-isolation controls would help reduce COVID-19 deaths over the full course of the virus.
As Tegnell told NPR in early April: “I’m not sure that there is a scientific consensus on, really, about anything when it comes to this new coronavirus, basically because we don’t have much evidence for any kind of measures we are taking.”….”To me it looks like a lot of the exit strategies that are being discussed look very much like what Sweden is already doing,” he told Canada’s Globe & Mail….
Sweden has about 2,200 reported COVID-19 cases per million population. This is lower than the number in the U.S. (3,053 per million), the U.K., France, Spain, Italy, and also lower than in many other EU countries. It’s slightly above the number in Germany, which has been hailed for its approach to the virus….
Sweden has 265 reported COVID-19 deaths per million population. That is somewhat higher than in the U.S. (204 per million) but lower than the number in many other EU countries….on an age-adjusted basis, Sweden has done significantly better than the U.S. in terms of both cases per million and deaths per million — and with no lockdowns….
Unlike its Nordic neighbors and everywhere else…Sweden doesn’t have to worry about when and how to end social isolation. They don’t have to decide who to keep locked down and who to let out. They don’t have to get into civil-liberty arguments over involuntary restrictions or whether to fine people for not wearing masks and gloves….
Now many countries and U.S. states are beginning to follow Sweden’s lead. But California and other states continue to pile up isolation-induced health costs and blow gigantic holes in their budgets with lockdowns that, nationwide, have generated more than 30 million newly unemployed.” (“Sweden Bucked Conventional Wisdom, and Other Countries Are Following“, National Review)
This is an excellent article that’s worth reading in full. And what the article shows, is that Sweden is the model. They put the right people in the right positions to do the research, read the data and make right decisions on critical issues of public health. Then they implemented the right policy which is going to make their social and economic transition much easier.
Sweden is on the path to recovery while the United States is still trying to get out of the hole it dug for itself.
The ability of Americans to buy meat in grocery stores is at risk due to serious supply-chain issues caused by COVID-19. Though President Donald Trump just issued an executive order last week requiring meat plants to remain open, there are likely too many sick plant workers for the order to prop up the nation’s dwindling meat supply.
The nation’s small farmers and ranchers stand ready to help address these supply shortages. But unless Congress moves quickly to amend, suspend, or repeal a burdensome and ineffective federal law, red tape will prevent that meat from ever reaching grocers—or you.
Last month, Smithfield, the nation’s largest pork processor, announced it was closing its Sioux Falls, South Dakota, plant “indefinitely” due to a massive outbreak of coronavirus among its thousands of plant workers there. That facility had been processing 4 to 5 percent of the pork Americans consume every day. Since then, competitors in several states have also been forced to shutter or reduce output at facilities in several states.
These massive plants, where livestock are slaughtered and broken down into commercial portions, were created to maximize worker output and efficiency. They were not designed with COVID-19 distancing guidelines in mind. Plant employees often work “shoulder-to-shoulder” and at breakneck speeds—processing more than 1,000 pig carcasses an hour, for example.
Even as large meat processors face peril, many small, local farmers and ranchers—including those who raise high-quality, grassfed cattle—report brisk business in direct-to-consumer (on-farm) sales. While those farmers and ranchers would be happy to sell meat to grocery stores—allowing grocers to keep shelves stocked—a decades-old federal law stands in the way.
That law, the Wholesome Meat Act, which Congress passed in 1967, requires all commercially available beef and pork to be slaughtered and processed either in USDA-inspected facilities or in state facilities that enforce processes “equal to” federal rules. The law, which was intended to boost cooperation between the USDA and state governments, applies both to interstate and intrastate sales. Practically, that means a local rancher who wants to sell 100 pounds of ground beef to a local food co-op must follow the same rules as a giant producer that slaughters tens of thousands of hogs or head of cattle each day and then ships their meat to states across the country. It also means that local rancher who wants to sell meat through commercial channels often must bear the expense of sending her livestock hundreds of miles away—even out of state—to be slaughtered.
With regulatory and cost burdens so high, many farmers and ranchers instead choose to utilize much smaller, local “custom” slaughter facilities and abattoirs outside the USDA inspection regime. Those that do so may only sell an interest in a live animal, which forecloses on the option to sell much smaller portions—such as steaks—to grocers and others.
The Wholesome Meat Act and the 1906 law it amended—the Federal Meat Inspection Act—have been blamed for food-safety issues and massive consolidation in the industry, with Smithfield, Cargill, JBS, and Tyson now controlling most of the nation’s meat supply; large producers have cornered more than 80 percent of the nation’s beef market and more than 70 percent of the pork market.
That enormous meat supply is now at risk. But a fix is at hand—if Washington acts fast.
As we see it, this is one problem—that meat processed in custom slaughterhouses cannot be sold in intrastate commerce—with three distinct solutions. First, Congress could move immediately to suspend, amend, or repeal portions of the Wholesome Meat Act to allow intrastate commercial sales of meat processed in custom slaughter facilities and abattoirs according to the laws of each respective state. Second, Congress could finally pass the PRIME Act, a bipartisan bill that would have a similar impact. Third, the USDA may be able to suspend enforcement temporarily of the Wholesome Meat Act’s provisions pertaining to the mandatory inspection of intrastate meat processing and sales. Other agencies have suspended enforcing rules due to COVID-19. For example, in March, the EPA announced it would suspend enforcement of some pollution regulations due to the pandemic. (Suspending enforcement of rules doesn’t require a pandemic. Years earlier, the Obama administration also suspended enforcement of selective rules.)
Choosing any of these three approaches would allow that local rancher to sell her ranch’s ground beef to her local grocer, co-op, or restaurant, along with supplying meat at farmers markets, via online sales, and through other commercial avenues.On the other hand, choosing to maintain the status quo will harm consumers, smaller ranchers, and grocers while further decimating the nation’s meat supply.
The choice is clear. The integrity of our food supply demands quick action.
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US Blasts Russia & Assad For Sending Mercenaries Into Libya To Support Haftar
The long-running Libyan war 2.0 which has seen Gen. Khalifa Haftar lay siege to the capital of Tripoli throughout all of last year just grew hotter, now confirmed as a full-blown proxy conflict.
On Thursday the United States charged the Kremlin with illegally sending large numbers of Russian mercenaries to Libya in order to bolster Haftar’s Libya National Army (LNA) offensive. Further, the US claimed Russia is working with Syria’s Bashar al-Assad to facilitate the transfers.
The top US administration envoy to Syria and Turkey, Jim Jeffrey, U.S. special envoy for Syria, told reporters this week: “We know that, certainly the Russians are working with Assad to transfer militia fighters, possibly third country, possibly Syrian, to Libya, as well as equipment.”
Khalifa Haftar, second from right greeted upon a prior trip to Russia, AFP via Getty.
At the same time US officials downplayed any links with Haftar, long said to be the “CIA’s man in Libya”, after Trump administration officials met with Haftar’s political team last November, and further after the US president himself personally thanked the Benghazi-based strongman of “securing Libya’s oil”:
“The United States does not support LNA military action against Tripoli. … The attack on the capital diverts resources from what is a priority for us, which is counterterrorism,” Henry Wooster, deputy assistant secretary at State Department’s Bureau of Near Eastern Affairs, said on a conference call, referring to Haftar’s Libyan National Army.
Last year it was widely reported that a private security firm with close ties to Putin, called Wagner Group, sent up to 1200 Russian mercenaries to fight alongside Haftar’s forces.
Haftar’s backers, most especially his strongest state supporter the UAE, see him as Libya’s only hope for national unity and stability after Gaddafi’s overthrow and death during the US-NATO military intervention in the Arab North African country.
The State Department official further underscored Washington’s condemnation of growing Haftar-Assad ties: “There is a very troubling other element here and that is … Haftar’s establishment of so-called diplomatic relations with the Assad regime, which is very much a part of the piece of the question of Syrian mercenaries, at least on his side of the equation,” Wooster said.
Further troubling is that on the other side of the Libyan war is the Tripoli-based Government of National Accord, which has seen huge support from Turkey in the form of drones, troops, Syrian jihadist mercenaries, and even naval support.
It’s an increasingly messy situation, with oil also at stake, with overlapping and confused interests. At this point it appears Washington itself is still working out where it officially stands regarding the ‘renegade general’ Haftar.
