Month: December 2021

Authored by Kit Knightly via Off-Guardian.org,

Maybe forcing people to believe your lies, even after you admit you’re lying, is the purest form of power…

“Not merely the validity of experience, but the very existence of external reality was tacitly denied by their philosophy. The heresy of heresies was common sense.”

– George Orwell, 1984

The “Covid pandemic” narrative is insane. That is long-established at this point, we don’t really need to go into how or why here. Read our back catalogue.

The rules are meaningless and arbitrary, the messaging contradictory, the very premise nonsensical.

Every day some new insanity is launched out into the world, and while many of us roll our eyes, raise our voices, or just laugh…many more accept it, believe it, allow it to continue.

Take the situation in Canada right now, where the government has enforced a vaccine mandate on healthcare workers, meaning in British Columbia alone over 3000 hospital staff were on unpaid leave by November 1st.

How have local governments responded to staff shortages?

They are asking vaccinated employees who have tested positive for Covid to work.

Whether or not you believe the test means anything, they notionally do. In the reality they try to sell us every day, testing positive means you are carrying a dangerous disease.

So they are requesting people allegedly carrying a “deadly virus” work, rather than letting perfectly healthy unvaccinated people simply have their jobs back.

This is insanity.

But could anything more perfectly illustrate the priorities of those running the game?

We already know it’s not about a virus, it’s not about protecting the health service and it’s not about saving lives. Every day the people running the “pandemic” admit as much by their actions, and even their words.

Rather, it seems to be about enforcing rules that make little to no sense, requiring conformity at the price of reason, drawing arbitrary lines in the sand and demanding people respect them, making people believe “facts” that are provably untrue.

But why? Why is the story of Covid irrational and contradictory? Why are we told on the one hand to be afraid, and on the other that there is nothing to be afraid of?

Why is the “pandemic” so completely insane?

You could argue that it’s simple happenstance. The by-product of a multi-focused evolving narrative, a story being told by a thousand authors all at once, each concerned with covering their own little patch of agenda. A car with multiple drivers fighting over a single steering wheel.

There’s probably some truth to that.

But it’s also true that control, true control, can only be achieved with a lie.

In clinical psychology one of the diagnostic signs of the psychopath is that they tell elaborate lies, compulsively. Many times they will tell a lie even if the truth would be more beneficial.

Nobody knows why they do this, but I have a theory, and it applies to the swarming groups of little rat minds running the sewers of power as much as it does any individual monstrosity.

If you want to control people, you need to lie to them, that’s the only way to guarantee you have power.

If you are standing in the road, and I yell “look out, there’s a car a coming”, and you move just as a car whips past, I will never know if you moved because I said so, or because there actually was a car.

If my interest is in making sure you don’t get hurt, this would not matter to me either way.

But, what if my only true aim is the gratification of watching you do what I say, simply because I said it?

…well, then I need to scream out a warning of a car that does not exist, and watch you dodge an imaginary threat. Or, indeed, tell you there is no car, and watch you get run over.

Only by doing this can I see my words mean more to you than perceivable reality, and only then do I know I’m truly in control.

You can never control people with the truth, because the truth has an existence outside yourself that cannot be altered or directed. It may be the truth itself that controls people, not you.

You can never force people to obey rules that make sense, because they may be obeying reason, not your force.

True power lies in making people afraid of something that does not exist, and making them abandon reason in the name of protecting themselves from the invented threat.

To guarantee you have control, you must make people see things that are not there, make people live in a reality you build around them, and force people to follow arbitrary, contradictory rules that change day by day.

To truly test their loyalty, their hypnosis, you could even tell them there’s nothing to be afraid of anymore, but they need to follow the rules anyway.

Maybe that’s the point. Maybe the story isn’t supposed to be believable. Maybe the rules aren’t meant to make sense, they are meant to be obeyed.

Maybe the more contradictory & illogical the regulations become, the more your compliance is valued.

Maybe if you can force a person to abandon their judgment in favour of your own, you have total control over their reality.

We started with an Orwell quote, so let’s end with one too:

Power is in tearing human minds to pieces and putting them together again in new shapes of your own choosing.”

Isn’t that what we’re seeing now? What we’ve been seeing since the beginning?

People being mind broken into being afraid of something they told isn’t frightening, following rules they are told are not necessary, taking “medicine” they are told does not work.

Maybe forcing people to believe your lies, even as you admit you are lying, is the purest expression of power.

A cold snap is headed for Texas after New Year’s Eve. The state’s grid operator conducted inspections of mandatory winterization efforts at power plants to avoid repeating last winter’s devastating blackouts. 

The Electric Reliability Council of Texas (ERCOT) completed inspections at 300 electric generation units, representing 85% of the megawatt-hours lost during last winter’s storm and 22 transmission station facilities.

ERCOT is “confident that its electric generation fleet and the grid are winterized and ready to provide power,” said Woody Rickerson, Vice President of Grid Planning and Weatherization.

“New regulations require all electric generation and transmission owners to make significant winterization improvements and our inspections confirm they are prepared,” Rickerson said.

The announcement comes as new weather models via Bloomberg show average temperatures across Texas are expected to slide beginning this weekend. 

In some cases, the minimum temperature will dive below freezing and could strain ERCOT’s power grid as energy demand would increase. 

In terms of heating degree days, energy demand will skyrocket through the first half of January.  

ERCOT has already sent out a “freeze warning” email to customers, warning them about the upcoming cold blast. 

As you are aware, there is a freeze predicted in this area. We ask that you take the following precautions to help reduce the potential for damage to property as well as personal injury. -ERCOT

For the Lower US 48, meteorologists at private weather forecasting firm BAMWX continue to predict colder weather is set to trend for January. 

There are definitely changes ongoing in the atmosphere that better support a pattern transition and more availability of cold air in January. The orientation of the Polar Vortex should allow cold air to bleed further east rather than be bottled up in W. NA. #Energy #NatGas pic.twitter.com/8ee5OwvMjT

— BAMWX (@bamwxcom) December 29, 2021

If colder weather is ahead, natural gas prices could get a lift. Futures linked to Henry Hub show an ascending diagonal support line where support could form. 

Since Dec. 9, we’ve had the thesis that a cold blast was due to hit the US Lower 48 in January amid a very mild December.

Authored by Jamie Joseph via The Epoch Times,

To native San Franciscans, shoplifting and car break-ins are now a normal part of life in a big city.

Car burglaries occur up to 74 times a day in the city and have increased nearly 200 percent since 2020. Some residents are going to extreme lengths to prevent their car windows from being smashed, like leaving their trunks open and their windows down, according to local reports.

On a recent Saturday at Alamo Square Park across from the famed Painted Ladies houses, Kira Cush, a lifelong San Francisco resident who’s had her car broken into multiple times, said “it’s just something, especially if you live in this area, you need to be mindful to just not leave anything in your car.”

“And even then, still, cars will get broken into, but you have to be super vigilant about not leaving stuff out,” she told The Epoch Times.

Loretta, another local resident who declined to give her last name, said suspects will usually target tourists. After her car was broken into, she placed a residential sticker on her windshield to deter burglars.

“We’ve had people dump goods, like tourists’ backpacks and stuff in our neighborhood from a smash and grab, because they got whatever they wanted, and they just dumped the rest on the street,” the 21-year resident said.

Hot spots for car break-ins usually happen near heavily crowded tourist attractions, such as Lombard Street, Pier 39, Golden Gate Park, and Moraga Stairs.

Cars and tables fill a parking lot next to a restaurant and bay cruise terminal at the Fisherman’s Wharf tourist destination in San Francisco on June 14, 2021. (Justin Sullivan/Getty Images)

At the Pier 39 parking lot, a resident of 46 years could be seen driving around and yelling at tourists to find another parking location. He told The Epoch Times he decided to take matters into his own hands and visit every morning until noon to warn tourists about the car break-ins.

“What’s happened over the last 10 months is that this crime has escalated, from hitting cars, to robbing tourists, to robbing locals, to robbing stores. I mean, it’s just gotten rampant, absolutely rampant,” he said.

The local declined to give his name out of fear he would be identified by suspects.

“The cops aren’t going to make arrests, and the [district attorney] is not going to prosecute. Then the only way to stop this is to basically have less food for the street sharks to go after. So, you have to warn people, you have to physically warn them not to leave anything in their cars,” he said.

Large-scale smash-and-grab robberies have also been making national headlines—drawing additional criticism to the city’s progressive criminal reform policies.

Many store owners in Chinatown have changed their hours and now lock up their shops when the sun goes down. Walgreens hired off-duty cops to guard their stores and closed five of its 53 locations. Retail shops are relying on private security guards to deter shoplifters. A security guard in Oakland was shot and killed while protecting a KRON4 News reporter.

And San Francisco Mayor London Breed recently announced a local state of emergency in the Tenderloin district to counter the open-air drug market and curtail assaults in the neighborhood.

Police patrol Union Square in San Francisco on Nov. 30, 2021. Stores have increased security in response to a spike in thefts. (Ethan Swope/Getty Images)

Crime Wave Controversy

While brazen thefts at small businesses and retail stores in San Francisco have increased, drawing national headlines since the beginning of this year, some business owners told The Epoch Times they’ve stopped reporting the crimes because when they call the police, “they can’t do anything.”

Some point to Proposition 47, a seven-year-old initiative that reduced some sentences from felonies to misdemeanors. Under the law, up to $950 can be stolen before it’s considered a felony. Even when arrests are made, they’re not held for long under the state’s zero cash bail policy.

The California Supreme Court ruled in March that judges must consider a suspect’s financial ability to pay when setting bail prices, which permits the defendants to walk freely until further legal action is taken unless they’re deemed too dangerous.

And in the wake of new progressive district attorneys across the country vowing to redefine criminal justice, San Francisco District Attorney Chesa Boudin has taken the bulk of the blame in the eyes of locals who don’t think he’s doing enough to penalize criminals.

Promising a more equitable justice system, Boudin—who is also facing a potential recall in June 2022—defended Prop. 47 in a SF Gate column on Dec. 21, a few weeks after a string of organized retail gangs committed smash-and-grab robberies across several shopping centers including Union Square and Santana Way.

“Blaming legal reforms is equally misguided. Rolling back Proposition 47 would not solve the problems we are facing now. California’s felony theft threshold of $950 is still among the lowest in the country—38 states have felony thresholds at or above $1,000—and Texas has a threshold of $2,500,” Boudin wrote.

“Proposition 47 also passed seven years ago and was followed by a decline in property crimes. Its passage did not prevent prosecutors from being able to hold those who commit organized retail thefts accountable; for example, all the charges in Union Square were still felonies.”

Even though city stats show there’s been a slight decline in property crimes this year, it’s likely the data does not accurately reflect the real numbers when considering many business owners have stopped reporting crimes, according to a local activist.

Union Square visitors look at damage to a Louis Vuitton store in San Francisco, Calif., on Nov. 21, 2021. (Danielle Echeverria/San Francisco Chronicle via AP)

“I never used to see the amount of shoplifting that we have today. Never—it is pure insanity. It is awful. It’s off the charts,” San Francisco resident and activist Erica Sandberg told The Epoch Times.

Sandberg said one of her friends was also attacked outside of his apartment by someone who tried to stab him.

“It’s really hard for me to say that this is normal because it’s not normal. But it is increasingly common,” she said.

According to a retail study from August, about 69 percent of retailers nationwide said they saw an increase in organized retail crime activity over the past year. Some of the potential driving factors include COVID-19 restrictions, policing, changes to sentencing guidelines, and the growth of online marketplaces for criminal activity.

“Perpetrators are becoming more common in an era where it is easy to evade prosecution,” one retailer noted in the survey.

Making matters worse, the San Francisco Police Department is significantly understaffed, with patrol units suffering the most, according to Sergeant Richard Cibotti. He told The Epoch Times the department currently loses between 5-10 officers a month to other departments or retirement.

“A lot of cops have felt like they’ve lost a purpose,” Cibotti said.

“They’ve gotten the job because they wanted to help people and go out and you know, make arrests and try to improve life in the community. But when they go out, and they make arrests … when the people that they arrest are getting no consequences, it feels like they’ve lost their purpose.”

He said every day around 7:00 pm, high-end retail stores—like Louis Vuitton—in Union Square close for the evening. There’s also an added police presence to the area until the holiday season is over.

Pedestrians walk past a Fendi store with boarded up windows near Union Square in San Francisco in Nov. 30, 2021. (Ethan Swope/Getty Images)

Small Business Owner Speaks Out

Michael Hsu spent one dismal morning sweeping up broken glass from the entryway of his sneaker and clothing shop, Footprint, located on the corner of Taraval Street and 27th Avenue. However, it was business as usual when his employees came to work that day.

“We have a smile on our face. We just have to carry on. We can’t close our store. We still have to pay rent. We still have our employees, they still have to eat, so we just carry on like we normally would,” Hsu told The Epoch Times.

The previous night, a suspect blowtorched the front entryway before clearing the shelves of thousands of dollars in brand-name hoodies, shirts, shoes, and other accessories. No arrests were made, but some of the items were later found. It’s still under investigation with the San Francisco Police Department, Hsu said.

Later that same day, looters entered the shop and stole more items. It was another hit to Hsu’s morale. He urged his district supervisor, Gordon Mar, to set up a relief fund to help businesses recover from burglaries. Mayor London Breed joined Mar in holding a press conference at Footprint to announce the Storefront Vandalism Relief Grant—a $2,000 program to help small businesses who’ve been victimized by burglaries.

That was in February. In September, Hsu’s store was hit yet again. This time, surveillance video—bought with funds from the vandalism relief grant—showed that the suspect climbed up the exterior wall’s scaffolding and broke through the window to Hsu’s office. Thousands of dollars in goods were stolen again.

“Crime is there, and it seems like there’s no consequences,” Hsu said, adding that Prop. 47 sends the wrong message to San Franciscans. “As a new father, I don’t want my kid to know that—we need to teach them the difference between right and wrong, and let them know it’s not okay to take anything, even if it’s $1. It’s not okay, and that’s the message that we really need to be sending out.”

Following the widely reported Hong Kong police raid on the independent news outlet Stand News Wednesday, Secretary of State Antony Blinken issued swift condemnation on what’s clearly an ongoing pro-China crackdown against any HK opposition media.

Blinken called on China’s ruling Communist Party and local HK police to “cease targeting” the city’s “free and independent media and to immediately release those journalists and media executives who have been unjustly detained and charged.”

He further said that Hong Kong should return to its former status of promoting freedoms that allowed the city to “flourish as a global center for finance, trade, education, and culture,” adding that “journalism is not sedition,” according to Axios. “By silencing independent media, [China’s government] and local authorities undermine Hong Kong’s credibility and viability.  A confident government that is unafraid of the truth embraces a free press.”

At least 200 police had raided Stand News on Wednesday, arresting at least six editors and journalists, forcing the opposition-sympathetic outlet to cease all publication. Two editors have been charged with “sedition” while others are still being held for questioning.

On Thursday the Associated Press confirmed that “Two former editors from a Hong Kong online pro-democracy news outlet were charged with sedition and denied bail Thursday, a day after one of the last openly critical voices in the city said it would cease operations following a police raid on its office and seven arrests.”

The entire company is facing legal action: “According to a charge sheet, national security police filed one count each of conspiracy to publish a seditious publication against Chung Pui-kuen and Patrick Lam, former editors at Stand News,” AP details. “Police also said they would prosecute the company for sedition.”

Hong Kong leader Carrie Lam justified the police raid and the arrests, claiming that “inciting other people… could not be condoned under the guise of news reporting” – to describe the independent news outlet’s supposed actions. 

NEW – #Taiwan stands with Hong Kong as China continues to crackdown on free speech, the Taiwanese president vows. https://t.co/M8lMhPSQCZ

— Disclose.tv (@disclosetv) December 29, 2021

US-backed Taiwan was also quick to issue a message backing the detained news staff, with President Tsai Ing-wen saying that “Taiwan stands with Hong Kong” and against China’s “crackdown on free speech.”

Her public statement said, “The arrests of Stand News staff and singer Denise Ho are yet another example of the Beijing authorities’ crackdown on free speech in Hong Kong. We in Taiwan regret to see their detention and call on the international community to stand up for freedom & democracy in HK.”

Authored by Bill Pan via The Epoch Times,

A majority of Americans say that male and female are the only two genders, and that schools shouldn’t be allowed to counsel children about gender or sexuality without parents’ consent, according to the results of a survey released Monday.

The survey was conducted by Rasmussen Reports among 1,000 American adults from Dec. 21 to 22, with a margin of error of plus or minus 3 percentage points at and 95 percent confidence level. It comes amid a social media firestorm sparked by Harry Potter author J.K. Rowling, who was accused of engaging in “hate speech” for insisting that there are only two biologically distinct genders.

“Transgender activists have accused J.K. Rowling of ‘hate speech’ for saying it, but most Americans agree with the Harry Potter author that there are only two genders,” the report said.

Rasmussen asked participants whether they agree with the statement, “There are only two genders: male and female.”

The results show that 75 percent of them agreed with the statement, with 63 percent saying they “strongly” agree.

Those identifying as Republicans (82 percent) are more likely to strongly agree than Democrats (47 percent) and independent or unaffiliated respondents (60 percent). There are also more black (68 percent) than white respondents (63 percent) or those of other races (55 percent) who strongly agreed that there are only two genders.

When it comes to the schools and teachers’ role in shaping children’s view on gender, most respondents also said that they don’t want their children counseled by schools on their gender identity without their consent.

The survey asked whether schools and teachers should be “allowed to counsel students about their sexual and gender identity without parental knowledge or consent.” Overall, 69 percent of respondents said they don’t agree, compared to 19 percent that think it is okay.

Majorities of all political categories—80 percent of Republicans, 54 percent of Democrats, and 72 percent of independents—are opposed to schools counseling children on gender identity without informing parents.

The results of the survey echoed the frustration felt by a California mother who recently made national headlines after she tore into the local school board during a meeting, accusing two middle school teachers of “coaching” her gender dysphoric daughter into an LGBTQ club without her knowledge.

Jessica Konen of Salinas, California, went public with her story after controversy erupted over a leaked audio clip, in which two seventh-grade teachers from Buena Vista Middle School were recorded discussing with other teachers on how to hide from conservative parents that their children are participating in progressive LGBTQ activities.

“Because we are not official, we have no club rosters. We keep no records,” said one teacher, who is also an LGBTQ club leader.

“In fact, sometimes we don’t really want to keep records because if parents get upset that their kids are coming? We’re like, ‘Yeah, I don’t know. Maybe they came?’ You know, we would never want a kid to get in trouble for attending if their parents are upset.”

Konen told The Epoch Times that near the end of sixth grade, her daughter told her she might be “bisexual.” By the middle of the seventh grade, Konen was called to the school for a meeting, during which a teacher said her daughter was “trans fluid” and would be called by a new name and male pronouns and would be using the unisex restroom at school.

“You allow these teachers to open their classrooms, teaching predatorial information to a young child, a mindful child that doesn’t even know how to comprehend it all,” Konen said at the Dec. 15 meeting. “How do you not know what’s going on [on] your own campuses? Did you think that no parent would ever come forward? You will not quiet me today. I will stand here today and protect my child along with every other child who has not come forward yet.”

While taxi drivers in New York City may have finally “ridden” out the absolute worst effects of enduring the ridesharing boom and the pandemic at the same time, the road to clearer skies still looks dim. 

That’s because, as was pointed out by @JBaksht on Twitter this week, taxi medallions have still plunged 90% over the last decade.

The plunge in medallion value came at the same time that Lyft and Uber began to register hundreds of thousands of daily trips in New York City. Prior to the pandemic, Uber had peaked at over 500,000 trips per day, while Lyft was approaching 200,000 trips per day. 

Medallions suffered their “death blow” from the pandemic in early 2020, which saw their value plunge to just pennies on the dollar from what they had cost a decade prior. 

Medallions cost about $300,000 in the early 2000s. By 2010, they had increased in price to almost $1,000,000. But when ridesharing firms entered the market, they crashed to under $100,000, leaving many drivers in financial ruin. 

We noted back in November that drivers had finally “won one” after they secured help in slashing the balances they owed on their medallions. But this small respite belies a decade ridden with plunging business, years of hard work saving for medallions wiped away, driver suicides and an all-out upending of a business that once had a strong moat.

Drivers did get relief last month when a deal between New York City’s municipal government, a private equity firm that had become the single largest taxi medallion creditor, and an advocacy group that spoke for thousands of taxi drivers resulted in slashing loan balances for drivers. Some loans were as high as $500,000 and are now just $170,000, which allows drivers to make reasonable and far more manageable payments every month.

Recall, in January of this year, we wrote that medallion lenders had started to demand payments after suspending collections for several months during the worst of the pandemic. Recalling that the collapse in medallion prices began before the outbreak – in January, NYC launched a city task force which proposed a $500 million bailout for drivers’ loans. This was followed by a February threat by NY State Attorney General Letitia A. James, to sue the city for $810 million to compensate drivers.

After the pandemic hit, efforts to help NYC cab drivers – over 90% of whom are immigrants, evaporated.

In 2013, yellow cabs made nearly half a million trips a day. In 2020, that number dropped to 50 – 60 thousand. But the yellow cab industry was already hemorrhaging trips pre-pandemic.

As unregulated vehicles for hire flooded the streets, investment-backed platforms such as Uber and Lyft undercut fares, able to absorb the loss. As riders flocked to these cheaper and more accessible taxis, yellow cabdrivers were left in the dust. –CNN

While our euphoric and completely nonsensical public markets continue to subsidize cash burning ridesharing companies, we have to admit that it’s nice to see NYC’s taxi drivers finally win one...it’s been a long road.

Authored by Jonathan Turley,

The conviction of Ghislaine Maxwell for five out of six criminal charges was heralded by many as bringing some justice for the girls abused through her actions. Indeed, the Southern District of New York correctly called the underlying conduct as “one of the worst crimes imaginable – facilitating and participating in the sexual abuse of children.” However, that statement only begged the question of why none of the men listed on flights of the “Lolita Express” or on the guest lists of these parties have been prosecuted. That list includes former presidents Bill Clinton and Donald Trump as well as Prince Andrew and an assortment of billionaires. It is not clear if these men committed criminal acts but it is also not clear that they have been formally questioned by the FBI.

As I discussed last night, this criminal enterprise was allegedly not only to bring girls and women to Epstein but to his powerful friends. Without pursuing those alleged “johns,” the Maxwell prosecution seems like arresting a getaway driver but letting the bank robbers escape.

The pictures of men on these trips are now well-known.  They do not in themselves establish criminal conduct. For example, the pictures of Clinton getting a message from a 22-year-old woman is not illegal and she later described him as a “perfect gentleman.”

However, Clinton has been accused of misleading the public on his number of flights with Epstein.  The media has reported at least 26 flights with Epstein. Being a repeated guest with an infamous child molester raises obvious concerns. It is certainly enough to warrant questioning by the FBI.

Then there is Prince Andrew who has been pursued for questioning. Much of the litigation, however, has come from civil litigation. Prince Andrew recently put forward a novel defense in one such case.

Yet, there is a concern that the Justice Department has previously worked to scuttle rather than to pursue the underlying wrongdoing, including a disgraceful plea agreement. I was an early and vocal critic of that deal with Epstein. Despite a strong case for prosecution, Epstein’s lawyers were able to secure a ridiculous deal with prosecutors. He was accused of abusing more than forty minor girls (with many between the ages of 13 and 17).  Epstein pleaded guilty to a Florida state charge of felony solicitation of underage girls in 2008 and served a 13-month jail sentence.  Epstein was facing a 53-page indictment that could have resulted in life in prison. However, he got the 13 month deal. Moreover, to my lasting surprise, former Miami U.S. attorney Alexander Acosta was inexplicably made labor secretary under Trump.  He later resigned.

While the FBI aggressively (and correctly) pursued Maxwell, there is no evidence of such a concerted effort to investigate the men who may have been involved in sex trafficking. Given the all-out effort on Ashley Biden’s diary, it would be good to see an equal effort on Jeffrey Epstein’s alleged co-conspirators.

If Epstein allegedly transported women and girls to his island for visits with himself and these men, there is ample reason to interview them. It is not clear if Maxwell has further evidence to offer, but this is the time to produce it. While she is not practically looking at 65 years, she can easily receive a sentence around 15 years even as a first offender. That sentence could be reduced with cooperation credit. What is not clear is how focused the SDNY is on developing cases that focus not just on the “transportation” but the destination of these flights.

Last week South Africa became the first country to dial back COVID-19 restrictions after it became clear that the Omicron variant was far more mild than other strains, and that it had peaked much sooner than expected. 

On Christmas Eve, the government announced that contacts of Covid-positive cases will no longer need to test or self-isolate if they aren’t showing symptoms, while those who develop mild symptoms will be required to isolate for eight days, and anyone with severe symptoms will need to isolate for 10 days

Let us remind you that South Africa is roughly 75% unvaccinated.

Three days later, the US CDC made major changes to their Covid isolation mandates – including cutting quarantine from 10 days to 5 days (plus 5 days of masking), and eliminating PCR tests from it’s end-of-isolation guidelines. And they swear it isn’t because of test-kit shortages and/or their decision not to distribute rapid tests to Americans before the holidays.

Tell us you want everyone to get Covid without telling us you want everyone to get Covid.

JUST IN – UK PM Boris Johnson says “people should go out and celebrate New Year’s Eve” despite a record number of cases (The Times)

— Disclose.tv (@disclosetv) December 29, 2021

As a related aside, informed Zero Hedge reader Doug R. notes regarding the CDC’s ‘substantial’ revision in Omicron cases – where they now say it jumped from 3% infectivity to 58.6% of all cases over the course of two weeks (revised down from an even more implausible 73% they first reported): “Sorry, still not buying it. This still implies a level of infectivity that is hard to believe. My guess is the real starting point was it was already in the range of 10%-20% market share, and the CDC completely missed it. In part because it is so mild, but in larger part because they failed at their job of detecting and tracking. Because they are bad at what they do.”

And now, Israel is mulling a new ‘herd immunity’ policy amid a second day of spiking cases.

According to the Times of Israel:

Israel recorded almost 3,000 new coronavirus cases for the second day in a row, according to data released Wednesday, as the infection rate continued to climb and senior Health Ministry officials were reportedly weighing a switch to a policy of reaching herd immunity through mass infection.

…

For the first time, most Omicron infections were recorded in the community, not in people who recently returned from abroad or those they came in contact with, indicating the true figures are likely much higher than the official ones.

…

In light of the lack of immediate rise in serious illness, Channel 12 news reported Tuesday evening that senior officials in the Health Ministry have recently raised the option of switching to a “mass infection model.”

The plan would mirror Sweden’s policy in the early stage of the pandemic – which essentially meant doing nothing to restrict the spread for people who aren’t in at-risk groups. Israeli officials estimate that within two weeks, Omicron will account for 90% of Covid-19 cases across the country.

Back to Doug R., he poses the following thought exercise: “If Omicron was the original virus, and behaving this way, how would society have reacted?  My guess, very differently to how it is reacting now.  No global freakout, lockdowns, and NO treatment with vaccinations.  It wouldn’t be necessary.  But we are now where we are, which provokes an incredibly strong and odd reaction to something that appears so mild, and may be a free vaccine.”

Maybe policymakers are finally catching on? Their corporate media wing seems to have gotten the memo.

As I said a few days ago, there is a big narrative shift going on: it is the lead story in the NYT morning brief today.

Now even more evident since clearly the biggest MSM m0r0ns have their marching orders to downplay “cases” https://t.co/QEY1ZHhGRI

— Barbarian Capital (@BarbarianCap) December 30, 2021

Authored by Zachary Stieber via The Epoch Times,

Department of Justice lawyers late Wednesday asked the Supreme Court to hear a case involving the “Remain in Mexico” program.

The policy was started during the Trump administration and forces many asylum seekers to wait in Mexico while their claims are heard.

The Biden administration ended it but was ordered by a judge over the summer to relaunch it. The judge said Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas didn’t adequately consider the benefits of the program, which included deterring some would-be illegal immigrants from entering the United States.

Mayorkas came up with a new memorandum in October attempting to end the program again, but an appeals court upheld the judge’s ruling, asserting the memo didn’t affect the ongoing case because it “simply reaffirmed the termination decision that the states had been challenging all along.”

Biden administration lawyers in the filing Wednesday told the Supreme Court that decision was made in error. The administration wants the nation’s top court to hear arguments from both sides and rule on the matter.

“The court of appeals’ decision has enormous legal and practical consequences, and there are compelling reasons for the court to review it promptly,” they wrote in a 45-page writ of certiorari.

One argument put forth—that the lower courts “improperly dictated the exercise of the executive’s statutory discretion.”

“By requiring the executive to engage in ongoing negotiations with a foreign sovereign over the contours of a border-wide immigration program, the lower courts effected a major and ‘unwarranted judicial interference in the conduct of foreign policy’ and executive prerogative,” the Biden administration said.

“Remain in Mexico” relies upon the Mexican government agreeing to allow the United States to move asylum seekers into Mexico.

After months of negotiations, the two countries reached a compromise on Dec. 2 to reboot the program.

If the Supreme Court doesn’t step in, the policy will stay in place unless Mexican officials stop cooperating or Congress approves funding to detain all the illegal immigrants that enter the United States, Biden administration lawyers said.

U.S. District Judge Matthew Kacsmaryk, a Trump nominee, found in August that federal law mandates immigration officers detain all illegal aliens unless there is no doubt that they are entitled to be admitted into the country.

Without “Remain in Mexico,” the government is “forced to release and parole aliens into the United States because defendants simply do not have the resources to detain aliens as mandated by statute,” he said.

As the lockdown in Xi’an continues through its second week, 13M residents are getting a taste of what life was like for the millions in Wuhan who suffered through that city’s 70+ day lockdown back in the spring of 2020.

Xi’an has counted more than 1,000 cases, with none confirmed to be omicron (China has found some omicron cases in Shanghai and the southern part of the country). As a result, the city has been on total lockdown – with people only allowed to leave once every few days to buy essential goods like groceries.

According to a report in the Caixin business journal, many are struggling to buy groceries as city life grinds to a halt.

Residents in the capital of Shaanxi province have been told since Monday to stay at home unless they need to be out for nucleic acid testing. The city, home to almost 13 million residents, went into lockdown Dec. 23, with movement of the people curtailed and risk areas sealed, amid a growing delta outbreak traced to a Dec. 4 flight from Pakistan. The city has recorded a total number of 1,137 locally confirmed cases between Dec. 9 and Dec. 29.

Desperate residents have taken to social media to complain about online food orders – a last resort for many – that have gone undelivered. Local authorities since Tuesday night started mobilizing districts to deliver free food to residents in sealed areas, but a large number of people still face difficulties in procuring daily necessities.

Meanwhile, residents are also affected by disruptions in health services. Chen Wei’s wife, who is four months pregnant, felt abdominal pain on Saturday, but their community didn’t have designated vehicles for medical purposes, so they had to improvise and find their own treatment: “But now it’s not possible to get approval to go out at all,” Chen told Caixin.

Authorities say the outbreak in Xi’an is still in the “rapid development” stage.

At a press conference Wednesday, He Qinghua, a senior official with the National Health Commission, said the local outbreak is still in a rapid development stage, with linked cases reported in other cities in Shaanxi and elsewhere outside the province. That means Xi’an is still unlikely to lift the lockdown anytime soon.

Caixin’s report painted a picture of a city in chaos.

Li, the resident of the urban village, reported the shortage of supplies to the city’s hotlines, but no feedback was received. On Friday, rice and eggs in the village supermarket were quickly sold out. And with a further tightening of the disease control measures, all shops in the village were closed on Sunday.

Another Xi’an resident said the city does not have a shortage of supplies, but it lacks enough delivery workers.

Meanwhile, there’s also information asymmetry in the city. “I heard that some supermarkets in the community cannot get their vegetables sold, while residents don’t know how to buy them,” he said.

Residents with chronic health issues are facing a serious problem: many have lost practically all access to care as resources are diverted to dealing with the COVID outbreak. Many hospitals in the city have stopped accepting new or transferred patients, creating serious bottlenecks to care.

Stringent epidemic control measures have disrupted health services across the city, affecting many local patients, including kidney disease patients who urgently need treatment.

Chen, who lives in Xi’an’s Weiyang district, on Saturday called his resident community’s management office, hoping to take his wife to the hospital for an examination. But the office said they are not authorized to give permission, and Chen’s attempts to contact his community and disease control authorities to get approval were in vain.

Another patient with cancer told Caixin that she has had her treatment delayed for several days, after the hospital she attends suspended its outpatient services on Dec. 16.

“It hurts and I cannot sleep at night, so I can only bite my quilt. I feel it cannot be delayed any longer,” she told Caixin. Prior to the lockdown, local authorities had assured tumor patients would be able to get treatment; however, even patients who are not in sealed areas have been cut off from treatment, she said.

For what it’s worth, the Global Times reported that the real problem isn’t shortages of food supplies, but a difficulty in the “last mile” delivery that’s supposed to bring food products to customers placing orders. In response, officials from Xixian New District said at a press conference on Thursday that they are actively coordinating the supply chain, and that they have also set up 1,603 WeChat groups, covering 195 communities, to supply more than 30 kinds of food and medicine for local residents.

Although there have been reports that some hospitals are resuming service for patients who make an appointment.

The outbreak has also impacted some college students who are in the middle of exams. Some have borne the expense of living in hotels while the process is disrupted.