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In Unprecedented Monetary Overhaul, The Fed Is Preparing To Deposit “Digital Dollars” Directly To “Each American” | Zero Hedge

Posted by M. C. on September 24, 2020

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

https://www.zerohedge.com/markets/loretta-mester-hints-fed-preparing-deposit-digital-dollars-directly-each-american

by Tyler Durden
 

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

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

 

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

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

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

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

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

 

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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Doug Casey on The Culture War – Doug Casey’s International Man

Posted by M. C. on September 24, 2020

Culture is what ties groups and countries together. When a cultural split develops—such as the one we now have in the US—a country cannot, and, more importantly, should not stay together.

It’s poisonous to keep different cultures together in the same political unit. Politics is all about deciding who decides who gets what, how, and at whose expense. It can be fairly cordial if everybody shares the same culture. If they don’t, it’s a formula for disaster.

Politicians talk about “bringing us together.” But that’s nonsense. Politics only brings people together by force—the way a pressure cooker brings things together.

https://internationalman.com/articles/doug-casey-on-the-culture-war/

“Culture” is composed of the customs, traditions, and beliefs of a group of people. It’s a way of seeing the world and interpreting reality. It determines what’s right and wrong and good and evil. Culture is what ties people together or divides them. It’s a composite of religion, politics, economics, philosophy, and language—but the composite is more important than any one component.

Culture is what ties groups and countries together. When a cultural split develops—such as the one we now have in the US—a country cannot, and, more importantly, should not stay together.

It’s poisonous to keep different cultures together in the same political unit. Politics is all about deciding who decides who gets what, how, and at whose expense. It can be fairly cordial if everybody shares the same culture. If they don’t, it’s a formula for disaster.

In the US, politics has become a contest of who gets to impose their will on the rest of the country. When that’s the case, a country is best off dividing. It shouldn’t be held together artificially or by force, but voluntarily. Freedom of association is necessary for a civil society. People generally prefer to associate with those with whom they share a culture. Birds of a feather do, in fact, flock together.

The alternative is chaos or even civil war. I suspect what we’ve seen in the last few months is only an overture to what’s coming. The US is no longer a country that is united by language, ideas, ethnicity, or anything else. It has become a multicultural domestic empire. The essence of an empire is coercion. The divide between the components of the US is growing and solidifying.

Politicians talk about “bringing us together.” But that’s nonsense. Politics only brings people together by force—the way a pressure cooker brings things together. It may look like it’s succeeding for a while, but when the pressure builds enough, there’s an explosion. Cultures develop organically; political coercion can’t make disparate people like each other.

Apart from that, I’d argue the US has become too large, too complex, and too diverse to be governable. It’s very different from what it was at its founding—or even fifty years ago. For one thing, its central government is already totally bankrupt. Productive parts of the country will increasingly resent a corrupt Washington that supports itself, its cronies, and hordes of welfare recipients at their expense.

Perhaps the US should break up peacefully before the situation gets completely out of control.

But how? The last time the US tried to divide, the result was the (incorrectly named) Civil War. The unpleasantness of 1861–1865 was not, in fact, a civil war, but a war of secession. The South simply wanted to go its own way, much as the colonies did in 1776. A civil war, by contrast, is one in which two or more parties try to take over the same government. That’s very different from wanting to part company.

The South should have been allowed to break off, in much the same way that Slovakia and the Czech Republic separated or the way that Yugoslavia divided into six republics—or, for that matter, the way that the Soviet Union broke up into 15 republics.

Abraham Lincoln created the poisonous meme that the states should be held together by force. Most people now think it’s some type of crime to even intimate that the US could—or should—break up. Interestingly, there are groups in California, Oregon, and Washington that are talking about it, not to mention millions of Hispanics that see the Southwest as the object of a Reconquista.

The coming election is certainly going to be the most important one since that of 1860, which installed Lincoln and after which Lincoln precipitated the War Between the States. Americans in blue counties and red counties have come to dislike one another on a visceral level. At this point, families can’t even get together for a Thanksgiving or Christmas without acrimony. The situation is quite serious, and the hysteria over COVID-19 combined with a collapsing economy has made it much worse. As outrageous as it sounds, the US should divide into at least two smaller units. Americans can then peacefully choose which version of America suits them.

As it stands, the election will be contested no matter which side wins, simply because the country has become totally polarized. No matter who wins, the other side is going to be terminally unhappy with the result. Last week, I spelled out the six reasons Biden (or at least the Democrats) are likely to win. No matter who wins, however, about half the country is going to be very unhappy. There’s likely to be some serious violence as the winning side tries to impose its values on the losing side.

We know the Republican candidate will be Mr. Trump. But it doesn’t make much difference who the Democratic candidate is at this point. The fact that Biden is borderline senile is irrelevant. They could probably run a chimpanzee in Biden’s place and expect the same result because this election is about cultural values in general, and hating Trump in particular. It has little to do with what Trump does or doesn’t believe; he has no philosophical center, no real core beliefs. But he’s a traditionalist, a cultural conservative. And he is very outspoken. That’s why he serves as an excellent lightning rod for the building storm.

Unfortunately, he’s also an authoritarian and a jingoist at heart. His supporters equate that with strength. Unfortunately, Americans from both parties will want an authoritarian to keep some semblance of order as things get wild and woolly. I still think the Dems will win for the reasons I spelled out last week, despite their probably having overplayed their hand with their support of Black Lives Matter and even Antifa—things which could still tip the balance in Trump’s favor. When it comes to a choice between order and ideology, the average guy prefers order.

The election is still close to an even odds bet for that reason, even though the polls (and my own reasoning, for what it’s worth) say the Democrats will win. But after the election, we’re going to see some major fireworks.

Next week, I’ll discuss what things will be like under both the Harris Regency and the Trump Regime. Either way, what’s going on signals a new era. It’s a catalyst, dividing “before” and “after,” much the way the Kennedy assassination drew a line between the conservative 50s and the radical 60s.

Editor’s Note: As these trends continue to accelerate, what you do right now can mean the difference between coming out ahead or suffering crippling losses.

That’s exactly why bestselling author Doug Casey and his team just released a free report with all the details on how to survive an economic collapse.

It will help you understand what is unfolding right before our eyes and what you should do so you don’t get caught in the crosshairs.

Click here to download the PDF now.

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‘Confirmed’ Has Become A Meaningless Word In Mainstream News Reporting – Caitlin Johnstone

Posted by M. C. on September 23, 2020

https://caitlinjohnstone.com/2020/09/21/confirmed-has-become-a-meaningless-word-in-mainstream-news-reporting/

author: Caitlin Johnstone
 

Last week Politico published a major exclusive report that the “Iranian government is weighing an assassination attempt against the American ambassador to South Africa” in retaliation for the assassination of General Qassem Soleimani earlier this year, citing (you guessed it) anonymous government officials.

The claim was nonsensical on its face; the idea that Iran would see the assassination of some random ambassador to an irrelevant country as a proportionate response to the killing of its wildly beloved top military commander would only make sense to someone with a very US-centric worldview who knows nothing about Iran. On top of that, the South African government published a statement that “the information provided is not sufficient to sustain the allegation that there is a credible threat against the United States Ambassador to South Africa”.

The flimsy nature of this allegation was of course not enough to prevent bombastic Twitter threats from America’s manchild-in-chief that this nonexistent assassination plot “will be met with an attack on Iran that will be 1,000 times greater in magnitude!” if carried out.

 

It also wasn’t enough to prevent the Politico article’s co-author, Natasha Bertrand, from falsely claiming that The New York Times had “confirmed” her reporting.

“The NYT has confirmed Nahal Toosi and my reporting about Iran,” Bertrand tweeted today with a link to a new Times article, quoting the excerpt “Lana Marks, the American ambassador to South Africa and a political supporter of Trump, was a potential target of an Iranian attack…Politico earlier reported that Ms. Marks was a target.”

The New York Times has in fact not confirmed Bertrand and Toosi’s reporting, and Bertrand omits a very significant portion of text from her excerpt. Here is the quote in full, bold mine:

Lana Marks, the American ambassador to South Africa and a political supporter of Mr. Trump, was a potential target of an Iranian attack, according to national security officials. But some briefed on the intelligence said Iran has not decided to directly target any American official, and other current and former officials accused the Trump administration of overstating the threat. Politico earlier reported that Ms. Marks was a target.

Awful lot of important information hiding in that ellipsis of yours, Ms Bertrand.

 

So NYT had in fact merely spoken to unnamed officials (probably some of the same ones) and found there to be misgivings about the claim Bertrand had promoted, and then Bertrand deceptively omitted text which contradicted the claim she was making that her report had been “confirmed”.

It should surprise no one that Bertrand would abuse the trust of her followers in such a phenomenally sleazy way. As Antiwar‘s Dave DeCamp explained after the Politico report was discredited by the South African government, Bertrand “built her career on hyping the Steele Dossier, a now-discredited document that made unverified claims about the Russian government and the Trump campaign in 2016.”

But Bertrand’s slimy manipulation is also to be expected because she knows she can get away with it. The word “confirmed” has been misused and abused to such a spectacular extent in mainstream news reporting of late that it doesn’t actually mean anything anymore when they say it.

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How CDC/WHO will fake the effects of the COVID vaccine to make it look like a success « Jon Rappoport’s Blog

Posted by M. C. on September 23, 2020

ONE: Rework the definition of a “COVID case.” Presently, the CDC absurdly allows doctors to diagnose a person with COVID who has a cough, or chills and fever, and lives in an area where cases are being claimed. No test necessary.

Committing these crimes are a walk in the park for public health agencies.

And appointing official mouthpieces to carry lies to the public is as easy as training little Faucis to sit up and bark.

https://blog.nomorefakenews.com/2020/09/22/how-cdc-will-fake-effects-of-covid-vaccine-make-it-look-like-success/

by Jon Rappoport

September 22, 2020

(To join our email list, click here.)

Making a vaccine look like it’s a champion isn’t difficult for public health agencies. There are a number of strategies.

Of course, these fraudulent strategies would be serious crimes. But when has that stopped the CDC or the World Health Organization?

In no particular order—-

ONE: Rework the definition of a “COVID case.” Presently, the CDC absurdly allows doctors to diagnose a person with COVID who has a cough, or chills and fever, and lives in an area where cases are being claimed. No test necessary.

So change this practice, once the vaccine is approved. Demand testing for a diagnosis. State that cough alone is not enough. Chills and fever must also be present. Require fever to be above 100.

These and other changes would automatically shrink the number of cases. The drop in numbers would be attributed to the vaccine.

This “definitional shrinking” was, in fact, deployed in the 1950s, after the introduction of the polio vaccine.

TWO: Order a change in the way the PCR diagnostic test is done. The practice of amplifying the original test sample from the patient occurs in cycles, or jumps. The greater the number of cycles, the more likely the test will result in a COVID diagnosis. Therefore, order a reduced number of cycles for all testing labs.

Outcome? Fewer COVID diagnoses. Fewer case numbers. “The vaccine is working.”

THREE: Quietly restrict the present hospital practice of arbitrarily writing “COVID” on patient case and death files.

FOUR: Cook up and publish false studies showing more and more people are developing immunity to the virus. Attribute this to the vaccine.

FIVE: Another type of false study—“the transmission of the virus from person to person is slowing, thanks to the vaccine.”

SIX: Pump up the success of issuing Immunity certificates after vaccination. “People are feeling safer now. More businesses are reopening…”

SEVEN: Using the compliant press, simply issue bald declarations that the vaccine is a success.

EIGHT: Hide the many instances of injury and death from the vaccine. When necessary, claim COVID was the cause.

NINE: Warn that the wonderful vaccine-derived immunity is not permanent, and frequent booster shots are necessary.

TEN: Rework the definition of “vaccine-acquired immunity.” Even a very weak antibody response from the shot would qualify as “protective immunity.”

ELEVEN: Huge numbers of people with ordinary flu-like illness, pneumonia, and other traditional lung infections are being called “COVID.” Change this practice. Go back to calling many of these people “flu,” “pneumonia,” etc. COVID case numbers will drop. Claim the drop is the effect of the vaccine.

TWELVE: Presently, millions of so-called COVID cases have “co-morbidities.” These are prior serious health conditions which are, in fact, the true causes of illnesses and death. Of course, this is denied. But after the vaccine is introduced… scale back the practice of counting all these ill and deceased co-morbid patients as “COVID.” Case and death numbers will drop. Claim the vaccine is the reason.

THIRTEEN: After the vaccine is introduced, slow down testing for a brief period. This will automatically reduce the rate of new cases. Attribute the decline to the vaccine.

Committing these crimes are a walk in the park for public health agencies.

And appointing official mouthpieces to carry lies to the public is as easy as training little Faucis to sit up and bark.

The Matrix Revealed

(To read about Jon’s mega-collection, The Matrix Revealed, click here.)

Jon Rappoport

The author of three explosive collections, THE MATRIX REVEALED, EXIT FROM THE MATRIX, and POWER OUTSIDE THE MATRIX, Jon was a candidate for a US Congressional seat in the 29th District of California. He maintains a consulting practice for private clients, the purpose of which is the expansion of personal creative power. Nominated for a Pulitzer Prize, he has worked as an investigative reporter for 30 years, writing articles on politics, medicine, and health for CBS Healthwatch, LA Weekly, Spin Magazine, Stern, and other newspapers and magazines in the US and Europe. Jon has delivered lectures and seminars on global politics, health, logic, and creative power to audiences around the world. You can sign up for his free NoMoreFakeNews emails here or his free OutsideTheRealityMachine emails here.

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The Rutherford Institute :: Justice Sleeps and ‘We the People’ Suffer: No, the U.S. Supreme Court Will Not Save Us | By John W. Whitehead |

Posted by M. C. on September 23, 2020

As a result, the police and other government agents have been generally empowered to probe, poke, pinch, taser, search, seize, strip and generally manhandle anyone they see fit in almost any circumstance, all with the general blessing of the courts.

Remember, it was a unanimous Supreme Court which determined that police officers may use drug-sniffing dogs to conduct warrantless searches of cars during routine traffic stops. That same Court gave police the green light to taser defenseless motorists, strip search non-violent suspects arrested for minor incidents, and break down people’s front doors without evidence that they have done anything wrong.

Make no mistake about it: this is what constitutes “law and order” in the American police state.

https://www.rutherford.org/publications_resources/john_whiteheads_commentary/justice_sleeps_and_we_the_people_suffer_no_the_u.s._supreme_court_will_not_save_us

By John W. Whitehead

“The Constitution is not neutral. It was designed to take the government off the backs of the people.”—Justice William O. Douglas

The U.S. Supreme Court will not save us.

It doesn’t matter which party gets to pick the replacement to fill Justice Ruth Bader Ginsberg’s seat on the U.S. Supreme Court. The battle that is gearing up right now is yet more distraction and spin to keep us oblivious to the steady encroachment on our rights by the architects of the American Police State.  

Americans can no longer rely on the courts to mete out justice.

Although the courts were established to serve as Courts of Justice, what we have been saddled with, instead, are Courts of Order. This is true at all levels of the judiciary, but especially so in the highest court of the land, the U.S. Supreme Court, which is seemingly more concerned with establishing order and protecting government interests than with upholding the rights of the people enshrined in the U.S. Constitution.

As a result, the police and other government agents have been generally empowered to probe, poke, pinch, taser, search, seize, strip and generally manhandle anyone they see fit in almost any circumstance, all with the general blessing of the courts.

Rarely do the concerns of the populace prevail.

When presented with an opportunity to loosen the government’s noose that keeps getting cinched tighter and tighter around the necks of the American people, what does our current Supreme Court usually do?

It ducks. Prevaricates. Remains silent. Speaks to the narrowest possible concern.

More often than not, it gives the government and its corporate sponsors the benefit of the doubt, which leaves “we the people” hanging by a thread.

Rarely do the justices of the U.S. Supreme Court— preoccupied with their personal politics, cocooned in a world of privilege, partial to those with power, money and influence, and narrowly focused on a shrinking docket (the court accepts on average 80 cases out of 8,000 each year)—venture beyond their rarefied comfort zones.

Every so often, the justices toss a bone to those who fear they have abdicated their allegiance to the Constitution. Too often, however, the Supreme Court tends to march in lockstep with the police state.

In recent years, for example, the Court has ruled that police officers can use lethal force in car chases without fear of lawsuits; police officers can stop cars based only on “anonymous” tips; Secret Service agents are not accountable for their actions, as long as they’re done in the name of “security”; citizens only have a right to remain silent if they assert it; police have free reign to use drug-sniffing dogs as “search warrants on leashes,” justifying any and all police searches of vehicles stopped on the roadside; police can forcibly take your DNA, whether or not you’ve been convicted of a crime; police can stop, search, question and profile citizens and non-citizens alike; police can subject Americans to virtual strip searches, no matter the “offense”; police can break into homes without a warrant, even if it’s the wrong home; and it’s a crime to not identify yourself when a policeman asks your name.

The cases the Supreme Court refuses to hear, allowing lower court judgments to stand, are almost as critical as the ones they rule on. Some of these cases have delivered devastating blows to the lives and rights enshrined in the Constitution. By remaining silent, the Court has affirmed that: legally owning a firearm is enough to justify a no-knock raid by police; the military can arrest and detain American citizens; students can be subjected to random lockdowns and mass searches at school; and police officers who don’t know their actions violate the law aren’t guilty of breaking the law.

You think you’ve got rights? Think again.

All of those freedoms we cherish—the ones enshrined in the Constitution, the ones that affirm our right to free speech and assembly, due process, privacy, bodily integrity, the right to not have police seize our property without a warrant, or search and detain us without probable cause—amount to nothing when the government and its agents are allowed to disregard those prohibitions on government overreach at will.

This is the grim reality of life in the American police state.

In fact, our so-called rights have been reduced to technicalities in the face of the government’s ongoing power grabs.

In the police state being erected around us, the police can probe, poke, pinch, taser, search, seize, strip and generally manhandle anyone they see fit in almost any circumstance, all with the general blessing of the courts.

This is what one would call a slow death by a thousand cuts, only it’s the Fourth Amendment being inexorably bled to death by the very institution that is supposed to be protecting it (and us) from government abuse.

Remember, it was a unanimous Supreme Court which determined that police officers may use drug-sniffing dogs to conduct warrantless searches of cars during routine traffic stops. That same Court gave police the green light to taser defenseless motorists, strip search non-violent suspects arrested for minor incidents, and break down people’s front doors without evidence that they have done anything wrong.

Make no mistake about it: this is what constitutes “law and order” in the American police state.

These are the hallmarks of the emerging American police state, where police officers, no longer mere servants of the people entrusted with keeping the peace, are part of an elite ruling class dependent on keeping the masses corralled, under control, and treated like suspects and enemies rather than citizens.

Whether it’s police officers breaking through people’s front doors and shooting them dead in their homes or strip searching motorists on the side of the road, in a police state such as ours, these instances of abuse are not condemned by the government. Rather, they are continually validated by a judicial system that kowtows to every police demand, no matter how unjust, no matter how in opposition to the Constitution.

The system is rigged.

Because the system is rigged and the U.S. Supreme Court—the so-called “people’s court”—has exchanged its appointed role as a gatekeeper of justice for its new role as maintainer of the status quo, the police state will keep winning and “we the people” will keep losing.

By refusing to accept any of the eight or so qualified immunity cases before it this past term that strove to hold police accountable for official misconduct, the Supreme Court delivered a chilling reminder that in the American police state, ‘we the people’ are at the mercy of law enforcement officers who have almost absolute discretion to decide who is a threat, what constitutes resistance, and how harshly they can deal with the citizens they were appointed to ‘serve and protect.”

This is how qualified immunity keeps the police state in power.

Lawyers tend to offer a lot of complicated, convoluted explanations for the doctrine of qualified immunity, which was intended to insulate government officials from frivolous lawsuits, but the real purpose of qualified immunity is to rig the system, ensuring that abusive agents of the government almost always win and the victims of government abuse almost always lose.

How else do you explain a doctrine that requires victims of police violence to prove that their abusers knew their behavior was illegal because it had been deemed so in a nearly identical case at some prior time?

It’s a setup for failure.

A review of critical court rulings over the past several decades, including rulings affirming qualified immunity protections for government agents by the U.S. Supreme Court, reveals a startling and steady trend towards pro-police state rulings by an institution concerned more with establishing order, protecting the ruling class, and insulating government agents from charges of wrongdoing than with upholding the rights enshrined in the Constitution.

Indeed, as Reuters reports, qualified immunity “has become a nearly failsafe tool to let police brutality go unpunished and deny victims their constitutional rights.”

Worse, as Reuters concluded, “the Supreme Court has built qualified immunity into an often insurmountable police defense by intervening in cases mostly to favor the police.”

For those in need of a reminder of all the ways in which the Supreme Court has made us sitting ducks at the mercy of the American police state, let me offer the following.

As a result of court rulings in recent years, police can claim qualified immunity for warrantless searches. Police can claim qualified immunity for warrantless arrests based on mere suspicion. Police can claim qualified immunity for using excessive force against protesters. Police can claim qualified immunity for shooting a fleeing suspect in the back. Police can claim qualified immunity for shooting a mentally impaired person. Police officers can use lethal force in car chases without fear of lawsuits. Police can stop, arrest and search citizens without reasonable suspicion or probable cause.  Police officers can stop cars based on “anonymous” tips or for “suspicious” behavior such as having a reclined car seat or driving too carefully. Police can forcibly take your DNA, whether or not you’ve been convicted of a crime.  Police can use the “fear for my life” rationale as an excuse for shooting unarmed individuals. Police have free reign to use drug-sniffing dogs as “search warrants on leashes.” Not only are police largely protected by qualified immunity, but police dogs are also off the hook for wrongdoing.

Police can subject Americans to strip searches, no matter the “offense.” Police can break into homes without a warrant, even if it’s the wrong home. Police can use knock-and-talk tactics as a means of sidestepping the Fourth Amendment. Police can carry out no-knock raids if they believe announcing themselves would be dangerous. Police can recklessly open fire on anyone that might be “armed.” Police can destroy a home during a SWAT raid, even if the owner gives their consent to enter and search it. Police can suffocate someone, deliberately or inadvertently, in the process of subduing them.

To sum it up, we are dealing with a nationwide epidemic of court-sanctioned police violence carried out with impunity against individuals posing little or no real threat. In this way, the justices of the United States Supreme Court—through their deference to police power, preference for security over freedom, and evisceration of our most basic rights for the sake of order and expediency—have become the architects of the American police state.

So where does that leave us?

For those deluded enough to believe that they’re living the American dream—where the government represents the people, where the people are equal in the eyes of the law, where the courts are arbiters of justice, where the police are keepers of the peace, and where the law is applied equally as a means of protecting the rights of the people—it’s time to wake up.

We no longer have a representative government, a rule of law, or justice.

Liberty has fallen to legalism. Freedom has fallen to fascism.

Justice has become jaded, jaundiced and just plain unjust.

And for too many, the American dream of freedom and opportunity has turned into a living nightmare.

Given the turbulence of our age, with its police overreach, military training drills on American soil, domestic surveillance, SWAT team raids, asset forfeiture, wrongful convictions, profit-driven prisons, and corporate corruption, the need for a guardian of the people’s rights has never been greater.

Yet as I make clear in my book Battlefield America: The War on the American People,, neither the president, nor the legislatures, nor the courts will save us from the police state that holds us in its clutches.

So we can waste our strength over the next few weeks and months raging over the makeup of the Supreme Court or we can stand united against the tyrant in our midst.

After all, the president, the legislatures, and the courts are all on the government’s payroll.

They are the police state.

WC: 1995

ABOUT JOHN W. WHITEHEAD

Constitutional attorney and author John W. Whitehead is founder and president of The Rutherford Institute. His new book Battlefield America: The War on the American People  is available at www.amazon.com. Whitehead can be contacted at johnw@rutherford.org.

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Why the State Exists – LewRockwell

Posted by M. C. on September 23, 2020

The simple answer is this: the State exists as an excuse for those who want to do things they know they cannot morally or legally do on their own, which includes both enriching themselves and “helping” others through the use of force and theft. It is, as Bastiat would say, a way to legally plunder.

https://www.lewrockwell.com/2020/09/derek-dobalian/why-the-state-exists/

By

Why does the State exist? Traditionally, the answer given to this question was that the State is a way to organize common defense. In other words, it is the best way for a group of individuals to join together to provide protection for each other. Now, today nobody pretends to actually believe this is the case, that this is why the State exists. Modern statists tell us the State exists to do us good, to “help” everyone, to make things fair. This view has become widespread because the original common defense justification, while sounding reasonable, completely falls apart when applied to society in reality. Why? Because while this original justification could be true of the original founders of such a state, that does not mean the agreement was accepted by later generations. Why should future generations be bound to an agreement they were not a party to? The answer of course is that they should not be. Thus, since we know the State does not actually exist for common defense (and that this is a mere façade), we must ask why the State truly exists, or what the real motives are behind those who advocate for the State.

The simple answer is this: the State exists as an excuse for those who want to do things they know they cannot morally or legally do on their own, which includes both enriching themselves and “helping” others through the use of force and theft. It is, as Bastiat would say, a way to legally plunder. For example, an individual cannot rob a rich person legally if he decides to give that stolen money to a poor man. But all of a sudden this becomes moral when a collection of people do so? Statists claim that the State can do these things because it represents “us”, or “society”, and that “society” has certain rights. This, of course, is not only nonsensical, but absolutely immoral. For what is “society,” but just a collection of people? Do people gain more rights when they gang up against a certain individual? Or do we all have equal rights? Christians believe God created us in His image and gave us all the same natural rights, not that some are naturally deserving of greater rights than others. How can a Christian argue that God commands an individual not to commit an evil act (such as forcibly taking another’s property), but at the same time say “society” can commit that very act? Does an evil act become moral if it is instead carried out by several people? Not only is there nothing in Scripture that supports such a theory, there is simply nothing logical or rational about it. Thus, “society” cannot have rights. And if society does not have rights, then anything it does (to the extent “society” does anything) is wrong if it violates God’s moral commands for individuals.

In conclusion, the State exists in order to plunder those who do not control it. Christians ought to acknowledge that this is the very nature of the State and that it does not comport with the Biblical view of morality.

The Best of Derek Dobalian

Derek W. Dobalian [send him mail] is a licensed attorney in Los Angeles, CA. His writing focuses on Christianity and political philosophy.
 
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Alexander Hamilton: Centralist and Nationalist | Mises Wire

Posted by M. C. on September 22, 2020

Similarly, Hamilton’s twisting of the General Welfare Clause has been the excuse for much of the federal activity we see today. His version of it has been continuously expanded, and since the 1930s it has been a blank slate for the federal government to tax and spend on anything it wants. It’s cited so much that many people today actually believe that the General Welfare Clause permits government action “so long as it provides for the general welfare.”

https://mises.org/wire/alexander-hamilton-centralist-and-nationalist?utm_source=Mises+Institute+Subscriptions&utm_campaign=ef8e3eb42d-EMAIL_CAMPAIGN_9_21_2018_9_59_COPY_01&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_8b52b2e1c0-ef8e3eb42d-228343965

Listen to the Audio Mises Wire version of this article.

The September 11, 2001, terror attacks shocked the world, leaving ramifications still felt nineteen years later. Few are familiar with the Republic’s first 9/11 tragedy, September 11, 1789, the day Alexander Hamilton was appointed secretary of the Treasury.

Hamilton is glorified as a hero in popular culture, even the subject of a hit Broadway musical bearing his name. He’s the darling of both mainstream progressives and conservatives—usually a telltale sign that someone is one of the worst of the worst. Part of the adoration for Hamilton comes from his rags-to-riches story. Born fatherless in the Caribbean and soon orphaned, it can’t be denied that getting an education in New York, serving as General Washington’s chief aide, and becoming a leading political figure is an impressive turn of events. Progressives love pointing to Hamilton for their “nation of immigrants” narrative, which doesn’t make sense since Hamilton was born in the British Empire. Hamilton, the übernationalist, is also cited by the neocons as their missing link from the founding to their “one nation” and “America as a propositional nation” mythologies. Getting beyond the romanticization, Hamilton’s agenda set the table to give the federal government the tools to erode liberty over the next 230 years.

Hamilton has, perhaps, done more damage to the United States than any other American figure, even Woodrow Wilson and Abraham Lincoln, two more beloved icons of the mainstream. Hamilton was an opportunist, liar, and duplicitous. His vision paved the way to create a nearly unlimited central authority with no checks on its power, contrary to the principles of limited and self-government that many believed they had put in place for the new republic in 1788.

The Bait and Switch

Hamilton knew how to play the crowd. When it was time to ratify the Constitution, the republican Antifederalists feared a strong, central authority. He assured them only the powers expressly delegated to the federal government would be the ones it would have. The second the Constitution was in effect, Hamilton flipped the script.

One such example is in Federalist essay no. 21, Hamilton said that tariffs were better for the economy than direct taxes. Just three years later, he changed his tune and advocated for a laundry list of direct taxes, which played a part in leading to insurrections such as the Whiskey Rebellion.

In Federalist 33, Hamilton said that the Necessary and Proper Clause was harmless and wouldn’t confer any powers to the federal government not expressly delegated to it. He once again flipped the script in office, citing the exact same clause to take federal action not delegated, such as establishing the First National Bank.

When it came to the General Welfare Clause, Richard Henry Lee was concerned that it would be used for “every possible object of human legislation.” Hamilton retorted that Lee’s fears were “absurd.” In office, Hamilton again pulled the bait and switch, relying on this clause as an excuse to do anything and everything, saying the clause allowed for “a vast variety of particulars neither of specification nor definition.”

Hamilton also claimed the Supreme Court would be the weakest part of the government, unable to do anything against the other two branches. Later on, he helped organize the judiciary to become superior to both the Congress and the states.

Hamilton’s Contributions: Taxes, Central Banking, and Cronyism

As first secretary of the Treasury, Hamilton had President Washington’s ear, using this influence to set his nationalist agenda. His list of “accomplishments”—or should I say “abominations”—includes: centralizing power, high taxes, and crony capitalism, just to name a few.

Hamilton’s pet project was establishing the First National Bank in 1791, a central banking system that was a precursor to the Federal Reserve the US now has, which is responsible for so much economic instability. The federal government didn’t have the money for the bank; Hamilton suggested the bank just borrow from itself. He even went as far as to say the public debt “was a public blessing.”

He had proposed the idea of a central bank in 1787, but it was immediately shot down in Philadelphia. With the idea being this unpopular, it was quite a surprise to many of that generation that one was established just a few years later. James Madison saw no constitutional authority for it, Attorney General Edmund Randolph opposed it, and Thomas Jefferson said the Necessary and Proper clause didn’t permit it. Hamilton’s response was that “necessary” meant “no more than needful, requisite, useful, and conducive to.”

Hamilton also got his way when it came to war debts. The question of how states would pay these came up, Hamilton proposed an assumption scheme where the federal government would take on all the states’ debts. This drew red flags for two reasons. First, taking on these debts would expand the power and scope of what was supposed to be a very limited federal government. Second, Southern states had paid off most of their debt—Virginia had altogether. New England states still had most of their debt unpaid. This policy would have the Southern states foot the bill for the Northern states through increased taxes. Madison and Jefferson opposed this unfair plan at first but eventually conceded in the Compromise of 1790, which put the US capitol in the South in exchange for Hamiltion’s assumption scheme.

Hamilton knew that high taxes would be essential for a central government to do all the meddling he wanted. His list of taxes included the “whiskey tax” which unduly burdened farmers in the west who struggled transporting cumbersome grain over the Appalachian mountains. His crony plan gave unfair tax breaks to large distillers in the east. Those on the western frontier refused to pay. Many of them were veterans of the Revolution who thought the tax went against the very principles they had just fought for. Hamilton kept prodding Washington, who wanted to be a moderate on the issue, to use force to crush the insurrection. Eventually Hamilton got his way and in 1794 thousands of federal troops were sent in to squash the rebellion and show off the might of the federal government.

Hamilton’s Legacy

Hamilton turned the Constitution on its head in office to get away with anything he wanted. This set the precedent for legal scholars and judges alike to read anything into the Constitution that served their political agenda.

Hamilton’s ally John Marshall became the fourth chief justice of the Supreme Court and used Hamilton’s influence to forever change our constitutional order when the ink on the document was barely dry. Marshall’s decision in Marbury v. Madison gave the Supreme Court power of judicial review, allowing it to interpret the Constitution however it wants. He also ruled in McCulloch v. Maryland that federal law was above state law—a complete abomination to the federal system the founders had set in place. These decisions ensured that Hamiltion got his way—a centralized system with an authority that has no checks on it.

Hamilton’s bait and switch on the Necessary and Proper Clause has been used to give the federal government complete control over currency. It has also been used with the Commerce Clause to allow the federal government to regulate anything it wants. This started to take root with New Deal legislation, a prime example being Wickard v. Filburn, in which it was held that the federal government can regulate commerce even when purely intrastate.

Similarly, Hamilton’s twisting of the General Welfare Clause has been the excuse for much of the federal activity we see today. His version of it has been continuously expanded, and since the 1930s it has been a blank slate for the federal government to tax and spend on anything it wants. It’s cited so much that many people today actually believe that the General Welfare Clause permits government action “so long as it provides for the general welfare.”

While Hamilton is glorified by power hungry nationalists, remember that his appointment to the federal government was America’s first 9/11 tragedy. If you like high taxes, crony capitalism, central banking, the states relegated to mere corporations, a central authority that can regulate everything you do, and a judiciary that can do anything it wants, thank Alexander Hamilton.

Author:

Daren A. Wiseley

Daren Wiseley has a J.D. from Indiana University. More of his work can be found at choosewiseley.org.

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The Syria Boondoggle: Who’s Ready to Die in Vain? – Antiwar.com Original

Posted by M. C. on September 22, 2020

Finally, take a breath and remember the trivial scale of what this latest reinforcement is actually immediately responding to. No shots were fired in a side-swiping road rage incident on Syria’s Mad Max-like roads. As a result, seven American troops – who shouldn’t have been in the damn country in the first place – were treated for concussion-like symptoms and have already returned to duty.

https://original.antiwar.com/?p=2012340985

by

Mark my words: an American soldier will soon die for next to nothing in Syria. Here’s a mission that takes all the absurdity of America’s post-9/11 wars of choice to their logical conclusion. As such, this muddled and aimless operation must stand forever tall in the pantheon of U.S. foreign policy folly – right up there with the three Seminole Wars (1817-18, 1835-42, 1855-58, 1,608 dead troops); Nicaraguan “Banana Wars” (1910, 1912-25, 1927-33, 159 dead); the Russian Civil War’s “Siberia” intervention (1918-20, 424 dead); “Desert One” botched Iran hostage rescue (1980, 8 dead); Beirut “peacekeeping” (1982-84, 265 dead); the Grenada invasion (1983, 19 dead); and Somalia (1992-94, 43 dead). So, in Trump’s defense – and that of the Washington crowd that’s repeatedly pressured him to stay the Syria course – his latest folly is in good company.

Of course, US service-members have already died in Syria – about ten so far. Not that many Americans much noticed. When the last soldier died in a “very unfortunate mishap,” General Kenneth P. Ekman, deputy commander of Combined Joint Task Force Operation Inherent Resolve (the ongoing mission in Iraq and Syria) assured reporters that there were “no indications that any Russian activity existed in the area” or that the patrol was “anything other than a normal patrol.” Have no fear though, since Ekman added that the deceased was “important to the mission.”

Well now, amidst a whole range of post-Russiagate alarmism, an Afghan “bounty” scandal that wasn’t, and in response to the (gasp!) Russian “ramming” of an American party three weeks ago, Washington is sending in reinforcements to buck up that US military non-mission in Syria. This ought to up the odds of another service-member dying for nothing, or, if we’re really lucky – kick off an unnecessary shooting war with the world’s only other nuclear superpower. Either way, we’ll largely have the Trump-obsessed Democrats and hawkish establishment Republicans to blame.

So what sort of cavalry is inbound to save the day and – per the New York Times headline – “counter the Russians” in Syria? You guessed it: just enough to get a handful of Americans killed and/or spark a foolish fight, but far too few to change the combat calculus on the ground. Wait for it now. The Pentagon just added about 100 troops – some mechanized infantry, Sentinel radar and an increased the frequency of fighter jet patrols – to the existent 500 or so soldiers in Syria. Striking!

Well, what will they do there exactly? Demonstrate “US resolve to defend Coalition forces in the [Eastern Syria Security Area], and to ensure that they are able to continue their Defeat-ISIS mission without interference,” according to the lifeless email language of US Central Command spokesman Navy Captain Bill Urban. But wait – I thought this essential infusion of troops was meant to counter the nefarious Russians. No, no, Uncle Sam only sends its armed peacemakers 6,000 miles from home to defend themselves, God, country, and worldwide freedom, naturally. After all, Urban added, “The United States does not seek conflict with any other nation in Syria, but will defend Coalition forces if necessary.” That’s refreshing.

This much is increasingly, if disturbingly, clear: the folks reporting, advising, and crafting strategy for Syria, haven’t the faintest idea about what’s really going on there. Seriously, it’s no longer mandatory for pundits, politicians, or policymakers to know any things about Syria in order to tell us what to think, and decide what to do in our name.

The cycle of farce goes something like this: partisan self-styled “experts” gin up an ostensible interest in a far-flung land; then send in some troops, who enter a confusing complexity that looks nothing like they’d been briefed; a few get killed; their bodies are flown in the night to that ubiquitous Dover, Delaware airbase; then, either no one notices nor remembers why they’d been deployed in the first place, or chickenhawk pundits and politicians wave their flag-draped coffins to blame Russia, Iran, or whichever “enemy” favor-of-the-moment will win them partisan points. Rinse and repeat – devastated mothers and spouses from forgotten corners of America be damned!

So back to that inevitably future dead American soldier(s). Let us review just what he or she will die for exactly when his or her vehicle accidentally rolls over, aircraft crashes, patrol is bombed, or a futile firefight goes south. Well there’s always the ISIS-defeat sub-mission (disingenuously billed as Inherent Resolve’s inherent resolution raison d’être) – but the caliphate is kaput and the pervading presence of America’s infidel crusaders only justifies the jihadis lingering terror campaign. Then there’s the mission that speaks Trump’s language – protecting the corrupt and illegal concessions of Delta Crescent Energy. In other words staying on in Syria, “only for the oil” – according to the president. Of course, it’s not much oil – only an anemic 24,000 barrels per day – something like 1/500th the daily output of Saudi Arabia. So that by itself won’t do.

Enter the establishment favorite mission not-so-secretly proffered by foreign policy insiders in-the-know: “Stay in Syria to Counter Iran” (a Republican congressman in The Hill); for “as long as Iranian troops are outside Iranian borders” (former National-Security Adviser John Bolton); lest we “hand northern Syria to Turkey” as a “gift to Russia, Iran, and ISIS” (per former Syria special envoy, Brett McGurk, in CNBC); otherwise, “Russia Is Pleased to Fill an American Void” (New York Times).

All of which amounts to what a rare astute Atlantic headline diagnosed as “America’s Indefinite Endgame in Syria.” And that’s just what this madness is – an indefinite, intractable intervention without any positive prospects or exit strategy to speak of. In other words, par for the strategically senseless post-9/11 American course.

You know, I remember all the right-wing (and alarmist, if not altogether inaccurate) pejorative pronouncements about a “feckless” President Barack Obama. Yet what if not feckless should we call a current commander-in-chief who’s repeatedly – and ironically – allowed himself to be bullied into maintaining multiple Mideast missions he’s persistently promised to end? I thought The Donald was supposed to be a tough guy, a truth-teller, a system-shaker, and altogether above the swamp-like establishment fray. That was all bunk – as oughta been obvious from Jump Street.

No, President Trump’s foreign policy is at best a vaguely transactional web of ignorance, insecurity and cognitive dissonance. Heck, this new deployment came on the same day the man declared that American troops “are out of Syria,” except to guard oil fields – “Other than that, we are out of Syria.” Plus, none of Trump’s meager troop and equipment infusions have a chance in hell of deranged Democrats made mad by the smell of impending electoral blood.

It’s too very late for all that. No, the opposition-in-waiting has already seized on the vehicle-ramming-episode to reemphasize Trump’s supposed failure to challenge Moscow’s meddling, over-hyped electoral interference, and unproven bounty program in Afghanistan (evidence for this “searched for” but as yet unseen, per, you know, Gen. Frank McKenzie, US military commander of the entire Middle East).

In fact, Trump’s current Syria reinforcement comes three full weeks after his November opponent Joe Biden rebuked him in a Pennsylvania speech for failing to publicly address the Russia-“altercation” in Syria: “Did you hear the president say a single word? Did he lift one finger?” Yet now that The Donald has acquiesced to lifting about 100 (sets of ten) extra troop fingers in the region, don’t expect any applause, retractions, or rebuke-relief from his opponents in both wings of the hawkish duopoly. And whatever you do, don’t expect anything approaching victory, meaningful improvement, or even marginal alteration of the facts on the Syrian ground as a result of a few additional armored vehicles, radars, and combat aircraft sorties. The mission remains a quixotic quagmire – as all asinine adventures must.

All the while, in reading the key mainstream media headlines and obligatory politician soundbites on this latest Syria reinforcement, I’ve yet to hear tell of one salient, if inconvenient, fact: the Russians, unlike Uncle Sam’s usurpers, were invited to Syria. Now, I don’t think for a second that the host, Assad, is a do-gooder, or that Putin patronized the party out of the kindness of his heart. Still, General McKenzie’s word choice for his Russia-blaming last week felt strangely obtuse, yet uncritically accepted by his New York Times interviewers. “They [Russian troops] were in an area they were not supposed to be,” he said. “They were not in an area that they had received permission to go to. And their actions were frankly reckless at the tactical level.” Says who? Permission from whom? – one might ask, in a country with a truly independent and oppositional free press.

Oh, and here’s another tidbit to ruminate over: the Assad regime’s Moscow/Tehran-assisted de facto victory in the Syrian Civil War is hardly a setback for “core US interests.” Rather, it amounts to little more than the pre-2011 status quo. Assad’s relationships with Russia and Iran are decades old, and the Washington never had much influence or interest in Damascus anyway. The original (purported) mission in Syria is now obsolete.

The Islamic State’s physical caliphate is history, and none of the players in Syria’s conflict cornucopia would countenance its reprise – not Assad, Putin, Khameini, nor the Kurds; heck, probably not even Turkey’s Erdogan. Postwar Syria is a broken mess, a less serviceable ally for Moscow or Tehran, and a Levantine land full of risks and without detectable reward. So, let’s keep our troops out of needless harm’s way, and let the “bad boys” have the place.

Finally, take a breath and remember the trivial scale of what this latest reinforcement is actually immediately responding to. No shots were fired in a side-swiping road rage incident on Syria’s Mad Max-like roads. As a result, seven American troops – who shouldn’t have been in the damn country in the first place – were treated for concussion-like symptoms and have already returned to duty.

Per McKenzie, again: “What saved the situation was the very good judgment of small unit US Army commanders on the ground…I’m just glad I got those kind of people out there making decisions.” Well, ole Kenneth now has 100 more good people of sound judgment to order around in this meaningless maelstrom.

Some are bound to get killed. Thanks Obama Donald!

Danny Sjursen is a retired US Army officer, contributing editor at Antiwar.com, senior fellow at the Center for International Policy (CIP), and director of the soon-to-launch Eisenhower Media Network (EMN). His work has appeared in the NY Times, LA Times, The Nation, Huff Post, The Hill, Salon, The American Conservative, Mother Jones, ScheerPost and Tom Dispatch, among other publications. He served combat tours in Iraq and Afghanistan and later taught history at West Point. He is the author of a memoir and critical analysis of the Iraq War, Ghostriders of Baghdad: Soldiers, Civilians, and the Myth of the Surge and Patriotic Dissent: America in the Age of Endless War. Along with fellow vet Chris “Henri” Henriksen, he co-hosts the podcast “Fortress on a Hill.” Follow him on Twitter @SkepticalVet and on his website for media requests and past publications.

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Unmasked | Porcupine Musings

Posted by M. C. on September 22, 2020

One of the problems with models is their perception by the public as infallible fonts of knowledge. The media reinforces this narrative by credulously reporting model-based claims without any scrutiny. They never consider questioning the underlying assumptions built into the models. Models are easily manipulated. They are malleable and versatile instruments. In the hands of a virtuoso they can play any tune. They are tools of science, but they are not science themselves.

https://porcupine-musings.org/2020/09/17/unmasked/

“We know that wearing a mask outside health care facilities offers little, if any, protection from infection. Public health authorities define a significant exposure to Covid-19 as face-to-face contact within 6 feet with a patient with symptomatic Covid-19 that is sustained for at least a few minutes (and some say more than 10 minutes or even 30 minutes). The chance of catching Covid-19 from a passing interaction in a public space is therefore minimal. In many cases, the desire for widespread masking is a reflexive reaction to anxiety over the pandemic.”

New England Journal of Medicine, 2020; 382:363

These days everyone imagines himself or herself to be a scientist. Scolds, who labor under the delusion that reading the New York Times is equivalent to holding a doctorate, unceasingly inflict on us finger-wagging lectures about how we need to “listen to the science” when it comes to masks. Apparently “masks work” because “The Science™” says so. Newsflash: these media figures and self-styled authorities aren’t (largely) scientists and know not of what they speak. As a scientist myself I feel compelled to set the record straight on what is, and is not, science. For those degreed scientists out there parroting the mask propaganda: for shame, you should know better. Cherry picking, selection bias, anecdotal data, and dubious models have no place in the arsenal of scientific inquiry. 

What is the claim built on?

Here’s the problem with “the science” about masks: the media cited studies are built on a foundation of sand. They are based on computer models1, anecdotal stories2, theoretical mechanistic (non-biological) analysis, or hypothetical contra factual scenarios.1 In short, if the conclusion of a study rests on “this would have happened” then that is not science. Science does not compare contra factual or hypothetical scenarios. It analyzes concrete, reproducible, controlled conditions (that are broad enough to be statistically valid).  In every single story where there has been a reference made to evidence that “masks work” and I have drilled down through the 42 layers of links to get at the actual research document, it turns out the study is, surprise, based on a contra factual model, anecdote, or purely mechanistic study. Every. Single. Time. How do models support the claims? They make a “post-diction” for an alternate universe where masks were not deployed. Then they compare those values to the real world and wouldn’t you know, the numbers are lower when masks are used. The non-scientist with little time to drill down to the source will credulously accept what is read. Why shouldn’t they? An “authority” was cited and we’ve been trained from childhood to be predisposed toward trusting those perceived to be “in charge”. This is why whenever one questions the mask narrative the response is invariably “so and so said they work.” This is nothing more than the common logical fallacy known as an appeal to authority. Such a response deflects the inquiry, it does not answer it. When you encounter an appeal to authority your BS meter should max out. We should take every news story with a grain of salt and seek answers to the artfully omitted questions. Everyone has an agenda, even me. My agenda is to set the record straight and not allow the noble scientific profession to be prostituted in service of state propaganda. I encourage the reader to question and consider my assertions and to verify my claims by the references provided.

Question the models

One of the problems with models is their perception by the public as infallible fonts of knowledge. The media reinforces this narrative by credulously reporting model-based claims without any scrutiny. They never consider questioning the underlying assumptions built into the models. Models are easily manipulated. They are malleable and versatile instruments. In the hands of a virtuoso they can play any tune. They are tools of science, but they are not science themselves. Science is not SimCity. Science is doing real work in the real world to gather real data. Once one has collected data, then one may develop a model – based on that data – to make predictions about the future. Those predictions are then tested (i.e. the prediction is falsifiable). It is impossible to check a post-diction for a contra factual universe. The impossibility of such verification precludes falsifiability of the claim and in doing so removes it from the realm of science toward “what-if” fantasy. 

Evidence against the claim?

The reader might now be wondering, “well where is the evidence against masks?” Sorry, that’s not how science works. Those making the novel claim carry the onus to support it. You have to prove your claim; I do not have to disprove it. A claim cannot be said to be true because there does not yet exist evidence disproving it. This is the same as the foundation of our legal system; innocent until proven guilty. Guilt is a novel positive claim and must be proven. Were this also not the standard in science, then one could claim ghosts exist because no one has definitively proven they do not exist. With that said, because the “masks work” claim is a scientific one it is therefore subject to falsifiability. If it is true, then we should see fewer real world infections when use vs. non-use scenarios are compared.. Is that what we see? Unfortunately, no. There are a number of studies in the literature from the pre-Covid era regarding real world mask effectiveness at limiting contagions. In short none of them demonstrated any statistically significant diminishment in real world viral spread. 3,4,5,6,7,8,9,10,11

Correlation not Causation

The lack of substantive empirical data in real world environments has shifted the focus toward teasing out a positive correlation between mask use and case loads by reviewing case counts across cities, states, and countries over time. One may certainly cherry pick a country, state or time frame where mask use is high and case rates are low. But for every one of those you can find several more that counter it.12,13,14,15,16,17,18,19 The scientific method demands one looks at all the data, not just the data that confirms the preconceived conclusion (selection bias). When all localities are analyzed, the aggregate results demonstrate zero correlation between masks and case counts. Zero. However, even this is a bad metric for both sides. There are simply way too many variables at play to claim this one thing (masks) had an effect or did not relative to other competing influences. However it certainly doesn’t help the “masks work” camp that the vast majority of such comparisons show no correlation or a negative correlation (i.e. better outcomes in low mask use localities). Correlation does not prove causation; but, it is impossible to have causation without correlation.

At what cost?

Compelled mask wearing (along with all the other various restrictions on normal life) is morally equivalent to the banning of alcohol, drugs, and firearms: a handful might be irresponsible so all must suffer the remedy in order to protect a vanishingly small minority. This mode of thinking, sacrificing the many in favor of a few, does not come without costs. The reflexive objection here is that the benefits could be substantial while the costs should be minimal. Perhaps in March that approach might have been sound given the ignorance surrounding what we were dealing with. But here we are months later and it has become clear who is at risk and who is not. It has become clear that widespread mask use does not correlate well with reduced cases. 12,13,14,15,16,17,18,19   It has become clear that asymptomatic spread is a negligible risk vector.20 Countries such as Canada, Australia, and even Sweden have much lower mask compliance but with equal or lower case loads and deaths per capita than the US.21 If the effect was substantially beneficial we would not expect this outcome. A benefit too small to be measured must be weighed against a cost that is measurable. The longer people suffer under these mandates the costs come into greater focus. Interacting with a sea of faceless zombies is disrupting normal social cues, interactions, and at some level social cohesion itself. A smile can brighten ones day. Sadly, those are cancelled for now. This is stressful to the human psyche in a way that is not easily accountable. Theoretically solitary confinement shouldn’t be mentally taxing – and yet perplexingly it is among the harshest of punishments. Social interaction matters. Likewise on the individual level there are increasing reports of inflamed skin conditions and fungal infections from prolonged mask use.22 Further, fatigue and “brain fog” are elevated by long-term excess CO2 inhalation.23 No, masks do not decrease oxygen intake, but they do increase CO2 intake  – even the pro-mask camp admits that – although they try to hand wave it away by disclaiming that such high levels of CO2 are “tolerable” or pose no “serious” health risk. But, just because something is tolerable or not serious does not mean it is ideal either. No air conditioning on a 95 °F day is “tolerable” too but I doubt many would enjoy it long term. Would you forgo air conditioning forever if you were told it would save 10 lives? I suspect few would willingly partake in that offer. We are allowing the scolds to rhetorically guilt us into a corner where non-compliance with their arbitrary dictates is equated with sociopathic behavior merely because it is claimed a life could be saved. That is a dangerous precedent. It opens the door to justifying any demand upon one’s behavior if one meekly submits. 

What should be done

A more effective strategy would be to shift from indiscriminate universal mandates and toward targeted and individualized interventions. Resources are limited and should be focused and not scattered about. For example, N95 masks do largely protect the wearer. Unless regulations are impeding production, there is no reason supplies should be constrained anymore. If there are regulations, then remove them.  If you are concerned about exposure to yourself, wear a properly fitted N95 mask. This would be self-regulating in direct proportion to its effectiveness. If cases went up, then more people would opt to don masks, which would then drive the cases back down. Because the proportion of society at elevated risk (mostly those above age 70 with health conditions) is a minority there should be no issue in supply of such masks. Additionally, there is some limited mechanistic evidence that surgical (not cloth) masks may be useful in limiting droplets and aerosols in ill patients (although the viral load found was barely measurable even without the mask).24,25 This may be useful in a health care or home setting. Restricting such mask use to those at risk (N95) or actively sick (surgical) has the added benefit of signaling to everyone around them that they are to be avoided. Targeted social distancing would be vastly superior to a universal mandate. Fatigue over this standard among the clearly healthy leads to lapses in maintaining it. Let those at low to no risk foster herd immunity while staying distanced from those who are sick or at risk. We all have a role to play. It is counterproductive to force all to play the exact same role. Allow the healthy to be exposed (natural vaccination) to build herd immunity while focusing protective resources on those actually at serious risk.

Individualized measures based on a person’s risk profile are how this country and the rest of the world handled such decennial pandemics up until now. The strategy this year: lockdowns, social distancing, universal mask mandates – these are the unprecedented policies that should be scrutinized with a skeptical, critical, science based, analysis. 

 

Gregory Morin  @gregtmorin

B.S., Chemistry, Emory University

M.S., Chemistry, Emory University

Ph.D., Organic Chemistry, University of Notre Dame

List of Citations

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Exposed: There’s a new federal court to handle all the expected -COVID vaccine injury claims « Jon Rappoport’s Blog

Posted by M. C. on September 22, 2020

“We know—and don’t ask us how—that millions of you are going to get headaches. To prevent that, we’re going to hit all of you on the head with a very heavy sledgehammer. If, ahem, a few of you happen to sustain an injury or die, we have a court where your relatives can try to get money out of us. By the way, in this court, we’ll do everything we can to deny you money. Good luck.”

Yes, the government knows exactly what’s coming when they approve a COVID vaccine. And now, so do you.

https://blog.nomorefakenews.com/2020/09/21/exposed-new-federal-court-to-handle-expected-covid-vaccine-injury-claims/

by Jon Rappoport

(To join our email list, click here.)

The simple truth is: the US government is anticipating many people will be filing claims for compensation, when their family members are harmed or killed by a new COVID vaccine.

Of course, the government isn’t coming right out and admitting that.

The press will tout the usual excuses for injury and death. “He died from COVID, not the vaccine.” “Well, there was just one bad batch of vaccines.” “Because COVID is such a dire situation, and we’re rushing to save lives, a few mistakes are inevitable.”

Anything but the truth: GUESS WHAT, THE VACCINE IS HIGHLY TOXIC.

This new federal vaccine court for COVID will operate exactly like the present system for paying out claims for vaccine injury to children. Citizens have to jump through many absurd hoops and navigate all sorts of red tape, to try to squeeze money out of the federal government. The system is set up that way. It’s your basic bureaucratic nightmare.

The language that establishes the new COVID vaccine court is found in the Federal Register, 3/17/20, buried in section 14 of a document titled: “Declaration Under the Public Readiness and Emergency Preparedness Act for Medical Countermeasures Against COVID-19.”

Here is the relevant passage in that document:

“Countermeasures Injury Compensation Program…Section 319F-4 of the PHS Act, 42 U.S.C. 247d-6e, authorizes the Countermeasures Injury Compensation Program (CICP) to provide benefits to eligible individuals who sustain a serious physical injury or die as a direct result of the administration or use of a Covered [COVID] Countermeasure [e.g., a vaccine]. Compensation under the CICP for an injury directly caused by a Covered Countermeasure is based on the requirements set forth in this Declaration, the administrative rules for the Program, and the statute. To show direct causation between a Covered Countermeasure and a serious physical injury, the statute requires ‘compelling, reliable, valid, medical and scientific evidence.’ The administrative rules for the Program further explain the necessary requirements for eligibility under the CICP…”

(The US military’s webpage that explains the CICP to US soldiers is here.)

A quick piece of important history. In the mid-1980s, vaccine manufacturers were facing a blizzard of law suits from parents of vaccine-injured children. The very nervous manufacturers told the government they were going to get out of the vaccine business. The financial hit was going to be too deep.

The government said WAIT. Meetings were held. A plan was devised. A law was passed exempting the manufacturers from financial liability.

Instead, for any of the recommended childhood vaccines, parents had to go to a government court to file a claim for compensation, after their children had been injured or killed by a vaccine.

And the government made this court a VERY tough place to win compensation.

That’s the precise model for this new COVID vaccine court. And it’s based on the same unstated confession that existed in the 1980s: there are MANY vaccine injuries.

Bottom line: the government expects many COVID vaccine injuries.

That’s what they aren’t saying. They’re just preparing. With a new vaccine court. To handle injury and death of children and adults.

That should not give you a warm secure feeling.

Quite the opposite.

“We know—and don’t ask us how—that millions of you are going to get headaches. To prevent that, we’re going to hit all of you on the head with a very heavy sledgehammer. If, ahem, a few of you happen to sustain an injury or die, we have a court where your relatives can try to get money out of us. By the way, in this court, we’ll do everything we can to deny you money. Good luck.”

Yes, the government knows exactly what’s coming when they approve a COVID vaccine. And now, so do you.

The Matrix Revealed

(To read about Jon’s mega-collection, The Matrix Revealed, click here.)

Jon Rappoport

The author of three explosive collections, THE MATRIX REVEALED, EXIT FROM THE MATRIX, and POWER OUTSIDE THE MATRIX, Jon was a candidate for a US Congressional seat in the 29th District of California. He maintains a consulting practice for private clients, the purpose of which is the expansion of personal creative power. Nominated for a Pulitzer Prize, he has worked as an investigative reporter for 30 years, writing articles on politics, medicine, and health for CBS Healthwatch, LA Weekly, Spin Magazine, Stern, and other newspapers and magazines in the US and Europe. Jon has delivered lectures and seminars on global politics, health, logic, and creative power to audiences around the world. You can sign up for his free NoMoreFakeNews emails here or his free OutsideTheRealityMachine emails here.

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