#11573

>>9040942 Former President @BarackObama will deliver a televised prime-time commencement address for the Class of 2020

>>9040982 “After continuous shocks, the large targeted population group discovers that it does not want to make choices any more

>>9040986 CNN Sends Trump Campaign Cease and Desist Letter, Trump Campaign Fires Back

>>9041031 Fauci Lobbied To Allow Deadly Ebola Victims Entry Into U.S.; Testified to Congress to PERMIT Patients to Travel to U.S. via Commercial Air

>>9041048 Johns Hopkins: Dire analysis in CDC documents not meant for COVID-19 death forecasts

>>9041198 Trump Says Bailouts for Democratic-Run States Are Unfair to Republicans

>>9041212 Here we go again…. moar house hearings, moar lies

>>9041218 Wait, Did Schiff Just Say COVID-19 Deaths Are 'Casualties' of His Failure to Remove Trump in Impeachment?!

>>9041328 Philip M. Giraldi: “Israel’s War Crimes Have Killed Americans”

>>9041364 Newsom's office refuses records request on 'murky' $1B mask deal with Chinese company

>>9041412 Trump Bodyguard Arrested By Venezuelan Authorities

>>9041414, >>9041520, >>9041526 Court documents filed by one of pedophile Jeffrey Epstein’s young accusers lists more than 70 people with alleged knowledge of the billionaire’s underage sex-trafficking ring.

>>9041443 DARPA responds to Q.

NOT NOTABLES

British Scientist Neil Ferguson, Whose Wildly Wrong Coronavirus Model Prompted US, UK Lockdowns, Resigns After Caught Breaking Social Distancing Rules With Married Lover

Professor Neil Ferguson resigned Tuesday from his position on the British government’s advisory panel on the COVID-19 Chinese coronavirus pandemic after he was exposed by the UK Telegraph for violating social distancing rules by entertaining his married lover at his home.

Ferguson’s model produced by the Imperial College of London predicting one to two million coronavirus deaths in the U.S. and 500,000 in Britain prompted both nations to go into lockdowns in mid-March, throwing both nations into economic turmoil. The forecast by Ferguson has been spectacularly incorrect so far.

In a twist, Ferguson came down with symptoms for the virus, subsequently testing positive, and went through a two-week self isolation period that began in March right after the model was released.

Excerpt from the Telegraph:

…On at least two occasions, Antonia Staats, 38, travelled across London from her home in the south of the capital to spend time with the Government scientist, nicknamed Professor Lockdown.

The 51-year-old had only just finished a two-week spell self-isolating after testing positive for coronavirus.

Prof Ferguson told the Telegraph: “I accept I made an error of judgment and took the wrong course of action. I have therefore stepped back from my involvement in Sage [the government’s Scientific Advisory Group for Emergencies].

“I acted in the belief that I was immune, having tested positive for coronavirus, and completely isolated myself for almost two weeks after developing symptoms.

“I deeply regret any undermining of the clear messages around the continued need for social distancing to control this devastating epidemic. The Government guidance is unequivocal, and is there to protect all of us.”

The first of Ms Staat’s visits, on Monday March 30, coincided with a public warning by Prof Ferguson that the one-week-old lockdown measures would have to remain until June.

Ms Staats, a left-wing campaigner, made a second visit on April 8 despite telling friends she suspected that her husband, an academic in his 30s, had symptoms of coronavirus.

She and her husband live together with their two children in a £1.9 million home, but are understood to be in an open marriage. She has told friends about her relationship with Prof Ferguson, but does not believe their actions to be hypocritical because she considers the households to be one.

But one week before the first tryst, Dr Jenny Harries, the deputy chief medical officer, and Matt Hancock, the Health Secretary, clarified during the daily Downing Street press conference that couples not living together must stay apart during lockdown…

https://www.thegatewaypundit.com/2020/05/british-scientist-neil-ferguson-whose-wildly-wrong-coronavirus-model-prompted-us-uk-lockdowns-resigns-caught-breaking-social-distancing-rules-married-lover/

DoJ Charges 2 Men In First Fraud Case Tied To Small Business Bailout Program

In what appears to be the first case of its kind, two men from Rhode Island have been charged by federal prosecutors with attempting to defraud the SBA-Treasury joint "Paycheck Protection Program" - the first actual prosecution following whispers of widespread fraud.

Prosecutors have charged two men with filing for loans via the program - which offers loans that convert to grants for each employee that a company retains until a certain cutoff point, at which time we suspect another round of mass-layoffs will begin - on behalf of employees that didn't actually exist at their company.

The two men, David A. Staveley, aka Kurt D. Sanborn, 52, of Andover, Massachusetts, and David Butziger, 51, of Warwick, Rhode Island, are being charged with fraudulently seeking a forgivable loan from the SBA.

A week ago, Secretary Mnuchin promised that all public companies who had received small business loans would be asked to return the money, while the DoJ assigned a team of prosecutors to root out fraud amid the flood of millions of loan applications that was tantamont to giving out more than a decade's worth of loans in just a few weeks.

We imagine this may be the first of many. It's unclear how either man will plead, and as a reminder, all accused are - as far as the law is concerned - presumed to be innocent until proven guilty.

It's funny, when Mnuchin promised to punish anybody trying to defraud the small-business relief program, we thought he would be focusing on large corporations attempting to drain tens if not hundreds of millions of dollars from the pool, not two small business owners in Rhode Island.

https://www.zerohedge.com/geopolitical/doj-charges-2-men-first-fraud-case-tied-small-business-bailout-program

Yet Another University Shuts Down Chinese Communist Party-Funded Confucious Institute

UC-Davis leaves open the possibility of “new pathways” to working with China after announcing it will permanently close its campus Confucius Institute.

“The Confucius institute is an arm of the Chinese government's propaganda machine,” one student says.

The University of California-Davis announced Tuesday plans to close the Confucius Institute on campus.

The institute, which opened in 2013, is set to close effective August 15. The closure comes as U.S. officials debate the proper course of action in holding China accountable after they say the communist regime withheld vital information regarding the coronavirus that could have saved thousands of American lives. U.S. intelligence agencies had previously labeled Confucius Institutes a national security threat, acting as propaganda arms of the Chinese Communist Party.

UC-Davis offered no for-credit courses through the institute, except for a one-credit internship on Chinese culture.

According to the university, Chancellor Gary S. May wrote a letter on April 28 to the Hanban division of China’s Ministry of Education on April 28, leaving open the possibility of new programs.

“The time has come for us to consider new pathways by building on cultural exchange programs like those our Confucius Institute has fostered,” he wrote.

“The Hanban division of China’s Ministry of Education announced at the annual meeting of the Confucius Institutes in December that there would be a renewed focus on language instruction,” UC-Davis News and Media Relations Specialist Julia Ann Easley told Campus Reform. “The focus of the Confucius Institute at UC Davis has been Chinese food and beverage culture. It has not offered language instruction. Because of this, UC Davis is going to explore other ways of working with international universities."

https://www.campusreform.org/?ID=14816

Rabobank: "How Is This Not Front-Page News?"

All the news that’s fit to print. It’s a classic phrase, but it’s clearly not One Size Fits All in our fractured political/media landscape. Want to hear how awful party X or country Y is? There is a media outlet for you. Want to hear the complete opposite? There is another channel for that. Want to get an objective opinion? Well good luck with that - but there are some slim pickings out there in blog-land. The best approach is arguably Hegelian – follow everything. Read The Telegraph and The Guardian; read The Washington Times AND The Global Times; watch MSNBC AND Fox News; then compare and contrast – and this runs true for financial press and market news too.

For example, yesterday’s Daily underlined expectations that US-China relations would go off a cliff. Subsequently we saw two bombshell Reuters stories. The first is that according to anonymous officials, the Trump White House is going to “turbocharge” the extraction of supply-chains from China, taking an ‘all of government’ approach; this including financial incentives such as tax cuts or subsidies for those firms; the US is considering higher tariffs and targeted sanctions of Chinese individuals, and even close relations with Taiwan as well; and it wishes to bring other countries with it in a so-called new “Economic Prosperity Network”, which sounds like a combination of the TPP and the Cold War. At any point during the 2018-19 trade war, this would have been front page news. Instead, it got hardly a mention. It did rightly see markets dip somewhat yesterday, but arguably not to the extent the story deserved. It also ignored Peter Navarro following up that “Buy American would soon be the law of the land” for some US government departments. Perhaps the market, in its infinite wisdom, believes this is all electioneering and/or that Trump won’t follow through? There is form there - but such certainty in the face of such uncertainty!

Later in the day Reuters was at it again. This time with news that an internal Chinese report seen by Xi Jinping has concluded that in the post-pandemic era Beijing will face the toughest international anti-China pushback since 1989, and that in a worst-case scenario it needs to be prepared for armed confrontation between itself and the US. Reuters states that the report is regarded by some in China as their version of the 1946 “Novikov Telegram”, which was the former USSR’s response to George Kennan’s infamous telegram from Moscow that concluded the Soviets did not see the possibility of peaceful coexistence with the West, and that a US policy of containment was needed. One might think THAT would be front-page news. It wasn’t. It was hardly news at all. Yet there is no election coming up in Beijing.

It is probably not a coincidence that both of these stories emerged yesterday. The US clearly wants China to know that economic sabres are being sharpened in the hope that they don’t have to be used, just rattled; and China wants the US to know that they know the sabres are being sharpened – and that the outcome would be awful for both sides if they are used. Duelling with words is certainly preferable, after all.

This does not mean that something important is not happening here: it is. Neither does it mean markets should be ignoring it: they shouldn’t. Geopolitical tensions are escalating rapidly far beyond the extent to which markets are pricing for - apart from US Treasury yields, where the 2-year is hovering around a record low of just 18bp. An extra 10% US tariff on Chinese goods at this stage, as a random example, would actually be a very benign outcome given the rhetoric being flourished. Of course, one can make the point that USD/CNH is hardly moving. Yet as was stressed yesterday, this is not really a market. When it starts moving sharply we know that at least one sabre is already being used.

https://www.zerohedge.com/markets/rabobank-how-not-front-page-news

Biden Voted to Block Creation of Senate Office That Handles Sexual Harassment Complaints

Then-senator Joe Biden backed a procedural motion declaring the office unconstitutional

Presumptive Democratic nominee Joe Biden voted in favor of a motion that would have blocked the creation of the Senate office that receives sexual harassment complaints.

Biden was one of six Democrats who joined an effort to block the Office of Senate Fair Employment Practices in 1991 on the grounds that it was unconstitutional. The vote came less than two years before Tara Reade allegedly filed a complaint about her treatment as an employee in Biden's Senate office.

Created as a part of the Civil Rights Act of 1991 in the shadow of Anita Hill's testimony on Capitol Hill, the Office of Senate Fair Employment Practices was an attempt to remedy the fact that Congress was, at the time, exempt from workplace discrimination laws. An amendment to the civil rights law introduced by Sen. Chuck Grassley (R., Iowa) chartered the office and provided "procedures to protect the right of Senate and other government employees … to be free from discrimination on the basis of race, color, religion, sex, national origin, age, or disability."

Grassley's amendment sparked fierce opposition from some of his colleagues, led by then-Republican senator Warren Rudman (N.H.), who argued that the office would become a "Son of Frankenstein" and warned that "everyone here will be in jeopardy and we will have done much violence to this body and the Constitution."

Rudman raised a point of order aimed at declaring the amendment unconstitutional and striking it from the Civil Rights Act. The legislative maneuver failed by a 76-22 vote, with Biden joining Rudman, and then-senators William Cohen (R., Maine) and Strom Thurmond (R., S.C.), to eliminate the office.

The Grassley amendment creating the office subsequently passed by a voice vote.

The Biden campaign acknowledged his vote in favor of Rudman's point of order, telling the Washington Free Beacon that Biden "voted for a point of order on an amendment" that would have established the Office of Senate Fair Employment Practices.

Biden has leaned on his legislative record as he has denied Reade's allegations of sexual assault. In a Friday statement addressing the accusation, the former vice president invoked the Violence Against Women Act, which he cosponsored in 1994, as evidence of his belief "that women should be heard." His campaign has pointed to his sponsorship of the legislation to paint him as a "champion for women." His support for Rudman's point of order may complicate that talking point.

https://freebeacon.com/2020-election/biden-voted-against-creation-of-senate-office-that-handles-sexual-harassment-complaints/

Israeli masks designed with unique anti-pathogen fabric enter US market

“When coronavirus started we were an Israeli startup,” Dr. Jason Migdal. “Now, we are a commercial business."

The Israeli startup Sonovia, which sped up efforts to manufacture masks using its anti-pathogen fabric at the start of the coronavirus crisis in Israel, has launched commercial sales.

The company’s technology is based on a lab-scale sonochemical process that was developed at Bar-Ilan University. Sonovia started manufacturing its product in March at a plant near Nahariya when Israel had only 200 patients, and has sold 30,000 masks. Most of its clients are distributors and nonprofits in the United States.

“When coronavirus started, we were an Israeli startup,” Dr. Jason Migdal, a research scientist with Sonovia, told The Jerusalem Post. “Now, we are a commercial business that is having success internationally.”

Sonovia developed an almost-permanent, ultrasonic, fabric-finishing technology for mechanical impregnation of zinc oxide nanoparticles into textiles.

“The technology is based upon a physical phenomenon called cavitation,” said Migdal. “Sound waves are used to physically infuse desired chemicals onto the structure area of materials, enhancing them with clinically proven antiviral and antibacterial properties.”

Migdal explained that the novel coronavirus, also known as SARS-CoV-2, is spread via aerosol and direct contact. Therefore, antiviral personal protective equipment is “of crucial importance to combat the transmission of this viral epidemic.”

Sonovia uses lower-cost, metal-oxide nanoparticles, including zinc oxide and copper oxide, to impart antibacterial protection. Research conducted through a grant by the European Union, in conjunction with 16 partners from 10 European countries, found the one-step process to be effective. Ultrasonic irradiation causes the formation of antimicrobial metal-oxide nanoparticles and actively impregnates them into textile fibers. Moreover, those fabrics impregnated with the zinc and copper oxides were shown to retain significant antibacterial activity even after 100 wash cycles at 75ºC or 65 wash cycles at 92ºC.

Its latest filtration results – inhalation and exhalation – showed a 98% success rate for stopping aerosols that are less than five microns in diameter, the size of the droplets that World Health Organization officials think are transmitting the contagion. Typical respiratory droplets exceed this size.

https://www.jpost.com/health-science/israeli-masks-designed-with-unique-anti-pathogen-fabric-enter-us-market-626980

>>9041931

>>9041931

No booms yet Q

>>9041980

fuck off

Defense Secretary Esper: US 'Had Nothing to Do' With Attempted Raid in Venezuela

Following an attempted coastal assault on western Venezuela by mercenaries attacking from neighboring Colombia over the weekend, US Secretary of Defense Mark Esper told reporters at the Pentagon on Tuesday, “The United States government had nothing to do with what's happened in Venezuela in the last few days."

On Sunday, Venezuelan Interior Minister Nestor Reverol announced on Venezuelan television that "a group of terrorist mercenaries coming from Colombia attempted a sea invasion, with the objective to commit terrorist attacks in our country, assassinate leaders of the revolutionary government and to increase the spiral of violence, generate chaos and confusion among the population, and with this, to attempt a new coup d’état."

Venezuelan officials said they killed eight mercenaries and captured two. The two who were detained were later revealed to be US citizens: Luke Denman and Airan Berry, both former US Special Forces operatives.

The two men operated with a third: Jordan Goudreau, founder of private contracting firm Silvercorp USA, who claimed responsibility for the attack, which he called "Operation Gideon," in a video posted on YouTube on Sunday. Goudreau spoke alongside Javier Nieto, a retired Venezuelan army captain who now opposes the government of Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro.

Juan Guaido, the former head of Venezuela's National Assembly who is held up by Washington as Venezuela's rightful leader, has denied all connection to "Operation Gideon." Likewise, US President Donald Trump told reporters who asked about the operation on Monday that "it has nothing to do with our government.”

Guaido has staged several attempted coups d'etat since declaring himself interim president in January 2019, and Washington has implemented severe sanctions and organized sympathetic governments in support of Guaido's attempts. US President Donald Trump placed in charge of that effort Eliot Abrams, who in the 1980s organized similar efforts in several Central American countries by funneling funds and weapons to death squads seeking to overthrow governments that rebelled against Washington's rule.

In February 2019, authorities at Venezuela's Arturo Michelena International Airport in Valencia reported seizing dozens of weapons and other war materiel in a plane that flew from Miami, Florida, in the United States, and was purported to be carrying humanitarian aid.

https://sputniknews.com/latam/202005051079206600-defense-secretary-esper-us-had-nothing-to-do-with-attempted-raid-in-venezuela/

My spidy senses says this guy is a DS pos

US Considering Bringing UK-Based Spy Planes Home After Huawei 5G Deal

The Trump administration is reportedly looking into whether Chinese tech firm Huawei being allowed to build part of the UK’s 5G wireless network has compromised its UK-based spy planes enough to force them to withdraw. US intelligence has claimed Beijing has leverage over information handled by the Shenzhen-based tech giant.

Meanwhile, the two countries’ governments have also aroused privacy concerns in fighting the COVID-19 pandemic.

‘How Do We Protect Ourselves’

According to a Monday report by The Telegraph, a London-based daily, the US National Security Council is investigating the degree to which US spy planes based in the United Kingdom are impacted by new 5G networks in the country being built, in part, by Huawei.

The US Air Force’s RC-135 Rivet Joint, an airliner-sized electronic surveillance plane loaded down with electromagnetic equipment for monitoring communications, radar and other emissions, is believed to be the most vulnerable to penetration by the 5G network, according to the report. Washington has six RC-135s in the UK, all based at RAF Mildenhall, a Royal Air Force base about 60 miles north of London, out of which most of the UK-based US air forces operate.

RAF Mildenhall is due to close by 2024 as part of the Pentagon’s European Infrastructure Consolidation program, at which point the RC-135s would be moved to Gloucestershire’s RAF Fairford, Sputnik reported.

"This was not a bluff. You cannot mitigate the danger [UK Prime Minister] Boris Johnson is exposing the UK to by letting Huawei into the network," an anonymous US official told the Telegraph. "This review is not a punishment. This is the White House saying 'okay if they're going to go down this path and put themselves at risk then how do we protect ourselves.'"

Johnson Strikes a Deal

Johnson’s government negotiated a deal with Huawei in January that allowed the Chinese tech giant to have as much as a 35% stake in the UK’s 5G network in areas deemed non-sensitive - that is, away from military and nuclear sites. Washington strongly protested the deal at the time, arguing that allowing Huawei access to any part of the network compromised the entire network.

The UK and US are part of a quintet of English-speaking nations dubbed Five Eyes, which share intelligence between them. The other nations are Canada, Australia and New Zealand, and all five have adopted an increasingly hostile disposition toward Huawei and other Chinese tech giants, which they claim can be forced by Beijing to open their databases to the Chinese government. Both Huawei and Beijing have denied that such a “backdoor” exists.

In addition to the Trump administration, Johnson has also faced pressure to renegotiate or cancel the deal from inside his own Conservative Party. Parliament member Tom Tugendhat, who chairs the Foreign Affairs Committee in the House of Commons, told Business Insider late last month that the burgeoning COVID-19 outbreak in the UK would similarly force Johnson to reconsider the British relationship with China.

"I think it's hardened many views in the parliamentary [Conservative] party,” Tugendhat said. “Clearly, it's going to have implications… It makes the Huawei position hard."

Similarly, First Secretary of State Dominic Raab told reporters on April 16, when he was deputizing for Johnson as the latter recovered from a COVID-19 infection that required hospitalization, "There's no doubt that we can't have business as usual [with China] after this crisis, and we have to ask the hard questions about how it came about and how it could have been stopped earlier.”

As of Tuesday, more than 30,000 people have died in the UK as a result of the illness - now the highest death toll from the disease anywhere in Europe. The novel coronavirus targets the respiratory system and is highly contagious. As the pandemic has worsened, Western leaders have attempted to pin the blame on China, alleging Beijing failed to take proper action to contain the virus when Wuhan was the outbreak’s epicenter, or even concealed data from other nations.

https://sputniknews.com/uk/202005051079206922-us-considering-bringing-uk-based-spy-planes-home-after-huawei-5g-deal—report/

The Suppressed History of Jewish Red Terror in Europe and Russia After WW1

“To overcome our enemies we must have our own socialist militarism. We must carry along with us 90 million out of the 100 million of Soviet Russia’s population. As for the rest, we have nothing to say to them. They must be annihilated.” — Grigory Zinoviev (aka Hirsch Apfelbaum), 1918

With the latest series of events involving police yokelism and the false Hegelian race and political dialectic, we must remember that one of the agendas of the Crime Syndicate is to bring police under centralized, national control. They do this by making local law enforcement look like bumpkins, not up to the job. This would be akin to the Soviet Cheka running all police. This will be unmitigated hell.

For some curious reason, Hollywood and the media scarcely pays the slightest attention to the history of the Bolshevik Red Terror. You won’t get much of the story on History Channel either. One would never guess that 40 million ethnic Russians and Ukrainians were murdered by thugs and goons over two decades starting in 1918.

This is suppressed and hidden history, but it goes along way toward explaining the 1920s so-called Fascist or Nationalist counter-reaction and widespread “anti-semitism” throughout Europe. The destabilized populations of Europe post WWI were naturally terrified of Trotskyite (Leon Trotsky, aka Lev Davidovich Bronstein) red terrorists. Bolshevism, Red Terror and Judaism were conflated as the same thing in most Europeans’ minds of the post WW I era.

“Some call it Marxism – I call it Judaism.”– Rabbi Stephen S. Wise, in the American Bulletin of May 15, 1935

“The revolution in Russia is a Jewish revolution”– The Maccabean (New York), Nov. 1905, p, 250

“Jewry is the mother of Marxism.”– Le Droit de Vivre, May 12, 1936

“Judaism is Marxism, communism” – Harry Waton, A Program for the Jews and an Answer to All Anti-Semites (New York: Committee for the Preservation of the Jews, 1939), p. 64

“The communist soul is the soul of Judaism.” – Harry Waton, A Program for the Jews and an Answer to All Anti-Semites (New York: Committee for the Preservation of the Jews, 1939), p. 143

“We Jews cannot be called upon to denounce Communism.” – The American Hebrew (New York), February 3, 1939, p. 11

“It would be absurd to deny the intensity of the Jewish participation in the Russian revolutionary movement.” -Leon Dennen, in The Menorah Journal (New York) July-September 1932, p. 106

“That achievement – the Russian-Jewish revolution – destined to figure in history as the overshadowing result of World War, was largely the outcome of Jewish thinking, of Jewish discontent, of Jewish effort to reconstruct.” – The American Hebrew, September 10, 1920

“The Jewish elements provide the driving forces for communism” -Dr. Oscar Levy, in George Pitt-Rivers, The World Significance of the Russian Revolution (Oxford, 1920), p. ix

“The Jews [have been] furnishing for the Bolsheviks the majority of their leaders” -The Jewish World (London), April 16, 1919, p. 11

“Russian Jews have taken a prominent part in the Bolshevist movement” -The American Hebrew (New York), November 18, 1927, p. 20

“Jewry has come to wield a considerable power in the Communist Party.” -Dr. Avrahm Yarmolinsky, in The Menorah Journal (New York), July 1928, p. 37

https://russia-insider.com/en/suppressed-history-jewish-red-terror-europe-and-russia-after-ww1/ri30073

Politicians Have Destroyed Markets and Ignored Human Rights with Alarming Enthusiasm

An economic cataclysm has been unleashed upon the world by Western politicians and bureaucrats. Unbelievably, economic activity in the West has slowed to a creep, as entire populations have been confined to their homes for weeks, if not months. As a result, millions have had their lives turned upside down. Most entrepreneurs and self-employed persons have had their livelihoods jeopardized.

The EU economy may shrink by 5 percent according to the European Central Bank (ECB), and similar figures have been forecast for the US. The economic devastation wrecked upon Western economies by governments will have consequences for many years to come. It will inevitably lower European and US citizens' quality of life for a long time, impacting their health as well.

It is important to understand that this disaster is not the result of the coronavirus pandemic, which is a public health problem, but of overzealous government officials reacting to the pandemic. A growing number of researchers and health professionals are suggesting that the total number of cases is far higher than previously thought, which means that COVID-19 is far less deadly than the media and government advisors insist. These revised death rates put COVID-19 fatalities in many places at a rate similar to that of the flu, which kills hundreds of thousands of people every single year globally, without provoking any notably large political reaction.

This raises a question: Why the enormous and extreme reactions to the virus from Western politicians, bringing the entire economy to its knees and severely curtailing the fundamental individual freedoms of millions of citizens? Of course, there is the usual incompetence and herd behavior in the political leadership of many countries to be reckoned with. But other reasons exist for this disastrous and irresponsible behavior. Here are some.

First, politicians have generally little understanding of how markets work. Steeped in administrative and policy thinking, most politicians have never worked in the private sector or studied market economics. They neither understand nor appreciate the complexity of markets which make our high standard of living possible. This complexity includes an unfathomable number of daily exchanges, myriad commercial relations, and never-ending adaptation to surrounding conditions. The logic of politics, however, dictates that politicians cannot be seen as "doing nothing," so they seek always intervention in markets. This is not new; it has always been a typical trait of politicians and bureaucrats. The political reactions to the coronavirus pandemic have just dramatically confirmed this truth yet again.

http://www.ronpaulinstitute.org/archives/featured-articles/2020/may/05/politicians-have-destroyed-markets-and-ignored-human-rights-with-alarming-enthusiasm/

U.S. Concocting Intel to Frame China for COVID-19 Crisis

Concocting intel to fit a conclusion is a precarious pursuit. It has disturbing resonance with the Iraqi WMD intel manufacturing and media indulgence which led to disastrous war.

China’s communist leaders have blood on their hands, so say U.S. hawks. Chinaphobes in Congress and a battalion of media pundits are demanding compensation from Beijing for the spiraling death toll and economic destruction incurred by the United States.

Already U.S. states have begun litigation to sue China. Rightwing think-tanks like the Hudson Institute are projecting that China is liable to pay out trillions of dollars for American losses over the Covid-19 pandemic.

The chorus of “Yellow Peril” fever goes beyond financial retribution right up to creating a casus belli against China. It is no coincidence that U.S. warships have stepped up provocative maneuvers in the South China Sea this week.

President Donald Trump and his top envoy Mike Pompeo have weighed in to point the finger at China for pandemic mayhem hitting the U.S. China is being set up as the scapegoat to “explain” why the supposedly most powerful nation in the world has been left so ravaged by a virus.

The “blame China” narrative turns on two sub-plots. It is claimed in U.S. media that the Chinese authorities knew a lot more than they let on they did about the potential harm from the epidemic when it first emerged in the city of Wuhan in December. The insinuation is that China (and the World Health Organization) engaged in a cover-up about the scale of the disease, thereby putting other nations in danger through misinformation.

The second sub-plot in the “blame China” agenda is that a Chinese virology laboratory leaked out the deadly virus, either by accident or as part of biowarfare program. That again implies a China cover-up. Both sub-plots fit the slogan taken up by Trump supporters and anti-China hawks more generally: “China Lied, People Died”.

http://thealtworld.com/finian_cunningham/u-s-concocting-intel-to-frame-china-for-covid-19-crisis

HSI partners with Pfizer, 3M, Citi, Alibaba, Amazon, Merck to protect consumers against COVID-19-related fraud

WASHINGTON – Industry experts from Pfizer, 3M, Citi, Alibaba, Amazon and Merck have joined forces with Homeland Security Investigations (HSI) National Intellectual Property Rights Coordination Center (IPR Center) criminal investigators in an unprecedented public-private partnership to combat fraud and other illegal activity surrounding COVID-19.

“Scammers and other criminals are exploiting this time of anxiety and uncertainty to take advantage of consumers’ fears, and HSI has made it a top priority to investigate anyone attempting to use the COVID-19 pandemic to defraud other people,” said HSI Acting Executive Associate Director Alysa D. Erichs. “A robust partnership with the private sector is an absolute requirement to effectively disrupt and dismantle COVID-19 criminal networks and strengthen global supply-chain security.”

Since the start of the pandemic, HSI and other law enforcement agencies have seen a significant increase in criminals attempting to capitalize and profit from the fear and anxiety surrounding the virus, including the sale of counterfeit pharmaceuticals and medical equipment and illicit online sales and trade importation violations of products claiming to be treatment options.

“Pfizer is committed to delivering for the world breakthroughs that change patients’ lives,” said Albert Bourla, CEO and chairman, Pfizer Inc. “We are dedicated to protecting patients and applaud the National Intellectual Property Rights Center’s efforts to address harmful and misleading offers for counterfeit and substandard medicines or from fraudulent scams that put patient’s and first responders health and safety at risk.”

“At 3M, we play a unique and critical role in pandemic preparedness and response. As a result, we are attacking the pandemic from all angles, which includes mobilizing all our resources and rapidly increasing output of critical supplies to healthcare workers and first responders. These efforts also include combating fraud and protecting the public against those who seek to exploit the pandemic using 3M’s name connected with price gouging and counterfeiting. We are partnering with national and international law enforcement, tech companies and online retailers to prevent fraud before it starts and stop it where it is happening,” said Mike Roman, 3M chairman and chief executive officer.

“Citi is committed to playing an important role in protecting our clients and the financial system from illicit activity,” said Michael Corbat, Citi’s CEO. “Unfortunately, the need to combat this type of activity only increases in a crisis like this so we are appreciative of this collaborative effort organized by the IPR Center and determined to continue to do our part.”

“Consumer health and safety is Alibaba's top priority. We will continue to enforce a zero-tolerance policy against those engaged in illicit activity, especially with respect to products and services related to COVID-19,” said Michael Evans, president of Alibaba Group. “We are proud to be part of this important collaboration and value our long-standing partnership with the Department of Homeland Security.”

“Since the beginning of the COVID-19 crisis, Amazon has proactively stopped more than 6.5 million products with inaccurate claims, removed over 1 million offers for suspected price gouging, suspended more than 10,000 selling accounts for suspected price gouging and referred the most egregious offenders to federal and state law enforcement across the country. Amazon welcomes HSI’s partnership in holding counterfeiters and bad actors accountable, and we look forward to building on our long-standing relationship to protect customers and ensure a trusted shopping experience,” said Dharmesh Mehta, Amazon vice president, customer trust and partner support.

“Merck is committed to patient safety and protecting the public from the dangers of counterfeit medicines. We appreciate this collaboration and we will continue to partner with law enforcement and health care officials worldwide to combat the dangers posed by criminals trafficking in illicit medicines,” said David Resch, vice president and chief security officer, Merck & Co., Inc.

https://www.ice.gov/news/releases/hsi-partners-pfizer-3m-citi-alibaba-amazon-merck-protect-consumers-against-covid-19

Love how the Gov keeps working with DS

>>9042207

Still no Booms

>>9042298

Doc is a faggot