France Suspends Role In NATO Naval Mission, Outraged Over “Turkish Aggression” Tyler Durden Thu, 07/02/2020 – 02:45 France has notified NATO command that its military is suspending involvement in an ongoing Mediterranean operation called Sea Guardian in protest of a June 10 incident wherein Turkish warships off Libya’s coast “engaged” a French frigate via radar. This means the Turkish ship essentially had missile lock on the NATO allied ship. The AP detailed in the days after the hostile encounter between two NATO members that “the frigate Courbet was ‘lit up’ three times by Turkish naval targeting radar when it tried to approach a Turkish civilian ship suspected of involvement in arms trafficking.” The Turkish military ships were allegedly escorting the smaller civilian ship, suspected by the French of illegal gun-… [Read More...]

Why The US Empire Works So Hard To Control The International Narrative About Russia Tyler Durden Wed, 07/01/2020 – 23:45 Authored by Caitlin Johnstone via Medium.com, On a December 2010 episode of Fox News’ Freedom Watch, John Bolton and the show’s host Andrew Napolitano were debating about recent WikiLeaks publications, and naturally the subject of government secrecy came up. “Now I want to make the case for secrecy in government when it comes to the conduct of national security affairs, and possibly for deception where that’s appropriate,” Bolton said. “You know Winston Churchill said during World War Two that in wartime truth is so important it should be surrounded by a bodyguard of lies.” “Do you really believe that?” asked an incredulous Napolitano. “Absolutely,” Bolton replied. … [Read More...]

Seeing The Big Picture… Tyler Durden Wed, 07/01/2020 – 14:45 Authored by Sven Henrich via NorthmanTrader.com, Onto the dog days of summer. The first half of 2020 has been intense for all involved and the second half looks to be intense as well. Stepping back from the daily noise of headlines it may serve useful to look at the big picture. For now there is little doubt that the unprecedented interventions by the Fed continue to support equity markets on their journey toward the largest asset bubble inside of a recession ever. Indeed all market down move events in June found the Fed immediately responding with announcements, from corporate bond buying, to loosening the Volcker rule, and announcing its corporate credit facility to be operational this week. All of these … [Read More...]

Should Governments Save Lives Or Jobs Amid Pandemic? Tyler Durden Wed, 07/01/2020 – 02:45 It looked like the U.S. had reached the peak of its coronavirus infections on April 24 when it experienced 36,738 new daily cases, a figure that fell to 17,618 by May 11. Back then, it looked like the U.S. had put the worst of the pandemic behind it and President Trump consistently pressed for the economy to be reopened. While testifying in front of the Senate in mid May, Dr. Anthony Fauci, the top U.S. infectious disease expert, cautioned against reopening too early, stating that the virus could spiral out of control resulting in increased suffering and death as well as a setback on the road to economic recovery. On June 26, the U.S. reported 45,300 new daily … [Read More...]

The Purge: The Natural Progression Of “Woke” Censorship Is Tyranny Tyler Durden Wed, 07/01/2020 – 00:05 Authored by Brandon Smith via Alt-Market.com, As I have noted in the past, in order to be a conservative one has to stick to certain principles. For example, you have to stand against big government and state intrusions into individual lives, you have to support our constitutional framework and defend civil liberties, and you also have to uphold the rights of private property. Websites are indeed private property, as much as a person’s home is private property. There is no such thing as free speech rights in another person’s home, and there is no such thing as free speech rights on a website. That said, there are some exceptions. When a corporation … [Read More...]

Goldman: We “Don’t Love Risk/Reward Up Here… Starting To Worry About Valuation” Tyler Durden Tue, 06/30/2020 – 14:40 By Tony Pasquariello, global head of HF Sales at Goldman Sachs The dominant narrative of the week was a return to trading COVID headlines, as the worst period for US case growth since April served as disruption for those expecting business-as-usual trading conditions this summer.   Along the way, stock operators absorbed another heavy dose of deal supply — adding to what will be a record month and record quarter for US new issue — with quarter end looming.  On the week, S&P lost 2.9%, although one can reasonably argue the market traded with decently thick skin.  In fact, when you get below the hood of the major indices, there were … [Read More...]

How Long Will Europeans Work For? Tyler Durden Tue, 06/30/2020 – 02:45 Eurostat have released an interesting forecast about how long a person can expect to be active in the European labour market during his or her life. The data is measured in years and it’s based on someone who was 15-years-old in 2019. On average, Statista’s Niall McCarthy notes that the expected duration of working life in the European Union was 35.2 years – 3.6 years longer than in 2000. In individual member states, it ranges from 32 years in Italy to 42 years in Sweden… You will find more infographics at Statista The data also includes several countries outside the EU and their figures are diverse. In Turkey for example, a 15-year-old can expect a working life of 29.3 years. In Iceland, however, a 15-… [Read More...]

Welcome To The New (Pathologized) Totalitarianism Tyler Durden Mon, 06/29/2020 – 23:35 Authored (satirically) by CJ Hopkins via ConsentFactory.org, It was always going to come to this… mobs of hysterical, hate-drunk brownshirts hunting down people not wearing masks and trying to get them fired from their jobs, “no mask, no service” signs outside stores, security staff stopping the mask-less from entering, paranoid pod people pointing and shrieking at the sight of mask-less shoppers in their midst, goon squads viciously attacking and arresting them … Welcome to the Brave New Normal. And it isn’t just the Maskenpflicht-Sturmabteilung. The new official narrative is omnipresent. The corporate media are pumping out hysteria about “Covid-19 hospitalizations” (i.e., anyone admitted to a hospital for anything who tested positive for … [Read More...]

Fed’s Primary Corporate Credit Facility Is Now Operational Tyler Durden Mon, 06/29/2020 – 14:48 Now that the Fed is buying about a $1 billion in corporate bond ETFs weekly, and as of two weeks ago, starting buying individual corporate bonds out of a list which, as we disclosed yesterday bizarrely includes such perfectly solvent and stable foreign corporate titans as Toyota, Volkswagen and Daimler, not to mention such domestic names as Apple and Berkshire, the US central bank has shifted away from the secondary market where its market manipulation only affects asset prices instead of directly providing funding to corporations, and starting today the NY Fed announced that its Primary Market Corporate Credit Facility (PMCCF) has also opened for business Monday, the last of its nine pandemic emergency lending programs … [Read More...]

Flynn Lawyer Slams Twitter’s Jack Dorsey Over ‘Abuse Of Conservative And Patriotic Free Speech’ Tyler Durden Mon, 06/29/2020 – 12:46 Update (1245ET): Powell, apparently un-suspended with the previous warning removed to view her account, slammed Twitter’s Jack Dorsey in a Monday tweet. “.@Jack Why in the world did @Twitter  suspend my account and remove everyone I was following,” she wrote, adding “Your abuse of conservative and #patriotic free speech knows no bounds. Why no blue checkmark for me?” .@Jack Why in the world did @Twitter suspend my account and remove everyone I was following. Your abuse of conservative and #patriotic free speech knows no bounds. Why no blue checkmark for me?@realDonaldTrump @ChuckGrassley @JennaEllisEsq @GenFlynn @Jim_Jordan @DevinNunes pic.twitter.com/e1JbaxLWJP — Sidney Powell … [Read More...]

‘Party’ Drugs Lose Out Because Of COVID-19 Tyler Durden Mon, 06/29/2020 – 02:45 According to an open online survey with 40,000 participants from twelve countries, the use of party drugs like MDMA and also cocaine has decreased around the world as clubs and other events are on hiatus. Statista’s Katharina Buchholz reports that research project Global Drug Survey found that while the use of marijuana, alcohol and benzodiazepines (Xanax, Valium) was up during the pandemic, a net share of 19 percent of respondent said they were using less cocaine (share of people saying they used it more minus share of people saying they used it less). A net share of 29 percent said they were using less MDMA. To quantify drug use, the survey asked people if they had used the drugs in … [Read More...]

The Old America Is Dead: Three Scenarios For The Way Forward Tyler Durden Mon, 06/29/2020 – 00:00 Authored by Wayne Allenswroth via vdare.com, “Then who do we shoot?” Like Muley Graves the sharecropper, John Steinbeck’s evocative Okie everyman in John Ford’s 1940 film, many Americans are bewildered by a tidal wave of forces that seem beyond their control. The answer is not easy. But increasingly it seems likely to involve geographical partition. Facing eviction from his dust-bowl farm, Muley confronts a man on a bulldozer who has come to demolish the shack Muley and his family live in. The sharecropper is determined not to give in and threatens the bulldozer operator with a shotgun—only to discover he is a local man, one of Muley’s own people. The bulldozer … [Read More...]

Reopening Of Popular Michigan College Bar Results In 85 COVID-19 Infections Tyler Durden Sun, 06/28/2020 – 15:00 A popular bar near Michigan State University’s campus in East Lansing was site of a recent ‘super spreader’ event.  This single location has been reportedly linked to at least 85 confirmed COVID-19 cases, a number expected to climb given that health authorities are now desperately announcing that anyone who visited Harper’s Restaurant and Brew Pub between June 12 and June 22 immediately self-quarantine for 14-days. Long lines previously seen outside Harper’s Restaurant and Brewpub, via East Lansing Info. Local media said further that a recent cluster of 30 infections 100 miles away are also linked to the bar. According to Fox News:  Eighty of the cases involve individuals who visited the bar and then tested positive, WLIX-TV … [Read More...]

All Players In The NYT ‘Russian Bounties’ In Afghanistan Story Have Slammed It As Fake News Tyler Durden Sun, 06/28/2020 – 13:00 Some are calling it a last ditch attempt to keep Russiagate alive ahead of November. The New York Times on Friday said Russian intelligence officers have been offering Taliban militants cash rewards to kill American and British soldiers.  In the past two days the claims by the usual anonymous US intelligence officials have crisscrossed the mainstream media, with more “confirmation” offered by… more anonymous intelligence officials.  Of course Russia promptly denied it, but more importantly the White House vehemently rejected the report as “fake news” with the president and his aides saying they’ve never seen such intelligence crossing the president’s desk. US in Afghanistan, file image. Certainly something … [Read More...]

China Unveils World’s First Robotic And Contactless Restaurant   Tyler Durden Sat, 06/27/2020 – 23:30 We could be looking at one of the world’s first-ever robotic restaurants, located in Guangdong, China. The timely opening of the contactless restaurant comes as the industry is hell-bent on reducing human-to-human contact due to virus transmission risks.  The Qianxi Robot Catering Group, a subsidiary of Country Garden, recently announced in a press release that is has opened up a robot-powered restaurant in the city of Shunde in China’s Guangdong province. Country Garden robo-server in China  “Powered by the latest in advanced technologies, the restaurant has separate sections for Chinese food, hot pot, and fast food and features a wide selection of dishes, each one of which is delivered to … [Read More...]

Escobar: Why Iran Won’t Be Broken Tyler Durden Sun, 06/28/2020 – 00:00 Authored by Pepe Escobar via The Asia Times, So what’s goin’ on in Iran? How did the Islamic Republic really respond to Covid-19? How is it coping with Washington’s relentless “maximum pressure”? These questions were the subject of a long phone call I placed to Prof. Mohammad Marandi of the University of Tehran – one of Iran’s premier, globally recognized analysts. As Marandi explains: “Iran after the revolution was all about social justice. It set up a very elaborate health care network, similar to Cuba’s, but with more funding. A large hospital network. When the coronavirus hit, the US was even preventing Iran to get test kits. Yet the system – not the private sector – managed. There … [Read More...]

The “Greatest Bear Market Rallies Of All Time”, And Why This One Is Ending Tyler Durden Sat, 06/27/2020 – 14:35 After two consecutive weeks of declines in the Fed’s balance sheet, the stock market has started to look especially wobbly, and after several days of steep declines, all June gains have vaporized. Of course correlation isn’t causation, and the prevailing narrative is that the market weakness has been due to a spike in coronavirus cases across sunbelt states and fears that the V-shaped recovery is not coming, although as we have repeatedly said, the Fed will urgently need to expand its QE which is now running at “only” $80BN per month for TSYs, an amount that will be insufficient to monetize the flood of new debt in the … [Read More...]

From Book-Burning To Statue-Toppling: History Shows Free Speech Is The Loser In Mob Rule Tyler Durden Sat, 06/27/2020 – 13:00 Authored by Jonathan Turley, Below is my column in The Hill on the ongoing destruction of memorials and statues. After this column ran, I learned that one of the iconic busts of George Washington University had been toppled on my own campus. I did not learn that from our university, which was conspicuously silent about this destructive act at the very center of our campus.  There is something eerily familiar in the scenes of bonfires with police watching passively as public art is destroyed.  Such acts are akin to book burning as mobs unilaterally destroyed images that they do not want others to see.  There are valid issues … [Read More...]