Biggest Rolex Online Reseller Cuts Jobs As Watch Prices Continue Downward Spiral
The prices of luxury items, more specifically pre-owned watches, soared during the early day of the virus pandemic as central banks injected trillions of dollars into the economy. By early 2022, central banks reversed course, tightening monetary conditions, which led to panic in stocks, bonds, and cryptocurrency. In late spring last year, we pointed out that mounting macroeconomic headwinds were beginning to cool luxury watch demand, and ‘boom times’ were over.
Recall some of our commentary on the watch market throughout last year:
After double-digit declines in some timepieces, we even asked: Are Rolex Prices About To Bottom?
But that might not be the case as demand continues to sour. The latest sign of worsening trouble for the watch industry is the world’s largest marketplace, Chrono24 GmbH has reduced its workforce by 13%, eliminating about 65 jobs.
The reductions underscore the losses faced by dealers who purchased expensive watches during an unprecedented price surge in 2021 and early 2022. Since then, values for the most desirable models have plunged on secondary markets and on resale platforms such as Chrono24.
The decline in second-hand prices for the top brands has been linked to rising inflation, slowing economic growth in the US and Europe and the crash in cryptocurrencies. The bursting of the crypto bubble erased paper profits for some investors who had turned to luxury watches as a new speculative asset class.
The supply of previously rare pre-owned watches on secondary markets has also increased significantly, driving down values. –Bloomberg
Speaking on watch market gyrations, Chrono24’s co-CEO Tim Stracke said:
“We have seen very volatile, you could call it a roller-coaster situation, in the industry,”
Latest data from the Subdial50 index, an index tracking the top 50 most traded second-hand luxury watches on the pre-owned market, has slid nearly 33% in 12 months.
Some of the watches in Subdial50.
The secondary luxury watch market might bottom when central banks reverse course, but judging rates markets, the Federal Reserve might not pivot until late ’23, if not next year.
Ukraine’s request for F-16 fighter jets represents a new level of support the U.S. should not entertain…
Very shortly after the announcement of the decision to supply Western tanks, the Ukrainian leadership came up with the idea that it now wants F-16 aircraft.
A fighter-bomber is a completely different category in every respect than the weapons promised and/or delivered so far.
Let’s start with the price. The F-16 costs between $13 million and $80 million, depending on the version, and its operating cost per hour flown is between $7,000 and $20,000. In light of the above, it can be seen that the air force is clearly the most expensive of the modern armed forces.
And this begs the question: What would be the purpose of these machines? Air superiority?
For a modern fighter aircraft flying twice the speed of sound, i.e., Mach 2, a runway 1.5-2 kilometers long is essential. A runway is a large and immovable target, just like the Russian supply bridges. Ukrainian air defenses, already struggling, would thus have to defend additional targets.
In addition, a significant and well-trained ground support staff is required for jet fighters because, like all Western technology, the F-16 has significant maintenance requirements.
This begs yet another question:
If they wanted modern fighters, why didn’t they ask for Swedish Gripen fighters, which can operate from improvised airfields, as opposed to F-16s?
According to an article in Business Insider in December, Russia has so far deployed over 770 modern fighter-bombers of the fourth generation or higher to Ukraine, out of the nearly 1,200 available. To succeed against this significant number, Ukraine would need hundreds more combat vehicles. Let’s face it, the chances of this are extremely slim.
And this raises a question to which we have no good and/or morally acceptable answer. What is NATO’s plan? More precisely: What is the plan of the current U.S. leadership, because Europe is irrelevant, militarily insignificant.
Getting away with defending Ukraine on the cheap? Not provoking the Russians too much? If Ukraine’s victory is so important, and some, like Denmark, are already acting at the expense of their own defense capabilities — why did they not hand over the assets constantly demanded for Ukraine’s defense earlier, say at the beginning of the conflict? As a reminder, the Danes donated all 19 of their French CAESAR self-propelled howitzers to Ukraine without reimbursement.
The prerequisite of any consistent military equipment support to Ukraine — whatever the numbers so far — should be to clearly define the strategic objective NATO (and more pertinently, the United States) has regarding the war and the two countries involved in it. We have yet to see that definition.
UK Only G7 Country Expected To Fall Into Recession In 2023
The United Kingdom is expected to be the only G7 country to fall into recession in 2023, according to the latest estimates of the International Monetary Fund.
As Statista’s Anna Fleck details, annual GDP is set to contract some 0.6 percent in the coming year, predominantly due to higher taxes, rising interest rates and the high cost of energy as well as lower government spending.
The UK’s outlook has worsened since the IMF estimated a 2023 growth of 0.3 percent last October. Its prospects are now worse than those of sanction-hit Russia.
The IMF’s latest World Economic Outlook does predict, however, that the UK’s output will grow by 0.9 percent in 2024.
As Statista’s chart shows, the other G7 member states are expected to see growth, even if only marginally, with Japan taking the lead with a 1.8 percent increase, followed by Canada (1.5 percent) and the United States (1.4 percent). Where the UK once
The Iranian Permanent Mission to the UN issued a warning following the drone attack on a military facility in Isfahan, saying that any military action by the US against Iran would be regarded as a declaration of war and would be met with reprisal.
“In Iran’s perspective, the use of the military option at any level means US entry into the war. For now, Iran considers such a possibility to be weak,” Iran’s Permanent Mission to the UN told Newsweek on Tuesday.
According to the mission, if the US “miscalculates and launches a war,” it would only be able to hold itself responsible for the “consequences for the region and the globe,” adding that Iran would be able to protect its own interests and defend itself.
Washington has rejected and denied involvement in the Isfahan drone strike, which is also believed to be an Israeli-instigated attack.
“We’ve seen the press reports but can confirm that no US military forces have conducted strikes or operations inside Iran. We continue to monitor the situation but have nothing further to provide,” a Pentagon spokesperson was quoted by the magazine.
This comes after the Iranian Defense Ministry said in a statement on 29 January that air defense troops stopped a drone strike on a military facility in Isfahan. “One of the drones was hit by the … air defense, and the other two were caught in defense traps and blew up … Fortunately, this unsuccessful attack did not cause any loss of life and caused minor damage to the workshop’s roof,” the statement read.
Videos circulating on social media show the moment one of the drones was repelled by the facility’s defense systems, resulting in a blast. The attack “has not affected our installations and mission … and such blind measures will not have an impact on the continuation of the country’s progress,” the statement added.
Iran’s defence ministry has said in a statement that one of its munitions manufacturing centers in the city of Isfahan was attacked by three drones tonight, adding that one was hit by air defence and the other two were caught in defence traps and exploded.pic.twitter.com/BZiTEQRuig
Meanwhile, The Wall Street Journal reported that Israel used drones to attack an advanced weapons systems factory in Isfahan. The Iranian Defense Ministry offered no information on who it suspected behind the attacks. However, Israel is likely to be the main suspect, as it has in the past been found to be behind many acts of sabotage against the Islamic Republic.
Iran’s foreign minister Hossein Amir Abdollahian condemned a “cowardly drone attack.” Tehran also said it would not halt its progress on a “peaceful nuclear program.”
Germany In Talks For $18BN National Missile Defense Shield After Poking The Bear
Now finding itself a leading European decision-maker when it comes to provocative actions such as NATO allies sending main battle tanks for Ukraine, Germany is all too aware it is poking the Russian bear. And now as part of a drastic ramping up in defense spending, a complete about-face compared to just one year ago, Germany is looking to establish a nation-wide missile defense shield, at an immense overall cost.
“Germany is in talks with several defense manufacturers to build a multi-layered, anti-missile shield that could cost as much as €17 billion ($18.5 billion), according to people familiar with the matter,” Bloomberg reports.
According to more details, “Chancellor Olaf Scholz’s coalition government is in negotiations with Bavarian-based manufacturer Diehl Defence to procure up to eight IRIS-T anti-missile systems with a contract volume of €2 billion to €3 billion, said the people, who asked not to be identified because the talks are private.”
These are expected to be but the first phase in implementing a comprehensive multi-layered system. Each IRIS-T battery can fire missiles over 40km to intercept fighter jets, drones, or in bound cruise missiles.
The irony with this latest news of the impending purchase is that Berlin actually supplied Ukraine before it supplied itself…
First, a Reuters report points out that “In October, Ukraine received the first of four IRIS-T air defence systems pledged by Germany to help Kyiv protect its cities from missile and drone attacks.”
But then the same report admits that “The German armed forces themselves do not currently own the system built by privately held German arms maker Diehl and considered among the world’s most advanced.”
Berlin is looking ahead at a moment many Western officials and pundits have expressed concern the Ukraine war could spread West, and deeper into Europe. At this moment it’s clear that Germany would be woefully unprepared if conflict showed up on its doorstep, especially after having sent costly advanced missile defense batteries off to Ukraine.
The Qatargate corruption scandal that has sent shockwaves through Brussels has also revealed that the key suspect, a “socialist” politician, enjoyed the “lifestyle of a movie star,” according to Hungarian newspaper Origo.
In this photo provided by the European Parliament, Greek politician and European Parliament Vice-President Eva Kaili, right, speaks during the European Book Prize award ceremony in Brussels, Dec. 7, 2022. (European Parliament via AP)
Caribbean holidays, glamorous parties in the clubs of Athens with supermodels, and luxury apartments. MEP Eva Kaili, the current star of the Brussels corruption scandal, appeared to have it all. Kaili turned out to not just be a socialist, but also a socialite who enjoyed a level of luxury quite out of place with the working-class principles that were once typically associated with the left.
Kaili bought a 169-square-meter luxury apartment in Psychiko, near Athens, Greece, in 2019 for €260,000, Alpha newspaper reported. Regarding the property, real estate consultant Paris Rigopoulos said that its objective value is estimated at €659,000 euros, while its market value is between €850,000 and €900,000.
As reported by Rena Kouvelioti, a journalist for Alpha, the MP’s apartment is located on the third and fourth floors and its price is estimated at €4,000 per square meter. According to press reports, the fourth floor of the apartment is used as an office and is connected to the floor below by an internal staircase.
According to her statements, Kaili bought the property in question after selling another apartment in the municipality of Anixi. The initial apartment, a 250 square meter property, was reportedly bought in 2009 for €291 000. Nine years later, she sold the property for €340,000. However, the tax office valued the property at only €214,000.
The significant difference of more than €100,000 she received and what the property was actually worth could raise questions in light of the corruption case.
Kaili has also bought three other properties. One is a 44 square meter apartment in Skoufa Street in Kolonaki, which she bought in 2005 for €66,000, where her company, founded on Nov. 30, had its headquarters. The apartment is currently valued at €52 215. Kaili also owns a house of 120 square meters in Thessaloniki, which she bought in 1997. She also owns a 53-square-meter apartment in Belgium, which she bought in 2015 for €175,000.
Coming back to the corruption scandal, the Financial Times mentions Kaili, who tried to represent the interests of Qatar in the European Parliament including visa-free travel for Qataris to Europe, as an insider of the other main suspect, Pier Antonio Panzeri. Her meetings with Qatari officials in Brussels, her visits to the Arab country, and her efforts to sabotage negative votes on Qatar may have been motivated by bribe money.
However, some MEPs argue that the bribes have had no real effect on EU policy.
“I have the impression that the (Panzeri) team tried to show the Qataris that they were working hard on their behalf, that’s why they made these efforts,” said Brando Benifei, head of the Italian Socialist delegation of the Democratic Party (PD), adding that he believed “they did not achieve any real results.”
Realizing NATO’s war with Russia will likely end unfavorably, the US is test-driving an exit offer. But why should Moscow take indirect proposals seriously, especially on the eve of its new military advance and while it is in the winning seat?
Those behind the Throne are never more dangerous than when they have their backs against the wall.
Their power is slipping away, fast: Militarily, via NATO’s progressive humiliation in Ukraine; Financially, sooner rather than later, most of the Global South will want nothing to do with the currency of a bankrupt rogue giant; Politically, the global majority is taking decisive steps to stop obeying a rapacious, discredited, de facto minority.
So now those behind the Throne are plotting to at least try to stall the incoming disaster on the military front.
As confirmed by a high-level US establishment source, a new directive on NATO vs. Russia in Ukraine was relayed to US Secretary of State Antony Blinken. Blinken, in terms of actual power, is nothing but a messenger boy for the Straussian neocons and neoliberals who actually run US foreign policy.
The secretary of state was instructed to relay the new directive – a sort of message to the Kremlin – via mainstream print media, which was promptly published by the Washington Post.
In the elite US mainstream media division of labor, the New York Times is very close to the State Department. and the Washington Post to the CIA. In this case though the directive was too important, and needed to be relayed by the paper of record in the imperial capital. It was published as an Op-Ed (behind paywall).
The novelty here is that for the first time since the start of Russia’s February 2022 Special Military Operation (SMO) in Ukraine, the Americans are actually proposing a variation of the “offer you can’t refuse” classic, including some concessions which may satisfy Russia’s security imperatives.
Crucially, the US offer totally bypasses Kiev, once again certifying that this is a war against Russia conducted by Empire and its NATO minions – with the Ukrainians as mere expandable proxies.
‘Please don’t go on the offensive’
The Washington Post’s old school Moscow-based correspondent John Helmer has provided an important service, offering the full text of Blinken’s offer, of course extensively edited to include fantasist notions such as “US weapons help pulverize Putin’s invasion force” and a cringe-worthy explanation: “In other words, Russia should not be ready to rest, regroup and attack.”
The message from Washington may, at first glance, give the impression that the US would admit Russian control over Crimea, Donbass, Zaporozhye, and Kherson – “the land bridge that connects Crimea and Russia” – as a fait accompli.
Ukraine would have a demilitarized status, and the deployment of HIMARS missiles and Leopard and Abrams tanks would be confined to western Ukraine, kept as a “deterrent against further Russian attacks.”
What may have been offered, in quite hazy terms, is in fact a partition of Ukraine, demilitarized zone included, in exchange for the Russian General Staff cancelling its yet-unknown 2023 offensive, which may be as devastating as cutting off Kiev’s access to the Black Sea and/or cutting off the supply of NATO weapons across the Polish border.
The US offer defines itself as the path towards a “just and durable peace that upholds Ukraine’s territorial integrity.” Well, not really. It just won’t be a rump Ukraine, and Kiev might even retain those western lands that Poland is dying to gobble up.
The possibility of a direct Washington-Moscow deal on “an eventual postwar military balance” is also evoked, including no Ukraine membership of NATO. As for Ukraine itself, the Americans seem to believe it will be a “strong, non-corrupt economy with membership in the European Union.”
Whatever remains of value in Ukraine has already been swallowed not only by its monumentally corrupt oligarchy, but most of all, investors and speculators of the BlackRock variety. Assorted corporate vultures simply cannot afford to lose Ukraine’s grain export ports, as well as the trade deal terms agreed with the EU before the war. And they’re terrified that the Russian offensive may capture Odessa, the major seaport and transportation hub on the Black Sea – which would leave Ukraine landlocked.
There’s no evidence whatsoever that Russian President Vladimir Putin, and the entire Russian Security Council – including its Secretary Nikolai Patrushev and Deputy Chairman Dmitry Medvedev – have reason to believe anything coming from the US establishment, especially via mere minions such as Blinken and the Washington Post. After all the stavka – a moniker for the high command of the Russian armed forces – regard the Americans as “non-agreement capable,” even when an offer is in writing.
This walks and talks like a desperate US gambit to stall and present some carrots to Moscow in the hope of delaying or even cancelling the planned offensive of the next few months.
Even old school, dissident Washington operatives – not beholden to the Straussian neocon galaxy – bet that the gambit will be a nothing burger: in classic “strategic ambiguity” mode, the Russians will continue on their stated drive of demilitarization, denazification and de-electrification, and will “stop” anytime and anywhere they see fit east of the Dnieper. Or beyond.
What the Deep State really wants
Washington’s ambitions in this essentially NATO vs. Russia war go well beyond Ukraine. And we’re not even talking about preventing a Russia-China-Germany Eurasian union or a peer competitor nightmare; let’s stick with prosaic issues on the Ukrainian battleground.
The key “recommendations” – military, economic, political, diplomatic – were detailed in an Atlantic Council strategy paper late last year.
And in another one, under “War scenario 1: The war continues in its current tempo,” we find the Straussian neocon policy fully spelled out.
It’s all here: from “marshaling support and military-assistance transfers to Kyiv sufficient to enable it to win” to “increase the lethality of military assistance transferred to include fighter aircraft that would enable Ukraine to control its airspace and attack Russian forces therein; and missile technology with range sufficient to reach into Russian territory.”
From training the Ukrainian military “to use Western weapons, electronic warfare, and offensive and defensive cyber capabilities, and to seamlessly integrate new recruits in the service” to buttressing “defenses on the front lines, near the Donbass region,” including “combat training focusing on irregular warfare.”
Added to “imposing secondary sanctions on all entities doing business with the Kremlin,” we reach of course the Mother of All Plunders: “Confiscate the $300 billion that the Russian state holds in overseas accounts in the United States and EU and use seized monies to fund reconstruction.”
The reorganization of the SMO, with Putin, Chief of the General Staff Valery Gerasimov, and General Armageddon in their new, enhanced roles is derailing all these elaborate plans.
The Straussians are now in deep panic. Even Blinken’s number two, Russophobic warmonger Victoria “F**k the EU” Nuland, has admitted to the US Senate there will be no Abrams tanks on the battlefield before Spring (realistically, only in 2024). She also promised to “ease sanctions” if Moscow “returns to negotiations.” Those negotiations were scotched by the Americans themselves in Istanbul in the Spring of 2022.
Nuland also called the Russians to “withdraw their troops.” Well, that at least offers some comic relief compared with the panic oozing from Blinken’s “offer you can’t refuse.” Stay tuned for Russia’s non-response response.
Chinese Companies Dominate Among Global AI Patents
Chinese enterprises increased patent filings for artificial intelligence products rapidly in the past couple of years.
As Statista’s Katharina Buchholz notes, the companies holding the most active AI and machine learning patent families are now tech giant Tencent and search engine provider Baidu, ahead of U.S. firm IBM, South Korea’s Samsung, Chinese insurance provider Ping An and former AI patent leader Microsoft.
The latter company has been seeing one of its major AI investments come to fruition recently, as conversational AI bot ChatGPT by Microsoft partner OpenAI has been making waves. Microsoft swiftly announced another round of funding for OpenAI, rumored to be to the tune of $10 billion.
As this chart based on the LexisNexis PatentSight directory shows, Tencent and Baidu became the largest patent owners in machine learning and AI in 2021, each holding more than 9,000 active patent families. A family is a set of patents covering the same technical content. IBM owed more than 7,000 families that same year, while Microsoft held just under 6,000 – rank six. Between 2012 and 2019, it was Microsoft which owned the most AI patents, according to LexisNexis.
Even bigger than the rise in filings by Tencent and Baidu was the AI patent frenzy unleashed by Chinese insurance and banking giant Ping An. The number of patent families it owns grew from fewer than 50 to more than 6,000 just in the past five years. years. Among the AI tools recently developed by the company is software for analyzing facial micro-expressions (i.e. eye blinks, involuntary twitches), which Ping An uses to assess insurance claims its policyholders send in by video.
Nicole Sirotek is a registered nurse in Nevada with over a decade of experience working in some of the harshest conditions. When a hurricane devastated Puerto Rico, Sirotek and the organization she founded, American Frontline Nurses (AFLN), were there and gave out over 500 pounds of medical equipment and supplies.
She hasn’t hesitated to be the first in when an emergency hits and medical professionals are needed. She’s lost count of the number of times she’s woken up on a cot in the middle of nowhere, boots still strapped to her feet, and ready to go.
But in tears during an interview with The Epoch Times, she detailed her ordeal with harassment and doxing over the past year and how she’s contemplated suicide due to crippling anxiety and depression.
“It took such a toll on my mental health. I wasn’t sleeping and wasn’t eating,” Sirotek said.
To regain her mental health, she decided to step back from the group she started. But even that decision brought pain.
“I said after I left New York, I’d do everything that I can to make sure it didn’t happen again,” Sirotek said, recalling the death she witnessed when she volunteered in New York as a nurse at the start of the COVID-19 pandemic. “I mean, for me to step back and take a break just makes me feel like I failed!”
Sirotek is the victim of ongoing harassment. She’s received pictures of her children posed in slaughterhouses and hanging from a noose, drive-by photos of her house, and letters with white powder that exploded upon opening.
The Nevada State Board of Nursing was inundated with calls for Sirotek’s professional demise and flooded with anonymous complaints.
These complaints trace back to Team Halo, a social media influencer campaign formed as part of the United Nations Verified initiative and the Vaccine Confidence Project.
In response, Sirotek filed a police report. Her lawyer sent a cease-and-desist letter. The Epoch Times reviewed the documents.
The reply from the cease-and-desist letter? The client was acting within his First Amendment rights.
The Harassment Begins
In February 2022, Sirotek, as the face of AFLN, a patient advocacy network that boasts 22,000 nurses, appeared before Sen. Ron Johnson (R-Wis.) and testified about the harm patients were experiencing when they sought treatment for COVID-19.
She said she didn’t witness patients dying from the novel virus when she volunteered to work the front lines in New York at the start of the pandemic.
Sirotek detailed the withholding by higher-ups of steroids and Ibuprofen and the prescribing of remdesivir. Additionally, there was zero willingness to consider possible early intervention treatments like ivermectin.
As the pandemic continued, such practices only escalated, Sirotek said.
Sirotek’s testimony resulted in cheers, widespread attention, and a target on her back.
“[The harassment] all started the day we got back from DC,” Sirotek said.
At first, the attacks started with the typical “you’re transphobic, you’re anti-LGBTQ. I mean, they even called me racist,” Sirotek, who is Hispanic, recalled.
And as more patients sought AFLN’s help, the attacks increased in frequency and force.
At first, Sirotek said the attacks appeared to come from random people. But as the attacks continued, the terms “Project Halo,” “Team Halo,” and “#TeamHalo” continually cropped up. Especially on TikTok and from two accounts, “@jesss2019” and “@thatsassynp.”
“[@thatsassynp] just kept on saying how I was spreading misinformation, [that] ivermectin doesn’t work,” Sirotek said. “He kept targeting the Nevada State Board of Nursing because I was on the Practice Act Committee, and he did not feel like that was acceptable.”
Craig Perry, a lawyer representing nurses, including Sirotek, before the Nevada State Board of Nursing, confirmed Sirotek’s account. The executive director of the Nevada State Board of Nursing, Cathy Dinauer, declined to provide details on complaints or investigations, stating to The Epoch Times via email that they are “confidential.”
Sirotek said the complaints overwhelmed her ability to defend her nursing license.
“Untimely, they were filing so many complaints against me that [the Nevada State Board of Nursing] had to start filtering them as to what was applicable and not applicable. And [the complaints] just buried my nursing license to the point that we couldn’t even defend it,” Sirotek said.
Attacks Transition to Threats
Whenever Sirotek, or AFLN, tried to set up a community outreach webinar, hateful comments flooded their videos.
Julia McCabe, a registered nurse and the director of advocacy services for AFLN, told The Epoch Times that initially, they tried kicking the trolls out of the outreach videos. But they couldn’t keep up with the overwhelming numbers and had to shut the videos down, usually after only 10 minutes, she said.
To address the swarms, as McCabe labeled them, AFLN started charging an entrance fee for their webinars. But, McCabe said, they’d send out an email with a free access code to all of their subscribers before the webinar started. It helped, but not enough. The swarms kept coming. And the attacks escalated.
On June 5, 2022, @thatsassynp posted a video on TikTok calling for a “serious public uprising,” because the Nevada State Board of Nursing and other regulatory agencies weren’t disciplining nurses for spreading “disinformation.”
It became one of many such videos in the ensuing days. In the comments of one, he stated, “Also, stay tuned as [@jesss2019] will be addressing this as well. We are teaming up (as per usual) to raise awareness and demand action on this issue.” @jesss2019 responded, “Yes!!!! We will get this taken care of.”
Jess and Tyler Kuhk of @thatsassynp have “teamed up” on several occasions, targeting healthcare workers who question the COVID-19 narrative. Team Halo doesn’t officially list Kuhk on its site, but Kuhk posts with the #teamhalo.
In another video, he states, “If you’re new to this series, PLEASE watch the videos in my playlist ‘Nevada board of nursing.’ This started in Feb of this year.” His video has almost 35,000 “loves.”
On June 7, 2022, @jesss2019 posted a video on TikTok accusing Sirotek of spreading misinformation. It included a link to @thatsassynp, and his complaints about Sirotek to the Nevada State Board of Nursing and calls to remove her from the Practice Act Committee. She implored TikTok to boost the message. It, too, became one of many videos attacking Sirotek.
Specifically, @jesss2019 and @thatsassynp took issue with videos and posts from Sirotek, and AFLN, advocating for ivermectin and highlighting possible issues with remdesivir and the COVID-19 vaccines.
@jess2019 removed all of the above videos after The Epoch Times sought comment. The Epoch Times retains copies.
Sirotek says she received the first death threat against herself and her children around the same time, in June 2022.
“They cut off the pictures of my children’s faces from our family photos, where we take them every year on our front porch—we’ve got 11 years of those photos—and they cut them out and put them on the bodies of those little boys that have been sexually abused. And that’s what would get sent to my house. And I gave the police that,” Sirotek said.
In response to a request for comment from The Epoch Times, Sen. Johnson defended Sirotek.
“The COVID Cartel continues to frighten and silence those who tell the truth and challenge their failed response to COVID,” Johnson said. “It is simply wrong for Ms. Sirotek to be smeared and attacked like so many others who have had the courage and compassion to successfully treat COVID patients.”
As the threats continued and escalated, Sirotek also asked Perry to send a cease-and-desist letter to Tyler Kuhk on Aug. 1, 2022.
Kuhk, a nurse practitioner, is the person posting on TikTok under the pseudonym @thatsassynp.
The letter sent to Kuhk alleges that on at least 10 different occasions, @thatsassynp encouraged a “public uprising” against Sirotek. It also details that his videos attacking Sirotek garnered over 400,000 views.
In response, McLetchie Law, a “boutique law firm serving prominent and emerging … media entities” responded to Perry by stating in a letter dated Aug. 16, 2022, “Both Nevada law and the First Amendment provide robust protections for our client’s (and others’) rights to criticize Ms. Sirotek’s dangerous views and practices—and to advocate for her removal from the Nursing Practice Advisory Committee of the Nevada State Board of Nursing.”
It also warned that any attempt to deter Kuhk from his chosen path would “backfire” and could result in a “negative financial impact.” Neither Kuhk nor McLetchie Law responded to The Epoch Times’ request for comment.
Unable to confirm the real name behind the TikTok account @jesss2019, and thus, unable to send her a legal letter, Sirotek posted some of the threats she’d received on Facebook, pleading for @jesss2019 to cease targeting her, and recognize the possible real-world harm.
In desperation, Sirotek asked Perry to file a legal name change, which he did on Sep. 15, 2022, hoping that would thwart people’s ability to look up Sirotek’s information. Perry told The Epoch Times, “Usually, when you do a name change, it’s a public record. But under extenuating circumstances, you can have that sealed.”
In Sirotek’s case, the court recognized the threat to her and her family’s safety, waived the publication requirement, granted the change, and sealed her record on Oct. 4, 2022.
Sirotek, at the behest of Perry, filed a police report detailing the harassment on Oct. 17, 2022.
In December 2022, @jesss2019 posted a video to TikTok doxing Sirotek by revealing her name change. The Epoch Times sought comment from @jesss2019 but has not received a response. After the request for comment, the user removed the video.
Team Halo and Social Media
On Dec. 17, 2020, Theo Bertram, a director at TikTok; Iain Bundred, the head of public policy at YouTube; and Rebecca Stimson, the UK head of public policy for Facebook, appeared before the UK’s House of Commons to explain what their social media sites were doing to combat “anti-vaccination disinformation.”
All three stated their companies employed a “two-pronged approach.” Specifically, “tackle disinformation and promote trusted content.”
Bundred stated that from the beginning of the year to November 2020, YouTube had removed 750,000 videos that promoted “Covid disinformation.”
Stimson stated that between March and October 2020, “12 million pieces of content were removed from [Facebook],” and it had labeled 167 million pieces with a warning.
Bertram stated that for the first six months of 2020, TikTok removed 1,500 accounts for “Covid violation” and had recently increased that activity. “In the last two months, we took action against 1,380 accounts, so you can see the level of action is increasing,” Bertram said.
“In October, we began work with Team Halo,” Bertram added. “I do not know if you are familiar with Team Halo. It is run by the Vaccine Confidence Project at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine and is about getting reliable, trusted scientists and doctors on to social media to spread trusted information.”
Team Halo’s Origins
On Sep. 20, 2022, Melissa Fleming, the under-secretary-general for global communications at the United Nations, appeared at the World Economic Forum to discuss how the United Nations was “Tackling Disinformation” regarding “health guidance” as well as the “safety and efficacy of the vaccine” for COVID-19.
“A key strategy that we had was to deploy influencers,” Fleming stated. “Influencers who were really keen, who had huge followings, but really keen to help carry messages that were going to serve their communities.”
Fleming also explained that the United Nations knew its messaging wouldn’t resonate as well as influencers, so they developed Team Halo.
“We had another trusted messenger project, which was called Team Halo, where we trained scientists around the world, and some doctors, on TikTok. We had TikTok working with us,” Fleming said. “It was a layered deployment of ideas and tactics.”
The Biden Administration’s so-called “Ghost Gun” rule released last year provided everything ATF now needs to confiscate millions of pistols equipped with stabilizing braces.
With the gun registry expansion rule enacted, the Biden Administration has created a complete national gun registry of every commercial firearm transaction in the last twenty years. This illegal gun registry can easily be used by ATF to enforce compliance with their pistol brace ban.
President Biden has initiated a pistol brace ban via executive action—formally an ATF rule entitled “Factoring Criteria for Firearms with Attached ‘Stabilizing Braces'”—because ATF is in its strongest position yet to begin systematically confiscating firearms from gun owners.
The ATF’s draconian Pistol Brace Rule just hit the federal register. Your 120 day clock starts now.
GOA is prepared to fight this by:
✅Working with Congress to pass a Joint Resolution of Disapproval
✅Filing a lawsuit
✅Passing the SHORT ACT
✅Defunding the ATF
This rule regulates pistols equipped with stabilizing braces, which ATF approved previously and were designed and intended to allow disabled shooters to hold certain firearms with one hand.
Even though these guns were acquired lawfully and with prior ATF approval, these pistol owners will now face a choice: reconfigure their pistols at personal cost, register them with the federal government as short-barreled rifles (SBRs), turn them in, or destroy them.
The ATF has referred to this program as Biden’s “Amnesty Registration of Pistol Brace Weapons” plan. All of these so-called “options” infringe on the right to keep and bear arms.
The Biden Administration is using the National Firearms Registration and Transfer Record (NFRTR) as established by the antiquated National Firearms Act of 1934to formally register these pistols with the federal government. But an illegal gun registry of Firearm Transaction Records will help ATF enforce this new ban with disturbing precision and legal consequences for gun owners.
As mentioned earlier, the Biden Administration’s “Ghost Gun” rule also empowers the ATF to use Forms 4473 or Firearm Transaction Records, kept by FFLs after gun sales, to create a complete gun registry.
Now, the ATF has guaranteed that there is a complete record of every firearm transferred since at least August 24th, 2002, including firearms equipped with stabilizing braces which first hit the markets in the last decade.
This means all ATF-approved and commercially-sold pistol braced firearms have a paper registration trail for the ATF to trace at local gun stores or are already present in ATF’s digital and searchable out-of-business records gun registry, which had nearly a billion records even prior to its expansion by Biden’s ATF.
While ATF will not be able to use its gun registry to find those who purchased a stabilizing brace and attached it to their firearms at home, the same cannot be said for the millions of gun owners who commercially purchased or transferred many of these brace-equipped pistols.
ATF’s gun registry includes an extraordinary amount of information about each firearm an individual has purchased. ATF’s out-of-business registry is, in fact, searchable by make, model, serial number, and weapon type. Therefore, the ATF can efficiently create a list of all gun owners’ AR-15 pistols to create a door-to-door confiscation list, complete with home addresses and firearm serial numbers.
GOA already caught the Biden Administration using commercial sales records to go door-to-door to enforce the “Ghost Gun” rule’s solvent trap provision last year.
Gun owners also found ATF going door-to-door, asking gun owners to verify the serial numbers on their recent gun purchases without a warrant. ATF surely plans to do the same for President Biden’s pistol brace ban.
In fact, there is little more the Biden Administration could do to make the ATF’s illegal gun registry more useful than it already is for confiscating pistol AR-15s and other such firearms.
The implementation of the ATF’s gun registry and “ghost gun” crackdown was strategically implemented to make sure that Biden’s Pistol Ban would be as successful as possible. Gun owners should beware that this unconstitutional database of all their commercial firearm transactions is ready to be used against them to confiscate their lawfully acquired pistols.
Watch: Will ATF Perform Brace “Compliance Checks” With It’s Expanded Registry?
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