Chaos erupted in Times Square on New Year’s Eve when a machete-wielding man injured three New York Police Department (NYPD) officers. 

New York Police Commissioner Keechant Sewell told reporters early Sunday that a 19-year-old man attempted to strike the first officer in the head with a machete, unprovoked. Sewell said the man hit two other officers on the head with the machete. 

Sewell said one officer received a laceration to the head while the other received a skull fracture and a large laceration. Another officer discharged his firearm, striking the suspect in the shoulder. 

Watch as Police Commissioner Sewell & Mayor Adams provide an update on a police involved incident in Manhattan. https://t.co/ha11b02Fvq

— NYPD NEWS (@NYPDnews) January 1, 2023

The incident occurred around 9:30 p.m. ET at West 52nd Street and 8th Avenue. One police source told NYPost that an investigation had been opened to see whether the suspect is a radical Islamic extremist. 

“We are working with our federal partners for this investigation, and it is ongoing,” Commissioner Sewell said. 

NYPD Crime Stoppers released a picture of the machete. 

Mike Driscoll, assistant director in charge of the New York FBI Field Office, who is also investigating, told local news NBC New York that the knife attack appears to be the work of a “sole individual at this time, there’s nothing to suggest otherwise.” The FBI’s Joint Terrorism Task Force is also investigating.

Nearby onlookers were startled by the attack and gunfire — many revelers fled amid the chaos. 

They are shooting and stabbing in #TimesSquare! Two police stabbed. Condition unknown! #NYCACC pic.twitter.com/D119rFg5Qs

— @BeeNewsDailyB (@BeenewsdailyB) January 1, 2023

BREAKING NEWS: Two NYPD officers stabbed, One Officer was stabbed in the head during New Year’s Eve celebrations at Times Square. #Manhattan #nypd #stabbing #fdny #TimesSquare #NewYear #balldrop #HappyNewYear #NewYorkCity #nyc #newyork #BreakingNews #Police pic.twitter.com/EMzINArTLp

— NY Actions (@NY_ACTIONS) January 1, 2023

“No backpacks or umbrellas in Times Square. They forgot to mention machetes,” a police source told The Post. 

Authored by Daniel Lacalle,

2023. Stagflation After Failed Stimulus.

After more than $20 trillion in stimulus plans since 2020, the economy is going into stagnation with elevated inflation. Global governments announced more than $12 trillion in stimulus measures in 2020 alone, and central banks bloated their balance sheet by $8 trillion.

The result was disappointing and with long-lasting negative effects. Weak recovery, record debt and elevated inflation. Of course, governments all over the world blamed the Ukraine invasion on the non-existent multiplier effect of the stimulus plans, but the excuse made no sense.

Commodity prices rose from February to June 2022 and have corrected since. Even considering the negative effect of rising commodity prices in developed economies, we must acknowledge that those are positives for emerging economies and, even with that boost, the disappointing recovery led to constant downgrades of estimates.

If Keynesian multipliers existed, most developed economies would be growing strongly even discounting the Ukraine invasion impact, considering the unprecedented amount of stimulus plans approved.

Now we face a 2023 with even more disappointing estimates. According to Bloomberg Economics, global growth will decline from a poor 3.2% in 2022 to a worrying 2.4% in 2023, significantly below the pre-covid-19 trend but with higher global debt. Total global debt rose by $3.3 trillion in Q1 2022 to a new record of over $305 trillion-mostly due to China and the U.S., according to the IIF.

However, consensus estimates show an even worse outlook. Global growth should stall at +1.8%, with the euro area at zero growth and the United States at just 0.3%, with inflation reaching 6% globally, 6.1% in the euro area, and 4.1% in the United States.

Only a handful of countries are expected to reduce debt in 2023, with most nations continuing to finance bloated government spending with elevated deficits and tax hikes. A world where governments are constantly eroding the purchasing power of currencies and slashing disposable income of taxpayers with rising taxes is likely to show weaker growth trends and worsening imbalances.

The narrative all over the world is to try and convince us that past-peak but elevated inflation is “falling prices” and that everything is good when debt increases, growth stalls and the purchasing power of salaries and savings is wiped out slowly.

There is no success in stagflation. It is a process of impoverishment that hurts the middle classes immensely while the excessive government spending is never curbed.

2022 was the year that killed MMT, the science-fiction fallacy of Modern Monetary Theory. Countries with monetary sovereignty like Japan or the UK found themselves in an unprecedented turmoil created by the illusion that rising deficit and debt would never cause significant problems. It only took a few rate hikes to dismantle the illusion of perennial money printing as the solution to everything.

2022 also showed that it is false that massive deficits are reserves that strengthen the economy. The United States suffered the most severe inflation blow in thirty years even being energy independent and benefitting from exporting natural gas and oil to the rest of the world. If the ludicrous MMT narrative was true, the United States should have not suffered any inflationary pressure.

2023 is expected to be the year of stagflation. Of course, most strategists are betting on inflation falling rapidly in the second part of the year, but that seems inconsistent with their estimates of deficit spending and growth.

The uncomfortable reality is that nations have created a long-lasting decline by pushing the limits on demand-side policies and government intervention.

Many celebrated the decision to use governments and central banks as the lenders of first resort instead of the last option, and what has been created is a problem with difficult solutions.

There seems to be no incentive to reduce the fiscal and monetary imbalances built through two decades, and therefore the result will be weaker growth and impoverishment.

No government wants to acknowledge the risk of central banks reducing their balance sheet. Even the most aggressive strategist fails to dare to estimate a three trillion US dollar quantitative tightening because they all know that the effects could be devastating. However, to truly normalize, central banks should reduce their balance sheet by at least five trillion US dollars. Governments and investment banks fear a gradual three trillion tightening because it can lead to a financial crisis. Those same market participants know that a five trillion tightening would undoubtedly lead to a financial crisis.

The reason why everyone expects a 2023 divided in two parts, a first half of poor data and a second where growth picks up and inflation plummets, is because market participants need to create a narrative that shows a quick fix to the above-mentioned disaster. However, there is no quick fix, there is no soft landing and there is not a chance of solving the problem by keeping elevated deficits, massive central bank balance sheets and real negative rates. If we want to look at the options, there are only two: Fixing the problem created in 2020, which means a global recession but probably not a financial crisis, or not fixing it, which means elevated inflation, weaker growth and another bad year for risky assets which can lead to a financial crisis.

Unfortunately, when governments all over the world decided to “spend now and deal with the consequences later” in 2020 they also created the seeds of a 2008-style problem.

The United Nations General Assembly on Friday passed a resolution asking the International Court of Justice (ICJ) to evaluate the legality of Israel’s “prolonged occupation, settlement and annexation of Palestinian territory.”

In a video message, Prime Minister Benjamin Netayahu was quick to condemn the UN vote as a “despicable decision” that has no bearing on Israel — a government that sprang into existence in 1948 in the wake of a UN General Assembly recommendation to partition Palestine. 

“The Jewish people are not occupiers in their own land nor occupiers in our eternal capital Jerusalem and no UN resolution can distort that historical truth,” said Netanyahu. 

Friday’s UN resolution also asks the ICJ to give an advisory opinion on Israeli “measures aimed at altering the demographic composition, character and status of the Holy City of Jerusalem, and from its adoption of related discriminatory legislation and measures.” 

Jewish settlers and Israeli authorities have been intensifying their efforts to push Palestinians out of occupied East Jerusalem, with the neighborhood of Sheikh Jarrah emerging as a particular flash point. 

The UN vote comes after Netanyahu’s formation of the most ultra-nationalist and religious government in in the country’s history. Last week, Netanyahu’s government declared that “the Jewish people have an exclusive and inalienable right to all parts of the Land of Israel,” including the West Bank and Golan Heights. 

With the new leadership bent on the even more expansion of West Bank settlements– and thus threatening to obliterate the long-running fictional pursuit of a “two-state solution” — a leery Biden White House is dispatching national security advisor Jake Sullivan to the Israel for a mid-January visit.

Friday’s General Assembly’s ICJ resolution passed by an 87-26 vote, with 53 members abstaining. In voting against the measure, Israel and the United States were joined by countries that included Australia, Austria, Canada, Germany, Italy and the United Kingdom. France abstained, while Russia, China, Ireland, Portugal and Saudi Arabia were among the yes votes. 

The 15-member ICJ, which is in The Hague, Netherlands, is the UN’s senior court for managing international disputes. Though not obliged to take act on the General Assembly resolution, the court is widely expected to. 

In September, Italian human rights attorney Francesca Albanese, acting as a UN Special Rapporteur, characterized Israel as an “intentionally acquisitive, segregationist and repressive regime designed to prevent the realization of the Palestinian people’s right to self-determination.” She officially urged that Israel dismantle its “settler-colonial occupation and its apartheid practices.”

This month, Israel accused Albanese of antisemitism, citing 2014 social media comments in which she used the term “Jewish lobby” in explaining why the United States “remain[ed] on the sidelines” as Israel brutally attacked Gaza, exacting a high proportion of civilian casualties.

Israel is a self-declared “Jewish state,” but, according to the Israeli government, “the term ‘Jewish Lobby’ is a well-known and millennia-old antisemitic trope. It has been used to direct hatred toward the Jewish people for hundreds of years with horrific consequences.” 

Chanting at the “flag march”, celebrating the “unification” of Jerusalem which marching in Pal neighborhoods:
“Shuafat is on fire” (referencing the burning of Muhammad Abu Khdeir)
“A Jew is a soul, an Arab is a son of a whore”
“Muhammad is dead”
“May your village burn down” https://t.co/4me5U9dbwU

— Haggai Matar (@Ha_Matar) May 29, 2022

For Jewish supremacists too lazy to travel to Jerusalem, there are satellite “Death-to-the-Arabs!” marches in other Israeli cities, like this one in Lydda. Under police protection, aspiring pogromists stop at a school to sing about wiping out Palestinians https://t.co/lqUH3yIFz1

— David Sheen (@davidsheen) May 29, 2022

Authored by Alasdair Macleod via GoldMoney.com,

In very quiet post-Christmas trading, gold was $1815 in European morning trading, up $22 from last Friday’s close. Over the same timeframe, silver was up 11 cents at $23.82. By the last trading day of 2022, the dollar price of silver had risen 2.6%, while gold had fallen 0.8%. They comfortably outperformed bonds (US 10-year Treasury bond price was down 17.2%)  and equity markets (S&P down 20%).

With interest rates rising, many investors will be surprised that precious metals have held up so well.

Admittedly, gold had fallen by 11% by end-September when bond yields were at their highest, but the falls in bonds and equities were somewhat greater at the same time.

One of the factors which supported gold in the final quarter, offsetting moderate ETF liquidation of about 300 tonnes over the year has been central bank demand, which the World Gold Council estimates to have been 364 tonnes by October. Including more recent purchases by China and others adds nearly 300 tonnes. The Chinese purchase was confirmed in recent days by Mark Bristow, CEO of Barrick Gold, the world’s second largest gold mining corporation, who claimed China had bought “tonnes of gold around the high 200-tonnes mark”.

Why China has bought this gold, when it has ample bullion additional to its declared reserves, is an interesting question. The answer probably lies with President Xi’s recent visit to Saudi Arabia, where it was agreed that sales of oil would be paid in yuan, replacing the petrodollar with petroyuan. According to Aljazeera, Saudi exports to China are worth $33.4bn equivalent, while its imports are $31.8bn, so the net surplus is $1.6bn. The official communiqué referred to “levelling up trade, investment and financial cooperation”.

We know that China is keen to internationalise its markets, which is what investment and financial cooperation is about. The international section of the Shanghai Gold Exchange will be used by Saudi Arabia for its yuan to gold transactions. It is therefore likely that some of China’s purchase of nearly 300 tonnes in recent weeks will be to provide liquidity to backstop this market.

With regard to prospects for next year’s gold price, it should be noted that the major factor will be the fate of the dollar. It appears likely that dollar oil prices will increase in the coming months, while foreign holders of dollars will continue to reduce their dollar exposure, which in the year to October declined by $3.8 trillion. But a rising interest rate trend leading to falling financial asset values and the petroyuan replacing the petrodollar, events could coalesce into a perfect storm for the dollar. 

This is not how conventional analysts look at the gold price.

They would argue that higher interest rates, if they occur, will drive gold lower. But that is an argument that denies the role of gold as money.

Tell that to President Putin, who by cornering global hydrocarbon supplies probably has a greater influence on the dollar’s future than the US Treasury and the Fed combined.

The most popular party in Switzerland, the Swiss People’s Part (SVP), known for its agrarian roots and opposition to mass immigration, is set to pursue a referendum calling for the renegotiation of international treaties, or even their complete abandonment, if the Swiss population hits 10 million.

As John Cody reports at Remix News, the proposed referendum comes at a time when Europe increasingly faces environmental catastrophe, a housing crisis, and huge strains on public resources due to soaring immigration levels. Many European nations are among the most densely populated nations in the world and life in them is only expected to become more crowded in the near future unless dramatic action is taken. Switzerland is no exception.

“Our country is cracking in every corner. We are going through the debacles of recent years. If we don’t intervene, we will be overtaken by events,” said Marcel Dettling, the SVP’s campaign manager.

Dettling warns that economic migration remains high, especially from groups known for their difficulty integrating into Switzerland, a fact highlighted by Switzerland’s alarming prison population data.

“Today, there is very strong economic migration,” says Dettling. 

“Whoever has set foot in Switzerland will never leave the country. Migrants from Africa have welfare rates of 34 percent.”

Dettling’s party is meeting on Jan. 6 and 7 in Thurgau, near the shores of Lake Constance, and the main topic of discussion is expected to be immigration, with the new referendum featuring the working title “initiative for sustainability.”

Explosive population growth

The text for the referendum has also already been completed and would stipulate that Switzerland’s population should not exceed 10 million until 2050. After 2050, this limit could be slightly increased but only due to organic, surplus births.

SVP National Councilor Thomas Matter says he must sound a “red alert” over Switzerland’s rising population, adding that “this is the last moment when we can still change something for Switzerland.”

“The migration figures are hair-raising,” he said. 

“In 2022, Switzerland will have 200,000 more inhabitants, the population of the canton of Basel-City.” 

There is also the threat that a conflict between Serbia and Kosovo would only ramp up the refugee numbers Switzerland is facing.

The country is already rapidly approaching 9 million residents. In 2022, 145,958 people arrived, raising the population to 8.89 million. It. is now only a matter of time until the population hits 9 million.

Over the past 20 years, Switzerland’s population has increased by 21 percent.

“If Switzerland grows so strongly again over the next 20 years, everything will collapse,” said Matter, who serves as a national councilor. 

According to him, the country’s financial reserves for education, health and transport are exhausted.

“It is urgent to leave the model of quantitative growth for qualitative growth.”

Details of the referendum text

Just like the country’s debt brake, the referendum would serve as a brake on immigration. The text stipulates that if certain population limits are reached, the government must take certain steps to inhibit population growth. For example, if Switzerland’s population reaches 9.5 million, the Swiss Federal Council will have to take steps with new laws to counteract this growth.

However, if the country reaches 10 million, the government must respond with “rigorous measures,” including the Federal Council abandoning international agreements, such as the UN migration pacts or EU treaties relating to free movement.

It is important to note that Switzerland has featured a number of referendums on the topic of immigration in the past, including the famous 2014 referendum “against mass immigration,” which won with 50.3 percent of the vote. The SVP-backed referendum was designed to place strict quotas on immigration, but despite winning the vote, the referendum was more or less made toothless by the Swiss parliament.

Switzerland was threatened by the EU over any attempt to restrict free movement, with the EU warning Switzerland that any abandonment of free movement would have meant that all EU agreements became null and void, which would have presented severe economic consequences for the country.

The SVP harshly criticized the final agreement, which failed to implement immigration quotas but instead offered moderate improvements regarding job market conditions for the Swiss. The SVP called it “a betrayal of voters’ wishes” and unconstitutional, while the EU commission celebrated the “hugely watered-down version of the initiative.“

The SVP, this time around, will include language in the referendum that outright calls for Switzerland to ignore these international agreements, but Swiss business interests and the country’s left-liberal bloc are likely to put up a serious fight should the referendum win.

SPV argues that immigration does not equal endless growth

The current Western model promotes the idea of endless GDP growth through mass immigration. More immigrants equal more consumers, more housing construction springing up across the countryside, and more Third World peoples adopting a First World lifestyle.

Left-liberal and Green parties across the Western world have simultaneously called for Europeans to have fewer children to save the environment, while promoting mass immigration from Middle Eastern, African, and Asian countries, with these newcomers known for their notoriously high birth rates. At the same time, countries like Switzerland, Germany, and the United Kingdom are breaking population records due to immigration, leading to a severe strain on the environment and social welfare models within these European nations — a development that has been rejected by only a handful of nations such as Denmark and Hungary.

The right, if it wants to survive, may have to tie environmental causes and climate change, which the youth of Europe overwhelmingly believe is occurring, to soaring population growth through immigration. The Swiss referendum may be a nod to a growing reality. Any referendum that calls for immigration restriction is likely to fail given the growing pro-migration youth vote, but if it can be tied to green causes, such a referendum may have a chance.

Futhermore, the SVP argues that this endless population growth model is not only unsustainable, but actually will not result in the desired outcome of endless economic growth.

SVP National Councilor Manuel Strupler states that purely “quantitative” immigration does not guarantee higher per capita growth. Furthermore, this type of immigration “dilutes” the values ​​of Switzerland.

“At some point, someone will have to pay the costs of our current policy. We have a duty to the next generation to preserve the values ​​that have made Switzerland successful”

Thomas Matter argues that population growth has actually reached the point of harming economic growth and will help push the country into recession. He says that while the population will increase by 2.5 percent in 2022, per capita income will only rise by 2 percent:

“They want us to believe that immigration rhymes with growth. But in reality, we are heading towards a recession,” he said.

He notes that France and Germany have closed their borders to illegal immigration from Switzerland, with Switzerland increasingly seen as a transit country. He warns that “a disaster is brewing.”

Authored by Ben Sellers via Headline USA,

There has been a lot of talk lately about the “word of the year.”

Some say it is “gaslighting,” which happens to be a personal favorite of mine.

Others say “goblin mode,” a bizarre term linked to Kanye West and Elon Musk that the Left’s semantic gatekeepers have rushed to redefine from a meme that was funny precisely because it had no obvious definition.

In the spirit of New Year’s predictions, I will boldly assert that the same may be true of 2023’s future word of the year, “conspiracy theory.”

Like “gaslighting” and “goblin mode,” it is a term that has taken on a new meaning in light of current events—and one that the Left–Establishment hegemony has desperately sought to appropriate and weaponize for its own purposes.

But in the next 12 months, we will see conservatives successfully reclaim it. In fact, the early adopters are already lighting the way on social media.

There is this pic.twitter.com/GwNQpbWzq2

— Oldguy (@Iambord6) December 25, 2022

pic.twitter.com/bWS0hDdQ1s

— Kay Turner (@Kay_turner) December 25, 2022

What is the current “conspiracy theory” that will be true in six months?

— Ryan Cunningham (@rycunni) December 26, 2022

Increasingly, we are seeing the corruption of the Biden administration start to come out in the wash, with growing backlash. Questions that the media tried to deny and deride in service to their agenda have since had the curtain lifted. More and more, even averred leftist idealogues, like ex-Planned Parenthood leader Leana Wen, are admitting that they lied about various aspects of the COVID pandemic.

“If the Chinese military unleashed a deadly manufactured flu virus on the world, Joe Biden would blame you for it! And actually, he did!” – @TuckerCarlson

Dr. Leana Wen Now Admits ‘Pandemic of the Unvaccinated’ Was a Total Lie pic.twitter.com/8AkB1AJ86a

— Red Voice Media (@redvoicenews) December 25, 2022

 While the Twitter Files have played a huge role in exposing the unseemly and unconstitutional collusion between U.S. spy agencies and Big Tech, a flurry of GOP-led investigations in the House will bring at least the semblance of accountability back to The Swamp, even if it is more or less a paper tiger.

Fox News host Tucker Carlson, who was named Media Matters’s “Misinformer of the Year,” recently reflected on the origin of the term “conspiracy theory,” which emerged from the Warren Commission’s efforts to cover up the assassination of former President John F. Kennedy.

JFK may have been the first time that deep-state operatives in the intelligence community succeeded in overthrowing a sitting president.

Since then, it has happened at least two more times, with FBI and CIA fingerprints all over both the Watergate scandal and the 2020 election fraud.

But having overplayed their hand, the entire house of cards now seems poised to collapse, validating skeptics’ belief that everything they have been told for the past half-century has been part of the real Big Lie, and that our idea of democracy has been but an illusion.

With that in mind, here are 10 things that the powers-that-be in D.C. have yet to cop to, but which will soon be impossible to ignore, in no particular order:

1. The role that the intel community and the Justice Department played in fomenting violence through psy-ops on Jan. 6, 2021, will be exposed.  Sadly, in their expected counter-investigation responding to the Pelosi-run Jan. 6 committee, even House Republicans may withhold state secrets from us. But the FBI’s damaging partisan conduct has generated a multitude of whistleblowing defectors who should be willing to shed light on the dubious allegations of right-wing extremism and violence at the U.S. Capitol—and in the 2017 Charlottesville riot that was its dress rehearsal.
2. The deadly impact of the COVID vaccines will become undeniable. Initially, I had considered writing about how the GOP House will expose Anthony Fauci’s role in developing the COVID-19 virus, but that already has been scrutinized to death, and without any accountability to back it up, it makes no difference. But there are plenty of other COVID abuses that will keep on yielding new storylines. And none may be greater than the decision by pharmaceutical companies to suppress therapeutics and overplay the importance of their untested and experimental new vaccines. The evidence is mounting that the vaccines themselves may have been as deadly and damaging as the virus—something to which many life-insurance actuaries may be able to attest. Whether the vaccines do, indeed, have nanobots that self-assemble and transmit wi-fi, there is a lot of reason to suspect that they are harmful on some level.
3. The scope of China’s control over the U.S. government will become clearer. We know about the various financial ties between the Biden family and the CCP. We know that other top leaders, including Nancy Pelosi and Mitch McConnell are heavily invested in Chinese industry. But what we have yet to fully explore is the way that China-linked companies like BlackRock have also completely infiltrated the White House and are effectively writing U.S. foreign policy.
4. The true nature of David DePape’s relationship with Paul Pelosi will be revealed. While court hearings have kept a tight lid on the evidence in the Paul Pelosi assault case, including body-cam footage, it will be harder for Nancy Pelosi to flex her authority after stepping down as House speaker. It is very clear that the assailant, David DePape, is no right-wing extremist and that there is more going on that meets the eye.
5. We will find out what Trump’s purloined Mar-a-Lago files really contained. Punting the DOJ probes that resulted in the unprecedented raid on Trump’s Mar-a-Lago resort to corrupt special counsel Jack Smith was a good way to keep them out of the reach of GOP oversight in the U.S. House. But, eventually, the clock will run out and it will be necessary to explain why, exactly, this norm-violating measure was taken. Odds are it was a CYA operation by the FBI to prevent Trump from exposing the Russia-hoax documents that he already had publicly declared to be declassified.
6. We will learn what the Democrats intend to do with Joe Biden and who will be tapped to replace him. Will it be Michelle Obama, as I and others have long predicted? Or could they pull out another yet-unknown figure who has been carfully vetted and groomed in secret, like her husband, Barack? Once the Democrats finally decide that Biden has outlasted his usefulness, their reasons for installing him in the first place may become clear. When Barack Obama was overheard telling a Democrat donor “Don’t underestimate Joe’s ability to f**k things up,” there is a good chance it was a sales pitch more than a warning.
7. We will discover the truth about the U.S.–Ukrainian partnership to research and develop bioweapons. Congress has allocated in excess of $100 billion to defend something in Ukraine, but it sure ain’t democracy. While their personal investments in Burisma—or in weapons manufacturers like Raytheon—may be prime motivators, all indications are that the country is a rat’s nest of CIA operations.
8. The Left’s plans to normalize and mainstream pedophilia will come to fruition. The initial push to sexualize and groom children in schools and on kid-friendly mediums like Disney may have fallen flat, but leftists will only redouble their efforts to foist this onto the population because the ability to control and manipulate young minds is pivotal to their long-term plans for control. By acclimating children to sex at an early age, they can add it as another weapon in their quiver, which also includes cultivating ignorance and racial grievances, so that the plebian class is as pliable as possible.
9. The World Economic Forum will lead the way in trying to turn humans into glorified Matrix-style batteries. The convergence of artificial intelligence technology, the metaverse, the decline of office culture, growing clamor about digital passports and currencies, guaranteed incomes and an ever-increasing scarcity of resources suggest that the global plans to collectivize all nations under a one-world government are being gamed out as we speak.
10. As the relationship between Big Tech and the spy agencies becomes clearer, we will learn that our personal devices are tracking our every move. Knowing what we know about the interest that the FBI and the CIA have in manipulating technology companies to perform extralegal operations, and what we know about the reprehensible virtue signaling of Google and Apple, is there really any doubt that they have empowered our intel community to conduct warrantless domestic surveillance from any device at any time and that our phones are being used to monitor us, in true Big Brother fashion, around the clock?

Ben Sellers is the editor of Headline USA. Follow him at truthsocial.com/@bensellers or twitter.com/realbensellers.

Via 21st Century Wire,

It’s New Year’s Eve again, and with that our time-honoured tradition of looking back at the most conspiratorial events of the past year. 

It goes without saying that 2022 has seemed like an extended nightmare for many, but it has also served as a reoccurring revelation too. Still, many are glad to see the back of it, while cautiously optimistic that this next year ‘couldn’t get any worse.’ That remains to be seen, and more insights on that front are available in our other annual opus, Trends and Predictions for 2023.

Another important truism: the tin foil hat conspiracy theorists continue to be vindicated as significant events unfold. So much so, that we can now lay the common trope, “Oh, it’s just a coincidence” – safely to rest. Henceforth, those who still insist on referring to bona fide conspiracies as mere coincidences, shall be dubbed as coincidence theorists.

Before we get to the top ten list, here are some of the honourable mentions from the past year…

Here are some of this past year’s standout stories which didn’t make the top tier. We should first mention that the ongoing fallout from the experimental mRNA ‘vaccine’ roll-out and the vaccine passport/digital ID could easily be at the top of any list of conspiracies and scandals, and will unfortunately remain as a looming threat to the lives of billions of people for many years, if not decades to come. That said, some other controversial events of note from this past year include the incredible Canadian Truckers Protest against a vaccine-obsessed Trudeau regime and its unprecedented draconian attack on Canadian citizens demanding a restoration of their basic human rights. We also saw the mysterious demolition of the infamous Georgia Guide Stones monument to Malthusian eugenics, the precarious trial of Jeffrey Epstein’s partner in crime Ghislane Maxwell which somehow netted no VIP client names (and amazingly, she’s still alive in one piece), and also the bizarre political tale of Nancy Pelosi’s husband Pauli P. supposedly getting mauled with a hammer by a known local personality in their San Francisco mansion – a story promptly buried my the MSM right before the election. On the tech front, we should point to the ominous unleashing by Google’s OpenAI of their new ChatGPT artificial intelligence bot. It was a moderate year for false flags and mass shootings, with a few heavily politicized high-profile anomalous events like the Uvalde School Shooting in Texas and the Club Q Shooting in Colorado Springs. In Europe, the Dutch Farmers Revolt exposing a pernicious anti-farming and GMO food agenda by the World Economic Forum and Bill Gates networks, along with meat shortages and continued supply chain disruptions – all converging to form the perfect financial storm which now threatens to ravage an already weak and unstable global economy. Later in the year came a real blast from the past, reports of an imminent document release which contains some evidence of the CIA’s role in the JFK Assassination. Granted, these are just a few in a long list of major events which didn’t make our final cut.

So without further ado, here are the top ten conspiracies of 2022…

10. US Midterm Election Fraud

Considering all that is going on in the US and internationally at this time, most Americans would agree that the 2022 Midterm Election was one of the most important and consequential elections of their lifetime. Both the House of Representatives and US Senate were up for grabs, and there was a real opportunity to correct a serious imbalance of power in Washington. However, before Nov. 8th there was a real air of trepidation, as the shadow of the controversial 2020 Election still loomed large, with accusations of widespread and systemic election fraud still unresolved. The sum of all fears became real again in the key swing state of Arizona: on election morning most of the voting machines in the state’s largest population center, Maricopa County, just happened to malfunction. Officials claimed it was just an unfortunate coincidence. That was only the beginning, as boxes with thousands of ballots continued to mysteriously turn up after election day. In short, the Arizona election became a national and international embarrassment. As it goes, the state’s election and processes were being controlled by Democratic Party operatives – who then slow-walked the vote counting for two weeks after the election was meant to be over. Not surprisingly, the favorite in the governor’s race, Republican, Kari Lake (image, above) barely lost to an unremarkable Democrat candidate Katie Hobbs (if you believe the final contested result), and to add insult to injury, the person in charge of the state’s election debacle… was Katie Hobbs, who happened to also be serving as Arizona’s Secretary of State. Kari Lake sued the state to demand a recount and a run-off, but political and media pressure on the courts prompted the judge to dismiss her challenge – despite having truckloads of evidence proving foul play. Lake has appealed the decision. What’s important is that this time the world saw what happened, and the state and Democratic Party machine was widely exposed – effectively vindicating millions of Americans who still hold well-founded suspicions about the infamous 2020 Election which managed to install the corrupt, deep state candidate Joe Biden into power. Similar anomalies were observed in 2022 – in states like Nevada and Pennsylvania. In the end, the Republicans still managed to flip the House of Representatives by a slim margin, while losing the US Senate by an even slimmer margin. In a country where half the population still do not trust the democratic process, civility and stability are now teetering on borrowed time.

9. Monkeypox

As the Covid gravy train began to break down, the globalists’ Government-Media-Pharma Complex grew desperate for a new ‘pandemic’ to maintain the structures of control and human surveillance which they erected during the contrived Covid-19 ‘state of emergency’. Enter a relatively unknown and exotically-titled alleged pathogen, Monkeypox. Attempts were made to portray this mythical epidemic as some sort of universal threat, and when that failed, the Establishment then pivoted to try and promote it as a new “gay disease” in an attempt to emulate a familiar template used to reproduce the perennial (and highly questionable) HIV crisis. In the end, their fear campaign never really took off, but not before a brand-new vaccine was created to “protect the public from another potentially deadly epidemic.” And after all that failed, efforts were then made to use it in order to harvest some political capital – by sacrificing this brand at the altar of political correctness, as social justice clerics demanded the mythical virus be rebranded due to fears that name “Monkeypox” was somehow racist…? But how? Against primates? No one was quite sure what they meant. Oh well. Introducing “MPOX”. Rinse, and repeat. Welcome to the world of Modern Virology (aka Big Pharma’s main meal ticket). Meanwhile, we’re all waiting with bated breath for Bill Gates’ self-confessed “next pandemic.”

8. China Lockdown Redux 

Just when the Chinese were beginning to get a taste of freedom again, the Central Party decide to fire-up the pandemic control grid again. In February 2022, an alleged COVID-19 ‘outbreak’ was announced in the city of Shanghai. Central Party claimed that the alleged ‘outbreak’ was caused by the Omicron variant. The state then proceeded to decree a new “Zero Covid” policy, before locking-down more cities, and dragging the country back into the authoritarian hell of February 2020. As it turned out, the real reason this new ‘Covid wave’ materialized was because of nondiagnostic PCR testing ‘case’ data generated through more meaningless mass COVID-19 testing. Finally, after 8 months of Covid madness, foreign investment began drying up, and China’s already fragile economy was destabilizing. The state’s overzealousness then triggered mass protests against Orwellian government restrictions, with millions of Chinese taking to the streets across the country to demand their basic freedom. This prompted Central Party to quickly abandon its failing social control program, and not surprisingly their economy began to rebound as people and business got back to work. Rather interestingly, the US government seemed unhappy that China was taking its foot off the authoritarian pedal, and so Biden then levied an administrative punishment against China by slapping a new mandatory Covid test travel restriction on any Chinese travelers arriving in the USA. It really seems that as the world’s most populous nation, without China’s total compliance the globalists’ New Normal agenda will quickly fall apart. This incident should tell us all we need to know about the so-called ‘global pandemic.’

7. The Trans Agenda

On March 17, 2022, Lia Thomas (formerly named William Thomas), 22, became the first openly transgender athlete to win America’s top college sports title – following a cringe worthy  victory in the women’s 500 yard freestyle. Let us explain: because Thomas believes he is now a woman, some institutions like the NCAA – who have come under political pressure from the radical leftist wing of the political machine – now feel obligated to allow a biological male like Thomas to compete against physically inferior biological females (aka real women). The victory was short-lived though, as the woke bombast of the Thomas debacle quickly became a lightning rod in the debate about so-called “trans women” in sports – triggering a massive backlash against this extreme ideological invasion of womens’ competitive sports. Not long after, international sporting organizations ruled that biological male athletes like Thomas can no longer compete in top races. FINA, the world swimming’s governing body, also announced plans to create a new “open” category of competition to include “transgender women” (aka men who believe they are female). Now that the debate has been blown wide open, expect further course corrections as people gradually return to their senses on the issue. But do not expect radical leftists to surrender just yet, as the culture wars will continue to rage on.

6. FTX and SBF Ponzi Scheme

Like the S&L scandal of the 1980’s, and the Eron and Bernie Madoff financial scams – this latest iteration of the classic Ponzi Scheme managed to destabilize markets and rob countless investors of their life savings. Sam Bankman-Fried (SBF), a 30-year-old crypto celebrity icon and celebrated savant, founded what he claimed were two separate companies: a hedge fund called Alameda Research and FTX cryptocurrency exchange, before going the whole hog by hyping his own fiat crypto token and then used it as collateral to create hundreds of millions of loans for himself, before robbing his depositors to embezzle and gamble away untold fortunes on the markets. And that’s just the beginning. It turns out that SBF was the number two political donor to the Democratic Party, and used his laundered proceeds to bankroll a sizeable portion of the Democrats’ 2020 Midterm Election campaigns, not to mention his mother just happening to be a chief organizer for the Democratic Party as well. Not surprisingly, the Biden Administration waited until after the Midterm Election to begin an investigation into the floppy haired SBF and his FTX ponzi empire. SBF was eventually arrested in the Bahamas and awaits federal trial in the Southern District of New York. The trial is sure to be both shocking and entertaining in equal measure. But the real question remains: how will this drama effect the government’s role in the world of cryptocurrency? More crucially: is the FTX takedown really a controlled demolition of crypto designed to pave the way for an oppressive Central Bank Digital Currency global ‘cashless’ takeover? We shall see…

5. CBDC

2022 was the year the CBDC has made landfall, and is currently waiting in the wings of the halls of power. For the last few years, elites have been gathering at globalist confabs like Bilderberg and the World Economic Forum in Davos to wax lyrical about the need to abolish the ‘old money’, or ‘dirty cash’ – and to make way for the central bankers’ new Central Bank Digital Currencies (CBDC) – turning the planet into a full-blown cashless society. In the US, this technocratic overhaul is being hatched under the guise of “Project Hamilton” as a joint effort between the Boston Federal Reserve Bank and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) to design and plan the release of a “digital dollar” – which will destroy the value of old dollar in order to force people onto the new monetary matrix. As cash disappears from the economy, so does privacy.  Essentially, CBDCs are meant to be an electronic form of fiat money in a particular country or region, but unlike Bitcoin, this digital coin is centralized and regulated by the governments and their central banks. Without ever putting this matter to a public vote, elites and technocrats have simply been moving ahead to implement this authoritarian monetary system. While the mainstream media and globalist think tanks claim that the CBDC is designed to reign in crypto currencies, and supposedly tackle crimes like money laundering, and tax avoidance (something which elites partake in daily), the reality of the CBDC is something altogether different. They plan to issue a programmable currency whereby the bank can control where and what you are allowed to spend your CBDC’s on. They can also shut your money off. Imagine this digital money system combined with a Chinese-style social credit score, or a vaccine passport/digital ID. This dystopian digital control grid will transform commerce and human society in ways we can possibly imagine. For these reasons, many rightly believe that this is the road to digital slavery. The window of opportunity to push back against this massive authoritarian assault is now closing.

4. The Twitter Files

This is the biggest tech scandal in modern history – and it’s gone mostly unreported by 90% of the mainstream media because of the partisan nature of its revelations. The Twitter Files have provided an unprecedented look behind the dirty inner workings of the firm’s opaque censorship regime, and exposes an openly fascist merger of Silicon Valley’s ‘Big Tech’ companies and the bloated National Security State. In early December, under new management of owner and CEO Elon Musk, Twitter HQ began disseminating a massive trove of internal documents revealing the direct collusion between former CEO Jack Dorsey’s corporate regime and the US Federal Government – to censor and cancel users from the platform for speech or political views which went against globalist or government policies. This included copious evidence of election interference. It seems that in their desperation to conjure up proof of alleged “foreign influence” on Twitter, FBI and other federal government officials doubled-down to try and save their sinking Russiagate narrative, and creating a monster in the process. New revelations also exposed the FBI’s role in leaning on Twitter to expedite illegal censorship operations, and how so-called ‘public health’ officials strong-armed Twitter into sanitizing all speech relating to COVID-19 and the experimental mRNA ‘vaccine’ injections. The FBI were also drawing-up shadowbanning and censorship blacklists in an attempt to cleanse the platform of effective opposition to the Biden campaign in 2020 and later into his first term. Under Dorsey, the platform became an open cesspool for spooks and government operatives – many of whom appeared to be allowed to spy on users’ DMs, and to dictate terms of censorship on the platform. Watch this space. This is only the beginning.

3. Sabotage of the Nordstream Pipelines

Back in late September, the world woke up to truly horrific news – both the Nordstream 1 and 2 pipelines were reported to be leaking gas into the Baltic Sea and into the atmosphere – after what looked like a deliberate act of sabotage. While the media played dumb, pretending not to know who carried out this attack, sane onlookers were well aware of the only entity who had the motives, means and opportunity to carry out this state-sponsored act of terror – namely the United States and its NATO partners. Incredibly, the entire western media quickly began blaming Russia for blowing up its most important energy infrastructure project. The result of this attack was a further devastation of Europe’s energy supplies and hyperinflationary EU and UK consumer prices for the fall and winter – not to mention the millions of cubic meters of methane which were released into the Earth’s atmosphere. Despite all the vacant US denials, the facts are clear as day: Joe Biden and Victoria Nuland were both on record beforehand promising they would “end the Nordstream pipeline.” Of course, this is a hugely dangerous red line which the US and its allies have crosses: by declaring a no-holds-barred geopolitical energy war, the gates are now open for further escalations – which may lead to WWIII. History has shown this can happen. Consider the Anglo-American energy embargo and strong-arming of Japan which led up to the Attack on Pearl Harbor which opened the door for the US to enter WWII. Think of the Nordstream attack as just that, but worse – as it was also direct attack on the day-to-day energy and finances of people living in the EU and the collective West. Indeed, the West is playing an extremely dangerous game, which is really the Great Game 2.0.

2. The Energy Shock

In the future, we will look back at 2022 as one of the most consequential years of young 21st century history. If you live in the collective West or the EU, you know that the energy crisis is now a reality. The real question is: is all of this by simply by happenstance, or is it being done by design? And can it be traced back to a much older global agenda, and forward through to the WEF’s Great Reset? The answer to all those questions is course, yes. But this is only the surface of this issue. For Brussels and Berlin, this ‘green’ road to energy scarcity pure economic suicide. Rather than change this policy course and work to stabilise global energy and agricultural markets – the gallant virtue-signalling West has opted instead to double-down on their precarious stance by further tightening anti-Russian sanctions, as well as pursue even deeper commitments towards de-nulearisation and the not-so-green ‘Net Zero’ carbon reduction agenda. The cancelation of Russia, coupled with the disastrous ‘green’ energy policies are only accelerating inflationary cycles globally. All of this is a recipe for disaster – all due to policies directly created by western governments. By blocking inbound energy supplies from the Nordstream and other Russian pipelines which supplied them with affordable and reliable gas and oil into the EU, Europe has painted itself into a very perilous corner. Behind the energy wars and even beyond Klaus Schwab’s globalist facade – you will find hardcore geopolitics at play. The main Anglo-American objective: the deindustrialization of Germany and EU, the separation of Russian resources and political leadership from western markets. We live in truly perilous times.

1. The Ukraine War

In late February 2022, the unthinkable happened: Russia launched its military intervention into neighboring Ukraine. War is hell, and while Russia seems intent on seeing its “Special Military Operation” through, the US and its allies are going to have to decide just how long they plan to fight Russia down to the last Ukrainian. How many dead Ukrainian soldiers and lost territory will it take for the West to instruct Ukraine’s President Zelensky to finally sue for peace? Welcome to NATO’s ultimate proxy war of attrition in Ukraine, driven by the greatest western media propaganda campaign of all-time. Suffice to say that Russia, Ukraine, and the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) alliance are now at war – with each party firmly in the belief that they are fighting an existential war, not over any particular political or territorial dispute, but for the future existence of their countries, or in the case of NATO, over their ability to maintain regional hegemony for the Atlanticist power bloc. Will this near frozen conflict escalate to a WWIII situation, or a thermo-nuclear exchange between the great powers? The US and British invasion of Iraq nearly two decades ago is a particularly pertinent and telling counterpoint to events in Ukraine. Then, as now, the ‘free and democratic Western World’ was supposedly faced with a dangerous, unhinged despot in Saddam Hussein, who, like Putin is said to be unwilling to compromise. It’s a well-worn script for the West, and will likely remain the justification of another endless war. Of course, Zelensky could end it all tomorrow if he declared his intentions to disavow any NATO aspirations, demilitarize the country, and declare Ukraine a neutral state. Such a declaration would certainly be welcome by Russia today, but the West are determined to keep this proxy war going, and cancel Russia from the global economic system. Besides, business is just too good for Ukraine who have managed scrape more than $100 billion from the US and EU treasuries so far, not to mention the billions in profits for shareholders in the US defense industry. Oh, and on the backend of this war, the WEF and BlackRock are eyeing Ukraine’s remaining assets, as private oligarchs hatch their plan to carve up and reshape the post-war landscape there. The future world order is at stake.

What an unbelievable year. Expect some seriously impactful moments in 2023.

HAPPY NEW YEAR.

*  *  *

SEE PREVIOUS TOP TEN CONSPIRACIES:

2021 Top Ten Conspiracies
2020 Top Ten Conspiracies
2019 Top Ten Conspiracies
2018 Top Ten Conspiracies
2017 Top Ten Conspiracies
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PLEASE HELP SUPPORT 21ST CENTURY WIRE’S WINTER FUNDRAISING DRIVE HERE

Yet another website has published its year-in-review. This one comes from Pornhub’s statisticians, who have published its users’ consumption habits in colorful infographics for the ninth year. 

Let’s begin with the US, the country with the highest daily traffic to Pornhub this year. 

Pornhub’s global average visit duration decreased by 1 second to 9 minutes and 54 seconds. The US saw a 3-second decrease to 9 minutes and 41 seconds. 

On a state-by-state basis, users in many southern states, including Alabama, Louisiana, South Carolina, Missouri, Arkansas, and Mississippi, had the highest visiting times on the website. Ohio, Washington, and South Dakota users had some of the lowest. 

Worldwide, Friday was the least favorite time to watch porn, while Sunday afternoon into the evening was the best time. 

Here are the world’s most viewed categories. 

The average user age is 37 years old.

A breakdown of searches by generation. 

How most users access the website. 

A breakdown of most searched terms, pornstars, trending searches, top categories, and relative categories for the US. 

Oh, and there’s this…

In a separate report, data from SimilarWeb shows Pornhub is one of the top-trafficked websites in the world. 

Digging deep into Pornhub data can provide a glimpse into society’s darkest and dirtiest secrets. 

Authored by Victor Xing via The Mises Institute,

Executive Summary

• In the near term, China’s reopening and buying of ESPO crude would likely erode the role of Brent & energy indices

• Gulf nations envision the scope of petroyuan to be on par with demands for Chinese goods & technology transfer

• Rising yuan payments for Russian energy and more China-Gulf bilateral trade imply future dollar demand decline

• In the long term, more local currency trade settlements would erode dollar flows and Federal Reserve’s influence

China’s yuan denominated Russia crude rivals Saudi imports

In 2021, China imported 79.6 million tons of crude from Russia (1.6 million barrels per day) vs. 87.6 million tons from Saudi Arabia (1.8 million barrels per day). These two producers respectively accounted for 15.5% and 17.1% of China’s total crude import at 513.2 million tons (10.3 million barrels per day), which was near Saudi Arabia’s total 2021 output of 515 million tons. At present demand, China is both Saudi Arabia and Russia’s top energy customer:

Following the onset of the war in Europe, rising yuan-denominated Russian crude export and omission of Russia’s Eastern Siberia Pacific Ocean (ESPO) grade crude from broader commodity indices would likely erode Brent crude’s role as a global oil benchmark. Investors focusing solely on Brent may overlook key market shifts.

China’s energy demand was subdued in 2021 and 2022 due to pandemic restrictions, and a broader economic reopening would likely accelerate demand for both Russian and Saudi energy products (by 2+ million barrels a day). However, Brent would only reflect part of the demand surge due to ESPO shipment and direct Russo-China pipeline flows. In 2022, sale of Russian pipeline crude to China totaled 33.3 million tons by October (nearly half of Russian flows to China over the period). Given crude pipelines would not use EU or G7 insurance services, the products would trade at uncapped prices into 2023.

Meanwhile, seaborne ESPO crude traded at $79 per barrel in Asian markets after the G7 + EU price cap came into effect at $60 per barrel, because the presence of a Russian tanker fleet that uses its own insurance.

The Bloomberg Commodity Index, as well as its futures instruments, uses WTI and Brent crude to construct its crude constituents, and it would underrepresent energy market developments in Asia if ESPO decouples from Brent:

Currently, yuan-denominated purchases of Russian crude uses a quasi-barter system: Chinese buyers would settle Russian crude purchases in yuan, and Russia would subsequently use the yuan to purchase Chinese technology products.

This is the same petroyuan model discussed at the China-Saudi Summit.

Saudi-China Summit and long-term impacts

A key market focus on the Saudi-China Summit attended by Crown Prince Bin Salman and President Xi was petroyuan. Xi proposed making “full use of the Shanghai Petroleum and National Gas Exchange as a platform to carry out yuan settlement of oil and gas trade.” A Saudi source previously said a decision to sell small amounts of oil in yuan to China could make sense in order to pay for Chinese imports directly, but “it is not yet the right time” to take the step.

This ambiguous stance preserved policy option for the Kingdom, for the Saudis do not see the yuan as an alternative reserve currency as Russia does. Riyadh, like Hong Kong, pegs its currency to the dollar, and it would require an ample dollar reserve to defend the riyal. As long as this system persists, Saudi Arabia would use petrodollar as a liquidity source, and it would reinvest reserves in interest-bearing dollar-denominated assets such as U.S. Treasury securities or corporate bonds. This supports the dollar and contributes to easier dollar-based financial conditions by boosting dollar asset prices. Ultimately, the petrodollar system plays a role to elevate the Federal Reserve as the dollar system’s central bank that affects global financing costs.

Yet, Saudi Arabia’s willingness to consider a system modeled after yuan-based Russian crude trade reflects its pragmatic considerations: it creates an incentive for Beijing to broaden economic ties with Riyadh. Greater the overall bilateral trade in yuan, greater the Kingdom’s demand for renminbi to pay for Chinese goods and technology, and petroyuan would fulfill a similar purpose as petrodollar to supply Riyadh with a non-dollar invoicing currency.

Overtime, greater the Saudi-China bilateral trade, greater the likelihood of more crude transactions settled in yuan, thus smaller the role of the dollar (and Fed policy) on global asset markets. While petroyuan would hardly replace petrodollar given its limited scope, less dollar in commodity settlement would result in less reinvestment of dollar reserves into dollar assets. This has ramifications from U.S. fiscal policy (less demand for dollar debt) to U.S. fixed income and equity markets.

Combined with India’s work on rupee transactions with Russia, a slow grind toward a multipolar (fragmented) world would likely weaken the dollar and erode existing asset correlation paradigms to create new market opportunities.