On Friday, July 7, 2023, news broke in the financial market media that the “BRICS” (that is, Brazil, Russia, India, China, and South Africa) will implement their plan to create a new international currency for trading and financial transactions, and that this new currency will be “gold backed.”
Most recently, on June 2, 2023, the foreign ministers of the BRICS—as well as representatives from more than twelve countries—met in Cape Town, South Africa (interestingly at the “Cape of Good Hope”). Among other things, it was emphasized that they wanted to create an international trading currency. Undoubtedly, this is an undertaking that could have consequences of epic proportions.
After all, the BRICS countries represent about 3.2 billion people, approximately 40 percent of the world’s population, with a combined economic output nearly the size of the economy of the United States of America. And there are also many other countries (such as Saudi Arabia, United Arab Emirates, Egypt, Iran, Algeria, Argentina, and Kazakhstan) that might want to join the BRICS club.
The goal of the BRICS countries is to reduce their economic and political dependence on the US dollar, challenging “US dollar imperialism.”
To this end, they want to create a new international currency for commercial and financial transactions, replacing the US dollar as the means of transaction unit.
The reason is obvious.
The US administration has on many occasions used the greenback as a “geopolitical weapon” and engaged in a kind of “financial warfare”: Washington sanctions enemy countries by denying them access to the US dollar capital market, but above all, it shuts them off from the international US dollar-centric payment system.
The freezing of Russia’s currency reserves (the equivalent of almost six hundred billion US dollars is currently at stake) has set off alarm bells in many non-Western countries. It has reminded a number of them that holding US dollars comes with a political risk. This, in turn, has prompted many to restructure their international foreign reserves: holding fewer US dollars, switching to other (smaller) currencies, but above all, buying more gold.
But how might the BRICS manage to swim away from the US dollar? While no details are available yet about how the new BRICS currency might be structured, it should not stop us from speculating about what lies ahead.
The BRICS could establish a new bank (the “BRICS Bank”), funded by gold deposits from BRICS central banks. The physically deposited gold holdings would be shown on the asset side of the BRICS bank’s balance sheet—and could be denominated, for example, “BRICS gold,” where one BRICS gold represents one gram of physical gold.
The BRICS Bank can then grant loans denominated in BRICS gold (for example, to exporters from BRICS countries and/or to importers of goods from abroad). To fund the loans, the BRICS Bank makes a credit contract with the holders of BRICS gold: The holders of BRICS gold agree to transfer their deposit to the BRICS Bank for, say, one month, or one or two years, against receiving an interest rate. What is more, the BRICS Bank, and it can also accept further gold deposits from international investors, who can hold (interest-bearing) BRICS gold deposits this way.
BRICS gold could henceforth be used by the BRICS countries and their trading partners as international money, as an international unit of account in global trade and financial transactions. Incidentally, the new de facto gold currency would not even have to be physically minted but could be and remain an accounting-only unit while being redeemable on demand.
The exporters from the BRICS countries and the other member countries would, however, have to be willing to sell their goods against BRICS gold instead of US dollars and other Western fiat currencies, and the importers from the Western countries would have to be willing and able to pay their bills in BRICS gold.
How do you get BRICS gold? Those demanding BRICS gold must either get a BRICS gold loan from the BRICS Bank or purchase gold in the market and deposit it with the BRICS Bank or a designated custodian, and the gold deposit is then credited to his account in the form of BRICS gold.
For example, in payment transactions, the goods importer’s BRICS gold deposits (held, for example, at the BRICS Bank) are credited to the account of the exporter of goods (also held at the BRICS Bank or at a correspondent bank or gold custodian).
However, the transition, the use of BRICS gold as an international trade and transaction currency, would most likely have far-reaching consequences:
(1) It would presumably lead to a (sharp) increase in the demand for gold compared to current levels, with not only gold prices measured in US dollars, euros, etc. but also in the currencies of the BRICS countries increasing (substantially).
(2) Such an increase in the gold price would devalue the purchasing power of the official currencies—not only the US dollar but also the BRICS currencies—against the yellow metal. Also, the prices of goods in terms of the official fiat currencies would most likely skyrocket, debasing the purchasing power of presumably all existing fiat currencies.
(3) The BRICS countries would build up gold reserves to the extent that they run, or will run, trade surpluses. They would presumably be the winners of the “currency switch,” while the countries with trade deficits (first and foremost, the US) would lose out.
BRICS official gold holdings, in billion US dollars, Q1 2023
Source: Refinitiv; own calculations. The BRICS gold reserves amounted to 5,452.7 tons in the first quarter of 2023 (market value currently around 350 billion US Dollars).
These few considerations already show how disrupting the topic of “creating a new gold-backed international trading currency” could be: the BRICS could well trigger landslide-like changes in the global economic and financial structure. Still, it will be interesting to see how the BRICS countries intend to proceed at their August 22–24 meeting in Johannesburg, South Africa.
A senior figure in the Ukrainian Orthodox Church (UOC) was placed inpretrial detention. Cleric Metropolitan Pavlo is facing charges for voicing opinions deemed too pro-Russian.
A Kiev court ordered Pavlo to jail on Saturday. The cleric’s bail was nearly $900,000, and he could remain in pretrial detention for a month. The judge claimed Pavlo violated a court order by contacting a witness in his trial. Pavlo, who is also known as Petro Lebid, says he did not know the person he was a witness.
On April 1, Pavlo was placed under house arrest. Though initially only scheduled for a month, his house arrest has been extended several times. The charges against Pavlo include inciting hatred and justifying the Russian war in Ukraine.
On Saturday, Moscow demanded Kiev release Pavlo. Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria said:
“We demand strict compliance by the Kiev regime with its international legal obligations, the immediate release of Metropolitan Pavlo, who is suffering from a serious illness, and the provision of proper medical care for him.”
She added that the arrest was “yet another manifestation of political arbitrariness and lawlessness [by Kiev.]”
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky has waged a culture war. The UOC has been a primary target of the “derussification” campaign. On December 1, Zelensky announced that Kiev would attempt to expel all religious institutions with ties to Russia, arguing the move would make “it impossible for religious organizations affiliated with centers of influence in the Russian Federation to operate in Ukraine.”
Kiev further ratcheted up the campaign to erase the UOC by seizing the assets and placing travel bans on several of the church’s top officials. Additionally, a series of raids by Ukrainian police targeted the UOC.
Zelensky’s derussification campaign has extended far beyond the UOC. Kiev has nationalized the media, renamed public places named for Russian historical figures, banned books printed in Russian and outlawed political parties representing Ukraine’s ethnic Russians.
Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán took to Facebook on Tuesday to proclaim that Hungary and Latin America both have a pro-peace stance regarding the conflict between Ukraine and Russia and want the war to end as soon as possible.
“Most of the world is tired of war. Today, we argued for an immediate ceasefire and peace, and this time the leaders of Latin America joined us!” wrote Orbán on Facebook following the meeting of the leaders of the European Union and the Community of Latin American and Caribbean States (EU-CELAC) summit in Brussels.
Although Orbán’s pro-peace stance is a minority position in Europe, he has found broad support from nations with a similar outlook toward the war elsewhere in the world, including India, China, and countries in Latin America.
China, for example, has put forward a peace plan that Hungary has backed.
Within Latin America, there are a number of nations directly aligned with Russia, including Venezuela and Cuba, but more broadly speaking, there are many more nations skeptical of the Western war effort in Ukraine that have called for an immediate ceasefire.
Countries like Brazil and Mexico have also refused to back sanctions against Russia, arguing it is not in their economic interest.
Last year, Mexican President Andrés Manuel López Obrador criticized the European Parliament’s nomination of Ukrainian President Vladimir Zelensky for the Nobel Peace Prize.
“Regardless of whether we support one or the other (contender), how come one of the participants in a military conflict may receive the Nobel Peace Prize?” said the Mexican leader.
“Are there no others who are fighting for peace? Why not Pope Francis, the head of the UN?”
This year, Brazilian leader Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva said: “It’s necessary that the U.S. stops encouraging the war and talks about peace. It’s necessary that the European Union talks about peace so we can convince Putin and Zelensky that peace is in the interests of everybody and war only serves their two countries.”
EU, Latin American and Caribbean leaders are using the EU-CELAC conference to meet for the first time in eight years.
At the top of the agenda are the issues of climate change and free trade, especially the EU-Mercosur free trade deal, which environmental groups have criticized and which Brazil and other Latin American countries have refused to ratify.
Michigan Charges 16 Elderly ‘Fake Electors’ With Felonies
The state of Michigan has charged 16 Trump supporters with an average age of 69 in a so-called ‘fake electors’ scheme following the 2020 US presidential election.
The defendants allegedly met on Dec 14, 2020 in order to sign several official documents certifying that they were the “duly elected and qualified electors for President and Vice President of the United States of America for the State of Michigan,” per Michigan officials.
Those false documents were then “transmitted to the United States Senate and National Archives in a coordinated effort to award the state’s electoral votes to the candidate of their choosing, in place of the candidates actually elected by the people of Michigan,” according to a statement from officials.
In total, Trump allies pushed to organize slates of fake electors in seven swing states, whose votes would supplant the original electors’, before members of Congress and then-VP Mike Pence would certify their slates.
The defendants are each charged with;
One count of Conspiracy to Commit Forgery, a 14-year felony,
Two counts of Forgery, a 14-year felony,
One count of Conspiracy to Commit Uttering and Publishing, a 14-year felony,
One count of Uttering and Publishing, a 14-year felony,
One count of Conspiracy to Commit Election Law Forgery, a 5-year felony, and,
Two counts of Election Law Forgery, a 5-year felony.
Among those charged was Meshawn Maddock, a Trump ally and former co-chair of the Michigan Republican Party.
Michigan Attorney General Dana Nessel says she’s “prosecuted numerous cases of election law violations throughout my tenure, and it would be malfeasance of the greatest magnitude if my department failed to act here in the face of overwhelming evidence of an organized effort to circumvent the lawfully cast ballots of millions of Michigan voters in a presidential election.”
“The evidence will demonstrate there was no legal authority for the false electors to purport to act as ‘duly elected presidential electors’ and execute the false electoral documents,” her statement continues. “Every serious challenge to the election had been denied, dismissed, or otherwise rejected by the time the false electors convened. There was no legitimate legal avenue or plausible use of such a document or an alternative slate of electors. There was only the desperate effort of these defendants, who we have charged with deliberately attempting to interfere with and overturn our free and fair election process, and along with it, the will of millions of Michigan voters. That the effort failed and democracy prevailed does not erase the crimes of those who enacted the false electors plot.“
🚨BREAKING: Michigan AG charges 16 Trump electors w/felonies for sending alternate electors
Here’s video of a van dropping off 100s of thousands of ballots around 3 AM in Detroit w/o any GOP monitors
John Podesta, role playing Joe Biden in Transition Integrity Project’s summer 2020 simulation to ensure a Biden presidency even if Trump won the election, openly plotted sending a separate elector slate
I have video evidence that the Special Counsel might be interested in. It shows a group of people conspiring to overturn the results of our Presidential election by using faithless electors.
The US government has finally pulled funding from the Wuhan Institute of Virology, where the Obama administration offshored banned gain-of-function research, including projects to make bat covid more transmissible to humans, before a highly evolved, human-infecting bat coronavirus broke out in the same town and killed millions of people worldwide.
Then the US put the same guy involved in said research, Peter Daszak, in charge of a highly conflicted lab-leak denial.
The stated reason for the funding halt? The lab failed to provide documents concerning safety and security measures, according to a memo obtained by Bloomberg.
The Biden administration has halted the Wuhan Institute of Virology’s access to federal funding after the lab failed to provide documents about safety and security measures
The Department of Health and Human Services on Monday notified the WIV of the suspension, and told the lab that it’s looking to cut it off permanently following a review which began last September that concluded that the Wuhan lab isn’t compliant with federal regulations.
This means that the WIV won’t receive further federal funding.
Penalizing the lab is the most drastic action the US has taken so far over its failure to share documentation on biosafety practices amid ongoing investigations into Covid-19’s origins. The institute has became become a flashpoint in discussions of how the pandemic, which has killed some 7 million people, started, with some, including FBI Director Christopher Wray, suspecting it could have originated at the facility. -Bloomberg
In 2014, the NIH awarded EcoHealth Alliance and its president Peter Daszak an grant for “understanding the risk of bat coronavirus emergence.” The WIV received a subaward of that grant.
The first $666,442 installment of EcoHealth’s $3.7 million NIH grant was paid in June 2014, with similar annual payments through May 2019 under the “Understanding The Risk Of Bat Coronavirus Emergence” project.
Notably, the WIV “had openly participated in gain-of-function research in partnership with U.S. universities and institutions” for years under the leadership of Dr. Shi ‘Batwoman’ Zhengli, according to the Washington Post‘s Josh Rogin.
EcoHealth also funneled funds from the US Agency for International Development to the WIV.
Earlier this year, HHS’s Office of Inspector General conducted an audit that determined that the NIH and EcoHealth Alliance didn’t effectively monitor awards and subawards, limiting their ability to understand the nature of research conducted and identify problem areas.
…
The lab won’t be able to conduct any business with US as an agent or representative of others, and its affiliation with any organization that does business with the federal government will also be carefully examined. -Bloomberg
That said, the Wuhan lab can contest the suspension and proposed disbarment – a relatively rare event. The decision to defund the lab was done independently of the US intelligence community, Bloomberg further reports.
In June, the Office of the Director of National Intelligence released a declassified report which identified several safety and security issues at the WIV that could have contributed to a lab leak.
How Do Chinese Citizens Feel About Other Countries?
Tensions over Taiwan, the COVID-19 pandemic, trade, and the war in Ukraine have impacted Chinese sentiment towards other countries.
This visualization by Visual Capitalist’s Avery Koop, uses data from the Center for International Security and Strategy (CISS) at Tsinghua University to rank survey responses from the Chinese public on their attitudes towards countries and regions around the world.
Chinese Sentiment Towards Other Countries in 2023
In the Center’s opinion polls, which surveyed a random sample of more than 2,500 Chinese mainland adults in November 2022, Russia came out significantly ahead.
Just under 60% of respondents held Russia in a favorable view, with 19% seeing the country as “very favorable.” Contrast that to the mere 12% that viewed the U.S. in a positive light.
Here’s a closer look at the data. The percentages refer to the share of respondents that voted for said category.
Japan ranked just below the U.S. in terms of overall unfavorability, though a slightly higher share of respondents saw Japan as “very unfavorable” compared to America. This is likely due to both modern tensions in the East China Sea over mutually claimed islands and historical tensions over the Sino-Japanese Wars.
Chinese sentiment towards India was also unfavorable at just over 50%, though notably the country also received the lowest favorability rating at just 8%.
Additional Survey Findings
The survey also found that 39% of Chinese people get their information on international security from Chinese state-run media (mainly through TV), with an additional 19% getting information from government websites and official social accounts. Conversely, only 1.7% get their news from foreign websites and foreign social media, partially due to the Great Firewall.
When asked about different international security issues, the biggest shares of Chinese citizens ranked the following as their top three:
Pandemics (12.9%)
Disputes over territory and territorial waters (12.9%)
China-U.S. relations (12.0%)
The pandemic’s high score reflects the harsher impact COVID-19 had on China. Chinese borders were shut for years and the public faced intense measures to reduce spread.
In terms of other world events, the majority of Chinese people align with a more “Eastern” viewpoint. For example, in regards to the war in Ukraine, the report found that:
“About 80 percent of the respondents believe the U.S. and Western countries should be held most accountable [for the war], while less than ten percent of the respondents argue that Russia is mainly responsible.”
– CENTER FOR INTERNATIONAL SECURITY AND STRATEGY, TSINGHUA UNIVERSITY
Overall, the views of the Chinese public reflect the opposite of those found in many Western countries. They provide an important insight that it is not just the Chinese government holding particular views about the world, but the Chinese public as well.
Top Republicans Jump To Trump’s Defense Over Imminent ‘Arrest And Indictment’
(Update 1555ET): Top Republicans have rushed to the defense of former President Trump – their current best hope of defeating Joe Biden in a 2024 match-up.
“Recently President Trump went up in the polls and was actually surpassing President Biden for reelection. So what do they do now? Weaponize government to go after their No. 1 opponent,” House Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-CA) told reporters on Tuesday, following Trump’s announcement that her would likely be “indicted and arrested” soon over his alleged role in January 6th.
“This is not equal justice. They treat people differently and they go after their adversaries,” McCarthy continued.
House Majority Leader Steve Scalise (R-LA) also came to Trump’s defense, noting that the news comes as the House Oversight Committee is slated to hear testimony from two IRS whistleblowers who alleged that an investigation into Hunter Biden was stonewalled by prosecutors.
“Now you see the Biden administration going after President Trump once again, it begs that question — is there a double standard? Is justice being administered equally?” asked Scalise at the House GOP conference presser.
Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA) also chimed in, saying that the charges are “ridiculous,” and that special counsel Jack Smith is “weaponizing” the DOJ against Trump.
“If this is the direction America is going — we are worse than Russia, we are worse than China. We are worse than some of the most corrupt third world countries, and this needs to end,” she said, adding “It’s an absolute lie.”
Greene also called Smith a “weak little bitch” on Twitter.
Jack Smith is a lousy attorney.
His career is filled with mistrials, overturned cases, and judicial rebukes.
He only targets Republicans because he’s a weak little bitch for the Democrats.
— Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene🇺🇸 (@RepMTG) July 18, 2023
Meanwhile, GOP Reps. Jim Jordan (OH) and Mary Miller (IL) also had words for the Biden administration.
“Joe Biden’s DOJ: Attack the Portland Federal Courthouse? No problem. Intimidate #SCOTUS justices to influence a court decision? No big deal. But if you’re President Trump and do nothing wrong? PROSECUTE. Americans are tired of the double standard!” Jordan tweeted.
Joe Biden’s DOJ:
Attack the Portland Federal Courthouse? No problem.
Intimidate #SCOTUS justices to influence a court decision? No big deal.
But if you’re President Trump and do nothing wrong? PROSECUTE.
“The DOJ has become a political agency, targeting Joe Biden’s political opponents while covering up Joe Biden’s crimes. The DOJ is attacking our democracy by actively interfering in the 2024 Election,” tweeted Miller.
The DOJ has become a political agency, targeting Joe Biden’s political opponents while covering up Joe Biden’s crimes. The DOJ is attacking our democracy by actively interfering in the 2024 Election. I will join Chairman Jim Jordan in his effort to stop the partisan hacks at DOJ!
Former President Donald Trump said on Tuesday that he expects to be arrested and indicted by special counsel Jack Smith in connection with the January 6th Grand Jury investigation.
“Deranged Jack Smith, the prosecutor with Joe Biden’s DOJ, sent a letter (again, it was Sunday night!) stating that I am a TARGET of the January 6th Grand Jury investigation, and giving me a very short 4 days to report to the Grand Jury, which almost always means an Arrest and Indictment,” Trump wrote on Truth Social.
President Biden’s DOJ have cast a wide net in their investigation into President Trump, Biden’s chief rival in the 2024 US election. Trump is expected to travel to Iowa on Tuesday, where he will tape a town hall with Fox News host Sean Hannity.
Prosecutors in Georgia are conducting a separate investigation into efforts by Trump to reverse his election law in that state, with the top prosecutor in Fulton County signaling that she expects to announce charging decisions in the first several weeks since Sunday. –AP
While the charges Smith is considering are unknown, several lawyers – ranging from the House committee that investigated the Jan. 6 riot to outsiders writing “model prosecution memos” (per the NYT) have focused on the ‘the attempted corrupt obstruction of an official proceeding’ under Section 1512(c) of Title 18, and conspiracy to defraud the government under Section 371 of Title 18.
Charges of obstructing an official proceeding (Congress’s session to count electoral college votes and certify Biden’s victory) have been brought against some Jan. 6 rioters. Charges of defrauding the government could get into broader actions before Jan. 6, like the scheme to have Trump supporters pretend to be alternative slates of official electors from contested states. –NYT
WOW! On Sunday night, while I was with my family, having just arrived from the Turning Point event in Florida, where I won the Straw Poll against all other Republican candidates with 85.7%, with all polls showing me leading in the Republican Primary by very substantial numbers, almost everyone predicting that I will be the Republican Nominee for President, and as I am leading Democrat Joe Biden in the polls by a lot, HORRIFYING NEWS for our Country was given to me by my attorneys.
Deranged Jack Smith, the prosecutor with Joe Biden’s DOJ, sent a letter (again, it was Sunday night!) stating that I am a TARGET of the January 6th Grand Jury investigation, and giving me a very short 4 days to report to the Grand Jury, which almost always means an Arrest and Indictment.
So now, Joe Biden’s Attorney General, Merrick Garland, who I turned down for the United States Supreme Court (in retrospect, based on his corrupt and unethical actions, a very wise decision!), together with Joe Biden’s Department of Injustice, have effectively issued a third Indictment and Arrest of Joe Biden’s NUMBER ONE POLITICAL OPPONENT, who is largely dominating him in the race for the Presidency. Nothing like this has ever happened in our Country before, or even close. They illegally spied on my Campaign, attacked me with a totally Fake “Dossier” that was funded by Hillary Clinton’s Campaign and the DNC, Impeached me twice (I won!), they failed on the Mueller Witch Hunt (No Collusion!), they failed on the Russia, Russia, Russia Hoax, the 51 “Intelligence” Agents fraud, the FBI/Twitter files, the DOJ/Facebook censorship, and every other scam imaginable. But on top of all of that, they have now effectively indicted me three times (the DOJ staffed and runs the D.A.’s Office in Manhattan), with a probable fourth coming from Atlanta, where the DOJ are in strict, and possibly illegal, coordination with the District Attorney, whose record on murder and other violent crime is abysmal. THIS WITCH HUNT IS ALL ABOUT ELECTION INTERFERENCE AND A COMPLETE AND TOTAL POLITICAL WEAPONIZATION OF LAW ENFORCEMENT! It is a very sad and dark period for our Nation!
Under the United States Constitution, I have the right to protest an Election that I am fully convinced was Rigged and Stolen, just as the Democrats have done against me in 2016. and many others have done over the ages. But the Democrats have gone much further than has ever happened before – they cheated on the elections. Rather than looking at the CHEATERS, the WEAPONI2ED DOJ AND FBI target and harass those who complain about the cheaters, and the massive fraud that took place. The prosecutor involved in this case, and likewise the Boxes Hoax, the Manhattan and Atlanta District Attorneys, the New York A.G., etc., has been overturned unanimously in the Supreme Court, headed and caused the Lois Lerner IRS scandal, and failed miserably in his prosecution of John Edwards, where the case was forced to be dropped, along with numerous other catastrophes. He has had a vicious but disastrous career, and is a known biased and obsessed Trump Hater (as is his family). Whether it’s their failure to mention the Presidential Records Act (Prosecutorial Misconduct), their dominance of the Manhattan D.A., including the fact that a Hillary Clinton lawyer, Mark Pomerantz, left a top Democrat law firm (run by Chuck Schumer’s brother) to join the D.A.’s Office and become a prosecutor against me, and then quit, against all rules, regulations, and laws when the Office would not prosecute (he wrongfully wrote a book while working at the Office and is now under scrutiny!), or a perfect phone call made to many lawyers and a Secretary of State, without any protestation of my call, because nothing that was said was wrong, (it was clearly a complaint about an election), these are all Hoaxes and Scams made up to stop me from fighting for the American People – BUT I WILL NEVER STOP!
This has been a neverending fight from the day I came down the escalator in Trump Tower, many years ago. So interesting that in this case the information was delivered to me on a Sunday night, less than 24 hours after I suggested during a major speech that the Federal Government ASSUME CONTROL of a filthy, unsanitary, neglected, and crimendden Washington. D.C., where murder and violent crime are rampant and people no longer want to go to our Nation’s Capital… and yet. that is where Biden’s DOJ actually wants my trial to take place, all because they think, especially after my strong words of a Federal takeover at the speech, a D.C jury will do whatever they want. VERY UNFAIR!
Smith knows this case is small potatoes compared to what he’s about to inflict on Trump and several associates for January 6. It’s very likely Smith will use the “classified docs” prosecution as leverage to seek pretrial detention for Trump when the special counsel indicts Trump for several J6-related offenses, which could include seditious conspiracy.
There was also an impact on the press, especially after the popular site Zero Hedge was removed from Twitter after an article suggesting a scientist in Wuhan was behind the outbreak.
It later turned out that Farrar referenced the Zero Hedge article in a letter to Fauci not long after the site was suspended.
* * *
Authored by Matt Taibbi, Leighton Woodhouse, Alex Gutentag, Michael Shellenberger via Racket News (truncated, read the full version at Racket).
On February 5th, 2020, as a small group of scientists were crafting a Nature magazine paper that would become the basis of years of reports insisting Covid-19 had natural origins, one of the co-authors, Tulane’s Dr. Robert Garry, wrote in group email:
Accidental release is a scenario many will not be comfortable with, but cannot be dismissed out of hand.
As detailed in an explosive Public story today, Garry’s thinking changed suddenly when then-New York Times reporter Donald McNeil asked the next day: “Is there any possibility that it could be from the Wuhan lab?”
Garry warned McNeil was “credible,” but “like any reporter can be mislead [sic],” cheering colleague Dr. Andrew Rambaut’s scientific version of a non-denial denial as a “good honest response.”
Last week, House members investigating origins of Covid-19 accidentally released a trove of Slack chats and emails between the authors of Nature’s seminal paper from March 17, 2020,The Proximal Origin of SARS-CoV-2. The Proximal Origin paper delivered a single line that for years helped authorities slam a lid on theories of human intervention in Covid-19: “It is improbable that SARS-CoV-2 emerged through laboratory manipulation.”
Chats showing Proximal Origins authors saying things like “The truth will never come out (if lab escape is the truth)” were published first by independent researcher Francisco Del Asis of the independent investigatory group DRASTIC, after which the story was picked up by Ryan Grim of The Intercept. From there, health officials did their best to ignore the material — “Many of them remained silent with this revelation,” is how De Asis puts it — almost as if they were waiting for another shoe to drop.
That other shoe is dropping.Public and Racket last week obtained a full complement of the “Proximal Origins” communications examined by the House Select Subcommittee on the Coronavirus Pandemic, revealing a story far worse than previously believed. While today’s Public story details the unprecedented scientific cover-up, the letters and chats examined here at Racket show how health officials and scientists constructed perhaps the most impactful media deception of modern times, exceeding even the WMD fiasco both in scale and brazen intentionality. Because House investigators uncovered such a wealth of material, some of the Proximal Origin communications — which shed light on other Covid-related controversies — will be addressed in a second part of this series later this week. For now, however, the degree to which these communications blow up years of news stories stands out.
The core four on the Slack chat — Andersen, Garry, Rambaut, and Holmes — never appear far from thoughts about the Wuhan Institute of Virology (WIV) and famed scientist Shi Zhengli. Affectionately dubbed “Bat Woman” by Chinese colleagues, Shi received grants to research bat viruses, including a recent one called “Understanding the Risk of Bat Coronavirus Emergence” in which she partnered with Peter Daszak of the U.S-based EcoHealth Alliance on so-called gain-of-function experimentation.
At one point, Andersen complains about containment procedures at the WIV, noting, as biosafety expert James Le Duc would write in an email later that year, that the facility was conducting very dangerous experiments as Biosafety Level 3 (BSL-3), while the higher BSL-4 would normally be considered necessary. “I’m all for GOF experiments, I think they’re really important,” Andersen writes. “However performing these in BSL-3 (or less) is just completely nuts!”
Andersen goes on to say he’s “evolved” on the question of gain-of-function research, saying he’s not sure if such knowledge is “actionable,” while “of course being exceptionally dangerous. It only takes one mistake.”
It later came out that WIV was performing some of its experiments at an even lower level. “Keep in mind that WIV actually performed a lot of their coronavirus work at BSL2, which is what ultimately prompted Ian Lipkin to change his mind,” says DRASTIC founder, referring to comments by Lipkinto McNeil in May of 2021, saying “My view has changed.”
The core four also repeatedly pored over the problem posed by the “furin cleavage site,” a distinctive feature of the Covid-19 genetic sequence. As is now known to the general public thanks again to the digging of the DRASTIC group, which leaked the material in the fall of 2021, researchers at the University of North Carolina led by Dr. Ralph Baric had sent a proposal to the Pentagon seeking to introduce “human-specific cleavage sites” into bat coronaviruses, for a program called DEFUSE. Baric and Shi had worked together on more than one occasion, and even co-authored a paper in 2015 demonstrating that a coronavirus spike protein can infect human cells.
In any case, with these and other issues in mind, all five scientists express belief that escape from the Wuhan lab was at least possible, if not probable:
Andersen: “The lab escape version of this is so friggin’ likely because they were already doing this work…
Garry: “The major hangup I have is the polybasic cleavahe [sic] site… it’s not really a natural process.” Also: “It’s not crackpot to suggest this could have happened given the GoF research we know is happening.”
Lipkin: “[A draft of the paper] does not eliminate the possibility of inadvertent release following adaptation through selection in culture at the institute in Wuhan. Given the scale of the bat CoV research pursued there… we have a nightmare of circumstantial evidence to assess.”
Holmes (replying to Lipkin): “I agree… Seems to have been pre-adapted for human spread since the get go. It’s the epidemiology that I find most worrying.”
Rambaut: “I am quite convinced it has been put there by evolution (whether natural selection or artificial).”
* * *
As detailed in Public, the Proximal Origin authors who initially discussed lab escape in such a casual manner appeared to have a change of heart after a February 3rd conference call that included the likes of Dr. Anthony Fauci, then-NIH Head Francis Collins, and Dr. Jeremy Farrar of the Wellcome Trust (and now the WHO). Though he was CDC chief at the time, Redfield was excluded. “I should have been invited,” he said, but “I didn’t find out about these phone calls until the Freedom of Information came out,” referencing a FOIA-based report released by Buzzfeed over a year later.
From that point forward, references by scientists to “lab escape” became less frequent, with some of the Proximal Origin authors claiming to be impressed by various developments, including data sets about mutations in pangolins. However, scientists were clearly more moved by internal politics in correspondence with figures like Farrar, who complained questions about pandemic origin had “gathered considerable momentum not in social media, but increasingly among some scientists, in mainstream media, and among politicians.”
Anxious to please, Holmes at one point went as far as to say about a draft of the paper, “Jeremy Farrar and Francis Collins are very happy. Works for me.” This feels significant among other things because Andersen testified that when Republicans claimed the Proximal Origins authors “sent a draft to Drs. Fauci and Collins” and that “prior to final publication… the paper was sent to Dr. Fauci for editing and approval,” Andersen said, “These statements are false.”
Andersen supported the idea of writing the final Nature draft so as not to leave any room for speculation about lab origin. “I believe that publishing something that is open-ended could backfire at this stage,” he wrote, conceding also at another point that “Our main work over the last couple weeks has been focused on trying to disprove any type of lab theory.” On February 8th, Andersen said, “We should all just stay on Slack, that’s what we should do — and not use email.” In a February 12th letter to Nature virology editor Clare Thomas, he went so far as to describe their proposed paper as having been “prompted by Jeremy Farrar, Tony Fauci, and Francis Collins,” only after which did he list the actual authors:
By February 27, 2020, Andersen told Nature editors the virus “does have natural origin,” and by the next day, Rambaut was referring in Slack to “lab origin conspiracy loons.”
In one key email early in the process, Andersen complained about attention from the press, saying the “idea of engineering and bioweapon is definitely not going away.” While “there might be a time where we need to tackle that more directly,” he said, “I’ll let the likes of Jeremy and Tony figure out how to do that.”
* * *
The list of instances in these chats and emails in which the key authorities on Covid’s origins express doubts about theories that would go on to be embraced by officialdom for years is too long to fully catalog here, but for example: the authors seemed unanimous in their assessment that the so-called “wet market” was an unlikely crime scene. “No way the selection could occur in the market,” says Holmes at one point. Garry agrees and says, “Where would you get intense enough transmission… to generate and pass on the furin site insertion?” Rambaut says, “That’s the million dollar question,” and goes on to suggest not “raccoon dogs” or “palm civets,” but ferrets. “I could believe ferrets,” quips Andersen.
It’s with the publication of The Proximal Origin of SARS CoV-2 on March 17th that the unprecedented campaign of media deception really begins. The primary authorities on the question of whether or not the virus was the result of “laboratory manipulation” now turtled, saying little, while other media figures and politicians on a near-constant basis referred to the paper as the authority on the matter, suppressing questions about the pandemic’s origin.
The “lab leak theory” became infamous in mainstream circles among other things because Donald Trump seemed to blame China for the mess, using terms like “Kung Flu,” and secondarily because it appeared to implicate a neoliberal hero, Dr. Anthony Fauci, who stepped into the shoes of Robert Mueller as the favored leading man of the mainstream press. Fauci too had votive candles made with his image, enjoyed Nicolle Wallace gushing she was a “Fauci groupie,” and got to watch SNL do regular “Fauci cold opens,” in which the slight bureaucrat was depicted swatting away bras thrown at him by adoring fans, or being asked by morons if girls can get pregnant in the sky. The attention clearly got to Fauci’s head, because he soon began to write his own satirical material, telling Chuck Todd that attacks on him were “attacks on science”:
* * *
The first major coverage development after the March 17, 2020 publication was subtle. While the Nature team merely said they found no evidence of lab escape, headlines soon flowed suggesting something far more affirmative. “COVID-19 coronavirus epidemic has a natural origin,” declared Science Daily, the same day Proximal Origin was published.
Moreover, while the Proximal Origin authors could only say lab origin was “improbable,” legacy media outlets soon after began using the report to assert something far stronger that the report explicitly didn’t exactly say. “No, the new coronavirus wasn’t created in a lab, scientists say,” announced the CBC on March 26, 2020.
Crucially also, fact-checking authorities like Politifact began denouncing the concept as “conspiracy theory” and rating people who suggested the virus was “man-made” using absolute terms like “false” or “debunked.” It wasn’t until over a year later, as federal agencies like the Department of Energy and the FBI began concluding lab origin was at least possible if not likely, that PolitiFact began to correct itself.
Particularly in 2020, scientists all over the world were rebuked, removed from the Internet, and in some cases fired for spreading the “conspiracy theory” that parts of the Covid-19 genetic sequence suggested laboratory origin.
For a certain type of grant-dependent intellectual, a message was sent not only by the Nature paper published in March, but by an open letter put out weeks before and signed by 27 prominent scientists in the prominent journal Lancet. The message got even louder when Andersen and Garry were two of seven researchers to receive an $8.9 million grant from Fauci’s National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID).
* * *
Even credentialed scientists began to be disciplined by sites like Facebook, which took direction from government health authorities and prohibited statements about the virus being “man-made or manufactured.” There was also an impact on the press, especially after the popular site Zero Hedgewas removed from Twitter after an article suggesting a scientist in Wuhan was behind the outbreak. It later turned out that Farrar referenced the Zero Hedge article in a letter to Fauci not long after the site was suspended.
With a few notable exceptions, nearly everyone in the mainstream press community steered clear of any investigation of the possibility of lab origin for Covid-19, for several reasons. One key one was that such theories were coded early on as “right-wing” or even racist. “I was publicly libeled as a racist sinophobe,” says Deigin of DRASTIC, “and of course ridiculed as a crackpot conspiracist by countless virologists and their fanboys.” Prominent figures on channels like MSNBC hammered the idea that “lab leak” was right-wing lunacy, with Nicolle Wallace calling it “one of Trumpworld’s most favorite conspiracy theories,” while Fareed Zakaria in the Washington Post announced, “The far right has now found its own virus conspiracy theory.”
However, in 2021, both the FBI and the Department of Energy issued reports within government that either pointed toward lab escape or allowed it as a strong possibility. The public was not told of these developments, and instead had to watch in confusion as fact-checking authorities and politicians began reversing themselves on this question, with no obvious reason. In May, 2021, Fauci in particular shocked many when he appeared at, of all places, a “fact-checking conference” sponsored by the Poynter Institute, one of the sponsors of Politifact, and suddenly said he was “not convinced” Covid-19 developed naturally:
Now, two years later, we’re finding that the authors of the Proximal Origin paper (all of whom refused comment to Racket and Public, by the way, as did Farrar and Collins) were having many of the same thoughts as academics and pundits dismissed for years as crackpots, racists, and traitors. I asked Deigin if he felt vindicated. “I do somewhat,” he said. “The Slack messages confirm what we long suspected.”
It has to be reiterated that these documents still don’t prove that the virus escaped from the Wuhan Institute, or that American scientists were implicated in the episode. What the documents do show, however, is that both scientists and journalists abandoned their traditional mission to keep their minds open and consider all reasonable evidence without fear of political considerations, in favor of a new discipline that openly admitted political factors and sought a “single message” over free-ranging inquiry. The few mainstream journalists who continued to push this story, like Josh Rogin at the Washington Post, should be commended, but as a whole, both the media business and the scientific profession are taking a big hit after the release of these documents.
“How does the public ever trust science again?” asked Bhattacharya.
FAA Prepares US For Flying Taxi Operations By 2028
The Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) published the Advanced Air Mobility (AAM) Implementation Plan, establishing a framework for nationwide flying taxi operations by 2028.
The FAA said the purpose of this Implementation Plan is “limited to those engaging in passenger-carrying or cargo operations with a pilot on board.” AAM is referred to as a transportation system by the agency that moves people and property by air between two points using electric vertical takeoff and landing (eVTOL) aircraft in both controlled and uncontrolled airspace.
FAA said “Innovate28” is a joint government and industry initiative allowing AAM operations “at one or more key site locations” by 2028. Those locations have yet to be determined.
“This plan shows how all the pieces will come together, allowing the industry to scale with safety as the north star,” Deputy FAA Administrator Katie Thomson said in a statement.
The plan is a blueprint for making flying taxi operations “routine and predictable by maximizing the use of existing procedures and infrastructure,” the FAA said. It also addresses how the agency and partners will certify aircraft and pilots, ensure pilot training, manage airspace access, develop infrastructure, and maintain security.
New eVTOL aircraft are expected to offer capabilities from multi-passenger short-range aircraft to recreational aircraft to cargo aircraft.
The FAA notes that each eVTOL will be operated by a “pilot in command” in Class B and C airspace. This means constant contact with air traffic control while complying with Visual Flight Rules and visual meteorological conditions.
Here are the highlights of the new plan to ensure flying taxis hit the skies by 2028:
Operations
Pilots will be able to fly the new advanced mobility aircraft to and from multiple locations at the sites, using predetermined flight schedules with pilots aboard.
Advanced air mobility aircraft likely will operate up to 4,000 feet altitude in urban and metropolitan areas, using existing or modified low altitude visual flight rules (VFR) routes where possible within controlled Class B and C airspace around major airports.
Infrastructure
Operators, manufacturers, state and local governments, and other stakeholders will be responsible for planning, developing and enabling heliport/vertiport infrastructure.
Advanced air mobility will initially operate at existing heliports, commercial service airports and general aviation airports. Modifications may be necessary to install charging stations, parking zones and taxiing space.
Power Grid
The electrical power grid may require upgrades to serve advanced air mobility operations.
The FAA has an interagency agreement with the Department of Energy’s National Renewable Energy Lab to determine how aircraft electrification affects a vertiport, heliport or airport’s electrical grid.
Security
The Department of Homeland Security will determine what type of security is necessary.
The TSA and FAA are evaluating the need for expanded cybersecurity requirements due to the use of advanced technology and operational protocols.
Environment
The FAA will consider the environmental impacts of advanced air mobility operations, including factors such as noise, air quality, visual disturbances, and disruption to wildlife.
Community Engagement
The FAA will engage with airports, and local, state, and tribal communities to better understand community concerns about advanced air mobility operations, including noise and mitigations.
Many other stakeholders, such as advanced air mobility operators and airport and vertiport operators will have important roles in community engagement
We gather from the report that eVTOLs will be operating in Class B & C airspace. A pilot’s license will be needed. The airspace under 4,000 feet is about to get a lot crowded by the end of the decade.
FAA Greenlights “Limited” Flight Operations For SpaceX-Backed Flying Car https://t.co/YZDOUUYuno
In a historic move, a Jan. 6 prisoner has taken his challenge of the infamous obstruction charge, levied against him and hundreds of other Jan. 6 prisoners and defendants, all the way to the Supreme Court.
On July 7, attorneys for Jan. 6 prisoner Edward Jacob (Jake) Lang filed a document with the Supreme Court of the United States (SCOTUS) challenging the government’s obstruction of Congress charge—one of the most common felony charges used against Jan. 6 defendants—which carries a 20-year prison sentence.
“We filed what’s called a writ of certiorari, or a request to the Supreme Court to hear an issue,” Norm Pattis, lead attorney for Mr. Lang, told The Epoch Times. Mr. Pattis explained that the legal team is asking the high court to review the details behind Mr. Lang’s alleged violation of Title 18 U.S. Code Section 1512(c)(2), one of the 11 charges against him, according to court documents (pdf).
According to the writ, obtained exclusively by The Epoch Times (pdf), “Mr. Lang filed a motion to dismiss the Section 1512 count prior to trial. The District Court granted his motion.”
However, “on a consolidated interlocutory appeal to the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit joined by two similarly situated codefendants, the Court, in a split decision, reversed the District Court. A motion for rehearing was denied.”
The “question presented for review” is “Whether the Court of Appeals erred in concluding that application of 18 U.S.C. Section 1512(c)(2), a statute crafted to prevent tampering with evidence in ‘official proceedings,’ can be used to prosecute acts of violence against police officers in the context of a public demonstration that turned into a riot, resulting in so ‘breathtaking’ an application of the statute as to run afoul of Van Buren v. United States, 141 S. Ct. 1648 (2021).”
The document warns the high court that “dozens of convictions” on this same obstruction charge are “headed to this Court,” all arising from Jan. 6, and “Resolution of the question is imperative to prevent the use of this statute to prosecute folks who protested in a good faith belief that their actions were necessary to prevent an election from being stolen, an event tantamount to an internal coup d’état.”
“Refusal to resolve this question,” the document predicts, “will chill others inclined to petition and assemble for the redress of grievances, for fear that those opposed to their views might prosecute them for possessing a ‘corrupt’ intent.”
‘Really Far Afield’
Obstruction under Section 1512(c) is among the 37 charges for which the federal government indicted the current GOP frontrunner for the 2024 election, Donald Trump (pdf). A favorable ruling by the Supreme Court could have a significant impact on the former president’s legal future as well.
This is not the first time the obstruction charge has been called into question.
Politico reported that, during a two-hour hearing on Nov. 19, 2021, U.S. District Court Judge Dabney Friedrich argued in the case of Jan. 6 prisoner Guy Reffitt—also charged with hindering communications through physical force, civil disorder, and bringing a firearm onto the grounds (pdf)—that the government’s effort to apply the obstruction charge appeared to run “really far afield” from what Congress intended.
On June 7, 2022, U.S. District Judge Carl Nichols granted Mr. Lang’s motion to dismiss (pdf) the obstruction charge.
It was the third time Mr. Nichols granted a Jan. 6 prisoner’s motion to dismiss. On March 8, 2022, he had granted the motion to dismiss of Jan. 6 prisoner Garret Miller.
“Upon review of the Defendant’s [Motion to Dismiss], and for the reasons discussed in the Court’s [opinions] in United States v. Miller, it is ordered that the Motion is granted,” Mr. Nichols wrote. “It is further ordered that Count Nine is dismissed without prejudice Superseding Indictment [citations omitted].”
Mr. Nichols then granted the motion to dismiss of Jan. 6 defendant Joseph Fischer on March 15, 2022.
Mr. Nichols believes that the statute “must be interpreted” in such a way that “requires that the defendant have taken some action with respect to a document, record, or other object in order to corruptly obstruct, impede or influence an official proceeding.”
In other words, if someone hasn’t been accused of taking such an action, they cannot be charged with this particular violation.
In all, federal prosecutors have charged more than 300 Jan. 6 defendants with obstructing congressional proceedings. The obstruction charge has been frequently used by the Justice Department during plea negotiations and as a means to coerce some Jan. 6 protesters into providing information to incriminate fellow protesters.
‘Reworking the Penal Code’
Mr. Pattis and fellow Lang attorney Steven Metcalf are asking the United States Supreme Court to review their client’s case and determine “whether the federal government is misusing the statute designed to prohibit or deter tampering with evidence or evidentiary proceedings” to inflict “extra heavy punishment on those involved in the January 6 events.”
Title 18 U.S.C. Section 1512 (pdf) provides in part:
(c) Whoever corruptly –
(1) alters, destroys, mutilates, or
conceals a record, document, or
other object, or attempts to do so,
with the intent to impair the object’s integrity or availability for
the use in an official proceeding;
or
(2) otherwise obstructs, influences
or impedes any official proceeding, or attempts to do so,
shall be fined under this title or imprisoned
not more than 20 years, or both.
“The statute says if you obstruct or impede an official proceeding, by screwing around with records or documents, you’re guilty of a felony,” Mr. Pattis said.
He added, “Congress amended that to include a second section that says if you interfere with an official proceeding you are guilty as well. That statute has been used to punish Jan. 6 protesters who broke the law by trespassing or, in some cases, engaging in acts of violence against police officers, even when that act was in defense of themselves.”
