Authored by Joseph M. Hanneman via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours),

Three undercover Metropolitan Police Department officers joined the march of protesters up the northwest side of the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021—including one who climbed over a barricade and pushed others toward the Capitol, and another who walked behind Ashli Babbitt and predicted that “someone will get shot,” according to newly disclosed court documents.

New court motions filed by Jan. 6 defendant William Pope of Topeka, Kansas, also show MPD bicycle officers stopping four armed men in plainclothes on Jan. 6. The men turned out to be federal agents. Video included with Pope’s filings also shows uniformed MPD officers saying, “we were set up” to fail on Jan. 6.

Information in the court papers will rekindle the debate about the role that undercover officers and agents played in the riots of Jan. 6 and why the U.S. Department of Justice and federal judges have kept the evidence under seal and away from public view.

“This video clearly evidences undercover law enforcement officers urging the crowds to advance up the stairs and scaffolding towards the Capitol on January 6,” Pope wrote in one motion. “The government may claim that incidents like this did not happen, but the facts show they did.

“Since the government cannot be trusted to disclose these facts,” Pope wrote, “it becomes even more important that defense teams, including Pro Se defendants, be able to directly examine the evidence.”

The three undercover MPD officers approached the northwest corner of the Capitol grounds at about 1:40 p.m. on Jan. 6, one of the motions states. Officer 1, who was filming their journey, joined the crowd chanting, “Drain the swamp!”

When a group of men ran past them toward the Capitol, Officer 2—wearing a Trump beanie—remarked, “Those guys are getting shot,” the motion said.

At the base of the scaffold stairs, Officer 1 joined the crowd in a chant, “Whose house? Our house!”

“Officer 1 began yelling at people in front of him to ‘Go, go, go!’ As they climbed bicycle racks, Officer 1 yelled for the crowd to ‘help him up, help him up!” followed by ‘push him up, push him up!’” the motion reads of Pope describing how Officer 1 climbed over a barricade.

“Needing help to get up, Officer 1 asked a nearby man to give him a boost,” the motion says. “The man gives Officer 1 a lift up, and Officer 1 says ‘Thanks, bro.’”

Officer 1 pushed protesters in front of him to advance on the Capitol, shouting, “c’mon, c’mon, c’mon, let’s go!,” the motion said. People around him climbed over bike-rack-style barricades and scaffolding that had been set up for the presidential inauguration.

Right Behind Ashli Babbitt

At one point, Officers 2 and 3 were almost directly behind Trump supporter Ashli Babbitt on the exterior stairs, about an hour before Babbitt was gunned down at the entrance to the Speaker’s Lobby, Pope said in a Twitter post on Feb. 18.

“Why hasn’t the government informed the public that undercover MPD officers were chanting, ‘Our house!’ and repeatedly urging protesters to advance up the northwest steps of the Capitol on January 6?” Pope wrote on Twitter under his handle @FreeStateWill. “Officer 2 said someone would get shot and went up right behind Ashli Babbitt.”

Video shot by the undercover officers is under court seal.

Pope argued in his motions that the DOJ is trying to prevent him from accessing the full Jan. 6 evidence databases. He is defending himself against seven criminal counts brought by federal prosecutors in February 2021. He asked U.S. District Judge Rudolph Contreras to compel the DOJ to give him full access to discovery materials.

Read more here…

Not surprisingly, Sen. Lindsey Graham is leading the “stand up to Russia” charge among GOP Congressional hawks, saying in an interview on the sidelines of the Munich Security Conference that China has been put on notice regarding any potential military support to Russia amid its Ukraine war. 

“If you jump on the Putin train, you’re dumber than dirt,” the South Carolina Republican said in response to reports of China mulling lethal aid to Ukraine. He stressed it will unleash huge international blowback on Beijing if they follow through, and will prove a losing proposition from the start. “It would be like buying a ticket on the Titanic after you saw the movie,” he continued in the interview with Martha Raddatz on ABC’s “This Week.”

On Monday afternoon, a large explosion rocked a metal manufacturing plant just east of Cleveland, Ohio, sparking a fire and sending a massive column of black smoke into the sky. 

Fox News said the explosion occurred at I Schumann & Co. metal plant in Bedford. The company produces metal alloys. 

The black smoke billowing into the sky is reminiscent of the East Palestine controlled burn of toxic chemicals earlier this month. Law enforcement in Bedford has yet to say if the smoke is toxic to surrounding communities. 

🚨 JUST IN: Eye witness video of the massive metal facility explosion in Bedford, Ohio — mass casualty incident declared:

“Wow, that’s f-cking insane!” pic.twitter.com/cAlou0aDHi

— Upward News (@UpwardNewsHQ) February 20, 2023

Multiple victims burned after massive explosion at a metal manufacturing plant in Bedford, Ohio

pic.twitter.com/uOsHqNAQ8b

— The Post Millennial (@TPostMillennial) February 20, 2023

⚠️ @IntelPointAlert || ‘Mass Casualty Incident’ reported following explosion at metal manufacturing plant in Bedford, Ohio; massive response underway pic.twitter.com/ibbHfHkhhm

— PiQ (@PriapusIQ) February 20, 2023

Large explosion at metals making plant in Bedford, Ohio. Reports of multiple victims pic.twitter.com/B2DJRwiHaZ

— BNO News Live (@BNODesk) February 20, 2023

Here’s another video of the fire. 

⚠️ HAPPENING NOW: Huge fire breaks out following mass casualty explosion at a metal facility in Bedford, Ohio. pic.twitter.com/FhyUT60L5z

— Upward News (@UpwardNewsHQ) February 20, 2023

Emergency services have requested several medical helicopters. There are reports this could be a ‘mass casualty incident.’ 

DEVELOPING: ‘Mass Casualty Incident’ reported following explosion at metal manufacturing plant in Bedford, Ohio; massive response underway pic.twitter.com/J7DOcqBf9F

— Intel Point Alert (@IntelPointAlert) February 20, 2023

The cause of the blast is unknown at this time. 

Three years after the Food & Drug Administration (FDA) pulled GSK Plc’s heartburn drug Zantac off the market due to suspected links to cancer, and just two weeks before the trial begins of a man who alleges he developed bladder cancer after taking the drug, Bloomberg Businessweek revealed in a new report the pharmaceutical company’s scientists have long knew about the drug’s risks. 

Bloomberg’s lengthy report highlighted GSK scientists and independent researchers understood that ranitidine had a cancer-causing carcinogen known as N-Nitrosodimethylamine (NDMA). The drug was approved in 1983 as “Zantac” to treat acute duodenal ulcers and later as a remedy for heartburn. 

By the late 1980s, Zantac was worth a whopping $2 billion, making it one of the most profitable drugs ever. It accounted for about half of Glaxo’s sales and 53% of the market for prescription ulcer medications. 

Then use of Zantac soared further by the mid-1990s when the FDA approved it as an over-the-counter medication. GSK eventually controlled the heartburn remedy market for decades. 

Bloomberg said GSK “backed flawed research designed to minimize concerns and chose not to routinely transport and store the medication in ways that could have eased the problem.” 

“Glaxo sold a drug that might harm people, tried to discount evidence of that and never gave anyone the slightest warning,” Bloomberg continued, adding its team of journalists reviewed “thousands of pages,” including court filings and studies. 

Four decades of dominating the heartburn market and building a pharmaceutical empire around it — abruptly stopped several years ago for GSK. In September 2019, the FDA received a report that made claims about ranitidine containing high levels NDMA. Shortly after that, in April 2020, the FDA pulled all ranitidine products from the market over the cancer-causing risks surrounding NDMA. 

Trust the science https://t.co/wH5fsKPqkv

— zerohedge (@zerohedge) February 20, 2023

The FDA stated concerns about the storage methods of the drug, indicating:

“NDMA levels increase in ranitidine even under normal storage conditions … And NDMA has been found to increase significantly in samples stored at higher temperatures, including temperatures the product may be exposed to during distribution and handling by consumers.”

According to Bloomberg, the FDA found 357ng of NDMA in Zantac, a level four times higher than what’s acceptable in any FDA-approved drug. And what’s frightening is that NDMA levels soared to 931ng in the same product five months later. 

And just how many people are suing manufacturers of Zantac or generic versions? 

More than 70,000 people who took Zantac or generic versions of it are suing the company in US state courts for selling a potentially contaminated and dangerous drug. –Bloomberg 

The first trial of a man who alleges he developed bladder cancer after taking Zantac will begin Feb. 27 before Alameda County Superior Court Judge Evelio Grillo. This will be the first test to see how cancer-causing Zantac claims holds up in state courts. 

Project Veritas founder and CEO James O’Keefe is exiting the organization.

O’Keefe announced to his staff Monday that he was leaving over a conflict in vision between himself and the board in an poignant 15-minute video.

“Throughout my 13 years doing this my mission has evolved,” O’Keefe said in his announcement.

“Over the last few weeks I have felt a lot of despair and seen a lot of evil and felt overcome with various emotions.”

A clearly emotional O’Keefe expressed gratitude for his employees, but noted that:

“The external threats and pressure inflicted upon myself has been unimaginable,” O’Keefe continued.

Employees had been dissatisfied by O’Keefe’s management and alleged he wasted money and was “outright cruel” to his staff, according to the The Daily Beast.

Speculation has been rampant about the timing of this debacle as O’Keefe points out:

“A few days after the Pfizer story, I was informed by an officer of Project Veritas that he would resign unless I step down as CEO. We’ve been having a conflict of vision over fundraising, there were tactical disagreements about the boldness of approach soliciting donations.”

As The Epoch Times’ Zachary Stieber reports, O’Keefe said he confronted one executive at a meeting on Feb. 2 and said that if the person would not follow his lead, he would have to exit the group.

O’Keefe then fired the man.

Later that same day, a different officer informed O’Keefe he was going to the Project Veritas board to restructure the company.

O’Keefe said he received an agenda for the board meeting as he was set to depart on a flight, and that the meeting was scheduled for the moment he was due to land.

“It became clear to me in that moment [that] I would be removed from my position at Project Veritas,” O’Keefe said.

Project Veritas did not pick up the phone or respond to requests for comment.

O’Keefe, who started Project Veritas in 2010, said he’s not finished.

He said that “the mission continues” but will “perhaps take on a new name.”

“I’ll make sure you know how to find me,” he told Project Veritas employees. “I hope to see some of you soon.”

R.C. Maxwell, a Project Veritas employee and an O’Keefe ally, wrote on Twitter that O’Keefe “was removed from his position as CEO by the Project Veritas board.”

“They are in charge now,” Maxwell said.

O’Keefe said he has been suspended “indefinitely without compensation,” citing a board memo.

“I don’t know why this has happened or specifically why this has happened suddenly,” O’Keefe continued, adding he has “documentation” of everything.

The board has not yet issued a new statement.

If you were tuned into CNN this morning (we’ll pause for laughter), you may have noticed that for the second straight business day, anchor Don Lemon was missing from the set of “CNN This Morning”.

Lemon was conveniently given another day off Monday, bringing his “missed show” total since his sexist remarks about Presidential Candidate Nikki Haley up to 2. 

Sources are now saying that “a new schedule is in place per CNN management”, absent Lemon, and that “Poppy Harlow will be accompanied by Sara Sidner and Kaitlan Collins”. 

The source told the Post Millennial this weekend: “There are ongoing conversations about Don’s future. He is a constant distraction.”

“His remarks were upsetting, unacceptable, and unfair to his co-hosts, and ultimately a huge distraction to the great work of this organization,” CNN boss Chris Licht said late last week. 

Recall we reported last week that Lemon’s co-hosts had “stormed off the set” after his brilliant commentary about Nikki Haley, wherein the 57 year old Lemon accused the 51 year old Haley of being “past her prime”. 

Poppy Harlow and Kaitlan Collins reportedly both took a “well timed bathroom break” after Lemon’s comments, before coming back to finish the show. 

The Mail wrote that “the comments were the last straw in an already deteriorating relationship between the news professionals, with Collins and Harlow increasingly fed up with Lemon’s behavior since coming on board.”

“Nikki Haley isn’t in her prime, sorry. A woman is considered to be in her prime in her 20s and 30s and maybe 40s,” Lemon said in a broadcast early last week. When his morning show co-host, Poppy Harlow, pushed back on the claim, Lemon told her and the CNN audience to “Google it”. 

The comments sparked outrage from sources across the political spectrum, including the likes NPR, who referred to the comments as “sexist”. 

As we noted then, the incident appears to us to be the final swirl of Don Lemon’s TV career down the toilet, following the likes of Chris Cuomo and Brian Stelter. 

Recall, back in September 2022 we wrote about Lemon’s obvious demotion from primetime to mornings on CNN. At the time, he said: “For all those who are out there saying, ‘Oh, he moved me and without my —,’ he asked me and I said yes. I could have said no. This is my show, I have a contract for this show, I decided I would take him up on that and take this journey with him. This is not someone moving me.”

Authored by Daniel Lacalle,

The U.S. dollar enjoys the world reserve currency status due to numerous factors.

Legal and investor security, an open and transparent market, as well as independent institutions with checks and balances that limit political power and strengthen the country’s currency in relative terms. No, a country does not have a world reserve currency due to military power. No one accepted the kopek when the Soviet Union ruled half the world.

For a fiat currency to be a world reserve it needs to be widely accepted as unit of measure, method of payment and reserve of value.

The problem is that all the above may be under threat.

Increasing pressure from politicians is threatening the reserve of value status of fiat currencies, and the political threat is not only against monetary authorities, but aimed at all institutions that provide independent checks and balances that limit political imposition.

When politicians talk about the “social use” of money, what they are basically saying you will suffer higher inflation for longer. It means using the currency to disguise massive fiscal imbalances under the illusion that citizens will always have to use the local currency. It makes no sense. A fiat currency, like any other good or service, is subject to supply and demand. Excessive supply is damaging its purchasing power the same way that excessive supply lowers the price of a good, but weakening demand added to rising supply leads to the collapse of the currency.

The moment that politicians stop defending the reserve of value status of their currency they are destroying the country they promise to defend.

Destroying the currency is the first sign of the decline of a nation. The rulers of the state never think that it will end because the process is slow until it suddenly accelerates with hyperinflation and the state crumbles. This happens when neither domestic nor foreign citizens will accept the state currency as a means of payment and reserve of value. It erodes slowly and the collapse happens fast.

Countries lose their currency demand when governments attack the reserve of value status and the independence of its institutions under the perception that nothing will change. Assessing the patience of foreign and domestic users of a currency always ends badly. However, political powers believe that they can always issue a devalued currency to hostage citizens that can only use the credit note issued by the state. It is false. When domestic citizens lose their patience with an increasingly worthless currency they move on to other systems of trade, using other means of payment and even barter.

In fact, most politicians believe that if “nothing” has happened so far and the country’s currency remains widely used then they can continue eroding the independence of institutions and the currency’s purchasing power forever. It is incorrect, and all empires have vanished under this illusion. The illusion of monetary sovereignty.

This is why MMT -modern monetary theory- is so wrong. It assumes that monetary sovereignty is static and gives the right to governments to mismanage money at their will. And monetary sovereignty vanishes as quickly as the fallacy of endless money printing.

The U.S dollar remains the world reserve currency because, so far, it has no contenders. This is not because the Federal Reserve policies are sound money, but because others are worse. The U.S. government and the Federal Reserve should know that imposing the use of a currency through digital currencies is not the answer. The only way in which the U.S. dollar will remain a world reserve currency is if the government and the Fed commit to strengthening its reserve status by increasing popular and global demand, not imposing it, because it never works.

Alternatives seem to be few or none until someone offers a true reserve of value with demonstrable demand driven by independent institutions. The Federal government and the central bank may believe that there is no contender today because other fiat currencies are worse, and they are right in that analysis. The problem is that alternatives may come from truly independent means. So far, the Fed has been smart enough to point at the Achilles’ heel of cryptocurrencies: Liquidity. However, regardless of the weakness of the currently available alternatives, the only thing that will strengthen a fiat currency is to be a reserve of value. If the Fed and the U.S. government ignore reserve of value as a policy, the end of the United States global status will be closer.

Over the past 18 months, skeptics of mRNA Covid-19 vaccines and those pointing out high rates of adverse reactions have been subject to ostracism, deplatforming, and flawed ‘fact checks‘ to shut down opinions and analysis which conflicted with official narratives.

Now, the data has begun to speak for itself, thanks to people like former Blackrock portfolio manager Ed Dowd, who has devoted the last several years to deep-dive research and analysis of pandemic-related data (in fact, he’s written an excellent book on the topic). Dowd, along with partners Carlos Alegria and Yuri Nunes, launched Phinance Technologies – where, aside from traditional macroeconomic analysis, they have produced comprehensive reports on pandemic-related disabilities and excess deaths using official data.

Their latest analysis reveals that the rate of Serious Adverse Events in the mRNA Covid-19 vaccine clinical trials closely tracks a spike in disabilities reported after the vaccine rollout.

Via Phinance Technologies (emphasis ours),

In part 3 of our US disabilities analysis we observed that the rise in disability rates post 2/2021 correlates closely with the rollout of the vaccination schedule. When looking at changes in disabilities on a wider time frame (since 2008) we observe that the disability rates rose or fell from month to month but tended to be relatively stable over time. However, as shown in part 1, the change in behaviour since early 2021 is clearly an abnormal occurrence with high level of statistical significance. It happens to be highly correlated to the cumulative Covid-19 vaccine rollout, but we cannot state that the correlation is statistically meaningful as it is based on a cumulative plot with obvious autocorrelation.

In this section we provide further evidence that the most likely cause of the rise in disabilities is the Covid-19 vaccines. For that purpose, we model the expected rise in disabilities due to the vaccination rollout in the general population. We do so by using the rates of Serious Adverse Events (SAEs) obtained by the safety analysis of the mRNA vaccine (Pfizer and Moderna) clinical trials, performed in the Vaccine journal paper we reviewed here, and our analysis in part five.

The time series of SAEs that were computed based on the rates estimated during the mRNA clinical trials are shown to be of the same magnitude as the rate of increase in disability rates in the 16-64 Civilian Labor Force.

— Edward Dowd (@DowdEdward) February 18, 2023

We can observe that the rate of rise in disabilities is higher than the computed rate of rise in SAEs of special interest, which could be explained in several different ways, or by a combination of factors.

• By the definition of an SAEs of special interest being more extreme than the rate of disabilities reported by the individuals surveyed by the BLS i.e. some disabilities reported by the individuals surveyed by the BLS may be caused by adverse events that are not deemed SAEs of special interest, due to the criteria used to define an SAE being overly restrictive.
• The population of the Civilian Labor Force as a whole may be less healthy (and somehow more vulnerable to vaccine-related disabilities) than the vaccine trial populations, either due to the selection criteria for participation in the trial, or ‘self-selection’ bias.
• Under-reporting of SAEs of special interest in the trial populations.
• Other factors causing excess disabilities in the Civilian Labor Force in a concurrent timeframe to the vaccine rollout.

As Dowd further notes via Twitter;

The rate of estimated SAEs appears to be under-reported relative the recorded rise in disabilities (according to the BLS survey) by about 2.6 times. These results were expected as we had already shown in part 3 of our study the high correlation between the rise in the disability rate since 2/21 with the vaccine rollout. We realise that performing the correlation of cumulative time series is misleading & the R2 should not be taken as an indication of establishing a statistically significant relationship as both time series have autocorrelation.”

causation.
✅We believe that a comprehensive investigation needs to be performed, either in the form of new phase III clinical trials for at least a 3-year period, or a programme of forensic autopsies in a large sample of deceased individuals where the Covid-19 vaccines were not

— Edward Dowd (@DowdEdward) February 18, 2023

restrictive.
2)The population of the Civilian Labor Force as a whole may be less healthy (and somehow more vulnerable to vaccine-related disabilities) than the vaccine trial populations, either due to the selection criteria for participation in the trial, or ‘self-selection’ bias

— Edward Dowd (@DowdEdward) February 18, 2023

3) Under-reporting of SAEs in the trial populations
4) Other factors causing excess disabilities in the Civilian Labor Force in a concurrent timeframe to the vaccine rollout.

— Edward Dowd (@DowdEdward) February 18, 2023

Bottom line: There were enough safety signals to show that what we are seeing in the BLS data was known during the clinical trials even given their narrow definition of a SAE. The trials should have been halted. 

Authored by Simon White, Bloomberg macro strategist,

The rapid rise in 0DTE (zero days to expiry) option trading means that traditional measures of risk such as the VIX are understating the true extent of underlying market instabilities.

Longer-dated implied volatility is relatively low and has remained subdued.

But this should not be taken as an indication that underlying risks in the market are low.

0DTE trading is leading to larger and more frequent intra-day swings, increasing intra-day volatility even as in inter-day volatility falls. The VIX and the VXV and even the 9-day VIX are not representative of the underlying picture.

The chart above shows SPY vol for longer-dated options, and one much closer to expiry. As is clear, the vol implied by ~0DTE options is higher than longer-dated volatility, and a truer gauge of mounting inherent market instabilities.

A major winter storm is forecast to roll through the Rockies, Plains, and upper Midwest by mid-week. Accumulating snow and ice could spread as far as the Northeast by late week. 

Despite February being an unseasonably warm month in parts of the Midwest and Northeast, perhaps Punxsutawney Phil is right about six more weeks of winter. 

The National Weather Service has published winter storm watches, advisories, and warnings from the Rockies into the upper Midwest.  

Here’s The Weather Channel‘s timing of the storm that will impact millions:

-​ Monday and Monday night: Snow spreads from the northern Rockies into the Northern High Plains.

-​ Tuesday and Tuesday night: Snow spreads into the central Rockies and higher terrain of the Desert Southwest. Snow also spreads into the Northern Plains and western Great Lakes.

-​ Wednesday and Wednesday night: Snow intensifies in the Northern Plains, upper Midwest with blizzard conditions possible. Snow spreads into interior Northeast and New England and intensifies late. Sleet and ice develop from the Missouri Valley into the southern Great Lakes and parts of the Northeast.

-​ Thursday and Thursday night: Snow, along with some sleet and freezing rain, tapers off in the western Great Lakes but continues in parts of New York and New England before moving out by early Friday morning.

As for snow, the Weather Prediction Center said:

“Storm total snowfall will likely be measured in feet for many of the mountain ranges across the West.” 

The Weather Channel’s total snowfall forecast shows parts of South Dakota into Minnesota, northern Wisconsin, and northern Michigan might see significant accumulation through Thursday. 

Winter isn’t over, according to Punxsutawney Phil.