Just when you thought that things couldn't get any stranger, two U.S. government agencies have taken things to an entirely new level. The U.S. Department of Defense and the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services have just put out a press release that is absolutely jaw dropping, but so far hardly anyone is talking about it.

According to the press release, a 138 million dollar contract has been awarded to ApiJect Systems America for two projects known as "Project Jumpstart" and "RAPID USA". Apparently the goal of these projects is to have vast numbers of "injection devices" ready to go once a COVID-19 vaccine becomes available.

The following comes directly from the official website of the Department of Defense:

Today the Department of Defense and the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, announce a $138 million contract with ApiJect Systems America for "Project Jumpstart" and "RAPID USA," which together will dramatically expand U.S. production capability for domestically manufactured, medical-grade injection devices starting by October 2020.

Spearheaded by the DOD's Joint Acquisition Task Force (JATF), in coordination with the HHS Office of the Assistant Secretary for Preparedness and Response, the contract will support "Jumpstart" to create a U.S.-based, high-speed supply chain for prefilled syringes beginning later this year by using well-established Blow-Fill-Seal (BFS) aseptic plastics manufacturing technology, suitable for combatting COVID-19 when a safe and proven vaccine becomes available.

Today, there are about 328 million people living in the United States. But the press release states that the plan is to produce "over 500 million prefilled syringes" in 2021:

The contract also enables ApiJect Systems America to accelerate the launch of RAPID USA manufactured in new and permanent U.S.-based BFS facilities with the ultimate production goal of over 500 million prefilled syringes (doses) in 2021. This effort will be executed initially in Connecticut, South Carolina and Illinois, with potential expansion to other U.S.-based locations. RAPID will provide increased lifesaving capability against future national health emergencies that require population-scale vaccine administration on an urgent basis.

Russia probe files released as part of the Justice Department's move to drop its case against former National Security Adviser Michael Flynn are raising new questions about a mysterious Inauguration Day email sent by Flynn's predecessor in the Obama administration, Susan Rice.

An exhibit in the DOJ's motion to dismiss the Flynn case last week detailed a special counsel interview of former Deputy Attorney General Sally Yates. The interview indicated outgoing President Barack Obama was aware of Flynn's intercepted December 2016 phone calls with then-Russian Ambassador Sergey Kislyak during the presidential transition period.

The document noted Yates learned about the calls during a Jan 5, 2017, Oval Office meeting with Obama, Rice, then-FBI Director James Comey, then-CIA Director John Brennan, and then-Director of National Intelligence James Clapper.

In light of the ongoing Coronavirus pandemic, which has caused rapid and substantial harm to many nations and lives of their citizens, analysts are reluctantly starting to look at the possibility that certain countries may resort to the use of biological weapons capable of causing mass deaths. Germ warfare is the use of biological toxins or infectious agents, such as bacteria, viruses, insects, and fungi, that are biological in origin with the intent to kill people, animals and plants. Designing microorganisms that cause disease and means of spreading them among target populations are all part of biological warfare.

In the military, the concept of weaponizing germs has existed for a long time. After all, epidemics that happened during wars resulted in substantial losses of troops, and this, in turn, had a significant impact on the way the conflict unfolded as well as its outcome. For example, during the Vietnam War, US troops lost more (approximately 3-fold) servicemen to disease than during military operations (injuries and deaths). Epidemics among civilian populations away from battlefields also had very negative consequences, resulting in serious issues in manufacturing and logistics sectors and, overall, problems in governance.

Hence, it is not surprising that the United States — responsible for unleashing more armed conflicts than any other country in recent years and for launching numerous military interventions in regions all over the world — has been constantly ramping up its research into biological warfare, mainly through the Pentagon's Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA). One of the key aims of its biological technologies branch is to conduct studies on germs.

French prosecutors said Monday they are opening an investigation into ex-president Valery Giscard d'Estaing over allegations by a German journalist that he sexually assaulted her after an interview in 2018.

The investigation follows claims by reporter Ann-Kathrin Stracke that Giscard d'Estaing, 94, repeatedly grabbed her buttocks in his Paris office.

Giscard d'Estaing, France's oldest surviving former leader, served as president from 1974 until 1981, when he lost out on re-election to Francois Mitterrand.

Stracke, 37, told AFP last week she had filed charges against the former leader, claiming he had placed his hands on her backside three times while they posed for a photograph together in December 2018, when he was 92.

A judgement in Germany's constitutional court will have huge ramifications for the future of the EU.

If you ever visit Karlsruhe, you could easily mistake the building housing the Bundesverfassungsgericht (BverfG), the highest German constitutional court, for the refectory block of some dreary new university. Dreary or not, on Tuesday that court took a major decision which trenchantly and welcomely upheld national democratic principles, and thereby tossed an enormous potential spanner into the EU machine.

At stake was the European Central Bank's (ECB) purchasing of national bonds to inject liquidity into the EU economy, essentially taking over the bad debts of states like Greece. Such a scheme, while of course promoted as a magnanimous and statesmanlike EU gesture, relied heavily on the support of German taxpayers and Germany's central bank, the Bundesbank. Some 1,700 taxpayers had sued in the German courts to prevent this from happening. The German courts, following a well-established EU procedure, then asked the EU Court of Justice (the CJEU) whether the plan was EU-compliant. That court, in a dense and at times opaque judgment, said it was.

In the months since the novel coronavirus started spreading across the world, Bill Gates has been one of the most outspoken public figures with regards to the global response to the pandemic.

However, Gates says he wishes he had "done more" to warn the world about the potential dangers of a global pandemic before coronavirus became one of the biggest public health issues in decades. The pandemic has already killed nearly 290,000 people globally, including more than 80,000 in the U.S.

"I wish I had done more to call attention to the danger," Gates said in an interview with The Wall Street Journal published Monday.

And at the dead center of it all is Eric Schmidt. Well before Americans understood the threat of Covid-19, Schmidt had been on an aggressive lobbying and public relations campaign pushing precisely the "Black Mirror" vision of society that Cuomo has just empowered him to build. At the heart of this vision is seamless integration of government with a handful of Silicon Valley giants — with public schools, hospitals, doctor's offices, police, and military all outsourcing (at a high cost) many of their core functions to private tech companies.

- The Intercept: Screen New Deal

Each crisis in the 21st century has been aggressively and ruthlessly wielded into a massive wealth and power grab by the American oligarchy and national security state. The big power grab following 9/11 centered around whittling away constitutional rights via mass surveillance in the name of "keeping us safe", while the money grab after last decade's financial crisis concentrated wealth and assets into fewer hands while entrenching financial feudalism and making the Federal Reserve and mega banks even more powerful.

Despite the success of this diabolical and intentional concentration of money and power, there's still too much privacy, freedom and independent wealth around for the imperial oligarchy to feel comfortable. As such, the current pandemic is being used to put the finishing touches on whatever little political and economic freedom remains in these United States.

The lessons learned from prior crises are being rolled out simultaneously this time around while people remain incapacitated at home due to Covid-19. The 2008/09 financial collapse taught those in power they can get away with unprecedented, unaccountable theft during an economic and stock market crash. Similarly, 9/11 demonstrated people will relinquish civil liberties without much protest when immersed in a state of fear.

The World Health Organisation has condemned the "dangerous" concept of herd immunity for managing the coronavirus pandemic.

Dr Michael Ryan, executive director of the WHO's health emergencies programme said it was wrong to think that countries can "magically" make their populations immune to Covid-19.

It was reported in March that the UK government was hoping to achieve herd immunity by allowing the virus to make its way through the population. Health secretary Matt Hancock denied it was ever part of government strategy.

Dr Ryan told a press briefing in Geneva: "Humans are not herds, and, as such, the concept of herd immunity is generally reserved for calculating how many people will need to be vaccinated and the population in order to generate that effect."


The WHO director added: "So I do think this idea that 'maybe countries who had lax measures and haven't done anything will all of a sudden magically reach some herd immunity, and so what if we lose a few old people along the way?' This is a really dangerous, dangerous calculation."

Federal spending totaled $980 billion in April as government rushed assistance to those hurt by the economy's shutdown to fight the coronavirus A statue of Albert Gallatin, former U.S. Treasury secretary, stands outside the U.S. Treasury building in Washington, D.C. Bloomberg

The numbers

The federal government ran a budget deficit of $737.9 billion in April, up from $160 billion in the same month last year, the U.S. Treasury Department said Tuesday. This brought the fiscal year-to-date deficit to $1.48 billion up from $530.9 billion in the same period last year. The deficit in April was in line with estimates from the Congressional Budget Office.

What happened

Government spending for April was $979.7 billion. That's an increase of $604 billion over April 2019. Economic impact payments to consumers were $217 billion last month. States and local governments received $142 billion. Unemployment benefits totaled $46 billion.

A confidential Treasury assessment of the coronavirus crisis estimates that it will cost the Exchequer almost £300 billion this year and could require measures including an increase in income tax, the end of the triple lock on state pension increases and a two-year public sector pay freeze.

The Telegraph can reveal that a Treasury document drawn up for Rishi Sunak, the Chancellor, sets out a proposed "policy package" of tax increases and spending reductions which may have to be announced within weeks in order to "enhance credibility and boost investor confidence" in the British economy.

The document, dated May 5 and marked "Official - market sensitive", reveals that the "base case scenario" now forecasts that Britain will have a £337 billion budget deficit this year, compared to the forecast £55 billion in March's Budget.