Our successor to This Week in the Guardian, This Week in the New Normal is our weekly chart of the progress of autocracy, authoritarianism and economic restructuring around the world.

Also, we have a new banner. “The New Normal” meant vaccines and lockdowns when we designed the old one in 2021, it means a lot more now.

1. Every US state gets a Weather Warning

Winter storms hit North America this week, allegedly resulting in every single one of the fifty states getting a weather warning, for one reason or another.

The warnings ranged from frost to flooding to wind. I don’t know which applies to Hawaii, or how they ended up getting involved at all.

Just in case people shoveling two feet of snow started doubting the world was warming up, the LA Times has an opinion piece from a climate expert that concludes:

a stretch of wild winter weather can feel like evidence that weather patterns really haven’t changed too much after all. But the effects of climate change are often unintuitive…

Does anyone else remember when children were “just not going to know what snow is”?

2. The HOT vaccines of 2024

A January 11th article in Time magazine headlines:

The New Vaccines to Get in 2024

…and it is exactly what it sounds like. A rundown of all the latest vaccines to hit the shelves, like they’re reviewing VR headsets or smartwatches.

The products – there’s no other word to use – being promoted include a brand new meningitis vaccine from Pfizer approved in October and the “mpox” vaccine recommended for “some adults”.

It’s the most blatant Big Pharma propaganda you’ll ever see.

I have no deep analysis here. I just wanted to highlight how bizarre the world has become.

3. “It Just Sort Of Appeared”

The title is Dr Anthony Fauci on the “six feet rule”, according to an aeticle the Wall Street Journalheadlined “Fauci comes clean”.

Testifying in front of the congressional sub-committee on the Covid response, the former National Institute of Health chief admitted there was never any scientific basis behind the social distancing rules at all, and that he had no idea where the the rule had come from.

“It just sort of appeared”.

Now, that social distance was anti-scientific nonsense was apparent immediately, especially when they started with the different rules for different businesses and whether you’re standing up or sitting down.

So the question is why Fauci decided to admit it, and indeed why the WSJ covered it in those terms.

Is it about distancing himself from the COVID junk science and trying to preserve his credibility? Is it about learning fake “lessons” to take into the next “pandemic? Is it both? Or something else entirely?

Who knows.

You can read a more detailed report in the Epoch Times.

It’s not all bad…

Thousands upon thousands of German farmers blocked roads with their tractors over the weekend, protesting the end of diesel fuel subsidies…

When addressing the crowd, German finance minister Christian Lindner was booed.

Good news…with an asterisk. Because, as with all popular movements, its positivity directly correlates with how organic it is. After all, Just Stop Oil blocks traffic. We’ll have to see how the story develops.

Although there are signs it’s a genuine cause, since the BBC is warning that the protests are beingweaponized by Germany’s “far right”.

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All told a pretty hectic week for the new normal crowd, and we didn’t even mention how the US Deep State is real and that’s a good thing, or the launch of this year’s Davos summit.

There’s a lot of change in the air, a lot of agendas in the works, if you see a headline, article, post or interview you think is a sign of the times, post it in the comments, email us or share it on social media and we will add it to the next edition.

 My Source