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Rising Sino-US tensions aren’t going away, not tomorrow, not next month or next year. There’s a geopolitical rivalry at play, or as we’ve explained before: Thucydides Trap. 

China’s rapid military expansion in the Pacific has been a wake-up call to Washington. Beijing has also spent the last decade modernizing its military with the latest war technology, including fifth-generation fighters and hypersonic weapons. 

President Trump, the Pentagon, and the military-industrial complex recognize a conflict is ahead; otherwise, why would the president plow $2 trillion into modernizing the military over the last couple of years?

When it comes to hypersonic technology, the US is behind the curve in the deployment of these super-fast weapons onto the modern battlefield. On the other hand, China and Russia have already claimed they’ve fielded these missiles that can travel multiples of the speed of sound. 

President Trump boasted Ameria’s hypersonic capabilities in May, saying a “super-duper” missile in development can travel 17-times faster, though the Pentagon at the time was unwilling to confirm. 

“We are building, right now, incredible military equipment at a level that nobody has ever seen before. We have no choice. We have to do it — with the adversaries, we have out there. We have a — I call it the ‘super-duper missile.’ And I heard the other night, 17 times faster than what they have right now,” Trump said in May. 

Now there’s more color on the hypersonic missile the president was touting. A senior defense official told CNN this week, President Trump has taken “special interest” in hypersonics revealing that the new missile can travel “17 times faster” than the speed of sound.

The defense official is referring to a “hypersonic glide body” test over the Pacific in March. 

U.S. Navy and U.S. Army jointly tests hypersonic glide body pic.twitter.com/9Fr8YvlBUS

— Dylan Malyasov (@DylanMalyasov) March 21, 2020

“What he was referring to, really, was the recent flight test that we’ve performed in March where we flew 17 times the speed of sound,” the senior defense official said.

CNN noted the US won’t have hypersonic missiles fielded until 2023 while China and Russia already have there’s in the field. 

As China challenges America’s predominance, a new Cold War is already underway. The rise of China and the stumbling of the US is one that could suggest tensions between both countries will continue until there’s a conflict. 

Authored by Mac Slavo via SHTFplan.com,

Testing will soon begin in poverty-stricken parts of Africa for a biometric ID which will also be your payment system and vaccine record. The biometric digital identity platform that “evolves just as you evolve” is backed by none other than the Bill Gates-backed GAVI vaccine alliance, Mastercard, and the AI-powered “identity authentication” company, Trust Stamp.

The GAVI Alliance, which is largely funded by the Bill and Melinda Gates and Rockefeller Foundations, as well as allied governments and the vaccine industry, is principally concerned with improving “the health of markets for vaccines and other immunization products,” rather than the health of individuals, according to its own website. Similarly, Mastercard’s GAVI partnership is directly linked to its “World Beyond Cash” effort, which mainly bolsters its business model that has long depended on a reduction in the use of physical cash.

Reducing the use of cash is needed. Cash is impossible to track, but if you use centralized digital currency, the ruling class has complete control over what you can spend.

The program, which was first launched in late 2018, will see Trust Stamp’s digital identity platform integrated into the GAVI-Mastercard “Wellness Pass,” a digital vaccination record and identity system that is also linked to Mastercard’s click-to-play system that powered by its AI and machine learning technology called NuData. Mastercard, in addition to professing its commitment to promoting “centralized record keeping of childhood immunization” also describes itself as a leader toward a “World Beyond Cash,” and its partnership with GAVI marks a novel approach towards linking a biometric digital identity system, vaccination records, and a payment system into a single cohesive platform. The effort, since its launch nearly two years ago, has been funded via $3.8 million in GAVI donor funds in addition to a matched donation of the same amount by the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation. –Activist Post

In early June, GAVI reported that Mastercard’s Wellness Pass program would be adapted in response to the coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic. Around a month later, Mastercard announced that Trust Stamp’s biometric identity platform would be integrated into Wellness Pass as Trust Stamp’s system is capable of providing biometric identity in areas of the world lacking internet access or cellular connectivity and also does not require knowledge of an individual’s legal name or identity to function. The Wellness Program involving GAVI, Mastercard, and Trust Stamp will soon be launched in West Africa and will be coupled with a COVID-19 vaccination program once a vaccine becomes available.

What is perhaps most alarming about this new “Wellness Pass” initiative, is that it links these “dual use” digital solutions to cashless payment solutions that could soon become mandated as anything over than touchless, cashless, methods of payment have been treated as potential modes for contagion by GAVI-aligned groups like the World Health Organization, among others, since the pandemic was first declared earlier this year. –Activist Post

Do you get it yet? It’s all tied into the same thing, and the plandemic is an excuse to roll this out. Wake up. They are not coming to save you, quite the opposite, actually.

For those stuck on the line of thinking that President Donald Trump said this “vaccine will be voluntary,” you are probably correct. It’ll be “voluntary” all right. And if you don’t get it and participate in the new biometric ID program, you won’t be able to buy or sell anything, including food. That sounds nothing like the definition of voluntary to me, but believe in whatever religion you wish and put your trust in whomever you want. I’ll rely on myself instead of some politician to save me.

Oh, just what does Trump need 300 million doses of the vaccine for if it’s going to be “voluntary?” We are in for a “dark winter” as they have already told us several times. It’s time to apply critical thinking and stop falling for all of these psyops.

Those Who Planned The Enslavement of Mankind Warn Of “A Dark Winter” For Us

This doesn’t mean you shouldn’t remain vigilant and know what’s going on. Get your preps in order. Do another audit, buy some more food, and improve your water storage.  This system is here and it will not be voluntary in any sense of the word.  It’s similar to our “voluntary tax” system. Go ahead and choose to not pay, and men with guns will come to your house to make you pay. Yep, that’s how voluntary interaction works (note: that was sarcasm). Believe any politician you want, but they are all puppets for the Federal Reserve, and their takeover is imminent unless we wake up and stand together.

The entire breakdown of this new beast system can be read by clicking here.

Don’t just trust my word. Look into these issues for yourself. Everything is linked above, and better yet, find your own information. I would implore all of you to not just believe what you are being told by anyone, including Trump or myself. Research, read, learn, and prepare.

Activists and the White House who were hoping that the decline in drug overdose deaths seen in 2018 – the first such decline in nearly three decades – might have continued into 2019 are about to be disappointed.

Yesterday, the CDC released its preliminary data on drug overdose deaths (the final report won’t land until December), and the organization found that the total for 2019 was 5% higher than the total from 2018. The data also topped the 2017 total, the last record number for annual overdose deaths, by just a few hundred deaths to mark a new annual record for drug-related deaths in the US.

Nearly 71,000 Americans died from drug overdoses last year, per the CDC data. 70,980 died last year, per the preliminary data. That’s compared with 70,699 from 2017, the last record high, the CDC reports.

Soaring overdose deaths in the US have helped drag down average life expectancy for 3 straight years, and by the looks of it, No. 4 might be right around the corner.

Opioids led the pack once again, thanks largely to the deadly synthetic opioid fentanyl. So far this year, deaths are on track to surpass their totals from last year.

Drug deaths have risen an average of 13 percent so far this year over last year, according to mortality data from local and state governments collected by The New York Times, covering 40 percent of the U.S. population. If this trend continues for the rest of the year, it will be the sharpest increase in annual drug deaths since 2016, when a class of synthetic opioids known as fentanyls first made significant inroads in the country’s illicit drug supply.

One of the most important trends, per the NYT, is the fact that deadly fentanyl is moving west.

Fentanyl had been confined mostly to New England and other parts of the East, where it was generally found as an adulterant in powdered heroin. But in recent years, fentanyl and other potent synthetic opioids have been blamed for an increasing number of overdose deaths in California, Arizona and other Western states.

Ironically, the New York Times reported that the number of drug-related deaths has probably continued to climb in 2020 as the pandemic cuts off access to needle-exchange vans and other resources that hand out fresh needles and the overdose-reversal medication naloxone.

With the pandemic disrupting treatment centers, syringe exchanges and other places that help people with drug addiction, there may also be less naloxone — the overdose-reversing medication that has brought back thousands from the brink of death — on the streets. And there is at least anecdotal evidence that with the nation’s borders closed because of the pandemic, the illicit drug supply has been disrupted and has become less predictable. Constant changes in potency make it harder for people to judge the strength of the drugs they’re using.

“The inconsistency of our drug supply right now is at an all-time high,” said Chad Sabora, the co-founder and executive director of the Missouri Network for Opiate Reform and Recovery.

Here’s how the number of drug deaths changed across the country. While the northeast (with the notable exception of hard-hit Connecticut) has seen drug deaths ebb, the midwest and the mountain west are still in trouble.

The biggest percentage increase across the US was found in South Dakota, with a more than 50% increase (though, keep in mind, it’s South Dakota, so percentage change isn’t as meaningful as the overall number of new cases.

Authored by Christopher Snowdon via Spectator USA,

You can argue about the merits of pulling down statues, but it’s hard to make the case that mass protests serve no useful purpose. At the very least, they provoke debate and draw attention to uncomfortable topics that it might otherwise be easier to ignore. The recent protests have forced everyone to have difficult discussions about race, class, poverty and attainment. Any serious examination of the statistics shows that we’re pretty far from equal, but what the figures also show is that it’s wrong-headed and damaging to lump very different groups together.

In these discussions politicians often lazily assume that all BAME (Black, Asian and Minority Ethnic) people are the same, and that all white groups are equally privileged. But a proper look at the data shows not just that there are striking difference within BAME groups, but that the very worst-performing group of all are white working-class boys — the forgotten demographic.

It might seem divisive to compare different groups, but attainment in education and in life is relative and if we’re to help the worst off, we have to know who they are. We should help everyone who needs it — but it is vital to be able to compare groups to know who’s falling behind, relative to their peers. In the UK, Bangladeshi-Brits earn 20 percent less than whites on average, for instance, but those with Indian heritage are likely to earn 12 percent more. Black Britons on average earn 9 percent less, but Chinese earn 30 percent more. What these differences tell us is that employers aren’t systematically discriminating between people on the basis of their skin color, and that we have to look elsewhere to see the roots of inequality.

Ucas, the British university admissions service, can provide unique insight into these issues: it is the only outfit in the world to gather detailed information on all university applicants, including their age, gender, neighborhood and school type. This is collected along with data on who applied for which courses and who was accepted, and it is renewed in huge detail every year.

Much of the data shows predictable results: there is a gap between rich and poor, as you might expect in a UK state system where the best schools tend to be located in the most expensive areas. But there are surprising discoveries too: nearly half the children eligible for free school meals in inner London go on to higher education, but in the country outside London as a whole it is just 26 percent.

Black African British children outperform white children, whereas black Caribbean children tend to do worse. Poor Chinese girls (that is to say, those who qualify for free school meals) do better than rich white children. But, interestingly, the ethnic group least likely to get into university are whites. With the sole exception of Gypsy/Roma, every ethnic group attends university at a higher rate than the white British and, of the white British who do attend, most are middle class and 57 percent are female.  The least likely group to go on to higher education are poor white boys. Just 13 percent of them go on to higher education, less than any black or Asian group.

This is a trend that can also be seen in the GCSE data; only 17 percent of white British pupils eligible for free school meals achieve a strong pass in English and maths. Students categorized as Bangladeshi, Black African and Indian are more than twice as likely to do so. In 2007, the state sector saw 23 percent of black students go on to higher education; this was true for 22 percent of whites. So about the same. But at the last count, in 2018, the gap had widened to 11 points (41 percent for black students, 30 percent for whites). The children of the white working class are falling away from their peers, in danger of becoming lost.

Going to university is not the golden ticket it once was, but it requires stupefying naivety to believe that seven out of eight poor white boys take a sober look at the economics of higher education and choose to set up their own businesses instead. The trail of hard evidence runs cold once they leave school, but the prospects for those who can barely read and write are dreadful and we can get some idea of the consequences by looking at the ‘left behind’ areas where unemployment, crime and ‘deaths of despair’ are significantly higher than the national average.

Angus Deaton, a Nobel Laureate based at Princeton University, came up with the phrase ‘deaths of despair’ when he looked at the demographics of those suffering from alcoholism, depression and drug abuse. Suicides among whites, he found, was soaring and those who took their own lives tended to be poor and low-educated. His recently-published book on the subject (Deaths of Despair and the Future of Capitalism, co-written with Anne Case) tells the devastating story of what he calls ‘the decline of white working-class lives over the last half-century’.

Yet while white working-class males are the largest disadvantaged minority, their cause is the least fashionable. In the intersectional pyramid of victimhood, white males are at the bottom, tarnished by ideas of ‘toxic masculinity’ and ‘white privilege’ despite the fact that in Britain class has always been the most significant indicator of true privilege. It’s worrying, then, that any who attempt ‘positive action’ on behalf of poor white boys face a hostile reaction. Last year, Dulwich and Winchester colleges turned down a bequest of more than £1 million ($1.25 million) because the donor, Sir Bryan Thwaites, wanted the money ring-fenced for scholarships for white working-class boys. Peter Lampl, founder of the Sutton Trust, a charity whose stated mission is to improve social mobility, described Thwaites’s offer as ‘obnoxious’.

When Ben Bradley, the Conservative MP for Mansfield, tried to ask an ‘Equalities’ question about working-class white boys in parliament earlier this year, he was turned down by the Table Office because they do not have any ‘protected characteristics’. The concept of ‘protected characteristics’ was wheeled into UK law by Harriet Harman’s Equality Act, 10 years ago, and the Tories, then in opposition, took the rare step of voting for it. The nine protected characteristics include ‘race’, ‘sex’ and ‘sexual orientation’, but the Table Office is not alone in interpreting these as ‘non-white’, ‘female’ and ‘gay’.

Under the Equality Act, ‘positive discrimination’ remains technically unlawful, but the barely indistinguishable concept of ‘positive action’ is explicitly legal. Firms cannot have quotas, but they can set targets. Employers cannot refuse to look at job applications from people who lack protected characteristics, but by stating that ‘applications are particularly welcome’ from BAME, female or LBGTQ+ candidates they send a message that some need not apply.

In 2016 the BBC pledged that half its workforce and leadership would be female by 2020 despite less than 40 percent of Britain’s full-time workers being women. It also set an 8 percent target for LGBT employees, although only around 2 percent of the population identify as LGBT. This target has been comfortably exceeded, as has been the target of having 15 percent of employees from a BAME background. In the wake of the Black Lives Matter protests last month, the corporation raised this target to 20 per cent.

The BBC admits that people from ‘low and intermediate income households’ are hugely underrepresented in its workforce. But what does it do about it? Earlier this month Oxford University proudly reported that it was making ‘steady progress’ in its efforts to make its campuses ‘representative of wider society’. Of its most recent intake of British students, only 14 percent came from the poorest 40 percent of households.

This fits a pattern: at a push, we can hear acknowledgement of the ‘poor white male’ problem. But that’s as far as it ever goes. The underperformance of white boys and men is not considered to be a problem worth solving. When figures come out showing the stunning attainment gaps between boys and girls, the interest lasts for about a day. ‘It always got a few headlines,’ says Mary Curnock Cook, the former head of Ucas. ‘Where it never got any traction at all was in policy-making in government. I began to think that the subject of white boys is just too difficult for them, given the politicization of feminism and women’s equality.’

When I asked a teacher why white working-class boys have fallen so far behind, he gave me a short answer: girls are better behaved and immigrant parents are stricter. This is a generalization but nonetheless interesting: if it is the case that parenting is the problem, then it’s not clear how much the UK government can do. Perhaps the reluctance to discuss the subject stems from fear that such a discussion would lead to difficult territory about family structure, quality of parenting and — in short — culture. Perhaps politicians think it better to let the problem fester, and the children suffer, than to risk discussing it.

Last month, the British government announced that its commission on racial inequality would include an examination into the underperformance of working-class white boys at schools. Will it look deep into the causes? It might look at recent studies that suggest poor reading levels in schools is a huge part of the problem. And it might ask whether ‘positive action’ in the name of diversity has left white working-class boys behind.

The US government already controls almost every aspect of your daily life. Soon, it will “instruct” you to drink less as well.

With most Americans suffering from one or more chronic diet-related health conditions, including obesity, heart disease, and certain cancers, an advisory panel told government agencies that it will endorse limiting alcoholic drink to one a day when alcohol is consumed. That’s the new advice experts are recommending for the U.S. Dietary Guidelines for Americans, which are scheduled to be updated later this year for the first time in five years. The guidelines now say men should limit themselves to two drinks a day, and that women should limit themselves to one. That advice has been in place since 1990.

The Dietary Guidelines Advisory Committee proposed federal departments should also recommend reducing consumption of added sugars from 10% of caloric intake to less than 6%, and that children younger than 2 shouldn’t drink sugar-sweetened beverages.

In the report released Wednesday, a committee of experts noted there isn’t adequate evidence to support different alcohol recommendations for men and women, and that research supports tightening the limit for men. U.S. health agencies that issue dietary guidelines aren’t required to adopt the committee’s recommendations.

“As a nation, our collective health would be better if people generally drank less,” said Dr. Timothy Naimi, an alcohol researcher at Boston University and one of the experts on the committee convened by federal officials.

The proposed advice shouldn’t be interpreted to mean that not having a drink on Thursday means you can have two on Friday, Naimi said. One drink is the equivalent of about one 12-ounce can of beer, a 5-ounce glass of wine or a shot of liquor.

The advice is based on links that researchers observed between drinking habits and all causes of death, including heart disease, cancer and car accidents, rather than a specific physical harm that alcohol might have. While such observational studies, common in food and nutrition science, do not establish a cause-and-effect relationship, they are often the best evidence available, so experts use them to give guidance.

With alcohol, Naimi said two drinks a day was associated with an increased risk of death compared with one drink a day. While the increase was modest, he said that it was notable enough for the committee to recommend updating the advice.

Whether the proposed new advice would influence behavior isn’t clear. Many Americans already exceed the current advice on alcohol limits, Naimi noted. Still, he said most people could generally benefit from any reduction in alcohol, even if they’re not within the advised limits.

The report noted that the guidelines may be aspirational, but are important for “stimulating thought around behavior change.”

The guidelines are based on the overall health of a population, and an individual’s risk from drinking could vary depending on a variety of factors and health habits, said Dr. Dariush Mozaffarian, a professor of nutrition at Tufts University.

Mozaffarian also noted that many people misinterpret the current advice to mean they should have one or two drinks a day. The limits are meant for people who already drink. Hilarious, he felt the need to explain that the guidelines do not recommend that people who do not drink alcohol to start doing so.

Even if most Americans aren’t familiar with the details of the U.S. Dietary Guidelines, they’re subject of intense lobbying because of their power to shape the advice dispensed by doctors and what’s served in federal food programs, including school lunches, as federal food assistance programs, military rations, and doctors’ dietary recommendations reflect the guidelines.

Federal officials are expected to issue the updated guidelines by the end of the year, after considering public comments and input from other agencies. We expect they will be substantially “watered down” by the time of the final draft.