Month: June 2021

Joe Biden’s Universal Basic Income is worsening the unprecedented nationwide labor shortage that even strip clubs face difficulties in hiring. 

According to local news Fox 8 New Orleans, Larry Flynt’s Hustler Club New Orleans is experiencing what they say is a “national exotic dancer shortage.” Like any business facing difficulties filling positions, the club is offering signing bonuses. 

“We look forward to reverting back to a seven-day per week operation, just as we were prior to COVID,” said Ann Kesler, General Manager of Larry Flynt’s Hustler Club New Orleans.

Kesler said, “In order to do so, we need to ensure that we have an ample number of entertainers to sustain our guests, which is why we are implementing a signing incentive to both local and out of state entertainers.”

She said the club is offering up to a $1,000 signing bonus to any new or returning “entertainer,” or commonly known as a stripper. 

“Believe it or not, New Orleans has everything besides exotic dancers at this time,” Kesler added. “I urge entertainers to contact me for their signing bonus as the city quickly gears towards full capacity.”

The economic impact of the coronavirus pandemic on sex workers was some of the hardest hit. The stripping industry was decimated for more than a year as direct physical contact and gatherings were limited or banned by states and or cities. Some strippers had enough savings and clientele to weather the pandemic, and others resorted to webcam modeling as supplemental income. Meanwhile, some slipped through the cracks and either left the industry to retool their skills in another industry or have been collecting Biden checks, unwilling to go back to work. 

After trillions in Biden stimulus, millions of people are not seeking gainful employment but sitting back waiting for the next stimmy check. 

Strip clubs are no exception to the nationwide labor shortage as they must offer signing bonuses. The dancer shortage is also hitting Las Vegas’ Little Darlings strip club, which recently posted a sign that read: “Stripper Shortage! Now Accepting Ugly Girls.” 

The stripper shortage threatens to derail our economic recovery pic.twitter.com/c6MM947i4l

— Las Vegas Locally 🌴 (@LasVegasLocally) June 2, 2021

Authored by Techno Fog via The Reactionary

It has been over five months and the FBI still has not apprehended the hooded suspect who placed pipe bombs near the RNC and DNC headquarters in Washington, D.C. on the evening of January 5, 2021.

The FBI’s latest wanted poster provides photographs and few identifying characteristics of the suspect:

There are, however, some curious omissions in the FBI’s description. By now, we assume the FBI (if it has done a thorough investigation) has the suspect’s height, approximate weight, and shoe size.

Why not disclose that information to the public?

Calculating height from video footage is a simple matter of geometry. I won’t get into the details of the calculations. But in general, this graphic from the FBI’s Best Practices for Forensic Image Analysis shows the analysis done to determine the height of a bank robbery suspect.

In the DC pipe bomb case, the suspect was seen on video standing on a DC street on South Capitol Street on the night of January 5. From this camera angle, the suspect’s height is roughly even with the height of a nearby handrail. Not a complicated problem for the FBI’s experts to solve.

Once the suspect’s height is measured against the fixed object, it could be compared against and confirmed by use of the measurements from the resident seen on video walking his dog. (We assume that the FBI has located and interviewed this resident.)

By now the FBI also likely has a shoe size. Again, based on video footage this would be a simple measurement. Photograph for reference.

Currently, the FBI has a $100,000 reward for information leading to the identification of this suspect.

The FBI has pleaded with the public, saying “We need your help to identify the individual responsible for placing these pipe bombs to ensure that they will not harm themselves or anyone else.”

We reached out to the FBI, asking if they would release the suspect’s height and weight and shoe size. This information is essential to help the public identify the suspect.

The FBI’s response: “The FBI has no further information to supply on this matter other than what has already been released.”

Why keep the suspect’s identifying information under wraps?

A couple possibilities. First, the FBI’s investigation is probably further along than any of us know. They’re collecting data on purchases of the suspect’s Nike Air Max Speed Turf and the timers, etc. used to make the pipe bombs. From that data they cross-reference travel, locations on 1/5/2021, height, shoe size, etc.

Second, maybe there’s something else to this story. The FBI has always been sensitive to its public perception and controls information to serve that purpose. For example, the FBI has never been forthcoming about its agents’ involvement with terror suspects. Or, consider whether the pipe bomb investigation would cut against the politics of January 6. I take no pleasure in skepticism of the FBI, but this is a reputation the FBI has earned.

Either way, this outside observer can’t help but notice that one group of targets – those who entered the Capitol Building on January 6 – are pursued in the public sphere more aggressively than the person who set out pipe bombs the night before.

The great state of Washington has given permission to licensed retailers to hand out free marijuana to residents who get vaccination at in-store clinics.

While we have documented numerous other states offering up lottery-style cash prizes for residents getting vaccinated, Washington has been the first to try and entice people by using a drug that still isn’t legal on a federal level. 

The Washington State Liquor and Cannabis Board is calling the program “Joints for Jabs”, according to a Newsweek report. The WA Liquor and Cannabis board Tweeted out the news Monday night. 

Media Release: LCB Allows “Joints for Jabs” Promotions to Support Vaccinations https://t.co/v9bvcnuIJw

— WA Liquor & Cannabis Board (@WSLCB) June 7, 2021

“In an effort to support COVID-19 vaccinations, the Liquor and Cannabis Board (LCB) today announced that it would provide a temporary allowance to state licensed cannabis retailers to provide one joint to adult consumers who receive a vaccination at an in-store vaccination clinic,” the press release reads. 

It continues: “Participating cannabis retailers may only provide a pre-roll joint, and no other product may be provided as part of this allowance.”

Other rules include:

• Any cannabis joint provided to a customer must be associated with an active vaccine clinic event at the retail location.
• Only one complimentary joint may be provided to a customer who receives a first or second COVID-19 vaccine dose at the event.
• Receipt of the complimentary joint must occur during the same visit as receiving the vaccination, and may not be delayed, postponed, or otherwise acquired at a later date or time.
• Retailers may only provide the complementary joint to persons 21 years of age and older.
• Any vaccine clinic held inside a licensed retail location must comply with all age restriction requirements for the cannabis retailer.
• The cannabis joint must be provided by a retailer, and not a producer or processor.

And if you’re a drinker, and not a smoker, it doesn’t look like Washington’s LCB discriminates. The board also recently “provided an allowance for a beer, wine or cocktail to be provided at no cost for those vaccinated by June 30.”

Authored by Mimi Nguyen Ly via The Epoch Times,

Texas Gov. Greg Abbott on Monday signed into law a bill to ban government entities and private businesses from requiring proof of vaccination as a condition for service or entry amid the CCP virus pandemic.

“Texas is open 100 percent, and we want to make sure you have the freedom to go where you want without limits,” the Republican governor announced in a video post on Twitter.

The Lone Star state in March ended its statewide mask mandate and allowed all businesses to open at full capacity after having implemented mandates and restrictions due to the pandemic caused by the CCP (Chinese Communist Party) virus.

Abbott announced on Monday with the signing of the legislation that “No business or government entity can require a person to provide a vaccine passport or any other vaccine information as a condition of receiving any service or entering any place.”

The new law SB 968 covers many aspects of the public health disaster and public health emergency preparedness and response. It was approved unanimously in April and was passed by a vote of 146-2 by the state House in May.

Effective immediately, Texas businesses “may not require a customer to provide any documentation certifying the customer ’s COVID-19 vaccination or post-transmission recovery on entry to, to gain access to, or to receive service from the business,” the legislation states. State agencies in charge of different business sectors can require that businesses comply with the new law as a condition to be authorized to conduct business in Texas.

Furthermore, businesses that don’t comply with the law will not be able to enter any state contracts and will be ineligible to receive a grant.

Businesses can still implement their own COVID-19 infection control protocols “in accordance with state and federal law to protect public health.”

Abbott had signed an executive order in April that banned government entities from requiring vaccine passports as a condition to receive services or gain entry to premises. The order included any private businesses that receive public funding. But the executive order did not apply to entirely private businesses, which the new law covers with regard to vaccine passports.

The Carnival Cruise Line said in its latest announcement on Monday that “current CDC [Centers for Disease Control and Prevention] requirements for cruising with a guest base that is unvaccinated will make it very difficult to deliver the experience our guests expect.” Therefore, it said it would be restarting its operations for vaccinated passengers with its cruise ship leaving from Texas’s Port of Galveston on July 3.

The cruise ships “Carnival Sunrise” (L) and “Carnival Vista” (R) part of the Carnival Cruise Line, are seen moored at a quay in the port of Miami, Florida, on Dec. 23, 2020. (Daniel Slim/AFP via Getty Images)

The cruise liner’s decision is in accordance with federal guidelines published by the CDC, which recently stipulated that if cruise liners are to obtain a conditional sailing certificate for simulated (“trial”) voyages amid the CCP virus pandemic, their volunteer passengers must have proof of being fully vaccinated, or written documentation that the passenger has no medical conditions to be at high risk for severe COVID-19 as defined by the CDC’s guidelines.

It is unclear as of Monday how the new law will affect the cruise liner’s plans.

“We are evaluating the legislation recently signed into law in Texas regarding vaccine information,” Carnival spokesperson Vance Gulliksen told the Houston Chronicle in an email. “The law provides exceptions for when a business is implementing COVID protocols in accordance with federal law, which is consistent with our plans to comply with the U.S. Centers for Disease Control & Prevention’s guidelines.”

Authored by Meiling Lee via The Epoch Times,

The Indian Bar Association has taken legal action against the World Health Organization’s (WHO) Chief Scientist Dr. Soumya Swaminathan for her alleged role in spreading disinformation on the use of ivermectin to treat COVID-19.

World Health Organization’s chief scientist Soumya Swaminathan looks on during an interview with AFP in Geneva on May 8, 2021. (Fabrice Coffrini/AFP via Getty Images)

The association served a legal notice (pdf) on Swaminathan on May 25, claiming that she was “spreading disinformation and misguiding the people of India, in order to fulfill her agenda” and sought to prevent her from “causing further damage.”

They further say that Swaminathan, in her statements against the use of ivermectin, ignored research and clinical trials from two organizations – the Front Line COVID-19 Critical Care (FLCCC) Alliance and the British Ivermectin Recommendation Development (BIRD) – who have presented solid data showing ivermectin prevents and treats COVID-19.

“Dr. Soumya Swaminathan has ignored these studies/reports and has deliberately suppressed the data regarding effectiveness of the drug Ivermectin, with an intent to dissuade the people of India from using Ivermectin,” the plaintiff said in a statement (pdf).

In a May 10 tweet that has since been deleted after the notice was issued, Swaminathan wrote, “Safety and efficacy are important when using any drug for a new indication. WHO recommends against the use of ivermectin for COVID-19 except within clinical trials.”

Swaminathan made the Twitter post soon after Goa’s health minister announced that every Goa resident 18 and older would be given ivermectin as prevention regardless of their COVID-19 status, as part of the state government’s effort to stop the transmission of the virus. India has been hit hard in the second wave of the CCP (Chinese Communist Party) virus pandemic beginning in March 2021.

The legal notice calls for a clear response from Swaminathan on a number of key points, and the association said that in the case of a failure to provide a clear response, it reserves the right to initiate prosecution under sections of the Indian Penal Code and Disaster Management Act, 2005.

The WHO’s chief scientist didn’t reply to a request for comment.

A health worker shows a box containing a bottle of Ivermectin, a medicine authorized by the National Institute for Food and Drug Surveillance (INVIMA) to treat patients with mild, asymptomatic, or suspicious COVID-19, as part of a study of the Center for Pediatric Infectious Diseases Studies, in Cali, Colombia, on July 21, 2020. (Luis Robayo/AFP via Getty Images)

A link to Merck’s statement on ivermectin was also included in Swaminathan’s tweet. The pharmaceutical company that developed the anti-parasitic drug in the 1980s and held a patent until 1996 said in February of this year that the available data did not support the efficacy and safety of ivermectin beyond what the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) had approved it for.

Merck, in collaboration with Ridgeback Biotherapeutics, is conducting a Phase 3 trial of an investigational anti-viral drug molnupiravir, which the company says has shown to reduce infectious viruses quicker in COVID-19 outpatients. But unlike ivermectin, molnupiravir demonstrated no clinical benefit in hospitalized patients.

The trial is expected to complete later this October and Merck said it will apply for an emergency authorization use for the drug if results are favorable.

Researchers are hoping that molnupiravir will impair the CCP virus’s ability to replicate so as to prevent severe illness and hospitalization, something that ivermectin has demonstrated to do in a meta-analysis of 57 clinical trials involving more than 18,000 patients, according to ivmmeta.com, a website that provides real-time meta-analysis of ivermectin studies.

In 23 early treatment studies, there was a 78 percent improvement in patients given ivermectin, and in 14 preventative trials, an 85 percent improvement was shown. As for the studies involving late treatment, there was a 45 percent improvement in 20 studies.

Proponents of ivermectin say the drug can treat all stages of COVID-19 and reduce hospitalization and mortality rates due to its anti-viral and anti-inflammatory properties. But there has been pushback on approving the drug as a COVID-19 treatment by the United States federal health authorities and the WHO.

The FDA says it hasn’t approved ivermectin for COVID-19 and issued a warning in early March informing people to not take the drug meant for animals, as the larger doses intended for animals may be harmful to humans.

While the National Institutes of Health (NIH), the largest medical research agency, is neither recommending for or against using ivermectin to treat COVID-19 in its updated guideline in February. This comes after members of the FLCCC Alliance presented their data to the agency at the beginning of the year.

In April, the NIH announced it would fund a large randomized, controlled study of seven repurposed drugs to treat mild to moderate COVID-19 patients. The research agency said it will begin enrolling for its Phase 3 trial on ivermectin this month.

“Trial enrollment is expected to open this month, and the trial is expected to run for up to 2 years,” an NIH spokesperson told The Epoch Times via email.

The WHO, in its Living Guideline, has advised against the use of ivermectin except in a clinical setting, citing inconclusive data similar to both the FDA and the NIH.

“The current evidence on the use of ivermectin to treat COVID-19 patients is inconclusive,” the WHO said in a press release.

“Until more data is available, WHO recommends that the drug only be used within clinical trials.”

Dr. Pierre Kory, President and Chief Medical Officer of the FLCCC Alliance claims there is a concerted effort to censor information on the effectiveness of ivermectin against COVID-19, a disease caused by the CCP virus.

“There are forces that are seeking to make sure that ivermectin is not accepted widely as an effective therapy,” Kory said in an interview on June 1.

“We have randomized [trials], you have observational [studies], you have case series, you have epidemiologic analyses, and then the clinical experience of doctors. You can’t find a doctor who has incorporated ivermectin into their treatments who will come back and say my patients didn’t get better, you can’t find that doctor,” he added.

A screenshot of the results of a meta-analysis of 57 clinical trials on the use of ivermectin in COVID-19 patients, from ivemmeta.com. (Screenshot via The Epoch Times)

While ivermectin is yet to be approved as a treatment for COVID-19, doctors around the world, including in the United States, are offering the drug to their patients. And for doctors who refuse to administer the drug to patients suffering severe COVID-19, judges have had to order them to do so.

In their legal notice, the Indian Bar Association cited the case of 80-year-old Judith Smentkiewicz, who made a full recovery after being on a ventilator and told she only had a 20 percent chance of survival. Her family obtained a court order that allowed her to receive additional doses of ivermectin after doctors were hesitant to give her more than one dose, according to Buffalo News.

Smentkiewic’s family and attorneys say they believe that ivermectin saved her life.

Ivermectin is on the WHO’s list of essential medicines and has a high safety profile with more than 3.7 billion doses having been distributed in over 30 years.

Since the drug was first given to humans in 1987, there have only been 4,600 adverse events and 16 deaths reported on the pharmacovigilance database, according to Dr. Tess Lawrie in an interview on March 6. Lawrie is director of Evidence-based Medicine Consultancy Ltd. and co-founder of the BIRD panel, which includes international expert scientists and doctors who are advocating for the use of ivermectin to treat COVID-19.

Remdesivir, an anti-viral drug, is the only FDA-approved therapy for treating hospitalized COVID-19 patients. The drug has shown no effect on mortality and a minuscule benefit on time of recovery that even the WHO has recommended against its use last November.

A treatment course of remdesivir is a little over $3,000, while ivermectin ranges between $3 to $12 a treatment, according to Kory.

He also said that places in India where ivermectin is used preventatively or as early treatment, such as Goa and Uttar Pradesh, are seeing COVID-19 cases declining versus states that have banned the drug.

“Every one of those states, the curves are now precipitously declining,” said Kory.

“But there’s a state in India called Tamil Nadu whose minister there basically effectively outlawed ivermectin and went all-in on remdesivir, bought a whole bunch of remdesivir, [and] the cases and deaths in that state are skyrocketing,” he added.

The Epoch Times has reached out to the chief minister in Tamil Nadu for comment.

According to data by the Johns Hopkins University Center for Systems Science and Engineering, Tamil Nadu saw 20,421 new cases and 434 deaths on June 6, while Goa recorded 403 new cases and 16 deaths, and Uttar Pradesh reported 1,037 cases and 85 deaths.

Uttar Pradesh, one of the most populous states in India with over 200 million people, has been handing out free medical kits containing seven days’ worth of medication, one of which is ivermectin, for COVID-19 positive patients under home isolation.

President Joe Biden is still reportedly mulling whether to cancel up to $10K in student debt per borrower, a plan that, as we have pointed out in the past, would mostly benefit the Democrats’ wealthier, college-educated voters.

In Congress, several plans were kicked around earlier his year before President Biden’s $1.9 trillion stimulus was ultimately passed. But analysts at Goldman Sachs believe a more scaled-down plan is the most likely. With the moratorium on student loan payments set to expire on Oct. 1, a critical headwind that has allowed (mostly middle-class) Americans to bolster their savings substantially.

According to Bloomberg, “there’s an unwelcome side of the return of business-as-usual after the pandemic: They’ll have to start repaying their student loans again.”

“More than 40 million holders of federal loans are due to start making monthly installments again on Oct. 1, when the freeze imposed as part of Covid-19 relief measures is due to run out. It covered payments worth about $7 billion a month, the Federal Reserve Bank of New York estimated. Their resumption will eat a chunk out of household budgets, in a potential drag on the consumer recovery.”

The problem is that even before the pandemic started, Americans were starting to slack on their student loan payments. In a sense, politicians were fortunate when COVID-19 hit, if only because it gave the government cover to impose the moratorium.

Source: Bloomberg

Politicians already recognize that America’s student debt burden is already unsustainable. Of the government’s $1.7 trillion student loan portfolio, almost one-third is unpaid. That $435 billion is comparable to the $535 billion that private lenders lost on subprime mortgages during the 2008 financial crisis.

Repaying is especially difficult when recent graduates are finding trouble earning high wages in the labor market And with the US economy is still 7.6 million jobs short of pre-pandemic levels, many more of them are likely to be out of work now..

Minority borrowers and older borrowers also struggled to keep up with payments before the pandemic.

Source: Bloomberg

And with today’s desperate drop in bitcoin along with several meme stocks, a critical lifeline for retail traders is now in jeopardy. Young people who are already living with their parents because of their onerous student debt are wondering if they’ll soon need to get a second (or, for some, a first).

The notion that college degrees have become an asset with diminishing returns (given the proliferation of low-value Liberal Arts degrees) has started to spread.

Many Democrats like Senator Elizabeth Warren and Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez have called for write-offs of $50,000 or more per borrower. Local leaders are pressuring the Biden administration to take action. Even some Republicans have joined the cause, including  Wayne Johnson, the Trump Administration’s first student-aid chief, who said the student-loan system is fundamentally broken. He proposed not just $50K in debt relief, but also a similar sum in tax credits to those who paid off their loans already.

Source: Bloomberg

Of course, none of this will fix the overall system, and instead could encourage students to irresponsibly pile on more education-related debt.

For this reason, Biden has resisted calls to cancel loans via EO. In early April, he asked Education Secretary Miguel Cardona to prepare a memo on the president’s legal authority to cancel debt.

Still, as millions struggle, a few students who spoke with Bloomberg talked about feeling like they’re “in a relationship” with their student debt.

Other steps the government has taken include allowing employers to contribute toward monthly student loan payments as a tax-free benefit. The pandemic relief bill in March last year allowed firms to reimburse employees up to $5,250 annually.

Malia Rivera, a 46-year old marketing executive with Austin, Texas-based Innovetive Petcare, says her employer has partnered with GiftofCollege.com, a platform that bridges automatic payroll deductions to student loans and college savings accounts.

Rivera says she’s made sure to keep up the payments on her own student loan even through the freeze. She says she’s learned after “racking up late fees over the years and navigating the trials and tribulations of career advancement” that automatic deductions as soon as she gets paid are the best route — and it’s helped lower her balance to about $8,000 from $38,000. 

That took time. “I have been in a ‘long-term relationship’ with my student loan,” says Rivera, recalling the initial payment that she made in the first month of her marriage. “My husband is celebrating his 15-year anniversary with me…and my student loan.”

The year-plus loan-payment moratorium was a welcome respite. But the debt for most borrowers is still there. Fortunately, with Dems still in the driver’s seat, it’s likelier than ever a jubilee will arrive eventually – just like reparations –  once all the studies have been finished and the reports are in.

A group of young climate activists met shortly after sunrise in Mahnomen, Minnesota to conduct several ‘missions’ in a civil disobedience campaign to try and stop a border-crossing oil pipeline which will run across the wetlands and forests of northern Minnesota.

People chained themselves to equipment and occupied a pump station in Minnesota as part of protests against the Enbridge Line 3 oil pipeline being built from Canada to the U.S.

Critics say the project would worsen the climate emergency, risk oil spills & infringe on tribal land. pic.twitter.com/wYlHpM5Rpe

— AJ+ (@ajplus) June 8, 2021

Using various code names – and operations “marmalade” and “peanut butter” being of particularly high risk, according to the Washington Post – the protesters planned to descend on an undisclosed location along a pipeline route known as “Line 3.”

Dozens of cars were soon caravanning down dusty dirt roads amid corn and soybean fields in the largest salvo yet in an ongoing civil disobedience campaign to try to stop a border-crossing oil pipeline running from Canada across the wetlands and forests of northern Minnesota.

By midmorning, hundreds of protesters, led by Native American women and joined by celebrities such as Jane Fonda and Catherine Keener, had marched into a construction site operated by Enbridge, the Canadian company behind the pipeline, and strapped themselves to bulldozers and other heavy machinery. -WaPo

“Good morning water protectors!” shouted Native American attorney Tara Houska – a leader of the Line 3 protests, as she addressed the group and crossed into a pump station used to electrify the pipeline, according to organizers.

Indigenous activists have been a driving force in the conflict over Line 3, as they see a two-pronged threat, “a carbon-producing fossil fuel project at a time of worsening climate change and one that also risks polluting tribal lands in the headwaters of the Mississippi River.” The group has been emboldened by victories such as the cancellation of the Keystone XL pipeline, as well as gatherings at Standing Rock. They hope to similarly pressure the Biden administration into suspending the pipeline permit before Enbridge can complete the project.

“Biden has taken a very clear and very beautiful position on the climate crisis,” said activist and Vietnam-era traitor Jane Fonda during her second trip to protest Line 3. “But we are really facing a potential catastrophe, and the science is very clear: it’s not enough to do something good here — like shutdown Keystone XL, shut down drilling on the Arctic national refuge — and then allow Line 3 to go through.”

“We can’t do this in bits and pieces,” she added.

Jane Fonda encouraging ppl to mess w/ critical US infrastructurepic.twitter.com/xKA6uL50XG

— maggie battles (@maggiebattlesxo) June 8, 2021

The activists have thus far made little progress in impeding the $4 billion project to replace a decades-old pipeline, as well as add new portions to various endpoints. The 350-mile Line 3 project stands at around 60% complete, while some 4,000 construction workers (a growing figure) are spread between five different areas of the project.

Enbridge director of tribal engagement in the US, Paul Elberth, said that the ongoing protests haven’t “had a significant impact on construction,” adding “Obviously it’s stressful when people are out protesting or if they’re doing damage to equipment or being disrespectful for the workforce.”

“Construction largely has proceeded as planned.”

Enbridge responded to the protest, saying in a statement: “We recognize people have strong feelings about the energy we all use, and they have the right to express their opinions legally and peacefully,” adding “We hoped all parties would come to accept the outcome of the thorough, science-based review and multiple approvals of the project.”

The protesters unsurprisingly pushed back, saying that the seriousness of the climate crisis demands more dramatic action to stop fossil fuel projects.

[A side note: despite the pandemic-driven lockdown which ground travel to a halt, C02 levels continued to climb to record highs.]

“I’m sick and tired of these corporations busting through all these sacred lands, trying to take up everybody’s livelihoods and take away the sacredness this earth carries. And I’m done,” said protesters Kerry Labrador, a 39-year-old Native American from Boston, who had chained himself to the tire of a crane-type machine inside the Enbridge facility, adding “I traveled out here two days so I can sit here and do what I’m doing now.”

By midafternoon, a Department of Homeland Security helicopter flew circles over the pump station telling the protesters to leave and that they were on the site illegally. Protestors said it hovered low above them, kicking up clouds of dirt. A few hours later, police arrived in riot gear and began arresting dozens of people.

“Our security guard force is armed with a cellphone,” Eberth said. “From here it’s up to law enforcement.”

Enbridge officials said that one of the two companies involved in building the pump station that protesters occupied is Native American-owned. That company, Gordon Construction, had “numerous employees who needed to be evacuated this morning” when the protest began, Eberth said.

The occupation of the pump station appeared to be largely peaceful, with protesters climbing onto machinery and chanting such slogans as “Hey hey, ho ho, Line 3 has got to go.”

Houska took a bullhorn and urged the crowd to “protect the sacred”— “For our daughters, for our sons, for the animals, for the water.” -WaPo

Department of Homeland Security is using a helicopter to clear out indigenous activists trying to stop the installation of a $3 billion new oil pipeline in Minnesota. 24 activists have chained themselves to a piece of equipment. #StopLine3 pic.twitter.com/kUxhqVghHm

— ᒍOSᕼᑌᗩ ᒍEᖇEᗪ (@Joshuajered) June 8, 2021

Given that he majority of global pollution is caused by China, India and the ocean freight industry, perhaps the pipeline protesters should be looking beyond their own backyard if they’re really interested in the global issue they claim to stand for.

Authored by Sofia Horta e Costa, Bloomberg reporter and commentator

China is about to unveil closely-watched inflation data, and, as in much of the world, policy makers will be hoping accelerating prices are transitory.

Figures due 9:30 a.m. local time will show China’s producer-price index rose to 8.5% in May, according to a Bloomberg survey of economists, the highest reading since Lehman Brothers collapsed in September 2008.

Economists are sanguine about the risks right now. Chinese factories are still absorbing rising costs rather than passing them on. The result is the consumer price index probably only rose to 1.6%, the survey shows.

That’s good news for a central bank that, according to ANZ Banking, lacks tools to deal with such supply-side price pressures. Globally, the prevailing view is that such sharp gains in producer prices is a short-term phenomenon driven by the restarting of economies and supply constraints, although warnings are growing that higher prices may become more sustained.

Beijing is dealing with a number of fronts at once as a result of pandemic-era stimulus. Much of the money pumped by central banks around the world is making its way into China’s borders, complicating Beijing’s efforts to put a lid on prices without abandoning market reforms. This has led to a tricky balance of using strong rhetoric and market expectation management instead of blunt intervention when it comes to tackling overheating in the yuan, crypto, housing and raw materials.

Wariness is creeping into the nation’s financial markets. The Hang Seng China Enterprises Index has fallen for five straight days, the longest losing streak since September. In June, the gauge is among the worst performing global benchmarks, along with the CSI 300 Index of mainland-listed firms.

China’s currency too has turned bearish after a strong rally pushed the PBOC to act to curb gains. The offshore yuan has lost 0.5% this month, the most in Asia. The government bond market is equally losing altitude, with the yield on the benchmark 10-year note increasing the most in six months on Friday.

In a rare show of bipartisan solidarity in the deeply polarized US Congress, the Senate came together on Tuesday to pass sweeping $250 billion legislation designed to strengthen Washington’s hand in its escalating geopolitical and economic competition with China. The bill touches on nearly every aspect of the nations’ complex relationship, including semiconductors, Taiwan, Xinjiang and the 2022 Winter Olympics.

In a 68 to 32 vote, the 2,400-page US Innovation and Competition Act of 2021 brought together a coalition of progressives, moderates and conservatives who, despite their intense disagreements on virtually every other policy issue, were united in their view the Chinese government under the rule of Xi Jinping has become a threat to global stability and American power.

“The world is more competitive now than at any time since the end of the second world war,” Senate majority leader Chuck Schumer, a New York Democrat, said on the Senate floor moments before the vote. “If we do nothing, our days as the dominant superpower may be ending.”

“This bill could be the turning point for American leadership in the 21st century, and for that reason, this legislation will go down as one of the most significant bipartisan achievements of the US Senate in recent history.”

The bill includes about $250 billion worth of spending, and touches on nearly every aspect of the complex and increasingly tense relationship between Washington and Beijing.

According to SCMP, it includes billions of dollars to increase American semiconductor manufacturing, a sign of growing urgency in Washington that the US has become dangerously reliant on Chinese supply chains. It bans American officials from attending the 2022 Beijing Winter Olympics over human rights concerns, and declares Beijing’s policies in China’s far-west Xinjiang region a genocide, echoing the position of the US State Department and multiple parliaments around the world.

Some US$2 billion of spending would be earmarked solely as incentives “to solely focus on legacy chip production to advance economic and national security interests, as these chips are essential to the auto industry, the military, and other critical industries”.

The bill also contains a range of provisions meant to strengthen US ties with Taiwan and US military alliances in the Pacific, including the Quad, a quasi-formal pact between the US, Australia, India and Japan, as well as others to crack down on Chinese influence on US campuses, in international organizations and online.

“This is an opportunity to compete with China at the research level,” Senator Roger Wicker, a Tennessee Republican, said before the vote. “This bill will strengthen our country‘s innovation in key technology fields of the future, areas such as artificial intelligence, robotics, quantum computing and communications, and this bill also is a game changer in terms of giving universities all over the United States an opportunity to participate in game-changing research.”

The legislation also authorises new sanctions on Chinese officials for a range of crimes, including cyberattacks, intellectual property theft and, in Xinjiang
– where human rights groups cite United Nations reports and witness accounts that as many as 1 million Uygurs and other Muslim minorities are held in “re-education camps” – against perpetrators of “systematic rape, coercive abortion, forced sterilisation or involuntary contraceptive implantation policies and practices”.

Beijing has repeatedly denied the allegations of human rights abuses in Xinjiang and insists that the camps are vocational training facilities.

Now the issue shifts to the House of Representatives, which has already begun considering a number of China-related bills, the largest being the Eagle Act. Eventually, if the House passes its own legislation, the two chambers will have to reconcile any differences in their respective bills before they can send them to President Joe Biden to be signed into law.

Biden has used the US competition with China as justification for a range of domestic and foreign policies, and is almost certain to sign a final bill once it reaches his desk.

For various reasons, including stated concerns about rising US debt and individual amendments not being added to the bill, a handful of the Senate’s frequent critics of Beijing voted against the legislation. They included Republicans Ted Cruz of Texas and Rick Scott of Florida, who said the cost of the legislation was too high despite “the threat [the Chinese government] poses to our national security”.

The Chinese embassy in Washington has yet to issue an official statement.

“I think the bill is important, whether or not we’re talking about the competition with China,” said Elizabeth Economy, a senior fellow at Stanford University’s Hoover Institution. “It’s clear that the United States needs to do more, and I think this is a really important effort and it sends an important message as well.”

“I think there is widespread acknowledgement among both Democrats and Republicans that we need to be smarter and do better in terms of meeting the broad array of challenges that China presents to our political, economic and security interests,” she said. “There‘s a sense that China poses a clear and present danger, if not an existential threat, and that if the US fails to step up and meet this challenge at this particular moment in time, it may not have another opportunity.”

The Senate vote followed months of debate in the chamber. In February, Schumer asked numerous Senate committees to draft China legislation of their own, which he ultimately combined into the expansive bill that passed on Tuesday.

Asked in a Senate Appropriations Committee hearing on Tuesday whether he would support the funding requests in the bill, US Secretary of State Antony Blinken said he would “welcome” the opportunity. “I have to tell you again that we really applaud this initiative,” Blinken said.

“It‘s going to give us new tools, new resources to deal more effectively with the competition, and I very much welcome the opportunity to work closely with you, members of this committee, other relevant committees to put this into practice,” he said.

Democrats on the House Foreign Affairs Committee have already agreed to some changes to the Eagle Act, including adding clearer language calling for a diplomatic boycott of the 2022 Beijing Winter Olympics, Politico reported, citing people involved in the discussions.