Month: March 2024

Via SchiffGold.com,

Assuming CPI measurements are not understatements, the dollar’s value has plummeted by a staggering one-fifth since 2020, yet, rather than acknowledging its role in fueling this economic turmoil, the Biden administration deflects, casting capitalism and corporate greed as the villains. The latest February CPI data show more signs of the upcoming inflation bloodbath.

The following article was originally published by the Mises Institute. The opinions expressed do not necessarily reflect those of Peter Schiff or SchiffGold.

According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics’ latest price inflation data, CPI inflation in February accelerated for the second month in a row, and price inflation hasn’t proven nearly as transitory as the regime’s economists have long predicted.

According to the BLS, Consumer Price Index (CPI) inflation rose 3.2 percent year over year during February, without seasonal adjustment. That’s the thirty-sixth month in a row of inflation well above the Fed’s arbitrary 2 percent inflation target.

Month-over-month inflation accelerated, with the CPI rising 0.4 percent from January to February, with seasonal adjustment. Month-to-month growth had been 0.3 percent from December to January.

The ongoing price increases largely reflect growth in prices for food, services, electricity, and shelter.

For example, prices for “food away from home” were up 4.5 percent in February over the previous year. Gasoline prices fell 3.9 percent over the period, but electricity was up 3.6 percent. Prices for “services less energy services” rose 5.2 percent, year over year, while shelter rose 5.7 percent over the period.

Pulling out volatile energy and food prices, we find price inflation remains stubbornly high. So-called core CPI growth remains near four percent—double the “two-percent target”—keeping price inflation growth near thirty-year highs. In other words, core CPI is a long way from returning to “normal.” Moreover, February’s month-over-month increase hit 0.4 percent, which is the largest increase recorded in any month since April 2023.

Biden Blames Corporate Greed 

In recent months, supporters of the current regime have repeatedly claimed that inflation is “falling” or otherwise rapidly disappearing. Paul Krugman has been one of the most vocal cheerleaders claiming the problem of price inflation is “solved.” The February numbers, however, have proven troublesome for this narrative because it is becoming increasingly clear that price inflation is not, in fact, rapidly disappearing. Rather, the month-to-month numbers suggest price inflation is growing.

Moreover, cumulative price inflation over the past four years has been enormous. The CPI increased by 19.9 percent from February 2020 to February 2024. In other words, assuming the CPI is correct—and isn’t low-balling the real extent of price inflation—the dollar has lost one-fifth of its value in just four years. This has been devastating for many savers and for those on fixed income.

The Biden administration’s response to this has been predictable in that the President has blamed “corporate greed” when the real causes are runaway deficit spending and the central bank’s easy-money policies.

Biden has repeatedly blamed the private sector for “price gouging” and so-called shrinkflation, which is the term for a reduction in the size of a product while the product’s price stays the same.

A Rapidly Increasing Money Supply 

We can get a better view of the real causes of price inflation only if we look somewhere other than the private sector. More specifically, the acceleration in price inflation that we are now being forced to endure is the result of unprecedented increases in the money supply that have occurred since the government-forced covid lockdowns began in the spring of 2020. Faced with a forcibly “closed” economy, the federal government called upon the central bank, the Federal Reserve, to create vast new sums of dollars for distribution to the millions of Americans whose jobs and earnings were destroyed by government lockdowns. These were essentially bribes designed to pay Americans to sit at home and spent their newly-printed money. This created an immediate inflationary boom by mid-2020. It’s easy to see why. The money supply increased by 40 percent between February 2020 and February 2021, rising by $5.7 trillion.

The money supply has shrunk somewhat since early 2022, but on net, the money supply is up by $4.7 trillion since February 2020. That a 32 percent increase. With a current total money supply of approximately $19 trillion, this also means that 25 percent of all the dollars that have ever existed were created after 2020.

In other words, the covid-fueled monetary inflation set up today’s continuing price-inflation spree. The regime economists have repeatedly attempted to gaslight the public with claims of “falling inflation,” but consumers can see that groceries, housing fuel, and services are all significantly more expensive than they were just a few years ago.

Some economists might claim this is no big deal because there has also been price inflation in wages. Unfortunately for regular people, real wages fell throughout most of 2022 and 2023, and continue to show only very anemic growth.

China’s economy is plagued by many problems, including a real estate bust, deflation, debt troubles, demographic winter, foreign investor exodus, supply chain fracturing, deteriorating Sino-US ties, and much more.

In order to restore confidence, China’s President Xi Jinping met with more than a dozen American business leaders, including Blackstone Inc.’s Stephen Schwarzman and Qualcomm Inc.’s Cristiano Amon, according to Bloomberg. 

A person familiar with the discussions said Xi spoke with the US CEOs for over an hour and a half. The business leaders asked Xi a number of questions, which the Chinese president answered. Bloomberg’s source quoted Xi as saying there is no need for a ‘decoupling’ between Beijing and Washington. 

This meeting comes as foreign direct investments in China have tumbled in recent months, regulatory crackdowns continue, and questions swirl around the shape of the economic recovery if that’s a “V,” “U,” or “L.” 

State media outlet Xinhua noted the meeting was held at the Great Hall of the People in Beijing. Xi and the CEOs, along with Raj Subramaniam, chief executive officer of FedEx Corp., Evan Greenberg, CEO of the insurer Chubb Ltd., Stephen Orlins, president of the National Committee on US-China Relations, Craig Allen, president of the US-China Business Council, and Mark Carney, chairman of Bloomberg Inc., posed for a group photo. 

US-China ties have stabilized somewhat since President Biden held bilateral talks on the sidelines of the APEC forum in San Francisco in November. However, tensions have recently risen as Washington contemplates labeling Chinese electric vehicles as a “security risk” to Americans. 

Given the structural challenges in China’s economy, it’s difficult to know whether Xi’s move to shore up investor sentiment with American CEOs will work. The best sentiment gauge is watching the benchmark CSI 300 index, trending at lows not seen since 2019. 

The meeting seems to be a propaganda show. 

Authored by Zachary Stieber via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours),

People who receive Moderna’s COVID-19 vaccine have a greater risk of developing chronic hives, according to researchers in Denmark.

The Danish Medicines Agency review of data from Denmark and the European Union validated a safety signal that arose for chronic hives, or chronic urticaria, and Moderna’s shot, the agency said on March 20.

Of 360 cases reported in Europe following the Moderna or Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine, 58 were deemed probably caused by vaccination and 228 were determined to be possibly caused by the vaccination, Martin Zahle Larsen from the Danish Medicines Agency said in a statement.

Most of the cases were reported by patients, doctors, or pharmaceutical companies.

The study found that in Denmark, it was expected based on background rates of chronic hives that 175 people who received Pfizer’s shot would experience chronic hives following vaccination and that 18 people who received Moderna’s shot would experience the issue.

While the 105 reported cases after Pfizer vaccination came in under the expected number, the 55 reported cases following Moderna vaccination came in well above the expected number.

The risk of developing chronic hives was calculated to be three times higher for Moderna recipients, compared to the general population. Researchers also stratified the risk by gender and age and found the risk was the highest—5.2 times higher than the background rate—among young men.

Most cases of chronic hives occurred from 7 to 13 days following vaccination.

The results of the study are the validation of a safety signal, or a sign that a vaccine or vaccines causes a specific health issue, Danish authorities said in a document describing the results.

Mr. Larsen, though, told Danish media that additional studies are required to confirm a connection and that scientists think the cases stem from the vaccine’s impact on the immune system.

The cases began being reported after the COVID-19 vaccines were introduced and Norway reported a safety signal for chronic hives in late 2021. The Danish Medicines Agency examined reports of chronic hives after Moderna vaccination but reached the position that the cases were not strong enough to establish a safety signal, it said in September 2022. But data from the county’s compensation system for vaccine injuries subsequently indicated an investigation into the possible side effect should be reopened, prompting a fresh look that led to the new results.

The review was strengthened by gaining access to medical records from the compensation, the agency said.

Moderna did not return a request for comment.

Based in part on the results, the European Medicines Agency’s Committee for Medicinal Products for Human Use has recommended labeling for Moderna’s shot be updated to list chronic hives as a possible side effect. Non-chronic hives is already listed as a possible side effect. If the European Union Commission approves the change, the labeling will be updated to include chronic hives.

Previous Studies

Some previous studies have detailed cases of chronic hives following COVID-19 vaccination.

U.S. researchers, for instance, reported in 2022 three new chronic hives cases after Pfizer and Moderna vaccination, including one case in a 24-year-old woman who received a booster of Moderna despite suffering persistent skin problems after the first and second doses.

Swiss researchers in 2023 said they analyzed new chronic hives cases after Pfizer and Moderna vaccination and that the results suggested a link between a booster dose of Moderna’s vaccine and the health problem.

U.S. researchers in January reported a case series of seven patients who developed chronic urticaria within weeks of Moderna vaccination and said the series indicated a “potential correlation” between the shot and the issue. Two of the patients, they noted, went on to receive a Pfizer dose with no problem.

Hives have also been associated with COVID-19, but researchers aren’t sure whether there is a causal link.

After repeated warnings about potential attacks emanating from the IS in Afghanistan, a deadly shooting and fire at a Moscow concert hall was claimed by the terror group’s affiliate in the country’s Khorasan province. Vladimir Putin, who initially tried to direct suspicion towards Ukraine, is now also convinced of this.

As a result of the general threat, the highest security level has now been declared in France. And it’s not just the government that considers the topic particularly relevant, as Katharina Buchholz shows below, using data from Statista Consumer Insights.

You will find more infographics at Statista

According to the survey, 31 percent of people in France recently believed that terrorism was one of the country’s greatest challenges.

A year earlier this had been even higher at 40 percent.

Swedes, Indians and Americans are also among the most worried.

In comparison, Germans are less concerned despite the government announcing that the country is also facing an acute threat. Only 16 percent said in the year 2023 that they saw a big challenge lately. A low threat level is seen by respondents in Canada, Japan and China.

Authored by Thomas Brooke via ReMix News,

For €250, migrants can have the test results to the upcoming B1 German-language exam sent to them ahead of time, fradulently obtaining a key requirement for citizenship

A German public broadcaster has uncovered a “cash for test results” scam in which migrants can pay for the answers to a German-language test required to obtain citizenship in the country.

An undercover operation by an employee of the WDR broadcaster exposed the scheme in which those seeking to pass the B1 German-language exam could join a group on the end-to-end encrypted messaging app Telegram and obtain the test results just days before they sit the exam.

The broadcaster was initially tipped off about the scam by a woman who recently sat the exam and noticed that many of the other entrants were overly confident and finished the test unnaturally quickly. When she asked how they had finished so fast, she was told by one woman that their husband had purchased the test results for her in the lead-up to the exam.

“She told me that you can get the questions for the test in a Telegram group for money,” the woman, speaking on the condition of anonymity, told WDR.

With the assistance of an Arabic-speaking colleague, journalists at the broadcaster conducted their own investigations into the allegation and soon found a group on the messaging app advertising test results for the bi-weekly integration exam.

Upon paying €250, the WDR employee received the test results for the exam to be held two days later.

“Some questions only state which answer is correct. Others have additional explanations in Arabic,” the broadcaster reported.

The exam is regulated by the Federal Office for Migration and Refugees (BAMF) and is currently taken by around 20,000 people every two weeks. When questioned by the broadcaster as to how test results could be leaked to then be sold on the black market, BAMF’s head of the integration courses department, Benjamin Beckmann, suggested that someone at the test facility must be responsible.

“The most obvious thing is that a person at an exam center — probably with at least several people in the know — got the security envelope, in which the examination documents were sent, opened them improperly, and took photos of these documents,” he said.

Such an act would inevitably lead to an employee’s termination and the bringing of criminal charges, he added.

The small issue in ascertaining the leak, however, is the fact that the test questions are distributed to 1,467 course providers and then delivered to 4,000 test centers across the country.

Jörn Weingärtner, managing director of GAST eV which is commissioned by BAMF to conduct the tests in Bochum, told WDR that it was inevitable there would be weakness in the chain of delivery.

“Every other weekend, a lot of paper is sent through the Republic, which goes through a lot of hands. And it’s in the nature of things that there can be a weak point somewhere,” he said.

With 360,000 migrants passing the exam last year alone, questions are now being raised as to how many paid for the answers ahead of time and fraudulently achieved a false language grade that facilitated their naturalization in Germany.

Read more here…

Cocaine use tends to be higher in western and southern European cities, according to the database of the European Monitoring Centre for Drugs and Drug Addiction.

As Statista’s Anna Fleck reports, researchers analyzed the wastewater of 88 cities in 23 EU countries and Turkey for levels of a number of illicit drugs, including cocaine, MDMA and ketamine, in order to explore the drug-taking habits of their inhabitants.

They found that cities in Belgium, the Netherlands and Spain had the highest levels of cocaine in their water, while lower levels were found in most eastern European cities.

You will find more infographics at Statista

The Flemish city of Antwerp had 1,722 milligrams detected per 1,000 people flowing through its drains per day in 2023, making it the city with the highest levels of cocaine in their wastewater of the sites included in the study.

Other cities with notably high concentrations were the port cities of Tarragona, Spain (1,464mg) and the Netherlands’ Amsterdam (1,210), Leeuwarden (1,192mg) and Rotterdam (1,088mg).

According to the report, when looking at a number of cities outside of Europe, Brazil and the United States showed similar levels of cocaine use to the worst offending cities in Europe.

Authored by Paul Joseph Watson via Modernity.news,

As it prepares to investigate every report it receives under the new Hate Crime Act, Police Scotland admits that a separate plan to stop investigating crimes like theft and criminal damage will help criminals.

A Police Scotland pilot in Aberdeen which was deemed a “success” means “more than 24,000 offences a year will no longer be allocated to a front-line officer.”

The body refused to tell the Telegraph which offences would not be investigated, asserting that it would provide criminals with a “tactical advantage”.

“Police Scotland refused to release the data, claiming that admitting which crimes the policy could apply to would risk handing “those with criminal intent” the opportunity to “plan and orchestrate their criminal activities with the aim to avoid detection,” reports the newspaper.

However, Chief Constable Jo Farrell told a meeting of the Scottish Police Authority that some forms of theft and criminal damage would not be investigated.

The new policy is designed to free up time for officers to focus on other crimes.

The absurdity of this plan is heightened by the fact that from April 1st, hate crime legislation comes into force in Scotland that will require additional resources to assess every single report.

Farrell admitted that the new law this could create “additional demand”and create a “resource implication” for police.

As we highlight in the video above, the bill is so broad that any speech whatsoever deemed to have caused offense could be reported and investigated.

During their training program on enforcing the new law, police officers were taught that even the content of plays and comedy gigs should be considered as potential hate crimes.

Many have asserted that merely retweeting a Ricky Gervais joke about transgender people could amount to a hate crime in Scotland.

Meanwhile, all the real criminals must be licking their lips in anticipation at being left alone to run rampant.

*  *  *

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Swiss watches are renowned for their precision, craftsmanship, and quality.

In this visualization, Visual Capitalist’s Marcus Lu ranks the top Swiss watch brands based on their estimated 2023 market share, which comes from data provided by LuxeConsult and Morgan Stanley.

Rolex Dominates the Swiss Watch Market

Sales of Rolex watches are believed to have surpassed 10 billion Swiss francs ($11.2 billion) for the first time in 2023, significantly outpacing rivals like Cartier CHF 3.1 billion ($3.5 billion) and Omega CHF 2.6 billion ($2.9 billion).

Additionally, Rolex has strengthened its dominant position in the market, capturing a remarkable 30.3% retail market share.

In 2023, the Swiss watch industry achieved record sales totaling CHF 26.7 billion ($30 billion). The “Big Four” watch brands—Rolex, Patek Philippe, Audemars Piguet, and Richard Mille—achieved a combined 43.9% market share last year, compared to a pre-Covid 2019 market share of 36.9%.

Also noteworthy is that Vacheron Constantin joined the billionaires’ club as the 8th brand to surpass CHF 1 billion in sales, reaching CHF 1.097 billion ($1.23 billion).

In conclusion, premium watches priced over CHF 25,000 ($28,000) drove 69% of the market’s growth in 2023, and constituted 44% of the total value of Swiss watch exports. Despite this significant value contribution, this segment represents only 2.5% of the total volume in terms of units sold.

Authored by Pepe Escobar,

Let’s start with the possible chain of events that may have led to the Crocus terror attack.

This is as explosive as it gets. Intel sources in Moscow discreetly confirm this is one of the FSB’s prime lines of investigation.

December 4, 2023. Former chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Gen Mark Milley, only 3 months after his retirement, tells CIA mouthpiece The Washington Post: “There should be no Russian who goes to sleep without wondering if they’re going to get their throat slit in the middle of the night (…) You gotta get back there and create a campaign behind the lines.”

January 4, 2024: In an interview with ABC News, “spy chief” Kyrylo Budanov lays down the road map: strikes “deeper and deeper” into Russia.

January 31: Victoria Nuland travels to Kiev and meets Budanov. Then, in a dodgy press conference at night in the middle of an empty street, she promises “nasty surprises” to Putin: code for asymmetric war.

February 22: Nuland shows up at a Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) event and doubles down on the “nasty surprises” and asymmetric war. That may be interpreted as the definitive signal for Budanov to start deploying dirty ops.

February 25: The New York Times publishes a story about CIA cells in Ukraine: nothing that Russian intel does not already know.

Then, a lull until March 5 – when crucial shadow play may have been in effect. Privileged scenario: Nuland was a key dirty ops plotter alongside the CIA and the Ukrainian GUR (Budanov). Rival Deep State factions got hold of it and maneuvered to “terminate” her one way or another – because Russian intel would have inevitably connected the dots.

Yet Nuland, in fact, is not “retired” yet; she’s still presented as Undersecretary of State for Political Affairs and showed up recently in Rome for a G7-related meeting, although her new job, in theory, seems to be at Columbia University (a Hillary Clinton maneuver).

Meanwhile, the assets for a major “nasty surprise” are already in place, in the dark, and totally off radar. The op cannot be called off.

March 5: Little Blinken formally announces Nuland’s “retirement”.

March 7: At least one Tajik among the four-member terror commando visits the Crocus venue and has his photo taken.

March 7-8 at night: U.S. and British embassies simultaneously announce a possible terror attack on Moscow, telling their nationals to avoid “concerts” and gatherings within the next two days.

March 9: Massively popular Russian patriotic singer Shaman performs at Crocus. That may have been the carefully chosen occasion targeted for the “nasty surprise” – as it falls only a few days before the presidential elections, from March 15 to 17. But security at Crocus was massive, so the op is postponed.

March 22: The Crocus City Hall terror attack.

ISIS-K: the ultimate can of worms

The Budanov connection is betrayed by the modus operandi – similar to previous Ukraine intel terror attacks against Daria Dugina and Vladimir Tatarsky: close reconnaissance for days, even weeks; the hit; and then a dash for the border.

And that brings us to the Tajik connection.

There seem to be holes aplenty in the narrative concocted by the ragged bunch turned mass killers: following an Islamist preacher on Telegram; offered what was later established as a puny 500 thousand rubles (roughly $4,500) for the four of them to shoot random people in a concert hall; sent half of the funds via Telegram; directed to a weapons cache where they find AK-12s and hand grenades.

The videos show that they used the machine guns like pros; shots were accurate, short bursts or single fire; no panic whatsoever; effective use of hand grenades; fleeing the scene in a flash, just melting away, almost in time to catch the “window” that would take them across the border to Ukraine.

All that takes training. And that also applies to facing nasty counter-interrogation. Still, the FSB seems to have broken them all – quite literally.

A potential handler has surfaced, named Abdullo Buriyev. Turkish intel had earlier identified him as a handler for ISIS-K, or Wilayat Khorasan in Afghanistan. One of the members of the Crocus commando told the FSB their “acquaintance” Abdullo helped them to buy the car for the op.

And that leads us to the massive can of worms to end them all: ISIS-K.

The alleged emir of ISIS-K, since 2020, is an Afghan Tajik, Sanaullah Ghafari. He was not killed in Afghanistan in June 2023, as the Americans were spinning: he may be currently holed up in Balochistan in Pakistan.

Yet the real person of interest here is not Tajik Ghafari but Chechen Abdul Hakim al-Shishani, the former leader of the jihadi outfit Ajnad al-Kavkaz (“Soldiers of the Caucasus”), who was fighting against the government in Damascus in Idlib and then escaped to Ukraine because of a crackdown by Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) – in another one of those classic inter-jihadi squabbles.

Shishani was spotted on the border near Belgorod during the recent attack concocted by Ukrainian intel inside Russia. Call it another vector of the “nasty surprises”.

Shishani had been in Ukraine for over two years and has acquired citizenship. He is in fact the sterling connection between the nasty motley crue Idlib gangs in Syria and GUR in Kiev – as his Chechens worked closely with Jabhat al-Nusra, which was virtually indistinguishable from ISIS.

Shishani, fiercely anti-Assad, anti-Putin and anti-Kadyrov, is the classic “moderate rebel” advertised for years as a “freedom fighter” by the CIA and the Pentagon.

Some of the four hapless Tajiks seem to have followed ideological/religious indoctrination on the internet dispensed by Wilayat Khorasan, or ISIS-K, in a chat room called Rahnamo ba Khuroson.

The indoctrination game happened to be supervised by a Tajik, Salmon Khurosoni. He’s the guy who made the first move to recruit the commando. Khurosoni is arguably a messenger between ISIS-K and the CIA.

The problem is the ISIS-K modus operandi for any attack never features a fistful of dollars: the promise is Paradise via martyrdom. Yet in this case it seems it’s Khurosoni himself who has approved the 500 thousand ruble reward.

After handler Buriyev relayed the instructions, the commando sent the bayat – the ISIS pledge of allegiance – to Khurosoni. Ukraine may not have been their final destination. Another foreign intel connection – not identified by FSB sources – would have sent them to Turkey, and then Afghanistan.

That’s exactly where Khurosoni is to be found. Khurosoni may have been the ideological mastermind of Crocus. But, crucially, he’s not the client.

The Ukrainian love affair with terror gangs

Ukrainian intel, SBU and GUR, have been using the “Islamic” terror galaxy as they please since the first Chechnya war in the mid-1990s. Milley and Nuland of course knew it, as there were serious rifts in the past, for instance, between GUR and the CIA.

Following the symbiosis of any Ukrainian government post-1991 with assorted terror/jihadi outfits, Kiev post-Maidan turbo-charged these connections especially with Idlib gangs, as well as north Caucasus outfits, from the Chechen Shishani to ISIS in Syria and then ISIS-K. GUR routinely aims to recruit ISIS and ISIS-K denizens via online chat rooms. Exactly the modus operandi that led to Crocus.

One “Azan” association, founded in 2017 by Anvar Derkach, a member of the Hizb ut-Tahrir, actually facilitates terrorist life in Ukraine, Tatars from Crimea included – from lodging to juridical assistance.

The FSB investigation is establishing a trail: Crocus was planned by pros – and certainly not by a bunch of low-IQ Tajik dregs. Not by ISIS-K, but by GUR. A classic false flag, with the clueless Tajiks under the impression that they were working for ISIS-K.

The FSB investigation is also unveiling the standard modus operandi of online terror, everywhere. A recruiter focuses on a specific profile; adapts himself to the candidate, especially his – low – IQ; provides him with the minimum necessary for a job; then the candidate/executor become disposable.

Everyone in Russia remembers that during the first attack on the Crimea bridge, the driver of the kamikaze truck was blissfully unaware of what he was carrying,

As for ISIS, everyone seriously following West Asia knows that’s a gigantic diversionist scam, complete with the Americans transferring ISIS operatives from the Al-Tanf base to the eastern Euphrates, and then to Afghanistan after the Hegemon’s humiliating “withdrawal”. Project ISIS-K actually started in 2021, after it became pointless to use ISIS goons imported from Syria to block the relentless progress of the Taliban.

Ace Russian war correspondent Marat Khairullin has added another juicy morsel to this funky salad: he convincingly unveils the MI6 angle in the Crocus City Hall terror attack (in English here, in two parts, posted by “S”).

The FSB is right in the middle of the painstaking process of cracking most, if not all ISIS-K-CIA/MI6 connections. Once it’s all established, there will be hell to pay.

But that won’t be the end of the story. Countless terror networks are not controlled by Western intel – although they will work with Western intel via middlemen, usually Salafist “preachers” who deal with Saudi/Gulf intel agencies.

The case of the CIA flying “black” helicopters to extract jihadists from Syria and drop them in Afghanistan is more like an exception – in terms of direct contact – than the norm. So the FSB and the Kremlin will be very careful when it comes to directly accusing the CIA and MI6 of managing these networks.

But even with plausible deniability, the Crocus investigation seems to be leading exactly to where Moscow wants it: uncovering the crucial middleman. And everything seems to be pointing to Budanov and his goons.

Ramzan Kadyrov dropped an extra clue. He said the Crocus “curators” chose on purpose to instrumentalize elements of an ethnic minority – Tajiks – who barely speak Russian to open up new wounds in a multinational nation where dozens of ethnicities live side by side for centuries.

In the end, it didn’t work. The Russian population has handed to the Kremlin total carte blanche to exercise brutal, maximum punishment – whatever and wherever it takes.

Authored by Pete Hoekstra via The Gatestone Institute,

• China-linked hackers appear to be looking to attack U.S. infrastructure, especially key components such as the electrical grid, water reservoirs and treatment plants, pipelines, and transportation and communications systems, among other targets.

• The goal is seemingly to disrupt the U.S. everything critical to life – if you have no electricity, your cellphone will not work; no water will come out of the tap; gas pumps will not pump gas; flights and trains will stop, and disease from disabled sewage treatment plants will spread. There will be havoc and panic. The government and military will be unable to protect the nation. That is what is meant by “unrestricted warfare.” Not a bullet was fired. It did not have to be. According to Sun Tzu’s The Art of War, it is perfect.

• What are some of the steps that should be taken?

• The West has correctly identified the CCP as the malign threat that it is; now we have a responsibility to put into place the measures and deterrents to prevent it from attacking us through cyberspace or any other way. Let us not wait until we experience a 9/11-scale cyberattack that could be far more damaging to the U.S. than what took place on that dark day more than 20 years ago.

The West has correctly identified the Chinese Communist Party as the malign threat that it is; now we have a responsibility to put into place the measures and deterrents to prevent it from attacking us through cyberspace or any other way. Let us not wait until we experience a 9/11-scale cyberattack that could be far more damaging to the U.S. than what took place on that dark day more than 20 years ago. (Image source: iStock)

If there is one thing FBI Director Christopher Wray has been consistent on, it is the threat of Communist China across a wide range of fronts. At an unprecedented event on July 6, 2022, Wray and his British counterpart, MI5 Director General Ken McCallum, held a joint public appearance – the first ever — to discuss the growing security challenge posed by China. Evidently, they saw the matter as urgent.

In this joint appearance, the two men highlighted the threats posed by the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) and the CCP’s civil-military fusion state — specifically, that the CCP is intent on acquiring and stealing technology and business secrets from the West. Targeted areas include advanced materials, data and artificial intelligence (AI). China’s President Xi Jinping has made it clear that he intends China to not only catch-up to, but surpass, the West.

More recently, Wray highlighted how the CCP and those affiliated with it apparently plan to use its technological capabilities to target the West.

China-linked hackers appear to be looking to attack U.S. infrastructure, especially key components such as the electrical grid, water reservoirs and treatment plants, pipelines, and transportation and communications systems, among other targets.

The goal is seemingly to disrupt the U.S. everything critical to life – if you have no electricity, your cellphone will not work; no water will come out of the tap; gas pumps will not pump gas; flights and trains will stop, and disease from disabled sewage treatment plants will spread. There will be havoc and panic. The government and military will be unable to protect the nation. That is what is meant by “unrestricted warfare.” Not a bullet was fired. It did not have to be. According to Sun Tzu’s The Art of War, it is perfect.

Jen Easterly, Director of the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA), testified before the House Select Committee on Strategic Competition Between the United States and the Chinese Communist Party that the threats posed by China are not imaginary: they are real. Her agency already has discovered CCP penetrations into the telecommunications industry, aviation, energy and water infrastructure. As the threat from China continues to grow, the global security environment requires the U.S. and our allies to act now to harden our infrastructure and systems to mitigate the threat.

The problem is one of supreme urgency.

No one knows who will win the U.S. presidential election on November 5. If I were head of the Chinese Communist Party, I would probably be saying to myself, “I am stuck with a weak economy, more than a billion people who will not be happy with that, and just more seven months with an American president who calls me a ‘competitor,’ as if the US-Chinese relationship were about EV car dealerships — although that, too. What are my choices? a) Use this opportunity, which will soon be closing, to choke off Taiwan and take over the world’s supply of semiconductor chips. If the U.S. tries to stop us, we could threaten them with mayhem or simply go ahead and make some. b) Instead of Taiwan, why not just go straight for the U.S. while it is bogged down in Ukraine, the Middle East and its election? Or c) We can wait and see who wins (with our help) and if it is the wrong person, we still have two-and-a-half months until the new president is inaugurated.”

What are some of the steps that should be taken?

First, stop all investments in China and reroute essentials, such as the manufacture of medicines, to other nations. Any investment, even in paper cocktail umbrellas, goes toward strengthening the People’s Liberation Army against us. We can hear the screeching of Wall Street and their Augustinian cry: “But not yet!” The threat, however, should be viewed in terms of national security. No one will ring a bell when the lights go out.

The U.S. will also need to impose secondary sanctions, so that any country preferring to do business with China is prohibited from doing business with the U.S.

In addition, China — for poisoning to death roughly 100,000 Americans each year with fentanyl and other opiates, a mass-murder equivalent to one large plane crash every day — should be designated as a state sponsor of terrorism. China should also be barred from using the international banking system, or SWIFT, “a secure network that allows more than 10,000 financial institutions in 212 different countries to send and receive information about financial transactions to each other.”

Second, companies and universities also need to get serious about their security systems to make the theft of intellectual property more difficult to perpetrate but easier to detect. We cannot allow our enemies to short-circuit the difficult and expensive process of technological innovation by simply walking out the door with the plans.

This precaution, sadly, would do well to include a moratorium, at least for the time being, on students from Communist China attending U.S. universities. Again, there will be more screeching from academic institutions that are fond of holding out their tin cups, but are we really interested in educating our “competitors” to take us over or kill us?

Third, the U.S. needs to cooperate with its allies to protect the intellectual property and technological advances of our countries’ respective corporations as a national security priority. One excellent example where this cooperation has been successful is between the U.S. and the Netherlands. The governments of the two countries have worked together closely to protect against technology transfer to the CCP. While each country has the decision as to its own trade policies, sharing intelligence and threat assessments enables both countries to make better decisions regarding joint security concerns.

Fourth, companies must be willing to notify the government if their systems have been attacked or compromised by outside entities. Under current law, publicly-traded companies have four days to report a cyber incident to regulators. Businesses sometimes have been understandably reluctant to acknowledge that their systems have been compromised: there is the risk of reputational damage and unpleasant repercussions. Organizations, however, need to be confident that sharing this information with the government will only be used to help address the specific incident. Tragically, our government has not quite been doing all it can to inspire trust. There might be some extremely unpleasant repercussions from that.

Finally, there must be a coordinated strategy between our national, state and local governments on the CCP threat, including prime examples of where this system has failed, as in the production of EV batteries in the U.S. by CCP firms; the CCP buying up American farmland, especially near military bases, and the government’s failure to hold the CCP to account for its lies about COVID’s human-to-human transmissibility, which caused the unnecessary deaths of more than a million Americans, and the CCP’s mass-poisoning of Americans with fentanyl, which in itself is an act of war.

While the federal government has warned “that Chinese EVs could collect your data and send it back to China,” states and local governments are welcoming Chinese EV battery manufacturing plants into their communities, frequently with massive government subsidies. This lack of coordination is a serious vulnerability in our national security posture.

Wray and McCallum were correct in highlighting the threat from the CCP in 2022. Wray has reemphasized the growing threat.

The evidence is clear, and the time has come for our elected leaders and public servants — at all levels of government — to respond in a coordinated fashion to this threat.

The West has correctly identified the CCP as the malign threat that it is; now we have a responsibility to put into place the measures and deterrents to prevent it from attacking us through cyberspace or any other way. Let us not wait until we experience a 9/11-scale cyberattack that could be far more damaging to the U.S. than what took place on that dark day more than 20 years ago.