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Joe Biden Excuses the Uyghur Genocide as ‘Just a Chinese Cultural Norm,’ Spreading CCP Propaganda
Joe Biden spread direct Chinese Communist Party talking points when asked about Xi Jinping’s genocide of the Uyghurs during the CNN townhall on Tuesday evening.
One million Muslims (the majority of them Uyghurs) have been held in secretive detention camps without any legal process since 2014. It has been described as a genocide, the likes of which have not been seen since WWII.
Biden has long been criticized for his family’s financial relationship with China.
“The central principle of Xi Jinping is that there must be a united, tightening control in China, and he uses his rationale for the things he does based on that. I point out to him, no American president can be sustained as a president if he doesn’t reflect the values of the United States, and so the idea that I’m not going to speak out against what he’s doing in Hong Kong, what he’s doing with the Uyghurs in western mountains of China, and Taiwan, trying to end the One China Policy by making it forceful, I say – and by the he says – he gets it,” Biden said.
“Culturally there are different norms in each country and their leaders are expected to follow,” he added.
“Joe Biden just said the Uyghur genocide is just a Chinese cultural norm and reminded Americans that China has been victimized by the West in the past These are direct CCP propaganda lines,” One America News reporter Jack Posobiec tweeted.
https://www.thegatewaypundit.com/2021/02/joe-biden-excuses-uyghur-genocide-just-chinese-cultural-norm-spreading-ccp-propaganda/
‘Only the strong will survive’: Texas city mayor resigns for lashing out at residents asking for help during deadly storm
The now former mayor of Colorado City, Texas, Tim Boyd, has resigned after two Facebook posts telling people needing help and without electricity that they are on their own.
“No one owes you are your family anything; nor is it the local government's responsibility to support you during trying times like this! Sink of swim it's your choice!" Boyd said in the now deleted post, which was riddled with grammatical errors.
Unusually cold weather conditions in the state of Texas have left millions without power and over 20 people dead.
For those without electricity, Boyd encouraged them to “step up and come up with a game plan to keep your family warm and safe.”
No water? The mayor told his constituents to “deal without and think outside the box.”
“If you are sitting at home in the cold because you have no power and are sitting there waiting for someone to come rescue you because your lazy is direct result of your raising,” he wrote.
Boyd said only the “strong will survive” the storm, the “weak will parish,” by which he apparently meant “perish.”
The mayor resigned from his position on Tuesday and made another post backing off on his earlier statements, saying he would “never want to hurt the elderly or anyone that is in true need of help to be left to fend for themselves.”
Boyd said his statement was directed at those folks that are too lazy to get up and “fend for themselves.” Those people, according to Boyd, do not deserve a “handout.”
https://www.rt.com/usa/515834-colorado-city-mayor-resigns/
20 Dead Across US Amid Wild Weather As Texas Blackouts Plunge Up To 15 Million People Into Darkness
Millions of Americans are without power Wednesday morning as winter storms and freezing temperatures batter the country. At least 20 people are dead due to weather-related incidents. As for Texas, the state with the most power outages, millions are still without power heading into the fourth day.
Bloomberg makes an interesting inquiry into the blackout's actual size across Texas in recent days. Considering utility companies count outages by "customers" and not actual people - the real number could be north of 15 million people who have been plunged into darkness amid frigid temperatures.
Texas power grid operator ERCOT, which manages 90% of the state's electric load, serving more than 26 million customers, was forced to cut power to millions of customers as Arctic air spilled into the state, freezing wellheads that impeded the flow of natgas to power stations, triggering electric shortages as demand overwhelmed the grid.
The high concentration of natgas generation on ERCOT's grid makes it vulnerable to power disruptions if fuel flow is disrupted.
https://www.zerohedge.com/markets/real-size-texas-blackouts-could-have-plunged-15-million-people-darkness
Biden administration approves $200 million arms sale to Egypt despite concerns over human rights abuses
The US has signed off on a $197 million arms sale, containing 168 tactical missiles, to the Egyptian government, despite the Biden administration raising concerns over potential human rights abuses in the country.
The US State Department announced that the government has approved the deal after the Egyptian Navy requested the Rolling Airframe Missiles to bolster its defense capabilities around the Red Sea, as the nation is seen as “an important strategic partner in the Middle East.”
Congress will now review the deal and the State Department’s approval before it is formally confirmed.
The Biden administration has proceeded despite recently raising concerns about human rights abuses in the nation, including a US citizen who has alleged that they were tortured by authorities while detained in Egypt, as well as harassment against members of their family.
Mohamed Soltan, an Egyptian-American human rights activist, spent two years in prison in Cairo due to what he claims was a campaign to silence him and his work. President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi’s supporters have refuted Soltan’s claim, accusing him of being a terrorist.
State Department spokesman Ned Price acknowledged that the United States was aware of the allegations and declared that America is looking into the matter, and takes “seriously all allegations of arbitrary arrest or detention.” However, they did not see it as necessary to delay approval of the arms sale.
It comes as the Biden administration is examining previously negotiated arms deals, with a jet sale to the United Arab Emirates currently under review.
https://www.rt.com/usa/515829-biden-administration-approves-arms-sale-egypt/
Twilight Zone As ETF Provider Warns Buying Silver Will Harm Hedge Funds And Large Banks
Just over a week ago, we showed you how, following the #SilverSqueeze triggered surge in demand for physical silver, the 14 ETFs which claim to hold silver in LBMA vaults in London between them accounted for over 28,000 tonnes or 85% of all the silver said to be in those London vaults. And that the biggest of these ETFs, the infamous Blackrock managed iShares Silver Trust (SLV), which has JP Morgan London as custodian, accounted for over 70% of this total.
And just a few days ago we showed you how, following the #SilverSqueeze induced surge in SLV trading from 29 January to 02 February on NYSE Arca, the very same SLV had quietly and without fanfare amended its Prospectus on 03 February conceding that there may not be enough silver bars available in London or elsewhere to add to the Trust, when it stated in its filing to the SEC that:
“The demand for silver may temporarily exceed available supply that is acceptable for delivery to the Trust, which may adversely affect an investment in the Shares.
To the extent that demand for silver exceeds the available supply at that time, Authorized Participants may not be able to readily acquire sufficient amounts of silver necessary for the creation of a Basket.
It is possible that Authorized Participants may be unable to acquire sufficient silver that is acceptable for delivery to the Trust for the issuance of new Baskets due to a limited then-available supply coupled with a surge in demand for the Shares.
…In such circumstances, the Trust may suspend or restrict the issuance of Baskets.”
But as it turns out, as was to be expected, SLV was not the silver ETF to move to panic stations the week before last, for at the exact same time on 02 February, the Aberdeen Standard Physical Silver Shares ETF (SIVR), also using JP Morgan London as metal custodian and also traded on NYSE Arca, quietly amended it's Prospectus to both sinister and comical effect, and in stealthy fashion uploaded a new version of it’s Prospectus to the SEC website, inserting the following wording on page 6:
“As of the date of this prospectus, an online campaign intended to harm hedge funds and large banks is encouraging retail investors to purchase silver and shares of Silver ETPs to intentionally increase prices. This activity may result in temporarily high prices of silver.”
Let the above sink in. You may need to read it a couple of times. For apart from showing panic about the effectiveness of the Reddit #SilverSqueeze forums such as r/WallStreetSilver, we would wager that never in the history of Wall Street has the author of a Prospectus shown it's true colors more than the above.
For if you previously did not know whose side Aberdeen Standard Investments was on in the battle for silver, well, simply put, now you do. And if there was ever an award for Snitch of the Year in torpedoing its own client base, Aberdeen Standard would likely win this one hands down.
But it gets better, for Aberdeen Standard, operator of SIVR (which claims to hold 1140 tonnes silver in London) and whose very rationale is to offer investors exposure to the silver price, seems to have a fundamental problem with the very silver price rising. Why else would Aberdeen Standard be afraid of a market force that “intentionally increases prices”? Unless of course that’s not what the ETF operator actually wants to happen.
https://www.zerohedge.com/commodities/twilight-zone-etf-provider-warns-buying-silver-will-harm-hedge-funds-and-large-banks
Instagram Now Reads Your Private Messages To Detect And Ban ‘Hate Speech’
The Facebook subsidiary abandons all pretenses of privacy and will now ban users for saying the wrong things in private communications.
Instagram, a subsidiary of the wide reaching Facebook empire, has announced that they will be eavesdropping on private direct messages on their platform in an effort to penalize and expunge those who they deem are executing “hate speech.”
The company announced last week they will begin accessing and policing a user’s private messages completely contrary to the very notion of a private direct message between two parties.
A statement from the company said Instagram censors will be taking “more steps” “to help prevent” abusive messaging and hate speech in direct messages, citing a genre-specific occurrence involving “footballers in the UK.”
“So today we’re announcing some new measures, including removing the accounts of people who send abusive messages, and developing new controls to help reduce the abuse people see in their DMs.”
The announcement made clear that Instagram’s “stance on hate speech” employs a zero-tolerance policy regarding “attacks on people based on their protected characteristics, including race or religion.”
“We strengthened these rules last year, banning more implicit forms of hate speech, like content depicting Blackface and common anti-Semitic tropes,” the Instagram statement read.
In a stunning admission of privacy violation, the company openly admitted they “took action on 6.5 million pieces of hate speech on Instagram, including in [direct messages], 95 percent of which we found before anyone reported it” (emphasis added). They indicated this Big Brother-style censorship took place between July and September of 2020.
The penalties for “abusive messages” are now even stricter. In the statement Instagram executives said they were upping the penalties for “abusive messaging.”
“Today, we’re announcing that we’ll take tougher action when we become aware of people breaking our rules in DMs,” the company’s statement continued. “Currently, when someone sends DMs that break our rules, we prohibit that person from sending any more messages for a set period of time. Now, if someone continues to send violating messages, we’ll disable their account.”
https://nationalfile.com/instagram-now-reads-your-private-messages-to-detect-and-ban-hate-speech/
Rush Limbaugh, legendary conservative radio host, dies of cancer
https://www.rt.com/usa/515853-rush-limbaugh-dies-cancer/
Oil pushing higher as winter storm cripples US energy sector
Crude prices extended their 13-month highs on Wednesday as freezing weather in the US had a severe impact on the country’s oil industry, wiping out a record one-third of the national output and causing refinery shutdowns.
International benchmark Brent briefly traded above $64 per barrel for the first time since January 2020, and was still up around one percent as of 10:42 GMT. US West Texas Intermediate (WTI) crude also reached its highest level since the start of the pandemic on Wednesday, to trade at $60.61 per barrel.
The latest rally came as cold weather slammed some regions in the US, including the country’s key oil producing states such as Texas. Production in the state’s Permian Basin slumped by 65 percent, while total US oil production may have plunged by a record 3.5 million barrels a day as freezing temperatures disrupted oil wells and pipelines’ operations, according to Bloomberg. Before the disastrous winter storm, which also left millions without power, the US was pumping about 11 million barrels a day.
The extreme weather previously forced refineries, including the nation’s largest, to shut down. This included the closure of Motiva Enterprises’ facility at Port Arthur, as well as refineries owned by Exxon Mobil and Total, among others. The US' refining capacity potentially dropped by around four million barrels, or over 20 percent, in the wake of the cold snap, Reuters reported, citing Marc Amons, senior research analyst with Wood Mackenzie.
“Disruptions to refining operations could be prolonged if the cold damages any equipment or if the power outages affecting Texas are not resolved quickly,” consultant Energy Aspects warned, as cited by Bloomberg.
https://www.rt.com/business/515789-oil-new-one-year-highs/