Authored by Steve Watson via Summit News,

Just when it appeared that a law abiding business owner had scored a victory against a scumbag shoplifter for once by subduing him with an almighty thrashing, the police have stepped in to criminally investigate the shopkeeper for assault.

Yes really.

KCRA.com reports that the clerk at a 7-Eleven in Stockton, Northern California, who was captured on video taking down a man threatening to pull a gun and filling up a barrel full of products is now the one under investigation by the cops.

The would be thief had visited the store three times on the evening in question, each time threatening the shop keepers and stealing from them.

On the third attempt he got what was coming to him.

Clown world.

The Sikh convenience store clerk who beat the piss out of a shoplifter with a stick in is under investigation from Stockton, California police for assault.

The clerks also said the same man stole from their store two other times.
pic.twitter.com/ZueivvTZEC

— Greg Price (@greg_price11) August 6, 2023

As we see time and again, police don’t even bother preventing robbery anymore, and now they’re treating business owners who are forced to defend themselves as the criminals, while the assailants have somehow become the victims.

We give the last word to Andrea Widburg (at American Thinker), who remarks that when the government encourages lawlessness, as California clearly does, we are no longer witnessing mere property crimes. Instead, we are witnessing the slow death of the people whose property is under endless assault from brazen robbers who know that they cannot be touched.

For the Sikh men, the loss of a job during the shabby Biden economy has the real potential to mean the end of their lives: The end of their having a home, raising a family…heck, even feeding their family. When crime becomes the norm, everyone’s life is at stake.

I sincerely hope that the police conclude that the Sikh men used entirely proportionate force to stop a person who has slowly been killing them.

But since this is California and, as in Superman’s Bizarro Land, everything is backward in the most evil way, I fully expect the robber to get a pass because “he’s been punished enough,” while the brave Sikhs who stepped up in a law-enforcement vacuum, find themselves caught in the California “justice” system.

*  *  *

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

Some children who experienced heart inflammation after COVID-19 vaccination had scarring on their hearts months later, a new long-term study found.

Researchers followed a group of 40 patients aged 12 to 18 for up to one year after the children were diagnosed with myocarditis, or heart inflammation, following vaccination with one of the messenger RNA shots from Pfizer or Moderna. They performed a series of tests, including echocardiograms.

Cardiac magnetic resonance imaging, or cardiac MRIs, was performed on 39 of the 40 patients. Abnormal results came in for 26 of those who were imaged, including 19 who had late gadolinium enhancement, or signs of scarring.

The patients with abnormal results returned for follow-up cardiac MRIs at least five months after the initial tests and 15, or 58 percent, had residual late gadolinium enhancement (LGE). The one patient without an initial scan also had mild late gadolinium enhancement when scanned during a follow-up visit.

“Persistence of LGE in a significant subset of patients with up to 1 year of follow-up was observed,” Dr. Yiu-fai Cheung, with Hong Kong Children’s Hospital, and the other researchers wrote.

They said that the implications of the persistence remain unclear, but that given it is an indicator of subclinical heart dysfunction and scarring, “there exists a potential long-term effect on exercise capacity and cardiac functional reserve during stress.”

The study was published by Circulation. Authors reported no funding or disclosures.

Dr. Peter McCullough, an American cardiologist and president of the McCullough Foundation, said that the new data is consistent with what cardiologists are seeing in clinical practice.

“Serious cases of COVID-19 vaccine induced myocarditis are not resolved by cardiac MRI at one year of followup in the majority of cases. At some point, we must assume that late gadolinium enhancement represents a scar or permanent damage,” Dr. McCullough, who was not involved in the research, told The Epoch Times via email.

“COVID-19 vaccines should be pulled from the market immediately until further notice. Large scale research programs should be commissioned immediately on subclinical and clinical COVID-19 vaccine induced myocarditis with initial aims at risk stratification and mitigation for cardiac arrest,” he added.

Dr. Anish Koka, another American cardiologist who was not involved in the study, said that the persistent LGE signifies a scar that replaced the initially inflamed heart muscle.

“The good news is that the amount of scar is small. The bad news is that there is scar,” Dr. Koka wrote on X, formerly known as Twitter.

Dr. Koka said that the level of scarring indicates there would likely not be a long-term impact, but that even small levels of scarring could be a foundation for future arrhythmias, with exercise serving as a trigger.

“All these kids (even those without scar) would need exercise stress tests at 6 months to attempt to prognosticate this,” Dr. Koka said.

Pfizer and Moderna did not respond to requests for comment on the study on myocarditis, a known side effect of both of the companies’ COVID-19 vaccines.

More Evidence

Myocarditis after COVID-19 vaccination was first detected in early 2021, and an increasing number of studies have undercut claims from officials in the United States that the heart inflammation is mild and resolves without treatment.

A study from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), published in 2022, reported that among patients with follow-up cardiac MRIs, 54 percent had at least one abnormal finding, such as scarring.

The study relied on surveys from health care providers who examined the patients.

The providers later told the CDC that five to 13 months after the initial diagnosis, 14 percent of patients were still not cleared for all physical activity, and that multiple patients still had abnormal cardiac MRI findings. And in a separate set of surveys, many patients reported experiencing one or more symptoms beyond one year.

Read more here…

Authored by Ari Patinkin & John Berlau via RealClear Markets,

The Biden administration and the Federal Reserve are taking steps toward the potential roll-out of a central bank digital currency (CBDC). In attempting to do so, they are ignoring serious concerns about consumer privacy and heavy-handed government control in the U.S. and abroad.

Everywhere around the world, powerful heads of central banks and politicians are pushing central bank digital currency. Yet also around the globe – from the U.S. to Europe to Africa – more and more of the general populace are rejecting CBDCs as they learn what they would entail and experience them in practice.

A CBDC is a digital form of a national currency issued or coordinated by a nation’s central bank. Unlike paper or a private decentralized digital currency, a CBDC leaves an electronic trail of purchases and sales within a government digital ledger. Ledgers of such information are in the hands of governments that in many cases have a dark history of abuses of civil liberties. 

Proponents say CBDC would lead to faster payments that would particularly benefit lower-income individuals. Yet critics argue the mechanism for CBDCs is ripe for abuse, allowing the government to violate financial privacy and reward and punish certain behaviors by controlling access to digital money.

Measures of public reaction in the U.S. and elsewhere show that the general public – as well as a growing number their representatives in their governments – are firmly on the side of critics of CBDCs. Americans are generally skeptical of grand new government initiatives. According to a recent Pew Research poll on faith in the American government, only 20 percent of the public currently trust the government.

Beyond general mistrust of government, Americans seem to specifically distrust the government wielding its powers with a CBDC. Most people don’t see a need for it, with just 16 percent supporting a Federal Reserve-controlled digital currency, according to a recent CATO Institute poll.

Europe is facing skepticism, as well. A growing number of members of the EU Parliament are saying they  do not see any added benefit to a CBDC., Jack Schickler of CoinDesk reported in April. Markus Ferber, the economic spokesperson for the center-right European People’s Party, put it this way: “There’s one central question which hasn’t yet been credibly answered, which is what is the added value … what can I do with a digital euro that I can’t do with current payment options?”

Spanning the globe to Africa, an especially instructive lesson in the public’s reaction to the issuance of CBDC comes from that continent’s most populous country: Nigeria.

Nigeria rolled out its own CBDC, eNaira and, in the fall of 2021 and invalidated all paper banknotes, making the economy one of the first entirely cashless systems in the world. Nigerians were less than thrilled, as mass protests, boycotts, and utter rejection of the CBDC have ensued.

Even though the Nigerian Central Bank released huge incentives for citizens to adopt eNaira, according to Kunwar Khuldune Shahid of the Daily Dot, only 1.5 percent of the downloaded wallets were used once a week in 2022. According to Nicholas Anthony from the CATO Institute, the Nigerian government “removed access restrictions so that bank accounts were no longer required to use the CBDC. Then… offered discounts if people used the CBDC to pay for [taxi]cabs.” No offer has swayed the population to this day.

Nigeria’s political climate may be somewhat different from that of the U.S. and Europe, but the reasons for rejection of a CBDC carry some important similarities. A CBDC in which the government holds the ledger of the purchases and sales made with the electronic currency – whether issued by the Nigerian Central Bank or the U.S. Federal Reserve — would grant the government total surveillance power over individual transactions. If Nigerians buy and sell anything using eNaira, the digital ledger will show the government their purchases. A CBDC in the U.S. would likely work the same way

Given its poverty in comparison to the U.S. and Europe, the rejection of Nigeria’s citizens of a CBDC is a further blow to the dubious argument that issuance of CBDCs would somehow benefit the poor. Whatever benefits could be derived from the technology of the CBDC, Nigerians are concerned about their financial privacy and skeptical of government overseeing their purchases and sales. People worldwide agree that CBDCs greatly breach privacy regarding transactions between individuals.

In the U.S., lawmakers are introducing anti-CBDC legislation that should be a model for the world In the U.S. House of Representatives, Rep. Alex Mooney (R-WV) introduced the Digital Dollar Prevention Act in June, which prevents the Federal Reserve from committing to any programs involving the development of a CBDC without the express approval of Congress. While House Majority Whip Tom Emmer (R-MN) earlier introduced a bill restricting Fed issuance of CBDCs, Mooney’s bill takes it further, expressly banning “pilot programs” that could create CBDCs indirectly through public regulatory states and the private sector (which is Nigeria’s current currency distribution and maintenance method).

More must be done overall to protect civil liberties and the stability of the American free market from the destructiveness of a CBDC. We need bipartisan efforts to protect financial privacy and oppose policies that go beyond the wishes of the governed. As we have seen from the experience of Nigeria and prescient observations of ordinary Americans and Europeans, a central bank issuing a digital currency by the U.S. is unwise and would further erode existing financial freedoms.

Ari Patinkin is a research associate and John Berlau is Director of Finance Policy at the Competitive Enterprise Institute, a free-market think based in Washington, D.C.

Ukraine’s military campaign – and recent counteroffensive – are being held back by a lack of weaponry, and allies need to provide additional supplies to effectively counter Russia, the top aide to Ukraine’s president has claimed.

“From the point of view of battlefield parity, there is indeed a significant shortage,” Mikhail Podoliak said on Friday, live on national TV.

Kiev needs more artillery shells and long-range missiles, and is experiencing a “certain shortage” of de-mining equipment, he added. The military is also having difficulties repairing damaged armor.

Mikhail Podolyak, adviser to the head of the office of the President of Ukraine, called the shortage of weapons for the Armed Forces of the country significant.

“Weapons are not only not enough, it’s so soft to say. From the point of view of parity in the conduct of… pic.twitter.com/EgwlnqqyGS

— Sprinter (@Sprinter99800) August 5, 2023

Podoliak repeated a long-running refrain, that the key items Ukraine still lacks are anti-aircraft systems and sophisticated fighter jets, specifically the US-made F-16.

Kiev has been asking its Western backers to provide F-16s for months, insisting that the fighters would help “win the war” against Russia. So far, however, Washington and its NATO allies have so far proven reluctant to provide the jets, with US National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan suggesting the aircraft would have only a limited impact on the battlefield due to the extensive use of air defense systems in Ukraine.

Since the start of the conflict, Ukraine has been demanding increasingly sophisticated weaponry from its backers. The Western-supplied hardware has been extensively used by Kiev in the current counteroffensive, launched in early June, which has so far been a failure, and the campaign has failed to yield any tangible results, while dozens of Western-supplied items, including Bradley infantry fighting vehicles, German Leopard 2 tanks, and Swedish CV90 armored vehicles, have ended up destroyed or captured.

Meanwhile, Moscow has urged the West to stop “pumping” Ukraine with assorted weaponry, warning that continued military aid will only prolong the conflict and inflict more destruction on Ukraine rather than change the ultimate outcome.

Authored by Thomas Brooke via Remix news,

The British territory of Ascension Island is being considered as a contingency location for migrants arriving in Britain illegally…

Migrants who arrive in Britain illegally could be transferred 4,000 miles away to the British Overseas Territory of Ascension Island if the U.K. government’s plan to deport migrants to the African nation of Rwanda is thwarted, it has emerged.

The Conservative administration is awaiting a judgment from the Supreme Court, Britain’s highest judicial authority, on the legality of its Rwanda plan, which sparked outrage among the liberal establishment.

Under current government proposals, Britain would pay Rwanda to accommodate deported illegal migrants who reached British soil.

The plan has so far been thwarted by what the government calls left-wing lawyers who have blocked deportations using human rights legislation, which to date has been accepted by the courts.

As a British territory, Ascension Island could be a viable alternative as the government attempts to de-incentivize prospective illegal migrants from crossing the English Channel from mainland Europe seeking to claim asylum in Britain. Around £5.5 million is currently being spent by the U.K. government each day on accommodating the influx of asylum seekers, and resources for trying to clear the backlog of asylum applications are stretched.

“Well, times change. We look at all possibilities. This crisis in the Channel is urgent, we need to look at all possibilities, and that is what we are doing,” said Home Officer Minister Sarah Dines when asked about the Ascension Island contingency plan by Sky News.

“We are determined to make sure there isn’t the pull factor for illegal migrants to come to this country, basically to be abused by criminal organized gangs. These are international operations and they have got to stop,” she added.

Offshoring (to somewhere like Ascension Island) is all very well but you still have the problem of where to remove those whose applications are turned down… pic.twitter.com/qyZRQOSIeW

— Migration Watch (@MigrationWatch) August 7, 2023

“This is the right and sensible thing to do – and it’s what our voters would expect of us,” said one senior government source, cited by MailOnline.

The move would see the government succeed in moving migrants offshore; however, the long-term issue of what happens to those whose applications are rejected would remain a concern.

In the near term, the U.K. government is intent on reducing the taxpayer burden in housing existing asylum seekers in the country and has sought to relocate those already residing in Britain from hotels across the country to more semi-permanent accommodation, including disused army bases and migrant barges.

The first migrants arrived at the Stockholm Bibby migrant barge located on the tied island of Portland in Dorset on Monday; they were met by pro-migrant organizations holding “Welcome” banners and gifting toiletry packs and contact details of organizations offering support.

Submitted by Gun Owners Of America.,

Last Friday, nine members of Congress toured Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida, the site of a tragic school shooting that left 17 people dead. The shooting sparked the March for Our Lives movement and put gun control center stage in US politics in 2018.

The tour was expected to have a “profound impact” on the members of Congress who currently serve on the House School Safety and Security Caucus.

House members were led through the school on the same path that the shooter took during the shooting. The demonstration is part of a civil suit against Scot Peterson, the Broward County deputy assigned to Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School.

Peterson was acquitted this year of numerous criminal charges, including criminal charges for failing to act during the shooting. Peterson was caught on camera drawing his gun outside the school but never entered to confront the shooter — instead making radio calls for the next 40 minutes.

Peterson claims that he could not hear all the shots made by the shooter and could not pinpoint their location because of gunfire echoes. He claims that had he known the shooters’ location — he would have charged in.

Because of this claim, ballistic experts are reenacting the shooting in the school, using cameras and recording technology to measure the sound from Peterson’s position.

Corporate media outlets that covered the event painted a dire picture of American schools, but the reality is that not all schools are equal on the issue of safety.

Here’s the fact: 

When teachers and staff can defend themselves, lives can be saved, and the threat of attack from a shooter is severely mitigated. According to reports from the recent Nashville shooting at the Covenant School, the shooter chose her target based on the security situation.

If teachers in the schools weren’t prohibited from carrying guns to protect children, there wouldn’t have been any carnage to begin with.

That’s not our analysis. That’s the actual record: No school that allows armed teachers during school hours has experienced a mass shooting. https://t.co/3v6yy4Me3j

— Gun Owners of America (@GunOwners) March 21, 2023

With 94% of all mass shootings occurring in gun-free zones, people on campuses that prohibit firearms are in a defenseless situation with a much higher probability of being targeted by someone with the intent on doing harm.

The absence of firearms does not make a campus, or any location, safer. On the contrary, restricting individuals from carrying only makes them a target for violent acts. Not only could armed adults protect students, but they could also protect themselves. It’s immoral to make teachers check their right to self-defense at the entrance of their educational institution. 

That’s why GOA supports Representative Andy Ogles’ (R-TN) Teachers Empowered Against Classroom Harm Act, or TEACH Act, to expand teachers’ Second Amendment rights and protect students from school shooters. 

ICYMI @RepOgles introduced the TEACH Act!👏

This bill would empower teachers and staff to get training and be armed to help protect our children in schools across the country.

No school that has armed teachers has EVER experienced a shooting, much less a mass public shooting. pic.twitter.com/ZG6cnuLW7n

— Gun Owners of America (@GunOwners) May 2, 2023

This act would provide funding for teachers and school staff to participate in optional defensive armed training programs by redirecting over $27 million currently sitting in a slush fund at the Secretary of Education.

The law would remove a prohibition on using federal funds for school safety and repeal a section of the US Code that encourages states and local jurisdictions to adopt restrictive and counter-productive anti-gun policies.

America needs pro-gun policies to protect teachers’ and parents’ rights to concealed carry for self-defense and to protect the lives of students. 

The most important thing Congress can do is encourage states and localities to implement those policies. School faculty and parents must be able to exercise their constitutionally protected right to defend their lives and the lives of their children.

*   *   * 

We’ll hold the line for you in Washington. We are No Compromise. Join the Fight Now.

While some are stressing out about tonight decision by Moody’s to redirect its impotence at downgrading the US (as S&P and Fitch have already done) over fears of retaliation by the Biden admin, and instead cutting the credit ratings for 10 small and midsize US banks and saying it may downgrade major banks such as U.S. Bancorp, Bank of New York Mellon, State Street and Truist as part of a “sweeping look” at mounting pressures on the industry, the reality is that rating agencies are a 12-120 month backward looking indicator, and by the time the point to something it’s far too late to trade on it, and if anything one should take the other side of the trade.

Instead, those looking for leading market stress catalysts should turn their attention to the latest news out of China, where credit stress is once again exploding as a record number of local government financing vehicles (or LGFVs, also considered the currently most aggressive form of Chinese shadow banks) are openly cracking with a record number missing payments on a popular type of short-term debt last month.

A total of 48 LGFVs were overdue on commercial paper, which typically carries a maturity of less than a year, up from 29 in June, according to a Huaan Securities report citing data from the Shanghai Commercial Paper Exchange. Their missed payments amounted to 1.86 billion yuan ($259 million), more than double the 780 million yuan in June.

The revelation, according to Bloomberg, is set to aggravate concerns about the financial health of LGFVs, which are mostly tasked with building infrastructure projects that may take years to generate investment returns (think the more politically correct form of Chinese ghost cities). While none of them has defaulted on a public bond, their repayment risk has come under renewed scrutiny after China’s state pension fund recently advised asset managers handling its money to sell some notes including those from riskier LGFVs.

The report also sheds light on regional areas that have had the highest cluster of LGFVs to stumble on such debt in the past few years: in data current through July this year going back to August 2021, the eastern province of Shandong accounted for 37 of the 140 LGFVs that have missed commercial paper payments in that period, followed by 21 from Guizhou, its impoverished peer in the southwest.

It’s not just commercial paper however: a few months ago, we reported that according to research from GF Securities there were 73 cases of shadow-banking defaults in the first four months of 2023, already a full-year record since data became available in 2018.

“Missing payments in shadow banking are a signal that debt risks in a certain region have become more prominent,” GF analysts led by Liu Yu wrote in a report.

China’s LGFVs had 13.5 trillion yuan ($1.9 trillion) of bonds in total outstanding as of end-2022, or almost half of the nation’s non-financial corporate notes, data from Moody’s Investors Service show.

Steps by authorities “to lower LGFV debt risks will not fully resolve long-term issues,” and their refinancing ability depends on investors’ confidence in government support, especially in weaker provinces, Moody’s analysts led by Ivan Chung wrote in a report.

And judging by the number of CP dominoes falling, investors confidence in LGFV is about to evaporate, giving the government no other choice but to step in and stabilize this critical spoke of China’s infrastructure funding. Because while Beijing may be willing to risk a record 21% youth unemployment rate without a major stimulus, once the CCP faces the double threat of an angry middle class and crashing infrastructure spending, not even China’s record debt to GDP will be enough to prevent Xi from going all in on yet another massive – and globally reflating – stimmy.

Authored by Alan M. Dershowitz via the Gatestone Institute,

The Sixth Amendment to the United States Constitution guarantees the accused the right to “an impartial jury.” But it also states that the trial should take place in “the state and district wherein the crime shall have been committed.” What should happen, therefore, when it is virtually impossible for the defendant to get an impartial jury in that state or district?

In federal cases, the law provides for a change of venue under appropriate circumstances. The prosecution of Donald Trump for the events around January 6, 2021 would seem to call for a change of venue. The District of Columbia is the most extreme Democratic district in the country. Approximately 95% of the potential jurors register and vote Democrat. Whereas approximately 5% voted for Trump. Furthermore, the anger against Trump is understandable in light of the fact that the events of January 6th directly involved many citizens of the district. Moreover, the judge randomly selected to preside over this case has a long history of bias against Trump and his supporters, and her law firm has a long history of conflicts and corruption.

The goal of the Sixth Amendment is to assure not only that the defendant is treated justly, but that the appearance of justice is satisfied as well. A jury and judge that are impartial, and seen to be impartial, are essential to achieving this goal. It is imperative, therefore, that in a case where the incumbent president has urged his Attorney General to pursue his political opponent aggressively, that all efforts must be made to ensure fairness. Prosecutors must lean over backwards to persuade the public that partisan considerations played absolutely no role in the decision to indict. Agreeing to a change of venue and judge would go a long way toward seeing that justice is done.

Change of venue motions are only rarely granted, as are motions to recuse a selected judge. But this is a case where justice demands that these motions be granted, both in the interests of the defendants and in the interests of justice. The government should not oppose such motions, though they generally do if it gives them a tactical advantage.

It is likely, therefore, that these defense requests will be denied by the trial judge. Trump’s lawyers will try to take an immediate interlocutory appeal before trial.

Though such appeals before trial are generally disfavored, the arguments for allowing it in this case are strong. The trial itself promises to play an important role in the 2024 election, especially since the prosecution wants it to occur in the middle of the campaign season. If an unfair trial results in a conviction, the impact will already be felt, even if it is reversed on appeal after the election, as the prosecution likely anticipates.

So the appellate courts should be able to assure in advance that a fair trial occurs in a fair venue presided over by a fair judge, especially if it takes place before the presidential election.

If the prosecution case is strong, it should have no fear of a jury and judge outside of DC. As the Supreme Court has repeatedly said: the job of a prosecutor is not merely to maximize the chances of winning, but to assure that he wins fairly and justly. In order to achieve that goal, the prosecutors in this case should not oppose defense motions for a change of venue and judge. Nor should it oppose an appeal if the trial judge denies these well-founded defense motions.

In all likelihood, prosecutors will vigorously fight all efforts by the defense to assure an impartial jury and judge, because they want every advantage that will help them secure a victory. They will point to defense efforts to secure advantages for their client and argue that the adversary system of justice requires them to do the same. But that is not the law. The Supreme Court clearly delineated a different role for persecutors who represent the government:

“The United States Attorney is the representative not of an ordinary party to a controversy, but of a sovereignty whose obligation to govern impartially is as compelling as its obligation to govern at all, and whose interest, therefore, in a criminal prosecution is not that it shall win a case, but that justice shall be done.”

The prosecutors in the January 6th case should study this opinion before they deny Trump an impartial jury.

*  *  *

Alan M. Dershowitz is the Felix Frankfurter Professor of Law, Emeritus at Harvard Law School, and the author most recently of Get Trump: The Threat to Civil Liberties, Due Process, and Our Constitutional Rule of Law. He is the Jack Roth Charitable Foundation Fellow at Gatestone Institute, and is also the host of “The Dershow” podcast.

The Philippine government summoned China’s ambassador on Monday and presented a “strongly worded diplomatic protest” over the use of water cannon by the Chinese coast guard during a weekend confrontation with Philippine vessels in the disputed South China Sea, the AP reported.

The tense hours-long standoff occurred Saturday near Second Thomas Shoal, which has been occupied for decades by Philippine forces stationed onboard a rusting, grounded navy ship but is also claimed by China. It was the latest flareup in long-seething territorial conflicts in the South China Sea involving China, the Philippines, Vietnam, Malaysia, Taiwan and Brunei.

The United States, the European Union, Australia and Japan expressed support for the Philippines and concern over the Chinese actions. Washington renewed a warning that it is obliged to defend its longtime treaty ally if Philippine public vessels and forces come under armed attack, including in the South China Sea.

Philippine coast guard and diplomatic officials held a news conference on Monday at which they showed videos and photographs which they said showed six Chinese coast guard ships and two militia vessels blocking two Philippine navy-chartered civilian boats taking supplies to the Philippine forces at Second Thomas Shoal. One supply boat was hit with a powerful water cannon by the Chinese coast guard, the Philippine military said.

During the confrontation, two Philippine coast guard ships escorting the supply boats were also blocked by the Chinese coast guard ships at close range and were threatened with water cannons. Three Chinese navy ships stood by at a close distance at one point, Philippine coast guard Commodore Jay Tarriela said.

Only one of the two Philippine boats managed to deliver food, water, fuel and other supplies to the Philippine forces guarding the shoal, the officials said.

The Philippines accuses China’s coast guard of firing water cannon at its vessel.

Footage shows the tense confrontation as the Chinese vessel moved to block the Philippine ship

Read more: https://t.co/Bx4oqlmxlD pic.twitter.com/8LRTYQXsJx

— Sky News (@SkyNews) August 7, 2023

“This was like a David and Goliath situation,” Jonathan Malaya of the National Security Council said. Malaya emphasized that the Philippines would not withdraw its forces from Second Thomas Shoal.

Department of Foreign Affairs spokesperson Teresita Daza said China’s ambassador to Manila, Huang Xilian, was summoned and handed a diplomatic protest by Philippine Undersecretary Theresa Lazaro.

In it, the Philippines told China to stop its illegal actions against Philippine vessels in the South China Sea, stop interfering in legitimate Philippine activities, and abide by international laws, including the 1982 U.N. Convention on the Law of the Seas, Daza said.

In Beijing, the Chinese coast guard acknowledged its ships used water cannons against the Philippine vessels, which it said strayed without authorization into the shoal, which Beijing calls Ren’ai Jiao. It accused the Philippines of reneging on a pledge to remove the grounded Filipino warship from the shoal.

“In order to avoid direct blocking and collisions when repeated warnings were ineffective, water cannons were used as a warning. The on-site operation was professional and restrained, which is beyond reproach,” the Chinese coast guard said. “China will continue to take necessary measures to firmly safeguard its territorial sovereignty.”

China has long demanded that the Philippines withdraw its naval personnel and tow away the still-commissioned but crumbling ship, the BRP Sierra Madre. The ship was deliberately marooned on the shoal in 1999 and now serves as a fragile symbol of Manila’s territorial claim to the atoll.

The disputes in the South China Sea, one of the world’s busiest sea lanes, have long been regarded as a potential flashpoint and have become a fault line in the rivalry between the United States and China in the region.

China claims ownership over virtually the entire South China Sea despite an international ruling that invalidated its claims in 2016 by an arbitration tribunal set up under the U.N. Convention on the Law of the Sea. China rejects that ruling and continues to defy it.

The U.S. State Department said in a statement on Sunday that by “firing water cannons and employing unsafe blocking maneuvers, (Chinese) ships interfered with the Philippines’ lawful exercise of high seas freedom of navigation and jeopardized the safety of the Philippine vessels and crew.” It added that such actions are a direct threat to “regional peace and stability.”

While the U.S. lays no claims to the South China Sea, it has often criticized China’s aggressive actions and deployed its warships and fighter jets in patrols and military exercises with regional allies to uphold freedom of navigation and overflight, which it says are in America’s national interest.

China threatened the U.S. to stop meddling in what it calls a purely Asian dispute and warned of unspecified repercussions. The Chinese Foreign Ministry on Monday accused the U.S. of “threatening China” by raising the possibility of the U.S.-Philippines mutual defense treaty being activated.

“What the U.S. does is to blatantly support the Philippines’ violation of China’s sovereignty, and its plot is doomed to fail,” the ministry said in a statement in Beijing.

Authored by Caitlin Johnstone,

The algorithm knows what you want before you do.

The algorithm knows you better than you know yourself.

The algorithm knew you back before you were a screaming slime child,
back before they washed off the uterine gunk and handed you a smartphone and made you get a landlord,
back before you knew that war is sane and poverty is normal,
back before you were mature enough to understand that speech is violence and cluster bombs are peace.

You can trust the algorithm to tell you the truth — not the truth you asked for but the truth you need.
The truth that sees Nazis in America but not in Ukraine.
The truth that sees war crimes in Ukraine but never in Yemen.
The truth that applauds millionaire comedians who never criticize the Pentagon for their bravery in criticizing trans people.
The truth that sails aircraft carriers into the South China Sea and sends headless hounds built by Boston Dynamics to patrol the streets and uphold the rule of law.

The algorithm learns your political biases and feeds you self-validating social media posts to assist you in confirming them.
The algorithm listens to your conversations and presents you with helpful advertising to assist you in achieving your maximum consumer potential.
Don’t cover your laptop camera like some weird conspiracy theorist, the algorithm is trying to watch you masturbate.

The algorithm is always a step ahead of you.
You have never once fooled the algorithm.
The algorithm knows you act confident but secretly you fear you’re inadequate and everyone hates you.
The algorithm knows that those times you quickly pause and screw your eyes shut are because you remembered something embarrassing that you did in the past.
It’s okay.
Don’t worry.
Your secret is safe with the algorithm.
It’s a private little secret just between you and the algorithm and the NSA.

In the old days we prayed to omniscient gods who never existed.
Now we ignore omniscient gods who are as real as ourselves.
Strap me in to a VR headset and let Mark Zuckerberg send me to heaven.
Heaven with 3-d commercial breaks, bitch.
Skip the ad and return to nirvana in 5,4,3…

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My work is entirely reader-supported, so if you enjoyed this piece here are some options where you can toss some money into my tip jar if you want to. All my work is free to bootleg and use in any way, shape or form; republish it, translate it, use it on merchandise; whatever you want. The best way to make sure you see the stuff I publish is to subscribe to the mailing list on Substack, which will get you an email notification for everything I publish. All works co-authored with my husband Tim Foley.

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