Shanghai Woman in Focus as Probe Shows Fear of Capital Flight

CRIMINAL CAPITALI$M WITH CHINESE CHARACTERISTICS

Bloomberg News
Mon, August 14, 20



(Bloomberg) -- Chinese state-run media outlets are adding credence to speculation that an executive who helps wealthy families move their money to the US was among those detained last week for illegal currency trading, as President Xi Jinping’s government moves to prevent capital outflows in the face of economic woes.

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Shanghai police announced Thursday they had detained five people for illegal foreign currency transactions worth some 100 million yuan ($13.8 million), including a woman surnamed He, age 54, who ran an immigration services company. Officials didn’t give He’s full name or identify the firm.


Since then, at least two state-media outlets have published stories citing online rumors that the person detained was He Mei, a Shanghai immigration executive. One video outlet owned by the Shanghai government said the police statement had been released in response to speculation over He.

Linda He, as she is known in English, is the chair and president of the Wailian Overseas Consulting Group Inc., a Shanghai-based firm that helps rich Chinese citizens acquire visas to Western nations, secures spots for their children in elite foreign schools and facilitates overseas investments, according to its website.

An employee at Wailian’s Shanghai office on Friday said they weren’t aware of reports of He’s detention, adding that the founder wasn’t around in “recent days,” without elaborating. Employees inside the office appeared to be working as normal. Shanghai police didn’t respond to a request for comment on He’s full identity.

Read more: Exodus of Wealthy Chinese Accelerates With End of Covid Zero

The case highlights China’s efforts to stop wealthy citizens from moving cash overseas, reflecting the dire state of an economy still reeling from strict Covid curbs, property struggles and tighter regulations of the private sector. Strict capital controls typically allow citizens to convert $50,000 worth of yuan into foreign currencies each year, making it hard for rich Chinese to move their money abroad.

Capital flight is expected to pick up speed as more people resume travel out of the country, following a dip during pandemic lockdowns. Natixis expects the amount to leave the country to reach $150 billion this year. Such outflows would put another strain on China’s faltering post-pandemic recovery as the nation slides into deflation.

“Once economic opportunity dries up, the political constraints in China — added to a terrible educational system, overpriced housing, corrupt medical system, lack of elder care — are driving anyone with the means to try to emigrate,” said Anne Stevenson-Yang, co-founder and research director of short seller J Capital Research Ltd.

“Emigration means taking money out because you need hard currency to survive overseas,” she added.

US Ties

In the decade-plus that He has made her living providing a bridge between the world’s two largest economies, geopolitical tensions between China and the US have worsened. President Joe Biden’s recent investment and trade curbs on China’s high-tech industries have only complicated the Asian nation’s recent economic struggles.

Wailian, meanwhile, has served as a conduit for hundreds of millions of dollars to flow into the US economy. The company’s website touts its expertise facilitating a US investment visa available to wealthy Chinese who pump between $500,000 and $1 million into American projects.

He has also been active in philanthropic work. She’s made donations to Columbia University’s Teaching College, according to its website, and in 2015 co-sponsored the US National Youth Orchestra’s Carnegie Hall China tour that was marked by a New York reception attended by guests including former Secretary of State Henry Kissinger.

She is also executive director of the Beijing-based Center for China and Globalization think tank, which declined to comment on her whereabouts.

Capital Crackdown

Shanghai police said Thursday that four other people were involved in the probe. A female employee surnamed Sun, 39, was detained for collecting yuan in China and providing foreign currencies overseas. Three other staffers were probed for facilitating underground money changers, officials added.

He and Sun are still detained while the others have been released on bail, according to Knews, the Shanghai-based video outlet, which didn’t say how it got the information.

Shanghai state media vowed to crack down on illegal currency moves, citing the impact of such activity on the smooth running of China’s economy. The financial hub endured one of China’s longest Covid lockdowns and is home to some of the nation’s wealthiest people.

“The purchase and sale of foreign exchange should be carried out in the trading venues specified by the state,” the Jiefang Daily, the official newspaper of the Shanghai Communist Party committee, said in a Thursday report.

“The illegal trading of foreign exchange seriously disrupts the order of the national financial market,” it added. “The police will severely crack down on those suspected of crimes.”

--With assistance from Xiao Zibang, Allen Wan, Jing Li and Charlie Zhu.

ABOLISH THE WAGE SYSTEM
Bank of China starts nationwide move to reduce salary gap among employees, manager levels -sources

Reuters
Mon, August 14, 2023

A man rides his bicycle across the street under the Guomao bridge at the Central Business District in Beijing


BEIJING (Reuters) - Bank of China Ltd, China's fourth-largest lender by assets, has launched a countrywide exercise to reduce the salary gaps among its employees and mid- and high-level managers in response to Beijing's "common prosperity" drive, three sources with knowledge of the matter said.

President Xi Jinping launched the common prosperity drive in 2021 as an effort to reduce income inequality, which could threaten long-term economic growth and even the legitimacy of Communist Party rule.

Bank of China didn't immediately reply to a Reuters' request for comment.

The move follows pay cuts being made at investment banks such as China International Capital Corp (CICC).

Commercial banks have suffered record low profit margins due to disruptions from the embattled property sector and local government debt risks in a faltering economy.

The sources said Bank of China has launched an internal "salary management system reform plan", after an inspection team under the Central Commission for Discipline Inspection found the bank's pay system has issues of "wealth inequality" in several rounds of investigations since late last year.

The sources declined to be named as they were not authorized to speak with media.

Two of the sources said the bank had finished implementing the plan at its headquarters in the first half of the year.

It is now rolling out the plan to its branches across the country and plans to complete that process within the next two years, according to an internal notice seen by one of the sources.

Under the plan, the salary package for employees below mid-level managers was raised by about 10% to 15%, and salaries for higher-level managers were reduced by a similar range, a second source said.

A third source said the bank's Shanghai branch staff last week received notice that the bank would be reducing pay gaps there.

The move also comes as a surprise to state bankers, who generally earn less than peers at investment banks and other local financial institutions and who were spared from pay cuts last year after Beijing called for the promotion of common prosperity.

(Reporting by Ziyi Tang, Rong Ma and Ryan Woo; Additional reporting by Shanghai Newsroom; Editing by Hugh Lawson)

Yellen warns of risks of over-concentration of clean energy supply chains

Andrea Shalal
Mon, August 14, 2023

U.S. Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen speaks during a press conference at the U.S. embassy in Beijing


By Andrea Shalal

LAS VEGAS (Reuters) - The United States is working to build resilient, diversified clean energy supply chains to protect its economic security, while guarding against the risks posed by over-concentration in a handful of countries, U.S. Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen said in remarks prepared for an event in Las Vegas on Monday.

Yellen will touch on the challenges of transitioning away from fossil fuels in a major speech she will deliver after touring a union facility where workers are learning skills to work on clean energy projects.

Yellen's speech comes days before the one-year anniversary of the Inflation Reduction Act (IRA), which includes $500 billion in new spending and tax breaks that aim to boost clean energy, reduce healthcare costs, and increase tax revenues.


Yellen plans to laud the continuing resilience of the U.S. economy while underscoring the importance of key legislation like the IRA in helping to rebuild the U.S. manufacturing base and "reduce chokepoints, mitigate disruptions, and protect our economic security."

"As we move away from fossil fuels, we remain concerned about the risks of over-concentration in clean energy supply chains," she said in excerpts of the speech obtained by Reuters. "Today, the production of critical clean energy inputs – from batteries to solar panels to critical minerals – is concentrated in a handful of countries."

A report by the International Energy Agency earlier this year noted that China holds at least 60% of the world’s manufacturing capacity for most mass-manufactured technologies, such as solar photovoltaic and wind systems, and 40% of electrolyser manufacturing.

It said critical minerals needed for these industries were also highly concentrated, with the Democratic Republic of Congo supplying 70% of cobalt, China 60% of rare earth elements, and Indonesia 40% of nickel. Australia accounts for 55% of lithium mining and Chile for 25%, it said.

Yellen said the U.S. was investing domestically to build more resilient and diversified supply chains, while helping other countries accelerate their own energy transitions.

"The IRA is helping re-shore some of the production that is critical to our clean energy economy," she said. "Accelerating these transitions can mean greater demand for U.S. clean energy technologies produced by American workers. It can also bolster global clean energy supply chains.”

Yellen will speak at a training center operated by the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers (IBEW) union.

The remarks in Nevada, likely to be a key battleground state in the 2024 presidential election, are part of a month-long travel blitz by President Joe Biden and his cabinet as they work to convince skeptical Americans that their policies are working to boost economic growth and fight global warming.

The U.S. economy has outrun recession warnings with record-low unemployment, strong wage gains and better-than-expected GDP growth, but many voters who backed Biden in 2020 think the economy has faired poorly, and may not vote for him in the 2024 election, a Reuters/Ipsos poll released last week showed.

(Reporting by Andrea Shalal; editing by Diane Craft)

ICYMI

Former top church official warns Christianity is in 'crisis' if people think quotes from Jesus are 'liberal talking points'

Lloyd Lee
Sat, August 12, 2023 

Russell Moore, former president of the Ethics and Religious Liberty Commission of the Southern Baptist Convention, is concerned about the future of Christianity in the US

.Kate Patterson for The Washington Post via Getty Images


Russell Moore was a top official at the nation's largest Protestant denomination.


Now editor-in-chief of Christianity Today, Moore tells NPR that Christianity is in "crisis."


Evangelicals are asking pastors if teachings from Jesus are "liberal talking points," Moore said.

A former top official at the Southern Baptist Convention, the nation's largest Protestant denomination, believes Christianity in America is in "crisis" after seeing how politics influence evangelicalism's teachings.

Russell Moore, the former president of SBC's policy arm, recently shared his concerns with NPR about the future of Christianity in the US and how tribalism and politics are bleeding into the religion.

He said "multiple pastors" have told him the "same story" about being approached and questioned after their preachings on the Sermon on the Mount, one of the more popular teachings from the Gospel of Matthew that, among other lessons, teaches people to "turn the other cheek."

Moore told NPR that pastors are being asked, "Where did you get those liberal talking points?"

"And what was alarming to me is that in most of these scenarios, when the pastor would say, 'I'm literally quoting Jesus Christ,' the response would not be, 'I apologize,'" Moore told NPR. "The response would be, 'Yes, but that doesn't work anymore. That's weak.' And when we get to the point where the teachings of Jesus himself are seen as subversive to us, then we're in a crisis."

Moore said the problem partly stems from how "almost every part of American life is tribalized and factionalized," including the church.

He believes the solution cannot occur at a "movement level" or through a "war for the soul of evangelicalism" but rather at a "small and local" level.

Moore, now the editor in chief of Christianity Today, has previously criticized Donald Trump as a presidential candidate and the Southern Baptist Convention's response to a bombshell report that revealed how the denomination ignored sexual abuse allegations for decades.

An SBC spokesperson did not immediately respond to a request for comment sent during the weekend.

DEPT OF HOMELESSNESS

San Francisco Federal Workers Advised To Work Remotely Because Of Safety Concerns

Bruce Haring
Sun, August 13, 2023


The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services has told its hundreds of employees in San Francisco that it’s too dangerous to come in to the office.

HHS Assistant Secretary for Administration Cheryl R. Campbell issued the stay-home recommendation in an Aug. 4 memo to regional leaders, according to the San Francisco Chronicle.

“In light of the conditions at the (Federal Building) we recommend employees … maximize the use of telework for the foreseeable future,” Campbell wrote in the memo, a copy of which was obtained by The Chronicle.

The move underlines the spiral downward in the city, which has seen many companies abandon their outlets and workers shun coming in to offices in the city. The continued lack of foot traffic — exacerbated by open drug use among the street population — has many observers saying San Francisco is in a “doom loop,” in which negative events trigger more negative events, leading to an endless decline in quality of life.

The HHS memo underlines the dangers outside of the Nancy Pelosi Federal Building on Seventh Street in the south of Market district. The 18-story tower at the corner of Seventh and Mission houses several federal agencies, including the departments of Labor and Transportation, as well as Pelosi’s office. It is unclear if the other agencies have issued similar advisories.

The area is reportedly also home to one of the city’s most brazen open-air drug markets on a daily basis.

Ironically, the memo from HHS came to light as President Joe Biden’s White House Chief of Staff called on more federal workers to return to the office.

Hundreds of government employees in San Francisco told to work from home due to the high levels of crime in the area, report says

Jyoti Mann
Sat, August 12, 2023

Alexander Spatari/Getty Images

Some government staff in San Francisco have been told to work remotely, a report says.

Department of Health and Human Services staff were asked to work from home due to local crime.

The city has been battling a drug epidemic and a homelessness crisis in recent years.

Hundreds of employees at the Department of Health and Human Services in San Francisco have been told to work from home due to the high level of crime in the area around its office, the San Francisco Chronicle reported.

The department recommended that employees worked remotely "for the foreseeable future," the report says, citing an August 4 memo sent to staff, a copy of which the Chronicle said it had obtained.

The advice was given to workers "in light of the conditions at the (Federal Building)," Cheryl R. Campbell, assistant secretary for administration at the department, said, per the report.

The Federal Building is located at 90 7th Street in San Francisco, which is known to be a drug hotspot, with dealers often peddling drugs near or across the street from the building, the Chronicle reported.

Two men were charged in May on suspicion of carrying out drug deals in full view of surveillance cameras from the Federal Building, per a June press release from the US attorney's office.

San Francisco has been battling a drug epidemic and a homelessness crisis in recent years.

The California governor's office said in June that in just six weeks the California Highway Patrol had seized more than four kilos of fentanyl in the Tenderloin and the "immediate surrounding area" of San Francisco.

It claimed that this was "enough to kill" the city's entire population nearly three times over.

Elon Musk has also spoken out about crime in the city, where his company X, formerly known as Twitter, is headquartered.

"Violent crime in SF is horrific," Musk said in a tweet in April.

Following the fatal stabbing of Cash App creator Bob Lee, many also labeled San Francisco a "lawless" place to live.

The US Department of Health and Human Services didn't immediately respond to a request for comment from Insider.

When Confederate-glorifying monuments went up in the South, voting in Black areas went down

Alexander N. Taylor, PhD Candidate in Economics, George Mason University

THE CONVERSATION
Sun, August 13, 2023 

Demonstrators hold Confederate flags near the monument for Confederacy President Jefferson Davis on June 25, 2015, in Richmond, Va., after it was spray-painted with the phrase 'Black Lives Matter.'

  AP Photo/Steve Helber

Confederate monuments burst into public consciousness in 2015 when a shooting at a historically Black church in Charleston, South Carolina, instigated the first broad calls for their removal. The shooter intended to start a race war and had posed with Confederate imagery in photos posted online.

Monument removal efforts grew in 2017 after a counterprotester was killed at the Unite the Right rally in Charlottesville, Virginia, where white supremacist groups defended the preservation of Confederate monuments. Removal movements saw widespread success in 2020 following George Floyd’s death at the hands of the police.

These events linked Confederate monuments to modern racist beliefs and acts. But whether monuments carry inherent racism or are merely misinterpreted requires further exploration.

Research by economist Jhacova A. Williams has shown that Black Americans who live in areas that have a relatively higher number of streets named after prominent Confederate generals “are less likely to be employed, are more likely to be employed in low-status occupations, and have lower wages compared to Whites.”

I study economic and political history and have researched the effects of Confederate monuments in the post-Civil War South. I found that these symbols helped solidify the Jim Crow era, which established segregation across the South and lasted from the 1880s until the 1960s. These symbols were accompanied by increases in the vote share of the Democratic Party – the racist party that had supported slavery and, after the Civil War, supported segregation for another century. The building of these monuments was also accompanied by reductions in voter turnout. Further research I conducted shows that these political effects disproportionately occurred in areas with a larger share of Black residents.

In other words, as these monuments were erected, the vote increased for members of the then-racist Democratic Party, and people turned out to vote in lower numbers in predominantly Black areas.

These findings demonstrate that a connection existed between racism and these monuments from their inception – and provide context for modern monument debates.

Richmond, Va., city workers prepare to drape a tarp over a statue of Confederate Gen. Stonewall Jackson in 2017. AP Photo/Steve Helber

Monumental history

The South saw almost no monument dedications during the Civil War, which lasted from 1861 to 1865. Monuments first appeared during the Reconstruction era – 1865 to 1877 – when Southern states were occupied by the North and integrated back into the Union.

Reconstruction-era monuments in general did not glorify the Confederacy. These monuments largely honored the dead and were placed in cemeteries and spaces distant from daily life. They compartmentalized the trauma of the war, commemorating lives but not placing the Confederacy at the center of Southern identity.

As Reconstruction neared its end in 1875, a Stonewall Jackson monument erected in Richmond, Virginia, foreshadowed the different monuments to come.

The monument’s dedication drew 50,000 spectators and included a military-style parade. The potential presence of a local all-Black militia proved to be controversial. To avoid accusations of race mixing, organizers planned to place the militia and any other Black participants in the back of the parade.

The militia did not attend, likely in anticipation of the controversy, and the only Black Southerners present in the parade were formerly enslaved people who had served in the Confederacy’s Stonewall Brigade. This stark picture of Southern race relations served as a preview of political developments to come.

This trend continued after Reconstruction, which ended with the Compromise of 1877. This compromise settled the disputed 1876 presidential election, giving Republicans the presidency and Democrats, then a pro-segregation party, full political control of the South. Democrats subsequently established what would become known as Jim Crow laws across the South, an array of restrictive and discriminatory laws that disenfranchised Black Southerners and made them second-class citizens.

Monuments played a cultural role in establishing the Jim Crow South. Unlike Reconstruction monuments, post-Reconstruction monuments were erected in prominent public spaces, and their focus shifted toward the portrayal and glorification of famous Confederates. Monument dedication ceremonies were particularly popular around the 50th anniversary of the beginning of the Civil War, peaking in 1911.

Additional Confederate monuments have been dedicated since that period, but those numbers pale in comparison to the monument-building spree of 1878 to 1912.

The Mississippi state and U.S. flags fly near the Rankin County Confederate Monument in the downtown square of Brandon, Miss., on March 3, 2023. 

AP Photo/Rogelio V. Solis, File
Monumental effects

My research investigates the political effects of Confederate monuments in the Reconstruction and early post-Reconstruction – 1877-1912 – eras, namely their effects on Democratic Party vote share and voter turnout.

I expected monuments’ potential effects to be directly related to their centrality to everyday life and glorification of the Confederacy. This is the primary difference between soldier-memorializing Reconstruction and Confederate-glorifying post-Reconstruction monuments.

I expected to find little political effect from soldier-memorializing Reconstruction monuments, but some pro-Jim Crow effects from Confederate-glorifying post-Reconstruction monuments. As monuments moved from cemeteries into central public spaces such as parks and squares, I expected them to affect voters’ decisions.

That is precisely what I found.

During Reconstruction, counties that dedicated Confederate monuments saw no change in voter turnout or Democratic Party vote share in biennial congressional elections. These symbols were soldier-memorializing and physically separate from public life and did not influence voter decision-making.

However, when monuments began to glorify the Confederacy and shifted into public life, political effects emerged.

Counties that dedicated monuments in the early post-Reconstruction period saw, on average, a 5.5 percentage point increase in Democratic Party vote share and a 2.2 percentage point decrease in voter turnout compared with other counties.

As monuments changed, so did their effect on the public. Glorifying public monuments communicated to the public that the Confederacy was worth preserving, thus strengthening Democratic majorities and lowering participation in the political process.

Larger Democratic majorities alongside lower voter turnout already suggests Black Southerners, who almost exclusively voted for Republicans at that time, were voting less in areas with monuments. I conducted further exploration and found that these political effects disproportionately occurred in counties with larger Black populations. This suggests that Black voters were more responsive to Confederate monuments, which suppressed their political activity by signaling they were not accepted by the local community.

The effects of post-Reconstruction monuments suggest that they played a role in continued racism throughout the South into the early 20th century.

Their controversy today demonstrates the values still conveyed by their presence in society. Recent research has demonstrated the long-run effects of the spread of Southern white culture and prejudices across the United States post-Civil War, connecting it to higher levels of modern-day Republican Party voting and conservative values.

It is thus no wonder Confederate monuments, as prominent symbols of pro-Confederate, Southern white culture, continue to be – and are likely to remain – cultural flashpoints.

This article is republished from The Conversation, a nonprofit news site dedicated to sharing ideas from academic experts. 

It was written by: Alexander N. Taylor, George Mason University.

Read more:


Symbols of the Confederacy are slowly coming down from US military bases: 3 essential reads


African Americans have long defied white supremacy and celebrated Black culture in public spaces


Think Confederate monuments are racist? Consider pioneer monuments

Mike Pence "doesn't recall" if he was told about plans to overturn 2020 election results

TOO SENILE TO BE POTUS
Kelly McClure
Sun, August 13, 2023 

Mike Pence Michael M. Santiago/Getty Images


During a segment of "Meet the Press" on Sunday, host Chuck Todd inquired as to why Mike Pence "asked the Senate parliamentarian whether there were any other electors to consider during the process of Congress certifying the 2020 election," and he appeared to have a lapse in memory pertaining to the events leading up to Jan. 6.

"I did ask the parliamentarian very directly, Chuck. I asked her because I was hearing rumors. I was reading in the newspaper that there were alternate electors. I just — I asked her point-blank," Pence said in a quote obtained from The Hill. When asked if anyone in Trump's White House was informing him of this, he went on to say, "I asked her if there were any other electors from any state, and she said there was not — I don't recall that, I just remember hearing it in the public. And I wanted a definitive answer whether or not the parliamentarian had received any additional electoral votes. She had not. So as you know, I — we actually changed the language as those Electoral College votes were recorded."

Revealing that his conversation with the Senate parliamentarian took place on Jan. 3, he furthered, "I have no right to overturn the election. The constitution is quite clear. As vice president, my job was to preside over a joint session of Congress, where the Constitution says the Electoral College votes shall be opened and shall be counted, and I know by God's grace I did my duty that day."

A Democratic lawmaker with over $200,000 in student debt says millions of borrowers will soon have to 'postpone their lives' with payments about to resume

Ayelet Sheffey
Sat, August 12, 2023

Rep. Summer Lee, D-Pa., attends the House Oversight and Accountability Committee hearing titled "Overdue Oversight of the Capital City: Part II," in Rayburn Building on Tuesday, May 16, 2023.

Tom Williams/CQ-Roll Call, Inc via Getty Images

Democratic Rep. Summer Lee has over $200,000 in student debt from college and law school.


She told Insider that surging interest has prevented her from making a dent on her balance.


She said that millions of borrowers will soon have to adjust their lives to afford another monthly bill.


Pennsylvania Democratic Rep. Summer Lee has over $200,000 in student debt.

That's a result of her education from both Pennsylvania State University and Howard University School of Law, which she graduated from in 2009 and 2015, respectively. Lee told Insider in an interview that as a first-generation college student, taking on student loans was her only option to obtain an education and progress in her career — so that's exactly what she did.

"When I went to college as a 17-year-old, I had a single mom who had been recently laid off who had no true ability to contribute to my college education, but it was really important that I went and got one," Lee said.

"I either took this loan debt or I didn't get this education, I missed this educational opportunity," she continued. "So as a 17-year-old, that seemed like a no-brainer. It seemed like something that will work itself out once you entered your career field, but that is not necessarily the case."

But despite making consistent payments on her balance since she became a member of the Pennsylvania state legislature in 2018, Lee said that her balance "never decreases" due to the surging interest on the loans that makes it difficult for many borrowers to pay down the principal balance.

And while she, and millions of other federal borrowers, have had a reprieve from making payments for the past three years due the payment pause former President Donald Trump first implemented in March 2020, that pause is ending in September — and Lee said her monthly payment is expected to be higher than her mortgage.

She said she knows she is far from alone in that. "The reality is that we're on-ramping millions of borrowers right back into a debt servitude," she said.

"People who may have bought homes will now have to delay that, people who would have started families who will now have to think again," she continued. "From doctors, to lawyers, to teachers, to social workers, people who are not going to pursue the passions that they have, or who are not going to fill positions that we need, because they're going to be deterred by seeing how hard it is for college graduates to survive and to contribute in our communities."

At the end of June, the Supreme Court struck down President Joe Biden's broad plan to cancel up to $20,000 in student debt for federal borrowers. While the Education Department soon after announced a new plan to enact relief using a different law, it would not be ready in time for the payment resumption. To give borrowers some additional relief, the department announced a 12-month "on-ramp" period once payments resume in October during which missed payments would not be reported to credit agencies. Still, interest will still accrue during that time, and borrowers will have to determine how they will handle another monthly bill.

"There is no end in sight," Lee said. "They're going to have to adjust their lives, postpone their lives, to figure out a burden that they should not have had to have had in the first place."

'We need a Plan C through Z'

The Plan A for Biden's student debt relief was the HEROES Act of 2003, which gives the education secretary the ability to waive or modify student-loan balances in connection with a national emergency like COVID-19. The Supreme Court ruled that Biden was overstepping his authority using that law to give relief to borrowers as a result of the pandemic, so after the high court's decision, Biden announced his Plan B: using the Higher Education Act of 1965, which does not require reliance on a national emergency.

Still, Lee said that more safeguards need to be in place given the constant legal challenges to student-debt relief: "Obviously we're holding out hope that there's going to be some relief, but I think that we need to start preparing. We need a Plan C through Z."

Over the past few weeks, a number of Biden's targeted debt relief policies for borrowers on income-driven repayment plans and those who said they were defrauded by the schools they attended have been blocked due to conservative legal challenges. While an Education Department spokesperson said it's "not going to back down or give an inch when it comes to defending working families," some borrowers have previously told Insider the uncertainty is leaving them in financial limbo.

While Republican lawmakers have been critical of relief and have introduced legislation to block it from being carried out, Lee said she will continue to push for debt cancellation to reach borrowers about to reenter repayment.

"When we consider who our government has bailed out in the past, industries that have taken advantage of consumers and have taken advantage of our communities who have received bailouts, and we would look back and tell students, and we would tell generations of our nation that they're not worth protecting, that they're not worth helping, I think is a wrong message to send," Lee said.

MILITARISTIC IMPERIALISM 

US, Japan to jointly develop hypersonic missile intercept systems

The New Voice of Ukraine
Mon, August 14, 2023 

U.S. Secretary of State Anthony Blinken listens to a speech by Japanese Foreign Minister Yoshimasa Hayashi

Japan and the United States will jointly develop new missile systems to intercept hypersonic projectiles currently being developed by China, Russia, and North Korea, Japanese newspaper Yomiuri reported on Aug. 13.

The agreement is set to be announced at the trilateral summit between the leaders of Japan, the U.S., and South Korea on Aug. 18.

The cooperation is aimed at strengthening the capabilities of both countries to counter potential threats and will represent the second joint missile development between Japan and the United States, following the completion of the Standard Missile-3 Block 2A in 2017, Yomiuri reported.

Prime Minister Fumio Kishida and U.S. President Joe Biden are expected to hold separate talks before the summit, which could affect the details of the deal’s announcement.


Hypersonic missiles are capable of reaching speeds five times higher than the speed of sound (Mach 5), and follow irregular trajectories at low altitudes, making it difficult to detect and track with existing radars.

To successfully intercept hypersonic missiles, it is important to have the ability to detect and track missiles at an early stage, Yomiuri stated. This is confirmed by practical experience in Ukraine, where Russian hypersonic missiles have been successfully intercepted by the Patriot missile system.

The US currently employs a “satellite cluster,” which includes many small satellites operating in a swarm, to intercept missiles. Japan is also exploring cooperation opportunities with the U.S. satellite network.

In addition, Japan seeks to have a “counterattack capability,” which would allow it to attack missile bases in other countries for self-defense. This includes the development of new missiles for interception and subsequent counterattacks. This system has received approval from Ukrainian defense experts.

The British navy is teaming up with the US to build a new 'Dreadnought' for a totally different battle at sea

Benjamin Brimelow
Sun, August 13, 2023 


The Royal Navy battleship HMS Dreadnought in 1907.

Symonds and Co Collection/Imperial War Museums

The British Royal Navy is building a new class of nuclear-powered ballistic-missile submarines.


The British subs will have the same missile compartment as the US Navy's new missile subs.


The name of the new subs recalls the first Dreadnought, a battleship that redefined naval warfare.

In 1906 the British Royal Navy commissioned HMS Dreadnought, a battleship that changed how surface warships were designed and sparked a naval arms race.

Armed with five turrets bearing twin 12-inch guns and featuring new technologies like steam turbines and electronic fire-control equipment, HMS Dreadnought became the standard on which future battleships were based and separated the "pre-dreadnought" and "dreadnought" eras.

Long after the battleship's reign came to an end, the name Dreadnought is still a defining one. The Royal Navy's first nuclear-powered submarine, in service from 1963 to 1980, was also called HMS Dreadnought.

Now, more than 100 years after the first Dreadnought

, another is in the works. This one, the first of a new class of nuclear-powered ballistic-missile submarines, will again usher in a new era of warship for Britain.

At-sea deterrent

The Royal Navy submarine HMS Dreadnought in April 1963.SSPL/Getty Images

Britain's new class of nuclear-powered ballistic-missile submarines, designated as SSBNs, will fill a looming gap in the country's nuclear deterrent.

Whereas other nuclear-armed countries employ a triad of delivery systems — ground-launched, air-launched, and sea-launched — to ensure their nuclear capability will survive an attack and thus guarantee a credible nuclear deterrent, Britain has relied solely on submarine-launched ballistic missiles since 1998, when it retired its air-dropped nuclear gravity bombs.

The Royal Navy has had at least one SSBN on patrol as part of Operation Relentless, Britain's continuous at sea deterrent, since 1969, making it the country's longest ongoing military operation. The current British SSBN force is made up of four Vanguard-class subs, which were built between 1986 and 1998.

The strain of decades of near-constant deployments has taken a toll on the Vanguards. Originally meant to serve for 25 years, the subs have had their service lives extended three times. Their overall lifespan is now expected to be 37 to 38 years.

Vanguard-class submarine HMS Victorious near Faslane in April 2013.UK Ministry of Defense

In 2007, the British Parliament approved a plan for four new SSBNs to replace the Vanguards. After years of design work, construction on the first boat, HMS Dreadnought, began in 2016.

To ensure successful and efficient construction and delivery of the new class, the Ministry of Defense created the Submarine Delivery Agency in 2017 to serve as an executive agency responsible for procurement, in-service support, and decommissioning of all Royal Navy nuclear submarines.

A year later, the two companies contracted to build the Dreadnought, BAE Systems and Rolls Royce, formed the "Dreadnought Alliance," a commercial arrangement that ensures constant communication and collaboration between the companies, including on things like a common cost model, mutually agreed scheduling and breakdown of work, and reporting procedures.

The Dreadnought class

A rendering from 2016 of the ballistic-missile sub meant to replace the Vanguard class.

British Royal Navy

At about 500 feet long and with a displacement of 17,200 tons, the Dreadnoughts will be the largest submarines ever built by the UK. Each boat will have a lifespan of at least 30 years.

Each Dreadnought will be powered by the PWR3, a new nuclear reactor built by Rolls-Royce. They will also have X-form rudders and a new turbo-electric drive that powers an electric motor that drives an improved pump-jet propulsor, likely making them quieter than their Vanguard-class predecessors.

Along with the quieting features of their propulsion systems, the Dreadnoughts will have an angular design meant to deflect active sonar waves, making them stealthier. Concept imagery indicates that the Dreadnoughts will also be coated with anechoic tiles, which are designed to absorb incoming active sonar waves and reduce noise from the sub that could be picked up by passive sonar.

The Royal Navy also plans to equip its Dreadnought subs with optronic masts — a high-tech replacement for the traditional periscope that is already in use on its Astute-class submarines.

A Trident II D-5 missile is launched from a US Navy Ohio-class sub during a test.Getty Images

The Dreadnoughts will have four 21-inch torpedo tubes and carry Spearfish heavyweight torpedoes. Their main armament, however, will be 12 Trident II D5 ballistic missiles — four fewer than on the Vanguard-class subs — carrying Mk4/A "Holbrook" nuclear warheads.

The missiles will be stored and launched from the Common Missile Compartment. The CMC is a joint US-UK defense project begun in 2008 to create a common launch system for all future American and British SSBNs. Each CMC contains four missile silos. Dreadnoughts will be equipped with three CMCs, while the US Navy's Columbia-class boats will have four.

Apart from the CMC project, the UK is also involved in the US Navy's Trident II D5 service-life extension program, which aims to stretch the missile's service life as far as the early 2060s. The British government previously indicated that its Tridents will need to be replaced in the 2040s.

The future fleet

Royal Navy attack sub HMS Astute after its launch at a shipyard in Barrow-in-Furness in June 2007.

Christopher Furlong/Getty Images

Four Dreadnought-class subs will be built: Dreadnought, Valiant, Warspite, and King George VI. Construction of Valiant started in 2019 and work on Warspite began in February.

In May 2022, the Ministry of Defense announced that Dreadnought had entered Delivery Phase 3, during which the sub will eventually leave the BAE shipyard in Barrow-in-Furness for sea trials, yielding lessons that will be applied to construction of other Dreadnought-class subs. The Royal Navy plans to commission HMS Dreadnought sometime in the early 2030s.

In addition to being the largest British subs ever, the Dreadnought class will be one of the most expensive defense projects in British history.

Building the four subs is expected to cost a little over $39.5 billion, a total that includes inflation over the 35-year life of the program. The British government has also set up a contingency fund of about $12.75 billion, money that can be "re-profiled" to keep the program on track. The MoD has already accessed about 20% of the fund.

While British lawmakers have expressed concern that the Ministry of Defense would view the contingency fund as "a blank cheque, freeing it from the need to control costs," the ministry said in its 2022 update to Parliament, published in March, that the program was still on schedule and within its cost estimate.

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Florida GOP Chair Encourages 'Perverted' Don’t Say Gay Opponents to Leave State

LOVE IT OR LEAVE IT

Donald Padgett

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Sun, August 13, 2023

Christian Ziegler


As the leader of the Republican Party in Florida welcomed an exodus of “perverted” supporters of sexual education in K-12 schools, a new study showed three out of five parents surveyed in the state have considered leaving since the passage of the “don’t say gay” Parental Rights in Education Act.

The study, entitled “Perspectives of Florida Parents on HB1557, the Parental Rights in Education Act” and authored by Abbie E. Goldberg, was published by the Williams Institute, an LGBTQ+ research center at the University of California Los Angeles Law School. The study found 40 percent of those interviewed considered leaving the state following the passage of the bill, including 53 percent of Democrats and 40 percent of independents. Democrats currently account for 33.3 percent of registered voters in the state versus 37.1 percent for Republicans. Independents account for six percent of registered voters with smaller party affiliations accounting for the remainder of the registered voters in 2023.

Overall, the majority of those interviewed supported the language of the bill. The chairman of the Florida Republican Party Christian Ziegler used the survey to slander those who don’t support the “don’t say gay” law and considered leaving the state.

“Over 60 percent of voters support the actual language in the law, including 55 percent of Democrats,” Ziegler told the Washington Examiner. “With that said, if a Democrat voter is passionate and perverted enough to support the sexualization of kids during school in grades as early as kindergarten, then I would agree that Florida is probably not the best fit for them.”

The survey found that an overwhelming 89 percent of Republicans supported the law, compared to 47 percent of Independents and only 29 percent of Democrats.

“Those who disagreed with the Act emphasized their belief that children needed to learn about gender and sexuality and all types of people,” the survey found. “They also voiced concern about a push towards fascism within their state and government overreach.”

The study was authored by Abbie E. Goldberg, a professor in the Department of Psychology and director of Women’s & Gender Studies at Clark University in Worcester, Mass.

“It is important to understand the diverse viewpoints Florida parents have around the state’s Don’t Say Gay law,” Goldberg said in a statement. “These parents live in the same neighborhoods and send their children to the same schools. They have the power to work across differences to build strong communities that support the well-being of all children.”

Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis signed the controversial HB1557 into law on March 28, 2022, and the law took effect on July 1 last year. The law and more recent extensions prohibits the discussion of gender identity and sexual orientation in Florida public schools through graduation in grade 12.

The study was limited to adults recruited for the study who were currently living in Florida with at least one child under the age of 18 at the time of the survey which took place March 22-24, 2023. The survey used the responses from 105 individuals and had more cis women than cis men (61 to 44 respectively) and more Democrats than Republicans (45 to 26). Eight parents surveyed said they had at least one LGBTQ+ child including two with trans or nonbinary children.