The Afghanistan Crisis is Worse Than You Think

September 3, 2021

Professor Sues Over CA School’s Vaccine Mandate, Says He’s ‘Naturally Immune’ to COVID

September 3, 2021

The Defender’s Big Brother NewsWatch brings you the latest headlines related to governments’ abuse of power, including attacks on democracy, civil liberties and use of mass surveillance.

Professor Sues Over CA School’s Vaccine Mandate, Says He’s ‘Naturally Immune’ to COVID

The News Tribune reported:

A California professor is suing his school’s officials over a COVID-19 mandate, saying that he already contracted the virus and is “naturally immune.”

Aaron Kheriaty, professor of psychiatry and human behavior at the University of California, Irvine, filed a lawsuit Aug. 18, saying he got sick with COVID-19 in July 2020.

The University of California said in July 2021 that all faculty, staff and students will be required to be vaccinated against COVID two weeks before they’re expected to be on campus for the fall semester.

Reddit Bans COVID Misinformation Forum After ‘Go Dark’ Protest

The Guardian reported:

Reddit has banned a discussion forum that spreads misinformation about coronavirus and vaccines after a user rebellion over the site’s failure to tackle COVID sceptics.

The online discussion site acted after 135 Reddit communities, or subreddits, announced they had “gone dark”, a move that blocks non-members from reading or joining the page, in protest at the site’s refusal to limit discussions that propagate misleading theories about the pandemic.

Reddit initially refused to ban subreddits identified as spreading misinformation. But it bowed to pressure on Wednesday, announcing that it had kicked out r/NoNewNormal – which has 124,000 subscribers and contains posts warning against taking COVID vaccines – for breaking rules related to interfering with or harassing other subreddits. The site said r/NoNewNormal was guilty of a practice known as “brigading,” where members of one subreddit are incited to target a rival discussion group.

Majority of Companies Plan to Have COVID-19 Vaccine Mandate, Survey Finds

ABC News reported:

Once a touchy subject in the private sector, a new survey indicates that most firms are now planning on having COVID-19 vaccine mandates for their workforce.

The number of companies requiring workers to get the shot is expected to surge over the next several months, according to data released by Wednesday by Willis Towers Watson, a multinational advisory and insurance firm.

Over half of the employers surveyed (52%) said that by the fourth quarter of 2021, they could have one or more vaccine mandate requirements in the workplace.

The Push for Vaccine Passports Ignores the Arguments Raging Around Them

The Guardian reported:

Vaccinations are the high point of human reason. Devised under clinical conditions by scientists interested only in what works, they represent the mastery of the rational world over chaotic nature; and also, of course, they save lives. Vaccine passports, then, should in theory be no more than the rubber stamp of reason. So why does the policy, not to mention the discussion surrounding it, look so irrational?

In late July, shortly after nightclubs had reopened for the first time in over a year, Boris Johnson appeared to go against his previous approach – let’s call it, for brevity, “loosey goosey” – and announced a plan to make “full vaccination the condition of entry” to nightclubs and other crowded indoor events. The prime minister didn’t have the experience of Boardmasters, the Cornish festival in mid-August, which seeded so many COVID infections that the county, had it been abroad, would have been placed on the red list. Yet he did have that data by this week, when he restated this intention.

Washington Nationals VP Bob Boone Resigns Over Team’s COVID-19 Vaccine Requirement, Source Says

ESPN reported:

Washington Nationals vice president Bob Boone has informed the team that he will resign instead of complying with a COVID-19 vaccine mandate for all non-uniformed employees, a source confirmed to ESPN on Wednesday.

Boone, 73, has been with the organization since 2005 and serves as a senior adviser to general manager Mike Rizzo. Boone was assistant GM and vice president of player development from 2006 to 2013.

UK Children’s Digital Privacy Code Comes Into Effect

The Guardian reported:

A sweeping set of regulations governing how online services should treat children’s data have been welcomed by campaigners as they come into effect.

The Age Appropriate Design Code — which was written into law as part of the 2018 Data Protection Act, which also implemented GDPR in the UK — mandates websites and apps from Thursday to take the “best interests” of their child users into account, or face fines of up to 4% of annual global turnover.

Candace Owens Says She Was Refused COVID Test Because of Her Anti-Vaccination Stance

MSN reported:

Last month, the right-wing conservative firebrand dubbed the vaccine as “purely evil,” tweeting that it “will never enter my arm.” She had earlier said that she was proud” to not be vaccinated against COVID-19.

However, in an Instagram Live on Wednesday, she said as an unvaccinated person, she was still prepared to be tested for COVID if an event she attended required it, although she opposed showing documentation to enter businesses.

During her video, she said that she was in Aspen, Colorado and had had “50 plus COVID tests” since the start of the pandemic and that her travel schedule meant that she had to be tested at least once every two weeks.

SCOTUS Lets Texas Six Week Abortion Ban Stand

September 3, 2021

In a pro-life victory, the Supreme Court of the United States ruled 5-4 on Wednesday not to block the new Texas law banning most abortions after six weeks of pregnancy while legal challenges to that law proceed in lower courts.

A narrow majority of justices held that the abortion-provider plaintiffs had failed to meet the high standard required for the Supreme Court to issue an injunction blocking a law before it goes into effect.

Signed in May by Texas Gov. Greg Abbott (R), Senate Bill 8 effectively bans abortions in the Lone Star State the moment a fetal heartbeat is detected, which often occurs after six weeks of pregnancy. Since women do not often detect pregnancy prior to the sixth week, the law effectively bans abortions in the state. Multiple states have tried to implement similar measures only to be blocked by the courts.

The five-justice majority of Justices Clarence Thomas and Samuel Alito, and Trump-appointed Justices Neil Gorsuch, Brett Kavanaugh, and Amy Coney Barrett did not issue a published opinion with their decision, so the precise reasoning of the Court remains unclear, including whether the Texas law would survive a constitutional challenge on the merits when that question is squarely before the Supreme Court.

“The applicants now before us have raised serious questions regarding the constitutionality of the Texas law at issue,” Chief Justice John Roberts wrote in dissent. “But their application also presents complex and novel antecedent procedural questions on which they have not carried their burden.”

Roberts explained that he was dissenting because an injunction would freeze the status quo while the courts work through whether Texas’s law violates a constitutional right to abortion, narrowly leaving open the possibility that he could vote in favor of the law down the road.

The three liberal justices, Stephen Breyer, Sonia Sotomayor, and Elena Kagan issued strongly worded dissents against the Lone Star State’s law.

Legal proceedings in the lower courts might not move forward until a citizen attempts to enforce it against an abortion provider, leaving the pro-life measure in effect indefinitely. The Supreme Court will also hear a major abortion case this term, Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health, and it’s possible that this case and other abortion cases will be held in abeyance until the Supreme Court renders a decision in that case.

The case is Whole Woman’s Health v. Jackson, No. 21A24 in the Supreme Court of the United States.

Marist Poll: Biden Approval Tanking in Wake of Afghan Withdrawal Chaos

September 3, 2021

President Joe Biden’s approval rating is sinking in the wake of the chaotic and deadly Afghanistan pullout, a new poll showed Thursday.

The Marist poll found Biden’s approval slid to 43% — down 6 percentage points from a July survey and the lowest mark for Biden since he took office, NPR reported.

The news outlet said the drop was fueled largely by independents; just 36% approve of the job Biden’s doing, a 10-point drop; 85% of Democrats approve, a 5-point drop, and 5% of Republicans approve, a 1-point dip.

The poll found 41% of adults strongly disapprove of the job Biden’s doing, similar to the number who disapproved of former President Donald Trump.

In a breakdown, the poll also found:

61% disapprove of Biden’s handling of the Afghan withdrawal.
71% think the war in Afghanistan was a failure, with 38% believing the United States should have withdrawn but left some troops, 37% thinking it should have been a complete pullout, and 10% saying no troops should be withdrawn.
29% of respondents think the U.S. has a duty to continue its involvement in Afghanistan; 61% think it needs to be up to Afghans to determine their future without U.S. involvement.
73% say they support allowing refugees to come to the United States, with 49% of Republicans approving of refugees coming to the United States, while 44% do not.
44% think the nation is less safe than it was before 9/11 — including two-thirds of Republicans; 30% say it’s safer and 25% say it’s about the same.

The telephone survey’s margin of error of the full sample was plus or minus 3.9 percentage points.

The approval slide comes just days after a Morning Consult poll that found Biden’s approval rating sank to 48% in the wake of the withdrawal from Afghanistan.

A graph from the polling indicates that this is the first time in Biden’s presidency when more voters disapprove, at 49%, than approve of him, at 48%, due in part, to the Afghan withdrawal, that survey showed.

WHO Issues Guidance On Digital COVID Certificates Called ‘Conspiracy Theory’ By Media.

September 3, 2021

A newly published World Health Organization (WHO) report urges the transition to digital certification of vaccine status, presenting implementation strategies for member states.

The report is labeled as “interim guidance” which should serve countries help in their fight against COVID-19 and “to capture vaccination status to protect against other diseases”.

The central premise appears to be the implementation of Digital Documentation of COVID-19 Certificates (DDCC) which will act as an agent to present and review vaccination status, history of SARS CoV-2 infection and test results. The report acts as a technical guidance, in regard to infrastructure, digital verification processes, and “ethical standards”.

The executive summary states:

In the context of the coronavirus disease (COVID-19) pandemic, the concept of Digital Documentation of COVID-19 Certificates (DDCC) is proposed as a mechanism by which a person’s COVID-19-related health data can be digitally documented via an electronic certificate A digital vaccination certificate that documents a person’s current vaccination status to protect against COVID-19 can then be used for continuity of care or as proof of vaccination for purposes other than health care. The resulting artefact of this approach is referred to as the Digital Documentation of COVID-19 Certificates: Vaccination Status (DDCC:VS).

The main uses of DDCC – as reflected in the report – are:

Continuity of care – record of vaccination – to inform individuals and health care workers when and what type of vaccine should a person receive (in the future).
Proof of Vaccination – vaccination status for purposes not related to health care, such as University education, travel, survey participation.

The report also describes how vaccination should lead to different steps of verification and database administration, after the person receives the vaccination. The certification would transition through security verification steps until a digital certification is generated. Despite the detailed description of various verification steps, the report never signifies the reason why digital verification is needed and why nation states should follow the process to implement a whole new infrastructure. The only stated downside of paper-based verification is potential fraud.

Proof of Vaccination.

Furthermore, the report signifies scenarios where people have “to prove their COVID-19 vaccination status (such as care site, a school, or an airport).”, despite this policy being implemented in only a few places such as New York, France, and Italy.

Data sets & Structures.

The report states that bare minimum information should be included in the identification process. However, the WHO also lists mandatory, new data points that need to be linked to the vaccination status:

Name;
Date of Birth;
Unique Identifier (National ID, Health ID etc.);
Sex;
Vaccine type;
brand;
manufacturer;
market authorization holder;
batch number;
date of vaccination;
Vaccination valid from;
dose number;
total doses;
country of vaccination;
administering center;
signature of health worker;
health worker ID;
disease targeted (name of the disease that vaccine given to protect again);
Due date of next dose;
certificate issuer;
health certificate ID;
certificate valid from;
certificate valid until;
certificate schema version.

Implementation.

The certification would “help” member states either as short-term solution or long-term. In the case of short-term solution, the report suggests the usage of certification until COVID-19 is no longer considered a public health emergency.

Member states, however, can also keep the system to address other pandemics and “to build digital health infrastructure that can be a foundation for digital vaccination certificates beyond COVID-19…”

The report id funded by the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, the Government of Estonia, Fondation Botnar, the State of Kuwait, and the Rockefeller Foundation.

Podcasting app Callin raises $12 million in Series A funding

September 3, 2021

Callin, a San Francisco-based social podcasting app, raised $12 million in Series A funding co-led by Sequoia Capital, Goldcrest Capital and Craft Ventures (which incubated the company).

Why it matters: This could be the holy grail of podcast production; a single software stack for recording, editing, transcription and distribution. Plus an added twist of live audience participation (i.e., Clubhouse, but with a long tail). Key will be achieving high quality audio, which can be hard to do via mobile apps (just ask Anchor FM, now owned by Spotify).

Listen up: Last night Axios interviewed David Sacks of Craft Ventures, who co-founded Callin and is serving as its executive chairman. The conversation will be available soon on the app, which this morning came out of beta (update: here it is).

The bottom line, via Axios’ Sara Fischer: “In the end, standalone podcast apps almost always get bought by bigger music subscription apps as added value.”

Our Defeat In Afghanistan Is Only The Beginning

September 3, 2021

As the post-9/11 chapter closes, a new one begins, marked above all by the end of American deterrence and the eclipse of American power.

Our total defeat and ignominious, disastrous withdrawal in Afghanistan, after 20 years of war and nation-building, closes a chapter on post-9/11 America — and opens another.

What comes next is to some extent uncertain, but you don’t need to be a grand strategist to see the broad outlines of what is already taking shape.

First and most obvious, Afghanistan will revert to being a terrorist haven. The Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan, by its very nature, will not keep to itself, the erstwhile assurances of Taliban officials notwithstanding. Every committed jihadist on earth who can get to Afghanistan is headed that way now or making plans to do so.

Our military leaders have already admitted as much. Two weeks ago, well before the suicide bombing attacks that took the lives of 13 American soldiers and scores of Afghans, the Pentagon told U.S. senators that the collapse of the Afghan government and the Taliban takeover means terrorist groups will reconstitute in Afghanistan more quickly than was previously estimated.

On an August 15 phone call with top Biden officials and senators from both parties, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Mark Milley said the previous assessment, back in June, was that there was a “medium” risk that terrorist groups would form in Afghanistan within two years of the U.S. withdrawal. Asked if he believed that timeline would have to be moved up in light of recent events, Milley reportedly responded, “Yes.”

In practical terms, this means in the years to come we’re almost certainly going to see a resurgence of Islamist terrorism worldwide, and likely another attack on American soil. Why? Because for al-Qaeda, and for jihadists the world over, the Taliban’s victory in Afghanistan is a vindication of 9/11, a strategic victory. After 20 hard years, they won and we lost.

Osama bin Laden predicted something like this would happen. Not long after the U.S. invasion of Afghanistan, bin Laden issued a “letter to the American people,” in which he declared that, like the Soviet invasion of an earlier generation, the Americans would eventually leave in defeat:

If the Americans refuse to listen to our advice and the goodness, guidance and righteousness that we call them to, then be aware that you will lose this Crusade Bush began, just like the other previous Crusades in which you were humiliated by the hands of the Mujahideen, fleeing to your home in great silence and disgrace. If the Americans do not respond, then their fate will be that of the Soviets who fled from Afghanistan to deal with their military defeat, political breakup, ideological downfall, and economic bankruptcy.

Bin Laden and those who planned 9/11 recognized the U.S. invasion of Afghanistan for the strategic error it has proven to be. All of them understood the collapse of the Soviet Union as a direct consequence of the USSR’s failed invasion and occupation of Afghanistan, and credited the mujahadeen with the collapse of the communist superpower. It might take time, they thought, but the same would happen to the United States should it be foolish and arrogant enough to invade and occupy the country. And we were.

For all that, a Soviet-style collapse of the U.S. won’t happen. But our humiliation in Afghanistan will have global reverberations. The military power of the United States was the last institution of public life Americans really trusted, and it was the foundation of other nations’ trust in us — or fear of us.

Our adversaries will react accordingly. China, above all, will understand our defeat in Afghanistan as the end of American deterrence and a chance to press its irredentist agenda in Taiwan and the South China Sea. Moscow and Tehran will come to similar conclusions, as will Pyongyang.

Indeed, over the weekend, the Wall Street Journal reported that North Korea has resumed operation of its plutonium-producing reactor at Yongbyon, which had been inactive since December 2018. The operation of the reactor has apparently coincided with signs that North Korea has also begun to separate plutonium from spent fuel previously removed from the reactor.

For our allies, the end of American deterrence will likely prompt a strategic recalibration. Why would Taiwan, which this week issued a dire warning that China’s armed forces could “paralyze” Taiwan’s defenses, put its faith in an alliance with the United States? Why would Ukraine or Poland?

As we learn more in the coming weeks and months about the fecklessness and deceit of the Biden administration’s Afghanistan withdrawal — including Biden’s appalling conversation with then-President Ashraf Ghani, urging him to “project a different picture” of the fight against the Taliban, “whether it is true or not” — every nation in the world will take note of what our promises are worth.

Some of these developments will take decades to mature, but others will move rapidly. By the end of Biden’s term, assuming he’s able to see it through, we might well long for the days when all we had to worry about was our humiliation in Afghanistan. We’ll certainly come to see the events of the past few weeks in a stark new light: as the beginning of a dark chapter in world history, marked above all by the eclipse of American power and influence in an increasingly dangerous world.

President Trump Releases New Ad Slamming, Exposing Biden Regime, Failures In Afghanistan

September 3, 2021

President Donald Trump has released a new advertisement about Joe Biden and the Afghanistan Disaster.

President Donald Trump has released a new advertisement exposing the Biden regime’s mishandling of the Afghanistan disaster.

As America reels from Joe Biden’s disastrous Afghanistan withdrawal, President Donald Trump has released a new advertisement exposing the failures of the Biden regime over the sad situation that they caused in the Middle East. “A heartbreaking loss for the United States and it’s great Military. We must have hostages released and our Military equipment returned, NOW!” President Trump said in a statement.

The video shows how wrong Biden was about Afghanistan not becoming a “terrorist base” by revealing news reports now describing the region as “Disneyland for terrorists.”

🚨 NEW AD 🚨

45: A heartbreaking loss for the United States and its great Military. We must have hostages released and our Military equipment returned, NOW! pic.twitter.com/jC1EbQzT0z
— Taylor Budowich (@TayFromCA) September 1, 2021

The heartbreaking chaos in Afghanistan is on full display in the new video released by President Trump. The video shows children crying, crowds of panicked Afghan citizens, Taliban militants, with “IT’S A FAILURE” flashing on the screen.

Biden however, recently said that the debacle was an “extraordinary success” despite effectively handing over billions of dollars worth of US military equipment to the Taliban, the abandonment of thousands of American citizens and military dogs, the deaths of 13 US service members, and the diminishing of American global standing, as National File previously reported.

President Trump, widely critical of how the Afghanistan War came to its end, issued a warning to the American people that the disaster could lead to a 9/11-style attack on American soil in the future.

President Donald Trump made an appearance on One America News Network for a sit down interview with Real America host Dan Ball to discuss the state of America when he was in office compared to how things are now under Joe Biden. The two discussed Biden’s Afghanistan Disaster, Biden’s Border Crisis, and the possibility of another 9/11-style attack occurring on US soil in the near to distant future.

House to vote on bill guaranteeing abortion access in response to Texas law

September 3, 2021

Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) said Thursday that the House will vote on legislation to guarantee access to abortion upon its return to Washington later this month after the Supreme Court refused to block a restrictive Texas law that bans most abortions.

Late Wednesday night, the court issued a 5-4 ruling denying an emergency request from abortion providers to block the Texas law, with Chief Justice John Roberts joining the three liberal justices in dissent.

Pelosi said that after the House returns to session on Sept. 20, the chamber will vote on a bill from Rep. Judy Chu (D-Calif.) to statutorily protect a person’s ability to seek an abortion and for health care providers to provide abortion services. She called the Texas law “a flagrantly unconstitutional assault on women’s rights and health” and a “catastrophe.”

“This ban necessitates codifying Roe v. Wade,” Pelosi said, referring to the landmark 1973 Supreme Court ruling that prohibits states from banning abortion before a fetus reaches the point of viability, which typically is around 24 weeks of pregnancy.

“Upon our return, the House will bring up Congresswoman Judy Chu’s Women’s Health Protection Act to enshrine into law reproductive health care for all women across America,” Pelosi said.

But given that Senate Republicans would likely filibuster any House-passed bill to guarantee abortion access, the legislation faces steep hurdles to becoming law despite narrow Democratic majorities in both chambers and a like-minded president.

Across the Capitol, the Senate companion bill to Chu’s legislation has the support of 48 Democrats. Two Democrats, Sen. Joe Manchin (W.Va.) and Bob Casey (Pa.) have not signed on as co-sponsors.

Sen. Ed Markey (D-Mass.) called for abolishing the filibuster so that legislation to enshrine Roe v. Wade can pass in the Senate with a simple majority and for expanding the Supreme Court.

“We have seen what the Republicans will do in ultra-conservative state legislatures across the country to quash the constitutional rights of Americans, and this ruling needs to be an urgent call to action for my Senate Democratic colleagues,” Markey said.

The Texas law, which took effect Wednesday, prohibits abortions after the presence of a fetal heartbeat is detected, which can happen as early as six weeks of pregnancy. But abortion groups estimate that about 85 to 90 percent of women who seek an abortion in Texas are at least six weeks pregnant.

The new law also has a provision that allows private citizens to sue anyone who performs or aids an abortion in violation of the statute, and provides at least $10,000 for each successful suit.

“SB8 unleashes one of the most disturbing, unprecedented and far-reaching assaults on health care providers – and on anyone who helps a woman, in any way, access an abortion – by creating a vigilante bounty system that will have a chilling effect on the provision of any reproductive health care services. This provision is a cynical, backdoor attempt by partisan lawmakers to evade the Constitution and the law to destroy not only a woman’s right to health care but potentially any right or protection that partisan lawmakers target,” Pelosi said.

The Supreme Court’s conservative majority argued that the abortion providers who challenged the Texas law did not make a persuasive case for judicial intervention, but said that they had raised “serious questions” about its constitutionality.

Another major abortion case set to come before the Supreme Court could also jeopardize the standing of Roe v. Wade. The court is expected to review a Mississippi law that bans abortion after 15 weeks in its next term.

California’s State Pension Invests Millions in Chinese State-Owned Companies

September 3, 2021

CalPERS has $490 million tied up in companies funding Belt and Road

California’s state pension invested hundreds of millions of dollars in Chinese state-owned enterprises linked to the People’s Liberation Army, according to records reviewed by the Washington Free Beacon.

The California Public Employees’ Retirement System (CalPERS) had more than $3 billion invested in Chinese companies, including 14 state-controlled enterprises blacklisted by the Trump administration, as of June 2020. Many of these companies are funding the Belt and Road Initiative, a massive infrastructure project Beijing is using to expand its geopolitical and military influence.

Gov. Gavin Newsom (D., Calif.), who recently praised a Chinese-owned media company for its “journalistic integrity,” has not commented on CalPERS’s Chinese investments. It is a notable silence from the embattled governor, who has called on CalPERS, the country’s largest public pension system, to divest from tobacco companies and companies linked to the Turkish government. Newsom faces a recall election on Sept. 14.

CalPERS had more than $450 million invested in 14 Chinese companies the Trump administration put on an investment blacklist last year because of their ties to the Chinese military. President Donald Trump’s executive order, which the Biden administration has continued, prohibited Americans from investing in companies that aid the Chinese military.

It is unclear whether CalPERS has complied with the executive order by divesting in the blacklisted companies. The pension fund declined the Free Beacon‘s requests for comment. CalPERS had more than $490 million invested in seven Chinese state-owned enterprises that, while not on the U.S. blacklist, are funding the Belt and Road Initiative, according to its 2020 investment report. CalPERS invested in some of the Chinese companies as early as 2016, records show.

Two companies in the CalPERS portfolio—China Merchants Port and CITIC—control ports in Sri Lanka and Myanmar that the People’s Liberation Army has used for military exercises. CalPERS had $3.7 million invested in China Merchants Port and $110 million in CITIC as of June 2020.

CalPERS, which has more than $400 billion in assets under management, also had $5 million invested in China State Construction Co., which has built roads and bridges in Asia, Africa, and the United States as part of Belt and Road. China State Construction is one of the firms on the Trump administration investment blacklist.

CalPERS had another $6 million invested in China Communications Construction Company, a state-owned company that U.S. officials have said is building military installations in the South China Sea in violation of agreements that China has with its neighbors. Former secretary of state Mike Pompeo singled out China Communications Construction last year as one of the “weapons” Beijing uses to impose an expansionist agenda.

The pension fund has hundreds of millions of dollars more invested in some of China’s largest lenders, including $185 million invested in China Construction Bank. China Construction has invested $405 billion in 176 Belt and Road projects. China Merchants Bank and Bank of China, two other state-owned enterprises in the CalPERS portfolio, are invested heavily in Belt and Road projects.

CalPERS has come under scrutiny from state and national lawmakers over its investments in Chinese companies. The fund’s critics say the investments not only aid the Chinese Communist Party but also create financial risk for the state’s pensioners because of the lack of transparency into the operations of Chinese firms.

“CalPERS would do well on its own to reconsider some of its billions of dollars of investments in China just for the fact that immediate international turmoil produces large uncertainties for California retirees,” said Lance Christensen, the chief operating officer at the California Policy Center, a conservative think tank.

Some investment managers are reportedly reconsidering investments in China because of the government’s crackdown on tech companies and other for-profit companies. Chinese companies listed on U.S. stock exchanges lost $400 billion in value in July amid a series of regulatory crackdowns orchestrated by the Chinese government, the Wall Street Journal reported.

CalPERS’s former head under Newsom, Ben Meng, is an American citizen of Chinese origin. Prior to leading CalPERs, he worked in China as the deputy chief investment officer of China’s State Administration of Foreign Exchange. In that role, he oversaw $3 trillion of foreign-exchange reserves.

During Meng’s time at CalPERS, Rep. Jim Banks (R., Ind.) criticized Meng’s membership in China’s Thousand Talents Program, which the nation uses for espionage. Banks wrote to Newsom suggesting the governor fire Meng, a power Newsom does not technically have.

“Governor Newsom, if it were up to me, I would fire Mr. Meng immediately,” Banks wrote in a February 2020 letter. Banks took specific issue with Chinese companies like Hikvision, for example, that are used by China to further its detention of Uyghurs. CalPERS responded by calling Banks’s letter a “politically opportunistic attempt to force us to divest, undermining our ability to perform our fiduciary duty to provide retirement security to California’s public employees.”

Last year, Banks and Sen. Rick Scott (R., Fla.) called on Newsom and CalPERS to divest from Chinese state-owned companies. CalPERS rejected the requests, saying that its portfolio largely mirrors investments in the MSCI and FTSE stock indices. MSCI has said it is divesting from the 14 companies on the federal blacklist, but it is not clear whether CalPERS plans to follow MSCI’s lead.

While Newsom does not directly control CalPERs, he has actively used his bully pulpit as a statewide elected official to force the agency’s investment decisions in the past. In 2019, he signed an executive order directing CalPERS and other state pension funds to invest in green energy companies in order to fight climate change.

In 2016, then-Lt. Gov. Newsom urged CalPERS not to reverse a decision to prohibit investment in tobacco companies. He said CalPERS would be “investing in death” if it allowed investments in Big Tobacco. CalPERS voted later that year to expand its prohibition on tobacco investments.

As a gubernatorial candidate in 2018, Newsom called on CalPERS to divest from Turkish companies because of the regime’s refusal to recognize the mass murder of Armenians in 1915.

“It is wrong of us as a state … to invest in Turkish businesses. It’s time for divestment at the [University of California] and CalPERS,” Newsom said at a rally outside the Turkish consulate in Los Angeles.

Newsom has not made a similar demand of CalPERS regarding China, even though both the Trump and Biden administrations have said that the government is carrying out genocide against Muslims in Western China.

“Gov. Gavin Newsom is quick to leverage his position on issues like climate change by outlawing gas-powered cars or other similar mandates, but slow to speak out on government investments in China, where their environmental and labor record is abysmal,” said Christensen, the official at the California Policy Center.

Newsom’s office did not respond to requests for comment.

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