The office of Texas Governor Greg Abbott announced Tuesday afternoon the governor tested positive for COVID-19. He is reported to be isolating in the Governor’s Mansion.
“Governor Greg Abbott today tested positive for the COVID-19 virus. The Governor has been testing daily, and today was the first positive test result. Governor Abbott is in constant communication with his staff, agency heads, and government officials to ensure that state government continues to operate smoothly and efficiently,” Abbott’s staff said in a written statement. “The Governor will isolate in the Governor’s Mansion and continue to test daily. Governor Abbott is receiving Regeneron’s monoclonal antibody treatment.”
“Governor Abbott is fully vaccinated against COVID-19, in good health, and currently experiencing no symptoms. Everyone that the Governor has been in close contact with today has been notified. Texas First Lady Cecilia Abbott tested negative,” the statement concluded.
After handing the Taliban US-supplied military hardware on a silver platter thanks to the botched Afghanistan withdrawal, the Biden administration scrambled to deprive the terrorist organization of funding – freezing Afghan government reserves held in US bank accounts, and blocking the Taliban from accessing billions of dollars held in US institutions, according to the Washington Post, citing two people familiar with the matter.
The decision was made by Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen and officials in Treasury’s Office of Foreign Assets Control, the people said. The State Department was also involved in discussions this weekend, with officials in the White House monitoring the developments. An administration official said in a statement, “Any Central Bank assets the Afghan government have in the United States will not be made available to the Taliban.” The officials spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss government policy not yet made public.
As of April, the Afghan central bank held $9.4 billion reserve assets according to the International Monetary Fund – roughly one third of the country’s annual economic output. The vast majority are held outside of the country, according to the Post, billions of which are in the United States.
According to the report, the freeze took effect on Sunday. As the situation was rapidly deteriorating over the weekend, Afghani Central Bank governor Ajmal Ahmady tweeted that they were told they wouldn’t receive any more dollar shipments.
6/Friday – we received a call that given the deteriorating environment, we wouldn’t get any more dollar shipments.
People spread rumors that I had fled on Friday.
On Saturday, DAB had to supply less currency to the markets on Saturday, which further increased panic.
As the Post notes, Afghanistan is already one of the poorest countries in the world, and has been highly dependent on US assistance. What’s more, the Biden administration will also likely face difficult decisions over how to manage existing sanctions on the Taliban – while dealing with trying to deliver humanitarian aid to a population in dire need.
According to Adam M. Smith, who served on the National Security Council and as senior adviser to the director of the Department of Treasury’s Office of Foreign Assets Control during the Obama administration, the Biden administration didn’t need any new authority to freeze the reserves because the Taliban is already sanctioned under an executive order approved following the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks.
Meanwhile, the US sends roughly $3 billion per year in support for the Afghan military, which can only be sent if the Secretary of Defense “certifies to Congress that the Afghan forces are controlled by a civilian, representative government that is committed to protecting human rights and women’s right.”
This funding is expected to stop flowing as well, along with smaller pots of money, such as $20 million for recruiting women to the AfghanNational Security Forces. About 80 percent of Afghanistan’s budget is funded by the U.S. and other international donors, John Sopko, the special inspector general for Afghanistan reconstruction, told Reuters this spring. A spokesman for the White House Office of Management and Budget declined to comment on the status of Congressionally-approved funding for Afghanistan.
“Of course, it’s dangerous,” said Ian Bremmer, president and founder of Eurasia Group, a consulting firm, about restrictions on the Afghan economy, including the freezing of funds held in the U.S. “You’ll see a lot more refugees on the back of this, a lot more radicalism on the back of this. But, on the other hand, Afghanistan will not be able to control this country for a very long period of time. I can’t see us spending money on the Taliban.” -WaPo
According to the UN Special Inspector General for Afghanistan Reconstruction, half of the country’s total population has required humanitarian assistance this year, nearly double that from 2020, and a six-fold increase from four years ago.
According to #UnitedNations, number of #Afghans requiring humanitarian assistance in 2021 reached approx. half of #Afghanistan’s total estimated population. This figure nearly double that of 2020 & six-fold increase compared to four years agohttps://t.co/0KwzIwaTfZ
The idea that COVID countermeasures might include forced vaccination and vaccine passports, resulting in a segregated society where only those participating in the vaccine experiment would have human rights, was once labeled a wild conspiracy theory — but we are now heading into that dangerous territory.
Story at-a-glance:
High-profile restaurant chains like Shake Shack and Union Square Hospitality will require staff and indoor diners in New York City and Washington D.C. to show proof of COVID “vaccination,” starting Sept. 7, 2021.
Vaccinated-only bars and restaurants have also popped up in Seattle, Los Angeles, San Francisco, Oakland, Philadelphia, Boston, Atlanta, Boulder, St. Louis and New Orleans.
A growing number of private companies are also requiring workers to participate in human medical experimentation or forfeit their job. High profile examples include Facebook, Google, Twitter, Lyft, Uber, Saks Fifth Avenue, The Washington Post, BlackRock, Ascension Health, Netflix, Walmart, the Walt Disney Corporation and Morgan Stanley.
PayPal is vowing to block transactions and cancel accounts held by “extremists” and anyone endangering “at-risk communities,” which could include just about anything, including anti-vaccine rhetoric.
CNN anchor Don Lemon has suggested unvaccinated people ought to be barred from buying food in grocery stores and have their driver’s license taken away.
In 2020, the proposition that COVID-19 countermeasures would come to include forced vaccination and vaccine passports, resulting in a segregated society where only those participating in the COVID injection experiment have human rights, was labeled a wild conspiracy theory unworthy of discussion.
Fast-forward to Aug. 2, 2021, and Forbes announces, “No Vax, No Service: Here’s Where Bars and Restaurants Across U.S. Are Requiring Proof of Vaccination.”
No jab, no dining
According to Forbes, high-profile restaurant chains like Shake Shack and Union Square Hospitality are leading the way, requiring all staff and indoor diners in New York City and Washington D.C. to prove they’ve received the required doses of COVID-19 injections, starting Sept. 7.
New York Mayor Bill de Blasio hailed the decision, saying others will follow — and indeed, they did, with de Blasio himself announcing Aug. 3, that proof of vaccination will be mandatory for all indoor dining, visiting gyms and going to movie theaters in the city:
“This is a miraculous place literally full of wonders,” Mr. de Blasio said. “If you’re vaccinated, all that’s going to open up to you. But if you’re unvaccinated, unfortunately you will not be able to participate in many things.”
Several New York City eateries were already checking vaccination status, and during the last week of July, the San Francisco Bar Owners Alliance urged its 300 members to require proof of COVID-19 injection or a negative COVID test for patrons wanting to have a drink indoors.
Several Los Angeles restaurants, bars and comedy clubs are also following suit, as are more than 60 establishments in Seattle. Vaccinated-only restaurants have also popped up in Oakland, Philadelphia, Boston, Atlanta, Boulder, St. Louis and New Orleans.
Since COVID countermeasures are a global lockstep operation, the same segregation trend is emerging in other countries as well. On the other hand, in Florida, where I live, businesses are prohibitedby law from requiring customers to show proof of participation in the COVID jab experiment.
No jab, no job
A growing number of private companies are also requiring workers to participate in human medical experimentation or forfeit their job. As reported by Axios, this includes Facebook, Google, Twitter, Lyft, Uber, Saks Fifth Avenue, The Washington Post, BlackRock, Ascension Health, Netflix, Walmart, the Walt Disney Corporation and Morgan Stanley.
As mentioned, Florida prohibits businesses from requiring customers to provide proof of COVID “vaccination,” but it does not bar companies from mandating vaccination for its employees.
For now, Disney’s jab mandate only pertains to salaried and nonunion hourly employees, but according to Yahoo!News, Disney is in negotiations with union officials who represent theme park employees and members of its movie and TV production crews. The goal is to extend the vaccine mandate to union employees as well.
In May, the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission decreed that it is legal for companies to require employees to get the COVID shots. This despite the fact that the four available COVID injections are only authorized for emergency use and are as yet unlicensed. Testing is not expected to conclude for another two years.
No jab, no business
Private companies also have the right to not mandate COVID shots, of course, but standing up for workers’ right to choose could hamper their ability to conduct business at all, as PayPal is now vowing to block transactions and cancel accounts held by “extremists” and anyone endangering “at-risk communities,” which could include just about anything at this point.
Seeing how the White House is promoting the idea that people who question the safety and effectiveness of COVID shots are “killing people” and the Center for Countering Digital Hate labels anti-vaccine rhetoric as a form of hate speech, is it a stretch to suspect PayPal will start taking down the accounts of so-called “anti-vaxxers?”
Business owners and self-employed entrepreneurs who speak out against other official narratives probably face the same risk. Venture capitalist David Sacks recently commented on the situation:
“When I helped create PayPal in 1999, it was in furtherance of a revolutionary idea. No longer would ordinary people be dependent on large financial institutions to start a business …
“But now PayPal is turning its back on its original mission. It is now leading the charge to restrict participation by those it deems unworthy … [W]e are talking about … shutting down people and organizations that express views that are entirely lawful …
“If history is any guide, other fintech companies will soon follow suit … When … your name lands on a No-Buy List created by a consortium of private fintech companies, to whom can you appeal?
“As for the notion of building your own PayPal or Facebook: because of their gigantic network effects and economies of scale, there is no viable alternative when the whole industry works together to deny you access.
“Kicking people off social media deprives them of the right to speak in our increasingly online world. Locking them out of the financial economy is worse: It deprives them of the right to make a living.
“We have seen how cancel culture can obliterate one’s ability to earn an income, but now the cancelled may find themselves without a way to pay for goods and services.
“Previously, cancelled employees who would never again have the opportunity to work for a Fortune 500 company at least had the option to go into business for themselves. But if they cannot purchase equipment, pay employees, or receive payment from clients and customers, that door closes on them, too.”
If this trend continues, which it probably will, might people who question COVID shots and/or refuse to participate in human experimentation be barred from having a credit card or a bank account?
No jab, no food
Some are promoting even more severe punishment for the unvaccinated. Yet, it’s not enough for some thought leaders that unvaccinated individuals can’t enter a bar or restaurant, and might lose their ability to send or receive money for goods and services using PayPal (and potentially other digital transaction services).
For example, CNN anchor Don Lemon recently suggested unvaccinated people ought to be barred from buying food and have their driver’s license taken away.
I’d like you to conduct a thought experiment, and think this through from start to finish. What would your life be like if you were:
Barred from driving.
Barred from working and earning a paycheck.
Barred from sending or receiving money online.
Barred from having a bank account and credit card.
Barred from eating food at a restaurant (assuming you somehow got the cash to pay for it).
Barred from buying food in a grocery store (again, assuming you somehow got the cash to pay for it).
Are Lemon and countless others actually saying it is acceptable to make half the U.S. population homeless and starve them to death in order to, theoretically, prevent the spread of an infection that, so far, has had a 99.74% survival rate?
Mob morality
To understand what’s really happening and what Lemon’s rhetoric is accomplishing, I highly recommend reading Charles Eisenstein’s article “Mob Morality and the Unvaxxed.” It’s an excellent and thought-provoking piece. Here’s a few chosen excerpts:
“We would like to think that modern societies like ours have outgrown barbaric customs like human sacrifice … we don’t actually kill people in hopes of placating the gods and restoring order. Or do we? …
“Not just any victim will do as an object of human sacrifice. Victims must be, as [legal scholar Roberta] Harding puts it, ‘in, but not of, the society.’ That is why, during the Black Death, mobs roamed about murdering Jews for ‘poisoning the wells.’
“The entire Jewish population of Basel was burned alive, a scene repeated throughout Western Europe. Yet this was not mainly the result of preexisting virulent hatred of Jews waiting for an excuse to erupt; it was that victims were needed to release social tension, and hatred, an instrument of that release, coalesced opportunistically on the Jews …
‘Combatting hatred’ is combating a symptom. Scapegoats needn’t be guilty, but they must be marginal, outcasts, heretics, taboo-breakers, or infidels of one kind or another … If they are not already marginal, they must be made so …
“[D]efying left-right categorization is a promising new scapegoat class, the heretics of our time: the anti-vaxxers. As a readily identifiable subpopulation, they are ideal candidates for scapegoating. It matters little whether any of these pose a real threat to society … their guilt is irrelevant to the project of restoring order through blood sacrifice …
“All that is necessary is that the dehumanized class arouse the blind indignation and rage necessary to incite a paroxysm of unifying violence. More relevant to current times, this primal mob energy can be harnessed toward fascistic political ends …
“Sacrificial subjects carry an association of pollution or contagion; their removal thus cleanses society. I know people in the alternative health field who are considered so unclean that if I so much as mention their names in a Tweet or Facebook post, the post may be deleted …
“The public’s ready acceptance of such blatant censorship cannot be explained solely in terms of its believing the pretext of ‘controlling misinformation.’ Unconsciously, the public recognizes and conforms to the age-old program of investing a pariah subclass with the symbology of pollution …
“This program is well underway toward the Covid-unvaxxed, who are being portrayed as walking cesspools of germs who might contaminate the Sanctified Brethren (the vaccinated).
“My wife perused an acupuncture Facebook page today … where someone asked, ‘What is the word that comes to mind to describe unvaccinated people?’ The responses were things like ‘filth,’ ‘assholes,’ and ‘death-eaters.’ This is precisely the dehumanization necessary to prepare a class of people for cleansing …
“To prepare someone for removal as the repository of all that is evil, it helps to heap upon them every imaginable calumny. Thus we hear in mainstream publications that anti-vaxxers not only are killing people, but are raging narcissists … and tantamount to domestic terrorists.”
Dangerous territory ahead
If deep down in your gut you sense that we’re speeding into dangerous territory, you’re probably right. The “vaccinated” public are actively encouraged and manipulated both by media and government officials into literally despising and wishing death upon the unvaccinated, and this is indeed a very dangerous thing. It breeds mob mentality devoid of reason and logic, which can have tragic consequences.
“Why is fascism so commonly associated with genocide, when as a political philosophy it is about unity, nationalism, and the merger of corporate and state power?” Eisenstein asks.
“It is because it needs a unifying force powerful enough to sweep aside all resistance. The us of fascism requires a them. The civic-minded moral majority participates willingly, assured that it is for the greater good. Something must be done. The doubters go along too, for their own safety.
“No wonder today’s authoritarian institutions know, as if instinctively, to whip up hysteria toward the … unvaccinated. Fascism taps into, exploits, and institutionalizes a deeper instinct.
“The practice of creating dehumanized classes of people and then murdering them is older than history … The campaign against the unvaccinated, garbed in the white lab coat of Science, munitioned with biased data, and waving the pennant of altruism, channels a brutal, ancient impulse.”
The Constitution still offers some measure of protection in the U.S., but it may be naïve to assume it will be adhered to in the long term unless we the people demand it. In Australia, military are now roaming the streets of Sydney to make sure no one strays beyond their front door, as the country has implemented one of its strictest lockdowns yet.
Fanning the flames of anger and hatred, Prime Minister Scott Morrison has stated that vaccinated Australians might be able to regain some of their mobility once the vaccination rate reaches 70%, and broad lockdowns may be avoidable altogether if the vaccination rate hits 80%.
“If you get vaccinated, there will be special rules that apply to you,” Morrison told reporters. “Why? Because if you’re vaccinated, you present less of a public health risk.”
A rational person might question whether Morrison would actually hold true to his word. A person blinded by anger probably won’t, but will instead direct their frustration onto the holdouts that prevent the vaccination rate from reaching that magical threshold where they believe freedom will be restored.
A minister in Tennessee, who banned his congregants from wearing masks, declared that they will stand their ground after the church was vandalized.
In a Facebook post, captured by The Christian Post, Pastor Greg Locke of Global Vision Bible Church (GVBC) shared that the vandalism occurred at dawn on Sunday.
“Our church was vandalized again last night. Security chased him off about 2:30am and it was all caught on our surveillance cameras. He did quite a bit a damage before he was spotted. Kuddos to some of our peeps getting there and beginning to clean at 3:00am this morning,” he wrote.
But he said that though the action saddened him, it only inspired him to fight even more.
“Of all the things they do, painting my pulpit not only grieves me the most, it fires me up to want to fight more. WE WILL NOT BACK DOWN. WE WILL NOT BE INTIMIDATED,” he pointed out.
In July, Locke warned his congregants against wearing masks or risk being kicked out from the church.
“If they go through round two and you start showing up (with) all these masks and all this nonsense, I will ask you to leave. I will ask you to leave. I am not playing these Democrat games up in this church. If you want to social distance, go to First Baptist Church, but don’t come to this one.” he said.
Further, he criticized other pastors who declined to perform baptism due to fear of the virus.
The minister’s statement reportedly follows the resumption of wearing masks regardless of vaccination status. The Centers for Disease Prevention and Control (CDC) announced the recommendation due to the emergence of COVID’s Delta variant.
The center also suggested the same in schools. Thus, the American Academy of Pediatrics urged that everyone in schools, people who are more than two years old, must wear masks.
At the time, CDC Director Rochelle Walensky said that the advice was driven by the rise of infections, wherein even vaccinated individuals have contracted the virus.
Locke also aired his opposition over getting vaccinated, discouraging his church members to have it.
“I ain’t getting it. I ain’t promoting it. And I discourage everybody under this tent to get it,” he said in May.
Earlier this month, the pastor denounced Gov. Bill Lee over his Executive Order (EO) that relates to the state’s COVID response.
In a tweet, Locke said that the EO is a “slippery slope.” He also wrote that the governor has “lost [his] mind” and called him a coward.
But Lee’s office responded that the EO only refers to the provisions of hospital operations, which were already enacted before.
The GVBC was first reported to have gotten vandalized last year when Roger Stone, an ally of Donald Trump, was scheduled to speak in the church, testifying about his recommitment to Christianity after being convicted of various charges in 2019.
During that incident, several areas and properties of the worship center were damaged which cost around $5,000.
(THV11) Arkansas Attorney General Leslie Rutledge said in a statement that teaching critical race theory in Arkansas teaches children to judge people based on skin color.
Arkansas Attorney General Leslie Rutledge said in a statement that teaching Critical Race Theory in Arkansas schools teaches children to “judge people based on skin color and sex.”
Developed in the 1970s and ’80s, critical race theory focuses on the idea that racism is systemic in America’s institutions and “they function to maintain the dominance of white people in society.”
The attorney general also said that the teaching of critical race theory is discrimination that violates Title VI and the Arkansas Constitution.
“The classroom isn’t a place to promote extremist political ideologies and preach discrimination. When schools allow the classification of children based on race, they violate both state and federal law.”
Cotton added the amendment to the budget reconciliation package, which passed in a 50-49 vote on Aug. 10.
“Sadly, today some want to replace our Founding principles with an un-American ideology called Critical Race Theory,” Cotton said.
“They want to teach our children that America is not a good nation but a racist nation. Those teachings are wrong and our tax dollars should not support them.”
Cotton compared critical race theory in the United States to “nothing more than state-sanctioned racism.”
In a statement released Tuesday, July 14, Cotton asked “Why should this poisonous, neo-Marxist ideology be funded by the federal government?”
A senior US senator, also a member of the US Senate Select Committee on Intelligence, on his social media revealed that the US has 30,000 soldiers stationed in China’s Taiwan island.
Chinese experts said if this is true, it is a military invasion and occupation of China’s Taiwan and equivalent to the US declaring war on China.
If the tweet is correct, China could immediately activate Anti-Secession Law to destroy and expel US troops in Taiwan and reunify Taiwan militarily, experts noted.
In the tweet, Senator John Cornyn listed the number of US troops stationed in South Korea, Germany, Japan, China’s Taiwan and on the African continent to show how the number of US soldiers has dwindled in Afghanistan. But in the process, Cornyn revealed the shocking news that there are 30,000 US troops on China’s Taiwan island.
Now, the US and the Taiwan authorities must explain. If it is true that the US has 30,000, or less than that number, soldiers stationed on the Taiwan island, Chinese military forces will immediately launch a war to eliminate and expel the US soldiers. pic.twitter.com/sZMrmIweM6
His tweet raised a wave of doubts among netizens with many commenting below his tweet: “how come the US still has troops in Taiwan,” “so the US army has a secret division in Taiwan,” “Cornyn must have mistaken the number,” and “this should have been before 1979”.
As a senior senator from Texas, who was once a Republican Senate Majority Whip for the 114th and 115th Congresses, and now a member of US Senate Select Committee on Intelligence, Cornyn should be aware of the US government’s military intelligence.
Thus, the possibility that the US is hiding 30,000 troops in China’s Taiwan island cannot be ruled out, and there is a probability the secret was accidentally spilt out by this senior US politician, Chinese observers said. As we know, the US has maintained military communications with China’s Taiwan including weapon sales and military training.
Despite the controversy and continuous comments under his tweet, Cornyn did not make any corrections and hasn’t deleted his tweet as of press time.
The Taiwan island “defence department” made a low-key denial on Tuesday, saying it is wrong and it would not comment on it, Taiwan-based media outlet SETN.com reported.
China and the US established diplomatic relations in 1979 on the condition of the US ceasing official relations with the island and withdrawing all US Army from the island. Secretly hiding 30,000 troops in Taiwan island would seriously violate the Sino-US diplomatic agreement, seriously violate international law, and even the domestic law of the US, a Chinese expert specializing on the Taiwan question told the Global Times on condition of anonymity.
“I would choose not to believe this is the real case”, Song Zhongping, a Chinese military expert and TV commentator, told the Global Times on Tuesday. If the US really secretly stations 30,000 soldiers in China’s Taiwan island, the US as an external force is interfering with China’s internal affairs which violates China’s Anti-Secession Law. This would touch off a military conflict between the two countries, Song said.
China firmly opposes any US military personnel’s involvement in Taiwan affairs, or US soldiers setting foot on the island or launching any kind of military cooperation with the army of Taiwan island, Song said.
Some observers said if this is true, it’s tantamount to a military invasion and occupation of China’s Taiwan, and an act of declaring war on China. They have urged the US government and the Taiwan authorities to clarify Cornyn’s tweet.
If the US really has troops stationed in Taiwan – even if the number is small – it would be a serious matter that has broken the bottom line. Those US troops must withdraw immediately and unconditionally, and the US government and Taiwan authorities must publicly apologize for this, observers noted.
US Treasury Freezes Billions In Afghan Reserves, Depriving Taliban Of Cash
After handing the Taliban US-supplied military hardware on a silver platter thanks to the botched Afghanistan withdrawal, the Biden administration scrambled to deprive the terrorist organization of funding – freezing Afghan government reserves held in US bank accounts, and blocking the Taliban from accessing billions of dollars held in US institutions, according to the Washington Post, citing two people familiar with the matter.
As of April, the Afghan central bank held $9.4 billion reserve assets according to the International Monetary Fund – roughly one third of the country’s annual economic output. The vast majority are held outside of the country, according to the Post, billions of which are in the United States.
According to the report, the freeze took effect on Sunday. As the situation was rapidly deteriorating over the weekend, Afghani Central Bank governor Ajmal Ahmady tweeted that they were told they wouldn’t receive any more dollar shipments.
As the Post notes, Afghanistan is already one of the poorest countries in the world, and has been highly dependent on US assistance. What’s more, the Biden administration will also likely face difficult decisions over how to manage existing sanctions on the Taliban – while dealing with trying to deliver humanitarian aid to a population in dire need.
According to Adam M. Smith, who served on the National Security Council and as senior adviser to the director of the Department of Treasury’s Office of Foreign Assets Control during the Obama administration, the Biden administration didn’t need any new authority to freeze the reserves because the Taliban is already sanctioned under an executive order approved following the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks.
Meanwhile, the US sends roughly $3 billion per year in support for the Afghan military, which can only be sent if the Secretary of Defense “certifies to Congress that the Afghan forces are controlled by a civilian, representative government that is committed to protecting human rights and women’s right.”
This funding is expected to stop flowing as well, along with smaller pots of money, such as $20 million for recruiting women to the AfghanNational Security Forces. About 80 percent of Afghanistan’s budget is funded by the U.S. and other international donors, John Sopko, the special inspector general for Afghanistan reconstruction, told Reuters this spring. A spokesman for the White House Office of Management and Budget declined to comment on the status of Congressionally-approved funding for Afghanistan.
“Of course, it’s dangerous,” said Ian Bremmer, president and founder of Eurasia Group, a consulting firm, about restrictions on the Afghan economy, including the freezing of funds held in the U.S. “You’ll see a lot more refugees on the back of this, a lot more radicalism on the back of this. But, on the other hand, Afghanistan will not be able to control this country for a very long period of time. I can’t see us spending money on the Taliban.” -WaPo
According to the UN Special Inspector General for Afghanistan Reconstruction, half of the country’s total population has required humanitarian assistance this year, nearly double that from 2020, and a six-fold increase from four years ago.
Maybe China will kick in a few billion bucks to their new besties?