US Pension Money Flows Into ‘Malign’ Chinese Companies: State Department

 From Epoch Times:

WASHINGTON—U.S. investors are unwittingly financing companies tied to the Chinese communist regime and its military through major index funds, according to a fact sheet released by the U.S. State Department on Dec. 5.

The report, titled “U.S. Investors Are Funding Malign PRC Companies on Major Indices,” lists the names of publicly traded companies that present a national security threat to the United States.

“The Chinese Communist Party’s threat to American national security extends into our financial markets and impacts American investors,” the fact sheet says.

Many major stock indexes developed by index providers Morgan Stanley Capital International (MSCI) and Financial Times Stock Exchange Group (FTSE) include Chinese companies that are blacklisted by the Pentagon and the Department of Commerce.

MSCI and FTSE Russell are among the largest index providers in the world that influence how investors deploy their funds. Securities of many Chinese companies are embedded in exchange-traded funds (ETFs) and other passive investment funds benchmarked against these major indexes.

The pension assets of American workers and retirees are supporting these Chinese companies as a majority of pension funds use the MSCI Emerging Market (EM) index as their investment benchmark, according to the fact sheet.

The Chinese Communist Party (CCP), through its aggressive national strategy called “Military-Civil Fusion,” uses Chinese companies to strengthen the People’s Liberation Army (PLA). Meanwhile, the Department of Defense this year blacklisted 31 Chinese firms that are owned or controlled by the PLA.

According to the fact sheet, at least 22 of these military companies have affiliates whose securities are included on the MSCI EM index or FTSE Emerging index. Some of them also have bonds that are included in the Bloomberg Barclays Global Aggregate Bond index.

Among the Chinese companies on the indexes are the Aviation Industry Corp. of China (2357.HK) and China Unicom (0762.HK), which are known for supporting Beijing’s aggressive military activity in the South China Sea.

China’s biggest telecommunications giants, China Mobile Ltd. (0941.HK) and China Telecom Corp. (0728.HK), are also on the list and their stocks are traded on both the Hong Kong Stock Exchange and the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE).

Another well-known company tied to China’s military and whose shares are included in both the MSCI and FTSE indexes is surveillance equipment manufacturer Hangzhou Hikvision Digital Technology Co. Ltd. (002415.SZ). The company was accused by the U.S government last year of being implicated in human rights violations in China.

The fact sheet also provides the list of all 68 affiliated entities of these military companies. Most of them have stocks that are included in various MSCI and FTSE indexes.

“Under Chinese law, Chinese companies and researchers must–under penalty of law–share technology with the Chinese military. The goal is to ensure that the People’s Liberation Army has military dominance,” Secretary of State Mike Pompeo stated in the fact sheet.

In addition to the military companies, at least 13 PRC firms on the Commerce Department’s blacklist (Entity List) had affiliates or parent companies included in the MSCI or FTSE indexes.

Hangzhou Hikvision, Dahua Technology, IFLYTEK, and FiberHome Technologies Group are prominent examples of Chinese companies “with widely recognized ties to the oppression of Uyghurs that benefit from inclusion in the MSCI and/or FTSE stock indices,” according to the report.

In addition, “the MSCI emerging market index included 230 A-shares Chinese stocks incorporated on the mainland, quoted in renminbi, and listed on Chinese Communist Party-controlled Shanghai and Shenzhen exchanges.”

MSCI and FTSE didn’t immediately respond to requests by The Epoch Times for comment.

“Some of the Chinese companies (on MSCI Index) present significant national security and humanitarian concerns for the United States, which increases the risk that they could be subject to sanctions, public protests, trade restrictions, boycotts, and other punitive measures that jeopardize their business and profitability,” White House national security adviser Robert O’Brien and White House chief economic adviser Larry Kudlow stated in the fact sheet.

FTSE Russell announced on Dec. 4 that it would drop shares of eight Chinese companies including Hangzhou Hikvision, China Railway Construction Corp., and China Spacesat. These companies’ shares will be removed from its FTSE Global Equity Index Series and several others effective Dec. 21.

Index providers MSCI and JPMorgan also may take similar actions against the Chinese blacklisted companies as they’re currently in the process of collecting investor feedback, The Wall Street Journal reported on Dec. 4.

The U.S. House of Representatives last week unanimously passed legislation that will block Chinese companies from the U.S. stock market if they fail to be transparent and meet American accounting standards. The measure is headed to President Donald Trump’s desk to be signed into law.

The bill affects companies listed on U.S. exchanges, but doesn’t address issues related to securities embedded in ETFs and other passive investment funds benchmarked against major indexes.

Based in New York, MSCI Inc. recently announced, “the assets in ETFs linked to its indexes crossed the $1 trillion mark on Nov. 16.”

Last year, the firm quadrupled China’s weighting in the emerging-markets index. The company announced in December 2019 that it increased the number of China A-share companies and as a result, China’s weight in the index rose to 33 percent from 28 percent in 2017.

In February last year, The Wall Street Journal reported that MSCI came under heavy pressure from the Chinese regime, which threatened to cut the company’s business in the country.

The index provider, as a result, had to increase the weighting of Chinese shares in its global benchmarks, leading billions of dollars to flow into Chinese shares, the report said.

For The First Time, A US State Will Require Disclosure Of PCR 'Cycle Threshold' Data In COVID Tests

 From Zero Hedge:

We have detailed the controversy surrounding America's COVID "casedemic" and the misleading results of the PCR test and its amplification procedure in great detail over the past few months.

As a reminder, "cycle thresholds" (Ct) are the level at which widely used polymerase chain reaction (PCR) test can detect a sample of the COVID-19 virus. The higher the number of cycles, the lower the amount of viral load in the sample; the lower the cycles, the more prevalent the virus was in the original sample.

Numerous epidemiological experts have argued that cycle thresholds are an important metric by which patients, the public, and policymakers can make more informed decisions about how infectious and/or sick an individual with a positive COVID-19 test might be. However, as JustTheNews reports, health departments across the country are failing to collect that data.

Here are a few headlines from those experts and scientific studies:

1. Experts compiled three datasets with officials from the states of Massachusetts, New York and Nevada that conclude:“Up to 90% of the people who tested positive did not carry a virus."

2. The Wadworth Center, a New York State laboratory, analyzed the results of its July tests at the request of the NYT: 794 positive tests with a Ct of 40: “With a Ct threshold of 35, approximately half of these PCR tests would no longer be considered positive,” said the NYT. “And about 70% would no longer be considered positive with a Ct of 30! “

3. An appeals court in Portugal has ruled that the PCR process is not a reliable test for Sars-Cov-2, and therefore any enforced quarantine based on those test results is unlawful.

4. A new study from the Infectious Diseases Society of America, found that at 25 cycles of amplification, 70% of PCR test "positives" are not "cases" since the virus cannot be cultured, it's dead. And by 35: 97% of the positives are non-clinical.

5. PCR is not testing for disease, it's testing for a specific RNA pattern and this is the key pivot. When you crank it up to 25, 70% of the positive results are not really "positives" in any clinical sense, since it cannot make you or anyone else sick

So, in summary, with regard to our current "casedemic", positive tests as they are counted today do not indicate a “case” of anything. They indicate that viral RNA was found in a nasal swab. It may be enough to make you sick, but according to the New York Times and their experts, probably won’t. And certainly not sufficient replication of the virus to make anyone else sick. But you will be sent home for ten days anyway, even if you never have a sniffle. And this is the number the media breathlessly reports... and is used to fearmonger mask mandates and lockdowns nationwide...

All of which is background for an intriguing decision made by Florida's Department of Health (and signed off on by Florida's Republican Governor Ron deSantis).

For the first time in the history of the pandemic, a state will require that all labs in the state report the critical “cycle threshold” level of every COVID-19 test they perform.

All positive, negative and indeterminate COVID-19 laboratory results must be reported to FDOH via electronic laboratory reporting or by fax immediately. This includes all COVID-19 test types - polymerase chain reaction (PCR), other RNA, antigen and antibody results.

Cycle threshold (CT) values and their reference ranges, as applicable, must be reported by laboratories to FDOH via electronic laboratory reporting or by fax immediately.

Full press release below:

So, why is Florida doing this? There appears to be three options:

1) Pro-Trump - Florida is attempting to pre-empt the Biden Team's plan to slash the Ct used by labs for COVID "case" which will eliminate the false positives and show "cases" plunge "thanks to Biden's mask/lockdown/vaccine-confidence" rules.

2) Pro-Biden - Florida is beginning the 'fake rescue' plan outlined here (and above)

3) Pro-Science - Florida is the first state to actually pay attention to the real 'science' of PCR tests.

We hope, for the sake of Americans' livelihoods it is Option 3 and the 'casedemic' will collapse on itself and allow we, the people to go back to some sense of normality.

Top Scientist Warns Covid-19 Vaccine Road 'To Your Doom'

20 Alleged Election "Facts" That Don't Pass The Smell Test

 Authored by Andrea Widburg via AmericanThinker.com,

Americans have common sense, so they can understand when they’re being played (for example, when politicians place Americans under house arrest and then ignore their own rules to party and travel). And they know that there is no way on God’s green earth that decrepit, demented, corrupt, and terminally stupid Joe Biden fairly won this election. This post assembles various election anomalies that don’t pass the smell test.

J.B. Shurk, who frequently publishes at American Thinker, wrote a knock-out article for The Federalist about Joe Biden’s magical performance in the election. You should read the whole article, but here are four things that don’t pass the smell test:

1. Biden allegedly got 80 million votes, which is more than Obama received at his peak, in 2008 – and Biden did this despite losing minority voters to Donald Trump and trailing Trump in voter enthusiasm.

2. Biden broke 60 years of precedent by winning nationally despite losing prodigiously in bellwether states and counties. The last time this happened was when the mafia got out the vote for John F. Kennedy in 1960.

3. Trump had extraordinary coattails, so much so that even the New York Times admitted that the “Democrats Suffered Crushing Down-Ballot Losses Across America.” Think about that: Biden had no coattails and no enthusiasm, yet he allegedly won a record number of votes. Smells fetid to me.

4. Biden barely made it through the primaries, while Trump soared, with Trump’s performance being a historically sure sign of voter enthusiasm and probable victory – yet Biden, again, allegedly scored an equally historically strong victory.

At The Spectator, Patrick Basham, a professional pollster, also felt that Biden’s alleged win cannot pass the smell test. Again, this is a summary, so you should read the original article:

5. Trump exceeded his original vote count by the largest margin for any incumbent in American history. He got 10 million more votes than before; by contrast, Obama, in 2012, got 3.5 million fewer votes than in 2008.

6. Trump’s support among blacks grew by 50%, while Biden’s fell below the important 90%-mark that Democrat candidates need to secure victory.

7. In the Rust Belt, Biden lost black support everywhere except in Detroit, Philadelphia, and Milwaukee. In those cities, every single black person apparently voted for Biden.

8. While pollsters can and do manipulate polling outcomes, non-polling metrics (historical norms such as the economy, enthusiasm, etc.) have never been wrong – only we’re being told that this year was the exception.

Then there are the indicia of fraud that Dr. Navid Kershavarz-Nia detailed:

9. The fact that Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, Arizona, Nevada, and Georgia simultaneously pretended to halt ballot counting while continuing to count is evidence of election fraud collusion.

10. Optical scanners were set to accept unverified, un-validated ballots.

11. The scanners were almost certainly programmed to fail to keep audit records.

12. In the contested states, the voting machines were alleged to have processed hundreds of thousands of ballots within a short time, which is a physical impossibility.

And here are a few more indications of fraud:

13. In Pennsylvania, statistically impossible numbers of late-arriving mail-in votes went to Biden.

14. Dominion and ES&S voting machines were created to have back doors and specific functions to manipulate votes either at the machine or over the internet.

15. Fox News’s behavior on election night (refusing to call pro-Trump outcomes while prematurely calling Arizona for Biden) was so abnormal that Vegas oddsmakers instantly assumed that the fix was in.

16. The allegedly late-arriving mailed-in ballots increased Biden’s equally alleged lead with statistically impossible perfection and stability.

17. There were anomalies in Virginia that suggested that computers were subtracting votes from Trump and, sometimes, giving them to Biden.

18. One analysis shows that voting machines in Michigan systematically removed votes from Trump and handed them to Biden. I saw a rebuttal (which I cannot locate now) that purported to debunk this but did so by using a different scale on the X-axis, which I found inherently suspicious.

19. Over 100,000 Pennsylvania absentee ballots were returned either a day after they were mailed out, on the day they were mailed out, or on the day before they were mailed out.

20. In all the contested areas, and at Dominion’s website, Democrats have been systematically failing to create or have destroyed all data that could be used to demonstrate fraud. This creates the legal presumption that the data do, in fact, show fraud. 

On behalf of all Trump voters, I say to the Democrats who are trying to gaslight us: Don’t spit in my face and tell me it’s raining.

Detailed summary of election fraud in the 2020 Presidential race

 Authored by Patrick Basham via The Spectator,

Reasons why the 2020 presidential election is deeply puzzling

To say out-loud that you find the results of the 2020 presidential election odd is to invite derision. You must be a crank or a conspiracy theorist. Mark me down as a crank, then.

I am a pollster and I find this election to be deeply puzzling. I also think that the Trump campaign is still well within its rights to contest the tabulations. Something very strange happened in America’s democracy in the early hours of Wednesday November 4 and the days that followed. It’s reasonable for a lot of Americans to want to find out exactly what.

First, consider some facts.

President Trump received more votes than any previous incumbent seeking reelection. He got 11 million more votes than in 2016, the third largest rise in support ever for an incumbent. By way of comparison, President Obama was comfortably reelected in 2012 with 3.5 million fewer votes than he received in 2008.

Trump’s vote increased so much because, according to exit polls, he performed far better with many key demographic groups. Ninety-five percent of Republicans voted for him. He did extraordinarily well with rural male working-class whites.

He earned the highest share of all minority votes for a Republican since 1960. Trump grew his support among black voters by 50 percent over 2016. Nationally, Joe Biden’s black support fell well below 90 percent, the level below which Democratic presidential candidates usually lose.

Trump increased his share of the national Hispanic vote to 35 percent. With 60 percent or less of the national Hispanic vote, it is arithmetically impossible for a Democratic presidential candidate to win Florida, Arizona, Nevada, and New Mexico. Bellwether states swung further in Trump’s direction than in 2016. Florida, Ohio and Iowa each defied America’s media polls with huge wins for Trump. Since 1852, only Richard Nixon has lost the electoral college after winning this trio, and that 1960 defeat to John F. Kennedy is still the subject of great suspicion.

Midwestern states Michigan, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin always swing in the same direction as Ohio and Iowa, their regional peers. Ohio likewise swings with Florida. Current tallies show that, outside of a few cities, the Rust Belt swung in Trump’s direction. Yet, Biden leads in Michigan, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin because of an apparent avalanche of black votes in Detroit, Philadelphia, and Milwaukee. Biden’s ‘winning’ margin was derived almost entirely from such voters in these cities, as coincidentally his black vote spiked only in exactly the locations necessary to secure victory. He did not receive comparable levels of support among comparable demographic groups in comparable states, which is highly unusual for the presidential victor.

We are told that Biden won more votes nationally than any presidential candidate in history. But he won a record low of 17 percent of counties; he only won 524 counties, as opposed to the 873 counties Obama won in 2008. Yet, Biden somehow outdid Obama in total votes.

Victorious presidential candidates, especially challengers, usually have down-ballot coattails; Biden did not.

The Republicans held the Senate and enjoyed a ‘red wave’ in the House, where they gained a large number of seats while winning all 27 toss-up contests. Trump’s party did not lose a single state legislature and actually made gains at the state level.

Another anomaly is found in the comparison between the polls and non-polling metrics. The latter include: party registrations trends; the candidates’ respective primary votes; candidate enthusiasm; social media followings; broadcast and digital media ratings; online searches; the number of (especially small) donors; and the number of individuals betting on each candidate.

Despite poor recent performances, media and academic polls have an impressive 80 percent record predicting the winner during the modern era. But, when the polls err, non-polling metrics do not; the latter have a 100 percent record. Every non-polling metric forecast Trump’s reelection. For Trump to lose this election, the mainstream polls needed to be correct, which they were not. Furthermore, for Trump to lose, not only did one or more of these metrics have to be wrong for the first time ever, but every single one had to be wrong, and at the very same time; not an impossible outcome, but extremely unlikely nonetheless.

Atypical voting patterns married with misses by polling and non-polling metrics should give observers pause for thought. Adding to the mystery is a cascade of information about the bizarre manner in which so many ballots were accumulated and counted.

The following peculiarities also lack compelling explanations:

1. Late on election night, with Trump comfortably ahead, many swing states stopped counting ballots. In most cases, observers were removed from the counting facilities. Counting generally continued without the observers

2. Statistically abnormal vote counts were the new normal when counting resumed. They were unusually large in size (hundreds of thousands) and had an unusually high (90 percent and above) Biden-to-Trump ratio

3. Late arriving ballots were counted. In Pennsylvania, 23,000 absentee ballots have impossible postal return dates and another 86,000 have such extraordinary return dates they raise serious questions

4. The failure to match signatures on mail-in ballots. The destruction of mail in ballot envelopes, which must contain signatures

5. Historically low absentee ballot rejection rates despite the massive expansion of mail voting. Such is Biden’s narrow margin that, as political analyst Robert Barnes observes, ‘If the states simply imposed the same absentee ballot rejection rate as recent cycles, then Trump wins the election’

6. Missing votes. In Delaware County, Pennsylvania, 50,000 votes held on 47 USB cards are missing

7. Non-resident voters. Matt Braynard’s Voter Integrity Project estimates that 20,312 people who no longer met residency requirements cast ballots in Georgia. Biden’s margin is 12,670 votes

8. Serious ‘chain of custody’ breakdowns. Invalid residential addresses. Record numbers of dead people voting. Ballots in pristine condition without creases, that is, they had not been mailed in envelopes as required by law

9. Statistical anomalies. In Georgia, Biden overtook Trump with 89 percent of the votes counted. For the next 53 batches of votes counted, Biden led Trump by the same exact 50.05 to 49.95 percent margin in every single batch. It is particularly perplexing that all statistical anomalies and tabulation abnormalities were in Biden’s favor. Whether the cause was simple human error or nefarious activity, or a combination, clearly something peculiar happened.

If you think that only weirdos have legitimate concerns about these findings and claims, maybe the weirdness lies in you.