INSIGHT Issue 28 (2022) by The Epoch Times

HOSPITAL ‘DEATH PROTOCOLS’ Families unite to get justice over questionable hospital COVID-19 protocols By Matt McGregor

A E MR C I N

P R ED I

Patriotism lives year-round on an Ohio community’s avenue of flags. p.24

NTOVEMH The gun industry abandons blue states for “firearmsfriendly” destinations. p.28

C E O RI V

C NO T L R

Population control programs use forcible methods, documented in about 40 countries. p.38 JULY 15–21, 2022 | $6.95

I N S I G H T July 15–21, 2022 1 28 NO.

Editor’s Note

Families Seek Justice a c r o s s t h e n at i o n , p e o p l e w h o s e l o v e d

ones died in hospitals want justice. They say it’s not COVID-19 that proved deadly, but rather the hospital treatments they describe as “death protocols.” Ashley Wines, a nursing student whose 32-year-old fiancé died in the hospital several weeks after being admitted, said she wasn’t allowed to question the protocols the staff were following to treat her future husband. She was eventually banned from calling the hospital and speaking with her fiancé. Additionally, if a loved one was admitted to the hospital unvaccinated, the families say staff members treated them worse than other patients. “They scare these people to death through emotional and psychological abuse,” Carolyn Blakeman told Insight. She has collected stories from 200 families. “We had a victim whose husband literally had to break her out, with cops chasing them down the hallway to their getaway car. They are treated worse than prisoners.” Katrin Crum, whose husband died in the hospital, says it was due to the protocols. “He did not die of COVID. He died from the federal COVID protocols that were dictated to every hospital in the country,” she said. Crum and others say they hope to hold the hospitals responsible. “We are going to fight. We want the protocols to stop, and we want to hold these people accountable,” she said. “We are going to get justice.”

Jasper Fakkert Editor-in-chief

2 I N S I G H T July 15–21, 2022

HOSPITAL ‘DEATH PROTOCOLS’ Families unite to get justice over questionable hospital COVID-19 protocols By Matt McGregor

AMERICAN PRIDE Patriotism lives year-round on an Ohio community’s avenue of flags. p.24

ON THE MOVE The gun industry abandons blue states for “firearmsfriendly” destinations. p.28

COERCIVE CONTROL Population control programs use forcible methods, documented in about 40 countries. p.38 JULY 15–21, 2022 | $6.95

NO. 28

ON THE COVER Ashley Wines mourns her fiancé, Phillip Carron, who died in the hospital in October 2021. MORGAN HENRY PHOTOGRAPHY FOR THE EPOCH TIMES

JASPER FAKKERT EDITOR-IN-CHIEF CHANNALY PHILIPP LIFE & TRADITION, TRAVEL EDITOR CHRISY TRUDEAU MIND & BODY EDITOR CRYSTAL SHI HOME, FOOD EDITOR SHARON KILARSKI ARTS & CULTURE EDITOR BILL LINDSEY LUXURY EDITOR FEI MENG ILLUSTRATOR SHANSHAN HU PRODUCTION CONTACT US THE EPOCH TIMES ASSOCIATION INC. 229 W.28TH ST., FL.7 NEW YORK, NY 10001 ADVERTISING ADVERTISENOW@EPOCHTIMES.COM SUBSCRIPTIONS, GENERAL INQUIRIES, LETTERS TO THE EDITOR HELP.THEEPOCHTIMES.COM (USPS21-800)IS PUBLISHED WEEKLY BY THE EPOCH MEDIA GROUP, 9550 FLAIR DR. SUITE 411, EL MONTE, CA 91731-2922. PERIODICAL POSTAGE PAID AT EL MONTE, CA, AND ADDITIONAL MAILING OFFICES. POSTMASTER: SEND ADDRESS CHANGES TO THE EPOCH TIMES, 229 W. 28TH STREET, FLOOR 5, NEW YORK, NY 10001.

vol. 2 | no. 28 | july 15–21, 2022

16 | Energy

49 | US Consumer

24 | American Pride

50 | Press On,

26 | 2022 Midterms

52 | War on Humanity

Independence A startup seeks to combat ESG and stakeholder capitalism.

Spending Consumers are choosing to stay at home, dampening the retail outlook.

Regardless Picking yourself up and moving forward is how goals are achieved.

Ohio community’s Avenue of Flags program inspires the American spirit.

Sharp ideological differences shape a South Texas congressional race.

How Big Tech and big government are driving society apart.

56 | The House of Cash

28 | Gun Makers

Go South The firearms industry abandons blue states to avoid crushing regulations.

44 | Price Controls

Bezos versus bozos: Government always resents entrepreneurs.

45 | China Competition Tesla seems to be losing ground in China due to competition with a Chinese EV maker.

46 | Housing Market Residential buyers are facing two contrary forces in real estate.

47 | Cancel Culture

A banker quits after facing backlash for his remarks about climate activists.

48 | Monetary Policy

If central banks don’t tackle inflation, a crisis will lead to deflation.

Features 12 | Cashing In on Trump Unendorsed Arizona AG Mark Brnovich could face “ugly” political cost for luring donors with Trump’s image. 18 | Political Fundraising Legislation would ban lawmaker fundraising calls while Congress is in session. 30 | Hospital ‘Death Protocols’ Families unite to get justice over questionable hospital COVID-19 protocols that led to deaths.

THE LEAD

38 |

What Population Control Really Is

Coercive population control programs, such as forced sterilization, have been documented in about 40 countries. Twitter Inc. has filed a lawsuit against Elon Musk, after the tech billionaire opted to pull out of a $44 billion deal to purchase the social media firm. BRITTA PEDERSEN-POOL/GETTY IMAGES

A welcoming estate designed by Johnny Cash for his family.

58 | Portugal’s

Secret Gem Come explore a lesser-known but very appealing area of the Iberian Peninsula.

60 | Picnic Perfection With lots of summer left, let’s plan the best picnic ever.

63 | Get Wet!

A collection of unique gear to make your pool parties legendary.

66 | Miami Spice

Niven Patel’s restaurants are theme parks for your tastebuds.

67 | Electronic

Etiquette A few key suggestions on manners for social media interaction. I N S I G H T July 15–21, 2022 3

SPOTLIGHT

Bull-Running Festival

A YOUNG BULL JUMPS OVER ARTICIPANTS after the encierro (bull run) of the San Fermín festival in Pamplona, Spain, on July 10. On each day of the festival, six bulls are released at 8 a.m. to run from their corral through the narrow, cobbled streets of the old town, over an 850meter course. Ahead of them are the runners, who try to stay close to the bulls without falling over or getting trampled. PHOTO BY JOSE JORDAN/AFP VIA GETTY IMAGES

4 I N S I G H T June 24–30, 2022

I N S I G H T July 15–21, 2022 5

SHEN YUN SHOP

Great Culture Revived. Fine Jewelry | Italian Scarves | Home Decor

ShenYunShop.com

6 I N S I G H T July 15–21, 2022

Tel: 1.80 0.208.2384

NAT ION • WOR L D • W H AT H A P P E N E D T H I S W E E K

The Week

No.28

A man shows a Remington 700 hunting rifle and a Remington 1100 shotgun available for sale at Atlantic Outdoors gun shop in Stokesdale, N.C., on March 26, 2018. PHOTO BY BRIAN BLANCO/GETTY IMAGES

Gun Makers Go South Cashing In on Trump

Pride in the American Flag

Unendorsed Arizona AG Mark Brnovich could face “ugly” political costs for luring donors with Trump’s image. 12

Ohio community’s Avenue of Flags program inspires American spirit. 24

28 What Population Control Really Is Coercive population control programs, such as forced sterilization, have been documented in about 40 countries. 38

INSIDE I N S I G H T July 15–21, 2022 7

The Week in Short US

sr e t n ec era c y c na g er P“ st e gra t eh t ne b e v a h .

stluas a t neloiv f o dna ms iladna v f o ” .s k c a t a l u f e t a h

53%

Heidi Matzke, executive director, Alternatives Pregnancy Center in Sacramento, Calif.

“We’re going to see the weak retailers start to really suffer.” 62,000 SOLDIERS About 40,000 National Guard and 22,000 reserve soldiers will be barred from service for rejecting the COVID vaccines, U.S. Army officials say.

70%

A MagnifyMoney poll shows that 70 percent of Americans believe a recession is coming, and around two-thirds of those polled say they’re not financially prepared for one.

9.1%

The U.S. annual inflation rate climbed to 9.1 percent in June, the highest level since November 1981.

97 % — So-called natural immunity is 97 percent effective against severe COVID-19 after 14

months, remaining superior to the protection conferred by COVID-19 vaccines, according to a study. 8 I N S I G H T July 15–21, 2022

THIS PAGE FROM TOP: ANNA MONEYMAKER/GETTY IMAGES, MARIO TAMA/GETTY IMAGES, SHUTTERSTOCK; RIGHT PAGE FROM TOP: BRENT STIRTON/GETTY IMAGES, JUSTIN SULLIVAN/GETTY IMAGES

Gerald Storch, former CEO, Toys R Us, warning that a consumer recession is on the way.

Fifty-three percent of respondents who identified as Democrats in a Rasmussen Reports poll said they would favor legislation that would abolish the Supreme Court and replace it with a court of justices elected by the American people.

The Week in Short US HEALTH

Emails Confirm Why CDC Changed Definitions of Vaccine, Vaccinated NEWLY OBTAINED EMAILS confirm

H-2A temporary agricultural workers with Fresh Harvest wash their hands before work in Greenfield, Calif., on April 28, 2020. LABOR

Biden Touts Allowing Record Number of Foreign Workers From Mexico PRESIDENT JOE BIDEN touted the “record” number of foreign workers his

administration has allowed into the United States from Mexico, stating that the move has boosted job opportunities. Biden made the comments during a press conference with Mexican President Andrés Manuel López Obrador at the White House at a time when an unprecedented number of illegal aliens continue to try to make their way into the country. Meanwhile, inflation stands at a 40-year high in the United States, and the number of employed Americans has declined. The current unemployment rate stands at 3.6 percent, according to the Labor Department, marking the lowest rate since February 2020. CALIFORNIA

California Governor Signs Bill Allowing Victims to Sue Gun Makers CALIFORNIA GOV. GAVIN NEWSOM has signed legislation to allow

Californian victims of shootings to sue gun makers and sellers for the harm caused by criminals using guns. The governor said in a video statement that most industries are “held to account” when their products cause harm except for the gun industry. Gun makers and sellers have been shielded from civil lawsuits when crimes are committed using the guns they produce, by the 2005 Protection of Lawful Commerce in Arms Act. The new state law, which will go into effect in July 2023, takes advantage of an exemption to the federal statute that allows gun makers or sellers to be sued for violations of state laws concerning the sale or marCalifornia Gov. Gavin Newsom speaks in San Francisco on Feb. 9. keting of firearms.

that the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) changed its definition for both “vaccine” and “vaccinated” because people were pointing out that the definitions didn’t seem to apply to the COVID-19 shots. “The definition of vaccine we have posted is problematic and people are using it to claim the COVID-19 vaccine is not a vaccine based on our own definition,” Alycia Downs, a CDC official, wrote in an email to a colleague on Aug. 25, 2021. The definition is located on the CDC webpage on immunization basics. ECONOMY

Small Business Optimism Index Hits All-Time Low THE NFIB SMALL BUSINESS

Optimism Index fell to the lowest point in the 48-year history of the metric in June, as growing storm clouds on the horizon of the U.S. economy threaten the ability of small-business owners to maintain profits. The index, from the National Federation of Independent Business, fell by 3.6 points to an unprecedented low of 89.9, reflecting the growing challenges of maintaining a small business in the 2020s economy. This makes June the sixth consecutive month in which the index was reported below the 48-year average of 98. The score suggests a rapidly worsening outlook for small-business owners, as many of the problems that have afflicted their enterprises show few signs of abating. Signs also suggest that the spending spree is coming to an end as consumers tighten their belts amid worsening inflation and recession fears. I N S I G H T July 15–21, 2022 9

The Week in Short World US–ISRAEL

US, Israel Sign Joint Pledge Denying Nuclear Weapons to Iran U.S. PRESIDENT JOE BIDEN and Israeli

Protestors wave flags and chant slogans after taking control of the prime minister’s office compound during a protest over the ongoing economic crisis, in Colombo, Sri Lanka, on July 13.

Prime Minister Yair Lapid have signed a new joint declaration expanding the security relationship between the United States and Israel. A senior White House official told reporters on a conference call that the pledge will include reaffirming a commitment to block Iran from acquiring nuclear weapons. “This declaration is pretty significant, and it includes a commitment to never allow Iran to acquire a nuclear weapon and to address Iran’s destabilizing activities, particularly threats to Israel,” the official said.

SRI LANKA

Sri Lankan President Sends Resignation Letter After Fleeing to Singapore SRI LANKAN PRESIDENT Gotabaya Rajapaksa has submitted a letter

OIL

OPEC Expects to Increase Oil Output by 1 Million Barrels per Day in 2023 OPEC EXPECTS TO increase oil out-

put in 2023 by nearly 1 million barrels per day due to rising global demand. “In 2023, expectations for healthy global economic growth amidst improvements in geopolitical developments, combined with expected improvements in the containment of COVID-19 in China, are expected to boost consumption of oil,” the organization said in its The OPEC logo at the organization’s monthly report. headquarters in Vienna. 10 I N S I G H T July 15–21, 2022

U.S. President Joe Biden and Israeli Prime Minister Yair Lapid sign a security pledge in Jerusalem on July 14. UK

British Government Puts Online Safety Bill on Hold

THE UK GOVERNMENT has announced

that its new Online Safety Bill has been put on hold until a new prime minister is in place in the autumn, a move that has won praise from free speech supporters. The planned legislation on online spaces has been increasingly criticized by top members of the Conservative Party for handing “unprecedented censorship powers” to the secretary of state and to online regulator Ofcom. The government insists that the bill won’t stifle online rights and freedoms, and will instead deliver on the government’s commitment to making the UK “the safest place in the world” to be online, while defending freedom of speech.

THIS PAGE FROM TOP: ABHISHEK CHINNAPPA/GETTY IMAGES, MANDEL NGAN/AFP VIA GETTY IMAGES, ALEXANDER KLEIN/AFP VIA GETTY IMAGES; RIGHT PAGE FROM TOP: TOMOHIRO OHSUMI/GETTY IMAGES, SIMON MAINA/AFP VIA GETTY IMAGES, ARUN SANKAR/AFP VIA GETTY IMAGES, HUSSEIN FALEH/AFP VIA GETTY IMAGES

of resignation, after fleeing to Singapore following mass protests over his country’s economic meltdown. Rajapaksa emailed the letter to the speaker of the country’s Parliament, two sources said. Fury exploded in the streets of Sri Lanka’s capital on July 13 following the failure of the country’s leadership to honor an agreement for the president and prime minister to relinquish their positions. Rajapaksa fled the island nation for the Maldives, leaving Wickremesinghe in charge as the interim president amid an escalating economic and civilian crisis. Protesters responded en masse to this decision by storming the office of Wickremesinghe, demanding that he also vacate his post.

World in Photos

1. 2.

1. Women wearing kimonos walk near lit paper lanterns during the Mitama Matsuri summer festival, at the Yasukuni Shrine in Tokyo on July 13. 2. Turkana women carry firewood in the area of Loiyangalani, the area worst affected by the prolonged drought, in Marsabit, Kenya, on July 12.

3. Families visit Sri Lankan President Gotabaya Rajapaksa’s official residence in Colombo on July 12, after it was overrun by protestors on July 9. 4. Sheep offered for sale gather for feed at a livestock market in the southern Iraqi city of Basra, on the eve of the Muslim holiday of Eid al-Adha, on July 8.

I N S I G H T July 15–21, 2022 11

Former President Donald Trump during a “Save America” rally in Mendon, Ill., on June 25. PHOTO BY MICHAEL B. THOMAS/GETTY IMAGES

12 I N S I G H T July 15–21, 2022

2022 MIDTERMS

CASHING IN ON TRUMP

Unendorsed Arizona AG Brnovich could face ‘ugly’ political cost for luring donors with Trump’s image BY NANETTE HOLT F O R M E R P R E S I D E N T Donald Trump

Mark Kelly (D-Ariz.). An attorney for Trump’s political action committee (PAC), Save America, sent Brnovich a cease-and-desist letter rebuking the campaign’s penchant for mentioning Trump in fundraising communications, The Washington Post reported on July 4. The letter threatened legal action if Brnovich didn’t stop using Trump’s image and name in “misleading ways,” the newspaper reported. The media outlet noted an example in which the PAC lawyer referred to a recent email from the Brnovich campaign with the subject line “Account Termination Notice.” The email told recipients they would lose the “chance of continuing to receive our Trump polls, Trump rally alerts, and 2024 endorsement opportunities” if they didn’t donate to Brnovich’s Senate campaign. “Your use of President Trump’s name, image, and/or likeness is likely to

A Facebook advertisement archive shows that Brnovich began using Trump’s name and image in fundraising efforts on Nov. 2, 2021, in ads shown around the country. I N S I G H T July 15–21, 2022 13

COURTESY OF BRNOVICH FOR SENATE, INC.

has been trying, unsuccessfully, to block unauthorized use of his name, image, and likeness, especially in campaign fundraising communications, according to recent reports. Because Trump is legally considered a “public figure,” the practice will be difficult to stop, an attorney with expertise in that area of law told Insight. But candidates who’ve used Trump’s name or image without permission could face “ugly” legal challenges for other reasons, according to Florida attorney Jeff Childers, a specialist in commercial and business law. Donors could claim fraud if a supposed Trump connection prompted their giving, he said. Trump’s efforts to stop others from cashing in on his name made headlines on July 4 over a legal tussle with Arizona Attorney General Mark Brnovich. Brnovich is running for the U.S. Senate in the hopes of unseating incumbent Sen.

Politics Elections

deceive individuals into believing [former] president Trump supports, endorses, or otherwise promotes your candidacy for U.S. Senate in Arizona—he does not,” the attorney wrote in the letter to Brnovich, according to the report. In June, Trump endorsed Brnovich’s top opponent, Blake Masters, one of five Republicans on the ballot for the Aug. 2 primary. The winner will advance to face Kelly on Nov. 8. But there’s more to the tussle than just Trump’s preference for Masters in the Senate race. After the 2020 election results were called into question, Trump denounced Brnovich for announcing that he saw “no evidence, there are no facts that would lead anyone to believe the election results will change.” Trump said Brnovich was a “disappointment” who, he claimed, knew the 2020 election was “rigged and stolen.” A spokesman for Trump and the Save America PAC didn’t respond to a request for comment about the legal scuffle. The Brnovich campaign also didn’t respond to repeated requests for comment.

benefitting himself—or his campaign— financially. For certain, the Brnovich campaign needs to carefully consider the political cost, since what comes out in discovery is likely to be pretty ugly for them.”

Campaign Ads

An image of Arizona Attorney General Mark Brnovich with former President Donald Trump appears in a January ad for Brnovich’s campaign for U.S. Senate.

Confused Donors

14 I N S I G H T July 15–21, 2022

Lawyers for the Save America PAC have said ads like this one that ran on Facebook in December 2021 and January were unauthorized.

FROM L: COURTESY OF FACEBOOK, AMBER DORN FOR THE EPOCH TIMES

Trump probably can’t stop the unauthorized use of his image, Childers said. Still, the use of his image could backfire on candidates using it without his permission. “[Former] President Trump’s complaint about the use of his likeness is probably not strong, because political campaigns routinely use adversaries’ images in fundraising,” Childers said. “Imagine the GOP using an awkward Pelosi photo—it happens all the time.” But if people were confused about who their donation money was going to, that could land Brnovich’s campaign into larger legal snarls. “Brnovich is clearly misleading voters by claiming some kind of formal or informal Trump endorsement,” he said. “Brnovich should be worried about legal claims related to fraud. I can imagine, for example, a class action [lawsuit] brought by folks who donated to Brnovich’s campaign relying on his claimed Trump affiliation. “Trump might have viable legal claims, too. Brnovich appears to be intentionally interfering with Trump’s interests while

Since July 8, 2021, the Brnovich for Senate campaign has spent $137,444 on Facebook ads. Many don’t involve Trump at all and instead focus on criticism of Kelly, Democrats in general, or President Joe Biden. Facebook users who click on any of the ads are directed to a fundraising site collecting donations for the campaign. A Facebook advertisement archive shows that Brnovich began using Trump’s name and image in fundraising efforts on Nov. 2, 2021, in ads shown around the country. The first Trump-linked requests for donations included a 10-second video showing Trump with a raised fist. Behind him was an animation of a brick wall being constructed. One variation of the ad reads: “Let’s take back the Senate, but we need you in this fight Now! Chip in here to protect Trump’s legacy and keep America safe and secure.” Brnovich supports finishing construction of the wall the Trump administration nearly finished along the country’s southern border. A different set of ads appeared in the news feeds of Facebook users around the country in November, showing a Trump picture emblazoned with the words: “Defend Trump’s legacy. Join the Trump Legacy Defenders Club now.” Other versions of the ad included messages such as: “100 spots just Opened— claim yours now. President Trump is waiting on You!” Another ad reads: “The Radical Democrats are doing everything in their power to Erase Trump’s Legacy. Don’t let them win, become a Trump Legacy Defender Now! “President Trump’s Legacy is on the line. Can he count on you to step up and Defend Him against the Radical Democrats!?! Limited Spots Available Now! Trump Legacy Defender Club.” The links all lead to a giving site for Brnovich.

Politics Elections

More Trump An unmistakable silhouette of Trump from behind ran in Brnovich ads in January and February with differing messages, including: “Payment Incomplete Your Membership has not been claimed and we only have Hours left before we send President Trump an updated list of the TOP patriots who have claimed their 2022 Membership,” and “We couldn’t believe our eyes and upon further inspection, our worst fears might have just been realized. Have you Abandoned President Trump because your Trump Membership is expiring!?!” The only image of Trump on Brnovich’s Facebook page now is an undated picture of the two men posing and smiling together. It was posted on Jan. 15 with the words, “Great to have you in Arizona, Mr. President.” A similar image of the duo, apparently taken at the same time, appeared in a variety of Facebook ads that ran in January, February, March, and April. The ads included messages such as: “We Must take back Arizona if we want to take back the Senate. Are you going to stand with President Trump, or are you going to sit on the sidelines? If you’re going to sit out, don’t complain when we lose in 2022.” One version reads: “Are you really going to Ignore President Trump? We thought he could count on you. This is your Last Chance to help Flip [Arizona] and Take Back The Senate.” Other ads state: “Mark Brnovich and President Trump are Ready to Retake the Senate. Will you stand with them to Kick Out The Dems? Or do you not care about taking back our country from the radical Left? America’s future is in Your hands,” and “Arizona will be make or break for taking back the Senate. Can President Trump count on you to take back the Senate with him?” Ads in February and March included a picture of Trump alone with the words: “Endorse Trump for president in 2024! Join a list of Day 1 MAGA conservatives endorsing President Trump for 2024.” Those ads asked viewers to show their support with messages such as: “Do you want President Trump to run again in 2024? Reports say he could announce a run at any moment and we aren’t sure where you stand!” and “President

Trump is actively deciding another run in 2024 and this is your chance to Influence his decision! Endorse him before it’s too late! Endorse Trump for President in 2024!”

The ‘Trump’ Name Sells Trump’s attorneys have threatened legal action before for the unauthorized use of his name and image. In March 2021, they took aim at the Republican National Committee’s (RNC) efforts to draw support by using Trump-heavy messaging.

An undated image of former President Donald Trump appeared in this November ad for the Brnovich for Senate campaign.

$233 MILLION

in contributions had been raised by the Republican National Committee using Trump’s name and image from the beginning of 2021 through the end of May.

$98

MILLION

Trump’s Save America PAC has raised more than $98 million this election cycle using his image and name, according to OpenSecrets.

“President Trump’s complaint about the use of his likeness is probably not strong, because political campaigns routinely use adversaries’ images in fundraising.” Jeff Childers, attorney

The Republican Party ignored the threats and has kept up a relentless barrage of donation requests in texts, emails, and ads using Trump’s name and image. The RNC pointed out Trump’s status as a public figure and stated that using his name and image in political speech is protected by the First Amendment. The Trump ads seem to work. From the beginning of 2021 through the end of May, the party had raised almost $233 million in contributions. Trump’s Save America PAC also uses similar appeals with his image and name. The PAC has raised more than $98 million this election cycle and has spent $205,000 on behalf of Republican candidates, according to OpenSecrets, a nonpartisan organization that tracks money moves in U.S. politics. Brnovich had raised $2.54 million as of March 31, according to the Federal Election Commission. He has been endorsed by radio and Fox News television personalities Sean Hannity and Mark Levin. I N S I G H T July 15–21, 2022 15

F U N D M A N AG E M E N T

New Asset Manager Aims to Fight Climate Investing, ‘Stakeholder Capitalism’

An Exxon gas station in Washington on March 13.

The energy crisis is fueling a backlash against large investment firms like BlackRock, Vanguard By Emel Akan

16 I N S I G H T July 15–21, 2022

(environmental, social, and governance) standards that may be in conflict with the interests of their clients. Most big European and U.S. oil companies have net-zero targets for 2050, as well as interim emissions-reduction goals. However, activist investors find these proposals to be unambitious. Thus, they use their voting powers to push corporations to adopt more stringent climate change goals that are in line with the Paris Agreement. Since losing board seats to activist investors, Exxon has cut long-term production plans, maintaining oil output at its lowest level in two decades, according to Strive’s founders. “The same large asset managers who pressure U.S. companies to adopt climate change strategies by reducing oil and gas production stay notably silent as their Chinese portfolio companies behave in the opposite manner,” Ramaswamy said in the statement. “American citizens are left holding the bag twice, both as investors and as consumers at the pump.” In the coming weeks, Strive plans to

FROM TOP: STEFANI REYNOLDS/AFP VIA GETTY IMAGES, TAL ATZMON/THE EPOCH TIMES

few years ago, it would billionaire investors Bill Ackman and have been hard to imagine Peter Thiel. an activist hedge fund gaining three board US Energy Crisis seats at America’s larg- On Independence Day, the startup anest oil and gas company. A fledgling nounced that it launched a “five-week fund, Engine No. 1, with just 0.02 per- national education campaign to draw cent ownership in ExxonMobil, voted attention to the American energy crisis out three board members at the oil giant and how U.S. citizens are unknowingly in 2021, scoring a victory for the climate contributing to the problem through change movement. their investment accounts.” The fund had backing from “big “Americans do not just vote in three” institutional investment November at the polls, they firms BlackRock, Vanguard, vote every day with how they and State Street. choose to allocate their inExxon wasn’t the only tarvestment dollars. Today their get of shareholder activism. money is often used by large The world’s largest oil producasset managers to erode U.S. ers, such as Shell, Chevron, energy independence and and BP, have all faced shareincrease their own energy Vivek holder revolts from activist bills,” the company said in Ramaswamy, investors who urged them to a statement. co-founder of address climate change. The founders of the firm beStrive, during However, the actions of lieve that every day firefightan interview in these investors have crippled ers, police officers, teachers, Orlando, Fla., on U.S. oil and gas production, doctors, and small-business March 8. contributing to the current owners funnel their money energy crisis, according to into these large asset managVivek Ramaswamy and Anson Frericks, ers through their retirement funds. But co-founders of Strive, an Ohio-based as- the shareholder voting and engagement set management firm. behaviors of these investment funds in Launched in May, Strive says it the past few years have pressured U.S. wants to replace the voices of large energy companies to produce less oil and investment firms in the U.S. economy natural gas in the United States, causing with those of everyday citizens. The high energy prices, they said. founders claim that large fund man“Our expectation from this campaign agers breach their fiduciary duties by is to make the energy sector more sucplacing too much emphasis on climate cessful in the United States,” Frericks change and “stakeholder capitalism” told Insight. rather than higher returns. He criticized BlackRock, Vanguard, and Among Strive’s notable backers are State Street for investing based on ESG

Nation Energy

$20

TRILLION

BlackRock, Vanguard, and State Street asset managers collectively manage about $20 trillion worth of assets and wield enormous power on corporate boards due to their voting rights, an expert says.

promote a series of digital videos to raise awareness of the domestic energy crisis. As part of the education campaign, Ramaswamy will also tour the United States for the next five weeks, speaking to Americans about the significance of regaining energy independence.

‘Depoliticized’ Investment The big three asset managers, which hold nearly 20 percent of the outstanding shares of the S&P 500, have made substantial climate pledges during the past few years, according to an article by Harvard Law School Forum on Corporate Governance. They manage collectively about $20 trillion worth of assets and wield enormous power on corporate boards because of their voting rights, according to Frericks. This is problematic, he says, since these three asset managers are all promoting the same ideology, namely stakeholder capitalism and ESG. The World Economic Forum promotes stakeholder capitalism as a better sys-

tem in which corporations seek longterm value creation by considering the requirements of all its stakeholders and society at large. However, opponents criticize these trends, stating that they’re politicizing investment decisions and creating an expensive deviation from basic financial investing principles. “We try to bring new ideas, diversity of thought, diversity of opinion because we think there are 100 to 150 million American investors who want a depoliticized asset management company,” Frericks said. “Our mission is to advance excellence over politics in boardrooms across America.” As part of the education campaign, Ramaswamy will also present shareholder resolutions at the EnerCom Denver, a major energy investment conference in August, with the goal of “rectifying damage inflicted” on the oil and gas sector by large asset managers. Strive has raised $20 million from venture capitalists to help hire staff and build investment products. The first fund of the company will be launched

in the third quarter of this year. Similar to those offered by Blackrock, State Street, and Vanguard, the business is developing large, predominantly passive investment products, according to Frericks. “We’ve been incredibly humbled by the outpouring of support we’ve received,” he said, citing investors and prospective employees in particular. Vanguard and State Street didn’t respond to a comment request from Insight. BlackRock, the world’s biggest investment manager with more than $10 trillion in assets, declined to comment, but referred to its proxy vote bulletin for Exxon that explained the asset manager’s position at last year’s annual meeting. “Over the past several years, we have intensified our focus with the company on its long-term strategy, and Exxon’s underperformance relative to both its peers and the S&P 500 over the last five years,” the fund manager said. “In our vote bulletin explaining our vote at last year’s annual meeting, we emphasized our prevailing view that the risks of climate change and the transition to a lower carbon economy present material regulatory, reputational, and legal risks to companies that may significantly impair their financial position and ability to remain competitive going forward.”

Rising Backlash The energy crisis is fueling a backlash against big asset management firms. In February, The Wall Street Journal Editorial Board criticized Larry Fink, CEO of BlackRock, for pressuring public companies and their executives. “As Americans have poured savings into exchange-traded and mutual funds, index providers have become the de facto largest shareholders of public companies,” the editorial board wrote. The publisher criticized the investment firm for using its market power for political purposes. Fink has repeatedly said that “climate risk is investment risk.” “Every company and every industry will be transformed by the transition to a net zero world,” he wrote in his most recent letter to company CEOs. “The question is, will you lead, or will you be led?” I N S I G H T July 15–21, 2022 17

LEG IS L ATIO N

POLITICA L FUNDR A ISING Bipartisan legislation would ban lawmakers from making fundraising calls when Congress is in session BY MARK TAPSCOTT

18 I N S I G H T July 15–21, 2022

Members of Congress walk down the east front steps of the U.S. Capitol in Washington on Oct. 22, 2020. PHOTO BY ALEX WONG/GETTY IMAGES

Nation Politics

embers of Congress would no longer be allowed to make fundraising telephone calls when the Senate and House of Representatives are in session under a new bipartisan piece of legislation. Introduced on June 15 by Rep. Dean Phillips (D-Minn.) and co-sponsored by Rep. Mike Gallagher (R-Wis.), the proposal, H.R. 8089, or the On The Clock Act, would prohibit “Members of Congress from making direct or personal solicitations of campaigns funds while in session.” The proposal is aimed at reducing the chronic interference of raising vast sums of congressional campaign funds with performing the legislative and representational duties senators and congressmen are elected by voters to do, according to Gallagher. “OVER THE YEARS, members of Congress

have become increasingly focused on fundraising for their next election instead of doing the work they were elected to [do],” he told Insight. “Proxy voting has only made this problem worse. When members go to Washington, they should go to work, and this commonsense bill ensures members spend more time legislating and less time with special interests.” A spokesman for Phillips, the original author of the legislation, couldn’t be reached for comment. To grasp the magnitude of time consumed through fundraising by senators and representatives, an October 2021 study by nonprofit Issue One estimated that the typical senator seeking reelection in 2022 will have to raise on average $13,600 every day of the campaign. The same study found that members of the House of Representatives elected in 2020 had to raise, on average, $6,500 per day in order to mount a winning campaign. Members of the House face reelection every two years, so the pressure to keep asking for money is unrelenting, but even senators, who only have to ask voters to return them to Congress every six years, must keep their hands out. Senators who will be up for reelection in 2024 and 2026 are even now having I N S I G H T July 15–21, 2022 19

Nation Politics

to raise at least $2,100 daily, according to the Issue One analysis. Adding to the pressure is the fact that senators and representatives are also required by the leaders of both parties in both chambers of Congress to devote significant time to “dialing for dollars” sessions at the respective party committee’s offices near the Capitol. The telephone solicitations on behalf of the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee (DCCC) and National Republican Congressional Committee (NRCC) on the House side and the National Republican Senatorial Committee (NRSC) and the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee (DSCC) don’t necessarily benefit every member making the calls. THAT’S BECAUSE THE funds raised by

20 I N S I G H T July 15–21, 2022

FUNDRAISING NEEDED PER DAY OF CAMPAIGNING Senator seeking reelection in 2022: $13,600 Representative who won their race in 2020: $6,500 Source: Issue One

good stewards of our vote, instead of wallowing in the inertia of fundraising. This is a fantastic way to drain the bipartisan swamp of career politicians who remain in elected office for reasons of ego. [It’s] time for them to knuckle down and get to work or get out.” But another senior Democratic strate-

gist, Cristina Antelo, principal of Ferox Strategies, expressed fears that such a ban would mean only wealthy individuals would be able to afford the high costs of congressional campaigns. “Running a campaign is expensive stuff and only getting more and more expensive each cycle. These folks have to raise too much money to take away a bulk of the calendar in their efforts,” she said. “Something like this idea will necessitate—even more than it does now—that only very wealthy individuals will be able to run for office, which, it is not lost on me, Dean Phillips has the luxury of being. I personally want a diverse Congress with members from all walks of life, so I hope something like this doesn’t come to pass.” Antelo was referring to Phillips’s successful career as an entrepreneur prior to being elected to Congress. Open Secrets

CLOCKWISE FROM L: JIM WATSON/AFP VIA GETTY IMAGES, ANNA MONEYMAKER/GETTY IMAGES, CHIP SOMODEVILLA/GETTY IMAGES

the four campaign committees are typically used during an election cycle to defend vulnerable incumbents and aid challengers who are thought to have credible shots at winning open seats or unseating a member of the opposition party. Dialing for dollars for the campaign committees is time-consuming, but members in both parties do it because they know they must in order to have reasonable hopes of landing preferred positions in the legislative process, as well as prime media and speaking opportunities that enhance their national exposure. Campaign strategists in both political parties interviewed by Insight regarding the On The Clock Act found strong opinions both for and against the proposal. Robin Biro, a former regional campaign manager for President Barack Obama, thinks the proposal is “brilliant” because it would strike a blow against “the bipartisan swamp of career politicians” in Washington. “Our elected officials in Congress pretty much fundraise all of the time since their terms are so short, but Americans desperately need for them to focus on their jobs, not just on getting reelected,” Biro told Insight. “I am hopeful that this would enjoy bipartisan support, because it would level the playing field, and maybe—just maybe—Congress can get to work and be

Nation Politics

“Over the years, members of Congress have become increasingly focused on fundraising for their next election instead of doing the work they were elected to [do].” Rep. Mike Gallagher

Political placards at the Kent County Public Library in Chestertown, Md., on Oct. 25, 2018.

estimates his net worth at $64 million. On the Republican side, campaign strategist Brian Darling, a legislative veteran and former general counsel for Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.), sees major problems with the proposal. “As someone who has attended numerous fundraisers while Congress is in session, I don’t see the merit in this proposal. Criminalizing fundraising by members while in session is a feel-good solution to the perceived problem that incumbents have a built-in advantage,” said Darling, founder and president of Liberty Government Affairs. “IF CONGRESS WANTS to really take on

the issue, they would impose strict term limits and reform the rules to allow more input from backbench members of both parties. Congress needs rules reform to allow more debate and amendments on bills. Right now,

Congress is notorious for the leadership crafting legislation behind closed doors then springing it on members, and that has the effect of excluding the American people from the legislative process.” Similarly, Matt Mackowiak, president of the Washington- and Austin, Texas-based Potomac Strategy Group, is doubtful that the proposal can pass the present Congress. “Members of Congress undeniably spend far too much time raising money, but this idea strikes me as unconstitutional. I highly doubt it would ever pass. Leadership on both sides will oppose it,” Mackowiak predicted.

Americans for Limited Government President Richard Manning predicted that passage of the proposal into law would mean “a game will be played with multiple adjournments of each House in Congress in order to facilitate fundraising,” referring to the present arcane legislative definitions of when Congress is actually meeting. “The bottom line is they will find a way to fund their campaigns because their opponents are raising money and unless you are independently wealthy, you need to raise at least $1 million to be able to compete,” Manning said. TAXPAYER PROTECTION ALLIANCE Pres-

ident David Williams lauded the proposal because he believes that “as long as a member is in D.C. on the taxpayer dime, they should be working in the taxpayer interest, not serving their own reelection ambitions.” “As a full-time employee being paid by the taxpayer, their 9 to 5 [Monday through Friday] should be legislating, regardless of if they’re in D.C. or back home,” Williams said. Finally, Americans for Tax Reform President Grover Norquist, who was part of the “Contract with America” team assembled by former Speaker of the House Newt Gingrich that swept Republicans into congressional majorities in 1994, observed, somewhat dryly: “This proposal has the added benefit that Congress would likely respond by having fewer days in session. States where the legislative session is short have fewer stupid laws and lower taxes. That might work with the federal Congress.”

Rep. Dean Phillips (D-Minn.) speaks at the U.S. Capitol in Washington on July 25, 2019. OpenSecrets estimates his net worth to be $64 million. I N S I G H T July 15–21, 2022 21

22 I N S I G H T July 15–21, 2022

T H G IL T O P S National Day

ALPHAJETS FROM THE FRENCH AIR FORCE Patrouille de France release trails of smoke in the colors of the French national flag, over the Arc de Triomphe during a rehearsal ahead of the Bastille Day parade on the Champs-Élysées, in Paris on July 11. July 14 commemorates the storming of the Bastille on July 14, 1789, and the official beginning of the French Revolution. PHOTO BY EMMANUEL DUNAND/AFP VIA GETTY IMAGES

I N S I G H T July 15–21, 2022 23

On five holidays a year, the Centerville Noon Optimist Club places U.S. flags in the front yards of homeowners and business owners.

PAT R I O T I S M

Pride in the American Flag

Ohio community’s Avenue of Flags program inspires American spirit By Jeff Louderback

24 I N S I G H T July 15–21, 2022

3,500 FLAGS

sartedWh l a ms II f o e crjp t en o i a f s l g b r g oh d i en NSSG ni w on IHGSS e d us l c n i rc a o s f l g a d n r eC t l vi g n i oa t h s W p . i h s wn o T

What started as a small project of 33 flags in one neighborhood in 2005 has evolved into 3,500 flags across Centerville and Washington Township on flag holidays. Funds raised from Avenue of Flags subscribers are donated to children’s organizations in the community. The Centerville Noon Optimist Club is the largest Optimist Club in the world. The organization awards around $20,000 worth of scholarships each year. “ONE OF THE tenets of ‘The Optimist Creed’ is

to promote patriotism. Our motto is ‘Friend of Youth,’” said Tom Novak, a co-chairman of the Avenue of Flags and a 27-year member of the Centerville Noon Optimist Club. “The Avenue of Flags illustrates both goals because the flags provide a sense of pride in the community, and the funds raised from the

FROM L: COURTESY OF CENTERVILLE NOON OPTIMIST CLUB, COURTESY OF AMERICANA FESTIVAL

merican flags line the streets of Centerville, Ohio, on Independence Day as a parade highlights the largest single-day festival in Ohio. In this city 15 miles south of Dayton and 45 miles north of Cincinnati, the Americana Festival represents a patriotic tradition reflective of a Norman Rockwell painting illustrating a simpler time, yet the annual event is only part of the community’s passion for America’s heritage. On five flag holidays (Memorial Day, Flag Day, Independence Day, Labor Day, and Veterans Day), volunteers from the Centerville Noon Optimist Club place three-by-five-foot U.S. flags on 10-foot poles in the front yards of homeowners and business owners. The Avenue of Flags has become as beloved as the Americana Festival in this community of 24,240.

Nation Ohio

program go directly to the young people.” Volunteers deliver and pick up the flags. There are 83 teams, including volunteers from Veterans of Foreign Wars and the Centerville High School wrestling team. Even subscribers have become volunteers. Centerville is also home to the country’s largest chapter of the Blue Star Mothers of America, a nonprofit organization that supports patriotism, troops all over the world, U.S. veterans, and fellow mothers and parents of service members. Blue Star Mothers is among the volunteer teams for the Avenue of Flags. Flags are distributed and collected around each holiday. They are made in Valley Forge, Pennsylvania. When the program grew so large that the Centerville Noon Optimists were unsure where they would store the flags, Sinclair Community College’s Centerville campus stepped up, Novak said. The Centerville Noon Optimists have helped six neighboring communities launch their own Avenue of Flags programs. Members who have moved out of state have created an Avenue of Flags in their new town.

“At a time when our country is divided, the festival represents a time when 75,000 people from all walks of life celebrate their city and country.” Dave Paprocki, local

“THE AVENUE OF Flags is especially inspiring be-

cause patriotism is on display in neighborhoods and downtown streets,” Novak said. “One of the most awe-inspiring images you can see is the American flag waving in the wind.” By name alone, Centerville reflects the definition of Americana, which is “things associated with the culture and history of America,” according to the Oxford English Dictionary. There are five communities called “Centerville” in Ohio. Centerville has the largest collection of early stone houses in the state of Ohio. They are listed on the National Register of Historic Places. Surveyed during George Washington’s presidency in 1796, the community we know as Centerville was settled by pioneers such as Aaron Nutt, Benjamin Archer, and Benjamin Robbins. It was Robbins who named the fledgling town “Centreville” after his hometown, Centreville, New Jersey, and because it was located between two rivers and was central to other communities such as Dayton and Lebanon. The U.S. Post Office changed the spelling to Centerville around 1900. Aaron Nutt Sr. was one of Centerville’s early settlers. He served as a Revolutionary War riding spy, and his cottage was built on land provided by President James Monroe for his contributions to America’s independence. At one time, as many as 100 stone buildings stood in Centerville and Washington Township. Today, around 25 remain, including Nutt’s cottage

The Americana Festival in Centerville, Ohio, celebrated its 50th year on July 4.

in the historic district on Main Street. The stone buildings are among the businesses and homes that are dressed up for Independence Day and the Americana Festival. At the city’s Fourth of July celebration this year, the Americana Festival hosted a parade commemorating its 50th anniversary. The event debuted in 1972 as a sidewalk sale for downtown Centerville merchants. It became so popular that a festival was born. Now, the celebration draws more than 75,000 people and is the largest single-day festival in Ohio. Mark Ryan, who owns a real estate agency located in the downtown historic district, hosts an annual party during the festival and decorates his building with American flags and banners. “CENTERVILLE IS A place where patriotism—and

the principles and values on which America was founded—are still appreciated and celebrated,” Ryan said. “We love that we live in a community with a small-town feel that has an Independence Day festival and parade, and American flags on just about every street. It serves as a reminder of another era a long time ago.” Dave Paprocki was born and raised in Centerville, graduated from Centerville High School in 2002, moved away, and then returned to his native town. He serves as the Americana Festival’s publicity chair. “When I was a kid, I remember how excited I felt the days leading up to Independence Day, driving through town and seeing all of the buildings getting dressed up with flags, banners, and anything red, white, and blue,” Paprocki said. “At a time when our country is divided, the festival represents a time when 75,000 people from all walks of life celebrate their city and country, and Centerville’s patriotic heritage.”

I N S I G H T July 15–21, 2022 25

2022 MIDTERMS

South Texas Battleground

Sharp ideological differences shape south Texas congressional race

By Darlene McCormick Sanchez onica de l a cruz, the Republican candidate in the redrawn U.S. 15th Congressional District in South Texas, believes that the stark difference between her traditional values and those of her progressive Democratic opponent will be what flips the district to red come November. De La Cruz will face Democrat Michelle Vallejo in a district that’s heavily Hispanic and traditionally votes blue. Both candidates run small businesses in the district, part of which sits along the Mexican border. That’s where the similarities between the two end. De La Cruz, from Edinburg, was raised by a single mother and put herself through the University of Texas at San Antonio. She’s a pro-life candidate who believes that the United States is a country built on faith and family. She wants a return to former President Donald Trump’s border policies to stop illegal immigration and reverse the Democratic policies she attributes to soaring inflation. Vallejo, who’s from Mission, attended Columbia University and says she wants to make South Texas more “equitable.” Her biography states that she comes from a family of farm workers and that she wants to represent the working class. She

“Thousands upon thousands of illegal immigrants are walking through the border. That affects our national security.” Monica De La Cruz, congressional candidate

believes in keeping abortion legal, offering “rights and opportunities” to illegal immigrants, eliminating fossil fuels in favor of “green energy,” and championing LGBT rights. Her platform seeks to create social programs such as “Medicare for All.” “My opponent, Michelle Vallejo, highlighting her radical progressive agenda, will further show the divide between the Democrats and the Republicans,” De La Cruz told Insight. Vallejo, endorsed by progressives such as Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.), became her party’s District 15 nominee after defeating moderate Democrat Ruben Ramirez by 35 votes in the primary. Rep. Vicente Gonzalez (D-Texas), a moderate Democrat representing District 15, is switching to run in District 34. The Republican-dominated Texas Legislature redrew the South Texas voter map, moving his McAllen home into District 34 from District 15. De La Cruz did well when she ran against Gonzalez, the incumbent, in 2020 for the District 15 seat, losing by 6,588 votes. In November, Gonzalez will face Rep. Mayra Flores (R-Texas) in District 34—a rare matchup between a sitting lawmaker and a newly elected congresswoman. Flores made history in a special election last month, becoming the first Republican to win the South Texas district in more than 100 years, bolstering the Republican belief that they can flip deep-blue South Texas. Flores is a legal immigrant from Mexico who’s married to a Border Patrol agent.

Less Government Intervention

Republican Monica De La Cruz faces Democrat Michelle Vallejo in a district that’s heavily Hispanic and traditionally votes blue. 26 I N S I G H T July 15–21, 2022

CLOCKWISE FROM TOP L: COURTESY OF MONICA DE LA CRUZ, CHARLOTTE CUTHBERTSON/THE EPOCH TIMES, SERGIO FLORES/GETTY IMAGES

De La Cruz, who has secured endorsements from Trump and Republican House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.), said inflation hurts individuals and small businesses and leads to tough choices. The increasing costs have forced small business owners such as herself to lay off workers. Many of the residents in her district are below the median income level, so just buying food and a tank of gas is a struggle. Her opponent’s green energy policies stand to cripple the Texas oil industry, exasperate gas prices, and eliminate jobs, De La Cruz said. District

Texas Elections

De La Cruz brought in almost $2 million more than Vallejo’s $391,000 and spent seven times more than her opponent. 15 includes the Eagle Ford Shale field, an oil- and gas-producing area that stretches from the Mexican border to East Texas. It provides billions of dollars and tens of thousands of jobs to the South Texas economy. Vallejo wants to transition oil workers into a green “jobs guarantee” program with housing, health care, and training assurances, according to her platform. She advocates taxing the rich to pay for “free” programs. Her platform aligns with Democratic socialists, such as Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.). De La Cruz said securing the border is the other big issue for South Texans. She said President Joe Biden doesn’t control the border—the Mexican cartel does. She pointed to the deadly consequences of open border policies. Last month, 53 illegal immigrants died near San Antonio after being trapped in a tractor-trailer with no air conditioning. Others are transported all over the country with no reliable way of locating them once they’re released. “Thousands upon thousands of illegal immigrants are walking through the border. That affects our national security. That affects our American communities’ security. We aren’t tracking them,” she said.

Hispanics ‘Already Conservatives’ De La Cruz says that once Hispanics recognize that Republican values are traditional values, which include faith, hard work, and love for the United States, they’ll leave the Democratic Party—a trend that began in 2020. “Hispanics are already conservatives. I think this is an opportunity to bring up the difference between the Democrats and the Republicans,” she said. Toni Anne Dashiell, a Republican National Committee (RNC) chairwoman, told delegates at the Texas Republican convention that the party is investing heavily in South Texas. She said Texas is home to five RNC Community Centers, where different events are held. That outreach has produced volunteers to get the word out about Republican values. Republicans also have invested in door-knocking campaigns, television, and digital ads. De La Cruz said the National Republican Congressional Committee made an initial investment of $2.2 million in the Rio Grande Valley, covering Texas Districts 15, 34, and 28. They also committed another $688,000 in the San Antonio area,

including Districts 15 and 28. Latina Republicans are running to flip all three congressional seats, which could hand control of the U.S. House back to the Republican Party. “This is a historic time in American politics, and we will be talking about this movement in the Republican Party and American politics for years to come,” she said. The latest federal campaign finance reports show that De La Cruz brought in almost $2 million more than Vallejo’s $391,000 and has spent seven times more than her opponent.

Border Patrol agents apprehend a large group of illegal immigrants near Eagle Pass, Texas, on May 20.

Dems Look to November Critics within the Democratic Party said South Texas shouldn’t be taken for granted. They point to a lack of support in the special election that resulted in a red victory for Flores. But that doesn’t seem to be the case for the midterms. The Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee (DCCC) said in a statement that Vallejo has been added to the Red-to-Blue program, which arms top-tier candidates with organizational and fundraising support. DCCC Chair Sean Patrick vowed to help Vallejo hit the ground running in order to keep the seat in Democratic hands. Democrats praised Vallejo as the candidate that South Texas needs to fight for her district, despite its history of producing conservative Democrats. “Born and raised in the Rio Grande Valley, she understands the experiences of South Texas families who have worked hard for what they have because she’s lived it,” DCCC spokesperson Monica Robinson said in a statement. Vallejo and her campaign didn’t respond by press time to a request for an interview by Insight. I N S I G H T July 15–21, 2022 27

C O M PA N I E S

Gun Makers Go South

Firearms industry abandons blue states to avoid crushing regulations

By Kevin Stocklin

28 I N S I G H T July 15–21, 2022

ida, where the company has begun construction on a new manufacturing plant, bringing as many as 75 jobs to Florida. “If you’re in the gun industry and you have the opportunity to move to Florida, you’re figuring it out, that’s where you want to be,” Dark Storm communications manager Kevin Elder told Insight. When the company asked its employees if they would consider moving south, they didn’t hesitate, according to Elder. “They were ready to go,” he said. Dark Storm was founded to make firearms that are compliant with New York’s strict regulations, “but they just keep adding on more and more restrictions and more hoops to jump through,” according to Elder. “Our clientele is very friendly, and our community, and we try to give back as much as we can,” he said. “We do a lot of charity work and local law enforcement loves us. But as far as the state itself, they

don’t want that kind of stuff up here.” Elder said Dark Storm’s problems in New York went beyond state regulations to also include banks and payments companies. “We had to change credit card processors,” as well as the company’s bank because they were denying service to firearms companies, despite their strong creditworthiness, he said. TENNESSEE HAS BEEN another popular

destination, attracting Smith & Wesson in September and Troy Industries in May, both from Massachusetts. Even before these moves were announced, Tennessee was already home to more than 20 firearms manufacturing companies. Smith & Wesson’s move to Maryville, Tennessee, will include a $125 million investment and create 750 new jobs. Among the many reasons cited by CEO Mark Smith were new laws proposed by

FROM L: PATRICK T. FALLON/AFP VIA GETTY IMAGES, SCOTT OLSON/GETTY IMAGES

f all the businesses that are moving out of blue states, those in the gun industry are leading the pack. Storied firearms manufacturers, some of which have operated in northern states for centuries, are now heading south. Founded in 1816, Remington, America’s oldest gun maker, announced in November that it was moving its headquarters to Georgia from New York. In announcing the move, which will include a $100 million investment in a state-of-the-art manufacturing facility and create 856 new jobs, Remington CEO Ken D’Arcy said, “The decision to locate in Georgia is very simple. The state of Georgia is not only a business-friendly state, it’s a firearms-friendly state.” Also exiting New York is Dark Storm Industries, a gun manufacturer and retailer. It’ll be moving to Titusville, Flor-

Economy Business

A sign with AR-15 style rifle for the Firearms Unknown Guns & Ammo gun store, in Yuma, Ariz., on June 2. Massachusetts’s Democratic-led legislature banning the sale, possession, and manufacture of “assault weapons” and “large-capacity magazines” for civilian use. Smith noted that these products make up 60 percent of his company’s revenue. Steve Troy, CEO of Troy Industries, also cited the “changing climate for firearms manufacturers” in Massachusetts, which “determined the need for our relocation to Tennessee.” Troy Industries will invest $7 million in Clarksville, Tennessee, creating 75 jobs. OTHER FIREARMS COMPANIES leaving

blue states include Kimber Manufacturing, which left New York for Alabama; Winchester Centerfire, which left Illinois for Mississippi; Stag Arms, which left Connecticut for Wyoming; and Magpul Industries, which left Colorado for Wyoming and Texas. The migration of the firearms industry is part of a wider movement by U.S. firms to escape high-tax, high-regulation states such as California, New York, Illinois, and New Jersey. But gun makers are in a particular hurry to exit these states in response to new laws and regulations seemingly intended to drive them out. What all of the destination states have in common is that “they are respectful of the contributions that these businesses make to state economies,” National Shooting Sports Foundation Managing Director Mark Oliva told Insight. “And they are respectful of the Second Amendment rights of consumers who are buying these firearms,” he said. The firearms industry is a rapidly growing business. “Our last economic impact report showed that we have grown 270 percent since 2008,” Oliva said. “And it’s an industry that continues to grow every year.” About 20 million firearms were purchased in 2021, the second-highest year on record after 2020, when nearly 22 million were sold. Firearms owners are an increasingly diverse group, with women and minorities making up the

Gun makers are in a hurry to exit states like California, New York, Illinois, and New Jersey, in response to new laws and regulations seemingly intended to drive them out.

to sue gun makers for injuries caused by the guns they make. New Jersey and California are looking at similar legislation, and in February, grieving parents of elementary school children who were shot in the 2012 Sandy Hook massacre in Connecticut successfully sued Remington, the manufacturer of the rifle used in that tragedy, on the grounds that it was marketed improperly under a Connecticut consumer protection law. PRESIDENT JOE BIDEN has called for

fastest-growing percentage of new gun owners. U.S. small-arms makers also supply police and the military. According to the 1933 Buy America Act, the federal government must buy from U.S. companies whenever possible. This has led many foreign arms makers, including Austria-based Glock, Italy-based Beretta, and Czech-based CZG to set up manufacturing in the United States. Beretta initially set up manufacturing in Maryland, but moved to Tennessee in 2016. Glock manufactures in Smyrna, Georgia, and CZG bought Colt Manufacturing in 2021, giving it production facilities in the United States and Canada. HOWEVER, EFFORTS TO put the gun in-

dustry out of business are continuing, both at the federal and state level. Last June, New York state passed a law making it easier for the state and its residents

nationwide bans of semi-automatic rifles and magazines with more than 10 rounds, has spoken out against the use of 9-millimeter ammunition, and has demanded the repeal of the 2005 Protection of Lawful Commerce in Arms Act, which protects the gun industry from lawsuits regarding “criminal or unlawful misuse” of firearms. Biden claimed, falsely, in April 2021 that “the only industry in America, billion-dollar industry, that can’t be sued, exempt from being sued, are gun manufacturers.” “President Biden stood on the campaign stage in one of the early debates and said that firearms manufacturers are the enemy—not an adversary, not an opponent, an enemy,” Oliva said. “That is compelling when our commander in chief views the industry that provides the means to protect our nation, protect our communities, and protect ourselves, as the enemy.”

National Rifle Association members visit exhibitor booths at the NRA’s 146th annual meeting in Atlanta on April 29, 2017. Remington’s CEO said the firearms manufacturer moved to Georgia because the state is not only “business-friendly,” but also “firearms-friendly.” I N S I G H T July 15–21, 2022 29

Ashley Wines, a nursing student, lost her 32-year-old fiancé Phillip Carron on Oct. 14, 2021, after he was admitted on Sept. 23. PHOTO COURTESY OF ASHLEY WINES

COVID-19

HOSPITAL ‘DEATH PROTOCOLS’ Families unite to get justice over questionable hospital COVID-19 procedures BY MATT MCGREGOR 30 I N S I G H T July 15–21, 2022

I N S I G H T July 15–21, 2022 31

The Lead Medicine

32 I N S I G H T July 15–21, 2022

Katrin Crum’s husband, Richard, 58, was admitted on Oct. 21, 2021, and died in the hospital on Nov. 5. Crum started the private Facebook group “C19 Widows/Widowers that want JUSTICE.”

‘We Need Massive Investigations’ Brad Geyer, a former federal prosecutor for 21 years with the Department of Justice and the FBI, told Insight, “We found these testimonial accounts to be so overwhelming, unimpeachable, and compelling that it might be exactly what we need to break the spell.” Dr. Peter McCullough, a renowned cardiologist who has spoken out against COVID-19 protocols, is the president of FFFF, a New Jersey-based nonprofit made up of former federal agents, prosecutors, lawyers, medical professionals, researchers, and volunteers whose efforts are geared toward exposing what it has determined are fraudulent COVID-19

practices established by the medical establishment, as well as Marxist ideologies that have infiltrated U.S. institutions and have directed society into a “new normal” of unconstitutionality. There are several goals of the project, one being to create a historical document on what has taken place for those who can’t get their voices heard in mainstream media outlets that have been corrupted by the “safe and effective” feedback loop, Geyer said. Then, FFFF finds representation for the victims while building a larger, collective case for crimes against humanity investigations. There’s also the goal of putting pressure on elected officials to hold everyone involved accountable, he said.

FROM L: COURTESY OF RICHARD AND KATRIN CRUM, COURTESY OF ALETHA CHAVEZ

he stories of families whose loved ones died in the hospital because of what they call “death protocols” are strikingly similar. The patients were all scorned because of their unvaccinated status and were given a combination of sedatives and the antiviral drug remdesivir. They were also kept isolated and malnourished, and ultimately put on a ventilator before dying. After the deaths of their loved ones, the families were left in confusion and with inconceivable stories that many wouldn’t believe—stories of chilling administrative cruelty. The FormerFedsGroup Freedom Foundation (FFFF) has gathered about 200 of these stories through its COVID-19 Humanity Betrayal Memory Project to build an online database of testimonies for the purpose of surveying accounts of treatment for the sick unvaccinated and prosecuting any cases involving alleged abuse. “They are horror stories,” Carolyn Blakeman, media director and task force coordinator for FFFF, told Insight. Many of these hospital deaths occurred in 2021, after COVID-19 vaccine mandates were announced by President Joe Biden. In some cases, people who didn’t want to take the experimental vaccine were being fired from their jobs, while unvaccinated patients in hospitals were being treated much differently than their vaccinated counterparts. The phrase “the pandemic of the unvaccinated” was used by public officials to place blame on those who chose not to take vaccines that later proved to not be as safe and effective as touted. Reports from people such as Scott Schara in Wisconsin and Anne Quiner in Minnesota began to reveal patterns of behavior by hospital administrators that suggested medical discrimination and protocols that many allege led to the barbaric deaths of their loved ones. To grasp how health officials, physicians, and citizens were falling in lockstep with what appeared to be a global trance, Dr. Robert Malone, a pioneer of mRNA technology, presented the idea that many had fallen into “mass formation psychosis.”

The Lead Medicine

“What is the purpose of sedating patients with 15 different drugs, including fentanyl, and withholding food and water while keeping them isolated from their families?” Geyer said. “We need massive investigations.”

‘They Scare These People to Death Through Emotional and Psychological Abuse’ In each story, Blakeman said family members have told her that doctors presented the same case for a ventilator. “If I’ve heard that once, I’ve heard it 200 times in the exact words: ‘We’re just going to put you on the vent for a couple of days to give your lungs a rest,’” she said. “It’s like they all got the same memo on what to tell their patients. It’s insane.” There’s also the “COVID cocktail” that’s set before every patient, Blakeman said, which she called a kidney-failing combination of remdesivir, vancomycin, and dexamethasone. Each report also includes vitriolic contempt from doctors for the unvaccinated patients. “They scare these people to death through emotional and psychological abuse,” Blakeman said. “We had a victim whose husband literally had to break her out, with cops chasing them down the hallway to their getaway car. They are treated worse than prisoners.” The value of the interviews as historical documents will help future generations to remember and not repeat these atrocities, according to Geyer. “Imagine if we could have interviewed all of those in the concentration camps,” he said. “That’s what we are doing here in trying to build a machine that unearths the full truth of what occurred while it can deprogram enough people to get engaged in our effort to ensure our government continues to honor and respect the full measure of rights associated with citizenship and protect our constitutional rights.” Another goal is to set up a humanity restoration board of physicians who have been uncorrupted, such as McCullough and Malone, to administer an organization that would confer, recommend, and advocate for physicians and nurses who want to come forward to make full disclosures of what they’ve done in exchange for leniency and amnesty.

“[My husband] did not die of COVID. He died from the federal COVID protocols that were dictated to every hospital in the country.” Katrin Crum

“If we could create a quasi-governmental entity of physicians and scientists to administer a whistleblower program that would initially be a trickle, it could eventually become a stream and then hopefully a river of testimonies from physicians and nurses who want to get off their consciences what they’ve done,” Geyer said.

‘Our Stories Are Eerily the Same’ Among the people FFFF has interviewed are Katrin Crum, Aletha Chavez, and Ashley Wines, each of whom also spoke with

Insight about their experiences. “It’s been eight months since my husband was killed, and I say killed because that’s exactly what happened,” Crum said. “He did not die of COVID. He died from the federal COVID protocols that were dictated to every hospital in the country.” Crum started the private Facebook group “C19 Widows/Widowers that want JUSTICE,” where she met Chavez and Wines. The group now has 600 members. “All of our stories are eerily the same, and there’s a reason for that,” she said. Crum’s husband, 58-year-old Richard, was a principal at a private school in Washington state that served special needs students. “Over 20 of his former students attended his memorial and spoke about the positive impact he had on their lives,” she said. After Richard’s death—a more detailed account of which can be found on FFFF’s web page—Crum said she turned her grief and anger into activism and advocacy, pouring herself into research. “When the pandemic started, the [National Institutes of Health and] the

Aletha Chavez’s husband, Roberto, was admitted overnight on Aug. 17, 2021, and died on Aug. 26. Chavez said that Roberto was isolated, treated with neglect and disrespect because of his unvaccinated status, and put through the same series of protocols that led to Richard Crum’s death. I N S I G H T July 15–21, 2022 33

stay at the hospital and a lethal dose of fentanyl. The protocols make the patients like her husband sicker and lead to death while reaping high financial incentives from the federal government through the Coronavirus Aid, Relief, and Economic Security (CARES) Act and the American Rescue Plan, she said. Hospitals get reimbursed for admitting or having a patient test positive for COVID-19, which is why there are reports such as Crum’s in which staff continued to test a patient for the virus even if they weren’t admitted with a positive test. She said hospitals get reimbursed for using remdesivir, putting a patient on a ventilator, and having a patient die with COVID-19 listed on the death certificate.

‘A Perverse Agenda’

“We had doctors laugh at us. They told us it was his fault because he was not vaccinated,” Ashley Wines said.

34 I N S I G H T July 15–21, 2022

her way into finally seeing him after 11 days, in the room with him as nurses attempted CPR. “He had wrist restraints on, a sore on his face from the mask, and had lost 36 pounds in 14 days,” she said. Before he died, one doctor had attempted to coerce Crum into agreeing to change his classification to “Do Not Resuscitate,” she said. “I kept refusing, and finally, at the end of our conversation, she was so mad, she told me, ‘Fine, if you won’t change him to DNR when your husband goes into cardiac arrest, I’ll refuse to give him chest compressions,’” she said. Crum had a private autopsy and toxicology report done that listed medical conditions that caused his death other than COVID-19: a 90 percent blockage in the main artery of his heart that went untreated throughout his 16-day

FROM L: MORGAN HENRY PHOTOGRAPHY FOR THE EPOCH TIMES, APU GOMES/AFP VIA GETTY IMAGES

FDA handed down protocols for hospitals to follow in treating COVID patients,” she said. “Never before in the history of our country did a three-letter agency dictate to the doctor what the standard of care for a patient was going to be.” Neither the NIH nor the FDA responded to Insight’s requests for comment. Previously, individual treatment had been left up to the physician and was an open discussion between the physician and the patient, according to Crum. “But now, all of that has been thrown out the window,” she said. “My 58-yearold husband in Washington received the exact same treatment as a 40-yearold woman in Florida who had none of the same health issues that my husband had.” Richard was admitted on Oct. 21, 2021, and died in the hospital on Nov. 5, with Crum, who had been able to advocate

Tom Renz, an attorney with America’s Frontline Doctors and Make Americans Free Again—organizations that oppose unconstitutional federal health mandates—spoke about the reimbursements in a previous interview with Epoch Times reporter Matt McGregor. Renz said hospitals get federal funding through the CARES Act, which gives a 20 percent increase in reimbursement to hospitals for inpatient stays resulting from COVID-19. “The laws are structured in a way that incentivizes hospitals to kill people,” he said. “The hospital makes more money if you die from COVID-19 than if you recover from it. Why don’t we incentivize hospitals for getting people cured of COVID?” In a Texas Senate Committee on Health and Human Services in June, Texas state Sen. Bob Hall alluded to stories such as the ones collected by the FFFF when he said, “Never before have we seen the government step between the patient and the doctor and usurp that doctor’s right to exercise their conscience, their training, and what they know that patient needed.” Hall said it’s something “we need to get to the bottom of” so that it doesn’t become “the norm,” because the treatment isn’t only unhelpful, but also causing harm. “How many people walk into U.S. hospitals and don’t walk out again because of this perverse agenda?” Crum asked. “A very high number.”

The Lead Medicine

‘I Trusted Them’

choice, what would you do? I trusted Chavez’s more detailed account of her them.” husband Roberto’s death in a hospital The next day, Roberto’s heart stopped in California can be found on FFFF’s three times, and on the third time, he web page. couldn’t be resuscitated. He died on Aug. Roberto was a deputy sheriff for the San 26, 2021. Bernardino County Sheriff’s Department “That was the worst day of my life,” who lifted weights and hiked every day. she said. “We were told he was the At first, Chavez said she healthiest person there thought it was just neglect. with COVID,” Chavez said. Then she paid an outside “He never took any medicacompany of physicians and tions, worked out every day, nurses to review Roberto’s and had no co-morbidities.” medical records, which UNDER THE Roberto was aware of showed what they referred CARES ACT, stories of neglect in nursto as many red flags and, hospitals get a 20 percent increase ing homes and hospitals among other issues, that in reimbursement throughout the COVID-19 Roberto had been saturatfor inpatient pandemic, she said. ed with cross-interaction stays resulting “He didn’t want to be addrugs while kept on fenfrom COVID-19, mitted, but we just thought tanyl. attorney Tom that he would go in and get “As I delved further into Renz says. a breathing treatment and this, I found that my story come home, so, I took him is many, many other peoto the hospital,” Chavez ple’s stories,” Chavez said. said. “It’s my biggest regret ‘They Told Us It Was His Fault’ after all I know now.” Roberto was admitted overnight on Ashley Wines, a nursing student whose Aug. 17. story in more detail can be found on From the beginning, he was isolated, FFFF’s webpage, lost her 32-year-old fitreated with neglect and disrespect be- ancé Phillip Carron on Oct. 14, 2021, after cause of his unvaccinated status, and he was admitted on Sept. 23. put through the same series of proto“Phil was a real estate agent here localcols that led to Richard’s death, accord- ly in Bellingham, Washington,” Wines ing to Chavez. said. “He actually just became sales “He had told me he needed to use the manager and senior vice president for bathroom, but couldn’t get a nurse to NW Premium Homes shortly before evhelp him,” she said. “He asked me to call erything happened. We pretty much had the nurses station at least five times since our future set up for us.” they would not respond to him.” Like Crum and Chavez, she encounChavez received a call at 4 a.m. from a tered rabid discrimination because of nurse telling her that Roberto had fallen Phillip’s unvaccinated status, she said. out of bed. “I know my husband,” she said. “He’s not just going to lay there. He’s going to get up and use the bathroom.” The nurse told Chavez that there were no injuries from the fall, but because Roberto lost his oxygen mask, he had gone into respiratory failure, which then led to their petition to put him on ventilation, she said, even though it was never a treatment he wanted. “We had been texting and talking on the phone every day, so I knew he had been fine,” she said. “They told me if we don’t vent him he’ll die, so I was put A doctor checks on a COVID-19 patient at a hospital in California on Sept. 2, 2021. on the spot. I agreed. When given that

20%

“When I tried to drop off some food, one nurse yelled at me, telling me that because he was unvaccinated, he was going to die and that he’s not going to be eating or drinking for the rest of the time he’s here,” Wines said. Initially, Phillip was going to be kept for observation; however, after he denied vaccination, she said he was put on morphine overnight, which she said increases respiratory distress. “The next morning, he’s getting sent to ICU and labeled ‘imminent death,’” Wines said. “A couple of days later, they start giving him precedex, which is a strong sedative, and remdesivir.” After one dose of remdesivir, Phillip went into complete liver failure, she said. Wines’s questioning of the protocols eventually got her banned from calling the hospital, she said, and she could no longer speak with Phillip, so she relied on Phillips’s mother, Pam, for power of attorney. While Phillip was on the ventilator, he lost 86 pounds in 15 days. “I would say 75 percent of the nurses were just nasty,” she said. “Every single doctor was nasty. We had doctors laugh at us. They told us it was his fault because he was not vaccinated.” Wines and Phillip’s mother, Pam, were with Phillip the day he died but left two hours earlier, according to Wines. “I worked in hospice; I know what endof-life looks like,” she said. “There’s no way we would have left had I thought he was going to pass. I find it interesting that two hours after we left, he passed.”

‘We Are Going to Get Justice’ “People don’t want to believe that this is happening,” Crum said, “but as more stories come out, you cannot deny it.” There are hundreds of people willing to come forward to share stories like theirs, she said. “This has got to stop,” Crum said. “I think whoever set this evil system in place thought we would just dissolve into a heap of grief.” Although there are times when they may want to do just that, it’s now become bigger than that, she said. “We are going to fight. We want the protocols to stop, and we want to hold these people accountable,” she said. “We are going to get justice.” I N S I G H T July 15–21, 2022 35

36 I N S I G H T July 15–21, 2022

SPOTLIGHT

Rebelling Against Policy

FARMERS BLOCK THE ENTRANCE OF A supermarket distribution center in protest of the government’s environmental policy, in Nijkerk, Netherlands, on July 5. The Dutch government’s proposed nitrogen policy could necessitate the mass slaughter of livestock and potentially shut down almost a third of the country’s farms. PHOTO BY ROBIN VAN LONKHUIJSEN/ANP/AFP VIA GETTY IMAGES

I N S I G H T July 15–21, 2022 37

SOCIETY

What Population Control Really Is Coercive population control programs, such as forced sterilization, documented in about 40 countries BY EL L A K IE T LINS K A & JO S HUA P HILIP P

38 I N S I G H T July 15–21, 2022

A billboard displaying the message “Have fewer children, have a better life” encourages couples to have only one child, in a suburb of Beijing, in this file photo. PHOTO BY GOH CHAI HIN/AFP VIA GETTY IMAGES

I N S I G H T July 15–21, 2022 39

World Population

ERTAIN ELITISTS

40 I N S I G H T July 15–21, 2022

are the only future that families, communities, and the nation have, he said. “If you have too few children, you’re on a path to basically die out over time,” he said.

UN Population Fund

“If you have too few children, you are on a path to basically die out over time.” Steven Mosher, president, Population Research Institute

Since 1969, when the U.N. Population Fund was established, the foreign economic aid that wealthy, developed countries offered to poor countries has come with strings attached—namely aid recipient countries must have in place a population growth control program, often called population stabilization, Mosher said. “Poor countries, which want the foreign aid to help them develop economically, have gone along with the program,” he said. For example, the Kenyan government, because of foreign pressure, implemented a program with a goal to reduce the birth rate to 2.5 children by

CLOCKWISE FROM TOP: GORDWIN ODHIAMBO/AFP VIA GETTY IMAGES, PETER PARKS/AFP VIA GETTY IMAGES, YORK DU/NTD

and the United Nations believe the world is overpopulated, and so population growth needs to be reduced. However, population control programs in many countries have used forcible methods, says Steven Mosher, president of the Population Research Institute. In the view of billionaires such as Bill Gates, the world is overpopulated; notably, they believe there are too many poor people, Mosher said on EpochTV’s “Crossroads” program. However, since the 1990s, the phenomenon of population collapse has been seen in industrialized nations in Europe, the Far East, North America, and Oceania. This means, Mosher said, that the population fertility rate is below the replacement rate of 2.1 children per woman, which a population needs in order to replace itself from one generation to the next. “Over the last 25 years, that depopulation, that below-replacement fertility, has spread everywhere throughout the world,” he said. “Almost all the countries in the world now are having too few babies to replace themselves, with the exception of some countries in Africa.” But Africa faces the problem of very high infant and child mortality rates, so African couples naturally want to have three to five children so that two or three of them will reach adulthood, Mosher said. In the United States, before Roe v. Wade was passed in 1973, there were about 4 million pregnancies each year, and almost all resulted in live births. After Roe v. Wade, there still were 4 million pregnancies, but a third of them ended in abortion, Mosher said. At that time, the birth rate in the United States dropped below the replacement fertility rate every year, with one exception when it claimed to be 2.1 in all racial groups, he said. However, it plummeted again after the outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic. Mosher hopes that with the overturning of Roe v. Wade, life will be respected again in about half of the states, and the birth rate will begin to come back up close to the replacement rate. Children

World Population

Children stand in line for water in a slum of Nairobi, Kenya, on April 7, 2020. The Kenyan government implemented a program that legalized abortion and the forced sterilization of women who had given birth to two or three children. population of the world is about 1 billion, “which raises the question of what they’re going to do with the other 6 billion of us over time,” he said. In 1974, the U.S. National Security Council produced “The Kissinger Report”, which analyzed the implications of world population growth. Henry Kissinger was secretary of state under Presidents Richard Nixon and Gerald Ford and is a lifetime trustee of The Trilateral Commission. The report outlines a list of projected consequences of rapid population growth in developing countries, with the potential radicalization of these nations cited as a particular threat. It states: “The young people, who are in much higher proportions in many LDCs [less-developed countries], are likely to be more volatile, unstable, prone to extremes, alienation and violence than an older population. These young people can more readily be persuaded to attack the legal institutions of the government or real property of the ‘establishment,’ ‘imperialists,’ [and] such means as legalized abortion and forced sterilization of women who had given birth to two or three children. The program includes a massive distribution of contraceptives, often abortifacient, which overturns the pro-life, pro-family mentality of the Kenyan people, Mosher said. Since the inception of population control programs 50 years ago, birth rates in developing countries have declined dramatically. However, agencies promoting such programs have billions of dollars at their disposal, and tens of thousands of employees, and they won’t “fold up [their] tents and go home,” he said. Even if a fertility rate goes down to 1.3 or 1.4 children, which means absolute population decline, they will continue their programs because the population controllers believe there’s no room on the earth for 7 billion people. They have said in their writings that the proper

multinational corporations. “Migrations into neighbouring countries (especially those richer or more sparsely settled), whether legal or illegal,” the report reads, “can provoke negative political reactions or force.”

Abusive Population Control Program in Peru Mosher said the institute he leads has documented coercive population control programs in about 40 countries. For example, in Indonesia, the military hunts women who already have two children and take them in for mandatory sterilization. “Vietnam went to a two-child policy, which was enforced by forced sterilization and forced abortion [but] many of the other countries didn’t go that far,” Mosher said. A forced sterilization program introduced in Peru in the 1990s was tied to receiving foreign aid from the United States. As a result of this program 300,000 women were sterilized, he said. Peruvian women who didn’t undergo sterilization and the children of those women were denied access to government-provided health care and food subsidy programs, Mosher said. “Doctors and nurses in Peru were given quotas of women to bring in each month for sterilization, on pain of

Two ethnic Uyghur women walk past Chinese paramilitary policemen in Urumqi, Xinjiang region, China, in this file photo. In China, ethnic minority Tibetan or Uyghur women are subjected to sterilization, while women of the dominant Han ethnicity are not, Mosher said. I N S I G H T July 15–21, 2022 41

World Population

losing their jobs unless they complied,” he said. The coerced sterilization targeted mostly the poor, indigenous population, not the descendants of Spanish colonizers of Peru. “It’s always the majority sterilizing the minority, the ethnic minority, the religious minority,” he said. In China, it’s women of the Tibetan and Uyghur ethnic minorities who are subjected to sterilization, not the Han Chinese population, which is the dominant ethnicity in China, Mosher said.

China’s One-Child Policy

42 I N S I G H T July 15–21, 2022

MILLION

ABORTIONS WERE

performed in China from 1980 to 2016, when the one-child policy was in effect.

2.1

CHILDREN SINCE THE 1990S,

the population fertility rate has fallen below the replacement rate of 2.1 children per woman in the industrialized nations of Europe, the Far East, North America, and Oceania.

Newborn babies at a hospital in Xining, Qinghai Province, China, in this file photo. China led the way in population growth reduction with its one-child policy, which used forced abortion even at nine months of gestation, Mosher said.

THIS PAGE CHINA PHOTOS/GETTY IMAGES

China led the way in population growth reduction with its one-child policy, a program that heavily used forced abortion, even at seven, eight, or nine months of gestation. This policy led to “a massive killing of baby girls before birth and after birth,” which caused a shortage of young women in China, as well as massive abuses in terms of forced sterilization, he said. Despite the abuses, the U.N. Population Fund honored the head of China’s family planning program in 1983 with the highest award for achievements in population stabilization. “They actually held up China as a model for other countries in the world,” Mosher said. Mosher went to China in the 1980s, when he was a social scientist at Stanford University, as one of a group of 50 scholars—the first tranche of American scientists selected to go to China. “The society that is normally closed to foreigners was uniquely, for a very short period of time, completely open to me,” he said. Mosher was in China when its onechild policy began, and he followed women arrested by the Chinese regime for the crime of being pregnant with an illegal second, third, or fourth child. Those women were taken to a camp where they were held for days and weeks, and subjected to “grueling propaganda and brainwashing sessions,” Mosher said. Next, “they were taken to a local medical clinic, which had been turned into an abortuary for this period of time, and they were all given lethal injections into the womb to kill their unborn children.”

400

“As if that wasn’t enough pain and suffering, they were then sterilized. It was an assembly line of butchery,” said Mosher, who was present in an operating room and witnessed such procedures. Babies of women who were already in labor when they arrived were killed with an injection of formaldehyde into the soft spot of the child’s skull, administered as soon as the baby’s head was crowning, Mosher said. The Chinese regime couldn’t get local doctors to perform these procedures, so they had to bring in military doctors from the People’s Liberation Army (PLA) carry out the abortions, sterilizations, and killing of babies. Over the years 1980 to 2016, when the one-child policy was in effect, 400 million abortions were performed “which means the 400 million unborn and sometimes newborn children were sacrificed,” Mosher said. The Chinese Communist Party (CCP) ended the one-child policy in 2016, when a labor shortage in the country reached 4.1 million workers, he said. However, the CCP hasn’t released its grip on the population growth; it reinstated the two-child policy that was in place prior to 1980.

P OL I T IC S • E C ONOM Y • OPI N ION T H AT M AT T E R S

Perspectives

No.28

New York’s Tribeca neighborhood. The Commerce Department reports that while mortgage rates remained low last year, buying surged. PHOTO BY ALEXANDER SPATARI/GETTY IMAGES

BEZOS VERSUS BOZOS

WHITHER GOES REAL ESTATE?

LATEST ‘CANCEL CULTURE’ VICTIM

Amazon founder calls out the government for peddling disinformation. 44

Residential real estate will be pulled in two directions. 46

An HSBC banker quits his job after coming under pressure for criticizing climate alarmists. 47

INSIDE I N S I G H T July 15–21, 2022 43

Thomas McArdle

THOMAS MCARDLE was a White House speechwriter for President George W. Bush and writes for IssuesInsights.com.

Bezos Versus Bozos

Amazon founder calls out the president for peddling disinformation

t’s interesting in the extreme that Jeff Bezos, the second-richest man in the world, Amazon founder, self-propelled astronaut, and confirmed liberal who lavished the Obama Foundation with $100 million and bought (likely saving) The Washington Post, which he then turned into a leading digital media innovator, is now an unlikely enemy of the Biden administration. Earlier this month, America’s toughest 79-year-old once again falsely accused oil companies of gouging consumers, demanding of them: “Bring down the price you are charging at the pump to reflect the cost you’re paying for the product. And do it now.” In response, Bezos posted to Twitter: “Ouch. Inflation is far too important a problem for the White House to keep making statements like this.” He accused Biden and his handlers of “either straight ahead misdirection or a deep misunderstanding of basic market dynamics.” Bezos knows full well how the policies of the party he supports add big costs to gas at the pump. A few years ago, there were 1,600 rigs in this country finding and drilling oil. Today, there’s only a fraction of that number, as big-government environmentalists wage war on fossil fuels. Apparently, we actually have in Bezos a Democratic donor who has become embarrassed at the lies he’s helped finance. It didn’t take long for White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre to enter the fray, replying to Bezos on Twitter: “I guess it’s not surprising that you think oil and gas companies using market power to reap record profits at the expense of the American people is the way our economy is supposed to work.” If President Biden and those around him really feel that way, if they really

44 I N S I G H T July 15–21, 2022

believe that companies shouldn’t be “using market power,” then, for the sake of the U.S. consumer, why not impose price controls? After all, the price controls of the early 1970s were bipartisan, with Richard Nixon signing the Economic Stabilization Act passed by a 91st Congress with massive Democratic majorities in both the House and Senate, establishing a federal Price Commission to which Nixon appointed government bureaucrats who would dictate how much sellers would charge for their wares.

Bezos knows full well how the policies of the party he supports add big costs to gas at the pump. Not very many years later, another president would insist that “government wage and price controls have never worked in peacetime. They create unfair economic distortions, and they hurt productivity.” You might imagine that this was spoken by Ronald Reagan. It was actually Jimmy Carter who made the statement in the midst of his presidency’s meltdown in the spring of 1980. But, as if playing the lead in some black comedy, right after Carter bemoaned the failure of price controls, he proceeded to announce the beefing up of the federal Council on Wage and Price Stability— President Gerald Ford’s successor to the Price Commission—to shame businesses into “voluntarily” setting prices, following the advice of federal bureaucrats. “We simply cannot outlaw inflation with a massive federal bureaucracy or wish it away with a magic formula,” Carter assured us. “On the other hand, voluntary wage and price restraints offer the flexibility we need to deal with our complex economy” with prices determined by “a tripartite

advisory committee, with members from business, labor, and the public.” He announced that the council’s “current staff of 80 people will be more than tripled.” “We will investigate wage and price increases that seem out of line with the standards. I mean to apply these standards with vigor and toughness to both business and labor,” Carter said. Voluntary, huh? So even though “controls have never worked,” government-devised “standards” backed by political pressure surely will? A few years earlier, President Gerald Ford had donned a “WIN” button (Whip Inflation Now) and encouraged “carpooling, taking the bus, riding bikes, or just plain walking.” The principle for both Democrat Carter and Republican Ford was the same: The cause of inflation is an excess of freedom in a market that lacks government management—if not explicitly by law, then by intimidation. The first major decision Jeff Bezos made after purchasing The Washington Post newspaper group was to abolish the online paywall for subscribers of the Dallas Morning News, the Honolulu Star-Advertiser, the Minneapolis Star-Tribune, and other publications under its control. Guess what—businesses know that customers who make them money are happy customers, customers who don’t feel cheated. Does anyone really believe that Bezos’s creation, Amazon, attracted tens of millions of consumers by gouging them? And does anyone really think Amazon would have fared better following the price recommendations of some Council on Price Stability in Washington? Making prodigious profits for the benefit of those who freely buy is “the way our economy is supposed to work.” That is, indeed, “market power,” which is to say, liberty.

ANDERS CORR is a principal at Corr Analytics Inc., publisher of the Journal of Political Risk. He is an expert in political science and government.

Anders Corr

China’s EV Maker Is Beating Tesla Tougher tariffs on China would level the playing field

he competition over electric cars is heating up, and China’s BYD just pulled ahead of Tesla. BYD sold 641,000 vehicles in the first six months of the year, with Tesla selling 564,000. Tesla only sells electric vehicles (EVs), whereas BYD’s strength is not only EVs—about half of unit sales—but also plugin hybrids useful for longer trips, heavier loads, and rural and highly urbanized areas with fewer accessible charging stations. BYD’s growth markets and supply chains are better protected than Tesla’s. As a Chinese domestic company, BYD is advantaged in sales to China’s 1.4 billion consumers. Its computer chip and battery operations are inhouse, while Tesla relies on China’s battery manufacturers, including BYD itself, according to a BYD executive (whose interview was later deleted). Just as the going gets tough for Tesla, its founder and CEO, Elon Musk, is distracted. He sold more than $8 billion in Tesla stock to attempt to bring Twitter private. The man isn’t demonstrating total commitment to Tesla during its time of need. Tesla lost about 46 percent of its value since a high last year. The market is bullish on BYD relative to Tesla, with the latter’s price-to-earnings ratio at 92 compared to 270 for BYD. BYD benefits from the regime in Beijing, which will move mountains to ensure—through subsidies and regulatory preferences—that it succeeds in sales globally, from Europe to the United States and throughout the developing world. BYD has another major advantage. It already sells EVs for under $25,000. For Musk, that’s merely a dream. His strong suit is stuck in the high-end, liberal luxury market of the United States and Europe, which has its limits.

China’s market is only available for Tesla to the extent that the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) allows. Now that BYD is pulling ahead, including technologically in some respects, Musk’s star is setting in Beijing. The regime also doesn’t appreciate his Starlink satellite support to Ukraine.

The market is bullish on BYD relative to Tesla, with the latter’s priceto-earnings ratio at 92 compared to 270 for BYD. BYD is positioned to provide affordable EVs to consumers not only in China, but globally, as governments worldwide force their citizens to convert from gas to electric, and China offers the cheapest manufacturing conditions. The autocratic country’s lower wages, worse labor standards (including the enslavement of Uyghurs), lackluster environmental protections, and state-sponsored industrial espionage give its car industry major cost advantages over those in the United States, Europe, and Japan that must compete on an uneven playing field. Ford, Nissan, BMW, Volvo, and Volkswagen are in the same sorry situation as Tesla. On July 6, the heads of the FBI and MI5, Britain’s intelligence agency, issued an unprecedented joint warning to business leaders that the CCP is accelerating its state-sponsored industrial espionage and is attempting to influence our democratic policymaking processes. We must do more to defend ourselves. That includes our EV industry. The United States, Europe, and Japan can and must protect EV markets from

China, which will otherwise use the revenues to fund its military, territorial expansion, and literally cutting-edge human rights abuses. Defending against Beijing requires an all-fronts effort, including the defense of global EV markets from cheap and unethically produced Chinese cars. First, negative externalities should be included in Chinese vehicles, which will raise their prices. To do so, democracies can tax China’s EV batteries, for example, at the point of import, to offset their arguably higher pollution levels in the production process. That includes Chinese batteries imported as part of Tesla vehicles, for example. Tesla must be incentivized to source all of its batteries and vehicles outside China to help deprive Beijing of the economic power it needs to achieve its hegemonic goals. Second, general tariffs on Chinese goods help to protect U.S. markets. They will incentivize Tesla and other manufacturers to build more factories in the United States. The price effect of U.S. tariffs is minuscule. Overall, China tariffs have only increased prices in the United States by approximately 0.25 percent—just a quarter for every $100 spent. And they improve America’s gross domestic product, job market, industrial ecosystem, and tax base. The benefits from U.S. manufacturing multiply over time in a virtuous circle and thus strengthen the United States and democracy, whereas price breaks on Chinese imports empower the United States’ greatest adversary to the same multiplicative extent. Third, American allies can also benefit by mirroring U.S. tariffs to make them truly effective for all concerned. Tesla and other U.S. and allied manufacturers can beat China, but we must take action together. I N S I G H T July 15–21, 2022 45

MILTON EZRATI is chief economist for Vested, a contributing editor at The National Interest, and author of “Thirty Tomorrows” and “Bite-Sized Investing.”

Milton Ezrati

Whither Goes Real Estate?

Residential real estate will be pulled in 2 directions

eal estate will increasingly face two contrary forces. On the one hand, buying will suffer as rising mortgage rates render home ownership less affordable. On the other hand, ongoing concerns about inflation will drive buyers into real estate, as history shows that it provides inflation protection for their wealth, especially in the face of falling stock and bond prices. The balance of these forces will likely drive buyers to make purchases but at a lower point on a likely rising price distribution than they would otherwise prefer. Some of these developing effects are already evident in the available statistics. The Commerce Department reports that while mortgage rates remained low last year, buying surged. In just four months between August 2021 and December 2021, the pace of home buying jumped by 22 percent. In the first two months of 2022, still-low mortgage rates sustained this high level of sales. True, the statistics show a modest retrenchment of 5.8 percent during January and February, but that was less a sign of weakness than it was a reflection of the usual month-tomonth variation in statistics. Things changed in March, when the Federal Reserve began to act against inflation and started its effort to raise interest rates, including mortgage rates. The affordability of homeownership dropped roughly 24 percent from February’s level to April—the most recent month for which data are available—according to a housing affordability index kept by the National Association of Realtors (NAR). Sales fell with that drop in

46 I N S I G H T July 15–21, 2022

affordability, so that by April, the rate of sales had more than given up all the gains achieved in the latter part of 2021. In May, however, sales rebounded, rising 11 percent even as affordability appeared to deteriorate further. This jump could, of course, simply reflect those month-tomonth variations in the collection of statistics.

The median price of a home went from rising some 5 percent in 2021 to a remarkable 10 percent in just the first four months of this year. More likely, however, the sales gain reflects the second and contrary force mentioned above—the desire for real estate holdings to protect wealth from financial market declines and inflation’s other ill effects. People, after all, could see by then that housing was beginning to confirm its historic role of providing inflation protection. The NAR reports that the median price of a home went from rising by about 5 percent in 2021 to a remarkable 10 percent in just the first four months of this year. That more than kept up with inflation. Despite rising mortgage rates, people wanted exposure to this one asset that could keep ahead of inflation. Statistics show that this effect is evident in other ways as well. In December 2021, when mortgage rates were still low and inflation concerns were just budding, the Commerce Department recorded that a disproportionate number of sales occurred at the higher end of the price distribution.

While the median home price tracked by NAR stood at about $360,000, fully one-third of home purchases nationwide occurred at price points higher than $500,000. Only 29 percent of national purchases occurred at prices near the median. Clearly, low mortgage rates enabled people to reach. But with the rise in mortgage rates, people began to trade down in the price distribution. As of May, roughly 53 percent of the purchases occurred at prices closely clustered near the median price. This incipient pattern will likely become more extreme during this second half of the year and into 2023. It could extend for longer in the not unlikely event that inflation persists. Sales at the very top prices will no doubt hold up. Affordability means less to those who buy in that range, while they have a powerful need to protect wealth from losses in financial markets and the other ravages of inflation. Others who once could reach because of low mortgage rates will trade down closer to the median price, while those who always had to buy at the lower end of the price distribution will be forced out of the market. Clustering toward the center of the price distribution will likely continue as long as interest rates rise and inflation presents a reason to buy real estate. Only a recession will bring an interruption. Then the negative effects on income and wealth will force a general abatement in the drive to put money into real estate. There’s another possibility: Inflation abates without a recession, and the Fed consequently takes the pressure off interest rates. However, such a pleasant prospect carries a low probability.

EMEL AKAN is a senior reporter for The Epoch Times in Washington. Previously, she worked in the financial sector as an investment banker at JPMorgan.

Emel Akan

Latest ‘Cancel Culture’ Victim

An HSBC banker quits his job after criticizing ‘nut job’ climate alarmists

NIKLAS HALLE’N/AFP VIA GETTY IMAGES

ancel culture is growing more prevalent in the financial industry, with a prominent HSBC executive being its latest victim. Stuart Kirk, a top executive at HSBC Holdings, announced on July 7 that he had resigned from his position after facing backlash from climate groups. Kirk, who was the global head of responsible investments at the bank’s asset management business, had been suspended after criticizing central banks and regulators for overstating the financial risks of climate change. At a Financial Times conference in May, the British banker said central bankers are inflating the financial risks of climate crisis in an effort to “out-hyperbole the next guy.” During the presentation “Why investors need not worry about climate risk,” Kirk said that in his 25-year career, “some nut job” was always telling him about the end of the world. “But what bothers me about this one is the amount of work these people make me do, the amount of regulation coming down the pipes” to deal with the financial risks of climate change, he told the conference. The bank promptly suspended his job after his presentation received backlash from climate activists. “Ironically given my job title, I have concluded that the bank’s behavior toward me since my speech at a Financial Times conference in May has made my position, well, unsustainable,” Kirk wrote on social media platform LinkedIn, announcing his resignation. “Investing is hard. So is saving our planet. Opinions on both differ. But humanity’s best chance of success is open and honest debate. If companies believe in diversity and speaking up, they need to walk the talk. A cancel culture destroys wealth and progress.”

A Republican senator expressed alarm with HSBC’s conduct, questioning its legality. Kirk’s resignation comes as banks and fund managers are under increasing pressure to promote the transition to renewable energy and to stop funding the fossil fuel sector. However, these pressures have sparked an industry-wide debate over whether climate change really poses a risk to the financial system. Researchers at the New York Fed found that severe weather conditions such as wildfires, hurricanes, floods, and droughts over the past 25 years had almost no effect on banks’ performance. From an investing standpoint, Kirk disagrees with the premise that climate change will create winners and losers in financial markets. He believes that renewable energy stocks won’t always outperform coal stocks since a variety of factors will shift the dynamic. According to Kirk, the finance industry faces numerous threats that are more alarming than climate change. People on social media responded to his speech, with some applauding him

for his honesty and courage and others criticizing his “outrageous” presentation debunking climate science. In his resignation announcement, Kirk said he’s embarking on a new project with “a crack group of like-minded individuals” to deliver “the greatest sustainable investment idea.” “Meanwhile, I will continue to prod with a sharp stick the nonsense, hypocrisy, sloppy logic and groupthink inside the mainstream bubble of sustainable finance,” he wrote. In recent years, cancel culture has taken center stage in public discourse in education, politics, media, culture, and business. Some large banks have also adopted the practice by canceling the credit cards and bank accounts of people and businesses in the United States, with the fossil fuel and firearms industries being major targets of late. HSBC declined to comment about Kirk’s decision. Prior to Kirk’s speech at the conference, the presentation’s theme and content were reportedly approved by the senior executives of HSBC, according to Financial Times. However, these top officials later distanced themselves from him, saying that his remarks didn’t reflect the views of the bank and its leadership. “Our ambition is to be the leading bank supporting the global economy in the transition to net-zero,” Noel Quinn, group chief executive at HSBC, wrote on LinkedIn. A Republican senator expressed alarm with HSBC’s conduct, questioning its legality. Sen. Steve Daines (R-Mont.) sent a letter to Quinn in June, asking whether shareholders, including asset manager BlackRock or any similar firm, pressured the executives to suspend Kirk’s job. “I am concerned that this episode may involve breaches of United States law,” Daines wrote in his letter. I N S I G H T July 15–21, 2022 47

DANIEL LACALLE is chief economist at hedge fund Tressis and author of “Freedom or Equality,” “Escape from the Central Bank Trap,” and “Life in the Financial Markets.”

Daniel Lacalle

Oversupply of Money Is Fueling Crises

Central banks have gone from ‘whatever it takes’ to ‘no matter what’

48 I N S I G H T July 15–21, 2022

If policymakers send the private sector into a crisis due to inaction, the crisis will be far worse than that seen in 2008. being addressed properly. One or two prices may rise because of an external crisis, but the rest wouldn’t rise in unison given the same quantity of currency. Between 2012 and 2014, we saw energy commodity prices soar, yet inflation measured as the Consumer Price Index was low because the supply of currency was in line with demand. We did see enormous inflation in asset prices, however, and policymakers didn’t pay attention to the impact on house prices and markets of enormous liquidity injections. When newly created currency stopped going to risky assets and was targeted at government current spending, inflation shot up. Central banks seem to fear markets. However, it’s better to create a correction in bonds, equities, and risky assets after years of all-time highs than to lead the world to a crisis created by the destruction of the purchasing

power of salaries and deposits. Policymakers should be very concerned about the so-called prudent normalization because the expansion was far from prudent. The pace at which they bloated their balance sheets and cut rates is what they should have been worried about, not the normalization. Consumer confidence is plummeting around the world, real wages are negative, and families are consuming the little savings they had just to make ends meet. At the same time, businesses are struggling with weaker margins as input prices soar. The worst thing that governments and monetary authorities could do is to let the economy slip into a crisis where the productive sector, families, and businesses collapse just because they didn’t want to cut deficit spending and truly normalize monetary policy. By then, the problem won’t be inflation, but deflation coming from the asphyxiation of the private sector. Once consumers and businesses fall, tax revenues will also plummet, taking government debt to new highs. Even Keynesians should be worried about letting inflation run wild because the result would be that governments face an even worse fiscal crisis when the private sector slumps. Inflation can be addressed by properly reducing central bank balance sheets, raising rates, and cutting deficit spending. If policymakers send the private sector into a crisis because of inaction, the crisis will be far worse than in 2008. There’s still time. End the perverse incentives of excessive monetary action. It may still create another leg down in markets, but they’ll eventually recover. The destruction of businesses and families’ disposable incomes is far more challenging to restore.

CHIP SOMODEVILLA/GETTY IMAGES

ost market participants have been surprised by the past six months. The total return of the U.S. Treasury Index was the worst since 1788, according to Deutsche Bank. Stocks closed in June with one of the largest corrections since 2008. Bonds and equities are falling in unison, driven by rate hikes and the normalization of monetary policy. However, there’s no such real normalization. The balance sheets of the main central banks have barely moved and remain at all-time highs, according to Bloomberg. The European Central Bank continues to ignore the highest inflation rate in the eurozone since the early 1990s by keeping negative rates. The Federal Reserve rate hikes have been more aggressive, but it’s still injecting billions of dollars into the reverse repo market, and monetary aggregates remain excessive. In the United States, money supply growth (M2) is still much higher than in the quantitative easing years. M2 money supply has risen to $21.8 trillion, and yearly change shows a rise of $1.3 trillion, which is more than double the annual figure of the expansion phase of 2008 to 2011. M2 annual growth in the United States was 6.5 percent in May, and it was 6.6 percent in the eurozone. Global monetary growth in May was 9.9 percent (all figures according to Yardeni Research). In the eurozone, money supply growth is higher than in the middle of the so-called Draghi Bazooka, the famous “whatever it takes.” Central banks have gone from “whatever it takes” to “no matter what.” I already explained in a previous article that commodities don’t cause inflation, money printing does, and the monetary aspect of inflation isn’t

Fan Yu

FAN YU is an expert in finance and economics and has contributed analyses on China’s economy since 2015.

An Inflation Offset? Consumers Staying Home Lower consumer spending could have an inverse effect on the prices of goods

ould a small reprieve from inflation be on the horizon? Sagging consumer confidence and excess inventory could push the prices of some goods lower, with retail giants warning that their profit margins will be cut heading into the important fall shopping season. The Conference Board, which measures the temperature of the U.S. consumer market, said its national consumer confidence index for June fell to 98.7 from 103.2 in May. A rating of 100 reflects the market of 1985. Its consumer expectation index, which is a measure of future near-term expectations on jobs growth and the economy, fell to an almost 10-year low of 66.4. Another survey, conducted by the University of Michigan, shows consumer confidence slipping to 50 in June from 58.4 in May—the lowest reading on record since the beginning of the survey in 1952. The grim outlook is driven by increasing inflation, in particular gas and food prices, putting a massive dent in consumers’ pocketbooks. The depressed consumer outlook is likely to curb discretionary spending. This could sap demand and have an inverse effect on the prices of goods heading into the fall shopping season.

BRANDON BELL/GETTY IMAGES

Early Indicators Big U.S. retailers are already sounding the warning. For more than two years since the beginning of the CCP (Chinese Communist Party) virus pandemic, an inventory shortage has largely been the norm. When Russia began its war on Ukraine, companies fretted about supply chains snagging and products not getting to where they were supposed to be. The response had been to stockpile inventory. But that strategy is backfiring as con-

The nation’s economic fundamentals have shifted so much, and so quickly, that it had left many well-run businesses flat-footed. sumers are about to pull back. Inventories are building up at retailers. They expect more severe discounting going forward, eating into their profit margins. Walmart said in May during its first-quarter earnings call that it would need to work through its excess inventory “over the next couple of quarters.” Target stated that it will need to cut inventory by offering discounts and canceling open orders. Target also cited that it had excess inventory on home appliances, televisions, and apparel. Official data from the U.S. Department of Commerce for May also suggests a pullback on consumer spending. Hurt by high gasoline prices, consumers had lowered spending in other areas, notably discretionary goods. Amazon, the nation’s biggest online retailer, stated that it had overestimated its need for warehouse space. It announced a massive $3.8 billion loss in the first quarter of 2022, most of which was attributed to slack in its

fulfillment network. In other words, it had to take some losses to cancel or delay new warehouse openings. It also found itself overstaffed in some locations, after reporting last year that it was severely understaffed. While this may seem overly prosaic for a large business operation, we should emphasize how abnormal this economic environment is. The nation’s economic fundamentals have shifted so much and so quickly that it has left many well-run businesses flat-footed. The situation is similar—and potentially even more acute—on the ground. Talk to any owner of a smallto medium-sized business, and they’ll cite the operating challenges in this environment. These challenges aren’t necessarily new, but the speed and velocity of the economic shifts make it hard to cope. Labor costs are sky-rocketing and supply chains are a mess, making inventory management an exercise in futility. The interest rate environment has also been quick to shift. Many businesses are finding their floating-rate loans to suddenly be a lot more expensive. And if you’re an investor in retail company stocks, that’s potentially bad news. If you’re a consumer, that’s a small bit of good news and a temporary reprieve from sky-high prices. The prices of some goods will be discounted in the next few months as retailers work through their excess supply. If you’re an economist, this is potentially a sign that inflation could be approaching a plateau. The economy, and by extension consumer demand, needs to weaken to a level lower than supply, naturally slowing down inflation. This will be closely watched by the Federal Reserve, and it will likely take a few quarters of sustained lower demand and job market weakness for the central bank to stop aggressively raising interest rates. I N S I G H T July 15–21, 2022 49

JEFF MINICK lives and writes in Front Royal, Va. He is the author of two novels, “Amanda Bell” and “Dust on Their Wings,” and two works of nonfiction, “Learning as I Go” and “Movies Make the Man.”

Jeff Minick

Pick Yourself Up and Move Forward Setbacks happen; how we respond is what defines us

t a recent commencement address to Catholic homeschoolers, the president of Benedictine College offered graduates a piece of advice taken from one of his school’s slogans. “Forward,” Stephen Minnis enjoined. “Always forward, everywhere forward.” When you’re faced with adversity, he told the students, don’t spend your time looking back. Move forward. His remarks inspired some thoughts. First, a mild dissent: Before plunging forward, it often pays to examine the past, especially if we risk repeating our mistakes. An example: For years, my wife and I were in thrall to several credit card companies because the revenues from our bed-and-breakfast and bookshop couldn’t meet expenditures. When I sold the B&B in 2006 after her death, the money I gained erased the mortgage and credit card debt, leaving me with little profit but with ease of mind. Though I’ve since received scores of credit card offers in the mail, I carry only one card and promptly pay what I owe at the end of each month. That sometimes harsh mistress— the past—had taught me a lesson for the future. That quibble aside, Minnis’s “forward, always forward” can be wise, useful advice. When disaster occurs—a divorce, bankruptcy, lost job, or, heaven forbid, the death of a spouse or child—falling into despondency is a natural reaction. Suddenly, we’re floundering around in a bog, and moving forward is the last thing on our minds. Three things can then happen: We can choose to slog through that swamp to solid ground, our circumstances can change, or we can give up and remain mired in the mud. Most of us probably know someone 50 I N S I G H T July 15–21, 2022

“Forward,” enjoined Stephen Minnis. “Always forward, everywhere forward.” stuck in that gloomy quagmire. They’ve raised the white flag and are going through the motions of living—some blaming their troubles on others, or looking for solace in a bottle of Dr. Jack. Many good people have found themselves so beaten down by disaster that they find it nearly impossible to get to their knees, much less to their feet. Then there are those jolted out of their malaise by a bolt of lightning. On a friend’s recommendation, the unemployed legal secretary wins a position in the governor’s office. The father of two young children, whose wife died from cancer, meets a woman in the grocery store who demolishes his despair and marries him. Call them what we will—fate, the hand of God, a spin of the rota fortunae—these small miracles occur every day. Finally, there are those magnificent men and women who decide enough is enough, haul themselves upright—

sometimes with a laugh, sometimes with a curse—shake off the mud, and look to the future. This is the guy who, after a decade of downing wine from supper to bedtime, finally grasps the damage he’s doing to his family and to himself, pours the rest of a bottle down the sink, and starts on a different path. This is the woman I know of whose husband and three of her four children died in a terrible house fire who eventually forced herself back into the world, found work in a school, and became the best of moms to her daughter. These rough-and-tumble souls move forward, their willpower and effort summed up by a line from “The Shawshank Redemption”: “I guess it comes down to a simple choice, really. Get busy living, or get busy dying.” Sure it’s hokey, but so are lots of truths and aphorisms. Once we move forward, there are no guarantees. We may fall flat on our face in that next business enterprise. We may again have our heart broken by love. We may be plagued by doubts and second thoughts. But here’s the pay-off: We’re living again.

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Nation Profile

THOUGHT LEADERS

The War on Humanity How Big Tech and big government are driving society apart and pushing cruelty over tolerance

t isn’t just the virus or the vaccine,” says columnist and author Naomi Wolf, regarding the growth of tyranny in America. “It’s a little bit of cruelty, a little bit of inequality, a little bit of discrimination.”

In a recent episode of “American Thought Leaders,” host Jan Jekielek and Wolf discussed Big Tech’s role in the pandemic, the erosion of American freedoms, and ways to counter these attacks on our Constitution and on our way of life. Her latest book is titled “The Bodies of Others: The New Authoritarians, COVID-19, and the War Against the Human.” JAN JEKIELEK: A major

thesis in your book is that we in free societies have started behaving more like people in unfree societies. NAOMI WOLF: A year ago,

52 I N S I G H T July 15–21, 2022

stage of the closing down of a democratic civil society. The pandemic provided cover and a pretext for a handful of bad actors such as the Chinese Communist Party (CCP), the World Economic Forum, and tech companies to exploit the crisis to reengineer our democracies, especially the United States. This is a targeting, not just of our Western freedoms, but also of our culture, specifically our families and our children. I wanted to tell that story as well—the human side. My husband and I, for example, were excluded from gatherings because we aren’t vaccinated. Friends of mine who would never discriminate against someone on the basis of gender, sexual orientation, or race were happily embracing a discrimination which labeled some people as clean, valuable members of society, while ostracizing the unvaccinated.

Naomi Wolf, author of “The Bodies of Others: The New Authoritarians, COVID-19 and the War Against the Human.”

FROM L: RUILIAN SONG/THE EPOCH TIMES, SPENCER PLATT/GETTY IMAGES

we were in a freer America than we are now. President Joe Biden in April declared an extension of emergency law, and, for the first time, his declaration is without an ending date. At least 22 states are under emergency law. In another of my books, this is what I call step 10, the last

“America is now divided based on what news you consume.”

Nation Profile

I also tell the stories of friends and neighbors, like restaurateur Paul in Boston who was struggling to keep 20 workers’ families fed when the board of health wouldn’t let him open up, and the waitress at the local diner, a single mom, and her son having to come home from college, through no fault of her own. The American dream was closing for small business owners, landlords, momand-pop shops, and other hard workers. Suddenly, no matter what they did, they couldn’t survive, compete, or protect their families and livelihoods. MR . JEKIELEK: One thing

that fascinated me was your take on Big Tech involvement. MS. WOLF: One of the

buzzwords of the tech industry is “disruptive.” That isn’t a negative. It’s usually considered a high compliment to say that someone has created software or a digital process disruptive to an industry. That’s the context for understanding one of the core revelations in “The Bodies of Others.” Tech companies had an active hand in shaping legislation and in presenting the drama of COVID and lockdowns to us. They also presented the vaccine rollout so as to change human behavior and human society. When you understand that Big Tech companies are competing with human beings gathering in human spaces, you understand why there was a vested interest

An employee at a coffee shop wears a mask on the day that a mask mandate went into effect in New York, on Dec. 13, 2021. in suppressing human assembly. Because when you’re a tech company, you can’t really compete with humans. When humans gather to worship, a digital platform can’t compete with that. When they gather in person in a town hall, they can create outcomes and solutions much more efficiently than they can in even the best Zoom meeting. So one thing they want to disrupt is human assembly. Every time you shop at your local baker, and you chat with your neighbors afterward in a café, no money is being made by digital technology companies. When you’re at school or worshipping in church, they aren’t making money. But if you can disrupt all of that, lock people in their homes and drive them onto their screens, then you’re harvesting money in multiple ways. There are really only three basic business models for most software companies: eyeballs, meaning your attention; subscriptions, meaning a paywall;

and your data, which they’re harvesting as you’re surfing the web. There are vast marketplaces for selling your data; when people gather with their friends, none of that is happening. So businesses like Amazon went up 20 to 25 percent in net revenue, as did Google, Microsoft, and Nintendo in the two years from 2020 to 2022. Vaccine passports are the current gold rush. The tech companies have hit their limits of growth being in your computer, but the human body isn’t yet fully colonized by digital technology. If you can create laws to compel people to have vaccines, be in a vaccine registry, and require a vaccine passport to access activities like commerce, schooling, and public transportation, you can switch people’s access on and off through their vaccine passport. It compels you to ask permission of technology to be human. Bodily autonomy is a basic human right of any real de-

mocracy. You get to decide what happens to your body. That’s just a fundamental right from the First Amendment, the Fourth Amendment, the Constitution, HIPAA [Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act], ADA [Americans with Disabilities Act], the Geneva Conventions, and the Nuremberg Code. But it isn’t just the virus or the vaccine. It’s a little bit of cruelty, a little bit of inequality, a little bit of discrimination. Until recently, we were a decent, inclusive culture that respected people’s boundaries and freedoms. Now we tolerate a CCP-style cruelty, not at the level of China, but far beyond what free societies are supposed to tolerate. MR . JEKIELEK: And a sig-

nificant number of people are actively engaged in the cruelty. If I were to say this even to some folks I know well, they might say: “You’re crazy, Jan. What are you talking about?” MS. WOLF: I know what

you’re talking about. This is one more kind of splintering. In a way, America is now divided based on what news you consume. People I love and respect who read The New York Times and watch CNN and MSNBC are being lied to every single day about the vaccines and the pandemic. Some have spoken about mass formation psychosis. People in that bubble I just mentioned say things like, “Don’t show me that primary source documentation.” But thank God I N S I G H T July 15–21, 2022 53

Nation Profile

“Friends of mine who would never discriminate against someone on the basis of gender, sexual orientation, or race were happily ... ostracizing the unvaccinated.”

MR . JEKIELEK: What can

we do? 54 I N S I G H T July 15–21, 2022

MS. WOLF: As I say in

the book, one thing that feels so wrong is that we’re Americans, but we’re now expected to behave more like people in a tyrannical society. But I’m also heartened, because when you understand what’s coming at you, you can strategize a lot better. There are many things

describe in “The Bodies of Others,” groups like Moms for Liberty and the Front Line COVID-19 Critical Care Alliance. Left and right are coming together at a grassroots level, saying, “We have to save our Constitution, our freedoms, and our kids.” A lot of people want the United States to fail. The smartest thing they can do is keep us apart from one other, from bonding the way we used to bond. That’s all the more reason to put down your digital device, restart all the volunteer organizations and community centers in your neighborhood, and take back this country. America was a beacon to all nations, and that’s what they’ve tried to kill off. We need to lay claim once again to our country, our culture, and our founding documents. This interview has been edited for clarity and brevity.

A person pauses in front of a closed Kmart store at Astor Place in New York’s East Village on July 13, 2021. Kmart closed most of its stores around the country as it struggled to compete with online businesses during the pandemic.

THIS PAGE: SPENCER PLATT/GETTY IMAGES

there’s the other half of the country. That half of the country is conservative and libertarian, and they follow a lot of independent media. Conservative media has been a lot better on these issues, and also, The Epoch Times. There’s also one more division in this country: the weaponization of the pandemic as a propaganda device. It didn’t play on excluding and hating another person for their color, race, or religion. What’s so demonically brilliant about this propaganda is that it was altruistic. People asking questions or gathering or worshipping were cast as ignorant, infectious, and selfish. This brilliantly upended American culture, because it cast freedom as selfish, whereas a kind of CCP-style groupthink, submissive to authority and the community, was defined as altruistic and good.

we can do, and one of them is just practical. My company, DailyClout, hired a lawyer, and we drafted legislation called the Five Freedoms Bill. Besides addressing opening schools now, the bill calls for no mask mandates, no vaccine passports, no emergency law, and freedom of assembly. We passed variations of those bills by working with state legislators in 33 states. America is freer than Canada, Australia, Britain, and Europe right now, largely because of actions like those. But the most important thing, in addition to understanding what’s coming at us, is to assemble. There’s a weakening of resources when people are kept apart. But when we gather in town halls, when we invite friends or neighbors over for a potluck, then we can coordinate. Already there’s this incredible grassroots resistance I

T R AV E L • F O O D • L U X U R Y L I V I N G

Come with us to discover the unspoiled, incredibly scenic Alentejo region, considered by some wine experts to produce the world’s finest wines.

Unwind

No.28

PHOTO BY MIGEL/SHUTTERSTOCK

Exploring Portugal’s ‘Hidden’ Wine Region MEALS SHARED OUTDOORS taste better, as you spend quality time with family and friends. Explore our tips for making your next picnic a grand affair. 60

WE ARE HALFWAY THROUGH summer, with many hot days ahead, making this collection of pool gear just what is needed to get everyone into the pool to cool off. 63

NIVEN PATEL’S MEALS at all of his three restaurants epitomize the term “farm fresh,” using vegetables he grows on his own farm. 66

INSIDE I N S I G H T July 15–21, 2022 55

A Music Legend’s

VERY PRIVATE ESTATE A welcoming home in the hills outside Casitas Springs, California, designed by Johnny Cash By Phil Butler

Cash’s country roots inspired the overall design. The front picture windows provide a magnificent view of Ventura’s beautiful countryside.

56 I N S I G H T July 15–21, 2022

Lifestyle Real Estate

COURTESY OF MARK CORCORAN FOR DOUGLAS ELLIMAN REALTY

a r ly i n h i s c a r e e r , m u si c i c o n Johnny Cash helped design his dream home away from it all in the quiet seclusion of California’s Casitas Springs. Located outside Santa Barbara, he built the home on land he envisioned would provide a respite from the glittery lifestyle that film and music stardom brought. Here, the “Man in Black” created his idea of the perfect family home. This 4,500-square-foot, five-bedroom, 4 1/2bath home built in 1961 was meticulously laid out at the direction of Cash himself. The country music legend created this dream for his first wife, Vivian Liberto, and their kids; the couple divorced in 1966. Their home, however, remains much as it did back then, ready for new owners. Listed for $1.795 million with Adam McKaig and Melissa Borders of Douglas Elliman, this custom-built home conveys Cash’s dreams of homey comfort and seclusion. Set on six lush acres, the house he dreamed of is nestled among verdant hills, trees, flowers, and fields in some of Southern California’s most pristine countryside. Out front of the brick and stucco home, a covered porch welcomes visitors to enter the tiled foyer area adjoining the retro ’60s living room. Wagon wheel chandeliers adorn the wood-

beamed ceilings as you enter farther into the rustic family room with its curved brick fireplace, custom wooden built-ins, and the original wall-mounted turntable, as well as other highlights of the original design. The home still has the wood-paneled studio where Cash wrote many of his hit songs. The his-and-her bedroom suites are still a feature too, a recollection of the singer’s all-night-long music writing habit. Outside, a wonderful swimming pool, an outdoor kitchen area, and a cozy fire pit are wrapped by wild nature with stunning oaks and evergreens, and perfect, sweeping views of the Ojai Valley. There are also fenced areas for livestock, sitting among the live oaks and verdant gardens of the estate. The tiny community of Casitas Springs is tucked in between Ventura and Ojai. The town is proud to have once been the home of the movie and music legend. According to TopTenRealEstateDeals. com, when Cash lived here, he would often set up speakers outside in order to do free concerts for the locals. Phil Butler is a publisher, editor, author, and analyst who is a widely cited expert on subjects ranging from digital and social media to travel technology.

JOHNNY CASH’S COUNTRY HOME VENTURA, CALIF. $1.795 MILLION • 5 BEDROOMS • 4,500 SQUARE FEET • 4.5 BATHS • 6 ACRES KEY FEATURES • CUSTOM DESIGN • UNCOMPROMISING VIEWS AND LOCATION • HISTORIC CELEBRITY HOME AGENT Adam McKaig and Melissa Borders of Douglas Elliman Cell: 805-452-6884 or 805-453-0842 Featured by TopTenRealEstateDeals.com

(Above) An old turntable set into a wall graces the home designed and built by one of America’s most beloved musicians. (Top R) Casitas Springs is proud to have been the one-time residence of Cash and his family.

Warm wood accents, brick, and a simple elegance set this home apart. Even if the home had not once belonged to a legend, it would still be a remarkable property. I N S I G H T July 15–21, 2022 57

Travel Portugal

Picture-perfect villages abound in the Alentejo. There’s often a steep climb up, after which you are rewarded with amazing panoramic views.

The Simple Life

By Fred J. Eckert

ork oak trees, ol ive trees, and wheat dominate the vast plains and gently rolling hills of the Alentejo. This may be Portugal’s largest province by far, covering one-third of the country—equal in land area to Belgium— but it’s home to relatively few people. Only 6 percent of Portugal’s population lives here. Our first base in the Alentejo region is the walled medieval city of Evora, the region’s largest town (population: 56,000) and one of the most beautiful cities in Portugal. Evora’s history is one of the oldest in the Iberian Peninsula. It has Roman walls, Moorish narrow streets and arched alleyways, Renaissance squares, fine churches and museums, and grand 16th-century buildings that were

58 I N S I G H T July 15–21, 2022

erected when it was a favorite spot for Portuguese royalty. All are well-preserved and should continue to be. Evora is a UNESCO World Heritage Site. Its oldest site, dating back to the second or third PORTUGAL century, is the best-preserved Roman ruins in Portugal. The structure is believed to have been built as a place of worship and is said to have been dedicated to the goddess Diana, though Lisbon there is no solid evidence to support this claim. Alentejo Like most towns that were laid out in the Middle Ages, Evora is compact—an easy and enjoyable city to walk around. It’s particularly impressive at night. The Temple of Diana and other major monuments are illuminated with floodlights until midnight. The heart of town is Praça de Giraldo, an Alentejo is about eye-pleasing spacious square named for a two-hour drive from Lisbon. “Gerald the Fearless,” who liberated Evora from

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Off the beaten path in Alentejo, picture-perfect villages harbor enduring traditions

Travel Portugal

Moorish occupation. The square, dominated by the massive 1557 Renaissance-style Church of St. Anthony with a large baroque fountain in front, is ringed with cafes and is a favorite gathering spot. Fond as we are of Evora, it’s the smaller towns and the countryside that most intrigue us. Life in the Alentejo countryside hasn’t changed as much as it has elsewhere. This is a place where you can see shepherds tending their flocks by the side of a country road. Where you can watch a weaver turn out a fine rug. Where a potter will show you how he makes a fine piece of pottery just like the one you’ve decided to buy. A short drive northwest from Evora is the little town of Arraiolos, set upon a hillside, lying under the shadow of a church and the ruins of a 14th-century castle. It’s an attractive town, with neat whitewashed houses. Nearly all of the doors and window frames are painted either blue or yellow, a tradition that dates back to the centuries of occupation by the Moors, who believed that those colors helped ward off evil spirits. Villages every bit as charming as tiny Arraiolos are the rule, not the exception. Also within easy driving distance from Evora is the magnificent hilltop castle village of Monsaraz. The Portuguese call it “The Eagle’s Nest.” It’s easy to see why. It’s dazzling from a distance. There is a steep climb up, after which you are rewarded with an amazing panoramic view. Its narrow cobblestone streets, lined with 16th- and 17th-century homes and shops, many of them with ironwork balconies, are open to pedestrian traffic only. It’s tiny—only a few streets and one large castle—but well worth a visit if you are partial to picture-perfect places.

Now and then, you spot someone trekking along in a horse-drawn cart.

These picture-perfect places abound in the Alentejo. The Convento de São Paulo is one of the most unusual and delightful hotels we have ever stayed in. Set in a forest high up in the Serra d’Ossa north of the small village of Redondo, this wonderfully restored 14th-century monastery is as pleasant and peaceful a setting as can be imagined. There are some 50,000 azulejos (the distinctly Portuguese blue painted tiles) in Convento de São Paulo, including those that make up its famous 62-yard-long corridor, which tells the stories of Christ, and of Joseph in Egypt. Just 11 miles northeast of Portalegre, almost on top of the Spanish border, Marvão clings to a 2,838-foot-high cliff. From a distance, it looks impregnable, an awesome fortress. We ascend slowly on a hairpin climb. Tiny Marvão is every bit as stunning up close as it is from a distance. We look over its walls and savor the grand vista of the Alentejo plains. We admire the fine features of its whitewashed 16th- and 17th-century homes. We enjoy the little touches, such as the tiny faces carved in stone above many of the doorways. As we walk leisurely down a stone street in Marvão and chat about what we will do tomorrow in Lisbon, for a moment we feel as if we are about to leave the Middle Ages behind. And we realize that the feeling of stepping back in time to an era when life was slower and simpler is exactly what we enjoy so much about this delightful area that the Portuguese call the Alentejo. Fred J. Eckert is a retired U.S. ambassador and former member of Congress.

There are some 50,000 azulejos (the distinctly Portuguese blue painted tiles) in Convento de São Paulo.

80% OF THE WORLD’S

cork supply comes from Portugal— most of it from Alentejo.

If You Go

When to Go: Spring and fall are considered the best times to visit. Portugal has perhaps the most appealing climate in Europe, so off-season travel can provide virtually the same enjoyment but with the added advantage of reduced costs. Food: Portuguese cuisine is excellent, of wide variety, and reasonably priced. Accommodations: There’s an abundant supply of hotels in all price ranges, including delightful pousadas—medieval castles, palaces, and country inns that have been converted into modern hotels with all the amenities.

A plantation of cork trees.

I N S I G H T July 15–21, 2022 59

Tips on making your next picnic a fun fest that will make you an al fresco legend.

PICNIC TIME

Host your next party outside to add fresh air and side-by-side seating to the menu By Bill Lindsey

60 I N S I G H T July 15–21, 2022

Lifestyle Al Fresco Dining

ining alfresco sounds so much more impressive than “picnic,” but whatever you call it, eating under the open sky can be a delightful way to entertain friends and family. But before you grab the basket, there are a few interim steps to take in order to host the perfect picnic. Start by deciding why you want to host a picnic and who would attend. Is it for immediate family only, or will several families on the block take part? Is it a birthday party or other celebration? Will it be a casual event or a more formal affair? Knowing who’ll be invited and the reason for the picnic allows you to plan the menu. If there’ll be parents and children, the menu needs to include food the kids are likely to eat, such as macaroni and cheese and hot dogs. Set up a table for the kids that’s far enough away from the adults to allow pleasant conversation, yet close enough to keep an eye on them and get over there quickly if little Johnny starts choking on a not-quite-fully-chewed hot dog.

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ON A RELATED note, bring a well-

equipped first-aid kit, and, keep in mind that mayonnaise can be used to soothe burns from accidentally getting too close to the grill. Once you have the guest list, choose a venue. Many parks have picnic tables and pavilions available on a first-come, first-served basis, but on holidays, you may have to reserve the tables and/or pavilion in advance. Don’t assume you’ll just show up and find a place. Some may allow you to use an

Knowing who will be invited and the reason for the picnic allows you to plan the menu. open-sided party tent and your own table in an open area, but confirm all this before you arrive, to avoid an unpleasant surprise. If the guest list is limited to adults, you can decide on what to serve based on who’ll be in attendance. For example, if the guest list consists of your family and a few cousins, you can most likely plan a casual meal of burgers and hot dogs, plus chicken for those who don’t eat red meat. This brings us to another filter to apply to your plan: Find out if anyone on the guest list has food allergies or diet preferences. Don’t assume everyone can eat what you prepare, or you may find guests loading their plates with nothing but pickles and potato salad as they glare at you. If the guest list includes co-workers, and especially if your supervisors are on it, you need to step it up a bit. This is the culinary version of “dress to impress,” so you’ll want to serve some unique or special items such as appetizers of portobello mushrooms with cheese, a selection of drinks that includes an array of sodas, wines, and spritzers, as well as several brands of beer. Use a nicer grade of disposable dishes, cutlery, napkins, and cups than you’d use for “just family.” REGARDLESS OF YOUR choice of appe-

Use an assortment of foods to “decorate” the picnic table, making your al fresco meal memorable and fun.

tizers and sides, prepare them in the days ahead of the event, in trays that will be easy to transport to the picnic site, and put them in the refrigerator. If you run out of room in the refrigerator, which is fairly sure to happen, ask neighbors (who are invited to the event) if they’ll keep them in their refrigerator. Ice down the drinks the morning of the event; a tip to make it easier is to add ice to the coolers when they are already loaded into the minivan or SUV, before taking all

Picnics are all about the food, so use only the freshest, tastiest ingredients to make your events legendary.

For a two- to four-person picnic, a traditional basket can hold all the goodies, but as the guest list swells, your minivan may become the “picnic basket.”

Don’t forget to bring a festive tablecloth to add panache to the picnic table. It can double as a picnic blanket, too.

I N S I G H T July 15–21, 2022 61

Lifestyle Al Fresco Dining

LIFESTYLE

OUTDOOR DINING

Derived from the French word pique nique, a picnic is a festive affair in which fresh air, good friends, and great food commingle.

1 Check the Guest List A picnic is the perfect way to reconnect with friends and family, as you gather around a delicious spread of food in the open air and sunshine.

62 I N S I G H T July 15–21, 2022

Last but not least, pack bug spray and sunblock; coming home with a sunburn isn’t the way you want your guests to remember an otherwise great affair.

2 Stretch Imaginations Pack the menu with sure-to-please items such as burgers and chicken wings, but add a dash of panache with sangria and pressed mini-sandwiches with broccoli rabe and mozzarell.

3 Make It Kid-Friendly A picnic can be as complex as you want, or as simple as a loaf of French bread and wine (and water for the kids!)

Keep the kids happy by serving them food they like: hot dogs, burgers, and ice cream.

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the food and supplies to the picnic site. Don’t skimp on ice; it rarely lasts as long as expected and is a must to keep drinks chilled and food fresh. Serving warm soda or beer is a big no. Another option is to break from the traditional picnic food choices of deviled eggs, baked beans, coleslaw, burgers, and hot dogs, and instead go with a theme such as pizza, with unexpected sides such as a refreshingly cool black-eyed pea salad, a zesty, freshly made guacamole, or pressed broccoli rabe and mozzarella sandwiches that are as much fun to look at as they are good to eat. For desserts that will make you a legend, consider Hello Dollies—chocolate and butterscotch chip cakes made with Ritz crackers—for a unique treat, or sheet-pan brownies that look like a thin-crust pizza but are much tastier. If you go the pizza route, there are a number of propane grills you can use that have optional oven attachments. To add excitement, let your guests choose the toppings. Don’t make a face if they ask for Hawaiian pizza—it’s an acquired taste with plenty of loyal fans.

Pack bug spray and/or consider mosquito netting to keep bugs from interrupting the fun. Bring sunblock, too.

Luxury Living Pool Party!

HOW TO GET EVERYONE INTO THE POOL Summer is the time to gather around and in the pool to find relief from the heat. We’ve collected the gear you need to make your pool the coolest on the block. By Bill Lindsey

A Fun Water Hazard

Floating Fun House

PAR MASTERS FLOATING GOLF PUTTING GREEN BUNDLE

FUNBOY GIANT CABANA DAYCLUB $399

What could be better than a private club for you and your friends? One that floats! Almost 10 feet by seven feet in size, with seating for four, it features an integrated cooler and cup holders, plus a removable mesh sunshade to keep you cool.

$350

Keep Your Cool

PROSHADE 11-FOOT CANTILEVER UMBRELLA WITH WHEELED BASE

This fun game lets you hone your golf skills poolside. The large three-foot-by-fourfoot floating golf green has a regulation-size hole with extended raised edges. It comes ready to play with 50 balls, plus a weighted anchor to keep it in place.

COURTESY OF FUNBOY, PAR-MASTERS, PRO SHADE, POLAR WHALE, SWIMWAYS

$1,439.99

Fun in the sun needs to be tempered with skin protection, making a portable shade system a must. The cantilevered, rotating design is to be positioned over tables, chaise lounges, or even a portion of the pool itself. Wheels in the base make moving it easy.

Paddlin’ in the Pool

POLAR WHALE FLOATING PING PONG TABLE $179.95

Table tennis takes on an entirely new challenge when played in the pool. This five-foot-long floating ping pong table crafted of ultra-dense foam comes ready to use, with a net, two paddles, and three balls. Don’t play in the deep end!

Pooch Pool Time

SWIMWAYS SPRING FLOAT PADDLE PAWS POOL FLOAT $36.99

If your dogs love to spend time in the pool, consider this so they can relax and take a break from swimming. The paw-proof float springs open for easy inflation, and compacts for storage. Roughly four feet by two feet in size, it holds up to 65 pounds of pups. I N S I G H T July 15–21, 2022 63

Epoch Booklist RECOMMENDED READING

This week, we feature a winning novel about a beloved teacher, and two edifying biographies—one for children, one for adults—of our first president.

FICTION

who softens his classroom manner but dies during childbirth. He then develops a rapport with his students and remains a school legend even after his retirement, when he still invites “his boys” to tea in his quarters.

‘Texas’

OPEN ROAD MEDIA REPRINT, 2019, 100 PAGES

By James A. Michener

The Story of Texas— Fictionalized Legendary for his geographically based fiction, Michener takes the reader far back into Texas’s history, into the mid1500s, well before it ever became the 28th state. Follow the lives of characters who have come to symbolize Texas, from the oilman to the ranger. THE DIAL PRESS REPRINT, 2015, 1,474 PAGES

‘Goodbye, Mr. Chips’

By James Hilton

An Endearing Look at a Great Teacher Made into two films and twice featured on television, this 1934 novella has cast a long shadow. The beloved Mr. Chipping, teacher of classics at the fictional Brookfield School in eastern England, has attracted generations of enthusiastic readers. “Chips” marries a lovely woman

MEMOIR

‘The Father, Son, and Holy Shuttle’

By Patrick Mullane

An Astronaut’s Son Tells His Story From 1978 through the end of 1985, the Space Shuttle was an adventure. Mullane was 10 when his father, Michael, was selected as an astronaut. Mullane describes growing up in the Space Shuttle world with his dad, who had a glamorous yet dangerous career. Occasionally raunchy but never past PG-13, the hilarious memoir captures the thrill of coming-of-age in an exciting era. The book describes a more innocent time, when boys could simultaneously build models, love flying, and chase girls. INDEPENDENTLY PUBLISHED, 2020, 271 PAGES

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Are there books you’d recommend? We’d love to hear from you. Let us know at features@epochtimes.com

SCIENCE

‘Where Did the Universe Come From?’

By Chris Ferrie and Geraint F. Lewis

Answering Cosmic Questions Where did the universe come from? How does it work? When did it begin? How and when will it end? People have asked these questions since people started asking questions. The authors examine them and show how the answers have changed over the last 50 years and how scientists are working to explain how the universe works. It’s a fascinating report on the state of modern physics. If you’re curious about the universe, read this book. SOURCEBOOKS, 2021 272 PAGES

BIOGRAPHY

‘Young Washington’

By Peter Stark

For Love of Country We know George Washington as America’s

first president. His leadership skills were no doubt honed from years spent in the wilderness two decades before his fight for independence. The brash 22-year-old officer may have been the spark that ignited the French and Indian War. This is a gripping account of that transformative time. ECCO, 2018, 528 PAGES

CLASSICS

‘The Scottish Chiefs’

By Jane Porter

FOR KIDS

‘George Washington’s World’

By Genevieve Foster and Joanna Foster

History as Stories Foster’s biography not only gives young readers the life of Washington, but also introduces them to people during his time, offering sketches of such figures as Mozart, Ben Franklin, and James Cook. History at its best. Grades 5–8. BEAUTIFUL FEET BOOKS, 1997, 357 PAGES

Highland Heroes Originally published in 1809, and one of the early historical novels, this story brings us to the Scotland of William Wallace and Robert the Bruce as they battle for independence from England during the early 14th century. Here we see patriotic heroes who are devout in their religious faith, as well as others who are base traitors. Romance and suspense have kept readers enthralled with this tale for over two centuries. A great readaloud for kids but also appealing to adults. This edition is illustrated by Andrew Wyeth. CREATESPACE INDEPENDENT PUBLISHING, 2017, 492 PAGES

‘Big Red Barn’

By Margaret Wise Brown

A Day on the Farm Follow farm animals throughout the day as the sun rises and sets. Detailed, lovely illustrations and animal sounds make this a soothing bedtime story as the sun gradually goes down, and the animals return to their barn to sleep. BALZER + BRAY REVISED, 1989, 32 PAGES

Ian Kane is a U.S. Army veteran, filmmaker, and author. He enjoys the great outdoors and volunteering.

MOVIE REVIEWS

Epoch Watchlist

This week we feature an Indian drama about criminals who rehabilitate through hard work, and a stirring sports drama about Olympic athletes.

NEW RELEASE

INDIE PICK

‘Do Ankhen Barah Haath’ (1957)

‘The Gray Man’ (2022) Top CIA operative Court Gentry (Ryan Gosling) uncovers the agency’s most incriminating secret and is forced to go on the run as an international fugitive. His psychopathic former colleague, Lloyd Hansen (Chris Evans), places a bounty on Gentry’s head, and a global manhunt ensues. This is a decent, if somewhat generic, actioner. To its credit, Gosling and Evans turn in good performances, the globe-spanning scenery is a pleasure to lay eyes on, and the action scenes are entertaining. Just don’t expect a reinvention of the wheel.

ACTION | THRILLER

Release Date: July 15, 2022 (Theaters); July 22, 2022 (Netflix) Directors: Anthony Russo, Joe Russo Starring: Ana de Armas, Ryan Gosling, Chris Evans Running Time: 2 hours, 2 minutes MPAA Rating: PG-13 Where to Watch: Theaters/Netflix

AN EXCELLENT DRAMA WITH COMPLEX CHARACTERS the best performances out of actors, along with a riveting storyline, makes this a must-see classic. DRAMA

‘East of Eden’ (1955)

In this drama set in Salinas Valley, California, in the 1910s, Cal Trask (James Dean) competes with his brother Aron

(Richard Davalos) for their father Adam’s (Raymond Massey) favor. They also struggle to relate to their estranged mother. Director Elia Kazan’s ability to draw

Release Date: April 10, 1955 Director: Elia Kazan Starring: James Dean, Raymond Massey, Julie Harris Running Time: 1 hour, 58 minutes MPAA Rating: PG Where to Watch: DirecTV, WatchTCM, Vudu

This inspirational Indian indie classic is the tale of a compassionate jailer named Adinath (Shantaram Rajaram Vankudre) and his unique method of reforming criminals. After releasing them from prison, Adinath takes them to a farm to teach them important life lessons, including the value of hard work. This uplifting film wears its humanity on its sleeve. It demonstrates strong moral lessons about rehabilitation through

self-sacrifice and hard work and how people considered to be throwaways by society can ultimately redeem themselves. COMEDY | CRIME | DRAMA

Release Date: 1957 Director: Shantaram Rajaram Vankudre Starring: Shantaram Rajaram Vankudre, Sandhya, Ulhas Running Time: 2 hours, 23 minutes Where to Watch: Amazon

A ROUSING SPORTS CLASSIC

‘Chariots of Fire’ (1982) This film is based on the real-life story of two British athletes, Harold Abrahams (Ben Cross) and Eric Liddell (Ian Charleson). While both men are runners who are training for the 1924 Olympics, Abrahams runs to fight prejudice, while Liddell runs for God’s glory. With incredibly deft cinematography and a rousing score, this beautifully crafted movie is both a character study of two completely different

viewpoints and a tale of overcoming the odds and becoming a success, partially through athletics. BIOGRAPHY | DRAMA | SPORT

Release Date: April 9, 1982 Director: Hugh Hudson Starring: Ben Cross, Ian Charleson, Nicholas Farrell Running Time: 2 hours, 5 minutes MPAA Rating: PG Where to Watch: Redbox, DirecTV, Vudu

I N S I G H T July 15–21, 2022 65

Food Chefs

THE ‘GREEN-THUMB CHEF’: NIVEN PATEL TAKES ‘FARM-TO-TABLE’ INTO HIS OWN HANDS At his trio of Miami restaurants, the rising chef serves globe-trotting fare with homegrown produce, meticulously curated, cultivated, and harvested on his very own farm By Nick Dauk

Niven Patel, chef and partner at Alpareno Restaurant Group in Miami.

Much of the produce on Patel’s menus is grown on his own twoacre farm, Rancho Patel, surrounding his family’s home.

cook sliced into an heirloom tomato and threw half of it in the trash. It was a thoughtless act committed routinely in kitchens around the country— but chef Niven Patel saw it as an opportunity to teach his team about the effort required to grow Ghee Indian Kitchen, and harvest ingredients. Patel’s debut “Do you know how long it took restaurant, to grow that tomato?” asked Padraws from tel, now head chef of three Miami his family’s restaurants: Orno, Mamey, and heritage. Ghee Indian Kitchen. His cook, not unlike many restaurant employees and much of the general The menu at dining public, hadn’t a clue. Orno, Patel’s Patel invited his team to his newest then-new, two-acre property in restaurant, Homestead, Florida—where he is centered and his family live—where they around a woodfired kitchen. trenched through limestone to run irrigation, built raised crop beds, and planted thousands of seeds. That was six years ago. Neither Patel nor his cooks were professional farmhands, but, as the Age: 38 years passed, Rancho Patel grew Born: Valdosta, from a gratifying team activity Ga. into the embodiment of everyLives: thing Patel does in his restaurants. Homestead, Fla. This hands-on approach was inspired by Patel’s time running Favorite Country to a restaurant in Grand Cayman Eat in: India that had its own dedicated fishing boats and farm plot. Now, with Favorite Country to Cook the help of a full-time farmer, he in: Italy grows everything, from the Thai basil on Mamey’s plates to the Most Difficult Dish: Ponk, a Sungold tomatoes used at Orno, snack made with at Rancho Patel. green sorghum “The farm is special to me be- grains cause I am fully involved in the Favorite Indian harvesting process—from seed Dish to Spin: to plate—of all produce grown Ponk, a snack [there],” Patel said. The bedrock of made with green their culinary ambitions features sorghum grains dozens of fruits and vegetables

NIVEN PATEL

these unique dining experiences. “He’s a green-thumb chef,” Alkassar said. “Niven lives on his farm and harvests his own produce. He runs a loving, zen kitchen, and his humble approach is contagious.” Ghee Indian Kitchen was recently awarded a Bib Gourmand award in the Michelin Guide’s Florida debut; Orno also received a Michelin Guide mention. Patel and Alkassar are proud of these honors but noted that the recognition stems from their approach. “We focus on good ingredients, flavors, and experiences,” Patel said. “If the awards happen, they happen.” Nick Dauk is an Orlando-based writer whose work has been featured in BBC News, Insider, Fox Business, and The Telegraph.

PHOTOS COURTESY OF ALPARENO RESTAURANT GROUP

66 I N S I G H T July 15–21, 2022

from countries including Syria, India, Brazil, and Italy, grown from seeds he’s collected on his travels or been gifted by other travelers. Patel also invites others to join him for backyard feasts throughout the year. “‘Sundays at the Ranch’ was originally my test kitchen for [my first restaurant] Ghee’s menu,” he said. “I would randomly invite a dozen people to the farm to taste my ideas. Today, we bring as many as 100 out, prepare a feast, and show them where our restaurants’ cooking truly begins.” Mohamed Alkassar, Patel’s business partner and chief operating officer of Alpareno Restaurant Group, which they co-founded, was far from surprised when Patel invited strangers into his home for

How to Present

Yourself Online

We interact with others via the internet every day, so make it pleasant While our electronic age allows us to easily communicate with others around the globe, it is a bit too impersonal. For this reason, it’s important to inject a touch of humanity into your online interactions. By Bill Lindsey

1 Watch Your Spelling

4 Be Factual

One of the fastest ways to create a negative impression online is by making spelling errors. Most operating systems offer some form of spell checking, so use it. The next all-too-common faux pas is the incorrect use of a word or a term. If in doubt, refer to an online dictionary for examples of correct usage. Keep the tone appropriate to the audience; for example, LinkedIn tends to be more professional in tone than Facebook.

CSA IMAGES/GETTY IMAGES

2 Be Nice If you spend time on your company’s social media pages, think twice before starting or responding to a post. Everything on the internet lives forever, so if you wouldn’t want your words to come back and haunt you, don’t type them out. If you see a rude comment about anything you posted on your personal page or the company page, keep your response respectful and professional. You only make the situation worse if you sink to the poster’s level.

Before you post anything to any social media platform, take a moment to confirm its accuracy. It can be tempting to post the latest news, but it’s not your responsibility to be a newscaster; leave that to the pros. Don’t take credit for anything you didn’t create, from photos to videos to words. If, after posting something, you discover new facts that materially change the narrative, update your original post, citing your sources.

3 Be Switzerland Because you never know until it’s too late if what you intended as an innocent or funny comment was considered offensive, it’s best to stay neutral in all online communications. On a related note, keep your personal and professional communications separate; your vacation photos, political memes, and posts to and from your friends have no place on a page associated with your company. Resist the urge to overshare, lest you be blocked or considered a time waster.

5 Have Fun Be the bright spot in someone’s day. Instead of watching the network news, many people would prefer and be eager to share happy moments and fun. Interact; if you respond to a post, encourage them to keep the conversation going, and invite others to join in. If someone criticizes you or your company and it’s clear they’re justified in doing so, take a deep breath before responding politely, then let it go.

I N S I G H T July 15–21, 2022 67

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ReadEpoch.com 68 I N S I G H T July 15–21, 2022

INSIGHT Issue 28 (2022)

Articles inside

Portugal’s Secret Gem

Miami Spice

The House of Cash

Picnic Perfection

Electronic Etiquette

War on Humanity

Press On Regardless

What Population Control Really Is

Cancel Culture

China Competition

2022 Midterms

US Consumer Spending

Price Controls

Housing Market

Monetary Policy