https://www.cnbc.com/2020/07/20/mastercard-strikes-cryptocurrency-card-deal-with-uk-start-up-wirex.html

Mastercard has signed a deal with Wirex that makes the London-based firm the first “native” cryptocurrency platform to gain principal membership.
The move highlights a deeper push from one of the world’s biggest financial services companies in the still nascent cryptocurrency industry.
Cryptocurrency payment cards aren’t new though — Coinbase launched its own Visa card last year, while Wirex also offers a Visa card.

> China is the only major economy expected to report growth for 2020, helping it close the gap with the U.S. Lifted by its quick recovery from Covid-19, it has also expanded its role in global trade and shored up its position as the world’s factory floor.

While the U.S. and Europe wait for vaccine rollouts to get fully back on track, China is the only major economy expected to report growth for 2020, helping it close the gap with the U.S.

It has expanded its role in global trade and shored up its position as the world’s factory floor, despite years of U.S. efforts to persuade companies to invest elsewhere. China’s consumer market—lifted by its quick recovery from Covid-19—keeps gaining momentum, making it a bigger driver of global companies’ earnings.

And the country has solidified its standing as a force in global financial markets, with a record share of initial public offerings and secondary listings in 2020, large capital inflows into stocks and bonds, and indexes that far outperformed even the U.S.’s strong showing.

The upshot is a world more reliant on China for growth than ever before. For 2020, China’s economy is expected to account for 16.8% of global gross domestic product, adjusted for inflation, according to forecasts by Moody’s Analytics. That’s up from 14.2% in 2016, before the U.S. and China entered a trade war. The U.S. is expected to make up 22.2%, virtually unchanged from 22.3% in 2016.

China’s 2020 increase in its share of global GDP—1.1 percentage points—is its largest in a single year since at least the 1970s.

The country is scheduled to report fourth-quarter and annual growth on Jan. 18, a moment that’s likely to confirm its ascendancy.

https://www.wsj.com/articles/chinas-economy-powers-ahead-while-the-rest-of-the-world-reels-11610552422

Nearly all accusations of systemic racism are not based on hard data, but on nonsensical anecdote.

https://www.spiked-online.com/2021/02/10/systemic-racism-is-a-conspiracy-theory/

Racism today plays a marginal role in American life.

The body of further evidence supporting the conclusion that group performance is not largely a result of racism is truly massive. Perhaps most obviously, most of the highest-performing groups in the United States are not white. As per the 2019 American Community Survey, the wealthiest group of Americans is not Anglo-Saxon ‘WASPs’ – or Jews as is often claimed – but Indian Americans, with a median household income of $135,816. Taiwanese Americans come in second place, at $102,405. All in all, seven of the 10 highest-earning groups – Indians, Taiwanese, Filipinos, Indonesians, Pakistanis, Iranians and Lebanese Americans – are not ‘white’ as this term is generally conceptualised. Another Top 10 group – South Africans, with $98,212 – consists of white and black immigrants, who both seem to do quite well away from their homeland’s quarrels.

In fact, quite a few black or majority-black groups are ahead of the average income for US whites ($65,902). Ghanaian Americans bring home a healthy $69,021 annually, Nigerians earn $68,658 and Guyanese Americans make $67,772 on average.

A number of black groups, while not high earners, earn more than some large and mostly (if not entirely) white groups like Cajuns ($52,866) and those who identify their race simply as ‘American’ ($58,601). Remarkably, the average income for Ghanaian Americans, a group composed largely of recent immigrants, was roughly $26,000 higher than the average income ($43,862) for native-born African-American households.

https://abcnews.go.com/Politics/emmett-till-bill-making-lynching-federal-crime-passes/story?id=69229940
>A bill to make lynching a hate crime under federal law passed the House on Wednesday, making it the first attempt since 1900 poised to successfully make its way through Congress.
>The legislature is titled the Emmett Till Anti-lynching Act, an ode to Till, a 14-year-old African American boy who was kidnapped, beaten and lynched in 1955 after he was accused of whistling at a white woman.
>The vote was 410-4. The members who voted against were Independent Rep. Justin Amash and Republican Reps. Louie Gohmert, Thomas Massie and Ted Yoho.
>Rep. Bobby Rush, D-Ill., who introduced the bill in January 2019, said it will finally outlaw "an American evil."
>"Today, we send a strong message that violence -- and race-based violence, in particular -- has no place in America," Rush said in a statement.
>He spoke about his decision to name the bill after Till, saying the boy was from his district in Chicago and that the now-iconic image of him in his casket "created an indelible imprint on my brain, on my spirit."
>Rep. Bobby Rush, D-Ill., who introduced the bill in January 2019, said it will finally outlaw "an American evil."
>"Today, we send a strong message that violence -- and race-based violence, in particular -- has no place in America," Rush said in a statement.
>He spoke about his decision to name the bill after Till, saying the boy was from his district in Chicago and that the now-iconic image of him in his casket "created an indelible imprint on my brain, on my spirit."
>"It made me conscious of the risk, the trepidation of being a black man in America," Rush said at a press conference.
>The bill describes lynching as an act willfully done by a collection of people who assemble with the intent to commit violence on another human and then cause that person's death, according to a copy of the bill.

Republican damage control is the following now, and these are really.
>Trump deserves a mulligan for his coup attempt.
>Presidents should be free to commit any crime they want in the final January of their term.

https://apnews.com/article/Trump-impeachment-trial-0d0916330d20cc139c64f73af5ef4647

WASHINGTON (AP) — Donald Trump’s historic second impeachment trial opened Tuesday in the Senate with graphic video of the deadly Jan. 6 attack on Congress and the defeated former president whipping up a rally crowd — “We’re going to walk down to the Capitol!” — as he encouraged a futile fight over his presidency.

The lead House prosecutor told senators the case would present “cold, hard facts” against Trump, who is charged with inciting the siege of the Capitol to overturn the election he lost to Democrat Joe Biden. Senators sitting as jurors, many who themselves fled for safety that day, watched the jarring video of the chaotic scene, rioters pushing past police to storm the halls, Trump flags waving.

“That’s a high crime and misdemeanor,” said Rep. Jamie Raskin, D-Md., in opening remarks. “If that’s not an impeachable offense, then there’s no such thing.”

Trump is the first president to face impeachment charges after leaving office and the first to be twice impeached . The Capitol siege stunned the world as rioters ransacked the building to try to stop the certification of Biden’s victory, a domestic attack on the nation’s seat of government unlike any in its history. Five people died.

Acquittal is likely, but the trial will test the nation’s attitude toward his brand of presidential power, the Democrats’ resolve in pursuing him, and the loyalty of Trump’s Republican allies defending him.

WASHINGTON — President Trump said Thursday he “aced” a recent cognitive test given to him by his doctors and challenged opponent Joe Biden to undergo similar testing as the two septuagenarians duel over who has better mental stamina for the Oval Office.

In a phone interview with Fox News’ Sean Hannity on Thursday evening, Trump described undergoing “a very standard test” at the Walter Reed medical center and said his doctors were “very surprised” by how well he performed.

“He hasn’t taken any cognitive test because he wouldn’t pass one,” the president told Hannity after the Fox News host asked if he believed Biden had the “mental alertness” to be president.

“I actually took one when I was, very recently, when I was, when I was, you know — the radical left was saying, ‘Is he all there? Is he all there?'”

“I proved I was all there because I aced it. I aced the test and he should take the same exact test. A very standard test, I took it at Walter Reed, a medical center in front of doctors, and they were very surprised,” he continued.

“They said, ‘That’s an unbelievable thing. Rarely does anybody do what you just did.’ But he should take that same test.”

Details of the Walter Reed examination are unknown, but it is possible they were part of the president’s annual physical examination that is performed at the hospital each year.

https://nypost.com/2020/07/10/trump-says-he-aced-recent-cognitive-test-suggests-biden-take-it/

A number of members of Congress have links to organizations and movements that played a role in the Jan. 6 assault on the Capitol.

https://www.nytimes.com/2021/01/29/us/republicans-trump-capitol-riot.html

WASHINGTON — The video’s title was posed as a question, but it left little doubt about where the men who filmed it stood. They called it “The Coming Civil War?” and in its opening seconds, Jim Arroyo, who leads an Arizona chapter of Oath Keepers, a right-wing militia, declared that the conflict had already begun.

To back up his claim, Mr. Arroyo cited Representative Paul Gosar of Arizona, one of the most far-right members of Congress. Mr. Gosar had paid a visit to the local Oath Keepers chapter a few years earlier, Mr. Arroyo recounted, and when asked if the United States was headed for a civil war, the congressman’s “response to the group was just flat out: ‘We’re in it. We just haven’t started shooting at each other yet.’”

Less than two months after the video was posted, members of the Oath Keepers were among those with links to extremist groups from around the country who took part in the Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol, prompting new scrutiny of the links between members of Congress and an array of organizations and movements that espouse far-right beliefs.

Nearly 150 House Republicans supported President Donald J. Trump’s baseless claims that the election had been stolen from him. But Mr. Gosar and a handful of other Republican members of the House had deeper ties to extremist groups who pushed violent ideas and conspiracy theories and whose members were prominent among those who stormed the halls of Congress in an effort to stop certification of President-elect Joseph R. Biden Jr.’s victory.

Their ranks include Representative Andy Biggs of Arizona, who like Mr. Gosar was linked to the “Stop the Steal” campaign backing Mr. Trump’s effort to overturn the election’s outcome.

https://greatawakening.win/p/11SJjlBUT0/at-first-i-was-disappointed-in-t/

Donald J. Trump is STILL PRESIDENT.

HOW?

The plan was enacted over the weekend... Only you never saw it.

Biden, his cabinet, and tons of both Dem and Republican senators and other officials were arrested. Proof of their vast crimes was shown. They were court martialed and found guilty. However, it was decided this was too much for the American people to accept. Overturning the election and showing the crimes of these politicians could lead to Civil War.

So an agreement was reached: Biden and other deep state elements wI'll be allowed to move freely and serve their terms. President Trump would "concede" and leave office. But this is all for appearances. Behind the scenes, Donald J. Trump is still President.

This plan, known as Shadowprez, was seen as a last resort. But it worked. Anything that happens in the next 4 years is actually President Trumps doing.

#MAGA #WWG1WGA
#SHADOWPRESIDENT

NY TIMES STAFF WRITER ARRESTED FOR ESPIONAGE & MAINSTREAM MEDIA REFUSES TO COVER THE STORY

https://thegreggjarrett.com/nyt-writer-arrested-for-allegedly-working-as-secret-agent-of-the-iranian-government/

https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2021/02/the-capitol-rioters-arent-like-other-extremists/617895/

On January 6, a mob of about 800 stormed the U.S. Capitol in support of former President Donald Trump, and many people made quick assumptions regarding who the insurrectionists were. Because a number of the rioters prominently displayed symbols of right-wing militias, for instance, some experts called for a crackdown on such groups. Violence organized and carried out by far-right militant organizations is disturbing, but it at least falls into a category familiar to law enforcement and the general public. However, a closer look at the people suspected of taking part in the Capitol riot suggests a different and potentially far more dangerous problem: a new kind of violent mass movement in which more “normal” Trump supporters—middle-class and, in many cases, middle-aged people without obvious ties to the far right—joined with extremists in an attempt to overturn a presidential election.

To understand the events of January 6 and devise solutions to prevent their recurrence, Americans need a fine-grained comprehension of who attacked the Capitol. Understanding the ideology and beliefs of those who commit political violence is important, but so is knowing what kind of people they are and what their lives are like.

For the past decade and a half, our research team at the Chicago Project on Security and Threats has conducted demographic studies of international and domestic terrorists. Four years ago, our study of 112 people who U.S. authorities suspected were involved with the Islamic State undercut a widespread assumption that supporters of the group were uneducated, isolated, and unemployed.