We patiently waited for rope, it has finally arrived, thanks to Amazon. Now that the hangman’s noose has been knotted and the stage set we wait for those to mount the platform. The world shall see these criminals during the final hour for them and their henchmen as they beg for mercy; to see their gonads squeezed like oranges – to see them scream for air and faces turn blood red; we can’t wait for the SHOW TO BEGIN. Seeing them brought down to size after a long investigation is What Makes America Great Again.
Our man, Bull Durham, is still in the thick of it. His team leaves no stone unturned. Evidence that was previously squelched by Hillary’s comrades is finally coming to light. Criminal attorneys are panting like exhausted dogs trying in vain to save their client’s assess. Some of them aren’t worth saving. Hopefully, they will go the way of the Dapper John or Jeffrey Epstein. Michael Flynn was conned; set up by Peter Strzok. He is the guy who had an affair with Lisa Page.Bring it on Durham, the public is awaiting for a public lynching.
In light of the Flynn public hanging, new information has come to light that exonerates him and at the same time finds government criminals at the FBI guilty of overstepping procedure and law.
EXCLUSIVE from Fox News: U.S. Attorney for Connecticut John Durham has reviewed the bombshell files released earlier this week showing FBI officials discussed whether they wanted to interview Michael Flynn in order to “get him to lie,” sources familiar with his investigation told Fox News, as the document drop renews attention on his probe of the law enforcement community’s Russia case.
Sources even said charges could be justified against officials, and that those reviewing the Justice Department and the FBI’s actions are building a “serious case.” Durham and Attorney General Bill Barr are said to be speaking regularly.
“Durham has seen all of this already,” one source told Fox News, adding that they “could be sufficient for some charges against agents.”
Documents unsealed late Wednesday by the Justice Department revealed that top FBI officials openly questioned if their “goal” in interviewing Flynn in January 2017 was “to get him to lie, so we can prosecute him or get him fired.”
The handwritten notes were penned by the FBI’s former head of counterintelligence Bill Priestap after a meeting with then-FBI Director James Comey and then-FBI Deputy Director Andrew McCabe, and before Flynn’s interview.
The notes suggested that agents also considered getting Flynn “to admit to breaking the Logan Act” when he spoke to former Russian Ambassador Sergey Kislyak during the presidential transition period. The Logan Act is an obscure statute that has never been successfully used in a criminal prosecution and was intended to prevent individuals from falsely claiming to represent the United States government abroad.
Flynn did not admit to such a violation during his 2017 interview, and later pleaded guilty to making false statements. He has since tried to withdraw the plea.
The files prompted accusations from Flynn’s defenders that agents essentially talked about setting a perjury trap.
The source added that it is “disturbing to Durham” that “there weren’t any whistleblowers” that came forward in the FBI and Justice Department at the onset of the Russia probe.
Sources also told Fox News that more exculpatory documents are forthcoming, as Attorney General Barr continues to look over the DOJ’s investigation into the handling of the Flynn case.
“Barr talks to Durham every day,” a source told Fox News. “The president has been briefed that the case is being pursued, and it’s serious.”
Durham was appointed last year by Barr to review the events leading up to the 2016 presidential election and through Trump’s Jan. 20, 2017 inauguration.
But, as Fox News first reported, Durham has since expanded his investigation to cover a post-election timeline spanning the spring of 2017 — when Robert Mueller was appointed as special counsel.
North Korean leader Kim Jong Un attended the opening of a fertilizer factory on May Day, according to state media, in his first public appearance since a flurry of media reports in April prompted questions about his health.
Kim cut the ribbon to denote the completion of the Sunchon Phosphatic Fertilizer Factory, the official Korean Central News Agency reported Saturday. The report didn’t initially provide any photos of the event.
The Burial Train waits patiently for the corpse, will one be loaded into the morbid chamber that awaits. Has Kim Jong Un finally met death, not by the gun, but by the gummie. A quite charismatic leader who frolics in the limelight, over indulges in the sweetness of consumption – gummie bears are his favorite. Did he get the short end of the stick?
Rumors that the bulky leader of the Hermit Kingdom has succumbed to his perverse way of life; always feasting on the best of Scotch, Ice Cream, beer, steak and other Western goodies, WHILE THE POPULACE STARVES – did over indulgence finally compromise his health?
Rumors are swirling. Some say he is suffered a cardiac infarction that caused blood flow to his brain to cease for untold minutes; has the corpse laid in the hospital, brain dead for the past two weeks? Are the leaders doing their best to commemorate his death by breaking the news slowly to the populace? They have been huddling in meetings while hunkering down just in case he took his last breath. Are they making plans for the burial train to make its journey to the capital?
Show is important here. How to break the sorry news to the in-crowd – making sure it is carefully crafted. Questions now arise on who will step in to fill his shoes. Will it be his sister or will they shun her and choose another coiffured fatso? Is he dead? The world awaits his coming out party.
The Rodong Sinmun outlet claimed Monday that Kim penned the message to builders working on a tourism project in Wonsan, where South Korea believes the leader has been staying since April 13, according to South Korea’s Yonhap News Agency.
“Supreme Leader Kim Jong Un has sent his appreciation to the workers who devoted themselves to building the Wonsan-Kalma tourist zone,” the Rodong Sinmun reported.
The Korean Central Broadcasting Station made a similar report, according to Yonhap.
Like Kim Jung Un, Joe Biden has disappeared. He is hunkered down, afraid to face the music, afraid to face his accuser. No line up here. After all, his legacy is on the line. Witness after witness have come forward corroborating the “me-too” incident. Democrat pervs, such as Hillary Clinton have come to his defense. Why wouldn’t they? They protect their own. Ask Harvey, ask Bill, ask Jeffrey, they will tell you; oops, only Bill is still kicking. Oh BTW, where is he?
Big deal, he issues a STATEMENT, so what. Face the accuser Joe. You are a Girly Man.
Joe Biden has addressed assault allegations from former staffer Tara Reade — saying the 1993 incident never happened.
“They aren’t true. This never happened,” the presumptive Democratic nominee said in a statement on Friday morning.
Reade has accused Biden of pinning her against a wall in 1993 when she was a staff assistant to Biden’s Senate office. She said Biden reached under her skirt and assaulted her.
The thousands of boxes of documents from his 37 years in the Senate are kept by the University of Delaware which has refused to make them public.
But Biden on Friday said the personnel records would be kept in the National Archives and called on the Senate to pull the records to exonerate him.
Many Democrats have struggled with the claims after they steadfastly backed Christine Blasey Ford, Justice Brett Kavanaugh’s accuser, during his 2018 confirmation hearings and as they continue to highlight the host of accusations facing President Donald Trump.
A former neighbor of Reade’s spoke out earlier this week to say Reade had told her about the attack in the mid-1990s.
But it will remain to be seen if those groups, as well as groups like NARAL Pro-Choice America and the National Organization for Women, will be satisfied with Biden’s response. Those organizations did not immediately respond to requests for comment from Fox News.
While Biden gave a firm denial of Reade’s accusations, and also called on the National Archive to search for relevant records, he declined to approve a search for Senate records at the University of Delaware, saying that those files would not pertain to personnel issues.
Heather Drevna, vice president of communications for anti-sexual violence group RAINN, also issued a statement Friday pushing for the release of any relevant records: “We appreciate Vice President Biden finally addressing Tara Reade’s allegations. These allegations deserve a rigorous investigation, and we urge Vice President Biden to release any and all records that may be relevant, including those housed at the University of Delaware, in addition to any Senate records housed at the National Archives. We urge him, his campaign, and former staff to cooperate fully and provide complete transparency.”
Former Biden Senate staffer Reade and seven other women had come forward last year to accuse Biden of inappropriate contact. However, the story she told in March was far more graphic, raising the allegation to the level of sexual assault.
Its obvious now, Kim is dead, “long live the king.” Kim Jung Un is brain dead, suffering a massive cardio infarction that restricted valuable oxygen from reaching the brain. The Chinese experts were called in, but what could they do? Kim was already on his way out. Yes, the heart monitor was pulsating, brain waves were detected only slightly. The color of his skin was gray-blue, he showed no reaction to exterior stimulation; the sign of a cadaver waiting for the gurney. We know this is true because not one single Polaroid has shown up. Why all the secrecy? The answer thought is in what has not been said, so be it. The world knows the truth, the leader of the Hermit Kingdom has bitten the dust for good. He is no more, but his legacy lives on. “LONG LIVE THE KING”
He merely laughed and refused to reply when asked if that meant the Hermit Kingdom’s leader was indeed alive, the report said.
“My answer is from the intelligence that is available and it is not an opinion,” Chiu told lawmakers, according to the Taipei Times.
He refused to elaborate, citing the need to protect the intelligence service’s sources in North Korea, the report said.
He assured legislators that contingency plans were in place ready for a potential power struggle in the region if the North Korean leader did succumb, according to the reports.
However, his deputy, Hu Mu-yuan, later insisted that their intelligence was “unable to confirm the status of Kim Jong Un’s health,” the paper said.
Self distancing via LOCKDOWN was the Chinese remedy inflicted on Wuhan in order to halt the Chinese induced Coronavirus. And we must learn from the Chinese, the world must learn from the Chinese. We must apply the same technique they used to China itself – LOCKDOWN and LOCKOUT.
The world must lock down and lock out China from e-Commerce, from world trade organizations, from travel, from World organizations as a whole, from the UN and finally from world banking institutions. China must be ISOLATED, they must be taught a lesson; only then will the people revolt with a vengeance.
Doing this will not bring back the dead, it will not pay for the suffering, it will not pay for the damage they have done, but it will set an example to others that Regime Change will bring the change necessary that this will never happen again.
HEY MURDERER, YOUR DAYS ARE NUMBERED. WE WILL GET YOU!
Top 10 IL Public School Salaries & Pensions 2019 OPENTHEBOOKS.COM
Illinois could soon be the first state in history to have its bonds rated as “junk.” Last month, both Moody’s MCO and Standard & Poor’s downgraded Illinois debt to just one notch above junk status.
Last week, the Illinois State Senate President Don Harmon (D-Chicago) wrote a letter to Congress requesting a $41.6 billion bailout. Critics balked.
In many ways, Illinois may have already crossed the Rubicon.
Our analysis at OpenTheBooks.com shows that an Illinois family of four now owes more in unfunded pension liabilities ($76,000) than they earn in household income ($63,585). In a state of 13 million residents, every man, woman, and child owes $19,000 — on an estimated $251 billion pension liability.
Our auditors discovered 110,000 public employees and retirees who earned more than $100,000 last year.Today In: Policy
We found tree trimmers in Chicago making $106,663; nurses at state corrections earning up to $277,100; junior college presidents making $491,095; university doctors earning up to $2 million; and 111 small town managers who out-earned every governor of the 50 states ($202,000).
Our interactive mapping tool allows users to quickly review the 110,000 public employees and retirees across Illinois making more than $100,000 (by ZIP code). Just clicka pin and scroll down to see the results in your neighborhood rendered in the chart beneath the map.
Mapping the Illinois $100,000 Club — 110,000 six-figures public employee salary and pension records … [+] OPENTHEBOOKS.COM
Auditing Illinois’ large pay and pension systems
Here’s a system by system break down with the head counts of employees and retirees who made more than $100,000 per year:
Public schools (35,000) – Last year, nearly 22,000 educators earned a six-figure salary while more than 13,500 retirees received six-figure pensions. Six retired superintendents pocketed $300,000+ pensions, including Lawrence Wyllie (Lincoln-Way CHSD 210 – $341,019); Henry Bangser (New Trier Township HSD 203 – $331,489); Gary Catalani (Wheaton-Warrenville Unit SD 200 – $330,015); Laura Murray (Homewood-Flossmoor CHSD 233 – $324,677); and Mary Curley (Hinsdale CCSD 181 – $315,336).
Chicago (22,000) – We calculated that the city paid out $521.2 million in extra pay (overtime, vacation, supplemental, fitness, etc.) above base salaries. Four deputy fire chiefs made between $314,983 and $351,715. Police officers made up to $272,672 and EMT’s up to $270,851. The Chicago Transit Authority (CTA) paid line workers up to $300,135, telephone line workers up to $282,123, and escalator mechanics up to $203,855.
Colleges & universities (16,000) – Bradley Underwood made $2.9 million as the basketball coach at the University of Illinois. Junior college power couple Dale Chapman ($491,095) and Linda Terrill Chapman ($242,070) combined for a $733,000 income at Lewis and Clark Community College. Fady Toufic Charbel ($2 million); Mark Gonzalez ($1.1 million); and Konstantin Slavin ($1 million) are million-dollar doctors at University of Illinois at Chicago (UIC). A UIC pension paying out $524,865 goes to a retired doctor, Tapas Das Gupta.
State of Illinois (15,000) – Six-figure salaries and pension payouts amounted to $1.8 billion last year. Five barbers at Corrections made over $100,000 while eight nurses at Veterans, Human Services and Corrections made between $200,000 and $277,100. Eight troopers and police officers at the Tollway Authority made between $200,000 and $277,000. A court-ordered monitor, Dr. Stewart Pablo, cost taxpayers $327,600 to report on the lack of mental healthcare availability within the prison system — $1 million in total during the past three years.
Cities & villages (8,000) – Small town managers rake in the pay, perks, and pension benefits. These administrators include Michael Ellis (Village of Grayslake – $296,654); Richard Nahrstadt (Village of Northbrook – $290,603); Dane Bragg (Village of Buffalo Grove — $280,000); Patrick Nagle (Village of Rosemont — $279,523); Michael Cassady (Village of Mount Prospect — $278,282); and Reid Ottesen (Village of Palatine – $274,067). The Wheaton Park District conferred a $273,243 pension on retired administrator Elizabeth Kutska.
Largest pay and pension systems in Illinois conferring $100,000 per employee or retiree. OPENTHEBOOKS.COM
Private associations, nonprofits, and retired lawmakers
Consider the many ways that private associations, nonprofits, and retired lawmakers have exploited the legal loopholes.
Retired Chicago Mayor Richard M. Daley (D) double dipped the pension system for nearly $232,000. Daley made $149,009 per year in state lawmaker pension payouts after a short eight-year career as a state senator plus another $83,784 per year in city pension payouts for his 22 years as the mayor of Chicago.
Three of the highest earners within the municipal pension system work for private associations – not government. Peter Murphy, executive director of Illinois Association of Park Districts, made $359,287, while Brett Davis, executive director of the Park District Risk Management Agency, brought in $331,817. Brad Cole of the Illinois Municipal League pulled down $313,997. These private nonprofits muscled their way into the government system.
Former Illinois Governor Jim Edgar (R) double dipped pension systems: General Assembly pension ($175,951 per year) and University Retirement System pension ($85,140). After “retiring” from the University of Illinois, he was hired back part time for another $62,769. Last year, Edgar’s total payout from all sources was $323,860.
We estimate that Edgar earned $2.4 million in compensation from the University of Illinois (2000-2013) and another $2 million in pension payments already paid-out from his 20-year career as legislator, secretary of state and governor.
Highly compensated locals
DuPage County employees have a history of hefty salaries and pensions. Anthony Charlton, director of Stormwater Management, made $253,420. Five more county administrators made over $202,000 last year. Dewey Hartman, a chief deputy police officer, received $324,431 – a $159,574 bump in his final year. Hartman now receives a $176,872 pension.
Local park district administrators outearned the state director of parks ($116,500). These included James Pilmer ($212,794) at Fox Valley; Raymond McGury ($209,443) at Naperville; and Michael Bernard ($206,819) at Wheaton. However, the top two pensions exceeded the highest salaries: Elizabeth Kutska ($273,242) from Wheaton; and Steven Messerli ($215,484) from Fox Valley.
Forest preserve and even water district employees tapped into the largess. Brian Dorn pulled down $247,071 at North Shore Water Reclamation while Edward Stevenson made $214,856 at the Forest Preserve of DuPage County.
Possible solutions to the Illinois crisis
Illinois Governor J.B. Pritzker wants to hike the income tax during a recession. The proposal would change the state constitution to allow for a progressive income tax. Currently, the Illinois income tax is a flat rate tax.
Last week, Illinois State Senate President Don Harmon wrote a letter to Congress asking for a $40 billion bailout. $10 billion in bailout would be used for pension plan solvency.
This week, U.S. Senate Leader Mitch McConnell suggested another path, “I would certainly be in favor of allowing states to use the bankruptcy route.” McConnell specifically mentioned Illinois along with Connecticut, California, and New York.Follow me on Twitter. Check out my website.
Request for comment: Before publication, we reached out all every entity mentioned. If any other individual, politician, or pension system would like to offer comment or context, please contact the author.Adam Andrzejewski
She was thrown up against the wall by Sleepy Joe; he pulled the blouse from her slacks, then ran his hand down between her panties and privates. Reaching for her, he penetrated the most private. Those are the facts, there is no two ways about it.
They have jumped to his defense, like gangs from the hood defending their turf. That type of behavior is common in the liberal progressive drug infested circles of Hollywood. Gang rape in sanctuary cities is similar to the homeless standing in a soup line. They are not charged with a crime because a Democrat can do anything, including murder, rape, trash and burn, drug running, boarder jumping and illegal voting with abandon. A ordinary citizen may ask, “Why so?”
As one knows, the Democrats are out for votes, the more rope they give the criminal the more votes they will receive. Nobody is accountable except the voter come November. Blue State Governors provide sanctuary for murders, rapists and drug runners. MS-13 gangs run rampant in their cities, neighborhoods and streets. This is their territory, to hell with the law abiding citizen who, in almost every case suffers the consequences.
However, if you are a Supreme Court nominee, witnesses will come out of the wood work, like termites with amnesia. They will weave a story reminiscent of a drug addict; failing to remember the slightest detail or in fact any details. Like a person suffering from dementia-Alzheimer’s disease, facts don’t matter because the rabid press will blood run interference for the witness while painting a story in support of liars and fakers.
And then it is noted how shills jump to the side of Biden. Denouncing the accuser with personal attacks even in face of facts on the ground – not hearsay, but the corroboration from honorable people. Denounced as partisan even though the witnesses are of the same Blue stripe. They are drawn through the mud like the Negro in the days of yesteryear. Those who do this have no backbone, no constitution, no anything. They seek power, they are authoritarian dictators, no better than Stalin, Mussolini, Chavez and Castro.
All that matters to them is the defeat of Trump on November 3, 2020. These are ruthless people we are dealing with. Wake up America, your life is at stake.
BOTTOM LINE HERE; JOE BIDEN IS A SERIAL RAPIST – A EXISTENTIAL THREAT TO AMERICA
Donald Trump, Jr, Busts Schiff’s Effort to Hide Russian Investigation Witness Transcripts
Posted at 1:30 pm on April 27, 2020 by Nick AramaShare On FacebookShare On Twitter
House Intelligence Committee Chairman Adam Schiff, D-Calif., accompanied by the impeachment managers House Judiciary Committee Chairman, Rep. Jerrold Nadler, D-N.Y., Rep. Hakeem Jeffries, D-N.Y., Rep. Sylvia Garcia, D-Texas, Rep. Val Demings, D-Fla., Rep. Zoe Lofgren, D-Calif., and Rep. Jason Crow, D-Colo. speaks to reporters, on Capitol Hill in Washington, Wednesday, Jan. 22, 2020. The U.S. Senate was poised to hear opening arguments Wednesday in President Donald Trump’s impeachment trial, with Democratic House managers set to make their case that Trump abused power and should be removed from office. (AP Photo/Jose Luis Magana)
Donald Trump Jr. is raising awareness about House Intelligence Committee Chair Adam Schiff’s effort to block the release of transcripts of witnesses in the Russian investigation and he asked who was Adam Schiff trying to protect in the process, mentioning prominent members of the Obama administration.Donald Trump Jr.✔@DonaldJTrumpJr
Adam Schiff is desperately trying to hide these transcripts (including mine) from the American people. Who do you think he’s trying to protect? Me or Susan Rice, Samantha Power, Sally Yates and Andy McCabe?
“Adam Schiff is desperately trying to hide these transcripts (including mine) from the American people. Who do you think he’s trying to protect? Me or Susan Rice, Samantha Power, Sally Yates and Andy McCabe?” Trump Jr. asked.
Trump, Jr was citing a Wall Street Journal story which called out Schiff for refusing to release 43 transcripts which have been declassified as well as stopping the declassification of 10 additional transcripts.
[“]Among the transcripts he’s blocking are interviews with former Obama National Security Adviser Susan Rice and former Ambassador to the United Nations Samantha Power. Their authority was used to ‘unmask’ the names of Trump campaign officials who talked with foreigners who were wiretapped by U.S. intelligence,” the editorial board wrote.
“We’re told that another blocked interview is with former Acting Attorney General Sally Yates — who in early 2017 used a wild reading of the Logan Act that helped lead to the ouster of President Trump’s first national security adviser, Michael Flynn,” it added. “Mr. Schiff is also sitting on interview transcripts with Donald Trump Jr., son-in-law Jared Kushner and former Trump campaign advisers Corey Lewandowski, Sam Clovis and Steve Bannon. Is he worried that the transcripts will highlight how little substance there was to his collusion claims? The interviews would also allow the public to compare the early testimony of former FBI and intelligence officials (James Clapper, Andrew McCabe) against what we now know really happened.”
The editorial board concluded: “Mr. Schiff spent years shouting cover-up only to be exposed for making things up. Now that the evidence is ready for public release, he’s defying the unanimous vote of a bipartisan committee to make them public. What doesn’t Mr. Schiff want America to see?”
The Wall Street Journal suggested that Schiff was trying to prevent the pushers of the collusion theory from scrutiny as to their remarks and actions.
Rep. Devin Nunes, the ranking member on the Committee, told the Washington Examiner there was no reason to keep the information secret apart from that they want to hide what’s in them. He called for them to be released immediately.
So what is he hiding? If he had nothing to hide, why wouldn’t he want them out there? He spent three years spinning nonsense and making up claims of evidence that didn’t actually exist. But he doesn’t want people to be able to start comparing the testimony with the facts and blow a lot of the collusion pushing effort out of the water.Share On FacebookShare On TwitterSHOW COMMENTS
Gregory Hood, American Renaissance, April 23, 2020
For decades, a large, sometimes hostile Chinese community has worked in the Italian fashion and textile industries. Immigrants — legal and illegal — started as a cheap, “exploited” labor source that allowed high-fashion companies to slap a “Made in Italy” label on products churned out in sweatshops. Now, Chinese own many off-the-books factories, ignoring employment and safety laws, and dodging taxes. They are also carving out a competitive niche in the fashion industry, and even buying up iconic Italian companies.
Was the China connection the reason the coronavirus outbreak hit Italy so hard and so early? So much immigration has been illegal — and so many Chinese factories don’t even exist on paper — that contact tracing and other disease control measures were impossible.
Where did the Chinese come from? How many are there?
The first Chinese migrants settled in Milan and Turin in the 1930s, with a few more trickling in over the next decades. Many were peddlers, and some opened family workshops for leather goods. In 1975, there were only 402 Chinese adults in the country,[1] but more arrived during the early 1980s. Like earlier migrants, they came mostly from Zhejang Province in southeast China, especially the coastal city of Wenzhou.[2]
In 1986, Italy granted 1,618 residency permits to Chinese. In 1996, it granted 16,200, and in 2001, the figure was almost 69,000.[3] The number of illegals was unknown. In 1986, 1990, 1995, 1998, and 2002, Italy passed a series of amnesties and “reforms,” and every one of them encouraged immigration.[4] For example, in 1995, the government let illegals stay in the country if they registered with police. In 1998, a liberal government passed a law that let any public entity (including immigrant advocacy groups and NGOs) sponsor migrants.[5] Immigrants got access to the medical system[6] and can now bring in relatives through “family reunification schemes.”
There were supposed to be measures to stop employers from exploiting immigrant laborer or smuggling in workers,[7] but as in America, employer sanctions were rarely enforced. In 2002, a “tougher” immigration law passed by the Silvio Berlusconi’s conservative government still also included amnesty for some illegals.
According to the Italian government, there were 69,620 Chinese “resident foreigners” in 2003. Just 16 years later in 2019, that figure was 299,823, not counting illegals or Chinese who had taken Italian citizenship. This figure increased every year, except for a small decline from 2011 to 2012 during a brief local crackdown on illegal Chinese businesses.[8] As in America, employers want more workers. According to a survey from the Italian equivalent of the Chamber of Commerce, Italian companies would have been happy to take at least 100,000 new immigrants in 2001 alone.[9]
Many people think the government undercounts Chinese. A 2017 report said there were 318,975 legal Chinese residents, and a quarter were children. For comparison’s sake, there were reportedly 136,460 Chinese in Germany in 2019 — not even half the number in Italy — in a country of 83 million compared to Italy’s 60 million.
Many Chinese came to Italy opportunistically. The University of Bologna’s Antonella Ceccagno says Chinese look at Europe as a “chess board on which various family members move around.” They are in touch with Chinese already living in Europe, and look for a place where they can be “legalized.”[10] Many may have sneaked into Italy expecting future amnesties.
A large number settled in Prato, a city of 200,000 not far from Florence. Prato has long been the center of the Italian textile/clothing industry, and Chinese used kinship networks to build small, independent businesses[11] producing clothes under contract for major brands.[12] World-renowned companies sold cheaply made high-end goods that were “Made in Italy” but by Chinese sweatshop labor. Ironically, China is the number one market for brands such as Prada, Giorgio Armani, Fendi, Bottega Veneta, Salvatore Ferragamo.
The Chinese branched out from contract work and started independently producing pronto moda, “fast fashion,” trendy clothes for low-end retailers.[13] Chinese used cheap fabric to make knock-offs of top brands in small batches but very quickly.[14] Low-income consumers could enjoy cheap versions of high fashion. Chinese owners quickly became expert at setting up shell companies, flouting labor and health laws, using unsafe equipment, and dodging taxes.
The “Italian” fashion industry
It’s hard to count the Chinese in Italy because so many have entered illegally and so many work off the books. In 2018, the US State Department reported that “Chinese victims [of human trafficking] work in textile factories in Milan, Prato, Rome, and Naples.”[15]KnowTheChain says Prada, Fendi, and other brands often use “exploited labor.” The big companies plead ignorance; they use subcontractors that can shut down, reorganize, and reopen before police even know they’re there. Thus, an Italian luxury brand that boasts “Made in Italy” could be using Chinese-run subcontractors that don’t even exist on paper.
In 2008, the Chicago Tribune reported that “Chinese immigrants transform Italy’s fashion industry,” and that Prato is now a place “where two cultures can live side by side and never really know each other.” According to the paper, there were 30,000 legal immigrants and an equal number of illegals in a city where “social integration is almost non-existent.” The article concluded that “Chinese workers keep ‘Made in Italy’ fashion afloat.”
Likewise in 2008, a Los Angeles Times articles called “Slaving in the lap of luxury” asking readers to imagine “Chinese immigrants toiling long hours in ramshackle, poorly illuminated sheds” so companies could “quadruple a price” by claiming the goods were “Made in Italy.” It also reported that Chinese were “probably close to 25 percent [of the population of Prato] when illegal Chinese are counted.”
In 2010, the New York Times reported that “Prato’s streets have slowly become more and more Chinese,” as “Chinese have bought out Italian-owned shops and apartments often paying in cash.” The number of Chinese-owned businesses in Prato grew 35 percent from 2008 to 2013, while the number of Italian companies shrank. Chinese born in Italy were going back to school in China “to keep their options open.”
In December 2013, Reuters estimated that 50,000 Chinese lived in the Prato area, two-thirds of them illegal, and that the city council thought 90 percent of Chinese factories broke the law. Many people thought Prato was “a thriving hub of illegality committed by both Italians and Chinese, a byproduct of globalization gone wrong.” It was common to suspect that the local government overlooked sweatshop work because it was good for the economy. Parts of Prato became increasingly alien: streets lined with massage parlors, slot machines, and Chinese graffiti offering jobs, shared rooms, and paid female companionship.
In October 2014, the Associated Press wrote about the “thriving, illicit Chinese economy” of Prato, where immigrants worked 12- to 14-hour days, were paid two or three Euros an hour (far below minimum wage) and slept at the factory (in violation of Italian law). The AP found that Chinese-owned factories “replicated the habits of home.” “Merchandise isn’t exported,” concluded the article, “China itself is.” No need to contract out to cheap-labor countries when cheap-labor countries can come to you. And Chinese send their money home: Remittances from Italy are more than $1 billion a year.[16]
Tensions and rioting
Chinese aren’t assimilating. In 2007, 300 Chinese — waving a Chinese flag — rioted after a Chinese woman got into an argument with Italian traffic wardens. A 2013 documentary about Chinese-Italian friction includes footage of the riot, which was the first known Chinese riot in all of Europe.
In 2016, Chinese rioted again, throwing rocks and bottles at riot police sent to disperse them. They were protesting against health and regulations checks at a factory.
Police also cracked down on a Chinese organization in Prato called “White Stag” that runs prostitutes and drugs, and beats up Moroccans and other North Africans — with whom Chinese do not get along. In 2018, Prato police estimated that 85 percent of Chinese-owned factories paid protection money to Chinese gangsters.
In 2017, the Milan branch of the Bank of China was caught laundering $5 billion, mostly undeclared income from Chinese-run businesses and profits from counterfeit high fashion goods. The bank paid a $20 million fine.
Likewise, in 2017, 600 Chinese illegal immigrants rioted in Prato, waving a banner reading “This is China, Not Italy.” Police had to use tear gas to break up the mob. Again, the complaint was factory inspections. Between 2014 and 2017, Prato authorities conducted 8,000 surprise inspections, almost always finding serious infractions.
In 2018, The Economist cheerfully brushed all this aside, arguing that Italians should be grateful:
The arrival of Chinese factory owners and their workers has saved Prato from the fate of some places in the rich world that suffered badly as a result of competition from developing economies like China’s.
In other words, sweatshop drudges “saved” Italians from the Chinese.
Increasing Chinese power
While Chinese immigrants build small companies, Chinese in China are buying big Italian companies. In 2013, the Epoch Times reported that China now owns several iconic companies, such as Cerruti, Fioruccui Foods, and Desmo. In addition to the official 2017 count of no fewer than 50,737 Chinese-owned local businesses, by 2014, Chinese interests owned some 200 Italian businesses, and China’s central bank held stakes in Italian blue chips such as Fiat, Telecom Italia, Generali, and Eni.
State-to-state economic cooperation is growing. Italy was the first European country to sign up with China’s “Silk Road” plan, which will spend almost $3 billion on transportation infrastructure connecting the two countries.
With these close connections, there is plenty of business and personal travel between Italy and China. It was inevitable that people would wonder whether Chinese smuggled into the country and working in cramped sweatshops could have introduced and spread the virus. At this point, with lax immigration law enforcement and spotty travel records, it’s impossible to know.
We do know that the first confirmed cases in Italy were Chinese tourists from Wuhan, but Wuhan is more than 500 miles from Wenzhou, which is where most of the Prato Chinese come from. The virus did hit Wenzhou, though, and many Chinese in Italy had gone home for the Lunar New Year, which was January 25. By the 29th, there were 172 cases in the province. It may be that Chinese returning to Italy after the holiday brought the disease with them — but this can’t be proven.
On January 31, Italy stopped direct flights from China, which the Chinese government called an “overreaction,” but by then, tourists or returning workers could have already brought the disease to Italy.
That said, one of the very first covid patients in Italy was an Italian who has never traveled to China. He went to the emergency room on February 19, but it was 36 hours before he was tested. He probably infected a number of people, including his father (who died from the disease) and his pregnant wife (who didn’t).
Also, Prato, has a very low infection rate. If test reports can be believed, not one Chinese has the disease. It certainly does not appear that Prato is a hotbed — and there may be an interesting reason for this. According to Reuters, Chinese who had returned to the city from New Year celebrations knew very well that a dangerous virus was spreading in China. Chinese therefore put their community into lockdown three weeks before Italy recorded its first infection. According to Reuters, “They knew what was coming and spread the word: stay home.” There is “some anecdotal evidence that Chinese people in [other parts of] Italy did the same.”
This suggests that the Chinese acted independently and thought only of themselves. It also means the Italian government has no idea what is going on in the community. Dr. Giorgio Palu, a virologist and former health official, said the Italian government acted too slowly because it was afraid of being called “racist.” But if the Reuters report is accurate, in early February, just when the mayor of Florence was telling citizens to “Hug a Chinese” to fight stigma and racism, the Chinese were already keeping their distance from each other.
Northern Italian fashion defines luxury, wealth, and status — but it’s built on a Chinese colony and off-the-books labor. The coronavirus outbreak reminds us that Sam Francis was right: Anarcho-tyranny is the ultimate stage of multiculturalism. Italy imposed draconian rules on its own people to stop the spread of coronavirus. At the same time, it doesn’t know how many Chinese are in the country, where they are from, where they work, or when they come and go.
Aside from whether they had any role in the outbreak, Chinese have built a parallel, sometimes hostile society in Italy, and many clearly think of themselves as exclusively Chinese. Italy is just a place to make money. At the same time, Chinese are shoving out low-level Italian competitors and even beginning to take holdings in top firms. It’s a high price to pay for extra profits on “luxury items” churned out by coolies in Prato sweatshops.
"If Chinese students want to come here and study Shakespeare & the Federalist Papers, that's what they need to learn from America. They don't need to learn quantum computing" — Sen. Tom Cotton proposes restricting Chinese students from studying science & tech at US universities pic.twitter.com/Sn6f6MMwtW
Cotton, who has vowed that China will “pay” for what he has called its deliberate choice to unleash the coronavirus on the world, went on to say that the U.S. should take a “hard look at the visas” awarded to Chinese nationals.
“If Chinese students want to come here and study Shakespeare and the Federalist Papers, that’s what they need to learn from America,” Cotton said. “They don’t need to learn quantum computing and artificial intelligence from America.”
Left-wing commenators quickly accused Cotton of racism, and noted that Shakespeare was not an American.
Cotton was one of the first lawmakers to speculate that COVID-19 may have made its first human transmission in a Chinese laboratory — an idea once mocked as a “conspiracy theory” but that is now under investigation.
Fox News exclusively reported earlier this month that there is increasing confidence that the COVID-19 outbreak likely originated in a Wuhan laboratory, though not as a bioweapon but as part of China’s attempt to demonstrate that its efforts to identify and combat viruses are equal to or greater than the capabilities of the United States.
“It was pretty well documented by Chinese scientists that it did not originate in the food market,” Cotton said Sunday. “But wherever it originated, we know that the Chinese Communist Party was both criminally negligent and incompetent at first and then deliberately, deliberately malevolent in the way they responded to this virus for their own people and the world as early as the second week of December.”
He added: “I believe that was a deliberate and conscious choice by the Chinese communist leadership because they did not want to see their relative power and standing in the world decline because this virus was contained within China. If we’re going to suffer an economic contraction, they were not going to allow the world to continue to prosper and China be the only country whose economy was declining. They might see an absolute decline in their economy, but they refuse to see a relative decline, especially relative to the United States.”Video
According to The Associated Press, internal Chinese documents show that government officials acknowledged likely human-to-human transmission of coronavirus, and said they were following orders from the president of China to keep it under wraps.
Cotton went on to elaborate on several pieces of legislation he says would help address the issue.
“I think most Americans are shocked to learn that so many of our basic drugs are made in China,” Cotton said. “We need to stop that. We need to bring it back to the United States and get it out of China so we would give incentives to companies to build new plants here, create more jobs here. So we’re not dependent on China in a pandemic or even in any kind of health concerns.
“Second, China is continuing even now to take aggressive action throughout the region to break its commitments, it’s cracking down on Hong Kong and violations of its commitments to Great Britain when Great Britain returned Hong Kong,” Cotton continued. “It’s taking aggressive action in the South China Sea. We need to invest more in our defense industrial base to offset some of the losses we’re gonna see because of this virus. We need more ships. We need more submarines. We need more bombers. We need more fighters. The exact kind of systems that will deter China from aggressive action against the United States and our interests in the Western Pacific and ultimately all around the globe.”
For Cotton, taking action on China has been a priority for weeks.
“China is a pariah state and we have to treat them like that,” Cotton told “America’s Newsroom” last week.
"Where Revolution is the Solution" Taking back the Empire
