Feb. 9, 2021 - Epoch Times
18:25
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| Good evening. | |
| According to this new report that was released by America's Customs Agency, China has sent over 12 million counterfeit masks since the beginning of the pandemic. | |
| And that is, by the way, only the ones we know about. | |
| Furthermore, the same agency announced that last year, in 2020, 800,000 pounds of illegal narcotics were intercepted at the U.S. southern border. | |
| However, with the new policies down there that have been implemented by the new administration, one deputy said that things are getting worse. | |
| Meanwhile, over in Washington, D.C., BLM and Antifa activists, they marched through the streets while chanting, burn it down. | |
| We here at the Epoch Times also obtain video footage of them clashing with the police. | |
| And lastly, in a video from Donald Trump Jr., he laid out what comes next for the movement that was started by his father. | |
| Let's go through these stories together. | |
| This is your daily Facts Matter update, and I'm your host, Roman, from the Epoch Times. | |
| Now let's start today's discussion by talking about made-in-China goods. | |
| According to this new report, which came out of the Customs and Border Protection Agency here in the U.S., over 51% of either counterfeit or substandard COVID-related products that were seized by the U.S. Customs officials came from China. | |
| And that data, by the way, is from the period spanning from October of 2019 to the end of September of 2020. | |
| It's their fiscal year. | |
| And among the products which were seized was a staggering and almost unbelievable 12.7 million counterfeit masks, as well as 177,000 fraudulent COVID test kits. | |
| And again, I just want to repeat that. | |
| 12.7 million counterfeit masks. | |
| Which, as staggering as that number is, it's by the way, those are only the ones that were intercepted. | |
| Those are the ones that were found. | |
| Who knows how many fake masks actually made their way through here? | |
| Who knows if maybe you're right now even wearing one. | |
| And if you'd like to know what these seized fake masks look like, take a look at this post here. | |
| In December of last year, customs officials in Cincinnati seized about 10,000 counterfeit surgical masks, which were labeled 3M Mask Model 1860. | |
| And even though the shipment originated from China, the boxes containing the masks were fraudulently labeled as Made in America. | |
| Now, this report was not limited to just COVID-related products, though. | |
| It also mentioned that customs officials issued a record number of withhold orders banning the imports of products that were made using forced labor. | |
| Most of these targeted products, things like disposable gloves, seafood, and cotton, originated from China. | |
| Specifically, about a month ago, the Customs and Border Patrol Agency issued a new withhold order banning all imports of cotton, apparel, textiles, and tomato products from China's Xinjiang region. | |
| Why? | |
| Well, it could have something to do with the fact that the State Department declared that the Chinese Communist Party is conducting a genocide against Uyghur Muslims over in Xinjiang. | |
| And you might have already heard that the Chinese Communist Party has detained more than a million ethnic Muslims and placed them in internment camps over in Xinjiang, where they're subject to forced labor, torture, and political indoctrination sessions. | |
| Now, to give you both sides of the story, though, in their defense, China claims that these camps are not concentration camps, but instead vocational training centers. | |
| Now, besides banning these products that are made through forced labor, this report also concluded that customs officials seized over 26,000 shipments with products that were found to have violated U.S. intellectual property rights. | |
| And here also, they listed China as being the top source of such seizures. | |
| And by the way, these 26,000 shipments that they seized would have an estimated retail price, an estimated retail value of over $1.3 billion. | |
| And again, keep in mind that this is only what they seized. | |
| Imagine how much actually made its way through. | |
| And here's an example of some of the seized counterfeit products. | |
| These pictures are from three months ago, out in Los Angeles. | |
| And they show customs officials having seized three cargo shipments from China, which contained, among other things, one million knockoff Viagra pills, fake footwear, belts, purses, and headphones. | |
| In total, that one shipment contained over $32 million worth of fake products. | |
| Now, shipments of fake products that are coming here from China are not the only problem that the Customs and Border Patrol agents have to worry about. | |
| Four days ago, this agency announced that in 2020, basically last year, they seized over 800,000 pounds of illegal narcotics making their way up here through the southern border. | |
| And of note, nearly half of these drugs, 470,000 pounds to be specific, were discovered by using a new screening technology. | |
| They refer to it as non-intrusive inspection technology, and it allows officials to detect narcotics, weapons, and other materials that could present a nuclear or radiological threat to the U.S. without having to physically go through a vehicle or container. | |
| The technology ranges from large-scale X-ray and gamma-ray systems to portable and handheld options. | |
| Now, according to this agency, using this non-intrusive technology saves them around $1 billion annually. | |
| And last year, they said that they used this technology during 6.4 million inspections. | |
| Now, while using this technology on people who are entering the U.S. is not so controversial, it's also now being used on American citizens within the country. | |
| For example, customs and border officers used this non-intrusive technology to inspect vehicles that were coming in and out of the hardened security perimeter during the inauguration events over in Washington, D.C. And in fact, here's how one official put it. | |
| While our normal day-to-day operations at the border consist of looking for terrorism, narcotics, and of course weapons, in this case here, meaning in Washington, D.C., we're looking for incendiary devices, weapons, explosive devices to help protect the U.S. and this event. | |
| Now here's actually where I'd like to turn it over and ask you a question. | |
| Is using these x-ray and gamma-ray type systems to search people's cars as well as their persons when there is no probable cause a violation of our rights against unreasonable searches and seizures? | |
| Please let me know in the comment section below. | |
| I'd love to know your thoughts because I have my own thoughts and let's chat about it in the comment section below. | |
| Now while you're down there by the way looking for that comment section, take a quick moment to notice that like button And take another quick moment to smash that like button. | |
| Because you know that videos that are like this, talking honestly about what is happening in this world right now, are routinely censored by big tech. | |
| However, when you smash that like button that's below this video, you are forcing the YouTube algorithm to share this video out to potentially thousands of more people, letting the truth be known far and wide. | |
| And by the way, now is a great opportunity to introduce our channel sponsor for today's episode, and I'll do so from the sound room. | |
| That's right, the sponsor of today's episode is AMAC. That's A-M-A-C and it stands for the Association of Mature American Citizens. | |
| Now, even though I consider myself a mature American citizen, I am about 20 years too young to join. | |
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| The link will be in the description box below this video. | |
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| Again, that's amac.us forward slash facts matter. | |
| And AMAC, thank you so much for sponsoring this episode. | |
| And now let's go back to the studio and continue our discussion on the southern border wall. | |
| Indeed, while we're still talking about the U.S. southern border, I'd like to discuss what Matthew Thomas, who is a chief deputy down in Arizona, had to say about the situation down there right now. | |
| And by the way, he is chief deputy of Pima County in Arizona, which is about a 90-minute drive from the Mexico southern border. | |
| And here's what he had to say. | |
| He said that the crisis at the border had begun to re-emerge around the end of 2020 because the human and drug trafficking cartels expected Joe Biden to have a hands-off attitude with regards to the situation at the border. | |
| And furthermore, he said that since Joe Biden has ordered to stop the construction of the border wall, it has actually created more trouble for him because his county does not have physical barriers. | |
| He says that it's pretty much a disaster situation wherein the cartels are making a mad dash to the highway. | |
| He said that, for us, effectively, I-8, which is the highway down there, becomes the new border, and even the cartels will tell you that it's their goal line because once they get there, meaning on the highway, they're shooting west or they're shooting east, and then they're on a main interstate. | |
| These people and these drugs are not coming here to Pinell County to stay. | |
| This is a transport location. | |
| This is a spot they get through to get to their final destination, and they're being sent all over the country. | |
| Now, setting aside the drug issue for a moment, people from Central America are not the only groups that are making use of our porous border. | |
| About four days ago, border agents arrested 11 Iranians who entered the country illegally through the southern border. | |
| According to a press release from the agency, The group was arrested and taken to Yuma Station for processing. | |
| The five females and six males were all from Iran, a special interest country. | |
| Now, besides that statement, no other details have yet been provided about these individuals from Iran. | |
| And by the way, if you want to read about anything that we've discussed so far, all those links will be in the description box below this video for you to check out. | |
| However, while we're still on the topic of walls, let's switch gears a little bit and talk about the military-style fence, which some have described as a wall that's currently surrounding the U.S. Capitol building. | |
| Now this letter, which I have right here in front of me, was signed by 42 House members, all Republicans, and it was then sent over to Nancy Pelosi. | |
| And it is urging her to get rid of the barricades surrounding the U.S. Capitol. | |
| And one of the primary concerns that it lists out here at the top of the paragraph, in particular, we are concerned with recent reports that the fencing surrounding the Capitol may become permanent. | |
| Now, it then continues. | |
| We are willing to have an honest debate about providing Capitol Hill police with the resources they need to be better prepared without turning the Capitol into a permanent fortress. | |
| It's time for healing, and it's time for the removal of the fencing so that the nation may move forward. | |
| Now, they mention here the reports that the fencing surrounding the Capitol may become permanent, And one of the things that this might be referencing is a statement from the Capitol Police Force's acting chief who said that permanent fences around the Capitol complex should be part of the vast improvements in security needed to protect the building and the lawmakers who work inside. | |
| Now, one thing that's probably not helping the effort to remove the fencing around the Capitol is the fact that over the weekend, BLM and Antifa activists marched through the streets of Washington, D.C. chanting, burn it down. | |
| Take a look at some of this footage. | |
| We also found some video footage showing these agitators actually fighting with the police who were trying to keep them away from people eating at restaurants. | |
| Take a look. | |
| Move back! | |
| Move back! | |
| Now, by the way, these police officers were trying to separate the diners from these agitators because people were being threatened as they were having dinner. | |
| Now, this weekend, by the way, is not an isolated incident, as anti-police protests as well as anti-police riots have been a fairly constant presence in Washington, D.C. since about May of last year, basically with the death of George Floyd. | |
| Now, we reached out to the Capitol Police Department to find out whether any arrests were made over the weekend, but they have yet to get back to us. | |
| And by the way, if you'd like to know a little bit more about Antifa, it is, at its core, an extremist anarchist communist group. | |
| But it's not, by any stretch of the imagination, a new movement. | |
| It was actually first established in 1921 as part of the Soviet Union's front operations to bring about communist dictatorship over in Germany. | |
| And basically, the way that they worked is that they labeled all rival parties, basically anything other than communism, as being fascist. | |
| In fact, here's what one former Antifa member said. | |
| Antifascism is a strategy rather than an ideology. | |
| I think he said that rather succinctly. | |
| And so in Germany, they labeled everything other than communism, literally every other ideology, school of thought, or party other than communism, as being fascist. | |
| However, here is the ironic part. | |
| Antifa was so violent in the 1920s in Germany that it actually pushed more people towards aligning with Hitler out of fear from Antifa. | |
| Think about that. | |
| Now, if you want to go deeper, we actually recently had a great sit-down interview with Andy Ngo, who is an independent journalist and who has been chronicling Antifa's actions around the U.S. And he discussed some of the tactics and the true intentions behind the Antifa movement and their ideology. | |
| And I'll throw a link to that episode in the description box below this video for you to check out. | |
| And now let's talk a little bit about Donald Trump Jr. | |
| In a video that was released on his social media accounts with the headline, Here's what comes next for our amazing movement, he told supporters, Just want to make sure everyone knows, guys, we are not done yet. | |
| Furthermore, he said that, You see that, I mean, this is really a movement of the people. | |
| A movement against the establishment, a movement against the elite. | |
| Now, in speaking about his father, Trump Jr. | |
| said that President Trump is still going to be in that fight. | |
| In particular, He further alleged that the Biden administration appeared to have a China-first, America-last policy and accused the new administration of crushing jobs amid the pandemic. | |
| He said, And then he added this. | |
| You know, a lot of those things have been brewing for quite some time. | |
| And that's why for me, I'm still staying engaged and we're going to get in there and we're going to fight to elect people who really represent the people. | |
| You know, the people like you who have gone through so much. | |
| Now, the context here is that a little over a week ago, President Trump opened a new office, the office of the former president, that seeks to advance the interests of the United States and carry on the agenda of the Trump administration. | |
| Now, what will that actually look like? | |
| Well, at the moment, it's still not exactly clear, but we do have some clues. | |
| For instance, a former campaign advisor said that President Trump would be involved in the 2022 midterm elections, with the immediate focus being to help Republicans win back both chambers of Congress. | |
| However, the immediate next step for President Trump will be the Senate impeachment trial, which starts tomorrow. | |
| If you'd like to watch or read the full statement from Donald Trump Jr., that link will be in the description box below this video for you to check out. | |
| Now lastly, I want to mention again, on the very same day that Joe Biden was sworn into office, YouTube made the unilateral decision to cut off monetization for this channel. | |
| We can now no longer run any advertising before, during, or after our program, and the Super Chat feature has been disabled. | |
| And that is pretty much the tip of the iceberg because what they also did was institute draconian censorship policies, meaning that we cannot discuss a ton of things. | |
| And you know how this channel works. | |
| We discuss everything factually. | |
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| And no matter how factually we talk about them, no matter how we keep opinion out of it, no matter if we keep any hyperbole out of it, if we just discuss certain topics, I wouldn't even mention what topics they are. | |
| But when we discuss those topics factually, We can still get our entire channel taken down. | |
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| And then until next time, I'm your host, Roman, for The Epoch Times. |
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