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Yesterday, Gab tweeted the following:

Gab was just banned from our 5th bank in 5 weeks. This is Operation Chokepoint under the Biden administration. We literally can't have a basic business checking account to store our money.

Whether or not you support Gab, this is an important news for so many obvious reasons. I did a little bit of digging + asking around and it turns out said 5th bank was the last one of the five banks where Gab was provided with commercial banking services. Let me be a drama queen here: Now, Gab is probably the only company in the Western hemisphere that doesn't have its business checking account services at financial institutions.

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What does it all mean though?

Can we just say "Eh, Gab is possibly a state sponsored honeypot operation, so screw them" and move on to the next topic? You can but I wouldn't. Because, just like freedom of speech, this is simply of paramount importance to the way of our lives.

How come?

What happened to Gab in terms of its banking services, that kind of practice can be a flagrant violation of economic freedom such as fiscal freedom, freedom of business, investment, & labour.

And if people don't challenge and let the practice stay being legal in the US, said practice would be able to literally kill one's business when they want: They would just announce that the particular business doesn't look like it's following the mainstream agenda at the moment like, say, social justice standards, established climate change narratives, and any of the government's immigration & multiculturalism policies.

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You might say, "Come on. This is not China. They can't just regulate what commercial banks can do if the regulation itself is offending the laws and customs." Fair enough. At least, I thought so too until this raging rumours about an Obama DOJ initiative called Operation Choke Point were turned out to be true. Just in case you're not familiar with said initiative, the following articles will shed some light.

• Aug 07, 2013 -- Probe Turns Up Heat on Banks [Link] [Archived]

• Nov 05, 2018 -- Newly Unsealed Documents Show Top FDIC Officials Running Operation Choke Point [Link] [Archived]

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But, hey, that thing called Operation Choke Point? It hasn't come back to life yet, has it?

Enter the ESG score.

• Refinitiv's closer look at the ESG framework

• What Are Environmental, Social, and Governance (ESG) Criteria?

• JP Morgan Chase' page on the ESG [Link] [Archived]

• BlackRock's FAQ page on the ESG [Link] [Archived]

• JPMorgan Chase itself's ESG score on Yahoo! Finance [Link] [Archived]

It's not that hard to see the ESG score agenda is China's social credit system in disguise.

• Nov 16, 2020 -- China’s Corporate Social Credit System [PDF Link] [Archived]

• Oct 29, 2018 -- China has started ranking citizens with a creepy 'social credit' system — here's what you can do wrong, and the embarrassing, demeaning ways they can punish you [Link] [Archived]

• An Introduction to China’s Social Credit System [Link] [Archived]

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Of course, it's so obvious that what happened to Gab is going to be used to target any companies and businesses they can label alt-right. If there's a business they would like to regulate but they couldn't label as an alt-right, they will simply come up with a different label.

And if they can execute this kind of practice to a business, what would stop them from applying it to an individual who, say, refuses to take the vaccine?

Hasn't the previous US administration expected this, since everybody said the administration was supporting the so called alt-right movement? What was their position on this subject? Did they have any?

Feb 17, 2021 -- With Politicized Lending, Biden Aims to Revive 'Operation Choke Point' [Link] [Archived]

In one of the last executive actions of the Trump administration, the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency published an important final “Fair Access to Financial Services” rule requiring that large banks and federal savings associations make lending decisions based upon “individualized, quantitative risk-based analysis and management of customer risk.”

Translation: The lenders are not to make such decisions on the basis of the political unpopularity (among leftists) of certain businesses, obvious examples of which are producers of fossil fuels or firearms, operators of for-profit colleges or private prisons, and payday lenders, and perhaps others engaged in entirely legal business activities.

Note: In case the link to Fair Access to Financial Services on the RealClearMarkets article is dead, here's an archived.

The RealClearMarkets article linked above is saying that the Biden administration has killed the specific Trump EO and they are going for reviving Operation Choke Point. Hm.

Take a look at what has happened to freedom of speech here in the US, especially with all those so called social justice and cancel culture.

What's going on with Gab is not going to be limited just to an obscure alt-right social media platform.

Earlier this year, almost all the major social media platforms in the US, including Spotify (:D), decided to take down the account of the nation's president. Let that sink in for a moment. And a vocal eugenics enthusiast named Bill Gates made a following quip: "I think at some point he probably will be allowed back on and probably should be allowed back on." Exactly who's going to decide when or if to allow here, Mr. Gates? You? (SMH)

I know it's not going to be easy but I would try my best to speak up and discuss regarding this critical issue, as well as making calls to the representatives.

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Also yesterday,

the Reuters reported that "a U.S. federal judge temporarily blocked the Department of Defense from forcing American investors to divest from Chinese smartphone maker Xiaomi Corp on the grounds the company has ties to China’s military."

Mar 12, 2021 -- Court ruling suspends U.S. ban on investment in Xiaomi [Link] [Archived]

The US Defense Department under the previous US administration placed Xiaomi on a list of companies with links to the Chinese military, triggering financial restrictions that were scheduled to go into effect next week, the week starting March 15, 2021.

But yesterday on Friday March 12, 2021, a US District Judge Rudolph Contreras put a temporary halt to the ban, siding with Xiaomi in a lawsuit that argued that the move was "arbitrary and capricious" and deprived the company of its due process rights.

The Judge Contreras said that the court "concludes that defendants have not made the case that the national security interests at stake here are compelling."

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To me, this ruling is interesting because

even with the recently enacted CCP's National Intelligence Law which was thoroughly detailed on the DOD's 2020 Annual Report to Congress "Military and Security Developments Involving the People’s Republic of China," [Link PDF] [Archived]

it seems that the Judge Contreras has taken the Chinese company's side based on him being skeptical whether something specific of Xiaomi's capacities is a national security threat.

I am wondering

what if Xiaomi were proved later on to have violated the US citizen's privacy and also the US national security during the course of action. What then? Will the Judge who made said ruling be held accountable for the consequences?

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For some reason, the news regarding this ruling on the Xiaomi case reminded me of this picture.

The CCP still blocks the majority of the US tech platforms, while Chinese companies are making carbon copies of said tech platforms and products to make a business within China + in some other parts of the world. In the US though, strangely enough they seem to be okay with it. And when the China's president visited here, they were all gathered around and smiled to take an awesome picture.

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Furthermore,

you will meet many apologists online or in real life insisting those Chinese tech companies are not threats to the US national security interests, even after you bring the National Intelligence Law into the discussion.

Ask them if those Chinese companies, such as Xiaomi or Huawei, would have any other choices but to hand over network data to the CCP when the CCP requested for it. The typical response you would normally get is "Well, how about with the American government? You're not that naive to believe Facebook can resist any order from the American government or FBI, right?"

Hm. Yea, but the CCP has made sure Chinese people cannot use Facebook, no?

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Good night guys.