To Neutral from Buy by Guggenheim
Wednesday, August 9, 2023
RFK Jr. Makes Case For Finishing Border Wall
by Brad Jones via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours),
A trip to the U.S.-Mexico border in Arizona was all it took for Robert F. Kennedy Jr. to change his mind on the need for a border wall pushed by his political rival former President Donald Trump.
“I went down to the border feeling that Trump has made a mistake on the wall, but I feel like people need to be able to recalibrate their worldview when they’re confronted with evidence,” he told a crowd of more than 300 on Aug. 3 at the premiere of his documentary, Midnight at the Border.
When asked by a news reporter at a press conference that followed the premiere at the Saban Theatre, if rumors that a Trump-Kennedy presidential ticket in 2024 were true, Mr. Kennedy ruled out the possibility of the unlikely Republican-Democrat pairing.
“In my experience, a lot of the stuff that you read in the mainstream news and the corporate news is what I would call conspiracy theories,” he said.
His response was met by laughter and applause.
“No, I will not be Donald Trump’s vice president,” he said.
The ‘Yuma Gap’
The 19-minute video documents Mr. Kennedy’s after-midnight visit on June 6 to an infamous gap in the border wall near Yuma, Arizona, known as the "Yuma Gap" where the California, Arizona, and U.S.–Mexico borders meet along the Colorado River.
Of the hundreds who crossed the border illegally that night and were apprehended by the U.S. Border Patrol, many weren't from Latin American countries as Mr. Kennedy expected, he said, but from Africa, Eastern Europe, and Asia.
“Only two families said they were claiming political persecution. The rest just told us openly they were coming here to make money, coming here for a better life. So, they didn’t even have that claim. And those immigrants shouldn’t be allowed into the country. We should stop that at the border,” he said.
In the film, Mr. Kennedy interviews U.S. authorities on the border crisis and illegal migrants, most of whom weren't claiming asylum, the official reason and legal premise for them to remain in the country.
“What we should be doing and what we used to do is we would process them at the border, and only 15 percent of them were adjudicated as legitimate. The other 85 percent were adjudicated as specious,” he said. “And, under normal conditions, the specious claimants are not allowed into this country. They’re turned away. If we were doing that today, the entire business model of the cartels would collapse.”
With U.S.–Mexican relations at a low, Mr. Kennedy said one of his priorities if elected president would be to reestablish a better relationship with Mexico and other countries south of the border to stem the flow of immigration.
“This trail of immigrants is not good for them,” he said. “It’s destabilizing.”
The Biden administration’s current border policy isn’t serving the best interests of the American people nor those of Democrats or Republicans, nor migrants or “our neighbors to the south,” Mr. Kennedy said.
The crisis shouldn't be a partisan issue and to solve it, the best ideas of both political parties should be put on the table, he said.
“We have a policy now that is not serving anybody’s interest,” he said. “Everybody is getting hurt by this policy.”
While the wall has been a divisive issue, it shouldn’t be, he indicated.
“I was against Trump’s wall. I thought it was a crazy idea. To me, it was a big mistake,” he said.
But, despite his sister Rory Kennedy’s award-winning 2010 documentary “The Fence,” “showing all the reasons we shouldn’t build it,” he now suggests compromise is needed.
“I don’t think we do need a wall as we were told that had 2,200 miles between Brownsville and San Diego,” he said. “But, we need something.”
Mr. Kennedy also suggested more cameras and drone surveillance is needed along the border.
“Midnight at the Border” reveals how the cost of an unsecured border is paid in illicit drug overdoses and the human trafficking of migrant women and children.
Residents of U.S. border towns told Mr. Kennedy and his film crew they wouldn’t let their children play outside “because they were scared of these strangers ... running across the yard fleeing from the Border Patrol, which is a very common occurrence,” Mr. Kennedy said.
The film notes that in 2022, the federal Drug Enforcement Agency seized about $379 million in doses of fentanyl.
Last year alone, 109,000 people in the United States died from drug overdoses, 67 percent from synthetic opioids such as fentanyl, according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
Human Suffering
Not only does the border crisis put people’s lives at risk crossing rivers and deserts, it also puts them and their life savings at the mercy of cartels.
“They get extorted. They get raped. They get robbed,” Mr. Kennedy said.
One scene in the film describes an infamous “rape tree” where Mexican smugglers, known as “coyotes,” have sexually assaulted women and children as young as 12 and then force their female victims to take “morning after” abortion pills.
Illegal immigration also reduces wages for every working American, Mr. Kennedy said at the press conference.
“We’re creating this understory of exploitable poor,” he said. “These people are being paid by unscrupulous employers $5 or $6 an hour, a half of their lives here. And there’s no way they can change that. They have no leverage and no bargaining power.”
These employers use the threat of exposing the immigration status of migrants to protect their own interests over those of the country, Mr. Kennedy said.
“If you really wanted to end the border crisis ... the most obvious thing to do would be to prosecute people who hire illegal aliens—the businesses,” he said. “I’m not saying that this is what we need to do right away, but I’m just pointing to the obvious.”
When President Ronald Reagan came into office, there were 1 million illegal immigrants in this country. It wasn’t a crisis because about 30 percent of the workers in the United States belonged to labor unions that helped to keep illegal immigrants from being hired, Mr. Kennedy said.
Now, about 10 percent of the American labor force is unionized and illegal immigrants who show up on job sites aren't reported, he said.
“I am a traditional Kennedy Democrat. I think human dignity and particularly dignity of the workers and the American middle class are the foundation stones not only of our economy, but of American democracy,” he said.
https://www.zerohedge.com/political/robert-f-kennedy-jr-makes-case-finishing-border-wall
Biden to curb U.S. investment in Chinese tech sectors
The Biden administration will try to slow Beijing's development of next-generation technologies that could have military applications — like advanced semiconductors, artificial intelligence and quantum computing — by limiting the ability of U.S. corporations to invest in those sectors in China.
In an executive order expected to be released Wednesday, American companies will be subject to unprecedented new federal oversight that will scrutinize and potentially prevent some of their investments in China's tech industry. The goal is to ensure that U.S. cash does not support China's military modernization and potentially threaten the United States.
The rules would not take effect for at least a year, and there will be a public comment period so businesses and other groups can weigh in on the new rules before they are finalized.
Representatives from the White House, Treasury and Commerce Departments were not immediately available for comment.
The administration's initial plans to limit U.S. investment were more sweeping. But, after months of engagement with the private sector, the focus of the new regulations narrowed.
Some American executives expressed concern that a clampdown of the flow of U.S. capital to China could be harmful to U.S. businesses and have a negative impact on the domestic economy. The Chinese economy — the world's second largest, with more than 1 billion consumers — is a vital market for many American companies.
Earlier this summer, Secretary of State Antony Blinken and Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen took separate trips to Beijing to help ease tensions between the U.S. and China. In Yellen's meetings with her Chinese counterparts, she tried to reassure them that the executive order would be "highly targeted."
"I want to allay their fears that we would do something that would have broad based impacts on the Chinese economy," Yellen said at a July press conference in Beijing. "That's not the case. That's not the intention."
Still, Xie Feng, China's ambassador to the United States, has warned that Beijing will respond.
"The Chinese government cannot simply sit idly by," Xie said at the Aspen Security Forum in July. "There's a Chinese saying: 'We will not make provocations, but we will not flinch from provocations.' So China definitely will make our response."
The measures come as China and the United States are increasingly locked in a technological arms race. Last October, the Commerce Department announced new restrictions on sales to China of advanced technology needed to build high-end semiconductors. The move was aimed at crippling China's ability to develop its own domestic manufacturing capabilities and slow the development of supercomputers and some weapons, such as hypersonic missiles.
In June, Blinken said in an interview with "Face the Nation" moderator Margaret Brennan that the administration sought to build a "very high fence around a very small piece of land." He added, "That small piece of land has very sensitive technology that could be used against us. We're not going to let that happen."
https://www.cbsnews.com/news/biden-curb-us-investment-chinese-tech-sectors/
Renovaro to Merge with AI Company GEDi Cube
Cutting-edge AI/machine learning technology with validation in humans for early diagnosis of lung cancer
In silico detection for 12 additional cancers, including pancreatic
More than 2,600 proprietary biomarker panels
Rapidly expanding to other cancers and diseases
Innovative biotechnology firm with promising pancreatic cancer results projected to begin human studies for several challenging solid tumors by mid-2024
Combination creates potential multiplier effect to accelerate earlier diagnosis, more effective therapy, and precision, in silico drug discovery
Ikena Oncology Acquires Pionyr Immunotherapeutics: Analysts See Deal As Positive
Ikena Oncology Inc
acquired Pionyr Immunotherapeutics Inc, a privately-held biotechnology company, in an all-stock transaction.
Ikena acquired all of Pionyr's assets, including approximately $43 million in net cash, in exchange for shares of IKNA stock, in a combination of common stock and non-voting convertible preferred stock priced at $7.15 per share.
The transaction includes contingent value rights providing the legacy Pionyr shareholders with rights to 50% of the net proceeds, outside of royalties, for any potential monetization of the Pionyr programs within the next two years.
The transaction further strengthens Ikena's financial position as the company advances the development of its targeted oncology programs.
Ikena plans to include Pionyr's programs as part of Ikena's partnering portfolio and to pursue strategic business development opportunities, including out-licensing.
William Blair analyst Matt Phipps sees the move as prudent for management to continually evaluate opportunities to increase cash on the balance sheet, particularly when it can be acquired at a discount.
The analyst remains bullish on the company's TEAD inhibitor, IK-930, ahead of the planned clinical update later this year and reiterates its Outperform rating.
HC Wainwright analyst Andres Maldonado writes that Ikena can now leverage Pionyr's "Myeloid Tuning" platform to explore new strategies for oncology.
The analyst sees the deal as positive for Ikena given that the transaction price of $7.15 per share represents a premium to both Ikena's twenty-day volume-weighted average and its most recent underwritten public offering.
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