Day: February 7, 2023

The Disturbing Truth Behind China’s Spy Balloon Penetration

The motives and the significance - and why it's happening now.

BY SCOTT S. POWELL

SEE: https://www.frontpagemag.com/the-disturbing-truth-behind-chinas-spy-balloon-penetration/;

Republished below in full unedited for informational, educational, & research purposes.

What are the motives and significance of the Chinese spy balloon penetration of U.S. territory, and why now? First the backstory:

China’s military capability may soon rival that of the United States. What holds back Chinese President Xi Jinping from moving militarily on Taiwan are two things:  First he may think that time is on his side, with Biden’s America in decline and a perception that a two-year window remains for action. Second, what holds Xi Jinping back is of course his concern that if the invasion fails, he would be removed by the CCP.

So, Xi continues to build Chinese military power capabilities while the U.S. deteriorates, and he bides his time while studying and calculating the range of responses from the U.S. that China would face from such an invasion.

The Chinese projection of power against the United States is shaped by two priorities. First, is their commitment to what is known as unrestricted warfare, one part of which emphasizes using multinational, non-state, and supranational organizations to counter the U.S. Toward this end, the Chinese now control the U.N.’s World Health Organization (WHO), which provides China with a proxy front to impose an unprecedented medical tyranny far exceeding the Covid-19 pandemic lockdowns and controls. The second priority is the age-old Chinese military strategy that emphasizes  “the supreme excellence of breaking the enemy’s resistance without fighting.” Even if the Chinese cannot match the U.S. military because of U.S. export controls on high-end semiconductors and advanced AI technology, Beijing believes their level of control in the U.S. can continue America’s demoralization and division—potentially leading to collapse. Said another way, China is delaying military action in hopes of breaking America without fighting.

As for engaging the U.S. militarily, Xi and his advisors study America’s past. They know the U.S. military’s masterful logistics can deliver swift and decisive enemy defeat, such as the Bush administration’s victory in the Gulf War in 1990-1991. But the Chinese also note the fecklessness of the Clinton and Obama administrations that followed, in which two U.S. embassies in Kenya and Tanzania were bombed;  Egyptian ally Hosni Mubarak was abandoned; the U.S. diplomatic compound in Benghazi, Libya was destroyed, and ISIS appeared invincible after two and a half years of U.S. military engagement.

After Trump became president in January 2017 the Chinese witnessed a dramatic reversal. Within about a month of taking office, Trump unleashed American power that decimated ISIS within weeks. A month later Trump ordered a strike of 59 Tomahawk cruise missiles that took out Syria’s air force. And in early 2020 Trump authorized a drone strike in Iraq that killed Qasem Soleimani, the commander of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard and the number two leader of Iran.

Everything changed with the 2020 election—characterized by massive voting irregularities—that displaced Trump and delivered Joe Biden as U.S. President. What most voters didn’t know, but Xi Jinping did know, was that Biden was a compromised president. The Biden family had received—in prior years leading up to the election—tens of millions of dollars from Chinese business deals, and the Biden Center for Diplomacy and Global Engagement at the University of Pennsylvania had received $70 million from sources in China.

Rudy Giuliani, the former mayor of New York City, a brilliant lawyer and the most successful prosecutor of the Mafia who conducted a forensic analysis of the Hunter Biden laptop and its contents, described the Biden Family as being “owned by the Chinese Communist Party,” and Joe Biden himself as being “in partnership with the Chinese Communist Party.”

The weakness Biden signaled as President, characterized by his inexplicable decision to abruptly withdraw from Afghanistan, leaving behind some $80 billion of advanced U.S. military equipment and abandoning the strategically located Bagram Air Base was naturally encouraging for Xi. Biden’s top military generals, Secretary  Lloyd Austin and Joint Chief General Mark Milley, who were involved in the Afghanistan decision-making fiasco, have also originated other harmful leadership initiatives, such as universal mandatory Covid-19 vaccination requirements and obligatory Critical Race Theory indoctrination for the officer corps and the enlistees in all military branches—both of which policies significantly added to the demoralization of the military—resulting in recruiting shortfalls—with all of it being observed and digested by the Chinese leadership.

Xi’s authorization of launching a spy balloon and have it fly over a broad swath of the United States, and hover over sensitive areas to collect intelligence data where nuclear warheads are siloed, was also intended to accomplish several important objectives for the Chinese:

First, the Chinese penetration by a spy balloon of U.S. territory succeeded in publicly humiliating America—reinforcing the lesson of Afghanistan to allies such as Taiwan—that the United States is unreliable—lacking courage and a comprehensive strategy to defend its own territory.

Second, the spy balloon was likely used to test America’s ability to detect incoming threats and to find holes in the country’s air defense warning system. The spy balloon first came into U.S. airspace over the sparsely populated Alaskan Aleutian Islands on January 28, when the U.S. military should have blown it out of the sky. Perhaps there’s a hole, as there was no response nor any scrambling of U.S. fighter jets.

Third, Beijing could see Biden’s weakness and willingness to defer power to subordinates in the response to his order to shoot the spy satellite down three days later, on February 1st, when it entered Montana airspace. After giving the order, Biden passed the buck to military advisors who said “wait till the balloon crosses the country and gets to the Atlantic”—all of which prolonged the nation’s humiliation and demonstrated a fundamentally flawed decision-making process, which Beijing was no doubt testing. Said another way, Xi wanted to reconfirm Milley’s deference to China, which Milley had previously demonstrated twice in communicating critical national security information to Chinese leaders in December and January 2020-2021, without President Trump’s knowledge or consent.

All of this is the consequence of corruption and the 2020 election irregularity.

Scott Powell is a member of the Committee on the Present Danger China and a senior fellow at Discovery Institute. His recent book, Rediscovering America, was #1 new release in history for eight straight weeks at Amazon (https://www.amazon.com/dp/1637581599). Reach him at scottp@discovery.org.

China expert issues warning over ‘extremely serious’ national security concerns~’They are Liars. They are Lying About This’: Mike Pompeo Reacts to China’s Spy Balloon~Gingrich: You think Biden is going to tell the truth tonight during ‘dishonest’ SOTU?

Hudson Institute China expert Michael Pillsbury weighs in on China’s surveillance mission and their decision to increasingly purchase farmland close to U.S. military bases

'They are Liars. They are Lying About This': Mike Pompeo Reacts to China's Spy Balloon

Gingrich: You think Biden is going to tell the truth tonight during 'dishonest' SOTU?

Chinese Companies With Ties to Beijing Purchasing U.S. Military Academies

BY Joe Wolverton, II, J.D.

SEE: https://thenewamerican.com/chinese-companies-with-ties-to-beijing-purchasing-u-s-military-academies/;

Republished below in full unedited for informational, educational, & research purposes.

Surveillance balloons are the least of our worries when it comes to Chinese infiltration of the United States. 

For nearly a decade now, Chinese companies with ties to the ruling communist regime have been buying up military academies in the United States, including the one attended by former President Donald J. Trump. 

Here is the story as reported by the Washington Free Beacon:

In 2015, a member of the Chinese People’s Political Consultative Conference, which serves as the Chinese Communist Party’s political advisory board, purchased Donald Trump’s alma mater, the New York Military Academy, for $16 million…. Conference member Mo Tianquan secured the purchase after a bidding war with another Chinese conglomerate.

Two years later, a Chinese education conglomerate purchased the Florida Preparatory Academy as part of its plan to create “a global educational alliance system.” The organization partnered with a CCP-controlled regional government agency on the initiative. Both the New York Military Academy and Florida Preparatory Academy operate Junior Reserve Officers’ Training Corps (JROTC) programs, which train future military officers.

The response to the surreptitious consolidation of American schools with military academies has been tepid, at best.

Again, from the Free Beacon:

Rep. Michael Waltz (R., Fla.), a member of the House Armed Services Committee, says Chinese ownership of these schools could pose a national security threat.

“To the extent that those private schools have junior ROTC programs that are forming the backbone of our future leaders of our military, this is something I would hope and would expect the Defense Department would work with me to better understand,” Waltz told the Washington Free Beacon.

Waltz on Tuesday sent a letter to Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin, urging the Pentagon to survey JROTC programs at private schools across the country to see if they are foreign-owned.

“With the ongoing military recruitment crisis, I am concerned that any students we recruit into the service from these CCP-influenced schools will have a sympathetic view of China’s political and strategic aims,” Waltz, who chairs the House subcommittee on military readiness, wrote to Austin.

As for the Chinese, what interest would they have in adding private military academies to their vast and valuable portfolio of American holdings?

An article published by a mouthpiece for Beijing claims that the Chinese companies started buying up these schools “in the hopes of cashing in on Chinese students’ quest for admission into a U.S. college.”

Beijing is clever enough to know not only the loopholes in U.S. immigration laws but how to pass plenty of Chinese nationals through those loopholes and onto the rolls of American private schools.

Following the purchase of the New York Military Academy by Fang Holdings, the new superintendent predicted a prolific influx of Chinese students to the school.

Perhaps the part of the story that is most enraging is not the purchase of the private schools by agents or advocates of the Chinese government, but that our own Department of Defense is funneling funds from American taxpayers to the companies carrying water for the Chinese Communists!

As the Free Beacon revealed:

According to a federal spending database, the Department of Defense has awarded over $475,000 in contracts for various cadet programs to New York Military Academy since its Chinese takeover.

It’s quite a feat for the Chinese Communist Party and its supporters not only to purchase private schools with military academies but to do so with money unknowingly provided by American taxpayers.

Still not convinced that this story is smoke that signals a fire? Consider this information provided by the Free Beacon report:

Mo, Fang’s founder and majority shareholder, has openly discussed his allegiance to the Chinese Communist Party. In 2018, Mo said he was “very honored” to be a member of the Chinese People’s Political Consultative Conference, which he affirmed operates “under the leadership of the Communist Party of China.” He said a qualification for the Chinese People’s Political Consultative Conference role was to be “a good serviceman in government.” At the New York Military Academy, Mo has installed many of his Chinese business partners on the historic school’s board of trustees.

The owner of the Florida Preparatory Academy, formerly known as the Florida Air Academy, has in recent years built up an international network of private schools as part of a “global educational alliance system.” China’s Newopen Group, which in 2017 purchased the school for an unknown sum, a year before the purchase signed a strategic partnership with Chongqing Environmental Investment Group, a CCP-linked municipal agency, to build the network across China, North America, Europe, and Australia.

From the purchase of these private schools with military academies to the shameless and fearless floating of a surveillance balloon across nearly the entire territory of the United States from Alaska to beyond the coast of South Carolina, to the secret establishment of police stations throughout North America, the Chinese Communist Party and its agents, affiliates, and adherents are, to use James Madison’s words, making “silent and gradual” strides toward creating a secret but solid presence in the United States — and they are using American taxpayer money to do so.

A message sent to former President Trump requesting comment on the Chinese purchase of his alma mater has gone unanswered as of the publishing of this article.

Parent on School Board Exposes Arizona “Science” Curriculum Claiming Sex Isn’t Binary

BY SELWYN DUKE

SEE: https://thenewamerican.com/parent-on-school-board-exposes-arizona-science-curriculum-claiming-sex-isnt-binary/;

Republished below in full unedited for informational, educational, & research purposes.

The choice is binary: You can either have a school science curriculum actually driven by science.

Or you can have one driven by other factors, such as political ones, the dominant of which today are generally categorized as “wokeness.”

Unscientific “science” is rife now, too. The latest example comes out of the Grand Canyon State, where a parent recently elected to a school board leaked a proposed curriculum that would teach kids the fiction that sex isn’t “binary” but is, well, confusing and a matter of personal preference.

True Patriot Network (TPN) reports on the story, writing that “Heather Rooks, a newly elected, pro-parents rights school board member in Peoria, Arizona revealed to parents, the press, and the world at large that a radical left-inspired science curriculum is being considered by the Peoria Unified School District. A curriculum that foists the blatant claim that … sex is not binary.”

With “less than a month on the job as a member of the school board, Rooks leaked the contents of a proposed textbook that the district was considering for use in its high school[s],” the outlet continues. “Rooks told reporters that she found the science curriculum alarming because it refuted the reality of binary … sex.”

“I mean, these are kids we’re talking about,” Rooks told Fox News Digital about the intellectual rooking. “It’s not adults making adult decisions. These are children. So their minds are… not developed completely yet.”

True, but the implication here is wrong. Just as there’s no “proper age” to start sinning, one never becomes mature enough to harmlessly indulge in a lie. That’s what the so-called “gender” theory is, too. In fact, it’s children who play pretend; adults are there to help moor them to reality.

“Male and Female He Made Them” — Confused They Became

Elaborating on the contents of the proposed curriculum, Fox News reports:

According to a post by Nicole Solas of the Independent Women’s Forum, the textbook said, “The biochemical, physiological, and anatomical features associated with ‘males’ and ‘females’ are turning out to be more complex than previously realized, with many genes involved in their development. We now know [no, they don’t] that sex is not a binary state, with just two defined outcomes.”

“Because of the complexity of the genes and proteins involved in sex determination, many variations exist. Some individuals are born with intermediate sexual characteristics, or even with anatomical features that do not match an individual’s sense of their own gender (‘transgender individuals’). Sex determination is an active area of research that should yield a more sophisticated understanding in years to come.”

This is the standard (and now somewhat stale) politically correct line today, and its repletion with 70-dollar words and scholarly tone can convince many. But it’s sophistry. The issue?

These activists are confusing (purposely, in many cases) abnormalities with normal “complexity.”

For instance, sexual revolutionaries will claim there are more than just the two “XX” (female) and “XY” (male) genotypes, with others supposedly being the “intersex” varieties XXX, X0, XXY, and XYY. Yet here’s what the activists don’t say:

These are all abnormalities afflicting one sex or the other, as the mainstream medical website WebMD explains here, here, here, and here.

In point of fact, there are hundreds or even thousands of abnormalities that can afflict humans, only a minority of which relate to sexual development. Moreover, consider that genetic disorders alone can induce as many as 7,000 rare diseases. Yet they are true anomalies, as this “group of conditions affects fewer than 200,000 people in the U.S.,” informs the Cleveland Clinic — out of a population of 335 million.

Should all these abnormalities be written off as normal “complexity”? Should Down syndrome be conflated with a “lifestyle choice”? If someone exhibits hirsutism — as famed sideshow performer Jo-Jo the Dog-Faced Boy did — do we say he isn’t completely human? Would we use his existence to justify the claims of someone else, who may experience “species dysphoria,” that he’s an animal stuck in a human body?

If not, why write off sexual-development-related abnormalities as “normal complexity”? Why conflate (for example) Triple X syndrome with a “lifestyle choice”? Why say that because a woman is somewhat hermaphroditic that she — instead of being saddled with an abnormality — isn’t completely female? And why would we use her existence to justify the claims of someone else, who may experience “gender dysphoria,” that he’s a woman stuck in a man’s body?

For the record, since the question “What is a woman?” is now so often asked and seldom properly answered, know that a woman is: an adult member of the species homo sapiens who in principle has an XX chromosome configuration and is genotypically and phenotypically female.

That’s a mouthful because it’s precise. It even accounts for abnormalities — with the two words “in principle.” For as good philosophy teaches, there’s a difference between something being true in principle and it is true in the particular.

For example, an apple in principle is something that doesn’t contain a worm; this definition isn’t negated by the fact that the occasional apple has a worm because the worm isn’t integral to the apple. Likewise, there obviously are deviations among women from the genotypic and phenotypic female norm; it’s also obvious that they have no bearing on what a woman is in principle.

The short version of this is: Leave the kids alone. Their childlike (not childish) conception of boys and girls is far more accurate than what’s disgorged from twisted adult minds.

Iranian caught at Southern border smuggled in car trunk highlights border’s jihad terror threat

BY ROBERT SPENCER

SEE: https://www.jihadwatch.org/2023/02/iranian-caught-at-southern-border-smuggled-in-car-trunk-highlights-borders-jihad-terror-threat;

Republished below in full unedited for informational, educational, & research purposes.

He wasn’t on the terror watch list, but why was he trying to sneak into the U.S. at all?

“Iranian smuggled in car trunk shows security threat from our open border,” by Todd Bensman, New York Post, February 2, 2023:

Good news: The Iranian caught in the trunk of a smuggler’s car illegally crossing the southern border last week wasn’t on the FBI’s terrorism watch list, as was previously reported.

Except … even if he wasn’t on the list, how is this not a terrifying sign of the national security threat we face?

The car-trunk Iranian highlights that intercontinental human smuggling networks do indeed bring people from the most adversarial nations in the world, as detailed in my recent book “America’s Covert Border War, the Untold Story of the Nation’s Battle to Prevent Jihadist Infiltration.”

Try as American law enforcement stationed abroad might to disrupt them, these smuggling organizations very much still can and do mainline strangers into Texas from countries where Islamic terrorist groups operate — along with those from nations like Russia, Syria and China.

Last fiscal year, the Border Patrol apprehended 98 immigrants who were on the FBI’s terrorism watch list — an all-time record — and 38 more have been caught in just October, November and December, according to US Customs and Border Protection’s public statistics website.

The probabilities are sky-high that some watch-listed immigrants were among the estimated 300,000 who evaded the Border Patrol in just the past four months — and the 1 million who did so last year.

The danger is real, particularly since Iran’s rulers publicly vow revenge for the killing of Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps-Quds Force Gen. Qasem Soleimani. Recent reporting had Iran plotting to assassinate the US ambassador to South Africa in retaliation for the Soleimani killing.

The US security enterprise takes this threat seriously. In late 2020, the Americans were behind the September 2020 bust in Brazil of Reza Sahami, a dual citizen of Canada and Iran who was caught guiding a group of seven Iranian nationals in the city of Assis Brasil on the border of Peru. All seven Iranians possessed fraudulent or altered passports from Israel, Denmark and Canada. The Sahami organization flew Iranians into Canada on fake passports but also had some smuggled over the southern border.

“Sahami has been smuggling criminals across international borders for over 10 years,” said ICE Attaché for Brazil and Bolivia Robert Fuentes in the scarcely reported 2020 ICE press statement.

But even before the Soleimani retaliation threat, American homeland security and intelligence agencies rightly worried that Iran would easily send its spies over the border — or spies of its terrorist offspring, Hezbollah….

FLORIDA GOVERNOR DeSantis Goes After Foundation for Lewd Drag Show Event With Children Present

DeSantis Goes After Foundation for Lewd Drag Show Event With Children Present

BY CHRIS QUEEN

SEE: https://pjmedia.com/news-and-politics/chris-queen/2023/02/06/desantis-goes-after-foundation-for-lewd-drag-show-event-with-children-present-n1668180;

Republished below in full unedited for informational, educational, & research purposes.

Gov. Ron DeSantis (R-Fla.) is the culture warrior we need these days. He has pledged to protect the children of Florida, and he is making good on his promise.

Last December, an event called “A Drag Queen Christmas” took place at venues in Fort Lauderdale, Miami, and Orlando. The show was part of a national tour, and despite the repeated claims that the event was “family-friendly,” it was loaded with graphic sexual content.

You’ve been warned if you click on the first video in this tweet.

At the Dec. 26 show, one local activist interrupted the proceedings to shout that children shouldn’t be present.

Javier Manjarres of The Floridian documented both the lasciviousness of the show’s content along with the fact that minors were present at the performance.

WARNING: Sexual Content.

Shortly after the run of performances, DeSantis’ Press Secretary Bryan Griffin issued a statement:

The Department of Business and Professional Regulation (DBPR) is aware of multiple complaints about a sexually explicit performance marketed to children held in Fort Lauderdale on December 26th. The Department is actively investigating this matter, including video footage and photographs from the event. DPBR will, like in other cases, take action.

Exposing children to sexually explicit activity is a crime in Florida, and such action violates the Department’s licensing standards for operating a business and holding a liquor license.

The Department will share any collected evidence with the Florida Department of Law Enforcement (FDLE) for potential criminal liability.

The Department frequently conducts investigations into these matters upon tips provided by the public, and we thank the public for continuing to bring attention to these incidents. Investigations of such allegations will remain a priority for the Department and, indeed, are ongoing.

And last week, DeSantis made good on his pledge. Florida’s Department of Business and Professional Regulation (DPBR) has filed a six-count complaint against the Orlando Philharmonic Foundation, Inc. for hosting the event in Orlando on Dec. 28 while children were present. The complaint could cause the venue where the drag show took place to lose its liquor license.

Related: Here’s the Line That Brought Down the House During Ron Desantis’ Inaugural Speech
The 27-page complaint reads in part, “On December 28, 2022, Respondent hosted and supported a ticketed event titled ‘A Drag Queen Christmas’ (‘the Show’) on the Licensed Premises and sold alcoholic beverages to patrons in attendance. Respondent promoted the Show using targeted, Christmas-themed promotional materials that did not provide notice as to the sexually explicit nature of the Show’s performances or other content.”

The state adds, “Rather than call attention to the Show’s sexually explicit content or acknowledge that it might not be appropriate for children, Respondent’s promotional materials unequivocally stated ‘[a]ll ages welcome.'”

The Floridian reports that “whatever plausible deniability the show has to defend itself is a barely-visible piece of paper taped to a door reading, ‘while we are not restricting access to anyone under 18, please be advised some may think the context is not appropriate for under 18.'”

The state claims that, prior to the shows, it warned the foundation that “[s]exually explicit drag show performances constitute public nuisances, lewd activity, and disorderly conduct when minors are in attendance” and that if the foundation “failed to ensure that minors were prohibited from attending such performances, its license would be subject to penalties up to and including revocation.”

Naturally, the Democrats and their accomplices in the mainstream media are going after DeSantis for protecting kids. State Rep. Anna V. Eskamani (D-47th district) went after the governor in a tweet thread complaining about his “anti LBGTQ+ agenda.”

One congressman got in on the action. Rep. Maxwell Frost (D-Fla.) called the state’s actions “fascism,” tweeting that “Queer celebration is anything but obscene.” And left-leaning outlet The Raw Story headlined its coverage of the complaint, “Ron DeSantis retaliates against Florida venue that hosted drag show in December.”

All of this is proof that DeSantis is doing the right thing in going after venues that expose minors to sexually explicit content and fighting against the left’s drag obsession. Keep up the good work, Governor!

Here’s the complaint in full:

2023 02 03 Administrative Complaint 2022061146 Orlando Philharmonic The by PJ Media on Scribd