Xi Running Circles around Biden~Welcome to the steep decline of U.S. power and prestige.

BY JOSEPH KLEIN

SEE: https://www.frontpagemag.com/xi-running-circles-around-biden/;

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

“China is going to eat our lunch? Come on, man!” Joe Biden said at a rally during his presidential campaign in 2019 as he downplayed China’s threat to the United States.

Since he became president, Mr. Biden himself has been out to lunch when it comes to confronting the multipronged military, economic, and diplomatic challenges that China poses to the vital national security interests of the United States.

President Biden, for example, turned the other cheek for several days in February while China’s spy balloon was maneuvering over sensitive military installations across the continental United States before the balloon was finally shot down. The president claimed at the time that the spy balloon was “not a major breach.” He recklessly signaled to America’s number one adversary that invading sovereign U.S. airspace for days to conduct an intelligence operation over several U.S. military installations is no big deal to America’s commander-in-chief.

Contrary to the Biden administration’s assurances that it successfully blocked China from gathering any valuable intelligence, NBC has reported that China’s spy balloon “was able to gather intelligence from several sensitive American military sites,” according to NBC’s sources.

The spy balloon is just one part of the Chinese regime’s increasingly aggressive strategy to test the Biden administration’s resolve, which has proven to be seriously wanting.

Last month, the Chinese regime announced a 7.2 percent increase in its military budget, more than double the rate of increase that President Biden has proposed for his fiscal 2024 defense budget. In particular, President Biden’s defense budget is woefully inadequate in addressing China’s expansion of the size of its naval ship fleet to the point that it already surpasses the size of the U.S. naval ship fleet.

Moreover, as U.S. Senator Roger Wicker, R-Miss., ranking member on the Senate Armed Services Committee, noted last February during remarks he delivered on the Senate floor:

“The Chinese Air Force now flies fifth-generation aircraft armed with air-to-air missiles that outrange our own. The entire People’s Liberation Army conducts advanced and realistic training. And our own top cyber officer, General Paul Nakasone, says the improvement in Chinese cyber capabilities is ‘unlike anything [he has] ever seen.’”

Senator Wicker focused his remarks on the need to beef up U.S. defense assistance to Taiwan. However, beyond just concerns regarding Taiwan, China’s rapid military build-up, coupled with its economic prowess and increasingly confrontational posture towards the West, presents significantly broader geopolitical risks to the U.S. and its allies around the world.

China’s threat to its neighbors in the Indo-Pacific region is a given as the Chinese regime expands its military presence in the South China Sea. Its growing alliances with Russia and Iran are obviously very troublesome. And China is using its economic carrots of expanded infrastructure investments, loans, and trade to lure African countries into its orbit.

Closer to the U.S. homeland, the Chinese Communist regime also has its eyes on Latin America where it is gaining such a strong foothold that it has U.S. military experts worried.

Admiral Craig S. Faller, for example, testified about his concerns before the Senate Armed Services Committee in March 2021 while he was still leading the United States Southern Command. He noted China’s advance toward its goal of “economic dominance” in Latin America while it also seeks “to establish global logistics and basing infrastructure in our hemisphere in order to project and sustain military power at greater distances.” 

“The PRC [People’s Republic of China] continues to increase its self-serving activities,” Admiral Faller said, “to gain global influence and leverage across all domains in the USSOUTHCOM AOR: cyber, space, extractive and energy industries, transportation hubs, roads, infrastructure, telecommunications, legal and illegal fishing, agriculture, and military training – Spanish and Portuguese-language military education modeled after U.S. professional military education. The PRC is also ‘gifting’ security supplies and equipment as a way to gain access and win favor with regional security forces.”

The Biden administration’s attempt to counter China’s growing clout in the region, the Americas Partnership for Economic Prosperity (APEP), has proven to be ineffective compared to China’s successes. And President Biden was humiliated last year when Mexican President Andrés Manuel López Obrador and the leaders of several other Latin American countries were no-shows at the Summit of the Americas that the U.S. hosted in Los Angeles.

On the diplomatic front, the PRC is running circles around the Biden administration. China managed, for example, to extend its influence in the Middle East by mediating a deal between Saudi Arabia and Iran to restore their diplomatic relations. As Amy Hawthorne, deputy director for research at the Project on Middle East Democracy explained, “China’s prestigious accomplishment vaults it into a new league diplomatically and outshines anything the U.S. has been able to achieve in the region since Biden came to office.”

What President Biden has managed to achieve in the Middle East region is to alienate Saudi Arabia’s leaders. China has exploited the Saudis’ anger, luring a major decades-old ally of the United States to move closer to China’s sphere of influence. China already purchases more than a quarter of Saudi Arabia’s oil exports and “is in active talks with Beijing to price some of its oil sales to China in yuan,” according to a report last year in the Wall Street Journal.

Such a move, the Wall Street Journal article noted, “would dent the U.S. dollar’s dominance of the global petroleum market…If priced in yuan, those sales would boost the standing of China’s currency. The Saudis are also considering including yuan-denominated futures contracts, known as the petroyuan, in the pricing model of Saudi Arabian Oil Co., known as Aramco.”

The Saudis have also indicated their interest in joining BRICS, an inter-governmental organization whose current members are Brazil, Russia, India, China, and South Africa. China, not surprisingly, is the most powerful member of BRICS by far and has a strong interest in expanding BRICS’ membership. In addition to Saudi Arabia, countries such as Algeria, Argentina, Egypt, Iran, Mexico, and Turkey have expressed an interest in joining.

The BRICS nations see themselves in economic terms as “an alternative model to the G7,” which consists of seven major Western countries – Germany, France, the United Kingdom, Italy, Japan, Canada, and the United States. 

“Given the West’s overuse of sanctions as an economic weapon, BRICS is establishing its own financial institutions to challenge the likes of the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund,” according to an article posted on BRICS information portal. “It is obvious that the wealth and power of BRICS members is increasing, and by admitting new members, the prestige and influence of the bloc will only grow and serve as an economic force for countries seeking independence from Western hegemony. To move this process forward, the New Development Bank was established by BRICS as a counterweight to the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank.”   

Crude oil is currently priced in U.S. dollars. Purchases and sales of oil are done in U.S. dollars. As Investopedia explained, since the 1970’s “the rise of the petrodollar system…promoted the U.S. dollar’s rise as the world’s reserve currency.” However, this special status for the U.S. dollar is in jeopardy on President Biden’s watch.

China sees its purchases of oil from Saudi Arabia, if payable with yuan rather than dollars, as a means to begin breaking the monopoly of the U.S. dollar as the only acceptable currency for oil purchases. If other OPEC+ members also accept yuan for oil purchases and price their oil in yuan in lieu of dollars, the yuan will over time erode the dollar’s power as the dominant currency for international transactions and global reserves. If China succeeds, the U.S. economy will suffer far worse from inflation and interest rate increases than from even the economic disaster that President Biden’s policies have inflicted on the American people since he took office.

China is amplifying its global economic reach as its economy, the second largest in the world, continues to grow and close the gap with the U.S. economy. The Chinese regime continues to make inroads all over the world with loans and investments that make the recipient countries more and more dependent on China. And President Biden has no answer except to characterize China as a competitor rather than as what it really is – America’s number one adversary.

It is no wonder that China’s model of authoritarian governance looks more and more attractive to countries in Asia, Africa, and Latin America as they witness the steep decline of U.S. power and prestige on President Biden’s watch. Meanwhile, the Biden family syndicate has done quite well as a result of its business dealings with Chinese enterprises.

The COVID Twitter Files Drop: Protecting Fauci While Censoring The Truth w/Matt Taibbi

BY KIM IVERSEN

SEE: https://thevaccinereaction.org/2023/04/the-covid-twitter-files-drop-protecting-fauci-while-censoring-the-truth-w-matt-taibbi/;

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

On February 5, 2021, just after Joe Biden took office, Stanford [University] wrote to Twitter to discuss the Virality Project. By the 17th, Twitter agreed to join and got its first weekly report on the “anti-vax disinformation,” which contained numerous true stories. Now, the first question on everyone’s mind is why would Twitter even accept this partnership. Having a team of people sifting through whatever this project sent them takes money and resources. Another question should be why this Virality Project would go beyond just writing up an analysis and sending it to government officials. Why would they be taking the time and resources to set up these meetings and notification systems? What was the motivation or who was behind this Virality Project? Here they are saying they’re doing it because the government can’t.

Afghan Muslim migrants in US directed ‘racism, sexism’ at aid workers, were angry at inferior housing

BY ROBERT SPENCER

SEE: https://www.jihadwatch.org/2023/04/afghan-muslim-migrants-in-us-directed-racism-sexism-at-aid-workers-were-angry-at-inferior-housing;

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

Anyone who finds this surprising knows nothing of Afghan and Islamic culture, and its attitudes toward non-Muslims and women. It’s unlikely that anyone in these NGOs knows anything about the Islamic understanding of the Infidel obligation to support Muslims financially, either. NGOs would have dismissed any warnings about all this as “Islamophobic.” But although they’ll never admit it, they’re now finding out that what the “Islamophobes” have been saying was accurate.

“Federal Report: Biden’s Afghans Directed ‘Racism, Sexism’ and ‘Verbal Abuse’ at U.S. Aid Workers,” by John Binder, Breitbart, April 6, 2023:

Afghans, brought to the United States by President Joe Biden, directed “racism and sexism” as well as “verbal abuse” at American non-governmental organization (NGO) employees who helped resettle them across the nation, a federal report alleges.

Following the U.S. Armed Forces’ withdrawal from Afghanistan in August 2021, Biden opened a refugee parole pipeline that has resettled more than 86,000 Afghans in American communities — many without having to be screened or interviewed in person beforehand.

To resettle the massive inflow of Afghans, Biden’s State Department contracted with NGOs that use taxpayer money to resettle refugees across American communities for the federal government, including:

Church World Service; Ethiopian Community Development Council; Episcopal Migration Ministries; Hebrew Immigrant Aid Society; International Rescue Committee; Lutheran Immigration and Refugee Service; United States Conference of Catholic Bishops; U.S. Committee for Refugees and Immigrants; and World Relief.

A report from the State Department Inspector General (IG) this week reveals that in the midst of their resettlement across the U.S., many Afghans directed racist, sexist, and verbally abusive behavior at NGO workers.

“[Resettlement agencies] also attributed some inappropriate behavior on the part of [Afghan] parolees to the lack of cultural orientation,” the IG report states:

For example, some [resettlement agency] staff reported experiencing racism and sexism from Afghan clients unaccustomed to the norms of U.S. society. Another [resettlement agency] reported that some [Afghan] parolees refused to work with female case managers or case managers from minority groups. [Emphasis added]

One [resettlement agency] reported that a few local offices had issues of verbal abuse from Afghans, mostly those who were upset or frustrated by the process. Many [Afghan] parolees had very high expectations and did not understand the role of local affiliates and would become frustrated with services and housing. [Emphasis added]

In addition, the IG report states that many Afghans brought to the U.S. by the Biden administration needed immediate medical treatment because they suffer “with mental and physical health issues” while others arrived in the U.S. with COVID-19.

Afghans, the IG report alleges, also had unrealistic expectations about the U.S.

For instance, some Afghans reportedly expected the federal government to provide them with “welcome money” when they arrived in the U.S. Others also expected free, luxury housing and were displeased with the actual housing that was provided to them.

“… consequently [Afghans] rejected the housing provided to them as being insufficient to meet their needs or of an inferior quality,” the IG report states….

Multiple Fatalities After Mass Shooting in Louisville, Kentucky

Multiple Fatalities After Mass Shooting in Louisville, Kentucky

Louisville bank shooting: Four killed by 23-year-old gunman, 9 hospitalized

A 23-year-old bank employee armed with a rifle opened fire at his workplace Monday morning, killing four people — including a close friend of the governor — before being shot by police, authorities said. Louisville Metro Police Department Chief Jacquelyn Gwinn-Villaroel identified the shooter as Connor Sturgeon and said he was shot and killed by police, though not before shooting and wounding two officers, who are both hospitalized. One of those officers is a 26-year-old who just graduated from the police academy on March 31, Gwinn-Villaroel said. That officer was shot in the head and underwent brain surgery on Monday; he remains in critical condition, officials said. She said the gunman was live-streaming the shooting while it happened and police are working to have the stream removed.

BY MATT MARGOLIS

SEE: https://pjmedia.com/news-and-politics/matt-margolis/2023/04/10/breaking-multiple-fatalities-after-mass-shooting-in-louisville-kentucky-n1685912;

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

According to NBC News, downtown Louisville was the site of multiple casualties on Monday morning as shots rang out and police rushed to the scene. Authorities warned of an “active aggressor” on the loose and advised the public to avoid the area. Early reports are that at least five people are dead and six injured.

“There is an active police situation downtown,” Louisville Mayor Craig Greenberg said in a statement. “Please avoid the area around Slugger Field until further notice.”

Kentucky Governor Andy Beshear tweeted that he was on his way to the scene and asked for prayers for those impacted by the shooting. “LMPD has confirmed a shooting situation in downtown Louisville with multiple casualties,” he wrote. “I am headed there now. Please pray for all of the families impacted and for the city of Louisville.”

The incident took place in the heart of Kentucky’s largest city, with police cars, ambulances, and fire trucks flooding Main Street between North Floyd and North Preston Streets. The shooting occurred near Slugger Field, home of the Louisville Bats, a Cincinnati Reds triple-A affiliate.

This mass shooting comes just two weeks after another tragic shooting at a private Christian school in Nashville that claimed the lives of six people, including three young children, at the hands of a woman who identified as transgender.

Last week, a would-be mass shooter was arrested after threatening to shoot up local schools. The suspect was a 19-year-old male who claims to be a female.

Related: Are Transgender People More Likely to Be Mass Shooters? I Ran the Numbers

According to CNN, there are five confirmed fatalities, and the shooter is also confirmed dead, though the circumstances of the shooter’s death have not yet been released. Shots were exchanged between the shooter and police, and one police officer was reportedly shot.

This story is developing. Check back for further updates.

The Border: 10,000 Apprehensions in 48 Hours

And those are just the people who got caught.

BY ROBERT SPENCER

SEE: https://www.frontpagemag.com/the-border-10000-apprehensions-in-48-hours/;

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

What was once known as the Southern border of the United States is essentially nonexistent in this time of Biden regime misrule, and so it was no surprise Wednesday when Border Patrol Chief Raul Ortiz tweeted some figures showing just how bad the border area has become:

Past 48 Hours…

– 10,070 Apprehensions

– 52 lbs. of Fentanyl

– 38 lbs. of Ecstasy

– 11 lbs. of Meth

– 11 lbs. of Cocaine

– $48,000 Seized

– 20 Firearms

– 5 Stolen Vehicles Recovered

– 5 Sex Offenders

– 4 Warrants

– 1 Gang Member

Significant numbers for just 2 days!

Indeed, it was just business as usual for the border, although Ortiz didn’t mention the terrorists. It came to light last October that up to that point in 2022, the Border Patrol had caught at least 98 people at the border who are on terror watchlists. There is no indication that they’ve stopped coming since then. Terrorists can see what’s happening at the border as much as anyone else can; why shouldn’t they take advantage of the mess Old Joe has made? And those 98, of course, were just the ones who got caught.

Fox News reported that “the number of migrant encounters at the U.S. southern border climbed to a record more than 227,000 during the month of September and more than 2.3 million for the fiscal year 2022, according to data from U.S. Customs and Border Protection.” That data also shows that “there were 20 known or suspected terrorists arrested at the southern border in September, bringing the total terror watchlist arrests at the border for the fiscal year 2022 to 98. The number of terror watchlist arrests at the border for the last five years combined was 26.”

What did Old Joe and his handlers say about this? Nothing, of course, because they weren’t challenged by the sycophantic Leftist propagandists we call “journalists.” And the administration had every reason to stonewall any inquiry, as nothing demonstrated the catastrophe that is the Biden regime’s handling of the border crisis more vividly than the entry of known terrorists into the United States.

The terror risk involved in the open border has long been known. U.S. Customs and Border Protection reported as far back as Feb. 3, 2021, that “Yuma Sector Border Patrol agents arrested a group of 11 Iranian citizens who illegally crossed the border into the United States….Yuma Sector agents apprehended eight Iranian nationals in FY2020, compared to just 14 from all other border patrol sectors combined. So far in FY2021, Yuma Sector agents have apprehended 14 nationals from Iran.”

Rep. John Katko (R-N.Y.) asserted in March 2021 that “individuals that they have on the watchlist for terrorism are now starting to exploit the southern border. We need to wake up.”

Then in August 2021, former Border Patrol chief Rodney Scott warned that the Southern border was “a national security crisis,” with “TSDBs at a level we have never seen before. That’s a real threat.” In October, he said on Fox News that “we have terrorist threats we can’t get into in this type of a forum but they are real.”

Yes, they are, and they’re entirely Biden’s handlers’ fault. Former Customs and Border Protection Commissioner Mark Morgan said Monday that border agents are “demoralized” with the border “wide open.” He added that “every aspect of our public health, safety, and national security is being jeopardized.” Over 7,000 migrants cross the border every day as it is, and once Title 42, a Trump administration attempt to control the wave of migrants, is ended as Biden’s handlers plan to do next month, that number is expected to jump to 18,000 per day.

Morgan observed that one group that is taking advantage of this is the drug cartels. “They know, because of this administration, our borders are wide open,” Morgan said. “We literally handed over operational control to the cartels. It’s way beyond the millions that have been smuggled in this country.” Not just terrorists, but drug cartels as well. The nightmare never ends.

Make no mistake: this has all been done on purpose. The Biden administration, Morgan added, “opened our borders and intentionally created and facilitated a catastrophic crisis on the southwest border that we’ve never seen in our lifetime.” Why would they do such a thing? You know the answer. Morgan explained: “Their priorities [are] to get as many illegal aliens in this country because – it’s disgusting – but because they see a perceived political benefit.”

The Left seems intent on destroying the country in pursuit of unchallenged political power within it. What kind of a country they’ll be ruling over once it is overrun with migrants and its economic power entirely outsourced or outpaced doesn’t seem to be a question that ever crosses their minds. How they’ll be able to pay for all their new welfare recipients once the American middle class is entirely taxed out of existence is also not a priority consideration for them.

The only thing that matters is gaining and securing political power indefinitely. But this might easily become a Pyrrhic victory.