Month: December 2021

Japan’s Greater East Asia Co-Prosperity Sphere active during WWII is a term that remains common mostly among academicians today. It may be time in 2022 to resurrect and reexamine the geopolitical history surrounding it as the rise of China today represents a similar potential threat to the region and eventually the rest of the world. China is using its soft and hard power to achieve political, military, and economic dominance throughout East Asia. Its foreign policy moves are growing more worrisome to democratic nations around the South China Sea. Beijing’s military actions also are an increasing threat to global commerce. Cracks are beginning to appear in China’s meteoric rise as its domestic economy is beginning to falter and the pandemic is causing Beijing political and economic complications at home and abroad. The free world cannot count on it to be enough to stop China from regrouping and moving forward with its hegemonic plans.

What China does in East Asia impacts the global economy. Over 70% of the world’s maritime trade passes through the Straits of Malacca. It is a 580 mile long, narrow, and shallow stretch of water between the Malay Peninsula and the Indonesian island of Sumatra. China’s increasing influence in the area combined with its move farther away from the United States is challenging the Biden Administration’s foreign policy team as it attempts to curb Chinese influence in the area. 

In the recent $770 billion Defense bill signed by President Biden, several small programs in the legislation aimed to hold China accountable for its behavior. Unfortunately, they are being eaten up by inflation and will have little impact. That has not stopped Beijing from complaining loudly about the defense bill and making demands of Washington. This week Ministry of Foreign Affairs spokesperson Zhao Lijian boldly stated that Beijing “…firmly oppose[s] the US slipping in negative content concerning China or making an issue out of China for political manipulation.” 

At the same time, however, American diplomats are seeing signs that China’s Ambassador in Washington is taking a slightly more conciliatory tone. Last week in a press briefing the Ambassador pointed out that the fate of China and the United States are “intertwined.” China, he said, has “learned lessons” from the fall of the USSR and “won’t make the same mistakes.” Which one is the real China? The answer lies in understanding China’s modus operandi. 

China pushes hard on every aspect of its military and foreign policy until other states push back harder. As long as Xi Jinping designs his policy to remain below a threshold requiring a military response from China’s adversaries, he will continue moving forward with his plans. Over the last few years China has reclaimed a number of South and East China Sea shoals, some originally no more than a few rocks above water and visible only at high tide. By dredging the surrounding sea bottom China created islands outside of its legal territory. Five years ago, the UN delivered a unanimous and legally binding decision firmly rejecting unlawful, expansive South China Sea maritime claims as being inconsistent with international law. When the world objected China simply ignored the world claiming it was “interference in its domestic affairs.” No one stopped China. It kept building islands and later broke its promise not to arm them. Today these artificial islands host Chinese ports handling large military vessels and military-grade airfields capable of landing fighter jets. Although infringing on foreign territory, China counted on a lack of political willpower by its East Asian neighbors and Washington. This is how China operates.

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The Chinese leadership’s propaganda machine went to work and simply created a story to explain its actions. Beijing developed the so-called “9-dash line” to justify the new demarcation its territory. The 9-dash line story explained its occupation of most of the South China Sea without providing a window into its broader foreign and military policy objectives. China kept pushing. It flew planes into Taiwanese airspace and sent military ships through Taiwan’s territorial waters. When the Trump Administration pushed back and restarted freedom of navigation patrols in the South China Sea and around Taiwan, China objected but did not initiate any real military response once the United States and other nations in the region stood up to the communist giant. Beijing’s modus operandi is to take two-steps forward, while planning to be pushed back only one.  

President Xi Jinping designed an aggressive foreign policy that is  not going to stop due a pandemic or any domestic dislocations in the economy. The world can expect to see similar military provocations in the future. In December, when Secretary of State Antony Blinken traveled to Jakarta, Indonesia for meetings with ASEAN leaders he said the US is “determined to ensure freedom of navigation in the South China Sea, where Beijing’s aggressive actions… threaten the movement of more than $3 trillion worth of commerce every year.  When commerce can’t traverse open seas, that means that farmers are blocked from shipping their produce; factories can’t ship their microchips; hospitals are blocked from getting lifesaving medicines… We and other countries, including South China Sea claimants, will continue to push back on such behavior.” The world cannot afford to be fooled into submission when China takes one step back. Too much is at stake. China is moving on a number of fronts. Many are outside of East Asia. When Xi Jinping gets push back on one he moves forward in another. 

DARIA NOVAK served in the United States State Department during the Reagan Administration, and currently is on the Board of the American Analysis of News and Media Inc., which publishes usagovpolicy.com and the New York Analysis of Policy and Government. 

Illustration: Pixabay

Who is the brilliant military strategist recreating an empire that once spanned 11 time zones and covered 8.65 million square miles of territory? If you guessed Vladimir Putin, you are correct. Depending on one’s perspective, Putin is either a savior of the Russian state or a modern-day Atilla the Hun ready and willing to kill and conquer to secure his “borderization” objective. Seven years ago, he ordered Russian troops into eastern Ukraine to seize the Donbas region. Since that time, Putin has stood firmly against NATO, the EU, and other Western democracies jointly seeking to stabilize the region by constraining the Russian leader’s behavior. The Russian leader, however, continues to engage in an aggressive foreign policy agenda as we move into the new year. Putin last week “demanded” President Biden step aside and “guarantee” the US will not support or interfere in any region that Moscow chooses to conquer, occupy, or is fighting in along Russia’s border. Putin appears unmoved by recent western calls for him to move his troops back from the Ukrainian border.

State Department Spokesman Ned Price said on Tuesday, December 28, “We are unified as a NATO Alliance on the consequences Russia would face if it moves on Ukraine, but we’re also unified in our willingness to engage in principled diplomacy with Russia… we look forward to engaging with Russia in the Strategic Stability Dialogue on January 10th.” A week earlier, on December 22, the State Department announced the US is supporting the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe’s (OSCE) declaration regarding the “strong determination” of Ukrainian government forces and Russia-led forces in eastern Ukraine to fully adhere to the Measures to Strengthen the Ceasefire agreement of July 22, 2020. The US is following a course of deterrence and diplomacy while Putin is continuing to maneuver as he has for many years.

Ukrainian forces are better prepared today to defend the country than they were during the 2014 Russian invasion. Russia, however, also has been upgrading its military and forward staging both troops and heavy materiel along the Ukrainian border area in preparation for a possible early 2022 invasion by Putin’s military forces. According to a December special report by Defense One, in recent statements senior officials in the Biden Administration acknowledged that the US “is not seeking to end up in a circumstance in which the focus of our countermeasures is the direct use of American military force” against Russian troops. Putin the strategist appears adept at bullying the West, and President Biden in particular, while maintaining a threat level below the threshold required to ignite a military reaction by NATO and other western alliance member states. 

NATO and the western alliance cannot afford to forget that Putin’s aggressive foreign policy agenda is not limited to the Ukraine. Russia and Belarus have multiple cooperation agreements. When mass demonstrations earlier this year threatened the regime of Belarus’ President Lukashenko following his questionable reelection in August 2020, Putin provided financial support in the form of cheap gas and oil and police reinforcements. Today Putin appears confident that Minsk’s economic dependence on Russia is extensive enough to keep Lukashenko from moving closer to the West camp. Thirteen years ago, in a five-day war, Russian troops invaded the small border country of Georgia to advance Moscow’s “borderization” policy. To date, Russian troops still occupy 20% of the country. As long as Putin maintains a troop presence inside Georgian territory it cannot qualify to become a member of NATO.

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A Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) report notes that “Tbilisi’s pro-Western foreign policy agenda and aspirations to join the European and Euro-Atlantic space are seen by the Kremlin as a major security threat.” Putin effectively solved the problem for Russia by occupying it. In the Central Asian states defense, trade and common foreign policy interests with Russia are generally cooperative.

The Central Asian states were once former satellite states of the Soviet Union and suffered under its leadership. Their goal today appears to be maintaining regional stability, attracting investment and, in some cases, securing defense alliances with Russia. Great power politics is complicated and heating up as 2021 comes to an end. The Biden Administration is talking with foreign leaders in Russia to try to get Putin to back down. The unanswered question is… who in the Kremlin is listening.

DARIA NOVAK served in the United States State Department during the Reagan Administration, and currently is on the Board of the American Analysis of News and Media Inc., which publishes usagovpolicy.com and the New York Analysis of Policy and Government. 

There is a deeply disturbing trend regarding national security risks, both in the official government response to new developments and the media reaction to them.

Both civilian and military leaders appear shocked and surprised at the growing technical and numerical prowess of America’s adversaries. The media, when news such as Russian satellite killer missiles and Chinese hypersonics are revealed, tend to underplay the seriousness of the issue.

The answer to why Washington has been less than adequate in their ability to foresee worrisome trends has much to do with the politicization of intelligence agencies.  

In 2016, Dan Harris, writing in Cipher Brief, noted “The U.S. Intelligence Community’s (IC) clandestine human intelligence (HUMINT) services are experiencing an erosion of their core mission and values, with consequences to our current and future collection capability…”  Speaking of the Obama Administration, but stressing that this has been an ongoing problem, Harris explained that “the increasingly common practice of deferring core mission decisions to the National Security Council and a shifting vision of intelligence to ‘in support of’ rather than ‘independent of’ policy, have led to questions whether a disregard for the unique requirements of clandestine HUMINT [human intelligence] are so pervasive as to require an entirely new and dedicated service…I believe the issue …is not the need for a new service but the need for experienced mission-enablers, not vice political loyalists, at the command level.”

Several recent events demonstrate the increasing threat level, unforeseen by Washington, and, when finally revealed, underplayed by the media.

More than any other nation, the United States is dependent on satellites for defense.  In 2007, China, and just recently this year, Russia demonstrated the ability to destroy those orbital assets with killer missiles.  These were not only a threat that could render the Pentagon deaf, dumb and blind in a potential conflict.  They produced an immediate danger to the planetary orbital infrastructure of commercial and navigational satellites, and in the case of the recent Russian test, the International Space Station. Astronauts were forced to take refuge in safety chambers until it was determined where the debris would strike. 

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The U.S. Defense Department was similarly unaware of how far China had progressed in hypersonic missiles. Both civilian and military leaders expressed surprise when Beijing performed a very successful test of a hypersonic weapons delivery system that circled the globe and delivered a payload to a target site.

Some have noted the disturbing failure to recognize China’s meteoric increase in military power. In a recent interview with the Washington Times  Lt. Gen. S. Clinton Hinote, the Air Force’s deputy chief of staff for strategy, integration and requirements stated “One of the most interesting things about being a China-watcher over maybe the last 10, 15 years has been it’s the only country certainly in my memory, and I’ve had people in the intelligence community tell me that they’ve never seen a country that consistently accelerates faster than we estimate…The Soviets didn’t do that. Certainly not North Korea or Iran, anything like that. But China has done a good job of taking their economic power… and applying that to acceleration of military capability. And this is why you’re seeing things like the hypersonic test…”

The media has not been eager to pursue the issue. Intense discussion of Beijing’s extraordinary military prowess would lead to calls for more adequate funding for the Pentagon.  That would put pressure on the Biden Administration to limit its push for massive spending on social welfare issues, some of which have been masked as infrastructure, as well as on actual infrastructure spending itself.

The powerful progressive caucus in Congress, which many maintain dominates the Biden Administration, ignores the dire information, and advocates cutting defense spending by at least 10%.

Photo: The ship formations of China and Russia sail in the Western Pacific on October 19, 2021.(eng.chinamil.com.cn/Photo by Sun Jingang)

It is no secret that Billionaire George Soros has funded the campaigns of local prosecutors across the nation.  “(W)ealthy radicals led by billionaire George Soros have poured over $100 million…to fund political activities in races for state and local prosecutors…Soros and his network of wealthy radicals believe the criminal justice system is so corrupt, so hopelessly racist, that justice is literally impossible…Sadly, the millions in contributions from the Soros network have allowed their far-left candidates to overwhelm their opponents by outspending them by as much as 3 to 1. One Democrat who was unseated by a Soros acolyte said, ‘This is an election that was bought, not won.'”  At last count, “Soros and his allies have installed ‘woke’ prosecutors in 31 cities and counties, among them San Francisco, Chicago, Philadelphia, Boston, Portland, Dallas, and St. Louis.” 

And how are these prosecutors doing?  Are they providing their communities with justice?

 “Kim Foxx (is), the State’s Attorney for Cook County, Chicago, where murder is at its highest in nearly 30 years.  In 2020, Soros donated $2 million to a PAC that backed Foxx in her re-election campaign. She won the race and has since offered deferred prosecutions and softball deals to criminals.  In 2021, there were more murders in Chicago than in any other year since 1994. There have been more than 1,000 murders in Cook County, Foxx’s district, this year…” 

 “Foxx was heavily criticized last year, including by the Chicago Fraternal Order of Police who called for her to resign, after dropping several charges against (actor Jussie) Smollett in 2020 for allegedly faking a hate crime where he said he was beaten up by racist and homophobic Trump supporters. The public outrage sparked by the decision to drop many of the charges resulted in the appointing of a special prosecutor. Smollett…was (recently) found guilty on five charges of staging that attack and lying to police…” 

“Larry Krasner, a 60-year-old longtime civil rights and defense attorney who sued the Philadelphia Police Department 75 times, won election in 2017 against a crowded field by billing himself as the outsider candidate capable of making radical change. Krasner’s campaign benefitted from the largesse of…Soros, who poured an eye-popping $1.7 million into the race to support the Democratic candidate’s criminal justice reform agenda. Under Krasner, the future years of incarceration have been cut by half, and the length of parole in probation supervision have been slashed by nearly two-thirds compared to the previous DA.  Krasner, who previously defended Black Lives Matter and Occupy Philadelphia protesters as a lawyer, has clashed with the city’s top cops over his  reluctance to prosecute non-violent gun and drug possession crimes, despite a surge in gun violence and rising homicide rates in the City of Brotherly Love. As of November 21, 2021, there have been 491 homicide victims, a 14 per cent increase from last year’s number of 436, and 283 in 2019.”

“A new Virginia nonprofit, Virginians for Safe Communities, is launching a campaign to recall Fairfax County’s Steve Descano, Loudoun County’s Buta Biberaj, and Arlington County’s Parisa Dehghani-Tafti from their respective offices…(t)he progressive attorneys took office in January 2020 after Soros spent more than $2 million supporting their campaigns. All three have since implemented lenient law enforcement policies, decisions that have coincided with a rise in crime.  Descano, for example, said in December that his office will stop seeking cash bail, which he called ‘unjust’ and ‘racially biased.’ In the months following the decision, homicides in Fairfax County more than doubled the total seen during the same time period in 2020. In Dehghani-Tafti’s Arlington, meanwhile, felony aggravated assaults rose 40 percent last year. And in Loudoun, Biberaj has faced criticism for dismissing hundreds of domestic violence cases. ‘These rogue prosecutors’ dangerous policies are costing lives, re-victimizing victims, and undermining the public’s faith in our justice system—it ends now,’ Virginians for Safe Communities president Sean Kennedy said.

In a category all by themselves is the prosecutor for Los Angeles, George Gascon, and San Francisco’s Chesa Boudin.

“Los Angeles County District Attorney George Gascón…who ran against the first black woman to hold the job, and who received millions of dollars in donations from left-wing billionaire George Soros, has pursued an aggressive, radical agenda of “criminal justice reform” since taking office…. But crime has spiked, leaving the city in the throes of what the Los Angeles Times has called a spate of “brutal, brazen” crimes…including the killing of a beloved Beverly Hills philanthropist, an explosion of gunfire that left one child dead in Wilmington and viral videos of smash-and-grab robberies at retail stores… Murders have skyrocketed in L.A., as are car thefts…”  

And what was DA Gascon’s reaction to the call by LA County Sheriff Alex Villanueva for Gascon to be subject to a recall election?   “My dad used to say that when you wrestle with a pig, you both get muddy and the pig likes it.”

Regarding Boudin, “(p)rosecutors Brooke Jenkins and Don Du Bain…have quit their jobs at the San Francisco District Attorney’s office and joined the effort to recall their former boss, District Attorney Chesa Boudin. They are among at least 51 lawyers at the San Francisco District Attorney’s Office who have either left or been fired since Boudin took office in January 2020, according to documents obtained by the Investigative Unit – that’s about a third of the department’s attorneys now gone. ‘Chesa has a radical approach that involves not charging crime in the first place and simply releasing individuals with no rehabilitation and putting them in positions where they are simply more likely to re-offend,’ Jenkins said… Both attorneys accuse Boudin of making San Francisco more dangerous by regularly handing down lenient sentences, releasing criminals early, and, in some cases, not filing charges at all, despite sufficient evidence proving those individuals committed violent crimes. ‘He basically disregards the laws that he doesn’t like, and he disregards the court decisions that he doesn’t like to impose his own version of what he believes is just -and that’s not the job of the district attorney,’ du Bain said.” 

Reasonable minds can agree that a prosecutor who refuses to pursue charges against violent criminals, in service to a radical agenda, is not providing justice to the community.  If that is the case, what can the community do about such a prosecutor?

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The first thought that comes to most minds, is to bring civil litigation against prosecutors like Foxx, Krasner, Gascon and Boudin.  However, such a lawsuit is doomed to failure.  As the US Supreme Court ruled in Imbler v. Pachtman, 424 US 409 (1976), “(t)he same considerations of public policy that underlie the common law rule of absolute immunity of a prosecutor from a suit for malicious prosecution likewise dictate absolute immunity (when seeking damages for loss of liberty allegedly caused by unlawful prosecution). Although such immunity leaves the genuinely wronged criminal defendant without civil redress against a prosecutor whose malicious or dishonest action deprives him of liberty, the alternative of qualifying a prosecutor’s immunity would disserve the broader public interest in that it would prevent the vigorous and fearless performance of the prosecutor’s duty that is essential to the proper functioning of the criminal justice system and would often prejudice criminal defendants by skewing post-conviction judicial decisions that should be made with the sole purpose of insuring justice.” 

In short, prosecutors are absolutely immune from civil liability for actions taken in the course of their duties – even when they perform those duties with an agenda in mind.

One interesting approach being used by the aforementioned Virginians for Safe Communities (VSC) involves bringing ethics violations against Soros prosecutors.    Recently, “VSC joined with notable concerned citizens of the Commonwealth of Virginia to ask the Virginia State Bar to launch an inquiry into serious and recurring instances of misconduct by the office of the Fairfax Commonwealth’s Attorney, Steve Descano… The letter alleges that…two separate Fairfax County Circuit judges have rebuked Descano’s office for withholding exculpatory evidence in high-profile, high-stakes cases one involving a murder and another concerning a police officer charged with assault. Doing so violates the US Supreme Court’s Brady v. Maryland decision (1963) standard and the Virginia State Bar’s own rules for attorneys and specifically for prosecutors (Rule 3.8).” 

Under the Model Rules of Professional Conduct, Section 8.4, “It is professional misconduct for a lawyer to: (c) engage in conduct involving dishonesty, fraud, deceit or misrepresentation; (d) engage in conduct that is prejudicial to the administration of justice.”  These rules could be used against other Soros prosecutors.  For instance, in his report regarding Chicago’s Kim Foxx, Special Prosecutor Dan Webb cited “at least six false and/or misleading public statements relating to the nature and reason for the dismissal of the Initial Smollett Case and State’s Attorney Foxx’s recusal…the six false and/or misleading public statements discussed above…could potentially be deemed violations of Rule 8.4(c).” 

A discipline complaint has been brought against St Louis prosecutor Kim Gardner, who’s election was also funded by George Soros. “(F)ormer Missouri Gov. Eric Greitens…accused Gardner of failing to correct the record during a deposition from private investigator William Tisaby, whom Gardner had hired to investigate Greitens. Tisaby had conducted interviews with the woman who accused Greitens of misconduct. Tisaby had since been charged with six counts of perjury and one count of tampering with evidence as part of his work on the Greitens case. Gardner was with Tisaby when some of the violations occurred and had an ethical duty to flag his alleged lies, Greitens’ team claims.

 Greitens resigned from the governorship amid Gardner’s probe, but all of the charges against him were subsequently dropped.” 

You may remember Gardner as the prosecutor who “charged Mark and Patricia McCloskey with unlawful use of weapons charges as well as tampering with evidence. Their attorney successfully argued before Judge Thomas Clark that Gardner used the case for political gain after citing it in campaign fundraising emails before and after the charges were issued.” 

Unfortunately, the best way to prevent Soros prosecutors from wrecking havoc on places like Chicago, New York and Los Angeles, is to not elect them in the first place.  The next best is being pursued across the country – Recall elections.

Many jurisdictions are currently engaged in that process.  As mentioned above, there are petitions being circulated to put recall elections on the ballot in both Los Angeles and San Francisco.  But as Kelly Sadler of The Washington Times states, “Mr. Soros’s ‘criminal justice reform’ will be hard to reverse – simply because he’s spent years enacting his plans. However, never underestimate the power of the American citizen. Just like those informed mothers and fathers who wised up to what was being taught in their children’s classrooms and demanded accountability from their local school boards, residents of Los Angeles, Philadelphia — and Milwaukee — also can see what’s going on regarding the safety in their cities. Come the next election day, Mr. Soros is going to have a much tougher battle on his hands.” 

Judge John Wilson (ret.) served on the bench in New York City

Illustration: Pixabay

There is a common theme running throughout most of the positions taken by the left recently: Middle income Americans don’t count. Their problems do not matter.

Since President Biden took over, energy prices have skyrocketed, a direct result of his Administration’s policies. The strain on American families has been significant, and will take a sharp turn for the worse when home heating costs will force families to decide between not freezing or paying other bills, such as groceries, mortgage, or rent.

Rather than express concern or contrition for this horrendous anti-affordable energy policy, Biden is actually doubling down on it. The Daily Mail  has reported that the White House is attacking yet another key cog, closing down Michigan’s Line 5 oil pipeline. 

The hypocrisy of destroying American energy independence under the excuse of environmental consideration fails to convince, since the President has favored Russia’s construction of its Nordstream pipeline and his request that OPEC increase its production. The goal of wiping out fossil fuel use in the foreseeable future is unrealistic. Beyond that, does the President believe that it is appropriate that middle income Americans go bankrupt, in order for him to please the radical leftist who seem to oppose all that makes America strong?

That same Progressive crowd has foisted its no bail, defund the police ideas on the nation, to America’s great detriment. A Utah Law Digital Commons  analysis of jurisdiction in Illinois notes that “the new changes to pretrial release procedures appear to have led to a substantial increase in crimes committed by pretrial releasees in Cook County. Properly measured and estimated, after more generous release procedures were put in place, the number of released defendants charged with committing new crimes increased by 45%. And, more concerning, the number of pretrial releasees charged with committing new violent crimes increased by an estimated 33%. In addition, as reported by the Chicago Tribune, the Study’s data appears to undercount the number of releasees charged with new violent crimes.”

Once again, the pursuit of an unrealistic and unviable progressive goal has harmed the population, but to leftist, that doesn’t matter. Only “fundamentally transforming” the country counts.  Of course, when anyone asks, what do they want to “fundamentally transform” America into, no intelligent answer is provided.

Polls indicate that Americans, across the board, are not in favor of open borders.  Apparently, that doesn’t matter to Biden or his progressive supporters. They do not feel the pain, and it is very real pain, that illegal immigration causes, in additional crime, contagious disease, and dollars.

Texas Attorney General Paxton outlined the cost to his state:

• Texans pay between $579 million and $717 million each year for public hospital districts to provide uncompensated care for illegal aliens.  
• Texans paid $152 million to house illegal criminal aliens for just one year.  
• Texans pay between $62 million and $90 million to include illegal aliens in the state Emergency Medicaid program. 
• Texans paid more than $1 million for The Family Violence Program to provide services to illegal aliens for one year.  
• Texans pay between $30 million and $38 million per year on perinatal coverage for illegal aliens through the Children’s Health Insurance Program.  
• Texans pay between $31 million and $63 million to educate unaccompanied alien children each year.  

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The Left doesn’t apparently care. These new folks, not brought up with American ideas, will assist in their fundamental transformation. Don’t complain; you don’t count.

Nowhere has their attitude become more clear than in education, with Virginia’s failed gubernatorial candidate McAuliffe openly revealing the progressive perspective that the wishes of the majority of Americans do not matter by stating that parents should have no role in what their children are being taught.

The left has enjoyed the protection of a friendly media in hiding their arrogance. But the disastrous results of their policies can no longer be masked.  

illustration: Pixabay

This is not the Christmas most had hoped for.

Nations across the planet remain challenged by the COVID Pandemic. The perpetrator of the plague, China, remains unpunished and unrepentant. Its ruling Communist Party rapidly develops one of the world’s most powerful offensive nuclear arsenals, and has already launched the planet’s largest navy.

 Beijing’s communist rulers operate concentration camps aimed at eliminating an entire culture, similar to what it has done to Tibet.

In response, the U.S. has enacted the Uyghur Forced Labor Prevention Act, underscoring the United States’ commitment to combatting forced labor, including in the context of the ongoing genocide in Xinjiang.

The State Department states that it is “…committed to working with Congress and our interagency partners to continue addressing forced labor in Xinjiang and to strengthen international action against this egregious violation of human rights.  This new law gives the U.S. government new tools to prevent goods made with forced labor in Xinjiang from entering U.S. markets and to further promote accountability for persons and entities responsible for these abuses.”

Addressing forced labor must remain a priority.  Concrete measures have been taken to promote accountability in Xinjiang, including visa restrictions, Global Magnitsky and other financial sanctions, export controls, Withhold Release Orders and import restrictions, and the release of a business advisory on Xinjiang. Global supply chains must be free from the use of forced labor, including from Xinjiang, where the concentration camps are located.

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People of good will across the planet should demand that the Chinese Communist Party immediately end genocide and crimes against humanity.

Those crimes include the oppression of religion.

Corporations which have placed their profits ahead of their conscience should be called to task. The latest example is Intel, which, as Breitbart recently noted, “American computer chip maker Intel issued an apology in Chinese text on Thursday for a previous statement in which it urged its Chinese suppliers to not source products from Xinjiang, a region where human rights experts say nearly every manufactured product is guaranteed to have been made by slaves.”

Intel is not alone. China has moved in a massive way to influence American politicians, universities, and other centers of influence.  One well-known example: when a famous basketball player criticized Beijing for its violations of human rights, the entire NBA establishment, eager to expand its presence in the People’s Republic, forced him to recount.  Hollywood has changed movie scripts to please Chinese investors.  In colleges across the nation, Confucius Institutes run by Beijing influence what is taught in our schools.  Individual professors as well as university administrations have been on the take for this purpose. The prominent and powerful Joe Biden family has been vastly enriched by highly questionable financial dealings with China.

On this December 25, it is relevant to dwell on Beijing’s oppression of religion. In 2018, a Congressional-Executive Commission on China noted that “Chinese President and Communist Party General Secretary Xi Jinping’s efforts to “sinicize” religion are taking a devastating human toll.  Chinese officials and others complicit in severe religious freedom violations must be held accountable and specific cases of those unjustly harassed, detained, and imprisoned must be raised at the highest levels of government. As Christians around the world prepare to celebrate Christmas, China’s Christians and other faith communities are under siege and treated as enemies of the state for daring to worship and peacefully live out their faith…The Chinese Government has long imposed harsh policies against unregistered Christian churches, Uyghur Muslims, Tibetan Buddhists, Falun Gong practitioners, and other new religious movements the Chinese government has labeled as “cults.” Set against this grim backdrop, the number of Chinese religious believers has grown rapidly for several decades after the Cultural Revolution. In 2016 Chinese President and Communist Party General Secretary Xi Jinping launched a “sinicization” campaign, resulting in unprecedented efforts to manage, control, and even transform the religious practices of tens of millions of China’s citizens.”

On Christmas Eve, it is pleasant to think that all the world is safely at rest.  In Act 1, Scene 1 of Hamlet, Shakespeare wrote:

“Some say that ever ‘gainst that season comes

Wherein our Saviour’s birth is celebrated,

The bird of dawning singeth all night long.

And then, they say, no spirit dare stir abroad.

The nights are wholesome. Then no planets strike,

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No fairy takes, nor witch hath power to charm,

So hallowed and so gracious is that time.”

Historically, though, this is a tumultuous time in American history. Consider: In 1776, the fledgling Continental Army under General George Washington was reeling from one defeat after another.  It desperately needed a victory.  On Christmas Eve, it began preparations for an assault on Hessian forces comfortably quartered there. Crossing the Delaware River, (and giving rise to Emanuel Leutze’s  iconic painting) the underfed, raggedly dressed and poorly supplied American force surprised and defeated the enemy on December 26^th.

One hundred and sixty-eight years later, American forces were surrounded and facing defeat in the crucial town of Bastogne during the epic Battle of the Bulge.   Despite their desperate plight, they refused to surrender. Against all odds, General George S. Patton’s Third Army travelled a great distance, broke through the Nazi lines, and saved the day.

Twenty-four years after that, the first manned mission to orbit the Moon, Apollo 8,  reached its Lunar Goal on Christmas Eve and thrilled the world with a reading from Genesis.

We hope the only drama your family experiences this Christmas Eve is the wonderful excitement of sharing the night with family and friends.

Not many Americans can identify where Belarus is located on a European map. That may be changing soon if its president, Alexander Lukashenko, decides to permit Vladimir Putin to stage Russian nuclear weapons inside the country. Belarus’ importance to political stability throughout the West today far outweighs the limited knowledge most in the US have about the state or the status of Minsk’s relationship with Moscow. In November Lukashenko made a public statement that dramatically raises the risk level of war in Europe when he stated: “I will suggest that Putin return nuclear weapons to Belarus,” and that “those nuclear armaments would be the most effective” deterrent.

Belarus is propped up by the Russian state. It purchases about half its exports and provides the former Soviet satellite state subsidized oil which it resells at a huge profit. Oil sales account for a large part of its GDP. The country borders Russia on the east and Ukraine on the south while Poland sits on its western border. Although Belarus is a smaller nation-state about the size of Kansas it is strategically important to Russia as a buffer with the European Union and NATO. Putin is willing to absorb the financial and political costs for it to remain within his sphere of influence.

Lukashenko has turned to Russia for well over a decade for financial aid, political backing, and the support needed to keep him in power. The bilateral relationship with Moscow has grown in significance in recent years as other former Soviet republics have moved closer to the West. Last year Putin saved Lukashenko’s regime by promising him a $1.5 billion loan and developing a law enforcement group for the president to ensure security inside the country. Since the August 2020 election Lukashenko, with Putin’s assistance, has cracked down heavily on protestors and the indigenous democracy movement. Putin retains regional hegemony over the area as Belarus is highly dependent on Russia’s largesse and Lukashenko is fully compliant and catering to Putin’s priorities. 

“As President Lukashenko said, we are considering the possibility of deploying nuclear weapons on the territory of Belarus as one of the potential responses to future possible actions by the NATO bloc on the territory of Poland,” Belarusian Foreign Minister Vladimir Makei told RT Arabic in an interview on Friday. Lukashenko suggests that that such a deployment is in response to a potential deployment of US atomic missiles in Eastern Europe in the future. 

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Tensions have increased on the Belarus-Polish border over the last year as many are trying to illegally enter Poland to escape the harsh Lukashenko dictatorship. Belarus continues to align closely with Russia politically although Putin and Lukashenko have had their differences in the past. The EU and other Western nations refused to recognize the results of the August 4-8, 2020, presidential election due to corruption and falsified results. After backing up Lukashenko, Putin declared later in August 2020 that he knew he could “always count on Belarus for support.”   It looks like Putin may be calling in the chips soon. 

Recent intelligence reports suggest that the two countries are integrating additional Belarusian special forces units with Russian troops. After joint exercises earlier this year Putin left a number of troops inside Belarus. This pushes Lukashenko into a corner. He intends to retain his power and the independence for his country. At the same time, he is increasingly dependent on Russia for financial, political and military support. Should a skirmish occur with any of Belarus’ neighbors it could draw in NATO and Russian military forces and spread into a wider conflict with the potential to escalate into a nuclear war. Putin needs Lukashenko and Belarus but not the complications it brings to Russian-West European relations. How Putin gets resolves its Belarusian headache may determine if there is war in Europe in 2022.

DARIA NOVAK served in the United States State Department during the Reagan Administration, and currently is on the Board of the American Analysis of News and Media Inc., which publishes usagovpolicy.com and the New York Analysis of Policy and Government. 

Common sense would indicate that the plain wording of the New York State Constitution and Election Law, as well as the Federal law cited above, would bar a noncitizen from voting, and when it comes to a state or federal election, your common sense would be correct.  But enough loopholes have been built into these laws to give proponents of the new law a very good argument in favor of the constitutionality of noncitizen voting in local elections.

DOES THE NEW YORK CITY COUNCIL HAVE THE POWER TO MAKE THIS CHANGE?

Surprisingly, on this level, the arguments against the new law are more likely to be successful than those presented in our earlier discussion.

“In 2013, Mayor Bloomberg’s office also opposed (noncitizen voting) on the basis that, even if not contrary to New York’s constitution or its election law, under New York’s home rule statute and the city charter, any expansion of the franchise had to be via referendum. Section 23(2)(e) of New York’s Municipal Home Rule Law, along with Sec. 38 of New York City’s charter, provides that a local law shall be subject to mandatory referendum if it ‘[a]bolishes an elective office, or changes the method of … electing … an elective officer, or changes the term of an elective office, or reduces the salary of an elective officer during his term of office.’ There is a powerful argument that expanding the franchise for municipal elections to include noncitizen residents is a change in method: it would change the very definition of who makes up the electorate; it may also require a change in procedures for voting, to make sure noncitizens cast the proper ballot. Where the state legislature sets forth categories of local laws subject to mandatory referendum, as it did with Sec. 23(2)(e), New York courts have said that they will interpret those categories when called upon to do so.” 

So then, why didn’t the City Council authorize a voter referendum on this issue?  Simply put, they fear defeat of the measure at the polls.  “A referendum increases the chances of defeat. A similar initiative to extend the franchise in local elections to lawful residents was narrowly defeated in Portland, Maine in 2010...A proposal to allow noncitizen voting in school board elections in San Francisco’s was defeated by a 2.9 percent margin in 2004…and again, in 2010, by a much wider margin.” 

Recall also the fate of the Minneapolis City Council’s decision to abolish their police force.  After initially promising to replace the Minneapolis Police Department with a “Department of Community Safety and Violence Prevention,” the members of the City Council ultimately submitted the issue to a voter referendum. According to NPR, “(v)oters in Minneapolis…resoundingly rejected a proposal to reinvent policing in their city…(a)pproximately 56% of voters rejected a ballot question that would have removed the Minneapolis Police Department from the city charter and replaced it with a ‘public-health oriented’ Department of Public Safety.” 

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With this history, it is no wonder the New York City Council acted without voter approval.  But thre is a more important question – why act at all?  Why add an estimated 800,000 to one million voters to local elections?

The answer is obvious.  As late as 2014, statistical data shows that the overwhelming majority of immigrants tend to register as Democrats.  In New York alone, 60% of immigrants identified as Democrats, while only 15% claimed to be Republicans.  In Massachusetts, it was 67% Democrat, 17% Republican, and in New Jersey, 62% to 14%.    According to Pew Research, “Hispanic registered voters have historically identified more with the Democratic Party than the Republican Party…(a)bout two-thirds (64%) of Hispanic voters say they identify as Democrats or lean Democratic, compared with 24% who identify as Republican or lean toward the GOP.”

And just who are the majority of immigrants to New York City?  According to the American Immigration Council, “(n)early a quarter of New York residents are immigrants…In 2018, 4.4 million immigrants (foreign-born individuals) comprised 23 percent of the population…The top countries of origin for immigrants were the Dominican Republic (11 percent of immigrants), China (9 percent), Mexico (5 percent), Jamaica (5 percent), and India (4 percent).” 

Thus, the question is not, why is the overwhelming Democrat New York City Council seeking to expand their voter base to resident aliens.  The question is, why shouldn’t they seek to add more Democrat voters and a permanent majority? 

Judge John Wilson (ret.) served on the bench in NYC.

Photo: Pixabay

On December 9, 2021, the New York City Council passed a local law amending the City Charter to allow “lawful permanent residents and persons authorized to work in the United States in New York city to participate in municipal elections.”  To accomplish this, the new law redefines a “municipal voter” as  “a person who is not a United States citizen on the date of the election on which he or she is voting, who is either a lawful permanent resident or authorized to work in the United States, who is a resident of New York city and will have been such a resident for 30 consecutive days or longer by the date of such election, who meets all qualifications for registering or pre-registering to vote under the election law, except for possessing United States citizenship, and who has registered or pre-registered to vote with the board of elections in the city of New York under this chapter.” 

As reported by the New York Post, “’Our city will become the largest municipality in the nation that will allow non-citizens to vote in local elections,’ Speaker (of the City Council) Corey Johnson…said… ‘New York has been built by immigrants, and we are what we are because of them.’”   

Although the bill passed by a wide margin, not everyone on the New York City Council was enthusiastic about the new law.  “Councilman Mark Gjonaj — a Democrat who represents parts of The Bronx...(indicated that the) 30-day minimum residency in New York City should be extended to at least a year, because it would permit ‘transients’ to head to the polls…’This bill in its current form doesn’t protect New York City; it makes it vulnerable to outside influence,’ he said….’It doesn’t take much to … figure out how dangerous this bill is for the future of New York City,’ he added. ‘This bill … is a threat to our sovereignty.’” 

While this is a valid, if somewhat obscure, basis to question the actions of the New York City Council, there are more obvious objections to the passage of this bill, objections which will serve as the grounds for a lawsuit to be brought by “Staten Island Borough President-elect Vito Fossella…along with Council Republican leader Joseph Borelli and the (New York) state Republican Party” – that is, 1) the City Council does not have the power to enact this law without either a voter referendum, 2) the new law is not legal, under either the federal or state constitutions.  

IS THE NEW LAW CONSTITUTIONAL?

Like any legal question, the answer is not simple.  Pursuant to Article 2, Section 1 of the New York State Constitution, “Every citizen shall be entitled to vote at every election for all officers elected by the people…provided that such citizen is eighteen years of age or over and shall have been a resident of this state, and of the county, city, or village for thirty days next preceding an election.” 

According to “Albany Law School professor Vincent Bonventre…’Although the provision does not explicitly say that a ‘non-citizen may not vote’ or that only citizens may vote, the implications seems pretty clear that the right to vote is exclusive to citizens—they are the only ones mentioned and nothing else suggests the right to vote may be extended to others.’”  Further, “James McGuire, a former appellate court judge and chief legal counsel to three-term Gov. George Pataki, said, ‘It is difficult to reconcile the City Council’s position with the fact that the provision in the state constitution that grants the right to vote distinguishes between a citizen and a resident.’”

On the other hand, “Doug Kellner, a Democratic co-chairman on the state Board of Elections, said local governments (have) discretion to organize their own elections under the state’s ‘home rule’ provision. He noted that non-citizens were allowed to vote in school board elections.” 

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In fact, “New York’s original state constitution gave the vote to all white male residents – citizen or noncitizen – who owned property and declared allegiance to the state. Not long after, New York became one of the first states to ban noncitizen voting: by 1804, the state election law required citizenship to vote, and an 1827 law defined ‘citizenship’ unambiguously as U.S. citizenship…New York City permitted noncitizens to vote in local school board elections between 1968 and 2003…noncitizen voting in school boards was legal because school boards were considered outside local government…”    The school board system was abolished in 2002, along with the New York City Board of Education when a new law was enacted, “replacing it with a…Panel for Educational Policy controlled by the mayor. The mayor gained the power to appoint the chancellor, and Community Education Councils, consisting of parents, replaced community school boards.” 

Besides the New York State Constitution, there is New York Election Law, Sec, 5-102(1), to be considered, which states that “No person shall be qualified to register for and vote at any election unless he is a citizen of the United States and is or will be, on the day of such election, eighteen years of age or over, and a resident of this state and of the county, city or village for a minimum of thirty days next preceding such election.” 

This would seem to be pretty explicit; however, according to a study published in 2014 by the Center for Immigration Studies, “New York’s election law also provides…that if a conflict exists between state election law and ‘any other law,’ the latter prevails unless the election law specifically provides that it should prevail. Known…as a ‘savings clause’…provision, this language creates a presumption against preemption unless the New York State legislature makes its intent to preempt local law unmistakably clear.”  What this means is, “(t)he state legislature easily could have included preemptive language such as ‘notwithstanding any state or local enactment to the contrary…’ in § 5-102…(i)t has not done so..”

Thus, proponents of the new law argue that the New York State constitution does not stand in the way of New York City enacting its own law, for its own elections.  They also argue that the City Council’s act should be considered “any other law,” not explicitly preempted by New York State Election law.

Federal law also plays a role here.  Under 18 USC Sec. 611(a), “It shall be unlawful for any alien to vote in any election held solely or in part for the purpose of electing a candidate for the office of President, Vice President, Presidential elector, Member of the Senate, Member of the House of Representatives, Delegate from the District of Columbia, or Resident Commissioner, unless—(1) the election is held partly for some other purpose; (2) aliens are authorized to vote for such other purpose under a State constitution or statute or a local ordinance; and (3) voting for such other purpose is conducted independently of voting for a candidate for such Federal offices, in such a manner that an alien has the opportunity to vote for such other purpose, but not an opportunity to vote for a candidate for any one or more of such Federal offices.” 

Thus, as noted by the Center for Immigration Studies, “In short, federal law explicitly recognizes that a state or local government can extend suffrage to noncitizens, at least with regard to a state or local matter, as long as the relevant government body develops procedures to ensure that the noncitizen cannot vote on the federal matter. This might be done either by giving noncitizens a different ballot, or by holding local elections at a different time. At the same time, immigration law makes a noncitizen who votes in violation of any federal, state or local law inadmissible or deportable.”

Judge John Wilson (ret.) served on the bench in NYC/ His analysis concludes tomorrow.

Photo: Pixabay