Author: Daria Novak

China has two major historical scores to settle, yet the Western media only mentions one of its potential Asian adversaries — the island nation of Taiwan. At its closest point Taiwan is 80 miles off the coast of the mainland and may be the site of the next great power conflict. But China also shares 14 land boundaries and more than 8 other maritime ones. The most overlooked of these is Vietnam, which shares an 806-mile border on China’s south. Today, Japan, India, and several Western nations are making diplomatic and security overtures to Vietnam. The historical roots of the bloody Sino-Vietnamese conflict run deep and are not forgotten in Hanoi. Miles Maochun Yu, of the Hoover Institution, says that the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) had “launched no fewer than six military actions against Vietnam, ranging from a full-scale invasion and naval battles… to sustained and repeated wars of attrition that involved several millions of salvos throughout the entirety of the 1980s.”

By the time Chinese President Xi Jinping assumed power in 2012, the conflicted relationship was again strained. This time the problem was Beijing’s aggressive behavior in the South China Sea and its attempt to secure underwater resources, including oil and natural gas, that are internationally recognized as belonging to Vietnam. Yu points out that Vietnam, unlike other countries in the region, is uniquely positioned to take on China with a strong and discipled resistance. China has not forgotten the sting of its 1979 border war loss with its small southern neighbor. In many cases Vietnamese troops, who knew the jungle territory well, simply waited until Chinese troops left their hilltop cement fortifications and then took the over the location and slaughtered Chinese troops returning from patrol.

President Xi and the CCP leadership remain uncertain how to address the belligerent communist state that Beijing believes ought to be grateful to China. Vietnam has turned increasingly to the West in recent years. Earlier this month, the southeast Asian country received Japan’s Defense Minister, Nobuo Kishi, in a visit marked by the historic signing of an agreement allowing the transfer of Japanese-made weapons and defense technologies to Vietnam. 

China also views Vietnam as the new bipartisan lynchpin in Washington’s Asia strategy. Hanoi in 2021 is an additional complexity with which Xi must deal as he attempts to expand China’s influence beyond its borders in a world mad at the communist giant for releasing the Covid virus on unsuspecting countries around the world. Xi knows Vietnam is a communist state well-versed in Marxist-Leninist doctrine and military strategies, and it has battle-hardened troops that can be mobilized effectively to fend off any Chinese incursion. The leadership in Hanoi know the CCP’s playbook well and today can call on informal alliances with Western leaning nations should Beijing attempt any military action against it. 

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Japan publicly stated to Vietnam this year that they share “the same destiny” and “harsh reality” in facing a common threat from China, according to Yu.  Russia is yet another long-standing ally of Vietnam and lately India is seeking better relations with Vietnam as is the United States. According to an Asian Barometer Survey published in “The Diplomat,” the United States has a better image in Vietnam than does China. What is even more troubling for President Xi is that he knows the Vietnamese increasingly welcome Washington over Beijing. A full 85% of Vietnamese say that the US has had a positive impact on their country while only 25% say that China also is good for Vietnam.

Although China this summer has attempted to improve its image in Vietnam, the CCP has a long way to go to keep open any window of opportunity for maintaining stable relations with Hanoi. This is not lost on policy makers in Washington who have increased diplomatic efforts. President Xi and the CCP’s belligerence are creating more turbulence and adversaries than they are able to buy off in their effort to move the world into a Chinese imperial court. 

Daria Novak served in the Reagan State Department.

On September 9, 2021, President Joe Biden gave a speech outlining his Administration’s latest plan to “encourage” the American public to receive COVID vaccinations.  He began by indicating that “(t)his is a pandemic of the unvaccinated,” further stating that  “(t)he unvaccinated overcrowd our hospitals, are overrunning the emergency rooms and intensive care units, leaving no room for someone with a heart attack…or cancer.”

Biden then took pains to emphasize the benefits the vaccinated have received; “the vaccines provide very strong protection from severe illness from COVID-19…the world’s leading scientists confirm that if you are fully vaccinated, your risk of severe illness from COVID-19 is very low. In fact, based on available data from the summer, only one of out of every 160,000 fully vaccinated Americans was hospitalized for COVID per day. These are the facts.”  

Continuing in this vein, Biden said,  “as the science makes clear, if you’re fully vaccinated, you’re highly protected from severe illness, even if you get COVID-19. In fact, recent data indicates there is only one confirmed positive case per 5,000 fully vaccinated Americans per day. You’re as safe as possible, and we’re doing everything we can to keep it that way…”

Yet, in justifying a new series of vaccine mandates, Biden argued that “my plan is…to protect the vaccinated.”  The question then occurs to anyone who really listened to this speech – protect them from what?  According to the President, the vaccinated are “as safe as possible.”  Why would the vaccinated need protection from the unvaccinated?

Among the new requirements the President announced, many of which are heavy-handed, but legal, one measure has stirred much controversy: “(T)onight, I’m announcing that the Department of Labor is developing an emergency rule to require all employers with 100 or more employees, that together employ over 80 million workers, to ensure their workforces are fully vaccinated or show a negative test at least once a week.”  In making this pronouncement, he repeated the logical fallacy discussed above –  “We’re going to protect vaccinated workers from unvaccinated co-workers.”

Again, didn’t Biden just say the vaccinated only represent “one confirmed positive case per 5,000 fully vaccinated,” and that the vaccinated were “as safe as possible?”  Why would vaccinated workers need protection from unvaccinated workers?

Rather than go down the rabbit hole, and try to unravel the logical conundrum presented by the President’s COVID speech, let us focus on the primary issue – is it consistent with the US Constitution for the federal government to order private companies to require their employees be vaccinated?

In a previous article, we discussed the legality of employers making vaccination a condition of employment.  In general, the practice is legal, so long are employees can seek either a medical or religious exemption.     But what Biden has ordered goes beyond the actions taken by a private company.  Here, the federal government plans to force private companies to order their employees to receive the COVID vaccination.

The Biden Administration must realize there is a weakness in their position.  In addressing the “other sectors” of the economy, Biden issued as appeal rather than a mandate: “(t)o those of you running large entertainment venues—from sports arenas to concert venues to movie theaters—please require folks to get vaccinated or show a negative test as a condition of entry.”  If the President believes he can order companies with 100 or more employees to get those employees vaccinated, why wouldn’t he order “large entertainment venues” to insure that their patrons are also vaccinated?

Arizona is the first state to actually challenge the vaccine mandates.  In his lawsuit filed in federal court, Arizona Attorney General Mark Brnovich argues that “unauthorized aliens will not be subject to any vaccination requirements even when released directly into the United States…while roughly a hundred million U.S. citizens will be subject to unprecedented vaccination requirements. This reflects an unmistakable—and unconstitutional—brand of favoritism in favor of unauthorized aliens…(t)his discrimination in favor of unauthorized aliens violates the Equal Protection Clause…(b)ecause Defendants’ respect for individual rights vis-à-vis vaccination mandates appears to extend only to unauthorized aliens, and not U.S. citizens…” 

An interesting approach, but a narrow one.  Even if the District Court finds the mandate to be a violation of the Equal Protection Clause, the Court could order the government to administer vaccinations to illegal aliens. The mandate to private employers would remain unaffected.

There are those who argue that “the constitutionality of what Biden intends to do is fairly straightforward.”  According to Jennifer D. Oliva, director of the Center for Health and Pharmaceutical Law at Seton Hall University School of Law, “The federal courts have uniformly rejected constitutional challenges to government vaccine mandates, so long as they don’t single out one demographic group in a way that’s discriminatory. The Supreme Court has done so since the 1905 case Jacobson v. Massachusetts, when a smallpox epidemic swept through the Bay State. To stem the disease, the Board of Health of Cambridge, Massachusetts, passed an ordinance that criminalized…the refusal…to be vaccinated against the variola (smallpox) virus…. As the (US Supreme) court explained, Americans do not have a constitutional right to harm their fellow citizens by refusing a vaccine…Justice John Marshall Harlan…explained (that), ‘the liberty secured by the Constitution . . . does not import an absolute right in each person to be, at all times and in all circumstances, wholly freed from restraint. . . . On any other basis, organized society could not exist with safety to its members.’” 

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But according to Justin Haskins, director of the Stopping Socialism Project at The Heartland Institute, “(i)n Jacobson, the Supreme Court determined that a local vaccine mandate is permissible under the Constitution because states have maintained their police powers and authority to regulate public health under the 10th Amendment, which guarantees, ‘The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people.’  But the decision in Jacobson does not include language indicating that the national government has the same authority. The case has nothing to do with federal vaccine mandates like the one imposed by Biden. Nothing in the Constitution suggest that the executive branch can impose blanket vaccine regulations on private businesses or their employees.” 

Writing for The Observer, Blake Ziegler makes these observations: “As part of the executive branch, the Department of Labor cannot simply create new laws (that’s Congress’s job). It can only enact regulations under existing laws and its authority established by Congress. For the Biden administration, this jurisdiction is found through the Occupational Safety and Health Act of 1970, which permits the Department of Labor to issue an ’emergency temporary standard’ for workplaces when employees are exposed to a ‘grave danger’ from a ‘toxic or physically harmful’ substance and the standard is ‘necessary to protect employees from such danger.’  The last time the OSHA implemented an emergency standard was in 1983 when the Reagan administration attempted to limit workers’s (sic) exposure to asbestos…(u)ltimately, though, the asbestos standard was voided by the court because the federal government could not demonstrate the emergency temporary standard was necessary to combat asbestos. The Biden administration will likely encounter a similar difficulty…”

Further, another “area that warrants attention is whether a vaccine mandate falls under OSHA’s authority. OSHA did successfully issue an emergency temporary standard related to COVID-19 policies, but it only applied to the healthcare industry and did not involve vaccines. A widespread mandate covering tens of millions of Americans will likely encounter more scrutiny. In fact, some critics have already denounced the policy, proclaiming that a vaccine mandate is beyond the jurisdiction of OSHA. Their argument is that, according to OSHA’s authority, health and safety threats can only be combated from actions within the workplace. Receiving a vaccine would go beyond the workplace, so they reason a vaccine mandate is unconstitutional.” 

The vaccine mandate to private employers would not be the first time the Biden Administration exceeded its authority.  “In mid-May a federal court in Texas ruled that the race-based parts of the law governing relief to restaurant owners are unconstitutional. (Later that same month) a higher federal court, the Sixth Circuit Federal Court of Appeals, ruled the same way…(s)aid the court: ‘Here, the government could have used any number of alternative, nondiscriminatory policies. Yet it failed to do so. For example, the government contends that minority-owned businesses disproportionately struggled to obtain capital and credit during the pandemic. But obvious race-neutral alternative exists: The government could grant priority consideration to all business owners who were unable to obtain needed capital or credit during the pandemic.'” 

Then, in June, “a third federal court…issued a temporary restraining order against Biden’s racially exclusionary farm and ranch relief program. This new decision concerns Section 1005 of the American Rescue Plan of 2021 (ARPA). Under this law, ‘the Secretary [of Agriculture] shall provide a payment in the amount of up to 120 percent of the outstanding indebtedness of each socially disadvantaged farmer or rancher…” The Department of Agriculture interprets ‘socially disadvantaged’ to include farmers or ranchers ‘who are one or more of the following: Black/African American, American Indian, Alaskan native, Hispanic/Latino, Asian or Pacific Islander.’ As the court describes it: ‘the loan forgiveness program is based entirely on the race of the farmer or rancher.”

Thus, “(i)t’s no surprise that the courts keep ruling that these laws are unconstitutional…(i)t would therefore seem obvious that no business owner or farmer can be denied economic relief solely on account of their race. This is why the Biden administration keeps losing these cases.” 

The vaccine mandate to private employers is not discriminatory.  However, it most closely resembles the Eviction Moratorium established by the Center for Disease Control – and what became of that moratorium?  In August, “the Supreme Court…(decided) that the CDC exceeded its statutory authority in issuing the moratorium… The Court saw it as a stretch that…the CDC (has the) authority to impose an eviction moratorium…the Court reasoned that the…Government’s interpretation of the statute places no limits on the measures that the CDC could take, and its claim of authority under such provision is unprecedented.” 

You can expect a similar fate to befall this latest attempt by the Biden Administration to exceed the limits of their authority, the law, and the Constitution.

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

Illustration: Pixabay

While the eyes of most Western political leaders are cast toward Afghanistan, President Vladimir Putin continues to actively pursue an aggressive over the border strategy. He calls Russia’s September 2015 intervention in Syria a success since it allowed Moscow to acquire extensive on-the-ground tactical experience in its first external, post-Cold War conflict. Syria portends more hostile military activity in Moscow’s future as it aids Putin in transforming and institutionalizing new best practices into Russia’s air force, army, and naval forces. 

Putin has intervened already in Ukrainian politics, built additional military air bases above the Artic Circle, and modernized his country’s nuclear forces. In a recent Foreign Policy Research Institute (FPRI) report on Russia, Robert Hamilton writes that “Through Syria, Russia has reemerged on the geopolitical stage… [and] the West will be dealing with a Russia that has changed fundamentally through its experience in the war.” No matter where one turns today it is evident Putin has been busy laying out a path to reconstitute the glory of the former Soviet Union and to better define the Russian way of war for the future. The West should be concerned about Russia on the horizon, not just China. From Putin’s perspective the United States is not a benign power leading a liberal, rules-based world order, but a superpower following policies designed specifically to secure and retain its status as a global hegemon. 

Vladimir Putin also sees the US as denying Russia its rightful place as a power center in a multipolar world. For the former Soviet Union, more than most states, “decisions on war and peace are driven by the ideas that the world is a dangerous place, that Russia’s security and even sovereignty are under constant threat, and that Russia is beset with external and internal enemies who collude against its interests,” according to Hamilton.

Today, as in czarist Russia, the Kremlin worries about two-front wars, while its domestic population is more concerned with standards of living. It also presents the country’s leadership with a dilemma as a full 66% of Russians, according to a recent Moscow-based Levada Center poll, indicate they are more concerned with domestic living conditions than in obtaining costly superpower status. Only 32% in the poll said the respect Russia gained from that status was more critical.

It makes Putin more dangerous to the West in 2022. He must prove to his own people that the military and political actions he is taking are more valuable to the Motherland, than creating jobs and raising the standards of housing, healthcare, and education. The political situation in Russia is complicated for Putin. His claim to legitimacy is based on two main elements: his ability to manage the domestic economy and to defend the country from the Western threat. The per capita domestic product last year was lower than it was in 2008.  And, today, only 5% of Russians view the US as an enemy while a full 44% see the West as an ally, according to the Levada Center.

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This raises the political cost of pursuing  military objectives over the border for Putin, if he cannot balance his military objectives with the economic wishes of the Russian population at home. To justify his actions abroad, Putin may need to seek out new military objectives in the Ukraine, Georgia, and elsewhere to legitimize his continued worth to Russians and to convince them that the national security he is providing is worth more than their economic sacrifices. Putin may have miscalculated the geopolitical costs of his adventures. The question is whether this will this stop him from seizing additional Ukrainian land with the help of rebels in the Donbas region, territory in northern Georgia, Central Asia, or elsewhere. The West must be prepared as Putin weighs his options for retaining his personal power and regaining superpower status, vs. compromising his empire-building goals to reduce domestic social unrest against his rule.

The Russian leader’s recent moves to maintain Moscow’s influence in Central Asia since the US withdrawal from Afghanistan, is an indication that he is not giving any leeway to the West, nor will he set aside his revitalized military to allow the United States to freely engage with other countries in the region. The stakes for Putin are high and his political legacy is at stake. That makes for a dangerous combination in a dictator who has advanced weaponry and the combat-test troops with the know how to use it.

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.  Each Saturday, she presents key updates on Russia.

Illustration: Pixabay

Republican members of the House Foreign Affairs Committee have released a report on the origins of COVID-19, and the coverup that followed. We present a summary of that analysis:

More than one year after the World Health Organization declared a pandemic, the world is still reeling from the emergence of the SARS-CoV-2 virus and the disease it causes, COVID-19. More than four million people have lost their lives worldwide, including more than 612,000 Americans, while economies around the world have been devastated by the fallout. This report investigates the origin of this virus and looks at how it became a deadly pandemic.

The Wuhan Institute of Virology

Last September, the House Foreign Affairs Committee Minority Staff, under the direction of Ranking Member Michael T. McCaul, released a report on the origins of the COVID-19 pandemic. That report highlighted the possibility SARS-CoV-2 could have leaked from the Wuhan Institute of Virology (WIV). However, as we continued our investigation and uncovered more information, we now believe it’s time to completely dismiss the wet market as the source of the outbreak. We also believe the preponderance of the evidence proves the virus did leak from the WIV and that it did so sometime before September 12, 2019.

This is based upon multiple pieces of evidence laid out in the report, including:

The sudden removal of the WIV’s virus and sample database in the middle of the night on September 12, 2019 and without explanation;

Safety concerns expressed by top PRC scientists in 2019 and unusually scheduled maintenance at the WIV;

Athletes at the Military World Games held in Wuhan in October 2019 who became sick with symptoms similar to COVID-19 both while in Wuhan and also shortly after returning to their home countries;

Satellite imagery of Wuhan in September and October 2019 that showed a significant uptick in the number of people at local hospitals surrounding the WIV’s headquarters, coupled with an unusually high number of patients with symptoms similar to COVID-19;

The installation of a People’s Liberation Army’s bioweapons expert as the head of the WIV’s Biosafety Level 4 lab (BSL-4), possibly as early as late 2019;

and Actions by the Chinese Communist Party and scientists working at or affiliated with the WIV to hide or coverup the type of research being conducted at there.

Genetic Modification

This report also lays out ample evidence that researchers at the WIV, in conjunction with U.S. scientists and funded by both the PRC government and the U.S. government, were conducting gainof-function research on coronaviruses at the WIV, at times under BSL-2 conditions. Much of this research was focused on modifying the spike protein of coronaviruses that could not infect humans so they could bind to human immune systems. The stated purpose of this work was to identified viruses with pandemic potential and to create a broad-spectrum coronavirus vaccine. In many instances, the scientists were successful in creating “chimeric viruses” – or viruses created from the pieces of other viruses – that could infect human immune systems. With dangerous research like this conducted at safety levels similar to a dentist’s office, a natural or genetically modified virus could have easily escaped the lab and infected the community.

Committee Minority Staff has also identified scientists who are directly tied to the WIV, and who worked on gain-of-function research in the years prior to the start of the current pandemic, who had the ability to modify genetically modify coronaviruses without leaving any trace evidence. An American scientist, Dr. Ralph Baric, assisted in creating a method to leave no trace of genetic modification as early as 2005. And as early as 2016, scientists working at the WIV were able to do the same. This makes it clear that claims by the scientific community that SARS-CoV-2 could not be man-made because it has no genetic modification markers are disingenuous.

We conclude there is ample proof that the virus could have been genetically manipulated, and that it is vitally important we fully investigate this hypothesis to determine if that happened here.

The Cover-Up

In the original report, we laid out many of the ways the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) and the World Health Organization (WHO) went to great lengths to cover up the initial epidemic, and how their cover-up likely turned what could have been a local outbreak into a global pandemic. The CCP detained doctors in order to silence them, and disappeared journalists who attempted to expose the truth. They destroyed lab samples, and hid the fact there was clear evidence of human-to-human transmission. And they still refuse to allow a real investigation into the origins. At the same time, the WHO, under Director General Tedros, failed to warn the world of the impending pandemic. Instead, he parroted CCP talking points, acting as a puppet of General Secretary Xi.

In this addendum, we have uncovered further evidence of how top scientists at the WIV and Dr. Peter Daszak, an American scientist, furthered that cover-up. Their actions include bullying other scientists who questioned whether the virus could have leaked from a lab; misleading the world about how a virus can be modified without leaving a trace; and, in many, instances directly lying about the nature of the research they were conducting, as well as the low-level safety protocols they were using for that research.

These actions not only delayed an initial investigation into the possibility of a lab leak costing valuable time, but provide further proof the virus likely leaked from the WIV. These actions also call into question the way in which U.S. government grants are used in overseas labs and call for more oversight of those grants.

Next Steps

After this extensive investigation, we believe it is time to call Peter Daszak to testify before Congress. There are still many outstanding questions about the type of research he funded at the WIV that only he can answer. In addition, we believe there is legislation Congress can pass that would not only hold those responsible accountable but also help to prevent a future pandemic, including but not limited to:

• Institute a ban on conducting and funding any work that includes gain-of-function research until an international and legally binding standard is set, and only where that standard is verifiably being followed.
• Sanction the Chinese Academy of Sciences and affiliated entities.
• List the Wuhan Institute of Virology and its leadership on the Specially Designated Nationals and Blocked Persons List and apply additional, appropriate secondary sanctions.
• Authorize new sanctions for academic, governmental, and military bioresearch facilities that fail to ensure the appropriate levels of safety and information sharing.

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Illustration: Pixabay

The war on America’s middle class has burst into the open. The attacks by progressive politicians, corporate elites, and the media is pervasive and undeniable.

From coast to coast, the message is clear: middle income citizens, the backbone of the nation, are being pushed aside and characterized as the enemy. 

Almost immediately after being sworn into office, President Biden ended the Keystone XL Pipeline, wiping out middle-income jobs by the thousands. His attacks on the middle class went further. In a number of measures aimed at curtailing fuel production he initiated skyrocketing energy prices that will devastate family budgets. In the process, American energy independence was destroyed.

Biden’s war on decent-paying employment can be seen clearly in his open-border policy. Flooding the nation with illegal immigrants will dramatically shoot down wages and job opportunities for citizens. His party’s determination, in cities throughout the nation, to open up voting to noncitizens will make it difficult for voters to reject this move. Democrats, who now receive the bulk of contributions from major businesses, have repaid their corporate sponsors.

In California, notes the Mercury News, Gov. Gavin Newsom, in one of his first acts after surviving a recall attempt, essentially abolished single-family zoning, long both a staple and a goal of the middle income. This. too, is a giveback to corporate contributors.  Owners of single family homes do not contribute much to political campaigns. However, big real estate developers, long used to buying political favors, are major donors. Just one example, out of thousands: On the opposite coast from Newsome’s California, in the middle-income New York City neighborhood of Throggs Neck, a real estate developer has plans to build a large apartment building which will contain numerous units for poor tenants, destroying the character of the community and slashing the value of middle income private homes.  The area is represented by Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, who has not objected.

Next on the agenda: crippling taxes.  Despite public pronouncements that tax hikes will only affect the rich, Progressives are advocating a tax scheme that will force motorists to pay a tax based on how many miles they drive. Another concept will cause family businesses to pay unaffordable inheritance taxes when passed from one generation to the next. And, as is well known from long experience, taxes on the so-called “rich” never seem to produce the revenue the Left wants to spend on their massive programs.  Soon, “rich” is defined down so that a middle class family with two earners, (say, a school teacher and a fire fighter) find themselves in the bracket defined as wealthy.

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In what may seem as a contradiction to Democrats’ addiction to corporate money, they plan to raise corporate taxes. However, every political lobbyist in existence knows that corporate tax laws can be written to make their major clients safe; small business, lacking the funds to retain lobbyists, will be hit hard.  Of course, the whole concept of taxing businesses higher than international competitors is foolish. Big business is mobile. Raise taxes in the U.S., and they will easily move their headquarters elsewhere, taking their jobs with them. Small business generally lacks that option.

Middle income families need to be safe, as, indeed, do all citizens.  But the Left’s bid to defund the police jeopardizes that. However, many of the very same politicians who want to reduce or eliminate your police protection use your tax dollars to hire private security for themselves.

Next on the campaign against the middle class: your car.  Washington’s progressive politicians are full-steam ahead in their attempt to ram electric cars down consumers’ throats. Electric vehicles cost on average between $10,000–$55,000 more than gas vehicles.

Can’t afford it? Too bad! The politicians will tell you to take public transit, if it exists near you. After all, the companies that build buses and subways contribute a lot more to campaigns than a middle class family.

Illustration: Pixabay

Homeowners and merchants in American cities are under relentless attack by their own local governments, and those who know how to manipulate them.

 There used to be a common saying that “There is no Democrat or Republican way to pick up the garbage,” but that concept is obsolete in the current era when practical governance is frequently replaced by ideological motives.

Escalating taxes and fees, reduced police protection, absurd traffic schemes, massive corruption, intense applications of fines, assaults on the very character of neighborhoods, crippling proposals to place heavy tolls on drivers, and policies that make employing workers too costly for small businesses combine to make life, particularly in “Progressive” cities, unnecessarily and excessively difficult.

To be blunt, Leftist municipalities don’t pass laws or generally govern based on what is best for the citizenry.  They are devoted to a political philosophy of “fundamentally transforming” America, and don’t particularly care about issues of personal or property rights, public safety, common sense, or sound fiscal policy.

That can be seen clearly in transportation strategies. The multi-faceted campaign to harass drivers out of their vehicles while not providing any adequate mass transit alternatives is a prime example.  Imagine if every driver instead showed up at their local bus or train stop.  Most urban transportation systems would collapse, and with it, their city economy. Another prime example: the mania of taking away desperately needed road space to develop bike lanes, generally used by less than 1% of the population. It’s a purely ideological move, a sop to environmental extremists.

Most recently, the absurd attacks on the police, and the restrictions on allowing them to do their jobs without being prosecuted or fired, illustrates the ideological assault on city residents.  Yes, of course, if an officer acts with excessive force or in a discriminatory manner, he or she should be penalized. But that has metamorphized into insane restrictions on the police doing their jobs.  The consistent presumption that every time an officer takes action, he or she is subject to intense inspection or criticism is, combined with the outrageously ignorant policies of no bail and toleration for criminal actions, destroying the safety of city residents.  The stunning examples, seen clearly on nightly television news, of rioters burning, looting, and assaulting while the police were ordered to stand by and do nothing were minimized by a left-wing biased media.  The reality of those occurrences cannot be ignored. Great public spaces in cities from coast to coast have been invaded and stolen by socialist organizations such as Antifa and Black Lives Matter. Local District Attorneys, many elected thanks to massive donations from leftist billionaires, do nothing to address the disaster.

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It should be noted that in some cities, the ideologues who defund the police appropriate funds to provide protection for themselves.

Cities are not monolithic.  They consist of many different types of neighborhoods. Far too often, solid, unpretentious middle-income communities are assaulted by concepts such as scatter-site housing which place problem individuals, such as those with mental issues, in the very midst of areas where hard-working families have invested their life savings to buy homes.

Adding to all this is the recurrent proposals to enact measures which penalize key industries. A prime example: New York City’s proposed stock transfer tax, a levy placed on every action in which a share of stock is transferred.  The stock exchanges have already stated that they would leave New York if this occurred. The Big Apple would look like Detroit after the auto industry left.

The Progressive politicians responsible for all these actions appear to not care, or are wholly oblivious, to the results of their “Cultural-Revolution” type actions.

Photo: Pixabay

Putin is not quite as ecstatic as some analysts in Washington might like to believe since the US departure from Afghanistan. The Biden Administration’s botched withdrawal has not only destabilized the Central Asian country but also raised the risk of conflict throughout Central Asia. That is not good for Russian national security or for Putin’s plans to revitalize the “Motherland” to its long-gone days of strength and glory. While the United States was occupied with the war in Afghanistan Putin was freer to operate in the North Caucuses and elsewhere without much concern about pushback from the United States. While it leaves Russia along with China, India, and Pakistan, in a preeminent position to influence the Taliban since August 15, Putin is scrambling to protect Russia’s interests in country and the nearby Central Asian states.

Over the years Russia has maintained a close relationship with factions of the Taliban leadership. He has hosted them at meetings in Moscow since 2019. Putin now needs to ensure that the more extreme of those factions will not oppose Moscow’s influence in the Central Asian states. He doesn’t want to see support for groups that might arouse rebelliousness among Russia’s Muslim minority communities grow in confidence. Finally, Putin knows that claims of victory by the Taliban could create a spillover immigration issue inside the former Soviet border states if they enflame local Muslim separatists. Pavel Felgenhauer, a Moscow-based defense analysts for Novaya Gazeta, points out that the Central Asian states tend to be pro-Western regimes that are rich in natural resources, including gas, oil, and gold.  That he argues, “could make Central Asia go up in flames.”  Felgenhaurer points to factions that would welcome it, saying that it might take the form of an insurgency, a propaganda movement supported by a Muslim Brotherhood-style group or outright physical conflict.

An active Sunni Muslim insurgency would not only ignite the former Soviet states, but also unite them against Putin. It puts Putin in a dangerous situation. Russia has interests on the ground in the region that include military space force communications installations, such as the Nurak Military Observatory located only 63 miles from the Afghan border in the mountains of Tajikistan. This site, in operation since the Soviet era, has been upgraded numerous times and is critical to the Russian space program. Its low-light remote location, along with recent expensive technical upgrades, make it unlikely that Putin could afford to replace it. 

Although the Taliban has indicated to Putin that they will not incite problems for Russia in Central Asia, analysts in Moscow are unsure that the group can maintain adequate control over Afghan territory to ensure independent jihadist groups won’t create security problems. Russia has increased the ground troop strength of its “motor-rifle division” at the 101^st base in Central Asia. Although it is now a fully-staffed division that is highly disciplined, it will have challenges if it has to defend against an insurgency along a lightly defended, long border area in Tajikistan. Felgenhaurer suggests that Russia also might have to deal with small groups of insurgents affiliated with ISIS that cause unrest among the local populations.

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Russia’s ambassador is remaining active in Kabul although Moscow is not seeking anything from the country other a stabilized situation in the region. Reports indicate that at an August 23 meeting in Moscow, Putin in true Russian fashion, slammed his fist on the table saying – no Americans, no American bases or drone operations are to be allowed and no anti-terrorism cooperation with Washington. Putin is reported to be genuinely unhappy that a population, not a government, was able to succeed in overthrowing Afghanistan’s rulers in a region that could serve as the head of a spear for other movements. It serves as a powerful demonstration, according to Paul Goble of the Jamestown Foundation, of a Taliban comeback in an area where other Taliban sympathizers may become more widespread. 

Another aspect not generally reported in the news is that the Taliban are running low on money to run the country. It is a strong indicator that the Taliban will be turning to increased drug trafficker to bring in much needed funds in the short run. The drug trade in northern Afghanistan moves the product across both the northern and southern borders of the country and, eventually into the Russian federation and Europe. Putin will not be able to ignore the flow of heroin into his country. He has urged the heads of the Central Asian states to increase their border security, but it is not a very effective strategy against the drug traffickers. It leaves the Russian leader and Central Asian states in a precarious position going forward. The coming months will determine if the Taliban are able to govern the fractured country, maintain a semblance of security over the population, and avert a major conflict in the region that could draw in the great powers.

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.  Each Saturday, she presents key updates on U.S. foreign policy.

Picture: Pixabay

China’s military technology, often stolen from the West, is advancing rapidly to a level where the communist giant can in many areas compete on par with the United States. The Biden Administration’s failed withdrawal from Afghanistan further helps Beijing’s efforts to obtain the latest and most sophisticated Western military weapons and technical information in the field. Despite rendering armored vehicles, aircraft, and other military equipment left behind unusable, the Chinese still can obtain important information through their Taliban partners on how the US builds new weapons and the equipment’s vulnerabilities, according to several military technology experts with knowledge of what was left in country. Patrick Tucker, writing in Defense One, says to “Expect the Chinese military to use this windfall to create—and export to client states—a new generation of weapons and tactics tailored to US vulnerabilities,” according to several experts who spent years building, acquiring, and testing some of the equipment that the Taliban now controls. 

The loss goes beyond the Taliban literally obtaining a whole air force. By acquiring the advanced systems through their Taliban partners, China now will be able to pierce the veil of secrecy surrounding how US military  technology works. According to Josh Lospinoso of Shift 5, a cyber security company, military vehicles with command, control, and communications equipment that is more penetrable is kept safe through restricted acquisition programs. China can now impact US military operations for years to come as it would be too expensive for the US Government to retool everything left behind in Afghanistan.

The C-130 transport aircraft recently “acquired” by the Taliban can carry tanks, troops, and airdrop as much as 42,000 pounds of military equipment using a short runway. If any of the plane’s electronics were left working or less than fully destroyed, the C-130 could become a fast-track lab for how to build, test, and conduct cyber-warfare against similar equipment owned and operated by the United States. It is long known that China reverse-engineers the technology it steals from the United States. Some of the equipment that DOD provided to Afghanistan is so sensitive that it came with the understanding that the Afghan government must be kept under guard in gated areas to protect American secrets. China doesn’t have to steal it. The gates in Afghanistan are wide open, and China is walking in unescorted. According to Georgianna Shea, an expert in military technologies, once physically acquired there is little the Biden Administration can do to stop China from discovering our vulnerabilities. She believes that is may be accomplished within hours when the hacker is skilled. 

This is not unknown to the US Government. The GAO, in its March 2021 High-Risk Series Update, reports that significant attention is “needed to improve the federal government’s management of information technology acquisitions and operations to ensure the nation’s cybersecurity.” When a military system is knocked out US troops on the ground, in general, are not trained in how to fix it. Acquiring our technology could provide China will a clear advantage in the field in the future. It also is likely to improve Beijing’s understanding of US interoperability with our foreign military partners, including NATO Member countries, at a time when the Sino-Russian relationship is united against the Western powers. 

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Beijing recognizes the value of the information, has cozied up to the Taliban, and is sending financial aid to Afghanistan to cement its position there. China is aggressive in its foreign relations and military prowess of late. Even Moscow has accused China of hacking state targets in Russia for the last 10 years despite their cosmetically friendly relationship. The West needs to recognize this is how China has managed to skip the cost and time to jump multiple generations of technological development ahead and closed the gap with the West. The failed withdrawal from Afghanistan has Great Power implications that are likely to last a generation and further support China’s goal of obtaining hegemonic power and to, as President Xi Jinping often states, remake the world in China’s image. The West knows what the communist giant  is doing. The only remaining question is what are WE going to do about it.

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.  Each Friday, she presents key updates on China.

Photo: C130 (file picture, DoD)

Perhaps the most controversial issue related to the United States military in history has erupted. Reports indicate that the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, General Mark Milley intended to subvert the chain of command by promising to telegraph his Chinese counterparts then-President Trumps’ potential military actions.

In doing so, he both ran afoul of the Constitutional prerogatives of the elected president, as well as giving aid to the enemy, a treasonable offense.

Milley become the 20th Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff on October 1, 2019. He is the nation’s highest-ranking military officer, and the principal military advisor to the President, Secretary of Defense, and National Security Council.

In response,Trump has stated that Milley should immediately resign and “be replaced with someone who is actually willing to defend our military from the leftist radicals who hate our country and flag”.

The outrage isn’t confined to the former Commander-in-Chief.

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In a letter to President Biden, Senator Marco Rubio wrote “I write with grave concern regarding recent reporting that General Mark Milley, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, worked to actively undermine the sitting Commander in Chief of the United States Armed Forces and contemplated a treasonous leak of classified information to the Chinese Communist Party in advance of a potential armed conflict with the People’s Republic of China (PRC). These actions by General Milley demonstrate a clear lack of sound judgement, and I urge you to dismiss him immediately. It has been reported that General Milley spoke with his counterpart in the People’s Liberation Army after learning the PRC was worried about escalating tensions as a result of military exercises conducted in the South China Sea. Reportedly, General Milley told his counterpart: “[y]ou and I have known each other for now five years. If we’re going to attack, I’m going to call you ahead of time. It’s not going to be a surprise… A senior military officer interfering with that civilian-controlled process is simply unacceptable at best, and at worst, would cause ambiguity which could lead to war. General Milley has attempted to rationalize his reckless behavior by arguing that what he perceived as the military’s judgement was more stable than its civilian commander. It is a dangerous precedent that could be asserted at any point in the future by General Milley or others. It threatens to tear apart our nation’s longstanding principle of civilian control of the military.”

General Milley has also attracted vehement criticism for his role in the Afghanistan withdrawal debacle. The operation was clearly bungled by the White House. According to some reports, Milley and his staff did not engage in sufficient action to persuade Biden away from his erroneous course. Military personel I have spoken to have said that the moral thing to do would be to threaten resignation if the plans were not altered.

Apparently, however, there is a significant meeting of the minds between Biden and his top officer.  The President has stated “I have great confidence in General Milley.”  White House spokesperson Jen Psaki added to that later, telling reporters that Biden admires Milley’s “leadership, his patriotism, and his fidelity to our constitution.”

Under Milley’s leadership, criticism of the Pentagon has dramatically increased, as observers have noted that there appears to be more emphasis on political activities rather than actual defense. Military.com reported this summer that Rep. Dan Crenshaw (R-Tx) “…launched a webpage … inviting service members to anonymously blow the whistle on ‘woke ideology’ in the military. ‘Enough is enough,’ he wrote on Twitter when announcing the website. ‘We won’t let our military fall to woke ideology… For too long, progressive Pentagon staffers have been calling the shots for our warfighters, and spineless military commanders have let it happen.”

Photo: Department of Defense

America is in the midst of a dramatic attempted alteration to the balance of power between Washington and the states, as well as the federal government and individual citizens. The national government will have extraordinary power to determine your property rights, transportation options, purchasing choices, and even how you vote.

Some of the moves have been made using the pandemic as an excuse. Florida Governor Ron DeSantis has accused Biden of constructing a “biomedical security state.”

In addition to the pandemic, environmental extremism is an excuse used by Progressive authoritarians.

The Green New Deal, a key effort by Leftist Democrats, would substantially place almost every activity under Washington’s purview. Matthew Harwood, writing for Reason, warns that “… we should…pay close attention to the plan’s authoritarian impulses… If proponents of the Green New Deal are serious—and there’s no reason to doubt them—then they’re proposing … a militaristic America where Uncle Sam’s heavy hand intervenes in all aspects of life, curtailing individual freedom in pursuit of their collectivist goals…They want the power to regiment a society of nearly 330 million people in pursuit of a pipe dream they liken to a war for survival.”

The Progressive power grab, aside from the particulars of imposing heavy-handed measures, is openly and clearly unconstitutional. It colludes with social media giants to limit the First Amendment rights of those it disagrees with and argues against the Second, Ninth and Tenth Amendments  Those Amendments that serve as the ultimate safeguard against the amassing of power in Washington. The Second allows citizens the right of self defense. The Ninth and Tenth Amendments are clear and unambiguous: those powers not specifically given to the federal government are reserved to the people and the states.

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Once these moves have been made, the safety valve of having the ability to vote authoritarian miscreants out of office will not be available. A move is afoot to unlawfully impose federal will on how elections are conducted, a power that Constitutionally rests with the states. The misleadingly named “For the People Act”  is an overtly partisan bill that amounts to a clear federal takeover of state election laws, stripping away vital anti-fraud measures that states have established.

 It would, as Senator Wicker (R-Mississippi) stresses, ban voter ID requirements, which are popular nationwide and have passed in most states, including Democrat-run states like Connecticut and Rhode Island. It would force states to allow “ballot harvesting,” an illicit practice whereby party operatives can deliver stacks of ballots to the polls without supervision. it would also require states to allow Election Day registration and universal mail-in voting. Americans are coming out against this bill when they learn what it actually does.  A recent poll showed that 83 percent of Americans are concerned about ballot harvesting, 81 percent are concerned about Election Day registration without photo ID, and 71 percent are concerned about universal mail-in voting.

 Making these moves all the more disturbing is the reality that the citizenry isn’t even aware of who is actually making the decisions at the White House—the elected President, or the extremist fringes of the Democrat Party. The New York Post Editorial Board recently observed “America is now being ruled not by President Joe Biden but a small, radical minority that couldn’t care less about the US Constitution. Biden made that clear when he caved to the Squad … and pushed his Centers for Disease Control and Prevention to ban evictions once again — knowing full well he was likely breaking the law and violating his oath of office.”

Biden himself has noted that the move is Constitutionally questionable, though that didn’t stop him of approving it.