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Quick Analysis

“Some Pigs are More Equal Than Others.”

While I still served as a Criminal Court Judge, I was called on the carpet by one of my supervising Judges from the Office of Court Administration.  Seems I had insulted a number of my fellow judges when I quoted the line from George Orwell’s Animal Farm that serves as the title of this column. I had used this phrase in an email in reference to some judges insisting on certain privileges being continued for supervising judges that were to be eliminated in a round of budget cuts for the rest of us.

“Did you mean to call them pigs?” I was asked.  I was dismayed to learn that a group of educated people, including the one questioning me, did not recognize the reference. Yet, I should not have been surprised.  My education came from Catholic institutions of learning that were, at the time, very anti-communist.  Many of my fellow jurists did not have the benefit of that experience.

It seems clear that Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg has never read any Orwell.  Without shame or self awareness, he practices the hypocrisy of unequal justice at every opportunity.

While justifying the prosecution of Donald Trump for allegedly falsifying his business records, Bragg intoned that “[a]s this office has done time and time again, we today uphold our solemn responsibility to ensure everyone stands equal before the law…No amount of money and no amount of power changes that enduring American principle.” 

There appears to be some truth in Bragg’s statement, for money and power do not appear to be the deciding factors regarding who will be prosecuted, and who will not.  Instead, that decision is now based on race, social position, and what political causes the defendant supports.

In June, “[d]ozens of anti-Israel protesters who occupied and barricaded themselves in buildings on the Columbia University campus in April had their charges dropped…[t]he office of Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg dropped cases against 30 students and staff members who were arrested during the campus unrest….[a]ll the protesters were arrested on April 30, hours after taking over Hamilton Hall, an academic building, and were initially charged with trespass in the third degree, a misdemeanor…[n]one of the students arrested had any prior criminal history, and all were facing disciplinary proceedings, including suspensions and expulsions, by Columbia University.” 

Then, in July, “Seven pro-Palestinian protesters associated with the City College of New York (CCNY) had charges against them dropped after Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg determined there was insufficient evidence to convict them.” 

Bragg’s failure to prosecute protestors who advocate for progressive causes is nothing new. Going back to 2023, CBS News reported that “misdemeanor charges against protesters who were arrested after calling for justice in the aftermath of Jordan Neely’s death have been dropped. The Manhattan district attorney’s office says it’s dropping those charges following a comprehensive review. More than a dozen arrests were made in May after protesters clashed with police in the streets of SoHo and inside a subway station.” 

Remember Jordan Neely?  He was the homeless black man who threatened a subway car full of passengers when he was subdued by former Marine Daniel Penny.  Neely subsequently died from what the New York City Medical Examiner called “compression of neck (chokehold).”  Penny, who is white, was then arrested and charged by the Manhattan DA’s Office with manslaughter. 

In our discussion of this case last year, we noted the “recent, widespread pattern of ignoring the law of self-defense [and action taken in the defense of others}, and prosecuting people who, in the past, may have been considered justified in the actions they take.”  In that regard, we also noted that “certain leaders of our society, particularly certain prosecutors like Alvin Bragg…seek to punish people for protecting themselves and others from violence.”

Much like store clerk Jose Alba, a Dominican immigrant who was arrested for stabbing and killing an African American man who was assaulting him, Bragg’s office ignored evidence that points towards self-defense and commenced a prosecution against Penny.  In Alba’s case, however, following intense public outcry, Bragg’s office dropped charges against Alba. 

No such luck for Penny.  His case is scheduled to go forward to trial in October. “In January,” Fox5 New York reports, “a judge denied Penny’s request to dismiss the charges against him in the case despite the claim he acted to protect himself and other passengers.” 

We made the following observation in last year’s article, and asked this question: “Unlike Alba, Penny is white, and appears to be in a better social and economic situation than Neely, who was black.  Yet, like Alba, Penny has the exact same right to self-defense, as do we all.  Will Alvin Bragg continue to ignore that right, and hope that a Grand Jury will ignore it too?”

Bragg has apparently answered this question in the affirmative by charging someone else with a crime who has a strong self-defense claim.

According to The Daily Mail, “[a] New York City landlord who was arrested and charged with assault after defending himself against a homeless man wielding a wooden bat…Brian Chin, 32, of Manhattan, was arraigned on second and third-degree assault charges in Manhattan Criminal Court, after being accused of beating a homeless man…[s]urveillance footage from outside of Chin’s apartment building on Chrystie Street in the Lower East Side shows the landlord trying to help the man, who is believed to have been under the influence, outside of the Grand Street subway station. The man woke up, went ballistic and attacked him with a piece of plywood that had nails in it. Chin eventually… grabb[ed] the wood with both hands and tugg[ed] it out of his grasp. But when police eventually showed up, he [Chin] was arrested and whisked off to jail.” 

Chin is of Asian heritage.  The homeless man is African American.  The racial background of the defendant and victim should not be a factor.  But as we have seen in the cases involving Alba and Penny, Bragg’s office seems very interested in prosecuting people who defend themselves against African Americans, regardless of the law of self-defense.

Much like Alba and Penny, Chin has his proponents. “’Brian is a great guy. He’s like our local community activist, leader – he wants our neighborhood to be clean,’’ said a landlord whose family has owned a building on Chrystie Street, near where the incident occurred, for more than 40 years. ‘He wants the [local Sarah Roosevelt] park for kids to be what it was intended for – not open-air drug-dealing and homeless people sleeping on the benches,’’ the source told [The New York Post] ‘And we’re deeply grateful for that.’”  But to date, community sentiment in favor of Chin’s actions has had little impact on DA Bragg.

Writing in The New York Post, Wai Wah Chin, the President of the Chinese American Citizens

Alliance of Greater New York, summed up the situation presented by Chin’s arrest and prosecution; “Bragg is..the district attorney who launched his first day in office with his notorious ‘Day One Memo’ that effectively said that some people will be treated differently for certain crimes, including armed robbery… as Chin’s Chinatown neighborhood steadily deteriorated under the onslaught of Democratic soft-on-crime policies emanating not just from Bragg’s office but also from City Hall, the state Capitol and the White House, the landlord became an unpaid community activist trying to keep his block safe. All because our ideologically obsessed Democratic governments at all levels are failing miserably to fulfill the most fundamental of government responsibilities: that of ensuring basic physical safety for its citizens…[f]or Bragg, the law is a vehicle for his political agenda, which stands above everyone and everything else.” 

The logic of Wai Wah Chin’s position is inescapable.  Since his election, Alvin Bragg has used the power and authority of his office to prosecute people who have a strong self-defense claim, usually when that person is defending them self or others against someone who is African American.  Bragg has also failed to prosecute individuals who engage in civil disorder, so long as those persons are acting in support of causes of which Bragg and his fellow progressives approve.

For how long will New Yorkers tolerate this injustice?  The truth of Orwell’s statement about some pigs being more equal only applies when we allow those pigs to assert greater rights than the rest of us.

It is long past time to halt the piggish behavior of a District Attorney like Alvin Bragg.

Judge John Wilson served on the bench in NYC

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NY Analysis

China’s Demographic Disaster

China is facing an insurmountable demographic challenge and long-standing problem with its female citizenry. It is not improving this fall despite cries for reform. Instead, while President Xi Jinping is calling on the country to practice traditional family values, companies ignore the CCP leadership and choose to continue forcing women to take pregnancy tests before hiring a female of child-bearing age. The firms don’t want to assume the cost of maternity leave or to support the modern feminist movement in China. 

Just over a year ago, in August 2023, Xi Jinping delivered a key policy speech on the issue of marriage and childbearing during a conference of the All-China Women’s Federation. In his talk he referenced the falling birth rates and encouraged “women to uphold the traditional virtues of the Chinese people” (传统美德) and “promote positive family traditions.” He emphasized the need to “actively foster a new culture of marriage and childbearing” (新型婚育文化). 

At the same time as the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) leadership is calling on women to bear more children, there is ongoing discrimination in the workplace over the fertility issue. A recent Lingua Sinica article pointed out that a report last month in China Worker (中国劳工论坛), a Chinese-language website managed by the Belgium-based International Socialist Alternative, revisited an in-depth study from earlier this year. It says that it “found that local employers in the city of Nantong, in Jiangsu province, were often requiring women to undergo pregnancy tests during the hiring process… [an] investigation found that at least 168 women had been subjected to such tests across 16 companies studied, highlighting systemic discrimination against female workers.” This is only one example among many across-the-board cases of discrimination in China based on marital or reproductive status.

The All-China Women’s Federation (ACWF) publishes a paper called China Women’s News  (中国妇女报). It is the official newspaper of the ACWF. Even in this publication propaganda overtakes its stated goal to “sensitize society to women and women to society, advocate gender equality, and promote women’s progress and development.” A review of the front page of the publication from October 9 to October 16, 2024, shows that 60% of the news is centered on government policies and general stories and only 4% is focused on women. Family planning topics pushed by the CCP tie the level of front-page news about President Xi at 16%. In China, women quietly joke that above the fold is “strictly a man’s world” and that it reflects the values of the CCP, not those of Chinese women.

Customs typically take a long time to change, especially in China. Young women are not answering the CCP’s call to immediately birth more babies to stop the population decline. They prefer to remain in the professional workforce, maintain their status, and open lifestyle, in defiance the CCP’s mandate to help the nation repopulate. Even monetary incentives have not been enough to go back to the days of women suffering “wedding hazing” and remaining “barefoot and pregnant.” In an attempt to advocate for marriage, a Shanghai publication called simply The Paper (澎湃), compiled several egregious examples of “wedding hazing” from the past two decades, including shocking acts of violence disguised as tradition and demanded change. It reported that “wedding hazing” serves as an excuse for abusive behavior rather than a genuine cultural practice. During hazing a bride may be tied to a telephone pole, humiliated by bystanders, and pelted with eggs, among other abuses. According to Lingua Sinica, “Historical texts from the Eastern Han dynasty (25-220 AD) recount crude and sometimes violent customs, including physical assaults on both brides and grooms. In the past, this served to break the ice between the bride and groom — often strangers until their wedding day —  and to create a jovial atmosphere. Today, acts of ‘wedding hazing’ can also become social media memes, exposing individuals of all genders to online harassment as they are coerced into partaking in these humiliating acts.”

Although the government is calling for change, it will not be in time to reverse the demographic trend that dooms China’s population curve. The decline began in 2021 and is expected to continue as the average age increases and the number of women in child-bearing years declines. Within 70 years China’s population is projected to be 50% the size of today’s number. That makes Xi Jinping a more desperate and unpredictable leader. A question asked this fall in Washington is, what is President Xi willing to do in the near future to secure his country’s future and his own legacy and will it occur before a new president takes office.

Daria Novak served in the U.S. State Dept.

Photo: Pixabay

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TV Program

Climate Alarmism

What are the real facts about “climate change?” Frank Lasee, author of the explosive new book “Climate and Energy Lies: Expensive, Dangerous and Destructive” examines the startling facts.

Also, film producer Judd T. Saul reveals how the Department of Homeland Security has failed to do its job.

 If you missed the program on your local network, watch it here:  https://rumble.com/v5ixfeq-the-american-political-zone-october-15-2024.html

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Quick Analysis

Democrats vs. Free Speech

There is a dangerous belief that all major politicians support freedom of speech. Increasingly, that illusion is being exposed.

Many first became aware of the determination to stamp out opposition speech when the Biden Administration sought to establish a “Disinformation Governance Board.”

Statements by major figures such as former secretary of state Hillary Clinton, Climate envoy John Kerry, and New York Senator Charles Schumer have exposed the disdain many leftist Democrats have for the First Amendment.

Hillary Clinton actually suggested that Americans should be “criminally charged” for expressing views she opposes.

Kerry was quite blunt.  He suggested that the “First Amendment stands as a major block to be able to just, you know, hammer it [ideas which the left disagrees with] out of existence.”

While Senator Schumer mentions the First Amendment by name, saying the “First Amendment is not absolute,” most progressive leaders use the phrase “disinformation.” They define disinformation, of course, as anything that disagrees with their point of view.

A Gatestone review recently quoted vice presidential candidate Tim Walz’s statement that there is “no guarantee to free speech on misinformation or hate speech, and especially around our democracy.” The study also noted that “In 2022, the Biden-Harris administration’s Climate Advisor Gina McCarthy demanded that social media stop certain people from publishing their expertise and views.”

The New York Post (D-Mass.) calling for companies like Amazon to use “enlightened” algorithms to steer readers to “true” books on subjects like climate change to protect them from their own poor reading choices.

The Future of Free Speech organization Warns that “The global landscape for freedom of expression has faced severe challenges … open democracies have implemented restrictive measures.”

Reason, a bipartisan publication, found that  Conservatives are attached to the principles of federalism and free speech online even when these principles make it harder to achieve their policy aims, suggest two recent studies. Meanwhile, liberals are more open to giving power to whichever arm of government—federal, state, or local—they think will best achieve their aims. And while they’re generally more open to the suppression of online speech that is inaccurate, they are more likely to shift positions based on whether this speech supports their side.

While many Progressive media analysts side with  pro-censorship politicians, some are raising alarms. Writing in the Santa Maria Times, Dustin Olson,  managing partner of American Pulse Research & Polling and the founder of the political consulting firm Olson Strategies & Advertising, warns that “Once a solid pillar of American society, free speech seems to be cracking. It used to be an American principle that the everyday American citizen could agree on, a universal given. But recent surveys reveal that this fundamental value is increasingly up for debate, and the speed of this change is alarming. In a new RealClear Opinion Research poll, nearly half of Democrats are comfortable openly admitting to a stranger over the phone that they support limiting what people can say. A startling 47 percent said that speech should be legal “only under certain circumstances,” and 52 percent of Democrats approved of government censoring social media posts for “national security.” Even more shocking, a third of Democrats believe Americans have “too much freedom.”

It is not difficult to understand why progressives, who currently control the Democrat Party, are so opposed to the First Amendment.  Their policies, as a whole, have failed decisively. The economy. Particularly regarding inflation, has suffered significantly due to leftist ideas. Displays of weakness abroad have invited aggression. Millions of illegals have been allowed to enter the nation unchecked, bringing in increases in crime, vast deaths from Fentanyl, job losses for U.S. citizens, sex trafficking, and increased competition for affordable houses. Local governments are suffering severe strains in their budgets. And, of course, the national debt has soared.

In a fair discussion or debate, these results would be devasting for the left. Recognizing this reality, progressives have resorted to censorship.

Illustration: Pixabay

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Quick Analysis

Space Vital to National Security

The Chief of Space Operations, General Chance Saltzman, has laid out his vision for ensuring U.S. space superiority as threats dramatically increase

According to the Department of Defense, The U.S. now contends with an incredibly sophisticated array of threats such as space-based GPS jammers, anti-satellite weapons and cyberattacks against U.S. ground stations and space assets,

Saltzman revealed that both Russia and China are increasingly using space-based intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance capabilities to enhance targeting capabilities for their precision-guided munitions. 

“Collectively, this rise in congestion and competition within the domain has led to a growing risk to our continued access to, and operation within, space,” Saltzman said. “We must protect our space capabilities, while also being able to deny an adversary the hostile use of its space capabilities…Only by pursuing space superiority in a disciplined way, can the Space Force ensure that the U.S. and our allies and partners have the peace we desire, and more specifically, that we can all access and exploit the space domain.”

The General emphasized that “…if we do not have space, we lose.”  

The Pentagon is heavily dependent on space-based satellites for much of the work it does to defend the United States. That reliance is expected to grow in coming years.

While space assets such as satellites will always be at risk from U.S. adversaries, the best way to ensure continued access to space capabilities is proliferation, Derek Tournear, director of the Space Development Agency (SDA), said.

“Proliferation is our biggest defense,” Tournear said while speaking at a panel discussion sponsored by the Mitchell Institute for Aerospace Studies, a nonpartisan policy research institute based in Arlington, Va. “That’s how we plan on really getting the resilience and the defense of our entire architecture.”

The SDA is responsible for orchestrating development and implementation of the Proliferated Warfighter Space Architecture (PWSA). The PWSA will include a mesh network of hundreds of satellites to provide space-based capabilities to the joint warfighter. 

The strength of that network of satellites, he said, is expected to come not from defensive capabilities that focus on individual satellites, but rather from the sheer number of satellites launched. Protecting individual satellites becomes less important, he said, when there are so many of them.

“That’s the way you have to look at it when you’re talking about proliferated constellations,” he said. “Each individual one you can’t really care about. You have to care about the health of the whole herd, the health of the whole architecture. And so, we have everything in place to make sure that we can maintain that resiliency and maintain … operations even if you start to lose [individual satellites].” 

Tournear also said that cybersecurity plays an important role in protecting the PWSA, however. 

“Obviously we have cyber protections in place to protect the entire architecture and the network, and we have a lot of the environmental sensing pieces that are in place to give us an idea of what’s going on,” he said. “We put GPS situational awareness sensors on our satellites for those kinds of things, to make sure that we can kind of sense the environment.”

The PWSA system will eventually include hundreds of satellites, delivered in tranches every two years, with each tranche providing more capability than the last.

The network of hundreds of optically connected satellites will deliver two primary capabilities to warfighters on the ground. The first is beyond line-of-sight targeting for ground and maritime time-sensitive targets, which includes mobile missiles and ships, for instance. The system will provide the ability to detect those targets, track them, calculate a fire control solution and deliver that solution down to a weapons platform so the target can be destroyed. The second capability is similar to the first, but for enemy missiles already in flight.

The PWSA involves seven layers, including a mesh network of hundreds of optically interconnected satellites in orbit that make up its transport layer. There will also be tracking, custody, deterrence, navigation, battle management and support layers.

Even as almost every military leader and defense analysts emphasize the dramatically increased importance of space, the Biden budget cut the Space Force budget by 2%.The FY 2025 Space Force budget request for $29.4 billion is down from the FY 2024 request for $30 billion.

Photo: U.S. Space Command

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Quick Analysis

A Campaign Built on Lies

To a degree unprecedented in American history, the 2024 Democratic Party campaign relies on clearly proven falsehoods. While many politicians unfortunately are prone to exaggerations and loose interpretations of facts, the outright lies perpetrated by the ticket are in a class all its own. 

Vice President Harris is being described as a moderate favoring the middle-class. That is despite the reality that in 2019, she was rated the most liberal Senator – even more liberal than Bernie Sanders. As Vice president, she has been a part of an administration that is by far the most progressive. That’s not the opinion of Republicans, but observers such as the pro-Democrat Washington Post

The economic policies under Biden-Harris have crippled the middle-class with dramatic inflation, a clear result of its assault on energy and its prolific spending. It refuses to acknowledge its error, which resulted in a hike in inflation from 1.4% to a high of 9%.  The current rate is 2.9%, but the damage done to prices remains unaddressed. Incredibly, despite the availability of clear sources on inflation rates, President Biden overtly lies that inflation was 9% when he took office.

Ms. Harris’ proposals emphasize her progressivism. One example: According a recent media report, she reportedly wants to force Americans to be taxed up to 44.6% of the profits they make from selling their homes. The report comes after Harris endorsed President Joe Biden’s Fiscal Year 2025 budget proposal.

The same can be said for Tim Walz. As noted by the New York Post, “After his party gained a one-seat majority in the state senate in 2022, Walz embraced nearly every insane idea it rammed through the legislature, including driver’s licenses for illegal aliens, marijuana legalization, voting rights for convicted felons, stricter gun laws, and automatic, permanent mailing of ballots to people who sign up just once to vote by mail. Walz signed a law mandating ‘antiracist’ education in ‘ethnic studies’ in elementary, middle and high schools and compelling critical race theory training for teachers while forcing schools to record the race of every student who is given recess detentions to prevent ‘institutional racism.’”

Democrats have alleged that the Trump campaign is based on megadonors. However, as reported by the New York Times, “An analysis of Federal Election Commission data by The New York Times shows that about 668,000 donors gave less than $200 to Mr. Trump, compared with 564,000 for Mr. Biden.”

Commentator Chris Cuomo has blasted the Democratic Party for pledging to go after corporations over price gouging — even as it charges big donors between $500,000 and $5 million for a luxury suite at its Chicago convention.

The Biden-Harris Administration has stated that it has a commendable record on job creation. It ignores the reality that many of those positions are not new, but merely returning after COVID. Further, rather than going to U.S. Citizens, a Congressional Committee report found that  “nearly half of all job growth since October can be attributed to immigrant groups, including illegal immigrants. “

The overall job numbers touted by the Democrats have been subjected to the sharpest downward revision in over a decade.  The Daily Political News reports that “A new economic report shocked social media users on Wednesday. The U.S. gained 818,000 fewer jobs than initially reported. The Bureau of Labor Statistics revised their numbers. They discovered over 800,000 jobs reported in March never existed. X users reacted strongly, with many blaming the Biden/Harris administration. They accused them of pushing policies that weakened the economy and then misrepresenting the numbers.”

Not unexpectedly, the Harris campaign has blamed Trump and the Republicans for the nation’s ills.  But the reality is, the Biden-Harris Administration has controlled the government for the past four years. Further, Democrats have largely controlled the federal government for 12 of the past 16 years.

Numerous speakers at the Democrat convention in Chicago have repeated long debunked claims about Trump comments, with no apparent sense of shame. One can only assume that have confidence that a biased media will not criticize them.

On defense, the manipulation of reality has been even more harsh. Democrats, while claiming a willingness to provide for an adequate defense, have, under the Biden-Harris Administration, presided over the shrinking of U.S. armed forces.  Year after year during the current White House, defense budgets have failed to keep up with inflation even as the danger of war increases and adversaries increasingly see the U.S. military as overstretched. As the Biden-Harris Administration draws to a close, the U.S. Army, Navy and Air Force are smaller than they were when it was sworn in.

The most consistent claim made by the Democratic 2024 presidential campaign is that it must win in order to “preserve democracy,” based largely on unsupported and long refuted allegations about their political opponents. But which side is actually a threat to fair play?

Forget, for a moment, about the Republicans. The treatment of fellow Democrats is telling.  Manipulating primary schedules was inappropriate.  The refusal to provide Secret Service protection to Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., despite the assassination of his father and uncle is inexcusable.

Perhaps, it is not the Democratic Party that headlines the threat to democracy. It may very well be the biased media that refuses to acknowledge the lies that politicians have been unblushingly telling.

Illustration: Pixabay

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Vernuccio-Novak Report

Red Cross Needs Your Help

Massive damage from the hurricane that hit the U.S. Southeast have left many in desperate need.  The Red Cross is doing all it can to provide assistance. To donate, go to: https://www.redcross.org/donate/donation.html/

Photo: Red Cross

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TV Program

Is There a War on Truth?

There is little doubt that the mainstream media is politically biased. Chris Burgard Director of the brand new groundbreaking documentary The War on Truth discusses how this has affected one of the major news stories of the decade. If you missed the program on your local station, watch it here https://rumble.com/v5i37f9-the-american-political-zone-october-8-2024.html

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Quick Analysis

Walz Continues Democratic Party Ties with China

The curious and worrisome relationship between the Democratic Party and Communist China is continuing with the nomination of Tim Walz.

The House Committee on Oversight and Accountability recently stated that “Walz’s connections to China raise questions about possible CCP influence in his decision-making as governor—and should he be elected, as vice president.”

A review of the record indicates that Governor Walz In 1993, according to the Star-Herald, as a teacher, organized a trip to the PRC with Alliance High School students, where costs were paid by the Chinese government. In 1994, Mr. Walz set up a private company named “Educational Travel Adventures, Inc.,” which coordinated annual student trips to the PRC until 2003 and was led by Mr. Walz himself. The corporation was reportedly dissolved four days after he took congressional office in 2007. Since his first trip to China, Governor Walz has visited the PRC an estimated 30 times. While serving in Congress, Mr. Walz also served as a fellow at the Macau Polytechnic University, a Chinese institution that characterizes itself as having a “long held devotion to and love for the motherland.” Governor Walz spoke alongside the President of the Chinese People’s Association for Friendship with Foreign Countries, which, a year later, the Department of State exposed as “a Beijing-based organization tasked with co-opting subnational governments,” including efforts “to directly and malignly influence state and local leaders to promote the PRC’s global agenda.”

In a letter to Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) Director Christopher Wray, Committee Chairman Comer requested information, documents, and communications related to the CCP-connected entities and officials Governor Walz has engaged and partnered with, as well as any warnings or advice the FBI may have given to Governor Walz about U.S. political figures being targeted by or recruited for CCP influence operations.

“The CCP has sought to destroy the United States through coordinated influence and infiltration campaigns that target every aspect of American life, including our own elected officials. Americans should be deeply concerned that Governor Walz, Kamala Harris’s vice-presidential running mate, has a longstanding and cozy relationship with China. Mr. Walz has visited China dozens of times, served as a fellow at a Chinese institution that maintains a devotion to the CCP, and spoke alongside the President of a Chinese organization the State Department exposed as a CCP effort to influence and co-opt local leaders. FBI briefers recently informed the Committee that the Bureau’s Foreign Influence Task Force investigates CCP activity that is similar to China’s engagement with Governor Walz. The American people deserve to fully understand how deep Governor Walz’s relationship with China goes,” said Chairman James Comer.

The Biden-Harris Administration’s relationship with China appears to have begun when Hunter Biden flew to China with then-Vice President Joe Biden aboard Air Force 2, and returned home with a vast financial gain, in return for no discernable commercial service.

The Biden-Harris Administration ties with China are just part of the Democratic Party’s concerning history with America’s most dangerous enemy.

  The late Democrat Senator from California, Dianne Feinstein, employed a chauffeur, who according to CBS News, was a Chinese spy, reporting to the Chinese government about local California politics for 20 years. 

The Chinese communist spy who compromised Congressman Eric Swalwell, Fang Fang, also “socialized, networked with Rep. Judy Chu and then-Rep. Mike Honda, campaigned for now-Rep. Rho Khanna, volunteered for Bill Harrison, the mayor of Fremont, California at the time, and in some cases, developed romantic or sexual relationships with politicians to gain intelligence and send it back to her handlers, who were believed to be stationed in mainland China.” 

Beijing’s relationship with the Biden family and the Democrat Party has allowed it to treat the U.S. with arrogance. 

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Quick Analysis

Combatting PRC Economic Strategy

The House Select Committee on the Chinese Communist Party held a hearing titled “From High Tech to Heavy Steel: Combatting the PRC’s Strategy to Dominate Semiconductors, Shipbuilding, and Drones.”

Chairman John Moolenaar describes the issue.

During the Second World War, America was called the Arsenal of Democracy. While our brave soldiers fought on the front lines, millions of men and women labored on the assembly lines to bury the Axis under a storm of steel. Today, the Chinese Communist Party aspires to become an Arsenal of Autocracy, repressing a billion people at home, and providing authoritarian regimes with the means to wage aggression abroad. To do so, the CCP seeks to control the key technologies and sectors that will determine future conflicts. We are looking in detail at three of these today: chips, ships, and drones. Chips, or semiconductors, power everything from the guidance system on missiles to satellites, mobile phones, computers, and cars. Ships transport cargo around the world and form the navies that can blockade global supply lines or enable invasions. This includes the risk to Taiwan, which would cut off the foundries that produce virtually the entire world’s supply of advanced semiconductors. Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs) or drones will play a key role in the future of civilian and military airpower. In all three, America’s industrial capacity has waned while China has gained dominance or is in the process of gaining dominance over each.

China added more legacy semiconductor manufacturing capacity in 2024 than the rest of the world combined, and that capacity is expected to grow by a further 13 percent this year alone. With 18 new fabricators set to begin operations, and the CCP announcing a further $47.5 billion in subsidies in May. Today, the U.S. accounts for one-tenth of one percent of global shipbuilding, while Chinese shipyards, with nearly 20% of their operating costs subsidized by Beijing, account for 54%. DJI, a Chinese firm, controls roughly 80 percent of the U.S. commercial drone market. To be clear, our concerns with DJI, and PRC control of the drone ecosystem, are not about the competitiveness of American companies.

Rather, Congressional concern stems from the PRC having hundreds of thousands of spy balloon equivalents operating daily across our nation–not only jeopardizing our homeland but giving the PRC a dominant position in an industry that is already playing a key role on the frontline of modern warfare.

Across each of these sectors, the CCP playbook is simple, straightforward, and consistent. Using a combination of illegal subsidies, hardball tactics, IP theft, and forced labor, the party gains a stranglehold over the world’s most important supply chains. From Huawei, to SMIC, YMTC, DJI, and beyond, it’s the same play every time. In fact, we call it “the Huawei Playbook.” Pick a national champion in a strategic industry. Subsidize. Employ predatory pricing to offer its products at a massive, anti-competitive price point. Expand globally. Drive out the competition. Then leverage newfound dependencies to advance CCP interests. Like a football team running the triple option, it’s an effective play, and it can be hard to defend. But once you see the pattern, you can understand how to defeat it. We need to install market access barriers in strategic sectors to prevent malign PRC companies from taking over our domestic economy. We need to leverage and build upon crucial authorities to ensure the security of data and communications across our country. We need to cut off access to the U.S. technology and capital that helps fuel PRC national champions and critical sectors. And we need to coordinate with our allies to encourage them to mirror these steps.

Fortunately, there are those of us who have been watching the tape of similar games that threatened similar outcomes. Semiconductors were an American invention. The Soviets copied us. Others underpriced us. There were times when observers counted America out. But as Chris Miller, who is here with us today, documented in his exceptional book Chip War, no one has ever been rewarded for betting against America. We are joined today by Adam Bry, the founder and CEO of Skydio, an American drone manufacturer. American-made technology is safer, higher quality, and does not come with links to a totalitarian regime. I look forward to hearing Adam’s perspective on competing with the CCP’s economic warfare. We are also joined by Scott Paul from the Alliance for American Manufacturing. Scott has seen the CCP decimate the American manufacturing sector. And nowhere is this more costly for our nation than in our shipyards. The CCP is producing ships at a rate we couldn’t dream of here. Though they’re made using cheap steel and shoddy market practices, the People’s Liberation Army Navy represents a grave threat to the US and our allies.

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