Tag Archives: PRC

military news

What? Pentagon disabled the spy balloon?

How about this: It turns out that the spy balloon caper that has Republicans and MAGA cultists all a-flutter is turning out to be the nothing burger many of us have thought all along.

You see, now we get word that the Pentagon spooks were able to “disable” the Chinese spy balloon as it crossed over U.S. territory before a fighter jet shot the sucker down off the South Carolina coast.

Hmm. Those folks at the Pentagon are good … you know?

The military brass also counseled President Biden to hold off on shooting down the balloon to minimize threats to humans on the ground and damage done by falling debris. So, the president heeded the brass and then acted responsibly.

Oh, but not according to the GOP wingnuts who have all but accused President Biden of being a closet Chinese agent. Their response has been laughable and ridiculous.

I’ll throw in stupid just to make it a trifecta.

johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

military news

Balloons have been flying over U.S. for … how long?

Is there a chance on God’s good Earth that a top military officer’s declaration that the Chinese have been using spy balloons for years will stop the unfounded haranguing of President Biden over this latest matter?

Nope! Not a chance.

Still, it is worth noting what the commander of the North American Aerospace Defense Command has said about this practice by China.

Politico reports:

The military did not detect previous flights of Chinese spy balloons over the U.S. that took place during the Trump administration, a top general said Monday, due to a “gap” in the Defense Department’s ability to track certain airborne objects.

Gen. Glen VanHerck, head of North American Aerospace Defense Command, cited the issue as the reason that at least three spy balloon flights were not briefed to senior Trump officials at the time.

Top general says Trump-era spy balloons flew over the U.S. undetected – POLITICO

Republicans have blasting Joe Biden to smithereens because of the administration’s reportedly late response to the most recent People’s Republic of China space balloon. They have cited President Biden’s seemingly slow response to incompetence. Good grief! The president acted on advice from his top military command to wait until the balloon was over open water before shooting it down.

The action reportedly has angered the PRC. Too bad. Let ’em squawk. As for the GOP critics, once again they are playing politics with an issue of vital national security implications.

I’ll stick with Gen. VanHerck’s assertion that the PRC has done this prior to the Biden administration taking office. We didn’t know about their presence because the military intelligence network couldn’t detect them.

Where’s the GOP indignation on that matter?

johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

military news

MAGA cabal goes nuts over this?

Let’s see … I must be slow on the uptake this morning, because I am trying to wonder what in the world has the MAGA cabal cult so wadded up over the Biden administration’s latest action.

The Pentagon discovered that a reported Chinese spy balloon was floating over North America, from Alaska, through Canada and across the rest of the United States of America. The military brass decided to analyze what they found. They waited until the balloon had left our airspace over land and then shot the sucker down over open water.

The intent in waiting to shoot the balloon down was to eliminate civilian damage or — God forbid — human casualties.

The Chinese said it was a civilian device doing “scientific research.” You don’t believe that, right? Neither do I.

But the Republican MAGA propagandists now say that President Biden dismantled Donald Trump’s anti-China deterrence program to enable the People’s Republic to spy on us at will. That’s BS!

The Pentagon now reports that during the Trump term, the Chinese sent several such balloons over U.S. airspace, but the then-commander in chief took no action against the PRC.

Good grief, man! I am one American patriot who believes the president did the right thing in waiting for the spy craft to be over the Atlantic Ocean before shooting it down with jet-fired missiles.

I am pretty certain that once our debris recovery teams pick up what’s left of the balloon that we’ll learn that the Chinese were up to no good. As for the timing of the shoot-down, it’s another nothing burger being cooked up by the MAGA gang.

johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

International news

Pelosi riles PRC needlessly

Nancy Pelosi generally has my support in her role as speaker of the House of Representatives and the person who is third in line to the presidency.

However, the California Democrat has stepped in some serious diplomatic dookey by visiting Taiwan during her multi-stop tour of Asia.

Why did the speaker choose to rile the People’s Republic of China by becoming the first speaker to visit Taiwan in a quarter-century? To what end? For what purpose?

Pelosi knows about the “one-China policy” this country has followed since it bestowed diplomatic relations on the PRC back in the late 1970s. When it did that, the United States cut off Taiwan, which prior to that period had been recognized as “China” by this country.

The PRC calls Taiwan a “renegade province” that it intends to return to the fold … one way or another.

I have been to Taiwan five times dating back to 1989. I am going to tell you that it is a vibrant, robust, militarily stout nation. However, it occupies arguably the most complicated diplomatic place on Earth. It has little diplomatic link with the rest of the world, which also operates under the one-China policy.

So, for Speaker Pelosi to in effect bestow some sort of blessing on Taiwan and anger the PRC in the process doesn’t make much sense.

The White House opposed her stopping in Taiwan. However, in our government system, the White House can object all it wants; there’s nothing it can do to stop the leader of a co-equal government branch from visiting the nation if she desires.

From where I sit, Pelosi could have accomplished what she intended to do — which was to affirm our nation’s economic and military support — over the telephone in a private conversation.

Instead, she chose to make a spectacle of herself and likely angered the president of the United States.

johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

International news

U.S.-China relations get even stickier

As if relations between the United States and China needed to get even more prickly … we have this bit of news.

U.S. Health and Human Services Secretary Alex Azar is visiting Taiwan, the country that the PRC considers to be a “renegade province.” Taiwan has no official diplomatic relationship with virtually the entire world, which essentially recognizes a “one-China” policy.

Well, let me stipulate one point.

I have visited Taiwan five times dating back to 1989. I have seen the country up close. It is a vibrant, successful and energetic democracy. It is far from being the “renegade province” the PRC says it is.

It did break away from the PRC after a bloody civil war in 1949, when the communists seized power from the ruling nationalist party. It operated under martial law for decades in the years since then. It lifted the martial law a few years back.

Taiwan operates as an independent nation. It just has declined to declare its independence, concerned about a possible military reaction from Beijing were it to do so.

Over time, Taiwan’s population has become more native to the island nation, with far fewer citizens with roots in the PRC.

It’s an independent nation. Still, Secretary Azar needs to take care that he doesn’t say something that will rile the commies on the mainland even more than they no doubt already have become.

This, I submit, China-Taiwan is one of the world’s most complicated relationships. Tread carefully, Mr. Secretary.

national news

Trump team unveils its xenophobia

Ahhh, so this is how the 2020 presidential campaign is going to proceed.

The Donald John Trump re-election team is going to fabricate straw men, prey on people’s xenophobia and then suggest that a true-blue, red-blooded American politician is actually an agent representing a hostile power.

The Trump campaign has released a minute-long ad that implies that former Washington Gov. Gary Locke, who was born in Washington and who served as U.S. ambassador to China during the Obama administration, is a Chinese government agent.

Oh, I should mention that Locke is Chinese-American. He also is a friend and ally of Joseph R. Biden, the presumptive Democratic presidential nominee.

This is, as former 2020 Democratic presidential candidate Andrew Yang, described it, “utter garbage.” He said also that “Gary Locke is as American as the day is long.”

The ad is intended to suggest that Biden is more loyal to China than he is to the United States, that he and his son, Hunter, have business dealings in the People’s Republic of China … which I guess in Trump’s vacuous noggin makes him disloyal.

It’s reprehensible in the extreme. The campaign’s effort to cast a native-born American as a foreign agent makes it even worse. Wherever he is, the late U.S. Sen. Joseph McCarthy — the infamous commie-hunter of the early 1950s — must be nodding in approval.

Disgraceful.

national news

POTUS needs to work on his comedic timing

“It was sarcasm.”

That’s how Donald Trump has described his much-derided remark that he is the “chosen one” to deal with China and to wage a knock-down trade war with the Asian economic powerhouse.

Critics have said the remark revealed some sort of “messianic complex” in the president, given that he did look to the sky when he made the statement to a gaggle of reporters at the White House.

I’ve seen the incident in question a few times. I don’t yet know what he meant when he said it. Was he joking or was he making some sort of statement about being selected by God Almighty to wage a trade war with China?

I’ll just offer this observation. If the president was “joking,” he needs to work on his comedic timing. The humor of the statement was lost on many of us who saw it.

national news

Yep, the biggest threat to the nation is its president

Washington Gov. Jay Inslee drew the biggest round of cheers tonight with what might have come off as a quip, but which — the more I think about it — now sounds like the brutal truth.

He and the nine other Democratic presidential candidates gathered on the debate stage in Miami were asked to name the greatest geopolitical threat to the United States: Inslee said it is Donald John Trump.

Not Russia. Nor the People’s Republic of China. Or Iran. Or terrorist organizations. Or even climate change, which happens to be Inslee’s signature campaign issue.

He said the biggest threat is the president of the United States of America. I agree with him.

Donald Trump is systematically destroying our alliances with Europe, with Asia, with Latin America. He’s gone after Australia and Canada, for crying out loud!

Donald Trump has isolated the nation from the rest of a shrinking world. He cozies up to tyrants — Kim Jong Un and Vladimir Putin being the most notable. He challenges the nation’s intelligence network’s findings. He makes foreign and domestic policy pronouncements via Twitter, without advising his senior policy  advisers.

Trump has burned through two national security advisers. He is talking openly about possible war with Iran without a defense secretary on board. He is reportedly losing patience with his third White House chief of staff.

Yes, Gov. Inslee was right. Donald Trump has become the greatest existential threat to the very nation he was elected to govern.

Wow!

International news

Earth to Beijing: Taiwan is a nation, not a ‘province’

The People’s Republic of China is engaging in what the White House calls “Orwellian nonsense.”

The PRC is angry at private commercial air carriers because they refer to Taiwan as a “country.”

Oh, brother.

It’s complicated.

Taiwan broke away from China in 1949 after a bloody civil war. The communists kicked the Nationalist Party out of power. The Nationalists moved to Taiwan and set up a separate government. The PRC runs the mainland; Taiwan has taken on a new identity, although it is not recognized throughout most of the world as a sovereign state. China calls Taiwan a “renegade province” and has vowed to take it back — by force if necessary.

Believe me. It is. I’ve been to Taiwan five times since 1989. It is a country.

Thus, the White House’s criticism of the PRC is on point. As The Hill reported: “This is Orwellian nonsense and part of a growing trend by the Chinese Communist Party to impose its political views on American citizens and private companies,” White House press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders said in a statement.

Sanders also vowed that “China’s efforts to export its censorship and political correctness to Americans and the rest of the free world will be resisted.” 

“The United States strongly objects to China’s attempts to compel private firms to use specific language of a political nature in their publicly available content,” she said.

Sanders is correct to condemn China for seeking to dictate to private firms how it should refer to countries — and governments — with which they do business.

Taiwan operates in a sort of parallel universe with the rest of the world. The United States withdrew its diplomatic recognition of Taiwan — officially known as the Republic of China — in 1978. The United Nations expelled Taiwan at that time so that the PRC could join the body.

Yet, Taiwan continues to function as a de facto independent nation, although it has never officially declared its independence from the PRC. Taiwan has flourished and has become a vibrant state that functions with many of the trappings of sovereignty without the actual designation.

As for the People’s Republic of China, it need not impose its political will on private firms.

national news, Sports news

Donald vs. LaVar: Battle for the Ages?

1 Comment

It’s come down to this: The president of the United States, the commander in chief of the world’s mightiest military machine, is waging a war of words/wits with a loudmouth father of sons who aspire to athletic greatness.

That’s right. Donald John Trump and LaVar Ball are going back and forth via Twitter.

This is how the Leader of the Free World chooses to spend some of his time. He calls Ball “an ungrateful fool” because Ball said the president didn’t do what he said he did to obtain the freedom of one of Ball’s sons, who got caught shoplifting in China.

The president has made a stupid feud even more stupid by his engaging this blowhard bozo in a Twitter feud.

I know the president is hopelessly addicted to Twitter. I won’t call on him to quit engaging in this kind of petulance. He’s acting like an overgrown, overhyped pubescent punk. He can’t help himself.

The man is diminishing the high office to which he was elected.

Don King without the hair?

But … he “tells it like it is.”