America is Still Being Fleeced by Coddling China

Posted on January 25, 2022January 25, 2022 by Denise Simon

Surfing? Really?

According to a recent grant notice, the United States’ Mission to China is funding a $25,000 grant to “carry out a program to engage Hainan’s surfing community and local environmentally active social media influencers on the topic of climate change and impacts to ocean environments.” It’s your tax dollars at work in the surf of the South China Sea.

That’s right. While Beijing continues its military buildup in the South China Sea, the Biden Administration is making sure surfers enjoy the waves!

The grant describes the ideal program activities to include:

“one surfing clinic, environmental protection activity and climate discussion led by popular Chinese surfing athletes and including U.S. Consulate staff and local environmentally active social media influencers”;

“one video product based on the surfing clinic, activity and discussion that includes messaging on the connections between local ocean communities, climate change and the importance of global climate action”;

“one million post views on multiple Chinese platforms of final video product after being shared by program participants.”

SMH..but there is more.

Remember John Podesta? Well he has a brother….Tony and where Tony goes, so goes John.

Well-connected Democrat Tony Podesta raked in $1 million last year lobbying the Biden White House on behalf of Chinese telecommunications giant Huawei.

Podesta started work for Huawei in August as the company attempts to free itself of Trump administration-rallied restrictions on the brand.

Podesta’s brother is Democratic Party bigwig John Podesta — who was Hillary Clinton’s 2016 campaign chairman after working as a White House adviser to President Barack Obama and as Chief of Staff to President Bill Clinton.

According to public disclosure forms released this week, Tony Podesta earned $500,000 lobbying the “Executive Office of the President” on “Issues related to telecommunication services and impacted trade issues” in the fourth quarter of 2021.

In the third quarter of 2021, Podesta disclosed another $500,000 from Huawei to lobby the “White House Office” on “Issues related to telecommunication services and impacted trade issues.” Huawei, a giant tech operation has been blacklisted. Who approved this?

While there remains historic issues with all things China including that Wuhan Lab China virus thing, the Biden administration seems not to care at all about China buying up commercial and residential real estate around the country.

The Chinese Communist Party (CCP) is continuing its U.S. agricultural takeover, buying hundreds of thousands of arable acres across the nation. The purchase of U.S. land is part of the CCP’s food security initiative, posing a significant threat to food and national security for the American public. Republicans appear willing to confront the risk by introducing amendments to H.R. 4356 and 2022 Agricultural Appropriations bill to limit land ownership and tax incentives for foreign investors.

One large purchase that was tracked was made by a Chinese billionaire named Sun Guangxin and his company GH America Energy LLC, a subsidiary of China’s Guanghui Energy Company. Sun spent $110 million purchasing 140,000 acres in a Texas county near the Mexico border and Laughlin Air Force Base.

The land was set aside for the owner to build a wind-farm to feed into Texas’ electricity grid. Known as Blue Hills Wind development, local ranchers, politicians, and the US Military were quick to note the proximity of the development as a serious risk for multiple threats from hostile actors.

The wind-farm development was only 70 miles from Laughlin, raising concerns of potential efforts to spy or “otherwise interfere with US flight training.” Military outlets further noted that the power supply to the Air Force base could be vulnerable should the development go ahead.

In 2017, ChemChina, a Chinese state-owned enterprise, acquired Syngenta for $43 billion. While mainstream news media argue that the takeover was a bad deal for China, it offers significant long-term leverage over global and domestic food production.

Syngenta is the world’s largest crop protection maker and third-largest seed supplier. The now CCP-backed company operates in 16 different states, invests in agricultural research and development every year, and employs more than 4,000 Americans in 41 states, according to Newsweek.

Despite America suffering supply chain shortages, leaving shelves bare, the Biden’s Secretary of Agriculture Tom Vilsack continues to build strong ties with the CCP. Vilsack’s efforts in support of China came after reports surfaced of China’s land purchases posing a significant threat to American national security. source

Eastern Europe under Extraordinary Threat from Russia

Posted on January 24, 2022January 24, 2022 by Denise Simon

In part: Russia has been chipping away at the country since at least 2014, when the pro-Russian President of Ukraine, Viktor Yanukovych, lost an election, and Putin invaded the Crimea, the peninsula that sticks out into the Black Sea and separates it from the Sea of Azov to its northeast.

Stealth war

As part of Putin’s campaign, a war that isn’t quite a war, most authorities agree that Russian-based hackers mounted a cyberattack called NotPetya back in 2017. It was aimed primarily at Ukrainian institutions, but it also affected thousands of other systems as well. The White House later estimated that NotPetya caused about $10 billion worth of damage worldwide.

Now we come down to this week. On January 15, dozens of Ukrainian government computer systems were infected with malware disguised as ransomware. An infected computer displayed a demand for a certain ransom to be paid in Bitcoin, but what really happened is that the malware “renders the computer system inoperable,” ransom or no ransom.

Microsoft issued a statement saying that they observed these attacks aimed primarily at Ukrainian government agencies and closely-allied organisations, and that they had issued updates that will address the problems. But in the meantime, the Ukraine is suffering yet another cyberattack which appears to be instigated by Russia, although no firm evidence of the source has yet been forthcoming.

***

The head of Ukraine’s defense intelligence agency told Military Times in November that Russia could launch an attack through Belarus.

source

Then there is the matter of Putin working to install a pro-Russian regime in Ukraine.

The UK Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office (FCDO) named former Ukrainian MP Yevhen Murayev as a potential Kremlin candidate and once again warned Russia of “severe costs” of activities to subvert Ukraine.

“The information being released today shines light on the extent of Russian activity designed to subvert Ukraine, and is an insight into Kremlin’s thinking,” UK foreign secretary Liz Truss said in a statement on Saturday.

Russia rejects UK claim

Russia on Sunday rejected a British claim that Russia was seeking to replace Ukraine’s government with a pro-Moscow administration.

“The disinformation spread by the British Foreign Office is more evidence that it is the Nato countries, led by the Anglo-Saxons, who are escalating tensions around Ukraine,” Russian foreign ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova said on the Telegram messaging app on Sunday. “We call on the British Foreign Office to stop provocative activities, stop spreading nonsense.” source

***

Some other disturbing details:

The Russian Navy has announced plan gunnery and missile firing 160 nautical miles off Mizen Head. The exercises, from February 3rd to 8th, are just on the edge of the drop-off into deep water. It is also within Ireland’s Exclusive Economic Zone (EEZ). Coming at a time of heightened tension between Russia and the West, this highlights Ireland’s strategic position.
Of all the world’s ocean, it is interesting that Russia selected this small area in the Irish EEZ. It is far from Russia’s operating bases and regular training areas. So the location seems chosen for strategic or political reasons.
Germany is actively collaborating with Russian armed aggression against Ukraine. The Estonians will tell the Germans to go to hell and the rest of NATO will back Estonia against the Moscow-Berlin axis.
The Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact is still in force. The Russian regime of state terrorism and the Putinversteher faction in Germany are allied to destroy the freedom and independence of Eastern Europe.
Germany has no business being in NATO when it aggressively thwarts the principle of collective security on which the alliance was founded. Germany has gone full Soviet with the new Chancellor.
Russian ally Germany refuses to permit Estonia to transfer artillery to Ukraine, giving a boost to the Russian army which is mobilized for an offensive.
The U.S. has ordered all family members of its embassy in Ukraine to evacuate amid rising tensions of a possible Russian invasion of Ukraine. The U.S. State Department also said non-essential personnel could also leave the country at the U.S. government’s expense.

One more item. Since President Biden halted the United States from being energy independent which was achieved under President Trump, the United States no longer exports energy to Europe. In fact, conditions are so dire that the United States is actually buying dirty oil from Russia. Think of that. If Russia decides to punish the U.S. even more….you can bet the cost of gasoline at the pump with reach $8.00 to $10.00 a gallon.

Then there is the threat of the United States versus Russia in the Arctic and in Space…imagine escalating hostilities in those battle-spaces…

Meanwhile…Ukrainians are drilling for safety in fallout shelters.

Identified Released Bagram Prisoner Killed our Marines in Kabul

Posted on January 3, 2022January 3, 2022 by Denise Simon

SIS-K suicide bomber who carried out deadly Kabul airport attack had been released from prison days earlier

Where is the outrage? This is on Biden….

NYP: The United States has put together a profile of the suicide bomber who killed 13 US troops outside Hamid Karzai International Airport in Kabul four months ago.

The Islamic State terrorist attack — which also left 200 Afghans dead — was carried out by Abdul Rahman Al-Logari, the New York Times reported. The terrorist was a one-time engineering student was freed from a high security prison by the Taliban.

As the militants overran the country, they emptied jails stocked with both their own prisoners and Islamic State terrorists opposed to them and the US.

“It’s hard to explain what the thinking was in letting out people who were a threat to the Taliban,” Edmund Fitton-Brown, a senior U.N. counterterrorism official said during a recent conference in Qatar, the outlet said.

Al-Logari has been active in terrorist for years before. A 2017 plot he was involved with in New Delhi, India was foiled and Al-Logari was eventually transferred to the CIA which stuck in at Parwan prison near Bagram Air Base.

The base — and its two runways — was infamously abandoned and overrun by the Taliban on July 1. The situation forced the US do conduct its later evacuation from the more exposed and less well-equipped Hamid Karzai International Airport.

***

The US controlled the base until it abandoned Bagram in early July. The revelation underscores the chaos around the final days of the withdrawal from Afghanistan and the struggle of the US to control a rapidly deteriorating situation around the airport as it relied on the Taliban to secure the perimeter of the airport.

The US handed Bagram Air Base over to the Afghan National Defense and Security Forces (ANDSF) on July 1, as the withdrawal of US forces from Afghanistan neared 90% completion.

At the time, there were approximately 5,000 prisoners at Bagram, an Afghan Ministry of Defense spokesman told CNN. A few hundred were criminals, but the vast majority were terrorists, the spokesman said, including members of al Qaeda, the Taliban, and ISIS. There were also foreign prisoners from Pakistan, Chechnya, and the Middle East detained there. It was up to the Afghans to secure the compound.

As the US was turning over Bagram to the ANDSF, the Taliban accelerated their sweep across the country, claiming to control 150 of Afghanistan’s 407 districts by July 5. It was a sign of things to come, as provincial capitals began falling to the Taliban offensive in rapid succession. By mid-August, the Taliban were on the doorstep of Kabul and the complete collapse of the Afghan military was virtually complete.Biden said, “We will not be deterred by terrorists… we will continue the evacuation.” He said that ISIS-K leadership and facilities will be attacked. More than 100,000 people were “taken to safety in the last 11 days. In the last 12 hours or so, another 7,000 have gotten out,” he said. “These ISIS terrorists will not win. We will rescue the Americans who are there…America will not be intimidated.”

He called those who died “part of the bravest, most capable and selfless military on the face of the earth.. the backbone of America, the spine of America, the best the country has to offer. Jill and I, our hearts ache for all those Afghan families who lost loved ones, including small children, in this vicious attack. We’re outraged.” source

Chinese Military Aggression Towards Taiwan is Escalating, Biden Ignores

Posted on November 29, 2021November 29, 2021 by Denise Simon

A small congressional delegation arrived in Taiwan last week to assess the defense conditions and operations in Asia. It is remarkable however that prior to the departure, the Chinese embassy in Washington DC sent an email demanding the trio be cancelled. Imagine that…our elected officials are supposed to comply to the Chinese Communist Party and their demands?

In part from Axios:

Six Republican lawmakers who visited Taiwan earlier this month to meet with Tsai and other Taipei officials faced similar calls from Beijing’s embassy in Washington, per Foreign Policy.
Rep. Mark Takano (D-Calif.), the House Veterans’ Affairs chair, and leader of the delegation to Taiwan, praised Taiwan to Tsai as a “democratic success story, a reliable partner and a force for good in the world,” in comments that are sure to further anger Beijing, per Reuters.

“Under [Tsai’s] administration, the bonds between us are more positive and productive than they have been for decades. Our commitment to Taiwan is rock solid and has remained steadfast as the ties between us have deepened. Taiwan is a democratic success story, a reliable partner and a force for good in the world.”

— Rep. Takano

The big picture: Takano, Slotkin and Reps. Nancy Mace (R-S.C.), Colin Allred (D-Texas) and Sara Jacobs (D-Calif.) were in Taiwan to discuss matters including regional security, U.S.-Taiwan relations “and other significant issues of mutual interest” with Taipei officials, per a statement from the American Institute in Taiwan, the de facto embassy.

Slotkin tweeted Thursday, “The auto industry’s largest supplier of microchips is here in Taiwan, so supply chain issues will most definitely be on the agenda.”

Background: The Chinese government has in recent months escalated military and political pressure in its claims over the island, which separated from China in 1949 amid civil war.

Go deeper: Taiwan among 110 participants invited to Biden’s “Summit for Democracy”

Meanwhile, as a response to the trip, China decided to once again threaten the region with 27 aircraft invading a ‘buffer zone‘.

Taiwan’s defense ministry says its air forces were mobilized to warn off 27 Chinese warplanes. The incursion into Taiwan’s air defense zone included 18 fighter jets, five nuclear-capable bombers and a refueling aircraft.

Taiwan’s defense ministry said Sunday the island’s air force had scrambled fighter jets to warn off 27 Chinese aircraft that had entered its air defense identification zone (ADIZ) while missile systems were deployed for monitoring purposes.

Taiwan’s ADIZ is not the same as its territorial air space but instead is self-declared airspace that is monitored for national security purposes.

The latest ratcheting up of tensions comes on the heels of a US Congressional delegation to the island, the second this month in support of Taiwan.

China has vowed to take back Taiwan by force if necessary.

Beijing disapproves of anything that lends international legitimacy and recognition to the government in Taipei and registered its disapproval of American lawmakers visiting the island.

What happened in Taiwan’s ADIZ?

The Chinese air force sent 18 fighter jets, five nuclear-capable H-6 bombers and a Y-20 aerial refueling jet, suggesting China may have refueled mid-flight. The Chinese military is still working on its mid-air refueling capabilities as it seeks to project power around the globe.

In the map provided by the Taiwanese defense ministry, the H-6 bombers and six of the fighter jets flew south of Taiwan into the Bashi Channel separating Taiwan from the Philippines before steering out into the Pacific and returning to China.

Taiwan has complained for months of incursions into its ADIZ by China’s air force, usually in the southwestern part near the Pratas Islands which it controls.

Why are tensions high between Beijing and Taipei now?

On Friday, a spokesperson for the Eastern Theater Command of the People’s Liberation Army said the Chinese military carried out “naval and air force combat readiness patrol in the direction of the Taiwan Strait.”

SecDef and SecState Announce they have no Clue What Russia is Doing

Posted on November 22, 2021November 22, 2021 by Denise Simon

That is a pathetic condition by our agency secretaries and that means the National Security Council at the White House along with the president himself have no clue, hence no policy. What is the problem with Russia you ask?

Not in order of priority.

Early on November 15 astronauts aboard the International Space Station received an unexpected directive: Seek shelter in your docked spacecraft in case of a catastrophic collision. The station was about to pass through a freshly created cloud of orbital debris that posed a significant risk to the seven space travelers on board.

Four NASA astronauts, who had arrived just last week retreated, to their SpaceX Dragon capsule, while Russia’s two cosmonauts and another NASA astronaut took cover in their Soyuz spacecraft. They stayed inside these orbital lifeboats for about two hours, then repeated the exercise roughly 90 minutes later, as the station again passed through the new debris cloud. NASA has since canceled a handful of planned activities, warning that the schedule would be in flux.

“It’s a crazy way to start a mission,” mission control told the crew during a briefing.

The U.S. State Department later confirmed that the debris endangering the space station was produced when Russia tested an anti-satellite (ASAT) weapon and intentionally destroyed one of its own defunct satellites. The impact left behind hundreds of thousands of debris objects that now pose a risk to the ISS crew and other satellites in low-Earth orbit (LEO).

“Even though we know they have this capability, we were shocked that they chose to test it as they did,” says Kaitlyn Johnson, deputy director of the Aerospace Security Project at the Center for Strategic and International Studies. The test shredded a satellite whose orbit intersects with the path of the ISS, putting the humans on board, including Russian cosmonauts, at risk.

“The things rumbling around my mind are: Why now? What is this tied to? What message are they trying to send? And why that specific satellite?” she says.

The Russian defense ministry has since released a statement confirming the test but denying any risk to the space station: “The U.S. knows for certain that the resulting fragments, in terms of test time and orbital parameters, did not and will not pose a threat to orbital stations, spacecraft and space activities.” more details

Russia has more than 92,000 troops amassed around Ukraine’s borders and is preparing for an attack by the end of January or beginning of February, the head of Ukraine’s defense intelligence agency told Military Times.

Such an attack would likely involve airstrikes, artillery and armor attacks followed by airborne assaults in the east, amphibious assaults in Odessa and Mariupul and a smaller incursion through neighboring Belarus, Ukraine Brig. Gen. Kyrylo Budanov told Military Times Saturday morning in an exclusive interview.

Russia’s large-scale Zapad 21 military exercise earlier this year proved, for instance, that they can drop upwards of 3,500 airborne and special operations troops at once, he said.

The attack Russia is preparing, said Budanov, would be far more devastating than anything before seen in the conflict that began in 2014 that has seen some 14,000 Ukrainians killed. source

The Ukraine military’s assessment of a how a potential attack by Russia would play out shows the country ringed by Russian battalion tactical groups, or BTGs. (Courtesy of Ukraine military)

HALIFAX, Nova Scotia — A top Space Force official admitted on Saturday that the U.S. has “catching up to do very quickly” to match Beijing’s hypersonic capability, one week after China successfully launched a missile that circled the globe before striking a target.

Russia also launched a hypersonic missile from a warship in the Arctic this week, underscoring how quickly Washington, D.C.’s two primary competitors are racing ahead in this technology.

“We’re not as advanced as the Chinese or the Russians in terms of hypersonic programs,” Gen. David Thompson, vice chief of space operations, said during his appearance at the Halifax International Security Forum.

Hypersonic missiles fly at least five times the speed of sound, but their ability to glide on the atmosphere while changing direction at such a high speed makes them virtually impossible — with existing radars — to track and destroy.

While the Pentagon has pushed the development of new hypersonic missiles, the Army isn’t slated to field its first missile until 2024. The Navy is aiming to put its own version of the missile on a destroyer in 2025 and on Virginia-class submarines in 2028.

“It should be no surprise to anyone that China is developing capabilities that would be viewed negatively by like minded allies and partners,” Adm. John Aquilino, head of U.S. Indo-Pacific Command, told a small group of reporters on the sideline of the event.

The Space Force is working to “figure out the type of satellite constellation that we need” to track these missiles, Thompson told POLITICO after his public remarks. “It’s a new challenge, but it’s not that we don’t have an answer to this challenge. We just have to understand it, fully design it, and fly it.”

While there’s no timeline for when these new satellites can get into orbit, “we’re evolving our approach and our timelines rapidly,” Thompson said.

Both Thompson and Aquilino expressed concerns for how the often slow and risk-averse acquisition process is affecting the military competition from under the sea and into space.

“The bureaucracy that we’ve built into our defense and acquisition enterprise, not just in space but in other areas, has slowed us down in many areas,” Thompson said. “The fact that we have not needed to move quickly for a couple of decades — in the sense of a strategic competitor with these capabilities — has not driven us or required us to move quickly.” In this photo taken from a video distributed by Russian Defense Ministry Press Service on Oct. 7, 2020, Russian Zircon hypersonic cruise missile is launched. Washington, D.C.’s two primary competitors, China and Russia, are racing ahead in this technology. | Russian Defense Ministry Press Service via AP

The Russian Air Force is training Syrian MiG-29 pilots in air-to-air training, the Russian Ministry of Defence’s Zvezda TV channel reported on 15 November.

“An important stage in the training of any pilot is the launch of guided air-to-air missiles,” Zvezda quoted Maxim Aleksanin, a Russian squadron commander, as saying. “For the first time, Syrian pilots used R-73 guided missiles from MiG-29 aircraft. In the future, we plan to improve the tactics of conducting close and long-range air combat in order to prevent provocations in the skies of Syria, as well as near its borders.”

The video that accompanied the report showed two Syrian MiG-29s (3431 and 3436) being prepared and taking off with R-73 missiles, although not launching them, and at least one was shown carrying a missile as it landed.