Tag Archives: politics

Neville Chamberlain Reborn

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British Prime Minister Keir Starmer has gone to Beijing to bend the knee and sell his nation to the communist tyrant. Or is it Vidkun Quisling who’s alive and well on Downing Street?

…Britain’s gift to President Xi Jinping arrived early. The UK last week granted approval for China to build its biggest diplomatic outpost in Europe in central London. The question now is what Mr Starmer will get in return.

It’s not just the PRC’s biggest “diplomatic outpost” in Europe. It’s far bigger than it needs to be merely to house the PRC’s embassy to a middle tier nation. It’s the PRC’s biggest headquarters for an espionage operation that’s the most aggressive in the world, and one designed and now equipped courtesy of the estimable Starmer to spy on and steal from the UK, the EU, the EU’s constituent nations (including eastern European nations fronting on the PRC’s BFF Russia), and the United States. This spanking new and oversized embassy also will be the seat of efforts to spy on, harass, and ultimately kidnap Chinese nationals and emigrants living in the UK and throughout Europe.

That’s a huge supplicant’s offering to the Emperor.

What’s in this kowtowing* for the UK? Nothing at all. The PRC has offered nothing, and it has no reason to offer anything. The most the timid Starmer can hope for is to return to the UK with both hands still attached.

Starmer is moving to deliver one more gift to the Emperor: he’s going ahead with the British plan to surrender its Diego Garcia, along with the rest of that Chagos Island group to Mauritius. It doesn’t matter that the US has a joint use agreement with the Brits for the military base on Diego Garcia that nominally long outlives the surrender to Mauritius. With Mauritius in the PRC’s back pocket, the days of that joint use agreement are severely numbered. Just see the PRC’s attitude to other nation’s possessions and agreements in the South China Sea.

Starmer is no Winston Churchill, and the UK, a product of a number of recent governments of both parties, not only Starmer’s, is not the UK that faced down and ultimately contributed heavily to the crushing defeat of a different tyrant.

 

*In traditional China this ritual was performed by commoners making requests to the local magistrate…or by foreign representatives appearing before the emperor to establish trade relations.

Looks Like an Opportunity

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The People’s Republic of China looks like it’s facing a serious economic problem.

[The PRC’s] relentless pursuit of growth through manufacturing has also created a lopsided economy, with much of it stuck in a deflationary spiral. China’s GDP deflator, a broad price gauge, has been negative since 2023, a sign of inadequate demand at home.

And

The risk is that China could get stuck in a prolonged period of stagnation similar to what Japan experienced during the 1990s and early 2000s—a mindset that becomes ingrained over time and even harder to shift.

The subheadline summarized the problem well:

Exports drive growth while race-to-the-bottom competition from overproduction hits prices, profits, wages, and sales

That economic problem looks like an opportunity for us. The Soviet Union, faced with a stagnating economy and a burgeoning technology deficit relative to us that was epitomized by our ballistic defense system under development and then deployment, folded and disappeared.

The PRC has many technology and military advantages over us, but it’s faced with a similarly stagnating economy, even one threatened with sustained deflation, and with an obvious and worsening demographic condition. The PRC’s critical deficit isn’t technological or military; it’s its economic dependency on exports.

If the US and the West generally were to stop importing from the PRC, that would turn the PRC’s economic war against us to our advantage. We should be able to gain quite a number of concessions in return for resuming buying their output, even including the PLA’s withdrawal from the South China Sea, an end to the PRC’s constant, if low key, threats against Japan in the East China Sea, and a cessation of the PRC’s threats against the Republic of China.

Of course, to achieve that—and it would be best done were it done sharply rather than in dribs and drabs, the Trump administration would need to stop trying to work deals with the PRC and to stop coddling American businesses who bleat about the centrality of the PRC to their profits. The administration and American businesses would need to step up the pace of moving supply chains out of the PRC, even in some cases to begin that reorientation.

It would also be necessary to stop our tariff moves against Europe and to stop trying to obtain control of Greenland so we can persuade Europe to join us in no longer importing from the PRC and to move faster at reorienting its supply chains away from the PRC.

Governments around the world are complaining about an influx of cheap Chinese goods that could hurt local industries.

They just need a push and the removal of economic barriers within the West.

The potential gains, though, are enormous, not just economically, but for the order and the safety of all of us, for all the difficulty of taking either of those two steps.

Moderation in the Progressive-Democratic Party

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Recall how the Progressive-Democratic Party candidate for Virginia governor, Abigail Spanberger, ran on a platform of moderation and left of center politics.

In the first weeks of her office, this is a small subset of what she and her Party allies, who have majorities in both houses of the State’s legislature, have on offer.

  • HB968: Requires the use of ballot scanning machines in elections and explicitly bans hand counts “for any reason or purpose not specifically authorized for by law”
  • HB82: Extends the deadline for receipt of absentee ballots until three days after the election
  • HB111: Bars the state registrar from removing voter registrations except by request of an individual voter or direct reports from the Department of Elections
  • HB965: Commits Virginia to an interstate compact requiring that its electoral votes go to the winner of the national popular vote
  • HB244: Limits and reduces criminal penalties for robbery
  • HB1070: Limits the ability of prosecutors to mention prior convictions of a defendant during trial
  • HB1359: Requires the issuance of a firearm permit for all purchases
  • HB217: Bans the sale, purchase, or transfer of so-called “assault weapons”
  • HB24: Allows state authorities to select which states to share concealed carry reciprocity with instead of all states
  • HB916: Imposes further restrictions on concealed carry permit acquisition
  • HB7: Bars law enforcement officers from wearing facial coverings

This is Party’s conception of “moderate.” Party has gone so far left that it no longer recognizes what moderation is; it has no idea where the center of our nation’s political spectrum is.

Time to Pause

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The Wall Street Journal‘s editors think it’s time for ICE to pause in Minneapolis.

This is a badly mistaken position, and it’s based on a badly wrong underlying premise. Here are the key components in the editors’ error, in their own words.

Fifteen months later in Minneapolis, there isn’t much heart in Immigration and Customs Enforcement. The Saturday shooting of Alex Pretti, as he lay on the ground surrounded by ICE agents, is the worst incident to date in what is becoming a moral and political debacle for the Trump Presidency.
Videos of an event aren’t always definitive, but this is how it looks to us. Pretti attempted, foolishly, to assist a woman who had been pepper-sprayed by agents. Multiple agents then tackled Pretti, and he had a phone in one hand as he lay on the ground. An agent discovered a concealed gun on Pretti, and disarmed him. An agent then shot Pretti, and multiple shots followed.

Stripped from the context of the shooting of Alex Pretti, as he lay on the ground is the simple fact that he was actively resisting arrest subsequent to his actively interfering with the arrest of the woman. The agents’ efforts to disarm him as he resisted arrest and now fought to retain his firearm—that addendum to his resistance is what led to his being shot.

And: Videos of an event aren’t always definitive, especially when they’re carefully edited for favored excerpts, or wholly withheld, as the WSJ has done in its “news” article misleadingly titled Videos Contradict US Account of Minneapolis Shooting by Federal Agents, from which the videos were deliberately not published, nor were any links to any videos provided. All that piece contained were carefully selected stills carefully stripped of all context surrounding them—other than the news writers’ personal opinion-based representations of the stills’ meaning.

Nor was Pretti attempt[ing], foolishly, to assist a woman who had been pepper-sprayed by agents. The agents were attempting to arrest the woman, who had been obstructing the agents—not protesting their actions—resisting arrest, and in the course of the struggle resulting from her resisting, she was pushed to the ground. Pretti’s “assistance” consisted of interposing himself between the woman and the agents and actively resisting—physically opposing—her arrest. In the course of his obstruction, he was pushed to the ground and his subsequent continued physical resistance is what led to his being shot.

Contra the editors’ position, it’s time for Minnesota’s Progressive-Democratic governor, Tim Walz, to pause—actually to cease altogether—his constant egging on those present in Minneapolis to actively resist ICE operations, which only result in rioting where ICE is active (its agents acting entirely within their DOC and immigration law). It’s time for Minneapolis’ Progressive-Democratic mayor, Jacob Frey, to pause—to halt altogether—his especially inflammatory rhetoric regarding ICE operations and ICE agents.

WSJ editors holding Walz and Frey, and Minneapolis’ rioters, blameless is part of a general press policy of false reporting, even as they add this:

Either many ICE agents aren’t properly trained, or they are so on edge as they face opposition in the streets that they are on a hair trigger. Either way, this calls for rethinking how ICE conducts itself, especially in Minneapolis as tensions build.

No, it calls for rethinking the way Walz and Frey incite violence and the way Minneapolis’ rioters respond to that incitement. The agents aren’t facing “opposition;” they’re facing too often violent opposition.

The editors then closed their piece with this argument:

Governor Tim Walz could have urged his citizens to avoid confrontations with ICE. Instead he made a video urging them to go into the streets with phones and film ICE agents, whether or not they are performing lawful searches under federal immigration law. His rhetoric is incendiary and describes ICE as a lawless terrorist operation. Another tragedy was inevitable, and there will be more if this continues.
Whether he likes it or not, most of the burden now lies with Mr Trump as the President who controls ICE.

No, whether the editors like it or not, most of the burden lies with Walz and Frey as the inflaming pushers of resistance.

It’s long past time for the press to stop distorting the facts of these matters, to stop misleading us citizens with their false reporting, to stop doing their bit to inflame the public, even if Walz and Frey will not stop their inflammatory words.

Progressive-Democratic Party Lawlessness

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A typical example of this is taking hold in Virginia, a Blue State (for all that it had a successful Republican governor for one term) going even Bluer. As soon as the State’s Progressive-Democrat governor, Abigail Spanberger, took office, her Party cronies, who have majorities in both houses of the State legislature, have begun pushing laws that functionally excuse violent criminals.

House Bill 863 includes proposals to effectively eliminate minimum sentencing for manslaughter, rape, possession and distribution of child pornography, assaulting a law enforcement officer, and other repeat violent felonies.

This is how Progressive-Democrats act out their disrespect for law and for law enforcement.

What’s on tap for the State’s next legislative session? Removing jail terms altogether and sending social workers to talk to rapists about inappropriate behavior toward women? Sending pediatricians to talk to child pornographers about how to better interact with children? Defund all of the State’s police departments—after all, if there are no police, there can be no assaults on police? Eliminating the crime of manslaughter, that being just the unfortunate outcome of a loud argument?

Progressive-Democrat Delegate Rae Cousins, the bill’s sponsor, has rationalized his bill:

This change would give the experienced judges in our communities more discretion to make decisions based on the unique facts of each case.

Okay. How about, instead, giving experienced judges more discretion to make decisions based on the unique facts of each case by removing the upper bounds of sentencing for these crimes while keeping the lower bounds?