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November 2022

Close All China Consulates, Slash Embassy Staff by Gordon G. Chang

https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/19104/close-china-consulates

Beijing reportedly has… used the station to track Chinese individuals of interest to the regime and, short-circuiting legal procedures, to persuade those Chinese to voluntarily return to China.

“[T]hey are very bold because they know they can do as they like and the State Department won’t do a damn thing.” — Maura Moynihan, author, to Gatestone, October 2022.

Prior to the recent indictments, the U.S. government often let off Chinese agents with only a warning, sometimes because of intervention by the State Department.

Law enforcement is essential, but it is hardly an answer to China’s massive campaigns against the United States.

One solution is to deny Chinese wrongdoers the safe havens they enjoy in America. China’s principal safe heavens are its embassy and consulates.

[T]he U.S. should also be closing China’s non-diplomatic presences — primarily banks and companies — to even out the situation.

China uses every point of contact to try to bring down America, and American institutions are now being overwhelmed by the onslaught. It may sound drastic to some, but the survival of freedom and democracy in America critically depends on getting the Chinese regime out of the U.S.

The best way to do that is to expel the military officers, spies, agents, provocateurs and criminals finding protection in China’s diplomatic presences in the United States. Nothing else would better communicate resolve to Beijing than getting dangerous Chinese actors off American soil.

The Biden administration should of course be shutting down the Chinatown police station, as well.

The DeSantis Florida Tsunami A huge re-election victory vindicates his pandemic policies.

https://www.wsj.com/articles/the-ron-desantis-florida-tsunami-charlie-crist-governor-election-covid-11667964888?mod=opinion_lead_pos1

Ron DeSantis was expected to win re-election as Florida Governor, but the big news Tuesday was the magnitude of his victory. His nearly 20-point rout of Democrat Charlie Crist shows the magnitude of the political change in the once-swing state and may launch the Republican’s campaign for the White House.

The Governor won nearly everywhere in the state, and notably in Democratic strongholds. He won by double digits in heavily Hispanic Miami-Dade County, which Joe Biden carried by 85,000 votes and a statewide Republican hadn’t carried since Jeb Bush won re-election 2002. Mr. DeSantis also won Osceola County south of Orlando, which has a heavy Puerto Rican population. He even won in Democratic Palm Beach County.

The DeSantis tide lifted other GOP candidates, as Sen. Marco Rubio won re-election handily. The GOP also picked up two House seats, including the St. Petersburg seat Mr. Crist gave up to run for Governor.

Florida has been trending to the GOP for some time, and previous two-term Governors Mr. Bush and Rick Scott did much to demonstrate effective Republican governance. But Mr. DeSantis won by fewer than 34,000 votes in 2018. He was leading Tuesday by nearly 1.5 million with 90% of the vote counted. Florida Democrats are going to have to rethink their campaigns in the state.

In his victory remarks, Mr. DeSantis credited his pandemic policies, stressing “freedom” over mandates, and “education” over “indoctrination.” He expanded school choice in the state, which has helped win minority voters. He opened the state for business and classroom instruction earlier than most Governors did—decisions that were widely derided in the national and Florida press. But the voters seemed to appreciate those policies and rewarded him.

Mr. DeSantis is thought to have presidential ambitions, and his victory speech sounded like it. A national campaign is a much larger challenge than running even a large state like Florida, and Mr. DeSantis will have to cut down on his extensive use of the vertical pronoun if he wants to rally a movement.

But there’s little doubt that his Florida success will grab the attention of voters outside the Sunshine State. You can bet Donald J. Trump was watching—unhappily.

Airbus Still Does Business With Putin’s Russia But Also Wants U.S. Defense Contracts Mario H. Lopez

https://issuesinsights.com/2022/11/09/airbus-still-does-business-with-putins-russia-but-also-wants-u-s-defense-contracts/

One thing made clear by Vladmir Putin’s war against Ukraine is how out of touch his calculations were regarding Ukraine’s ability to fight, the strength of his forces, and the willingness of the international community to push back against his unhinged brutality.

That last point might be the most surprising of all given the lack of a similar response to Putin’s illegal annexation of Crimea and other aggressions in recent times.  Countries — including famously neutral Switzerland — and an impressive number of private companies joined in sanctions and/or took similar steps that have hurt Putin’s ability to impose more pain on the Ukrainian people.

French aerospace giant Airbus is one of the more notable exceptions to the laudable private-sector efforts.

Instead, Airbus is ignoring sanctions on Russia and has gone as far as to successfully pressure the European Union to exempt it from sanctions.  Interestingly, their position comes at a time when they are simultaneously attempting to expand their contracting work with the U.S. Defense Department.

Airbus needs titanium to manufacture planes.  Titanium and titanium alloys are widely used for aircraft.  Titanium’s density is 60% that of steel, so it is lightweight but also strong and resists corrosion.  Airbus gets about half of the titanium it uses from Russia.

After Russia invaded Crimea in 2014, Airbus continued dealing with Moscow, even going so far as to stockpile more Russian titanium while other plane makers balked at the same chance.

How The Left Obliterates Morality The descent into cultural mayhem has been a long, slow grind. by Scott Hogenson

https://www.frontpagemag.com/how-the-left-obliterates-morality/

Daniel Patrick Moynihan could never have imagined how far down America might define deviancy when he penned his seminal essay Defining Deviancy Down.

The diplomat, scholar and four-term Democratic Party senator from New York theorized that deviant behavior had become so pervasive, we must redefine it simply to cope as a nation.

“I wrote that there is always a certain amount of deviancy in a society,” Moynihan said of his 1993 essay. “But when you get too much, you begin to think that it’s not really that bad. Pretty soon you become accustomed to very destructive behavior.”

Millions of Americans are now accustomed to some of the most destructive behaviors imaginable, and recent examples of this demonstrate a breathtaking repudiation of human morality.

An American president publicly expressed support for the surgical mutilation of children. Taxpayers are funding drag queen story hours for three year olds.  High school girls are banned from their own locker room because they are uncomfortable sharing it with a boy. A teacher badgers her students not to “judge people just because they wanna have sex with a 5-year-old.”

What used to be defined as medical malpractice, criminal molestation, voyeurism and rape is not only acceptable, it’s encouraged and, in some cases, required. It is deviancy defined so downward, it’s positively subterranean.