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HOMELAND SECURITY

The Morning Briefing: Apocalypse Soon—Brush Up On Your Mandarin for the Biden Years By Stephen Kruiser

https://pjmedia.com/columns/stephen-kruiser/2020/12/14/the-morning-briefing-apocalypse-soon-brush-up-on-your-mandarin-for-the-biden-years-n1208835

You Can Spell Biden Without “CCP” but Why Would You?

Happy Monday, dear Kruiser Morning Briefing friends. Am I oozing enthusiasm for the start of a new week? Yes, yes I am.

The sobering reality of Joseph “The Masked Groper” Biden being sworn in as President of the United States  next month is finally starting to hit me. I’ve mostly been approaching the possibility like it’s a bad SNL skit that I’m being forced to watch with those A Clockwork Orange thingies propping my eyelids open. It was all a bit surreal but it’s just a bad dream, right?

Apparently, this nonsense is actually going to happen now and, honestly, I don’t think even I can drink my way through this. Sure, I’ll give it a try, but I have some things I need to accomplish next year and I can’t get any of them done if I am meandering through a Biden-avoidance alcoholic haze every day.

A central component to my denial has involved my assessment about who the power behind the throne will be. At the beginning of the month I wrote about the looming tug-of-war between DOCTOR OR SOMETHING Jill Biden and Miss Congeniality Kamala Harris for control of the empty space in Drooling Joe’s head. That’s a battle that is definitely still on and might even be worth pay-per-view.

They’re only bit players in the Joe Biden’s puppeteer sweepstakes. As my friend and colleague Stephen Green is fond of saying, Joe Biden is a wholly owned subsidiary of the Chinese Communist Party.

There’s the real problem that I’ve been trying to keep buried in the back of my mind.

Of course, I’m not doing as good of job burying reality as the mainstream media is, as Jeff wrote over the weekend:

Hunter Biden was the October Surprise that wasn’t—a report so explosive, so potentially damaging, so dangerous for national security that it should have destroyed Joe Biden’s bid for the White House. In any other election, fleets of investigative reporters would have been unleashed to verify the claims in the report. Instead, in the ultimate expression of Trump Derangement Syndrome, a major media company set out to personally destroy the man they thought put the report together and thereby discredit the report to the point that the entire media complex in America took turns ridiculing the story instead of investigating it. The results could have dire implications for national security.

But hey, at least they got rid of the Bad Orange Man.

Our Chinese Sister Cities: “Use the Countryside to Surround the City” by Judith Bergman

“While American local governments value such “exchanges” for financial and cultural reasons, ‘exchange’ (交流) has always been viewed as a practical political tool by Beijing, and all of China’s ‘exchange’ organizations have been assigned political missions”. — China’s Influence & American Interests, Report of the Working Group on Chinese Influence Activities in the United States, by the Hoover Institution at Stanford University and the Center on US-China Relations at the Asia Society in New York, 2019.

“We will keep connecting schools in the U.S. and China one at a time”. — USA-China Sister Schools Association.

China has used its sister cities to boost its “mask diplomacy”, in which it plays both the arsonist and the firefighter, and has written about this new initiative in state media with quotes from “grateful” US sister cities thanking China for sending them masks.

Local politicians and others, such as school principals, are simply easy targets for the sophisticated tactics of CCP officials, who prey on the goodwill and naiveté of unsuspecting Americans, although willful blindness doubtless plays a role. “Local politicians typically know little about China and have no responsibility for national security, and because their Chinese interlocutors present themselves as offering people-to-people exchanges and ‘opportunities for local business’, these politicians have a strong incentive to remain uninformed”. — Clive Hamilton and Mareike Ohlberg, Hidden Hand: Exposing How the Chinese Communist Party is Reshaping the World.

On November 17, four US Senators introduced legislation to investigate the “sister city” partnerships between communities in United States and China. According to Senator Marco Rubio:

“The Chinese government and Communist Party has a history of exploiting cultural and economic partnerships to conduct malign activities, and it’s clear that opaque, sister-city partnerships deserve increased scrutiny. We must do more to better understand, and then counter, Chinese influence operations at the state and local level, which are often conducted under the benign auspices of sister city relationships.”

In February, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo also warned:

“Chinese Communist Party officials… are cultivating relationships with county school board members and local politicians – often through what are known as sister cities programs… Last year, a high school – a high school, a high school in Chicago – disinvited a Taiwanese representative to serve on a climate panel after Chinese pressure.”

China’s leaders understand all too well from their historical experience how to control America: Use compradors By Thomas Lifson

https://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2020/12/chinas_leaders_understand_all_too_well_how_to_control_america_from_their_own_historical_experience_use_compradors.html

There is a very large, rich, and influential class of Americans who owe their wealth and standing to China, having mightily prospered through business ties to the Middle Kingdom.  Every educated person in China understands the way such ties linking a wealthy elite beholden to foreign interests can be used to bring down even the mightiest of nations.

The word “comprador” (买办, pronounced mǎi bàn), referring to the Chinese businessmen who allied themselves with Western imperialists, becoming wealthy and, in the view of the Chinese Communist Party, betraying the nation, is a curse word among Communists.

[T]here are two kinds of bourgeoisie — the national bourgeoisie and the comprador-bourgeoisie[.] … The comprador-bourgeoisie is always a running dog of imperialism[.] 

—Mao Tse-tung  Some Experiences in Our Party’s History, 1956

Dex Bahr, elsewhere in American Thinker today, correctly ties minimal media coverage of (and the previous suppression of) the story of the Swalwell spy scandal to the business interests of their corporate and individual masters:

What does Google/YouTube have in common with media outlets that have ignored the Swalwell Chinese spy scandal? CNN (WarnerMedia), NBC, MSNBC (Universal/Comcast), ABC/ESPN (Disney) and CBS (National Amusements) are all owned by companies that have been reported extensive business ties with Chinese Corporations which in turn are tied to the Chinese Communist Party (CCP).  The owners of the New York Times, which include Mexican billionaire Carlos Slim who as of 2018 had a 15.4% stake, and perhaps as much as 17.4% if this account has it right, and at the Washington Post, where Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos bought it outright, also have business ventures with China based companies (Read this May 2020 story from the Federalist for further details)

Chinese Military Bases in The Caribbean? by Lawrence A. Franklin

https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/16813/china-military-caribbean

China also seems to have a military agenda in the Caribbean region… Chinese Defense Minister Wei Fenghe already is on record expressing China’s willingness to deepen military cooperation with Caribbean countries.

Of more concern to US security interests is the ongoing seaport expansion project in the already commercially important port at Kingston, Jamaica, as well as the port at Freeport, Bahamas, China’s possible new base of operations 90 miles off the US coast.

China is clearly not a government that honors its agreements…. The US can ill afford any Chinese drive to place under threat any Western Hemisphere country, much less the United States.

China’s Communist Party (CCP) seems to be implementing a multidimensional strategy in the Caribbean, reaping economic, political and potentially military gains a few miles offshore the United States. China’s ultimate objective of its Caribbean strategy may well be to confront the US, not only with its presence near the mainland US, but also with a situation analogous to America’s military presence in the region of the South China Sea. There, China created new islands in the sea, pledged not to militarize them, then went and militarized them.

It is important to remember that China also promised Hong Kong autonomy until 2047, then, in 2020, jumped the gun by 27 years. “Hong Kong will be another communist-run city under China’s strict control,” US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo declared in July. China is clearly not a government that honors its agreements.

Setting Up a Siege? Antifa Has Armed Guards, Stockpiled Weapons at Portland Autonomous Zone By Tyler O’Neil,

https://pjmedia.com/news-and-politics/tyler-o-neil/2020/12/09/setting-up-a-siege-antifa-has-armed-guards-stockpiled-weapons-at-portland-autonomous-zone-n1200966

The antifa occupiers at the autonomous zone that sprung up in Portland this week appear to be preparing for a siege. As PJ Media’s Victoria Taft reported, antifa squatters took over a house in Portland and when the government rightly evicted them, they set up an autonomous zone.

On Wednesday, Portland’s police chief reported that antifa has fortified barricades, stockpiled weapons, set up armed guards, and threatened to kill police officers. Both the police chief and the mayor have urged the rebels to lay down their arms, but it appears they are refusing to do so.

“We want a peaceful & safe resolution to the occupation of public space on N Mississippi Ave. We are greatly concerned about the fortification of barricades, stockpiling of weapons, armed sentries, attacks on journalists & threats to kill officers in graffiti in this public space,” Chief Chuck Lovell tweeted on Wednesday. “I encourage those involved to reach out to our demonstration liaisons so we can discuss a peaceful outcome.”

“We are aware of the stockpile of weapons and the presence of firearms. We are aware of the threats to the community, to media, to police. We’ve seen the attacks. The Portland Police will enforce the law and use force is necessary to restore order to the neighborhood,” Lovell added in a brief speech about the autonomous zone.

‘Bought by Beijing’: Pompeo Warns of China’s Threats to US Colleges

https://www.theepochtimes.com/bought-by-beijing-pompeo-warns-of-chinas-threats-to-american-colleges_3611289.html?utm_source=newsnoe&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=breaking-2020-12-09-5

American colleges are becoming “hooked on Chinese Communist Party cash,” while Beijing works to siphon cutting-edge U.S. research to China, U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo warned on Dec. 9.

“So many of our colleges are bought by Beijing,” Pompeo said during a speech at the Georgia Institute of Technology, outlining Beijing’s aggressive efforts targeting U.S. research institutions. He added that the Chinese regime’s influence on American academics and students jeopardizes academic freedom, as it seeks to suppress critical voices on campus.

“Americans must know how the Chinese Communist Party is poisoning the well of our higher education institutions for its own ends, and how those actions degrade our freedoms and American national security. If we don’t educate ourselves, if we’re not honest about what’s taking place, we’ll get schooled by Beijing,” Pompeo warned.

The state secretary cited a recent investigation by the Department of Education, which found that universities received almost $1.5 billion in contracts and gifts from China from 2014 to 2020.

“We cannot allow this tyrannical regime to steal our stuff to build their military might, brainwash our people, or buy off our institutions to help them cover up these activities,” Pompeo said.

China honeytrap spy targeted Eric Swalwell as her useful fool By Monica Showalter

https://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2020/12/china_honeytrap_spy_chose_eric_swalwell_as_her_targetted_useful_fool.html

Rep. Eric Swalwell is famous for yelling about Russian influence with outrageous claims against President Trump, even calling for a ‘presidential crimes commission,’ but based on a year-long investigation from Axios, he’s the one who has some spy problems, and they ought to be embarrassing at least. He was China’s idea of the perfect fool.

According to a year-long investigation from Axios:

A suspected Chinese intelligence operative developed extensive ties with local and national politicians, including a U.S. congressman, in what U.S. officials believe was a political intelligence operation run by China’s main civilian spy agency between 2011 and 2015, Axios found in a yearlong investigation.

…and…

The woman at the center of the operation, a Chinese national named Fang Fang or Christine Fang, targeted up-and-coming local politicians in the Bay Area and across the country who had the potential to make it big on the national stage.

Through campaign fundraising, extensive networking, personal charisma, and romantic or sexual relationships with at least two Midwestern mayors, Fang was able to gain proximity to political power, according to current and former U.S. intelligence officials and one former elected official.
Even though U.S. officials do not believe Fang received or passed on classified information, the case “was a big deal, because there were some really, really sensitive people that were caught up” in the intelligence network, a current senior U.S. intelligence official said.
Private but unclassified information about government officials — such as their habits, preferences, schedules, social networks, and even rumors about them — is a form of political intelligence. Collecting such information is a key part of what foreign intelligence agencies do.

Among the most significant targets of Fang’s efforts was Rep. Eric Swalwell (D-Calif.).

Biden’s DHS: Department of Homeland Surrender Alejandro Mayorkas, architect of DACA, picked by Biden to head DHS. Michael Cutler

https://www.frontpagemag.com/fpm/2020/12/under-biden-dhs-would-become-department-homeland-michael-cutler/

On May 5, 2005 the House Subcommittee on Immigration, Border Security and Claims conducted a hearing on the topic, New ”Dual Missions” Of The Immigration Enforcement Agencies.

I was one of the four witnesses who testified at that hearing.

One paragraph in particular from Chairman Hostettler’s statement at that hearing back then, is of particular significance today, as we consider what will happen if Joe Biden is sworn in as President of the United States:

The 9/11 terrorists all came to the United States without weapons or contraband—Added customs enforcement would not have stopped 9/11 from happening. What might have foiled al Qaeda’s plan was additional immigration focus, vetting and enforcement. And so what is needed is recognition that, one, immigration is a very important national security issue that cannot take a back seat to customs or agriculture. Two, immigration is a very complex issue, and immigration enforcement agencies need experts in immigration enforcement. And three, the leadership of our immigration agencies should be shielded from political pressures to act in a way which could compromise the Nation’s security.

Now we come to Biden’s choice for the vital position of Secretary of the Department of Homeland Security, Alejandro Mayorkas. Remember Biden has pledged to create a massive legalization program for unknown millions of illegal aliens. The DHS enforces and administers America’s immigration laws and thus would bear the responsibility for administering this ill-conceived program.

I addressed my concerns about this amnesty in my earlier piece: “Biden’s ‘Build Back Better’ is Bunk.”

Are the 1,000 Chinese Science Spies Who Fled Trump Crackdown Waiting for Beijing Biden? Daniel Greenfield

https://www.frontpagemag.com/point/2020/12/are-1000-chinese-science-spies-who-fled-trump-daniel-greenfield/

Don’t worry. They’ve got their return trip tickets ready and waiting in case ‘Beijing Biden’ ends up in the White House.

A top Justice Department official said more than 1,000 foreign researchers affiliated with the Chinese military left the United States following a crackdown this summer that resulted in half a dozen members of China’s People’s Liberation Army studying in the U.S. being arrested and charged with lying on their student visa applications.

They include the nice sorts of folks who were researching how to rob our country of all its secrets.

One researcher was under orders to study the exact layout of a medical lab in order to replicate it in China, federal agents alleged. Another stole software code that his adviser at the University of Virginia had developed over two decades, the government alleged.

After the Chinese government became aware of the FBI interest in these individuals, Chinese diplomats quickly warned Chinese researchers about the FBI probe and urged them to wipe clean their electronic devices and social media chats, he said.

The Biden Terrorism Account Small investments help prevent major distractions later on.

https://www.wsj.com/articles/the-biden-terrorism-account-11607038651?mod=opinion_lead_pos3

Two decades after 9/11, Washington understandably is concerned more with great-power competition than terrorism. But a new report from the Institute for Economics & Peace (IEP) is a reminder that terror groups remain a global scourge.

First, some good news: In 2019 the death toll from terrorism around the world fell for the fifth year in a row, according to IEP’s Global Terrorism Index. Deaths declined 59% between 2014 and last year, but nearly 14,000 people still died in terrorist incidents. While far-right political terrorism is on the rise, the report notes that it’s generally less lethal than Islamist terrorism and “the absolute number of far-right attacks remains low.”

One reason for declining deaths is that the U.S.-led coalition against Islamic State made the world safer. The report attributes 942 killings over 339 attacks to the group in 2019. It marks the first time that ISIS has been responsible for fewer than 1,000 deaths since it became active in 2013.

“Despite the decrease in activity from ISIL in the Middle East and North Africa, ISIL’s affiliate groups remain active across the world, and have become especially prominent in sub-Saharan Africa,” according to the report, which uses an alternative acronym for ISIS. “The expansion of ISIL affiliates into sub-Saharan Africa led to a surge in terrorism in many countries in the region. Seven of the ten countries with the largest increase in terrorism were in sub-Saharan Africa.”