The discovery of a ship, missing for five centuries, in a southwest African desert, filled with gold coins, is one of the most thrilling archaeological finds in recent times.
The Bom Jesus (The Good Jesus) was a Portuguese vessel that set sail from Lisbon, Portugal on Friday, March 7, 1533. Its fate was unknown until 2008 when its remains were discovered in the desert of Namibia during diamond mining operations near the coast of the African nation.
Still the best speech on Westernised Cultural Marxism ever made. The mind virus enables this.
One example he provides is the Coffey Park Fire, in Santa Rosa California in 2017.
—— Several highly flammable trees were left entirely intact despite homes burning to the ground around it. Like what we see in the LA Fires.
🔴 In all of his 120 trips to fire ravaged areas mostly in California, he has found strange consistent anomalies… such as melted glass and aluminum, where there shouldn’t be.
• In other scenarios, fence posts made of wood only ignited near the screws or metal, leading him to believe it’s being heated up with some kind of microwave technology.
• Another example he shows are trees that are literally cooking from the inside out, burning, while not one single leaf burned on the same trees.
• Brame strongly believes some of these fires, like those in Lahaina, Maui, have been started or exacerbated by directed energy weapons (DEWS)
China is beset by many problems. Their economy is deeply flawed, plagued by a massive real-estate bubble and years of currency manipulation and central planning. Their population is about to drop off a demographic cliff. The one thing that all of the various ethnic groups in China seem to have in common is that they aren't having many babies. But, we must note, these are problems that the Western world suffers from as well; here in the United States, we are struggling under $36 trillion in debt, and our people aren't having many babies, either. //
China is our primary geopolitical rival. We, meaning the United States, must do business with them. We must conduct diplomacy with them. We must reassure our Western Pacific allies that we stand with them against any possible Chinese aggression. And, if it comes to that, we may well have to fight a war with China.
We may do all of these things. But the one thing we will probably never do is to understand them. And we have to deal with them accordingly - knowing that China will be what it is, and not what we would wish for it to be. //
Surfer Boy OrneryCoot
19 hours ago
The Chinese in Taiwan seem to have picked up democracy, freedom, and capitalism pretty well for the most part.
Not Mao Surfer Boy
18 hours ago
It is totally different from the mainland. Hong Kong used to be that way too until the CCP took over there. We can also say the same of North and South Korea.
oldgimpy&cranky Surfer Boy
14 hours ago
The Taiwanese are rooted in the KMT, not the CCP. Which explains why the CCP wants Taiwan (beyond the tech and money). The fact that Taiwan adopted Capitalism & Democracy - which started in the 80's - simply means they got tired of being poor commies ;-). //
Redleg
a day ago
Understanding China is easy. They believe that they are the biggest and most powerful country (other than the US) and that this entitles them to be a bully. Hence their predations in the South China Sea, their aggression against the Philippines, and the like. Their intention of being a bully makes them hostile to the US-led rules based order, because the purpose of that order is to restrain bullies.
Protectionism worked for China’s Internet companies, which leapfrogged their American counterparts. Online sales comprised 27% of total retail sales in China in 2022, compared to 15% in the United States. Mobile payments in China reached $US 70 trillion with a total of 158 billion transactions, compared to $8 trillion in the United States. //
Washington, DC, in October 2022, banned the export of high-end computer chips (with a transistor gate width of 7 nanometers or less) as well as the tools and software needed to make them. //
It isn’t clear what the Biden Administration was thinking. The official rationale for the chip control was to stop the Chinese military from gaining an advantage. According to a 2022 RAND Corporation study, virtually all military applications employ older chips (see chart below). The older processes are easier to harden, and most military software has been tested for years on existing hardware rather than rewritten for newer chips. //
If the objective was to hamstring China’s economy, it has failed. The chip ban undoubtedly imposed severe costs on China, which is attempting to reinvent large parts of the semiconductor supply chain at high cost. But China can recompense itself for those costs by turning excess supply into a vehicle to dominate semiconductor markets globally in the not-too-distant future.
Americans imagine that inside every Chinese person an American is struggling to get out. But China is different, so different that the categories of Western political science are meaningless. China will not change because we think it should, or because we want it to, or because we exhort the Chinese to embrace the benefits of democracy and free markets. If it changes, it will do so very slowly. We shall have to deal with China as it is, and has been for thousands of years. We can demonstrate the superiority of our system with economic growth, technological innovation, and military strength—although we haven’t done so of late. We can show that our ways are better—when we stick to our ways—and set an example. But we can’t change China by preaching to the Chinese.
China’s unique geographic conditions required from antiquity a centralized tax system to fund infrastructure and a centralized bureaucracy to administer it. It never persuaded the peoples it absorbed into the Chinese empire to speak a common language or to confess the same religion. Ethnicity has no role in Chinese statehood. //
When Chinese dynasties failed, either because of internal corruption or natural disaster, bandit rebellions replaced them. China has no hereditary aristocracy, unlike Europe, because the new dynasty levels the ground that preceded it. The Communist Party of China arose as a bandit rebellion in China’s classic historical pattern, and governs as a new incarnation of China’s ancient Mandarin caste. In place of the old Mandarin exam based on Chinese classics, China now has the gaokao, the fearsome university entrance exam. The biggest difference between today’s Communists and the old Mandarins is that the CCP is larger and more comprehensive, with nearly 100 million members.
China’s Emperor is not a revered demigod on the Japanese model, or an anointed sovereign claiming divine right, but simply the one ruler whose job it is to prevent all the other would-be rulers from killing each other. He is Lucky Luciano, the capo di capi whose function is to keep the peace among the underbosses who fear him more than they fear each other. And, to extend the metaphor, the CCP is Marxist in the same way the Mafia is Catholic; both organizations take their ideology seriously, although its practical significance is limited. The Chinese people therefore don’t love their emperor, any more than rank-and-file Mafia soldiers love the capo. They say resignedly, “Without an emperor, we’d kill each other.” And that is just what they have done in the tragic periods when imperial dynasties collapsed.
Foreign Minister Wang Yi conveyed the message in a phone call Friday, their first conversation since Marco Rubio’s confirmation as President Donald Trump’s top diplomat four days earlier.
“I hope you will act accordingly,” Wang told Rubio, according to a Foreign Ministry statement, employing a Chinese phrase typically used by a teacher or a boss warning a student or employee to behave and be responsible for their actions.
The short phrase seemed aimed at Rubio’s vocal criticism of China and its human rights record when he was a U.S. senator, which prompted the Chinese government to put sanctions on him twice in 2020. //
This may be a tempest in a teapot. Chairman Xi has met and engaged with President Trump before; the two men know each other, and while Xi may be a Communist, he's not stupid. He knows what to expect from President Trump, and the same applies in return.
But no official, minor or otherwise, in China speaks out of turn without reason. We can assume that Wang Yi delivered this veiled warning at Chairman Xi and the CCP's direction; it's a statement of policy. And, we might note, China has slapped sanctions on U.S. government officials in the past, including Texas' Senator Ted Cruz (R) - and then-Senator Marco Rubio (R-FL).
China knows they have a new American president to deal with. They know what to expect. But it's important to note that China has, through its long history, considered itself the Middle Kingdom, placed between heaven and earth, and despite the strictures of communism, that's still a common way of thinking in China. And while China is, as I'm continually pointing out, a land of great momentum rather than a land of great ideas, they are also a land and a people that take the long view. We think of our history in terms of hundreds of years; China thinks in terms of thousands; they know that sooner or later America will again have a weak leader. We have, after all, had two weak presidents in the last quarter-century. //
OrneryCoot
14 hours ago
We need to take China very seriously. We need to seriously bring them to heel regarding spy balloons, forced technology transfer, election interference, hacking of private and public domains, fentanyl, and unfair trade practices. My hope is that we curb stomp those a$$h0!e$ over that and all of their other aggressive actions. Take them seriously. Seriously enough to fully and purposefully respond to all of their belligerent and dangerous actions, in a way that leaves no room for misunderstanding. Screw China. We saved their butts from the Japanese in WWII, and they have repaid us for the last 80 years with nothing but antagonism, up and to the point of sending troops to fight our soldiers in combat. Give them what they so richly deserve.
James Hopf
@HopfJames
An Indiana bill would create a pilot program to build two SMRs in the state. The bill would also allow tech companies to share the cost (i.e., finance the project), so that ratepayers would not have to foot the entire bill. Article link in reply.
So far, tech/datacenter companies have only been interested in long-term power purchase agreements (PPAs) where they buy the power at a fixed (and often generous) price. They haven't expressed interest in financing reactor projects (which would expose them to financial risk).
What if the particles we hunt for in high-energy physics laboratories—those fleeting fragments of matter and energy—aren’t just out there, waiting to be found, but are, in some way, created by the very act of looking? The anomalon particle, first observed as an inexplicable anomaly in nuclear physics experiments, might not just be a curiosity of nature but a profound clue to a deeper truth: that consciousness itself could shape the physical world. This provocative idea finds its most compelling champion in the late Robert G. Jahn, a visionary physicist who spent decades exploring the mysterious interplay between mind and matter.
On Monday night, over the course of around 4 hours, about 225 Jan6 inmates were summarily released from custody in 40 or more BOP facilities.
When there was some reluctance/resistance to those releases happening late at night on federal holiday, the word went out -- I know because I had something to do with that -- for staff to come into the facilities and process the necessary paperwork.
So, the idea that some number of J6 defendants were "lost" or "overlooked" or "hidden" is must stupidity of the highest level.
DOC is not part of BOP. The J6 defendants at DOC were housed under a contract with the US Marshal Service. They dont work for Pres. Trump like BOP works for Pres. Trump. He can't fire them for not doing their job when told like he can fire BOP workers for not doing their job when told.
That's why BOP snapped to when told to do so on Monday night.
Some number of J6 defendants at DOC had "detainers" -- an electronic "hold" that says "Before this person is released pleas contact _____ -- which is usually a state or county prosecutor. That means the person is facing different charges somewhere else in the country. Could be federal too. They need to make a court appearance so that terms of bail can be resolved in that court. //
The incoming Trump Admin had it planned well enough to get 225 inmates released in 4 hours, filed more than 2000 court documents in 48 hours to resolve all charges against 1600 people, yet somehow the "Deep State" is "hiding" 10 people.
Think of it this way. Someone from Great Britain visiting the United States is subject to our laws while here, which is to say subject to our partial or territorial jurisdiction. He must drive on the right-hand side of the road rather than the left, for example. But he does not thereby owe allegiance to the United States; he is not subject to being drafted into our army; and he cannot be prosecuted for treason (as opposed to ordinary violations of law) if he takes up arms against the United States, for he has breached no oath of allegiance.
So which understanding of “subject to the jurisdiction” did the drafters of the 14th Amendment have in mind?
Happily, we don’t need to speculate, as they were asked that very question. They unambiguously stated that it meant “complete” jurisdiction, such as existed under the law at the time, the Civil Rights Act of 1866, which excluded from citizenship those born on U.S. soil who were “subject to a foreign power.”
Happily, we don’t need to speculate, as they were asked that very question. They unambiguously stated that it meant “complete” jurisdiction, such as existed under the law at the time, the Civil Rights Act of 1866, which excluded from citizenship those born on U.S. soil who were “subject to a foreign power.”
The Supreme Court confirmed that understanding (albeit in dicta) in the first case addressing the 14th Amendment, noting in The Slaughterhouse Cases in 1872 that “[t]he phrase, ‘subject to its jurisdiction’ was intended to exclude from its operation children of ministers, consuls, and citizens or subjects of foreign States born within the United States.” It then confirmed that understanding in the 1884 case of Elk v. Wilkins, holding that the “subject to the jurisdiction” phrase required that one be “not merely subject in some respect or degree to the jurisdiction of the United States, but completely subject to their political jurisdiction, and owing them direct and immediate allegiance.” John Elk, the Native American claimant in the case, did not meet that requirement because, as a member of an Indian tribe at his birth, he “owed immediate allegiance to” his tribe and not to the United States.
Thomas Cooley, the leading treatise writer of the era, also confirmed that “subject to the jurisdiction” of the United States “meant full and complete jurisdiction to which citizens are generally subject, and not any qualified and partial jurisdiction, such as may consist with allegiance to some other government.” More fundamentally, this understanding of the Citizenship Clause is the only one compatible with the consent of the governed principle articulated in the Declaration of Independence.
Prime Minister Frederiksen may not have left the call motivated to divest herself of Greenland, but she wasn't laughing about the seriousness of the situation.
Many European officials had hoped Trump's comments about seeking control of Greenland for national security reasons were a negotiating ploy to gain more control over an increasingly vital area as nuclear-powered ice breakers are making the fabled Northwest viable and Russia and China are both also jostling for position there. Greenland is sparsely populated and would be an ideal target for China's "elite capture" strategy, which they have aggressively pursued in suborning island nations in the Pacific. Quite honestly, Denmark is only a little less vulnerable than Greenland to China buying it outright. //
The Euros and the New York Times have concluded that Trump is deadly serious.
I think Trump is largely right in his assessment. //
Quite honestly, I don't see how Greenland could sustain independence in the face of a concerted Chinese effort to establish control (Vitkor Orban's Hungary allows uniformed Chinese police in Budapest). Our free association model is also showing weakness as China exerts influence there. The best arrangement would seem to be declaring Greenland to be a commonwealth (like Puerto Rico) or a territory (like Guam and the Virgin Islands). But no matter how it arrives, I think Greenland's internal politics, which has had the right to declare independence since 2009 and that option is favored by 64 percent of the population, and the geopolitics of our competition with China indicate that Greenland becoming US territory is inevitable. //
j. o. lantern
4 hours ago
I think one of Trump's least appreciated abilities is his awareness of strategic considerations in our national interest. Even here in Red State forums, he was being roundly derided for being distracted and off course when he began speaking about Greenland and the Panama Canal. I maintained then and still do that he was seeing the Big Picture, that hardly anyone else did.
anon-tk7z j. o. lantern
2 hours ago
he IS the Big Picture. We each think a piece of what he is thinking. He pulls them all together into the American Flag. He is helping us to weave the New Glory. //
surfcat50
4 hours ago
“The Guardian cites former Obama administration climate adviser Alice Hill, who observes: “It’s ironic that we are getting a president who famously called climate change a hoax but is now expressing interest in taking over areas gaining greater importance because of climate change.””
What’s ironic is a “climate advisor” who thinks America’s strategic interest in Greenland is because of climate change when we occupied the place in WWII to keep the NAZIs from controlling it, protected it during the Cold War to keep the Soviets from controlling it, and now want to keep the ChiComs from controlling it!
j. o. lantern
4 hours ago
The guy is a billionaire and still relates to average Americans as one normal human being talking with another. There isn't a Democrat in the whole country, that I am aware of at least, who can even come close to doing that. And even more damning, I don't see any Democrats who are even aware of their inability to relate to the guy and gal on the street. And better yet, from what I am seeing, Melania Trump seems to have the same ability, and is going to use it far more than she did the first term.
Citing President Trump's executive order Ending The Weaponization Of The Federal Government, Donald Trump's Department of Justice ordered all federal prosecution under the Free Access to Clinic Entrances (FACE) Act be dropped immediately. "[F]uture abortion-related FACE Act prosecutions and civil actions will be permitted only in extraordinary circumstances, or in cases presenting significant aggravating factors, such as death, serious bodily harm, or serious property damage." In addition to invoking a new set of rules, the memo titled "FACE ACT CHARGING POLICY" orders a moratorium on any future FACE Act prosecutions without the permission of the Assistant Attorney General for Civil Rights.
This is an incredible volte-face by a Justice Department that only a month ago was happily slamming pro-life activists with felony convictions and prison time for minor infractions of the FACE Act. According to reports, the Biden Department of Justice (DOJ) has charged approximately 60 individuals with FACE Act violations, a sharp rise compared to fewer than 100 cases in the law's first 26 years. Only five of these prosecutions were directed against pro-abortion terrorists and groups. As the memo states: "This is not the even-handed administration of justice." //
This follows up on President Trump's pardon of 23 pro-life activists Thursday;
President Trump summarily dismissed 17 agency inspectors general Friday night in a move that caught official Washington by surprise.
The inspectors general were dismissed via emails from the White House Presidential Personnel Office, with no notice sent to lawmakers on Capitol Hill, who have pledged bipartisan support for the watchdogs, in advance of the firings, the person said. The emails gave no substantive explanation for the dismissals, with at least one citing “changing priorities” for the move, the person added. //
I'm sure this is heading to court, and it is a good bet that the Supreme Court will eventually decide that Congress can't put that kind of leash on the president's ability to fire a presidential appointee.
This move is curious. If it isn't simply an impulsive act, the Trump White House may be using this court case to audition arguments that can be used on another Congressional "permission" case, like a challenge to the Impoundment Control Act of 1974. //
NavyVet
7 hours ago
If IGs "are supposed to root out fraud, waste, abuse, and lawbreaking" they were an abysmal failure during Biden's term. Fraud, waste, abuse, and lawbreaking were rampant and they did nothing of note to stop it.
Senator Elizabeth Warren, Democrat of Massachusetts, said in a statement. “President Trump is dismantling checks on his power and paving the way for widespread corruption.”
Oh, that's rich. After four years of the brazen fraud, waste, abuse, and lawbreaking of the Biden Crime Family, and his entire "administration", she wants to claim it's Trump? Classic!
It wasnt me NavyVet
6 hours ago
IG's need to be their own Department.
An IG can't start a prosecution. They have to go to the DOJ. The DOJ requires the FBI to also investigate.
So no real prosecutions can happen to the DOJ or the FBI.
They need their own prosecutors and able to empanel their own Grand Juries.
It's already difficult enough with Qualified Immunity and the Thin Blue Line.
Musicman
6 hours ago
The whole idea of an inspector general is constitutionally suspect. Whose job is it to investigate malfeasance by the executive branch? Congress! The reason IG’s have been created is a combination of the failure of Congress and the refusal by executive offices to provide evidence requested, sometimes even subpoenaed, by Congress. And the refusal of the DOJ to enforce Congressional subpoenas, and punish those who disobey them.
We don’t need IG’s, we need Congress to do it’s job and have the power to appoint investigators who have unfettered access to Executive Branch materials, computer systems and documents so that no Administration of either Party can stonewall investigations.
The Department of Education announced Friday that it had eliminated the Biden-created office of "book ban coordinator" and the supporting office. This office was created in June 2023 in response to many school districts removing age-inappropriate and sexually explicit books from school libraries. //
The director of the "book ban coordinator" office, a gay progressive activist, solicited complaints from activists and threatened school districts with lawsuits by the Department of Education's Office of Civil Rights. That all ended on Friday.
On January 17, 1961, in this farewell address, President Dwight Eisenhower warned against the establishment of a "military-industrial complex."
In a speech of less than 10 minutes, on January 17, 1961, President Dwight Eisenhower delivered his political farewell to the American people on national television from the Oval Office of the White House. Those who expected the military leader and hero of World War II to depart his Presidency with a nostalgic, "old soldier" speech like Gen. Douglas MacArthur's, were surprised at his strong warnings about the dangers of the "military-industrial complex."
As President of the United States for two terms, Eisenhower had slowed the push for increased defense spending despite pressure to build more military equipment during the Cold War’s arms race. Nonetheless, the American military services and the defense industry had expanded a great deal in the 1950s. Eisenhower thought this growth was needed to counter the Soviet Union, but it confounded him. Though he did not say so explicitly, his standing as a military leader helped give him the credibility to stand up to the pressures of this new, powerful interest group. He eventually described it as a necessary evil.
A vital element in keeping the peace is our military establishment. Our arms must be mighty, ready for instant action, so that no potential aggressor may be tempted to risk his own destruction. . . . American makers of plowshares could, with time and as required, make swords as well. But now we can no longer risk emergency improvisation of national defense; we have been compelled to create a permanent armaments industry of vast proportions. . . . This conjunction of an immense military establishment and a large arms industry is new in the American experience. . . .Yet we must not fail to comprehend its grave implications. . . . In the councils of government, we must guard against the acquisition of unwarranted influence, whether sought or unsought, by the military-industrial complex. The potential for the disastrous rise of misplaced power exists and will persist.
The decision to move troops to the border is superb, both in adding resources to an overstretched Border Patrol and in the symbolic message it sends. To make this deployment truly effective, it must work under a headquarters equipped to carry out the mission. Dumping yet another mission on a headquarters with a vast area of operations and a law enforcement focus doesn't seem like the best way to go. //
Laocoön of Troy
13 hours ago edited
"... Former RedStater Colonel (ret.) Mike Ford has an excellent solution to the problem. The US Army already has a logistics headquarters that is battle-tested, structured, and staffed for precisely this mission.
A Theater Sustainment Command (TSC) is an Army logistics headquarters commanded by a 2-Star General. When augmented with the appropriate subordinate commands, it is capable of providing logistical support to over 300,000 personnel. ..."
You sold me. Col Ford is on his game as always. TSC it is.
HOMAN: We're gonna take a lot of hate, we're going to be sued. Every day, numerous times.
I think you'll see the left try to control the media. They're going to show the first crying female, the first crying child. Say how inhumane we are. But, they won't talk about the 340,000 children that they've failed to take care of. They're not gonna talk about the young women who've been murdered in this country at the hands of criminal cartels.
Although much of the buzz around ‘Wicked’ has focused on ‘queering,’ it is the concepts of propaganda and tyranny that drive the film. //
Not everything is hunky-dory in Oz. Here, animals are persecuted for their differences and put in cages to prevent them from learning to speak. Elphaba has a strong sense of justice to speak for the voiceless and decides to visit the one and only Wizard of Oz to fix the problem.
To her dismay, the Wizard (played brilliantly by Jeff Goldblum) is a fraud. Elphaba is invited to his castle to create flying monkeys that will be perfect “spies in the sky.” Scheming together with Morrible, the Wizard tells Elphaba that dissent will not be tolerated.
“When I first got here,” says the Wizard, “there was discord. There was discontent. And back where I come from, everybody knows that the best way to bring folks together is to give them a real good enemy.”
“We’re doing this to keep people safe,” Morrible says, in turn. We’ve heard that one before. Many things have been done “for the security of the state,” and they are never good.
Although slightly bumbling (in a very Jeff Goldblum way), the Wizard is nevertheless manipulative. Goldblum’s Wizard oscillates between a P.T. Barnum figure and a dictator with Morrible at his side. It is Morrible who is responsible for spreading lies about Elphaba. It is Morrible who names her the Wicked Witch and says she must be destroyed. Morrible effectively begins the propaganda campaign against Elphaba, exploiting her physical differences with the intent of crushing her free will.
The people of Oz accept it because they’ve already been living in a society that has kept them artificially happy, as long as they don’t ask questions. They are living in an illusion, in Plato’s cave, and the shadows are their reality. They are weak and would rather blame an external factor for their problems rather than take responsibility for their actions (or lack thereof). In other words, they have made themselves into slaves and require a dictator to exist.
Propaganda is a powerful tool, and we have seen this phenomenon throughout many totalitarian systems, even in soft, shape-shifting totalitarian impulses in the United States. In some ways, the ideological lie becomes worse in nations that fundamentally and foundationally resist tyranny. But it is precisely this contrast between freedom and small acts of tyranny that are insidious. People can be “asleep” through many different means, but it always includes a refusal to see the truth because then one must act. In “Wicked,” Glinda opts for an existential blindfold. The alleged goodness she embodies is nothing more than an affectation.
“Wicked” is not an excellent film. At times, it meanders and is sensory overload by virtue of being a musical. But in the final moments of the film, the larger idea is revealed: What is reality? Do we possess free will to choose truth over a lie?
In the final song, “Defying Gravity,” Elphaba sings that if she’s “flying solo,” then “at least, [she’s] flying free.” Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn has identified “the simplest, the most accessible key to our liberation” as “a personal nonparticipation in lies!” Elphaba could have chosen to be part of the Wizard’s machine, but that means she would be living by lies.