You Cannot Make This UP: DC Wants to Remove...the Washington Monument
I know we’re all talking about Joe Biden’s speech in Pittsburgh, which once again showed that his mind has devolved into applesauce, along with the leftist riots that continue to engulf the nation, but we have new political correctness news. Apparently, a DC committee convened by Mayor Muriel Bowser has recommended that the Washington Monument, among other federal memorials in the city, should be marked for removal, relocation, or contextualization. No, you cannot make this up (via WaPo):
A committee reporting to D.C. Mayor Muriel E. Bowser recommends renaming dozens of public schools, parks and government buildings in the nation’s capital, after studying the historical namesakes’ connections to slavery and oppression.
The honorees whom the committee says should not have public works named for them include presidents Thomas Jefferson, James Monroe, Andrew Jackson, William Henry Harrison, John Tyler, Zachary Taylor and Woodrow Wilson; Revolutionary leader Benjamin Franklin; inventor Alexander Graham Bell; and national anthem writer Francis Scott Key.
“We believe strongly that all District of Columbia owned public spaces, facilities and commemorative works should only honor those individuals who exemplified those values such as equity, opportunity and diversity that DC residents hold dear,” the committee’s chairs, Bowser advisor Beverly Perry and public library director Richard Reyes-Gavilan, wrote in a letter introducing their report.
This is crap. Pure and simple. This is about the erasure of American history, so for all those folks who decided to sit out and let these clowns take down Confederate statues because these were bad, bad people, well, this was the only logical conclusion of that push. It was never about the Confederacy. This is about our history, our founding, and the Left’s prolonged attempt to wipe it away and rewrite it through an insane woke lens. And whether we like it or not, the Confederacy is part of American history. In fact, it’s a huge part, being that the civil war was probably one of the most moral conflicts this nation ever fought. Also, the Confederacy produced some of the finest military officers this nation ever produced.
But attacking them was just the first salvo with regards to their real target: Washington, Jefferson, Franklin,and the rest of the Founding Fathers.
As candidate Joe Biden refuses to answer media questions, President Donald Trump continues holding press conferences and extensive sit down interviews. Tonight President Trump was interviewed by Laura Ingraham.
Biden may believe mouthing the words 'law and order' makes him strong, but his failure to call on elected officials in his own party to stop allowing murder and looting in the cities they run shows you how weak he is.
Now that polls won’t let them ignore the rioting, looting, murder, and arson this summer in Democrat-run American cities, openly cheered on by leftists like the Pulitzer Prize-winning New York Times author Nikole Hannah-Jones, Democrats have made a hard pivot to — what else? — “Blame Trump.”
Biden just made Democrats’ election subtext public. He said the quiet part loud: The chaos will continue until voters pick Democrats.
Democrats have been saying this implicitly ever since Trump won the election, of course. They have been the agents of chaos in the streets, in the administrative agencies, in the courts, and in the Congress. Democrats are the ones who said “impeach!” the second the ballots came out against them. They are the ones who used federal spy powers to subvert an American election before it happened, and then after.
They are the ones who have been urging an unlawful and immoral “resistance” to the policies voters chose in 2016, standing athwart the electorate yelling “Stop!” Refusing to carry out the orders of an elected president, telling the president he may not do precisely the same things his predecessor did, filing lawsuit after lawsuit after complaint after records request — Democrats have made their refusal to abide by the social compact that prevents war by using words, persuasion, and elections crystal clear.
When that didn’t work, they started breaking things and attacking innocent civilian bystanders. When Rep. Maxine Waters encouraged mob violence against people for the crime of supporting Donald Trump, Joe Biden didn’t sternly warn her to stop. When the Democrat mayor of Washington DC didn’t provide enough police to keep historic monuments safe from fires and defacement, and elderly people and U.S. senators safe from mobs of politically motivated rioters, Joe Biden didn’t stand up and demand equal protection under the law for peaceful civilians to attend presidential speeches no matter their political beliefs.
When the openly socialist and Marxist Antifa and Black Lives Matter organizations took to the streets demanding that police stop protecting lives and property so they could loot, and when they set fire to police stations and blinded police with lasers for three months while Democrat majors and governors refused federal assistance, Joe Biden didn’t tell them to stop. He invited socialists like Sen. Bernie Sanders and Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez to define his policy platform in an effort to reach out to the extremist wing of his party and capture their support.
But now, when the TV cameras are begrudgingly rolling because Americans are scared out of their minds at a taste of what happens when you defund the police, in the safety of broad daylight protected by the Secret Service, Biden says Trump “may believe mouthing the words law and order makes him strong, but his failure to call on his own supporters to stop acting as an armed militia in this country shows you how weak he is.” Brave man, Joe Biden.
Apply Biden’s metric to Biden, and it rings far truer: “He may believe mouthing the words law and order makes him strong, but his failure to call on officials in his own party who command police and the National Guard to stop allowing murder and looting in the cities they run shows you how weak he is.”
Democrats have spent the last four years holding the nation hostage because enough voters didn’t agree with them in 2016 to tip them the presidential election. We haven’t had a proper federal budget passed in 20 years. We have an aging welfare state set to bankrupt this entire country in the near future, and with it the entire world. We have education systems that breed hatred for the country that funds them. We have the highest rate of broken families in American history, and opioid, suicide, and foster care epidemics. We have a completely unaccountable bureaucracy constantly oppressing millions of Americans. We oversee a legalized genocide of the unborn.
This nation is in sore need of governance. Even just a basic “pay your bills” sort of governance, nothing fancy, would be a billion times better than the rising chaos at all levels of our society.
But Democrats aren’t interested in governance, or in allowing governance to even happen. They’re too busy holding the nation hostage to their four-year psychosis over losing an election. Every single massive fake news cycle of the past four years has been a variation on this same hostage situation: Russiagate, Michael Flynn, impeachment, the Supreme Court, the Resistance, coronavirus shutdowns, and now the rioting.
The mafia thug threatening your daughter or business says he won’t shoot or loot if you just pay the protection fee. But if you pay that fee, next time it will be twice as high. The correct way to respond to a shakedown is by gathering up a posse and fighting back until you’ve brought the criminals to justice or scared them off for good.
The thing about criminals is, they’re cowards. If you put up a fight, they’ll run.
The
other day I saw a tweet where a person described that when they find
out someone they know personally supports Trump, they lose all respect
for them instantly. I liked the tweet and retweeted it, but stopped
short of sharing it on Instagram.
Why?
I suppose it’s
because, like the author of the tweet, I also know Trump supporters in
real life. They already know I think Trump is gross, and they know that I
frequently criticize Trump supporters as a group. But I’ve hesitated to
tell them directly that I’ve lost respect for them individually.
But
I woke up this morning, read reports of the final night of the
Republican National Convention — an event where hundreds of federal
employees broke many laws — grew deeply angry, and now my hesitation is
gone.
Boy is it. She invites Trump supporters to get the hell off her blog:
It
makes me sick to my stomach that you, a Trump supporter, ever read or
watch or listen to anything I’ve created. This is true even if I know
you in real life.
I see what you are trying to do. You want me to
treat you like a decent human being. But you are not behaving like a
decent human being.
A decent person doesn’t align themself with people who are proudly racist and who insist America doesn’t have a racism problem.
A
decent person doesn’t align themself with people who believe viral
right-wing stories on Facebook over trained journalists, who think Q is
real, who think the pandemic is fake, who think the earth is flat.
A
decent person doesn’t align themself with people who weep and faint
over celebrity-child-trafficking-rings that don’t exist, but support the
ICE family separations at the border that actually lead to child
trafficking.
A decent person knows what it feels like to do a job
and not get paid, and recognizes that Trump is first and foremost a
con-man, liar, and thief.
A decent person knows and acknowledges that Trump only looks out for himself.
A
decent person knows Trump raped a 13-year-old, has read her description
of the rape, has read all the other accounts of Trump sexually
assaulting girls and women, and never forgets Trump is a rapist who has
never had to face consequences for his assaults.
I see you.
Especially my fellow white women. You want to read what interesting
people are reading, you want to see good movies, you want to know what
the designers and artists are creating.
But you don’t want anyone to know you are voting for Trump.
You
don’t like when people you follow talk politics. You say it’s because
you want to “focus on the positive.” But really, it’s because it reminds
you of your Trump shame.
You want to vote for Trump and experience no negative consequences.
But that’s not an option.
She goes on. And on:
Some of you will tell me you support Trump because of the stock market.
Well, that is certainly something a selfish a**hole would do.
A whopping 90% of Americans have no stake in the stock market. I’m one of them.
Gabrielle
Blair has done so well at her labors, and her husband works online too,
so she and her family can afford to live in Normandy, and take trips all over Europe,
which she documents on her blog! But she’s a woman of the people, you
know. Money doesn’t matter to her, she would have you know. I mean, good
for them — I would love to live in France, and heaven knows I’m the
last person in the world who has the right to criticize anybody for
documenting online the fun places they go. But it’s awfully rich telling
other Americans that they’re a bunch of money-grubbing haters because
they’re voting in their perceived economic interests.
Here’s more:
Another consequence of your actions? I have a deep desire to withhold my community and my creations from you.
Instagram
has data that could tell me exactly which of you support Trump. I wish
they would give me that data. I would block every single one of you.
My
Instagram followers request access to my life daily. You’re voting for
Trump and you want to know the source for my daughter’s dress? My answer
is: No. You want to know the paint color we chose for the attic
renovation? No. You want to participate in a parenting discussion on
Design Mom? No.
I want to shun you from my community.
If
gatherings were safely happening, I want you to be shunned from all
events hosted by decent people. No wedding invitations. No conference
tickets. No backyard barbecues.
I want decent event hosts to send you a card, explaining you are not invited because you are a Trump supporter.
I wish stores like Ikea and Target wouldn’t let you buy their products.
I wish your internet provider (who for sure knows you’ll be voting for Trump), would cut you off as a customer.
I
want to see you shunned by every person and organization that doesn’t
support Trump. No more access to their books, movies, products, music,
events, artists & influencers — till you are left with nothing but
Smashmouth concerts, and Ben Shapiro talking about his sex life.
Read it all, if you can bear to. What
an appalling, sanctimonious person. This Blair woman curates her
international design lifestyle, yet if you are a woman back in America
who lives in a trailer park, votes Trump, but also likes to read Design
Mom, well, she thinks you can go to hell. She thinks you should not be
permitted to participate in the economy, and shunned by society. She
doesn’t want you to look at her pictures of her life in France. She
probably wants to poke your eyes out with a salad fork to make sure you
can’t.
Design Mom thinks you Trump voters should be unpersonned. And there are people who still don’t understand what I mean by soft totalitarianism as a real possibility for America. Bougie women like Gabrielle Blair would be very happy to be commissars.
I
don’t like Trump either, but this is unhinged malice. Honestly, it is
becoming so clear that this political season is class warfare, disguised
as culture war. The reader who sent me the Design Mom link comments:
Her
blog used to focus mainly on design and family life, but over the
years, her blog has turned into her soapbox for woke politics. I stopped
following years ago, but occasionally check in to see what’s going on. …
The level of vitriol for anyone who doesn’t agree with her narrative is
disturbing and if that’s how people on the left feel, I don’t know how
we recover.
An academic friend told me today that he
knows professors who are lying to their colleagues about who they’re
going to vote for, because they believe their livelihoods will be at
risk if it were known that they are Trump supporters. This is America.
UPDATE:
Turns out that the comments under Design Mom’s blog are pure hathos!
They would turn any of us into a Cosimanian Orthodox. For example:
The bravest thing! To call Donald Trump’s supporters turds on the Internet. Give that mommy blogger a Victoria’s Cross.
More:
“Honey, Mia says we can’t come over to her barbecue this weekend, because we voted for Trump.”
“Oh, thank God!”
More:
“Thank you for venting unshirted rage, and thereby being the voice of reason” — uh, whut?
Oh law, now I’m going to have to go read Design Mom’s Irresponsible Ejaculation post. O Fortuna! It’s showtime at the Prytania!
Teenager Kyle Rittenhouse’s shooting of three men in Kenosha,
Wisconsin, has sharpened the debate between left and right over whether
rioting can be justly met with violence. Opinions about Rittenhouse’s
attempt to interpose himself and his AR-15 between rioters and buildings
in Kenosha have become entangled with beliefs about the relative value
of property versus people, a juxtaposition dishonestly advanced by the
left.
Writing in The Nation, R.H. Lossin captured the
Left’s point of view artfully, proclaiming: “Plateglass [sic] windows
don’t bleed. They don’t die and leave loved ones grieving. They don’t
contribute to the collective trauma and terror experienced by their
communities. They just break, and then, at some point, they are replaced
by identical sheets of glass.”
Leaving
aside her comical lack of curiosity about where, exactly, sheets of
glass come from, Lossin expresses a widespread sentiment, and it has a
certain indisputable logic: things are not, after all, people.
The response of too many on the right, unfortunately, has been to take the bait. They’re ably represented by National Review
editor Rich Lowry, who argued that the person-property distinction
neglects how people depend on their property for shelter and sustenance.
Destroy or steal it, and you inflict physical harm.
This
argument, while true, is the ante in a utilitarian shell game, wherein
we must weigh the value of property against the cost of harming someone
who wants to take it. Whether a store owner can resist people trying to
burn down his business suddenly turns on whether he has insurance. Or
his track record in the community, as when the author of the newly
released book, In Defense of Looting (on sale in soon-to-be
looted stores near you!) told NPR that small, locally owned businesses
don’t do enough for workers, and are therefore no more deserving of
protection than large chain stores. This property versus people framing
pushes conservatives into a losing corner: if you’re really pro-life,
how can you justify firing a shotgun at someone who just wants to smash a
window and take some of your stuff?
As with so many other
debates, conservatives lose the moment they adopt the left’s
materialism. What’s at stake in these riots is not property, but the
civic order. The most honest, ardent leftists admit as much. Looting is
imperative, writes R.H. Lossin, “not because property destruction has
any moral or political value in itself, but because it is coercive. It
is an actual threat to order and a very real threat to capital.”
Describing looting advocate Vicky Osterweil’s point of view, her fawning
NPR interviewer exclaims that rioters “are engaging in a powerful
tactic that questions the justice of ‘law and order,’ and the
distribution of property and wealth in an unequal society.”
This calls to mind Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn’s observation in The Red Wheel,
his history of the Russian revolution: “Revolutionary truths have a
great quality: even hearing them with their own ears, the doomed don’t
understand.”
While we quibble with a leftist intellectual vanguard
about the relative value of plate glass windows versus human life, mob
rule is being solidified as the new norm in our cities. The question is
not whether this should be met with force because of the inherent damage
it inflicts on property. The question is whether civil society is worth
preserving with violence.
This
question answers itself. When civil society disappears, individualized
violence is the only means of resolving disputes. In the state of
nature, red in tooth and claw, might makes right. Withdraw the police
long enough, and you get Kyle Rittenhouse. The shame of it is that so
many able-bodied men in Kenosha relied on a boy from Illinois to defend
their streets. The danger is that masses of them will begin to feel
similarly responsible for confronting hoodlums—as witnessed recently in
the streets of Portland.
Rittenhouse is, of course, the left’s
newest monster. The sleight of hand their spokesmen play, as they demand
his prosecution, is to assert a cardinal ordering of rights in which
personhood trumps property. But this can only arise out of the very
civic order they make no secret about wanting to destroy. The claim that
a carjacker’s life is worth more than my car depends for its
enforcement on an undergirding agreement about values and mutual
submission to democratic processes that enforce those values. Abolish
this order, and we each choose the restraints that suit us. Am I immoral
for shooting him? Who’s to say? The law? God? My carjacker has
abandoned the former, and now he’s free to seek redress with the latter.
No peace, no justice.
Violence is justified against marauders not
because of the relative value of property versus life, but because of
the essential purpose and fragile composition of civil society. For
centuries, we in the West have largely forsaken arms, trusting the state
to protect us and adjudicate our disputes. We’ve crafted a set of
democratic institutions to keep the state, in turn, at least somewhat
accountable. Most of us, at any given time, have a litany of complaints
about the results of our democratic processes, but this is itself proof
our civic order works fairly well. Now the left demands we sit idly by
while they smash that order, pleading a primacy of human life that only
finds actualization in its midst. They are “modern barbarians,”
according to political philosopher Willmoore Kendall, characterized by
“the wish to live off our Civilization and benefit from the commitments
it imposes upon others, but not live within them.”
“Any civil
authority,” Andrew Sullivan wrote recently, “that permits, condones or
dismisses violence, looting and mayhem in the streets disqualifies
itself from any legitimacy.” The appearance of a makeshift militia in
Kenosha, and MAGA truck caravans in Portland, suggests at least a few
Americans agree. What happens when thousands more decide they agree,
too? Absent courage on the part of elected officials to deploy
police—and give them appropriate leeway to use violence against the
violent—we will return to armed citizen militias. The Second Amendment
will once again be justified for a purpose many thought antiquated.
And
people will die. Many more will die, most likely, than would be the
case if our civil officials performed their chief duty. The question is
whether enough of them have the moral fortitude to do so. Or will they
stay cowering in their offices, persecuting a Kyle Rittenhouse when they
can, bleating that defenders are attackers, marauders are
demonstrators, and war is peace?
The Democratic Party’s media allies have pulled out all the stops in covering for their lackluster candidate Joe Biden this year. They ignored the gaffes, the racist comments, and the American cities on fire for months, but now the polls are shifting, and the panic is palpable.
The general consensus was Biden is ahead, and any ineptitude from him was irrelevant because simply the promise of “normalcy” was enough to beat Trump handily. The polls said so, of course.
But then Democrats failed to condemn, let alone even mention, the ongoing arson, riots, and violent crime at their convention two weeks ago. Only a few days after their convention, and in the middle of the Republican National Convention, Kenosha, Wisconsin broke out in all of the above, placing the GOP in the perfect position to paint Biden as an enabler of the radical left.
As the Biden campaign remained silent, The New York Times quickly realized the position Democrats were in, reporting “How Chaos in Kenosha Is Already Swaying Some Voters in Wisconsin.” They placed the blame squarely on “local Democratic leaders … failing to keep control of the situation.”
The Atlantic followed suit, publishing an op-ed titled “This Is How Biden Loses,” suggesting that a Trump win could be pinned on this specific event of violence spreading from cities to a quiet, blue-collar town. The flashbacks to the 2016 election map and the loss of Wisconsin began to sink in.
“Biden, then, should go immediately to Wisconsin, the crucial state that Hillary Clinton infamously ignored,” Atlantic Staff Writer George Packer wrote. “He should meet the Blake family and give them his support and comfort. He should also meet Kenoshans like the small-business owners quoted in the Times piece, who doubt that Democrats care about the wreckage of their dreams.”
As more violence escalated in Portland, Oregon Saturday night, resulting in a homicide, even MSNBC’s Joe Scarborough realized what uncontrolled chaos in the streets would mean for Biden’s poll numbers.
Then the media messaging began a laughably transparent pivot from “What violence?” to “Yes, violence exists, but it’s Trump’s fault.”
New York Times Columnist Nicholas Kristof said Trump not only wants the violence to continue, but that it was Trump himself who “incited violence and clashes from Kenosha to Portland.”
The Washington Post’s Jen Rubin said the quiet part loud, openly encouraging Democrats to adopt this same talking point.
“Democrats will not win by cowering in fear that Trump will blame them for the violence he provoked. They win by making the case that Trump has made America more violent and increased racial tension for his own political benefit,” she wrote Sunday.
The Democratic Party and corporate media are interchangeable, normally working in tandem to push the narrative of the day, but these nervous and painfully honest op-eds are the product of those inside a media bubble who tried their hardest to ignore Biden’s blunders until the polls tightened to a point they couldn’t ignore.
Watch this week as coverage of riots and protests drastically changes in real-time. After months assuming a Biden victory was inevitable, now they are begging him to visit Wisconsin, and assuring voters he condemns the riots (in a way that is sympathetic to Black Lives Matter, of course). The media wants to avoid the same debilitating shock and embarrassment they faced the day after Election Day in 2016. I’m not so sure this time will be any different.
Director Of National Intelligence John Ratcliffe Says He Has Filed Multiple ‘Crimes Reports’ Over Classified Leaks
John Ratcliffe, the director of national intelligence, said Sunday
he has filed multiple “crimes reports” regarding alleged leaks of
classified information to the media.
“When
I become aware of intelligence community information that is disclosed
unlawfully, I do what’s called a crimes report. I’ve done that now on a
number of occasions, and so those investigations are moving forward,”
Ratcliffe said on Fox News’s “Sunday Morning Futures.”
Ratcliffe
said that the timing of any prosecutions from the investigations “would
be something that the FBI would have to address.”
“I think that they will down the road,” he added.
Ratcliffe, who was confirmed to his current post on May 21, announced Saturday that he is revamping intelligence community briefings provided to Congress, citing a series of leaks of classified information to news outlets regarding Russia’s efforts to interfere in the 2020 election.
Ratcliffe
said he wants to avoid “a repeat of what happened a month ago,” a
reference to a briefing he gave to all members of Congress regarding
foreign governments’ efforts to interfere in American politics.
Ratcliffe
said that he asked lawmakers not to disclose any of the classified
information from the briefing, but he asserted that “within minutes of
that one of those briefings ending, a number of members of Congress went
to a number of different publications and leaked classified
information.”
He said that the leaks were “for political
purposes” to create what he said is a false narrative “that somehow
Russia is a greater national security threat than China.”
Ratcliffe’s
decision to limit election-related intelligence briefings prompted
outrage from Democrats who say that he is withholding information about
Russian meddling to provide political cover for President Donald Trump.
Ratcliffe
did not provide details about which leaks have spurred him to file
crimes reports. Republicans have long called on the Justice Department to more aggressively investigate leaks that sprung during the FBI and special counsel’s Trump-Russia investigations.
The Kenosha Wisconsin Police Department released an interesting media statement today highlighting that 60 percent of the Biden Rioters arrested are agitators who traveled from outside the area:
White House Press Secretary Kayleigh McEnany lit into reporters at Monday’s press briefing after being asked about a protest in Portland by the right-wing group “Patriot Prayer.” One reporter accused the group of shooting paintball guns during their demonstration.
“What about the video of them shooting paintballs at people?” a reporter asked the press secretary after she defended Trump retweeting a video of the initial pro-Trump caravan parading through Portland.
“I don’t think the president has seen that video, nor have I,” McEnany began.
But if you’re going to ask about paintballs, it’s incredible that for 90 days I’ve stood at this podium talking about officers who have lasers flashed in their eyes in an attempt to blind them, commercial grade fireworks being thrown at them. A church right out here burning down, the people that were harassed and yelled at, Senator Rand Paul, Dan Bongino right out here and you’re going to ask me about a paintball video when in fact, for 90 days we’ve seen horrific, horrific violence by Antifa, a radical anarchist organization, you’re going to ask me about a paintball video I have yet to see and neither has the president.
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McEnany’s criticism comes on the heels of yet another violent weekend of anarchic demonstrations gripping major cities, including Portland, which has now surpassed 95 days of consecutive rioting.
On Saturday, one member of the Portland-area “Patriot Prayer” group was fatally shot. The suspect in the shooting wrote in a June Instagram post “I am 100% Antifa.”
ODNI John Ratcliffe made an interesting, frightening & stunningly open direct statement yesterday when he described intelligence evidence that China is putting on a full-court press against governors and local officials to retain their influence campaign in 2020.
Essentially what DNI Ratcliffe described boils down to Beijing threatening economic blackmail against U.S. officials who were comfortable being reliant on local Chinese investment and purchases of U.S. companies, assents and interests.
With that stark statement in mind; and keeping the full national security ramifications in the forefront; it is worth remembering a foreboding speech given by Secretary of State Mike Pompeo in February.
This is specifically important now against the backdrop of how some U.S. politicians appear to be reacting to the COVID-19 challenges, perhaps even weaponizing the virus to achieve political objectives; and with a perspective toward the way media outlets, some businesses and many politicians appear to be influenced by China. The background context for this speech takes on an entirely new dimension.
Pompeo’s remarks were made to the National Governors Association (NGA) Feb 8, 2020; and there’s an interesting segment where Pompeo reveals his awareness of a list of U.S. governors compiled by China’s communist party; and their alignment with China’s interests. A transcript of the key excerpt from his speech is provided. WATCH:
[Transcript at 01:45] […] “Last year, I received an invitation to an event that promised to be, quote, “an occasion for exclusive deal-making.” It said, quote, “the opportunities for mutually beneficial economic development between China and our individual states [are] tremendous,” end of quote.”
“Deal-making sounds like it might have come from President Trump, but the invitation was actually from a former governor.
I was being invited to the U.S.-China Governors’ Collaboration Summit.
It was an event co-hosted by the National Governors Association and something called the Chinese People’s Association For Friendship and Foreign Countries. Sounds pretty harmless.
What the invitation did not say is that the group – the group I just mentioned – is the public face of the Chinese Communist Party’s official foreign influence agency, the United Front Work Department.
Now, I was lucky. I was familiar with that organization from my time as the director of the Central Intelligence Agency.
But it got me thinking.
How many of you made the link between that group and Chinese Communist Party officials?
What if you made a new friend while you were at that event?
What if your new friend asked you for introductions to other politically connected and powerful people?
What if your new friend offered to invest big money in your state, perhaps in your pension, in industries sensitive to our national security?
These aren’t hypotheticals. These scenarios are all too true, and they impact American foreign policy significantly.
Indeed, last year, a Chinese Government-backed think tank in Beijing produced a report that assessed all 50 of America’s governors on their attitudes towards China. They labeled each of you “friendly,” “hardline,” or “ambiguous.”
I’ll let you decide where you think you belong. Someone in China already has. Many of you, indeed, in that report are referenced by name.
So here’s the lesson: The lesson is that competition with China is not just a federal issue. It’s why I wanted to be here today, Governor Hogan. It’s happening in your states with consequences for our foreign policy, for the citizens that reside in your states, and indeed, for each of you.
And, in fact, whether you are viewed by the CCP as friendly or hardline, know that it’s working you, know that it’s working the team around you.
Competition with China is happening inside of your state, and it affects our capacity to perform America’s vital national security functions.” (Keep Reading)
At the time of the speech it certainly seemed like Secretary Pompeo and President Trump understood a list of China-friendly governors…. and this was at the very beginning of the COVID influence over the U.S. economy and 2020 election.
Remember, “There are trillions at stake”…
Axios had an article earlier this year which included the Chinese Communist Party Report [Cloud pdf Here] that Secretary Pompeo was describing in February.
When we originally shared the information CTH specifically noted the importance of watching how and when each of these governors responded to their economy when contrast against the COVID-19 narrative.
Specifically, and anticipating the value of COVID as a leftist weapon to achieve their political objectives, we asked: “will there be a correlation to how the states respond that is directly related to their CCP alignment?
It appears we have enough evidence to say yes, there is a connection. Review the list(s) yourself and make your own decision.
