Republican Glenn Youngkin defeats Democrat Terry McAuliffe in high-stakes Virginia governor’s election

Glenn Youngkin defeated Democrat Terry McAuliffe in Virginia’s gubernatorial election. Tuesday’s race was the biggest test of President Joe Biden and his party’s strength since Democrats won back the White House in November 2020 and the Senate in January.

McAuliffe, a longtime fixture of Democratic politics, got his start raking in eye-popping sums as a fundraiser for former President Bill Clinton in the late 1990s. After stints as chair of the Democratic National Committee and co-chair of Hillary Clinton’s 2008 presidential campaign, McAuliffe served one term as Virginia’s governor from 2014 to 2018.

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October Gun Sales Second Highest On Record

The number of firearms flying off of store shelves may have slowed a bit compared to the blistering pace set back in the summer of 2020, but gun sales are still well above their historical averages according to the National Shooting Sports Foundation. The firearm industry trade group has released its adjusted NICS figures for the month of October, and they’re pretty eye-popping.

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Taiwan and a Nuclear Deterrent

It’s no longer out of the question, particularly if the U.S. can no longer be relied upon.

Perceived American weakness and a shift in the regional balance of power in the East Asian-Pacific littoral may result in the restart of a Taiwanese nuclear weapons program designed to serve as the ultimate deterrent to a Communist Chinese attack or invasion. We have been here before.

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If China Controls Taiwan’s Chip Manufacturers, It Will Control The World

If Americans think the shortage of cars due to chip supply issues is bad, then consider what it would mean if the U.S. military were deprived of the advanced chips required for its arsenal of war equipment. It’s a real possibility as the world’s largest and most advanced semiconductor manufacturers sit precariously, approximately 100 miles off the coast of communist China on the island of Taiwan.

In total, Taiwanese companies supply 63 percent of global semiconductors, compared with 12 percent by U.S. manufacturers. Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co. (TSMC) alone provides over half the world’s made-to-order chips, and an estimated 90 percent of advanced processors.

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How hard will America squeeze its billionaires?

The rich are getting richer — but a political backlash is brewing

In America, millionaires and billionaires aren’t just tolerated, they’re celebrated. But that could be changing.

Thanks to surging stock values and other factors, the rich are now getting richer at truly jaw dropping rate. Earlier this week it was reported that Elon Musk made $36 billion in a single day. 

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Why is the US still in Syria?

A week ago, US troops camped out in the small, dusty Syrian outpost of al-Tanf suddenly found themselves under a “deliberate and coordinated attack“, as multiple explosive-laden drones barreled toward their positions. According to US officials who spoke to the AP on background, Iran “resourced and encouraged” the latest drone attack targeting US forces. The five drones were also reportedly Iranian-manufactured, leading to speculation that Tehran is testing the Biden administration at a time when nuclear negotiations between the US and Iran remain in limbo.

Fortunately, US troops managed to defuse the drone attack without suffering any casualties. But the near-miss was still deeply troubling, for it again illustrated the extremely dangerous environment in which nearly 1,000 US forces in Syria are operating.

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Just the Beginning: Ten Afghan Evacuees Detained as National Security Risks

The Biden administration is giving America gifts that will keep on giving for generations to come, and one of the foremost of these gifts is the newly-arrived group of Afghan evacuees: 70,000 are now in the U.S., and the total number is expected to exceed 124,000 before long. One of Biden’s handlers, unnamed in a Wednesday Wall Street Journal report, has admitted that ten of these evacuees have already been detained as risks to national security. Only ten out of 70,000 isn’t bad, right? Sure. But Biden’s handlers’ catastrophic mishandling of the withdrawal from Afghanistan makes it virtually certain that there will be many more.

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Canada urged Biden to drop a ‘Buy American’ idea. Seems he’s sticking to it

A long-awaited announcement from U.S. President Joe Biden is going to make some Canadians unhappy.

Biden released updated highlights of his key budget plan Thursday and it includes language Ottawa has been urging against: a Buy American-type provision for the auto sector.

It involves a tax credit for U.S.-made cars that the Canadian government describes as potentially damaging, and also illegal under international trade law.

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Better pronoun usage won’t help US counter hypersonic missiles, congressman says, urging intelligence to focus on security threats

The US intelligence community’s focus on “woke obsessions” like “pronoun etiquette” and “white rage” has affected its ability to effectively tackle national security challenges, congressman Devin Nunes (R-California) warned.

During a House Intelligence Committee hearing Wednesday on diversity in the security agencies, the committee’s ranking member cautioned that the “utterly destructive” politicization of America’s national security apparatus had “severely eroded trust” in its institutions and distracted from its mission to counter the “international threat matrix.”

Noting that this “tendency” had also been seen in the military, State Department and other agencies, Nunes said the country’s enemies would not “take a time out” while national security agencies were “enthralled by critical race theory and pronoun etiquette.” He suggested that woke ideas were the “proper jurisdiction of faculty lounge Marxists.”


See – Chinese missile launch very concerning, says top US general

The top US general has said China’s suspected hypersonic missile test is close to a Sputnik moment, referring to the Soviet satellite launch that sparked a Cold War arms race.

Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Mark Milley said in an interview with Bloomberg News that the Chinese military was “expanding rapidly”.

The Financial Times reports that the test stunned the US military.

Beijing denies any missile test, saying instead it was a spacecraft.

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America Gone Mad

A report from abroad: Knowledgeable British and Europeans not only do not think America is back, they think it has gone

After three weeks in Europe and extensive discussions with dozens of well-informed and highly placed individuals from most of the principal Western European countries, including leading members of the British government, I have the unpleasant duty of reporting complete incomprehension and incredulity at what Joe Biden and his collaborators encapsulate in the peppy but misleading phrase, “We’re back.”

As one eminent elected British government official put it, “They are not back in any conventional sense of that word. We have worked closely with the Americans for many decades and we have never seen such a shambles of incompetent administration, diplomatic incoherence, and complete military ineptitude as we have seen in these nine months. We were startled by Trump, but he clearly knew what he was doing, whatever we or anyone else thought about it. This is just a disintegration of the authority of a great nation for no apparent reason.”

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General Says U.S. Intel Report on Risks of Doing Business With China ‘Doesn’t Go Far Enough’

He said that we should ensure the U.S. corporate sector is acting in accord with American interests.

On Thursday, the National Counterintelligence and Security Center, which is part of the Office of Director of National Intelligence, issued a report warning American companies about the risks of doing business with Chinese firms in five critical industries: artificial intelligence, bioeconomy, quantum information science and technology, semiconductors, and autonomous systems.

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Why Is America Financing the Chinese War Machine?

Historians who have studied the decline and fall of great modern empires must be queasy these days.

Many have chronicled how a once mighty China lost its sovereignty to colonial powers during the early years of the 20th Century. Their enfeebled empress and a humbled military were swept aside by a European coalition of nations only to find that China was to become the bloody prize of Japanese generals whose forces raped and massacred their way to Beijing.

The West may not remember this “sideshow” of World War II and many Japanese still decline to acknowledge their legacy, but the Chinese remember.

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Chinese Agent Accused of Recruiting Spies to Steal US Aircraft Tech Stands Trial

A historic federal espionage trial against a Chinese intelligence agent started in Cincinnati, Ohio on Oct. 18. The agent, named Yanjun Xu, has been charged with recruiting spies to steal tech from U.S. aviation and aerospace firms.

According to the prosecutors, the Chinese regime was attempting to steal know-how from American aircraft companies, particularly from Evendale-based GE Aviation, with the intent of replicating turbine engines, reported local news channel WCPO.

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Simmering Canada-U.S. trade dispute erupts into the open

Under Trudeau Canada has ceased to exist.

An emerging trade irritant between Canada and the United States that had been quietly simmering for months has now bubbled into the open.

The Canadian government sent a letter to nearly a dozen senior U.S. officials Friday expressing dismay over an idea being considered in a key American budget bill.

As reported last week by CBC News, Canadian officials have been concerned about a Buy American-type proposal they fear might disrupt the auto sector.

 

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