Tag Archives: China

Chinese Leader’s Visit Stirs Memories

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This week’s visit to the United States by Chinese President Hu Jintao stirred memories of this blog’s coverage of the “Red Dragon” during the past four years.  Below, I share four of my favorite China-related editorial cartoons prepared by my liberal cartoonist friend David Donar at Political Graffiti.  Enjoy!

1) The cartoon above appeared Dec. 16, 2009, in the post, China Plays It Smart While Democrats Destroy:  What You Need to Know About Your Energy Future.  Sadly, things have gotten much worse in the energy sector since this was published.

2) This cartoon appeared Nov. 11, 2009, in the post, Did Obama Throw Tibetans Under the Bus? Unfortunately, it seems we’ve all been thrown under the bus.

3) This cartoon appeared Oct. 1, 2009, in the post, Which Country is Helping Iran Most? The answer is obvious, but Russia is running close behind in second place.

4) This cartoon appeared May 9, 2008, in the post, Flame in Hand, Chinese Conquer Everest.

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China Wields Power Via Rare Earth Elements

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If you are among the group of Americans who think we can simply increase tariffs on Chinese products or stop importing finished products and raw materials from China without experiencing painful repercussions, then you are wrong.  The two sentences below prove it:

At the present time, the United States obtains its Rare Earth Elements raw materials from foreign sources, almost exclusively from China. Import dependence upon a single country raises serious issues of supply security.

Those sentences appear in the U.S. Geological Survey Scientific Investigations Report 2010-5220, a document published barely a month after China quietly halted shipping some of its Rare Earth Elements (REEs) to the United States and Europe.

Aside from being key ingredients for manufacturing a plethora of products, REEs like scandium and promethium, for instance, play key roles in the production of components vital to the U.S. Navy submarine fleet.  And more than a dozen other REEs play key roles in other vital segments of the nation’s economy.

Now, more than ever, we need to “REE-assess” (pun intended) our nation’s dependence upon foreign sources of raw materials — from REEs to energy.  Failure to do so could doom future generations to speaking Chinese.

Stay tuned!

Are Communists Succeeding in Takeover of USA?

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Described as “an excerpt from “The Naked Communist” by Cleon Skousen,” the “1963 Communist Rules” consists of 45 tactics and objectives related to a gradual communist takeover of the United States.  They were entered into the Congressional Record Jan. 10, 1963, by U.S. Rep. Albert S. Herlong Jr., a Floridian who served in Congress from 1949 to 1969.

Read the rules (below), then post a comment if you recognize at least one that can be “checked off” by the Communists in our midst:

Click to download (pdf).

1) U.S. acceptance of coexistence as the only alternative to atomic war.

2) U.S. willingness to capitulate in preference to engaging in atomic war.

3) Develop the illusion that total disarmament by the U.S. would be a demonstration of “moral strength.”

4) Permit free trade between all nations regardless of Communist affiliation and regardless of whether or not items could be used for war.

5) Extension of long term loans to Russia and Soviet Satellites.

6) Provide American aid to all nations regardless of Communist domination.

7) Grant recognition of Red China, and admission of Red China to the U.N.

8) Set up East and West Germany as separate states in spite of Khrushchev’s promise in 1955 to settle the Germany question by free elections under supervision of the U.N.

9) Prolong the conferences to ban atomic tests because the U.S. has agreed to suspend tests as long as negotiations are in progress.

10) Allow all Soviet Satellites individual representation in the U.N.

11) Promote the U.N. as the only hope for mankind. If its charter is rewritten, demand that it be set up as a one world government with its own independent armed forces. (Some Communist leaders believe the world can be taken over as easily by the U.N. as by Moscow. Sometimes these two centers compete with each other as they are now doing in the Congo).

12) Resist any attempt to outlaw the Communist Party.

13) Do away with loyalty oaths.

14) Continue giving Russia access to the U.S. Patent Office.

15) Capture one or both of the political parties in the U.S.

16) Use technical decisions of the courts to weaken basic American institutions, by claiming their activities violate civil rights.

17) Get control of the schools. Use them as transmission belts for Socialism, and current Communist propaganda. Soften the curriculum. Get control of teachers associations. Put the party line in text books.

18) Gain control of all student newspapers.

19) Use student riots to foment public protests against programs or organizations which are under Communist attack.

20) Infiltrate the press. Get control of book review assignments, editorial writing, policy-making positions.

21) Gain control of key positions in radio, TV & motion pictures.

22) Continue discrediting American culture by degrading all form of artistic expression. An American Communist cell was told to “eliminate all good sculpture from parks and buildings”, substitute shapeless, awkward, and meaningless forms.

23) Control art critics and directors of art museums. ” Our plan is to promote ugliness, repulsive, meaningless art.”

24) Eliminate all laws governing obscenity by calling them “censorship” and a violation of free speech and free press.

25) Break down cultural standards of morality by promoting pornography, and obscenity in books, magazines, motion pictures, radio and TV.

26) Present Homosexuality, degeneracy, and promiscuity as “normal, natural, and healthy.”

27) Infiltrate the churches and replace revealed religion with “social” religion. Discredit the Bible and emphasize the need for intellectual maturity, which does not need a “religious crutch.”

28) Eliminate prayer or any phase of religious expression in the schools on the grounds that it violates the principle of “separation of church and state.”

29) Discredit the American Constitution by calling it inadequate, old fashioned, out of step with modern needs, a hindrance to cooperation between nations on a worldwide basis.

30) Discredit the American founding fathers. Present them as selfish aristocrats who had no concern for the “common man.”

31) Belittle all forms of American culture and discourage the teaching of American history on the ground that it was only a minor part of “the big picture:” Give more emphasis to Russian history since the Communists took over.

32) Support any socialist movement to give centralized control over any part of the culture – - education, social agencies, welfare programs, mental health clinics, etc.

33) Eliminate all laws or procedures, which interfere with the operation of the Communist apparatus.

34) Eliminate the House Committee on Un-American Activities.

35) Discredit and eventually dismantle the FBI.

36) Infiltrate and gain control of more unions.

37) Infiltrate and gain control of big business.

38) Transfer some of the powers of arrest from the police to social agencies. Treat all  behavioral problems as psychiatric disorders which no one but psychiatrists can understand or treat.

39) Dominate the psychiatric profession and use mental health laws as a means of gaining coercive control over those who oppose Communist goals.

40) Discredit the family as an institution. Encourage promiscuity and easy divorce.

41) Emphasize the need to raise children away from the negative influence of parents. Attribute prejudices, mental blocks and retarding of children to suppressive influence of parents.

42) Create the impression that violence and insurrection are legitimate aspects of the American tradition; that students and special interest groups should rise up and make a “united force” to solve economic, political, or social problems.

43) Overthrow all colonial governments before native populations are ready for self-government.

44) Internationalize the Panama Canal.

45) Repeal the Connally Reservation so the U.S. cannot prevent the World Court from seizing jurisdiction over domestic problems. Give the World Court jurisdiction over domestic problems. Give the World Court jurisdiction over nations and individuals alike.

Also, please feel free to share “1963 Communist Rules” with others as you see fit.  No one should be able to use the excuse, “I didn’t know.”

Is iPad Responsible for Suicides at Chinese Plant?

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After reading the first paragraph (below) of a recently-published article (“Why Are iPad Factory Workers Killing Themselves?’) by Amanda Kloer, you might think the people at Apple are involved in a sinister conspiracy to produced iPads at the cost of many Chinese lives:

A growing string of worker suicides and attempts has plagued a Chinese factory operated by Foxconn, the China-based tech company that produces, among other products, the new Apple iPad. In the past month, four employees at a single factory have attempted suicide, and 11 workers have killed themselves since 2007. And perhaps even more telling, all four of the most recent attempts have taken place at the factory. What is happening to these workers that is causing so many to turn to suicide?

Instead, the people of Apple are victims of shoddy reporting by a writer hoping to use public interest in the recently-launched Apple iPad as a hook to draw attention to the plight of individuals victimized by human trafficking.  Kloer’s attempt to do good failed miserably.

If Kloer had simply reviewed the World Health Organization’s 2009 statistics on suicide rates per country per 100,000 people (see chart), she would have learned that the suicide rate — 15 suicides in four years among 300,000 people employed (less than 4 per year) — at the enormous manufacturing facility is actually pretty low by comparison to those of other countries.  In fact, it would have landed the factory in second place high on the WHO list — if the factory was a country, that is.

Letter to Senator Jim Bunning Right on Target (Update)

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Sen. Jim Bunning (R-Ky.)

While watching Fox News Channel this morning, I saw live coverage of Sen. Jim Bunning (R-Ky.) on the floor of the U.S. Senate reading a powerful, on-target letter written to him by a constituent who lives in Louisville.  The letter was so powerful that I decided to call Mike Reynard, Senator Bunning’s press secretary, and ask for a copy of the letter — which he gladly provided.  For privacy reasons, the letter appears below, minus the last name and street address of the constituent who wrote it:

Dear Senator Jim Bunning,

I haven’t worked a full 40 hour week in probably two years now, but I fully support your decision to stand up to those in Congress who want nothing more than to spend the tax payers money, even the money they do not have, on unemployment extension benefits.

So far this year I have worked a total of one week here in Louisville, Kentucky. My employer is a sheet metal fabrication plant with it’s main headquarters based in Cincinnati, Ohio. Normally the Louisville branch would employ upwards of fifty people on any given day if business were good. Recently that number has dwindled to about four.

This country is sooner or later going to implode because of the massive amounts of debt run up over the past 40 or 50 years. Selling the nation’s soul to countries like Communist China in order to finance our life style and allow the government to further debase the currency is shear lunacy. Throwing away hundreds of billions of dollar so executives on Wall Street can keep their multi-million dollar bonuses while others in society worry about keeping the electricity on and their children fed only helps to move this country closer to a long overdue revolution. The problem is by then we won’t even own it anymore.

Politicians, on both side, enjoy getting in front of the television cameras and talk about their support of the “pay as you go” plan, but when it comes down to actually doing what they say, they all run for cover and vote for anything that they think will win them another vote and another term. Your stance in holding them to their words and expecting them to actually do what they voted for is a refreshing concept in the otherwise corrupt and hypocritical power base known as Washington, D.C.

It’s too bad Senator Mitch McConnell and some of the other elected officials do not have your backbone or your sense of decency when it comes to keeping their promises to the American public.

Sincerely,

(Name & street address withheld)
Louisville, Kentucky

Good letter indeed.

UPDATE 3/2/10 at 6:27 p.m. Central:

Robert "Bobby" Zoeller

After publishing the letter above, Robert “Bobby” Zoeller replied by phone to an e-mail message I had sent to him earlier in the day.  He told me he had received several media inquiries, inquiring one from Matthew Jaffe of ABC News and one from Ed Lavendera of CNN, who is flying a cameraman in from New York to interview Zoeller on his way to work.  I told Zoeller that, despite the fact it has nothing to do with his letter, he should expect to be trashed in the media as soon as reporters find this online story about his exploits as a paranormal investigator.  Check here tomorrow to see what kind of coverage Zoeller receives from the networks and from his hometown newspaper, the Courier-Journal.

UPDATE #2 3/3/10 at 8:10 a.m. Central: Here’s a link to the Louisville Courier-Journal article resulting from the reporter’s interview with the letter-writing constituent, Zoeller.  Notable, and somewhat troubling, is that Zoeller says he hasn’t voted since 1996.

UPDATE #3 3/4/10 at 8:20 a.m. Central: Below is video of Ed Lavendera’s piece about Bunning and Zoeller that ran last night:

Missile Defense Documentary Demands Action

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Former U.S. Sen. Jim Talent (D-Mo.) and Ambassador Ann Wagner hosted a screening Saturday afternoon of the Heritage Foundation-produced documentary, 33 Minutes: Protecting America in the New Missile Age (see trailer below).  When the film ended and the overhead lights came on inside the St. Charles (Mo.) Convention Center meeting room, many in the audience appeared dumbfounded and upset.

Why?  Because they learned that, despite present and growing dangers related to the proliferation of nuclear weapons and ballistic missiles to rogue states such as Iran and North Korea, our government has moved too slowly to build the missile defense systems capable of defending us against such attacks.

Things didn’t get any better when Senator Talent and Ambassador Wagner shared more grim news after the lights came on.

Ambassador Wagner, whose experience includes years of missile defense treaty negotiations, told the crowd President Barack Obama had recently cut the U.S. Missile Defense Agency budget by $1.2 billion, cut overall defense spending by 4.9 percent and had stuck knives in the backs of the leaders of Poland and the Czech Republic, European nations to whom the U.S. had only recently pledged to provide missile defense capabilities.

Senator Talent used a plausible scenario to outline what is at stake.

“It’s one thing if you’ve got a bilateral standoff between two stable regimes that have good communications, a la the Cuban Missile Crisis,” said Talent, who recently served as vice chair of the bipartisan Commission for the Prevention of Weapons of Mass Destruction Proliferation and Terrorism established by Congress. “What if you’ve got a multi-lateral confrontation between, let’s say, India and Pakistan, who’ve come within an eyelash of war anyway.  And Iran.  And China.   And they all have nuclear weapons,” he explained.  “The odds of a launch go up geometrically.  Well, a missile defense, a multi-layer completed missile defense system is a defense against all of that.”

I don’t want to spoil the rest of the documentary for you.  Instead, I highly recommend you attend a screening of the film and/or host a screening so that word gets out.  At a minimum, watch the videos on the 33 Minutes You Tube Channel.

Shifting Political Winds Blow Ill for Democrats

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By Paul R. Hollrah, Guest Blogger

Paul R. Hollrah

Since the Roe v. Wade decision of the United States Supreme Court on Jan. 22, 1973, the political left, right and center of American politics has divided most distinctly around the issue of abortion.  In that decision, the Court held that a woman may abort an unwanted pregnancy, for any reason, up until “the point at which the fetus becomes viable.”  The Court defined “viability” as the point at which the fetus has the potential “to live outside the mother’s womb, albeit with artificial aid.”

In addition, the court ruled that, after the point of viability, abortion must be available when needed to protect a woman’s life or health… a ruling that has lead to the horrific procedure known as “partial birth abortion,” in which a full term fetus is destroyed while exiting the birth canal.

The Roe v. Wade decision was based on the majority’s belief that a constitutional “right to privacy” existed under the “due process” clause of the Fourteenth Amendment.

In disallowing state and federal restrictions on abortion, the Roe v. Wade decision divided the American people along strict party lines, with Democrats leaning heavily toward a woman’s right to choose and Republicans, with few exceptions, maintaining a strong position against abortion, even in the first trimester.  Abortion has been such a divisive issue that many millions of Americans — particularly those described as moderates or independents — have often made their voting-booth decisions based on the abortion issue… some gravitating toward Democrats, based on their belief in a woman’s right to choose, and others toward Republicans, based on their strong belief that life begins at conception and that abortion is the taking of a human life.

The divisiveness of the issue has been such that, in a nation that is clearly a center-right nation, the abortion issue has prevented either of the two major parties from becoming the clear majority because of the number of independents who refused to buy into a strict party line on the abortion issue and to the “litmus” tests that the parties often imposed on potential candidates.

But all of that is about to change… in a big way.  While public opinion on the abortion issue moves inexorably in the pro-life direction — even Norma L. McCorvey, the principal plaintiff in Roe v. Wade, has come out in opposition to abortion — a massive overnight shift to the pro-life position is not likely.  Nevertheless, for many millions it will no longer be the decisive issue it has been, because a much larger, much more important issue now exists.  That issue is Barack Obama, his policies, and his leadership… or lack thereof.

For example, in 2008, independents gave Obama a three percent overall margin of victory in Virginia and a seven percent margin in New Jersey.  However, in Virginia’s 2009 gubernatorial election independents favored Republican Attorney General Bob McDonnell by 21 points over Democrat State Senator Creigh Deeds.  While in the New Jersey, where 46 percent of voters claim to be independents, the independent vote swung even more heavily toward the Republican gubernatorial candidate.  They favored Republican Chris Christie over incumbent Democrat Jon Corzine by a margin of 60 percent to 30 percent.

It is evidence that, while a great many independents thought it would be “cool” to elect, as Sen. Harry Reid (D-Nev.) describes Obama, a “light-skinned” African-American “with no Negro dialect, unless he wanted one,” a strong sense of “buyer’s remorse” is setting in.  Now that they’ve given him the keys to the White House and to Air Force One, independents are beginning to pay attention to what he’s doing, and they’re not happy with what they see.

Even the most economically illiterate can understand that, whatever it might take to reverse a strong downward spiral in the economy, Obama is doing precisely the opposite of what needs to be done.  They understand that the vast number of jobs created in our economy are created by small business.  Yet, Obama and congressional Democrats appear intent on preventing the startup of new businesses and the systematic destruction of those that already exist.

While labor costs are among the leading factors in deciding whether to start a new business or to expand an existing one, Obama and congressional Democrats have increased the minimum wage for unskilled and entry level workers by a whopping 40 percent in just two years.  Economists estimate that, for each ten percent increase in the minimum wage, the number of jobs available for unskilled and entry-level workers is reduced by four to five percent.  In other words, in the absence of the Democrats’ 40 percent increase in the minimum wage, we would likely see 20 percent more unskilled and entry level jobs available.

Another major factor in the economics of job creation is energy costs.  Yet, it is estimated that Obama’s cap-and-trade legislation would increase annual energy costs — heating, cooling, lighting, transportation, etc. — for the average American family by $3,000.  Energy costs for small business, especially in the manufacturing sector, would increase by an even larger margin.

A third major factor in job creation is the cost of employee benefits, especially healthcare costs.  The ObamaCare proposals now before Congress will impose a heavy new burden on business. Those businesses that struggle to keep their heads above water, unable to afford healthcare as part of their benefit package, will find themselves paying a penalty equivalent to eight or ten percent of their gross payroll.  Many companies in that category will simply lay off workers or close their doors.

In promoting healthcare reform, Obama has promised the impossible and has lost all credibility in the process.  He has said that he wants to insure up to 40 million who are not now insured, including at least 12 million illegal aliens, while reducing costs and improving the quality and accessibility of care for everyone — an unachievable goal on its face.

Obama promised not to raise taxes — at least not on healthcare plans owned by union members — to pay for this largest of all boondoggles.  Instead, he plans to pay for it all by cutting $400-500 billion from Medicare and Medicaid reimbursements and by squeezing out another $400 billion by eliminating waste and fraud.  If he and his people know where to find that $400 billion in waste and fraud, why haven’t they already moved to recover it?  Nor has he said anything about eliminating nuisance medical malpractice suits that drain hundreds of millions of dollars from our healthcare system.  So long as the trial lawyers own the Democrat Party, that will not happen.

In the field of foreign affairs, Obama has achieved what few ever thought possible.  In office for only 12 months, he has succeeded in alienating most, if not all, of our European allies.  He has insulted German Chancellor Angela Merkel, French President Nicolas Sarkozy, and British Prime Minister Gordon Brown, and he has disappointed the Poles and the Czecks by announcing a reversal of the Bush Administration’s decision to install a ballistic missile shield over their territory.  His handling of the matter was so ham-handed that the decision was announced on Sept. 17, the 70th anniversary of the day that the Soviets invaded Poland.  The date was of no particular significance to the boy president and his thuggish handlers, given their naivete and their sheer incompetence, but it certainly was not lost on the Poles or the Russians.

In the Middle East, Obama has soured a 62-year relationship between the United States and Israel. In China, the man who leads the most secretive and corrupt administration in U.S. history lectured the Chinese on openness and transparency.  While in Saudi Arabia and Japan, the boy president stooped to kiss the rings of the King and the Emperor, respectively.  Meanwhile, south of our own border, he continues to support Hugo Chavez, Raul Castro and Daniel Ortega in their attempt to force pro-democracy Honduras to reinstate its deposed communist leader, Manuel Zelaya.

One would be hard pressed to point to a single Obama action or decision that has been or will be of benefit to our country.  If history honors him for any single accomplishment, it will be the unintended consequence of his leadership — the total discrediting of liberalism and its primary repository, the Democratic Party.

Obama’s first year in office has given the American electorate something that liberals and Democrats rarely permit — a clear, unobstructed look at what liberalism/socialism are all about.  Hence, after just one year of Obama-Pelosi-Reid leadership, polls show that some 41 percent of voting-age Americans now describe themselves as conservative, while only 20 percent describe themselves as liberal.

It required no particular prescience to predict, in January 2009, that Obama’s leftist ideology, his lack of experience and his total lack of accomplishment would provide a very brief presidential “honeymoon.”  So it is no mystery that if, as the polls now suggest, Republican State Senator Scott Brown defeats Democrat Attorney General Martha Coakley in today’s special U.S. Senate election in Massachusetts, it will mark a clear end to the Obama era — a day short of one full year in office.  And as we look forward to the 2010 midterm elections, in the wake of devastating election results in Virginia, New Jersey, and Massachusetts, the shifting political winds created by the Obama brand of “hope” and “change” promise to evolve into a political tsunami that will wash many Democrat lawmakers out of office.

Hollrah is a senior fellow at the Lincoln Heritage Institute and a contributing editor for Family Security Matters and a number of online publications.  A native of St. Charles, Mo., he resides in northeast Oklahoma.