Fake and Real Transposed

President Trump on September 18 remarked (emphasis obviously his) on Untruth Social that he is

banning Fake News CNN, MSNOW.... and Politico.... directly from the United States Government.... from the White House as a result of their constant "reporting" FAKE NEWS! Media Outlets shouldn't be able to constantly write or report FICTION and LIES when they're covering the President of the United States, the Trump Administration, or the United States of America. Other Fake News Media Outlets to follow....

Three days later:

Vice President @JDVance: "If you're going to engage in what effectively far-left propaganda, why would a Republican White House give you special access?"

"They still have the access to free speech. They're just not going to get an office in the White House anymore."

"I think… pic.twitter.com/hPIonF2aLk

— Andrew Kolvet (@AndrewKolvet) September 21, 2026

Perhaps the 92% figure cited by Vance is totally made up. Or maybe he means only 8% of stories from Politico, MSNOW, and CNN kiss Trump's posterior.

In either case, it appears that the Vice President was not asked what constitutes "negative", though it would have nice if he had been asked. But we do know what the President believes is not a "fake news media outlet" because we learned two months ago from Fox News that

President Donald Trump is striking a noticeably softer tone toward China just days after delivering a public address to the nation accusing Beijing of "sinister election meddling."

The fresh set of accusations levied on July 16 raised new questions about the Trump administration's posture towards China, especially as it moves to keep TikTok operating in the U.S. while warning against the hostility of the world power against America.

"President Trump just told the nation that China tried to influence the 2020 election and weaken his presidency. During that same year, the intelligence community identified TikTok as a primary vector of CCP influence in the United States," Hudson Institute Senior Fellow Michael Sobolik, who specializes in U.S.–China relations, told Fox News Digital

"Beijing still controls the algorithm, which means that the very dangers Trump raised persist today," Sobolik added.

Trump has long taken a hard line on China, using tariffs, trade pressure and national security warnings to frame Beijing as one of America's chief adversaries.

In his recent address to the nation, the president accused the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) of running a "sinister" campaign to interfere in U.S. elections and influence Americans and undermine his presidency.

Yet just five days later, on July 21, Trump suggested "China is maybe a little bit different today." It struck a softer tone that falls more in line with the president's backing of a deal to keep TikTok operating in the U.S., despite seeking during his first term and at the start of his second to force the app out over national security concerns.

"The CCP hasn’t changed. Xi Jinping hasn’t changed. But President Trump has," Sobolik detailed.

"He’s much more conciliatory toward China in his second term than he was in his first. He risks telegraphing significant weakness to Xi by letting China off the hook."

Trump downplayed Beijing's past election interference, suggesting both countries engage in similar tactics and indicating he was more focused on future negotiations than revisiting China's actions.

The partiality toward TikTok has had real-world implications. Exactly two years after Hamas started the present war with Israel, The Washington Post (possibly behind a paywall) reported

U.S.-based TikTok posters still show overwhelming support for Palestinians as the war rages on in Gaza, according to a report published Tuesday by the nonpartisan research center Cybersecurity for Democracy. It found that for every pro-Israel post that appeared on TikTok in September there were roughly 17 posts supporting Palestinians. That finding, based on an analysis of hashtags that users attach to their posts, is roughly the same as what the center found nearly two years ago.

Not to worry, though. With the expected sale to an American company, the platform probably will go in the opposite direction.  An intensely anti-Israel news outlet last year noted that President Trump had singed 

an executive order for a deal allowing ByteDance to retain less than 20% of TikTok's ownership in the U.S.

In return, American investors will control more than 65% of TikTok's ownership, along with the Emirati investment fund MGX, headed by Sheikh Tahnoon bin Zayed Al Nahyan, which will acquire a 15% stake.

Among the American investors who will acquire TikTok's US operations is Oracle CEO Larry Ellison, who donated more than $26 million to the Friends of the “Israel” Defense Forces.

Oracle has also cooperated with the Israeli government in technology and military infrastructure, and Ellison previously offered Netanyahu a seat on the company's board and invited him to his private island in Hawaii.

The United Arab Emirates during the first Trump Administration signed the Abraham Accords and recognized Israel's existence and reportedly informed the Israeli government of an impending attack prior to Hamas' terroristic invasion of 10/7/23.  Larry Ellison is staunchly pro-Israel, as allegedly are a couple of other investors.

So we may be in the process of converting an extraordinarily powerful social media platform from one antagonistic to Israel to one very friendly not only to the nation, but also to its right-wing government.  

This is an improvement primarily because the Butchers of Beijing will, presumably, have less influence on the videos TikTok makes available, especially to impressionable, ill-informed youth. Additionally, it's very likely that the pro-Israel slant will be not as ridiculous as the anti-Israel bias has been.

Nevertheless, this is not good. The remedy for effective, extremist propaganda castigating a democratic nation is not contrary propaganda, just as reverse discrimination is not dramatically superior to discrimination.

TikTok is bad news, both literally and figuratively.  It has been extremely bad news and in the future, probably only very bad news.  It has presented alternative facts which have become alternative reality for a good chunk of young Americans who cannot be bothered by the front page of The New York Times, the Wall Street Journal, or practically anything not accompanied by video. So of course Donald Trump is partial to it: "I like TikTok. It helped get me elected."

Trump loves himself some TikTok while Politico, MSNOW, and CNN are "fake news" precisely because they report fact, detail, and occasionally context, all things alien to TikTok.  Donald Trump frequently whines about imaginary fake news outlets. But when it comes to hogwash, he's like a pig at the trough.

Share |

Now What?

So what are you going to do about it, big guy? DW, a "German state-funded television network and public service international broadcaster funded" by the federal govenment notes

US President Donald Trump delivered a primetime speech on Thursday assailing the country's voting system and making several unverified claims about the electoral process.

He touted new declassified evidence about alleged Chinese interference in the 2020 election, dredged up an old case in Michigan about voter fraud and repeated a campaign trail favorite: that noncitizens are illegally registered to vote.

The vast majority of it was untrue, misleading, or distorted again but this is Donald Trump, thus not unexpected.  Neither snow nor rain nor heat nor gloom of night shall stay the President from strenuously trying to pull the wool over the eyes of American citizens. One of his more interesting claims was

Raw intelligence obtained by the FBI in 2020, yet buried by rogue bureaucrats, stated that China's activities even included an attempt to manufacture illegal ballots for Joe Biden. Documents show that during this period, dozens of significant CIA and NSA reports about China's election targeting were kept out of the presidential briefing.

These were briefings I would get almost every day; everything was kept out that was of importance. One email among intelligence analysts admitted that they had, quote, deliberately massaged the presidential daily briefing to withhold information regarding Chinese activities related to the election. Another official inside the FBI wrote that she was running, quote, a shadow government, unquote, to keep intelligence about China's election meddling from becoming known and to keep it away from the honorable press.

In an annotated transcript of the President's speech, Zachary B. Wolf and Annette Choi of CNN note "unverified intelligence is frequently incorrect" and "there's no evidence that China actually sought to manufacture ballots."

Moreover, "Trump is essentially alleging a coverup here. It will be interesting to see how or whether the administration pursues this inside the intelligence community."

The Administration is seeking indictments against six members of Congress, each of them "traitors to our Country," according to President Trump.  Reuters reported last November- a mere ten months into his second term

At least 470 people, organizations and institutions have been targeted for retribution since Trump took office – an average of more than one a day. Some were singled out for punishment; others swept up in broader purges of perceived enemies. The count excludes foreign individuals, institutions and governments, as well as federal employees dismissed as part of force reductions.

Promptly after Trump took office last year, at least a dozen members of the Justice Department who had worked on criminal prosecution of Donald were fired. Kash Patel, now the FBI director, took aim at the agency in a 2023 book. He named sixty individuals allegedly a part of an "Executive Branch deep state," and at least 17 have faced political retribution, fired and/or stripped of their security clearance. 

And now, the President is alleging a conspiracy right under his nose. Intelligence analysts who had "deliberately massaged the presidential daily briefing to withhold information regarding Chinese activities related to the (2020) election."  And there was an FBI official he claims admitted to "a shadow government" to keep intelligence about China's election meddling from becoming known and to keep it" hidden.

"It will be interesting," the CNN reporters write, "to see how or whether the administration pursues this." Interesting, too, it will be to see what the President drops on China after his strenuous, albeit dishonest, effort to convince Americans that mainland China has been "meddling" in our elections.

President Trump could re-impose tariffs on China. That would prompt retaliation and might not be beneficial- but when has that deterred Donald?

Chinese president Xi Jinping is scheduled to visit the White House on September 24. However, after they spoke at Xi's walled compound in May, Trump declared the two had "become really a friend"- and why interfere with such a lovely frienship?

The President also could encourage fellow Republicans to support the Country of Origin Labeling (COOL) Online Act, sponsored by senators Scott (R-FL) and Baldwin (D-Wis), which would "ensure that all goods sold online list their country of origin."  This bill has the advantage that it wouldn't be (and wouldn't seem to be) a direct attack on China, but would remind consumers that many of our goods are manufactured there, and would steer a few buyers away from those and toward others.

Odds are that the President won't do any of this. In early 2025, then-DNI director Tulsi Gabbard reduced the Foreign Malign Influence Center, "the last U.S. federal government organ dedicated to tracking and analyzing State-sponsored efforts to interfere in U.S. institution, elections, and society." Additionally, the Adminstration "shut down related units at the State Department, Departmentof Homeland Security, FBI, and Department of Justice."

To be generous: Donald Trump is not at all interested in election security. To be realistic: Trump prefers to take the cops off the beat to encourage foreign interference in elections, as one leg in the stool to convince Americans that any election lost by Republicans is rigged. His speech of July 16 was a major part of that effort, but it's likely that far worse is yet to come.

Share |

Boosting Mainland China

In the infamous June, 2024 debate which ultimately led to the withdrawal from the presidential race of President, Joe Biden, Donald J. Trump claimed

We now have the largest deficit in the history of our country under this guy. We have the largest deficit with China. He gets paid by China. He's a Manchurian candidate. he gets money from China. We have to- I think he's afraid to deal with something. Buit you notice he never took out my tariffs becasue we bring in so much money with the tariffs that I imposed on China. he never took them away.Can't, because it's too much money. 

A few weels after Donald was (re-) elected, we were reminded

One of Trump's key promises on the 2024 campaign trail ws imposing 60% tariffs on  all Chinese imports to the U.S., a drastic increase from when his previous administration raised tariffs on most Chinese products to 25%. Trump has said that tariffs "are the greatest thing ever invented," and will protect american manufacturing and businesses. The president-elect also promised to revoke China's trade status, which was meant to provide mutual advantages such as low tariffs and other trade advantages.

God is in the details, and whatever the benefits of a less China-friendly policy than we had been accustomed to, the tariffs of the second Trump term have proven economically disastrous. But enough about  the economy! 

Recently, David Frum interviewed Phillips O'Brien, a military historian and professor of strategic studies at the University of St. Andrews.  Frum asked his guest

If the war ends with some kind of armistice, where Trump gets some piece of paper with the word nuclear on it, Iran has effective control over the Strait of Hormuz—which I suppose it had before, but now it’s really proven that it can do it—and a lot of damage to Iran’s nuclear program and Iran’s missile program, some damage in turn to the American forces, who’s the winner of that war?

O'Brien responded, "the winner of that war is China" and when asked to explain, stated

Well, because, basically, the Chinese will come out of this as a far more influential force in the region. The United States will come out looking much weakened, with a degraded military, an inability to get what it wants through military force, and looking capricious and, in some ways, unable to assert itself over Iran. The Iranian regime will not come out of it in great shape. It’s been damaged. It has been damaged militarily. Certainly, the Iranian people will be the losers ’cause they will suffer a great deal of oppression, one assumes, coming out of that. But the Iranians would have survived, and the other regimes in the area are gonna have to cut some kind of deals with them. But the Chinese are just sitting there. They are gonna be seen [as] a bastion of stability. They’ll get a huge amount of reconstruction contracts. Their ally in Iran will still be there. And one assumes that a lot of the other powers in the region will want good relations with China going forward.

Regardless of whether the U.S. secures concessions from Iran, China will emerge the victor from the conflict, the military historian Phillips O’ Brien tells @davidfrum: “They are going to be seen as a bastion of stability.”

Watch The David Frum Show: https://t.co/KTgrYBoU1p pic.twitter.com/T1gxFL7pU5

— The Atlantic (@TheAtlantic) May 20, 2026

I don't know whether President Trump "gets paid by China," as he so dishonestly claimed of President Biden. And he's not quite as owned by President Xi Jinping as he is by President Putin, though he was sliced and diced by the Chinese leader last week earlier this month in Beijing.

Mainland China is the country which could use regime change. Obviously, that was not going to happen but Trump's elective war against Iran has made Beijing and Russia stronger and the USA weaker. Imagine that (militarily) Iran loses a campaign but then refuses to concede and, unfortunately, comes out the stronger in the long run. It's what apparently is happening, a scenario which Donald Trump, with his experience, should have considered before he began this disastrous war.

Share |

Not So Ambiguous

On Tuesday in Beijing, President Trump was asked to what degree the economic pain of the American people was motivating him to make a deal with China, and Donald responded "not even a little bit. The only ting that matters when I'm talking about Iran, they can't have a nuclear weapon."  Michael Smerconish vigrously defended that remark and commented also

Arguably, the bigger story was Trump's revelation was that Xi had directly asked Trump whether the US would defend Taiwan if China attacked.

Think about that for a moment. The leader of China flat-out asked. The question alone tells you everything about where Beijing's head is. If Xi really said that to Trump, it suggests that Xi is looking to invade Taiwan and he's looking for a green light from the United States to do so. That's a monumental admission of an intent to go to war and it's an undiplomatic, none of Xi's business question to Trump. According to The New York Times, Trump gave Xi no response: "I said I don't talk sbout those things."

That's not a dodge. That's not a weakness. That's a longstanding U.S. policy of strategic ambiguity and the only answer that keeps China guessing.

And still critics pounced again. Taiwan itself issued a statement reaffirming Trump's longstandingcomitment to their defense. But what kind of diplomacy would it have been had Trump, just after leaving China, just having been solicitous of Xi's involvement ending the war in Iran, instead said "yes, we're going to arm Taiwan to the teeth."  It would have destroyed any prospect of achieving his larger objective.

            .

Smerconish falsely believes that the President's "larger objective" was gaining assistance from Beijing on the Iran war when Trump's primary objective was pecuniary. No matter. When Donald was interviewed Friday evening by Brett Baier, fresh off getting his rear handed to him he told the Fox News' journalist

When you look at the odds, China is a very, very powerful, big country. That's a very small island. Think of it- it's 95 miles away. We're 9500 miles away.That's a little bit of a difficult problem... Taiwan would be very smart to cool it a little bit. China would be very smart to cool it a little bit.

Trump promised Xi he would serve up Taiwan on a platter. And so it begins… https://t.co/VY2zYKgJpa

— Luis Moreno (@LuisMorenolg) May 16, 2026

"Taiwan would be very smart to coll it a little bit (and) China would be very smart to cool it a little bit" is a piece of moral equivalence which would be condemned if any other President would have stated it. None has, though, because it undermines the traditional American policy of strategic ambiguity as pertains to the American response if Mainland China were to invade the Republic of China. The rationale behind strategic ambiguity is that the  USA opposes invasion of Taiwan by the Commu- I mean, by China- and thus might or might not respond were it to occur.

Trump added of a proposed weapons sale to our ally, "I may do it. I may not do it." The ambivalence speaks volumes.

The United States has aircrft which can travel 9,000 miles. What it does not have is a President willing to be similtaneiously clear and ambiguous. The policy of the USA should remain as it has been or a little closer to full support for the island nation. It should not be to scold the democratic nation of Taiwan nor, with a metaphorical nod and a  wink, to  suggest that the nation is so far away that the military which Donald Trump brags about could not respond. Xi might as well have been told "have your way with that pesky little problem of yours."

This is not a little matter, nor one of simple fairness. In February, The New York Times noted that Taiwan makes 90% of the world's high-end computer chips and

In secret briefings held in Washington and Silicon Valley, national security officials warned executives from companies like Apple, Advanced Micro Devices and Qualcomm that China was making plans to retake Taiwan, which Beijing has long considered a breakaway territory. A Chinese blockade of Taiwan, the officials said, could choke the supply of computer chips made on the island and bring the U.S. tech industry to its knees.....

 “The single biggest threat to the world economy, the single biggest point of single failure, is that 97 percent of the high-end chips are made in Taiwan,” Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said last month at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, slightly overstating industry estimates. “If that island were blockaded, that capacity were destroyed, it would be an economic apocalypse"...

A confidential report commissioned in 2022 by the Semiconductor Industry Association for its members, which include the largest U.S. chip companies, said cutting the supply of chips from Taiwan would lead to the largest economic crisis since the Great Depression. U.S. economic output would plunge 11 percent, twice as much as the 2008 recession. 

The Times added "The collapse would be even more severe for China." That is not a good thing, because the President who clings to zero-sum game probably believes that something bad for another nation- China, in this case- would necessarily be good  And a confrontation between the two nations would be calamitous as "now, more thanever, it has become clear that Taiwan is critical to America's economic survival, especially as artificial intelligence- which is built using chips made in Taiwan- drives the U.S. stock market and fuels economic growth."

This is what Donald Trump "(doesn't) want to talk about"- only he did, and not in a good way. 

Share |

Please, Mr. Trump, No More Winning!

Sadly, Joseph Goebbels is not dead (metaphorically, that is). At :38 in a video on a David Pakman podcast, Anna Kelly, White House Principal Deputy Press Secretary, is asked on May 11 by Fox News a question ending in "What does President Trump say today abut these high energy prices"?  She responded

.... Well, look, thee's a ot of confusion now about the state of play with Iran. Let me be clear. Iran has been incredibly decimated mlitarily. their navy is at the bottom of the ocean. Their ballistic missiles are destroyed. Their production facilities are demolished. Now, they're being totally crippled economically by the weight of Operation Ecconomic Fury.

So the President is not in a  rush. He has all his cards at his disposal because he knows Iran is getting weaker and weaker by the day while the United States is getting  stronger and stronger.

Surely, President Trump does have all his cards at his disposal.  The probably for this regime, however, is that Trump has only his cards at his disposal. He does not hold all the cards, nor nearly so.

Iran is getting weaker. However, as The New York Times reported on May 12

The Trump administration’s public portrayal of a shattered Iranian military is sharply at odds with what U.S. intelligence agencies are telling policymakers behind closed doors, according to classified assessments from early this month that show Iran has regained access to most of its missile sites, launchers and underground facilities.

Most alarming to some senior officials is evidence that Iran has restored operational access to 30 of the 33 missile sites it maintains along the Strait of Hormuz, which could threaten American warships and oil tankers transiting the narrow waterway.

 People with knowledge of the assessments said they show — to varying degrees, depending on the level of damage incurred at the different sites — that the Iranians can use mobile launchers that are inside the sites to move missiles to other locations. In some cases they can launch missiles directly from launchpads that are part of the facilities. Only three of the missile sites along the strait remain totally inaccessible, according to the assessments.

Iran still fields about 70 percent of its mobile launchers across the country and has retained roughly 70 percent of its prewar missile stockpile, according to the assessments. That stockpile encompasses both ballistic missiles, which can target other nations in the region, and a smaller supply of cruise missiles, which can be used against shorter-range targets on land or at sea.

Military intelligence agencies have also reported, based on information from multiple collection streams including satellite imagery and other surveillance technologies, that Iran has regained access to roughly 90 percent of its underground missile storage and launch facilities nationwide, which are now assessed to be “partially or fully operational,” the people with knowledge of the assessments said

Kelly is not completely wrong, given that

The Joint assault on Iran by the United States and Israel inflicted considerable damage on Iran's defenses and damaged or destroyed many strategic sites around the country. Many of Iran's senior leaders have been killed and its economy is staggering under the pressures of the war, leaving questins about how long it can sustain its hard line on a negotiated end to the conflict and the halt on nearly all oil tanker traffic and other shiipping through the Strait of Hormuz.

Yet, if Donald Trump is holding more cards than are the Iranians, it's news to the latter. Several days ago, Tehran delivered unto Washington via Pakistan a proposal which "included demands for a permanent end to the war on all fronts, compensation for war damages, an end to the U.S. Naval blockade, lifting of sanctions on Iran, and the end to a U.S. ban on Iranian oil sales."  Oh, and Iran would assume control over the Strait of Hormuz.

President Trump rejected the proposal outright, because surrender is not in the cards, as spokesperson Kelly would put it. (If Iran included a proposal which would include a significant boost to Trump's personal profile, now we're talking!). Although the Iranian demands were wildly unrealistic, they still reflect an apparent willingness to see the war through, at least for now.  Abject fear does not seem to have overcome the Iranians, who as with almost everyone is now expecting a military assault from the Trump Administration.

Donald Trump, a veteran of the real estate industry, believes in the zero sum game. He sees Iran getting weaker and might actually believe that means the USA is gaining. But consider that as the Times noted in late April

Before the war with Iran started, American military commanders redirected the U.S.S. Abraham Lincoln carrier strike group from the South China Sea to the Middle East. Since then, two Marine Expeditionary Units, each with about 2,200 Marines, have been sent to the Middle East from the Pacific. The Pentagon has also moved sophisticated air defenses from Asia to bolster protection against Iran’s drones and rockets.

As the USA has become embroiled in the Middle East, the nation has left the Asian theater largely undefended. And now Donald Trump has landed in Mainland China, where he will speak to, and hopefully not negotiate with, Xi Jinping.  Hopefully, President Trump will not do there what he has done in the Mideast to America's national interest.

Share |

Projecting Strength Which Isn't There

Ironically, in a podcast episode posted to criticize Representative Nancy Mace (R-South Carolina) and President Donald Trump, Steve Schmidt illustrated the political brilliance of Donald Trump. At 3:59 of the video below, Trump at the presidential debate with Kamala Harris can be seen bragging

You need Trump back as resident. They were afraid of him. China was afraid. I don't like to use the word "afraid" but I'm just quoting him. China was afraid of him. North Korea was afraid of him Look at what's going on with North Korea, by the way. He said Russia was afraid of him.

If you're wondering who "he" is, the context of this quote makes it clear. Vice President Harris had noted, in part, "world leaders are laughing at Donald Trump. I have talked with military leaders, some of whom worked with you." And they say you're a disgrace.

Aside from the last five sentences (not pertinent here), Trump responded

Let me just tell you about world leaders. Viktor Orban, one of the most respected men -- they call him a strong man. He's a tough person. Smart. Prime Minister of Hungary. They said why is the whole world blowing up? Three years ago it wasn't. Why is it blowing up? He said because you need Trump back as president. They were afraid of him. China was afraid. And I don't like to use the word afraid but I'm just quoting him. China was afraid of him. North Korea was afraid of him. Look at what's going on with North Korea, by the way. He said Russia was afraid of him. I ended the Nord Stream 2 pipeline and Biden put it back on day one but he ended the XL pipeline. The XL pipeline in our country. He ended that. But he let the Russians build a pipeline going all over Europe and heading into Germany. The biggest pipeline in the world. Look, Viktor Orban said it. He said the most respected, most feared person is Donald Trump. We had no problems when Trump was president.

A mere fifty-one weeks later and less than eight months into the presidency, we find Donald Trump decisively refuting his campaign claim that China, North Korea, and maybe Russia were afraid of him. Of course, no one has pointed it out and if media or politicians did so, they'd be accused of fake new (or worse), especially because this undermines one of the major pillars of his support. This week

President Donald Trump took to his social media platform as Chinese President Xi Jinping, North Korean leader Kim Jong Un and Russian President Vladimir Putin appeared together in Beijing for China's largest-ever military parade on Wednesday.

Trump accused Xi of "conspiring against" the United States as they attended the parade, which marked the 80th anniversary of Japan's surrender in World War II.

"May President Xi and the wonderful people of China have a great and lasting day of celebration. Please give my warmest regards to Vladimir Putin, and Kim Jong Un, as you conspire against The United States of America," Trump wrote on social media as the parade was underway.

Who is afraid of who (whom) now?  Russia, Mainland China, and Korea are assembling in the open. They're not hiding from Donald Trump. If they fear Donald Trump, it's only persuading them to forge an alliance.

The loser is not Donald J. Trump. The loser is the United States of America, Europe, and our allies in Asia. But it doesn't hurt Trump because his image, as the bully on the block, is intact and no one- aside from the three aforementioned nations- is challenging it.

Far from it.  Mace, who has repeatedly claimed to be a victim of rape and is running for the GOP nomination for South Carolina governor, took to X before the Capitol Hill news conference held by United States Representatives Massie and Khanna with victims of Jeffrey Epstein:

Since it’s already being reported - Yes I left the Oversight briefing with Epstein victims early.

As a recent survivor (not 2 years in), I had a very difficult time listening to their stories. Full blown panic attack. Sweating. Hyperventilating. Shaking. I can’t breathe.

I…

— Nancy Mace (@NancyMace) September 2, 2025

Mace then signed the Massie-Khanna discharge petition calling on the House of Representatives to release the full Epstein files. However, Mace is saying whatever she can to get the President's endorsement for her candidacy for governor of South Carolina  So in the wake of the Massie/Khanna news conference, Mace tweeted (emphasis hers)

President Trump is the one who banned Jeffrey Epstein from Mar-a-Lago. President Trump is the one who cooperated with the feds to get this guy. President Trump is the one who is COMMITTED to protecting women and kids.

President Trump is the one committed to protecting women and kids. There is nothing this President would rather hear than that he is protecting women because that is one big hunk of an alpha male does- protect women. Not ensure their rights, secure their prosperity, nor enact good policy. He counts on them being afraid, just as he claimed during the presidential campaign that Russia, Mainland China, and North Korea are all afraid of him. Kellyanne Conway calls it swagger.

BREAKING: Kellyanne Conway praises Trump’s “swagger” and his renovations to the Rose Garden which removed all the green space. The sycophancy of these people is off the charts. pic.twitter.com/hzW88OABl3

— Trump Lie Tracker (Commentary) (@MAGALieTracker) August 20, 2025

It now appears to be costing us a great deal internationally as the President poses as almost the reverse of what he actually is.  The President wrote that the three nations are "conspiring against" the USA because he consistently tries to portray himself as the victim

It's the Trump paradox (one of them). The guy who whines and cries, cries and whines postures as the strongman. Notwithstanding the disinterest of the Democrat Party in trying to undermine this image, it is still one of the wonders of the 21st century that Donald Trump is able to get away with it. And he's doing so even as he has successfully driven enemies, two of them economically and militarily powerful, of the USA into an apparent alliance with each other.

Share |

Just Another Day of Deception

Scott Bessent has an unusual definition of "eaten."

🚨 Just WOW. Look at how smug Margaret Brennan's face looks when she think she "gotcha'd" Scott Bessent... NOPE.

BRENNAN: "You KNOW what Walmart's saying, BestBuy, Target, of what's coming."

BESSENT: "Margaret, I also know what Home Depot and Amazon are saying. I know what the… pic.twitter.com/yHlYRCpgxV

— Eric Daugherty (@EricLDaugh) June 1, 2025

I don't know if the South China Morning Post can be trusted. However, I do know that Scott Bessent trusts it, or at least appears to, or pretends that he does. And on May 30, 2025 it reported

American retail giants are now demanding that their Chinese suppliers shoulder half to 66 per cent of the cost of US import duties, as the ongoing US-China trade war ramps up pressure on businesses’ bottom lines, industry sources told the Post.

US retailers have been locked in talks with Chinese producers for weeks over how to handle the additional costs caused by the trade war, with the firms facing intense political pressure at home to “eat the tariffs” and keep prices stable.

Walmart and other major US retail groups previously agreed to bear the full cost of the tariffs when they asked their Chinese suppliers to resume shipments in late April, industry sources told the Post at the time.

But global brands including several US retail giants are now pushing suppliers in both China and parts of Southeast Asia to absorb a large chunk of the cost of the levies, according to sources from suppliers serving companies including Walmart, Target, Nike, Puma and Adidas.

“Most of our customers, the garment vendors exporting to major retailers and brands, are being asked to cover 50 to 66 per cent of the current tariffs,” said an executive at a fashion supplier, which produces and sources from China and Southeast Asia and then sells across the United States and Europe.

The negotiations remain fluid and the details of how the tariff costs will be divided have not yet been finalised, the sources stressed, as both sides remain in constant contact as they try to navigate a “tough time” for the industry.

They're being asked to do so and negotiations "remain fluid." The news outlet did not suggest that 65 percent "will likely be eaten by the Chinese producer" (relevant portion of the Face the Nation transcript, below).

In the world of Trump-Vance-Leavitt lying, this is small potatoes, not an extravagant falsehood. However, it's significant because it's not Donald Trump, J.D. Vance, Karoline "let me sport a cross so I appear honest" Leavitt, who would be a nobody  were it not Trump being in the White House.

this is a gay man (irrelevant) whom, following his confirmation,  PBS described as "a past supporter of Democrats who once worked for George Soros" who believes "that the Federal Reserve should remain independent from the president's influence." He is a "normie," or at least someone whom the mainstream media, centrist and liberal, would consider "normal." Even then, though, PBS recognized him as becoming "an enthusiastic supporter of Trump." 

And now Bessent has become a lying, enthusiastic supporter of Trump or in other words, a member of the Administration.

MARGARET BRENNAN: Right. But you listen to earnings calls just like we do. You know what Walmart's saying, what Best Buy's saying and what Target are saying of what's coming.

 SECRETARY SCOTT BESSENT: But, Margaret, I also know what Home Depot and Amazon are saying. I know what the "South China Morning Post" wrote within the past 24 hours, that 65 percent, 65 percent – the – of the tariffs will likely be eaten by the Chinese producers.

 MARGARET BRENNAN: So, are there five or eight areas that you have identified, as you said back in March, where American consumers will be able to have lower prices, or should be warned of higher prices?

 SECRETARY SCOTT BESSENT: Well, a lot of it's already working its way through the system. So we've seen a substantial decrease in gasoline and energy prices. So that's down 20 percent year over year.

 We've seen the food prices go down, these notorious egg prices. Through the good work of President Trump and Secretary Rollins, egg prices have collapsed. So we're seeing more and more. And what we want to do, the – is even that out across the – all sections of the economy.

Share |

Shaken

The President was playing his favorite song, the wildly overrated Macho Man when

President Trump told Americans Monday to be “Strong, Courageous, and Patient” with his sweeping tariff regime — as markets continued their freefall.

 “The United States has a chance to do something that should have been done DECADES AGO. Don’t be Weak! Don’t be Stupid! Don’t be a PANICAN (A new party based on Weak and Stupid people!),” the president wrote on Truth Social half an hour before Wall Street opened for trading.

 “Be Strong, Courageous, and Patient, and GREATNESS will be the result!”

It took fewer than forty-eight hours for a near-reversal to occur, when as noted by Politico

After a week of market turmoil that spread from stocks to, crucially, government bonds, Trump finally flinched after days of insisting that there would be no delays and that the world should hunker down for a long, nasty global trade war.

“I know what the hell I’m doing,” Trump told a gathering of House Republicans Tuesday night, bragging that countries have been “kissing my ass” to try to make trade deals.

After the fact, Trump’s courtiers called it all part of a well-articulated plan. “This was his strategy all along,” as Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent put it, citing outreach from some 75 countries begging Trump to negotiate for some sort of tariff reprieve.

Yet this is a case to take Trump both seriously and literally: By Trump’s own admission, he was spooked about the sharp selloff of Treasuries — admitting, as is well known but rarely acknowledged by him personally, that he very much cares about what other people think.

“The bond market is tricky,” Trump told reporters Wednesday. “I saw last night where people were getting a little queasy … jumping a little bit.”

This guy seems to agree:

It turns out that "people" always has meant "people I control"  As Ezra Klein put it last autumn, "one of Trump's verbal tics is to say 'Many people are saying.' But it's the opposite. He's saying what many people want somebody to be saying. He's saying what people are saying in private but often are not saying in public."  Trump reversed or sharply reduced most of his tariffs because he himself was getting a little queasy:

And, no, it wasn’t just other people who were queasy. A person I spoke to close to the White House confirmed: Internal worry about panic spreading to government bonds, usually a safe haven during economic volatility, are precisely what made Trump do a 180.

The President didn't rescind or cut the most important tariffs, those against mainland China, which exports far more goods to the USA than dies any other country. However, pulling back on the other tariffs must have been difficult to do for a zero-sum guy, who believes he is benefited only by imposing pain upon others. And we don't know what the 90-days of the pause will bring.

Yet, on one day, for whatever reason(s), President Trump did the right thing. And he became the nation's leading Panican.

 

Share |

The Risk of Multiplying Obama's Mistakes

Whenever Donald Trump tells a story which includes an anonymous person addressing him as "Sir," he is lying. However, we're being told here of plans to encourage Vladimir Putin when

Former president Donald Trump ramped up his attacks on NATO on Saturday, claiming he suggested to a foreign leader that he would encourage Russia to do “whatever the hell they want” to member countries he views as not spending enough on their own defense.

“One of the presidents of a big country stood up and said, ‘Well, sir, if we don’t pay and we’re attacked by Russia, will you protect us?,’” Trump said during a rally at Coastal Carolina University. “I said, ‘You didn’t pay. You’re delinquent.’ He said, ‘Yes, let’s say that happened.’ No, I would not protect you. In fact, I would encourage them to do whatever the hell they want.”

Finally, under President Joseph R. Biden, the USA is taking action to stem the threat posed by the world's second greatest superpower. This is occurring after four- no, twelve- years of disregarding the threat posed by Putin's Russia.  During Donald Trump's term, in February of 2018 in a commentary on the Brookings website, the Atlantic's Benjamin Haddad and Alina Polyakova of the Center for European Policy Analysis wrote of our 44th Chief Executive

Throughout his presidency, Obama consistently underestimated the challenge posed by Putin’s regime. His foreign policy was firmly grounded in the premise that Russia was not a national security threat to the United States. In 2012, Obama disparaged Mitt Romney for exaggerating the Russian threat—“the 1980s are now calling to ask for their foreign policy back because the Cold War’s been over for 20 years,” Obama quipped.

The zinger was "The 1980s are now calling to ask for their foreign policy back because the Cold War’s been over for 20 years." It was a mistake in judgement easily made, and I personally fell for the line. Haddad and Polyakova continue

This breezy attitude prevailed even as Russia annexed Crimea, invaded eastern Ukraine, intervened in Syria, and hacked the Clinton campaign and the DNC. Obama’s response during these critical moments was cautious at best, and deeply misguided at worst. Even the imposition of sanctions on Russia for its invasion of Ukraine was accompanied by so much propitiation and restraint elsewhere that it didn’t deter Russia from subsequent aggression, including the risky 2016 influence operation in the United States. Obama, confident that history was on America’s side, for the duration of his time in office underestimated the damaging impact Russia could achieve through asymmetric means.

Obama’s cautious Russia policy is grounded in three conceptual errors: a failure to grasp the true nature of the Russian threat, most clearly visible in his administration’s restrained response to Russia’s annexation of Crimea in 2014; a “long view” of historical trends which in his view inexorably “bent” toward liberalism; and the perception that formidable domestic political obstacles stood in his way when it came to crafting a response to Putin’s assault on the elections in 2016.

Haddad and Polyakova acknowledge

Obama’s much-ballyhooed “Reset” with Russia, launched in 2009, was in keeping with optimistic attempts by every post-Cold War American administration to improve relations with Moscow out of the gate. Seizing on the supposed change of leadership in Russia, with Dmitry Medvedev temporarily taking over the presidency from Vladimir Putin, Obama’s team quickly turned a blind eye to Russia’s 2008 war with Georgia, which in retrospect was Putin’s opening move in destabilizing the European order.

The twelve years of failure may have been more like twenty years because

Like George W. Bush before him, Obama vastly overestimated the extent to which a personal relationship with a Russian leader could affect the bilateral relationship. U.S.-Russia disagreements were not the result of misunderstandings, but rather the product of long-festering grievances. Russia saw itself as a great power that deserved equal standing with the U.S. What Obama saw as gestures of good will—such as the 2009 decision to scrap missile defense plans for Poland and the Czech Republic—Russia interpreted as a U.S. retreat from the European continent. Moscow pocketed the concessions and increasingly inserted itself in European affairs. The Kremlin was both exploiting an easy opportunity and reasserting what it thought was its historic prerogative.

The analysis has application to the ongoing war Russia initiated four years later in eastern Europe because

Though Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in 2014 was the final nail in the coffin of the Reset, President Obama remained reluctant to view Moscow as anything more than a local spoiler, and thought the whole mess was best handled by Europeans. France and Germany spearheaded the Minsk ceasefire process in 2014-2015, with U.S. support but without Washington at the table. The Obama administration did coordinate a far-ranging sanctions policy with the European Union—an important diplomatic achievement, to be sure. But to date, the sanctions have only had a middling effect on the Russian economy as a whole (oil and gas prices have hurt much more). And given that sanctions cut both ways—potential value is destroyed on both sides when economic activity is systematically prohibited—most of the sacrifice was (and continues to be) born by European economies, which have longstanding ties to Russia. In contrast, the costs of a robust sanctions policy have been comparatively minor in the United States; Obama spent little political capital to push them through at home.

"Obama spent little political capital...." can be applied to much of his time as President. But in their balanced evaluation of the President's actions toward Russia, the analysts add

The Obama administration also sought to shore up NATO’s eastern flank through the European Reassurance Initiative (ERI), which stationed rotating troops in Poland and the Baltics while increasing the budget for U.S. support. Nevertheless, the president resisted calls from Congress, foreign policy experts, and his own cabinet to provide lethal weapons to Ukraine that would have raised the costs on Russia and helped Kyiv defend itself against Russian military incursion into the Donbas. As Obama told Jeffrey Goldberg, he viewed any deterrent moves by the United States as fundamentally not credible, because Russia’s interests clearly trumped our own; it was clear to him they would go to war much more readily that the United States ever would, and thus they had escalatory dominance. Doing more simply made no sense to Obama.

This timid realpolitik was mixed up with a healthy dose of disdain. Obama dismissed Russia as a “regional power” that was acting out of weakness in Ukraine. “The fact that Russia felt it had to go in militarily and lay bare these violations of international law indicates less influence, not more,” Obama said at the G7 meeting in 2014. This line has not aged well. Obama’s attitudes on Russia reflected his administration’s broadly teleological, progressive outlook on history. Russia’s territorial conquest “belonged in the 19th century.” The advance of globalization, technological innovation, and trade rendered such aggression both self-defeating and anachronistic. The biggest mistake for America would be to overreact to such petty, parochial challenges. The 2015 National Security Strategy favored “strategic patience”. But was it patience… or passivity? As its actions in 2016 proved, Russia is very much a 21st century power that understands how to avail itself of the modern tools available to it, often much better than we do ourselves.

"Disdain" is a fitting term given that Barack Obama nonetheless managed to get re-elected, in part because of the disdain many of us voters have for the importance of foreign policy. His term in office, however, made it far more difficult for a Democrat to succeed him in office as

The same intellectual tendencies that shaped Obama’s timid approach to Ukraine were reflected in his administration’s restrained response as evidence of Russian electoral interference began to emerge in the summer.

Statesmen were inadvertently and intentionally sacrificed, Hillary Clinton and Mitt Romney respectively, for President Obama's foolishness.  His was a good faith stumble into bad foreign policy, though with ramifications continuing to this day.

However, naivete about Russia's intent is reaching a whole new level. Donald Trump long has made his intent clear. At the NATO summit in Brussels in 2018,  President Trump had the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff and the Defense Secretary draw up orders for the USA to withdraw from NATO despite their opposition and only at the last minute pulled back.  In a video on his campaign website, Trump promises to "finish the process we began under my administration of fundamentally reevaluating NATO's purpose and NATO's mission."

From a generally insightful author comes an opinion is that Trump's policy is grounded less in ideology than in self-interest:

Well, no, because Trump is not confused. He’s a Kremlin asset with decades of transnational organized crime ties. He and his partners would benefit from the annihilation of NATO. Trump’s been discussing it since 1987.

Quit pretending people are confused when they’re corrupt. https://t.co/vYbcpVt1BI

— Sarah Kendzior (@sarahkendzior) February 11, 2024

Eastern Europe became more dangerous because of President Obama's policies, though the impact has been felt only the last couple of years. The effect of the approach, whether impelled by self-interested or misguided principle, in the second term of a Trump Administration would be devastating not only to Ukraine- and thereafter, probably to its neighbor(s), It also would open a new front in east Asia if mainland China is emboldened to invade Taiwan.

Until then, we have a President, old and accused of senility, who understands the world better than the last Democratic President and infinitely better than the guy who wants to beat him in November.

Share |

Dictator, Dictatorship, and Dictatorial

When President Biden met tyrant Xi Jinping of Mainland China outside of San Francisco on Wednesday, he may have broached the topics of Chinese spy balloons, breach of American cybersecurity by Mainland China, Beijing's support of Vladimir Putin's invasion of Ukraine and of North Korea, Tik-Tok, the brutal treatment of the Xinjiang Uyghurs by the Butchers of Beijing. Instead 

Joe Biden said Wednesday he still believes Chinese President Xi Jinping is a dictator, even as the two leaders made progress in their relationship during a meeting outside San Francisco.

“Well, look, he’s a dictator in the sense that he is a guy who runs a country that is a communist country that’s based on a form of government totally different than ours,” Biden told CNN’s MJ Lee. “Anyway, we made progress.”

When asked about Biden’s latest comment at a Chinese Foreign Ministry briefing on Thursday, a spokesperson called it “extremely erroneous” and an “irresponsible political maneuver, which China firmly opposes.”

Alleged journalist Lee had asked "And Mr. President, after today, would you still refer to President Xi as a 'dictator'? This is a term that you used earlier this year.

  "

Newsflash to Lee: Mainland China is a dictatorship run by the Communist Chinese Party completely controlled by Xi Jinping.

She should know that and, absent complete ignorance of world affairs, does. That puts her question in the category of "gotcha." Worse, Lee forfeited an opportunity to ask the head of the world's #1 superpower a question about the world's #2 or #3, superpower, with which the #1 superpower has many points of serious disagreement.

Disappointingly, reporters at The Washington Post responded with 

But in true Biden fashion, he veered off script despite the careful planning of his aides. White House officials had structured the news conference so Biden would take four questions. The president did take the four questions and began to walk away, but couldn’t help himself as a television reporter shouted out another one. Biden turned around and came back to the podium, giving another television reporter time to ask whether the President still believed Xi was a dictator.

“Look, he is. He's a dictator in the sense that he's a guy who runs a country that is a communist country that's based on a form of government totally different than ours,” Biden said.

Video from the news conference showed some of his aides noticeably grimacing. China’s foreign ministry later said it “strongly opposes” the remarks.

President Biden could have avoided the question and been accused, rightly, of being cowardly and intimidated. He could have lied and stated that Xi Jinping is not a dictator, or given an ambiguous answer and been accused, still rightly, of a lack of honesty and transparency. Republicans would have had a field day, and Biden probably would have sealed his defeat next November.

 Or he could have stated the obvious, that Xi Jinping is "a dictator."

It was a "gotcha" question asked by a reporter who, educated beyond 4th grade, knew the answer. Presumably, M.J. Lee asked the question to put the President on the spot and get her on every CNN news segment in the following two days aired about the summit. Alternatively, she had another motive. As of now, in the absence of more evidence, she deserves the benefit of the doubt and simply represents failed journalism.

Share |

Animal Instincts

"If President Biden were a tree, what tree would he be?" Presidential press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre has not been asked this question. Yet.

Last December, Politico summarized

Tensions between Beijing and Washington have been steadily increasing for years. Some of the competition has been plain to see: New Chinese aircraft carriers, fifth-generation fighter planes and airstrips in the South China Sea that are facing off against U.S. megabases in places like Guam and deepening military partnerships with Australia and Taiwan.

But other aspects of China’s quest for power are much more subtle. Beijing is also playing a quieter game, using non-military means to propel its push for influence and dominance across the Indo-Pacific and beyond.

Talk to the China watchers in Washington and they’ll say these moves pose a trickier but no less belligerent set of challenges to the U.S. and its allies than China’s overt military buildup — whether it’s China’s deputizing commercial fishing ships to act as extensions of its Navy, it’s pumping money into private tech firms building drones and semiconductors for export across the globe, or it’s allowing government censors to dip into social media algorithms used by American teenagers. These are all part of a wider strategy to spread Chinese influence by marrying the military and commercial aspects of Chinese power, and which poses startling new threats to the United States.

And so in the presidential press conference of August 28, 2023, NBC News White House correspondent Kelly O'Donnell asked press secretary Jean-Pierre

On China, there are a lot of different tension points but one of these has been- we've been reminded of the fact that China has retained ownership of all the pandas at the zoo for the United States, including the Smithsonian National Zoo.  And, uh, is there any chance the President is going to ask President Xi to let the pandas stay?

this was not where i was expecting this question to go pic.twitter.com/XXpnkkkwNx

— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) August 28, 2023

Next week, Ms. O'Donnell may ask about Tiktok; Chinese hackers breaching public and private networks across the world; malware inserted by mainland China into power grid networks, communications systems, and water supplies in the USA;  Beijing's threat to Taiwan; or the extensive build-up of the Chinese military.  However, more likely, it will be "is there any chance the President is going to ask President Xi to free the Uyghurs who are in detention camps in Xinjiang. or at least free the pandas?"

Share |

Haley and China

There has been among Republican presidential candidates, arguably, no two more frequent criticism of "socialism"  than the degenerates from South Carolina. Here she is waving the flag of capitalism:

This election is about socialism vs. freedom.

Let's make sure freedom wins. pic.twitter.com/tF5hVBunGr

— Nikki Haley (@NikkiHaley) July 25, 2023

And later that day:

This election is a choice between the left's socialist polices and our fight for freedom.

We can't allow China to continue infiltrating our schools and economy, and we can't allow Joe Biden to run our country into the ground.

Granite Staters get it. Let's shake up DC! pic.twitter.com/xHNn8cjZr0

— Nikki Haley (@NikkiHaley) July 26, 2023

In the video below, Haley (at 2:58) gives the edited version of a stump speech when she remarks

And whether is is looking at the fact that they have spy balloons going across our country. Whether it is the fact that they bought 400,000 acres of U.S. soil next to our sensitive military installations, the fact that they're sending fetanyl across our border, putting propaganda and sending millions of dollars to our universities or that they have Chinese companies lobbying Congress on behalf of the Chinese Communist Party, you look now and they've really strengthened their military, they're stealing 600 billion dollars worth of intellectual property from us every year.

               

There is some truth to Haley's accusations. While her remark about fetanyl is largely accurate, her charge about Chinese propaganda in schools is exaggerated, though the matter is concerning. The "spy balloons" were one balloon, which was shot down, allowing debris it contained to be analyzed by American intelligence. Further, the Pentagon maintains "it has been our assessment now that it did not collect while it was transiting the United States or overflying the United States?" (Does that mean "flying over?")

Chinese ownership of land in the USA is a looming threat, one only beginning to get the attention it deserves. However, it is not "they," by which Haley is strongly implying the Chinese government. Instead

Chinese ownership of U.S. land is highly concentrated. USDA data obtained by NPR show more than 80% held by Smithfield Foods and billionaire San Guangxin, through Brazos Highland Properties LP and Harvest Texas LLC.

Brazos, with headquarters in Houston, is primarily a real estate operation and Smithfield Foods is, appropriately, a food company located in Smithfield, Virginia.

Chinese law allows Beijing to get access to all information from individuals or companies, so land owned in the USA by Chinese individuals or companies is nearly as serious a threat as were it owned directly by their government.

Nonetheless, there is different- especially with the American companies involved- than ownership directly by the Chinese government. But Haley would rather condemn the Chinese government than the Chinese companies who are- through American capitalists- buying farmland in the USA, sometimes close to military installations.

Admittedly, the former Ambassador to the United Nations probably is more concerned with infiltration by the Chinese than is any other GOP presidential candidate. However, she is even more eager to deride "socialism"-  whatever that is in the context of the mixed economy we sometimes enjoy here- and to promote capitalism.

Neither applauding "capitalism" nor slamming mainland China poses any risk for a Republican running for President. There is, however, one bold move that the anti-China Haley could take to prove there is a there behind her rhetoric.

The former South Carolina governor could call for banning Tik Tok from the country. That would eliminate a major national security threat, simultaneously strike a blow against the emotional and mental deterioration of young Americans, and eliminate a major and dangerously effective means of disinformation.

Haley won't do it, of course. She'll avoid an obvious means of defanging the Butchers of Beijing for the same reason other Republicans, and Democrats, avoid addressing this hazard to honest political discourse, American youth and society. Some TikTok users vote, although probably at a considerably lower rate than other citizens. Also, "capitalism."

Ignoring the menace of this particularly malevolent social media platform is a bipartisan shortcoming.  Downplaying the jeopardy posed by mainland China also is bipartisan, though Democrats do so more brazenly. However, dishonest ranting and raving about "socialism" is a peculiarly Republican defect, and one not limited to to the Trump-DeSantis authoritarian wing of the GOP.

 

Share |