Balloons No Mistake. Pompeo A Serious Man and Candidate. Biden Funds Escalating Israeli Deaths.

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It was no mistake: Chinese balloons hinting to an attack

By Gordon G. Chang

Chinese ballonThe sky balloons are stirring concern and uneasiness about China's intentions with the America. Tyler Schlitt Photography

Make no mistake: China’s incursions into our airspace look like a prelude to an attack.

The Chinese balloon we shot down on Feb. 4 lingered over Malmstrom Air Force Base, the site of approximately a third of America’s land-based intercontinental ballistic missiles. The balloon then flew near both F. E. Warren and Minot Air Force bases, which house the remainder of America’s Minutemen III wings. The balloon also passed close to Whiteman Air Force Base, home to the nuclear-capable B-2 bomber fleet, and Offutt Air Force Base, the headquarters of Strategic Command, which controls US nuclear weapons.

This path suggests China is gathering intelligence for either a first or second strike on America’s nukes.

Whatever China is planning, the violation of American territorial airspace was blatant and reveals the dangerous mentality of Chinese ­leadership.

There are several alternative explanations for why Beijing engaged in such a brazen act at this moment. It’s possible that the Chinese military has become so politically powerful inside the ruling Communist Party that it could launch this balloon without consulting other regime elements. Perhaps Chinese ruler Xi Jinping had decided this was the time to intimidate the United States into not defending, say, Taiwan or Japan.

Xi can see that Vladimir Putin’s nuke threats have been effective in getting President Biden to hold back on supplying military equipment for beleaguered Ukraine.

We cannot look into Xi’s mind, but we can see what he has been doing: preparing the People’s Republic of China for war. At the Communist Party 20th National Congress in October, he appointed his “war cabinet.” He is pushing the fastest military buildup since WWII, he is trying to sanctions-proof his regime and he’s mobilizing China’s civilians for battle.

The balloon intrusion shows Xi’s utter disrespect for the US and suggests he is not deterred by America.

The bold intrusion can be a Beijing head fake or the prelude to conflict. President Biden’s failure to talk about the matter suggests his administration still does not know what is going on.

Until the administration can figure this out, the American people should assume that the worst is coming.

Gordon G. Chang is the author of “The Coming Collapse of China.” Follow him on Twitter @GordonGChang. 

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Pompeo is a serious man and if matters get serious his candidacy would be enhanced.

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 If Biden Won’t Stand for Freedom, Congress Can 

By Arthur Herman and Mike Pompeo

This month marks the anniversary of Vladimir Putin’s invasion of Ukraine. The U.S., Europe and much of the rest of the world—with the significant exceptions of China and Iran—have rallied to support the Ukrainian people and condemn this unprovoked attack. This war isn’t one more clash of competing nations; it’s about a nation defending its freedom against autocratic aggression. While it is important to support the Ukrainian people with the arms and resources they need to resist Russia, the most vital asset the U.S. can offer is the idea of freedom itself.

This past year we’ve learned how universal that yearning is, even in Russia. Tens of thousands of young Russian men refused to participate in Mr. Putin’s illegal war of aggression, and thousands more risked arrest and bodily harm protesting that war.

In China we’ve seen massive protests against Beijing’s brutal Covid lockdowns—protests that have directly challenged President Xi Jinping’s autocratic rule.

In Iran the vicious murder of a young Iranian woman triggered mass demonstrations that continue to this day, as young people risk their lives to protest the mullahs’ iron-fisted control. Even the execution of prominent protesters, including Mohammad Mehdi Karami, one of Iran’s most beloved athletes, have failed to quell the unrest.

These protests have shaken all three regimes and created a golden opportunity for President Biden to speak in solidarity with the protesters and voice America’s support for the struggle for human rights in these three counties.

Yet inexplicably, except for some perfunctory remarks condemning the violent suppression of the protests in Iran, Mr. Biden hasn’t spoken in support of citizens’ aspiration for freedom in these three countries, all autocracies actively challenging American interests. The administration has failed to understand Reagan’s most important lesson: “The ultimate determinant in the struggle now going on for the world will not be bombs or rockets, but a test of wills and ideas—a trial of spiritual resolve.”

Reagan saw the emergence of the Solidarity workers’ union, which began as a series of strikes in the Gdansk shipyards in 1980, as a powerful challenge not only to the Polish communist regime but to its Soviet masters. He showed the world how the Polish government’s refusal to allow workers to organize an independent union, and the subsequent crackdown on Solidarity under martial law, proved that the Soviet system would never allow the Poles, or anyone else behind the Iron Curtain, to determine their own destiny. He wrote to other Western leaders, including Margaret Thatcher, that the Solidarity strikes “may well be a watershed moment in the political history of mankind—a challenge to tyranny from within” as well as a challenge to Soviet hegemony in Eastern Europe.

Reagan enlisted America’s largest labor union, the AFL-CIO, to support Solidarity’s organizing efforts, and designated Jan. 20, 1982, as Solidarity Day in support of the union, stating: “The hearts and minds of free people everywhere stand in Solidarity with the people of Poland in the hour of their suffering.” He even authorized the CIA to supply Solidarity covertly with funds and material support.

It’s hard to say whether Reagan’s support turned the tide in Poland and the Cold War. But by showing that the conflict taking place in the streets of Gdansk and Warsaw was between tyranny and freedom, and that the U.S. was firmly on the side of freedom, Reagan was able to enlist the help of other democratic leaders. This new coalition resisted the Soviets’ effort to dominate Europe with intermediate-range nuclear-armed missiles.

The Biden administration may have missed its opportunity to advance America’s moral leadership in the confrontation with China, Russia and Iran. The new Congress, however, still can. It can continue to support Ukraine, and also investigate and highlight the atrocities being committed by Russian forces, as well as the egregious human rights records of China, Russia and Iran.

Congress also can impose sanctions on companies and institutions in the U.S. that support these abuses. It can invite Russian, Chinese and Iranian dissidents to testify about the crimes of autocratic leaders. Lawmakers can memorialize the victims past and present of these oppressive regimes through a congressional act.

By emulating Reagan and encouraging Chinese, Russian and Iranian citizens to call out their leaders as dictators and enemies of freedom, while offering support to calls for political change, the new Congress, with its Republican House majority, can lay the foundation for a robust Freedom Agenda for the U.S. in the coming decade.

It would also remind America and the world that the U.S. is not the evil empire the woke left likes to claim it is, and that evil is alive and well in Beijing, Moscow and Tehran.

Mr. Herman is a senior fellow at the Hudson Institute and author of “Freedom’s Forge: How American Business Produced Victory in World War II.” Mr. Pompeo, a distinguished fellow at Hudson, served as U.S. secretary of state (2018-21) and director of the Central Intelligence Agency (2017-18).

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When Secretary of State Blinken met with PLO leader Mahmoud Abbas, he boasted of the over billion dollars in aid that the Biden administration had programmed for the terrorist territories.

That aid has come with a very heavy price.

In Feb 2019, President Trump’s total cutoff of aid became official. That year, 10 Israelis or people in Israeli controlled areas were killed in stabbings, shootings, rocket and other attacks, down from 12 the previous year, and 15 in 2017, and 16 in 2016

In 2020 however only three Israelis were killed.

These numbers reflected the diminished capacity of the Islamic terrorists. The reduction in numbers was not due to the pandemic. 2020 still saw attacks, including firebombings, rocket launches and stabbings, but the success and lethality rates for these attacks were lower.

The numbers turned around dramatically once again in 2021.

In April 2021, the Biden administration restored aid to the PLO. Terror incidents, reflecting attack attempts, shot up sharply from 91 in February and 89 in March to 130 in April.

By May, major fighting resumed with 13 Israelis, including two children, killed.

By the time the year was over, 17 people in Israeli areas had been killed. The over 400% increase in deaths was only the beginning. In 2022, 31 Israelis or people in Israeli areas were killed, up from only 3 in 2020, for a massive 900% increase in casualties since the restoration of foreign aid to the terrorists. This was the worst death toll since 2015 under Obama.

But in January and the first half of February of 2023, 10 Israelis have already been killed, including a 6-year-old boy and an 8-year-old boy.

Three times as many have been killed in a month and a half of 2023 as in all of 2020. That’s a 233% increase over 2020 in just a fraction of a year, but it’s also a marked month-to-month escalation from 2022 which featured no attacks at all in January or February. More people have already been killed by terrorists in 2023 than through most of March in 2022.

What a difference a billion dollars makes.

While the media has tried to portray the terrorism as “lone wolf” attacks, they’re crowdsourced violence of the kind that Al Qaeda and ISIS helped innovate. But the PLO’s version is unique through its ‘Pay-to-Slay’ program which rewards terrorists, regardless of their formal affiliation, including ISIS and Hamas members, with salaries and payments for their families.

Terrorists are paid based on the length of their prison sentence. That means successful killers can earn $2,000 to $3,000 a month in a part of the world where the average salary is around $700 a month. It’s five times more profitable to be a terrorist than a teacher.

The Palestinian Authority calls for the murder of Jews, praises it and then rewards it.

Muhammad Al-Lahham of the Fatah Revolutionary Council, which runs the political movement behind the terrorists of the Palestinian Authority, was caught on video praising the “patriotic conscience” of a terrorist who had killed a rabbi taking his 2-year-old son for a walk in 2022.

The Trump administration cut off aid to the PLO’s Palestinian Authority and Congress passed the Taylor Force Act banning funds from going to finance Pay-to-Slay.

Throughout all this, PLO leadership have been consistent in refusing to stop financing terrorism.

“We will neither reduce nor prevent [payment] of allowances to the families of martyrs, prisoners and released prisoners, as some seek, and if we had only a single penny left, we would pay it to families of the martyrs and prisoners,” Abbas had bragged. By “martyrs”, he meant those Islamic terrorists who were killed while carrying out terrorist attack

Despite this, the Biden administration had restored aid and rebuilt diplomatic relations. Biden and Blinken have met with Abbas. And while they have attacked Israel over everything from letting Jews pray on the Temple Mount (due to Jewish prayers offending Muslim sensibilities) to democratic judicial reform that will limit the unilateral authority of pro-terrorist judges, Biden and Blinken have had nothing to say to the terrorists about the program funding the murder of Jews.

America First Legal, under Stephen Miller, filed suit against the Biden administration on behalf of the parents of Taylor Force: a non-Jewish Afghanistan war vet murdered in Jerusalem.

“The Biden Administration is well aware that the PA pays Palestinian terrorists to injure or kill innocent Americans and Israelis in Israel. Yet, in blatant violation of the Taylor Force Act, a federal law that prohibits the government from sending American taxpayer dollars to the PA until it stops supporting terrorism, President Biden and Secretary of State Blinken have resumed payments to the PA after the Trump Administration had stopped these payments in compliance with the Taylor Force Act,” America First Legal declared

“The Taylor Force Act, named after our son, was passed by Congress and signed by President Trump to stop this Pay to Slay. Yet the Biden Administration has resumed payments to the PA notwithstanding its Pay to Slay program,” Stuart Force, Taylor’s father, said.

The Biden administration’s decision to fund the Palestinian Authority has consequences beyond Israel. Islamic terrorism is a global threat and has been a reliable killer of Americans abroad.

“Robbi and I call upon President Biden to stop sending fungible taxpayer dollars to the PA that will end up funding terrorism,” Stuart Force appeal

And the latest wave of violence shows just how ‘fungible’ that money is.

The massive uptick in successful terrorist attacks is not a coincidence. The numbers become more significant when we distinguish between so-called “lone wolf” attacks which are most directly impacted by ‘Pay-to-Slay’ and rocket attacks by other terrorist groups. 14 people were killed in direct terrorist attacks in 2018. That number dropped to 5 in 2019, the year Trump cut off aid to the PLO. By 2020, it fell to 3, in 2021, the year Biden restored aid, it rose to 4 and then shot up to 32 in 2022 reflecting the ‘slow burn’ effect of fungible aid money being taken away and then restored within a government bureaucracy even if it’s run by and for terrorist

As the Biden administration continues pumping money into the terrorist entities occupying parts of Israel, the violence is drastically increasing. 2023 is already on track to top 2022 which had the worst numbers since 2015. The level of Islamic terrorism is returning to that of the Obama administration and that means that we can expect an even higher death toll in Israel

The billion dollars in aid is a factor, but an even bigger factor is that the Biden administration, like its Democrat predecessor, has made no secret of its support for the Palestinian Authority. And the Biden administration has gone even further with its diplomatic support for the PLO regime and its pressure on Israel. The latest murders are the work of a terrorist group that knows that Washington D.C. has its back and will intervene to protect it from Israel.

The Biden administration’s decision to appoint Hady Amr, an open supporter of Islamic terrorism and opponent of the Jewish State, as its key liaison to the PLO, who was inspired by the intifada, has consequences, and dead bodies in Jerusalem are among the most obvious ones.

Islamic terrorism runs on money and foreign support. The Biden administration has provided both. The Palestinian Authority spends hundreds of millions of dollars a year on Pay-to-Slay.

The pipeline of terror may end with a 6-year-old boy lying dead on a Jerusalem street but it begins with cash coming out of Washington D.C. The attacks of September 11 cost Al Qaeda about half a million dollars. The cost to the PLO of killing that little boy, his brother and a newly married man going to spend the Sabbath with his wife’s family probably comes out to about $30,000 a year. Or $10,000 per dead Jewish person. That’s a fraction of the millions of dollars in foreign aid which could be used to finance hundreds and thousands of more murders of Jews.

$10,000 to kill a six-year-old boy, another $10,000 to kill his 8-year-old brother. Thanks to the financiers of murdering Jews in the Biden administration, the terrorists

have the cash.

And we’re the ones providing it

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Peeling Back the Curtain on 'Big Censorship' and the Money Behind Silencing Conservative Outlet

By Brad Slager

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