We Should Be Praising The Whistleblowers. Smearing JFK Jr. Mfume. China's Military. More.

++++

The American people owe true and legitimate whistleblowers a tremendous thanks for having the courage to do their job in the most ethical and straightforward manner and let the chips fall where they may. These three have supplanted the mass media who no longer serve as  America's ombudsmen.

Obviously they knew whistleblowers are "hated" for being snitches and seldom get any respect from their peers.  In fact they suffer exclusion and all kind of abuse, economic pain and ostracization..

It is sad they are scorned by society but that is generally the case.

++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

DeSantis Reveals His Stance on 1 Key Issue - And Trump  Actually Agrees with It 100%

Finally something they can agree on...

Read More...

+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ 

With respect to JFK Jr's, smearing  by Democrats, they obviously fear he threatens  Biden.

Meanwhile, with respect to the actual whistleblower's testimony Democrats basically ignored whatever they revealed. I assume Democrat partisans thought it would go away and, as my wife believes, perhaps it will.  

Certainly, if the shoe were on the other foot the NYT's and "Crapo " would be outdoing each other seeking Trump's impeachment.

+++
Mfume fails to understand his sworn responsibility.  Congress is obligated to check on various government agencies and monitor them to see they are adhering to their work ethic commitment.

And:

DOJ, FBI, IRS ‘Keep This Democracy In Check?  Democrat Snaps During Biden Family Investigation.

And:

Democrat Breaks Down During Hunter Biden Hearing, Tears Up Prepared Speech.

++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

China's economy may be slowing and their population aging but they are preparing for a knock out blow type war designed to defeat America's distinctly smaller military.

+++

China’s Economy Hits the Skids

What happens next isn’t clear but the era of torrid growth is likely over.

By Walter Russell Mead

The bad economic news from China keeps coming. Exports fell 12.4% in June. Between 2012 and 2022 China added at least $10 trillion more to its debt load than the U.S. Youth unemployment is at record levels, even as manufacturers report severe labor shortages. The residential property developers at the heart of China’s long boom look increasingly vulnerable, and local governments who have long relied on a red-hot real estate market for revenue are turning to Beijing with their hands out.

Some look at the troubling statistics and predict that China is headed for a catastrophic market bust. Such forecasts, for now, seem premature. The central government still has a lot of money to throw at its problems, and the increasingly totalitarian state that China is becoming has many policy tools at its disposal.

But while China’s economic outlook is as uncertain as its long boom is unprecedented, foreign-policy strategists should prepare for a world in which China’s era of superfast growth has come to an end.

Many factors have combined to make it harder for China to maintain the blistering growth of the last generation. Beijing’s current turn to more central control and Communist Party “leadership” undermines the private-sector dynamism that helped make the country’s economy so formidable. China’s model of central control tends to work less efficiently as the economy becomes more complex. Its workforce is getting more demanding even as its population begins to decline. China’s trading partners have become more sensitive to Chinese rule-breaking as Chinese producers threaten to dominate more global markets.

A secular slowdown in China’s growth would be a mixed blessing for the U.S. On one hand, many in the U.S. and abroad believe unrealistically that China will surpass the U.S. and outpace the rest of the world for decades. Such projections foster arrogance inside China and defeatism among those seeking to manage its rise. Belief that China’s economic surge will continue indefinitely also increases the appeal of China’s model beyond its borders and encourages business and political leaders to see good relations with China as indispensable for long-term prosperity.

But slowing Chinese growth won’t end America’s China problem. Its economy is already large enough, and its military and technological capacities great enough, that China will remain a powerful and disruptive global force for the foreseeable future.

In the short term, a slowing Chinese economy could increase U.S.-China tension. Pointing to U.S. tariffs and controls over exports of sensitive technologies, Chinese leaders will deflect the economic blame onto Washington. That will increase xenophobic feeling inside China, creating political pressure for more assertive foreign-policy moves.

Longer term, the effects of decelerating Chinese growth would likely be, from a U.S. standpoint, more benign. Truculent finger-pointing might be China’s short-term response to economic stress, but in the longer run many in China would see better relations with the West as necessary for China’s economic health and political stability.

Long-term slowing growth would likely force China’s leaders to focus more on internal issues. With an aging population, a frustrated younger generation and wide gaps between rich areas like Shanghai and Shenzhen and poorer ones in the “Rust Belt” northeast and interior, Beijing will find it much harder to maintain political stability in a time of slow growth. Increases in the Chinese defense budget could be more difficult to sustain politically, given pressure to spend scarce funds on domestic priorities as the population ages and important social needs go unmet.

A return to something like Deng Xiaoping’s policy of “peaceful rise” could appeal to a Chinese leadership facing limited economic options and a restless population. With “peaceful rise,” Beijing avoided problems with neighbors and the U.S. to minimize foreign worries about China’s growing power. A willingness to discuss arms limits and confidence-building measures in the South China Sea could signal a future Chinese decision to turn to a less confrontational path.

Other consequences of a secular slowdown in China’s growth rate would ripple around the world. The wealth gap between China and developing neighbors like India and Indonesia would likely narrow. Commodity producers in Latin America and Africa would face less demand for their products from a slowing China, even as Beijing reduces its commitments to controversial projects like its Belt and Road Initiative. Global emissions targets could be much easier to achieve if China’s growth slows.

Nobody, including your Global View columnist, really knows how China’s economy will perform two, three or 10 years into the future. Beijing propagandists want to trumpet China’s inexorable, unstoppable rise. But China, like Japan, likely will experience slower growth as its economy matures, and American policy makers must be ready for the opportunities that the shift will create.

++++++++++++++++++++

America is falling apart in a variety of ways. We are losing the education battle, the military preparedness battle, the border battle, the battle against drugs, the balancing of our federal budget, sanctity of the dollar as a world currency standard, the infrastructure battle,  the crime issue and the domestic tranquility battle.  

Our major cities are mainly run by black mayors not up to the demands, our two major political party's are at loggerheads, distrust in government and the mass media continues to sink and I could go on and on.  

Meanwhile, Xi has his own set of problems but he is intent on building a military capability that is superior, in most every way, to our own which is focused on social and sexualization matters. Our enlistment and retention rolls are abysmal and patriotism no longer is deemed a virtuous American trait. 

When Japan bombed Pearl Harbour a major Japanese Admiral stated his nation had unleashed a tiger.  That no longer seems the case as our next generation become captivated by LBGTQueer minorities and indoctrinated to hate our nation, question their own sexuality, reject our Constitution and flirt with socialism and communism.

We are a confused nation. The melting pot experiment is coming apart as we approach 250 years.

As I oft say - "th enemy is us."

+++

America’s Largest Teachers Union Isn’t Beyond Reform

Washington can make the NEA less political and more accountable by revising its federal charter.

By Scott Fitzgerald and Aaron Withe

When Congress granted the National Education Association a federal charter in 1906, it tasked the union with promoting “the cause of education in the United States.” In so doing, lawmakers recognized it as one of the country’s official “patriotic and national organizations.”

Today the NEA (along with the American Federation of Teachers) haunts public education with unparalleled influence in the service of advancing left-wing politics. At the NEA’s 2023 Representative Assembly in Orlando, Fla., this month, the union’s leaders were true to form: cheering an address by President Biden, excoriating Gov. Ron DeSantis’s “attacks on students,” and justifying their intense partisan rhetoric by claiming that “love is actually what fuels our anger.”

Parents have seen the effects of this politicking up close. As the nation reeled from the pandemic, the NEA lobbied the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention to make its school reopening guidelines more restrictive. Studies have since shown that in-person learning resumed more slowly in school districts with strong teachers unions—while learning loss and declining test scores have been documented exhaustively.

The NEA has worked not to fulfill its original purpose but to promote a left-wing social and economic agenda at odds with many Americans’ values. The union has used its institutional heft as leverage to influence nearly every major policy debate, from the debt ceiling and abortion to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and the Second Amendment. Meantime, it has opposed efforts to reform failing schools by such means as school choice, curriculum transparency and performance pay for teachers.

The public’s perception of teachers unions largely splits across party lines, with a 2022 Education Next poll showing that less than half of Americans view them favorably. The other 94 federally chartered organizations—including the U.S. Olympic Committee, Little League Baseball and the American Legion—are far less controversial. That’s at least in part because the organizations’ charters have guardrails to prevent them from becoming political lightning rods.

While 60% of federal charters prohibit or limit political activity and lobbying, the NEA’s doesn’t. During the 2019-20 election cycle, the union raised nearly $32 million through its three political funds. The only other federally chartered entity that maintains a federal political action committee, the Society of American Florists, raised some $23,000 for its PAC. The NEA’s charter also lacks several other regulations and safeguards that have been standard charter features for the past century.

Thankfully these provisions aren’t chiseled in stone. Congress can repeal or revise federal charters whenever it deems necessary. The time has come to do so for the NEA.

One of us (Mr. Fitzgerald) is introducing the Stopping Teachers Unions from Damaging Education Needs Today Act, Student for short, which would amend the union’s charter by adding 11 accountability and transparency provisions commonly found in other federal charters, such as prohibiting the NEA from engaging in political activities and lobbying, requiring it to submit annual reports to Congress, and requiring that its officers be U.S. citizens.

The bill would fully repeal an exclusive exemption granted to the union for certain property taxes in the District of Columbia and prohibit its affiliates from striking—a standard that applies to unions representing federal employees. The Student Act would also prevent taxpayers from having to pay NEA officers’ salaries—a common requirement of union contracts—and restrict the union from incorporating critical race theory into its operations and advocacy.

Five years after the Supreme Court’s ruling in Janus v. Afscme, which struck down state laws forcing public employees to pay union dues, the NEA still fails to inform teachers sufficiently of their right to forgo membership. The union also relies on government-administered payroll deductions of dues—a process that shifts dues-collection costs onto taxpayers and facilitates union-imposed “maintenance of payment provisions,” sharply limiting teachers’ ability to cancel their membership.

The Student Act would end this indefensible behavior by requiring the NEA to collect dues on its own—without the use of government payroll systems—and to notify employees of their rights before signing them up for membership.

As the nation nears another school year, our students desperately need more advocates for quality education. That can start by reining in America’s largest teachers union from its excesses and encouraging it to return to its founding ethos.

Mr. Fitzgerald, a Republican, represents Wisconsin’s Fifth Congressional District. Mr. Withe is CEO of the Freedom Foundation.

+++++++++++++++++++++++++