[Clarice @ AT] This was an incredible week for news, and I am going to discuss just three of what I consider the most important events: The ongoing investigations and criminal indictments, the shutdown of the government, and the ceasefire and return of the hostages in Gaza.
Posted by: Frank G ||
10/12/2025 07:57 ||
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#1
To me, the shutdown orchestrated by Senator Chuck Schumer, who seems terrified of a 2028 primary challenge by Alexandra Ocasio-Cortez, is a big mistake.
Really? I thought she was running for POTUS. AOC vs Gavin Dippity Do Newsom in the Democrat primary would be great fun to watch if I could get my hands on enough popcorn.
Besides, Schumer is enough of a prick to orchestrate the shutdown just because he's a prick.
Posted by: Abu Uluque ||
10/12/2025 16:43 Comments ||
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"Free" would seem to imply free both ways, wouldn't it?
[Breitbart] It was 25 years ago today when President Bill Clinton stood in the Rose Garden and signed the United States – China Relations Act into law, which granted permanent normal trading relations (PNTR) with China.
That law would change the U.S.-China trading relationship forever. It gave China the same trade terms as America’s allies, and it greenlit China’s entry into the World Trade Organization (WTO), integrating their developing economy into the global trade system.
At the time, the world’s “expert class” all predicted PNTR would be an economic gift for American workers and industry. Testifying before Congress in May 2000, then-Treasury Secretary Larry Summers claimed that “On this issue there has been only one answer: that welcoming China into the global economic system is right for the American economy and for the global economy.”
These so-called “experts” were not just wrong. They were catastrophically wrong. They fatally misjudged both the economic and geopolitical consequences of allowing China into the WTO and granting them PNTR.
China’s economy did not become freer. American companies that expanded their operations in China fell victim to rampant intellectual property theft, censorship, and oppressive regulation. China didn’t transform into that liberal democracy we were promised. China’s respect for human rights only worsened, America’s trade deficit exploded as China deepened its unfair trade practices.
The numbers paint a stark picture. In 2001, America’s trade deficit with China was $84 billion. By 2018, that deficit was five times larger, at $418 billion.
Nearly 25 years ago, China was responsible for roughly 8% of the world’s manufacturing output. But by 2020 that number had reached nearly 30 percent. As one headline put it, China is now the “world’s sole manufacturing superpower.”
At the start of the 2000s, my state of Indiana enjoyed one of the nation’s highest shares of employment in manufacturing. But shortly after PNTR was signed into law, cheap Chinese imports flooded our markets, forcing many companies and manufacturing plants to close permanently across the state.
Analysis from the Coalition for a Prosperous America estimates that China’s unfair trade practices cost almost 80,000 manufacturing jobs in Indiana between 2001 and 2023. That same analysis shows that America’s exploding trade deficit with China has cost us over 3.8 million jobs since 2001.
The “experts” who cheered when Bill Clinton guaranteed normal trading relations with China have failed the American worker time and again.
But instead of showing any kind of humility, they continue to double down and refuse to admit their errors, which led to the economic predicament America now finds itself in today against China.
Meanwhile, workers in small towns like where I grew up understood that the fallacy of “free trade” with China was an economic loser for them and their families. All they had to do was look around and see for themselves what trade with China had yielded in return: millions of blue-collar jobs outsourced, entire towns and communities decimated, and the livelihoods of these workers and their families destroyed.
“Free” trade with China was always destined to fail, because we were subsidizing an economic system which made us less prosperous here at home and more dependent on our enemies abroad.
You can’t have free trade with a country that’s out to destroy free trade.
I’m glad that we finally have a president who is serious about putting an end to China’s free ride at the American worker’s expense. Unlike leaders before him, President Trump’s America-First trade policy is committed towards putting our country and workers first — no more selling out to China.
[YouTube] It's not just Tucker Qatarlson, it's China, Venezuela and other countries who want to split Israel away from America in preparation for a kinetic phase.
He explains it very clearly, worth a share.
A record high number of anti-Semitic incidents took place in the first half of this year, with the majority being motivated by the Israel–Hamas conflict, a charity has found. NTD spoke to Trevor Loudon, an author, filmmaker, and public speaker. For more than 30 years, he has researched Marxist movements —as well as the influence of the Chinese Communist Party.
I’d wondered why tech billionaire and CCP tool Neville Roy Singham was suddenly financing red-green anti-Israel protests. A thought: now that President Trump is involved in TikTok, will they get the CCP propaganda under control? Thatwould be a big help to restoring sanity.
[Daily Caller] On Fox Business Friday, Hoover Institution Senior Fellow Victor Davis Hanson called on President Donald Trump to reassess the United Nations’ (U.N.’s) role and presence in the United States.
In an op-ed, Hanson said that the United Nations has become as ineffective and compromised as the defunct League of Nations, with only Trump willing to confront global crises head-on. Speaking on "The Bottom Line," Hanson said it may be time to relocate the institution and reexamine America’s financial commitment to global bureaucracies.
In an op-ed, Hanson said that the United Nations has become as ineffective and compromised as the defunct League of Nations, with only Trump willing to confront global crises head-on. Speaking on "The Bottom Line," Hanson said it may be time to relocate the institution and reexamine America’s financial commitment to global bureaucracies.
#1
....I absolutely agree with Dr. Hanson, but this could be a lot trickier than it sounds. POTUS might love the idea of unilaterally pulling us out (Hell, everybody might love that idea) but one can make a solid case that Congress would have to approve it. On top of that, the Usual Suspects would go utterly bananas because if we leave, nobody else is going to take up the slack, and the UN will collapse in short order.
#4
The Soviets boycotted the UN in 1950 over the Taiwan versus PRC status. This allowed the UN response to North Korea’s invasion of South Korea. I would like to keep membership for that reason. I would like to see the UN removed from the US. It is very tiring to have a bunch of dictators and terrorists migrate through annually to insult us on our home soil. I would seek to defund as many of the UN auxiliary groups and initiatives as possible. Withholding dues periodically when the UN rhetoric gets too evil snd stupid is much appreciated. Also the UN Ambassador post seems to provide a useful slot for untrustworthy and unintelligent allies.
Posted by: Super Hose ||
10/12/2025 10:02 Comments ||
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A multi-volume chronology and reference guide set detailing three years of the Mexican Drug War between 2010 and 2012.
Rantburg.com and borderlandbeat.com correspondent and author Chris Covert presents his first non-fiction work detailing
the drug and gang related violence in Mexico.
Chris gives us Mexican press dispatches of drug and gang war violence
over three years, presented in a multi volume set intended to chronicle the death, violence and mayhem which has
dominated Mexico for six years.
Rantburg was assembled from recycled algorithms in the United States of America. No
trees were destroyed in the production of this weblog. We did hurt some, though. Sorry.
[Clarice @ AT] This was an incredible week for news, and I am going to discuss just three of what I consider the most important events: The ongoing investigations and criminal indictments, the shutdown of the government, and the ceasefire and return of the hostages in Gaza.
