Friday, May 15, 2020
Moving Goal Posts
As you may know, I do a daily radio commentary, Monday through Saturday, on the Bott Radio Network. For today's commentary, I was inspired by David Portnoy's epic rant about the quarantine's moving goal posts. Portnoy's remarks were twice as long as mine, and filled with expletives.
Click here to listen to my family-friendly commentary about the urgent need to reopen America.
Stop Them Now
Here's something to ponder: Key people the American public trusted to keep us safe from foreign enemies used the awesome powers of the national security apparatus to spy on their political opponents. And it wasn't just the Trump campaign.
As we noted yesterday, these operatives spied on the Senate Intelligence Committee. They spied on opponents of the Iran nuclear deal. Senator Rand Paul suspected that he or his presidential campaign were surveilled in 2016.
These officials have been caught lying to us. They told the American people in repeated public interviews that the evidence of collusion with Russia was overwhelming. But under oath in classified hearings they told investigators that there was no evidence of collusion. (Here, here and here.)
It's not a crime to go on TV and lie. But what's missing here? Remorse.
Not one of these individuals has said, "You know, I don't like Trump. I think our investigation was fair, even though it came up empty-handed. But I am sorry for misleading the American people. I'm sorry for contributing to the deep divisions in our country."
Not one person has apologized. And what does that tell you?
It tells you that if these people regain power, they will do it again. And they will be emboldened because they survived this scandal. (And let's not forget the weaponization of the IRS too!)
So what would stop them from trying to use our nation's vast intelligence powers again to crush their opponents – pro-life activists, Second Amendment supporters, constitutionalists, even Christians – once and for all?
The Deep State must be stopped now.
My friends, I have hesitated to ask for financial support in recent weeks because I am very sensitive to the suffering that many are facing.
Confronting Communist China
President Trump is stepping up pressure on Communist China. Today, he imposed new sanctions against the Chinese tech giant Huawei due to concerns that it is an instrument of the Chinese Communist Party.
As Sen. Ben Sasse (R-NE) put it, "China's main export is espionage, and the distinction between the Chinese Communist Party and Chinese 'private-sector' businesses like Huawei is imaginary." He's absolutely right.
Meanwhile, Secretary of State Pompeo traveled to Israel this week. The American media inaccurately suggested that the trip was meant to hurt the Palestinians in some way.
But multiple reports indicate that Pompeo went to Jerusalem to strongly urge Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to end Israel's economic dealings with communist China. One Israeli source said, "The fact that the visit takes place in these problematic times proves its urgency."
The fact that the secretary of state delivered such a request in person is confirmation that communist China and the United States are now in an open cold war for dominance. It is a battle that for the sake of our children and grandchildren we must not lose.
Creating New Jobs
Earlier this week, a story broke that the Trump Administration was negotiating with the Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company (TSMC). Taiwan Semiconductor is a major supplier of chips to companies like Apple, Intel and Qualcomm, whose technology is essential to our national defense and our own 5G system. In many ways, these companies are our answer to the Chinese conglomerate Huawei.
When the TSMC story broke, Barron's, one of our great financial publications, posted a piece attacking the idea. They brought up every excuse except why it should be done: Taiwan knows how dangerous communist China is, and Donald Trump knows how dangerous communist China is.
Well, today it was announced that Taiwan Semiconductor is building a $12 billion plant in Arizona, creating 1,600 new jobs, to bring strategic manufacturing back to the United States.