Before COVID hit, China hoarded protective gear. But two can play that game

COVID-19 has a proven antiviral remedy called Remdesivir, but buying up three months’ worth of the drug’s global supplies has put the United States in the crosshairs of international criticism, making America look both heartless and hypocritical.

Just a few months ago, Western nations were calling out China for actively promoting profiteers snatching up global supplies of protective PPE medical gear. China directed an army of market marauders to take big bites out of other countries’ economies and medical infrastructures in order to leave them vulnerable, if not for dead.

Masks, gowns, ventilators were bought and shipped back to the People’s Republic just before the pandemic hit the rest of the world. China then turned around either to sell PPE for enormous profit or slowly dole it out for diplomatic gain with plagued nations. READ MORE

If it’s not one thing, then it’s a swarm of Murder Hornets

Just when you thought it was safe to go outdoors again — with face coverings, of course — news of a lethal, stinging insect could scare people back inside. The Asian giant hornet has just shown up in our beehives and on our doorsteps.

Airlines are going bust, vacations getting canceled and study-abroad programs marooning college kids in other countries, but that doesn’t mean all overseas travel has stopped. Microscopic viruses and big, bad invasive species are still roaming the world, finding new homes on distant shores. 

When it comes to nature, there is no justice, only reckoning. READ MORE

While the U.S. snoozes, Putin and Xi are having a bromance and flexing their global muscle

America is looking inward, resembling a sullen, sometimes confused navel-gazing couch-potato. It’s tired of going outside and bored with the world.

The president of the United States went to the United Nations this week to let foreign leaders know we were picking up our marbles and going home. He just told the entire world that globalism is dead. Long-live insular, parochial patriotism!

National pride, defense and attention to domestic issues are keenly important, of course. But America’s two wide oceans and friendly neighbors do not divorce us from the rest of the world’s trade, economy or politics, even if our national “Netflix and Chill ” attitude makes foreigners seem distant and irrelevant. READ MORE