“A Christmas Carol” — Courtesy of the Chinese Navy

What happens when China decides to dominate the world’s semiconductor chip production by taking over democratic Taiwan? A look at the not-so-distant Christmas-future…

Christmas Eve, 2020—President Trump is still loudly contesting the November election results in courtrooms and the media. The Electoral College chose Biden-Harris after several red-state electors defected, justified by an overwhelming national popular vote for the Democratic ticket.

The newly elected Democratic Senate is days from taking over, and Mitch McConnell is rushing through last-minute judicial appointments. McConnell is also busy finalizing legislation giving the Executive sweeping policing powers in the face of daily national demonstrations protesting the election outcome. Growing street confrontations are cited as the reason the outgoing president deployed the National Guard to major cities nationwide. READ MORE

Bad-boy foreign leaders shouldn’t underestimate Trump’s appetite for election-year drama

Turkey, Russia and China are just three countries taking advantage of the moment to act aggressively around the world and test American resolve. All three are betting that the United States is too mired in crisis to react powerfully to strategic challenges overseas. All three might be making a miscalculation.

Turkey is threatening its neighbors and claiming new maritime borders; Russia is poisoning its opposition and posturing around Belarus; and China continues to build up its defense forces while cracking down on dissent at home and abroad. It’s all a potently toxic brew of hyper-national ambitions heartily guzzled by Presidents Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, Vladimir Putin and Xi Jinping.

They are drunk with the idea that right now is their time to act aggressively because America can’t or won’t seriously engage to stop them. If they’re right and can achieve their goals because America continues to stand on the sidelines, they win their bet without paying a hefty price. READ MORE

Putin is counting on your vote in November. Are you in with ‘Vova?’

Vladimir Putin is on the ballot this November.

You won’t see his name or watch his ads. But make no mistake, Putin has a lot riding on this election and he’s counting on your vote.

What will a vote for Putin mean?

First, Putin is looking to reshape the world order in a way that benefits Moscow, builds his personal power and establishes him as the world’s toughest leader capable of outrageous cunning, manipulation and disruption.

A successful outcome — meaning President Trump is re-elected — means his Russia will be able to wantonly throw its weight around globally. He will assertively create unseen but ever-present fear and dependence in neighboring nations including Belarus, Ukraine, the Baltic states and Georgia. Russia’s renewed and enhanced influence also will be felt in countries farther away and immediately affected by America’s acquiescence to Putin’s newfound power. Countries such as Syria, Libya, Afghanistan, Venezuela, Nicaragua and Cuba. READ MORE

‘Thank you, America, for fueling the Chinese Dream’

It’s nearly graduation time around the country, which can only mean one thing: Boring commencement speeches to indifferent students.

The “Coronavirus Commencements” will be different, however, because graduates will not go through a public processional of pomp and circumstance. They also won’t dine with grandparents who traveled great distances to get to the ceremony. Travel curtailed, campuses closed, bookstores stuck with unsold “Class of 2020” swag. Graduation speakers will stay home to deliver their laugh lines and sage advice as webcammed words of wisdom.

Into this breach, let’s invite an atypical commencement speaker to give a universal graduation speech that can be simulcast to every U.S. institution of higher learning. Who should that person be? The guy who paid for more undergraduates’ educations in America than any other single individual: China’s “Core” leader and Communist Party General Secretary Xi Jinping. READ MORE

Pigs in China have their own deadly pandemic. Xi Jinping better beware

One little piggy went to market, one little piggy got sick, one little piggy got culled —
…and joined 40 percent of China’s little piggies that went wee-wee-wee all the way to burial pits. 

During the past 19 months, the world’s largest pork market lost almost half of its pigs to an illness that went unreported and unchecked, and is now crossing borders threatening livestock elsewhere in Asia and the world.

Global worries about the coronavirus as a global pandemic are just the latest public-health scare that took flight in China. The African Swine Fever has run rampant in the People’s Republic since 2018 and has devastated the country’s pork production and markets.

The collapse of oil prices and demand, the wildly volatile stock market, and the social disruption across America due to the Coronavirus pandemic are all serious. So is any global threat to food stocks.

Pork is a staple meat for the Chinese and a primary source of protein in the People’s Republic of China. The bad news? The hog stock has collapsed, and the pig population is decimated. There is little to do about this immediately in a country where pork production is done in conditions dominated by small farms and backyard pigsties. Industrialized production is not widespread.  READ MORE