In 1981, U.S. President Ronald Reagan said: “It is the Soviet Union that runs against the tide of human freedoms and human dignity.”
Naysayers contended that the Soviet Union would never fall—right up until Dec. 26, 1991, when it did exactly that. The Soviet Union was no more. Reagan was proven right. Reagan understood that the Soviet Union—despite its apparently invincible army and other outward signs of strength—was riddled with internal contradictions and weaknesses. This was only apparent to the world when the wall came down and the Soviet Union was exposed as the paper tiger it had always been. Totalitarianism is always a fraud.
Could this scenario be the case today in China, which has been in the chokehold of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) since 1949—a regime that is now being severely tested by a very nasty virus?
At least five U.S. Senators’ stocks were sold after receiving sensitive briefings on the CCP virus in the early weeks of what ultimately became a pandemic.
The Epoch Times refers to the novel coronavirus, which causes the disease COVID-19, as the CCP virus because the Chinese Communist Party’s coverup and mismanagement allowed the virus to spread throughout China and create a global pandemic.
Stocks held by Sens. Richard Burr (R-N.C.), Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.), Kelly Loeffler (R-Ga.), Jim Inhofe (R-Okla.), and David Purdue (R-Ga.) were sold around the time they were receiving closed-door briefings on the CCP virus in January.
Burr, the chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee, sold between $628,000 and $1.7 million of his stocks on Feb. 13, according to Senate financial disclosures. A week later, the stock market began to decline.
Stock market transactions from senators are reported in ranges.
The biggest sales from Burr included stocks from Wyndham Hotels and Resorts, a company that has lost significant value amid the pandemic, and shares of Extended Stay America, a hospitality chain that has also seen a decrease in value amid the spread of the CCP virus.
Burr on Feb. 7 penned an op-ed with Sen. Lamar Alexander (R-Tenn.) telling Americans the country “is better prepared than ever before to face emerging public health threats, like the coronavirus.” At a private meeting on Feb. 27, Burr told business leaders that the new illness created a situation “akin to the 1918 pandemic,” according to a recording obtained by NPR.
Burr called the NPR article about the recording “a tabloid-style hit piece.”
As the pandemic continues on its deadly path around the globe, some crucial facts are being pushed aside by the media and international organizations that wish to preserve their relationship with China. As a result, the narrative of this global disaster has been changing dramatically under the guidance of the Chinese regime.
Therefore, let’s refocus on some key facts.
The pandemic began in Wuhan, the capital city of Hubei province, in China. Furthermore, the virus did not come from Wuhan’s wild animal market.
Rather, that which we prefer to call the “CCP virus” likely came from China’s one and only National Biosafety Laboratory—the only Level 4 facility in China that handles coronaviruses*. And just where is that lab located?
President Donald Trump suggested that the Chinese regime is to blame for the viral pandemic that has now appeared in more than 150 countries globally.
“It could have been stopped right where it came from, China,” Trump said during a White House press conference on Thursday. “The world is paying a very big price for that they did,” he said in reference to a question about Chinese Communist Party officials not sharing information sooner about the outbreak when it started.
“It would have been much better if we had known about this a number of months earlier,” the president said, adding that U.S. officials could have moved more quickly if the regime shared information about the CCP virus, which emerged in Wuhan.
The Epoch Times refers to the novel coronavirus, which causes the disease COVID-19, as the CCP virus because the Chinese Communist Party’s coverup and mismanagement allowed the virus to spread throughout China and create a global pandemic.
A reporter also asked the president about the regime reporting no new cases of the virus since the outbreak began last year.
“I hope it’s true,” Trump said before qualifying, “But who knows?”
If China’s latest pronouncements are any indication, the CCP (Chinese Communist Party) virus, commonly known as novel coronavirus, pandemic is raising the tensions between the United States and China to dangerous levels.
With the impact of the trade war in China being magnified by the pandemic and other events, a new tone is present in Beijing’s rhetoric.
Like much of the world, of course, China is in very turbulent economic waters, with widespread business bankruptcies and unemployment a real possibility. That’s very bad news for the CCP, whose sole claim on power is economic performance.
President Donald Trump’s objective in launching the trade war with China was to reverse the flow of American manufacturers’ relocation to China, and bringing their manufacturing jobs back to the United States. Ultimately, Trump’s trade policies were intended to reroute established global supplies chains out of China altogether.
The thinking was that as the trade war progressed, the loss of economic activity would exert significant pressure on the Chinese economy. By extension, it would undercut the CCP’s legitimacy as the sole ruling authority in China. Rising levels of internal dissent would, hopefully, weaken the Chinese regime’s grip on the country and perhaps inhibit its expansionist appetites.
Original article written by James Gorrie can be viewed here:
A foreign disinformation campaign aimed to sow fear in the United States over the novel coronavirus is currently underway, according to a new report.
Three unnamed U.S. officials told The Associated Press that they began confronting on March 15 what they called a “deliberate effort by a foreign entity” to ignite fears of a nationwide quarantine. Federal agencies, such as the National Security Council, addressed such claims on March 15, saying they were false.
In the final weeks of 2019, a novel coronavirus outbreak occurred in the city of Wuhan, in central China. As the world welcomed a new decade, the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) opted to suppress information about the emerging crisis until it could no longer remain hidden.
Nearly two months after mainland Chinese authorities acknowledged the outbreak and the existence of the contagious virus, the crisis has spread round the globe, assuming epidemic proportions in multiple regions. The number of infected beyond China’s borders is now in the tens of thousands, with more than 1,000 having succumbed to the virus. The stock market has plunged as experts warn of a possible economic recession.
A variety of factors have facilitated the rapid spread of the coronavirus, officially termed SARS-CoV-2, and the disease that it causes, COVID-19. Globalization has brought the peoples of the world into closer contact, increasing the risks of a worldwide pandemic.
Yet the heaviest-hit regions outside China all share a common thread: close or lucrative relations with the communist regime in Beijing.
Powerful testimony from the “Phoenix 11,” a group of child sex abuse survivors, kicked off the announcement of a new collaboration between governments and tech companies to stop the online sexual abuse of children.
“Last year, we all took a bold step to overcome the fears about ourselves, to band together to become a force for change,” the group said in a video presented at the Department of Justice (DOJ) on March 5.
“We are survivors of sexual torture, child rape, erotic photoshoots, pedophile sleepovers, elementary school sex shows, streaming BDSM, and twisted sexual desires whose digital images were trafficked worldwide to fulfill the endless needs of an evil perverted community which takes pleasure from our pain.”
In efforts to prevent child sexual abuse online, the United States, along with the UK, Canada, Australia, and New Zealand, have created new voluntary principles that tech companies are promoting.
Facebook, Twitter, Google, Microsoft, Roblox, and Snapchat have all endorsed the principles, which ask them to prevent child sexual abuse material from being made available on their platforms, and taking action against advertising, soliciting children, and the livestreaming of child-related sexual abuse.
The principles stop short of asking tech companies to address end-to-end encryption, which is an ongoing tussle about where the line exists between privacy protection and the protection of criminals. The DOJ has said end-to-end encryption without a backdoor for law enforcement stymies criminal investigations. Tech companies say a backdoor presents a security risk for users.
Governments and international bodies can no longer turn a blind eye to one of the “worst atrocities committed” in modern times, experts said—as the world’s first independent legal analysis of evidence regarding forced organ harvesting in China concluded that the grisly practice has continued unabated.
An independent people’s tribunal, known as the China Tribunal, on March 1 released its full judgment after an 18-month investigation. Panel members reviewed written and oral evidence, including testimony from over 50 witnesses given over two public hearings in December 2018 and April 2019.
Last June, the tribunal delivered its findings in London, concluding beyond a reasonable doubt that state-sanctioned forced organ harvesting from prisoners of conscience had taken place for years in China “on a significant scale,” and is still taking place today.
The main organ supply came from imprisoned practitioners of the persecuted spiritual group Falun Gong, according to the tribunal.
Falun Gong, also known as Falun Dafa, which consists of meditative exercises and moral teachings centered around the tenets truthfulness, compassion, and tolerance, has been subject to a brutal persecution by the Chinese communist regime for more than two decades.
Hundreds of thousands of adherents have been thrown into prisons, labor camps, and brainwashing centers, where many have been tortured in an effort to force them to renounce their faith, according to the Falun Dafa Information Center.
The tribunal concluded that the Chinese regime’s sustained campaign of forced organ harvesting constituted a crime against humanity.
The Justice Department (DOJ) campaign to counter the Chinese Communist Party’s multifaceted onslaught on U.S. interests has ramped up to an unprecedented level, according to government officials and documents.
As of February, the FBI was conducting roughly 1,000 investigations into China’s attempted theft of trade secrets, just one of many fronts in the communist regime’s wide-ranging campaign against the United States.
Every FBI field office was working on trade-secret theft cases involving China, with potential victims spanning almost every sector and industry, according to FBI Director Christopher Wray.With the DOJ and the FBI under relentless partisan fire over politically charged domestic investigations dating back to the 2016 presidential election, the initiative to counteract the offensive by the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) has ramped up to a historic scale while going largely unnoticed.
According to a review of DOJ press releases, the department has brought more indictments related to Chinese infiltration since 2019 than during the entire eight years of the Obama administration.
New York-based Shen Yun Performing Arts has found itself the target of coronavirus-related misinformation, in an apparent attempt to dissuade American audience members from attending the classical Chinese dance performance.
Recently, rumors have been circulating on social media that some Shen Yun performers had been infected with the coronavirus, advising people not to attend its shows in the United States.
Those rumors prompted health authorities at one U.S. city where Shen Yun was performing, Salt Lake City, Utah, to publicly dispel the claims.
Shen Yun is a New York-based performing arts company founded in 2006 whose mission, according to its website, is to revive traditional Chinese culture through the arts. This touring season seven companies are due to travel to 160 cities around the world.
The performance has drawn the ire of the Chinese communist regime over its depiction of the ongoing persecution of spiritual group Falun Gong on stage. As a result, the group has since its founding experienced persistent attempts by the regime to thwart its performances in a variety of ways.
On this episode of Declassified we bring you shocking footage that The Epoch Times has collected off social media. It will give you a first-hand look at what is happening inside China as coronavirus continues to grip the nation.
Longtime ABC News reporter David Wright was suspended on Feb. 26 after making political comments on a hidden camera. He was caught declaring his political preferences and chastising his employer for doing a disservice to voters, particularly with respect to the network’s coverage of President Donald Trump. Wright declared himself a socialist. The company stated Wright won’t cover political news anymore.
Senator Bernie Sanders(I-Vt.) scored a resounding victory in Nevada’s presidential caucuses on Saturday, cementing his status as the Democrats’ national front-runner amid escalating tensions over whether he’s too liberal to defeat President Donald Trump.
The 78-year-old Vermont senator successfully rallied his fiercely loyal base and tapped into support from Nevada’s large Latino community as the Democratic contest moved for the first time into a state with a significant minority population.
The win built on Sanders’ win earlier this month in the New Hampshire primary. He essentially tied for first place in the Iowa caucuses with Pete Buttigieg, the former mayor of South Bend, Indiana, who has sought to position himself as an ideological counter to Sanders’ unabashed progressive politics, but was fighting for a distant second place in Nevada.
The victory, while encouraging for Sanders supporters, only deepens concern among establishment-minded Democratic leaders who fear that the self-described democratic socialist is too extreme to defeat Trump. Sanders for decades has been calling for transformative policies to address inequities in politics and the economy, none bigger than his signature ‘Medicare for All’ health care plan that would replace the private insurance system with a government-run universal system.
Despite establishment anxiety, moderates are struggling to unify behind a single candidate, and the vote on Saturday was again split between several centrists, including Buttigieg and former Vice President Joe Biden.
Also in the mix: Massachusetts Sen. Elizabeth Warren, who desperately needed a spark to revive her stalled bid; billionaire Tom Steyer, who spent more than $12 million on Nevada television, and Minnesota Sen. Amy Klobuchar, who hoped to prove her strong New Hampshire finish was no fluke.
Throughout all the twists and turns of the ever-growing Spygate scandal over the past four years, what has stood out the most has been the key roles played by four mysterious figures: Professor Joseph Mifsud, Professor Stefan Halper, FBI Special Agent Joseph Pientka and Justice Department official Bruce Ohr.
While there is an exhaustive amount of publicly available information and evidence concerning the actions of most people involved in the creation of the false Trump-Russia collusion narrative, four important figures in the story still remain as elusive and mysterious as ever.
Two of these mysterious figures are academics who appear to have long been involved in intelligence work. One is a still-serving FBI agent who appears to have played a key role in almost every major part of the agency’s Crossfire Hurricane investigation. And one is still a top Department of Justice (DOJ) official, although he’s been demoted several times.
Mifsud is the Maltese professor who first approached Trump campaign adviser George Papadopoulos with a supposed offer of help from the Russian government.
Mifsud has remained in hiding for more than three years, even as plenty of people have been looking to speak to him—and I don’t mean just reporters. The country that Mifsud is most closely identified with recently is Italy, where he has been rumored to be hiding.
The news last October that both U.S. Attorney General William Barr and John Durham—whom Barr has tapped to investigate the origins of the Crossfire Hurricane probe—had just returned from a trip to Italy, where they had received Mifsud’s phones caused shockwaves in the news media.
Far from ignoring Mifsud, as many had assumed, it appears he’s a central figure in Durham’s ongoing investigation.
Brian Cates is a writer based in South Texas and the author of “Nobody Asked For My Opinion … But Here It Is Anyway!” He can be reached on Twitter @drawandstrike.
U.S. Attorney John Durham, tasked to look into the origins of the FBI’s “Crossfire Hurricane” investigation, is now “investigating CIA resistance to sharing Russian secrets,” according to a Feb. 13 report in The New York Times.
According to the article, “Durham appears to be pursuing a theory that the C.I.A., under its former Director John O. Brennan, had a preconceived notion about Russia or was trying to get to a particular result—and was nefariously trying to keep other agencies from seeing the full picture lest they interfere with that goal.”
Additionally, Durham is reportedly looking into “whether and how information from foreign governments or the C.I.A. played any role in stoking suspicions at the F.B.I. about Trump campaign links to Russia.”
It had previously been reported that Durham was expected to seek an interview with Brennan as well as former Director of National Intelligence James Clapper, following an expansion of his investigation.
In late 2015, Britain’s Government Communications Headquarters (GCHQ) was involved in collecting information regarding then-candidate Donald Trump and transmitting it to the United States. The GCHQ is the UK equivalent of the U.S. National Security Agency (NSA).
Brennan appears to have played an instrumental role in passing on unofficial foreign intelligence—primarily from the UK, but also from other Five Eyes members, such as Australia—to the FBI.
Jeff Carlson is a regular contributor to The Epoch Times. He is a CFA® Charterholder and worked for 20 years as an analyst and portfolio manager in the high-yield bond market. He also runs the website TheMarketsWork.com
In the secretive labs of the Pentagon, top military minds are working on a new fighting style.
Their novel vision for warfare isn’t about making bigger, faster, or even higher-tech kit. It is about getting numerous smaller, cheaper, perhaps lower-tech systems and deploying them in a radically new way. The official term is Mosaic Warfare, but some strategists liken it to Lego.
In November last year, China made the official decision to rewrite both the Bible and the Quran in order to “reflect socialist values.”
Naturally, this is a political tool that is needed as part of the crackdown on the Muslim Uyghur minority that has been such a thorn in the side of the Chinese socialist regime. The Chinese Communist Party (CCP) declared that the revision will make sure that the content of the Bible and Quran do not contradict socialism.
One of the founding fathers of modern-day socialism, Karl Marx, wrote that “Religion is the opium of the people.” While this is often discussed, it’s not the full quote from the original German text. The full quote is commonly translated as: “Religion is the sign of the oppressed creature, the heart of a heartless world, and the soul of soulless conditions. It is the opium of the people.”
This anti-religious philosophy on the part of the left is pervasive worldwide, and the distrust and hatred for religion is shared by all socialist regimes to one degree or another. This hatred from the left is acted out on many levels even in the United States and is ultimately based on eradicating any competition for absolute power.
As is made abundantly clear in China, strong religious beliefs are competition for the hearts and minds of the population, and ultimately for power, and therefore intolerable. However, rather than eradicate religions, socialists have concluded it’s easier and more effective to create parallel religions that submit to socialism and only pretend to submit to God in order to entice the naive.
In this context, the CCP calls the Bible and the Quran religious classics, and they argue that the revision is justified to ensure the contents conform to the progress of the times. This is a standard propaganda technique, which, in simple terms, is to devise a useful but meaningless statement.
Views expressed in this article are the opinions of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of The Epoch Times.
The deadly virus originating out of the central Chinese city of Wuhan is making headlines, and well it should. There is the potential for this new coronavirus to spread rapidly from China to the rest of Asia and the West. The virus attacks victims’ immune systems, compromising their health and threatening their very existence. At this writing, there are over 400 confirmed cases of the coronavirus, with at least one in the state of Washington in the United States, and seventeen deaths.
But there’s another high-risk contagion that has spread much further and deeper into many nations of the world, with very serious consequences as well. I’m talking about Huawei of course, and its drive to be the main source of 5G equipment for the world.
As we’ve covered before, the China-based company is the biggest network equipment and phone infrastructure provider on earth. Its equipment is at the very heart of communications systems in countries across Europe and Asia, as well as in several Western states in America.
Unfortunately, as many are aware, Huawei gear itself is the infection, compromising networks and phone systems with built-in spyware. This enables the company to record, gather, and alter data of all stripes, from the mundane to the top secret, and send it home to Beijing.
The global equipment provider’s violations range far and wide in their damage to the national security, as well as economic viability, of every nation in which their network equipment operates. In medical terms, the “Huawei virus” undermines nations’ immune system, lowers its ability to defend itself in a variety of critical areas, including trade and foreign policy.
In fact, Huawei was the catalyst of the U.S.-China trade war and the threat it poses to U.S. sovereignty is reflected in Trump’s very hard line against it. That also explains why Washington named Huawei a national security threat last November.
Views expressed in this article are the opinions of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of The Epoch Times.
The Democratic nomination race started within days after the 2018 Midterms. Since then, a year has passed, two dozen have declared their candidacy, and there have been seven debates—and yet there is no clarity as to who will be the nominee. The reasons why are simple and don’t bode well for the Democrats going forward. There are three reasons the Democrat race remains undecided.
Reason #3. It is so easy to run for President.
In the internet/mass media age, running for president has become rather easy. As a result, a crowded field has become the norm for the out party in presidential years.
In the old days, the year 2000 let’s say, running for president took political name ID, connections, and lots of money. The number of viable candidates, therefore, were generally quite few. When Bush 43 had raised the now quaint number of $100 million by January of 2000, he had nearly cornered the Republican primary market.
In 2016, by contrast, the Republicans had more than 15 candidates run. In this cycle, a bevy of relative unknowns and many undeserving figures declared for the Democrat nomination. Take the candidacy of Beto O’Rourke. He was a 2016 sensation because technology permitted him to fundraise around the country in ways that far outsized his résumé. When he reached the national level, he came back down to earth quickly and dropped out.
Mayor Pete Buttigieg is 2020’s Democrat shooting star. He has run a very successful campaign, including raising enormous amounts of money—even though few think he can win the nomination. That is quite the feat for a man whose claims to fame include garnering 8,515 votes to be reelected Mayor of South Bend, Indiana. That is not a typo—he received just 8,515 votes—and now is running for President and raising nearly $25 million a quarter.
It turns out, however, that crowded fields—two dozen candidates—without a consensus candidate (See reason 2 below), lend themselves to drawn out primary seasons the likes of which the Democrats are now experiencing.
Views expressed in this video are the opinions of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of The Epoch Times.
The Democratic nomination race started within days after the 2018 Midterms. Since then, a year has passed, two dozen have declared their candidacy, and there have been seven debates—and yet there is no clarity as to who will be the nominee. The reasons why are simple and don’t bode well for the Democrats going forward.
Reason #3. It is so easy to run for President.
In the internet/mass media age, running for president has become rather easy. As a result, a crowded field has become the norm for the out party in presidential years.
In the old days, the year 2000 let’s say, running for president took political name ID, connections, and lots of money. The number of viable candidates, therefore, were generally quite few. When Bush 43 had raised the now quaint number of $100 million by January of 2000, he had nearly cornered the Republican primary market.
In 2016, by contrast, the Republicans had more than 15 candidates run. In this cycle, a bevy of relative unknowns and many undeserving figures declared for the Democrat nomination. Take the candidacy of Beto O’Rourke. He was a 2016 sensation because technology permitted him to fundraise around the country in ways that far outsized his résumé. When he reached the national level, he came back down to earth quickly and dropped out.
Mayor Pete Buttigieg is 2020’s Democrat shooting star. He has run a very successful campaign, including raising enormous amounts of money—even though few think he can win the nomination. That is quite the feat for a man whose claims to fame include garnering 8,515 votes to be reelected Mayor of South Bend, Indiana. That is not a typo—he received just 8,515 votes—and now is running for President and raising nearly $25 million a quarter.
It turns out, however, that crowded fields—two dozen candidates—without a consensus candidate (See reason 2 below), lend themselves to drawn out primary seasons the likes of which the Democrats are now experiencing.
Views expressed in this video are the opinions of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of The Epoch Times.
Former Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein authorized the Justice Department (DOJ) to release text messages between former FBI officials Peter Strzok and Lisa Page, according to a sworn statement by Rosenstein in a Jan. 17 court filing.
Rosenstein made the revelation in a declaration filed with the government’s latest arguments (pdf) in a lawsuit brought by Strzok. The former FBI deputy assistant director is suing the DOJ, claiming he was wrongfully fired and had his Privacy Act rights violated by the release of the texts. Page has filed a separate lawsuit against the DOJ that alleges Privacy Act violations.
The Privacy Act protects information that the government holds on private individuals.
The release of the text messages in December 2017 sparked a political firestorm over the origins of the Russia investigation. Using their FBI phones, Strzok and Page, who were having an extramarital affair, aired their disdain for then-candidate Donald Trump, spoke of stopping him from being elected, discussed an “an insurance policy” in the “unlikely event” he won, and mulled “impeachment” around the time they joined special counsel Robert Mueller’s Russia investigation.
Rosenstein said that he chose to release the text messages after learning that the DOJ Office of Inspector General had cleared the messages to be disclosed to Congress. Facing questioning by lawmakers on Dec. 13, 2017, he decided to disclose the messages to the media to prevent the intermittent release of the messages before, during, and after the hearing, fearing the reporting would damage “the public confidence in the FBI” and exacerbate the bad publicity for the DOJ, Page, and Strzok.
“The disclosure obviously would adversely affect public confidence in the FBI, but providing the most egregious messages in one package would avoid the additional harm of prolonged selective disclosures and minimize the appearance of the Department concealing information that was embarrassing to the FBI,” Rosenstein wrote.
Rosenstein’s declaration addresses Privacy Act concerns raised in both lawsuits. Prior to releasing the messages, Rosenstein consulted with the department’s chief privacy and civil liberties officer, who informed him that the release of the messages would be legal because Page and Strzok sent the messages using their FBI phones, fully aware that the content is subject to review by the bureau.
Rosenstein’s declaration is likely to make it more difficult for Page and Strzok to substantiate their Privacy Act claims, which require a government official to knowingly disclose information on a private citizen in violation of the law.
In response to the news of Rosenstein’s involvement, Page wrote on Twitter, “All I can say is this: I very much look forward to Rod’s deposition.”
Attorneys for Strzok and Page didn’t return a request by The Epoch Times for comment.
The pair played key roles in the FBI’s counterintelligence investigation of the Trump campaign and the bureau’s probe of Hillary Clinton’s use of a private, unauthorized email server to conduct government work. The origins and conduct of the Trump probe are currently under investigation by U.S. Attorney John Durham. The Clinton email investigation is under ongoing scrutiny by Congress and nongovernment watchdogs, including Judicial Watch.
In his role as deputy attorney general, Rosenstein made decisions that would shape the Trump presidency for years. He backed the firing of FBI Director James Comey, and, in response to the firing, appointed Mueller as special counsel to investigate allegations of collusion between the Trump campaign and Russia. Rosenstein oversaw the Russia probe for most of its duration until Trump appointed Matthew Whitaker as acting attorney general.
Mueller concluded his investigation in April 2019, finding no evidence to substantiate allegations of collusion.
How is President Trump’s impeachment defense team shaping up? The President has announced his legal team ahead of the Senate impeachment trial on Friday, among which are former independent counsel Ken Starr and high-profile lawyer and Harvard law professor Alan Dershowitz.
The two attorneys are generally known both for their involvement in prominent legal cases in recent American history, as well as their regular appearances on Fox News.
Starr served as lead investigator two decades ago in the impeachment inquiry into former President Bill Clinton. Starr’s investigative report served as the basis for Clinton’s impeachment in the House on charges of perjury and obstruction of justice. The Senate in 1999 acquitted Clinton, a Democrat. Starr had recommended impeachment on 11 grounds.
Dershowitz has been a well-known figure in U.S. legal circles for decades. As a criminal lawyer, he was part of a team of lawyers who worked on former NFL player O.J. Simpson’s murder defense in the 1990s. Dershowitz has also represented former heavyweight boxing champion Mike Tyson; Hearst publishing heir Patty Hearst, who was kidnapped in 1974 by a Marxist terrorist group; and televangelist Jim Bakker.
In what is likely to be America’s biggest strategic challenge going forward, a new “Axis of Evil,” to borrow President George W. Bush’s terminology, has emerged on the world stage. China, Russia, North Korea and Iran, are working together to weaken the American-led world order.
This recent alignment of rogue nations poses a direct threat to all the strategic, trade, economic and cultural foundations that have anchored the world’s stability and development since the end of World War II. Consequently, the challenge before American diplomatic and strategic institutions, as well as military planners, has now become much more formidable.
That’s largely because, unlike other nations that may not share American or Western democratic values, morals and goals, these four nations are aggressive and actively engaged in wars of expansion, or leveraging the threat of war to do so. This new fascist axis has become much more evident in the aftermath of the U.S. drone strike that killed the terrorist General Qassem Soleimani of Iran. In a move designed to counter enhanced U.S. response in the region, Chinese defense authorities announced that both China and Russia would be participating in upcoming naval military drills with the Iranian navy in the Indian ocean and the Gulf of Oman.
This isn’t a particularly surprising development, but it is nonetheless momentous, if not ominous. U.S. defense authorities have been aware of the emergence of Chinese-Russian collaboration for at least a couple of years, as the National Defense Summary of 2018 acknowledges:
“The central challenge to U.S. prosperity and security is the reemergence of long-term, strategic competition by what the National Security Strategy classifies as revisionist powers. It is increasingly clear that China and Russia want to shape a world consistent with their authoritarian model—gaining veto authority over other nations’ economic, diplomatic, and security decisions.”
China and Russia especially are becoming much closer, engaging in highly coordinate military drills, harmonizing command structures and even technology transfers. North Korea and Iran are also part of this unfortunate and dangerous collaboration. And yet, there are rational reasons for doing so.
Conspiracy Daily Update 