Lone Candle
Champion of Truth
“”I don’t think we’re going to see a deal like we saw in the first term,” Robert O’Brien, Trump’s fourth and final national security advisor, told Chalfant. “I think people were generally happy with [the previous deal], but as it turned out, the Chinese didn’t honor it.””
https://reason.com/2024/06/19/trump-advisor-admits-trade-war-against-china-failed/
“Russian and Chinese companies are working together to develop an attack drone similar to Iran’s lethal Shahed, Bloomberg reported, citing unnamed European officials.
According to the officials, the companies held talks last year and began designing and testing a version of the drone earlier this year, to prepare for shipping to Russia.
The drones have yet to be deployed in Ukraine, the officials told the outlet. They didn’t specify which companies were involved.
The move would be a worrying one for Ukraine and its allies.
Russia has relied heavily on Iran’s Shahed drone and its newer and customized variants to overwhelm Ukraine’s air defenses since it launched its full-scale invasion in February 2022.
In January, Russia was suspected of using an Iranian jet-powered Shahed-238 — a significant upgrade in speed and altitude over the Shahed-136 loitering munition.
Russia has developed its own version of the Shahed drones, known as Geran-2 drones, which are similar to Shahed-136s but made with different materials, researchers at Conflict Armament Research told The New York Times last year.
However, officials told Bloomberg that one concern about the reported Russia-China partnership is that China could develop the drones at a much higher rate than Iran or Russia.
It would also be another sign of Russia’s growing reliance on China as it grapples with crippling Western economic sanctions, and would be further evidence that China has become a key enabler of Russia’s war in Ukraine, despite claims of neutrality.
The European officials did not name the drone being developed, but media outlets and Chinese defense websites have reported China is working on the Sunflower 200, an exploding attack drone that is described as similar in appearance to the Shahed 136, according to Bloomberg.”
https://www.yahoo.com/news/china-russia-collaborating-develop-attack-121502058.html
What the North Korea-Russia Alliance Reveals
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8EzuxeIQP14
“Former President Donald Trump helped negotiate the U.S. withdrawal from Afghanistan, ending America’s longest foreign war. But now he believes that the United States should have kept its largest base in Afghanistan to help in a future conflict against China.
During this week’s Republican National Convention, speaker after speaker has tried to transform “America First” from a slogan against overseas entanglements into a cry for more aggressive military force. And the gambit seems to have succeeded. A day after Trump’s running mate, Sen. J.D. Vance (R–Ohio), condemned the war in Afghanistan as a failure, Trump himself called for using Afghanistan as a springboard to future conflicts.”
https://reason.com/2024/07/19/trump-wishes-americans-stayed-in-afghanistan-to-fight-china/
Israel’s Borders?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KDum40U0Wuo&list=PL0QqDLM7Mfuv6Zkh9gNZstVepRQxr-Tzv
Russian Escalation Strategy in Ukraine – The North Korean Deal, Kharkiv & Putin’s “Ceasefire” demand
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FTXwmcIfY0Y
“As part of a larger restructuring, the US Army also announced it is cutting thousands of posts in roles most heavily involved in counterterrorism. “The mission or the function of counterterrorism has continued, but it just doesn’t have the same limelight and focus that it did,” Javed Ali, a counterterrorism specialist formerly at the FBI, Pentagon, and National Security Council, told Vox.”
https://www.vox.com/world-politics/352855/war-on-terror-biden-isis-al-qaeda
“North Korean officials have long expressed irritation about balloons coming over from the south containing political information and cultural products banned by the regime. These packets are generally sent over by private individuals, including North Koreans who have defected to the South as well as activists seeking to foment resistance.
Since North Korean people are closed off from the outside world and have little access to political or cultural information, the South Korean balloons are one attempt by activists to combat these constraints. According to North Korean officials, the trash balloons were meant to show South Koreans how annoying these deliveries are and to push back on these efforts as a whole.
“Kim [Jong Un] doesn’t want his people to know about their relative deprivation and the quality of life in the free world. He is more afraid of BTS than US nukes,” Victor Cha, a Georgetown professor of government, told Vox.”
https://www.vox.com/world-politics/353604/north-korea-trash-balloons
Economic Update: The Political Economy Of Tariffs
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mLKVPQg_rzw
“The really frustrating thing about this is that Trump is fundamentally wrong about how tariffs work. He has been for a long time. Taxes on Americans are not going to change China’s behavior. That’s not theoretical. We have six years of real evidence. Tariffs are not saving American manufacturing. The trade deficit didn’t fall like Trump promised it would. China didn’t buy the larger share of American imports that were part of Trump’s supposed “phase one” deal. In the middle of Thursday’s debate, Trump even managed to confuse the trade deficit with the federal budget deficit (a mistake he’s been making for years).
If only Biden were in a position to highlight Trump’s clearly misguided views on trade and tariffs. But that would have required different choices over the past three-plus years (and a stronger debate performance from the president, who struggled at times on Thursday to be articulate).
Biden chose this outcome, and now we’re left with a choice between a candidate who doesn’t understand the fundamentals of trade policy and one who has foolishly gone along with that fantasy for political gain.”
https://reason.com/2024/06/28/trump-blames-biden-for-never-removing-the-tariffs-trump-imposed/