Friday, May 02, 2025

CCP cash flows to Berkeley

 

CCP cash flows to Berkeley 

UC Berkeley Received Six-Figure Donations From CCP Officials, Records Show

Alana Goodman, Free Beacon 

The University of California, Berkeley, received donations from a blacklisted Chinese research university, Chinese Communist Party officials, and a Beijing state-owned chemical company, according to records obtained by the Washington Free Beacon.

The news comes days after the Trump administration launched an investigation into UC Berkeley for allegedly failing to disclose funding from China, including a $220 million government investment in Berkeley’s joint research institution with Tsinghua University.

Donor records obtained through a California public information request provide new details on Berkeley’s financial relationship with China and foreign government-linked donors.

Section 117 of the Higher Education Act requires that American universities disclose the names and locations of foreign donors to the federal government. For four years, the Biden administration failed to strictly enforce the law and withheld donor names from the American public. As the Free Beacon reported, President Donald Trump signed an executive order last month requiring more thorough disclosures.

The Berkeley records demonstrate that the administration’s more aggressive approach to foreign higher education donations appears likely to reveal unsavory financial backers.

One of the university’s donors is the University of Science and Technology of China, which gave Berkeley $60,000 for its chemistry program in 2023. A year after the donation, the U.S. Department of Commerce added USTC to its sanctions list for "acquiring and attempting to acquire U.S.-origin items in support of advancing China's quantum technology capabilities, which has serious ramifications for U.S. national security given the military applications of quantum technologies."

Berkeley also received $336,000 for its "research units" in 2023 from Vincent Cheung Sai Sing, a longtime member of the National Committee of the Chinese People’s Political Consultative Conference for Shanghai City, an advisory body to the Chinese Communist Party.

The GS Charity Foundation Limited, the charitable arm of the Glorious Sun Group, gave $160,000 to Berkeley for international studies research in 2023. The Glorious Sun Group’s chairman, Charles Yeung, was also a member of the CCP national people’s committee.

Duane Ziping Kuang, the founding managing partner of China-based venture capital firm Qiming Venture Partners, gave $75,000 to Berkeley’s business school. His firm was an early investor in ByteDance.

Several universities have listed gifts from China-linked donors as coming from other countries, as the Free Beacon has previously reported. Berkeley reported numerous donations from PRC-associated individuals as originating elsewhere.

Li Ka-shing, the Hong Kong billionaire founder of CK Hutchison, donated $5.7 million to Berkeley’s biological sciences division in 2023.  The funding was reported as coming from Canada, where Li Ka-shing has a foundation.

Li, whose business empire has deep ties to the Chinese government, is at the center of the U.S.-China trade dispute over the Panama Canal.

President Trump has cited CK Hutchinson’s ownership of the waterway’s port operations as evidence that China is "operating the Panama Canal," and vowed to take it back. The Chinese government, meanwhile, threatened to cripple Li’s business interests if he went forward with a plan to sell his Panama Canal operations to a consortium led by BlackRock.

In 2023 and 2024, Berkeley reported receiving $50,000 from Sky9 Capital Fund V in the Cayman Islands. Sky9 Capital, a China-focused venture capital fund, has financed ByteDance, TikTok, Meituan, and other companies closely associated with the CCP.

Syngenta, a Chinese state-owned company, donated $21,000 to Berkeley’s Rausser College of Natural Resources in 2022. The university listed the money as coming from Switzerland, where Syngenta is headquartered.

A spokesman for Berkeley declined to comment on the specific donations. He said the university is "reviewing the Department of Education inquiry and will cooperate with its federal partners as has long been our practice. The university prioritizes direct communications with legislative committees and governmental agencies when responding to their questions and inquiries."

Sunday, April 27, 2025

Toward Restoring Meritocracy

 

Trump Takes His Biggest Step Yet Toward Restoring Meritocracy

The administration’s executive order eliminating disparate-impact theory restores the 1964 Civil Rights Act to its original meaning.

Heather Mac Donald, City Journal

Measured in Trump time, it took them eons to get around to it, but the White House has finally taken the most important step it can to restore meritocracy to American society: eliminating disparate-impact theory from civil rights analysis and enforcement.

Disparate-impact theory holds that if a neutral, colorblind standard of achievement or behavior has a disproportionately negative effect on underrepresented minorities (overwhelmingly, on blacks), it violates civil rights laws. It has been used to invalidate literacy and numeracy standards for police officers and firemen, cognitive skills and basic knowledge tests for teachers, the use of SATs in college admissions, the use of grades for medical licensing exams, credit-based mortgage lending, the ability to discipline insubordinate students, and criminal background checks for employees and renters. It has been used to eliminate prosecution for a large range of crimes, including shoplifting, turnstile jumping, and resisting arrest; to end police tactics such as proactive stops (otherwise known as stop, question, and frisk); and to purge safety technologies like ShotSpotter and speeding cameras from police departments.

In none of those cases has it ever been demonstrated that the disfavored standard was implemented to exclude blacks or other minorities from a position, opportunity, or right. The genius (if a diabolical one) of disparate-impact theory was that it obviated any need to show discriminatory intent on the part of a targeted employer or institution. Discrimination was inferred simply by the effect of the colorblind standard.

Disparate-impact theory preserved the hegemony of the civil rights regime long after the original impetus for that regime had all but disappeared. One would be hard-pressed today to find any mainstream institution that discriminates against blacks in admissions, hiring, or promotion. The reality, in fact, is the opposite: every mainstream institution is desperate to hire and promote as many remotely qualified blacks as possible; it is white males who are disfavored and excluded from positions based on their skin color.

If those black-welcoming institutions continued to employ a single standard of achievement, and that standard disqualified blacks at a disproportionate rate, civil rights enforcers would declare that they had uncovered yet another redoubt of white supremacy. The diversity bureaucracy in universities and the corporate world would send out the message that blacks continue to face discrimination at every turn and that they should take refuge in a victim identity.

Disparate-impact analysis was the linchpin of the “systemic racism” argument, since the only present-day proof of racism in American society is the underrepresentation of blacks in the professions and their overrepresentation in the criminal-justice system.

Meantime, the real cause of disparate impact—the yawning academic skills and crime gaps—was kept assiduously offstage.

Now all that may be changing. The presidential Executive Order of April 23, 2025, “Restoring Equality of Opportunity and Meritocracy,” sets out the policy of the United States to “eliminate the use of disparate-impact liability in all contexts to the maximum degree possible.”

To that end, it starts the process of repealing disparate-impact regulations accreted to the Civil Rights Act of 1964 by subsequent administrations and requires the cataloguing of state laws that impose disparate-impact liability, among other actions.

Most momentously for law enforcement, the executive order initiates the review of federal consent decrees that rely on disparate-impact analysis (i.e., almost all of them), with the implied goal of dissolving those decrees. (A consent decree is a negotiated settlement, overseen by a judge and his representative, binding a government entity to an elaborate set of reforms.) Dissolving such decrees will not only liberate police departments from a costly yoke of superfluous red tape but will also defund the federal monitor racket, whereby monitors earn millions of dollars declaring for years on end that the overseen police department has yet to comply punctiliously with an average of 200 or so mandated reforms, often regarding paperwork.

Left-wing groups are understandably up in arms. They charge the administration with a “fundamental shift in legal philosophy.” That is true, but it was disparate-impact theory itself that constituted a radical departure from the premises of the Civil Rights Act of 1964. President Donald Trump merely restores the 1964 law to its original understanding. That pioneering legislation banned intentional discrimination only; disparate-impact theory was a judicial amendment made six years later in response to how, even in 1971, finding invidious intentional discrimination was becoming too difficult to satisfy the advocates.

The Left complains as well that Trump’s’ executive order embraces a “formalist, colorblind conception of equality.” Yes—and so does the Constitution.

President Trump and his Cabinet must move quickly. His executive order can be reversed by a hostile successor administration; the disparate-impact regime can be resurrected with another flip of the presidential pen. The White House needs to persuade Congress to clarify that civil rights mean freedom from discrimination—not the legitimization of “reverse discrimination.” Congress must amend 1960s-era statutes to confirm explicitly their original colorblind intent.

Such a process of congressional clarification will trigger a long overdue debate: Is the United States still disfigured by systemic racism that requires the dismantling of meritocratic standards? Or are we ready to live in a nation where we can be confident that the doctor who walks through an emergency room door is there because of his medical expertise, not his race?

Photo by Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images

Wednesday, April 23, 2025

Cronyism Galore

 

$$$  Cronyism Galore  $$$

Theodore R. Malloch, One America News  

Where have you heard this name before? John Podesta…

Most recently Podesta was senior advisor to President Biden for International Climate Policy, a job he took over from the arrogant, super elitist, John Kerry. You saw him pictured lobbying for the Green New Deal and at those fancy, far away COP conferences, playing climate diplomat and czar.

Podesta indeed, has a very long career as a Democrat operative.

He was White House Chief of Staff to Clinton and Counselor to Obama. He had many jobs previously in the Clinton Administration and of course, he Chaired Hillary’s losing 2016 campaign.

You may remember his emails were hacked and exposed which made him look rather idiotic. He was president of the extreme leftist think tank, Center for American Progress (CAP) funded by George Soros, the Open Society Foundations, and labor unions such as the American Federation of State, County, and Municipal Employees (AFSCME) and Service Employees International Union (SEIU).

Most notably perhaps, if you “follow the money,” as in the movie with that memorable line, Podesta oversaw the disbursement of about $783 billion dollars in clean energy tax credits and incentives which were authorized under the Democrats so-called, Inflation Reduction Act of 2022, which in fact had little to nothing to do with inflation—except that it caused more of it. 

This story line asks one curious question: how did Podesta get so rich and where did all those funds he distributed actually go?

This government “slush fund” raises serious questions about transparency and accountability. Much of the money apparently went to his cronies that were listed as NGO’s and tax-free charities. But they lacked both sufficient visibility and raise concerns about how the money was spent; on what it was spent; and who and how they got it in the first place.

The massive funding was opaque, to say the least.  Bluntly, its effectiveness and integrity are questionable to fraudulent.

Were the funds monitored? Was there any oversight? By whom? Public trust out the window, this huge sum of taxpayer money had almost zero to do with sustainability or clean energy.  The cash seemingly went to cronies as payback — and even pay forward.

Example #1 is Stacey Abrams, the leftist Democrat from Georgia who twice ran for Governor and lost convincingly.  Her organization got $2 billion in a grant from this fund which was later frozen. This for a social justice organization that went from having $100 in donations to $2 billion in just one day. It had no record or experience in clean energy or technology, whatsoever. Podesta made the award regardless.

Lee Zeldin, Trumps’ EPA Administrator and DOGE need to track all of these IRA funds—all of them, and claw them back. The DOJ needs to subpoena said, John Podesta and others involved and make them testify under oath putting all of them on the hot seat. Shouldn’t Congress have hearings?

Now frankly, it has been a tough year for Mr. Podesta. The 76-year-old has taken the No.1 spot on People with Money’s Top 10 highest paid politicians in the world list with an estimated $96 million in earnings. His actual net worth is now estimated at $275 million. How did that happen, you must be asking.

How did that enormous wealth come to be? Smart insider trading? Property holdings? Sale of luxury homes and expensive belongings? Lucrative endorsement deals? Restaurant ownership? A football team? All of those and more. Even a top-selling perfume with the name—With Love from John, and his own private brand of vodka, all putting money in the political hack’s pockets. Any graft or kickbacks?

The textbook definition of cronyism is a specific form of in-group favoritism, the spoils system practice of partiality in awarding jobs, contracts,  and other advantages to friends or colleagues, especially in politics and between politicians and supportive organizations.

It appears Podesta may be one of the biggest cronyists of all time.

He excels at payola.

Thursday, April 17, 2025

A much needed response.

 

The following is a Facebook post submitted by a Palm Springs High School friend.

Susan Smith Cogliano 

"So I get into it with a friend on another platform who keeps spewing the same propaganda as if anyone who voted for Trump lost their minds and rely on him like God to make our lives better. He also accused me of being willing to sidestep democracy to get the things I want. "

I may have lost a friend because my correction was as follows:

“You folks and your propaganda are nauseating. You think it’s about making my life better?  It’s all about me? 

You know what I wanted out of Trump?

The same damn thing I wanted out of Obama, Biden, Bush, Big Bush, and Clinton. 

Those things are the following: 

- Transparency 

- A secure border

- Honesty

- Common sense leadership 

- Doing exactly what you campaigned on

- A strong military 

- An end to political indoctrination  in our schools

- Respect for personal freedom 

- And someone who would think about America first before giving everything to the world while his own people suffer. 

Not one of them came through. Each one of them failed. Most didn’t even try. They just faked it well enough that you are still pining for their pipe dream. But guess who did come through? As flawed as he is as a person, it was freaking Trump.  A man I was never a fan of personally but respect because he does the hell what he says he’s going to do or tries. 

That’s what I voted for. Not some polished fake politician who pretends to be an angel but is doing the devils work as we are distracted by their platitudes and symbolic gestures that get us absolutely no where. 

No one is side stepping democracy, genius. By the way, we don’t live in a democracy. We live in a constitutional republic. 

But let’s go with your twisted idea of democracy. 

Was it democracy when Biden coerced Big Tech into silencing millions of Americans for their opinions and thoughts? 

Was it democracy when that old man lied to you and told you he didn’t know about his sons dealings and that the laptop didn’t exist? Because for many that may have changed their vote in the 2020 election if they knew then candidate Biden was compromised. 

Was it democracy when he got 51 intelligence agents who we are supposed to trust, to go along with the lie and call it Russian disinformation? 

Was it democracy to force people to choose between feeding their damn family and a damn shot in the arm that is causing damage to a lot of people?

Was it democracy when Biden flew in hundreds of thousands of migrants in the middle of the night without telling us and also opened the borders?  Did we the American people have a say in that?  No the heck we didn’t. 

Was it democracy when if we question elections or vaccines that we get silenced and are forced to self sensor just to survive? 

It that’s your democracy? You can keep that crap bro, respectfully.  

Trump is no God or saint but it’s a damn shame it took a flawed man to do right by the American people. He’s showing you how corrupt your government truly is and I’m here for it. No regrets whatsoever.”

Tuesday, April 08, 2025

Now They Tell Us

Who has my ice-cream cone?

Now They Tell Us:

How Top Democrats Changed Their Tune on Biden's Decline After the Election

In a cruel twist of irony, Hillary Clinton may have been the only one

who wasn't lying

Andrew Stiles, The Free Beacon

Mainstream journalists spent the last four years "speaking truth to power" by helping Democrats lie to the American people about the extent of Joe Biden's cognitive decline. The truth can finally be told now that the election is over.

The first of several books about the Democratic Party's scandalous cover-up, Fight: Inside the Wildest Battle for the White House by Jonathan Allen and Amie Parnes, came out earlier this month. Excerpts from the upcoming titles, such as Uncharted: How Trump Beat Biden, Harris, and the Odds in the Wildest Campaign in History by Chris Whipple, have leaked to the press in an effort to juice sales. The revelations contained in these works of postelection journalism reveal the alarming disparity between what leading Democratic politicians and White House aides felt privately about Biden's cognitive health (very concerned) and their public comments defending the president from criticism.

Ron Klain

After serving as White House chief of staff from 2021-2023, Klain returned in 2024 to help Biden prepare for the now infamous CNN debate. Klain was "startled" by the president's condition during their first meeting, Whipple writes in Uncharted. "He'd never seen him so exhausted and out of it. Biden was unaware of what was happening in his own campaign. Halfway through the session, the president excused himself and went off to sit by the pool." Klain was "struck by how out of touch with American politics" Biden was, and after watching the president appear "fatigued, befuddled, and disengaged" during limited prep sessions, he "feared the debate with Trump would be a nationally televised disaster."

Klain offered a remarkably different account several days after the debate in July 2024. "As the president said, he had a bad night, his practices were better, and he was tired from all the back and forth travel around the world, and was suffering from a cold that really constrained his voice and constrained his ability to be forceful in the debate," Klain said on MSNBC. "But the president is absolutely sharp, fit, on top of his game. People can see that for themselves. You don’t have to take my word for it."

Mike Donilon

The longtime Biden adviser "swears he never saw the president mentally diminished," according to Whipple. It sounds absurd because it is. Few people interacted with Biden more than Donilon. He was among the small group of advisers who, according to Allen and Parnes, "formed a cocoon around Biden that tightened and hardened with each passing month" during the 2024 campaign. He attended the same debate sessions that had "startled" Klain. The most charitable explanation, Whipple writes, is that Donilon and others in Biden's inner circle "believed what they wanted to believe" out of a "desire to cling to power."

The authors of Fight report that Donilon was indeed desperate to maintain his White House perks. "Nobody walks away from this," Donilon told a prominent Democrat. "No one walks away from the house, the plane, the helicopter." Another Biden ally recalls: "Donilon was one hundred percent. All of the people around him. They’re my friends but for a lot of them, this was job security and this was as good a job as they’re ever gonna get." Donilon's attitude toward the Democrats, who called on Biden to drop out of the race, Allen and Parnes write, "amounted to 'Fuck them.'" Now that the perks are gone, a bitter Donilon has accused Democratic leaders of sabotaging Biden's campaign. "Lots of people have terrible debates," he said at a Harvard event in February. "Usually, the party doesn’t lose its mind. But that’s what happened—it just melted down."

Jamal Simmons

While serving as Kamala Harris's communications director in 2023, Simmons "developed an entire messaging plan" to prepare for the possibility that Biden could die in office. He compiled a spreadsheet of federal judges and their place of residence that Simmons carried with him while traveling with Harris. The goal was to be able to get Harris sworn in as president as quickly as possible in the event of Biden's demise. "Anything can happen to any president, Simmons thought. But the likelihood of Biden dying is greater," Allen and Parnes explained in Fight.

Simmons, who left the VP's office later that year for a commentator gig at CNN, was among the many Democrats who defended Biden by accusing Republicans of promoting "fake" videos and other forms of misinformation about the president's health. "The president of the United States' body moves a little slower, but his mind is just as quick as ever," Simmons said on CNN several days before the disastrous debate. "So these [videos of Biden wandering around like a dementia patient] are cheap fakes—what the White House and Biden people call them—I think we all need to be a little careful about what it is that we put out there." Alas, his prediction that Biden's upcoming debate performance would prove that the president was capable of serving another term did not pan out.

Barack Obama

The former president was "shocked" but "not surprised" when Biden bragged about finally beating Medicare on the debate stage, according to Allen and Parnes. "Obama knew from experience how the job aged a man, and he could see the effects when he watched Biden on television and in their rare joint appearances." One of those appearances was at a Hollywood fundraiser that made headlines after a video clip showed Obama gingerly leading Biden off stage after the president appeared to freeze up. In their first conversation after the debate, Obama tried to "subtly guide Biden toward his own conclusion that there was no light at the end of this tunnel."

Obama did not share these views publicly. Instead, he meekly offered support for the president like a total coward, a move that undermined his own desire to see Biden leave the race. "Bad debate nights happen," he wrote on X. "Trust me, I know. But this election is still a choice between someone who has fought for ordinary folks his entire life and someone who only cares about himself. Between someone who tells the truth; who knows right from wrong and will give it to the American people straight — and someone who lies through his teeth for his own benefit. Last night didn’t change that, and it’s why so much is at stake in November." 

After Biden dropped out, Obama campaigned passionately for Harris despite telling Democrats in private conversations that she was a bad candidate who would "lose to Trump."

Nancy Pelosi

The former House speaker knew Biden wasn't in great shape. "In between roll call votes on the House floor several hours before the debate, lawmakers confessed their fears of a Trump romp to Pelosi," Allen and Parnes write. "Biden did not look sharp. Some suspected that his limited contact with them—and avoidance of the media—suggested an even steeper decline." Pelosi had been among those urging Biden not to debate Trump because she wasn't confident in his ability to avoid public humiliation.

Nevertheless, Pelosi persisted in praising Biden. Three weeks prior to the debate disaster, she attacked the Wall Street Journal for reporting that Biden "had shown signs of slipping." Pelosi slammed the "hit piece" and insisted that Democrats in Congress were impressed by the president's "wisdom, experience, strength and strategic thinking." She continued to applaud Biden's intellectual fortitude, albeit in more muted terms, in the days following the debate. "When I debate with him about legislation—and not debate, but discuss it with him, he’s right there," Pelosi said on CNN. "It was a bad night. It was a great presidency."

Hillary Clinton

Ironically, the notorious liar may have been one of the only Democrats telling the truth when she defended Biden's initial decision to stay in the race. She appears to have genuinely believed that Biden was perfectly healthy and capable of serving another four years. Hillary hadn't spent much time with the president, but her own narcissism compelled her to sympathize with the octogenarian (and fellow) narcissist. She "saw herself in the Republican attacks and TV punditry focused on Biden's condition," according to the authors of Fight. "She certainly didn’t think there was anything wrong with him," one Clinton ally said. "She is someone who has had her health questioned for twenty years and knows that this kind of stuff is bullshit."

The morning after the debate in June 2024, Hillary leapt to the president's defense. "The choice in this election remains very simple," she wrote on X. "I'll be voting Biden." Hillary and her nominal husband, accused rapist Bill Clinton, privately urged Democratic donors to stick with Biden, according to a CNN report published on July 20, 2024. Biden dropped out the next day. 

Sunday, April 06, 2025

Sen. Cotton Educates - China Challenge

Sen. Cotton Educates the Nation About the China Challenge

Peter Berkowitz, Real Clear Politics

Stewart’s rant revolved around the Wuhan Institute of Virology, home to China’s only lab that specializes in gain-of-function research on coronaviruses. This fact alone, Stewart contended with growing manic intensity and to Colbert’s increasing dismay, led to an obvious and inescapable conclusion. The novel, highly contagious, and unusually deadly coronavirus – which first appeared in Wuhan in late 2019 and by the spring of 2020 brought nations around the world to their knees – was created in and escaped from the Wuhan Institute of Virology.

Sen. Tom Cotton understands as well as anyone the many ways that Americans collaborate with the CCP to stifle the reporting of facts and the expression of judgments that the party does not want heard. In early 2020, he was the first prominent national officeholder to offer the common-sense opinion that the novel coronavirus, which had begun to attract attention in the West, might have been produced in a Chinese lab. Bastions of progressivism such as the New York Times and the Washington Post and eminent scientists pilloried him for peddling despicable conspiracy theories. Recently, Andrew Noymer – associate professor in population health and disease prevention at the University of California, Irvine, and editor-in-chief of the Journal of the Academy of Public Health – confirmed that the evidence overwhelmingly favors a lab leak.

Sen. Cotton also understands as well as anyone the severity and several dimensions of the China challenge. In his New York Times #1 bestselling book, “Seven Things You Can’t Say About China,” Arkansas’ junior senator “lays out the real and pressing threat from Chinese Communists based on established facts and the inherent logic of events.” His new book (he generously mentions me in the acknowledgments) is “not partisan or a ‘yellow peril’ screed.” And he is careful to “stress that Chinese communism is the threat, not the ancient Chinese civilization or the Chinese people, the first and worst victims of Chinese communis

Cotton’s short book accomplishes two interrelated tasks. It exposes the thoughtlessness as well as the dishonorable motives behind the coverup of the China challenge by American government officials, major corporations, the media, and university administrations. And it clarifies the CCP’s ambitions – which drive its depredations in China and its predatory conduct directed at the United States and at nations around the world – to impose an authoritarian cast on world order and position Beijing at its center.

Cotton devotes a chapter to each of seven truths that America’s elites have ignored, obscured, or denied.

First, “China is an evil empire.” At home, the CCP “has built a dystopian police state to monitor, manipulate, and master its people,” writes Cotton. The party especially targets Christians, Tibetans, the Falun Gong (a Chinese spiritual movement), and ethnic Mongolians. It is committing genocide against the Uyghur population in Xinjiang in northwest China. And it has enfeebled freedom and democracy in Hong Kong.

Second, “China is preparing for war.” The CCP “has undertaken the largest peacetime military buildup in history, amassing the biggest and second most advanced armed forces in the world,” according to Cotton. In addition, it “has claimed hundreds of thousands of square miles of ocean, built and militarized artificial islands, and expanded its overseas military presence.” And it “openly threatens war against Taiwan.”

Third, “China is waging economic world war.” Cotton dates the onset of the CCP’s global economic warfare to 2000, when “the United States granted China permanent most-favored-nation status. This “provided China with generous trading terms” and “enabled China to join the World Trade Organization the next year.” Since then, the CCP “has stolen trillions of dollars of wealth, crippled entire industries, seized control of developing technologies, destroyed millions of American jobs, and extorted entire countries with its newfound economic power.” The CCP also has devoted massive resources to the Belt and Road Initiative, “a web of roads, railroads, pipelines, power plants, ports, and other infrastructure projects.” With the BRI, the CCP aims “to spread its military, economic, and political influence across Asia and Europe, gain leverage over borrowing nations, employ its workers, and enrich its companies.”

Fourth, “China has infiltrated our society.” By restricting or barring access to its enormous consumer markets – even by threatening to do so – the CCP strong-arms Hollywood, professional athletes, media, higher education, corporate America, and Wall Street to eliminate references to CCP oppression and Taiwanese freedom and democracy.

Fifth, “China has infiltrated our government.” The CCP, Cotton reports, has “spied on our military, stolen our weapons technology, courted state and local politicians, and cultivated a powerful New China Lobby in Washington to pressure your elected representatives.”

Sixth, “China is coming for our kids.” Directed by its parent company ByteDance, which is headquartered in China and operates under CCP supervision, TikTok harms young Americans: It invades their privacy by collecting reams of personal data about them; it inundates them with pornography and other content that encourages self-destructive behavior; and it bombards them with pro-China and anti-American propaganda. Furthermore, by funding Confucious Classrooms at American schools and Confucious Institutes at American universities, the CCP buys from principals and university presidents cooperation in ensuring that their faculty and administrators speak only well of China. And the CCP fuels America’s fentanyl crisis, either producing, or supplying Mexico with the ingredients to manufacture, the deadly drug, “which is fifty times stronger than heroin.”

Seventh, “China could win.” Cotton cautions that the CCP may acquire the ability to overturn the American-led, post-World War II international system. Whereas American global dominance favors freedom and democracy, a world order dominated by Beijing would empower authoritarian nations and license abuse of human rights in the name of collective values. Taiwan, Cotton argues, is the key. It “manufactures around 60 percent of the world’s semiconductors and 90 percent of the world’s most advanced semiconductors.” For this reason alone, if CCP General Secretary Xi Jinping fulfills his promise to conquer the island located some 100 miles from mainland China, he would trigger a severe worldwide depression. The fall of Taiwan would also, Cotton warns, embolden America’s enemies and dispirit America’s friends, spark the proliferation of nuclear weapons, erode American influence in the international economy, and, quite possibly, precipitate the subjugation of Washington to Beijing.

Cotton supplements these seven truths about the CCP’s nefarious conduct and intentions with seven steps American citizens must take to meet the China challenge. Citizens should stay informed about the myriad ways that the CCP imperils American freedom. We should inform friends and family about the dangers. We should vote for candidates who make a priority of prevailing against China. We should refuse to use, and keep our families off, Chinese apps. We should reduce purchases of products made in China. We should increase purchases of products made in America. And, counsels the hard-headed statesman and Army combat veteran, we should “pray for the Chinese people, the first and worst victims of the Chinese Communist Party.”

The Trump administration and Congress must also rise to the moment. President Trump needs to address his fellows citizens about the China challenge, laying out the threat and rallying the nation. Prominent among the president’s proposals should be a reduction of American reliance on the Chinese economy through targeted economic measures that strengthen America’s – and its friends’ and partners’ – manufacturing capabilities in select areas starting, say, with biopharmaceuticals, rare minerals, and semiconductors. The president should also explain how his administration will ensure American military superiority. And, with a view to the long term, the president should encourage Congress to create programs to promote advanced study among scholars, diplomats, and military analysts of Chinese language, culture, history, political institutions, and forms of empire.

To meet the China challenge, we must understand its several dimensions, not least the CCP’s efforts to thwart such understanding.

Peter Berkowitz is the Tad and Dianne Taube senior fellow at the Hoover Institution, Stanford University. From 2019 to 2021, he served as director of the Policy Planning Staff at the U.S. State Department. His writings are posted at PeterBerkowitz.com and he can be followed on X @BerkowitzPeter.

Saturday, March 29, 2025

Pay for Play: Al Sharpton

Pay for Play: Al Sharpton Books Labor Bosses Who Pour Millions Into His Nonprofit on MSNBC Show

Labor unions have given nearly $8 million to Sharpton's National Action Network since 2005

Chuck Ross, Freebeacon.com 

Rev. Al Sharpton’s National Action Network has received millions of dollars from prominent labor unions whose bosses frequently appear on the controversial activist’s MSNBC show, often without any disclosure about their lucrative financial ties.

In the past year alone, Sharpton, who hosts PoliticsNation on the weekends, has interviewed the presidents of five unions that have given his nonprofit a total of $6.3 million: American Federation of Teachers, National Education Association (NEA), Service Employees International Union (SEIU), American Federation of Government Employees, and American Federation of State, County, and Municipal Employees (AFSCME).

In all, labor unions have given nearly $8 million earmarked as "gifts," "grants," or payments for "political activities" to the National Action Network, which in some years has paid Sharpton a $1 million salary and paid hundreds of thousands of dollars for private jets and limo services.

The unions do work with Sharpton at the National Action Network, often appearing at events hosted by the nonprofit, or holding rallies. But they are also frequently represented on PoliticsNation, where Sharpton heaps praise on the union bosses and feeds them softball questions about Republican labor policies.

In a March 23 interview with NEA president Becky Pringle, Sharpton asked what her union was doing to combat President Donald Trump’s "swift and drastic" closure of the Department of Education. Pringle plugged an NEA "call to action" to "hold members of Congress responsible and accountable," and bolster opposition to vouchers for private schools.

In a Sept. 2 interview, Sharpton hailed SEIU president April Verrett as part of "a new generation of young labor leaders." Verrett hyped the union’s influence, which she said is "building the multiracial, multiethnic democracy of our dreams." She also pushed back on the image that unions are "corrupt, bad, and just want to take people's money."

Most MSNBC viewers—not to mention dues-paying union members—were likely unaware of the financial relationship between Sharpton and the unions. Unmentioned in Sharpton’s recent interviews is the National Education Association's $600,000 donations to National Action Network since 2008, including an $85,000 donation last year. Verrett’s union has donated $1.9 million for "political activities" to National Action Network since 2006.

It’s the latest potential conflict of interest for Sharpton and MSNBC, which faced scrutiny after a series of Washington Free Beacon reports that Kamala Harris's campaign paid $500,000 to National Action Network shortly before Sharpton interviewed the Democratic candidate on his show on Oct. 20. The media ethics group Society of Professional Journalists blasted the network and Sharpton for creating a "black eye" for the media industry by failing to notify its audience about the conflict of interest.

The relationship may also violate MSNBC parent Comcast’s code of conduct, which states that "we look out for actual, potential, and even perceived conflicts of interest that may arise based on employment or other activities outside the Company, financial interests, or personal relationships."

"Even when nothing inappropriate is intended, we recognize that the appearance of a conflict of interest can cause harm, such as damaging our reputation or business relationships," Comcast says.

Union payments have bedeviled MSNBC in the past. The network faced scrutiny in 2011 after revelations that labor unions paid $252,000 to the media company of MSNBC anchor Ed Schultz. MSNBC defended the arrangement, but a person who worked at the network at the time told the Free Beacon that the prevailing belief in the halls of MSNBC was that Schultz’s arrangement "smelled."

In rare cases, Sharpton has disclosed financial ties between the National Action Network and the unions represented on his show, suggesting he is aware he should disclose that information to his audience. Sharpton opened a Jan. 24 interview with Everett Kelley, the president of the American Federation of Government Employees, noting that the union "support[s] National Action Network in many of our events."

Kelley’s group has given $525,000 to National Action Network, according to Department of Labor records. But Sharpton made no similar disclosure in interviews with Kelley in 2020 and 2022, in which Sharpton prompted Kelley with questions that criticized Trump over the coronavirus pandemic and the Jan. 6 Capitol riots.

Sharpton made no mention in an interview last month with Randi Weingarten that her union, the American Federation of Teachers, has donated $1.5 million payments to National Action Network.

Sharpton made no disclosure in an interview in November with Weingarten and Lee Saunders, the president of the American Federation of State, County, and Municipal Employees, which has given $1.8 million to the National Action Network. In 2018, Sharpton interviewed Saunders about a landmark Supreme Court ruling against AFSCME that public employees cannot be required to pay union dues in order to gain employment.

Sharpton offered a diatribe of pro-union talking points, claiming that the decision was "really about big corporations being able to stifle you and other unions from being able to represent the interests and benefits of workers."

That hefty union support seemingly helps National Action Network pay Sharpton a hefty salary that in some years has topped $1 million. That’s in addition to the salary of at least $750,000 that Sharpton reportedly hauls in from his MSNBC gig.

The union bosses do get other perks from the National Action Network donations. Weingarten, Pringle, Kelley, Saunders, and Verrett are all slated to speak at the National Action Network conference that starts on April 2.

They will appear alongside Sharpton's MSNBC colleagues Ari Melber, Alicia Menendez, Michael Steele, Symone Sanders, and Chris Matthews.

MSNBC and National Action Network did not respond to requests for comment.

Pay for Play: Al Sharpton Books Labor Bosses Who Pour Millions Into His Nonprofit on MSNBC Show

Labor unions have given nearly $8 million to Sharpton's National Action Network since 2005

Chuck Ross, Freebeacon.com https://freebeacon.com/democrats/pay-for-play-al-sharpton-books-labor-bosses-who-pour-millions-into-his-nonprofit-on-msnbc-show/

Rev. Al Sharpton’s National Action Network has received millions of dollars from prominent labor unions whose bosses frequently appear on the controversial activist’s MSNBC show, often without any disclosure about their lucrative financial ties.

In the past year alone, Sharpton, who hosts PoliticsNation on the weekends, has interviewed the presidents of five unions that have given his nonprofit a total of $6.3 million: American Federation of Teachers, National Education Association (NEA), Service Employees International Union (SEIU), American Federation of Government Employees, and American Federation of State, County, and Municipal Employees (AFSCME).

In all, labor unions have given nearly $8 million earmarked as "gifts," "grants," or payments for "political activities" to the National Action Network, which in some years has paid Sharpton a $1 million salary and paid hundreds of thousands of dollars for private jets and limo services.

The unions do work with Sharpton at the National Action Network, often appearing at events hosted by the nonprofit, or holding rallies. But they are also frequently represented on PoliticsNation, where Sharpton heaps praise on the union bosses and feeds them softball questions about Republican labor policies.

In a March 23 interview with NEA president Becky Pringle, Sharpton asked what her union was doing to combat President Donald Trump’s "swift and drastic" closure of the Department of Education. Pringle plugged an NEA "call to action" to "hold members of Congress responsible and accountable," and bolster opposition to vouchers for private schools.

In a Sept. 2 interview, Sharpton hailed SEIU president April Verrett as part of "a new generation of young labor leaders." Verrett hyped the union’s influence, which she said is "building the multiracial, multiethnic democracy of our dreams." She also pushed back on the image that unions are "corrupt, bad, and just want to take people's money."

Most MSNBC viewers—not to mention dues-paying union members—were likely unaware of the financial relationship between Sharpton and the unions. Unmentioned in Sharpton’s recent interviews is the National Education Association's $600,000 donations to National Action Network since 2008, including an $85,000 donation last year. Verrett’s union has donated $1.9 million for "political activities" to National Action Network since 2006.

It’s the latest potential conflict of interest for Sharpton and MSNBC, which faced scrutiny after a series of Washington Free Beacon reports that Kamala Harris's campaign paid $500,000 to National Action Network shortly before Sharpton interviewed the Democratic candidate on his show on Oct. 20. The media ethics group Society of Professional Journalists blasted the network and Sharpton for creating a "black eye" for the media industry by failing to notify its audience about the conflict of interest.

The relationship may also violate MSNBC parent Comcast’s code of conduct, which states that "we look out for actual, potential, and even perceived conflicts of interest that may arise based on employment or other activities outside the Company, financial interests, or personal relationships."

"Even when nothing inappropriate is intended, we recognize that the appearance of a conflict of interest can cause harm, such as damaging our reputation or business relationships," Comcast says.

Union payments have bedeviled MSNBC in the past. The network faced scrutiny in 2011 after revelations that labor unions paid $252,000 to the media company of MSNBC anchor Ed Schultz. MSNBC defended the arrangement, but a person who worked at the network at the time told the Free Beacon that the prevailing belief in the halls of MSNBC was that Schultz’s arrangement "smelled."

In rare cases, Sharpton has disclosed financial ties between the National Action Network and the unions represented on his show, suggesting he is aware he should disclose that information to his audience. Sharpton opened a Jan. 24 interview with Everett Kelley, the president of the American Federation of Government Employees, noting that the union "support[s] National Action Network in many of our events."

Kelley’s group has given $525,000 to National Action Network, according to Department of Labor records. But Sharpton made no similar disclosure in interviews with Kelley in 2020 and 2022, in which Sharpton prompted Kelley with questions that criticized Trump over the coronavirus pandemic and the Jan. 6 Capitol riots.

Sharpton made no mention in an interview last month with Randi Weingarten that her union, the American Federation of Teachers, has donated $1.5 million payments to National Action Network.

Sharpton made no disclosure in an interview in November with Weingarten and Lee Saunders, the president of the American Federation of State, County, and Municipal Employees, which has given $1.8 million to the National Action Network. In 2018, Sharpton interviewed Saunders about a landmark Supreme Court ruling against AFSCME that public employees cannot be required to pay union dues in order to gain employment.

Sharpton offered a diatribe of pro-union talking points, claiming that the decision was "really about big corporations being able to stifle you and other unions from being able to represent the interests and benefits of workers."

That hefty union support seemingly helps National Action Network pay Sharpton a hefty salary that in some years has topped $1 million. That’s in addition to the salary of at least $750,000 that Sharpton reportedly hauls in from his MSNBC gig.

The union bosses do get other perks from the National Action Network donations. Weingarten, Pringle, Kelley, Saunders, and Verrett are all slated to speak at the National Action Network conference that starts on April 2.

They will appear alongside Sharpton's MSNBC colleagues Ari Melber, Alicia Menendez, Michael Steele, Symone Sanders, and Chris Matthews.

MSNBC and National Action Network did not respond to requests for comment.