sherpa

The urgency is not "now." The Congressional Committee on China was formed in Feb, 2023, and this has been a discussion since they first convened. Things take time, especially when Congress is involved in huge internal struggles, like getting a House Speaker, to move things along. The claim that this is based on Gaza is preposterous. I've seen things about banning this for military personnel a long time ago. China is involved in a cold war type strategy against the US on many levels. Expansion in the Pacific. The continued threat to take over Taiwan. Gross trade violations. Gross intellectual property and industrial thievery and espionage. We can look the other way, but the continued, failed strategy of "just pretend that nothing's going on," is blind negligence.

This has been an issue way, way way prior to the Gaza conflict. The Chinese have been mining data on Tic Toc for years, and stats suggest there is serious, organized attempts to influence coming from there. Ever been to China? When I was going there a few times/month, the Google/Gmail think was a pain, but I didn't use any of the others so it wasn't a big deal to me. You could kind of get around it by using a VPN, but they figured that out a few years ago and ended that strategy. Here's a very abbreviated list of application blocked by the Chinese: All Google apps, Gmail, Google search Google chat, Google maps, Google news. Facebook Messenger. Tik Toc-they have their own highly edited version. X-formerly Twitter Snapchat Amazon Prime Netflix HBO and Hulu There are many more. Anyway, the case of their using it as an intel gatherer has been discusssed for a long time.

James Webb Telescope keeps discovering: It seems our universe is not expanding at a uniform speed. The speed of expansion depends on where you look. Previously, the Hubble telescope suggested this, but the difference was thought to be measurement errors. No longer. "James Webb telescope confirms there is something seriously wrong with our understanding of the universe" Previous Expansion Theory Upended "February 6 in the Astrophysical Journal Letters, suggests that there may be something seriously wrong with our understanding of the universe."

Couldn't have said it better, so I won't try.

Fatal idiocy.

I'm quite glad you think I'm an idiot. Makes it a lot easier to spend no time here. The point is that the Arab invasion of Israel was done on Yom Kippur. Specifically becasue they knew the reserve dependent IDF would be at the beach. The Arabs called that the Ramadan War., not the Israelis. It was their choice, and they got their asses kicked. During this current skirmish, I hold the Israelis completely blameless regarding whatever day they decide to go after the remaining Hamas murderers.

Perhaps you have missed the point, and are unfamiliar with the history. But you have managed to condemn the Arab side of this. First, the premise you stated that "only terrorists attack people on their holy days" is a false premise. There is no calendar consideration for terrorist actions. Next, you get the attacker/attackee thing completely wrong. It was a coalition of Arab states that attacked Israel on Yom Kippur, a Jewish holy day. After that you seem to no be aware that the phrase "Ramadan War," is an Arab phrase for the conflict as they launched the attack during Ramadan. How this makes Jews terrorists, as they didn't launch it on their celebration day, and didn't name it after an Arab holy month is an impossible logical conclusion. But....That's what passes here.

There is no such admission, nor claim, ex you.

You miss the point. They could call it whatever they wanted at the time, but there was no bombing in WWII that could ever be called "precision" by today's standards. In those days it was slide rule ballistics and airplane deliver physics to arrive at a guess. That is not the way it is done now, nor since the late 70's. Eliminate a discussion of "pgm", (gps, ins.laser guided and other precision guided weapons). A simple dumb bomb from an F-15/16/18/35 or countless European attack aircraft, delivered in a not threat scenario can, and should be very accurate. Not "pick the window/exhaust stack" accurate, but certainly within 20'. And "in this window", or with active sensors "on this helmet," is certainly doable.

Perhaps you don't understand. There was no "precision bombing" then. Certainly nothing close to what sophisticated, well trained attack forces with advanced weapons systems are capable of doing now.

This Ramadan thing is idiotic. The 73 war, Yom Kippur, was launched against Israel on the occasion of the religious holiday Yom Kippur, knowing that the IDF, largely reservists, would be celebrating the religious holiday. Additionally, it was known in the Arab world as the Ramadan War, taking place on the tenth day of the Ramadan month. Total nonsense.

There was no such thing as "precision bombing" in WWII. Beyond that, no surprise, I'm not sure what point you are trying to make.

Twenty five years of spending half the week in Europe/Asia or South American. It is manageable.

What is "Espanol"? Did you mean Hispaniola? The Dominicans would never allow that. No chance.

We should care because we are humans. Beyond that, on a strategic level, insane, out of control regimes tend to spill over borders. Haiti shares a border with the Dominican Republic, which we have strong and strategic ties to. Haiti is not currently fixable, but the disease must be controlled, like cancer.

The more you post, the stupider you get. It was nowhere near "carte blanche." There were conditions that allowed to US to refuse anybody it wanted to.

This claim is either ignorance or a deliberate attempt at obfuscation. I vote for ignorance.

My son in law works for the gov, though certainly not part of the Administration, and part of his area is Haiti. He spends a lot of time there. This one isn't on Biden, in my view.

This situation is completely out of control. I heard two items yesterday that are illustrative. First, there are now formal travel agency products that provide service to illegals to get to the US border. Second, US Border officials are reporting ten times the amount of military aged Chinese nationals entering the US southern border than they encountered three years ago.

The entire Biden energy argument is designed for people who know nothing about his policy variances, or contradictory postures. He campaigned on ending drilling. Many videos of these statements. He gets in office and overturns many pro energy policies by executive action. Then........true to form from a career politician who has never held a real job, he gets his ass in a wringer when Russia invades the Ukraine and energy prices advance disproportionately to demand and polls start telling him people don't really like his energy stance. Then....he goes to Saudi Arabia and pleas to them to raise production. They do the opposite, so he asks them not to announce their planned production decreases until after the mid term elections. Then......when nothing is working so far, he goes to the US energy industry and pleas for them to increase drilling, the exact thing he campaigned against, and put policies in effect to decrease, and tells them if they don't increase drilling he is going to charge them an excise tax on profits made because the cost has increased so much, and blames it all on them. Now, after OPEC cuts production, he brags that the US production is higher. This man is an economic/business illiterate, if not lunatic. I guess some people support this kind of ignorant policy insanity that makes it completely unpredictable to plan for long range projects.

Look at the chart. Look at production levels between Nov 2020 and March 2021. I wonder what happened during that election to post inauguration period. Then I wonder why it has steadily gone up since the covid recovery and political damage resulting from rapid increases in crude costs and the Russian invasion. Actually, I don't wonder, and neither does anyone with a scintilla of knowledge of the energy markets and political policy.

Thanks for being honest. There is nobody to negotiate a Palestinian State with, becasue there is no such entity that has a name, gravitas, (I hate that phrase), or basic view that Israel should be allowed to exist. All of the tears from western cultures about this issue fail to acknowledge that reality. I'm just a simple guy who has watched this for decades, but in my simple mind, in order for there to be an agreement between two parties, they have to acknowledge the other's right of existence. That's kind of day one, hour one of an agreement negotiation.

Israel has had two elections that put in place people whose primary platform was the establishment of a separate Palestinian state. Went nowhere because there is no reasonable commitment from the other side. Of course you have no clue about who would reasonably lead them in peaceful coexistence, because there is no one. How do you advocate for this without any solution? It's nonsense. Combine that with the sub-human acts in October and you get what you get. It is preposterous to demand military perfection in this environment. That is the issue. There is nobody to negotiate with, and Hamas seeks to eliminate Israel.

The "two state solution" begs the question. Who is going to lead the Palestinian component? Name some organization that has any critical political mass that doesn't advocate the elimination of Israel. Israel has had two elections in the past decades that the victor's major policy component was a two state solution. They didn't get anywhere, or at least to the finish line. One could say that that was becasue of Israel's negotiating intransigence, but my view is because of an absolute void in leadership on the other side. Major agreements bring on risks, and the other side was simply not willing to do that, or hadn't the strength to. It's similar to what's going on now. Hamas and other groups are telling their minions that elimination of Israel is a real possibility. It isn't. I very much favor a two state option, but not one where the other side insists of complete destruction of the state of the other, and the elimination of all its people. Further, if that were to occur, in my speculation, there would be yet another internal Islamic Sunni vs Shiite war.

I'm doin' OK