Hidden Dragons in America, Pompeo Warns
It sounds like an episode of “The Americans” or a best-selling Tom Clancy novel. But when Secretary of State Mike Pompeo looked into the faces of 40 governors and warned them that China had infiltrated their states, he wasn’t kidding. They’re hiding in the shadows of our schools, our lobbying meetings, even our business dinners. And no one, he said evenly, knows it’s happening.
It sounds like an episode of “The Americans” or a best-selling Tom Clancy novel. But when Secretary of State Mike Pompeo looked into the faces of 40 governors and warned them that China had infiltrated their states, he wasn’t kidding. They’re hiding in the shadows of our schools, our lobbying meetings, even our business dinners. And no one, he said evenly, knows it’s happening.
“These aren’t hypotheticals,” Secretary Pompeo insisted. “We’ve allowed this to continue without a deep awareness from the American people.” And what is “this,” exactly? According to top State Department officials, we’re talking about a massive network of Chinese communists fanned out across the country with one goal: penetrate U.S. security, education, and financial systems — then, create chaos. “It’s happening in your state," Sec. Pompeo insisted, "with consequences for our foreign policy, for the citizens who reside in your states, and indeed for each of you… The Chinese Government has been methodical in the way it’s analyzed our system… It’s assessed our vulnerabilities, and it’s decided to exploit our freedoms to gain advantage over us at the federal level, the state level, and the local level.”
These are often Chinese diplomats, the secretary explained on “Washington Watch,” initiating these operations. Men and women, serving here in the United States, who are quietly “leading and executing programs that present a risk to American businesses, to Americans’ privacy, and to Americans’…security.” And the worst thing about it, he said, is it’s not “on people’s radar screens.” “It’s one thing to pressure the secretary of state of the United States of America.” It’s quite another “to go after a high school principal,” Sec. Pompeo argued. “It shows depth. It shows systematization. It shows intent.”
Obviously, the secretary pointed out, “we want Chinese students coming here to learn.” But the reality is, these aren’t always groups with benevolent intentions. Our communities are partnering with education associations, not realizing they’re actually “controlled and directed by the Chinese Communist Party.” We think they’re coming here to teach Mandarin, when in fact, they’re deeply tied to the regime and its sinister ambitions.
And those relationships are paying off. The Chinese, he warns, have quietly built a foothold with local school boards, K-12 administrators, and county officials that’s giving them a powerful voice they should never have. Last year, Secretary Pompeo shook his head, a high school in Illinois disinvited a Taiwanese official from a climate panel because they’d been pressured by the Chinese.
Just last month, China’s Consul General sent a letter to the speaker of a state legislature demanding that a U.S. leader not engage with Taiwan. “Think about that,” the secretary shook his head. “You had a diplomat from China assigned here to the United States, a representative of the Chinese Communist Party in New York City, sending an official letter urging that an American elected official shouldn’t exercise his right to freedom of speech. And this isn’t a one-off event… Chinese consulates in New York, in Illinois, in Texas, and two in California… are very politically active.” They’ve permeated the tech, business, and science world, actively recruiting U.S. scientists and academics to “share vital secrets” in exchange for money. “We can’t ignore China’s actions and strategic intentions.”
Some of those intentions, he reminded listeners, extend well outside the U.S. And while we want to help China (especially now with the outbreak of the coronavirus) and maintain a good relationship, that’s hard to do when the country’s leaders are taking advantage of other nations. Just look at the controversy surrounding China and the World Bank. The U.S. pours billions of dollars a year into the institution, only to watch the communist leaders apply for — and receive — tens of millions of dollars it doesn’t need. They were “technical and vocational training” loans, we were told — only to find out later that countries like America had been financing China’s persecution campaign, building concentration camps and surveillance weapons to torture entire people groups.
Fortunately, Secretary Pompeo explained Wednesday, the U.S. has made “real progress” to ensure that never happens again. “I’ve spoken with the new leader at the World Bank. He understands… how the American people’s taxpayer dollars that go to that institution shouldn’t be used in ways that are detrimental to [our] security.” In the meantime, there’s plenty of security to worry about right here at home. “What China does in Topeka and Sacramento reverberates in Washington, in Beijing, and far beyond. "I want to urge vigilance,” Sec. Pompeo repeated. “It’s what we all must do, as Americans.”
Originally published here.
Nike Swooshes in to Attack Women’s Sports
First, they attacked America. Then adoption. Now, women. Honestly, with such a busy schedule of political extremism, it’s a mystery how Nike has time to sell anything. But for all of the company’s radical campaigns, it’s Nike’s latest that’s really raising eyebrows. The retail titan is picking a side in the transgender sports debate — and it isn’t girls’.
Just how beholden is Big Business to LGBT activists? Well, one of the biggest manufacturers of international sports equipment just told half its market that it doesn’t care about the future of women’s sports. So much for Nike’s progressive feminist cred. In Tennessee, one of the states that’s considering a ban on biological boys competing against girls, the company actually suggested that keeping a level playing field for girls “put[s] our collective economic success at risk.” If anything puts our economic success at risk, it’s destroying 50 percent of high school, collegiate, and pro sports!
And yet, Nike, like 142 other businesses, is actively working to stop Tennessee (and at least six other states) from fighting the injustice of transgender sports. “I fully support them for being true to themselves and having the courage to do what they believe in,” Connecticut track star Selena Soule says of her male competition. But athletics is “an entirely different situation. It’s scientifically proven that males are built to be physically stronger than females. It’s unfair to put someone who is biologically a male, who has not undergone anything in terms of hormone therapy, against cis-gender girls… It’s upsetting when we work hard all season and put in a lot of effort, only to turn up at the state meets and get beat by someone who is biologically a male and lose state championships over this.”
And these boys aren’t just stealing trophies, they’re stealing scholarships too. With the Olympics around the corner and the debate exploding across the sports world, even athletes who’ve identified as gay or lesbian are calling the trend what it is: cheating. Tennis pro Martina Navratilova has been a great ally for the LGBT movement, but she had no problem blasting the radical ideology that’s killing sports and healthy competition. “It’s punishing the innocent," she wrote indignantly, "and it’s insane.”
If there is a silver lining to this gender lunacy, it’s that more people are starting to see the quandary that’s created by policies and decisions that aren’t based in anatomical realities but emotional whims. This week, Selena — along with two other cross-country runners, Chelsea Mitchell and Alanna Smith — are suing to take back their sports. “Our dream is not to come in second or third place, but to win fair and square," Mitchell said. "All we’re asking for is a fair chance.”
For these three girls, and so many others across the country, it’s upsetting to know the outcome of the race before it starts. And just because someone believes they’re a girl doesn’t mean their bodies act like one. “Forcing girls to be spectators in their own sports is completely at odds with Title IX,” their Alliance Defending Freedom attorney, Christiana Holcomb, pointed out. “Connecticut’s policy violates that law and reverses nearly 50 years of advances for women.”
The issue has created such an unlikely coalition of feminists, liberals, conservatives, and parents that Congressman Greg Steube (R-Fla.) introduced a federal bill to make it clear that biology — not political correctness — should determine your team. “…Even people on the far-Left — [including] famous players [are] saying that it’s not fair that women are having to compete against men in women’s sports.” And while extremists may call that insensitive, the facts speak for themselves. “Males have 30 times more testosterone than females. That obviously helps make men’s bodies bigger and stronger… It’s just crazy to me that we’re even having to file bills on something like this. But that’s the world that we live in today, unfortunately.”
Originally published here.
Mass Burial Lays Dems’ Sincerity to Rest
Serena Dyksen has two grown children, but it’s the one she never met that haunts her most. Wednesday, during a gloomy day in South Bend, she said goodbye to that baby — the one she aborted. Like a lot of women in the Southlawn Cemetery, she looked at the plot and grieved. “Coming here today," she admitted, "was just another layer of the healing process. As post-abortive men and women, sometimes we think we shouldn’t mourn the loss of our children — but it was the loss of life… We don’t want to forget what happened.”
The headstone, donated by a local funeral home, said simply, “In memory of the 2,411 precious unborn buried here on Feburary 12, 2020.” For a lot of families, it was closure they’d been waiting for since last September, when an unsuspecting wife stumbled on hundreds of tiny bodies that her abortionist husband had stashed on their property. Ulrich Klopfer had just died, and his family had no idea about the grisly trophies he’d left behind.
Like the abortionist’s wife, the family attorney couldn’t begin to imagine what would drive anyone to stack their garage from “floor to ceiling” with thousands of decomposing bodies from his killing business. From Kevin Bolger’s interview — “You could barely walk in there” — to the stomach-turning realities, the details are too gruesome to ignore. Unless you’re Mayor Pete Buttigieg.
Klopfer operated several clinics in Indiana — one of the most controversial in Buttigieg’s South Bend. It was eventually closed — no thanks to Mayor Pete, who’s spent years shielding rundown abortion centers from regulation. When the Indiana State Department refused to give one of the town’s other clinics, Whole Women’s Health of South Bend, a license because it lacked “reputable and responsible character,” this candidate for president defended them.
“There’s no question that what happened here is disturbing,” Mayor Pete admitted when the news broke. But what, exactly, does he find disturbing? As one of the many candidates who’s gone to bat for Planned Parenthood, isn’t this just part of the collateral damage liberals are willing to accept as part of their abortion radicalism? After all, he and the rest of the Democratic hopefuls seem to have no problem with America’s biggest abortion mogul trafficking in baby body parts. So which is more shocking — stashing the bodies or selling them?
Indiana Attorney General Curtis Hill (R) gave a moving speech at the graveside service, telling those gathered, “Today, we finally memorialize the 2,411 unborn babies whose remains were senselessly hoarded by Dr. Ulrich Klopfer after he performed the abortions from 2000 to 2003,” he said. “These babies deserved better than a cold, dark garage or the trunk of a car… Each of these 2,411 was a life — a life that was terminated — and each deserves to be secure in a final resting place, with dignity and respect…”
Fortunately, Indiana is one of the few states with laws demanding dignity for the unborn. Illinois, Maryland, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, South Carolina, Utah, and Wisconsin are moving forward with their own efforts to ensure that the horror story of South Bend isn’t repeated. To understand why these policies are necessary — or to see if your state has one — check out FRC’s special issue brief and our interactive fetal dignity map.
Originally published here.
This is a publication of the Family Research Council. Mr. Perkins is president of FRC.
