If you’ve been reading my articles for a while, you will know that I am a big basketball fan. My favorite NBA team is the Miami Heat, followed by the Portland Trail Blazers as I have lived in both cities in the past. Though I do not often talk about it because the basketball world and the world of politics do not intercept very often, when they do, I feel the need to speak at least to some extent.
 
Some time ago, for example, I discussed what Golden State Warriors Forward Draymond Green said regarding racism in America and pointed out that we are in a far better state racially than before if people have to make up racial attacks.
 
But recently, another political moment can be found in the NBA when Houston Rockets’ General Manager Daryl Morey tweeted out his support for the pro-democracy activists in Hong Kong. He simply tweeted a graphic that said: “Fight for freedom, stand with Hong Kong.”
 
As a result, many Chinese businesses, including the Chinese Basketball Association, and the Chinese government “quickly denounced Morey and moved to sever ties with the Rockets,” according to The Ringer.
 
It should be noted that this is particularly important because the Rockets have a lot of fans in China given that one of the team’s best players in franchise history was Yao Ming, a former Chinese basketball player and the first Chinese player taken with the first overall pick in the NBA draft. It’s perhaps because of this that Morey had to backpedal so quickly regarding his comments, but I doubt it would’ve made much of a difference had any other NBA executive done the same.
 
The Chinese government is utterly dictatorial and threatened to boycott the Rockets in China, which would mean damage to the team’s and the NBA’s bottom line. The tweet, which has since been deleted, reportedly prompted Rockets ownership to debate whether or not to fire Morey as a result.
 
NBA chief communications officer Mike Bass issued the following official NBA statement: “We recognize that the views expressed by Houston Rockets General Manager Daryl Morey have deeply offended many of our friends and fans in China, which is regrettable. While Daryl has made it clear that his tweet does not represent the Rockets or the NBA, the values of the league support individuals’ educating themselves and sharing their views on matters important to them. We have great respect for the history and culture of China and hope that sports and the NBA can be used as a unifying force to bridge cultural divides and bring people together.”
 
What a load of crap. The NBA only cares about people’s political beliefs when it aligns with their own. They have no problem with Spurs coach Gregg Popovich, Warriors coach Steve Kerr or Lakers franchise player LeBron James lambasting and attacking President Trump, but the minute an NBA executive shares PRO-DEMOCRACY beliefs aimed at the situation in Hong Kong, that becomes a problem and his job is put into jeopardy.
 
The NBA does not have any values at all. They consider themselves a bastion of morality when they pull the All-Star game out of Charlotte because of the transgender bathroom law (and no, that wasn’t moral either) but utterly cower to the whims of a dictatorial regime that has killed tens of millions of people due to Zedong’s “Great Leap Forward” and that currently imprisons millions of people for being Christians or Muslims.
 
These are not values. This is whoring yourself out for Chinese money. It’s utter hypocrisy and the NBA deserves every bit of the criticism it’s receiving State-side.
 
Sen. Josh Hawley (R-MO) tweeted: “So let me get this straight. Houston Rockets GM Daryl Morey expresses support for Hong Kong democracy movement & Chinese government pressures NBA to fire him? Moment of truth for NBA. Will they bow to pressure from repressive, authoritarian govt?”
 
He followed that up by tweeting: “Chinese govt has a million people locked in concentration camps & is trying to brutally repress Hong Kong demonstrators – and NBA wants to ‘bridge cultural divides’? Cultural divides?”
 
He wasn’t alone in his criticism of the NBA. Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX) tweeted: “As a lifelong Houston Rockets fan, I was proud to see Daryl Morey call out the Chinese Communist Party’s repressive treatment of protestors in Hong Kong. Now, in pursuit of big $$, the NBA is shamefully retreating.”
 
He added: “We’re better than this; human rights shouldn’t be for sale & the NBA shouldn’t be assisting Chinese communist censorship.”
 
Sen. Rick Scott (R-FL) piled on, tweeting: “It’s clear that the NBA is more interested in money than human rights. Tonight’s statement from Commissioner Silver is an absolute joke. The NBA is kowtowing to Beijing to protect their bottom line and disavowing those with the temerity to stand with Hong Kong. Shameful!”
 
Federalist co-founder Ben Domenech also tweeted: “I hope a player, just one, is brave enough to speak out against this corporate [b.s.] bending of the knee.”
 
Considering the NBA fines players for even slightly criticizing bad referee calls, I doubt they would allow for players to speak out against the Chinese communists without getting a fine, so I don’t see any player speaking out against this crap.
 
But the NBA isn’t just getting criticism from the Right or from conservative news media. Sports analyst Clay Travis tweeted: “ESPN is set to broadcast from China this week. The woke league with the woke broadcasting network. All shilling for Chinese communists. Y’all think they’ll say anything at all? Ha ha. The hypocrisy is crazy. When the NBA pulled out of Charlotte, ESPN praised them to high heavens.”
 
TIME columnist Ian Bremmer also tweeted: “I get the NBA not wanting to side with Hong Kong because it’s politically uncomfortable. But apologizing to the Chinese dictatorship against the democracy they’re repressing? As an American sports league? That’s unconscionable.”
 
Vox’s Aaron Rupar, a far-Left columnist, also piled on, tweeting: “This is a hostage video. What an embarrassment for the NBA.” He was referring to Daryl Morey having to tweet out a two-tweet apology for his stance.
 
Even Barack Obama’s old speechwriter Ben Rhodes tweeted: “Just consider that the NBA is suggesting that supporting democracy and human rights ‘does not represent’ the NBA or the values that the league supports. What values does the league support?”
 
It’s a huge deal when I read a Ben Rhodes tweet and don’t feel like throwing up. I honestly have nothing to argue with here, because I wholeheartedly agree with Rhodes. In doing this, the NBA is suggesting that the support of democracy and human rights is not something the NBA wants to attach itself to simply due to the bottom line.
 
It’s utter corporate shilling at some of its worst. I have no doubt in my mind that the NBA would’ve found no trouble working with Nazi Germany if it meant turning a profit there. China is doing much of the same thing, sending people to concentration camps, many of whom likely die there, and utterly represses its people to the point where expressing any non-state approved thought is bounds for some sort of punishment.
 
The NBA has no values, only pretends to have them when it will give them good PR and some sort of profit. Standing against the banning of men inside women’s restrooms is perfectly okay in their eyes. Standing in favor of democracy and human rights is troublesome when in the context of China denying said democracy and human rights.
 
It’s utterly despicable, and while I understand the NBA is a business and it will always try to do what’s best for business, that doesn’t excuse this. Any money the NBA receives from China ought to be considered dirty, perhaps even bloody, money, given what the authoritarian government does to its people.
 
Interestingly, though, this puts the NBA in the precise position it didn’t want to find itself in: jeopardizing profits.
 
If even Aaron Rupar and Ben Rhodes, some of the farthest-Left people on Twitter, are siding against the NBA, what exactly does that mean for the NBA in the States? Could be that some people, particularly Rockets fans, choose to boycott the NBA themselves as a result. And if so, depending on how long it lasts and how big that boycott is, it could lead the NBA to lose more money than they would’ve otherwise.
 
The NBA hosts a few pre-season games in China with a number of teams, not even all of them. But while the pre-season nets them a good amount of money outside the U.S., the NBA only has 2 pre-season games scheduled in China out of a total 79 games in the pre-season schedule. And the regular season has 82 games per each team (totaling 2460 total games played in the regular season for all teams combined), all of which are played in the United States (except for the Toronto Raptors, who play 41 games in Toronto, Canada).
 
If a boycott of the NBA were to happen in the States, that would matter a whole lot more for the NBA’s bottom line than a Chinese boycott of the NBA.
 
But regardless of what happens, whether any boycott of the NBA happens whatsoever, it’s pretty clear that the NBA is full of utterly spineless cowards, even down to Morey himself. He easily could have kept the tweet supporting the Hong Kong protesters and explaining in a follow-up tweet that he has to make it clear that that is his own view and belief and they don’t necessarily reflect the team or the NBA, but nope. He was forced to apologize and mention that he had to consider “other views” on the matter.
 
The other view, in case one can’t tell, is support of the murderous, dictatorial regime that clearly has a lot of power on the NBA (it’s not helped by the fact that the Brooklyn Nets’ new owner is Alibaba co-founder Joseph Tsai).
 
The NBA should be utterly ashamed not only of trying to silence an NBA executive for saying something they disagree with, which is utterly un-American, but also for kowtowing to the Chinese communists out of fear of lost profits.
 
The NBA and Commissioner Adam Silver are the very corporate cronies their supposed ideology hates.
 
Proverbs 28:5-6
“Evil men do not understand justice, but those who seek the Lord understand it completely. Better is a poor man who walks in his integrity than a rich man who is crooked in his ways.”
 
And please make sure to check out our free weekly newsletter. As the name suggests, it is a newsletter that comes completely free of charge. What you get is a compilation of the week’s articles sent right into your inbox. So make sure to check it out today!
 
Author: Freddie Marinelli.

Among the many fake news stories surrounding the Trump presidency is the insistence by the fake news media that Trump shouldn’t be trying to fight a trade war with China because it only ends up hurting us more than it does them. However, a recent Harvard/Harris poll shows us just about the exact opposite of what the fake news media would want to see.
 
According to the poll, 67% of voters said it was “necessary” for the U.S. to confront China regarding trade, with only 33% saying it is “unnecessary”. This number includes nearly 70% of swing voters, 50% of Democrats, 86% of Republicans and 66% of “moderates” saying it was necessary to confront China on trade.
 
What’s more, 80% of voters said “the trade issues with China must be fixed now rather than put off in order to not rock the boat,” according to Breitbart News. This also includes 82% of voters saying they would rather fix trade issues with China now as opposed to later.
 
80% of Republican voters also support tariffs on Chinese imports, with 51% of swing voters and 53% of rural voters (the voters that would most be getting hurt by this, according to the media) agreeing.
 
This comes even despite the fact that conservative voters are the only ones saying that China is hurting more than the U.S. in this trade war, with the rest saying the U.S. was being hurt more. That is really the only “good” news for the fake news media in insisting that we are being hurt more than China. However, that is far from the truth.
 
While no one escapes a trade war unscathed, China will be more hurt from this trade war than the U.S., especially considering that the U.S. had, for years, been losing millions of manufacturing jobs to China since it joined the World Trade Organization.
 
But there is a very important aspect to the WTO agreement that Trump is very much taking advantage of in order to help Make America Great Again and fight back against China’s unfair trade policies: Section 232.
 
Section 232 reads as follows: “If cheaper imports result in lower employment and a decrease in government revenue, the importing country can impose high tariffs on those products.”
 
Basically, it’s a provision to countries who might be getting shafted by a trade agreement to punish the other country on the products. And the interesting thing about this is that it is helped an awful lot by the fact that we do not have a VAT, or a value added tax.
 
Countries like Canada, China, Germany, Russia, Mexico, and others have different VAT rates for products they import. Basically, if you are a manufacturer and want to export your product to any of these countries, you have to pay a tax. The U.S. does not have such a tax, and so, it becomes exponentially cheaper to get products into the U.S. In doing this, and in the fact that, as stated previously, millions of manufacturing jobs have gone from the U.S. to China, Section 232 can be implemented and that’s what Trump has been doing.
 
Now, that’s not to say that not having a VAT is a good thing for us altogether. The cons outweigh the pros, and having no VAT on imports means that we essentially become the dumpster of the world’s products. It’s also why products seem to be dropping in quality, at least in terms of durability. I had bought a push mower a while back (made in China, because of course it was) and one of the wheels broke off after only a month of use (the overall mower is still usable, as the wheel that broke off was not really necessary, but it’s still a testament to the poor quality of Chinese imports).
 
But as a result of getting so much product, and through the loss in manufacturing jobs, Trump is able (and in the right) to use Section 232 to fight back against China.
 
The fact that China also steals American products and makes bootleg copies of those products also gives Trump good reason to use Section 232.
 
Over the past couple of decades, China has been taking advantage of the U.S. Be it from stealing IPs (intellectual property) and not being held accountable to stealing away manufacturing jobs due to extremely lax environmental and humanitarian laws (which really marks corporations like Apple and Google as huge hypocrites, given their insistence on “fighting” climate change and at the same time working with a government that doesn’t care one wit about the environment), the past few decades have hurt American manufacturers far more than these tariffs ever could.
 
According to the IP Commission Report, China is responsible for almost $600 BILLION in losses to our economy from patent infringement alone. That is an obscene amount of money that could have helped the United States an awful lot. So why isn’t that being talked about in the news as harming farmers and manufacturers? Why are the tariffs being talked about as being the only source of economic pain for these people?
 
And why are we pretending like we are the only ones hurt by these tariffs? The media basically reports this trade war as follows: if China imposes tariffs on us, we are hurt by them; if we impose tariffs on China, we are hurt by them. How in the world does that make any lick of sense? The answer is: it doesn’t.
 
China’s economic growth has slowed the most in 27 years, largely due to the tariffs. Now, it’s not by a huge amount by any means, but it slowed down even more than was actually forecasted. And bear in mind that this is an economy largely built on the Chinese government spending tons of money in tracking their citizens, making deals with Google to spy on them and much other government spending like building ghost towns. Even with the status quo remaining as it is, that is not a sustainable economy and bound to collapse eventually (the situation in the States isn’t much better, as we still spend like there’s no tomorrow and the Left wants to spend trillions of dollars we don’t have on a climate project that will achieve nothing more than the total restructuring of the country into a new Soviet Russia). A big reason the Soviet Union fell was because of the Space Race: they were forced to spend more money than they had and eventually, they had to fold. The U.S. stuck around simply due to our economic system of capitalism, wherein we create wealth rather than steal and destroy it.
 
But returning to China, a trade war only accelerates China’s economic collapse. Take away their ability to steal IPs and you take away a means for them to make money. Return the jobs that went there and you increase their unemployment rates.
 
Of course, the Chinese government largely doesn’t care about its people. If there were a famine that kills a million or so people, they will see it as less people they will have to keep track of rather than as a tragedy.
 
But there is no denying that the tariffs stand to hurt China more than the U.S. considering that we are still (for the most part) a capitalist nation and we create our own wealth as opposed to stealing it and destroying it.
 
Of course, there will be those who disagree and think we are hurt by these tariffs more than China, but a considerable majority still backs Trump regarding trade with China regardless of who they think is hurt more by these tariffs. Eventually, China will blink and ultimately fold. That’s what communist countries do.
 
Proverbs 22:16
“Whoever oppresses the poor to increase his own wealth, or gives to the rich, will only come to poverty.”
 
And please make sure to check out our free weekly newsletter. As the name suggests, it is a newsletter that comes completely free of charge. What you get is a compilation of the week’s articles sent right into your inbox. So make sure to check it out today!
 
Author: Freddie Marinelli.

It isn’t often that I talk about what is happening in China. For the most part, I either talk about some Chinese Millennials not having the desire to worship Xi Jinping as their communist god, or talk about how the ChiComms have no real chance in a trade war with us when our economy is roaring like it is. However, given that there currently are protests happening in Hong Kong, I feel the need to emphasize something that I find rather amusing.
 
During the protests, a number of Hong Kong protesters (though far from a large number) have chosen to fly the American flag in protest to the Chinese extradition bill directed at Hong Kong which would undermine their freedoms and the city-state’s democracy.
 
The American-flag-flying protesters issued relatively similar, though fairly different responses as to the reason behind flying the Stars and Stripes. According to the Asia Times, one person explained he was flying the American flag to “urge the U.S. Congress to pass the Hong Kong Human Rights and Democracy Act as soon as possible.” The mentioned bill would, if passed, impose sanctions “on individuals from the mainland and the city-state who violated human rights and require the U.S. government to annually review whether Hong Kong is democratic enough to merit lucrative U.S. trade privileges not afforded to the rest of China,” according to TownHall.com
 
Another protester insisted the reason he was flying the American flag was so that the Chinese government would be infuriated enough to employ military action against the protesters and get the U.S. to, in turn, take more concrete, likely military, action against China.
 
Truth be told, I have a bit of a problem with that second reason. I don’t think it’d be a good idea to risk the lives of other protesters, risking them getting either imprisoned or outright executed, just to advance your own goals. That is pretty much one step below Leninist revolution, ironically. What’s more, I am not sure the U.S. would actually do anything militarily if the Chinese were to do that. The Venezuelan government has had a Gestapo-like police force in place for two years now, where they arrest, humiliate and/or execute those whom the government deems to be in opposition to the Maduro regime and the U.S. isn’t doing anything militarily about it (not that I’d want us to at the moment). We are implementing more and more sanctions on Venezuela, but not much more than that. Trump doesn’t want an unnecessary war.
 
So to hope for American military action in response to Chinese military action against its own protesters is unwise. Even if the Chinese were to take action against the protesters in that manner, as long as the Chinese don’t attack us, the U.S. won’t see much of a reason to act through military force, especially considering that taking such force could lead to a larger conflict, maybe even a third World War. And considering Trump wants to get reelected, getting us into World War III would not help him out (and he would be blamed for starting it, even if it were not necessarily the case).
 
Now, funny enough, the fact that some protesters were flying the American flag has led to a spokesperson for China’s foreign minister to make the claim that America has something to do with the protests. Hua Chunying, spokesperson for China’s foreign minister, said: “I hope the U.S. will answer this question honestly and clearly: what role did the U.S. play in the recent incidents in Hong Kong and what is your purpose behind it?... We advise the U.S. to withdraw its dirty hands from Hong Kong as soon as possible.”
 
Can’t say I’m surprised that the brainwashed communists are asserting, without evidence, that the U.S. is in any way involved with the protests. However, reality is far different from what the ChiComms are suggesting. One protester insisted that he is “just expressing myself, I’m not paid by anyone. The Chinese government wants to attribute [protests] to foreigners, not to Hong Kong people.”
 
Not that that will matter much to the ChiComms, of course. Even if the U.S. were to send the ChiComms a message answering their ridiculous allegation, they would probably misinterpret something and claim the U.S. was admitting fault, considering this literally happened in early 2001 when the Chinese received a letter from the U.S. saying they offered their condolences to a Chinese pilot’s family when the pilot’s plane collided with a U.S. spy plane, leading to his death, but the U.S. did not outright apologize for the incident, saying it was not their fault. Still, Chinese translators misinterpreted the sentiments expressed to the pilot’s family as a form of apology to the ChiComms.
 
In any case, it should be noted that the U.S. flag is far from the only flag that the protesters have flown. In conjunction, the protesters have also flown a flag with a white orchid on a red background, signifying democracy and peace in the city-state, as well as Britain’s Union Jack and the flag that was used when Hong Kong belonged to Britain. One protester, according to the Japan Times, said: “I miss the British-Hong Kong government before 1997. The British helped us build a lot of things: separation of powers, our rule of law, our entire social system.”
 
Even the Brits themselves responded to the protests, saying: “We stand behind the people of Hong Kong in defense of the freedoms that we negotiated for them when we agreed to the handover in 1997 and we can remind everyone that we expect all countries to honor their international obligations,” said Jeremy Hunt, then-foreign secretary of the British government, when he spoke to Reuters early last month.
 
Still, I have no idea as to why the British government decided to let the ChiComms have Hong Kong, even under the agreements they reached. I understand that Hong Kong was to be left alone in its governance, for the most part, but considering the Chinese government is run by LITERAL COMMUNISTS, I’m surprised no one saw this extradition bill as a possibility in the future. Of course they would eventually try and attempt a communist, if legislative, takeover of Hong Kong! I don’t think there is much the British would be able to do against the Chinese in such a case, apart from announcing their disagreement to it!
 
But in any case, what’s done is done. One can only hope that the protesters succeed (if at all possible) in their bid to keep Hong Kong from being completely under communist control. Personally, I will stand with the protester who urged Congress to pass the aforementioned bill. If, indeed, it can do something to keep the ChiComms from taking over Hong Kong, I see no reason for the bill not to pass (then again, considering just who is running the House right now, I’m not entirely certain that it would pass there).
 
Liberty is always worth fighting for and I hope and pray for the best for these protesters. The fact they are waving the American flag is only more endearing to me.
 
Galatians 5:13
“For you were called to freedom, brothers. Only do not use your freedom as an opportunity for the flesh, but through love serve one another.”
 
And please make sure to check out our free weekly newsletter. As the name suggests, it is a newsletter that comes completely free of charge. What you get is a compilation of the week’s articles sent right into your inbox. So make sure to check it out today!
 
Author: Freddie Marinelli.

For the most part, I’ve chosen to steer clear off the topic of tariffs and a trade war. However, as I would read story after story relating to a trade war with China, one thing kept coming up in my mind: China would be obliterated by a trade war.
 
Even if the stories I would read would suggest the exact opposite, that the U.S. should not engage in a trade war with the Chi-coms, my instinct would always tell me that China had really no hopes of winning a trade war with us, especially if our economy is booming, which it is.
 
I will return to why exactly I suspected China would lose a trade war momentarily. For now, I wish to share a story with you published on Breitbart News titled: “Tectonic Shift in China: Xi Under Fire as China Realizes it Underestimated U.S. Trade Resolve.”
 
“Chinese President Xi Jinping is facing backlash from within the Communist Party over his hardline stance in the trade dispute with the United States, Reuters reported Thursday,” according to Breitbart.
 
Reuters reported that: “A growing trade war with the United States is causing rifts within China’s Communist Party, with some critics saying that an overly nationalistic Chinese stance may have hardened the U.S. position, according to four sources close to the government.”
 
“President Xi Jinping still has a firm grip on power, but an unusual surge of criticism about economic policy and how the government has handled the trade war has revealed rare cracks in the ruling Communist Party…”
 
“There is a growing feeling within the Chinese government that the outlook for China has ‘become grim’, according to a government policy advisor, following the deterioration in relations between China and the United States over trade. The advisor requested anonymity.”
 
I’m not surprised at all that the advisor requested anonymity. If the Chinese government found out who was saying these things about China and the government, they would imprison that person and possibly even execute them. There is no freedom of speech there. The only things you can say are things favorable to the government.
 
Regardless, let’s continue with the Reuters report: “Those feelings are also shared by other influential voices. ‘Many economists and intellectuals are upset about China’s trade war policies,’ an academic at a Chinese policy think tank told Reuters, speaking on condition of anonymity due to the sensitivity of the issue. ‘The overarching view is that China’s current stance has been too hard-line and the leadership has clearly misjudged the situation.”
 
The significance of this report cannot be understated. If this is, indeed, the case, then this is massive news! The Chinese communists don’t tend to be split about things like this. They are usually fairly unified. So for these anonymous sources to be saying these things about the Chinese Communist Party, that’s a big deal.
 
Even an article from the South China Morning Post suggests that China should concede defeat to Trump in this trade war. To quote Xu Yimiao, the writer of the article: “Beijing’s strategy of a tit-for-tat retaliation over tariffs has clearly failed. In fact, this strategy escalated the conflict…”
 
But how can this be? I thought China was supposed to kick our butts in a trade war. That’s what the Left and the fake news media were saying, after all.
 
Well, it’s really no surprise that the Left would say that we would lose a trade war with China. The Left sees China as a utopia. As such, they believe China’s centralized economy is superior to a capitalist market economy. Even U.S. Senator Brian Schatz (D-HI) claimed last month that China held an advantage over the U.S. in a trade war, and engaging further in this trade war would be “stupid”.
 
According to Breitbart, “Views such as Schatz’s were common during the Cold War, when many prominent economists and political scientists argued that the Soviet Union’s totalitarian society could prevail over the U.S. Earlier in the last century, some had made similar arguments based on the perceived strength of Nazi Germany compared to the U.S.”
 
Which brings me to the reason I suspected China would lose a trade war. What do China, the Soviet Union and Nazi Germany have in common? They would use socialistic policies to run every aspect of the government and people’s lives, including the economy. And what happened to two of those nations? They are no longer around… well, not as they used to be.
 
The reason I suspected China would lose a trade war is because capitalism always defeats communism in economics. Communism would be considered an economic joke if it weren’t so dangerous.
 
You see, there’s a very clear difference between capitalism and communism/socialism. I’ve even said this before in the past: capitalism creates wealth; communism destroys it.
 
Capitalism is the enterprise of building more and more wealth through freedom. Communism is the enterprise of spreading wealth around so much that it’s too thinly spread, and the enterprise of making it incredibly difficult to accumulate any sort of wealth. It’s the enterprise of spending other people’s money until there is no more money to be spent.
 
Under capitalism, wealth belongs to the people. Under communism, the people belong to the government.
 
I have often talked about China and how they are ranked #2 in world GDP (#3 if you count the E.U.). But you really have to think about why they are in that place.
 
Well, it’s most likely a combination of having the world’s biggest population (1.379 billion since 2016), so there’s a lot of people to give money to the government, as well as exploitation of what makes the GDP grow. For example, government spending grows the GDP. Part of the reason Obama’s GDP managed to grow around 2% is because he would spend a lot of money and drive our debt sky-high. But while the GDP was “growing”, the economy was stagnating, with high unemployment levels, more people going into welfare, etc.
 
China is doing much the same thing. They build luxurious ghost cities that no one can afford to move into and use so that the GDP artificially grows to an extent.
 
Now, I won’t claim to know the intricacies of Chines economics. I doubt vast amounts of spending and having the world’s largest population are the sole reasons for that GDP ranking, but they are significant parts of it. (The other part might be that they use relatively capitalistic economic policies to avoid completely crashing the economy and sinking the country).
 
What I’m getting at is that no communist country can withstand any sort of economic war with a capitalistic country, by definition. Engaging in trade wars with the U.S. will only accelerate China’s ultimate demise at the hands of their own communistic system.
 
And this becomes even more true if the U.S. is going through an economic boom, which it is. This, I believe, is part of the reason Trump is imposing and enforcing tariffs on foreign countries. Another part of it is the fact that other countries have been taking advantage of the U.S. because the Establishment believes the U.S. became powerful and wealthy because it somehow stole from other nations and felt that foreign governments taking advantage of us was a form of justice. Trump was having none of that nonsense and decided to embark on making fair trade deals by using the same tactics as the other nations.
 
But this really would not be suggested for Trump to do if the economy weren’t booming. With a booming economy, we can afford to engage in trade wars to make better trade deals in the future.
 
A booming U.S. economy combined with the simple fact of life that communism sucks at trade wars, and you can see why I always believed China would be destroyed in a trade war.
 
And seemingly, people within the Chinese Communist Party are beginning to realize this.
 
Proverbs 22:16
“Whoever oppresses the poor to increase his own wealth, or gives to the rich, will only come to poverty.”
 
Author: Freddie Marinelli.

There is a very good reason I have ceased calling people who work in the media, at least mainstream media, “journalists”. A journalist is someone who digs into issues, asks tough but fair questions, and looks for the objective truth. They can be wrong, but they were looking for truth. People who work in the mainstream media, in this day and age, don’t look for the truth. They look to fabricate it.
                                                                    
So, when anyone from an MSM source writes an opinion piece about Trump that is neither overly critical of him nor overly supportive of him (I admit to doing the latter pretty much all of the time), it is seen as a breath of fresh air.
 
Grady Means wrote such an article on the San Francisco Chronicle. Now, while it’s not CNN, the NYT and other major MSM sources, given this is coming from the city where the phrase “full of crap” is taken literally, it makes sense to make certain presumptions about this California-based news source.
 
His article, titled “In defense of Trump’s foreign policy” notes the interesting way the POTUS goes about dealing with other nations in comparison to his predecessors (particularly Obama) and what results such dealings bring about to the security of not just the United States, but perhaps even the rest of the world.
 
In his second paragraph, he makes it known that he is not an apologist for Trump; that he did not vote for Trump nor Hillary. He notes: “I didn’t and still don’t think he has a firm grasp of history and global issues, and so I have no dog in this fight…”
 
So it is clear that Grady is not exactly a Trump supporter, but he is not a Leftist whacko either and can recognize good work when he sees it, even if it derives from questionably confusing tactics.
 
Grady writes: “As opposed to his immediate predecessors, he has not gotten us into a huge catastrophe in Iraq (in fact, he has not gotten us into any big shooting war). He has not gone on an embarrassing global apology tour to autocratic Muslim countries who treat women like dirt. He has not telegraphed our moves in Afghanistan and Iraq, emboldening our enemy and leading to loss of American lives. And, for the moment, he has stopped nuclear and missile expansion in North Korea as opposed to Presidents Jimmy Carter, Bill Clinton, and Barack Obama, who all claimed to have stopped North Korea’s nuclear program. Not to ‘conflate’, but he is way ahead of his more articulate predecessors on many counts – the ones that actually count.”
 
Clearly, we can see Grady had some issues with the way Obama particularly dealt with foreign policy. That paragraph leads me to believe he is not a Leftist, seeing as pretty much all Leftists saw Obama’s apology tour not as embarrassing or degrading but as justice for decades of “stealing” and “cheating” from other countries.
 
Then, Grady makes the point that he is not entirely certain what Trump is thinking most of the time. “So what is Trump’s foreign policy? It appears to have something to do with positioning and making deals, although we would need to use IBM’s Watson computer running a million variations of game theory to fully understand his logic and approach. But that does not make it wrong. It just makes it confusing.”
 
He then details the way Trump treats Putin and Xi Jinping, the leaders of America’s two most notable enemies. He, in person, flatters them to no end and strokes their egos, calling them “good guys” and saying he trusts them in front of cameras.
 
Part of the reason the Left believes Trump is a traitor or a Russian spy is due to how he treats Putin and Xi Jinping in person. But they always leave out what Trump does in his policy, which is actually against the interests of Russia and China.
 
Grady notes that Trump’s actions seemingly contradict his personal words of flattery for the rival nations. One moment, Trump is stroking their egos, and the next, “he dramatically expands the defense budget (aimed at China and Russia), takes the advice of the command leadership to streamline military response and effectiveness, moves a good portion of the Pacific fleet to the coast of China and North Korea, and directly challenges China over the islands in the South China Sea. He TWICE draws a red line on chemical weapons in Syria and enforces it (as opposed to his feckless predecessor) with cruise missile attacks, and then attacks and kills Syrian and Russian forces committing genocide. He provides lethal weapons to Ukraine to fight Russians, creates a better balance between the Shiite and Sunni forces in the Middle East, re-strengthens our alliance with Israel, starts a mini trade skirmish with China to force a needed discussion on intellectual property theft that his predecessors were afraid to have, refocuses foreign policy on Asia and firms up the alliance with Japan.”
 
Grady goes on and on, listing off Trump’s foreign policy achievements such as expanding our energy resources by dealing with Saudi Arabia, “kicking NATO and EU leadership (which led his predecessors around by the nose) in the rear for their historically cynical and mercantilist policies, expands NATO funding and strengthens it significantly,” strengthening our cyberwarfare systems and strengthening the U.S. economy, which is a crucial factor in any dealings, with the strengthening of the value of the dollar.
 
Then, Grady openly admits: “I have no idea what the guy is thinking.”
 
That’s fine, but I would like to try my hand at explaining the Don’s logic. I think Trump, above other things, wants to remain unpredictable. Creating confusion is a part of remaining unpredictable. What I believe he intends to do is to make a deal every single time he meets with someone. He’s not going to meet with world leaders just to get a photo-op. His mission is to make a deal with them. Granted, that’s what world leaders tend to do anyway, but given that he wrote the book on making deals, he sees it as his number one priority above all else for the duration of the meeting.
 
And in these meetings, as I have said in his defense of the Helsinki meeting, he does not want to antagonize the opposing party. He would do the same with the Democrats if they were not so stuck up as to deny to give him anything he wants and then whine when he does things they don’t like. When he meets actual world leaders, he looks to make a deal because he feels that he really can. Frankly, we’ve seen everyone from Emmanuel Macron to Vladimir Putin to even Kim Jong-un be friendlier with Trump than the Democrats have.
 
The way Trump thinks is this: “I can be your best friend or your worst enemy”. In personal meetings, he does his best to be friendly unless he is attacked for no reason. He meets with our supposed “allies” in NATO and the EU and treats them the same way they have been treating us for ages: poorly. Then, he goes to our enemies and treats them nicely. He is sending our “allies” a message that he can find other allies apart from them. That he can befriend others and treat them well. That they have not been fair with the U.S. and he’s not taking crap from them.
 
He could easily be Europe’s greatest ally if they were making fair deals with us.
 
And at the end of the day, Trump, knowing that Russia and China are still our greatest rivals, enacts policy and actions that go against their best interests. That still stand up for American interests and for world interests.
 
It may be confusing, considering we likely have not seen any other President before him deal with foreign powers, enemies and allies alike, in the way that he does (I say likely because I can only realistically compare Trump to Obama and don’t know how the previous Presidents after our period of isolationism dealt with foreign powers).
 
However confusing it may be, it’s working like a charm. Iran, despite their threats and being “unimpressed” with Trump’s all-caps tweet against them, is crumbling with their currency imploding on them and their people visibly ticked off at the leadership. North Korea has recently been dismantling key launching facilities because of the June 12 summit. ISIS has been almost entirely wiped out, with no large terrorist attacks having occurred in America since Halloween of last year (there have been some smaller ones, but nothing ISIS can claim responsibility for).
 
So with all of these major threats to our nation either being destroyed (ISIS), denuclearized or defunded and on the brink of collapse, even Grady has to admit: “… I feel a lot safer today than I did under his past predecessors.”
 
In the span of less than two years, Donald Trump has destroyed the “JV” team, reached a deal to get North Korea to denuclearize and stopped funding the terror-sponsor that is Iran’s nuclear capabilities (though I fear Obama has done too much damage here).
 
Our biggest foreign threats, at this point, are horrendous tariffs from other nations imposed on American products, but that is being taken care of with a trade war that we are in prime position of winning, given our strong and improving economy.
 
Grady’s article overall is a breath of fresh air regarding coverage of Trump. Usually, people are either overly critical of him (on both sides, for some reason) or overly supportive of him (I do this largely because he does a lot of great things for this country that heavily outweigh any “character flaws” he may have and sins of the past such as Stormy Daniels and Karen McDougal).
 
It is hard to find honest coverage of a sitting President, especially in today’s world of rhetoric and narrative over objective truth.
 
Proverbs 2:9
“Then you will understand righteousness and justice and equity, every good path;”
 
Author: Freddie Marinelli.

It’s really no secret that Communist China does its absolute best to destroy any and all religion in the nation. You can often read news stories (outside of MSM, mostly) about Chinese paramilitary groups raiding and even destroying churches. You can read stories about China denouncing the Dalai Lama and calling him a “separatist” among other things. You can read stories about China banning burqas and other symbols of Islam in the Xinjiang region, as well as forcing shops in the region to sell alcohol and cigarettes to “weaken” religion. Religion is simply not something the Chinese government is fond of.
 
And the Left is not too different.
 
I suppose the biggest difference between the two is that, while the Chinese don’t like Islam, the Left is pretty much in love with it (even if Islam destroys Leftism, which is something that would likely happen but the Left doesn’t believe could). But the two have one specific idea in mind: replace God with the government.
 
In fact, China has essentially said as much. The Chinese government urged Christians in an impoverished part of southeast China to replace posters of Jesus with posters of President Xi Jinping “as part of a local government poverty-relief programme that seeks to ‘transform believers in religion into believers in the party,’” according to the South China Morning Post.
 
That is literally replacing God with the government in people’s lives. And that is precisely what the Left wants to do. They want Christians, particularly, to replace anything that has to do with Christ with whatever has to do with the government. Whether it’s replacing a poster of Christ with a poster of, say, Obama (despite him not being officially in the government anymore), or replacing whatever else with government propaganda.
 
The Left looks at China and is envious of them. They think we should be more like them. That our government would be more efficient if we imitated them. That the American people would be better off if we were more like China.
 
Nothing could be further from the truth, of course. China is ranked number 2 in world GDP (three, if you count the European Union), with roughly $11 trillion US dollars to their name. The United States ranks number 1 in world GDP with roughly $18 trillion. China, a communist country, is a poorer nation by a noticeable gap. Who would’ve thought?
But here’s the thing, even though they are communist, they don’t employ fully communist economic systems. If they did, they would bankrupt themselves in short time.
 
Back in 2015, Forbes published an article focusing on the deregulation of their market (not a lot). Of course, it also offers the solution of further deregulating interest rates and savings rates for the most part, but it does mention China’s decisions to deregulate to some extent.
 
And back in 2017, Reuters wrote about rising stocks in the Chinese market over financial deregulation.
 
So China has slowly but surely been deregulating certain economic areas in order to be a bit more prosperous. They are literally employing more capitalistic ideology in order to keep their country from completely going belly up.
 
It’s also what Lenin had to do in order to keep the Soviet Union afloat (for its time). According to Dinesh D’Souza in his book “The Big Lie”, “As a dedicated Marxist and communist, Lenin had pledged to outlaw capitalism throughout the Soviet Union, and he did. But the Soviet economy went into a nosedive, and in the early 1920s, by his own acknowledgment, Lenin embraced capitalist measures to solve the problem. He allowed private property, including private farms; he allowed businesses and farmers to keep some of their earnings; he even encouraged foreign businesses to invest in the Soviet Union. Lenin did not see his New Economic Policy as betraying communism but as stabilizing the economy as well as his political hold on the country so that he could truly institutionalize communism.”
 
The literal founder of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union was forced to employ capitalistic measures to avoid totally bankrupting the Soviet Union.
 
Now, while China and the Soviet Union are almost entirely similar, I say that the Left wants to turn this country into China because the Soviet Union has more of a negative connotation. Despite some lunatic liberals’ ambition of establishing “full-on communism” in the U.S., many people in America still dislike the Soviet Union and don’t think we should follow them. After all, they didn’t even last to their centennial as a nation, so why follow? China, on the other hand, hasn’t dissolved yet in its communism. Don’t get me wrong, they likely won’t last to the turn of the century, but they are currently the largest Communist country on Earth.
 
Sure, North Korea is a notable example as well, but the Left has been relatively careful of not trying to say we should be more like North Korea (even if they do say they'd rather have Kim Jong-un as POTUS instead of Trump *ahem* Chelsea Handler *ahem*). And while they would also love to rule America the same way Kim Jong-un rules - everything belongs to the state - they make sure not to make it sound as though that's what they want. Compared to North Korea, China seems more sensible if you're a liberal. Of course, both are terrible options.
 
And if these Communists and Leftists had an ounce of grey matter within their skulls, they would realize that establishing full-on communism as Marx theorized is impossible. Not even the most notable communist country in world history could survive on full-on communism.
 
And the Chinese know this as well.
 
Still, while Communism does not make any sort of economic sense, it still is heavily implemented by the Chinese in other areas, most notably in the way people live their lives.
 
Even if the Left acknowledges that communism is horrible for the economy, they would still want to implement it here, particularly if it means ruling people’s lives. Earlier, I mentioned China banning religious symbols. That, obviously, is part of communism, the kind that the Left really wants.
 
Why? Because throughout human history, we have seen case after case of man trying to be like God. They either want to replace God with themselves or try to actually BE God. People like Nebuchadnezzar, Caesar, Alexander the Great, even Adam and Eve all sought to be like God or effectively replace God in people’s hearts and minds.
 
Lenin, Stalin, Hitler, Mussolini, Xi Jinping all have sought or seek the same. Even if they denounce God and claim to not believe in Him, they all effectively sought to replace Him. It’s a strange brand of Atheism: claiming you do not believe in God, all-the-while seeking to replace Him in people’s minds and hearts as though He were some existing threat. If they truly did not believe God was real, they would have no quarrel with trying to replace Him, who does not exist in their minds. Why replace something if it doesn’t exist?
 
This is what the Left, all over the world, wants to do. Regardless of how little sense it makes or how impossible it actually is, they will seek to do it.
 
Romans 3:23
“For all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God.”
 
Author: Freddie Marinelli.

Reading through some conservative websites, I found this neat little story on Breitbart titled: “Chinese State Media: Millennial-oriented Communist Propaganda Failing For ‘Zen Generation’.”
 
This is a rather eye-catching story considering the fact that I certainly did not think China of all places would have a problem with their own millennial generation.
 
The article reads: “China’s government-run newspaper Global Times complained in a piece published Tuesday that millennials of the ‘Zen generation’ are ‘indifferent’ to communism, a sign that Xi Jinping’s efforts to impose Marxist ideology on young Chinese people are failing.”
 
I would just like to point out the irony of American millennials loving communism and Chinese millennials being at the very least indifferent to it.
 
Quoting the Global Times, Breitbart writes: “They are not inspired by any patriotic drive or the Party’s political catchphrases. They are simply indifferent.”
 
Then Breitbart writes: “Under Xi, the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) has invested heavily in youth-centered propaganda, including producing rap videos about communism, organizing ‘mass dating’ events where Communist Youth League members can meet state-approved potential mates, and doubling down on textbooks and academic study that promote Chinese military belligerence. Chinese officials have also cracked down on non-Mandarin language and religions considered rivals to ‘socialism with Chinese characteristics.’”
 
“Yet the Global Times admits in a report on the ‘Zen-generation’ that these efforts appear to be, in part, failing. ‘People who call themselves Zen-generation, either seriously or half-jokingly, are seemingly fine with anything that happens to them,’ the article notes, suggested that these individuals refuse to put effort into anything, including work and relationships.”
 
Is there any way we can do a Millennial-exchange program with the Chinese? Because I’d rather have the Chinese millennials over American millennials. And yes, I know that I myself am a millennial, but I would imagine that program being voluntary rather than mandatory. I know that plenty of American millennials would rather live in China at this point and I can imagine a good few of the Chinese millennials would be willing to see what America is like.
 
I think that program would be a win-win for everyone. America gets millennials that, regardless of their flaws, won’t flat-out demand full-on communism on social media (yes, I saw someone call for full-on communism as a Christmas present). American millennials will finally experience what communism is like and (hopefully) learn why it’s the worst system of government around. China gets millennials that are excited about communism and Chinese millennials get to experience real Democracy and freedom.
 
Putting jokes aside, we return to the Breitbart article. The article then reads: “The Chinese Communist Youth League has identified this as a threat and a ‘total tragedy.’”
 
“’Only when the young have ambitions and are responsible can a nation have prospects,’ the Youth League said in an article on the topic posted on social media and quoted by the Times. The newspaper notes that communists may indeed have something to be worried about, that ‘this new trend is a passive reaction against the rapid reforms, changes, and developments of modern-day Chinese society.’”
 
The article then mentions how there are more Christians in China than there are Communist Party members. Now, I tend not to simply take such information on the internet and immediately believe it. Thankfully, Breitbart doesn’t assume you’ll flat-out believe them either, so they set up a link to an Australian news website about the Chinese government cracking down on Christians and churches.
 
The article says that “Some say there are 100 million Christians in China – that’s more than Communist Party members. The Chinese government admits there are about 25 million Christians registered at state-run churches where pastors are appointed by the state and theology approved by the governments Religious Affairs Bureau. But the big worry for the Party is the unregistered worshippers in the underground churches. Accurate estimates are difficult to get, but experts say their numbers vary between 40 million and 70 million. And they say by 2030 China will have the world’s largest Christian population.”
 
This is fantastic news to hear about the growth of the Christian faith in a communist country. Yet another reason I kinda actually want such an exchange program. If the estimate really is 100 million, that means that Christians make up roughly 7% of China’s population. While not a lot, you also have to remember that China has the largest population in the world at over 1.3 BILLION people. And considering that this is a communist country, that number is something to be happy about.
 
But returning to the Chinese millennials, I’m happy to see a millennial generation that isn’t entirely in love with the ideology of communism. While not every single American millennial likes the idea of socialism (as evidenced by yours truly), the fact that roughly half of my generation likes socialism makes me worried about the future of this country.
 
But the good news is that that number can always change. People can be educated. Enlightened. If Christianity can not just survive but even GROW in a communist country, I have hope for this country’s Christian faith.
 
I even have some hope for China’s FUTURE! And that’s a sentence I never thought I’d ever write. If these Chinese millennials learn to despise communism (as everyone who considers themselves logical should), then that would be a massive blow to global communist efforts, essentially striking at the heart of today’s global communism.
 
Now, I might be speaking a bit prematurely here. Like I talked about American millennials getting educated being a possibility, so is Chinese millennials embracing the propaganda being drilled into their brains a possibility. And while I usually prefer to adopt a realistic outlook on many things, I can’t help but be at least somewhat optimistic over these news.
 
The potential to dismantle the Chinese communist regime is there, and it can be done by China’s own youth. I am certainly hopeful of that possibility, slim as it may be at the moment.
 
I just hope and pray that people all around the world will wake up to the truth. To the truth that communism sucks. To the truth that big government sucks. But more importantly, to the Truth that Christ is the one and only Son of God, King of Kings and Lord of Lords. That no matter who is President of any country, Jesus is King.
 
And I see the potential for such an awakening in China. I just hope American millennials will follow Chinese millennials… Oh look at that, another sentence I never thought I’d say.
 
Matthew 28:19
“Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit.”
 
Author: Freddie Drake Marinelli.

A couple of weeks ago, while we were striking a Syrian air base, the president met with the Chinese president. I won’t go into the details of the meeting, but there are some key takeaways that we see a couple of weeks after the meeting.
 
The main one being that China in essence ordered North Korea not to test another one of their long range missiles. And the Norks obeyed like good little dogs. But it beckons the question, why, after all this time, did China tell North Korea to not test another one of their missiles?
 
The answer is simple: the Chinese respect our new president. Going into the meeting, Trump had already ordered the strike on Assad’s air base in Syria in retaliation to his chemical attack on his own people. And coming out of the meeting, Trump said that he believes “lots of very potentially bad problems will go away.”, leading us to believe Trump was able to make tremendous progress with the Chinese government. During the meeting, Trump highlighted the U.S.’s position of strength “If China is not going to solve North Korea, we will.” Trump said in an interview with the Financial Times after the meeting.
 
During the meeting, Trump showed that he’s not Obama, and that he’s someone that they can’t take lightly, without showing himself to be an enemy to them. He displayed strength and leadership, as evidenced by the fact that the Chinese president essentially turned on Kim Jong-un and told him to not test another missile. This means the Chinese president views Trump with far more respect than he did Obama. Under Obama, the Chinese president would never have told the Norks to cool it with their missiles.
 
Now, you may recall that North Korea did indeed launch a missile that pathetically blew up mere seconds after launch. While that part is true, that was not the test Kim Jong-un had planned. That launch was simply in celebration of North Korea’s founding. In essence, it was the world’s biggest and most expensive firecracker.
 
But reading the headline once again, what does this have to do with the Left? EVERYTHING! It has everything to do with them! Because, first of all, the Chinese president never showed this kind of respect towards Obama. Secondly, Obama never came into a meeting in a position of strength. Obama was the king of belittling the U.S, particularly with foreign nations. Trump is the precise OPPOSITE of Obama. And the fact that the Chinese president has so much respect for Trump that he told one of China’s closest allies to back off a little says a lot.
 
What this tells you about Trump is that he’s no ordinary president, as we knew he wouldn’t be. I can only think of one other president that would be capable of doing that with China and that’s Reagan. We all know that President Reagan was far more of a patriot than many other presidents we’ve had in recent history. Other presidents would be advised to not come in in a position of strength, because that might give off the wrong impression, one that says we’re better than them, stronger than them. But these two presidents knew and know better.
 
But the impression the Chinese president got is that the era of Obama’s wimpy and soft policies with no backlash or military action is over. China saw that Syria pushed Obama’s “red line” multiple times with no consequence. And they saw Syria try it again during Trump’s time and were given one hell of a warning: Obama’s gone now, back off. Coincidentally, that seems to be the message China sent to the North Koreans.
 
And if the Chinese president respects Trump so much, what does this tell the Left? The Left sees China as America’s goal. China is a utopia for them. It’s what every country should strive for: the elites rule and everyone is equal. No one’s outstanding or special. No one’s better than anyone else. Everyone is the same. But if the leader of this utopia respects the very being the Left considers to be the definition of manure, what does it mean for them? Likely, they’ll try to deny it, saying something along the lines of “China is just being polite because they’re not like that disgusting pig named Trump.” Or “The only reason China did that is to thank Obama for his magnificent 8 years in office.” Or some other stupid nonsensical excuse like that. We'll see what they say of this, if anything at all.
 
Ultimately, it seems there was someone else in that meeting too. He wasn’t American or Chinese, but from another place entirely. God attended that meeting and directed Trump’s steps. He was and is with Trump. God helped Trump win the White House so that he may be able to accomplish these very things.
 
Psalm 23:4
“Even though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil, for you are with me; your rod and your staff, they comfort me.”
 
Author: Freddie M.