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We know one thing in National Security, only one thing.
- Nations that respect the basic human rights of their own citizens don’t attack the United States, nor take actions that harm our national security.
Profitless exports….
Bloomberg: “At the heart of investor gloom is an unsettling realization that a protracted consumption slump and the race-to-the-bottom mentality among businesses is taking a heavier toll on earnings across industries.”
bloomberg.com/news/articles/…
Hello from Taipei, and yes,,, @POTUS sells weapons, and now like every President before him is dealing with China. Seen 3 senior DPP gents in last few days, and no one alarmed. Big issue is deliveries.
- @PhelimKine
Very very good take by @ConradMBlack -
Though a reasonably risk-averse commentator, after closely following the tumultuous campaign for the midterm elections on November 3, I am now possessed by an irresistible compulsion to rush out on a limb: the blue wave is a fraud. The Republicans will likely lose the House and perhaps the Senate, but so what?
The Democrats and their tethered robotic lackeys in the national political media, their impeachments and indictments and stonewalls of deprecation and misinformation, and even what could be interpreted as incitements to assassination all having failed.
A midterm set-back after six years for a twice-elected president has afflicted every such president since U.S. Grant in 1874, except for the always invincible FDR. It is not the end of the world and did not prevent Reagan from making great progress towards the end of the Cold War.
He @Indian_Bronson is mad at me, but honestly,, he is a smart guy.. - He is also part of a new line of thinking that is emerging in conservative foreign policy circles. No nutty Tucker or Defense Priorities silliness, nor @POTUS transactional diplomacy, not a return to neocon, or Scowcroft... just a new way of seeing the world through US interests... - just has one fault..
Replying to @Indian_Bronson
What Iran might do is in turn attack the Emirates and even otherwise opened traffic in the straight of Hormuz to raise prices — they are also aware of the US election schedule and how November 3rd changes Trump’s own calculus for what he has to lose or not.
Folks, @simoncf with an AI piece on the different views of Hong Kong by the British is simply fantastic in production, and the content debate provoked. Great job in explaining how unique Hong Kong was as a colony, and leads to how Beijing screwed it up.
substack.com/@unsubject/note…
This is why I just find little value in @washingtonsun - and I pay for multiple DC focused platforms..
- This is old news. @JasJWright & @jstein_sun are writing what was being discussed inaugural week. I know multiple folks who passed as even most knew the Dems were coming. - could have been more..
SCOOP up now @washingtonsun from @JasJWright and @jstein_sun : The White House is weighing mass pardons for junior staff washingtonsun.com/whitehouse…
Mark Simon retweeted
“To me, this is much more than another tax crackdown. It illustrates a fundamental truth about wealth in China: no matter how much you accumulate, how carefully you structure it, or how far into the future you plan, no wealth is truly safe under CCP rule.”
The Illusion of Wealth Preservation in China
The recent bloodbath in Hong Kong’s stock market brings back memories of my journey to learn how to preserve wealth for my son.
The lesson to be learnt from Beijing’s latest tax crackdown? No amount of planning can protect a family fortune within the CCP’s reach.
My new essay, The Illusion of Wealth Preservation in China:
desmondshum.substack.com/p/t…
No, not every election historically important. i’m tired of “End of Democracy” or “America will be Lost”.
-
My biased list of US elections I think mattered and those that were kinda…meh….
1980 - Huge, New dawn in politics. Nation changing. Freedom over appeasement.
1982 - Meh..
1984 - Meh
1986 - Meh
1988 - Affirmation of Reagan. But appeasement of China/Russia starts. Scowcroft defeatism takes root. End of Reagan economics by Bush’s.
1990 - meh
1992 - Meet the Clintons. Meaningful. But little change in nation. Clinton a southerner, calm.
1994 - Massive. 1st GOP control of House in decades. “Contract with America” Populism on Right appears..
1996 - Meh
2000 -Meh..W & Gore were same same.
2002 - Meh
2004 - Meh, who was Dem?
2006 - Meh, and a snooze.
2008 - Massive, Huge, 1980 level change as Left takes Dems, 1st Black President. End of Clinton’s. Nation changing.
2010 - Huge - Ends early Obama’s legislative run. Populism now front and center.. Democracy returns to the Streets via Tea Party & social media fully shows up.
2012 - Meh, Romney put a nation to sleep.
2014 - Meh
2016 - Same level as 1980, 2008. Meet Trump. Nothing same since
2018 - Mattered. Dems move full Left, Trump moves fully to Right, age of investigation & dirty tricks fully in system.
2020 - Mattered, Ends Trump One. Nation divides Left/Right. Most divisive election since 68.. Still reverberates.
2022 - Meh, but shows Trump weakness at polls as his picks do poorly. Biden asleep.
2024 - Big - Here we are..
2026 - Meh.. sorry to disappoint, but Trump not legislating so loss of Congress meaningless. Loss of Senate impacts 2028.. Dems will investigate. It’s 1996 all over again.
2028 - Huge!!!!! Wait for it
Mark Simon retweeted
This isn't difficult. H1B was designed by the Reagan-Bush Era @NSF specifically to tamper with the functioning of the free market on behalf of employers of STEM labor. @myles_boylan is its unknown father, theorist and defacto designer.
Let's simply shut it down wholesale and pay the damages to our own brilliant people. Long-term Labor Shortages do not exist in market economies like ours. It's a myth. Fake. That's it. It's not more complicated.
If we don't know that, we should admit capitalists don't know basic economic theory. And they do. Let's help @JDVance and @PalmerLuckey find the courage to address this evil indvidious abomination of a welfare program with extreme prejudice.
Immigration policy must be driven by the present, not the past, and business leaders are too terrified of the left AND the right to acknowledge this.
Recent H1B discourse revolves around a longstanding immigration sleight-of-hand. H1B proponents point to exceptional people who came here decades ago as if they represent the current state of the program in the same way that advocates for low-skill/illegal immigration point to very favorable immigrant crime/welfare/education/etc statistics that do, in truth, have them beating native-born Americans on many fronts.
It is all a sham. The world that created those statistics, people, and businesses no longer exists. Brilliant but desperate Vietnamese fathers who fled communism have nothing in common with young men from Honduras, and the crime rates/economic acccomplishments/integration of the former should not be used to justify mass migration of the latter.
Nor should the accomplishments of people who managed to get an H1B visa in the 90s (when the program was capped to just 65,000 visas) be used to justify staffing agencies and tech companies using the program to replace American jobs for less money. The obvious abuse going on is politically suicidal and something that even the most ardent supporters of the visa should want to crack down on, no immigration program can possibly survive the obvious and widely known reality of what is going on. I am a longtime outspoken advocate for stealing the best people from other countries to make our own better, runaway abuse of existing programs robs the government of the worker trust required to do so.
Lots of people in the tech space know this. Even the dumb people are smart enough to see it. Nobody actually believes these are all incredible people with unique talents performing jobs no American can. Everyone knows the guy in Cubicle Bay 7 doing mediocre but functional web design for half the salary of his American peers is no savant and doesn't meet the statutory requirements for his H-1B visa.
Unfortunately, most people with power or profile are terrified that any public statement or acknowledgement will get them attacked by the right (You guys have been screwing over American workers for years with visa abuse, you damn hypocrite!) or the left (You are racist, sexist, misogynist, and sucking up to this fascist administration!). Or, more likely, both. I know too many tech execs in particular who feel trapped, like the only winning move is to stay silent.
JD is blowing the whole thing wide open by putting facts and stats front and center that nobody wants to engage with. Critics will talk about anything and everything else but these damning facts and this obvious truth, that H1B visas serve neither their original purpose, legal purpose, invented purpose, or the American people.
The real test of a journalist or media executive is if he/she is willing to live a life outside the approval of peers.
- DC journalists rarely pull that off, but worse.. they can’t fathom not being with the undemocratic elites that stock DC.
- @MarkHalperin @2waytvapp same.
“The knives are out, ladies and gentlemen, for the Trump political team” ahead of a possible catastrophic loss in the midterms, says @MarkHalperin. “People are starting to share with me just epic stories — I don’t know if they’re true — but if true, epic stories, accusations of all sorts of things, but primarily under the heading of incompetence.”
Key to @WSJ - it's not run by Americans.
Whether Lachlan Murdoch, Peter Robinson, @emmatuckerWSJ or @almarlatour - they do not see the US as their country of loyalty. - That matters in a newsroom, where reward is built on condescending take on a nation, not their home. An occupying elite.
@KatieMiller @StevenCheung47
President Trump and many Republicans are betting that attacks on socialism can still be a powerful weapon—but in an era of growing socialist sentiment, the tactic has lost much of its sting. on.wsj.com/3TY7XLk
It's amazing that Graham Holdings carries this charity case... - @grahamholdings
Trump has made one of Xi’s most dangerous potential miscalculations significantly more likely. foreignpolicy.com/2026/09/28…
Mark Simon retweeted
Immigration policy must be driven by the present, not the past, and business leaders are too terrified of the left AND the right to acknowledge this.
Recent H1B discourse revolves around a longstanding immigration sleight-of-hand. H1B proponents point to exceptional people who came here decades ago as if they represent the current state of the program in the same way that advocates for low-skill/illegal immigration point to very favorable immigrant crime/welfare/education/etc statistics that do, in truth, have them beating native-born Americans on many fronts.
It is all a sham. The world that created those statistics, people, and businesses no longer exists. Brilliant but desperate Vietnamese fathers who fled communism have nothing in common with young men from Honduras, and the crime rates/economic acccomplishments/integration of the former should not be used to justify mass migration of the latter.
Nor should the accomplishments of people who managed to get an H1B visa in the 90s (when the program was capped to just 65,000 visas) be used to justify staffing agencies and tech companies using the program to replace American jobs for less money. The obvious abuse going on is politically suicidal and something that even the most ardent supporters of the visa should want to crack down on, no immigration program can possibly survive the obvious and widely known reality of what is going on. I am a longtime outspoken advocate for stealing the best people from other countries to make our own better, runaway abuse of existing programs robs the government of the worker trust required to do so.
Lots of people in the tech space know this. Even the dumb people are smart enough to see it. Nobody actually believes these are all incredible people with unique talents performing jobs no American can. Everyone knows the guy in Cubicle Bay 7 doing mediocre but functional web design for half the salary of his American peers is no savant and doesn't meet the statutory requirements for his H-1B visa.
Unfortunately, most people with power or profile are terrified that any public statement or acknowledgement will get them attacked by the right (You guys have been screwing over American workers for years with visa abuse, you damn hypocrite!) or the left (You are racist, sexist, misogynist, and sucking up to this fascist administration!). Or, more likely, both. I know too many tech execs in particular who feel trapped, like the only winning move is to stay silent.
JD is blowing the whole thing wide open by putting facts and stats front and center that nobody wants to engage with. Critics will talk about anything and everything else but these damning facts and this obvious truth, that H1B visas serve neither their original purpose, legal purpose, invented purpose, or the American people.
Vice President JD Vance breaks down the data:
"If you are working as an H-1B visa in the United States of America, you’re earning $20,000 less than an American citizen hired in the same position. If you were brought in by one of these foreign outsourcing firms, you’re making $48,000 less than an American citizen in a similar position. So I’m sure that everybody here understands the game that is being played. You bring in indentured servants from outside the country, you lay off American workers and, if you’re a corporation, you make a ton of money by under cutting the wages of American workers, replacing them with people who frankly shouldn’t be in the United States of America to begin with."
Looks like @washingtonpost has many sources who dislike @SecWar - although think much of the China spy story is made up… doesn’t make sense even if you hate @PeteHegseth -
Goobers at @ForeignPolicy psychoanalyze a mass murder.. - Ugh.
Like a struggling swimmer, the Russian leader may take desperate measures to stay afloat. foreignpolicy.com/2026/06/25…
CCP released Pastor Jin 50 days after @POTUS left Beijing. It's 26th day since Xi visited DC, so hopefully we will see some action soon on US citizens & political prisoners with US citizen families. The political prisoners the West wants out is an easy win for Xi & @MFA_China
Following the wrongful detention of U.S. citizens Youlin Chen and Min Zin, the @StateDept is raising the risk level for wrongful detention in its travel advisory for China.
This is a serious warning to all Americans. The CCP has demonstrated that it will use arbitrary detention and exit bans to target Americans in China.
Chairman @RepMoolenaar has repeatedly called for the release of Youlin Chen and Min Zin and remains committed to securing the freedom of Americans wrongfully detained by the CCP. semafor.com/article/10/16/20…
Mark Simon retweeted
Today @Call4HK launches its campaign for the Hong Konger Promise of Refuge Act (S. 5606 / H.R. 10685), supported by @thecfhk, @hkdc_us, @hk_watch, Hongkonger Community Center, and Action for Hongkongers.
The bill, introduced by Senator Jeff Merkley and Representative Jim McGovern, would let Hongkongers covered by Deferred Enforced Departure apply for green cards. While they wait, they could not be detained or deported, and they could work.
Since 2021, Deferred Enforced Departure (DED) has protected Hongkongers in the US from deportation. It ends on February 5, 2027, and an extension is difficult. Since June, ICE has also routinely detained Hongkongers covered by DED.
What you can do, in two minutes:
1. Go to call4hk.us
2. Enter your zip code
3. Add one sentence about why this matters to you, and send
You do not need to share your immigration status. If you have US-based friends, coworkers, or family who care about Hong Kong, send them the link too.
Mark Simon retweeted
NEW: What is at stake for Taiwan is Washington’s reputation as a dependable security guarantor and consistent upholder of its moral positions, @JoshuaMWilkes reports. dominotheory.com/trump-says-…






















