ARE CHINA’S ECONOMIC FLAWS IRREPARABLE?

China is the original riddle wrapped in a mystery inside an enigma. A country striving for modernity but feudal in its treatment of its citizens, Beijing’s economic identity is a combination of Communist orthodoxy and crony capitalism.

As you might expect, the two don’t work well together.

On the outside of the riddle, China is booming, the people are subservient and happy, and the government is looking to the future with confidence. This is the picture the Chinese Communists paint for the world to see. The reality is much different.

China is being crushed by debt, has become dependent (more…)

DIRTY COP COMEY

Former FBI boss James Comey posted an image of seashells forming “86 47” but quickly claimed, “I didn’t realize some folks associate those numbers with violence. It never occurred to me but I oppose violence of any kind so I took the post down.” The Secret Service has good reason to take it as a threat.

“86” is code for “get rid of,” quite possibly in a permanent way. Comey knew exactly what he was doing, Trump said, that the “dirty cop” was calling for the assassination of the president. Comey was aware that Trump had survived two assassination attempts (more…)

THE FBI WASHINGTON HEADQUARTERS WON’T BE MISSED

Current FBI Director Kash Patel is closing down the agency’s Washington, DC, mothership office and moving at least 1,500 employees out of the DC area to regional offices.

The decision was not just Patel’s.

During the Biden Administration, it was determined that the 50-year-old Hoover building headquarters was structurally decrepit. More germanely, no prior FBI director had ever explained why nearly a third of the FBI workforce was centered in offices in Washington, far from where most of the serious crime in America occurs.

The news is welcome for reasons well beyond the safety of agents in an apparently (more…)

THE MAHA POPE

In what must be the week’s best fun news story, we learn that the new pope, Leo XIV, formerly Cardinal Robert Prevost, is a fitness fanatic.

His personal trainer and the founder of his gym had details for the Italian press about how then-Cardinal Prevost worked out at their local gym in Rome, running on the cardio machines and bench pressing like anyone else in his plain gym clothes, putting in those hours to keep himself fit, sound mind, sound spirit, sound body, in a piece since picked up by Catholic News Agency:

“The then-Cardinal Prevost — who, as (more…)