Posts Tagged ‘Imelda Marcos’

China, The Philippines, Marcos, And Blind Spots

Monday, December 18th, 2023

This post was going to be on how China is still screwing around in the South China Sea (and we’ll get to that), but I want to talk about the difficulty of keeping up with current events, especially of events in foreign nations, especially those nations that don’t usually receive too many headlines. It’s easy to develop blind spots and areas of ignorance.

All of that is prelude to saying that until today, I had no idea that Ferdinand Marcos was President of the The Philippines.

The Marcos in question is not dictator kleptocrat Ferdinand Marcos Sr., who died in 1989, but his son, Ferdinand “Bongbong” Romualdez Marcos Jr.. (Note how obvious it is that his Wikipedia entry was written by his political enemies.) He was elected in May 2022 and assumed office June 20, 2022. How did I miss that?

In fact, I’ve actually heard more about the failed David Byrne/Fatboy Slim disco musical about his mother Imelda Marcos than I did about Bongbong.

One reason is that I don’t subscribe to a newspaper, because I don’t want a dime going to the Democrat Media Complex. (“If you don’t read a newspaper, you’re ill informed. If you do read a newspaper, you’re misinformed.” – Probably Not Mark Twain) Ditto watching any network newscasts, and I don’t have cable.

I checked my email, and evidently not one of the zillions of newsletters I get ever mentioned the Philippines election while they were going on. Which is odd, since it had a pretty compelling storyline: Marcos’ Vice Presidential running mate was Sara Duterte, the daughter of then President Rodrigo Duterte, in a sort of national unity ticket.

Maybe I’m just out of touch and everyone else already knew about Ferdinand II: The Marcosing, but I thought it was worth mentioning.

Anyway: China is screwing around with The Philippines again.

On Dec. 9, China Coast Guard vessels fired water cannons at Philippine supply ships in the Scarborough Shoal, where the Philippine ships had arrived to resupply fishermen. That’s just the latest skirmish in the disputed atoll, which is located near the Philippines but was seized by China in 2012. In fact, in recent months, China has markedly increased its maritime bullying in the waters off the Philippines. That trend is already beginning to spread nervousness among Western businesses interested in friendshoring some of their operations to the Philippines—which may be precisely what China is after.

The water-cannon attack on the Philippine supply ships, which resulted in one of the vessels suffering engine damage and having to be towed back to port, came only a few weeks after two other heavy-handed actions by Chinese vessels near the Philippine coast.

In late October, a Philippine supply vessel and a vessel from the Philippine Coast Guard were bumped, respectively, by a China Coast Guard vessel and a vessel belonging to China’s maritime militia. The incidents took place near the Second Thomas Shoal, in waters that both the Philippines and China consider their own. In 2016, the tribunal in charge of enforcing the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS) sided with Manila over the Second Thomas Shoal, but that hasn’t stopped Beijing from claiming it is the rightful owner and underlining this point through various maritime provocations.

Indeed, for the past decade, there have been regular encounters between China and the Philippines in the desolate waters.

In recent months, China has been particularly keen to demonstrate its presence around the Scarborough and Second Thomas shoals. It has rammed Philippine Coast Guard vessels and boats resupplying fishermen. It has used water cannons against Philippine vessels and tried to chase them away. On just one day in November, 38 Chinese vessels were circling the Second Thomas Shoal’s waters, according to The Associated Press.

Snip.

[Ray Powell, the director of Stanford University’s SeaLight group,said Beijing’s objective] is to discourage any attempts by nearby countries to follow the Philippines’ example in asserting their rights to waters that China has unilaterally declared to belong to Beijing. “China wants to communicate that it has jurisdiction in the South China Sea and gets to decide over activities there,” he explained.

The aggression may be of the gray-zone kind—that is, not involving military violence—but it’s decidedly harmful, and not just to the Philippine and other vessels being targeted. “China’s harassment of civilian Philippine vessels carrying out humanitarian missions has a negative impact on shipping in the surrounding waters,” Amparo Pamela Fabe, a professor at the Philippines’ National Police College and a fellow of the U.S. Marine Corps’ Brute Krulak Center, told me. “It also heightens the geopolitical tensions in the South China Sea.”

Indeed, the harassment has so alarmed the U.S. Defense Department that the U.S. military is now making a point of showing its presence off the Philippine coast, including by sending aircraft to circle above altercations between Chinese and Philippine vessels. But in reality, there isn’t much the Pentagon can do to deter the vessels from the China Coast Guard or the maritime militia off the coast of the Philippines: The United States wouldn’t risk an armed conflict with China over the harassment of Philippine vessels.

I’m pretty sure that China wouldn’t be nearly so confident of that if Donald Trump were still President…

LinkSwarm For November 10, 2023

Friday, November 10th, 2023

Republicans subpoena Biden Crime Family members, Israel is handily kicking Hamas’ ass in Gaza, Jezebel goes down in flames, and The Marvels looks to be doing as badly as everyone expected. It’s the Friday LinkSwarm!

  • House GOP subpoenas Hunter Biden alongside suite of Biden family members.”

    Hunter Biden and his uncle James Biden have been subpoenaed Wednesday by the House Oversight Committee, which took the remarkable step of seeking depositions from family members of President Biden amid its impeachment inquiry.

    As part of the request, the committee asked for James Biden’s wife, Sarah Biden, as well as Hunter Biden’s wife, Melissa Cohen, to sit for transcribed interviews. The panel also asks for interviews with Hallie Biden, the widow of Beau Biden, and her sister Elizabeth Secundy.

    The subpoenas come weeks after the Oversight Committee demanded both Hunter and James Biden’s personal bank records, and also include a subpoena for Hunter Biden’s former business partner Rob Walker.

    The panel is also requesting to speak with Tony Bobulinski, whom Hunter Biden’s attorney have accused of lying to the FBI.

    The release from House Oversight Chair James Comer (R-Ky.) said he “plans to send additional subpoenas and transcribed interview requests later this week.”

    If James Biden is a potential felony suspect (which he is), I doubt the House can compel his wife to testify.

  • “Hunter Biden Wants To Sic Daddy’s DOJ On Whisteblower Biz Partner.” Of course he does.
    

  • Despite the expert opinions of all those expert commentators, Israel appears to be handily kicking Hamas’ ass.

    The IDF’s tactical success so far in its nearly two-week-old ground incursion into Gaza – cutting the north from the south and entering Gaza City with limited troop casualties – has surprised some observers. There have been 32 Israeli troops killed during the incursion, according to The Times of Israel, which is far fewer than anticipated. The IDF said it is killing fighters and destroying scores of tunnel shafts and other Hamas infrastructure during its advance that has reached the Mediterranean Sea coast. Still, the mounting casualty toll and displacement of civilians remains a grave cause for concern as outrage grows and calls for a ceasefire increase.

    Snip.

    While good analysis of any major news story should not accept on face value any claims by the participants, it most certainly must not accept the claims of a source known to lie. And yet, the mainstream press and the experts it has relied on have accepted and continue to accept what Hamas tells them, with no skepticism, to the point that several media sources (Reuters, CNN, AP, and the New York Times) allowed themselves to be used by Hamas as propaganda outlets. Their blind passion to get the story combined with their willingness to repeatedly accept the words of an organization not only known to repeatedly lie but to rape, torture, and slaughter women, children, and babies caused them to misread the situation badly.

    Others might not be so kind, and will instead say this poor analysis was because many of these news organizations and the experts they relied on have taken sides. They see Hamas as the good guy and victim, and Israel as the bad guy and oppressor. Thus, their analysis is warped because they assume Israel is lying and Hamas is telling them the truth.

    This conclusion is certainly possible with some news organizations and some experts, but it is a mistake to rely on it entirely. For example, many of the military experts quoted in the articles above were from Israel itself. Yet they too were fooled, and thought Hamas was stronger than it is.

    Muslim fanaticism and Jew-hatred are poor substitutes for planning, training, doctrine and logistics.

  • West Virginia Democratic Senator Joe Manchin will not run for reelection. That’s pretty much a lock for Republicans to flip next year in a state that went for Trump over Biden by 49 points in 2020.
  • If the 2024 Presidential election were held today, Trump would win over 300 electoral votes. “Five out of six swing states that Joe Biden won in 2020 show Trump winning well outside the margin of error.” Usual poll caveats apply.
  • UNRWA Staffers, Teachers Celebrated Hamas Massacre of Israeli Civilians.” Of course they did.
  • Five Nordic nations agree to share flights deporting illegal aliens. (Hat tip: Ace of Spades HQ.)
  • “Pennsylvania voting machines shut down after displaying flipped votes for judges in Northampton County.” This looks more like a bug than a felony, as votes between candidates were swapped, not simply switched from a Democrat to a Republican.
  • Former Soros-backed Baltimore State Attorney Marilyn Mosby convicted on purjury charges.
  • Green Charter Township, Michigan board: “Here, have a Chinese battery company.” Voters: “Here, have a pink slip.” All of them were voted out.

  • Leftwing rage monkey Cenk Uygur thinks he’s running for President, despite being constitutionally ineligible.
  • WeWork files for bankruptcy. I thought there might have been a pre-Flu Manchu use case for making a profitable business of co-working spaces, but even that wasn’t possible for WeWork, since they lease rather than own all their space. This means they’re just a middleman in an economy that increasingly eliminates middlemen, and there’s nothing special about their model that actual landlords can’t do better.
  • Feminist blog Jezebel shutting down after failing to find buyer.”

    There aren’t enough Nelsons in the world… (Hat tip: Ed Driscoll at Instapundit.)

  • Speaking of Nelson-worthy news: Fake meat company Beyond Meat is laying off workers. Seems like Vegetarianism is a luxury good people will are willing to go without in the Biden Recession. (Hat tip: Stephen Green at Instapundit.)
  • “Right now, The Marvels is tracking to have one of the lowest openings in the entire MCU, with just around $60 million. To put that into perspective, Captain Marvel opened with $153.4 million in 2019.”
  • Oh, and as you might imagine, Critical Drinker is not impressed. “People aren’t even angry anymore, they just don’t care. The original Captain Marvel was a divisive movie that inspired debate and controversy, but this one falls victim to a far more Insidious problem: absolute apathy. This really is how the MCU dies, not with a bang, but with a whimper.”
  • Speaking of the Drinker, he referenced this extensive Variety piece on MCU troubles. There’s a lot to chew on here, including how the Blade reboot “morphed into a narrative led by women and filled with life lessons.” (I’m guessing the Variety stylebook forbids using the word “woke.”) But the most interesting bit was the disasterous incompetence surrounding the She-Hulk TV series:

    But some internal sources suggest [Victoria] Alonso was a scapegoat and point to the “She-Hulk” VFX issues as a symptom of a deeper rot — namely a lack of oversight on script development. In the original arc of “She-Hulk,” a flashback of star Tatiana Maslany’s transformation into her Hulk character didn’t take place until Episode 8, the penultimate episode. But after Marvel’s brain trust watched footage, it realized the scene needed to happen in the pilot episode so that audiences could see more of the character’s backstory early. That meant that the VFX team was tasked with fixing the mess in postproduction.

    “The so-called bad VFX we see was because of half-baked scripts,” says one person involved with “She-Hulk.” “That is not Victoria. That is Kevin. And even above Kevin. Those issues should be addressed in preproduction. The timeline is not allowing the Marvel executives to sit with the material.”

    All the while, Marvel was bleeding money, with a single episode of “She-Hulk” costing some $25 million, dwarfing the budget of a final-season episode of HBO’s “Game of Thrones, ” but without a similar Zeitgeist bang. The August 2022 series premiere at the El Capitan Theatre foreshadowed what was to come six months later at the “Quantumania” bow: the “She-Hulk” special effects were out of focus in multiple scenes.

  • Important safety tip: If you’re choosing a victim to rob at knife-point, try not to pick an Ex-MMA fighter.
  • Tentative agreement reached in actor’s strike.
  • Here Lies Love, David Byrne and Fatboy Slim’s disco musical about Imelda Marcos will be closing on Broadway. The first sign the production was in trouble: It was a disco musical about Imelda Marcos. (Hat tip: Dwight.)
  • “Researchers Discover Miracle Cure For Gender Dysphoria Called ‘Deleting TikTok.'”
  • I don’t mean to cause no fuss/But can I ride your doggy bus?

    (Hat tip: Ace of Spades HQ.)

  • Hit the tip jar if you’re so inclined.





    LinkSwarm For January 13, 2023

    Friday, January 13th, 2023

    Fallout from the House speaker’s race, Biden busted for mishandling classified files, more blue state teachers raping their students, Cadillac’s EV breaks into double digit sales, and the Imelda Marcos disco musical! It’s the Friday LinkSwarm!
    

  • Kevin McCarthy finally wins Speaker of the House race on 15th vote after offering concessions to the House Freedom Caucus.
  • How is McCarthy doing? Early signs are encouraging. “The House of Representatives passed a new rules package Monday that overhauls the way it functions by putting up more barriers to congressional spending and creating a more deliberate process for passing legislation, which were key demands of the more conservative members of the Republican Party.” (Hat tip: Sarah Hoyt at Instapundit.)
    

  • Shot: Texas Rep. Dan Crenshaw calls members of the House Freedom Caucus “terrorists” for opposing Kevin McCarthy for speaker. Chaser: “Freedom Caucus Member Mark Green Beats Dan Crenshaw in Race to Chair Homeland Security Committee.”
  • Heh:

    (Hat tip: Not the Bee.)

  • “After 15 Grueling House Speaker Votes, America’s Long National Nightmare Can Finally Begin.”
  • “Nation In Shock As Politicians Show Up To Work 4 Days In A Row.”
  • After the whole absurd raid on Trump because “OMG he has classified documents/nuclear codes/eleventy!!!!” it turns out that Biden kept at least two different batches of classified documents in insecure locations.

    House Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R., Calif.) used Thursday morning’s press briefing to criticize the Department of Justice’s handling of the issue.

    “They knew this happened to President Biden before the election, but they kept it secret from the American public,” McCarthy told a scrum of reporters on Capitol Hill.

  • A whole lot of Chicago teachers are sexually abusing the children in their care

    Chicago Board of Education Inspector General Will Fletcher reported 470 sexual complaints against Chicago Public School employees from students in 2022.

    “The report details students being abused, groped, groomed, assaulted and threatened by school officials.

    “One investigation found a former Junior ROTC staff member had sex with a 16-year-old high school student for a year. When he learned there was an investigation, the staff member threatened to kill the girl and her family if she cooperated with investigators.”

    (Hat tip: Instapundit.)

  • More on the same subject.

    The teachers’ union in Chicago, Randi Weingarten’s American Federation of Teachers, so praised by Joe Biden, has done nothing and said nothing about it so far as I can tell, and I did look, focusing instead on promoting critical race theory into the school system. Left unsaid is that the union ensures that firing any of these teachers involved in this activity is virtually impossible. Chicago’s public schools’s firing rate of bad teachers owing to their union membership, as of a few years ago, is 0.1%.

    What’s vivid here amid all this widespread predatory behavior from the teaching classes, which like Harvey Weinstein, are prolific campaign donors to Democrats, is that the low outrage factor stands in sharp contrast to the sexual abuse scandals of the Catholic Church, which was ordered by courts to pay billions in reparations to the victims, has seen its leaders publicly apologize for the abuses, and has many programs now to prevent child abuse by perverts in authority. This activity was evil and inexcusable and rightly punished.

    As for the more widescale abuse now seen in Chicago’s public schools, along with comparable scandals in the Los Angeles public school system, and other bad cases in New York and other blue cities, well, crickets. The perversion has gotten out of control in Chicago and the story barely makes the national news. 

  • West Virginia Law Restricting Sports By Biological Sex Is Constitutional.”
  • How Biden’s inflation is destroying family budgets:

    (Hat tip: Stephen Green at Instapundit.)

  • Federal appeals court strikes down bump stock ban.

    A federal appeals court on Friday struck down the Trump-era ban on bump stocks, a firearm accessory that enables a semi-automatic gun to shoot at an increased rate of fire.

    In a 13-3 decision, the 5th Circuit Court of Appeals in New Orleans held that the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF), acting under “tremendous” public pressure, short-circuited the legislative process by approving a rule to define bump stocks as “machineguns,” which are illegal to possess. The court said ATF did not have the authority from Congress to do so.

    Damn straight it doesn’t.

  • Pentagon ditches Flu Manchu vaccine mandate. Where do the wrongly discharged sue to get their careers back?
  • This is what a real pro-natalist policy looks like: “Hungary addresses falling birthrates by exempting moms under 30 from income tax for life.” More:

    Hungary has taken several measures in recent years to encourage its citizens to have more children, including three years of paid parental leave and state-funded daycare.

    The country previously suspended income tax for moms with four or more children, but this new policy specifically encourages women to have children sooner, which in the long run means a higher likelihood of having more children overall.

  • Arkansas governor Sarah Huckabee Sanders signs executive order banning Critical Race Theory in state schools.
  • Israel hit Syria again, and I heard just about nothing about it. Ukraine has really pushed Syria out of the headlines.
  • Speaking of Ukraine, Russia has largely captured the salt mining town of Soledar, though at a high cost in man. And good luck checking those hundreds of miles of salt tunnels for partisans…
  • Tesla plans Houston-area expansion with large new industrial site in Brookshire…Little is known about Tesla’s plans, but the Fortune 500 company signed a lease late last year for about 1.03 million square feet at 111 Empire West, part of the 300-acre Empire West Business Park in Brookshire.” A bold move, considering how radically car sales have dived this year.
  • Other EVs update: “GM delivers record Cadillac Lyriq deliveries in Q4 – 12 per month.”
  • Sequel to The Passion of the Christ about to start filming.” This is pretty much obligatory:

  • “David Byrne, Fatboy Slim Disco Musical ‘Here Lies Love’ Sets Broadway Debut. The musical, which has had a long journey to Broadway, centers on the life of Imelda Marcos, the former first lady of the Philippines.” They say the mirror ball shine bright on Broadway… (Hat tip: Dwight.)
  • “Celebrity Who Travels On Private Jets And Collects Luxury Sports Cars Says You’re The Reason For Climate Change.”
  • “Experts Say They Don’t Know What Thing Is Causing Everyone To Suddenly Collapse, But It’s Definitely Not That One Thing.”