In a historic turn, China’s rise as an economic superpower is reversing. The biggest global story of the past half century may be over.

After stagnating under Mao Zedong in the 1960s and 70s, China opened to the world in the 1980s — and took off in subsequent decades. Its share of the global economy rose nearly tenfold from below 2 per cent in 1990 to 18.4 per cent in 2021. No nation had ever risen so far, so fast.

Then the reversal began. China’s decline could reorder the world. Since the 1990s, the country’s share of global GDP grew mainly at the expense of Europe and Japan, which have seen their shares hold more or less steady over the past two years. The gap left by China has been filled mainly by the US and by other emerging nations.

To put this in perspective, the world economy is expected to grow by $8tn in 2022 and 2023 to $105tn. China will account for none of that gain, the US will account for 45 per cent, and other emerging nations for 50 per cent.

[Another excellent piece by VDH – with one major flaw.  Of all his suggested solutions, the most necessary is missing: the complete total abolishment of the unconstitutional federal Department of Education.]

It took the widely reported, repellent, and exempt wave of anti-Semitism and violent pro-Hamas protestors harassing Jews, finally to convince Americans that their own hallmark universities are illiberal centers of mediocrity and intolerance—and increasingly unsafe.

Of course, Americans had long known that something had gone wrong at their colleges. They had increasingly encountered college graduates who were poorly educated in basic skills and lacked general knowledge—and yet highly politicized, and intolerant of different views and opinions. Ignorant but arrogant is a sad way to start an adult life.

How can we fix this?

One of the key reasons leftwing anti-Semites have been so effective at galvanizing campus hatred of Israel, and by association of Jews in general, is their careful effort to brand themselves DEI victims whiles tarring Jews with the empty white supremacy slur.

Accordingly, Jews and Israel now supposedly enjoy toxic white privilege. They are libeled as veritable white supremacists illegitimately in the Middle East to colonize “Palestine,” and as European imperialists picking up the mantle of the earlier 19^th century British and French—as if a prior 400 years of Ottoman imperialism in the Middle East never occurred.

As now-privileged white victimizers, contemporary Jews are not seen as victims of the Holocaust, explaining the comfortable alliance between Islamist Holocaust deniers and the DEI crowd.

It was no accident that a racist BLM on news of the October 7 massacres quickly issued posters glorifying Hamas hang-gliding murderers.

Jews are now collateral damage from the damning of an entire group of people, namely white Americans and Europeans.

A trickle of whispers has become a firehose of rumors as Kremlin watchers spot multiple signs that Putin may have died, or that he may do so very soon.

“Let me comment like this: Something very strange is going on in the Kremlin,” says distinguished Russia expert Anders Aslund in describing Putin’s alleged death.

Russian President Vladimir Putin’s health has been a contentious point of speculation as his public appearances routinely trigger rumors of cancer, Parkinsons, bathing in deer antler blood, or simply having a steroids habit developed from his obsession with body-building.

Unlike earlier times, the recent rumors about the 71-year-old having died, something which the Kremlin denies, comes in tandem with several other signs that some Russia-watchers believe may be a configuration in the tea leaves indicating a political change is afoot in Moscow.

Do polls matter when Dems continue to win anyway?

In the aftermath of another disappointing election night for Republicans, questions need to be asked about supposedly non-partisan get-out-the-vote (GOTV) operations Democrats are using to ensure their low-propensity voters – and only their low-propensity voters – get to the polls.

On March 7, 2021, Executive Order on Promoting Access to Voting, President Biden instructed every federal agency to submit a plan to leverage their agency’s personnel and assets to help turn out the vote.

For example, agencies might use internal data to identify aid recipients who are not registered to vote, then use agency personnel to get them registered and ensure their ballot is cast and counted.

Anyone who criticizes GOTV efforts gets accused of wanting to suppress voting. But it’s not voting to which we should object – it’s the exclusive collection of ballots from Democratic voting blocks.  Especially since federal employees are explicitly prohibited by law from participating in political activities.

When Louisiana’s Mike Johnson was pulled from obscurity and elected House speaker last month, many conservatives were cautiously optimistic that the man with the self-professed biblical “worldview” and somewhat solid voting record would be the fighter they’ve needed to halt Democrats’ Marxist takeover of society.

Unfortunately, it didn’t take long to discover that Johnson is just as weak-kneed as his Republican predecessors.

On Tuesday afternoon, Johnson and House Republicans surrendered to Democrats yet again on a major government spending fight. Rather than stand strong and fight for conservative priorities, Johnson agreed to another continuing resolution, or CR, to keep the federal government funded through the beginning of next year.

Unsurprisingly, the proposal does nothing to address key issues plaguing the nation, such as the Biden-manufactured crisis at the U.S. southern border, and maintains already-high spending levels.