Handshakes and Humiliation: Beijing’s
Play for Taiwan Becomes Clearer
Posted By: FlyRight, 4/29/2026 7:33:15 AM
Last Tuesday, Taiwanese President Lai Ching-te, planning a visit to Taiwan’s sole African ally Eswatini, was abruptly informed that Seychelles, Madagascar, and Mauritius would deny overflight rights to his aircraft. The trip was then canceled — an unprecedented humiliation and major diplomatic setback for Taiwan. Everybody knows that Beijing was behind this latest stunt. What gives this episode its deeper strategic meaning, however, is its proximity to another major political development: the high-profile visit to China by Cheng Li-wen, chair of Taiwan’s opposition Kuomintang (KMT) party. During her trip, Cheng met with Chinese Communist Party leader Xi Jinping in a summit ...
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FlyRight"
Last Tuesday, Taiwanese President Lai Ching-te, planning a visit to Taiwan’s sole African ally Eswatini, was abruptly informed that Seychelles, Madagascar, and Mauritius would deny overflight rights to his aircraft. The trip was then canceled — an unprecedented humiliation and major diplomatic setback for Taiwan.
Everybody knows that Beijing was behind this latest stunt. What gives this episode its deeper strategic meaning, however, is its proximity to another major political development: the high-profile visit to China by Cheng Li-wen, chair of Taiwan’s opposition Kuomintang (KMT) party. During her trip, Cheng met with Chinese Communist Party leader Xi Jinping in a summit ...
The State Department said Tuesday it is "taking action" against dozens of entities and individuals behind Iran’s covert financial network, thereby cutting off billions of dollars to the Iranian regime.
The actions are part of the United States' maximum pressure campaign against Iran in the midst of the conflict in the Middle East. The U.S. and Israel launched an attack on Iran in February, which killed multiple Iranian leaders.
The State Department said it is taking action against 35 individuals and entities helping Iran, including banking networks that enable the transfer of tens of billions of dollars to help Iran evade sanctions.
Grand jury indicts ex-FBI boss James Comey
on charges related to photo alleged to
threaten Trump 9 replies
on charges related to photo alleged to
threaten Trump 9 replies
ederal grand jury in North Carolina on Tuesday indicted former FBI Director James Comey on charges related to his posting of a photo of shells on a beach with the inscription "86-47" that prosecutors alleged was a threat to President Donald Trump.
The charges will be unveiled at a DOJ news conference at 4 p.m. ET, officials said.
It is expected that one of the charges will fall under a statute that prohibits a person from "knowingly and willfully deposits for conveyance in the mail or for a delivery from any post office —
A federal judge in Maryland has sided with a group of immigrants from countries flagged for terror risks and national security threats, blocking USCIS from pausing their green card applications.
U.S. District Court for the District of Maryland, Judge George L. Russell III, an Obama appointee, issued a sweeping preliminary injunction on Friday, blocking USCIS Director Joseph B. Edlow from enforcing two key Policy Memoranda (PM-602-0192 and PM-602-0194) that placed adjudicatory holds on green card (Form I-485) applications from nationals of dozens of “Countries of Identified Concern.”
Mamdani’s plan to delay pension payments
echoes the schemes that brought NYC to
near bankruptcy 22 replies
echoes the schemes that brought NYC to
near bankruptcy 22 replies
Despite a $7.1 billion hole, Mayor Zohran Mamdani has pushed back against any serious cutting to his budget and instead wants to delay required payments to city pension funds.
That’s precisely the kind of tactics that brought the city to the brink of bankruptcy in the ’70s.
At the least, it will saddle future taxpayers with unnecessary costs.
For the moment, the city is on-track to meeting its long-term pension-funding obligations by its 2032 deadline.
Yet to help close his budget hole, Mamdani would push $1 billion worth of payments into the 2040s.
That would be both costly and risky.
Chekhov’s Lesson for Tehran
3 replies
famous saying of Anton Chekhov’s has been making the rounds. “If you say in the first chapter that there is a rifle hanging on the wall,” Chekhov advised, “in the second or third chapter it absolutely must go off. If it’s not going to be fired, it shouldn’t be hanging there.”
I wonder if the thugs and theocrats who have been plundering Iran for the last 47 years have read Chekhov. If so, I conclude that they are slow learners. In January, the Iranian authorities slaughtered more than 40,000 protesters—
President Trump has called off sending a US delegation to Pakistan Saturday for peace talks with Iran – nixing a trip he said would be a waste of time.
Trump, who told a Post reporter in Islamabad to “come home” shortly after he made the announcement, said his team was wasting too much time on traveling.
“I just cancelled the trip of my representatives going [to] Islamabad, Pakistan, to meet with the Iranians,” the president posted on Truth Social Saturday afternoon. “Too much time wasted on traveling, too much work! Besides which, there is tremendous infighting and confusion within their ‘leadership.’
The DC Metropolitan Police announced during a press conference on Saturday night that the armed gunman who opened fire inside the White House Correspondents’ Dinner was a registered guest at the Washington Hilton hotel, the venue hosting the high-profile black-tie event attended by President Donald Trump.
Speaking after the event, interim DC Police Chief Jeffery Carroll confirmed the suspect, 31-year-old Cole Tomas Allen of Torrance, California, had checked into the hotel as a guest before the chaos erupted.
Labour is pressing ahead with plans to make hybrid drivers liable for a new pay-per-mile tax despite admitting they barely use their vehicles in electric mode. The Telegraph has the story.
Plug-in hybrid cars (PHEV) will become liable for Rachel Reeves’s new electric road tax from 2028, with each mile driven attracting a 1.5p fee. It will be half the 3p levy paid by owners of electric vehicles (EVs).
Last year, justifying the policy, the Treasury said PHEV motorists drove “more or less than 50% in electric mode”.
Theft as Social Justice
9 replies
If a violent social revolution were truly to break out, and Piker and Tolentino became its victims, one assumes they’d find crime less fun.
Is robbing the Louvre a good idea?
Left-wing influencer Hasan Piker and New Yorker writer Jia Tolentino did a much-discussed video interview with the New York Times on the ethics of theft and came out four-square in favor of stealing things, including artwork from the Louvre. They consider larceny an appropriate response to the inherent corruption and injustice of the American capitalist system. The merits of this position aside,
FLASHBACK: In 2014, the Southern Poverty
Law Center Put Dr. Ben Carson on an ‘Extremist’ List 14 replies
Law Center Put Dr. Ben Carson on an ‘Extremist’ List 14 replies
Now that the Southern Poverty Law Center is being exposed, it is important to look back at some of the outrageous claims made by this group in the past.
It is absolutely amazing to think that in 2015, they put Dr. Ben Carson on an ‘extremist’ list. Is ‘extremist’ one of the words that comes into your mind when you think of Carson?
Perhaps when they targeted one of the most renowned and highly respected pediatric brain surgeons in the entire country in this way, it was a clue that they were not operating in good faith.
They were eventually forced to take Carson off the list and then apologized…
A disturbing and deeply unsettling plot to carry out a mass-casualty attack at a Texas synagogue has been foiled
Authorities have arrested 18-year-old Angelina Han Hicks of Lexington, North Carolina, after uncovering what investigators describe as a coordinated plan to carry out a horrific attack on members of Congregation Beth Israel in Houston, Texas.
According to court documents and law enforcement officials, Hicks allegedly conspired with at least two other individuals to carry out a violent assault targeting Jewish worshippers.
The plan reportedly involved using a vehicle to drive into a congregation with the explicit goal of killing as many people as possible.
Most Active Articles (last 48 hours)
Rep. Ilhan Omar got dragged on social media Monday afternoon for an outlandish gaffe in which she referred to World War Two as “World War Eleven” in a statement opposing the implementation of the Alien Enemies Act by the Trump administration to deport narco-terrorists from the United States. Check out some of the best reactions from online:
I guess that it should comes as no surprise that the congresswoman who "mistakenly" claimed that she was worth $30 million when she apparently doesn't even tout a net worth of $100,000 couldn't tell the difference between two and eleven.
Mamdani’s plan to delay pension payments
echoes the schemes that brought NYC to
near bankruptcy 22 replies
echoes the schemes that brought NYC to
near bankruptcy 22 replies
Despite a $7.1 billion hole, Mayor Zohran Mamdani has pushed back against any serious cutting to his budget and instead wants to delay required payments to city pension funds.
That’s precisely the kind of tactics that brought the city to the brink of bankruptcy in the ’70s.
At the least, it will saddle future taxpayers with unnecessary costs.
For the moment, the city is on-track to meeting its long-term pension-funding obligations by its 2032 deadline.
Yet to help close his budget hole, Mamdani would push $1 billion worth of payments into the 2040s.
That would be both costly and risky.
Teachers’ unions have spent more than $1 billion in member dues and fees on political activism and left-wing social causes since 2015, according to a new watchdog report.
The spending captured in Defending Education’s report includes both national and local unions, including $669 million from national unions and $339 million at the local level.The American Federation of Teachers (AFT) and the National Education Association (NEA), two national teachers’ unions, spent a combined $669 million over the past ten years, including $44 million to For Our Future, a progressive political group focusing on social equity and climate justice in key battleground states;
Today is not a good day for the Canadian trade team.It started with Quebec’s new Premier in Washington DC meeting with U.S. Trade Representative Jamieson Greer {citation} in order to talk trade {SEE TIMELINE} saying on Twitter, “Quebec wants a renewal of the [USMCA] to ensure a stable and predictable framework for our economic exchanges.” However, Mrs. Christine Fréchette (pictured left) then bragged about having strategic discussions with the U.S. Chamber of Commerce. {citation}
The Daily Signal has obtained plans from a coalition of House Democrats showing it will push legislation to raise the federal minimum wage to $25 an hour and “tax the rich” in an effort to strip “power and privilege” from “the wealthy and well‑connected” to advance “racial justice.”
Reps. Delia Ramirez, D‑Ill.; Analilia Mejia, D‑N.J.; Rashida Tlaib, D‑Mich.; Bonnie Watson Coleman, D‑N.J.; and Chuy García, D‑Ill., along with representatives from national unions and advocacy groups, plan to announce the Living Wage for All Act at a press conference Tuesday.
“This bill is about holding corporate America accountable,” Stuart Appelbaum, president of the Retail, Wholesale and Department Store Union, said
EPA Administrator Lee Zeldin slammed Rep. Rosa DeLauro for being “uninformed” Monday after the Connecticut Democrat completely lost it and suggested he drink weed killer during a heated congressional budget hearing.
DeLauro, the purple-haired ranking member of the House Appropriations Committee, argued Zeldin’s budget proposal “reads like a climate change denier’s manifesto” as she asked the EPA chief to “justify abandoning [the EPA’s] duty to protect Americans” from climate change.
Zeldin, a former Republican New York congressman, wasn’t having it. “Following the law,” he responded. “Section 202 of the Clean Air Act. Where does it say anything about fighting global climate change?” DeLauro, 83, remained silent.
New York City's self-described democratic socialist mayor, Zohran Mamdani, has made history, just not the kind worth bragging about. Barely months into office, he has blown past a statutory budget deadline for the first time since 2015, declared a fiscal crisis of "historic magnitude," and responded to a $5.4 billion budget gap the way any good socialist would: by asking someone else to pay for it.
Mamdani and City Council Speaker Julie Menin appeared together at City Hall on Tuesday to announce they would delay the executive budget, originally due May 1, until May 12 while lobbying Albany to bail out a city
The spokesperson for Iran’s Ministry of Defense has said that the United States is no longer in a position to dictate its policies to independent nations, adding this reality has been demonstrated to the world.
Brigadier General Reza Talaei-Nik, speaking upon arrival in Bishkek, Kyrgyzstan, to participate in the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) Defense Ministers’ meeting, stressed the importance of continuing the strong path of Iran’s armed forces and the exemplary resistance of the Iranian people on the international stage. Talaei-Nik considered Shanghai Cooperation Organization, given its importance and impressive geographical and demographic
A federal judge in Maryland has sided with a group of immigrants from countries flagged for terror risks and national security threats, blocking USCIS from pausing their green card applications.
U.S. District Court for the District of Maryland, Judge George L. Russell III, an Obama appointee, issued a sweeping preliminary injunction on Friday, blocking USCIS Director Joseph B. Edlow from enforcing two key Policy Memoranda (PM-602-0192 and PM-602-0194) that placed adjudicatory holds on green card (Form I-485) applications from nationals of dozens of “Countries of Identified Concern.”
Agriculture Secretary claims review found
thousands of people on food stamps drive
luxury vehicles 9 replies
thousands of people on food stamps drive
luxury vehicles 9 replies
Agriculture Secretary Brooke Rollins said Tuesday that a recent review found thousands of Americans who receive Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program benefits in just one state are actually driving luxury vehicles.
Rollins did not identify the state, except to say it was led by a Republican, but said a scrutiny of the federal food stamp program uncovered that thousands of people who are getting the benefits in that one state are also rolling to stores in Bentleys and Teslas.
The study, conducted by the Foundation for Government Accountability, connected 14,000 luxury vehicles to food stamp enrollees, with Lexus being the most common brand.
Grand jury indicts ex-FBI boss James Comey
on charges related to photo alleged to
threaten Trump 9 replies
on charges related to photo alleged to
threaten Trump 9 replies
ederal grand jury in North Carolina on Tuesday indicted former FBI Director James Comey on charges related to his posting of a photo of shells on a beach with the inscription "86-47" that prosecutors alleged was a threat to President Donald Trump.
The charges will be unveiled at a DOJ news conference at 4 p.m. ET, officials said.
It is expected that one of the charges will fall under a statute that prohibits a person from "knowingly and willfully deposits for conveyance in the mail or for a delivery from any post office —
EPA Administrator Lee Zeldin slammed Rep. Rosa DeLauro for being “uninformed” Monday after the Connecticut Democrat completely lost it and suggested he drink weed killer during a heated congressional budget hearing.
DeLauro, the purple-haired ranking member of the House Appropriations Committee, argued that Zeldin’s budget proposal “reads like a climate change denier’s manifesto” as she asked the EPA chief to “justify abandoning [the EPA’s] duty to protect Americans” from climate change.
Zeldin, a Republican former New York congressman, wasn’t having it.[snip]Nothing infuriates an uninformed Congressional Dem more than when they realize they voluntarily triggered a debate with someone who actually knows what they are talking about,