Top Global News
Venezuelan leader Hugo Chavez sends troops to the border with Colombia as tensions between the leftwing leader, friends with Cuba, the Islamic Republic of Iran, and the People’s Republic of China, spike against Colombia, a democracy friendly to the U.S. See story.
Top U.S. News Sen. Ben Nelson (D-NE) says he won’t vote to confirm Elena Kagan to the Supreme Court, the first Democrat to say so. Kagan is still expected to easily win confirmation. See story.
Top California News
Man killed in L.A. as a result of a natural gas explosion caused by illegally bypassing the gas meter. Jaime Lara, the owner of the destroyed business, critically burned. See story.
Top Global News
The leaders of Saudi Arabia and Syria make a rare joint visit to Lebanon to head off violence prior to the expected release of an investigation saying that the Iranian-backed terror group and political party, Hezbollah, assassinated Lebanon’s Sunni Muslim prime minister back in 2005. See story.
Top U.S. News U.S. economic growth slows to 2.4% in second quarter. (Double-dip recession anyone? Especially if Congress allows the Bush-era tax cuts to expire next year.) See story.
Top California News
Lawsuit challenges California’s new open primary law backed by the Governor and Lt. Governor. See story.
While newspapers in the U.S. struggle to survive the triple threat posed by the Internet, the perception of a persistent left-leaning bias, and the weak economy, newspapers in the People’s Republic of China simply struggle to report the news.
Most outside attention has been focused on Chinese communist censors’ efforts to rein in internet search engines such as Google and Yahoo. But, while the Great Firewall of China has gotten most of the headlines, more mundane means of information control in the restive nation of 1.3 billion people have gone largely unnoticed.
That China has a bureau named the Central Propaganda Department should give pause to any Westerner who continues to tout economic development in China as somehow paving the way for individual liberty for the Chinese people. This Orwellian department has, amongst its powers, the ability to issue directives to Chinese newspapers. The Central Propaganda Department’s most recent edict: a demand that Chinese newspapers cease reporting news from outside their area. The reason for the order is simple—reports of unrest or official Communist Party corruption can be isolated to a small region, thus depriving would-be democratic reformers of the fuel of outrage needed to challenge a repressive and increasingly ossified system.
Now all Chinese newspapers may only print stories originating from their own reporters or from approved official reports. Especially forbidden are reports about Chinese security services or “sudden incidences,” unless approved by the authorities.
The catalyst for the edict from Beijing appeared to be the formation by provincial newspapers of a “news agency alliance.” This arrangement allowed Chinese newspapers to swap stories, thus avoiding local Communist censors. An example of this agreement that caught the unwanted attention of the Communist Party was a joint editorial carried by 13 newspapers on March 1 that questioned the continued operation of the household registration system, known in China as the “Hukou” system. China’s household registration system is used to tightly control internal migration, preventing the impoverished rural Chinese from legally moving to the wealthier cities.
Even newspapers in supposedly free Hong Kong have been muzzled. Beginning with the 1997 switch in sovereignty from the United Kingdom to the People’s Republic of China, the once-freewheeling Hong Kong press was brought to heel. For a period of about four years after the handover, Hong Kong journalists would often write stories of official corruption in China. One particularly egregious example happened in early 2001 when at least 38 children were killed while being forced to make fireworks by corrupt Communist Party officials. The officials would fine the parents of any child who did not make their daily fireworks quota in between learning the basics along with ingesting the required propaganda about the glories of the revolution. Once the Hong Kong press reported on the incident, Chinese security troops sealed off the city, the telephone lines were cut, and an official cover story was created in Beijing about a deranged man who ran into the classroom and denoted a bomb. This sort of reporting rarely happens anymore out of Hong Kong.
The path to Communist Party control of the news in Hong Kong was necessarily less direct than it was in Mainland China. Rather than employ Beijing’s Central Propaganda Department to make a direct mockery of the “One Nation, Two Systems” fiction, China simply bought its critics. Every newspaper in Hong Kong prone to publishing unflattering articles about China was brought under new ownership. Once owners friendly to Beijing were in place, the publishers simply reminded their journalists that continued employment would be dependent on the writing of stories that would not upset Chinese communists. The arrangement swiftly shut down embarrassing criticism from the former U.K. crown colony.
The bottom line regarding information from the People’s Republic of China is this: treat every bit of information, whether “news” or corporate reports, as suspect. China has centuries of practice in shaping information, both for internal and external consumption, the former, to control its people, and the latter, in present times, to project an image of a weak, developing nation whose sole interest is in trade. As the Chinese warrior-philosopher Sun Tzu wrote: “All warfare is based on deception.”
Chuck DeVore is a California State Assemblyman, a U.S. Army Reserve lieutenant colonel, and was a Reagan-era Special Assistant for Foreign Affairs in the Pentagon.
Top Global News
Afghan President Hamid Karzai is questioning his allies’ (read, the U.S. and NATO nations) willingness to go after terror havens in Pakistan. See story.
Top U.S. News Rep. Charles Rangel (D-Corrupt) may have a public ethics trial, something his Democratic colleagues are keen to avoid. See story.
Top California News
Gov. Schwarzenegger declares a fiscal emergency for California. See story.
Top Global News
The massive leak of classified U.S. military documents via WikiLeaks endangers hundreds of Afghan informants by naming them, their villages and IDing their fathers. (Something similar happened in 1975 when the Church Commission hearings into the CIA resulted in the disclosure of the names of foreign informants, leading to the deaths of dozens and compromising U.S. human intelligence efforts for over 20 years.) See story.
Top U.S. News Local government may be forced to lay off 500,000 people as tax revenue continues weak. Local government groups want $75 billion from Congress. See story.
Top California News
Ground broken on what will be America’s largest wind farm in Tehachapi—but at $1.6 billion for the initial phase of only 720 megawatts, the energy pencils out as more costly than modern nuclear power and will only generate electricity when the wind is blowing, necessitating the construction of backup natural gas power plants. See story.
Top Global News
The African Union is sending 2,000 more Ugandan and Burundian troops to Somalia, boosting troop strength to 8,000. The U.S. is largely funding the mission to take on the Islamist al-Shabab terror front, which has been reinforced with foreign fighters from Iraq, Afghanistan and Pakistan. See story.
Top U.S. News Sen. John Kerry (D-MA) docks his yacht in Rhode Island, not Massachusetts – saving $500,000 in taxes. (And the hypocritically funny thing is, Kerry will say with a straight face that tax rates do not impact the economy by affecting behavior. I wonder how many jobs were lost in Massachusetts but created in Rhode Island to maintain Kerry’s yacht?) See story.
Top California News
The City of Bell, recently in the news for the corruption of its leaders, has a new issue to deal with: they have higher property tax rates than Beverly Hills (of course, with expensive houses, a lower rate still yields more money per house). See story.
Army Reserve lieutenant colonel, Reagan appointee in the Pentagon, author, sci-fi fan, state lawmaker and unabashed conservative Chuck DeVore hopes to add another title to his burgeoning resume: full-time radio talk show host.
For the last two Sundays, the Orange County assemblyman, who lost to Carly Fiorina in the Republican primary for U.S. Senate last month, has guest hosted evening programs on KFI where he’s interviewed the likes of former Arkansas governor (and former Presidential hopeful) Mike Huckabee; Adam Baldwin, star of NBC’s Chuck; comic book artist Bosch Fawstin and Israel’s Counsel General Jacob Dayan.
Talk about an eclectic lineup.
DeVore says his guest hosting gig is “an extended job interview” to see if he’s got the chops to host his own radio program, full time. DeVore is termed out of the Assembly in November and is looking for a way to stay in the public eye while also remaining involved in public policy. A radio program, he says, would be perfect.
“I was delighted to be called back for a second time,” said DeVore said of his second radio program yesterday, where producers specifically asked him to take calls and host one hour on air without any guests to see if he could handle it.
His first program, on July 18, was Comic-Con themed, reflecting the Assemblyman’s love for sci-fi. (Insider info: The living room of DeVore’s Sacramento apartment once was decorated with campaign signs and a poster of Yoda.) In addition to Baldwin and Fawstin he had on comic book writer James Hudnull and Tommy Tallarico, a video game music composer and the producer of Video Games Live.
DeVore said he intentionally chose a non-political lineup for his first program to show the bigwigs at KFI that he can talk about other things besides public policy. The producers asked for more politics in his second show and he responded with Huckabee, the Israeli counsel general and an hour on the scandal in Bell and his own investigation into some Medi-Cal fraud. His wife, Diane, has joined him in the studio, for support and to keep him on schedule.
DeVore says he’s optimistic he’s showing enough to someday soon get his own show. For the meantime, he’s waiting for his next invitation to guest host.
“We’ll see where, if anywhere, it leads,” he said.
To listen to DeVore’s first show, on July 18, click here. To listen to his show from yesterday, click here.
Top Global News
Mexico braces for implementation of Arizona law. See story.
Top U.S. News New home sales up 24% from last month, but down 17% from a year ago as the expiration of temporary tax credits’ economy-distorting impact continue. See story.
Top California News
California, with high academic standards, but poor classroom execution, may adopt national math and English standards. See story.
Top Global News Cambodia prepares for historic genocide verdict in trial over the China-backed Khmer Rouge regime that killed millions. See story.
Top U.S. News Arizona illegal immigration law comes after years of frustration. See story.
Top California News Governor Schwarzenegger claims that repealing AB 32, the global warming law, would be “devastating.” (Given that AB 32 will have absolutely no impact at all on global warming due to larger environmental and economic forces, one wonders how its repeal can be “devastating” to anything except the Governor’s outsize ego.) See story.
