China

The following is an excerpt from Yale University law professor Elizabeth Friedkin’s remarks to the 2026 International Federation of United Conscious Uncoupling Professionals. When then-Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene first proposed the dissolution of the United States of America in 2023, many feared she was threatening a second Civil War, including most of us in this room. Over the past two years, however, we have witnessed a benign break-up that is now a beacon to dissatisfied land conglomerates the world over. I was skeptical when I was chosen to serve as arbitrator, but I will be the first to admit that I underestimated the shrewdness of Ms. Taylor Greene.

Why DeSantis’s Ukraine statement matters Ron DeSantis’s statement on Ukraine issued Monday night, an answer to Fox host Tucker Carlson’s policy questionnaire for possible presidential candidates, is proving to be one of the most significant moments yet in the still nascent 2024 campaign.  The closer DeSantis gets to formally announcing his bid, the less he can stick to the policy ambiguity which being a state executive, rather than a Washington lawmaker, affords you. The Florida governor took Tucker’s invitation to expound on Ukraine and ran with it, issuing a statement that outlined a far less hawkish position than many had expected him to adopt.

“Whoever controls big data technologies will control the resources for development and have the upper hand,” Xi Jinping declared shortly after assuming control of China. In the years since, the Chinese surveillance state has exploded at home and abroad, thanks to espionage-adjacent apps such as WeChat, but none has raised as much ire as TikTok. Following reams of data showing that your teenager’s favorite app is poisoning their mind and spying on them, the calls to ban TikTok are now coming from inside the House… and Senate. But how would such a ban actually work? What does it mean to ban an app that is supported by the technological infrastructure of the CCP?

You've been warned: a fight over the government’s ability to spy on its own citizens is coming to Congress. Section 702 is up for renewal again in December. Section 702 grew out of an illegal post-9/11 program called Stellarwind, exposed by NSA whistleblower Tom Drake. It refers to a provision of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) that was enacted in 2008. It authorizes the government to collect the communications of non-Americans located outside of the United States for the purpose of obtaining foreign intelligence information. But the program also allows for the incidental collection of information about Americans who may be communicating with the targeted foreigners.

A disturbing trend is emerging among Virginia Democrats in Richmond, as the entire state House and Senate chambers are up for reelection in just a few months: by word and deed, they are increasingly serving as useful idiots for the Chinese Communist Party. In recent weeks, Virginia Democrats have warned that so-called “China-bashing” could lead to mass internment of Chinese Americans, and argued against requiring taxpayer-funded universities to disclose grants from the CCP. It wasn’t supposed to be this way. Democrats were excited to focus on abortion this year in the hopes of further stymying Republican governor Glenn Youngkin’s legislative agenda, much of which the Democratic-controlled State Senate has stopped. Youngkin, however, had other things in mind.

Newly minted senator JD Vance of Ohio has wasted no time in extolling the virtues of a soft isolationist foreign policy. In a January 31 op-ed for the Wall Street Journal, Vance endorsed Donald Trump for president largely because Trump isn't a hawk. A prominent member of the GOP's national conservative wing, Vance has made skepticism of American leadership abroad a centerpiece of his political identity. The senator attacks the “bipartisan foreign policy consensus that has led the country astray many times.” Never mind that the so-called "consensus" only really exists under extreme circumstances, such as after the 9/11 terror attacks. Think of the deep divide between right and left over how to deal with Cuba and Saudi Arabia, for example.