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22 Oct, 5 tweets, 2 min read
The mystery men of China. The NYT's 2018 article worrying about the Bidens and Beijing.

nytimes.com/2018/12/12/bus…
Ye was a regular Keyser Soze.

Many who met Ye believed he was the grandson of a famous Chinese military leader; people in his hometown say he comes from a family of boatmen. Many believed he had access to untold wealth; now, it appears his empire was built on a mountain of debt.
"Last year, as American authorities closed in on Mr. Ye’s company, the first call made by one of his emissaries in custody was to Mr. Biden’s brother."
The Bobulinski emails refer to this Ye. In a sense it's old news that never made the headlines because China's dealings in Washington lived below the fold.

Here's a current wrap by the WSJ. The China story is bigger than the Bidens. The hand of Beijing probably didn't stop there.

wsj.com/articles/the-b…

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More from @wretchardthecat

wretchardthecat Profile picture
24 Oct
Through most of history the night before battle or some great doom has ranked among the most stressful of the participant's lives. They endure it because there's nowhere to go, no way to evade judgment, no way to start time again except forward.
Armies have historically tried to convince their troops of the certitude of victory to keep up morale. But they must never allow their propaganda to go too far lest it undermine group trust and credibility which is the foundation of morale.
If sufficient trust exists morale can be maintained even without the certitude in victory, in fact it can survive even in the face of probable annihilation, as was the case of the Chosin Reservoir.
Read 5 tweets
wretchardthecat Profile picture
22 Oct
High society looking more and more like low society.

twitter.com/i/events/13192…
en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trial_and…
The scandals of aristocracy, sometimes true and sometimes made up, are a staple of every revolution.

alphahistory.com/frenchrevoluti…
Read 4 tweets
wretchardthecat Profile picture
22 Oct
If the mighty USA had a "thermal exhaust" type weakness it was the FBI, DOJ and the politicians who appointed and confirmed them. If the DOJ and FBI could be neutralized the way was open to corrupting the officials who controlled the defense.
The only remaining institutional check was the voters, who might become aware of the danger and block the port. If however the attacker went canny it could use the justice system to suppress detection and generate spoof news.
From an engineering point of view it is necessary to reduce the correlation between the justice system and the voter's ability to "look in" to reduce the chance of destructive harmonics unleashed by an actor like China. As it is the warning lights are in series.
Read 5 tweets
wretchardthecat Profile picture
21 Oct
If there's one debt of gratitude the public owes to the last 4 years it is that it has pierced the sham image of public decorum so carefully crafted by the media. It will be hard to look at the People on TV in the same way again.
Don't be ashamed to speak your mind. On average They're no better than you. They're no smarter than you. At least you probably know what a mute button does.
What is often described as the decline in public decency may just be a rise in the exposure of elite indecency. The idea of Washington as the Olympus of virtue would have surprised James Madison who lamented "if men were angels".
Read 6 tweets
wretchardthecat Profile picture
20 Oct
As a practical matter it is easier to pressure USA Today than individual authors like Glenn Reynolds because outlets are a choke point.
The downside to suppression is it confers an imprimatur by proscription on the banned material. It becomes the equivalent of a super exclusive.
But most significantly news suppression increases the level of preference falsification. People hide their opinions which has the effect of increasing total entropy in the system.
Read 4 tweets
wretchardthecat Profile picture
19 Oct
The fortunes of the liberal project have declined because not only has reality proved too complex to manage but it must now spend enormous amounts of energy coercing its sullen foes back into the fold even if it wins 2020.
The only chance was to do it cheaply through something like Crossfire Hurricane. But now facing what is at best a protracted campaign it's too expensive.
The progressive project was economical because for decades it could commad grudging assent. Nudges and prestige were sufficient to achieve results but most of that has been expended in the bitter acrimony. The prestige well is dry and friction has gone way up.
Read 4 tweets

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