Cartoon

Strongman

Written by SK Ashby

(Cartoonist - Rob Rogers)

In other news, Benjamin Netanyahu has given up on trying to form a governing coalition and the world is one step closer to being rid of him. Benny Gantz will now have an opportunity to form a government and if that fails there could be another election.

Meanwhile, they're doing it again. Russians are posing as middle Americans and minorities on Facebook-owned social media platforms to attack Democratic frontrunner Joe Biden.

Finally, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo is calling out China for intimidating businesses like the NBA.

Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said Monday that it is “completely inappropriate” for China to retaliate against U.S. businesses whose employees have commented on pro-democracy protests in Hong Kong.

Asked if U.S. companies should be criticized for making profits in China in light of that government’s censorship efforts, Pompeo told CNBC, in an interview that aired in part during “Squawk on the Street”: “Look, every company’s gotta make its own set of decisions.”

“But what we’ve seen over the last few weeks publicly, but we’ve known now for an awfully long time, is that the long arm of Beijing is reaching out into these companies, stealing their intellectual property, forcing technology transfer, making it very difficult to, in fact, make a profit in China for many, many companies,” Pompeo said.

It's not that I necessarily disagree with Pompeo, I just feel like we're hypocrites. I'm sure Huawei would say being placed on the Commerce Department's blacklist makes it "difficult" to make a profit in America. The Trump regime also recently imposed sanctions on over 20 other Chinese firms for ultimately political reasons.

If almost anyone else were president, we wouldn't be in such an awkward position. We're in a moral glass house under Trump. Pompeo can speak out on China and it just doesn't land very hard and the world shrugs because Trump has so thoroughly compromised even the idea of attempting to assert moral authority.