DAILY CALLER NEWS FOUNDATION—American defense startups are far too reliant on Chinese parts—and that poses a serious risk of exploitation by Beijing, experts told the Daily Caller News Foundation. Business is booming as hundreds of defense startups have joined the growing U.S. military-industrial complex since 2021, according to The Wall Street Journal. But defense contractors are heavily dependent on China for parts for weapons systems, including motors, chips, and rare-earth minerals, which poses potential avenues for Beijing to exploit or hamper American technologies, experts said. “This is a serious problem for two reasons,” said John Lee, senior defense expert at the Hudson Institute. “First, as we saw during the pandemic, overreliance on Chinese supply chains for components and inputs leaves countries and economies vulnerable to politically or policy-motivated restrictions being imposed by Beijing.” “Second, components can have elements inserted into them without the knowledge of the end user. This could be spying equipment, channels for China to disable or damage the component from a distance, or even materials that can weaponize the component,” Lee said. New defense contractors particularly rely on these parts because they don’t enjoy the same cash reserve that the industry giants do, and China makes and sells the parts for a cheaper price. But these startups don’t want to be so reliant on China, given that the country is actively trying to undermine the U.S. and would likely be an adversary in a global war scenario, industry executives told The Wall Street Journal. Decoupling from China-based entities proves difficult and expensive, defense startups told The Journal, though it’s the only option in the long term. “There’s a lot of lip-flapping about national security resilience manufacturing. But there’s no money for us to do this,” Scott Colosimo, CEO of defense startup LAND Energy, told the newspaper. LAND has some funding grants from the Pentagon, but needs more support to thrive, Colosimo explained. The rare-earth minerals that China provides U.S. defense contractors—including neodymium, yttrium and samarium—are of particular value, given that they are essential for most high-tech military equipment, including laser and missile systems, jet engines, communications devices, and even nuclear propulsion systems. “Critical minerals are the building blocks for many of the most sensitive products in our defense industry,” said Adam Savit, director of the China Policy Initiative at the America First Policy Initiative. “China can abuse its dominant position in other critical mineral supply chains at any time.” “The only long-term solution to this is to enact comprehensive permitting reform to approve domestic mining projects, and work with allied nations to develop new production when the U.S. lacks the relevant natural resources,” he said. Savit’s warning that China can upset the supply chain of rare-earth minerals also invokes a broader problem: China can cut the supply line for any of the parts needed by U.S. defense contractors, for any time or reason it chooses. “If your supply chain runs dry, you have nothing to sell,” Ryan Beall, founder of drone manufacturer TILT Autonomy, told The Journal. The Hudson Institute’s Lee warned that the problem exposes the U.S.’s and West’s gaps in domestic supply chain capabilities for their respective defense industrial bases, which creates a vacuum that other actors such as China find ways to exploit. China supplies more than 90% of the magnets used in motors for ships, missiles, satellites, and drones, according to The Journal. Republican Reps. Elise Stefanik of New York and Rob Wittman of Virginia sent a letter to an Air Force official Sept. 25 and called the reliance on China “a serious national security threat,” pointing to an example in a report last year that found the Air Force increased its dependence on China for parts by 69%. 20240925_-_wittmanstefanik_-_air_force_supply_chain_concernsDownload The idea to stop relying on China for resources became more popular after the COVID-19 pandemic, which created massive supply chain shortages in various sectors, including health care products. But in the defense capacity, it will take years to produce parts domestically, according to The Journal. “There has been a hollowing out of manufacturing and industrial capabilities in the West, which provides China with an enormous advantage,” Lee told the Daily Caller News Foundation. “In the event of a crisis against a country such as China, this will become very dangerous for the U.S. and its allies.” Unable to wait for domestic capabilities to improve and increasingly wary of buying from China, new defense contractors are turning to other alternatives for parts, according to The Journal. Sourcing components from Mexico and Southeast Asia, utilizing 3D printing, and buying parts in bulk have been some of the creative ways contractors are solving the problem. Industry experts also expect that the U.S. government is likely to restrict some Chinese parts used by contractors in a bid to move toward domestic capabilities, according to the newspaper. Some restrictions on items used to produce cameras and radios already exist. “If the government wants a U.S. supply chain, that’s fine, but they need to be clear about their requirements, and they need to pay for it,” Beall told The Journal. Originally published by the Daily Caller News Foundation The post America’s Cutting-Edge Weaponry Is Dependent on Chinese Tech, Experts Warn appeared first on The Daily Signal.

If you're tired of censorship and dystopian threats against civil liberties, subscribe to Reclaim The Net. Barron Trump, the youngest son of President Donald Trump, recently faced rejection while attempting to open a new bank account, according to claims from his mother, Melania Trump. She attributed the denial to political discrimination, labeling it as part of a larger “cancel culture” that she believes has targeted her family, raising significant concerns about potential civil rights violations. Melania Trump, who shared this account in her newly released memoir titled “Melania,” expressed her deep frustration with the situation, revealing that she herself had been debanked. The former first lady disclosed that shortly after the Trumps departed the White House in early 2021, her son, now 18, was blocked from opening an account at the financial institution she had long preferred. Trump didn’t name the bank. “I was shocked and dismayed to learn that my long-time bank decided to terminate my account and deny my son the opportunity to open a new one,” Melania wrote. She described the incident as an example of politically motivated bias, going so far as to question whether it constituted a breach of civil rights. Despite the gravity of the accusations, she chose not to reveal the name of the financial institution involved. This denial, she argues, is just one example of the broader culture of exclusion and suppression her family has endured, a backlash that intensified in the wake of the January 6th Capitol events. According to Melania, this “venomous” form of cancel culture has extended beyond the political sphere, negatively affecting both her charitable efforts and business opportunities. “The ‘cancel mob’ now includes corporations, traditional media, influential social media figures, and cultural institutions,” she wrote in her memoir, warning of the dangerous precedent this sets in modern society. She goes on to highlight how businesses—both large and small—continue to participate in this “disheartening trend,” one that she finds increasingly pervasive. Debanking, the practice of denying individuals or organizations access to financial services based on their political, ideological, or social positions, has emerged as a controversial trend within the broader phenomenon of cancel culture. It represents a significant escalation in the methods used to isolate or punish those whose views or actions fall outside mainstream acceptability, raising critical concerns about freedom of expression, civil rights, and the role of private corporations in regulating societal behavior. While cancel culture initially took root in social and cultural spaces — through boycotts, public shaming, and social media campaigns — its influence has gradually permeated other sectors, including finance. Debanking is a particularly powerful tool because, in an increasingly digital economy, access to financial services is essential for participation in society. Without access to a bank account, credit, or other financial tools, individuals and organizations can be effectively excluded from basic economic functions, making this tactic materially damaging. If you're tired of censorship and dystopian threats against civil liberties, subscribe to Reclaim The Net. The post Barron Trump Shut Out by Bank Amid Cancel Culture Accusations appeared first on Reclaim The Net.

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Kamala: "It's Time for the People of Tampa to Take This Storm Seriously"

A high school track coach who was fired for defending women’s sports is taking his employer to court to get his job back.  John Parks, who's been a track and field coach in Oregon for 40 years, wrote an open letter proposing a separate division for gender-confused athletes so they wouldn’t have an unfair advantage in girls’ state track and field competitions. But despite his attempt to remain inclusive to “transgender” players, the leftists running Lake Oswego’s School board didn’t like his nuanced idea. Out of retaliation, they fired him in July for “harassing transgender athletes at recent track meets,” an accusation that Parks denies, according to the Daily Wire.  But the coach wasn’t just going to sit down and surrender the sport he loves. Related: Fourth School's Girls' Volleyball Team Forfeits to San Jose State Rather Than Play Against a Boy With the help of the Liberty Justice Center, Parks is now suing the school district for violating his First Amendment rights.  “School employees do not lose their constitutional right to free speech when they step onto school grounds,” Buck Dougherty, Senior Counsel at the Liberty Justice Center, wrote, adding, “Coach Parks faced unjust and unconstitutional retaliation at the hands of the Lake Oswego School District and School Board. We urge the court to grant a preliminary injunction to uphold his First Amendment rights.” The center filed a motion on Monday, demanding the district rehires Parks. They included declarations from multiple parents whose children he coached in 2024, reiterating the motion’s demand.  Follow MRCTV on X! Horrific! Nearly 14,000 minors nationwide have had gender reassignment procedures performed on them in the past four years according to new database.https://t.co/NutkfZ8lg5 — MRCTV (@mrctv) October 9, 202  

Last week, MRC researchers found that Google buried US-based right-leaning news outlets on the 14th page of search results. It appears that the tech giant is still at it, as it continues to hide right-leaning outlets in the depths of search results.  On Oct. 8, MRC researchers once again used AllSides “right” and “left” bias classifications and found that Google search results for “kamala harris presidential race 2024” and “donald trump presidential race 2024” were stuffed with leftist, legacy media sources. The results featured outlets like CNN and The New York Times as well as publications of leftist billionaires like Jeff Bezos’s The Washington Post and Marc Benioff’s Time. When searching for the aforementioned Harris search prompt, researchers did not find any U.S.-based media outlets that AllSides rates as “lean-right” or "right" until Fox News appeared as the first result on page 11 of Google search results. Likewise, Google buried the first U.S.-based “lean right” or “right” result for the aforementioned Trump prompt as the sixth result on the 23rd page, as Google featured a Fox News video in this spot. Although one “lean right” video appeared in the search results for the Trump prompt, Google outrageously did not display a single “right” or “lean right” news article from a U.S.-based source anywhere in the tech giant’s search results, which ran out after 26 pages.  This overt leftist bias is especially concerning considering that according to a November 2023 Pew Research survey, a rising number of American adults receive their news from search. The study found that 15 percent of U.S. adults prefer to get their news from search engines, which is up from 13 percent in 2022, and 11 percent in 2021. Google did display one U.K.-based “lean right” website, The Telegraph, in its search results for the Harris prompt. However, it was also buried, not appearing until page 6 of the search results. The Telegraph also appeared near the bottom of the first page of search results for the Trump prompt. Previous MRC Free Speech America studies have shown similar results. A September study revealed that users trying to find Trump’s campaign website had to wade through a gauntlet of leftist articles before reaching it. Following the release of the MRC study, Trump condemned Google’s behavior in a post on Truth Social, vowing legal action in a potential second administration. “It has been determined that Google has illegally used a system of only revealing and displaying bad stories about Donald J. Trump, some made up for this purpose while, at the same time, only revealing good stories about Comrade Kamala Harris,” Trump wrote. He went on to refer to Google’s behavior as “ILLEGAL ACTIVITY” and promised to prosecute their election interference when he takes office. Google, on the other hand, absurdly tried to dismiss the study, claiming that the MRC study used a “rare search term on a single day several weeks ago” in an attempt to portray the results as nonrepresentative. But the MRC has conducted 22 studies on Google’s election-related search bias (19 at the time of Google’s dismissive response) and documented the search giant’s long history of election interference dating back to 2008.  For example, Google buried Trump’s campaign website so far down that it did not appear on the first page of results during the Republican National Convention and ahead of the July presidential debate between Trump and Biden. The search giant also did this while Trump shortly after a guilty verdict following Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg’s politicized prosecution of him.  This is just one of a myriad of ways that Google has interfered in American elections on behalf of its favored candidates. In fact, Google meddled in American elections no fewer than 41 times from 2008 to 2024, including by burying 83 percent of the Republican campaign websites for the most competitive Senate races during the 2022 midterm elections. Methodology  For this report, MRC Free Speech America analyzed the Oct. 8 Google search results of the innocuous words “donald trump presidential race 2024” and “kamala harris presidential race 2024.” MRC Free Speech America used a private window utilizing the Brave privacy browser to analyze Google search results to limit the influence of prior search history and tracking cookies. MRC Free Speech America also utilized the AllSides media bias chart as a gauge to determine which outlets are “right” and “lean right.” AllSides notes it has a “patent on rating bias and use[s] multiple methodologies,” not a homogenous group or an algorithm. “Our methods are: Blind Bias Surveys of Americans, Editorial Reviews by a multipartisan team of panelists who look for common types of media bias, independent reviews, and third-party data.” Readers should be aware that this report only uses the AllSides list to analyze ratings of outlets considered by AllSides to be “right” and “lean right” and does not necessarily reflect MRC’s characterizations of these outlets. Conservatives are under attack! Contact your representatives and demand that Big Tech be held to account to mirror the First Amendment while providing transparency, clarity on hate speech and equal footing for conservatives. If you have been censored, contact us using CensorTrack’s contact form, and help us hold Big Tech accountable.

I’ve seen a lot of destruction in my life. I’ve walked through war zones and cities torn apart by riots, and I've stood at the sites of natural disasters that leave communities devastated. But what I saw in Asheville, North Carolina, after Hurricane Helene was unlike anything I’ve ever witnessed.Houses were washed down rivers, upside down and crushed. Train tracks, strong enough to support locomotives, were left suspended in midair after the earth beneath them was eroded away. Semi-trucks, rolled by the force of the floodwaters, now lie like children’s toys, tossed and overturned hundreds of feet from the road. Whole towns have been uprooted and scattered — debris from homes miles away, stacking up like dominoes, bridges that stood for decades washed out by water so high that it flowed six feet over their tops.'You tell everybody you know — even if they don’t care — we’ll take care of our own damn selves if nobody shows up.'I stood there, looking at this idyllic small town in the Blue Ridge Mountains, and I thought, “This will take years to rebuild. Maybe even decades.” But I didn’t just see destruction. I saw something far more powerful than nature’s wrath: the resilience of the American spirit.My expectations for the government’s assistance were low before I arrived in Asheville, given its failing track record in previous natural disasters, but its response to Hurricane Helene victims — or lack thereof — was a new category of negligence. But the people in Asheville weren’t waiting on FEMA or the federal government to swoop in. They knew no one was coming.The bridges were out, roads were destroyed, and the mountains had isolated them from outside help. But instead of despair, I saw hope. Instead of panic, I saw action. People were taking care of each other, and that is the America I remember, like in the days after 9/11 when we came together regardless of political party, race, or background. We didn’t care about who voted for whom. We just saw our neighbors hurting, and we asked, “Are you OK? What can I do to help?”I saw that again in North Carolina. I saw it in the man who turned his Harley-Davidson dealership into a helicopter landing zone, shoveling mud out of his showroom just so rescue teams could land. I saw it in the volunteers flying missions across treacherous terrain, getting the elderly and the injured out of danger. They weren’t asking for government permission. They were doing what needed to be done.Adam Smith, a retired Special Forces veteran who is coordinating the landing of helicopters in Asheville, told me that the FAA is trying to shut down the operation because it isn’t federally regulated. He told the feds that they’re going to leave because he has a helicopter landing in a few minutes that will actually help people while they are barking orders from Washington.One story stood out to me. We landed to help evacuate an elderly woman with a broken hip and a severe infection. She just had surgery, but because her family didn’t have insurance, the hospital pushed her out as fast as it could. Her wound became infected, and her leg was on fire. We helped airlift her to get her desperately needed antibiotics and treatment. There were no government resources to help her to an emergency room.As we loaded the woman into the helicopter, her grandson turned to me and said, “You tell everybody you know — even if they don’t care — we’ll take care of our own damn selves if nobody shows up.” That hit me hard because it’s the truth. It’s the way America used to be, and it’s the way we need to be again.As I flew through those mountains in the helicopter, I couldn’t help but think of Billy Graham. I’d visited Asheville about 10 years ago to see him, and I remember thinking how beautiful and peaceful the town was. Today, it’s unrecognizable. The destruction is overwhelming. But the people are stronger than ever.The government can’t save us. Washington is too slow and too bureaucratic, and quite frankly, the government doesn’t care. I saw it firsthand. We found a FEMA truck parked under a tree, its workers sitting at a card table in the shade. They weren’t doing anything to help.But we’re Americans. We can take care of ourselves. We don’t need Washington to save us. We need each other. This is the America that Billy Graham spoke to me about — the America that will rise again in times of trouble. And while the government might fail us, we will not fail each other. And that’s exactly what I saw in North Carolina — Americans stepping up, taking care of their neighbors, and rebuilding their communities.This is what I told the people of Asheville: You are not forgotten. There are millions of Americans who love you, who are praying for you, and who are ready to help. Because that’s what we do. We don’t wait for permission. We roll up our sleeves and take care of our own.And to the rest of America, I say this: It’s time to remember who we are. It’s time to stop looking to Washington for solutions and start looking at each other. Because when the chips are down, it’s not the government that’s going to save us. It’s you and me, and if we stand together, nothing — no hurricane, no flood, no disaster — can break us.Want more from Glenn Beck? Get Glenn's FREE email newsletter with his latest insights, top stories, show prep, and more delivered to your inbox.

In FEMA’s absence, untold numbers of individuals, nonprofit organizations, and other groups have stepped up to help the victims of Hurricane Helene. One example is tech billionaire Elon Musk offering free internet via his company Starlink to those who were impacted by the storm. On October 1, Musk tweeted: “We are making a system update that allows all starlinks in the affected areas to work, regardless of payment.” “This is in many ways the private sector picking up where the federal government – the public sector – has failed,” says Dave Rubin. Besides showing up a week late and not having the resources victims need, FEMA is also actively standing in the way of citizens who are trying to fill the gap. On October 4, Musk exposed FEMA’s efforts to thwart the private sector in the following tweet: Later that day, Musk posted again: To learn more, watch the clip above.

Democratic presidential nominee and Vice President Kamala Harris accused opponent and former President Donald Trump of spreading "disinformation" about the Federal Emergency Management Agency's lack of available resources for Americans impacted by Hurricane Helene.Harris told reporters this week, "There's a lot of mis- and disinformation being pushed out there by the former president about what is available."'Reckless, irresponsible, and relentless promotion of disinformation and outright lies that are disturbing people.'"It's extraordinarily irresponsible. It's about him; it's not about you," she continued. "And the reality is that FEMA has so many resources that are available to folks who desperately need them now and resources that are about helping people get back on their feet and rebuild and have places to go."Deanne Criswell, the FEMA administrator, claimed that Trump's statements have scared individuals from applying for the aid that they need."People that have been impacted are afraid to apply for our assistance," she stated.Harris previously announced that those impacted by Hurricane Helene are eligible to receive $750 from FEMA for emergency supplies. BLAZE NEWS TONIGHT\n\n"Now the bureaucracy is getting in the way. So even when they are starting to show up, they're hindering the processes that have been established for days now." - @Julio_Rosas11 on FEMA's lackluster response in NC \n\nhttps://t.co/vi7Rl0tbis — (@) On Wednesday, President Joe Biden also accused Trump of spreading inaccurate information."Over the last few weeks there's been a reckless, irresponsible, and relentless promotion of disinformation and outright lies that are disturbing people," Biden said. "Former President Trump has led the onslaught of lies.""They're saying that the money needed for this crisis is being diverted to migrants. What a ridiculous thing to say; it's not true," he added. — (@) White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre also called claims that FEMA funding was being redirected to migrants "categorically false."However, in a September 2022 press briefing, Jean-Pierre stated, "FEMA regional administrators have been meeting with city officials on site to coordinate available federal support from FEMA and other federal agencies. Funding is also available through FEMA's emergency food and shelter program to eligible local governments and not-for-profit organizations upon request to support humanitarian relief for migrants."According to FEMA's website, its Shelter and Services Program, which is run in partnership with the U.S. Customs and Border Protection, provides funds to nongovernmental organizations "to provide humanitarian services to noncitizen migrants."Further, its website notes that the SSP program has a budget of $650 million for fiscal year 2024 to provide such services.Last week, Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas warned that FEMA does not have the funds to make it through the hurricane season, Blaze News previously reported."We are meeting the immediate needs with the money that we have. We are expecting another hurricane hitting. We do not have the funds," he stated during a press briefing. "FEMA does not have the funds to make it through the season and what is imminent."Trump has repeatedly slammed the administration for using FEMA funds to provide services to illegal immigrants. He told his supporters during a rally in Saginaw, Michigan, "They stole the FEMA money, just like they stole it from a bank, so they could give it to their illegal immigrants that they want to have vote for them this season."Like Blaze News? Bypass the censors, sign up for our newsletters, and get stories like this direct to your inbox. Sign up here!

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