Freedom houses

WASHINGTON: The top US intelligence official stepped up the Trump administration's harsh attacks on Beijing on Thursday (Dec 3), labeling China the biggest threat to democracy and freedom worldwide since World War II and saying it was bent on global domination. "The intelligence is clear: Beijing intends to dominate the US and the rest of the planet economically, militarily and technologically," Director of National Intelligence John Ratcliffe said in an opinion article on the Wall Street Journal website. Ratcliffe, a former Republican congressman appointed by Trump to the top US spy job last spring, said China posed "the greatest threat to America today, and the greatest threat to democracy and freedom world-wide since World War II". He said he had shifted resources within the US$85 billion annual federal budget allocated to intelligence to increase the focus on China. READ: US tightens travel rules for Chinese Communist Party members: Report Ratcliffe said China's … [Read more...] about Trump spy chief labels China biggest threat to freedom since World War II

SINGAPORE: If he still depended on living in his late father Lee Kuan Yew’s home at 38 Oxley Road to “exude a magic aura and impress the population”, both he and Singapore would be in a “very sad state”, Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong said on Tuesday (Dec 1). He made this comment in courtroom evidence as part of a lengthy back-and-forth with lawyer Lim Tean over whether he had misled his father into thinking that the house would be gazetted as a heritage property. The Oxley Road property has taken centre stage in a defamation lawsuit that PM Lee filed against Mr Lim’s client - socio-political website The Online Citizen’s (TOC) chief editor Terry Xu. The lawsuit went to trial in the High Court on Monday. It continued on Tuesday in a courtroom filled to capacity with onlookers, subject to safe distancing measures, as Mr Lim cross-examined PM Lee. READ: TOC defamation trial: Animosity from siblings evident, but PM Lee hopes that 'matters can be repaired' one day The Prime … [Read more...] about Singapore in ‘very sad state’ if I depend on living in Oxley Road house to ‘exude magic aura’: PM Lee in libel trial

Connecticut’s Rosa DeLauro is spearheading the return of earmarks in her House Appropriations bailiwick. Photo: Tom Williams/CQ-Roll Call, Inc via Getty Imag One of the few real trophies of the late, unlamented Tea Party movement was the decision by House Republicans upon taking power in 2011 to ban congressional “earmarks” — specific projects identified in congressional appropriations bills, designated by and to benefit individual members of Congress and their states or districts. In a characteristic misunderstanding, many Tea Folk blamed earmarks for out-of-control federal spending; they were really more like lubricants for big spending on more general programmatic needs from our massive defense infrastructure to the “entitlement” programs conservatives loathe but are afraid to openly attack. A few bad-sounding and heavily publicized examples of earmarks gave the whole phenomenon a bad name, as Vox’s Tara Golshan later explained : The practice resulted in some notable … [Read more...] about Much-Maligned Congressional Earmarks Are Coming Back

This story is co-published with Capital & Main Mourners came to view Fred Hampton's bodyin a small Oak Park, Illinois, funeral home shortly after his killing by the Chicago police in December 1969. He was only 21 years old. Black Panther sentries surrounded the building in their black leather jackets and black berets as I led a small group of white teenagers in the line that snaked through the sanctuary. When we got to the open casket, we saw Fred laid out with a rifle, beads and a copy of the Black Panther paper under his arm. The teenagers had met Hampton before he became a Panther, back when he was head of the West Suburban NAACP Youth Council. I was a YMCA youth worker in 1968-69 outreaching to kids in Cicero and Berwyn, two self-described whites-only Chicago suburbs of mostly Eastern European families. Fred was willing to meet with these kids, most of whom had never spoken with an African American in their lives. All they knew about Black people was the vitriol they … [Read more...] about Remembering ‘Judas and the Black Messiah’: What You Should Know about the Real Fred Hampton

It’s physically impossible to get to the forest fight scene that hovers atop slender bamboo trees in Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon and not say out loud “Whoa”. Twenty years later, the exhilarating grace of Lee Ang’s martial-arts masterwork is just as breathtaking. The way figures glide across the water. The extraordinary lightness of it. Its craft and choreography are only further evidence of a mantra uttered in the film: “A sword by itself rules nothing. It only comes alive in skilled hands”. Take that scene, where Chow Yun Fat and Zhang Ziyi clash in a dance across bamboo stalks. Asked what he remembers about shooting it, Lee doesn’t hesitate: The sweating. Not from heat but from the stress of suspending a few of Asia’s biggest movie stars high in the air, held aloft by cranes over a valley. “You use very heavy ways to imitate lightness,” said Lee, speaking by phone from Taiwan during a recent trip from his home in New York. “Each actor hanging up there, you need 30 … [Read more...] about Toughest movie of his life: Lee Ang on Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon 20 years later