Photo:  A truck moving on ASR Long Island in Iraq is scanned with a laser light in June 2007 by Marine Pfc. Collin F. Crouch, Military Police Company, 2nd Maintenance Battalion.   COURTESY OF U.S. MARINE CORPS
Text below from: https://www.news.com.au/technology/innovation/military/chinese-fishing-boats-are-blinding-us-military-pilots-with-lasers/news-story/0e4ca5befb6c21c3d7928dd8c00392a4
Chinese fishing boats are blinding US military pilots with lasers   US military pilots have been blinded by lasers in the East China Sea more than 20 times in recent months, marking an aggressive new phase in Beijing’s territorial grab.
IT’S on the very edge of aggression: a flash of light temporarily blinding a combat pilot. It’s China’s new ploy to enforce its expansive new territorial claims. According to US military sources, some 20 such attacks have been made on its aircrew operating in the East China Sea since September last year. The most recent attack has been in the past fortnight. Aviation Week quotes a US Marine source as saying the attacks had come from “a range of different sources, both ashore and from fishing vessels”.
All aspects of the Chinese economy are state-controlled. And its fishing fleets are operated as a militia, working in close concert with Beijing’s navy as it seeks to assert its arbitrary claim to total control of the South and East China Seas. In this instance, Chinese fishing ships and military-controlled coast guard vessels have been muscling-in on Japan’s Senkaku island chain. Beijing insists the mountainous outcrops belong to China, and has named them the Diaoyu islands. Tensions over the islands have repeatedly reached flashpoint in recent years, with several tense stand-offs between Japanese and Chinese naval and air forces. The waterway is, however, part of a busy sea lane carrying enormous quantities of international trade.
A military spokeswoman has told the Wall Street Journal that none of the US aircrew was seriously injured by the attacks. But the temporary blindness and potential for accident-inducing serious eyesight damage was greatly disturbing. The fresh allegations follow reports earlier this year that China’s expansive new naval and army base in the African nation of Djibouti had also been targeting aircraft operating from a nearby US facility with blinding military-grade lasers. The US issued a formal international complaint over the Djibouti attacks. But Beijing denies the accusations as ‘fabricated’.
Chinese foreign ministry stated: “According to what we have learned from the relevant authorities, the accusations in the relevant reports by US media are totally groundless and purely fabricated ... You can remind the relevant US person to keep in mind the truthfulness of what they say, and to not swiftly speculate or make accusations.” Even commercially available pen-lasers have the potential to blind low-flying pilots. It is a crime to point them at any vehicle in Australia and the United States.  Both the US and China are signatories to an international treaty which bans the use of blinding lasers as a weapon of war.
JOHN BATCHELOR SHOW
Co-host: Thaddeus McCotter, WJR, the Great Voice of the Great Lakes
Hour One
Monday   25 June 2018 / Hour 1, Block A: Bill Roggio, Long War Journal and FDD; in re: Seventy Afghan police captured by Taliban in Wardak Province near Kabul! . . .  Iraq; Hezbollah Brigades (Iranian proxy) attacking Iraqi police; a Shi’a militia, in Popular Mobilization Units (led by Abu Mahdi Mohandas). 
Monday   25 June 2018 / Hour 1, Block B: Gretchen Morgenson,  Wall Street Journal & author, Reckless Endangerment, in re:   Buzz Aldrin, at the age of 88—second man to walk on the Moon—and the Apollo Program; focus of an investigation into his mental competence engendered by his children, who asked to be made by co-guardians by a Florida court. Buzz countersued. There are three different mental health professionals apptd by the court who do an assessment and submit a report. Buzz underwent the same thing in an LA court with a most expert doctor , who concluded that Buzz had no mental impairment.  In his countersuit, he claims that his children want to control him and take his money. A younger woman, Christina [Corp] has been his [chief assistant] , making $150,000 PA; has achieved a lot of control  At a public mtg, she grabbed the microphone from him.   Someone spoke of Stockholm Syndrome.  When you speak with him he’s very forceful and not meandering, at all. 
Monday   25 June 2018 / Hour 1, Block C: Gordon Chang, Daily Beast, in re: China, trade, tariffs, stand-off between Xi Jinping and Pres Trump. X says, “If US administers tariffs, we’ll punch the US.”  Says, “We’ll retaliate against US companies” to intimidate Trump.  In Being, afraid that US firms, fearful of Chinese policies & retaliation, will pack up and leave China.  Well-founded concern!  China depends profoundly on foreign companies: need to keep stealing technologies.  Xi: When one door closes, another door opens – as in, when the US leaves, some other sucker will bounce in.  However, Europe is becoming genuinely concerned about the massive, drowning, overwhelming Chinese theft of IP and technology and skills.  China can make short-term advances with heavy investment – can make a quantum computer with Western help – but cant sustain it over the long term.
In Science Magazine: East Germans stole $3 bill from the West before the wall fell; but, stealing became a focus of their industry, no attention to R&D – didn't feed the schools. China s doing well in 5G and quantum and AI, but problems in other areas: because of the culture of theft, it doesn't allow Chinese to think afresh. Have Alibaba – copy of a Western model. In an unprotected mkt, Alibaba doesn’t do well.  Xi is taking China from an authoritarian state to almost a totalitarian state. 
Monday   25 June 2018 / Hour 1, Block D:  Gordon Chang, Daily Beast, in re: Mandatory teaching of Xi Jinping thought. HBO went dark there today because a comedian criticized Xi.  Chinese shoot lasers at US aircraft – again. John Oliver, on a hit show, spoke of torture of pol prisoners, and being forbidden to speak of Tien An Men, and Bao, and skewers the Belt and Road Initiative — Oliver is now silenced in China. This is bullying, Does China understand that the US does not respond well to bullying?  . . . Chinese people have been watching anyway on VPNs.  For a supposedly-invincible regime, this one looks a little tetchy. How can you be a world leader if you can't take a joke about yourself?
It's now obligatory to study Xi Jinping thought.  Yike.  If you spend hours and hours talking about [this drivel],  you’ve stolen study time from real student.
Two pilots of C130s, two US pilots suffered eye damage.  Now, in the South China Sea,  . . . East China Sea : lasering US craft.  Maritime militia, fishing boats; also, Chinese mil: trying to bring down the lane – i.e., kill Americans.  China thinks it’s keeping Americans out of areas that it wants to control – but long-term, it clarifies that China is an enemy of the USA.
 
Hour Two
Monday   25 June 2018 / Hour 2, Block A:  John Fund, NRO, and David M Drucker, Washington Examiner, in re: Border crisis. Migrants coming from Honduras, Guatemala. William Wilberforce Protection Act.  Nobody believes this will continue until November; every two weeks a new controversy, every month a new outrage, dominates the headlines.  The Red Hen, a small restaurant in rural Virginia; owner kicked Sarah Huckabee Sanders out.  The one thing you need to worry about I politics is an event where people can imagine it occurring in their own lives. Add Maxine Walters’s amazing rant.  People don't like bullies.   Time magazine cover flap: important to get all the facts, or images, right.   Time made an error – could easily have used the photo to make a broader point about Trump and asylum, but it needed  to be accurate about what the photo was, It undercut its own ability . .  gave the opposition [the high ground].  Don't manipulate the underlying facts! . . .  Time undercut the entire media narrative about the border.  Despite GOP malfeasance, Dems didn’t get the juice they hoped for. 
Monday   25 June 2018 / Hour 2, Block B:  John Fund, NRO, in re: Pres Trump is skillful and witty — tweets: why is the Senator Warner of VA, Ranking Member on Senate Intelligence Committee, making a remark about Mueller in Martha’s Vineyard?  “I was speaking with Bob Mueller and you ain’t seen nothing yet.”  Oops — he should recuse himself.    . . . Russiagate.  As documents are forced out of the bldg, whatever Trump did sloppily, there really was a group of intell professionals [working to sabotage] Trump.   “Need total transparency”   Strzock will testify to Goodlatte and ___.  Fox and C-SPAN may carry it live.  DoJ is still stonewalling Devin Nunes as of nine this evening.  The president can declassify these documents any time  he wants – but slow torture  is so much better than fast torture.  . . .  
Monday   25 June 2018 / Hour 2, Block C: Aaron Kle in, Breitbart Middle East Bureau Chief, in re:  . .  FBI used the dossier to get the FISA warrant to surveille – and NSA also surveille – anyone Page communicated with and thence on to secondary individuals – in a vast circle.   Victoria Nuland green-lit mtg with Christopher Steele. What’d she know about Steele?  Jonathan Wiener . Cody Scherer?  Wiener getting info from Blumenthal, to __, to Nuland; Nuland contradicted herself in testimony.  . . . Downer took info to State in London, who sent it to DC. State was more involved in Russiagate than was the FBI, and earlier.  State was present before Papadapoulos was identified.  . . . Back to the Dubai Ports scandal (Bill Clinton).   State may have been the entryway into the US government; it mushroomed into the fake collusion scandal [that spread across the landscape].  Sate initiated what became the FBI probe?  March (Mifsud) to June (Papadapoulos) to July (Carter Page).
Monday   25 June 2018 / Hour 2, Block D: Aaron Klein, Breitbart Middle East Bureau Chief, in re: Rob Goldstone first arrange d the infamous Trump Tower mtg, where unknown arrival claimed to  have “dirt “ on Clinton, then arrive to speak of Magnitzky Act. Looks like a meeting in order to have a meeting. Goldstone sends an email to Donald Trump, Jr,, claiming that the Crown Prosecutor of Russia met with his father that morning and offered to give the Trump campaign official info [against Hillary]. There exists no Crown Prosecutor in Russia.  Goldstone believes the whole mtg was a bait-and-switch. . . .Renat Akhmetshin, tied to Fusion GPS, took a train with the Russian female lawyer, Vesilnitskaya; met with a Clinton friend both before and after the mtg; and “may have spoken with McCain.”     The guy who set up  the mtg agrees he used “hyperbolic language” in order to set up a mtg. Who told Goldstone to set up a mtg? A Russian oligarch did– but who told him?  Also, no FBI or State involved yet, only the Clinton campaign and Fusion GPS. Clinton campaign working through cut-outs at the DNC.
 
Hour Three
Monday 25 June 2018/ Hour 3, Block A: John Tamny, Real Clear Markets; and director, Center for Economic Freedom; and Toreador Research & Trading; Forbes; author, The End of Work: Why Your Passion Can Become Your Job.  @johntamny ; in re:
Monday 25 June 2018/ Hour 3, Block B: John Tamny, Real Clear Markets; and director, Center for Economic Freedom; and Toreador Research & Trading; Forbes; author, The End of Work: Why Your Passion Can Become Your Job.  @johntamny ; in re:
Monday 25 June 2018/ Hour 3, Block C:  Andrew C McCarthy, III,  National Review; former Assistant United States Attorney for the Southern District of New York.   @AndrewCMcCarthy; in re:
Monday 25 June 2018/ Hour 3, Block D:  Andrew C McCarthy, III,  National Review; former Assistant United States Attorney for the Southern District of New York.   @AndrewCMcCarthy; in re:
 
Hour Four
Monday 25 June 2018/ Hour 4, Block A: Napoleon: A Life, by Andrew Roberts
Monday 25 June 2018/ Hour 4, Block B: Napoleon: A Life, by Andrew Roberts
Monday 25 June 2018/ Hour 4, Block C: The Great Departure: Mass Migration from Eastern Europe and the Making of the Free World, by Tara Zahra
Monday 25 June 2018/ Hour 4, Block D: The Great Departure: Mass Migration from Eastern Europe and the Making of the Free World, by Tara Zahra
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