Quick Takes: <i>News You May Have Missed</i>

Quick Takes: News You May Have Missed

By: Aaron Klein

Published: July 27th, 2011

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Obama Official Downplays China Threat

President Obama’s China adviser, Evan Medeiros, has a long history of downplaying the threat to U.S. interests posed by Beijing’s rapid military and economic growth, once even penning a paper that argued China should embrace a “great power mentality.”

Medeiros was appointed as China director of the White House National Security Council in 2009.

In his most recent Inside the Ring column in the Washington Times, Bill Gertz cited congressional Republicans as identifying Medeiros as a key player involved in the Obama administration’s policy of refusing to sell needed arms to Taiwan.

The same report blamed Medeiros for delaying the release of a second Pentagon report to Congress on the shifting air power balance in the Taiwan Strait.

The Times also cited Republican staff aides and a defense official as stating they believe Medeiros is behind efforts to block the release to Congress of the Pentagon’s annual report on Chinese military power, completed months ago and due to Capitol Hill on March 1.

Medeiros was fingered by Gertz’s sources as a key official in preventing the U.S. sale of 66 advanced F-16 jets to Taiwan and for delaying the sale of equipment to upgrade Taiwan’s existing F-16s. Both military moves were expected to anger China.

A review by this column of Medeiros’s articles and statements to the news media finds a regular trend of minimizing China’s threat to the U.S.

In 2009, just before his appointment to the NSC, Medeiros stated China was not seeking to “confront the United States or expel it from the region.” He argued China was not aiming to replace America as a superpower.

In 2007, Medeiros, speaking as an expert at the RAND Corporation, argued Beijing’s military buildup is limited to Asia and it has not sought to project power globally.

In 2005, Medeiros said of China’s People’s Liberation Army: “Do the old shibboleths still apply – that the Chinese defense industry is backward, poor and low-quality?”

“No,” he continued. “It seems China has turned the corner. For the first time in 20 years, the PLA has adopted reforms that make sense. They adopted, and implemented, and are really learning quickly.”

Medeiros that year was lead author of a 300-page RAND study, “New Directions for China’s Defense Industry.”

In 2002, he minimized China’s missile project, telling The Economist that the Chinese “don’t really see missiles as weapons of mass destruction while most American policymakers equate the two.”

In an article in the November-December 2003 issue of Foreign Affairs magazine, Medeiros, with analyst M. Taylor Fravel, presented the views of experts on Chinese foreign policy as stating China should overcome its long-held ‘victim mentality’ and adopt a ‘great power mentality’ instead.

Soros-Funded Groups Call For Investigating Murdoch Companies

A slew of organizations funded by billionaire George Soros have been utilizing the alleged News of the World phone hacking scandal in the UK to call for investigations of News Corporation’s U.S. interests, particularly Fox News Channel.

The Center for American Progress, heavily financed by Soros, said it gathered 12,000 signatures demanding to know whether News Corp. reporters violated U.S. law by obtaining phone records in the U.S.

The center is reportedly highly influential in helping to craft White House policy. It is led by John Podesta, who served as co-chairman of Obama’s presidential transition team.

Already, Podesta’s signature drive was cited as part of the motivation for Democratic Sens. Jay Rockefeller and Barbara Boxer sending a letter to Attorney General Eric Holder requesting an investigation into claims News Corp. may have hacked the phones of 9/11 victims.

The center’s offshoot, Think Progress, has been leading Twitter and Facebook campaigns calling for investigations into Rupert Murdoch’s U.S. media empire.

Think Progress even alleged News Corp. could have been involved in the November 2009 e-mail hacking of a climate research institute that showed climate scientists conspiring to rig data in an effort to demonstrate the veracity of global warming.

Perhaps at the center of the drive against News Corp. sits the Soros-funded Media Matters for America.

When Soros donated $1 million to Media Matters last October, he specifically cited the group’s work against Fox News as the driving force for his financial contribution.

AFL-CIO Backs Controversial Nominee

The AFL-CIO, the nation’s largest union, expressed strong support for President Obama’s nominee to head a new agency purportedly charged with protecting consumers from financial fraud.

The nominee, former Ohio Attorney General Richard Cordray, was the subject of national news in 2008 when he used public funds for the legal defense of three former state employees accused of accessing personal information of Joe Wurzelbacher, also known as “Joe the Plumber.”

Wurzelbacher rose to fame during that year’s presidential campaign after he was videotaped questioning Obama about the candidate’s small-business tax policy during a campaign stop in Ohio.

The new governmental agency is called the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau.

According to its website, the agency seeks to “make markets for consumer financial products and services work for Americans – whether they are applying for a mortgage, choosing among credit cards, or using any number of other consumer financial products.”

Aaron Klein is Jerusalem bureau chief and senior reporter for WorldNetDaily.com. He is also host of an investigative radio program on New York’s 770-WABC Radio, the largest talk radio station in the U.S., every Sunday between 2-4 p.m.

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About the Author: Aaron Klein is Jerusalem bureau chief and senior reporter for WorldNetDaily.com. He is also host of an investigative radio program on New York's 770-WABC Radio, the largest talk radio station in the U.S., every Sunday between 2-4 p.m (CHANGE TO 7-9 p.m.). His website is KleinOnline.com

Quick Takes: News You May Have Missed

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