This story was originally published by the WND News Center.
Someone apparently has a serious problem with the Word of God, as police investigate the intentional burning Sunday of about 200 Bibles near a Christian church in Mount Juliet, Tennessee.
Pastor Greg Locke of Global Vision Bible Church took to social media Sunday morning to inform congregants of the incident, saying:
"Happy Resurrection Sunday. This morning at 6:00 AM our security cameras caught a man dropping off a trailer in the middle of the intersection and blocking the road into our church. He then got out and set fire to an entire trailer full of Bibles right in front of our church.
"There was a lady that had driven through the night to get to our church and she was in the parking lot and was able to get the police officers here quickly, but it was quite the scene to wake up to on my first morning back from Israel. Had to block traffic in all directions but they are almost finished cleaning it up. It's going to be a great day in the Lord."
The Wilson County Sheriff's Office noted: "The trailer, containing Bibles, had been dropped off in the middle of the intersection and then intentionally set on fire.
"To uphold the integrity of the ongoing investigation, other specific details cannot be provided at this time. However, we assure the community that further updates will be shared at the appropriate juncture."
Locke told WKRN-TV he was shocked when he saw the burned Bibles in the trailer.
"It was strange because he [the suspect] had his blinkers on and he scotched the wheels and everything," Locke said.
"He was very meticulous, so he had to be very courageous to do what he did. We've had people do things to our building, we've been vandalized a number of times, hence why we have to have security, but never 200 Bibles being burned. That's a pretty rebellious statement towards the church."
He added: "What people think many times is going to stop us, really just encourages us, in a weird way, to know that we're doing what's right."
The incident got a variety of reactions online, including:
"This is beyond belief that someone could be so evil."
"This was right in front of my church. Seems like a threat to me."
"Hate crime!"
"You are not alone. They are doing unspeakable things to me and my family as well. They don't just need prayer, they need deliverance."
"This is so crazy, never in all of my years have I heard of such a thing praying that all involved find the lord. Have a great and blessed day."
"Well that's what happens when you take God out of schools and kids are not taught to respect the word of God. Those kids have grown up into the adults we have today. I bet you won't find any iPads or computer games in a pile on fire anywhere."
"This reeks of Locke. Start there first."
"Publicity stunt."
"Sick individual(s) to burn Bibles! God have mercy on their soul!"
"Evil is here and it's close."
"I wonder where the guy got all the Bibles from? Been collecting them for many years?"
"If the devil isn't chasing you you're going the wrong way."
"Blasphemy! What an evil satanic POS who wants to burn the Bible!"
Officials say anyone who may have additional information and/or camera footage is urged to contact the sheriff's office at 615-444-1459.
This story was originally published by the WND News Center.
The assisted suicide ideology has circled the globe in recent years. There have been nations and American states that have authorized it, under limited circumstances like for those already terminally ill, some time ago.
Some advances have come as recently as this year, and some still are to be implemented, such as the extension of that option for those with mental health problems in Canada starting in 2027.
But the belief system that people should be allowed to arrange for their own killing, often by the administration of chemicals, is facing headwinds for an obvious reason: It makes it appear that society believes some people are better dead.
A report from the Christian Institute details how Canada has been "skiing" down euthanasia's "slippery slope," and experts are warning Great Britain not to follow.
In Canada, already, the elderly and disabled are facing pressure … to die.
The report explained, "Since legalizing so-called Medical Assistance in Dying for certain circumstances in 2016, Canada has already abolished the requirement for a person to be terminally ill and will extend it to those with mental health problems in 2027."
Legislation allowing "assisted suicide" now is being considered in Scotland, the Isle of Man, and Jersey, as well as those "concerted efforts" in England and Wales, all of which have left publications flooded with letters on the topic.
"Dr. Pia Matthews of St Mary’s University, who has a daughter with multiple disabilities, reported that she has been told 'how much of a burden our daughter must be' and 'we would all be better off if she was no longer with us,'" the report explained.
She responded, "Enshrining such inaccurate and discriminatory attitudes in law would entrench the view that some lives, however short, are less worth living and that some people would be better off dead."
The institute reported, "Professor John Keown of Georgetown University in Washington, D.C., highlighted a U.N. special rapporteur’s 'extreme concern' that some disabled Canadians are being pressured to request euthanasia, adding: 'The Dutch slid down euthanasia’s slippery slope. Canada is virtually skiing.'"
The report noted former British National Health Service podiatrist Madeline Pavey explained being "appalled" when she found people in their 60s saying, "I just don’t want to be a burden." And then noting it's so easy "to encourage this kind of thinking."
The report noted the House of Commons Health and Social Care Select Committee recently outlined the many dangers of legalizing assisted suicide but failed to oppose a change in the law.
That committee had reviewed information from jurisdictions allowing assisted suicide, and other issues including palliative care.
This story was originally published by the WND News Center.
The Disney company, which just this week gave up in its fight against Florida's law that established a new independent board to oversee its property, replacing a Disney-controlled district panel that essentially provided the company permission to be its own government, is facing new headwinds now.
That fight was over the corporation's attack on the state for its new parental rights in education law, which critics inaccurately called the "don't say gay" law since that was not in the law.
The state had created a new board to oversee the company's property, Disney sued, and now it has dropped its legal fight.
The new dispute will be appearing not in court, but at the corporation's board meeting.
It is Paul Chesser, of the National Legal and Policy Center, who explained in a column at the New York Post his organization is a shareholder in Disney, and is raising at the company's board meeting the problem that Disney's insurance pays for transgender surgeries that permanently mutilate human bodies.
But it does not pay for body repairs needed by those who detransition.
"Does Disney care about more about the praise of transgender activists or the pain of its employees and their families, including children? The answer will become clear at the company’s April 3 annual meeting, when shareholders vote on a proposal my organization filed," he explained.
"We’re asking the company, which has famously associated itself with the gender-ideology movement, to stop ignoring the significant medical needs of those who’ve tried to reverse their sex transitions."
He explained his organization, as a shareholder, proposed months ago to have the company explain "why its health insurance doesn’t include coverage for people who attempt to detransition."
Chesser explained, "Many people who attempt a transition have gender dysphoria, a psychological condition that involves feeling uncomfortable with one’s biological sex. Rather than get the proper counseling they need to address it, they are generally fast-tracked by medical practitioners into an invasive and often irreversible regimen of drugs and surgeries."
However, their problems often continue, he noted.
"My organization has worked with Chloe Cole, who began a gender transition at age 12 and is the patient advocate at the nonprofit Do No Harm. By age 16, after taking puberty blockers and receiving a double mastectomy, she tried to turn back. Yet her body has been irreversibly changed and damaged, and years later, her chest is still bandaged. She will likely be on different medications and need ongoing treatments for the rest of her life," Chesser documented.
"Disney is happy to help employees and their families — including children — ruin their bodies. It has no interest in helping them fix the bodies, despite encouraging them down that ruinous path," he charged.
This story was originally published by the WND News Center.
A school district in Texas is being taken to court because of its decision to ban an employee from praying.
It is the American Center for Law and Justice that has gone to federal court in Houston on behalf of Staci Barber, an employee of the Katy Independent School District.
Defendants are the district and Bryan Rounds, principal of Cardiff junior high.
The federal court filing explains that the district "violated, and continues to violate, her rights to religious expression by prohibiting her from praying when students might be present, even if that prayer occurs off the clock."
The ACLJ explained this case involves a teacher who wanted to engage in prayer outside the school building before the school day begins.
"Every year millions of people gather at school flag poles to pray before the school day begins. The ACLJ is very proud to stand in support of See You At The Pole, a prayer rally for students and participating adults to lift up their schools in prayer. Our client has prayed at the pole every year on behalf of her students," the legal team explained.
"This year she had gathered with two friends and fellow teachers to pray at the school flagpole. The school principal called these teachers into his office. He told them that they could not pray at the pole or in the presence of students because if they did so, students may see and join in. He told them that it was against the law for them to pray publicly where students could see them and then pointed them to a school policy that prohibited teachers from praying in the presence of students."
However, the ACLJ explained the facts, that the Constitution "protects the rights of religious employees to pray, even publicly; they do not somehow lose their constitutional rights just by being government employees.
"A school can prevent employees from getting distracted when they are supposed to be acting according to their official duties. But what it cannot do is prevent school employees from expressing their religious faith at all," the team said.
The school was sent a demand letter giving instructions to stop infringing Barber's First Amendment rights, and responded, but then abruptly doubled down on its position.
It continues to insist that teachers or other employees can pray or read religious materials "during a time when students are not present."
The ACLJ said, "This new language is still blatantly unconstitutional. Particularly, the principal told our client that he considered Pray at the Pole to be a 'student group,' and so under this new language, she is still barred from praying before the school day begins."
The action seeks judicial determinations and injunctions that would bring the district's policy into alignment with the Constitution.
It also charges the principal retaliated against the teacher, over absences caused by a health issue, and summoned her to a meeting where he said he "might have to say, look, I really need somebody else that can be here."
This story was originally published by the WND News Center.
In a convoluted decision, a Georgia judge has allowed Fulton County DA Fani Willis – who had an apparent conflict of interest in her hiring of a special lawyer to assemble an organized crime case against President Trump – to stay on the case.
Her paramour, whom she hired for two-thirds of a million dollars and then accompanied on exotic vacations, had to go.
But a recognized legal expert says Willis still has to be removed, even as an appeal of the original case decision by Judge Scott McAfee is pending.
Alan Dershowitz, the Felix Frankfurter professor-emeritus at Harvard, has written at the Gatestone Institute that McAfee's "split-the-difference opinion makes absolutely no sense legally or factually."
"It is obvious that Judge McAfee started his decision-making process by deciding the result he wanted: disqualifying special prosecutor Nathan Wade, but retaining Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis and her entire office. In order to reach that bizarre result, he had to rely on the testimony of Willis, which he knew was totally untruthful," Dershowitz wrote.
"Yes, he made an express finding that there are 'reasonable questions' about whether the district attorney and her hand-selected lead special assistant district attorney testified untruthfully about the timing of their relationship. In general, he found that 'an odor of mendacity remains.' Yet, after making those devastating findings about the dishonesty of Willis, he said he believed her testimony rejecting financial gain. He found that it was 'not so incredible as to be inherently unbelievable.'"
But the famed lawyer pointed out, "Any reasonable person, however, watching her contrived testimony along with that of her former lover, could not reasonably conclude that they were telling the truth. It seems completely clear that she benefited financially from appointing Wade and then going on numerous trips, which records prove he paid for. Her testimony that she paid him back in cash was 'unbelievable' to any objective viewer."
The lawyer noted Georgia rules ban a district attorney from accepting any "financial benefits from anybody she hires. She knew that, and she also knew that someday she might be asked to prove that she paid her former lover back, yet she maintained no records of her alleged payments: no bank withdrawals, no photographs of the money she allegedly paid, not even notations in her calendar. No jury would believe that Willis in fact paid him back."
And, he noted, no reasonable jury would believe Willis "did not commit perjury when she swore that her sexual relationship with Wade began after she hired him rather than before."
He said evidence discounted that possibility.
And, he wondered, why has no criminal perjury investigation been opened.
"Judge McAfee expressly found that there was an appearance of conflict. There is also an obvious appearance of impropriety and injustice. That should be enough to disqualify a prosecutor. He also found that he had the power under Georgia law to disqualify Willis based on this appearance.
"Willis is the responsible elected official who created this problem. It was she who exercised horrendous judgment. It was she who benefited from hiring her lover and then taking trips that he paid for, and it was she who should have been disqualified," he said.
This story was originally published by the WND News Center.
An organization founded by Mike Benz, a former State Department official who worked on U.S. foreign policy, has revealed its top 10 list of times "the censorship industry suppressed the truth."
And it includes instances of targeting "malinformation," Hunter Biden's laptop, multiple issues that developed during the COVID pandemic, and more.
Its report explains it was "media-driven panics" about "fake news" that drove the censorship agenda.
And the ultimate result was the censorship of true information, the report said.
The list includes the targeting of "malinformation," which was lumped with disinformation and misinformation.
"The DHS’s Cybersecurity Infrastructure and Security Agency (CISA) has been at the forefront of popularizing the MDM framework. … They define disinformation as speech that is deliberately created to mislead, harm, or manipulate. Misinformation is information that is factually incorrect, but not on purpose. The third level of bannable speech – 'malinformation' – is defined as factually accurate, true speech that is deemed to be taken out of or lacking context," the report said.
Second on the list was the "suppression" of the Hunter Biden laptop.
It was the New York Post that documented scandalous details about the Biden family's business dealings uncovered in the laptop.
"This would spark the most impactful coordinated act of censorship in the 2020 election, with Twitter and Facebook both suppressing the story, hampering its virality and preventing it from reaching millions of Americans," the report said.
Ultimately, Joe Biden won the election, but a polling after said that had details about the scandals contained in that laptop been reported routinely, Biden almost certainly would have lost.
Further, it was revealed that the censorship of that story came after the FBI interfered in the election, warning media companies to suppress the information.
Next on the list were discussions about the now-confirmed multiple and sometimes dangerous side effects of the COVID-19 shots.
"In an email exposed through the Twitter Files, members of the Virality Project can be seen recommending censorship of 'stories of true vaccine side effects' and 'true posts which could fuel hesitancy,'" the report said.
Also connected to the COVID pandemic were discussions about the effectiveness of the government-mandated masks, and they were censored.
"In 2021, YouTube removed a video from Senator Rand Paul because he called the efficacy of masks into question," the report said.
And then there were the stories, the narratives: "By targeting entire narratives rather than individual posts, the censorship industry can censor at scale, regardless of the intent or factual accuracy of individual posts. One example is the Pennsylvania Poll Watcher story, a narrative targeted by the Election Integrity Partnership in 2020 that resulted in over 600,000 tweets being flagged."
Benz, in a 2022 report on election censorship, explained, "As just one example of the myriad tricks EIP used to shoehorn in censorship of election discussions, in highlights above, you’ll see that EIP labeled the entire narrative surrounding a Pennsylvania poll worker’s denial of entry into a polling station as being 'misinformation.' Their reasoning does not even deny the basic facts of the denial of entry, but rather makes a subjective determination about the political motivations behind the narrative."
No. 6 on the list was censorship of "mistrust of the media," and No. 7 was the censorship of scientists who assembled the Great Barrington Declaration.
"While the censorship industry’s efforts to maintain control over COVID-19 narratives have often caught ordinary Americans in its crosshairs, medical professionals and experts were not immune. A group of epidemiologists from Stanford, Harvard, and Oxford co-authored the Great Barrington Declaration in the fall of 2020, advocating against broad lockdown policies in favor of a targeted approach aimed at protecting those most vulnerable to the virus," the report said.
"Simply advancing a theory and an alternative policy prescription can’t be characterized as 'misinformation,' … the Barrington Declaration authors and their supporters were immediately targeted."
Also cited was "The Sunrise Movement," a series of Zoom calls in which "liberal activists" allegedly schemed to "ferment chaos in the wake of a potential Trump victory or a contested election."
Also cited was the censorship of anything described as a "delegitimization narrative," or anything that could cast doubt on the integrity of the election process, no matter the evidence.
Benz has reported that is "defined to mean any speech that 'casts doubt' on any kind of election process, outcome or integrity issues."
Last were comparisons of COVID to the flu. That opinion, now apparently adopted by even DHS, encouraged "family members to report each other for stating the mere opinion that 'COVID-19 is no worse than the flu.'"
This story was originally published by the WND News Center.
In the topsy-turvy America today, where conservatives are jailed and liberals let off, where judges turn violent criminals loose and the Deep State's political enemies are behind bars, where illegal aliens have rights and property owners don't, this scenario probably shouldn't surprise: It is a case of squatters taking over a privately owned home and the owner getting arrested.
The New York Post explained the homeowner has been trying to remove "a bunch of squatters" from her family's home for some time.
Now Adele Andaloro, 47, was recently cuffed after she changed the locks on the $1 million home in Flushing, Queens, that she says she inherited from her parents when they died.
Under the laws of the liberal state, it is against the law for a homeowner to change to locks, turn off utilities, or remove the belongings of someone claiming to be a "tenant."
[ic_trending]
"It's not fair that I, as the homeowner, have to be going through this," she explained.
The ordeal began when she tried to sell the home – but found out that squatters had moved in without her permission or knowledge, and actually changed the front door locks.
So the owner went to the structure on 160th Street, accompanied by a TV crew, and called a locksmith to change them again.
"A heated, caught-on-camera spat with the alleged squatters quickly unfolded and ended with some of the so-called tenants — and Andaloro — being led away in cuffs," the report explained.
The city provides special "squatters' rights" for someone who has moved into a home and lived there for as little as 30 days.
A man who claims he's on a lease for the building said he was "unlawfully" evicted.
Andaloro said the time frame for someone discovering squatters, doing an investigation and such, "it will be over 30 days and this man will still be in my home. I'm really fearful that these people are going to get away with stealing my home."
The report said Andaloro was filmed entering the property, armed with the deeds, after a "tenant" left a door open.
Then a "man claiming to be on the lease," identified as Brian Rodriquez, returned and "barged through the front door," the report said.
Andaloro was ultimately arrested for unlawful eviction given she had changed the locks.
The Post reported, "The ordeal is just the latest involving squatters in the Big Apple in recent weeks after a couple’s plan to move into a $2 million home in Douglaston, Queens, with their disabled son was derailed by a squatter who claimed to have an agreement with the previous owner."
This story was originally published by the WND News Center.
As the number of suspected terrorists reportedly plotting assassinations and deadly attacks in America continues to grow, so does the risk of interfering with this year's presidential election.
Historically, election cycles around the world have often faced disruption by adversaries, whether through election interference, threats of violence, or actual violence. For example, the commuter train bombings in Spain on March 11, 2004, carried out by Islamic terrorists, which killed 193 people and injured over 1,800, took place just three days before a national election. The coordinated attack is believed by many to have influenced voters to reject a Spanish government that participated in the 2003 U.S.-led invasion of Iraq.
For Middle East expert and terrorism scholar Adrian Calamel, attacks like the one in Madrid have him growing increasingly fearful about similar violence being used to disrupt November's presidential election in the U.S.
Calamel, a senior fellow at the Washington, D.C.-based Arabian Peninsula Institute, tells WND the "specter of something like this happening in America" is related to an active assassination plot against several Trump-era officials. Earlier this month, news began to circulate that an agent of Iran's Ministry of Intelligence and Security, or MOIS, was "wanted for questioning in connection with the recruitment of individuals for various operations in the United States, to include lethal targeting of current and former United States Government officials as revenge for the killing of IRGC-QF Commander Qasem Soleimani."
In 2020, Soleimani was killed by a U.S. drone strike on the order of then-President Donald Trump. As a result, Iran pledged to retaliate and named multiple American targets, including former Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, former national security adviser John Bolton, former U.S. special representative for Iran Brian Hook, as well as other current and former officials of the U.S. government.
What this tells Calamel is that "Tehran is intent on hitting America inside its borders, on its soil." But it's how they'll do it that he questions. According to Calamel, "[Iran] has a lot to lose after gaining so much leverage during the Biden administration." Most recently, the administration has
reapproved a sanctions waiver that would allow as much as $10 billion in frozen assets to be released to the Iranian government.
For this reason, he said, "[Iran] will be looking for plausible deniability." While many believe Hezbollah is the primary terrorist threat to the United States, Calamel points a finger to al Qaeda. Although Iran's MOIS agents and proxies like Hezbollah might secretly help coordinate an attack on U.S. soil, he said, "they're too close to Tehran and have too much to lose from the United States to take the blame for it."
To grasp how the next terror attack could unfold on U.S. soil, Calamel said, "the West needs to put aside the whole Sunni and Shia differences of these groups, thinking that they hate each other and don't coordinate their intentions." While it's widely accepted that groups like Hezbollah and al Qaeda do not coordinate their efforts due to their religious differences, Calamel said this kind of thinking was "clearly disproven" by the 9/11 Commission Report.
In the events leading up to the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks, the report revealed (on p. 240), "... senior managers in al Qaeda maintained contacts with Iran and the Iranian-supported worldwide terrorist organization Hezbollah, which is based mainly in southern Lebanon and Beirut. Al Qaeda members received advice and training from Hezbollah."
In 2011, it was also concluded by the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York that "the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), the Iranian Ministry of Intelligence and Security (MOIS), and Iran's terrorist proxy Hezbollah, all materially aided and supported al Qaeda before and after 9/11."
"I believe al Qaeda is drawing up plans to attack the West, and these attacks could come to fruition as early as this election cycle," Calamel warned. According to him, the terror group is emboldened because "this American administration and their intelligence agencies think they're defeated when they are not."
"I fear Tehran may be using al Qaeda to facilitate an attack on the United States right under the noses of this administration," he said, adding that "the inability to connect the dots between Al Qaeda and the Islamic Republic of Iran will only harm the United States in the end."
In addition, Calamel said, "Al Qaeda may very well pin the attack to ISIS as they've often done in the past." By doing so, he argued, "Iran will undoubtedly build a couple of layers of plausible deniability, knowing this administration would struggle to connect the dots while Americans deal with the tragic loss of life and the most chaotic election cycle the country has ever seen."
National security agencies must remain vigilant, he asserted.
This story was originally published by the WND News Center.
A Georgia judge has determined that Fulton County DA Fani Willis was unprofessional and may well have benefited financially from hiring her paramour for more than $600,000 to develop an organized crime case against President Donald Trump but the Democrat can stay on the case if she severs links to her alleged lover.
Defense attorneys in the case had pointed out her longstanding relationship with Nathan Wade, whom she hired for two-thirds of a million dollars to attack Trump, and how she took trips to exotic locales with him.
However, the judge conceded that her claim to have reimbursed Wade in cash for the trips might be true, and he said she could remain on the case if she severed all ties to him.
Observers had speculated that to remove Willis entirely likely would have killed the DA's political claims against Trump and others.
Fox News explained Judge Scott McAfee, in fact, gave Willis an ultimatum: step aside from the case or fire Wade.
The case is about Willis' claims of election interference and its evidence is based largely on a telephone call between Trump and state officials following the 2020 election count that likely was recorded illegally.
McAfee claimed the defendants didn't "meet their burden of proving that the district attorney acquired an actual conflict of interest in this case through her personal relationship and recurring travels with her lead prosecutor."
Of course, the ordinary standard for legal ethics is that even the appearance of a conflict is equally a problem.
The judge warned that the record now includes "a significant appearance of impropriety that infects the current structure of the prosecution team – an appearance that must be removed through the state's selection of one of two options."
He didn't explain how the district attorney could change past events that already provide the appearance of a conflict.
The evidence shows the defendants charged Willis benefited financially by hiring Wade as they were in a relationship when he was hired, and they would vacation together.
Wade and Willis, under oath, claimed they were not in a romantic relationship before he was hired.
Just a few days earlier, McAfee threw out multiple charges in the case, saying the prosecutors failed to adequately file them.
But the damage the scandal delivered to Willis' reputation was confirmed, with the judge slamming her "tremendous lapse in judgment" and for behaving in an "unprofessional manner."
His comments skewered her actions. "This finding is by no means an indication that the court condones this tremendous lapse in judgment or the unprofessional manner of the district attorney’s testimony during the evidentiary hearing."
And the judge confirmed that despite her protestations, Willis "may well have received a net benefit of several hundred dollars" from her decision to hire Wade.
The scandal was exploded into the public when Ashleigh Merchant, representing one of Trump's codefendants, charged that Willis and Wade had an "ongoing, personal relationship" even as Wade got paid more than $600,000 serving as special prosecutor on the case.
That filing claimed the two had "a personal, romantic relationship that has ultimately yielded substantial income to the special prosecutor."
The judge's ruling admitted that Willis may have gotten some income from her hiring of Wade.
Willis' testimony about her actions was directly contradicted by a friend who explained she was familiar with what went on in Willis' relationships, and then Willis testified she no longer considered the witness a friend.
Another witness for Willis said he was "speculating" when he confirmed in writing the extent of the Willis-Wade relationship.
This story was originally published by the WND News Center.
China long has been known for its grabs of various seas, islands, territories, and such.
It simply claims it owns whatever it wants.
Now, a startling report reveals that the Chinese Communist Party, whose members essentially control that nation, is insisting on annexing space.
The reporting comes from Gordon G. Chang, a distinguished senior fellow at the Gatestone Institute.
On the organization's web pages, he describes how China wants to work with Russia to "build a base on the moon." And it's the south pole.
But that's just a start.
"If the Chinese regime succeeds in building the first facility there, it will try to deny others the ability to land on the lunar surface. The People's Republic of China intends to annex the nearby parts of the solar system," he explained.
"As Richard Fisher of the International Assessment and Strategy Center pointed out to this author, Chinese control of the moon would confer control of Cis-Lunar space, the portion of space between the Earth and the moon. Control of Cis-Lunar space would give a country the ability to shoot down or otherwise disable deep-space satellites, which are essential for, among other things, the early warning of ballistic missile attacks."
Chang noted that none of this is new to Beijing and Moscow, as in 2021 Russia's space agency, Roscosmos, and the China National Space Administration agreed on a plan for a shared moon base.
They want it called the International Lunar Research Station.
Now, Chang wrote, Yura Borisov, chief of Roscosmos, just last week said, "Today, we are seriously considering a project to deliver to the moon and mount a power reactor there jointly with our Chinese partners somewhere between 2033 and 2035."
China has not been idle, he noted.
"China has had a moon presence since 2013 when Chang'e-3 put both a lander and rover on the surface. Chang'e 4, which landed on the moon's far side in January 2019, has been gathering data, presumably for a permanent location."
And the communists plan large, reusable rockets starting as early as next year.
All this means the rest of the world should be alarmed, because of what would be next.
"The universe is an ocean, the moon is the Diaoyu Islands, Mars is Huangyan Island," charged Ye Peijian in 2017, referring to features already claimed by China in the East China and South China Seas.
"If we don't go there now even though we're capable of doing so, then we will be blamed by our descendants. If others go there, then they will take over, and you won't be able to go even if you want to."
Chang noted, "Ye Peijian made it clear that Beijing intends to exclude others from the moon, among other places, if it is in a position to do so."
Even NASA chief Bill Nelson has noted that if China builds a moon base under the guise of science, "It is not beyond the realm of possibility that they say, 'Keep out, we're here, this is our territory.'"
And he noted while an international treaty prohibits such claims, "When has a treaty obligation ever stopped the People's Republic from doing whatever it wants?"
He further explained experts say the intent to lay claim to the moon's south pole is significant because there is ice there, water, that "can be used to both hydrate thirsty Chinese taikonauts and Russian cosmonauts and be converted into rocket fuel for missions to Mars."
Brandon Weichert, the author of "Winning Space: How America Remains a Superpower," told Gatestone, "It would be akin to staking out all the water holes in the desert."