This page is about only one incident:  the flight of a Chinese  weather  surveillance balloon across the continental U.S. in late January and early February, 2023.

There is now an additional page about China's influence in general.  For that, click here.)

The 2020 Coronavirus is on a series of pages, with the most recent news and commentary here.)

Recap:
Under Biden, Fake News Soars to Whole New Level.  [Scroll down]  Xi Jinping is the man of the hour, and the notion he "didn't know" about the balloon is ludicrous.  China's high-altitude surveillance device was capable of navigation.  It overflew the Aleutian Islands, passed over Canadian territory and reentered U.S. airspace with no official acknowledgement from China or Biden.  The surveillance device only became public knowledge when a private citizen in Montana spotted the craft and took photos.  China's foreign ministry said the balloon was "mainly meteorological," and the craft had been "affected by the Westerlies," and "deviated far from its planned course."  And China "regrets the unintended entry" into U.S. airspace.  Biden's proclamation that "it was blown off course up through Alaska and then down through the United States," echoed the Chinese position.  While in U.S. airspace, China's balloon overflew missile installations such as Malmstrom Air Force Base.  Brig. Gen. Patrick Ryder told CNN the balloon passed over "a number of sensitive sites," but did not present a "significant intelligence gathering risk."  Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin advised against shooting down China's balloon while it was over land.

Recap and overview:
Concerns About Drones Have Not Been Allayed.  On February 13, 2023, John Kirby appeared with Karine Jean-Pierre at a press conference to "explain" in diplo-speak the reasons for our shooting down the Chinese spy balloon.  At best, his remarks could be seen as attempts to mollify the PRC leadership that our shooting down of their balloon was not a hostile act, and in no way an accusation that they were engaged in wrongdoing.  Rather, it was just a cautious step on our part, and a minimal response to concerns raised by various parties within our country.  In shooting down their "balloon" (keeping in mind that balloons are not intrinsically bad or threatening) we have merely engaged in a minimal response, but we do not intend to feed into hysteria or accusations about the existence of "spying."  After all, we already know the Chinese have space satellites capable of spying, and we are not taking them down.  It is not clear that the balloons transversing the USA are adding to the information provided by the pre-existent spy satellites, so we cannot and are not getting our noses out of joint about the balloons even though we shot the balloon down.  However, at the same time, for security reasons Kirby said they are not going to go into details about what the balloon managed to discern and transmit.  In short, there is nothing so terrible about what the spy balloons actually observed; yet that information is still too dangerous to reveal to the public.  This type of speech is usually referred to as speaking out of both sides of one's mouth.

Another "conspiracy theory" turns out to have been correct:
Bombshell Report Exposes Biden's Massive Chinese Spy Cover-Up.  The Biden administration has been caught red-handed prioritizing Beijing's feelings over American national security.  In a shocking revelation, we now know that Biden officials engaged in secret discussions with Chinese counterparts about their spy balloon before bothering to inform the American public that our sovereignty had been violated.  According to a report from Fox News Digital, Internal State Department documents reveal that on Feb. 1, 2023, while a Chinese surveillance balloon was floating across our nation collecting intelligence, Biden officials were more concerned about how exposing this breach would affect our "relationship" with China.  Seriously?  That's right — instead of immediately shooting down this obvious threat to national security, then-Secretary of State Antony Blinken and his team were busy playing diplomatic footsie with Beijing.  According to Trump administration officials familiar with the documents, Blinken fretted that public disclosure would have "profound implications for our relationship" with China.

Chinese Spy Balloon Was Packed With American Tech.  A Chinese spy balloon that crossed over the United States in 2023 was packed with American technology that could have enabled it to spy on Americans, according to two sources with direct knowledge of a technical analysis conducted by the U.S. military.  The discovery of a satellite communication module, sensors and other tech from at least five American firms underlines the failure of U.S. efforts to restrict exports of technology that could have military uses to main adversary China as well as to countries such as Russia and Iran.  It also raises questions over the role of private companies that sell their equipment globally in keeping control over the ultimate users of dual-use technology that can have defense applications as well as civilian uses.

We Have a Chinese Spying Problem.  Yesterday, Chen Jinping admitted in federal court that he ran a secret Chinese police station in New York City on behalf of the People's Republic of China.  "I knowingly agreed to act as a foreign agent, for a foreign government," he told Judge Nina Morrison, speaking through an interpreter.  But he acted cagey when the judge asked him which government he was working for.  Chen briefly tried in vain to sidestep the question by repeating "the government" — and only admitted that he'd been representing China after he was pressed again by the judge.  Chen will be sentenced next May and is facing up to five years in prison.  His partner in crime "Harry" Lu Jianwang has his own trial coming up soon.

A running list of 'intelligence community' screwups.  A Chinese spy balloon was allowed to fly over the U.S. gathering information.  Large drones have been flying around the Northeast for weeks, and the intelligence community and FBI allege to have no knowledge of who owns them.  Yet the public is told they are not foreign owned, and the public is in no danger — how can they know that if they don't know what they are, or who is behind them?  The borders are wide open with known terrorists and other violent criminals flowing in, yet the intelligence community is extremely quiet on the risks.  Tens of thousands of young Chinese men have come across the border, and the intelligence community seems to have little (if any) interest.  Hamas planned the October 7 attacks against Israel for years, yet somehow our intelligence community had no idea.  The intelligence community seemed to have no idea rebels were going to take over Syria until it happened.  The intelligence community seemed to have no idea that the Taliban would overrun Afghanistan in such a short time.

Taiwan says [a] Chinese balloon [was] detected near [the] island.  Taiwan said Monday it had detected a Chinese balloon over waters northwest of the island, the first reported since April, as Beijing maintains pressure on Taipei to accept its claims of sovereignty.  Communist China claims democratic Taiwan as part of its territory and has refused to renounce the use of force to bring it under its control.  Beijing regularly deploys fighter jets, drones and warships around Taiwan, and occasionally balloons, as it keeps up military pressure.  The latest balloon was spotted at 6:21 p.m. on Sunday about 111 kilometers northwest of Keelung City at an altitude of 10,058 meters, said the defense ministry, which releases daily data on China's military presence around Taiwan.

Democratic VP Front-Runner Started a Spy Technology Company Partially Funded by China.  Arizona Democrat Sen. Mark Kelly faced increased scrutiny following news that he may become the Vice President nominee on the 2024 presidential election Democratic ticket.  Kelly found himself on the top of a shortlist of Vice President Kamala Harris's potential running mates, above names such as Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro, Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg and Kentucky Gov. Andy Beshear, The Hill reported.  The increased scrutiny has raised questions about Kelly's dealings with China.  As reported by Fox News, Kelly co-founded World View, a company that originally aimed to provide customers with space tourism using balloons.

Sen. Mark Kelly Owns a CCP-Funded Spy Balloon Company.  Last year, the administration allowed a Chinese Communist Party spy balloon to fly over our secure installations throughout the nation.  As it happens, Sen. Mark Kelly owns a CCP-funded spy balloon company.  Axios reported last year that Tucson-based World View, cofounded by now-U.S. Sen. Mark Kelly in 2012 and a vice presidential prospect, received venture capital from Tencent.  It is among the largest tech companies in Communist China.  He received funding from them in 2013 and 2016.  Tencent, like most Chinese tech giants, is integrally tied to the Chinese Communist Party.  Yes, but World View president and CEO Ryan Hartman told The Arizona Republic in 2020 that Tencent had "zero access, zero input, and zero control" over the company.  They still took money from communist China to create a lucrative business.

Astronaut Mark Kelly, one of the favorites to be Kamala's VP pick, literally owns a spy balloon company funded by a Chinese venture capitalist.  I did NOT have the Democrats' darling politician and favorite to be Kamala's VP, Astronaut Mark Kelly, as a Chinese spy balloon guy on my bingo card.  But, dudes, it's real.  [Tweet]  Yeah, that's a REAL story from the REAL New York Times.

'Conspiracy Theories' Aren't Theoretical Anymore.  A Chinese spy balloon was allowed to cross our continent and collect information from our most sensitive facilities — apparently with the blessing of the Biden administration.  But we're told that the millions of dollars flowing from China to the Biden family had nothing to do with the President's decision to leave the reconnaissance craft unmolested.

The 2024 version:
Another 'spy balloon' discovered off US — CNN.  A group of fishermen have discovered the wreckage of a possible "spy balloon" off the coast of Alaska and it has become the subject of an FBI investigation, CNN reported on Friday.  The shooting down last year of an alleged Chinese spy balloon by the US triggered a major diplomatic incident between Washington and Beijing.  The fishermen brought the suspicious debris onto their boat and will hand it over to FBI agents when they return to port this weekend, the network reported, citing anonymous "sources familiar with the matter."  Based on photographs shared with them by the crew, FBI agents determined that it was "similar enough in appearance to a foreign-government owned surveillance balloon that it warranted further investigation," CNN stated.

Spy Balloon Tracked by Military Not a Spy Balloon After All.  The spy balloon we told you about being tracked by the military this past week wasn't a spy balloon after all.  According to NORAD, the balloon was a hobby balloon.

Pentagon says new high altitude balloon intercepted over US 'likely hobby' craft year after China controversy.  The Pentagon said the latest high altitude balloon detected over the United States is a "likely hobby" craft, about a year after a Chinese spy balloon traversed the continental U.S., sparking controversy.  "After yesterday's fighter intercepts, and in coordination with the Federal Aviation Administration, the North American Aerospace Defense Command monitored the likely hobby balloon via ground radars until it left US airspace overnight," the North American Aerospace Defense Command (NORAD) said Saturday [2/24/2024] in a statement, reported by ABC News and other outlets.  No further information was immediately available.

High-altitude balloon of unknown origin flying over Western US: report.  The US government is tracking a high-altitude balloon of unknown origin — and officials insist that it is not a security threat.  The balloon, flying at an altitude between 43,000 and 45,000 feet, was determined to be "not maneuverable" and poses no threat to national security, the North American Aerospace Defense Command told The Post on Friday.  The nation's airspace watchdog described it as "small" and said its fighter jets intercepted the balloon over Utah.  "NORAD will continue to track and monitor the balloon," the military agency said in a statement.  "The FAA also determined the balloon posed no hazard to flight safety."  The purpose of the balloon is unclear.

The Editor says...
The latest balloon was apparently a much smaller device, not likely to be a Chinese spy balloon.  Earlier reports were a little too confident that this week's balloon was another Chinese device.  That's the hazard in depending on social media for news reports.

Another Likely Chinese Spy Balloon Spotted Over Colorado.  Another spy balloon, likely from China has been spotted over Colorado!  [Numerous tweets]

The Chinese spy balloon: what's a little national security breach between enemies?  Remember the Chinese spy balloon?  The one that flew the length of America while somehow mysteriously hovering over many sensitive military installations?  The one that could not be shot down over Alaska, Montana or Wyoming, because it might land on a protected toad or snail?  There's not much else out there in large parts of the West.  That Chinese spy balloon, the one as big as two buses, the one that was finally shot down over the Atlantic after it had gathered and transmitted to the Chinese all the data the Chinese Communist Party wanted?  The one that insulted and humiliated America?  That one?  Oh yes, there were earlier balloons the government hid from us.  Now we discover we only know about that particular spy balloon because a few Americans, on commercial airliners, and on the ground, saw it and decided it was something about which Americans ought to know.

China Spy Balloon Used an American Internet Service Provider.  US intelligence officials have said that the Chinese spy balloon that flew across the entire country collecting data earlier this year had used an American internet service provider.  NBC News reported this Thursday, citing two current and one former official familiar with the assessment.  The spy balloon connected to a US-based company to send and receive communications from China, primarily related to the balloon's navigation. [...] The internet service provider's name has not been disclosed, and the company denied that the Chinese spy balloon had used its network.

U.S. intelligence officials determined the Chinese spy balloon used a U.S. internet provider to communicate.  U.S. intelligence officials have determined that the Chinese spy balloon that flew across the U.S. this year used an American internet service provider to communicate, according to two current and one former U.S. official familiar with the assessment.  The balloon connected to a U.S.-based company, according to the assessment, to send and receive communications from China, primarily related to its navigation.  Officials familiar with the assessment said it found that the connection allowed the balloon to send burst transmissions, or high-bandwidth collections of data over short periods of time.  The Biden administration sought a highly secretive court order from the federal Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court to collect intelligence about it while it was over the U.S., according to multiple current and former U.S. officials.  How the court ruled has not been disclosed.

Reasons For Biden Admin Delay On Destroying Chinese Spy Balloon Revealed.  The head of North American Aerospace Defense Command (NORAD), Gen. Glen VanHerck, and the top U.S. general at the time spoke over the phone on January 27, which set off an eight-day crisis as the Biden administration frantically tried to respond to a new threat from China, according to NBC News.  According to NBC, Biden administration officials privately regretted that the public uproar and fallout for Beijing's reputation that followed the spy balloon's revelation that shocked the world in early 2023 strained ties with China and exaggerated the real threat to national security that the balloon posed.  According to NBC, which cited a number of current and former administration and congressional officials, the administration originally intended to hide the balloon's existence from Congress and the general public.  "Before it was spotted publicly, there was the intention to study it and let it pass over and not ever tell anyone about it," one former senior U.S. official briefed on the situation told NBC.

Fresh Chinese Spy Balloon News Reveals Cover-Up Attempt, Biden Doing China's Bidding.  [Scroll down]  If the goal was to collect intelligence, why would the existence of the balloon need to be kept secret from Congress?  Typically, national security issues are disclosed to the "gang of eight," a select group of lawmakers who offer a bridge between the administration and the broader group of representatives and senators.  There would be no practical reason to hide the matter from Congress, which leaves only a political reason:  Biden and company wanted to avoid the embarrassment of the public finding out that they let a Chinese spy balloon complete its mission without reacting.  Further, the balloon was set to self-destruct anyway. [...] In other words, Biden's supposedly heroic shoot-down was simply doing the bidding of China.  They wanted it to be destroyed after it passed over the United States, likely to conceal whatever technology was being used.

Duke Energy Removes Chinese Batteries From Marine Base Amid Lawmakers' Security Concerns.  Sen. Marco Rubio of Florida and more than two dozen other Republican lawmakers sent a letter to Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin earlier this month, demanding the removal of a Duke Energy-supplied Chinese battery installation at the Marine Corps base at Camp Lejeune, North Carolina, and demanding an investigation into whether similar installations have been placed on other bases.  The batteries, which were removed, were manufactured by a Chinese Communist Party-supported company, Contemporary Amperex Technology Co.  Ltd., the world's largest battery manufacturer.  Duke Energy won the $22 million contract to construct Camp Lejeune's microgrid, complete with five megawatts of natural gas and an 11-megawatt battery storage system.  The installation integrated the base's existing solar array with the abilities to start up without an external power source, to receive prompt updates on the power needs of the base, and to remove itself from the region's power grid if necessary.

CCP-Tied Firm Slated To Build Massive Facility Near Sensitive US Military Sites.  The Chinese parent of a firm slated to develop a manufacturing facility near several Midwest military bases has extensive ties to the Chinese Communist Party (CCP), according to a Daily Caller News Foundation investigation based on research conducted by The Heritage Foundation Oversight Project and Heritage Action.  Cnano Technology USA Inc. (Cnano USA) plans to invest in a 333,000-square-foot facility in Johnson County, Kansas, that will manufacture liquid conductive paste for electric vehicle batteries and other devices, according to an August announcement from the Kansas City Area Development Council, which partnered with the state and other parties to attract the firm to Kansas.  Cnano USA's $95 million facility will be built approximately 35 miles from Fort Leavenworth, and 70 miles from the "only operational base for the B-2," Whiteman Air Force Base.

Threats to the United States now at a Whole New Level.  The recent surge of Chinese males crossing the border into the U.S. border suggests disciplined land-based military operations may be in the offing.  Recently Rep. Mark Green (R-TN) reported that "10,000-plus" Chinese nationals have been apprehended in fiscal 2023, a massive 300% increase from the year earlier.  It is well-known that the U.S. electric grid can be shut down for years by an EMP attack or by destroying just nine critical nodes.  Just fifteen years ago spies from China and Russia were found on a mission to map the U.S. power grid — its infrastructure and nodes.  So, it's essential to deploy the American military to protect the American electric grid — now.

The Editor says...
I have doubts about the effectiveness of an EMP attack — which has never been tried, as far as we know, yet everyone's absolutely sure it will be devastating.  Sabotage is another matter, but it should only take weeks, not years, to make electricity great again.

America's Armageddon.  [Scroll down]  Given we now have 1.5 million illegal got aways, plus thousands of Chinese nationals — across our country — we must acknowledge we could have an army of over 30,000 such insurgents in each of our fifty states.  Even if we imagine only 1% (300) of these illegal got aways and Chinese nationals are insurgents, if they decided to undertake either a coordinated or uncoordinated actions to sabotage and subvert our country, they could cause extreme harm, disruption, and destruction.  A mere 300 insurgents would suck up most of the any state's law enforcement and emergency response resources to handle, address, and stem complete chaos, panic, and anarchy.  We could split the difference, and imagine 10% or 3000, of the fuller 30,000 being insurgents.  Why?  Because these individuals were aided by the cartels, who are working with China, and therefore have a mission, a purpose, to their entry.  What is it?  And let's not forget, they're still coming over the border!

Milley, who previously vowed to warn Chinese communists ahead of American attack, claims Chinese spy balloon collected no evidence.  Gen. Mark Milley, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, claimed in an interview over the weekend that the infamous 200-foot Chinese spy balloon, which flew across the continental United States before ultimately being shot down over the Atlantic Ocean on Feb. 4, 2023, hadn't actually done any spying.  Milley, who has previously attempted to put Chinese communists' nerves at ease — even at the potential expense of an American advantage — told "CBS News Sunday Morning" that the spy balloon likely hadn't fulfilled its singular purpose while darting across the very superpower China seeks to replace.  "The intelligence community, their assessment — and it's a high-confidence assessment — [is] that there was no intelligence collection by that balloon," said Milley, invoking the confidence of the same community that continues to cast doubt on the Wuhan lab origins of COVID-19 and whose top alumni suggested the Hunter Biden laptop was Russian disinformation.

Chinese 'spy balloon' wasn't spying — US military chief.  A so-called Chinese "spy balloon" shot down off the east coast of the US in February did not actually collect any intelligence, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Gen. Mark Milley told CBS News on Sunday.  Beijing insisted from the outset that the balloon was not a surveillance craft.  "The intelligence community, their assessment — and it's a high-confidence assessment — [is] that there was no intelligence collection by that balloon," Milley told the American broadcaster.  The balloon in question appeared in the sky over Alaska in January, before drifting south and crossing the US. Its high-altitude flight ultimately ended when it was shot down off the coast of South Carolina in early February.  Throughout its journey and for months afterwards, US officials claimed that the balloon was sent across the US to gather intelligence for Beijing.

Republicans [want] to find out if [the] Secretary of State 'obstructed' sanctioning China after [the] spy balloon incident.  After the State Department repeatedly failed to comply with documents requests, House Foreign Affairs Chairman Michael McCaul is subpoenaing the materials related to the Chinese spy balloon incident.  McCaul is alleging that Secretary of State Antony Blinken did not use sanctions and export controls to properly counter 'growing aggression' by the Chinese Communist Party (CCP).  The Foreign Affairs chairman is demanding the Department hand over documents related to 'reported obstruction' for using these national security tools.

Ri-i-i-ight.
Chinese spy balloon used American-made parts, did not transmit data: Officials.  The Chinese spy balloon that was shot down over the Atlantic Ocean in early February was built — at least partly — using American off-the-shelf parts, a U.S. official has confirmed to ABC News.  A second U.S. official was also able to confirm that the balloon did not appear to have transmitted any of the data it collected on its journey above North America, as was initially reported by the Wall Street Journal.

The Editor says...
It is far more believable that the Chinese spy balloon was shot down after it had finished its mission, that all the government cover stories are lies, and that Joe Biden exchanged the balloon's safety (while it was over the continental U.S.) for substantial bribes.

Another "Balloon" [is] Flying Over Montana.  Another "balloon", probably another Chinese spy balloon is flying over Montana and once again the China owned Biden regime is refusing to shoot it down.  The Democrats are America's version of the CCP.  [Tweets]

Report: Joe Biden Spills 'Sensitive' Intelligence about Chinese Spy Balloon to Campaign Donors.  President Joe Biden spilled "sensitive" United States intelligence about China to campaign donors at a recent event in California, according to a report.  At the fundraiser in California, Biden revealed to attendees what the U.S. intelligence agencies had learned about the Chinese spy balloon incident earlier this year, reportedly surprising U.S. officials.  The New York Times reported that at the fundraiser, Biden "set off into what appeared to be an unplanned riff" about the spy balloon incident, "revealing what United States intelligence agencies had learned about the internal confusion in Beijing during the incident."

Biden Claims Chinese Spy Balloon Was "Unintentional".  I certainly hope Joe Biden is on Communist China's payroll.  It would be embarrassing if he were spouting Chinese Communist propaganda this shamelessly blatant free of charge. [...] China has claimed that its spy balloon just accidentally ended up in Montana.  Biden appears to be echoing its dishonest lies.  It's also the opposite message of the one that Secretary of State Blinken claimed to be sending on his visit to China.

Joe Biden: Our First Chinese President.  Recall that earlier this year, Beijing flew a spy balloon right over US territory, including sensitive military installations.  It crossed the entire continent, during which time it was gathering sensitive intelligence and presumably phoning all of it home to its communist masters in China.  Biden waited til it had flown from coast to coast before allowing it to be shot down.  Then this past weekend while on a trip to visit our closest allies, who are threatened by Xi Jinping's ambitions, he downplayed the whole thing as "silly," practically apologizing to China.  China's reply was curt as usual, asking the whole world if Biden's words mean anything at all.  The media, for its part, won't make all of this what it is — which is the weakest performance on the world stage by an American president in decades if not ever.  Even Jimmy Carter probably would've shot that balloon down before it beamed its intel back.

Misplaced Biden Priorities in the Dept of Defense.  Consider these actions, all of which have made America much weaker: [...] [#3] The Chinese balloon caper.  The Chinese balloon story first broke on 2 February when the Billings Gazette exposed the Biden administration's political gamble to ignore the balloon's intrusion into US airspace (a direct violation of US sovereignty).  Speculation is rampant about the balloon's mission payload:  surveillance (PHOTINT, multi-INT, etc.), a simple test-run for other types of balloon missions, collecting data on US surveillance and communications systems, and a psychological warfare mission.  The latter involves testing our resolve, showing the world that China "owns" Washington, exposing the weakness of the current administration in the face of foreign pressure, psychologically conditioning Americans to "eventual Chinese hegemony," etc.  The most likely mission was surveillance, and giving that Chinese balloon free access to traverse the continental US to collect data on US bases is just the latest indication that Biden et al could care less about US national security.

Biden Dismisses Chinese Spying as "Silly Balloon".  The Biden administration tried to cover up China's espionage.  It was only discovered because of a viral video out of Montana.  Once the scandal broke, the Biden administration put on a show of "taking it seriously."  Since then it's been confirmed that it was staged for the benefit of the American public. [...] The diplomatic relationship with China is managed by Bejing saying, "Jump" and Biden sending emissaries to carefully negotiate how high he will be expected to leap.  After several weeks, China finally agrees to state the exact height of the jump as a non-negotiable set of statements.  But contrast this moment of relative honesty from Biden with his previous butch address and posturing about the spy balloon.  It was all lie.  Like everything else.

Biden Capitulates to China.  Bizarrely, the flight of the Chinese military spy balloon over the U.S. may be the occasion for U.S. concessions to Beijing, rather than the other way around.  According to a new report from Reuters, the State Department's "China House" team was ordered to stand down on some long-planned measures targeting the Chinese Communist Party's malfeasance, so that Secretary of State Antony Blinken can secure the trip to China that he had to cancel after the balloon incident.  Citing four State Department sources and internal emails, Reuters reveals that Deputy Secretary of State Wendy Sherman ordered this shift to a policy that favors "engagement" with China.  The head of China House, the department's new China-policy coordination cell, told State Department staff members in March that Sherman said the department would "move on" from the balloon incident.

Emails Show Biden State Department Sought to Protect China During Spy-Balloon Fiasco.  With so much domestic rancor going on as the next election season heats up, it's worth remembering that there are serious foreign policy issues to deal with.  It's also worth remembering that the Biden administration is doing its level best to screw every single one of them up.  A new report backed by leaked emails and inside sources is shedding light on a shocking policy Joe Biden is pursuing in regard to China.  According to Reuters, during the Chinese spy balloon fiasco that captivated the nation in early 2023, embattled Secretary of State Antony Blinken was actually seeking to protect the communists.

We're apparently out of the balloon-shooting business.  It's been a while since we had a good mystery balloon passing through US airspace story, so we might as well touch on this one while we have the chance.  Something has once again passed over the Hawaiian Islands at an altitude of roughly 36,000 feet.  It reportedly looked like a balloon, but the Defense Department once again can't say what it was with any certainty.  But even without knowing, they felt confident in saying that it was not being controlled by any "foreign or adversarial actor."  In fact, it didn't appear to be demonstrating any controlled movement.  They sent some fighters up to check it out, but we're not even being told how big it was.  Since it reportedly didn't pass over any sensitive military installations, and it's currently heading toward Mexico, it was determined that it wouldn't be shot down.

Leaked U.S. intelligence reveals military was aware of FOUR more Chinese spy balloons.  Top-secret intelligence documents allegedly leaked by Massachusetts Air National Guardsman Jack Teixeira reveal that U.S. intelligence agencies were aware of up to four more Chinese spy balloons in addition to the one that flew over the country earlier this year.  One balloon flew over a U.S. carrier strike group, another, code named Bulger-21 by U.S. officials, circumnavigated the Earth from Dec 2021 until May 2022, a third named Accardo-21 is also mentioned in the documents and a fourth is said to have crashed in the South China sea.  The documents also identify the balloon that crossed the continental U.S. in January and February before being shot down off the coast of South Carolina was code-named Killeen-23.

This is why the balloon should have been shot down over Alaska.
Chinese spy balloon gathered intelligence from sensitive U.S. military sites, despite U.S. efforts to block it.  The Chinese spy balloon that flew across the U.S. was able to gather intelligence from several sensitive American military sites, despite the Biden administration's efforts to block it from doing so, according to two current senior U.S. officials and one former senior administration official.  China was able to control the balloon so it could make multiple passes over some of the sites (at times flying figure-eight formations) and transmit the information it collected back to Beijing in real time, the three officials said.  The intelligence China collected was mostly from electronic signals, which can be picked up from weapons systems or include communications from base personnel, rather than images, the officials said.

Biden Regime Now Releasing Hordes of Chinese Illegal Aliens Into US.  The Biden Regime is now releasing hordes of Chinese illegal aliens into the United States with NTAs (notice to appear).  Fox News captured the Chinese illegals being released to an NGO in Brownsville, Texas on Tuesday.  The illegals were given NTAs because there are so many crossing into the US and no more space to house them, according to Fox News.  Border Patrol says the number of Chinese nationals illegally crossing the border has recently spiked.  Border Patrol has encountered over 4,300 Chinese illegals in 2023 — up from 2,176 in 2022 and 450 in 2021.

TikTok is being investigated by Justice Dep't for spying on journalists.  The United States Department of Justice is investigating ByteDance, the Chinese company that owns TikTok, for spying on American citizens, including several journalists.  ByteDance is based in Beijing, headquartered in the Cayman Islands and said to be close with Communist Chinese government.  The company admitted in December it had inappropriately acquired the data of American TikTok users, including at least two reporters, according to the New York Times.

Twelve reasons things are not going well in America.  [#7]  In 2018, there were estimated 2.5 million Chinese people in the US.  There is a Chinese statute called the National Intelligence law mandating that all Chinese nationals anywhere in the world must obey any orders from Chinese intelligence.  This means that all Chinese nationals, whether tourists or students, anywhere in the world, are statutory spies awaiting orders from home.

Space Force chief says Beijing is developing anti-satellite missiles, electronic jammers and lasers.  China has launched dozens of satellites in the past six months and the People's Liberation Army now has 347 orbiting craft that can gather intelligence on American armed forces, according to the head of the U.S. Space Force.  Gen. Chance Saltzman told senators that Beijing was the 'most immediate threat' to U.S. operations as it develops lasers to disrupt satellite sensors, electronic warfare jammers and even builds craft that could grab and move rival orbiting platforms out of position.  It is all part of its plan for a fully modernized, world-class military designed to achieve China's 'Space Dream' of being the most powerful nation in space by 2045, he said.

Chinese satellite gathering intel for Pearl Harbor-style hypersonic missile attack by using green lasers, claim experts.  China used green lasers fired from satellites to gather intelligence for a surprise hypersonic missile attack on Hawaii, it has been warned.  The satellite was recorded flashing lasers for a fraction of a second by a livestream camera attached to a telescope on top of a mountain on one of the islands.  Initially the lights were thought to come from a NASA satellite before it was finally established it was a Chinese pollution monitoring satellite the Daqi-1.  But questions immediately began to be raised about why the Chinese would feel it necessary to monitor pollution in Hawaii, given the large US military presence there.  And it comes just weeks after China flew a giant balloon over the US — which was widely understood to be a spy tool even as Beijing claimed it was a civilian weather airship.

'Anonymous' Biden Official Who Lied to Press About Trump-Era Spy Balloons Is Exposed.  Remember the Chinese spy balloon fiasco?  President Joe Biden allowed his nation's top geopolitical foe to fly a massive spy-craft over the entire continental United States.  In the end, the only retribution exacted was to shoot it down after it had completed its mission and transmitted its data.  It was an embarrassing scene, with the president's indecisiveness on full display, and that meant the White House had to do something to change the subject.  That came by way of a Pentagon official speaking on background to a group of reporters, claiming that three Chinese spy balloons traversed the United States during the Trump administration.  The suggestion was clearly that Trump was a coward who had let the Chinese run over him.  It was only later that it was revealed that the balloons in question were only over US territory for a matter of minutes (one of them off the coast of Hawaii) and that their presence wasn't even discovered until years after Trump left office.  The Pentagon refused to identify the official who gave the misleading commentary to the press, but two Republican senators have discovered who he is.

Biden Official Leaked Classified Info About Trump-Era Chinese Spy Balloons To Deflect Criticism of Admin, Senators Say.  Pentagon official Colin Kahl leaked classified information about the Chinese spy balloon to deflect blame about the Biden administration's mishandling of the situation, according to two Republican senators.  Kahl, whom President Joe Biden appointed his under secretary of defense for policy, provided reporters with classified information — disclosing that CCP spy balloons may have infiltrated the United States during the Trump administration — Sens. Roger Wicker (R., Miss.) and Marco Rubio (R., Fla.) allege.  This is the first time that Kahl has been named as the source of these leaks, which were provided to reporters and appeared in news stories at CNN, Bloomberg, and the Washington Post, in an apparent attempt to shift blame away from Biden after the administration allowed the Chinese spy balloon to traverse the entire United States before shooting it down.  While doing so, he omitted the fact that the prior Chinese balloons were only discovered much later and the Trump administration did not have an opportunity to respond at the time.

Just how unjust is our system of justice?  China is our most dangerous adversary, not Russia.  Biden is a controlled asset of the CCP.  That should be obvious to everyone by now.  The American president is doing China's bidding but he owes those Ukrainian oligarchs a great deal for all the millions they funneled to the Biden family.  We American citizens are toast unless the squishy Republicans develop a spine.

Canada Discovers 'Chinese Buoys' In The Arctic That Could Be Tracking US Nuclear Submarines In The Region.  The Canadian military discovered and retrieved Chinese monitoring buoys from the Arctic as part of 'Operation Limpid,' which is a continuous effort to provide early identification of threats to Canada's security by its military forces, The Globe and Mail reported.  The revelation would likely put Beijing's surveillance activities under the scanner again, as it comes weeks after the US Air Force shot down an alleged Chinese spy balloon with the support of the Royal Canadian Air Force.  The balloon had flown over Alaska and Canada before entering US airspace.  The Canadian military or government has not admitted that the retrieved buoys were being used for surveillance.  However, as soon as the announcement was made, it triggered a wave of speculations that the dual-use monitoring buoys could have been planted for spying.

Federal agencies have 30 days to remove TikTok from government-issued devices, White House says.  The White House announced on Monday that it was giving federal agencies 30 days to remove TikTok from all government-issued devices.  Monday's move arrives as the popular Chinese-owned social media app faces increased scrutiny in Washington and in states across the country over security concerns — with critics claiming that the Chinese government could use TikTok to gain access to private user data or spread misinformation.  TikTok is already not allowed on White House devices — and some other federal agencies, including the Department of Defense and Department of Homeland Security, also have similar restrictions in place.  Now, remaining federal agencies will follow.

China's secret police actively hunting people on US soil.  The revelations read like an overwrought spy thriller: secret foreign police stations in Manhattan, shady foreign security thugs hunting American residents in American neighborhoods.  But they weren't fiction: Following stories in The [New York] Post, last month The New York Times reported that the FBI raided a non-descript building in Chinatown where the innocent-looking community association on the third floor hid a nefarious surprise — an unauthorized "police service center" linked to the Chinese Communist Party.  That secret police station is a terrifying threat to Chinese-Americans, other CCP targets — and American sovereignty itself.

Covert Chinese Police Station in NYC Closed Following FBI Raid.  A covert police station located in New York City that was being run by the Chinese government has closed after the FBI raided the location in recent months, a report noted on Friday [2/3/2023].  The Epoch Times quoted a U.S. State Department official as having confirmed the operation and the station's closure.  "The FBI has confirmed that the 'overseas police station' in New York linked to Fuzhou has closed," a State Dept. official confirmed in an email.  "We continue to be concerned about PRC [People's Republic of China] transnational repression efforts around the world and are also coordinating with allies and partners on this issue."

Commie Invasion! Two More Secret Chinese Police Stations Discovered, This Time in L.A..  The non-profit group Safeguard Defenders just located 43 more secret commie Chinese police stations across the world, and two are in Los Angeles.  We already knew about the one located in New York City.  There are now more than 100 secret Chinese commie police stations operating in 53 countries.  There are five in Canada, which means there are now eight in North America that we know of.  [Tweet]  The Chinese claim the police stations are for Chinese nationals to renew their driver's licenses and stop "online fraud."  Yet, as per the Spain-based Safeguard Defenders, the police stations have used nefarious means to "convince" roughly 230,000 people to "voluntarily" return to China.  The police stations are also keeping tabs on Chinese nationals who speak out against the commie regime.

Experts, GOP Reps Call On The Biden Admin To Shut Down A Secret Chinese Police Station In NYC.  The U.S. government must immediately investigate and shutter the recently discovered overseas Chinese government police station in New York City for potential violation of U.S. laws, several experts told the Daily Caller News Foundation.  In 2022, the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) established secret police stations in over 100 cities around the world to conduct intimidation and harassment operations against overseas Chinese, human rights organization Safeguard Defenders revealed in a September report.  While other countries have announced probes into the alleged police stations, the location within American Changle Association — a Chinatown community organization in New York City — continues to operate outside legal boundaries and should be shut down, experts told the DCNF.  "This is a disgrace.  How [...] could they openly have these communist police stations in our country?" Beau Dietl, a retired NYPD detective and current head of Beau Dietl & Associates private investigation firm, told the DCNF.

Chinese Police Overseas NY Outpost Can Be Tool for Sabotage in US: Expert.  A report emerged in September that said Chinese authorities have opened 110 police service centers outside of mainland China — including one in New York City — that repatriate Chinese people using coercion, according to a security policy expert, but which also may be used for sabotage or espionage.  Frank Gaffney, the executive chairman at the Washington-based Center for Security Policy, said that as part of the Chinese Communist Party's (CCP) global transnational repression those service centers can be tools to conduct espionage and sabotage work.  "The Chinese are not simply forcing people to go back to China and stand trial, but they may be giving them directions to do other things," such as espionage, recruitment, influence operations, sabotage, or subversion, Gaffney told the "China in Focus" program on NTD news.  He said those are the sorts of things we need to "ensure do not continue."

China's Spying Goes Far Beyond Balloons.  There is something intrusive about a foreign object the width of several school buses entering my personal space that demands a decisive response.  Given the sparse population of Montana, it seemed the appropriate time to dispatch it while above remote territory with the least risk to bystanders below.  The concern wasn't so much that China was gathering intelligence from above as some other potential for a weaponized payload like explosives, bioweapons, or an electromagnetic pulse device.  The Chinese have no shortage of satellites or technology required to spy on Americans.  Most Americans have willingly adopted Chinese manufactured and even branded surveillance technology into their homes, myself included. [...] At some point, my wife found a Shark Robotic vacuum on clearance at the store.  Excitedly, she set it up on our home network, and it went to work mapping out its cleaning path.  Unfortunately, the Firewalla began to set off alarms at odd times, suggesting that the Shark Vacuum was uploading a data feed to Shenzen, China.  Regardless of how innocuous this could be, I find no reason why any home appliance needs to send data it collects in my home to servers in China.  I took the Shark vacuum off our network, and we got rid of it.  We exchanged it for a different model with no data connection [...]

Close-Up, High Resolution Photos Of Chinese Spy Balloon In Flight Released By US Military.  The U.S. military has released a close-up photograph of a Chinese spy balloon captured mid-air by a U-2 spy plane.  The images were taken on Feb. 3 as the balloon was flying at 60,000 feet over the American Midwest, with the U-2 plane trailing it across the continental United States.  The balloon's white fabric shows a silhouette of the U-2 aircraft, and underneath it is the payload containing reconnaissance sensors, antennae, and solar power panels.

The Editor says...
There is only one such picture in the article above, regardless of what the headline says.  But the photo clearly shows the U-2 was flying well above the balloon.  That alone is impressive.  But what's really surprising is that the U.S. military released hi-resolution pictures of anything.  As I've said a few times before, we have clearer footage of the bombing runs in World War Two than the bombing in the Persian Gulf area in 2002.

Could the 'Chinese Spy Balloon' Have Been a US Spy Balloon?  Still, unanswered questions remain since Montanans first gazed up at the sky above in Billings, Montana and saw a giant balloon floating overhead on February 1.  The answers provided by the Biden administration have been entirely unsatisfactory; ranging from absurd and illogical to even contradictory at times.  The administration immediately claimed the balloon was a Chinese Spy Balloon, and yet when asked the obvious question — why was it not shot down — the administration responded that the debris could harm civilians on the ground.  The same administration just sat idly by as deadly vinyl chloride was recently lit on fire in Palestine, Ohio — spewing poisonous gases into the air.  That harm to nearby residents seems to be of little concern to the Biden administration.

Here We Go Again: Another 'Large White Balloon' Spotted.  There are now new reports of a large white balloon spotted about 594 miles northeast of Honolulu, Hawaii.  The Oakland Oceanic Air Traffic Control was reporting sightings of the balloon, with multiple commercial pilots saying they'd seen it.  Reports were that it was flying at an altitude of 40,000 to 50,000 feet.  Pilots were advised to report if they saw the object.  [Tweets]

One More Kill and Biden Is an Ace.  Joe Biden (call sign: Lying Dog-Faced Pony Soldier) will sweep the skies of America and Canada and he'll shoot down whatever is floating.  Joe admitted that NORAD didn't know what they shot down over Alaska.  It could have been Carl, Doug, and Russell.  It could have been a 5-cent Ralph's Grocery Bag, a Hefty garbage bag, a guy tied to a chair under party balloons, a used car dealership balloon man, or a $12 hobby balloon.

US military ends search for balloons shot down over Alaska and Lake Huron.  The search for small balloons shot down recently by US and Canadian fighter jets over Alaska and Lake Huron has been called off, military commanders have said, days after balloon hobbyists in northern Illinois indicated that one of the stray unidentified flying objects could belong to their group.  In a joint statement released at 10 pm on Friday, the North American aerospace defense command (Norand) and the US northern command said they had recommended calling off the search because the objects were believed to have landed in difficult terrain.  The US secretary of defense, Lloyd Austin, had approved the defense agencies' recommendation.  The agencies' statement said: "Search operations conclude today near Deadhorse, Alaska, and on Lake Huron, as search activities have discovered no debris from airborne objects shot down on" 10 and 12 February after "a variety of capabilities, including airborne imagery and sensors, surface sensors and inspections, and subsurface scans" had failed to locate debris.

Chinese spy balloon recovery mission completed, military mum on investigation.  The U.S. military has finished recovering parts of the Chinese spy balloon shot down off the South Carolina coast.  The joint Navy, Coast Guard and FBI operation concluded Thursday, the Defense Department's U.S. Northern Command said Friday in a statement.  The final pieces were transported from the crash site to FBI headquarters in Virginia.  Though China maintains the balloon was a weather monitoring device that blew off course, U.S. leaders said recovery operations confirmed it was designed for surveillance.  Northern Command said the FBI was conducting "counterintelligence exploitation."  The payload included "electronics and optics," according to White House national security spokesman John Kirby.  He did not go into specifics.

The Week in Pictures: Balloon Payment Edition.  There is something fitting that an administration that emits mostly hot air would become obsessed with balloons.  And if we're not running low on munitions having shipped off so much of our inventory to Ukraine, shooting down weather balloons with $500,000 air-to-air missiles will surely finish the job of depleting our stocks.

UFO shot down by $400K US missile may have been a $12 hobby balloon: report.  One of the UFOs shot down last weekend by the US Air Force with a $400,000 missile may have simply been a $12 balloon belonging to an Illinois enthusiast club, a report said.  The Northern Illinois Bottlecap Balloon Brigade told Aviation Week on Thursday that it fears one of its diligently-tracked gasbags that recently went missing was mistaken as the mystery object taken out by the military over Canada on Saturday [2/11/2023].  The Pico Balloon — a silver-coated, cylindrically shaped object — reported its last position at 38,910 ft. off the west coast of Alaska on Friday.  By Saturday, based on the balloon's projected path, it would have been over the central part of the Yukon Territory around the same time a military Lockheed Martin F-22 shot down an unidentified object of a similar description and altitude in the same Canadian vicinity, the outlet reported.

What Biden Appears to Have Shot Down Over Lake Huron Is Clown-Show Stuff.  Do we finally have an explanation for why the Biden administration has been so tight-lipped about the unidentified flying objects shot down more recently?  It wasn't until Thursday that the president finally addressed the matter, providing essentially no details as to what was intercepted and downed in the weeks prior.  That was in stark contrast to the incessant bragging about the downing of a Chinese spy balloon off the coast of South Carolina.  So why all the secrecy?  The answer seems to be that the truth is incredibly embarrassing.  [Tweet]

Constant Government Lies Spark Resistance Movements.  In the digital public square of social media, I have seen a noticeable uptick in biting memes and political cartoons calling out the U.S. government for its constant lies.  In one example, a cyber-billboard screams, "I don't know if I'm being distracted by vaccine deaths so I don't notice inflation, or if inflation is the distraction to Ukraine money laundering, or if Ukraine is a distraction for rampant pedophilia, or if pedos are distracting me from election fraud."  Clearly, that was produced before the great balloon scare gripped the nation. [...] What I see today is a bubbling movement of frustration and anger that is as acidic as anything I've come across. [...] Whether it is White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre claiming that Slow Joe is the "best communicator" around; Treasury secretary Janet Yellen insisting for over a year that skyrocketing inflation would be "transitory"; government economists redefining words to avoid admitting that we're in a recession; Homeland Security secretary Alejandro Mayorkas flat-out lying about the southern border being "secure"; or former chief of staff Ron Klain preposterously labeling the disastrous Afghanistan withdrawal, in which thirteen U.S. servicemembers lost their lives for no reason, a "tremendous humanitarian achievement," the people occupying the highest positions of power and authority in the U.S. government do not bat an eye while telling the American people the most outrageous falsehoods drenched in risibly nauseating sanctimony.

I hope it's space aliens, but I doubt it.  Suddenly our skies are filled with threatening UFOs — that absolutely must be shot down. [...] Let's apply [Occam's] razor to our current debate about what's going on in the battle raging over North America.  Could China have sent the UFOs?  Has the country that steals its technology from us come up with a super-secret aircraft — with leap-ahead technology?  If so, would the Chinese use such an aircraft to do what they've already successfully done with a balloon?  Did Russia send the UFOs?  Have the Russians developed a highly advanced aerospace technology that we are unaware of?  Would the country that started a three-week war with Ukraine — which is approaching the one-year mark — use that technology on us rather than on the country they're currently losing to? [...] Or is the Biden administration feeding us a line?  Is Joe Biden shooting down weather balloons with half-a-million-dollar missiles to pose as alert, on the job, and in control — between trips to Baskin-Robbins?  What seems more likely:
  •   a sudden advancement in Chinese or Russian aerospace technology that doesn't use propellers, jets, rockets, or lighter-than-air gases;
  •   space aliens who can travel across the galaxy, but can't avoid crashing once they arrive; or
  •   a government hoax to cover up incompetence?

Balloon follies.  Literally all aspects of the recent "Balloon Gate Saga" are utterly preposterous.  First, the U.S. lets a suspected Chinese spy balloon slowly traverse the length and breadth of the country before finally shooting it down over the Atlantic Ocean off the coast of South Carolina.  After it had several days to leisurely transmit the intelligence it gathered back home to the Chinese Communist Party.  Yet now the Biden administration, perhaps chagrined, is blasting anything and everything out of the sky, even while acknowledging that these "unidentified flying objects" could be our own weather service — or corporate — balloons.  What [...]?!  Wouldn't/shouldn't we know if they were?  Weather Service balloons are launched by another branch of government, one closely related to the Department of Defense... that shot them down.  The U.S. government was, apparently, unable to detect the giant Chinese spy balloon.  That was left to citizens of Montana, who happened to look up into the clear blue sky.  The official explanation for why the government was picking up so many unidentified objects is that, prior to this event, it was only looking for larger objects, and has since tweaked its radar so as to detect smaller objects.  You've got to be kidding me.

From Sound Stage, Joe Biden Says U.S. Military Shot Down Balloons Belonging to "private companies, recreation, and research institutions".  Apparently almost every media outlet buried the lead.  According to analysis from combined intelligence operations of the U.S government, last week the Biden administration ordered U.S. military fighter jets to launch missiles and shoot down of what is now believed to be "balloons belonging to private companies, recreation, or research institutions."

They came in peace.  Forgive me for repeating myself — the Biden administration intended to let the Chinese spy balloon traverse the United States and surveil some of our most secure war-fighting facilities without obstruction or notice.  It was only exposed to the public by the efforts of Chase Doak and the Billings Gazette as it crossed Montana.  As we reacted with incredulity, the administration woke the president and shot the balloon down off the coast of South Carolina.  Secretary of State Antony Blinken intended to meet with his Chinese counterpart that weekend, but was embarrassed into postponing the jamboree in Beijing.  Since then NORAD has shot down three balloons of apparently unknown origin over Canada and the United States.  The Pentagon did not rule out the possibility that they were piloted by aliens.  All the while, President Biden has remained dormant and/or mute.  Orson Welles could not be reached for comment.

Biden Finally Speaks on Shootdown of Three 'Objects,' but Snaps at Reporters' Questions.  Joe Biden has finally been forced into making comments on the three "objects" that the U.S. shot down over the past weekend.  What's been glaring has been Biden's failure to respond or speak to the shootdowns and the many questions that the American people have had about the actions.  We heard from the Secretary of Defense.  We heard from the NORAD Commander.  We heard from White House Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre who had trouble describing what NORAD was and called Canada, "Canadia."  But we didn't hear from Biden.  So on Thursday, he finally said he would be delivering remarks on the subject.  But when he did finally speak on it, Biden didn't say much more than we already knew — and he was, typically, a little late for his remarks.  Biden said that they still don't have any further information on the objects.  He said there wasn't anything to indicate that they were surveillance craft or from China as yet.  [Tweet]

Chinese Spy Balloon Had Maneuvering Ability and Similarities to Google AI Balloon Project: Ex-DoD Official.  The Chinese spy balloon had maneuvering capability and had similarities to the Google balloon project Loon, which utilized AI analytics in its operations, according to Col. (Ret.) John Mills, an author and former director of cybersecurity policy, strategy, and international affairs at the Department of Defense.  "What's very interesting is in 2012, I was at Google and Google briefed me on Project Loon, their balloon project.  And they use their advanced AI and analytics to raise and lower the balloon and they could maintain the position of a balloon by raising and lowering it.  And they could also maneuver it," Mills said in an interview recorded on Feb. 9 on China in Focus, a show on NTD TV, The Epoch Times' sister media.  He said throughout the "spy balloon" episode that the Department of Defense has very clearly said that the Chinese balloon had maneuvering capability.  The Chinese regime maintained that it was a runaway weather balloon, but the U.S. administration has refuted such claims.

Three Objects Shot Down Were 'Most Likely Balloons' Not Tied to Chinese Surveillance.  President Joe Biden said Thursday that the three most recent objects he ordered to be shot down were "most likely balloons" not tied to Chinese surveillance.  "We don't yet know exactly what these three objects were.  But nothing, nothing right now suggests they were related to Chinese spy balloon programs or they were surveillance vehicles from other any other country.  The intelligence community's current assessment is that these three objects were most likely balloons tied to private companies, recreation or research institutions studying weather or conducting other scientific research," he said.

White House Demands Media 'Comply,' Hauls Specific Reporters Out Of Biden's UFO Brief.  The White House heavily controlled which reporters had access to President Joe Biden's remarks on "aerial objects" Thursday, telling the media to "comply," and asking reporters — including the Daily Caller's correspondent — to leave the room.  Biden's remarks were scheduled for 2:00 p.m., and reporters were notified less than an hour before that they would need a "pre-credentialed" pass to attend the press conference.  Biden's team walked the press over to the South Court Auditorium, where the remarks were to be delivered, at approximately 1:50 p.m.  When reporters entered the auditorium, White House staff approached every correspondent and pressed each of them to show an email containing a "pre-credential," as there was not enough space in the room.

A brief recap:
Destroying Meritocracy Is Deadly.  This month, the Defense Department officials apparently allowed a series of surveillance balloons to enter U.S. airspace.  President Joe Biden claims he was advised by the military not to shoot down a Chinese survival balloon craft as it crossed with impunity much of the United States.  In the aftermath, Pentagon spokespeople gave incomplete, mutually contradictory, and absurd explanations for these serial violations of U.S. airspace, most likely perpetrated by the Chinese communist government.

WH press secretary torched for fumbling her way through explanation on airborne object over Canada: 'Brutal.  White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre was called out over the weekend after struggling to explain why the U.S. military shot down an unidentified airborne object over Canada.  A "high-altitude airborne object" over Northern Canada was shot down by an F-22 fighter jet at the directive of President Biden, a North American Aerospace Defense Command [NORAD] official confirmed in a statement to Fox News Digital.  The incident came one day after the United States shot down an unidentified object over northern Alaska on Friday that entered U.S. airspace before it was detected and a week after the U.S. shot down a Chinese surveillance balloon spotted off the coast of South Carolina.  The White House confirmed President Biden authorized for the object to be shot down, but did not elaborate further.'

Biden says 3 UFOs [were] shot down after spy balloon not related to China program.  President Biden told Americans Thursday there was no evidence a trio of unidentified flying objects shot down following the downing of a Chinese spy balloon were nefarious — in his first comments on the unprecedented military action in North American airspace after five full days of silence.  White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre promised Biden would explain his "decisive response to China's high-altitude surveillance balloon" — but the president hewed closely to a familiar script based on details already provided to the press.  "We don't yet know exactly what these three objects were," Biden said of the devices shot down off the Alaskan coast, over Canada's Yukon territory, and over Lake Huron Feb. 10, 11 and 12 — echoing remarks by other administration officials.

Chinese Spy Balloon May Not have Been Intended to Fly Over Continental U.S., Report Says.  U.S. military and intelligence agencies tracked the Chinese spy balloon for nearly a week before it violated American airspace last month, according to a new report.  As the U.S. monitored the balloon, it appeared headed for the U.S. territory of Guam.  But the balloon was seemingly blown off course and instead ended up over Alaska's Aleutian Islands before ultimately floating over the continental United States, the Washington Post reported.  U.S. officials are considering the possibility that China did not intend to send the spy balloon over the continental United States, but instead took advantage of the balloon being blown off course to surveil sensitive locations in Montana.  The balloon was launched from Hainan Island as part of a program run in part by the People's Liberation Army air force.

For what it's worth:
UFO Being Transported By Truck For Analysis?  [Video clip only.]

China 'Brazenly Pushing Limits to See How Far They Can Go,' Homeland Security Panel Chairman Says.  High-ranking House Republicans and a defense expert are continuing to sound the alarm after the U.S. military shot down a Chinese spy balloon about what's at stake for the United States' relationship with the communist nation.  "China is brazenly pushing the limits, to see how far they can go.  President [Joe] Biden's administration has consistently demonstrated weakness, showing a willingness to act against adversaries like the Chinese Communist Party only after the public outcry was so deafening that they could not ignore it," Rep. Mark Green, R-Tenn., chairman of the House Homeland Security Committee, told The Daily Signal in an emailed statement.  "This situation is still developing, and the House Committee on Homeland Security will continue monitoring this incident as more information comes out and demand full transparency for the American people," said Green, also a member of the House Foreign Relations Committee.

U.S. Intel Watched Suspected Spy Balloon Take Off From China: Reports.  Biden administration intelligence officials observed the suspected Chinese spy balloon that was shot down off the coast of South Carolina ever since it took off, according to multiple reports.  U.S. monitors watched as the aircraft took off from Hainan Island near China's south coast in late January nearly a week before it entered U.S. airspace, The New York Times reported, earlier than previously known.  Follow-up reports by The Washington Post and CBS News indicate U.S. intelligence tracked the balloon moving east toward Guam, but it suddenly veered north toward Alaska's Aleutian Islands.

New Report Shows Biden Team Has Been Lying From Beginning About Chinese Spy Balloon.  CBS News reported on Tuesday that U.S. intelligence had been tracking the Chinese spy balloon that was shot down over the Atlantic near the Carolinas since it took off from China and that the U.S. military had been tracking it for more than a week before it entered U.S. airspace, much longer than the Biden administration had said.  [Tweet]  The Biden team has claimed that they first learned about it on Jan. 28, when it was near Alaska.  Then, as I've noted before, their story evolved, first saying they didn't have time to take a shot over Alaskan waters.  Then NORAD Commander Glen VanHerck said he couldn't take the shot because it wasn't demonstrating "hostile intent."  So if this report from CBS is correct, add one more lie to what they told us about this whole story and they had plenty of time to plan a takedown over water, contrary to what they said.  If they had wanted to.

Did Biden Use $400,000 Missiles to Shoot Down Weather Balloons?  It's been days since President Joe Biden directed the Pentagon to shootdown a number of "objects" he claims were a threat to U.S. airspace and commercial aircraft.  There are no photos of the "objects," which White House officials say cannot be classified as balloons, and still no recovered debris after they were reportedly taken out by F-16 pilots using $400,000 missiles.  As officials drag their feet on providing details about what exactly the objects were, White House Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre won't say whether Biden scrambled fighter jets to shoot down benign and routine weather balloons.

U.S. tracked spy balloon after it lifted off from China, officials say.  U.S. intelligence officials were tracking the spy balloon that was shot down earlier this month since it lifted off from the south coast of China, U.S. officials said Tuesday.  According to U.S. officials, after takeoff, the spy balloon drifted east in the direction of Guam and Hawaii and then went north to Alaska and entered U.S. airspace on Jan. 28.  Given the path, it's possible that the balloon was blown off course by weather, but U.S. officials said that once it came south over the continental United States, it was being controlled by China.  The tracking of the balloon was first reported by The Washington Post.

Sen. Kennedy Dishes on Info They Got in Briefing on Those 'Objects'.  Senators were given a closed-door briefing on Tuesday [2/14/2023] on the three "objects" that were shot down over the U.S. and Canada over the weekend.  While many of the Senators were limited in what they could say because the meeting was classified, senators on both sides of the aisle said that the Biden team should make the information known to the American people.  Both sides called for more transparency from the Biden team.

FNC's Hume: Seems Like Biden Admin Shooting Down Everything They Can See.  Fox News chief political analyst Brit Hume said Monday [2/13/2023] on FNC's "Special Report" that the Biden administration is shooting down everything after letting a Chinese spy balloon cross America before shooting it down.  Discussing the three objects shot down over the weekend, Hume said, "Certainly, there has been a change in the administration's policy or practice here after letting that first balloon as it turned out to drift all the way across the continental United States.  They shot that one down.  Now it seems they're shooting everything down that they can see.  And the interest interesting question what are we shooting down?  We shot these things down.  We don't know what they are.  We don't know what they are when we shot them down.  Jennifer Griffin quoted someone as telling her it might be sky trash.  Oh great, we now have F-16s in the air over the continental United States, and we are shooting down possibly sky trash.  I could kind of understand why the president doesn't want to come out and talk about this yet because he doesn't know what he has done."

Speculation about the balloons is the latest "misinformation".  The real issue for journalists, however, is the almost total lack of information coming from the White House, with much of what has been released consisting of vague suggestions.  Now, however, officials seem to be growing increasingly bothered by analysts who have been filling in the information gap with speculation.  The administration has labeled all of this conjecture as the latest example of "misinformation" that needs to be swatted down. [...] You people need to stop "speculating" and "stirring the pot" about all of these objects that are being shot down.  You'll just have to wait until the Biden administration settles on whatever story they eventually plan to tell us about these "objects."  I'll grant you that some of the suggestions being made in the usual internet rabbit holes are definitely "out there" and at least bordering on conspiracy theory territory.  These include claims that Washington is putting the objects up and shooting them down to distract attention away from the toxic railroad spill in Ohio, the war in Ukraine, or the investigation into Hunter Biden's laptop.

First Attempt to Take Down UFO Over Lake Huron Failed as $439k Sidewinder Missile Missed the Target.  When the Chinese spy balloon story first broke, President Biden was heavily criticized for waiting days to take it down as it passed over the continental United States and our sensitive nuclear bases, possibly vacuuming up gigabytes of intel.  Now, however, it seems that not a day goes by without the administration shooting down yet another unidentified object.  The Pentagon issued a memo to lawmakers Monday with more information concerning the shooting down of a "cylindrical object" flying over Canada:  ["]The American military shot down a "small, metallic balloon" over Canada on Saturday, the Pentagon wrote in a memo to lawmakers Monday — offering one of the first descriptions of one of the three mystery objects downed over consecutive days.  [... "]  So take aliens off the list — at least for that particular UFO. It was one of three takedowns over the weekend, with US forces also shooting down an unidentified object over Alaska on Friday and another over Lake Huron, Michigan on Sunday.  But the initial shot at Lake Huron failed, as the AIM-9x missile shot from an F-16 missed the mark:  "The first Sidewinder heat-seeking missile missed the target," a US official told Fox News.  Each Sidewinder, made by Raytheon Technologies Corp., costs more than $439,000.

The Editor says...
The Sidewinder is apparently good at intercepting airplanes that are propelled by jet engines.  It is probably not very effective against Mylar party balloons.

Pentagon memo says object shot down over Canada was a 'small, metallic balloon'.  The unidentified flying object shot down in Canadian airspace on Saturday appeared to be a "small, metallic balloon with a tethered payload below it," according to what sources described as a Pentagon memo sent to lawmakers on Monday and obtained by CNN.  The memo offers the first official details of one of the three objects shot down in recent days that was previously described as a "cylindrical object."  The object crossed near "US sensitive sites" before it was shot down, the document said.  Defense officials also told lawmakers that the object shot down over Lake Huron, in Michigan on Sunday, "subsequently slowly descended" into the water after impact.

An update on the balloon saga.  [Scroll down]  Maybe we'll get an idea what the Feb. 11 balloon was about if they can find the debris.  Canada is taking the lead on that investigation but the FBI is working with them.  The object shot down over Lake Huron yesterday is also mentioned in the same memo.  It descended slowly into the lake and may be recoverable as well.  However, both balloons were much smaller than the Chinese spy balloon so there's a lot less material to find.  National Security Council spokesman John Kirby said today at the White House that, for the moment, we don't know what the other three objects/balloons were or where they came from.

Balloongate — China's Long Game.  China's use of balloons to overfly U.S. territory is not an accident — it's part of China's Long Game for capturing Taiwan and becoming the world's leading superpower. [...] When planning for the long term, everything happening in the here and now are inevitably linked to their long game.  Which is why the South Carolina balloon was shot down less than a week before U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken's long-planned trip to Beijing.  In the face of this "intrusion" into American airspace, Blinken was forced to cancel his plan to conduct "peaceful" discussions with Chinese leaders, including Supreme Leader Xi Jinping.  This timing was no coincidence.

Fake alien invasion psyop being tested on suggestible Americans.  U.S. and Canadian Air Force jets are using high-cost missiles to shoot down metallic birthday balloons while claiming they are "defeating" the objects.  It's all part of a massive psyop to try to imply that aliens are invading Earth's atmosphere and that alien craft are being shot down by modern jet fighters.  Every effort is being made to paint these birthday balloons as mysterious, possibly alien craft.  And it's all ridiculous.  For example, the WSJ reports that a "flying object" was shot down over Canada.  This object was described as a "small metallic balloon" (i.e. some little boy's birthday balloon filled with helium) that drifted to 20,000 feet altitude.  Canadian officials were breathless over their amazing military effort to "defeat" a helium-filled birthday balloon.

White House Says No Evidence of 'Alien or Extraterrestrial' Activity in Shot Down Objects.  The White House says that there is "no" evidence of any "alien or extraterrestrial activity" around the recent "takedowns" of unidentified flying objects in the recent days since the Chinese spy balloon.  Following the United States military shooting down multiple objects over the U.S. and Canadian airspace, White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre said during a Monday [2/13/2023] press briefing that there was no evidence of "alien or extraterrestrial activity."

Americans Don't 'Need to Worry about Aliens,' White House Says After Shooting Down Three Unidentified Objects.  National Security Council spokesman John Kirby on Monday [2/13/2023] dismissed concerns that a string of unidentified airborne objects shot down by the U.S. in recent days are related to aliens or extraterrestrial activity.  "I don't think the American people need to worry about aliens with respect to these craft," Kirby said during a press briefing on Monday.  "I don't think there's any more that needs to be said there."  Kirby's comments come one day after a top U.S. general said he hadn't ruled anything out when asked specifically about the possibility of aliens as it relates to three objects shot down over the weekend.

Pentagon Confirms Shot-Down Objects Aren't Balloons, Makes an Even Weirder Admission.  Alright, maybe I was too quick to dismiss the possibility of aliens.  The Pentagon gave a briefing on Sunday evening after yet another unidentified flying object was shot down, this time in US airspace over Lake Huron.  Reports began to circulate that the object was an "octagon" and that it didn't appear to be a balloon.  That set off some speculation that the recent rash of UFOs were balloons, likely from China, but that they were simply shaped differently than one would expect.  In a pretty shocking statement, though, Gen. Glen VanHerck made it clear that's not the view of the US military.  [Tweet]  The UFOs not being balloons would be crazy enough, but things get even weirder when you hear a top US general admit that we don't even know what is keeping these objects in the air.

Bombshells, Landmines, and Nemesis.  [Scroll down]  Finally, we are witnessing the strangest provocations to U.S. sovereign airspace in history.  China apparently has been sending with impunity surveillance balloons throughout American skies.  Our woke military either did not know of all of them, or could not or would not stop them, or did not disclose these apparent serial violations to their own civilian overseers.  Biden mysteriously allowed an enormous Chinese spy balloon to traverse nearly the entirety of the continental United States.  When pressed, his administration issued a series of untrue statements or at least mutually contradictory excuses for its own paralysis: the device may have been just a weather balloon; it was a harmless, anemic primitive spy device; it may have been more sophisticated than we thought but we took measures to ensure our sensitive locales were protected; we could not shoot it down because it had caused no harm; we could not shoot it down because the debris might have hurt people on the ground; we could not shoot it down over Alaskan waters because they are too deep and too cold; Trump was to blame for not stopping them earlier; and on and on.

New Info on 'Object' Just Shot Down Reveals Glaring Problem for Biden Team.  The confusion of the Biden administration seems to continue.  While NORAD issued a statement last night saying there was an "anomaly" and they said they didn't see anything when they went to look, now we're hearing on Sunday that they are saying that the object shot down over Lake Huron is likely the same object as that spotted over Montana. [...] So how did they have radar, tell Rep. Matt Rosendale (R-MT) there was an object and then they found nothing?  That's something they need to figure out, otherwise we're sitting there with our borders exposed.

Object Shot Down Over Lake Huron Was "Shaped Like an Octagon": Wall St. Journal and Rep. Bergman Report.  The Wall Street Journal reported the object shot down over by U.S. planes Lake Huron Sunday afternoon was "shaped like an octagon."  Rep. Jack Bergman (R-MI) said in an interview with Fox News a few minutes ago the object shot down by an F-16 that fired an AIM-9 Sidewinder missile was an "octagonal structure" over Lake Huron at about 20,000 feet.  Sen. Jon Tester (D-MT) implied in a statement the object was the same one tracked over Montana Saturday night. [...] Military jets searched for but could not find an object detected by radar over Montana Saturday evening.  Sen. Jon Tester (D-MT) appeared to imply the object shot down over Lake Huron was the same object tracked over Montana, [...]

Another Chinese balloongate?  Recently, Biden's spokespersons announced the shoot-down of an "object" over far Northeastern Alaska, shot down where it would land on an ice floe in Prudhoe Bay.  The Pentagon was quick to "not call it" a balloon, just as they were careful not to call where it crashed down "ice."  Instead, they called the balloon an "object" and called it "frozen water."  Why did Biden permit a massive balloon, with an equipment pod as large as a commercial airliner, to overfly the entire United States — including our nuclear missile silos in Montana — while popping a relatively tiny balloon, with an equipment pod smaller than a small car?  More to the point, since China tested lofting deadly EMP generators on large balloons, why was the large balloon allowed to threaten all Americans while the tinker-toy mini-balloon was destroyed as a "viable threat"?  A balloon known to be capable of carrying devastating weapons, spotted flying over the entire U.S., is apparently no threat, but a micro-balloon over the most remote portion of the U.S. is a threat?  Really?  Pentagon spokespersons were quick to deny that they knew that the balloon shot down was Chinese.  But if it wasn't Chinese, why did they destroy it?  They denied knowing that it was a balloon.  They also "confirmed" that this object wasn't a manned aircraft, but an object.  If they could determine that it wasn't manned, surely they could see that it was a balloon.

Sidebar discussion:  Why does everything have to be a secret or a lie?

The federal government and the news media won't tell the whole truth about anything, even when it's obvious that the official explanation is full of holes.  Plausible conjecture, reasonable assumptions and educated guesses are called conspiracy theories.  If the public somehow finds out the truth, or most of the truth, the story falls into the news media memory hole.  Here are a few examples, in roughly chronological order:

The Tuskegee Syphilis Experiment
Bay of Pigs
Kennedy assassination / Lee Harvey Oswald was rubbed out two days later
UFOs / Roswell UFO crash / Area 51
Chappaquiddick
Peak Oil
DDT
Global warming / cooling
Carbon dioxide
Coal
Polar Bear Extinction
Polar Ice disappearing
Unsustainable population explosion
The 1995 Oklahoma City Bombing
World Trade Center Building 7
Pentagon bomb / missile / whatever it was on 9/11/2001
American 587
FISA court arguments and decisions
Vince Foster suicide
TWA Flight 800
Patriot Act
Obama's birth certificate / Social Security number / College transcripts / dual citizenship
Obama secretly airlifted $400 million in cash to Iran in January, 2016
Benghazi -- and dozens of other Islamic terrorist attacks
Who killed Seth Rich, Vince Foster, Philip Haney, George DeMohrenschildt, Dorothy Kilgallen, Karen Silkwood, Catherine Cesnik?
AIDS / Ebola / Zika / bird flu / swine flu / monkeypox
The Deepwater Horizon oil spill
Anchor babies
Islam is touted as a Religion of Peace
How many useless government agencies exist?
Obamacare / Pass the bill to find out what's in it
Social Security insolvent
National debt / insurmountable but nobody cares
Hillary Clinton's secret email servers and other un-punished scandals
Domestic surveillance
Unexplained mass shooting in Las Vegas 10/4/2017
Black crime in black cities
The politicized FBI
Border patrol whipping migrants
Covid-19 : masks / alternative treatments / mandates / shutdowns
Theft of the 2020 election
Theft of the 2022 election
Biden's dementia / Who's really in charge?
Hunter Biden laptop
Hunter Biden paintings
The shooting at Robb Elementary School in Uvalde, Texas
January 6, 2021, disturbance at the US Capitol
Epstein suicide
5G cell phone health hazards
Ukraine war
Nord Stream pipeline sabotage
Paul Pelosi DWI
Paul Pelosi hammer attack
Vaccine mandates / Healthy people dying suddenly
Natural gas appliances are suddenly bad
Joe Biden's classified documents
Chinese spy balloons or whatever they are

I looked for a list like this on the internet, but couldn't find one, so I had to compile it myself.

U.S. Military Unable To Find Alleged Object That Caused FAA To Close Airspace In Montana.  The North American Aerospace Defense Command (NORAD) and the U.S. Northern Command released a statement late on Saturday night [2/11/2023] about a supposed unidentified object that they identified over Montana, saying that fighter jets were not able to locate the object.  "NORAD detected a radar anomaly and sent fighter aircraft to investigate," that statement said.  "Those aircraft did not identify any object to correlate to the radar hits.  NORAD will continue to monitor the situation."  The statement came after the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) sent a notice to airmen (NOTAM) late Saturday night warning that it had designated an area in the northern part of Montana as a "national defense airspace" and that anyone who entered the airspace would be intercepted.

How many UFOs will we (globally) shoot down this month?  All of you who had "UFO invasion" on your 2023 bingo card may now collect your prizes.  After the United States shot down an "unidentified object" on Friday over Alaska, yesterday and today produced a cascading series of reports about strange objects being seen (and in some cases attacked) in the skies around the world.  First, on Saturday, joint forces from the United States and Canada shot down another one over a remote region of Yukon in the northwestern part of the country.  But just like the one over Alaska, this didn't look like a balloon at first, and Canadian officials were not ready to blame it on China.  (It came in from over the North Pole, not from the west.) [...] Pentagon officials later said that the object was a "small metallic ballon with a tethered payload."  That conflicts with earlier reports from the Canadian Defense Minister who described it as a "small, cylindrical object" the size of a car.  This latest description is still rather vague, so who knows what we're being told and how forthright they are being?

The vast scale of Beijing's high-tech balloon programme.  There will no doubt be some tense moments in the boardrooms of western technology companies over the coming days after the revelation that the Chinese spy balloon shot down after traversing the United States had western-made components with English-language writing on them. [...] Investigators are continuing their efforts to recover the wreckage of the balloon and its payload of surveillance kit from shallow waters off the South Carolina coast but have already concluded that the craft was part of a fleet operated by the Chinese military with sensors capable of sniffing for electronic communications.  The targets likely included data transmitted in and around US bases as well as between those bases and US satellites.  Officials said the balloon's surveillance equipment alone was the size of a regional jet, with solar panels capable of powering 'multiple active intelligence collecting sensors', with the data sent in real time to Chinese satellites orbiting above. [...] On Friday Joe Biden ordered the military to shoot down another 'high altitude object' near Alaska, although the White House did not confirm whether this was another Chinese spy balloon.  National Security Council spokesperson John Kirby said the object 'posed a reasonable threat to the safety of the civilian flight.'

The 'let's try it again' leftist balloon PR blitz.  Suddenly, U.S. president Joe Biden and Canada's prime minister, Justin Trudeau, are decisively shooting down new "UFOs" that purportedly wandered into their national airspace.  They are doing so with personal verve and command, displaying their sudden prowess as defenders of their nation's respective airspace borders.  Don't believe it.  The manner in which the press releases were written indicates that the writers went out of their way to make the story about the president and prime minister, and about their newfound leadership, as well as positioning NORAD (North American Aerospace Defense Command) as suddenly now on top of its game. [...] Modern electoral government is a highly scripted activity; it is not an institutional culture that is inherently poised for spontaneous action.  This is the great risk that the public faces with elected leaders who are otherwise merely legacy political ideologues like Trudeau or proxies like Biden:  when actual national security requires actual civilian leadership, they are unprepared or unqualified, or both.  They are not trained in leadership or military operations or strategy.  They are completely dependent, especially in Biden's case, given his obvious mental dysfunction, on an unorganized cabal of various advisers and handlers.  And those political appointees are not directing their attention to national leadership or national security or national defense, but to private interests that can be affected through government institutional manipulation.  For them, national security is merely national theater.

Mystery airborne object remains over Montana, says congressman.  A Montana congressman said on Saturday night that he had been told an unidentified object was spotted over his district, forcing the temporary closure of airspace — and the search for it would resume at daylight.  Matt Rosendale, a Republican elected in 2020, said he had been briefed by the Department of Defense, while he was at a Lincoln Reagan dinner.  Fighter jets were scrambled and airspace above Havre, a town of 10,000 people, 30 miles south of the Canadian border, was shut at 7:50 pm before being reopened about 50 minutes later.

GOP Rep. Says a 3rd 'Object' Near Northern Border.  [Scroll down] "I am in direct contact with NORCOM and monitoring the latest issue over Havre and the northern border," Rosendale divulged. "Airspace is closed due to an object that could interfere with commercial air traffic — the DOD will resume efforts to observe and ground the object in the morning."  It's not clear why they're not taking the shot now, but they also delayed on the prior two shoot-downs, so they may be having trouble picking it up for some reason.  This followed two objects being shot down, one over Alaska on Friday and another that was shot down over Canada Saturday evening.  Both of those objects penetrated U.S. airspace before they were detected and shot down.  Their descriptions were similar — "small" and "cylindrical."

GOP's new probes may burst baloony Joe Biden's bubble.  With China's spy balloon crossing the American heartland unmolested and GOP leaders simultaneously starting probes of his family's corruption, Joe Biden is entering a new phase of his presidency.  The worst case scenario is that all his chickens are coming home to roost.  The spy balloon's appearance and that of two additional objects shot down by the military oddly highlight the importance of the House probes.  The possibility that Biden has been compromised by profiting from son Hunter's lucrative foreign entanglements, especially with China, is drawing extra attention to how the president reacts to the Communist regime's aggressive surveillance.  So far, his weak-tea response is raising even more suspicions.  In fact, it's fair to say he has done or said nothing that would allay concerns and everything to aggravate them.  It started with his administration's bizarre radio silence as the balloon crossed over Alaska and entered mainland airspace.  Only after a civilian spotted it over Montana did the White House acknowledge what it knew all along.

'High-altitude object' shot down by Pentagon over Alaska, just days after Chinese spy balloon incident.  The Biden administration confirmed it shot down a "high-altitude object" over Alaska on Friday afternoon.  Officials did not say what the object was, and they would not confirm if it was a second Chinese spy balloon nearly one week after shooting down a craft over the Atlantic Ocean off the coast of the Carolinas.  National Security Council spokesman John Kirby additionally briefed reporters Friday [2/10/2023] on the operation, which took less than an hour prior to his appearance in the White House press briefing room.  "I can confirm that the Department of Defense was tracking a high-altitude object over Alaska airspace in the last 24 hours," Kirby told reporters.  "The object was flying at an altitude of 40,000 feet and posed a reasonable threat to the safety of civilian flight.  Out of an abundance of caution at the recommendation of the Pentagon, President Biden ordered the military to down the object, and they did it when it came in inside our territorial waters."

More Info on That Unusual 'Object' Shot Down Over Alaska.  There's now more information on that object that the military shot down over Alaskan waters, which we reported on earlier.  It was a "high-altitude object," flying at about 40,000 feet that was about the size of a "small car," according to National Security Council Coordinator for Strategic Communications John Kirby.  The description of the object was unusual. [...] Sounds more UFO-ish, if they can't even identify what it is.  But at least this time they were able to detect it.  They first detected it on Thursday evening.  It was picked up by ground radar, and they flew planes up to check it out.  But they didn't shoot it down until Friday afternoon around 1:45 — after they had more planes check it out and after they got the order from Joe Biden.  They shot it down over frozen water, so they believe they will be able to recover it.  They said they shot it down because it could pose a danger to civilian air traffic.

The Editor says...
Really?  How much "civilian air traffic" flies at 40,000 feet over frozen Alaska territorial waters?  And what kind of an object "about the size of a 'small car'" can fly at 40,000 feet?  If it was a balloon, why don't they just say so?  Why is it impossible to get the whole story out of any government spokesman?

High-altitude object shot down over Alaska, US says.  US President Joe Biden ordered a fighter jet to shoot down an unidentified "high-altitude object" off Alaska on Friday [2/10/2023], the White House says.  Spokesman John Kirby said the unmanned object was "the size of a small car" and posed a "reasonable threat" to civilian aviation.  The object's purpose and origin was unclear, Mr Kirby said.  It comes a week after the American military destroyed a Chinese balloon over US territorial waters.

Ri-i-i-i-ight
Austin: Spy Balloon Forced Us to Limit Movement, Communications Across Country So 'We Didn't Expose' Nuclear Capabilities.  During a portion of an interview with CBS News National Security Correspondent David Martin released on Wednesday, Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin stated that in response to the Chinese spy balloon that flew over the country last week, the United States ensured that its nuclear bases "were buttoned down" and that "movement was limited and communications were limited so that we didn't expose any capability unnecessarily."  Austin also stated that the buttoning down applied to nuclear bases all across the United States.  Martin asked, "You don't know what it was looking for, but you certainly know what you were concerned about it looking for.  What were you concerned about it looking for?"  Austin answered, "Well, I — certainly, all of our strategic assets, we made sure that we were buttoned down and movement was limited and communications were limited so that we didn't expose any capability unnecessarily."

CNN boldly reports that which is obvious, but only because the government said it first:
Chinese spy balloon contained technology to monitor communication signals, US says.  The Biden administration has determined that the suspected Chinese surveillance balloon that traversed the United States last week was operating with electronic surveillance technology capable of monitoring US communications, according to a senior State Department official.  The balloon "was capable of conducting signals intelligence collection operations" and was part of a fleet that had flown over "more than 40 countries across five continents."  "We know the PRC used these balloons for surveillance," the official said.  "High resolution imagery from U-2 flybys revealed that the high-altitude balloon was capable of conducting signals intelligence collection operations."  Signals intelligence refers to information that is gathered by electronic means — things like communications and radars.

Chinese Spy Balloon Carried Technology to Monitor Communication Signals: Official.  The Chinese spy balloon that flew over the United States for days before being shot down could monitor communications signals, a U.S. official says.  "High resolution imagery from U-2 flybys revealed that the high-altitude balloon was capable of conducting signals intelligence collection operations," an official with the State Department, speaking on condition of anonymity, told The Epoch Times.  "The high altitude balloon's equipment was clearly for intelligence surveillance and inconsistent with the equipment onboard weather balloons.  It had multiple antennas to include an array likely capable of collecting and geo-locating communications.  It was equipped with solar panels large enough to produce the requisite power to operate multiple active intelligence collection sensors," the official added.  Frank Gaffney, executive chairman at the Center for Security Policy, told NTD that China would likely have an interest in monitoring communications between intercontinental ballistic missile silos.

America's Disarray Is A Stark Contrast To China's Unity.  Listening carefully during the State of the Union, you could hear roaring laughter in Beijing when President Biden again said that J6 was the greatest threat to America since the Civil War.  Biden is China's perfect stooge.  China has a long-term mission to retaliate against the West, with a bullseye on America, for a Century of Humiliation (1839-1949).  To succeed, China must have political and racial unity and opportunities to strike, like an American president driving political, racial, and military disunity and invested in the mythical J6 monster. [...] But what if none of this is ironic to Xi?  What if the white spy balloon was a successful diversionary tactic while the CCP clandestinely works to facilitate divisions in America through the indoctrination of CRT and wokism?  This would be an espionage masterstroke to advance the CCP's long-term mission to humiliate America and achieve global supremacy.  This could be a bigger threat to America than the mythical J6 domestic-extremist monster, right?

Hunter Biden, victim.  DNC fabricators are good.  They spun a spy balloon from Red China as being nothing unusual.  Their boy at the Pentagon said, "The balloon is currently traveling at an altitude well above commercial air traffic and does not present a military or physical threat to people on the ground.  Instances of this kind of balloon activity have been observed previously over the past several years.  Once the balloon was detected, the U.S. government acted immediately to protect against the collection of sensitive information."  Nothing to see here.  Move along.  Once the Red Chinese accomplished their mission, the military blew it up — and Democrats congratulated the president. [...] Finally, the DNC blatantly lied and said Red China sent balloons over the USA when Donald Trump was president.  The press went with that story.  Only a few conservative outlets, such as the Boston Herald, carried his denial:  "It never happened with us under the Trump administration and if it did, we would have shot it down immediately."

Rep. MTG Bursts Biden's Balloon: 'He's Owned by China!'  [Scroll down] The balloon, which first captured the public's attention last week after a photographer caught sight of it floating over Billings, Montana, entered U.S. airspace days prior, on January 28, near the Aleutian Islands, a senior Pentagon official said during a press briefing Saturday after the military had taken the balloon down.  "It's really interesting," Greene said.  "I think everyone should know that the Pentagon, the Department of Defense, the president of the United States knew China was bringing a spy balloon towards our country on January 28.  Then they allowed it to enter our airspace.  They allowed it to traverse the entire United States, spy on multiple, multiple military bases with critical infrastructure, gather as much intel as they needed until it left the country, and then they shot down the spy balloon."

NORAD Pleads Incompetence Over Failure To Spot Trump-Era Chinese Spy Balloons.  As the Biden administration came under fire last week for allowing a Chinese spy balloon to cross the entire United States before shooting it down off the coast of South Carolina, an anonymous US Defense Department official said over the weekend that spy balloons transited over US territory during the Trump administration.  Trump, and his former administration officials, collectively [disputed] the report — saying it 'never happened.'  "Now they are putting out that a Balloon was put up by China during the Trump Administration, in order to take the 'heat' off" the Biden administration, Trump wrote Sunday.  "China had too much respect for 'TRUMP' for this to have happened, and it NEVER did."  In response to the entire Trump administration's lack of knowledge of these alleged incursions, Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA) on Monday called for a congressional investigation into why the US intelligence community failed to inform the sitting administration of foreign spycraft transiting over US airspace.

Disturbing possibilities to explain the Chinese balloon.  How could a Chinese (or any other) foreign object enter U.S. national airspace (the "NAS" or national airspace system, controlled by the DOD and the civilian FAA) without its presence known far beforehand, and its flight path not tracked and projected?  And if a very slow-moving balloon, let alone a supersonic aircraft, or a hypersonic missile, is not announced over a public communication system until it is already over U.S. airspace, loitering over the Midwest, what does this say about our entire national defense system and about NORAD (North American Aerospace Defense Command), or about general civil defense and public notification systems?  It is of interest that the September 11, 2001 tragedy was defined in part by a still unexplained failure of the entire NORAD system, declared in the final 911 Report to be systematically preoccupied with joint simulations and drills.  In the case of the Chinese balloon incident, what then is offered as an explanation for its apparently unknown presence over the U.S., and its casual trajectory over military installations, nuclear facilities, industrial operations, dense population centers, and civil infrastructure?  Moreover, why was it supposedly shot down over the Atlantic Ocean, and its recovery made problematic, when it could have been captured through routine in-flight procedures, and towed effectively to a defense installation for examination?  It could also have been easily compromised in its ability to maintain altitude, without destroying it, and recovered intact.

In the Aftermath of Balloongate, Now What?  This article had already been accepted for print in American Thinker when President Joe Biden "courageously" ordered the destruction of China's spy balloon after it had soared out to sea, where there was nothing more to spy on.  That balloon crossed the entire country, passing over strategic U.S. assets, such as the field of silos at Malmstrom Air Force Base, which houses a major proportion of America's intercontinental nuclear-equipped missiles.  When Joe announced this "victory" over an unarmed eye-in-the-sky spy balloon with all the swagger of John Wayne at his peak, he tried to make it seem as though he he were bold, decisive, and in charge.  The facts, however, suggest something else.

How Biden And His Media Allies Turned A Threatening Chinese Spy Balloon Into A Political Feud.  If there was any doubt that we are engaged in some sort of cold war or contest for global superiority with China, the emergence of the CCP surveillance balloon over the United States should eliminate that.  There's no question China is being intentionally provocative.  And why wouldn't it?  The CCP is paying close attention.  Chinese leaders have correctly assessed America is so politically and culturally dysfunctional that blatant acts of provocation can be done with impunity because blatant acts of hostility will just become more fodder for our domestic political disputes.  Our lack of national unity has been a national security problem for a long time, but as far as China's concerned, it became abundantly clear just how bad a problem it was in 2020.  The media and those otherwise responsible for "fortifying" our elections decided we weren't allowed to say Covid came from Wuhan and started banning people from social media for saying the virus leaked from a Chinese lab.  Regardless of the fact that China's irresponsible behavior was to blame for the deaths of millions of Americans, it became an important domestic political priority to convert a global plague into baseless accusations of racism so it could be used as a cudgel in a presidential election.

Chinese Spy Balloon Was Part of Widespread Aerial-Surveillance Program by People's Liberation Army: Report.  A suspected Chinese spy balloon that the U.S. military shot down off the Carolina coast last week was part of a larger surveillance program run by the People's Liberation Army, according to a new report.  The program has collected information on military assets in a number of countries, including Japan, India, Vietnam, Taiwan and the Philippines, U.S. officials reportedly told the Washington Post.  One official called the scheme a "massive effort" by China using an "unbelievably old technology" that it joined with "modern communications and observation capabilities" in an effort to gather intelligence on other countries' militaries.

US Military NOW Says There Were SIX China Spy Balloons Spotted During Trump Years — But No One Was Notified.  The Pentagon NOW says there were SIX Chinese spy balloons spotted over US territory during the Trump years.  But no one was notified in leadership in the Trump administration or the US intelligence department.  The story is literally changing by the hour.  And General Keith Kellogg, who was the Executive Secretary and Chief of Staff of the United States National Security Council in the Trump administration, says he was never notified!

Red Zeppelin recovered: Pentagon releases pictures of Navy pulling wreckage of Chinese spy balloon from Atlantic Ocean.  The Pentagon has released sensational photographs showing the Navy's retrieval of a suspected Chinese spy balloon shot down over the Atlantic Ocean.  The mission off the coast of South Carolina has taken days, and comes as relations between Beijing and Washington rapidly deteriorate after the high-altitude aircraft was shot down on Saturday.  Defense officials confirmed earlier this week that an amphibious warship, as well as several divers and underwater robots, had been deployed to survey a specific 'square mile' of ocean where the remains of the balloon were thought to be located.

How Did Biden Admin Retroactively 'Discover' Chinese Balloons in the U.S During the Trump Years?  The Biden administration has been trying to plug a gigantic hole in their story about Chinese spy balloons flying over U.S. territory during the Trump administration with no one in the government aware of it.  Initially, the Biden administration sought to deflect attention from their failure to shoot down the balloon by noting that Chinese spy balloons transited U.S. territory three times during the Trump years.  But when several Trump administration officials hotly denied that charge, Biden administration officials changed their story.  They claimed that the balloons were only over U.S. territory briefly — skirting Hawaii and flying over part of Florida — unlike this latest spy balloon, which traversed the entire width of the country.  They also claimed that the balloons weren't detected.  But how do we know this if the balloons weren't detected and national leaders weren't informed of their presence?

Baffling and contradictory claims about the Chinese spy balloon.  The Chinese high-altitude balloon said to be about the size of three buses being allowed to hover over the United States for almost a week before it was shot down is another example of how matters have deteriorated under Joe Biden. [...] Beyond its functionality, there were other issues.  A easily visible surveillance balloon is a symbolic act of domination by the Chicoms.  The balloon was also meant to demonstrate sophisticated Chinese technological capability to penetrate U.S. airspace.  It is also an ominous sight for citizens, unable to do anything about it.  In all scenarios, Biden's dithering over the course of action has already done the damage and may have brought the U.S. very close to a serious catastrophe.  It also made the U.S. look weak and incompetent.  Yet some sections of the U.S. media are still defending Biden.

Tucker Carlson Rips Biden Admin For Claiming Chinese Spy Balloon 'Posed No Threat'.  Fox News host Tucker Carlson blasted the Biden administration Monday for saying that a Chinese balloon "posed no threat" to national security.  "On January 28th, the balloon entered U.S. airspace over Alaska.  From there, it traveled over the northwest territories of Canada and then it dropped back into the United States over Idaho.  By last Wednesday, February 1st, it was spotted by civilians in the skies over southern Montana," Carlson [...] said. [...] "Debris was still fluttering toward the ocean when the administration began telling lies, many of them about what had happened.  That balloon posed no threat to American national security, the Biden Administration claimed," Carlson said."  "Why?  Because the balloon never transmitted data back to China.  Now, how could officials know that?  They never explained, nor did they say whether the Chinese military would send one of its aircraft all the way to the U.S. without a satellite uplink."  Carlson noted other media outlets pushed claims from DOD officials that Chinese balloons had flown over the U.S. during the Trump administration, a claim disputed by senior officials in the Trump administration.

NORAD Admits They Didn't Detect the Spy Balloons Until Post-Trump.  The government suggested Donald Trump ignored three balloon incursions into our air space by the Chinese communists during his presidency.  Forced to explain, they now say NORAD learned of them later by other means and never detected them while Donald Trump was president.  When is someone going to get fired?  Air Force General VanHerck said that they didn't detect the balloons and "we have to figure that out."  Maybe the news reporter who spotted the balloon in Montana should work for NORAD. [...] Breaking Defense.com reports US Northern Command does not have the correct mix of sensor capabilities, according to the commanding general responsible for homeland defense.  The White House had said there were three incursions under Donald Trump.  After Donald Trump and his former staff said they were never told, Gen. VanHerck and NSC spokesperson John Kirby had to clarify or alter their statement.  They said US intelligence agencies had used "forensics" to identify the Chinese spycraft incursions only after President Biden took office in January 2021.

What, besides spying, can a balloon do?  We all assumed that the Chinese Spy Balloon was, in fact, a spy balloon.  But what if it weren't?  What could it have been, or what could a similar balloon do should it be equipped with a different kind of payload?  The most obvious answer, speculated about by many people, is an EMP delivery device.  It would be easy enough to do, with the miniaturization of nuclear weapons, but also incredibly risky for obvious reasons: sending a nuclear weapon into US airspace is a bit more of a provocation than a spy platform traversing the country.  If it was shot down, the fact that it carried a nuke would be blindingly obvious.

The whole "Trump ignored China spy balloons" story is a transparent lie.  Karen expressed appropriate skepticism about the story that Biden defenders were pushing that Trump ignored 3 incidents of Chinese spy balloons crossing the United States.  Biden partisans pushed the story hard, claiming that Slow Joe was Maverick from Top Gun, while Trump meekly took it when China did the same thing during his administration. [...] Of course, we all knew the story would turn out to be a fabrication, and indeed it is.  The goal was to implant the idea in people's heads that Biden was a strong leader, even stronger than Trump.  More importantly, it muddied the waters.  Now that the idea is out there, the story is starting to change.  Not a little, but a lot.

Pentagon Won't Name Official Who Divulged Misleading Info About Chinese Spy Balloons During Trump Admin.  The Washington Free Beacon's Chuck Ross revealed that the Pentagon wouldn't name the official who provided misleading information about three supposed Chinese spy balloons during President Donald Trump's administration.  The senior official said on Saturday:  ["]PRC [People's Republic of China] government surveillance balloons transited the continental United States briefly at least three times during the prior administration and once that we know of at the beginning of this administration, but never for this duration of time.  We spoke directly with Chinese officials through multiple channels, but rather than address their intrusion into our airspace, the PRC put out an explanation that lacked any credibility.["]  The media and Democrats ate it up.  During his administration, Trump and his former officials, including John Bolton, denied knowledge of Chinese spy balloons.  Officials in the Pentagon changed their story on Sunday, but honestly, they made it worse.  They told the media the balloons were discovered after Trump left office.

Probably just the parts that float.
U.S. Navy collects debris from Chinese surveillance balloon.  The U.S. Navy has started to collect what remains of a Chinese high-altitude surveillance balloon after an Air Force fighter jet shot it down over the weekend.  The Department of Defense announced the recovery effort Monday, stating it was taking place about 6 miles off the coast of South Carolina in about 50 feet of water, after rough seas prevented the safe retrieval Sunday.

Two more sites in Virginia and California were previously spied on, but the Pentagon dismissed it as UFOs.  The first photos of the F-22 Raptor which shot down the spy balloon have been published - as it emerged the U.S. used U2 spy planes, first deployed during the Cold War, to monitor the Chinese balloon.  This comes as reports suggested that similar balloons were spotted previously in two more highly-sensitive military sites in Virginia and California, but the intelligence community classified them as UFOs.  The U-2S Dragon Lady spy planes were enlisted as part of last week's scramble to assess the balloon because they are able to fly at extremely high altitude.

General Mattis Claims He Had No Knowledge of Chinese Spy Balloons.  On Monday during an interview with Fox Business Network, Republican Rep. Mike Waltz suggested that the Pentagon and General James Mattis refused to tell then-President Donald Trump about Chinese spy balloons because they were worried his reaction would be too strong.  "My office has been briefed by the office of the Secretary of Defense of the current Pentagon that it happened over Florida, it happened over Texas, and that it's happened before," he said during the interview.

The Narrative on Supposed Previous Chinese Spy Balloons Gets Even More Confusing.  The narrative on the Chinese spy balloon has gotten even more bizarre, given that the Biden administration's response includes claiming that the same thing happened under the Trump administration, three times.  Not only does former and potentially future President Donald Trump deny it, but so do members of his administration, including Mike Pompeo, who served as CIA director and then secretary of state, and may be a potential 2024 primary rival, as well as former Director of National Intelligence John Ratcliffe.  Gen. Glen VanHerck, the head of U.S. Northern Command, is in the news for his Monday remarks on this narrative, which don't exactly shine much light when it comes to clarifying the situation.  A reporter had asked "was NORTHCOM involved in tracking the balloon that was at the early stage of the Biden Administration and also the three that transited during the Trump administration," as well as "what can you tell us about those that were different?"  After acknowledging that it is his "responsibility to detect threats to North America," General VanHerck then went on to share "I will tell you that we did not detect those threats.  And that's a domain awareness gap that we have to figure out," though he then demurred, adding "I don't want to go in further detail."

New Info on Chinese Spy Balloon From NORAD Commander Is Jaw-Dropping.  At this point, everything the Biden team says about the Chinese spy balloon just seems to make the problem worse.  One of the big questions that people have had is why the balloon wasn't shot down earlier, for example, over the Aleutian Islands, near Alaska.  Or over any of the less populated areas of Alaska, Canada, or Montana that it went over?  Now, they're out with more comments and they're not helping themselves.  They had earlier claimed they didn't have a "water shot." That answer has now "evolved" further.  According to the Department of Defense, the U.S. did not have time to shoot down the Chinese spy balloon right after it crossed into Alaskan waters.

General Says NORAD Missed Previous Chinese Spy Balloon Incursions During the Trump Administration.  Gen. Glen VanHerck, commander of North American Aerospace Defense Command (NORAD) and Northern Command (NORTHCOM), admitted Monday that the joint U.S.-Canada organization missed previous incursions of Chinese spy balloons, including during the Trump administration.  When asked during a press briefing whether NORTHCOM was involved in tracking previous Chinese spy balloon that flew into the U.S. airspace during the Biden and Trump administrations, VanHerck responded:  ["]So those balloons, so every day as a NORAD commander it's my responsibility to detect threats to North America.  I will tell you that we did not detect those threats.  And that's a domain awareness gap that we have to figure out.  But I don't want to go in further detail.["]  He indicated that the intelligence community tracked those previous balloons after the incursions through "additional means."

So, That's What Our Military Brass Is Blaming for the Chinese Spy Balloon Incursion?  The Chinese spy balloon circus is over, but now it's question time for the Biden administration who let this espionage device from Beijing float around for days.  We finally downed the balloon over the Atlantic Ocean near the Carolinas over the weekend.  But how could this have happened?  It wasn't traveling at supersonic speeds, and our tracking devices could have stopped it when it was hovering near Alaska.  There was time to shoot down this balloon before it breached US airspace.  We know about the Pentagon's concerns about falling debris killing American citizens.  The floating spy circus had enough equipment to span three bus lengths — we get the security concerns, but the delay in action is another matter.  Spencer wrote on Monday about the latest twist in this episode: there was a possibility that it could have been carrying explosives.  Sounds like something you shoot down when it's near Alaska, right?  Well, maybe not.  All is not well at the Pentagon regarding detection capabilities, it would seem.  The brass is blaming an "awareness gap" for the spy balloon incursion.

Intel Community Says They Discovered Prior Chinese Spy Balloon Operations, Only After President Trump Left Office.  This is so stunningly incredulous, and transparently politically orchestrated, it's laughable.  The U.S. Intelligence Community (IC) defended the actions of the Biden administration last Saturday by saying three Chinese spy balloons had previously been deployed during the Trump administration.  However, President Trump and all national security heads including Mike Pompeo (CIA), Richard Grenell and John Ratcliffe (DNI) denied ever hearing about these balloons.  To reconcile the claim of historic Chinese spy balloon operations, against the denials and absence of briefings for the Trump IC officials, the current Intel Community (and Biden Administration) are now claiming they only discovered the prior balloon flights *AFTER* President Trump left office.  Oh, and due to national security issues, the IC cannot explain how they found out after the fact.  Yes Alice, that's their story, and they're sticking to it.

Rep. Waltz Says DOD Told Him China Spy Balloons Crossed US During Trump Years But Gen. Mattis Did Not Tell Trump.  Rep. Mike Waltz (R-FL) joined Stuart Varney on Monday morning on FOX Business Network.  Rep Waltz says current Pentagon officials briefed him over the weekend and said Chinese spy balloons crossed over Texas and Florida during the Trump years.  Waltz then dropped this bomb.  Rep. Waltz said that General Mattis was Secretary of Defense at the time and decided not to inform President Trump because the Pentagon thought Trump was "too provocative and aggressive!"  This is a treason if true.  Mattis put the US in danger, offered comfort to the enemy, allowed Chinese spying on US installations, and then hid this from his superiors, including the President of the United States.

Four Months Ago, A Chinese Spy Balloon Crashed Off The Coast Of Hawaii.  According to more mainstream media reports, a mere four months ago, a Chinese spy balloon crashed off the coast of Hawaii.  U.S. officials reportedly confirmed that a Chinese spy balloon crashed near Hawaii four months ago, Fox News reported on Sunday, however, this wasn't mainstream news until now.  Does that mean the war rhetoric is ramping up?  Most likely.

Here's The Long List Of Military Bases The Chinese Balloon Passed While Biden Did Nothing.  [Scroll down] The recent occurrence of a China spy balloon tracking model over the continental US is a cause for concern, and highlights the inadequate and negligent actions of the current administration.  The Biden administration has been accused of attempting to conceal this information from the public, possibly due to an impending visit to China by the Secretary of State.  These developments raise questions about the loyalty and commitment of the Biden administration to the safety and security of the American people.  Some individuals have labeled the Bidens as a potential danger to the nation, and believe that their actions suggest a level of compromise within the administration.  The situation requires a careful and impartial examination to determine the true extent of the impact on US national security and to ensure the protection of American citizens.

Biden's Ballooning Foreign-Policy Blunders.  ast Friday, just before President Joe Biden left for another of his many long weekends away from the White House, reporters vainly asked him about the Chinese surveillance balloon that had been meandering around in U.S. airspace since Jan. 28.  Our commander-in-chief offered no response beyond a smirk and a vacant stare.  The "spy balloon," as it has been dubbed by the media, is a good metaphor for the Biden administration's foreign policy — lighter than air and potentially dangerous.  Unlike Biden's foreign policy, however, the spy balloon had a discernible objective.  This became clear when it spent an unnerving amount of time last week hovering over Montana's Malmstrom Air Force Base, "which houses a large portion of the US's Minuteman intercontinental ballistic missiles," according to a Bloomberg report.  In other words, the balloon was being used by the Chinese to gather military intelligence in order to assess our national-defense capacity.

The balloon is a Chinese middle finger to the US.  Military fighter jets have just shot down the Chinese Communist Party's gigantic spy balloon that had been hovering about 60,000 feet over the United States.  The balloon was "taken care of," to quote President Biden, over the Atlantic Ocean, off the coast of South Carolina.  Prior to the maneuver, the balloon drifted, unharmed, over our sensitive military sites and fellow citizens.  It lingered there, doing what Chinese President Xi Jinping pleased, while rightfully indignant members of Congress representing those violated states took to press releases and cable TV to demand the federal government secure our sovereign airspace.  All of this was no doubt churned back through the CCP's propaganda outlets, smearing America as divided, weak, and foolish. [...] Even the CCP's official explanation about the balloon is a troll.  They claimed it was a "civilian airship" merely conducting innocuous meteorological research that "deviated far from its planned course" due to strong winds.  Of course, due to the PRC's national strategy of Civil-Military Fusion in service of the Party's military, there is no real civilian research program.  And for the world's most sophisticated techno-authoritarian state that boasts of its control and lack of errors, accidentally losing a valuable surveillance blimp the size of three school buses over the territory of your number one rival is quite the accident.

Ukrainian Paradoxes.  [W]hile we discount the nuclear dangers of a paranoid Putin reacting to the arming of our proxy Ukraine, the brazen Chinese, in violation of American airspace and international law, sent their recent "weather" surveillance balloon across the continental United States with impunity.  Only after public pressure, media coverage, and the Republican opposition did the Biden Administration, in the 11th hour, finally drop its increasingly incoherent and disingenuous excuses, and agree to shoot the balloon down as it reached the Atlantic shore — its mission completed.  Given the balloon may have more, not less, surveillance capability than satellites, may have itself been designed eventually to adopt offensive capability, and may have been intended to gauge the American reaction to incursions, the Biden hesitation and fear to defend U.S. airspace and confront China makes no sense.

Biden's Story About the Spy Balloon Doesn't Add Up; Here's What Most Likely Happened.  As Joe Biden faces the fallout of his poor handling of the Chinese spy balloon, the effort to rewrite history is already underway.  Soon after the balloon was shot down on Saturday, Biden claimed the order to shoot it down was given on Wednesday. [...] But is this true?  Did Biden really authorize the balloon to be shot down on Wednesday?  I have my doubts.  The Biden administration has long pointed to the size of the balloon's payload and the potential debris field shooting it down over land might cause.  But, when Pentagon spokesperson Air Force Brig.  Gen. Patrick Ryder was asked on Friday if there were plans to shoot it down once it was over water again, and he didn't rule it out, but it sure sounded like no decision had been made at that point. [...] The other problem with this story is that we know the Pentagon had been monitoring the balloon since it left China, and it had previous opportunities to shoot it down while it was over U.S. territorial waters when it crossed over the Aleutian Islands.  The Biden administration most certainly knew what it was and where it might go, and the opportunity to shoot it down safely over the water was not taken.

Trump says Chinese spy balloons 'NEVER' flew on his watch; former DNI chief Richard Grenell agrees.  On Saturday, Biden, the same guy who was reportedly opposed to the raid that killed Osama bin Laden, strutted his stuff on the tarmac outside Air Force One over the successful takedown of the surveillance aircraft after it had already traversed the United States.  At the same time, the Defense Department claimed that "Chinese balloons briefly transited the continental United States at least three times during the prior administration."  In response, Trump fired back on Truth Social Sunday morning and wrote, "The Chinese Balloon situation is a disgrace, just like the Afghanistan horror show, and everything else surrounding the grossly incompetent Biden Administration.  They are only good at cheating in elections, and disinformation — and now they are putting out that a Balloon was put up by China during the Trump Administration, in order to take the 'heat' off the slow moving Biden fools.  China had too much respect for 'TRUMP' for this to have happened, and it NEVER did.  JUST FAKE DISINFORMATION!"

Pompeo: Biden's Weakness on Spy Balloon Assures Chinese Aggression.  President Joe Biden's weakness with China is once again on display.  Earlier this week, U.S. officials tracked a Chinese reconnaissance balloon over the American mainland.  A Chinese Communist Party spokesperson claimed this was nothing more than a "weather research" balloon that had simply blown off course.  Sure, the CCP's harmless weather balloon just happened to pass over multiple sensitive military sites vital to America's national security — nobody should believe that nonsense, especially not the Biden administration.  Even if it were true, the CCP's policy of civil-military fusion — which requires all available research and technology, from China's private sector or otherwise, to be shared with the Chinese military — makes such an excuse an impossibility.  Thus, this appears to be an intentional act of espionage, and it signals that the CCP is feeling ever more emboldened with Biden in charge.  If the Biden administration does not act to change this paradigm quickly, the threat of conflict will only continue to grow.  Weakness breeds aggression.  America must demonstrate clear strength and resolve.

Military Finally Shoots Down Chinese Spy Balloon After Biden Let It Float Across Entire Country.  U.S. military fighter aircraft shot down a suspected Chinese spy balloon as it floated off the coast of South Carolina on Saturday, drawing to a close a dramatic saga that shone a spotlight on worsening Sino-U.S. relations.  "We successfully took it down, and I want to compliment our aviators who did it," President Joe Biden said.  Biden said he had issued an order on Wednesday to take down the balloon, but the Pentagon had recommended waiting until it could be done over open water to safeguard civilians from debris crashing down to Earth from thousands of feet above commercial air traffic.

That claim about three Chinese spy balloons on Trump's watch is deflating fast.  The Milley boys at the Pentagon have come up with a new public relations "save" for Joe Biden and his pathetic indecisiveness about a China spy balloon brazenly traversing the continental United States until it was shot down over the Atlantic yesterday.  According to the Pentagon's website, defense.gov:  ["]The balloon did not pose a military or physical threat.  Still its intrusion into American airspace over several days was an unacceptable violation of U.S. sovereignty.  The official said Chinese balloons briefly transited the continental United States at least three times during the prior administration.["]  Predictably, the left has seized on that last line and had a field day: [...] There's just one problem, though — the claim that Trump saw three Chinese balloons traverse through the U.S. on his watch and did nothing is ... deflating fast.  First, we have an explicit denial from someone who would have known.

US Military Fears China May Reach Balloon Wreckage Before They Can Get There.  You just can't make this up!  After allowing a China spy balloon to float across Alaska and the continental United States for the last 10 days, the US military finally shot the balloon down after its work was accomplished.  Now the US military is concerned they may not reach the balloon wreckage before China can.  The balloon was shot down 6 miles off the coast of Carolina.  They can't be serious, except that they are.  The US military will not have a proper salvage vessel at the scene for several days.

Jill Biden Gushes Over Joe's Handling of Chinese Spy Balloon.  We saw in Joe Biden's reaction to the Chinese spy balloon what a problematic leader Joe Biden is, if we didn't already know it.  The balloon wasn't taken out when it first entered American airspace on Jan. 28, off the waters of Alaska.  That was when you would think Biden would take the "water shot," but the military said they didn't have it.  Then it went over Alaska, where there are huge expanses of unoccupied land.  Again, no shot.  It went over Canada and then entered the U.S. again on Tuesday, January 31.  According to White House Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre, that's when Biden was apprised of what was going on, supposedly.  Why wasn't he told until then?  Biden wants us to believe that he told the military on Wednesday to shoot it down as soon as possible.  But even if I were to believe he told them that on Wednesday, why did he wait a day when he was told on Tuesday?  Why wasn't he told before Jan. 31, when the balloon entered our airspace on Jan. 28?  And why wasn't it taken down before then, over the vast expanses of unoccupied area, where you would have had a better opportunity of recovering material than in the ocean?  Sorry, but I'm not buying it, I think the problem here was Joe would have just let it go, except for the backlash.  As we wrote earlier, their first thought was to be quiet about it.  Indeed, we likely wouldn't even have heard about it, had Americans not spotted it over Billings, Montana, and it likely never would have been shot down.  It's only shot down after it traverses the country, gathering whatever information it came to gather.

Trump, others deny Chinese spy balloons flew across the U.S. during Trump administration.  Democrats and their cohorts in the media are quickly coming to Joe Biden's aid as critics say Biden didn't handle the Chinese spy balloon incident well.  The spy balloon flying across America can easily be thought of as a test of Biden's inclination to use force against Chinese intrusion.  At first, the Biden administration and the Pentagon remained silent about the appearance of the balloon.  Then a local news organization in Montana reported on it as it hovered over Billings.  The word quickly spread to news outlets across the country.  When would Americans have known about the story of a Montana news organization that had not reported on it?  The most transparent administration — evah — sure doesn't conduct itself as such.  The administration was aware of the spy balloon approaching U.S. airspace when it was heading toward the Aleutian Islands.  Allegedly they monitored it until the story broke.

Independent Reporter Confirms That Biden Admin. Has Been Aware Of Chinese Spy Balloons For At Least A Year.  As concerns continue to mount over the presence of Chinese spy balloons in the United States, reports are emerging that the balloons have been a persistent problem both in the United States and across the world.  This week, it was revealed that spy balloons released by China are also flying over Latin America, just as it has been revealed that the United States government has been aware of similar issues for at least a year, if not longer.  The fact that the problem has existed for years begs the question of why the Biden administration was not prepared with a response when it was revealed that spy balloons were flying over the northern United States.

Chinese Spy Balloons: Potential Purposes For The High Altitude Invasion.  My home state of Montana was recently featured in news feeds this week as the first to observe and identify what the US Air Force says is a Chinese spy balloon.  The Chinese claim it is a civilian weather apparatus that was blown off course and they expressed "regret" for the event, but the equipment visible in photographs suggests that this is a lie.  Beyond that, another similar balloon has been spotted over Latin America — One wayward high tech Chinese balloon might be believable, but two is not a coincidence.  There are numerous theories as to why such a surveillance platform would be used by the CCP and what it is designed to look for, and I thought I would offer a couple theories based on my years of study into similar projects pursued by the US Department of Defense and DARPA.  First, the immediate question is why the Biden Administration has not destroyed the balloon?  Why not shoot first and ask questions later?  Well, Biden's silence on this issue suggests he either has no answers or that the truth will make the American public very angry.  The most likely reason it has not been shot down is because it is very difficult to shoot down.

'Dark Brandon' Returns in Desperate Attempt to Gloss Over Joe Biden's Weakness.  The long journey of a Chinese spy balloon finally ended on Saturday after it was downed off the coast of South Carolina.  According to reports, President Joe Biden gave the order to shoot it down on Wednesday, but Gen. Mark Milley, infamous for overriding presidents and supporting China, chose to not carry out the order until four days later.  Ostensibly, the reason was to prevent damage to civilian property, but as we'll get to, that makes no sense whatsoever.  Still, in a laughable show of arrogance, Democrats rushed to praise Biden as courageous for downing the balloon after it had already completed its mission of transitioning the continental United States. [...] The balloon was first detected entering US airspace over Alaska.  It passed through hundreds of miles of uninhabited areas where it could have been blown out of the sky safely.  After leaving Canada, it ended up in Montana, again traversing hundreds of miles of completely uninhabited country.

Trump and His Team Shoot Down Report About Chinese Balloons During His Term.  Joe Biden has been getting a lot of backlash for taking so long to react to the Chinese spy balloon floating over our military installations and letting it traverse our country for a week.  As I noted there are some questions about the timeline that they have given.  The balloon entered our airspace over Alaskan waters on Jan. 28 but White House Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre claimed that Biden was "briefed on Tuesday" [Jan. 31].  So they didn't react until it was already over the continental United States, re-entering from Canada around Idaho on Jan. 31.  That certainly needs to be answered more fully as to why it even took that long to seemingly have any reaction at all.  But now, seemingly in reaction to the criticism of Biden from those on the right, there's a report from an unnamed Pentagon official who claims that three balloons made it into U.S. airspace during the Trump years.

There Are Big Problems With Biden Team's Evolving Story About Prior Chinese Balloons.  The report began spreading on Saturday that supposedly Chinese balloons had incurred into American airspace three times during the Trump Administration.  Now, this report came right as Joe Biden was getting a lot of backlash for being slow to react and it came without any real details, allegedly from an unnamed Biden defense official.  But there were no details apart from that none of the incursions were on the order of magnitude of the one this week in terms of length of time over U.S. territory.  As we reported, the Trump team including President Donald Trump quickly shot the report down.

China's Spy Balloon Is About Much More Than the Pentagon or Biden Admit.  Never underestimate the willingness of American mass media and their audiences to be fascinated for a few days by a balloon from China.  The fact that the Pentagon said it was an immense surveillance balloon carrying a load of instruments the size of three school buses made the story even more irresistible.  You should also never underestimate their willingness to miss the real intent of this ancient diplomatic ploy by Xi Jinping.  Combine that with the mental clarity of our president — who boasts that half of the women in his administration are women — and you've got a narrative guaranteed to endure a bunch of news cycles.  The only possible better enticement would be if the Washington Post somehow tied the balloon caper to Donald Trump colluding with China.  Like Russiagate, it need not be true, just briefly credible in that troubled newsroom.  Maybe it would earn another Pulitzer.  Now, Commander in Chief Joe Biden says he commanded the military to shoot down the Chinese balloon on Wednesday.  Donald Trump, who is no longer commander in chief, was more emphatic.  He ordered the balloon's doom in all-caps: "SHOOT DOWN THE BALLOON."  But the U.S. military feared that wasn't safe somehow.  So, it didn't obey immediately.  It allowed the communist balloon to complete its alleged intelligence mission, transmit its data up to Chicom satellites, and exit U.S. airspace before perishing off North Carolina.  There, an F-22 dutifully launched a Sidewinder missile that destroyed, not the balloon, but the huge equipment capsule that might have revealed [what] the Chinese were looking for.

The Editor says...
This balloon story gets fishier every day.  The balloon should have been detected and intercepted before it reached the Aleutian Islands.  When it arrived in rural Idaho, it should have been shot down with a single round from the very good cannons on an F-16 or an A-10, and the instrument package recovered quickly.  But no, it was allowed to run its course across the continental U.S., and was then blown to bits, after its work was done, over the Atlantic Ocean, where the chances of recovering it (before a Chinese "fighing boat" picks it up) are poor.  Every possible coincidence is coming together to benefit the Communist Chinese.  Now the guessing begins:  What was the mission?  Just humiliation of Joe Biden, who is also owned and operated by the Chinese?  A dry run for a future attack?  Were they trying to see something that Google Earth doesn't already show plainly enough?  If the Chinese government had been in complete control of the U.S. military for the last two weeks, what would have happened differently?

Joe Biden vs. Party Balloon.  The most powerful military ever assembled by humans was thwarted this week.  By a balloon.  Specifically, a large spy balloon dispatched by the Chinese Communist Party.  A Chinese Communist Party balloon — hereafter known as the "Party balloon."  It will forever be remembered as the Party balloon that defeated President Joe Biden.  And the greatest military in the history of human civilization.  The country that stood steel-spined through D-Day, the Cuban Missile Crisis and the Cold War folded like a cheap suit under the threat of a Party balloon made in China.  No wonder Mr. Biden's military leaders would rather fight battles over pronouns, "white rage," and gender studies.

Spy Balloon being shot down off South Carolina coast.  Shows the moment a spy balloon was shot down off the South Carolina coast.  [Video clip, profanity warning.]

Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin's Statement on Downing of Chinese Balloon Is Ironic Comedy at Its Best.  After a U.S Air Force F-22 Raptor shot down the Chinese surveillance balloon with a sidewinder missile on Saturday, Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin issued an alternative-universe statement in which he lauded Joe Biden's commitment to "always put the safety and security of the American people first." [...] Austin began by suggesting the "commander in chief" — I put that in quotes because Biden is pretty much not the commander of anything — was in charge from the outset. [...] However, as we reported earlier today, Biden told reporters he ordered the Pentagon to down the balloon on Wednesday but was — in effect — overruled by U.S. military commanders. [...] And monitoring the surveillance balloon's intelligence activities?  So what?  The balloon was undoubtedly transmitting data to Chinese satellites in real-time, so to paraphrase Hillary Clinton, what difference did it make if the U.S. was monitoring its intelligence collection activities?  They think you're stupid, America.

There's a Much Bigger Problem Here.  This video explains what's going on with the balloon and the larger power struggle around the world.  [Video clip]

China's Secret War Against America.  The Chinese Communist Party (CCP) has for decades waged a quiet war against the United States, mobilizing all elements of its society, and targeting all institutions and foundations of the American system.  In this war, it is using a series of unconventional warfare tactics designed to achieve the goals of war, without engaging in troop-on-troop combat.  Many of these tactics were detailed in the 1999 Chinese military book, "Unrestricted Warfare," but pull from older deception tactics and from programs that were set in motion by the Soviet Union.  The key goal is to win a war without fighting openly, to seize control of a society gradually, to steal an economy, and to use methods to intentionally keep the public distracted and unaware.  Among the overarching strategies is the process of subversion.  The Soviet Union used subversion to spread its "communist revolution," and the CCP has adopted many of the same strategies to export its "China model."  Subversion is a process to seize control of a country by destroying religion, morals, traditions, and everything that makes the country function; with the end-goal of bringing the country into a state of chaos, so that the public will support outside intervention to install a new form of government.

Thousands mistake US owned research balloon for Chinese spy balloon.  FlightRadar 24 changed the classification of a standard United States based high altitude research balloon on Saturday morning, after thousands of Americans mistook it for the suspected Chinese spy balloon.  The flight tracking website clarified in a tweet that the balloon was operated by the U.S. instead of China, writing, "no, this is not a Chinese balloon," and specified it did not believe the spy balloon would be picked up by its sensors.  "To provide additional clarity about what balloons are and are not visible on Flightradar24, we've updated our database entry for N257TH," FlightRadar 24 tweeted.  "N257TH is a standard high altitude research balloon, often released over the US and is not the Chinese balloon."

Biden Tries To Take Victory Lap For Shooting Down Chinese Spy Balloon, Gets Slammed By Top Officials.  President Joe Biden tried to take a victory lap Saturday afternoon after the U.S. military shot down a Chinese spy balloon that Biden allowed to travel across the entire country before destroying.  Biden claimed in remarks to reporters that he "ordered the Pentagon to shoot it down on Wednesday as soon as possible," but that the decision was made to not shoot it down over land because debris could cause damage when falling to the ground.  U.S. officials were reportedly "well aware" that the balloon had crossed into American airspace on January 28 and that it was over Idaho on Tuesday, but decided not to inform the public to not upend Secretary of State Antony Blinken's diplomatic trip to China.

Canada says it's tracking a second 'surveillance balloon' in its airspace.  Canada on Thursday said it was tracking another potential "surveillance balloon" at the same time that a confirmed Chinese craft was spotted over the United States.  A Thursday statement from the Canadian defense ministry said that "a high-altitude surveillance balloon was detected and its movements are being actively tracked by NORAD."  "Canadians are safe and Canada is taking steps to ensure the security of its airspace, including the monitoring of a potential second incident," the ministry said, adding that "NORAD, the Canadian Armed Forces, the Department of National Defence, and other partners have been assessing the situation and working in close coordination."

What Did Joe Biden Know About China Spy Balloon-gate and When Did He Know It?  "What did the president know, and when did he know it?"  That was the question asked of Richard Nixon during the Watergate scandal of the 1970s.  The presumption, of course, was that the 37th president knew more about the scandalous activities than he was letting on.  And, of course, Nixon was ultimately forced out of office because of Watergate.  Today, I'd like to ask the same question of Joe Biden about the China Spy Balloon-gate scandal.  Of course, the matter of the Chinese spy balloon is [a] lot more serious than the Watergate break-in because it potentially affects the safety and well-being of 335 million Americans.  Yes, President Biden finally oversaw the shoot-down of the spy balloon on Saturday, but only after it had spent days floating over the United States' landmass from Alaska to South Carolina.  Is that the right way to handle an intrusion from a rival — even adversarial — superpower?  Should we allow their surveillance machines to traverse our country and only deal with them after they've finished their American tour?

Balloons and Hot Air.  Was our intelligence lacking and permitted the overflight?  The NY Post says it wasn't, that we knew about it for a week before it was spotted by civilians and tried to hide it so the overflight would not interfere with Secretary Antony Blinken's' planned trip to China.  If that was the intention, it failed, and the trip, after all, was cancelled once the administration's plan to keep it secret failed. [...] I certainly have no idea whether or not this is a dangerous move by China or how we should respond, though my friends Stephen and Shoshanna Bryen, with a lifetime of experience in such matters, think it exposes a massive vulnerability.  First, they expose as unpersuasive the military defense for doing nothing:  To the claim that the balloon was operating far above commercial airspace they remind us that we learned about it only because it was spotted and photographed by a passenger on a commercial plane.  To the claim that shooting it down would create debris that might injure civilians on the ground, the Bryens note it was spotted over very sparsely populated Montana.  No purchase in their thinking for the assertion that the balloon provides China with no more than it would get from surveillance satellites either:  such balloons could easily be carrying EMPs.  (Electromagnetic Pulse which would destroy the electronics and digital circuitry over an area of hundreds of miles, thereby denying electric power to our homes, businesses, and military.)  The surveillance operation, they argue, could as well have been a test of our air defense system.

The Editor says...
The Editor is an EMP skeptic.  EMP is extremely unlikely to do the amount of damage that everyone seems so sure it will do.  An EMP attack has never been tried, and it if has, it went completely unnoticed.  In any case, nobody in the world is as worried about EMP as the American news media, which thrives on sensationalism.

U.S. Uses $400K Missile to Shoot Down Chinese 'Spy Balloon,' Destroys All Its Electronics.  The alleged Chinese "spy balloon" which flew over the US this week and captured the nation's attention was shot down on Saturday by an F-22 fighter pilot using a $400,000 AIM-9 Sidewinder missile.  "NEW: senior defense official tells me an F22 fighter jet fired a single shot at the Chinese spy balloon in U.S. air space over Atlantic Ocean," Pentagon stenographer Jennifer Griffin reported.  "The F22s flew from Langley Air Force Base in Virginia.  Senior US military official says 1 air to air missile fired by F22 at 58,000 feet (an A9X missile) brought down China spy balloon.  The balloon was at 60-65,000 feet when shot."

Report: Biden Administration Tried to Hide Chinese Spy Balloon from American Public.  The Biden administration was aware of the Chinese spy balloon entering United States airspace on January 28 but tried to hide its existence from the American people until being forced to go public, according to a report on Saturday.  Bloomberg News reported that the Biden administration was "well aware" that the balloon had entered U.S. airspace on Saturday, January 28, but decided to keep quiet about it so as not to ruin a planned trip by Secretary of State Antony Blinken to China.

Pentagon Reveals Why It Waited Days To Shoot Down Chinese Surveillance Balloon.  The U.S. was able to collect valuable information on China's surveillance capabilities while observing the spy balloon as it traversed the continental U.S. for several days, a senior military official and senior defense official claimed Saturday [2/4/2023].  President Joe Biden asked for possible military options for removing the threat of the suspected Chinese spy balloon Tuesday, but the Department of Defense (DOD) opted against doing so Wednesday over concerns falling debris could endanger civilians, officials said at a briefing Saturday.  However, they did not clarify whether a military option was considered when the craft transgressed U.S. airspace over Alaska's Aleutian Islands on Jan. 28, before crossing into Canada and reentering U.S. territory on Jan. 31 in northern Idaho.  Waiting to down the balloon "actually provided us a number of days to analyze this balloon, and through a number of means," the defense official said.  "We don't know exactly all the benefits that will derive, but we have learned technical things about this balloon and its surveillance capabilities."

Rep. Mary Miller on Chinese Spy Balloon: 'National Security Must Not Be Compromised by Biden Family Payoffs'.  Rep. Mary Miller (R-IL) said that China is "exploiting" President Joe Biden's "weakness" with the spy balloon hovering over America and declared that the United States's "national security must not be compromised by Biden family payoffs."  Miller's comments came in a tweet Friday morning as the Pentagon says the espionage device is expected to linger in United States airspace for a "few days," as Breitbart News reported.  The Congresswoman also called for the House of Representatives to "investigate why China is confident Biden will not respond to their hostile actions."

Balloons Can Launch Bombs, Drone Swarms and Even EMP Attacks.  Upon hearing that there's at least one Chinese surveillance balloon drifting over the continental United States (as of this writing), and another reportedly over South America, you might picture a payload of advanced electronics snapping high-resolution photos and videos of strategic targets, and communication interception devices snooping on American government, military, and high-tech secrets. [...] The first and most obvious danger is that a balloon could be carrying munitions — which it could drop any time its operators so chose.  Note that if a Chinese bomber had flown over the U.S. mainland, it surely would have been shot down by now, but this CCP balloon has been floating around unmolested for days.

Chinese spy balloon roaming American skies unimpeded.  We have a Chinese spy balloon roaming American skies unimpeded, and the Biden White House thinks that's fine.  They were snippy with the press when they asked for more details about the high-altitude spy balloon reportedly launched from central China.  Beijing has apologized for breaching our air space, though the reasoning is ridiculous: they claim it blew off course.  The incident has caused Secretary of State Antony Blinken to cancel his scheduled visit to the country.  It was spotted by passengers on a commercial airliner yesterday.  Montana is where this device was first tracked.  It's now somewhere hovering above Kansas. [...] Biden refused to answer further questions about the balloon today, though he wanted to shoot it down.  The Pentagon advised against it due to falling debris potentially killing civilians.  Even on national security issues, this administration is slower than molasses.

Pentagon says another Chinese spy balloon is traveling over Latin America.  The U.S. government says another Chinese spy balloon is traveling over Latin America.  "We are seeing reports of a balloon transiting Latin America," Brig.  Gen. Pat Ryder, a Pentagon spokesperson, told Fox News Friday night. "We now assess it is another Chinese surveillance balloon."  Ryder said during a briefing Thursday the U.S. government detected a high-altitude surveillance balloon over the continental U.S.  A senior defense official said during the briefing the U.S. government is "confident" the surveillance balloon is from the People's Republic of China.

China Has Multiple Spy Balloons Overhead.  It's like a twisted version of the Macy's Thanksgiving Day parade, except the balloons out there are floating over our heads and spying on the Americas for the Chinese.  As was revealed earlier, a Chinese spy balloon was spotted floating over Montana on Thursday.  The Biden administration's response was essentially a shoulder shrug, because apparently popping a balloon would be a problem on the ground.  Just how much stuff is attached to this balloon that popping that sucker would be a problem for people on the ground?  Presumably, our fighter jets got a look at the balloon and what it was carrying.  And we're just going to let it float away and keep doing whatever it's doing?

White House KNEW About the Chinese Spy Balloon and Covered It up.  How cowardly and compromised is the Biden regime?  We have fresh evidence of just how bad it is, courtesy of the Chinese spy balloon.  The world found out about the now-infamous balloon on Thursday, when a Montana resident named Chase Doak spotted it and posted a video.  But that was not the first that Old Joe Biden's handlers heard of the balloon.  Now it has come to light that they knew about it all along but kept the knowledge secret so as to avoid a confrontation with the Chinese Communist Party and keep Secretary of State Antony Blinken's now-canceled trip to Beijing on track.  Patriots can thank Chase Doak for the small show of spine from the Biden State Department that the cancellation represented.

The Editor says...
If Mr. Doak or somebody else hadn't spotted the Chinese balloon and publicized it on Facebook, would NORAD have told us eventually?  Surely NORAD knew all about it, right?  What would be China's motivation for this?  A distraction?  A taunt?  A dry run for an attack?  Is this Chinese Spy Balloon #1, or have there been others already?

House Homeland Security Chair Green: I Never Got Alerted About Spy Balloon by Biden Administration.  On Friday's broadcast of the Fox News Channel's "Fox News @ Night," House Homeland Security Committee Chairman Rep. Mark Green (R-TN) stated that he was never alerted by the Biden administration about the Chinese spy balloon.  Host Trace Gallagher asked, "Are you getting any information, sir, from the Pentagon about the specifics or anything else about this balloon?"  Green responded, "No.  We're getting very little and we never got a phone call.  We never got alerted to this.  It's a crying shame when the Chairman of Homeland Security finds out about a Chinese spy balloon flying over the United States, it's just — it's really unconscionable."

Whether it's illegals or balloons, Joe Biden fails to protect the U.S..  Joe Biden has been hit by crisis after crisis as a result of his own bad decisions, and oddly enough, they are starting to look alike.  Take the latest China balloon incursion, where some kind of spying device has been sent over military installations throughout the U.S. interior, with Biden doing nothing about it.  That's a sovereignty violation that ought to be drawing a major response to an arrogant, expanding wannabe superpower desperate to flex its military muscles, yet Joe's response, that shooting the invading device down might create debris or hit a populated area (America is loaded with unpopulated ones the balloon is traversing) is simply pathetic.  Is it all that different from his open borders policies, where millions of unvetted foreign migrants are flooding into this country without authorization, bringing crime, drugs, and costs, yet there too nothing is done about it? [...] His entire orientation is about protecting himself politically through public relations moves, not about protecting the country for real, which is his job as president.

Fighter jet shoots down China spy balloon off the coast of South Carolina.  Joe Biden praised the Top Gun fighter jet pilot who shot down the Chinese spy balloon off the coast of South Carolina today after he vowed to 'take care of it.'  An F-22 Raptor out of Langley Air Force base took the balloon down with a single AIM-9X sidewinder missile at 2.38pm, separating its surveillance payload and sending it plummeting towards the ocean off Myrtle Beach.  Footage showed the jet screaming towards the spy aircraft before firing the missile as stunned locals watched from the coast.

US military shoots down Chinese spy balloon over Atlantic Ocean.  The U.S. military has shot down the Chinese spy balloon over the Atlantic Ocean.  While the balloon was off the coast of South Carolina, it was shot down by U.S. military fighter jets on Saturday afternoon, according to Fox News sources.  A senior U.S. military official said that an F-22 was used to bring down the balloon at 58,000 feet, adding that a single A9X missile was fired.  A senior defense official said during a Thursday afternoon briefing that the U.S. government is "confident" the surveillance balloon is from the People's Republic of China.  When asked about the balloon on Saturday by a reporter, Biden said, "We're going to take care of it."

Regarding the Chinese spy balloon hovering in U.S. airspace.  Early yesterday [2/3/2023] it was reported a suspected Chinese high-altitude surveillance balloon is hovering over the United States. [...] Experts say that balloons of this kind could be fitted with advanced technology spy cameras and radar sensors.  There are advantages to using balloons for surveillance - the primary reason being that they are relatively inexpensive and easier to deploy than drones or satellites.  The fact that balloons linger around make it easy to monitor the target locations for prolonged periods of time.  In contrast, the movement of a spy satellite is restricted to its orbital pass.  Few have considered the possibility that toxic chemical or biological substances could be sprayed which may cause long- or short-term harm to the population or crops or property or military installations.  If this truly was an accident or a malfunction, the Chinese officials should have warned U.S. officials in advance and worked with them to either redirect or bring down the balloon and then issued a groveling apology.  But instead, the Chinese officials issued terse statements about the balloon's function without proof.  There was regret but no apology.  Worse, despite being at fault, they issued warnings against "speculation."

Balloon with a view.  [Scroll down]  This is a devastating blow to President Biden.  I wonder if it was a message that China has embarrassing information on Joe and Hunter.  Or maybe they were showing the world that our military has spent too much time on pronouns rather than defense.  Wonder what Taiwan is thinking this morning?  There may be a silver lining to this cloud.  Maybe Senator Jon Tester of Montana will finally wake up to the fact that he is voting too much with the Biden administration.  He is up for reelection in 2024 and a balloon over Montana plus the rancher's wife paying too much for food is not helping him.

This Chinese balloon(s) story is another pile of hot garbage.  Much like too many stories that have cropped up lately, with Tyre Nichols being only one example, everything we're being told thus far makes no sense whatsoever. [...] And then there's the response from the Pentagon.  We're being told they "considered shooting it down but opted not to out of fear the debris could cause injuries."  Really?  It's a balloon.  And it was over Montana.  How much damage was it going to cause aside from maybe hitting a couple of elk?  Yes, the first balloon was reportedly the size of three buses and had some sort of technology suite attached to it, but there's only so much of an impact it could make.  If we don't know how to conduct a controlled deflation and descent of a balloon by now, we probably shouldn't be trusted with jet planes.  Reports this morning are saying that Joe Biden himself made the decision not to bring it down.  Why?  Was he afraid of provoking Beijing?

Other news about China's influence — none of it good — in the U.S. and elsewhere:

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