The Good News About China?

Saturday, February 14, 2026

Yesterday, the host and John Ellis discussed a possible conflict between China and Japan.  Earlier this week, I wrote about China conducting nuclear weapons testing, possibly of fourth generation weapons.  There is some good news about China:

The head of U.S. Air Force Global Strike Command (AFGSC) has downplayed the current significance of Chinese efforts to develop new long-range strike aircraft with more global reach. He said that China remains, at best, a regional bomber force, though it continues to “aggressively” pursue new capabilities in this regard, like the long-awaited H-20 stealth bomber.

China remains limited in its ability to project power in other than economic ways.  Their aircraft carriers are just coming on line and they are not nuclear powered, which means they need strong supply lines.  Leaving them just with ICBMs for genuine power projection.  So they can destroy, but they cannot sustain at distance.  Militarily, they remain a regional power.

And the rest of this post is your weekly cache of California news – and shockingly, almost all of it is bad:

Let’s start on California’s revenue generation efforts.  It was fairly broad news this week that the players in the Super Bowl may have lost money because California taxes athletes that earn in the state, even if just part time.  How long before the NFLPA forces the league to never host games in the state?  That’ll cost California a lot more revenue than it is making on this ignorant tax.  It is also why I completely divested when I left – completely.  If California can get its tax hooks into you, it will.  Their taxes targeting wealth (or are they simply seizures?) aren’t working out so well.  Oh, and then there is essentially defrauding the federal government out of money.  California keeps looking for new ways to raise money – it’s not going well.

Then let’s turn our attention to the spending side of things.  They are now taxing to pay for things that are supposed to pay for themselves.  But that is old hat in California. Where things get really interesting is that some of the spending is deceptive, some of it is actually going to generate unrest in the streets, and some of it is going into Democrat coffers.  That leaves one wondering how much of it actually goes towards the things it is supposed to?

Business is dying in California.  Two oil refineries are closing, threatening to drive the cost of a gallon of gasoline up to $7 or $8.  And while manufacturing has been leaving for a couple of decades now and agricultural has been losing to overseas competition, the entertainment industry is is slipping fast, very fast.  The big six in California have historically been agriculture, oil, manufacturing, finance, entertainment, tech.  Oil died as a significant player in the state long ago.  Three of the remaining five are dead or dying and the other two are starting to look for the door.  It’s not a pretty picture.

Is there good news from California?  Well, they are launching some investigations, finally, into the issues in the massive and destructive January 2025 fires:

California’s top prosecutor announced a civil rights investigation Thursday into how delayed evacuations impacted a historically Black community ravaged by one of last year’s deadly wildfires near Los Angeles.

Oh dear Lord.  Bureaucratic incompetence is responsible for the massive extent of the Palisades fire and this is what gets investigated?!?!?!  Those fires burned a lot of people’s homes, of all races, creeds and colors.  I guess that’s not good news.

The federal government may take over management of the beaches.  That might be good news if you did not have to travel through a war zone to get to them.

Finally, “Newsom stop in key presidential primary state sparks more 2028 speculation.”  That might actually be good news.  A Newsom 2028 run would be great for conservative punditry – “low hanging fruit,” “fish in a barrel,” “target rich environment” – pick your idiom.  Given the record just examined and so, so much more, a Newsom run just might make Harris’ poor performance look good.  It would also be good for Republicans because, nothing makes you look better than a bad opponent.