Look up in the sky, over Taiwan! It’s not a bird, it’s not a plane, it’s China… sending their infamous spy balloons over to have a little looky-loo.

The entire spy balloon debacle of last February has nearly faded from the American consciousness in light of how quickly the news cycle moves on, but China has not forgotten about it, or how they tried to pass the whole thing off as a weather balloon experiment that just got away from them, once local media blew the whistle on what the Biden administration was trying to keep quiet. And of course, it was hard to miss that giant white thing getting popped right off the coast of South Carolina and then falling into the Atlantic Ocean.

We have since learned that yes, China was getting some nice and pretty pictures of the United States, including pictures from military facilities, U.S. intelligence knew about the spy balloon WHEN IT LAUNCHED and did nothing when it invaded American airspace, the Biden administration was making the effort to keep Congress from finding out about it (which ended up being a colossal failure), and now we learn that the spy balloon used an American internet service provider to transmit data back to China – and the Biden administration KNEW THAT and apparently asked for a FISA order to track it!

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.

Such a court order would have allowed U.S. intelligence agencies to conduct electronic surveillance on the balloon as it flew over the U.S. and as it sent and received messages to and from China, the officials said, including communications sent via the American internet service provider.

The previously unreported U.S. effort to monitor the balloon’s communications could be one reason Biden administration officials have insisted that they got more intelligence out of the device than it got as it flew over the U.S.

So, the Biden administration tried to spy on the spy balloon, and that’s why they allowed the thing to just keep floating and transmitting data back to China? Oh my word. We are run by top men. Top. Men.

Given the smashing success that China has had with this entire spy balloon program, WHY NOT send them to scope out Taiwan? OBVIOUSLY, they’re just checking out the weather. For a future vacation. One where they expect the Taiwanese government to just surrender peacefully and not make a big fuss about anything. So Taiwan got a visit from the Bad Year Blimps.

Taiwan’s Defense Ministry said that China sent four balloons over the island, three of which passed near to a key air force base.

The reported incursions on Tuesday come as China has been upping its threat to use force to annex the self-governing republic.

The Defense Ministry said three of the balloons passed from east to west, close to the Ching-Chuan-Kang air base, home to much of the Taiwanese air wings dedicated to defending the island against China’s military threat. The fourth passed north of the port of Keelung, which services Taiwan’s crucial trade relations with Japan, a treaty partner with the U.S.

We’ve already talked about how China is very likely to make a move on Taiwan while Joe Biden is still president, given his weakness and the administration’s documented flip-flopping on what they would do if Taiwan were blockaded or invaded by China. Think these spy balloon visits are sending a message just before Taiwan’s elections?

Taiwan is holding elections for its president and legislature on Jan. 13, and China has used its military, diplomatic and economic power to influence voters to back candidates favoring unification between the sides. Despite that, the pro-independence Democratic Progressive Party is leading in most polls, reaffirming the electorate’s backing for the status of de-facto independence from mainland China.

Huh, look at that. Foreign interference in a democratic nation’s elections. Quick, alert the media! After all, they seem to find “Russian collusion” under any rock they turn over. Maybe put them on finding Chinese money trying to manipulate Taiwan’s election. Oh wait, we can’t talk about Chinese money because Hunter Biden is involved. My bad.

When (and it’s looking more and more likely that it is “when,” not “if”) China makes an aggressive move against Taiwan, it will be Joe Biden’s fault. Remember, foreign policy is the purview of the president. Not Congress, not the judiciary, THE EXECUTIVE BRANCH. So when the United States goes wobbly on the international stage, and bad actors push back to do bad things, the current president NEEDS to be made to own it. Joe Biden’s overwhelming failure in Afghanistan has had ramifications across the globe. It signaled to Putin that he could invade Ukraine, and he did. That Biden sent billions to Ukraine is not so much the finding of a spine, but the overwhelming Democrat perspective that after linking Donald Trump to Russia, the administration could safely make Putin a villian (which he is) and find a foreign policy win after being humiliated in Afghanistan.

Joe Biden is spineless when it comes to China. He talks big about supporting Taiwan, but then keeps trying to placate China by saying that they are our “competition,” but we aren’t in “conflict” with them. BULLSHIT. There will be a whole lot of CONFLICT when China makes their move on Taiwan, and anyone with half a brain knows that. Which, of course, means Joe Biden doesn’t realize that.

If the Biden administration hadn’t abandoned Afghanistan, the whole world would be different right now. If they had shot down the spy balloon when it first got into American airspace last February, things would be different right now. But they chickened out in favor of hiding the truth and trying to play Spy Vs. Spy instead, so now Taiwan is getting visits from Xi’s blimp parade. Taiwan should be popping these things with extreme prejudice right now. After all, what’s China going to do? Get mad and invade? They’re planning on doing that anyway. Better to blunt these intelligence gathering attempts while they still can.

Featured image: original Victory Girls art by Darleen Click