Language is important and words do matter. Through language we learn, we communicate our intentions, we develop plans, and we express our feelings. Through language we convey our affections and transmit our displeasures.

It is language that binds a family, a community, a region, or a culture together. Today, however, this fundamental cultural glue is purposefully being watered down and dissolved in order to break the bonds of our nation.

Wokeism in its purest forms breaks down clarity, and replaces truth with new grievance norms that masquerade as justice. Wokeists try to negate centuries of tradition, culture and science (!) by socially shaming opposing views and using coercive tactics on young children to adopt concepts that go against every grain of common sense and human understanding of the world around us.

Taiwan is warning that its military won't hesitate to exercise right of self-defense and to counter-attack in the event of Chinese forces entering its territory, following an unprecedented event on Tuesday wherein live ammunition was fired as 'warning shots' against a cluster of drones that appeared near the Taiwan-controlled Kinmen islands. Flares had initially been deployed to warn off the drones, but per Taiwan's defense ministry live ammo was then used to force the drones' departure.

Taipei followed Wednesday with this warning:

"We will continue defending our national security, firmly holding on to the median line, and doing whatever it takes to protect our homes, our families, and our sovereignty," according to the words of defense ministry spokesperson Li-Fang Sun.

Within hours after issuing the warning, another drone incident has been reported, with Taiwan's military saying it detected "three civilian drones" in the area of its offshore island possessions on Wednesday. It further confirmed that warning shots were again fired to fend off the unidentified drones, believed to have been dispatched from China's mainland.

For the Left, Donald Trump is synonymous with “fascism” (or “semi-fascism,” as Joe Biden put it the other day). And for Liz Cheney and most of the NeverTrumpers, he remains an existential threat to democracy.

But to quantify those charges, what exactly has Trump done extralegally—as opposed to his bombast and braggadocio about what he might have wished to have done?

And what are the standards by which to judge this supposed menace? Did Trump illegally and with a mere signature nullify over $300 billion of contracted student loans—to firm up his college-student and college-graduate base nine weeks before the midterm elections?

Did Donald Trump weaponize the feared IRS, the logical place to find fascistic tendencies of any president bent on using government to punish his enemies? Did he push through a plan to add 87,000 new IRS investigative agents at a time of national discord?

Attempts to transform the Russian Federation into a nation state, a civic state or a stable imperial state have failed.

The current structure is based on brittle historical foundations, possesses no unified national identity, whether civic or ethnic, and exhibits persistent struggles between nationalists, imperialists, centralists, liberals and federalists.

Russia’s full-scale military invasion of Ukraine in February 2022 and the imposition of stifling international economic sanctions will intensify and accelerate the process of state rupture.

Paradoxically, while Vladimir Putin assumed power to prevent Russia’s disintegration, he may be remembered as precipitating the country’s demise.  New territorial entities will surface as Moscow’s credibility crisis deepens amidst spreading ungovernability, elite power struggles, political polarization, nationalist radicalism, and regional and ethnic revivals.