Monthly Archives: June 2022

Pulling Patriotic Products

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Harris Teeter, a supermarket chain, used to sell, among other things, products that were distinctly pro-American—things with slogans like “Give me liberty or give me death” and “America, love it or leave it.”

Then a customer complained about their presence on store shelves—they were insensitive, after all, in light of recent mass shootings. Apparently, being pro-American, being patriotic, is insensitive today. Never mind that slogans like these have been around for decades and all the way back to the runup to our Revolutionary War.

Harris Teeter promptly folded.

Thanks for reaching out. As soon as these items were brought to our attention we put a recall request into place and these items are being removed from all store locations.
We appreciate your concern[.]

Not to be outdone, another person complained to Kroger, a chain of supermarkets and department stores, about the presence on its shelves of coozies with Arms Change, Rights Don’t printed on them. Not to be outdone by Harris Teeter, Kroger promptly folded and pulled the coozies.

Harris Teeter and Kroger may think this is a sound business decision, but it’s likely they’ve badly misread their customer base. In any event, it’s certainly true that the recall is decidedly unpatriotic and amoral.

Maybe it’s time we Americans educated these two store chains about the nature of their customer base by no longer being their customers.

Border Control Failure

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…by our Progressive-Democrat President Joe Biden and his pet (Harry Reid’s term) DHS Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas:

Lawmakers in Congress are sounding alarm after 15 illegal migrants with suspected terrorists [sic] ties were caught crossing the border in a single month, raising worries that some might eventually reach the stage of launching an attack.

Failure? Customs and Border Protection agents caught them, didn’t they? How is that a failure?

Congressman Andy Biggs (R, AZ) said border agents are increasingly overwhelmed processing the nearly quarter million illegal migrants who are crossing monthly and that means more dangerous players are sneaking across perilously undetected.
“You have probably 80,000 to 100,000 people coming into the country that we don’t interact with, we don’t we see them, we don’t stop them,” Biggs told Just the News.

That’s a rough estimate, to be sure—”don’t see” means don’t see. However, say it’s an overestimate by 100%—that’s still 40,000-50,000 illegal aliens not interacted with at the border, and that’s a large population within which terrorists could be mixed and go undetected and so uncaught. It only took 19 terrorists to perpetrate 9/11. On the other hand, if Biggs’ estimate is an underestimate by half, the number of terrorists getting in could be much larger.

That doesn’t get to the so-called got-aways—illegal aliens spotted crossing our border but who escape capture and succeed in penetrating to our interior and secreting themselves. By Mayorkas’ own April testimony in front of the House Judiciary Committee, there were nearly 390,000 got-aways in FY21. In April 2022 alone, there were 58,000 got-aways, nearly double the monthly average of Mayorkas’ FY21 admission. How many of those got-aways are terrorists or have terrorist ties?

Catching 15 potential terrorists out of all of that is no success. Not at all.

Here’s an Idea

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The Biden administration is becoming more open about transporting illegal aliens (which administration personnel and too many in the press cynically call “migrants”) into the interior of our nation.

President Joe Biden’s Department of Homeland Security (DHS) is drafting plans to drop off migrants in American towns hours past the US-Mexico border, Republican lawmakers say.
The potential policy is one way DHS Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas is seeking to ease the influx of migrants to US border towns….

It’s being done behind the backs of the Congressional Representatives in whose districts the “recipient” towns sit and whether or not those towns agree to the moves, too. Congressman August Pfluger (R, TX) formally asked DHS Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas about it, saying in part,

San Angelo is a welcoming community, but the locality has not volunteered for this mission, nor are they responsible for the burdens of the border crisis.

Pfluger also noted that he only found out about the DHS plans after local law enforcement in San Angelo informed him. From that, he asked Mayorkas what communities Mayorkas already was targeting with illegal alien transport, what steps he was taking to ensure the illegal aliens being so transported would pose no danger to the victim recipient towns, what procedures Mayorkas was using to

notify and alert local, state, and Congressional leaders that illegal immigrants will be transported to an area….

and

How much notice do you provide these entities before illegal immigrants arrive?

Ease the influx of “migrants:” here’s an idea—work with me on this, it’s apparently a difficult concept for those on the Left and in the present administration—stop letting the illegal aliens in in the first place. Stop them at the border and keep them out. Push Mexico to stop letting them in at the Mexican southern border and detain the illegals as they enter that country.

In short, reimplement the border and immigration policies of the prior administration.

Again I Ask

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I asked over the weekend where in the world is President Joe Biden (D).

I ask again on a related matter. British Prime Minister Boris Johnson was in Ukraine again last Friday, this time to meet with Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelenskyy regarding, among other things, a proposal to train large numbers of Ukrainian soldiers.

The training operation would instruct up to 10,000 Ukrainian servicemen for three weeks every 120 days “using battle-proven British Army expertise.”
The program is intended to help Kyiv “accelerate their deployment, rebuild their forces, and scale-up their resistance as they continue to defend their nation’s sovereignty against Russian invaders.”
International partners would also be invited to take part in the training program.

It’s true enough we have small numbers of special forces types in eastern Europe training small units of Ukrainian soldiers and others in Poland training Ukrainian soldiers on the equipment we’re sending in dribs and drabs to Ukraine. That’s critical training, too.

But the Brits have gone all in, working with Zelenskyy to set up a training program that will turn out roughly a division of Ukrainian soldiers every four months.

Where is Biden on this sort of large-scale support? Why isn’t he having his SecState and SecDef working with Ukraine’s Defense Minister to set up something like this—together with serious amounts of equipment?

Johnson’s statement:

My visit today, in the depths of this war, is to send a clear and simple message to the Ukrainian people: the UK is with you, and we will be with you until you ultimately prevail. As Ukrainian soldiers fire UK missiles in defense of your nation’s sovereignty, they do so also in defense of the very freedoms we take for granted.

I ask where is Joe Biden? His direct remarks are deafeningly silent, and his remarks through his Press Secretary, his Secretary of State, his Secretary of Defense are just so much wishy-washy word kale.

And again: why isn’t Biden going over there to talk face-to-face with Zelenskyy, walk the streets of Kyiv and Bucha and Novyi and Staryi Bykiv, even as far east as Kharkiv and Kramatorsk to see first hand the destruction being wreaked by the barbarian in Ukraine?

And this, regarding Zelenskyy himself two weeks ago:

Overnight it emerged that Zelenskiy had visited nearby frontlines on Sunday to raise soldiers’ morale. The president revealed he had taken a risky trip to Lysychansk and nearby Soledar that at one point took him a couple of kilometres from Russian positions.

But Biden won’t go anywhere near Ukraine. Why is that?

Shortchanging

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And piecemeal, at that.

Recall that President Joe Biden (D) and his administration has sent to Ukraine Poland for Ukraine four multiple-launch rocket artillery systems. These HIMARS (High Mobility Artillery Rocket System) weapons are shoot and scoot weapons that are capable of launching rockets with very high precision onto targets as far away as 190 miles, but Biden has provided the systems with rockets that only can reach a bit under 45 miles. Biden doesn’t mind that at those ranges, the systems are still outranged by the Russian systems the barbarian is using in Ukraine.

Four of them. They’re in Poland, not Ukraine, because they’re being used to train Ukrainian soldiers. The systems won’t arrive in Ukraine until the end of the month.

Why can’t Ukraine have the longer range rockets for the HIMARS? Because, even though the Ukrainians have promised to use the systems for defense and not to attack targets inside Russia—a promise Biden extracted even for the shorter-range HIMARS—because Biden wants Russia, the invader, to be a sanctuary country, safe against counterattack by the nation the invader has invaded. Even though Russian forces are firing from within Russia as well as from within Ukraine, and even though Russian forces stage troops, weapons, ammunition, fuel, food, and other consumables in Russia a short distance from Ukraine.

Why can’t Ukraine have the longer range rockets? Also because Biden plainly doesn’t trust Ukraine’s President Zelenskyy to keep his word—which gravely insults the leader of the nation whose existence is in the wind and whose nation is fighting so staunchly for survival.

What Ukraine needs: Oleksiy Arestovych, a military advisor on Zelenskyy’s Chief of Staff staff, says Ukraine needs 60 of this sort of weapons system.

If we get 60 of these systems then the Russians will lose all ability to advance anywhere, they will be stopped dead in their tracks. If we get 40 they will advance, albeit very slowly with heavy casualties; with 20 they will continue to advance with higher casualties than now[.]

And

“The fewer we get, the worse our situation will be. Our troops will continue to die and we will continue to lose ground,” Arestovych said, particularly if countries with dozens of systems only “decide to donate four or five.”

Why can’t Ukraine have more than four HIMARS systems?

Because Biden doesn’t care. He’s satisfied with virtue-signaling.

It’s not just piecemeal. It’s casually destructive.