Category Archives: defense policy

Continued Betrayal

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Progressive-Democrat President Joe Biden has decided to allow Ukraine to use artillery and to fire range-limited HIMARS rockets (but not the long-range HIMARS rockets) against command posts, arms depots, and other assets on Russian territory that are being used by Russian forces to carry out its attack on Kharkiv in northeastern Ukraine.

Oh, the magnanimity.

But nowhere else. Not in the east, in Donetsk and Luhansk Oblasts which also border on Russia, opposite which in Russian territory, there also exist command posts, arms depots, and other assets preparing to attack, or actually attacking. Not against the Kerch Bridge which connects Russia with occupied Crime and allows reinforcement and resupply of the barbarians operating in Crimea, in Kherson and Zaporizhia Oblasts, and in Donetsk Oblast through Zaporizhia. Most especially not in Kyiv Oblast where Russian assets exist in Belorussia, in preparation for a renewed invasion from the north.

Instead, Biden continues to require Ukraine’s soldiers to only shoot back. Biden still is trying to deny Ukraine the ability to preemptively fire against shooters preparing to shoot, or shooters gathering in preparation to prepare to [sic] shoot.

Other targets in Russian (and Belorussian) territory that Biden will not allow American-supplied weapons to be used against: road and rail links connecting those Russian ammunition and fuel dumps; food and water accumulations; and soldiers, armor, and artillery being massed in staging areas, all of which then will move to enter Ukraine.

Biden’s rationalization for this:

The narrow geographic scope represents an effort by the Biden administration to help Ukraine better defend against Russia’s continuing offensive while limiting the risk that the conflict in Ukraine could escalate into a direct clash between Washington and Moscow.

“Better defend,” not seize the initiative and win.

Biden isn’t interested in an actual Ukrainian victory over the barbarian. He isn’t interested in Ukraine actually being able to preempt the forces enroute to joining Putin’s offensive, either in the Kharkiv Oblast or the coming ones into Donetsk and Luhansk, or the one currently being set up in Belorussia into Kyiv Oblast. No, Biden still is requiring Ukraine to fight with one hand tied behind its back; he’s only untied the little finger.

Biden still is kowtowing to Putin and his threats, or he’s still siding with Putin in the barbarian invasion of Ukraine.

The Veterans Administration Fails Again

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A 22-year USAF veteran has nightmares, the attitude, withdrawal as a result of his experiences while deployed to a plethora of foreign locales. [Emphasis added.]

[H]is wife begged him to get help from the local Veterans Affairs medical facility in West Palm Beach, Florida. [The veteran] said he tried, but after many years and multiple VA therapists who could not see him on a regular basis, he decided to pay out-of-pocket for private care. He would like the VA to pay for his therapy through community care—a program designed for eligible veterans to receive care from a community provider when the VA cannot provide the care needed.

Nor is he alone in this strait. It’s getting worse, too. Now,

the West Palm Beach VA Healthcare System is no longer approving their requests for community care, cutting them off from their longtime mental health providers, with potentially devastating results.

And

Congressman Brian Mast (R, FL), a former Army bomb technician who lost both his legs and a finger in Afghanistan, represents the Palm Beach area in Florida’s 21st Congressional District. He said his office has been contacted by over 70 veterans, relatives, and mental health providers who have complained that the VA will no longer refer patients to community care.

OF course, the VA denies that, claiming to have hired many more doctors and expanded facilities. Never mind the facts provided by our veterans in that district, who know empirically otherwise.

The veterans who spoke to Fox News Digital dispute the VA’s view of its quality of care. [The veteran cited at the top of this post] described how his previous attempts to see a VA psychiatrist were “counterproductive” and “ridiculous.” In a “typical interaction,” the VA would tell him, “we’re going to have somebody call you. This is the date and time,” he said. “Nobody calls.”
When he went back to schedule another appointment, the same thing would happen.
“You’re telling me I missed the appointment, I said. But nobody called me. I have no number to call. This was the norm. It was always a lot of deflection to where I just say, this is beyond ridiculous,” he said.

Even Mast has been denied effective care by the VA at least once.

Mast related that he had to see his primary care doctor, a physical therapist, and a lab technician before VA approved him to receive a new cane—with two-week intervals between each appointment.
“That was the bureaucratic process for getting a guy with no legs a cane,” he said.

Just one more reason why

Veteranos Administratio delende est.

Muddled?

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Progressive-Democrat President Joe Biden wants our European allies to desist from moving to “rebuke” Iran over its pushing forward its nuclear weapons program, a program that’s already nearing fruition. He is, through his nebulously identified administration,

arguing against an effort by Britain and France to censure Iran at the International Atomic Energy Agency’s member state board in early June, the diplomats said. The US has pressed a number of other countries to abstain in a censure vote, saying that is what Washington will do….

On the other hand, Biden said through one of his officials,

We are increasing pressure on Iran through sanctions and international isolation….

Biden Those “officials” further claim that

Europe could do more to increase pressure on Iran, including cutting off Iranian banks that work on the continent and listing Iran’s elite Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps as a terror group. They note they have coordinated sanctions efforts with Europe against Iran over its missile and drone transfers.

But those aren’t rebukes. Nope.

This, from the article’s lede, though, gives the game away:

[The Biden administration] seeks to keep tensions with Tehran from escalating before the autumn’s US presidential election, according to diplomats involved in discussions.

And this, bookending the article:

A second US official said it was “totally false” that Washington is aiming to avoid disruption with Iran before the US elections.

There’s the official denial that confirms the rumor.

Maybe Biden’s policy here isn’t so muddled. More likely, this is just Biden kowtowing to the mullah and putting his personal political prospects far ahead of what’s good for our nation, what’s good for Israel, what’s good for the Middle East at large. That, in my humble opinion, is disgusting.

Voters should keep this in mind when they go to the polls this fall.

What Does Biden Want?

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Progressive-Democrat President Joe Biden is continuing to dictate to Ukraine how it must fight its war against the barbarian invasion, an invasion that the barbarian chieftain Vladimir Putin has said in so many words is to erase Ukraine altogether and fold the geographic territory into Mother Russia. Biden’s diktats go so far as to tell Ukraine what targets it may not aim for: targets located inside Russia, targets like fuel and ammunition depots, bases and camps where Russian units gather preparatory to crossing into Ukraine to reinforce the barbarian hordes already present killing, destroying, raping.

Biden claims to be concerned about Putin’s response were American weapons used against targets inside Russia.

The Biden administration’s fear is that Vladimir Putin will escalate if Kyiv strikes Russian territory with missiles and drones bearing a “Made in the USA” logo. Mr Putin delights in spreading such fear.

Never mind that

Russia targets anything it wants in Ukraine—from military to civilian targets, from power plants to railway lines….

Biden doesn’t want Ukraine to strike back with American weapons.

Here are two such sanctuary areas, areas where Putin is massing his hordes and their ammunition, fuel, and other consumables just across the border opposite Kharkiv and in Belarus near Kyiv. Biden is desperate not to have Ukraine preempt this escalated invasion by hitting the hordes and their supplies before they can jump off.

This isn’t about Biden’s infamous timidity when it comes to Russia. It’s actually a matter of his not wanting Ukraine to be successful in its war for survival against the barbarian. He clearly does not want Ukraine actually to successfully defend itself.

On the contrary, Biden desperately wants to protect Russia as a sanctuary against Ukraine responses to the barbarian’s assault and atrocities.

Because he’s really that fearful? Or because he wants Russia to win after bleeding Ukraine dry?

US EVs and Critical Supply Chain Inputs

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Stephen Wilmot’s lede in his Wall Street Journal piece lays out a major outcome of the tariffs proposed by Progressive-Democratic President Joe Biden on a variety of EV inputs sourced from the People’s Republic of China.

Making cheap electric vehicles in America is getting even tougher.

And

Based on a crude calculation, the tariff increase could theoretically add roughly $1,000 to costs per standard-range Model 3—not unaffordable, but inconvenient when Tesla is desperate to remove costs wherever possible.

There are moves afoot that seek to alter that sourcing.

A response more in the spirit of US government policy would be to bring LFP [Lithium-Iron-Phosphate] battery production onshore.

And

One of the strings attached to the $7,500 tax credit available for EV purchases as part of the Inflation Reduction Act is now that no battery materials can come from a “foreign entity of concern,” a designation that includes China.

The problem with those kinds of moves, though, is that they’re woefully incomplete. The original input to those products is lithium, and the vast majority of that is mined in the PRC, and the vast majority of the lithium that is mined is refined in the PRC—including being shipped from non-PRC mines to the PRC for refining. It’s functionally the same for nickel, another major component of EV batteries (LFP batteries aren’t yet ready for prime time), the only difference is that most of the nickel is mined in PRC-owned mines in Africa.

Leave aside the idea of whether battery cars are anything other than another form of personal transportation, like the various external combustion engine-powered cars we’ve tried out over the years, or the original battery cars of a bit over 100 years ago.

The situation extends far beyond some battery inputs. Leaving ourselves dependent on an enemy nation for any of the Critical Item inputs to our economy is far more than an inconvenience, and far more expensive than just dollars spent on alternative sources. Our national security, our national freedom, depend on eliminating that dependence.