What’s He So Terrified Of?

Secretary of State Anthony Blinken postponed a scheduled trip to the Middle East amid heightened tensions in the area and a possible attack on Israel by Iran. The trip ostensibly was to continue to pressure Israel to agree a ceasefire with the terrorists who began their war to exterminate Israel.

Possible attack by Iran on Israel? What better time for a senior US government official to visit Israel could there be? SecState’s presence in Israel would greatly raise the stakes for Iran as it contemplates, or executes, its own effort to destroy Israel.

Blinken could have used the time in Israel to coordinate with them on defenses against an Iranian attack and against a coordinated set of attacks by Hamas, Hezbollah, Houthis, and Iran, as well as moves post attack to finish Hamas and to kinetically punish Hezbollah, Houthis, and Iran.

Instead, Blinken—consistent with the Biden-Harris administration generally—chickened out.

Oh, Yes It Is

The Wall Street Journal titled one of its Wednesday editorials about Minnesota’s Progressive-Democrat governor and putative Progressive-Democratic Party candidate for Vice President Tim Walz with this amazingly ignorant subheadline:

His military record isn’t a good reason to oppose his candidacy.

The editors’ rationalization:

Before his political career, Mr Walz rose to the highest enlisted rank of Command Sergeant Major. He retired in May 2005, shortly before the unit was notified in July 2005 that it would be deployed to Iraq. Fox News reports that the Pentagon says Mr Walz put in his retirement request several months earlier, though it’s fair to ask if he was aware of the possible Iraq deployment.
His retirement timing wasn’t ideal, leaving his leadership position when his unit was headed into a war zone.

After all, the editors nattered,

But if he had been deemed essential to the operation, the Guard could have declined to approve it.

Yes, Walz was well aware of his unit’s pending deployment to an active combat zone; it was under a Warning Order to prepare for that deployment when Walz put in his “retirement” papers. Walz’ timing “wasn’t ideal” for his unit, but it was well-timed to get him out of serving a dangerous assignment.

Associated with Walz’ abandonment of his unit, he had signed up and begun taking courses for a promotion to Command Sergeant Major. He was provisionally promoted to that rank on his commitment to the course. Taking the course also carried with it a commitment to serve for two more years at that rank and in a position commensurate with that rank. Failure to honor the commitment, or to complete the course, carried with it a consequence that he would be demoted/returned to his lower rank of Master Sergeant—which Walz also knew; he had to sign paperwork acknowledging that.

Walz quit his unit while it was under orders to prepare for a combat zone deployment; he was reduced in rank, and he was allowed to retire. Yet his Web page still claims he was a Command Sergeant Major when he retired. That’s a straight-up lie. When he put in his papers, reneging on that two-year commitment, he was reduced in rank to his prior, permanent rank of Master Sergeant. His service as a Command Sergeant Major was only provisional, and contingent on his honoring his commitment. The editors disingenuously claim there’s no doubt he had reached the higher position while active. No: he achieved that rank only provisionally, lost it on his reneging on his commitment, and was discharged at the lower, permanent rank.

Walz has also been lying about his having served “in war.” That may have been a deceptive boast, though a minor one, scribbled the editors. The closest Walz came to serving “in war” was during our fighting in Afghanistan—he had a six-month tour 2,500 miles behind the lines in the comfortable offices of the base in Italy to which he’d been assigned. Again, no: a lie of that magnitude is no mere minor deceptive boast—it’s a despicable lie that cheapens and insults the service of so many who have actually served in war and especially those who’ve been wounded, maimed, mentally scarred during that service.

Then there’s that editorial foolishness that the Guard could have retained him had he been essential. Men whose lives are on the line deserve a leader who’s committed to them and to the mission to which their unit—and supposedly Walz—are assigned. The Guard correctly assessed Walz’ lack of commitment to his duties, correctly recognized that Walz considered his personal political career more important than the lives of the men and women whom he would be been leading in a combat zone. The Guard was correct to release this…NCO…who would have been worse than merely a Beetle Bailey with senior sergeant chevrons. Beetle Bailey at least was an honest shirker, come to that.

The United States deserves a Vice President who is committed to us citizens and who has the courage and morality to keep that commitment when things get tough, whether for our nation or for the Vice President personally. That’s not who Walz is.

Lies of the Press

These are lies of the Left, too, as Leftist as the press industry has gone. In their editorial regarding former President and current Republican Presidential candidate Donald Trump’s interview at the National Association of Black Journalists, the editors summarized some claims embedded in the NABJ‘s opening question, posed by Rachel Scott of ABC News:

“You have pushed false claims about some of your rivals…saying they were not born in the United States”; told “four Congresswomen of color…to go back to where they came from”; and “attacked black journalists”

I heard that part of the interview in its entirety; the quoted parts are incomplete, but contain enough to identify the dishonesties in Scott’s question.

Not born here: the only rival Trump said anything of the sort about was then-Presidential candidate and then-President Barack Obama (D), and it’s obvious he was using an already long-extant conspiracy theory to troll Obama and the credulous press, not making a serious argument.

[F]our Congresswomen of color…to go back to where they came from: what Rose dishonestly excluded from her claim was the context: the four Congresswomen were objecting to Trump’s characterization of the African nations of their heritage by insisting that those nations had much to teach us—and Trump—about how to do things. What Rose further excluded from her question was that Trump was not telling those Congresswomen to go back where they came from; he was telling them to go to their old nations, learn those lessons they claimed their nations had for us, and then come back and educate the rest of us.

Attacking black journalists? This is the intrinsic racism of Scott, the NABJ, and the American press at large. Trump attacks the press and nearly all journalists without regard to race or ethnicity. That includes black journalists, but it does not single them out to the exclusion of other groups of journalists.

It’s…unfortunate…that the WSJ‘s editors chose not to call out Scott for her lies about what Trump had said.

Harris Intends to Continue…

…her boss’, Progressive-Democrat President Joe Biden’s, disdain for Israel and that nation’s obligation (not merely right) to defend itself, an obligation that of necessity requires it to destroy an enemy whose openly stated goal includes the butchery of Israeli women and children en route to the extermination of Israel the nation.

Here’s Progressive-Democrat Vice President and likely Progressive-Democratic Party Presidential nominee Kamala Harris on the matter of Hamas creche-mate Hezbollah’s attack on Israel’s Druze children in the northern village of Majdal Shams as cited by The Wall Street Journal:

[A]lthough Israel has a right to defend itself, she would “not be silent” about “the death of far too many innocent civilians.”

This is Harris cynically naively taking the terrorist Hamas at its word regarding the entity’s casualty claims, claims that are carefully undifferentiated between civilian and combatant casualties and that are wholly unsubstantiated. This is Harris, also, completely disregarding Israel’s statements regarding the civilian to combatant casualty ratio in this Hamas-inflicted war while also disregarding the civilian casualty losses Israel has suffered at the hands of both Hamas and Hezbollah.

Harris also is committing the moral equivalence sewage of equating Hamas and Hezbollah’s terrorism with Israel’s fight for its existence against these terrorists: she’s demanding an unconditional cease fire, immediately.

I will not be silent. So to everyone who has been calling for a cease-fire, and to everyone who has been calling for peace, I see you and I hear you. Let’s get the deal done so we can get a cease-fire to end the war. Let’s bring the hostages home, and let’s provide much-needed relief to the Palestinian people.

She doesn’t care (it’s not possible to conclude she doesn’t know) that such a cease fire would benefit only the terrorists while doing nothing to recover the terrorist-seized hostages, many of whom the terrorists have already butchered while held or allowed to die of injuries while held. She doesn’t care (it’s not possible to conclude she doesn’t know) that Hamas will not agree to release the hostages or the hostage bodies unless and until Israel withdraws completely from the Gaza Strip, leaving Hamas in place to reconstitute, rearm, and resume attacking and butchering Israeli citizens. This is a straightforward continuation of Biden’s anti-Israeli policy. All that Harris lacks, so far, is a public intent to interfere with arms resupply of Israel, as Biden has done.

This is the candidate the Progressive-Democratic Party wants to put in the White House. This is the anti-Israeli policy Party wants to infuse throughout Congress by expanding its Senate majority and seizing a majority in the House.

She Avoided, Again

Last month, 12-year-old Jocelyn Nungaray was gang-raped and murdered by illegal aliens in Houston, TX. Last Saturday, Progressive-Democrat Vice President and likely Progressive-Democratic Party Presidential nominee Kamala Harris traveled to Houston to campaign for her nomination and then for office. However, she lacked the courtesy—even the courage—to visit with Jocelyn’s parents; she was reluctant, apparently, to face the possibility of having to explain the role her open border position might have played in their daughter’s rape and murder.

This, though, is of a piece with Harris’ visit to Border Patrol facilities in El Paso, TX, shortly after her boss, Progressive-Democrat Joe Biden assigned her the responsibility of overseeing the security of our southern border, or as the press had it before they began trying to purge their history, assigned her the role of Border Czar. On that visit, Harris was in the area, but she declined actually to go to the border itself.

All of this, insulting as it is to young Jocelyn’s memory and to her parents, is part and parcel with Harris’ strongly held position of open borders and her holding that illegal aliens shouldn’t be illegal.