Tag Archives: political parties

Oh, Yes It Is

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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.

“Debate Kamala Harris, Mr Trump”

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That’s the headline of William McGurn’s Monday editorial, and his piece goes on at some length on that theme. It’s unfortunate to see such a piece from the usually astute McGurn.

In fact, former President and Republican Presidential candidate Donald Trump has already offered to debate the Progressive-Democrat Harris. He’s proposed a specific date, 4 September; proposed Fox News‘ Bret Baier and Martha MacCallum moderate it; and that the debate operate under substantially the same rules as the originally scheduled and now no longer existent debate with Joe Biden—just with a couple of additions: the debate with Harris that Trump has proposed would occur in a town hall venue, with a live audience present.

Harris is skittering away from that as fast as she can.

McGurn should call on Harris to accept the offered debate.

They’re At It Again

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Never mind Progressive-Democrat President Joe Biden’s mantra of “building [America] from the middle out and the bottom up. Here, in a nutshell, is Progressive-Democrat Vice President and Progressive-Democratic Party Presidential candidate Kamala Harris’ proposed economic policy:

Building up the middle class will be a defining goal of my presidency[.]

Biden’s execution of his mantra favored wealthy special interests, vis., green lobbyists, buyers of expensive battery cars and solar panels, and on and on.

Harris has dropped all pretense of carrying a single copper penny about the poor, which has been all too typical of the Democratic Party and its evolution, today’s Progressive-Democratic Party. They yap about the poor, and then they do nothing.

Speaking of Proud Records…

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Progressive-Democrat Vice President and Progressive-Democratic Party Presidential candidate Kamala Harris is a woman of verbally flexible policies.

At a 2020 primary campaign town hall, Harris had this position:

There’s no question I’m in favor of banning fracking. And starting with what we can do on Day One around public lands, right?

In today’s Presidential campaign season, she’s claiming to not be opposed to fracking. After all, [o]ne important swing state, Pennsylvania, is the second largest producer of natural gas.

Following the George Floyd murder and subsequent race riots (many of which victim neighborhoods still have not recovered from them), Harris was a zealous supporter of defunding police departments.

Defund the police, the issue behind it is that we need to reimagine how we are creating safety.
…
For too long, the status quo thinking has been, you get more safety by putting more cops on the street. Well, that’s wrong, because by the way, if you wanna look at upper middle class suburban neighborhoods, they don’t have that patrol car.

Now she’s pushing funding police departments.

On illegal aliens flooding across our borders: when a debate moderator asked, in a 2019 Progressive-Democratic Party Presidential primary campaign debate, whether they [the candidates] would be in favor of decriminalizing border crossings, Harris signaled her agreement with such a decriminalization. Then, post-election, Progressive-Democrat President Joe Biden gave Harris the job of being border czar (the press’ term, which in their own convenient flop, they’re trying to deny they ever used), and Harris has acted on her decriminalization position by…doing nothing regarding tightening border security.

Now, during this campaign season, Harris is claiming to be supportive of tightening border controls.

Progressive-Democrat President Joe Biden is in on the scheme of claiming altered positions at political convenience:

White House officials told Politico that these shifts are part of a strategy to undermine the argument that she is a leftist politician, a reputation they believe stems from the positions she took in the 2020 Democratic primary, but which they say do not truly represent Harris’ positions.

Of course, they are her positions, though. Harris was saying what she actually believed when she pushed those earlier positions. Today, she’s merely covering her political behind and pretending to espouse these “changes” purely for her political gain in an election year. Keep in mind those earlier positions; they’re what she will work to implement if she’s elected.

Begging Iran

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The subheadline tells the tale:

Biden administration mounts last-ditch appeal to Tehran, while also pushing to keep cease-fire talks alive

And this from Secretary of State Antony Blinken:

We are engaged in intense diplomacy pretty much around the clock with a very simple message: all parties must refrain from escalation. It’s also critical that we break this cycle by reaching a cease-fire in Gaza.

And this from a carefully unidentified US official:

We’re preparing to defend Israel in an April-like manner[.]

This timidity by our government is only leading to continued deaths of Israeli citizens at the hands of Iran and its terrorist surrogates, and the continued deaths of those Palestinians about whom the Biden-Harris administration pretends so shrilly to be worried, as Iran’s terrorist surrogate Hamas continues to hold Palestinians as shields.

Equating Israel’s struggle to defend itself in a war for its survival against its terrorist attackers with those terrorist attackers is disgustingly, deeply immoral. Defending Israel in an April-like manner, wherein American forces, along with Jordanian and British forces, shot down an important number of the 300+ missiles, rockets, and cruise missiles Iran fired at Israel that April, was sufficiently inadequate that Israel finds itself in a similar strait today.

Purely defensive efforts are wholly inadequate.  Without further second-guessing the Biden-Harris effort last April, what will be necessary today are Rules Two and Three. The US must destroy Hezbollah and Houthi launching facilities, whether or not they’re preparing to launch, along with those terrorists’ missile and rocket storage sites and their ammunition and fuel dumps. The US must go further: our forces must sink the Iranian navy afloat and destroy Iran’s air defense sites and its launch facilities and associated missile and rocket storage sites.

That will leave Israel free to deal with the close-in threats: those rockets, missiles, and cruise missiles that do get through to range of Israel’s defenses, and to deal with Hamas and Hezbollah terrorist forces.

In the meantime, though, Hezbollah is firing rockets into northern Israel, killing tens of Israeli men, women, and children, all with no response from the US.

Israel is a critical ally of ours. Either we are a critical ally of Israel, or we are not. The Biden-Harris administration’s activities are not encouraging.