Category Archives: defense policy

Democrat Obstructionism

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Extending their perpetuation of the existing partial government shutdown, now the Progressive-Democrats won’t even allow the Senate to function.

Senate Democrats on Tuesday blocked the chamber from considering bipartisan foreign-policy legislation in a bid to pressure Republicans to reopen the government….

This is of a piece with their “rebuttal” of President Donald Trump’s Oval Office speech calling for negotiations on a border wall and border security generally, wherein the Progressive-Democrats reiterated their refusal to negotiate at all, and they denied the facts presented regarding our border situation while cynically declining to present their own facts.

And their Wimpy-esque promise to gladly negotiate the wall later for a government opening today?  Trump tweeted of Wednesday’s abbreviated meeting with Progressive-Democrat and Republican leaders,

I asked what is going to happen in 30 days if I quickly open things up, are you going to approve Border Security which includes a Wall or Steel Barrier? Nancy said, NO.

So much for the believability of Progressive-Democrat commitments.

Remember this in the coming election season.

A “Caravan” Participant’s Comment

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A Fox News piece centered on the refusal of some “caravan” participants’ refusal to leave a closed Tijuana warehouse and go to a better shelter facility—but a few miles farther away from our border—closed with this comment from 40-yr-old Honduran Norma Perez, who traveled with her 5-yr-old child.  She wants President Donald Trump to

personally go to Honduras so he can see with his own eyes that we simply can’t go back, that there are no jobs, no companies, nothing.

Never mind that all the foreign aid we’ve been sending to Honduras to help with precisely those conditions has been going into the pockets of Honduran authorities; very little of it has made it to folks like Perez.  Since she’s never seen any of the money or any of the economic benefits from the money, there’s no reason she would know of it in the first place.

However, it is well-known that the Mexican government has offered all of the “caravan” participants asylum and work permits.  Perhaps Perez should personally go to those Mexican authorities and accept the asylum and work permit offers.  And stop holding her child at risk.

In Which the NLMSM and Politicians

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…of both parties jumped the gun in their blind panic to disparage an actual attempt to end a war.  Recall the hooraw over President Donald Trump’s decision to withdraw our forces from Syria and from a war with no coherent plan or victory conditions.

Now the facts of the withdrawal start to come out.  National Security Adviser John Bolton made these points in Jerusalem while on a diplomatic trip:

  • the safety of Kurdish allies is being considered as part of its pending withdrawal plan
  • [t]imetables or the timing of the withdrawal occurs as a result of the fulfillment of the conditions and the establishment of the circumstances that we want to see. It’s not the establishment of an arbitrary point for the withdrawal
  • Trump has told Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan that withdrawal is pending assurances that Turkey will protect Kurdish fighters who have long provided the US with solid support in the campaign against Islamic State militants
  • [a]ny use of chemical weapons will be met by very strong response, as we have done twice before
  • [t]he US could leave some troops at a key military outpost in southern Syria

Patience, Grasshoppers.

Hiding Their Heads in the Sand

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Recall last Wednesday’s meeting among President Donald Trump, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D, CA), House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R, CA), Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D, NY), Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R, KY), Senate Minority Whip Dick Durbin (D, IL), Homeland Security Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen, and others.

Nielsen was there to present the current situation on our southern border as prelude to negotiations for funding for a border wall.

Pelosi refused to listen.  As Nielsen was laying out statistics related to illegal border crossings, Pelosi interrupted (among several interruptions by her and by Schumer, as they refused to listen):

I reject your facts[.]

Never mind that facts belong to no one; they exist in their own right.

Durbin also rejected simple facts.

It was preposterous.  At a time when we have the lowest level of apprehensions at the border—stopping people from coming in illegally—the lowest level historically, she is saying that we have all these terrorists and criminals and all these people on their way in.

As if per centages of criminals or terrorists won’t change—reductions in total apprehensions must mean there are fewer criminals or terrorists, thugs with entirely different goals in gaining entry, persons who by their nature want to hide the fact of their entry must drop by the same proportion.

Durbin knows better; he’s being disingenuous with his distortion.

And, as Pelosi said that Wednesday

This is not a wall between the United States and Mexico that the President is creating here.  It’s a wall between reality and his constituents.

Progressive-Democrats really do have nothing but contempt for the hundreds of millions of Americans, including the tens of millions of eligible voters who voted Republican in 2016, who disagree with them.

How is it possible to negotiate anything with persons who run screaming from the underlying facts?  How is it possible to negotiate anything with persons who won’t accept the reality underlying the negotiations?

Keep this in mind over the next couple of years, and especially over the summer and fall of 2020.

Building a Wall

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President Donald Trump has floated the idea that he could declare a national emergency and use the military to build a wall.  I’m not convinced that’s necessary.

The Navy’s Seabees, the Army’s Corps of Engineers, and the USAF’s Civil Engineers always can use an operational exercise in construction.