Moderation in the Progressive-Democratic Party

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Recall how the Progressive-Democratic Party candidate for Virginia governor, Abigail Spanberger, ran on a platform of moderation and left of center politics.

In the first weeks of her office, this is a small subset of what she and her Party allies, who have majorities in both houses of the State’s legislature, have on offer.

  • HB968: Requires the use of ballot scanning machines in elections and explicitly bans hand counts “for any reason or purpose not specifically authorized for by law”
  • HB82: Extends the deadline for receipt of absentee ballots until three days after the election
  • HB111: Bars the state registrar from removing voter registrations except by request of an individual voter or direct reports from the Department of Elections
  • HB965: Commits Virginia to an interstate compact requiring that its electoral votes go to the winner of the national popular vote
  • HB244: Limits and reduces criminal penalties for robbery
  • HB1070: Limits the ability of prosecutors to mention prior convictions of a defendant during trial
  • HB1359: Requires the issuance of a firearm permit for all purchases
  • HB217: Bans the sale, purchase, or transfer of so-called “assault weapons”
  • HB24: Allows state authorities to select which states to share concealed carry reciprocity with instead of all states
  • HB916: Imposes further restrictions on concealed carry permit acquisition
  • HB7: Bars law enforcement officers from wearing facial coverings

This is Party’s conception of “moderate.” Party has gone so far left that it no longer recognizes what moderation is; it has no idea where the center of our nation’s political spectrum is.

Time to Pause

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The Wall Street Journal‘s editors think it’s time for ICE to pause in Minneapolis.

This is a badly mistaken position, and it’s based on a badly wrong underlying premise. Here are the key components in the editors’ error, in their own words.

Fifteen months later in Minneapolis, there isn’t much heart in Immigration and Customs Enforcement. The Saturday shooting of Alex Pretti, as he lay on the ground surrounded by ICE agents, is the worst incident to date in what is becoming a moral and political debacle for the Trump Presidency.
Videos of an event aren’t always definitive, but this is how it looks to us. Pretti attempted, foolishly, to assist a woman who had been pepper-sprayed by agents. Multiple agents then tackled Pretti, and he had a phone in one hand as he lay on the ground. An agent discovered a concealed gun on Pretti, and disarmed him. An agent then shot Pretti, and multiple shots followed.

Stripped from the context of the shooting of Alex Pretti, as he lay on the ground is the simple fact that he was actively resisting arrest subsequent to his actively interfering with the arrest of the woman. The agents’ efforts to disarm him as he resisted arrest and now fought to retain his firearm—that addendum to his resistance is what led to his being shot.

And: Videos of an event aren’t always definitive, especially when they’re carefully edited for favored excerpts, or wholly withheld, as the WSJ has done in its “news” article misleadingly titled Videos Contradict US Account of Minneapolis Shooting by Federal Agents, from which the videos were deliberately not published, nor were any links to any videos provided. All that piece contained were carefully selected stills carefully stripped of all context surrounding them—other than the news writers’ personal opinion-based representations of the stills’ meaning.

Nor was Pretti attempt[ing], foolishly, to assist a woman who had been pepper-sprayed by agents. The agents were attempting to arrest the woman, who had been obstructing the agents—not protesting their actions—resisting arrest, and in the course of the struggle resulting from her resisting, she was pushed to the ground. Pretti’s “assistance” consisted of interposing himself between the woman and the agents and actively resisting—physically opposing—her arrest. In the course of his obstruction, he was pushed to the ground and his subsequent continued physical resistance is what led to his being shot.

Contra the editors’ position, it’s time for Minnesota’s Progressive-Democratic governor, Tim Walz, to pause—actually to cease altogether—his constant egging on those present in Minneapolis to actively resist ICE operations, which only result in rioting where ICE is active (its agents acting entirely within their DOC and immigration law). It’s time for Minneapolis’ Progressive-Democratic mayor, Jacob Frey, to pause—to halt altogether—his especially inflammatory rhetoric regarding ICE operations and ICE agents.

WSJ editors holding Walz and Frey, and Minneapolis’ rioters, blameless is part of a general press policy of false reporting, even as they add this:

Either many ICE agents aren’t properly trained, or they are so on edge as they face opposition in the streets that they are on a hair trigger. Either way, this calls for rethinking how ICE conducts itself, especially in Minneapolis as tensions build.

No, it calls for rethinking the way Walz and Frey incite violence and the way Minneapolis’ rioters respond to that incitement. The agents aren’t facing “opposition;” they’re facing too often violent opposition.

The editors then closed their piece with this argument:

Governor Tim Walz could have urged his citizens to avoid confrontations with ICE. Instead he made a video urging them to go into the streets with phones and film ICE agents, whether or not they are performing lawful searches under federal immigration law. His rhetoric is incendiary and describes ICE as a lawless terrorist operation. Another tragedy was inevitable, and there will be more if this continues.
Whether he likes it or not, most of the burden now lies with Mr Trump as the President who controls ICE.

No, whether the editors like it or not, most of the burden lies with Walz and Frey as the inflaming pushers of resistance.

It’s long past time for the press to stop distorting the facts of these matters, to stop misleading us citizens with their false reporting, to stop doing their bit to inflame the public, even if Walz and Frey will not stop their inflammatory words.

Progressive-Democratic Party Lawlessness

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A typical example of this is taking hold in Virginia, a Blue State (for all that it had a successful Republican governor for one term) going even Bluer. As soon as the State’s Progressive-Democrat governor, Abigail Spanberger, took office, her Party cronies, who have majorities in both houses of the State legislature, have begun pushing laws that functionally excuse violent criminals.

House Bill 863 includes proposals to effectively eliminate minimum sentencing for manslaughter, rape, possession and distribution of child pornography, assaulting a law enforcement officer, and other repeat violent felonies.

This is how Progressive-Democrats act out their disrespect for law and for law enforcement.

What’s on tap for the State’s next legislative session? Removing jail terms altogether and sending social workers to talk to rapists about inappropriate behavior toward women? Sending pediatricians to talk to child pornographers about how to better interact with children? Defund all of the State’s police departments—after all, if there are no police, there can be no assaults on police? Eliminating the crime of manslaughter, that being just the unfortunate outcome of a loud argument?

Progressive-Democrat Delegate Rae Cousins, the bill’s sponsor, has rationalized his bill:

This change would give the experienced judges in our communities more discretion to make decisions based on the unique facts of each case.

Okay. How about, instead, giving experienced judges more discretion to make decisions based on the unique facts of each case by removing the upper bounds of sentencing for these crimes while keeping the lower bounds?

Expanding our Defense Budget

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President Donald Trump (R) says he’ll propose a $1.5 trillion defense budget for 2027, a 50% increase over this year’s proposed (because it’s only passed the House, with no guarantee that an obstructionist Progressive-Democratic Party will allow it to be passed in the Senate) $1 trillion budget. Of course, there’s no guarantee that the larger budget proposal will ever be passed, either, which adds to the premium on Republicans and Conservatives winning the 2026 mid-terms for the reasons below.

The subheadline set the framework.

A $1.5 trillion military will cost much less than a war with China.

This is a war that, presently, we would lose and lose in the most humiliating fashion.

But, but—

[H]asn’t the US military shown, in Iran and Venezuela, that it is unmatched? Yes, and brilliantly so, against small powers when we can dominate space and the skies, and use our experience in combined arms operations. Going up against China, or a multiple front conflict, is far less certain.

Actually, in a fight with the PRC or a multi-front war, the outcome is pretty certain, just not favorably so. The Ukrainian military’s last attempted offensive against our near-peer Russia was an abject failure. That offensive was conducted in accordance with NATO—which is to say American—combined arms doctrine (which worked so brilliantly in Venezuela), but without a Critical Item component of that doctrine: air power and support. Absent that, even with the technologically superior ground weapons Ukraine employed against the Russian forces, Ukraine’s offensive was stopped in its tracks with very heavy loss of those superior armored vehicles.

When the People’s Republic of China invades the Republic of China, American air power will be stripped away from any putative support we might have in mind for the RoC as our Pacific aircraft carriers are sunk and our surviving naval forces are driven all the way back to Hawaii.

Nor would the PRC would have no incentive to stop there, because

new technologies are proliferating in ways that threaten the US homeland. These include hypersonic missiles, space and cyber weapons, drones, and as ever nuclear weapons. All of this is before AI is weaponized in multiple ways.

Unlike 1940s Japan, the PRC has both the stated goal of dominating us in every important way and the wherewithal to follow up its naval victory in the Western Pacific.

The US remains helpless against cyber attacks as demonstrated by the repeated hacks against a variety of data storage sites and infrastructure distribution nodes. The PRC has a first strike capability with its hypersonic, nuclear-capable missiles, which have intercontinental reach. As part of its invasion of the RoC, the PRC has strong incentive to isolate us from the island and wage its cyberwar against us and then to exercise its first strike capability. With the latter, there will be no possibility of a nuclear threat, much less response, from the United States.

We would be left with the PRC dominating our foreign policy and, especially with its control of the Pacific sea lanes of communication and of commerce, dominating our domestic economy. With those controls, the PRC will control us.

That budget must be passed without delay, and DoD’s reform of contract-letting, of weapons development, and of procurement and production must proceed ruthlessly and with similar pace.

Options in Iran

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[A]nalysts, lawmakers, and former administration officials all are busily insisting that President Donald Trump’s (R) options for helping the Iranian people are limited. What’s limited, though, is their thinking on the matter.

A limited strike against the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, Iran’s main security force, is unlikely to decide the outcome of the popular uprising….

And

There are nonmilitary options to put pressure on the theocratic leadership, including cyberattacks on military and civilian institutions….

And

A raid like the one that targeted Maduro in his Caracas residence would be far-fetched in Iran, a much larger country with defenses built to protect Khamenei, including a Revolutionary Guard unit known as Vali-ye Amr, which counts several thousand forces.

These are being posited to occur in isolation from each other, though, and that would be unproductive. All of these and more (see below) would need to be done together and in coordination with each other. Nor is there any need to “raid” Tehran to capture Khamenei and his immediate deputies. American and Israeli intelligence are fully capable of tracking these folks’ whereabouts, and there’s no need to attempt capture. Having located them, it would be necessary only to direct the appropriate ordnance onto them in those locations. This is, after all, what both the Israelis and Americans have done with other terrorist leaders, whether Hamas, Hezbollah, Daesh, or Iranian.

There’s also the matter of sanctions, though these would need to be addressed only after the fact.

The US could also offer to remove sanctions that have crushed the Iranian economy, if moderate military and political leaders remove Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei and his circle of clerics from the government and promise elections for a secular state.

Sanction removal already is on the table as part of their imposition, on the condition that the Iranian government materially and sustainably alter its behavior. That alteration would require the actual removal of Khamenei, et al. Iranian government promises, in any event, are worthless, and actual, provably fair elections would need to be held before sanctions relief could be contemplated.

Peyman Jafari, a supposed expert on Iranian social movements at William & Mary University cautioned that an attack could rally millions in defense of the Islamic Republic.

The foolishness this sort of thing has been empirically demonstrated within the last few months by the Israeli and American attacks on Iran, which resulted in…no one rallying to the government’s defense.

This is one area where John Bolton is on the right track:

Trump would need to hit the Revolutionary Guard’s bases, its volunteer militia known as the Basij, its nuclear and ballistic weapons programs, and its navy, “and that is just to get started.”

Trump has naval and air forces getting positioned in and around the Arabian Gulf, from which broad, simultaneous, and sustainable actions can be taken—not in constant successive waves, ideally, but on a shoot-look-shoot basis, where the shoot is each wave of attacks. It’s necessary only to act.