Tag Archives: morality

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.

The ICC and its Sham Concern for Civilians

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The editors of The Wall Street Journal correctly point out the failure of the ICC to differentiate between legitimacy and terrorism vis-à-vis the war Hamas terrorists have inflicted on Israel, a war the terrorists intend to prosecute to the destruction of Israel, no matter the cost to Gazan civilians. It is a failure, I claim, borne of the ICC’s cynically constructed false equivalence between the terrorists and Israel. It’s an equivalence, I claim further, that’s borne of the ICC’s intrinsic antisemitic bigotry.

The worthies of the ICC are, after all, among the most talented and highly educated of us.

There’s one point, though, that badly wants an emphasis that’s sadly lacking otherwise.

The ICC claims Israel is “intentionally directing attacks against a civilian population….”

If, however, we take the terrorists’ claims of 35,000 undifferentiated Gazan casualties at face value, and the IDF’s claims that 10,000-12,000 of those were Hamas terrorists (the IDF uses the gentler term “combatants”), that’s a civilian to combatant casualty ratio of around 3 to 1. That’s an historic low ratio for urban warfare.

If the Israelis are deliberately directing attacks against the civilian population, they are truly atrociously bad shots.

Sort of Firm Talk, Timid Action

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Two letter writers in Sunday’s Letters section of The Wall Street Journal responded concretely to the WSJ‘s editorial of the prior Tuesday.

I can’t agree with you that President Biden offered the “right words” when he said, “‘Never again,’ simply translated for me, means never forget” (“How Not to Remember the Holocaust,” Review & Outlook, May 8). While historical memory is important, it is the easy part of “never again.”
The hard part, for President Biden at least, is understanding that “never again” means that Israel and the Jewish people will never again tolerate—and should never have to tolerate—threats to their existence such as the “ring of fire” ignited against Israel by Iran and its proxies.
With his watered-down and tortured definition, Mr. Biden betrays the clear meaning of “never again.” With his denial of critical military support, he betrays Israel and the Jewish people in their hour of need.
Ben Orlanski
Beverly Hills, Calif.

And

Your editorial reminds me of an experience I had roughly 20 years ago at a meeting of the members of the European Union in Berlin. I was a representative of Hadassah, the Women’s Zionist Organization of America. The meeting was to establish antisemitism as an evil condemned by the EU members. At the meeting, each country recounted its efforts to establish Holocaust memorials.
When they were finished, Elie Wiesel, winner of the Nobel Peace Prize, asked, “That’s what you are doing for dead Jews. What are you doing for Jews living in your country?” Stunned silence followed.
Karen Venezky
Chicago

What they said. And it particularly applies to Progressive-Democrat President Joe Biden’s current betrayal of Israel.

Coddling Scofflaws

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Alysia Finley has another of her cogent opinion pieces, this one centered on the failure of Progressives in the several government levels and at our colleges and universities to punish miscreants and how widespread those Leftist protections of misbehaviors are. One set of consequences of the coddling jumped out at me.

If they forget to pay other bills, the government has their backs. The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau has effectively capped all credit-card late fees at $8. The CFPB also plans to cap bank overdraft fees at a nominal amount, meaning spendthrifts needn’t worry about getting penalized for overdrawing their checking accounts. And if they don’t want to pay rent, cities including New York and Los Angeles have imposed regulations that make it prohibitively difficult to evict tenants.

Finley was writing specifically about…misbehaving…students at Columbia, but the failures generalize, as do the consequences of excusing the failures.

“Forgetting” to pay bills will have consequences with the local merchants, including the major chains, all of whose establishments are locally run.

Being “late” paying off credit card debt will lead to difficulty getting a credit card renewed and in getting another credit card: getting access to credit will be harder and more expensive. The availability for scofflaws of cards other than prepaid, and at higher rates, will become emphasized. Credit difficulty goes beyond the card, too; it’ll expand to access to mortgages and access to rent (landlords run their own credit checks), among other credit needs.

Overdrawing checking accounts as a matter of routine will lead to closed checking accounts, difficulty opening any other checking accounts, and more trouble with local merchants who will start refusing to accept checks from folks who routinely bounce them. And this: banks and merchants heretofore would treat a bounced check as a mistake rather than the kiting felony that it is, charge the fee, and everyone moved on. No more. Those who frequently bounce checks will find themselves more likely to be charged with the felony.

Making tenant eviction over nonpayment of rent will make it more difficult for renters to rent in the first place, greatly increase the initial deposits required, and reduce the amount of houses and apartments available to rent at all.

All of that, too, will increase the cost of credit and of housing for the rest of us.