We Will Respond

That’s what Progressive-Democrat President Joe Biden said through his National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan and his NSC spokesman John Kirby regarding Iran’s attacks, through its terrorist surrogates, on our military facilities in the Middle East. “Boy, oh boy, when I get you,” goes the 2nd grade recess playground taunt.

Then, after 14 such attacks, Biden ordered a couple of bombs lobbed at a couple of trivial terrorist sites in Syria.

That “response” was so powerful, so message-sending, that Iran’s proxies have continued—and apparently increased—their attacks on our facilities.

Biden is so desperate to get back into a nuclear weapons development deal with Iran that, far from deterring Iran, the mullahs are successfully deterring Biden.

How About Unauthorized Entry?

Maybe California’s Progressive-Democratic Party politicians are beginning to recognize the failure of their soft-on-crime policies. Or at least they’re beginning to pay lip service to the problem, if not its correction. In particular, they’re starting to talk about maybe tightening their law regarding auto burglary.

Under current law, prosecutors must prove a vehicle was locked to convict a suspect of auto burglary, and a window being broken is not sufficient evidence. This new proposed legislation from [State] Senator Scott Wiener (D, San Francisco) would end that requirement and allow forcible entry to be sufficient evidence for a conviction.

Some of the loophole exploitations are truly foolish.

  • someone broke a car window, completed a theft, and left the door open or unlocked
  • victim returns to the car and opens the door before police can take a report to establish the car was locked
  • victim forgets whether they locked their doors
  • victim is not available to testify in court that their doors were locked

Here’s a thought. Work with me on this; it’s a complex matter. Neither is it limited to a single party. How about adjusting the law to recognize that burglary is burglary, regardless of the means by which it’s carried out, even if it’s done with no damage at all. Any damage that is done, whatever that damage might be, should serve as sentencing enhancement.

Maybe broaden the concept and stop overcomplexifying criminal laws in general. The fillips that currently distinguish burglary from theft from breaking and entering from… and that discriminate the various forms of homicide, and that overparse other forms of crime, all should become sentencing enhancements for the underlying crime: theft, killing, etc. Such decomplexification, especially done nationwide, would well serve us all.

Bidenomics is so Successful….

Here are a couple of measures of Progressive-Democrat President Joe Biden’s economics ideology and his policies that flow from it. The Agriculture Department says that

From 2021 to 2022, there were statistically significant increases in food insecurity and very low food security for nearly all subgroups of households described in this report[.]

Statistically significant. In concrete numbers, that saccharinely put “increase” was from 33.8 million Americans were living in food-insecure households in 2021 to 44.2 million in 2022 (2023 numbers aren’t available yet). That’s a 30% increase in the number of American families at nutritional risk.

Here’s another measure. The Census Bureau says that

poverty made the fastest rise in a half century under Biden, with 15.3 million more Americans falling below the poverty level.

The Know Betters in the White House, though, insist that everything is just coming up Aces because of the Biden ideology and policy set.

Us ordinary Americans just should not believe our lying eyes or our rudely growling stomachs.

Mistaken Emphasis

It’s in the lede of this Just the News article.

House Speaker Mike Johnson (R, LA) faces his first major tests as leader of the chamber in passing a federal budget that can please his party and still pass the Democratic Senate as well as aid for Ukraine and Israel.

It’s certainly true that Johnson and the Republican caucus in the House face tight deadlines (artificially tight, stemming as they do from an irrational fear of a partial government closure, but that’s a separate matter). But it’s on the obstructionist Progressive-Democratic Party-run Senate to work with Republicans to pass the House’s budget.

That includes, too, necessary aid for Ukraine and Israel, and for the Republic of China. The Johnson-led House already has passed an Energy Department appropriations bill that cuts $857 billion (over a period of time) from that department. Similar cuts in six of the seven remaining appropriations bills free up a bunch of money for a serious defense restoral and buildup and for aid for those three critical nations, while still executing an overall serious spending cut.

It’s important to note, too, that the “no blank check” position of many Republicans, which most of the press (not JtN presently) spins as Republican opposition to further aid for Ukraine, does not actually mean no further money for such aid. On that matter, here’s Johnson:

We all do [support aid for Ukraine]. We’re going to have conditions on that so we’re working through it.

Those conditions have centered on audit trails (most of which already are in place) tracing the money and equipment from their origin to their arrival at the front.

Such audit trails should be required on all spending that Congress enacts, with an attached requirement that the audits be thorough and have deadlines for their production. Further, spending should be suspended in those areas and on those programs where audits are late or incomplete—with no excuses for their tardiness or incompleteness. There also must be sanctions on the auditors, their supervisors, and the Cabinet Department and Agency heads where there is evidence of audit pencil-whipping.

There’s a Reason for That

A bunch of DC Metropolitan Police Department officers are earning a lot of overtime income, with some earning more than $100k, and some earning more that DC’s mayor, Muriel Bowser (D).

The department is struggling with recruiting and retaining officers, which increases the overtime load.

Yeah.

These cops are working harder than Bowser is, and through longer days than she has. That’s a result of Bowser’s administration’s determined defunding of the DC police force.