The Left’s Disdain

…for those who would die to defend us and our liberties and rights and duties, including the Left’s right to be dangerously stupid, is reaching into our military.

US Army servicemembers who refuse to receive the COVID-19 vaccine…will be barred from “reenlistment, reassignment, promotion, appearance before a semi-centralized promotion board, issuance of awards and decorations,” and other policies, Army Secretary Christine Wormuth said in a memo this week.
Soldiers who continue to refuse vaccinate will ultimately face discharge from the Army. Both the US Navy and the US Marine Corps have implemented similar policies.

This is a truly appalling position to inflict on our soldiers, sailors, airmen, and marines, and it’s a direct threat to our national security.

“It’s Paid For”

That’s the Biden-Harris reconciliation bill that the House passed a version of Friday morning that’s “paid for.” And, no, that’s not Joe Biden’s quote—he said the bill would cost zero, which of course contradicts the headline quote, there being nothing for which to pay.

It’s Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen who said that when the CBO report on the bill was published before the House vote. Here’s her claim as cited by yahoo!news:

[T]he Built Back Better (BBB) Act is “fully paid for, and in fact will reduce our nation’s debt over time….”

What the CBO said, in summary:

The CBO determined the spending bill would add $367 billion to the federal deficit over 10 years, not including the IRS plan’s impact. Separately, the nonpartisan agency determined increased IRS tax enforcement would generate about $127 billion in new revenue, far below the $400 billion estimate touted by the Treasury Department and the White House.

Not only is the Biden-Harris administration disregarding out of touch with what us average Americans need or want, critical segments of this administration are out of touch with reality.

In Which VP Harris Has It Right

Just not in the way she means. Following the acquittal of Kyle Rittenhouse of all charges in the Kenosha riot shooting case, the Kamala Harris (D) half of the Biden-Harris Presidency said this:

The verdict really speaks for itself[.]
As many of you know, I’ve spent the majority of my career working to make the criminal justice system more equitable, and clearly there’s a lot more to do[.]

She’s right, of course. The shootings wanted, as a matter of course, a careful and thorough investigation. Either that was not done—a lot more to do in our justice system—or the prosecutors ignored the results of a careful and thorough investigation and brought the case to trial, anyway—a lot more work to do in our justice system.

As the evidence brought to trial clearly showed, Rittenhouse was there in the middle of the riot to render first aid to those injured by the rioters; to fight fires set by the rioters; and to protect a business, at the behest of the business’ operators, from rioters bent on its physical destruction. As the evidence just as clearly showed, Rittenhouse was hounded, stalked, threatened with murder, chased, attacked, and threatened with a firearm aimed at him by his attackers. Ultimately, he was forced to defend himself, and sadly, lethally so regarding two of his attackers.

Yet the prosecutors brought their charges to trial anyway. And in the course of their presentation, they attacked Rittenhouse for daring to not speak publicly before the trial, to not answer their charges before the trial. In the course of their presentation, those prosecutors attempted to enter evidence that had been barred from entry by the judge. In the course of their presentation, those prosecutors withheld evidence from the defense until after the evidence presentation portion of the trial was closed and closing arguments begun.

The verdict really does speak for itself.

There really is a lot more work to do to make our criminal justice system more equitable.

Winning the War with the PRC

Retired US Navy Captain and current Telemus Group Vice President Jerry Hendrix expresses considerable dismay over our Navy’s shrinking air combat reach, and it’s entirely justified.

In 1996 the range of the carrier’s air wing was about 800 nautical miles. By 2006 that figure had dropped to 500 miles. Meanwhile, China has developed antiship missiles like the Dong Feng-21, the “carrier killer,” with a range of 1,000 miles.

He concluded his op-ed with this:

[Absent] long-range, penetrating strike aircraft…carriers will be unable to make a meaningful contribution to deterring and, if necessary, winning a conventional conflict with China…. To avoid that unfortunate outcome, civilian leaders, including lawmakers and the Navy secretary, will need to step in to get naval aviation back on target.

He’s right up to a point. That’s a necessary step, but it’s not sufficient. The Navy needs also to expand and increase its capability with ship-launched land attack missiles (along with expanding its arsenal of air-launched land attack missiles and their range).

The PRC aims to overwhelm ship defenses with raw numbers of anti-ship missiles. We need to overwhelm PRC defenses with numbers of accurate, maneuvering, penetrating missiles to destroy PRC facilities. We have the core of this, already—as we do for an expanded naval aviation facility. That core is in the ship-launched anti-ship missile weapons in inventory and in the submarine-launched cruise missiles in inventory. Those need, badly, to be expanded: the anti-ship weapons on board augmented with long-range land-attack missiles, and the SLCMs on board augmented with long-range cruise missiles. Along with getting long-range air-launched land attack missiles into the inventory.

Absent these, the outcome of a war with the PRC will be catastrophic: we’ll be swept from the Western Pacific, and there’s no reason to believe the PRC wouldn’t follow up that success in the way Japan could not 80 years ago.

Be Like Austria

That’s what Biden-Harris want for us with zir continued penchant for isolation and demands for vaccination—”[t]his is not about freedom or personal choice“—demands for masking, even of small children, and threats of lockdown, whether explicitly or by outcome.

Austrian Chancellor Alexander Schallenberg, by fiat, is locking up all Austrians in the nation—even his vaccinated (but apparently still “unprotected”) subjects in order to “protect” all from the Wuhan Virus.

Schallenberg said the lockdown will start Monday and initially last for 10 days. Most stores will close, and cultural events will be canceled.
He initially said all students would have to go back into homeschooling.

After those 10 days, if the subjects don’t satisfy their Chancellor, Schallenberg may well extend his locking up for another 10 days.

At least now the Progressive-Democrats are getting specific, and not just pushing their more amorphous “be like Europe” mantra.