Random Thoughts / Random Topics. Resignation And Warning. Terrorists At Our Border. Much More.

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 These are just some random thoughts  on equally random topics:

1) Because of labor shortages and unwillingness of those in need of jobs to seek them, to some degree, it has strengthened the hand of those doing menial work and want to unionize. In the long run this will have a more negative effect on the lowers echelons of society and particularly the black work force as many will be replaced by technology.

Seeking higher wages in menial jobs is a future recipe for unemployment.

2) The collapse of  BLM could mark the peak in America's willingness to tolerate stupidity. It was always about "shakedowns" by radicals who have no sense of ethics and use any disruption to draw blood from "whitey" and many "whities" are too dumb and/or cowardly, so they give in  to such demands. This includes top  executives of major iconic corporations as we have learned.

3) If Putin's future is bleak, I suspect it will come to be at the hand of the oligarchs. They do not want to lose their wealth and money speaks louder than power when the time is ripe.

4) The trend in mid year elections would tend to favor Republicans but much can change that could soften the many mistakes Biden has made. The war could turn in favor of  Ukraine because Biden has finally chosen to send equipment they have been begging for and Republicans eternally have the ability to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory.

Though a low probability, the economy could slow enough to reverse the trend in inflation and The Fed could respond by slowing the pace of raising rates. After all, The Fed would rather endure slightly higher inflation than bring about a recession.

5) Mood swings can be violent and right now America's mood is unfavorable but if a few matters turn favorable, as indicated above, and Democrats engage in their usual shenanigans they could pull another victory off in the electoral column since they start with California and New York in their pocket. How many illegals will be able/allowed to vote remains an open issue.

6) No one knows, at this point, what Trump's eventual intention is and he could be a disruptive force because his ego might cause him to seek to settle grievances.

7) The Joker remains what happens with illegal immigration? If it continues to impact states/communities beyond the border states, crime and deaths from opioids increases ,that will disfavor Democrats. Frankly, if Republicans gain a super majority in The House and increase their Senate seats I would hope Biden would be impeached, Kamala as president would then probably end power of radical Democrats for an extended period

8) Renegade dictators controlling nations with nuclear weapons can threaten democratic nations whose leaders have no guts  giving them the advantage of winning.  In Ukraine, Biden's indecisiveness, lack of boldness, lateness to act  has elevated Putin's ability to intimidate..

9) Finally, Biden could succumb and allow Iran to inch further towards becoming a nuclear power and the next step would be to complete a delivery system.  The reaction would be uncertain because Europe is indifferent, Americans would probably react negatively  and Israel might cave because Bennett, if he is still in office, would not have to guts to act unilaterally.

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With Democrats in charge of government and Biden as president, it is little wonder we are likely to fall technologically  behind. Democrats have a historical aversion to spending on the military preferring to buy votes/elections through increased government largesse.

Powerful U.S. Official RESIGNS - Here Was His Parting Warning

(USNewsBreak.com) – Preston Dunlap, Space Force chief architect, announced his resignation in a LinkedIn post on April 18. On April 19, during a “Fox & Friends First” appearance, he explained his exit isn’t without concerns. He said the United States is falling behind in technology, which could give adversaries a chance to move right past us.

When speaking with co-host Todd Piro, Dunlap noted that the military especially needs access to the latest innovations to prevail. He said the US military used to have the greatest technology, but the commercial sector is now one-upping it. Dunlap explained this is a sign authorities have grown complacent and are no longer prepared for a potential threat

The former chief architect also noted other countries have access to the technology and resources the United States has, which means they can use it to outpace the US. He warns that officials need to step up and get back on track. Dunlap urges other leaders within the Pentagon to ensure troops have access to everything they need with the most cutting-edge weaponry. He pointed to Russia’s current campaign in Ukraine as a reason why the US has to stay on its toes.

AND:

Terrorists At The Border CAV PAC

Did you hear this news? It’s EXTREMELY alarming:

U.S. Customs and Border Protection just disclosed that it apprehended 23 illegal immigrants whose names matched individuals on the U.S. terror watchlist! 

As we have long expected, terrorists are trying to use our wide open borders to infiltrate our country and cause harm to Americans.

Keep in mind, this number only accounts for the suspected terrorists who were caught crossing the border - it does not account for those who may have entered our country without being apprehended.

This is shocking and appalling: the Biden Administration’s reckless policies are letting potential terrorists into our country.

Such a shocking development cannot go unanswered; the radical Democrats are putting the lives of Americans at risk for the sake of advancing their far-left ideology. 

To stop this open-border insanity and prevent terrorists from entering our country, we are going to need to elect a wave of of conservative patriots this November. With an America First Majority, we will be able to hold Joe Biden accountable and secure our southern border.

If the border remains open for all to come, it’s only a matter of time until terrorists infiltrate our country and harm American citizens.

SECURE THE BORDER

We cannot sit idly by and allow the Biden Administration to jeopardize our safety. The only way to prevent a terrorist infiltration through our southern border is to elect a strong Republican Congress.

Please, join us in supporting law and order candidates who are tough enough to stand up to the woke mob and the radical Left!

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Three meaningful Op Ed's and the second a perfect example of shooting one self in the foot because of anti-Semitism by a "hick" Tennessee politician. In the third, are we witnessing the long arm reach of the China-Hunter - "Pop Biden" effect?

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Biden’s Foggy War in Ukraine

The world awaits one clear presidential assertion to Putin and Russia: ‘We’re in this thing to win.’

By Daniel Henninger

Wonder Land: If President Biden is willing to say the Russians are committing genocide in Ukraine, why won't he say his goal there is to defeat Russia or Vladimir Putin? Images: AFP/Getty Images/Sputnik/Reuters/Roscosmos Space Agency Composite: Mark Kelly

President Biden is willing to say the Russians are committing genocide in Ukraine, but he won’t say his goal there is to defeat Russia or Vladimir Putin. Because the North Atlantic Treaty Organization’s rule of thumb for the conflict is not to “provoke Putin,” the Ukrainians’ valiant fight has had to operate in a policy twilight zone with a goal between not-quite-losing and not-quite-winning

Does Ukraine Have the Weapons to Win?

Russia is now exploiting this ambivalence, warning the U.S. in a formal protest note days ago to stop sending Ukraine advanced systems or there will be “unpredictable consequences.” In other words: Let us win.

That has become unthinkable.

As the battle moves into its next phase—a more traditional tank and artillery war in the nation’s east and south—the Ukrainians want to win. A question persists: What do the Western powers want? If not victory, what?

An apocryphal phrase from the U.S. war in Vietnam was “we had to destroy the village to save it.” That crude strategic paradox presents itself again. Ukraine’s Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba said last weekend, “Mariupol doesn’t exist anymore.” Ukraine is being systematically destroyed. To save them—or us?

Conventional wisdom holds that Russia’s expensively reconstituted military failed badly in its early ground operations. That is true. Kyiv didn’t fall. Less discussed is that Mr. Putin’s formidable inventory of cruise missiles, despite Pentagon reports of a high failure rate, is leveling much of Ukraine. The world’s outpouring of support for Ukraine is in great part a consequence of images of buildings bombed to pieces by missiles. Lviv in the west was largely spared until Russian air-launched missiles hit the city Monday. Absent Ukraine receiving enough modern air-defense systems, Mr. Putin can do more of this almost at will.

Mr. Biden’s off-handed remark that the Putin invasion is a genocide against Ukrainians triggered speculation about the president’s reason for invoking it. Was Mr. Biden merely mentioning a word he overheard in a national security meeting or signaling a new direction in U.S. policy?

One interpretation is that the random reference to genocide was meant to increase pressure on nations sitting on the sidelines. French President Emmanuel Macron worried about an “escalation of words.” Don’t provoke Putin.

Still, Mr. Macron indirectly raised the right question: Where exactly are we going in Ukraine? Mr. Biden’s oh-by-the-way rhetoric again puts U.S. policy in a frustrating zone of unclarity. Is it possible U.S. policy is in fact inching toward helping the Ukrainians drive the Russians out of their country—victory—or is the administration working toward a Cold War containment of Russia, with a carved-up Ukraine effectively on the other side of a new Iron Curtain?

Diplomatic ambiguity has its uses, and it’s possible that with its commitment to send $800 million of advanced military equipment to Ukraine, the U.S. goal has indeed become to help Ukraine win without publicly rubbing defeat in Mr. Putin’s face.

What’s still not clear is whether Mr. Biden and NATO recognize the unprecedented forces the war has put in motion beyond the Ukrainian theater

Ukraine’s war is described as the biggest military event in Europe since World War II. A more relevant contextual setting is to understand this is the first war ever fought inside the fully developed world of social media.

Elon Musk’s war with Twitter is news, so to speak, because he has some 82 million followers whose effects ripple outward. Ukraine is both a shooting war and a global social-media phenomenon. Social media allows millions—a crowd—to form up for any reason. As of two months ago, that crowd is fighting globally for Ukraine.

Before February, it was an article of faith among prospective U.S. presidential candidates, especially Republicans, that they were obliged to respect America’s desire to turn inward and away from the world. Suddenly, some 87% in a recent CBS poll say stopping Russian aggression is in U.S. interests.

The political stakes in Ukraine’s outcome have arrived at a point no previous war has achieved in such a short span of time. Just weeks ago, “off-ramp” was the phrase du jour; some sort of stand-down with Russia was at least discussable. Not any more.

The new keyword is credibility. Lose Ukraine after all this, and the credibility of the U.S. and NATO will be damaged for years. Who would trust them? Taiwan? To say nothing of the world’s fence-sitting nations who don’t want to “provoke Putin.”

Western Europe’s unexpectedly quick commitment to aiding Ukraine in the war’s first phase created a cascade of global nonprofits’ support for Ukraine’s refugees and fighters. They haven’t done this to settle for a frozen conflict. The animating force could not be more clear: freedom versus tyranny. If Mr. Putin wins now, the global demoralization will be incalculable.

Willingly, Ukraine became a single-nation proxy for World War III and the now-obvious, inevitable confrontation with Russia’s messianic dictator. The moment has arrived in this war for Mr. Biden to clear something up with one presidential assertion: “We’re in this thing to win.”

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The Tennessee GOP Empire Strikes Back

Republican Party bosses violate their own rules in barring a candidate endorsed by Donald Trump.

By The Editorial Board

The November elections are looking good for Republicans, who can pound Democrats on everything from inflation to foreign policy. So naturally the GOP is engaging in some self-destructive behavior: Witness the spectacle in Tennessee, where the state party has booted a congressional candidate endorsed by Donald Trump off the primary ballot.

We’ve told readers about the shenanigans in Tennessee, where state legislators recently tried to disqualify some candidates for Congress by passing a three-year residency requirement in the middle of an election cycle. This was a naked effort to hamstring the political competition. The bill became law without the Governor’s signature earlier this month, but state officials ruled it doesn’t apply retroactively.

Candidates such as Morgan Ortagus, who moved to the state last year and is running for an open House seat in the fifth district, would thus be free to take her case to voters. But on Tuesday the state GOP’s executive committee voted to keep Ms. Ortagus and other candidates off the ballot.

Ms. Ortagus’s campaign has said she meets the party’s qualification requirements, one of which is having voted in three of the last four primary elections, and not merely in Tennessee. A candidate can also qualify if a party leader vouches for a candidate as a “bona fide” Republican, which by any measure Ms. Ortagus is. She was a spokesman in the Trump Administration’s State Department. She’s been endorsed by President Trump, who at least for these purposes is a Republican.

Remarkably, it gets worse. A sponsor of the residency bill, state Senator Frank Niceley, waded in with a nasty remark to NBC that: “I don’t think Trump cares one way or the other,” about the party’s moves. “I think Jared Kushner —he’s Jewish, she’s Jewish—I think Jared will be upset. Ivanka will be upset. I don’t think Trump cares.” Ms. Ortagus is Jewish, and the innuendo here is not subtle.

This is the express lane to shrinking the Republican Party and losing elections. The Republican National Committee has been thinking about a 2024 convention in Nashville, but Milwaukee is looking better all the time. Ms. Ortagus’s campaign says it’s evaluating next steps, but the best outcome would be for the state GOP to reverse its decision and swear off self-embarrassment.

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Handing Putin the Nuclear Advantage

Biden wants to kill a cruise missile needed to deter Russia and others.

By The Editorial BoardFollow

Vladimir Putin has made veiled threats about using nuclear weapons in Ukraine, and the Biden Administration says it is worried. This makes it all the more puzzling that President Biden is canceling a new weapon that would be a nuclear deterrent.

The latest Pentagon budget request nixes the sea-launched nuclear cruise missile, or SLCM-N. This missile is considered a “tactical” nuclear weapon that has a lower yield than “strategic” options and might be used on battlefield targets. The missile could be launched from submarines or destroyers.

This weapon is aimed at deterring a known risk: Russia’s up to 2,000 tactical nukes, including weapons “employable by ships, planes, and ground forces,” as the Pentagon’s 2018 Nuclear Posture Review noted. The Russian nuclear inventory includes “air-to-surface missiles, short range ballistic missiles, gravity bombs, and depth charges for medium-range bombers, tactical bombers, and naval aviation, as well as anti-ship, anti-submarine, and anti-aircraft missiles and torpedoes for surface ships and submarines,” and more.

Mr. Putin is not afflicted by Western misgivings about nuclear weapons. He sees his arsenal as an advantage he can exploit to bully the West into backing down, and he’s willing to accept risks Western leaders would not. Take the scenario our contributor Matthew Kroenig laid out in these pages in 2018.

Russia invades Estonia. “The U.S. comes to the defense of its NATO ally, but as American troops flow forward, Russia uses a tactical nuclear weapon on a U.S. carrier group in the Baltic Sea, killing a few thousand. If you were president, how would you respond?” The point is to force NATO into a choice between full nuclear war or surrender.

NATO relies on gravity bombs stored across Europe to deter this behavior or respond if necessary. But getting these tactical nukes to the target requires NATO pilots to penetrate sophisticated air defenses. The risks of being shot down are significant. The U.S. recently deployed a low-yield nuclear weapon on ballistic-missile submarines, but America has only about a dozen of these subs.

Enter the SLCM-N, which would be less of an escalation than reaching for the ballistic subs and could strike much faster than calling in strategic bombers. The Trump Administration proposed the SLCM-N in 2018. Message to Mr. Putin: If you drop a nuke on NATO soil, the alliance has the will and ability to respond in kind. This reduces the risk Mr. Putin will use a nuke.

This is not some novel weapon, and it doesn’t abrogate U.S. treaty obligations. The U.S. Navy had a nuclear-tipped Tomahawk missile during the Cold War that President Obama retired in 2010. The SLCM-N could serve as a deterrent without procuring large quantities or deploying it on every attack submarine.

It would also be useful in dissuading China from using a nuke on Taiwan, without the longer and fraught debate of, say, putting American nuclear weapons on Japanese soil. Which brings us to another point: If allies perceive the U.S. either can’t or won’t respond if they’re attacked by Russia or North Korea or someone else, they will develop their own nuclear deterrent. The SLCM-N could reduce proliferation at a volatile moment.

The Trump Administration said the U.S. might reconsider the SLCM-N if “Russia returns to compliance with its arms control obligations, reduces its non-strategic nuclear arsenal, and corrects its other destabilizing behaviors.” How’s that working out? Now Mr. Biden is surrendering this leverage—probably to placate progressives who are opposed to nuclear weapons as an article of faith.

Several U.S. flag officers have told Congress they think the country needs the missile, and such candor from the brass is notable. The head of U.S. Strategic Commandhas warned of a “deterrence and assurance gap.” Chairman of the Joint Chiefs General Mark Milley said he thinks “this president or any president deserves to have multiple options to deal with national security situations.” Good advice.

Many in Congress want to restore the SLCM-N in the military budget, and we hope they succeed. Nuclear weapons are a grim reality of modern life, but they are more likely to be used if adversaries believe the U.S. and NATO lack an adequate nuclear deterrent.

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