Brief Comments About Current Events

Some brief comments about current events. There is so much going on, I can't just focus on one story, and I've been slacking off on my weekly posts. We'll look at the Southern border crisis, the coming investigation of Pres. Biden, GOP opposition to Ukraine war funding, and GOP support for the omnibus disaster. I'm a moderate Republican, conservative on many issues, and liberal on others. I try to keep that separate from my analysis of what's happening, but I appreciate your feedback about my columns.

First, and maybe easiest to analyze, is the real crisis of illegal immigration on the Southern border, which has been exported to localities around the nation. I've been following this issue for decades, and the numbers don't lie. What is happening now at the Southern border is beyond anything that has occurred in the past. The partisan line from the right is that the Biden administration wants to flood the nation with immigrants, and then make them citizens who will vote for Democrats. The partisan line from the left is that we need to accept every immigrant, legal or not, and that they will do the jobs that American citizens won't do.

Both partisan angles have some truths, and some holes in them. Since this is a short analysis, we won't debate that. The numbers don't lie, so the answer is to enforce the border. If the Biden administration's "Inflation Reduction Act" had added 87,000 more border agents, instead of IRS agents, maybe I would think they were taking some action. The fact is that even Democrats are rebelling against the Biden border abdication, so it's obvious that this issue is going to get worse, before something concrete gets done.

Second, the media and Democrats are gathering their full political war machine to counter the coming investigation of the information on Hunter Biden's laptop. The partisan in me wishes that they just go ahead and do a quickie impeachment of Pres. Biden, the way that Pelosi's House did on the second impeachment of Pres. Trump. The analyst in me knows that won't happen. What will be interesting is how the left wing MSM will try not to cover the investigation, while other media will cover it. Most interesting will be CNN's coverage, because they are supposed to be changing to "straight news coverage." This will be a test of that.

Most of us on the right are already familiar with the contents of the laptop, and how damning they are of Pres. Biden. In fact, this investigation is actually not about Hunter Biden, but about "the Big Guy," as he was called in one email. The bigger issue is will there be enough Democrats that flip on Biden, the way the Republicans flipped against Nixon. They may spare him from removal, if he promises not to run for reelection. Impeachment is a political process, not a criminal proceeding. The Republican House may not even go that route, because they don't want to emulate the disgraceful Democrats' tactics.

Third, I'm amazed at the Republican opposition to military aid to Ukraine. First, because when Pres. Obama witheld it, Republicans were critical, and then critical that he sent no "lethal" weapons, only "socks and soup." Then there was VP Biden's famous $2 billion blackmail video, where he forced Ukraine to fire the prosecutor investigating Burisma, who paid his son over $50,000 a month. A new administration came to power in Ukraine in 2019, that was anti-Russia. After Biden won the election, Russia decided to invade Ukraine. Imagine that! (There would not have been an invasion if Trump were still president, I think.)

I've read some good reasons why we shouldn't make Ukraine a member of NATO, and those same columns said that Russia invaded Ukraine because we "greenlighted" it, after Biden took office. I know the US has outsize influence in NATO, but does anyone think that a nation that was already partially occupied by Russia since 2014 would be admitted to NATO? If so, then it would be an example of a far more reckless policy decision by the Biden administration than anything Trump did. In fact, it looks like Pres. Obama aquiesced to "Vladmir" back in 2014, when he was caught saying so to Russia's nominal president, "Tell Vladimir I'll be more flexible after the election."

The latest line opposing aid to Ukraine calls for "accountability," as if the people saying it are "fiscal hawks." Maybe I should remind them about how Pres. Reagan won the Cold War. We outspent Russia, on defense, and we threatened them with advanced programs like "Star Wars," that never came to fruition. Right now, Russia is running out of resources, because Ukraine has fought back, and is actually winning. Their allies China and Iran are supporting them, but at significant cost to them, as well. Also, Russia's debacle in Ukraine may give China second thoughts about invading Taiwan.

If we want to talk about "accountability," my GOP friends need look no further than this "omnibus" disaster that the Congress just passed, with 18 GOP votes in the Senate. You can bitch about $100 billion for Ukraine, but what else is in this bill makes that look like peanuts. I'm still reading up on all of the long-term costs that were in this bill, but the WSJ called it "The ugliest omnibus bill ever," which is probably an understatement. I know that Richard Shelby, who is retiring, got over $600 million for his home state in earmarks. Mitch McConnell, who I have still maintained a modicum of respect for, over the years, supported it, and with it lost my respect.

Apparently, the Senate GOP minority preferred to make a deal with the lame duck Democrat House majority than the incoming GOP House majority. Maybe they didn't want to play "chicken" with the budget, again, and worried that they'd be painted as "holding the nation hostage." I've seen that show before, and the media always paint the GOP as the bad guys, whichever side they are on. Still, it looks bad to Republican voters. Here's a list of the 18 Republicans:

Here is a full list of Republican senators who voted in favor of the bill: