From time to time I run across items that I want to talk about, but aren’t big enough to be made into an episode. I grab a few of these and call them “PonkaBlog Shorts”. Today, I’m going to do four shorter segments instead of one long one.
Here we go.
Misplaced Priorities
The United States has sent close to 100 billion dollars to Ukraine in the last couple of years. Some of it was cash and some was in the form of military aid. But I say the form it takes isn’t relevant. Because we taxpayers are on the hook for all of it. Eventually, like we’re seeing in Israel right now, the weapons we gave away will have to be replaced. And when that happens, you and I are going to be paying for it.
Whether it’s cash or weapons doesn’t matter. It’s the same amount of money.
A hundred billion dollars may not seem like a lot to you, but it does to me. And I could have thought of a much better use for it than sending it to Eastern Europe where it ended up lining the pockets of corrupt politicians. We have enough of that going on right here at home.
I think that we should have had a say in where that money went. Instead of sending money to Ukraine, where it was, supposedly, used to make even more Ukrainian veterans, we should have used the money to take care of our veterans here at home.
Here’s what should have happened. First, you take that 100 billion dollars and split it 50 ways. That’s two billion for each state, and still a lot of money. Now, in each state, we take a billion of their two billion and build a state-of-the-art medical facility to treat our own veterans.
Building and equipping the facility shouldn’t take a billion dollars, so they’ll be some left over. We take what’s left, add it to the billion remaining and use that to fund the operation of the facility for many, many years to come.
That would have made more sense. That’s what should have happened. But it didn’t.
It’s time we got our priorities in order. And Priority Number One should be taking better care of those who sacrificed nearly everything so that we may continue to be free.
Nonsense Politics
Muriel Bowser, the mayor of Washington, DC, recently announced some “common-sense updates” to how they’re going to address the massive increase in crime in her city. Her plan has two main points.
One is to “address loitering around open-air drug markets”. Really? I would think the obvious answer here is to eliminate open-air drug markets. You do that and the loitering problem sort of takes care of itself.
I mean, if you can arrest someone for hanging around drug markets, that implies you know where the drug markets are and who’s selling the drugs. Go arrest them. There’s nothing “common sense” about arresting the people buying drugs and not arresting the people selling drugs.
The other thing she’s doing is making it unlawful to wear a mask while committing a crime.
DC used to have a similar mask policy. Then, back in 2021, they changed their mask policy to mandate that everybody wears one. Even while in the act of committing a crime. While the new mask policy didn’t protect anyone from catching COVID, it did protect criminals from getting caught.
What happened next is what anyone with half a brain would have anticipated. Crime went through the roof.
But crime didn’t increase solely because of the mask mandate. Crime also increased because they stopped punishing many of the people who are committing the crimes. You know, like the people who are running the open-air drug markets that people are loitering around.
From a risk/reward point of view, if nobody bothers to punish someone who commits a crime, then committing a crime comes with no risk. Essentially, it’s all reward.
Hey Murial, you want crime to go down? Catch a few of your crooks and make an example out of them. Let people see that there’s more risk than reward. That’s when people will stop doing illegal things.
According to Mayor Bowser’s press release, wearing a mask while committing a crime is illegal, wearing a mask to protect your heath is OK. So, I guess that means that it’s perfectly acceptable if you’re wearing a mask to protect your health, while committing a crime. I predict that we’re going to start seeing an increase in criminals in Washington, DC who are also hypochondriacs.
On the Border
If you haven’t been keeping up, here’s a brief synopsis of what’s been happening recently. Because the Federal government wasn’t doing anything, Texas lined part of its border with razor wire. Not the border between Texas and Oklahoma. I’m talking about the border between Texas and Mexico. The Border Patrol, whose job is to keep illegals out, started cutting holes in the wire, so that illegals could get in.
Texas sued to stop Biden’s team from cutting the wire. A judge told the Biden Bunch they needed to stop being idiots, and stop cutting the wire. So, rather than cutting the razor wire, they simply brought in a huge forklift and raised the wire so illegal immigrants could walk underneath. Technically, they weren’t ignoring the court order because they weren’t actually cutting the wire.
There’s the law, and then there’s the spirit of the law. The judge said, “don’t cut the wire”. But the spirit of what he said was, “don’t do anything to help illegal aliens get into the country”. Sadly, we no longer pay any attention to the spirit of the law.
The reason why we have so many lawyers is that, without the spirit of the law, laws must be written to cover every possible permutation. Anything that isn’t specifically listed becomes a loophole. And using a forklift to lift the razor wire instead of cutting it is one of those loopholes.
The Border Patrol says that they routinely cut the wire to let “at-risk” illegals in. This includes families with infants, unaccompanied children and people who may drown because they get caught on the wire.
Here’s the thing. The barrier was put in place specifically to make it more difficult to sneak into our country. If installed correctly, razor wire will make it so difficult and dangerous to illegally cross the border that people either go someplace else or simply give up. “At-risk” illegals are only “at-risk” because they made themselves so.
If someone happens to die because of the barriers lining our border, well, that’s when we know for sure that it’s working. The razor wire should stay in place. And we should add a sign indicating the number of people who have died trying to get past it. If that number isn’t greater than zero, then we need a stronger border.
Off Target
Sheriff Jim Cooper of Sacramento, California recently tweeted about Target’s response to shoplifting. It seems that one of the local Target stores called multiple times to complain about shoplifters and asked the Sheriff’s department for help dealing with the problem.
The Sheriff sat down with Target officials to discuss a plan. He was told by Target that if they wanted to arrest anyone, they’d have to do it outside, behind the store, and in the rain.
According to Sheriff Cooper, Target representatives said they didn’t want to create a scene inside the store and have people film it and put it on social media because they thought it would result in negative press.
Really? As I see it, a video posted on social media showing an arrested shoplifter being hauled off to jail would be a good thing. I would applaud it. I think a lot of people are like me and are getting tired of seeing more and more things behind lock and key because stores aren’t willing to “make a scene”.
Let me tell you something. I haven’t shopped at Target in years. And I pledged to never shop there again after the glibtaq clothing debacle of 2023. But, if Target showed that they were tough on shoplifting and posted a video of somebody in cuffs being perp walked off to jail, that might just be the one thing they could do that would get me back inside their store.
