Mid-Day Snapshot · April 29, 2024

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“From The Patriot Post (patriotpost.us)”.

THE FOUNDATION

“We are, heart and soul, friends to the freedom of the press. It is however, the prostituted companion of liberty.” —Fisher Ames (1807)

Fellow Patriots, on this day in 1975, the last American officials in South Vietnam evacuated via a rooftop helicopter. The image of America abandoning an ally to the vicious communists of North Vietnam was something we hoped would never happen again. Joe Biden made sure it did happen again in Afghanistan. —Mark Alexander

IN TODAY’S DIGEST

ON THE WEB

FEATURED ANALYSIS

Old Man Tells Jokes at Praetorian Guard’s Dinner

Joe Biden isn’t a funny guy, and his efforts to address his age and “threats to democracy” fell flat.

Nate Jackson

In the 1984 election, the Leftmedia incessantly made Ronald Reagan’s age an issue. At 73 and already the oldest president in history, Reagan was thought to be losing a step and not up to the job for another four years. At 81, Joe Biden has blown that record out of the water while running under the campaign slogan “finish the job.” What a howler!

I was reminded of Reagan when Biden joked about his age compared to his opponent at this past weekend’s White House Correspondents’ Dinner. You see, in a 1984 debate with Minnesota’s Walter Mondale, Reagan deftly dispensed with the age question in one expertly delivered joke that made even his questioner and opponent crack up laughing:

“I will not make age an issue of this campaign. I am not going to exploit, for political purposes, my opponent’s youth and inexperience.”

Mondale later said he knew at that moment he’d lost the election.

A handler or two must’ve coached Biden with Reagan’s answer in mind because he went to the annual White House Correspondents’ Dinner and tried to joke about his age, hoping to dismiss it as an issue. (Spoiler alert: He failed.)

“The 2024 election’s in full swing, and yes, age is an issue. I’m a grown man running against a six-year-old.”

“Well, I feel great. I really feel great. I’m campaigning all over the country — Pennsylvania, Georgia, and North Carolina. I’ve always done well in the 13 original colonies.”

“Age is the only thing we have in common. My vice president actually endorses me.”

He also called Trump “Sleepy Don,” which was probably a reference to stories about Trump appearing to nod off during one of his numerous courtroom sessions. The trouble is that Biden didn’t even bother to come up with an original insult, instead directly stealing and repurposing Trump’s “Sleepy Joe” moniker.

The elephant in the room is that Biden’s goons are tying up Trump in court in four major cases loaded with bogus charges, and that’s after two civil trials with ludicrous financial penalties. Trying to bankrupt and imprison your political opponent is a real knee-slapper, Joe.

Speaking of “threats to democracy,” Biden naturally used his brief stand-up routine to focus on January 6. At least he remembered the date this time, having misstated it as “June 6” a day earlier.

The press, he insisted, is critical in this election. Well, yeah — the Democrats’ Praetorian Guard always interferes in elections. “On the third anniversary of January 6,” Biden said somberly, “I went to Valley Forge, and I said the most urgent question of our time is whether democracy is still — is still the sacred cause of America. That is the question the American people must answer this year, and you, the free press, play a critical role in making sure the American people have the information they need to make an informed decision.”

That might have been the best joke of the evening. The Leftmedia absolutely does not make sure the American people have good information. Just to pick an example at random, Hunter Biden’s laptop revelations of Joe Biden’s corruption were almost uniformly suppressed until after the 2020 election. Later polling indicated that information would have cost Biden the election because voters wouldn’t have elected a corrupt influence-peddler. Some might call such interference a threat to democracy.

“I’m sincerely not asking you to take sides,” Biden added, “but asking you to rise up to the seriousness of the moment.” He doesn’t have to ask them to take sides. They’re dutifully on his side already. Barack Obama didn’t have to ask Lois Lerner to target the Tea Party, either.

Actually, the funny thing about Biden, Obama, and the press is that both presidents treat their lapdogs like, well, lapdogs. “Some of you complained that I don’t take enough of your questions. No comment,” Biden chuckled.

Journalists themselves may laugh as part of the show, but it was just last week that The New York Times issued a harrumphing statement complaining, “Mr. Biden has granted far fewer press conferences and sit-down interviews with independent journalists than virtually all of his predecessors.”

Why is that the case? Because he’s old, and it shows. And because Joe Biden is no Ronald Reagan.

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SCOTUS Weighs Presidential Immunity

During oral arguments on Thursday, some justices made it clear that the case transcends Donald Trump’s actions in the aftermath of the 2020 election.

Douglas Andrews

Neil Gorsuch was the definitive jurist at last Thursday’s oral arguments before the Supreme Court — but only because he first announced that he wasn’t interested in the particular case before him.

“I’m not concerned about this case,” said Donald Trump’s first Supreme Court appointment, “but I am concerned about future uses of the criminal law to target political opponents based on accusations about their motives.”

For good measure, Gorsuch added, “We’re writing a rule for the ages.”

Indeed, they are. Whether Gorsuch really couldn’t care less about ruling on Trump’s efforts to overturn the 2020 presidential election — an election that seems more rigged, more rotten, and more disastrously consequential with each passing day — is perhaps dubious. How could he not be interested in an election that so roiled the nation, an election that more than a third of Americans believe was illegitimate?

What matters is that Gorsuch’s statement about the long-term consequences of presidential immunity set the tone for the day’s proceedings. It ennobled the justices’ line of inquiry by making clear that the real issue wasn’t Donald Trump but the American presidency writ large and for the lifespan of the American republic.

“As you’ve indicated,” said Justice Brett Kavanaugh, “this case has huge implications for the presidency, for the future of the presidency, for the future of the country.”

As for the arguments in this case, their merits might be boiled down to this: It’s the extremism, stupid. By that, I mean that both the Biden position and the Trump position are fairly wing-nutty. No rational observer believes a U.S. president should be entirely above the law — that, for example, he should be allowed to rig an election or falsify a FISA warrant and thereby spy on his political rivals. Oh, wait. But nor do thoughtful observers believe a president should spend his time in office looking over his shoulder, intimidated into inaction by the prospect of a vile, petty, vindictive, hyper-partisan successor hell-bent on raiding his home, snooping through his wife’s underwear drawer, and prosecuting him for matters that a more decent man would, out of respect for the office and the enormity of its responsibilities, refuse to pursue legally except as a last, last, last resort.

Special persecutor Jack Smith and Biden counsel Michael Dreeben got a taste of where things were headed at the adult table early on. As the Wall Street Journal editorial board put it: “Chief Justice John Roberts was especially scathing about the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals ruling that a President has no immunity. That opinion argued — and Mr. Dreeben defended it — that ‘a former President can be prosecuted because he’s being prosecuted,’ said the Chief.”

Not only does the DC Circuit’s rationale ignore the fact that presidents are somewhat special people and that the decisions they must make are unlike those of any other American citizen, but it also argues that Trump may be prosecuted because Trump is being prosecuted. With apologies to Winston Churchill, that’s a tautology posing as a circularity wrapped inside a redundancy.

Trust us. We’re the government. That’s the insulting argument Smith, Dreeben, and their ilk are making before the Supreme Court.

What we have here is the criminalization of politics and the criminalization of electoral due process. Only when Trump tries to exercise his constitutional right to dispute the results of an election is it “a threat to our democracy.” Only when Trump’s legal team organizes a second set of electors in disputed states is it considered obstruction of justice rather than due process. Only when Trump asks a state-level election official to find illegitimate votes — not create more votes — is it a crime.

As Power Line’s John Hinderaker notes: “The Supreme Court justices no doubt care about the future prospect of either 1) lawless presidents or 2) a cycle of meritless prosecution of presidents once they leave office. (And believe me, when Joe Biden leaves office I hope Republicans can find a way to bring multiple criminal prosecutions against him.) But Jack Smith cares only about getting a conviction between now and November, however flimsy his theory may be.”

This is an unprecedented case: A sitting or former president has never been before the Supreme Court for a matter of criminal immunity. Based on the questioning of all nine justices, it’s highly likely the High Court will find some sort of middle ground and return the case to a lower court, which will need weeks, if not months, of additional fact-finding. And that means that this case isn’t going to go to trial before November’s election.

Sorry, Jack.

In the end, the Trump team’s argument about the horrors that could result if future presidents from both parties weren’t afforded some degree of immunity for their actions in office clearly resonated with the justices. That’s what happened in this hearing, and it was a blow to the Democrats’ ongoing efforts to criminalize our political differences.

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Executive News Summary

A taste of soft-on-crime medicine, protesters want amnesty, first bank failure of 2024, and more.

Douglas Andrews, Thomas Gallatin, & Jordan Candler

Cross-Examination

  • Cali pols get a taste of their own soft-on-crime medicine: How many times do we have to tell these soft-on-crime Democrats not to leave valuables in their cars when they’re back home in their lawless districts? Such was the case last Thursday when California Democrat Congressman Adam Schiff’s car was burglarized in a downtown San Francisco parking garage. Schiff, the inveterate liar and likely senatorial replacement for the deceased Dianne Feinstein, was in town to raise money for his campaign when the thieves relieved him of his burdensome luggage. As the Associated Press reports: “With his formal clothing gone, Schiff ended up at a fundraising dinner Thursday for his U.S. Senate campaign dressed like he was headed to a Los Angeles Dodgers game — in shirt sleeves and an insulated vest. Others who attended the event were mostly decked out in suit jackets and ties.” Alas, Schifty Schiff must’ve missed the memo that the criminals are now in charge of The City by the Bay. Also last week, and far more chillingly, hard-left Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass’s gated mansion was broken into during a shift change in security. At the time, Bass was home with her daughter, son-in-law, and grandchild. Fortunately, the perpetrator, who was apparently targeting Bass, was nabbed without incident. He “jumped over the fence quickly and was able to break in through the back of the house,” according to interim LAPD Chief Dominic Choi. “And to my understanding, this happened so quickly that even if somebody had been there, he probably still would have been able to access the inside of the residence.”
  • Nationwide protest arrests, while protesters want amnesty: After weeks of putting up with pro-Hamas/anti-Semitic protests on university campuses across the country, school administrators finally had enough. Over the weekend, law enforcement was sent in to crack down and remove these protesters’ tent cities, with hundreds of these student rabble-rousers getting arrested in the process. Meanwhile, beyond calling for an end to Israel and its war with Hamas, some of these student protesters have added a new demand: personal amnesty and the erasure of their arrest records. One student, a junior at Columbia University, serves as an example. Following her arrest by New York City police for her refusal to heed their instructions and disperse the protest tent city set up on Columbia’s campus, she not only found herself suspended from the school but also sporting an arrest record. Suffering the repercussions of her ill-conceived anti-Semitic activism, she is one of many activist students who now want their record wiped clean. She fears how her activism will impact her future career opportunities. This may be the only lesson she learns during her time at Columbia, but decisions have consequences. Or, as the kids say today, “Play stupid games, win stupid prizes.” Still, Joe Biden isn’t exactly setting a good example, “forgiving” student loans as he has.
  • “We will not comply”: Joe Biden’s Department of Education recently published a Title IX rewrite that effectively erases women since it expands the definition of women to include males who identify as female. The states of Florida and Oklahoma announced their rejection of the change. Florida Governor Ron DeSantis put it bluntly: “We are not going to let Joe Biden try to inject men into women’s activities. We will not comply.” DeSantis’s comment came after Florida Education Commissioner Manny Diaz Jr. sent a letter directing that “no educational institution [in the state] should begin implementing any changes,” as he argued that the Biden administration was trying “to gaslight the country into believing that biological sex no longer has any meaning.” Diaz added, “As legal challenges unfold, and the Department has the opportunity to analyze this rule, I will release guidance on how to implement it in a way that is consistent with our goal to keep Florida #1 in education.” In Oklahoma, State Superintendent Ryan Walters sent a letter forbidding “any district policy changes based on the new Title IX regulations” due to the new regulations being “illegal and unconstitutional.” Walters reasoned that the Biden administration’s Title IX rewrites “violate the First Amendment, the Administrative Procedures Act, and longstanding civil rights protections for women and girls.” The Education Department, he said, “has not been given the legislative or judicial authority to redefine ‘sex,’” so he expects “there will be litigation filed soon challenging the validity of these rules.” Both Florida and Oklahoma have recently passed legislation protecting female-only spaces.
  • First bank failure of 2024: Federal regulators seized Republic Bank on Friday. The Philadelphia-based bank’s failure marks the first of 2024. The Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC) explained to Republic Bank depositors that they “can access their money by writing checks or using ATM or debit cards” and that “checks drawn on Republic Bank will continue to be processed and loan customers should continue to make their payments as usual.” Fulton Financial will be taking over the bank’s 32 branches located across New Jersey, New York, and Pennsylvania. As of January 31 of this year, Republic Bank had $6 billion in assets and $4 billion in deposits, making it the fourth high-profile bank to fail since the spring of last year. Silicon Valley and Signature Banks failed in March 2023, which was followed by First Republic’s failure two months later. With total combined assets of $440 billion, those banks marked the second-, third-, and fourth-largest failures in the Great Depression. The Federal Reserve denies that its increase in interest rates was responsible for any of these bank failures.
  • WH palace coup fails to oust Baghdad Bob: They say it didn’t happen, but one afternoon of watching Karine “The Binder” Jean-Pierre fumble her way through a White House press conference suggests otherwise. The “it,” in this case, was an attempt to defenestrate Jean-Pierre, thereby relieving Joe Biden’s press secretary of the vital role she plays within the administration: namely, behaving with such jaw-slackening stupidity that she makes her boss look sentient by comparison. According to the New York Post: “Top aides to President Biden secretly hatched a plan this past fall to replace White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre by recruiting outside allies to nudge her out the door. … Jean-Pierre, who made [a tiresome version of woke] history in May 2022 by becoming the first black and first openly gay person to hold the position, had developed the exasperating habit of reading canned answers directly from a binder to reporters at her regular briefings — offering what her superiors viewed as a less-than-compelling pitch for the 81-year-old Biden as he readied his re-election campaign.” And here we thought she was doing Biden a favor by behaving so incompetently. The Post continues, “De facto White House communications chief Anita Dunn, 66, the wife of Biden personal attorney Bob Bauer, told colleagues she had decided to call in prominent Democrats to explain to Jean-Pierre, 49, that the time was ripe to move on.” Lies! Lies! says KJP’s errand boy, Deputy Press Secretary Andrew Bates. “Karine was never approached by anyone with such a message. She spends four hours preparing every day.” Welp, that settles it then.
  • Another credit-rating agency downgrades China’s financial outlook: Perhaps Bidenomics isn’t just an American thing. According to Fitch Ratings, a leading provider of credit ratings and analysis for global capital markets, China’s financial situation isn’t as glorious as the ChiComs might want us to believe. “Fitch is worried about Chinese finance,” writes The Epoch Times’s Milton Ezrati. “Earlier this month, while reaffirming China’s still high A+ rating, the credit-rating agency downgraded what it calls the country’s ‘outlook.’ In this, Fitch has followed another rating agency, Moody’s, which did the same thing last December.” The downgrade, however, still allows China to keep its high credit rating. Ezrati continues: “Predictably, Beijing’s finance ministry objected, asserting that Chinese economics and finance are in fine shape and likely to improve. None of this should come as a surprise to readers of this column, which has, over the last 18–24 months, chronicled and explained China’s severe economic and financial challenges. If anything, Fitch and Moody’s did not go far enough.”
  • Seinfeld blames the Left for killing comedy: In a recent interview published in The New Yorker, longtime funnyman Jerry Seinfeld excoriated the political Left for its attack on humor. Noting how, in years past, Americans looked to comedy like TV sitcoms as a needed escape, Seinfeld fretted that those days are gone. “It used to be, you would go home at the end of the day, most people would go, oh, ‘Cheers’ is on. Oh, ‘MAS*H’ is on. Oh, ‘Mary Tyler Moore’ is on. ‘All in the Family’ is on. You just expected there’ll be some funny stuff we can watch on TV tonight.” He then observed: “Well, guess what — where is it? This is the result of the extreme left and PC crap, and people worrying so much about offending other people. When you write a script, and it goes into four or five different hands, committees, groups — ‘Here’s our thought about this joke. Well, that’s the end of your comedy.” Elon Musk responded to the interview by posting on X, “Make comedy legal again!” Indeed.
  • Trump leads Biden 49-43 in latest CNN poll: The 2024 presidential election is still six months away, but if the Democrats really did try to ensure that Donald Trump would be the Republican nominee, it might go down as one of the face-plantiest own goals in American political history. We say this as a new CNN poll provides the most alarming numbers yet for Joe Biden in his rematch with Trump. Indeed, the poll’s six-point margin in favor of Trump is a worsening for Biden from the previous version of the poll, taken in January, which had Trump ahead 49-45. Biden’s problem, though, isn’t just Trump’s lead, which is now well outside the margin of error; it’s that he’s far below the 50% threshold that incumbents consider safe because incumbents know that late-deciding voters tend to break for the challenger. The numbers are even more grim for Biden when third-party candidates are added. With RFK Jr., Cornel West, and Jill Stein in the mix, Trump leads Biden by nine points, 42-33. Perhaps the most revealing (and alarming, for Biden supporters) question in the poll found that 55% of Americans now view Trump’s presidency as a success, while 61% view Biden’s presidency as a failure. Interestingly, time appears to have at least partially healed the wounds of January 6. As CNN notes, “In a January 2021 poll taken just before Trump left office and days after the January 6 attack on the US Capitol, 55% considered his time as president a failure.” It’s remarkable what a bit of distance can do to one’s perspective on presidential success and failure.

Headlines

  • Biden says “I’m happy to debate” Trump (Daily Wire)
  • House GOP raises alarm over Biden family’s alleged business with Qatari officials (Daily Wire)
  • South Dakota governor writes in new book about killing her dog (AP)
  • FCC reinstates net neutrality (Fox Business)
  • Ford reports loss on every EV sold in first quarter (Washington Examiner)
  • GWU protester carries sign with Nazi “final solution” call for extermination of Jews (NY Post)
  • Sheryl Sandberg’s new film testifies to Hamas’s brutal sexual violence on October 7 (Times of Israel)
  • Who funds Hamas? You do, thanks to Joe Biden (PJ Media)
  • Olympic officials announce that Palestine will be represented as a country at the Olympics (Not the Bee)
  • Veteran CNN anchor Poppy Harlow to exit network (NY Post)
  • New York Democrats pass “welfare for journalists” credit program (PM)
  • Britain’s NHS is banning terms like “chestfeeding” and creating rules to ensure the “privacy and protection” of women (Not the Bee)
  • U.S. intelligence community pronounces Putin totally not involved in ordering Alexei Navalny’s prison death (RedState)
  • Humor: To avoid falling, Biden to traverse lawn in giant hamster ball (Babylon Bee)

For the Executive Summary archive, click here.

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Taylor Swift and Her Troubling Latest Album

The pop singer is following a disturbing trend in the music scene, using lyrics intended for shock value.

Emmy Griffin

Taylor Swift has clearly entered a new era with her music. “The Tortured Poets Department,” the pop singer’s latest contribution to the musical pantheon, has received some pushback from fans and haters alike.

Swift’s latest (double) album has 31 tracks. It features not only sacrilegious lyrics but also explicit language, self-harm allusions, violence, and sex, drug, and alcohol abuse. As Business Insider explains: “Swift frames ‘Poets’ as a debrief of an ill-fated love affair, ‘a mutual manic phase’ in the wake of a breakup — torrid, brief, yet creatively fruitful. ‘A smirk creeps onto this poet’s face,’ she writes. ‘Because it’s the worst men that I write best.’”

Though none of these features should be newsworthy for a secular artist, it has shaken the deep fan base to the core. Mothers who have been “Swifties” since her first country album and have shared that love with their young daughters are now having to seriously comb through each song for one that might be appropriate for their 10-year-old to listen to.

Several lyrics use license to attack sanctimonious Christians and trivialize the death of Christ. This, of course, has offended many Christians, as it should. (Though, admittedly, some of the criticism is a little over the top.)

Is the album demonic? No. Is it sacrilegious, offensive, and overly dramatic? Yes. Using Christian imagery to talk about lust or to make yourself out to be an even greater martyr for love is not in the best taste. And while this is relatively tame compared to the likes of Sam Smith at the Oscars or Lil Nas X’s song “Montero,” the bottom line is that Swift is clearly following a disturbing trend in the pop music scene by having lyrics that are intended for shock value.

Swift’s lyrics clearly show that she doesn’t want to grow up. She seemingly wants love and marriage, but she is in a vicious cycle as long as she isn’t willing to grow up. She sees any criticism of her as sanctimonious. She also explores what it’s like to be famous and the sexualization of successful women in the public eye. Her offering, “Clara Bow,” is particularly interesting in this respect.

Musically, the album sounded a little stale. Many of the tracks sounded the same, and exciting surprises were rare. “So Long, London” was one of those rare exceptions and honestly gave some Enya vibes.

Though I’m not much more than a casual Taylor Swift listener, what can be stated for certain is that Swift is a genius at making money off of the same old tropes. She writes love songs (although in this album, they were more lust than love), then hate songs. It feels like this is just another iteration of her perpetual victimhood, only now it’s edgy because it talks about sex, drugs, alcohol, and violence.

In a culture that is warped by a victimhood hierarchy, it’s hardly surprising that Swift can capitalize on her particular brand of self-inflicted martyrdom. Her fans soak up the blind item-style diary entries that are her songs and eagerly decipher which man wrecked her life (spoiler alert: it was two different guys this time).

Swift is the most recognizable female singer-songwriter of this generation. She has a huge fan base. What’s more disappointing isn’t the dark themes of her latest musical offering but the perpetual victimhood that she wears like a cardigan and the promotion of sacrilege. As an influencer, Swift is not being a good role model for her younger fans and is driving away her older fans. Perhaps it’s time for the 34-year-old to reexamine herself, her music, and her lyrics before writing another album.

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The First AI-Generated Hate Hoax?

A Maryland principal was the victim of an AI-generated recording that falsely had him making racist statements.

Thomas Gallatin

With the dawn of this new era of Artificial Intelligence, it was inevitable. Someday, someone would use this burgeoning technology for nefarious purposes — in this case, to falsely impersonate and thereby incriminate an innocent individual.

That innocent individual is Eric Eiswert, the principal of Pikesville High School in Baltimore.

Earlier this year, an audio recording of Eiswert speaking with a couple of teachers was supposedly captured behind closed doors. In the recording, Eiswert is heard expressing frustration with “ungrateful black kids who can’t test their way out of a paper bag.” Later in the recording, he says, “And if I have to get one more complaint from one more Jew in this community, I’m going to join the other side.”

That recording was shared with a couple of other teachers, and it then found its way to social media, where it spread throughout the school. Eiswert denied that he had said what was on the recording, but he was subsequently suspended and an investigation was launched.

The racist recording soon brought condemnation from the usual suspects. The local chapter president of the NAACP said she was “disappointed but not surprised.” Other former students of Eiswert also weighed in on social media, claiming that they were not at all surprised by his comments and calling for his immediate termination and for the state to revoke his teaching and administration licenses.

Eiswert also received threats — so much so that the local police placed a detail at his home.

However, it was eventually determined that the recording was bogus; it had been created using AI technology. The individual allegedly responsible for this fake recording was Dazhon Darien, the school’s former athletic director. Darien’s targeting of Eiswert was motivated by retaliation. Last December, Eiswert had Darien investigated for improper payments made to a school coach, who was also his roommate. It was determined that Darien had engaged in theft.

The Associated Press reports: “Authorities said the case appears to be among the first of its kind in the country and called for new laws to guard against the technology. Experts also warned that artificial intelligence is becoming increasingly powerful, while the ability to detect it may lag behind without more resources.”

Given today’s popular woke victimhood culture, where racism is supposedly everywhere, these types of racist hoaxes have sprung up repeatedly. Sadly, if the ostensible victim is a member of a protected group — or two protected groups, as was the case with Jussie Smollett, Bubba Wallace, and any number of other hate hoaxers — the charge is automatically given more credence.

Darien, who is black, took his racism hoax to a new level with AI. Thankfully, the school did its due diligence to find the truth. But this should also serve as a warning. In this new world of AI, not everyone will receive the same due process Eiswert did. Furthermore, as AI technology advances, it will be even more difficult to differentiate fact from fiction.

“It’s kind of like a perpetual cat-and-mouse game,” observed Siwei Lyu, who directs a media forensics lab at the University of Buffalo. “But if I project the speed of development based on today’s situation, detection will lag behind because we have [fewer] resources and are not getting as much attention as the generative side.”

Given the disturbing facts of this case, we can’t say we weren’t warned.

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Navy Missiles and the Defense of Taiwan: Part 2

Will the U.S. risk our capital ships and thousands of lives in the defense of Taiwan?

Brent Ramsey

Editor’s Note: This is Part 2 of a series. Part 1 can be found here.

For the People’s Republic of China’s (PRC) plan to conquer Taiwan to succeed, the Chinese need to keep American aircraft carriers away. They will threaten our carriers with massive barrages of anti-ship missiles. The PRC’s DF-26 anti-ship ballistic missile is a legitimate threat, described in more detail in the American Interest. Its range exceeds 3,100 miles, it is highly maneuverable, and it can carry either nuclear or conventional warheads. Entering service in 2018, it is mature technology, and China is believed to have at least 500 of them.

According to the Congressional Research Service’s report titled “China Naval Modernization: Implications for U.S. Navy Capabilities — Background and Issues for Congress”: “China is fielding two types of land-based ballistic missiles with a capability of hitting ships at sea at extended ranges — the DF-21D, a road-mobile anti-ship ballistic missile (ASBM) with a range of more than 1,500 kilometers (i.e., more than 810 nautical miles), and the DF-26, a road-mobile, multi-role intermediate range ballistic missile (IRBM) with a maximum range of 3,000 kilometers to 4,000 kilometers (i.e., about 1,620 nautical miles to 2,160 nautical miles) that DOD says ‘is designed to rapidly swap conventional and nuclear warheads and is capable of conducting precision land-attack and anti-ship strikes in the Western Pacific … from mainland China.’”

The report also says, “China reportedly is developing hypersonic glide vehicles that, if incorporated into Chinese ASBMs, could make Chinese ASBMs more difficult to intercept.”

The report quotes “a February 2, 2023, press report” that states, “For the first time, the PLA has officially revealed the performance of its advanced anti-ship hypersonic missile, sending a warning to the US amid high tensions in the Taiwan Strait, Chinese analysts said. China’s YJ-21, or Eagle Strike-21, has a terminal speed of Mach 10, cannot be intercepted by any anti-missile weapons system in the world and can launch lethal strikes towards enemy ships, according to an article posted by the official Weibo account of the People’s Liberation Army Strategic Support Force.”

The PRC has large numbers of anti-ship cruise missiles as well. With these troubling reports of the PRC’s arsenal of anti-ship missiles, will the U.S. risk our capital ships and thousands of lives in the defense of Taiwan?

The Navy has a family of missiles specifically designed to intercept anti-ship missiles. These are the SM-2, the SM-3, and the SM-6. The SM-2 missile is designed to engage high-speed, high-altitude, and anti-ship cruise missiles. The SM-3 is used to destroy short- to intermediate-range ballistic missiles. The interceptor uses sheer force rather than an explosive warhead to destroy targets in space. The SM-6 is a multi-mission missile capable of antiair warfare, terminal ballistic missile defense, and anti-ship strike roles. It uses a blast-fragmentation warhead to engage these threats at high altitudes short of space. These are all used with an advanced radar control system and a versatile launch system, the Mark 41 Vertical Launch System (VLS). These missiles have been successfully tested and are deemed reliable. Some of these missiles have been used in Israel’s recent defense with great success. In addition, all our ships have closer-range defense systems such as the close-in weapons system (CIWS), the RIM-162 Evolved Sea Sparrow missile, 5″ guns, and 50 caliber machine guns. These are best described as last-resort defensive systems.

Burke-class destroyers have either 90 or 96 cells in their Vertical Launch System. Ticonderoga-class cruisers have 122 cells. The Navy has large numbers of Burke-class destroyers (~70) and a few cruisers (13) (three are in long-term maintenance and may never rejoin the fleet). Zumwalt-class destroyers are presumed to be not a factor. We currently have two carriers and one Amphibious Assault ship in the Pacific. As tensions rise, the number would likely increase. Even for our capital ships, the number of escorts is small. Hypothetically, each carrier could have up to three or four escorts to protect them. Since the escorts carry a weapons loadout that includes many types of missiles, only a portion of the cells contain anti-missile missiles; the rest are devoted to land attack, anti-submarine warfare, and other missions.

The danger to our carriers/crews in this scenario is extreme. If the PRC launched hundreds of missiles at our ships simultaneously, our various defense systems would be very hard-pressed to defend those ships. In a war games series reported in 2023, according to Newsweek: “The number of American servicemembers killed, wounded, or missing would near 10,000. The U.S. Navy typically lost two aircraft carriers and up to 20 major surface ships — destroyers or cruisers.”

The Navy has the technology to defeat the PRC in war. What we lack is an adequate number of ships and weapons. Congress has ignored the warning signs of an emerging China and has not provided the ships and weapons we need to uphold national policy. Without the Navy, Taiwan and our treaty allies cannot be adequately defended. Due to the neglect of the Navy, the fate of millions hangs in the balance.

If Taiwan falls, the U.S. will have ceded control of the Pacific to the PRC. Japan, the Philippines, and South Korea will be directly threatened. China will be the hegemon of the Indo-Pacific, and the U.S. Navy will no longer be recognized as the world’s most powerful navy. It is not too late to change this picture. If you agree, urge your congressional representatives to build up our Navy.

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VIDEOS

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BEST OF RIGHT OPINION

For more of today’s columns, visit Right Opinion.

SHORT CUTS

Non Compos Mentis

“We’ll certainly never forget the dark days of June 6 — January 6, excuse me.” —Joe Biden

The BIG Lies

“[My mom] said: ‘Remember when they were desegregating Lynnfield, the neighborhood … and there was a black family moving in … and you got arrested standing on the porch with a black family? And they brought you back, the police?’ And I said, ‘Yeah, Mom, I remember that.’” —Joe Biden

“[In the 1970s] I got put in that 10 Most Eligible Bachelors list. … Women would send very salacious pictures, and I’d just give them to the Secret Service.” —Joe Biden (Senators aren’t afforded Secret Service.)

Fearmongering

“Trump is coming for your health care and Social Security. We won’t let it happen.” —Joe Biden

Facepalm

“I want to start by wishing my wife Melania a very happy birthday. It would be nice to be with her, but I’m at a courthouse for a rigged trial.” —Donald Trump (The legal stupidity of the Stormy Daniels trial notwithstanding, you do know the underlying reason for why you’re there, right?)

From the “Guilty Until Proven Innocent” Files

“Will a Mountain of Evidence Be Enough to Convict Trump?” —The New York Times

Spin Doctor

“As a Ferguson activist, I know what it’s like to have agitators infiltrate our movement, manipulate the press, & fuel the suppression of dissent by public officials & law enforcement. We must reject these tactics to silence anti-war activists demanding divestment from genocide.” —Congresswoman Cori Bush (D-MO)

Upright

“The basic formula for fighting back against Hamas’ useful campus idiots is simple: suspend, expel, arrest, prosecute and, as appropriate, deport the abominable mini-jihadis.” —Josh Hammer

For the Record

“It doesn’t matter how corrupt Ukraine’s politicians are or whether Ukraine should or should not become a member of NATO. Two U.S. presidents guaranteed the country’s safety and protection if they gave up their nukes and we should honor that guarantee.” —Michael Reagan

“Just as Nazi Germany made a pact with Joseph Stalin’s Soviet Union in 1939 and formed the Axis with Japan and Italy in 1940, America is faced now with a working alliance of revanchist dictatorial powers determined to alter the balance of power in their favor.” —Michael Barone

“The Iranian attack on Israel seems a historic blunder. It showed the world the impotence of an Iranian aerial assault at the very time it threatens to go nuclear. It revealed that an incompetent Iran may be as much a threat to itself as to its enemies. It opened up a new chapter in which its own soil, thanks to its attack on Israel, is no longer off limits to any Western power. Its failure to stop a much smaller Israel response, coupled with the overwhelming success of Israel and its allies in stopping a much larger Iranian attack, reminds the Iranian autocracy that its shrill rhetoric is designed to mask its impotence and to hide its own vulnerabilities from its enemies.” —Victor Davis Hanson

Re: The Left

“When the Supreme Court says, ‘No prayer in school,’ ‘Abortion on demand,’ and ‘Men can marry men,’ the left insists that we follow and respect the court. But when the court says, ‘Abortion isn’t in the Constitution’ or ‘Christians can’t be forced to violate their faith,’ those same people scream, ‘The Supreme Court is illegitimate! It should be ignored!’” —Gary Bauer

“If a company or industry produced a product that killed 100 million people, it’s safe to say there would be some blowback. Why should faculty be able to preach doctrines like collectivism, moral relativism or the nonexistence of truth without being called to account for the consequences?” —Laura Hollis

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TODAY’S MEME

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For more of today’s memes, visit the Memesters Union.

TODAY’S CARTOON

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For more of today’s cartoons, visit the Cartoons archive.

“From The Patriot Post (patriotpost.us)”.

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