Notes on the Way

Drone dementia, Penny acquitted, gangs of Aroura, Pete perseveres, more SBW blues, worst scandal ever, Battle of the Bulge

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Searching for a perfect exemplar of the Biden Administration’s senile decay? Look no farther than New Jersey, where drone hysteria grips the public. A flurry of what were claimed to be multiple nocturnal drone sightings cranked up the rumor/conspiracy mill, as such things tend to do. But the federal government, which might have been expected to calm the public, just made things worse. From the White House, from the Department of Homeland Security, from the Department of Defense came opaque statements that only served to stoke suspicion of the government. Finally, after a month of hedging and equivocating, a joint statement by DHS, the FBI and DoD was released yesterday. It said in part: “We have not identified anything anomalous and do not assess the activity to date to present a national security or public safety risk over the civilian airspace in New Jersey or other states in the northeast.” The statement itself is good enough, but it came far too late to salvage the government’s credibility. After four years of gaslighting, people are unwilling to take the Biden Administration at its word.

Last week’s acquittal of Daniel Penny on a charge of negligent homicide in the death of Jason Neely signaled that the Black Lives Matter movement has entered the descending branch of its trajectory. And good riddance to that phony racist narrative. Of course, the verdict was greeted by accusations of racism from all the usual suspects, from the NAACP to BLM. “We need some Black vigilantes! People want to jump up and choke us and kill us for being loud? How about we do the same when they attempt to oppress us?” shouted Hank Newsome, co-founder of New York BLM. Yeah, that’ll help. By now, however, such rhetoric has the hollow clang of boilerplate—we’ve heard it all before. Incidentally, the Penny jury included four “people of color.” One wonders whether Newsome is including them on his list of “oppressors.”

During the 2024 election campaign, Democrats from the President to local officials, with the usual legacy media backup, swore up and down that the Republicans’ focus on criminal migrants was grossly exaggerated. In particular, they poo-pooed the claim that cities in Colorado, including Denver and Aroura, are plagued by Venezuelan gangs that are taking over apartment buildings and terrorizing their residents. An apogee of sorts was reached on October 13, when Republican vice-presidential nominee J.D. Vance was interviewed by Martha Raddatz on ABC’s “This Week.” Their back-and-forth on the subject culminated with Raddatz telling Vance “I’m going to stop you.” In a snotty tone of voice, she then proceeded to inform him that “only a few” apartment complexes had been taken over by criminal migrant gangs. But though Raddatz and her colleagues did their best for Team Kamala, the hits just keep on coming. Yesterday, for instance, this story broke on CNN: “Gang-related kidnapping at apartment puts Colorado city back in national immigration debate.“ That city would be…Aurora.

And speaking of the legacy media, when President-Elect Trump tapped Pete Hegseth for Secretary of Defense, the comrade journalists swung into action: Their mission: to ruin Hegseth’s reputation and derail his nomination. And they were not content with legitimate issues: the nominee's qualifications for the job, his expressed opposition of women in combat, etc. The New York Times paraded its moral depravity by publishing an email to Hegseth from his mother, castigating him for his treatment of women—this in the context of a messy divorce. There followed an absurdly implausible rape allegation, buttressed by rumors concerning Hegseth’s alcohol abuse. At no point was it mentioned that marital problems and excess drinking are sadly common among returning combat veterans. Pete Hegseth commanded a rifle platoon in Iraq, a resume item of which few of his journalistic critics can boast. And it’s eccentric, to put the matter no more pointedly, to assert that a decorated combat veteran is unqualified to lead the Department of Defense. Un-Woke in Indiana sides with the nominee on that score.

Another Strong Black Woman goes down in flames. Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis, Heroine of the Resistance, has been booted from the phony RICO case she cooked up against Donald Trump down in Georgia. In a 2-1 decision, a Georgia appeals court ruled that her romantic relationship with the attorney she hired to assist with the case created the appearance of a conflict of interest. You think? She paid this guy around $600,000, a good chunk of which came back to her in the form of gifts and ritzy vacations. What an innovative idea: Lawfare as a front for money laundering.

Oh, and then there’s the worst scandal, bar none, in the history of the American presidency: the years-long coverup of President Joe Biden’s mental and physical deterioration since taking office in 2021. A devastating story in the Wall Street Journal (unfortunately paywalled) that appeared yesterday details the lengths to which his aides and family went to keep the truth from the American public. I’ll have more to say about this in the coming days.

And finally, lest we forget: The eightieth anniversary of the Battle of the Bulge is going on right now. The German Ardennes offensive, codenamed Wacht am Rhein, commenced on 16 December 1944, and by 25 January 1945 the Germans has shot their bolt. Three months and a few days later, the war in Europe was over.