Column By Mike Bibb
Seems hardly a week passes without President Joe Biden wandering into la-la-land over some issue or another.
For instance, we’ve been told for nearly two years our southern border with Mexico is “secure,” in spite of several million people unlawfully crossing over it.
During the COVID pandemic, he passionately pledged if we’d only get the shots and wear masks, we wouldn’t catch the virus or spread the disease.
Oops, another colossal whopper, in a never-ending series of whoppers.
The economy is doing great, he says. Everything’s up – including food, gas, rent, and interest rates.
Remember when Joe assured us he has no business dealings with his son Hunter, regardless of the fact Hunter’s laptop computer must be full of information, pictures, and other assorted incriminating evidence to the contrary? Otherwise, why have the DOJ and FBI sat on it for over three years, intentionally suppressing its contents?
Must be another Russian conspiracy, Joe told us during the 2020 midterm election campaign.
The computer repair shop owner where Hunter abandoned his laptop, and current Congressional hearings are beginning to reveal a different narrative.
Biden’s family involvement in a myriad of questionable schemes – dating back to his Senate days – is being gradually unraveled. As is the political internal rot going on within the FBI.
A few weeks ago, secret government documents were located at Joe’s home and office at the University of Pennsylvania.
Joe said he doesn’t know anything about it or how the papers got there. Strange. By chance, another unexplained Washington phenomena?
Last week, it was reported a Chinese “spy” balloon was drifting over the entire continental United States. After crossing the northern Pacific Ocean into Alaska and dropping down the west coast of Canada, it again entered U.S. airspace.
Presumably, the gasbag was recording and transmitting info to China as it ambled along.
Keep in mind, this wasn’t a jet-propelled aircraft or missile moving at several hundred miles per hour, limiting response time. Flying 15 or 20,000 feet higher than most commercial aircraft operate, few people could visually locate it.
It was a large, 200′ tall bulky balloon, taking weeks to travel from China to Billings, Montana – where it was reported and photographed by a couple of local news journalists. Eventually, venturing over 2,000 more miles to the Atlantic coast of South Carolina before Joe and his crew finally decided to shoot it down.
Why the delay? “We didn’t want to destroy it over populated areas of the United States. Someone could get hurt” was, in essence, the excuse.
What are the odds of someone being injured by a falling deflated balloon in rural Alaska or Montana, where the population is two or three people per square mile?
Maybe, slightly higher than being struck by a meteorite.
In the meantime, there’s no telling how much classified data was relayed to Beijing.
“What’s the big deal over a balloon flying around?” is a common inquiry. “What harm could it possibly do? Besides, the military probably jammed its radio frequencies.”
Really, how do we know this? Because Joe says so? He wasn’t even aware there was a balloon floating overhead until someone told him.
Also, would the Chinese go to all the trouble and expense of deploying a spy balloon without providing it with countermeasures to repel electronic eavesdropping?
First of all, a high-drifting balloon isn’t like an orbiting satellite or Mach 2 aircraft. It moves slowly, enabling it to gather more detailed information.
Alaska and our northern border with Canada are areas where some of our most sophisticated military air bases and missile launch facilities are located. There’s also North American Aerospace Defense Command, an early warning aircraft and missile detection system that’s supposed to alert us to unexpected inbound flying objects.
What really seems incredulous about this whole affair is – hopefully – our military defense systems must have known the giant balloon was there but remained silent until the story was exposed in Montana.
Of course, after its presence became public information, Joe immediately began issuing press notices claiming they were keeping a sharp eye on it and would take necessary retaliatory measures when safe to do so.
Apparently, after it finally reached our east coast, it was deemed appropriate to destroy. For all practical purposes, the balloon’s job was completed, and information was gathered and sent.
Mission accomplished.
Predictably, the Biden Administration patted itself on the back, boasting how it successfully blew up an unarmed reconnaissance balloon, dropping it with a single air-to-air missile into the Atlantic Ocean.
Then, a few days later another “High altitude object” was shot down near Prudhoe Bay in Alaska, inside the Arctic Circle. Prudhoe Bay is the northern terminal for the Trans-Alaska Pipeline, which moves crude oil 800 miles south to the ice-free shipping port of Valdez.
Unbelievably, 24 hours later – Feb. 11, 2023 – an unidentified flying object was also shot down by an American fighter jet in Yukon Territory in northwestern Canada.
During this same time, air space over Montana was closed as a report of a fourth incident of an incoming object by NORAD was made known. Fighter planes from Portland, Oregon were scrambled to intercept the intruder.
The alert was subsequently canceled as the fighters did not locate any threat. Does that mean it wasn’t there, or they just couldn’t find it? And now, a fifth incident has happened over Lake Huron.
Meanwhile, President Joe was attending a special Washington party honoring state governors.
What the hell is going on here? Within about a week’s time, five separate violations of North American air space have been recorded. Each one required an armed response and the shooting down of four intruders.
Is the Chinese Communist Party behind all of this?
What next? Are thousands of Chinese students attending U.S. colleges and universities being considered spy suspects? According to Voice of America, on Nov. 17, 2022, there are about 291,000 currently enrolled.
How vulnerable is “Big Tech’s” dependence upon Chinese computer chips and software? Could Chinese commercial aircraft secretly record military installations and other public and private facilities as they fly over en route to U.S. destinations?
This is the stuff legends are made of. Move over George, crossing the Delaware River in the middle of a stormy Christmas night in 1776 was nothing compared to Joe’s expertly planned and executed F-22 Raptor aerial assaults on a fully inflated, unmanned, defenseless helium balloon, and other “HAOs” over Alaska and Canada.
By golly, we showed those pesky Chinese what we could do when-push-comes-to- shove.
Can Joe award himself the Congressional Medal of Honor – since he is the reigning Commander-in-Chief?
Maybe he already has one, stuffed somewhere in his garage. Perhaps, under the driver’s seat of his ’67 Corvette. The same car Hunter was photographed driving around with a couple of girls several years ago.
Is it any wonder most folks, including a majority of Democrats, think it’s time for Joe to finally retire from his 50-year government career – while he can still remember some of it?
The opinions expressed in this editorial are those of the author.
