The fall brings so many great distractions. If you’re a die-hard Cub fan, a parent of a high schooler in the midst of football and homecoming activities, or someone who likes to travel to the look at the fall colors, it’s quite possible that you have no idea what’s been happening in Broadview, Illinois (or Portland, Oregon.)
You’ve also likely already forgotten, if you even knew, that the federal government “shut down” on Wednesday at 12:01 am. After all, millions of Americans have infrequent contact with the federal government.
There’s also a 99% chance you’ve not heard of the tongue-lashing generals, admirals, and senior enlisted officers received from Secretary of War Pete Hegseth.
But these were all big stories this week, and underlying all the actions is one thing. Accountability.
President Trump’s not playing around. You break the laws of the USA, there will be consequences. (Although there’s plenty more accountability to be done.)
If Democrats want to shut down the government, Trump will permanently reduce jobs.
Having let standards slip in the military, then you’re going to sit through a lecture by Trump’s Secretary of War, whether or not you want to be lectured to a much younger and less experienced warfighter than you.
Trump is solidly focused on Setting Standards. Holding People Accountable. Following-through.
This is Leadership 101. Leftists loathe accountability, and so they loathe what is happening. But anything less than these actions invites confusion, resentment, division, and chaos.
And this is exactly what Governor JB Pritzker has sown as governor. In Pritzker’s Illinois, the rules don’t apply at all in some cases and unequally in other cases.
And with regards to immigration, rules apply to no one, so the chaos continued at the Broadview, Illinois, ICE facility and culminated in back-to-back-to-back nights and days of protesters mixing it up with federal law enforcement, and some of them finding themselves arrested.
This week’s drama started early on Tuesday morning when ICE agents descended on a run-down apartment building in Chicago’s south shore neighborhood. They broke into apartments, rustled people out of bed, including children, held them until they could confirm citizenship status, and arrested 37 illegals, including suspects connected to the Tren de Aragua gang, who have been terrorizing the community.
The Left focused on apartments that were busted into and people detained temporarily to determine their status. Like it or not, ICE agents have broad authority to target and detain people they suspect are here illegally. This website explains in detail what they can do. For example, “The INA grants ICE agents the authority to question any person they believe to be a noncitizen about their right to be or remain in the U.S. This is a broad power that doesn’t require any specific suspicion of wrongdoing.”
The activist taxpayer-funded group Illinois Coalition for Immigrant and Refugee Rights decried illegal border crossers who were not otherwise criminals and were taken into custody. But, Border Czar Tom Homan has explained repeatedly that they will pick up any illegal when they do enforcement operations.
It was after this action that the protests heated up in Broadview.
Among the worst actions, protesters rammed into ICE vehicles
.
Breitbart reported on an X account:
“In a post on X, DHS Assistant Secretary Tricia McLaughlin revealed that after being “unable to move their vehicles” the agents got out of the car and were faced with one of the drivers having a “semi-automatic weapon.” McLaughlin added that “law enforcement was forced to deploy their weapons and fire defensive shots.”
In response, President Trump announced that if Gov. Pritzker won’t deploy the National Guard, then he will. So, 300 National Guard troops are supposed to be activated to tamp down the violence and interruption of ICE operations.
X accounts have been reporting on the chaotic events, CWB Chicago reported,:
A woman was shot by U.S. Border Patrol agents at a Brighton Park gas station on Saturday morning, sparking a rapid series of government statements, street protests, and an unusual order from a top Chicago Police Department official directing the city’s cops to avoid the scene. Federal officials said two people are in custody.
Don’t skim past that excerpt – ICE called 911 and CPD was told to stand down, not go to their aid, even as someone was shot.
By Saturday night, the Illinois State Police were called to Broadview to keep protesters out of the street, something that should have happened weeks ago.
Meanwhile, the head of border patrols says they are in Chicago for the long haul, and DHS Secretary Noem posted a video of her looking at new detention space.
Democrats are beside themselves. Pritzker has resorted to name-calling and vitriol that the country is under siege, democracy is threatened, and we are under a dictatorship.
But it’s pretty clear what’s happening. People who broke the law are being held accountable.
Here’s a sample of who they are picking up.
Accountability #2 – The Government Shutdown.
Wheaton College Alumnus, Russ Vought, who is Trump’s director of the Office of Management and Budget, is making the most of the government shutdown to usher in cuts to the bloated federal workforce. This, too, is accountability.
It’s accountability for decades of bloated government spending and an unwillingness to rein it in. The Democrats want people to believe that they refused to vote for the continuing funding of the government because they want to keep Obamacare premium subsidies flowing. Republicans say the Democrat compromise included keeping people here illegally on the Medicaid rolls.
It’s both reasons. Newsweek wrote in a fact-check article that:
The Facts
Democrats released a budget proposal that seeks to extend Affordable Care Act (ACA) subsidies before they expire at the end of the year. The plan, put forward by Connecticut Representative Rosa DeLauro and Washington Senator Patty Murray, also includes a reversal of Medicaid cuts made earlier this year.
Those Medicaid cuts include eliminating Medicaid for illegals “paroled” into the U.S. under Biden as “refugees” and “asylum seekers” who were awarded that status with no vetting at all. And therein lies the ability for the Democrats to claim that Medicaid is being withheld from eligible undocumented. As for the Obamacare subsidies – those are plussed up subsidies that were approved because of COVID. We are 5 years past COVID – it’s time to end them. You can make over $200,000 and still qualify for an Obamacare subsidy.
Regardless of the reason for the shutdown, Russ Vought now has the power to trim the government workforce, and he seems to have planned for just such an opportunity.
For Illinois, this means federally financed infrastructure projects and green energy subsidies are stopping.
This is what happens when there has been zero accountability in the past to keep spending and the size and role of government in check.
Accountability Area #3 – The Hegseth Patton Speech
In dramatic fashion, Secretary of War Pete Hegseth called all the top brass, including the Command Sergeant Major and equivalents, to a joint briefing at Quantico. At the meeting, he lectured them on the new standards in the military, including grooming, physical fitness, and getting rid of DEI and Woke ideology.
For many of the brass, this had to be difficult to sit through. But it was a lecture that should never have happened if they were adhering to time-tested military standards to begin with.
Hegseth began, rightly so, with a reminder that the primary reason for the military is to wage war, and he went into what that entails. His speech was forceful and direct –some would say over the top and even unnecessary. But, the latter part is not true. The military under Obama and then Biden has produced social justice warriors that real warriors have been forced to serve alongside. All the brass in that room could have stopped the WOKE ideology, race-based promotion, Ibrahim X Kendi reading lists a long time ago – and they didn’t. Hence, the lecture.
Hegseth was definitely right that the military has a problem with physical fitness standards. That means it has a problem with discipline because the two are 100% related.
Suffice it to say that when I went to West Point, there was rarely an overweight cadet. I remember, as a plebe, in the second semester, I began to gain a little weight. It was easy to do. You’re forced to sit at meals, and plebes aren’t allowed to talk, so you end up eating. But my squad leader got on me, and I just started running hills, which took the weight off in no time.
But, I have been on West Point’s campus and on base frequently in recent years and can’t help but remark to my sons how appalling it is to see overweight, unshaven, and long-haired soldiers and sailors. We would have never gotten away with that.
As to females having to meet male standards, they should have to if they are going to be in combat roles. View the standards HERE.
But let’s be clear: Standards have been slipping for a while. When I showed up to my first transportation unit in 1988, my unit never did regular morning physical training. My platoon sergeant was an overweight 42-year-old smoker who, when I told him we were going to do PT, said that he wasn’t cleared to work out because he still hadn’t done his over-40 physical.
STARRS has a whole series of articles on Hegseth’s speech. Check them out at this link: https://starrs.us/. President and CEO of STARRS was on my radio show tonight to discuss.