Five Quick Things: Right Out of a 1970s Conspiracy Movie – The American Spectator

We’ll try to make this a truly quick Five Quick Things because you’ve probably had as long a week as I’ve had.

The big news? On Thursday, the FBI arrested an Air National Guard airman from Massachusetts, really a 21-year-old kid, for leaking top-secret military intelligence documents on a Discord server which got out and, well…

1. Jack Teixeira Is Not a Hero, But…

Look, what was in those intelligence files is terrible stuff that the American public almost certainly deserves to know.

For example, the fact that there are U.S. servicemen on the ground in Ukraine, even if they’re just there trying to play watchdog for our military aid getting to the battlefront, is a big deal. That shouldn’t be covered up, and it’s probably something a whole lot meatier than the media will play it as — particularly if there was no congressional authorization, public or otherwise, for them to be there.

The battlefield attrition assessments that had Ukraine absorbing losses five times those of the Russians so far, and judging the war as a bloody stalemate that the Ukrainians can’t win on their own even with maximum U.S. aid? That’s also something we as the public ought to know.

Let’s face it — we’re more than $80 billion into this thing and the leak of those documents is probably the first real bit of truth we’ve been told about this war we’re paying for. The picture those files paint is of our money being increasingly wasted on something that puts us in more danger rather than less, and for nothing. We all know that the war is going to end at the negotiating table, yet it’s the Biden administration primarily standing in the way.

But for the leak of those documents by Teixeira, the airman gamer, we wouldn’t be able to have this discussion with these facts at hand.

That doesn’t change the fact that we can’t have kids from the Air National Guard dropping top-secret files on gamer chatrooms to impress their dorky pals. That has to be prosecuted and punished.

One of two things is true about Teixeira, and we’ll find out eventually. Either he’s a conscientious young man who’s willing to go to prison for his country in hopes of staving off our potentially calamitous involvement in a hot war with Russia, or he’s a low-grade moron who thinks he can get away with vomiting national secrets onto public servers to impress his fellow gamer geeks.

Maybe the truth is in the middle. Nobody’s pure of motive at 21, regardless of what the movies say.

Still — this column has noted we’re reliving the 1970s, and this thing is right out of All The President’s Men or Three Days Of The Condor.

2. Here’s a Moron

An Ohio woman thought it would be a good idea to load up her Target shopping cart with $1,000 worth of swag and then declare that her winnings would go toward the reparations she’s owed for her ancestors having been slaves.

And when the response to that was, “Ma’am, this is a Target,” she thought she’d enforce that demand by getting aggressive with the store personnel.

Here’s how that went:

Target security punches Karen Ivery in the face after she demanded her $1K bill be paid by reparations, and backed him into a corner

She was arrested for Menacing/Disorderly Conduct

Reparations peeps
You Ain’t Seen Nothin’ Yet
Something coming
That you’re never gonna forget~ pic.twitter.com/ZNRbig0ozn

— TruthInBytes (@HipIsEdo) April 12, 2023

She said later that this was her Rosa Parks moment.

Lady, if that’s your play, we’ll just say that you’re doing it wrong.

We have far too many idiots in America. It’s not good.

3. Maybe Finally Getting Rid of McConnell, and It Feels So, Uh…

It was never really going to be a triumph for conservatives to see the end of Mitch McConnell’s run as the GOP leader in the Senate.

Why? Because as weak an ally as McConnell has been for those on the right of the D.C. uniparty, he isn’t really the problem.

The problem is the caucus that chose McConnell. They’ve chosen him as leader since 2007.

And after word hit that McConnell, who’s been physically unable to perform for the last month since a fall at a hotel put him in the hospital, may be surrendering his position, more evidence surfaced to suggest that he will.

The three Republican senators now jockeying to take over the reins from McConnell? Not Josh Hawley, Ted Cruz, and Rick Scott. Oh, no.

John Barrasso, John Cornyn, and John Thune.

Replacing McConnell with a slightly younger and even less dynamic version of himself? Great.

What we don’t know at this point is whether or not McConnell is going to leave the Senate altogether. You’d hope he’d stick around at least until January, so that the Democrat governor in Kentucky, Andy Beshear, won’t be able to pick his replacement.

There’s a state law that says Beshear has to select a senator from the same party as the one who’s leaving. And guess what? Just like a typical Democrat, he says he doesn’t think he’s bound by that law.

Because of course he isn’t. Democrats roll like that.

If it strikes you that you can’t even enjoy the possible end of Mitch McConnell as the most important Republican in the Senate, that’s what 2023 is all about.

4. A Shrinkage in Locations, Too

You’ve heard that Walmart is closing half of its eight locations in Chicago, right?

Yep. They waited until the communist won the mayor’s race, and then they announced the closings.

Walmart said in its statement that none of its eight stores in Chicago make a profit. The four they’re keeping open operate in the red.

Now, why is it that Walmart can’t make a profit in Chicago? Do you think maybe people just don’t shop there? What other stores are kicking Walmart’s tail in the Windy City?

Answer: none. They’ve got plenty of store traffic. What causes the losses is that the good people of Chicago are robbing them blind.

Shrinkage is the No. 1 thing destroying retail in America. It’s why Whole Foods is closing in downtown San Francisco, and Walgreen’s is also pulling out of that city.

Michelle Obama spent eight years whining about all the “food deserts” in the inner cities. How much do you want to bet that by next year the Democrat messaging is going to be that they’ll do something about the “retail deserts.” Not providing effective police, of course — more like robbing the suburbs to subsidize the retailers willing to take the federal coin in return for going back into the places where they were pillaged before.

You know that’s coming. It’s incumbent on the GOP not to fall for that gag.

5. And Finally…

The Babylon Bee doesn’t disappoint.