Opinion: Balloon over Billings - ClarkCountyToday.com

Joe Kent states ‘the American people cannot ignore the blatant corruption of Biden and his son Hunter with the Chinese Communist Party’

Joe Kent
3rd Congressional District candidate

Joe Biden has failed as a president and especially as a commander in chief. The most important job that a US president has is protecting our nation, which is why the president is given the title of commander in chief. It is the president who controls the US’s military and intelligence agencies. Since taking office, Biden has led the nation from catastrophe to catastrophe. He opened an invasion on our southern border that has pumped over two million illegal immigrants into our country. The resulting porous border is why lethal fentanyl kills hundreds of Americans daily.

And now we’ve learned that the administration tried to hide a Chinese spy balloon the size of three school buses sneaking into the United States. Instead of shooting it down promptly when it was discovered over the Aleutian Islands, the Biden administration allowed it to survey the country before eventually deciding to shoot it down over the Atlantic Ocean. To be clear, Biden only shot down the CCP spy balloon once it was done spying. Were it not spotted by citizens in Montana, Biden likely would have kept it a secret from us and let it pass by unfettered.

There are many unanswered questions about the balloon. The official narrative says it came from China and flew over Alaska and Canada before floating south into the northwest of the US. What was the balloon doing? How did the balloon go undetected for so long? Many have speculated that there were high-tech intelligence collection devices dangling from the balloon that could have been used to spy on ICBM or nuclear sites; if that was even remotely possible, why didn’t we shoot it down as soon as we detected it? The Pentagon and Biden’s lukewarm reaction to a blatant intrusion of our airspace is alarming and infuriating, but it’s very much on brand for them.

Another critical question is why would China take such a provocative and invasive action? Do they think there will be no consequences?

It is critical to understand China’s risk calculus to understand its intent. I spent over 20 years working in our nation’s Special Operations Forces and for the CIA as a Paramilitary Operations Officer. In intelligence collection operations, there is always a risk assessment of the mission before launching. What are we risking if we get caught and is the risk worth what information we could potentially gain?

What information did China hope to get from this high-risk mission via a balloon that they couldn’t get via satellites, corporate espionage, swaths of Chinese-owned farmland, or any of their countless intelligence operations underway in the US? Why would China risk a blatant intrusion of the US for information they can obtain via much less intrusive measures? Or are the Chinese simply testing our reaction while setting the stage for Secretary of State Blinken’s meeting in China and Speaker McCarthy’s trip to Taiwan? All of the above could also be the answer, especially if the Chinese are utterly unworried about retaliation or repercussions. Based on the administration’s track record, it’s reasonable to assess that our adversaries view this moment as a perfect time to take risks that otherwise would not; after all, what’s Biden going to do?

Although there are many unanswered questions, what is clear is that when our leaders don’t prioritize our security at home, the world becomes a very dangerous place. From our open southern border to the inflation that is crushing working families, it’s obvious that We The People are not our government’s priority. Biden and the corrupt ruling class that supports him will lecture us about climate change, racism, and pronouns, then turn around and tell us not to worry about a payload carrying a Chinese balloon catching a breeze over the US Heartland. If we continue to be led by incompetence, hubris, and malice, a tragedy for the American people becomes almost a certainty.

Why would a commander in chief behave like Biden? It’s too easy to make a “Sleepy Joe” joke and blame his behavior on his declining mental facilities. But that simple answer only explains him at a press conference. It doesn’t excuse him from being derelict in his presidential duties. Biden’s mental decline also doesn’t explain why his national security team would behave recklessly. The media and DC “expert class” assured us that Biden’s national security team would bring the US back to normal. They are the much-fabled “adults in the room,” the “true professionals” who gave us 20 years of disaster in the Middle East and are now provoking wars in Europe. Like Biden, these failed, self-described experts cannot be trusted with our security either.

The American people cannot ignore the blatant corruption of Biden and his son Hunter with the Chinese Communist Party (CCP). Biden is compromised financially by the CCP and has been an outspoken ally of the CCP and their efforts to wage economic war against the US since he was a senator on the Senate Foreign Relations committee. It’s not a stretch to assess that the CCP is emboldened to take aggressive actions under Biden that they would typically not otherwise attempt. Simply stated, the CCP knows they have enough dirt on Biden and can get away with nearly anything under Biden’s watch.

The Chinese also know that we are incredibly distracted by the war in Ukraine, so much so that we can’t deal with our own borders. The CCP provides many fentanyl precursors to the Mexican drug cartels that pump these drugs across our open border into America. Why wouldn’t China risk doing even more aggressive operations? There is no repercussion for the massive amounts of fentanyl killing hundreds of Americans daily. Why would we worry about a balloon?

And while the balloon in the sky ignited a heated national discussion about Chinese aggression and the incompetence and duplicity of the Biden administration’s reaction, there are millions of “spy balloons” on American smartphones in the form of the Chinese intel-gathering app, Tik Tok, which has already been banned from military bases.

Since the balloon was shot down the Biden administration has been in full damage control mode, citing “newly discovered intelligence” that CCP balloons penetrating our borders happened under the Trump administration. There is no data or intelligence to support this claim and former senior members of the Trump administration immediately refuted the Biden administration’s claims. Most notably former members of the Trump administration who are not friends of Trump, like former National Security Advisor John Bolton as well as former Secretary of Defense James Mattis, both of whom deny that any CCP balloons ever entered the US on their watch. It’s hard to imagine that any secret of this magnitude that could have been used to harm Trump would not have made it to the press via Bolton or Mattis years ago.

Congress must take measures to ensure there is accountability for the failure to protect our nation by calling the Secretary of Defense and the Commander of North America Command to testify under oath to determine who knew what and when, so the American people can understand what failures led to the CCP flying over the interior of the US for over a week. The American people pay nearly 1 trillion taxpayer dollars to the national security state, we deserve to have secure borders, its Congress’s job to ensure our money is not squandered.

Congress must also hold the Biden administration accountable for trying to dilute their failure by using the guise of “intelligence”. We need to be able to trust our intelligence community but they consistently are used to deceive the American people, from WMD in Iraq to Russiagate & Hunter’s laptop, our intelligence community has lost the American people’s trust by allowing democrat political operatives to wield the title of intelligence as a weapon against their domestic foes while allowing our real enemies into the heart of our nation. Sunlight is the best and only disinfectant to restore trust with the American people.

Our government’s most basic duty is to defend the American people. The Biden Administration’s continued neglect of our nation’s security is unacceptable. Leaders at every level and party must call this out and demand that Biden takes the Chinese threat seriously. We must immediately secure our borders and airspace and ban Chinese spy apps and ownership of our land. Our enemies are watching with glee as our government suffers one self-inflicted and devastating mistake after the next. It’s past time to get our house in order and protect our citizens.

Joe Kent served in the Army’s Special Forces for 20 years and eleven combat tours before joining the CIA as a field operations officer and then working as a foreign policy and military advisor to President Trump. He is currently running for Washington’s 3rd Congressional Candidate as a Republican.

Joe Kent states ‘the American people cannot ignore the blatant corruption of Biden and his son Hunter with the Chinese Communist Party’

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