Plus, Other Headlines You May Have Missed   Fighting For Faith, Family & Freedom Friday, February 3, 2023 To: Friends & Supporters From: Gary Bauer Spy In The Sky Late yesterday, there was breaking news that the Pentagon was tracking a mysterious balloon from communist China. It had passed over Alaska, down through Canada and crossed into U.S. airspace above Montana. It flew over sensitive U.S. military sites, including one Air Force base with 150 ICBMs, a key part of our nuclear tirade that stops an enemy from attacking us. Next, we heard a multitude of excuses for why we aren’t doing anything about it, including the possibility that if it was shot down, debris might fall on someone on the ground. Well, there’s a lot of open space in Montana. The risk of hurting anyone on the ground seems minimal. We should be thinking about the safety of Americans “down the road.” We were told that the balloon probably wasn’t doing anything that satellites can’t do. Well, we’ve been repeatedly shocked by major advances in Chinese weapon systems in recent years. But if the balloon can’t do anything that satellites already do, why would communist China risk an incident if there is no value in it for them? I’m no military technology expert, but we’re supposed to be able to think “outside the box.” What if it’s not just spying on us, but releasing something? What if there are pathogens in it? There are lots of legitimate questions. What if they are testing to see how weak our will is? What if the purpose was to see what defenses were activated when we discovered it? F-22 fighter jets were reportedly scrambled to intercept it. Well, now the Chinese know how long that takes. There’s a disturbing pattern here. We’ve discovered that Chinese interests are buying land near military bases in North Dakota. Now they’re flying spy balloons over military bases in Montana. That doesn’t sound like the normal activities of our “trading partner.” Today, the Chinese government is suggesting that this is just a weather balloon that went off course. Right. Communist China routinely lies about everything – including genocide and pandemic diseases that killed millions. There is no reason to trust anything they say about this balloon! A Little History As you recall, the Chinese communists warned former Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi not to visit Taiwan last year. To her credit, she went anyway. Now, they’re warning Speaker Kevin McCarthy that he had better not go to Taiwan. Just think about that. The Chinese communists are warning the speaker of the House of Representatives that he shouldn’t visit an American ally while they are sending spy balloons over our territory! They knew when the balloon was likely to arrive over U.S airspace. And they knew that Secretary of State Antony Blinken was scheduled to arrive in Beijing next week. Was this China’s way of reminding us of who is in the driver’s seat ahead of those talks? (It’s being reported that Blinken has now postponed his planned trip to China.) I remember when it was revealed that General “Thoroughly Modern” Milley secretly called his old buddy in the Chinese communist military to reassure him that he would give him a heads up if we were about to attack. Okay, House Republicans, put Milley under oath and ask him if he got a “heads up” from his Chinese Communist Party counterpart, reassuring him that there was nothing to worry about from this balloon. Does Milley’s trusted Chinese partner call him every time they launch an invasion-level number of aircraft and ships toward Taiwan to say there’s nothing to worry about? I doubt it. It says something about the nature of the relationship that we’re always reassuring them while they continue to engage in aggressive activity against the people of the United States and our allies. For some reason they just don’t seem to be very worried about Joe and Kamala. I remember at the beginning of George W. Bush’s administration when the Chinese forced a U.S. surveillance plane to land in China. That was more than 20 years ago, when communist China was considerably weaker than it is today. I suspect that the only way the Biden White House or the feckless Pentagon leadership would shoot that balloon down is if they believed the helium in it was contributing to global warming! Speaking Of Communists. . . There was a very revealing vote yesterday in the House of Representatives. Members were voting on a simple resolution to condemn the “horrors of socialism,” specifically the atrocities of Lenin, Stalin, Mao, Castro and other tyrants. This should have been an easy, unanimous vote. While all House Republicans supported the resolution, Democrats split 109-to-86, with an additional 14 Democrats voting “present.” Faith Under Siege Last month, I had the honor of being down on the National Mall for the March For Life. It was an incredible event. Tens of thousands of students from Catholic and evangelical schools were there taking a stand for the sanctity of life. Many of these student groups wore distinctive hats so they could identify one another in the huge crowd. And after the march, one group of Catholic students from South Carolina went to visit the Smithsonian Air and Space Museum. Unfortunately, what should have been a fun visit was ruined by leftists working at the Smithsonian. Not long after they entered the museum, they were told by angry staff members to remove their “pro-life hats,” which simply read “Rosary Pro-Life.” The students didn’t immediately back down, saying they had a First Amendment right to wear their hats, which they were also using for identification and to keep their group together. Eventually, a large security guard lumbered toward them and warned, “You boys are about ready to make my day.” That was a threat of violence if these Christians students did not leave a government building that’s open to the public in the capital of the United States, which was built on religious liberty. The students were also told that the museum was a “neutral zone” free of political messages. Sure it is. So, no one has ever walked into the Smithsonian with a Black Lives Matter shirt? Remember the women’s march? I’m sure plenty of progressive women walked into the museum wearing those vulgar hats. Does anyone think that a Muslim with a “Praise Allah” hat would be told to remove it? If that happened, Joe Biden would be on national television calling us all bigots. This is just the latest incident of conservative Christian kids being silenced and threatened. Thankfully, these kids stood up for their rights, and their parents are filing a lawsuit. Good for them! I hope their courage spreads so that more Christian adults are inspired to stand up against the growing tide of religious persecution right here in the United States. Washington, D.C., is a very liberal city, and normal conservative ideas are treated like the plague. But this hostility to faith is spreading like the plague. During the height of the pandemic, a child went to her elementary school with a mask that read “Jesus Loves Me.” She was ordered to remove it. It took a lawsuit to force the school to admit that it made a mistake. My friends, this outrageous incident happened in Mississippi -- the heart of the Bible Belt. The hour is later than the American Church realizes. Other Headlines The House of Representatives voted 220 to 210 to end the federal government’s COVID-19 pandemic emergency. Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis is taking steps to defund and eliminate unnecessary, far-left bureaucrats in the state university system. Former Indiana Gov. Mitch Daniels, widely viewed as an establishment moderate, decided not to run for an open Senate in 2024, clearing the primary for conservative stalwart Rep. Jim Banks. Utah Gov. Spencer Cox signed legislation limiting the use of gender mutilating surgeries and chemical treatments on some children. The new law is far from ideal, but it is a step in the right direction. Texas lawmakers are asking all local school boards to leave the Texas Association of School Boards over its embrace of radical transgender policies. 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