Wait Till You See What ‘IDs’ California Accepts for Voter Registration

Wait Till You See What ‘IDs’ California Accepts for Voter Registration

Catherine Salgado  

(Image credit: Victoria Taft)

In California, a person can register to vote with a gym membership card, drug prescription, public housing card, or criminal pardon. Wait till you see the entire list.

On Tuesday — Election Day — and the first couple of days following, Republican gubernatorial candidate Steve Hilton was leading his race and registered Republican Los Angeles mayoral candidate Spencer Pratt was solidly in second and headed to a runoff. By this weekend, California Democrats had managed to drag out and supplement the vote count so much that Democrat Xavier Becerra pulled ahead of Hilton and Pratt is being squeezed out of the runoff. There are many suspicious circumstances, including the regular infusion of new votes, the statistically improbable numbers going to Democrats, and the length of time the count is taking. Federal authorities are now investigating.

Bill Essayli, first assistant U.S. attorney for the Central District of California, confirmed on June 5 that there is evidence of election fraud in California, and as of June 7, he is now taking the state to court over their refusal to clean deceased and felonious voters off rolls in a timely fashion or to audit potential illegal voter names. One of the main issues he highlighted, besides ballot harvesting, was just how insanely easy it is to register to vote in California, using IDs that in the state are easily available to illegal aliens and criminals, and not just law-abiding citizens.

The California Code of Regulations provides the following list as valid for establishing identity or residency in order to vote:

driver's license or identification card of any state;

passport;

employee identification card;

identification card provided by a commercial establishment;

credit or debit card;

military identification card;

student identification card;

health club identification card;

insurance plan identification card; or

public housing identification card.

The state of California provides public housing help and healthcare to illegal aliens, and of course, some of those aliens are members of gyms. Check out the full list of taxpayer-funded programs (including university financial aid) aliens can access in California.

Read Also: Dem Congressional Candidate Squatted in Luxury New York Condo

But the above is not even the full panoply of options for "IDs" when registering to vote in California. Would-be voters can also use the following to establish identity and residency:

utility bill;

bank statement;

government check;

government paycheck;

document issued by a governmental agency;

sample ballot or other official elections document issued by a governmental, agency dated for the election in which the individual is providing it as proof, of residency or identity;

voter notification card issued by a governmental agency;

public housing identification card issued by a governmental agency;

lease or rental statement or agreement issued by a governmental agency;

student identification card issued by a governmental agency;

tuition statement or bill issued by a governmental agency;

insurance plan card or drug discount card issued by a governmental agency;

discharge certificates, pardons, or other official documents issued to the individual by a governmental agency in connection with the resolution of a criminal case, indictment, sentence, or other matter; 

public transportation authority senior citizen and disabled discount cards issued by a governmental agency;

identification documents issued by governmental disability agencies;

identification documents issued by government homeless shelters and other government temporary or transitional facilities;

drug prescription issued by a government doctor or other governmental health care provider;

property tax statement issued by a governmental agency;

vehicle registration issued by a governmental agency; or

vehicle certificate of ownership issued by a governmental agency.

Hopefully Essayli can win his case at the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals. For once, many Californians actually voted for change, but Democrats are stealing the elections.

It Will Stop When the American People Decide to Stop It, and Not Before

It Will Stop When the American People Decide to Stop It, and Not Before

Mark Lewis

AP Photo/Lindsey Wasson

We can blame the politicians. We can castigate them mightily, and we should, because they have—both parties—become a liability to the nation, wholly untrustworthy, corrupt and self-centered. Hey, Republicans: “If you faint in the day of adversity, your strength is small” (Proverbs 24:10). Maybe no thought in human history describes gutless Republican Party politicians better than that. Here is one that perfectly pictures the Democrats: “Every intent of the thoughts of [their] heart [is] only evil continually” (Genesis 6:5). Back to the days of Noah…

But, yeah, while we can, and should, reprimand politicians of both parties, who is really to blame here? Who elects the politicians to office? Ultimately, the American people have no one to blame but themselves for the condition of their country. “The government you elect is the government you deserve” (Thomas Jefferson). It’s our fault, and it is totally inexcusable.

Here are some recent headlines worthy of note, and tell us about some abominations the American people are now unforgivably tolerating:

1. From The Gateway Pundit (on “X”): “HORROR: Previously Deported Illegal Alien Charged with Triple Murder After Stabbing 2-Week Old Baby, Mother, and Grandmother—Released from Jail FOUR TIMES in California!” (emphasis in original). This is, of course, repulsive, and no decent country would put up with it. But, as we know, it happens with barbaric regularity in modern America. The American people let it happen. Americans elect the politicians who let it happen. Americans have no one to blame but themselves.
2. From “Libs of TikTok” on “X”: “Giant progressive pride flag hanging outside @salemkeizer school in Oregon. Why would a K-12 school promote child mutilation to kindergartners??” The people of the state of Oregon could stop it if they wanted to. They allow it to happen, so it becomes quite obvious they don’t want to stop it. Complete degeneration.
3. From The Liberty Daily: “Late Friday Ballot Dump Propels Nithya Raman Closer to Spencer Pratt as Doubts Mount Over Election Integrity.” Barring an intervention by God, Spencer Pratt hasn’t got a prayer of winning the LA mayor’s office. The Democrats will do whatever is necessary to prevent it, and the people of LA won’t prevent whatever the Democrats do to prevent it. Countless such headlines could be produced to demonstrate what Americans are allowing to happen in their country today. This isn’t what America was supposed to be. This isn’t what America should be. This isn’t what any honorable, upright country should be.

But it is what the Democrat Party is trying to make America into. And only the American people can stop it.

The Democrat Party’s definition of a “free,” “great” country is to promote and have as much promiscuity and licentiousness as possible. Let the people live as morally unrestrained as they wish, no virtuous barriers. Let half the people live off the labor of the other half. Let violence, filth, barbarism, and law-breaking have free rein. The Democrats hate the country and have convinced countless people that America deserves all the above because of her past.

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But, of course, the true definition of a “great” country to Democrats is one where they have all the power, make all the rules, and everybody obeys them. That is a perfect description of the Communist Party in China, and it is exactly what the Democrat Party wants for America. Licentiousness and the other things mentioned above—including the three headlines I quoted—are simply their road to achieving that. And the only people who can stop it from happening…are the American people. We’ll get what we deserve. We’ll reap what we sow.

I do not want to—will not—blanketly condemn every American. There are millions of good, decent, God-fearing people remaining in the country (Townhall readers, for example). But because of the pure evil of the Democrat Party and the spinelessness of the Republicans, we live in a very dark period in American history.

The three headlines I shared above are thoroughly disgusting, abominable, unworthy of any, even semi-civilized, people and country. The fact that they are happening in America is a sad, tragic indication of how far the nation has slipped into moral slime and decadence. Again, millions of Americans do oppose these things, but not enough. 

About 100 years ago, the above would have been utterly impossible for the nation. But today, the Democrat Party has become so evil that sin, perversion, licentiousness, and just about any other kind of degradation one can imagine is acceptable to enough Americans that they let it happen. And vote for it. The only conclusion I can reach is that too many Americans are so unalterably selfish that they don’t care that fellow Americans are being murdered by barbarians or that children are being murdered before birth, or groomed and butchered after birth for the pleasure of sexual perverts. Countless Americans don’t care. Period. If they did, they’d do something about it.

We rail about politicians, and yes, our political leaders have a responsibility to lead, to point the way to righteousness, godliness, and virtue. But very few of them—and no Democrats—are doing that. So, the politicians certainly do share some of the blame. But in a representative democracy, the people rule, government is by the consent of the governed, and Americans get the government they deserve because it is the one they elect. And the filth is deep in the American people, or the above things would never have happened. But they do happen and with regularity, and it is, ultimately, the fault of the people.

And the filth and decadence won’t stop until the American people decide to stop it. And that doesn’t appear to be anywhere on the horizon. 

But a final, hopeful thought: it is always darkest before the dawn. Let’s hope that a period of dawning will soon arise over American skies.

https://townhall.com/columnists/marklewis/2026/06/08/it-will-stop-when-the-american-people-decide-to-stop-it-and-not-before-n2677388?utm_source=thdailyvip&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=nl&utm_content=ncl-uu8HWWHWjR&utm_term=&_nlid=uu8HWWHWjR&_nhids=ncApgurziQrkls

Minnesota Fudd Goes A-Hunting for the 'Real' Meaning of the Second Amendment

Minnesota Fudd Goes A-Hunting for the 'Real' Meaning of the Second Amendment

By Cam Edwards   

Minuteman statue detail, Lexington, Credit: Tim Grafft/MOTT by Massachusetts Office of Travel & Tourism is licensed under CC BY-ND 2.0 .

I read a lot of op-eds relating to the right to keep and bear arms, and as soon as I saw Forrest Peterson's opening paragraph in column entitled "Distortion of 2nd Amendment creates the need for a Wear Orange Day," I knew I was in for a treat. 

The orange hunting vest hanging in my basement hasn’t been used in years. Alongside hangs another vest, khaki-colored, its ammo pockets still holding shotgun shells, 20-gauge, no. 6. They’ve been there for years, probably since the last time I went pheasant hunting with our golden retriever at the time, Molly.

Peterson wants readers to know that he's not opposed to gun ownership. He's not out to take your guns. Oh no, he's a gun owner himself... just one who's in favor of a few "common sense" restrictions. 

We greatly appreciate the Bill of Rights and the Second Amendment. Yet, most reasonable Americans would acknowledge the vast distortion between the constitutional right to bear arms, and the deadly level to which that now exists. I am content to have a single-shot, 20-gauge shotgun, and a single-shot .22 caliber rifle. I have no use for a handgun or AR-15.

I can accept Peterson's statement at face value. But can he accept that there are tens of millions of Americans who see semi-automatic handguns and rifles as more useful than a single shot 20-gauge shotgun and a single-shot .22 rifle? 

The Second Amendment does not require that Peterson arm himself with an AR-15 chambered in 6.5 Creedmoor, a CZ Scorpion, or any other firearm. How many guns he chooses to own and what type are entirely up to him. 

And it's my choice, and your choice, to decide how many we own and what make and model they might be. Peterson, though, would like to change that.

All of the arguments about mental health, school security, and background checks fail to compensate for the simple fact that firearms beyond those needed for gun sports and hobbies should be banned or tightly regulated. I fail to fully understand the thought — or lack thereof — behind the desire to own an AR-15 or something similar.

There are plenty of AR-15s and other semi-automatic firearms being used for "gun sports" and plinking, but according to Peterson, those aren't "needed." So what is? Apparently only single shot .20 gauge shotguns and .22 caliber rifles. 

Peterson believes that if  you and I were to just sit down and listen to the parents, siblings, spouses, and children of those killed in mass shootings we'd change our mind... unless our hearts are too cold to take in what they have to say. Peterson mistakenly believes that every person touched by a horrific tragedy is of like mind, when the truth is that there are plenty of people who've lost a loved one in a shooting who don't blame the gun or think the answer is more gun control. 

Do their voices and opinions not count? Are the only folks who can speak with personal authority on gun control the ones who support it? 

Peterson claims that it's a distortion of the Second Amendment that leads to "gun violence"; that if we just rendered the Second Amendment meaningless that we could become violence-free. Not only is Peterson indulging himself in a childish fantasy, he's ignoring what's actually happening in the United States right now, where violent crime has dipped to historic lows. 

Washington, D.C had 192 homicides in 1977, the year its handgun ban took effect. Murders peaked more than a decade later, with 482 reported in 1991. Since the handgun ban was undone by the Heller decision in 2008, D.C.'s deadliest year was 2023, when the District recorded 274 murders. Last year the number was 127, and this year the District could see fewer than 100 homicides for the first time since 2012. 

What about the 10-year ban on "assault weapons" that ran from 1994 to 2004? Homicides were already trending down nationwide when the ban took effect, and that trend continued during the ban and after it expired. Despite a huge spike in homicides in 2020, we're now living in perhaps the safest time period in U.S. history, with just 4 homicides per 100,000 people in 2025, according to preliminary FBI data. That's less than half the 10.4 per 100K recorded in 1980... a record that will hopefully never be matched. 

It's Peterson himself who's distorting the right to keep and bear arms, which was never about protecting the firearms used in "gun sports and hobbies." Defense, both personal and community, is at the heart of our Second Amendment right, and if we could offer one of the Founding Fathers a choice between Peterson's single-shot .22 rifle and an AR-15 chambered in .223 with a 30-round magazine, I have no doubt which one he'd pick, and it wouldn't be the one that Peterson chooses to keep in his home.

https://bearingarms.com/camedwards/2026/06/05/minnesota-fudd-goes-a-hunting-for-the-real-meaning-of-the-second-amendment-n1232771?utm_source=rsmorningbriefingvip&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=nl

Vance, Starmer, and Western Civilization

Vance, Starmer, and Western Civilization

by John Hinderaker in Great Britain, Henry Nowak, J D Vance, United Kingdom

We have been following the Henry Nowak case that his roiled Great Britain. It is only the latest of many instances of Britain’s two-tier justice system, but for whatever reason it seems to be the incident that has opened the floodgates.

Yesterday JD Vance weighed in on Twitter:

Vance’s comments were only incidentally about the particulars of the Nowak case, and only partly about the U.K. His point was broader–a defense of Western civilization and national sovereignty against “the mass invasion of migrants, many of whom despise the West and the people who love it.” That is, indeed, the issue, but Prime Minister “Two-Tier Keir” Starmer took offense:

The US vice-president is the most outspoken member of an administration evangelistic about encouraging Christian nationalism in the West and opposing an influx of people from other cultures, with a particular focus on the UK.

“Christian nationalism”? Where did that come from? For what it’s worth, Vance’s wife is a Hindu. On to Starmer:

His comments on the death of 18-year-old Henry Nowak brought a rebuke from the prime minister Sir Keir Starmer’s office, which rejected “people trying to interfere in our democracy and seeking to stir up division on our streets”.

Is that a fair complaint? I don’t think so. There is no election in progress in Britain, and Vance’s criticism wasn’t directed particularly toward Starmer’s government. Rather, he referred to “the last few generations of European elites.” Like President Trump, Vance wants to preserve British democracy, not undermine it. And if there is “division in the streets,” it is because there needs to be, on account of racially biased policing in British streets.

Vance’s comments seem well-timed in the context of this news story, also out of the U.K.: “Historical figures ‘too divisive’ for banknotes.”

Historical figures such as Winston Churchill, Alan Turing and Jane Austen were viewed by some members of the public as “elitist and divisive”, according to research commissioned by the Bank of England.

The research, conducted by market research firm Savanta in October 2025, was delivered months before the Bank announced that historical figures would be replaced by wildlife on the next set of banknotes.
***
Notable British figures have featured alongside the monarch on banknotes for more than 50 years.

Having won the Second World War is now, apparently, “divisive”:

In one focus group, a member of the public described Turing, the Second World War codebreaker and mathematician, as imperialistic. The participant said: “It does kind of still feel a little bit imperialistic … Even Alan Turing, who was obviously a famous scientist, is within the context of winning the Second World War.

“It does feel like there is that kind of boomer, imperialistic, ‘we’re the ones who won the Second World War and saved the world’ feeling to the [bank]notes.”

So Brits won’t have to be reminded of past glories when they get out their wallets. Instead, they will see wildlife, with specific animals to be chosen later this summer. Meanwhile, I see no evidence of any commemoration of D-Day in the British press today.

Vance was right, but as far as Britain is concerned, his defense of Western civilization may be too late.

https://www.powerlineblog.com/archives/2026/06/vance-starmer-and-western-civilization.php

Another Huge Victory Against the Transgender Cult

Another Huge Victory Against the Transgender Cult

Matt Margolis  

AP Photo/Jacquelyn Martin

The Trump administration keeps stacking wins for parents and kids, and this one is a big deal. The Justice Department announced a landmark resolution with the Cleveland Clinic Foundation, forcing one of America's most prominent hospital systems to stop performing gender-reassignment procedures on minors.

The transgender movement's grip on American medicine is loosening fast.

Cleveland Clinic agreed to a decades-long commitment to stop performing or even offering puberty blockers, cross-sex hormones, or any other sex-rejecting procedure to minors. The agreement came as part of deals with both the DOJ and the Ohio Attorney General. The clinic will pay a $308,000 penalty after investigators found it submitted false billings to public and private insurers to secure coverage for these procedures on children. Cleveland Clinic also committed $2 million to fund restorative care for detransitioners, people harmed by these procedures as kids, regardless of their insurance status or ability to pay.

For years, not only has the transgender cult refused to acknowledge the existence of detransitioners, but the medical establishment has dismissed them, minimized their suffering, and assured everyone that the consequences of these procedures were manageable or reversible. Now, one of the country’s biggest hospital networks is writing a multi-million-dollar check to clean up the damage it helped cause. The activists who spent years insisting detransitioners were rare and mostly happy have some explaining to do.

ICYMI: Fetterman Dares Platner to Prove He Didn’t Send Explicit Photos to Minors

Associate Attorney General Stanley Woodward made clear that this is an ongoing fight to protect kids and right a horrible wrong. "The Department of Justice is steadfastly committed to protecting America's children," he said. "Just as the resolution with Texas Children's, today's resolution with Cleveland Clinic furthers that commitment and puts these providers on notice that this Department will vigorously enforce federal law where children are put at risk."

DOJ previously struck a deal with Texas Children's Hospital less than a month ago, working alongside Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton. That settlement carried a $10 million penalty and established a first-of-its-kind detransitioner clinic. The DOJ is building real momentum here. Institutions that thought they could hide, avoiding consequences for performing barbaric procedures on kids because the radical left gave them cover, are learning the hard way that things have changed.

The DOJ even credited the Cleveland Clinic with fully cooperating throughout the investigation and remaining proactive and solution-oriented. Of course, none of that erases what happened to the children whose lives were ruined, but at least we can protect future children from suffering.

"I am grateful that institutions like Cleveland Clinic and Texas Children's have decided to be part of the solution, not part of the problem," Assistant Attorney General Brett Shumate said. "Our work is far from over, and our division will continue to work tirelessly to protect America's children and hold accountable those who have preyed on vulnerable children, whether they be pharmaceutical companies or medical providers."

That’s right. It’s not just hospitals that are being held accountable. The entire industrial complex that pushed experimental drugs on confused kids for profit now sits squarely in the DOJ's crosshairs.

Two hospitals down, and more investigations are underway.

I totally voted for this.

Parents who watched in horror as doctors, schools, and radical-left activists pushed gender ideology onto their kids now have a federal government that's actually fighting back. The transgender cult spent years poisoning the medicine establishment, and now the DOJ is making things right, settlement by settlement, and there's no sign of stopping.

https://pjmedia.com/matt-margolis/2026/06/06/another-huge-victory-against-the-transgender-cult-n4953682?utm_source=pjmediavip&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=nl_pm

America’s $521 Billion Fraud Problem Is Finally Meeting Its Match

America’s $521 Billion Fraud Problem Is Finally Meeting Its Match

Jay Rogers 

AP Photo/Mark Schiefelbein

I have spent thirty years in rooms where real money changes hands — structuring private credit deals, managing family office portfolios, and testifying as an expert witness on fiduciary duty in federal and state courts. One lesson sticks: when government programs expand without strong guardrails, opportunists treat taxpayer dollars like an open bar at a wedding they didn’t pay for. On March 16, 2026, President Trump signed an executive order establishing the Task Force to Eliminate Fraud, an interagency body charged with coordinating a government-wide strategy to combat fraud, waste, and abuse in federal benefit programs. It works alongside the DOJ’s National Fraud Enforcement Division — announced January 8, 2026, led by confirmed Assistant Attorney General Colin McDonald — centralizing criminal and civil fraud enforcement across healthcare, tax, and federal benefits. Think of it as DOGE at street level, targeting the waste that honest citizens fund through their taxes. 

Americans are generous. In 2024, we gave $592.5 billion to charity, with individuals contributing $392.45 billion — a per-capita rate that ranks among the highest of any large, developed nation. We don’t object to helping neighbors in need. We object to watching those contributions vanish into luxury cars, overseas properties, and lifestyles that would make Gordon Gekko pause. Rooting out fraud isn’t heartless; it’s the prerequisite for compassion that actually reaches people who need it.

The scale demands urgency. The nonpartisan Government Accountability Office estimates that the federal government loses between $233 billion and $521 billion annually to fraud, based on fiscal years 2018 through 2022. That’s not a rounding error — that’s a recurring category-5 fiscal hurricane. In fiscal year 2025, GAO reported $186 billion in improper payments across federal programs. Those dollars could shore up Social Security or reduce the national debt. Instead, they routinely finance schemes that mock the program's stated purpose, because oversight was designed to be optional.

Consider Feeding Our Future in Minnesota. What started as a federally funded child nutrition program became the largest COVID-19 fraud case in American history. Aimee Bock, the nonprofit’s founder and executive director, recruited people to open more than 250 fake sites that billed the government for meals never served and falsely reported feeding 91 million children. On May 21, 2026, U.S. District Judge Nancy Brasel sentenced Bock to 500 months and ordered her to repay $242 million. The judge described Bock as "at the epicenter" of a "vortex of fraud." The scheme totaled upward of $250 million, with more than 70 indictments and 66 convictions. Federal prosecutors announced 15 additional charges the same day. Only a fraction of the stolen funds has been recovered.

This wasn’t genius crime. It was ordinary opportunism meeting weak oversight. Pandemic waivers allowed for-profit entities to participate with minimal verification. Sponsors monitored their own sites. State education officials ignored repeated red flags — implausible meal counts, missing financial controls, unanswered complaints. The Minnesota Legislative Auditor documented every gap: limited authority, understaffed oversight, trust substituted for verification. Bureaucracy produced rules on paper while cash drained out in every direction.

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Minnesota is not an outlier; it’s a template. In California, prosecutors found that more than 20,000 state prison inmates collected $140 million in fraudulent COVID unemployment payments — a 2020 snapshot that barely scratches the surface of California’s pandemic fraud losses, later estimated at up to $31 billion. Scott Peterson, sitting on death row for murdering his pregnant wife, had a claim in his name. The state EDD failed to cross-check applicants against prison rosters, a basic control that any compliance officer in private finance would have in place on day one. Medicare loses an estimated $54 to $60 billion annually to fraud, errors, and abuse; Medicaid lost $31 billion in fiscal year 2024 alone. These aren’t aberrations; they’re the predictable output of programs built with good intentions and run with the discipline of a DMV line on a Monday morning.

The administration is hitting back. Vice President J.D. Vance chairs the interagency Task Force, coordinating with state attorneys general and Cabinet agencies. The DOJ’s National Fraud Enforcement Division is building data analytics tools to flag unusual patterns before losses mount. In fiscal year 2025, False Claims Act enforcement netted a record $6.8 billion, more than $5.7 billion tied to healthcare fraud alone. That’s conservative government accountability in practice: smaller, smarter, and answerable to the people funding it.

Some will call this heartless and aimed, they claim, at vulnerable communities. That misses the point. The Feeding Our Future conspirators didn’t rob a faceless bureaucracy. They redirected resources meant for hungry children to Porsches, luxury handbags, and overseas real estate. Thomas Sowell said it plainly in "A Conflict of Visions": “There are no solutions. There are only trade-offs.” The trade-off here is clear — either you verify, or you subsidize fraud. Genuine compassion demands the former.

Practical steps can build on this start. The Task Force needs dedicated, multi-year appropriations for analytics and inter-agency coordination — not a one-year budget gesture that evaporates before audit findings land. Real-time eligibility checks, biometric verification where practical, and AI-driven outlier flags reviewed by humans before payment clears should become standard in any program touching federal benefits. State attorneys general need to run parallel operations and share intelligence without bureaucratic friction. A congressional stock-trading ban and genuine term limits would reduce the incentive to shield profitable grift from oversight that actually stings. My rugby players figured that out long ago: you win by executing fundamentals, not by hoping the other team collapses on its own.

We remain a nation of doers. The prosperity we built came from work, accountability, and the steady conviction that integrity matters. The national debt crossed $39 trillion on May 18, 2026 — growing at $5 billion a day — and every dollar lost to fraud pushes that number higher, faster. The Fraud Task Force is the necessary correction. Support its work. Demand measurable results published publicly so taxpayers can hold Congress accountable. Real compassion protects the system so it serves those who truly cannot help themselves, without turning the rest of us into easy marks.

https://townhall.com/columnists/jay-rogers/2026/06/07/americas-521-billion-fraud-problem-is-finally-meeting-its-match-n2677265?utm_source=thdailypmvip&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=nl

The Chinese Spy Balloon Drifted, but the Boy Scout Balloon Got Smoked

The Chinese Spy Balloon Drifted, but the Boy Scout Balloon Got Smoked

David Manney  

Department of Defense via AP

Former President Joe Biden loved the tough-guy whisper, warning foreign bad actors with that famous one-word command, “Don't,” as if America's enemies were waiting for a stern hallway monitor before changing plans, while also treating ice cream as if it were a food group.

Still, his balloon record may be the cleanest snapshot of his strategic instincts: China's spy balloon crossed the country, but a harmless balloon tied to a Boy Scouts project got blasted out of the sky.

The Chinese surveillance balloon entered U.S. airspace in early 2023 and traveled over sensitive military sites before an F-22 shot it down off South Carolina's coast on Feb. 4, 2023. Biden officials cited the danger falling debris could pose to civilians to defend the delay.

Sure. I believe them. Pfft!

Every commander has to weigh risk, yet the same team soon treated far smaller, far less threatening objects as if they were airborne invaders from a bad Saturday matinee. Then-Secretary of State Antony Blinken, then serving in Biden's Cabinet, even postponed a planned China trip after the first balloon embarrassed Washington.

On Feb. 12, 2023, an Air Force F-16 fired an AIM-9X Sidewinder at an object over Lake Huron. Newly released cockpit footage showed a small dark object, described at the time as unidentified, before it disappeared in the missile strike. From the New York Post:

The Biden administration obliterated a boy scout balloon with a $500,000 missile in the wake of their bungled response to the Chinese Spy balloon incident, The Post can reveal.

The US Air Force dispatched an F-16 on Feb. 12, 2023 to confront the apparent “invading” orb over Lake Huron, blowing it to smithereens with what was likely an AIM-9 Sidewinder missile, according to video released last month by the Department of War as part of its second batch of UFO files.

“The F16 shot at a balloon over Lake Huron. After the [Chinese spy] balloon embarrassment, DOD was shooting at every [Unidentified Anomalous Phenomena] they detected,” Tim Phillips, a former interim director of AARO, told The Post.

Sean Kirkpatrick, former director of the All-domain Anomaly Resolution Office, later said the target turned out to be a Boy Scouts balloon that had circled the globe eight times.

The missile cost roughly half a million dollars, while the target belonged in a science fair, not a kill box.

Tim Phillips, former acting director of the All-domain Anomaly Resolution Office, tied the scramble to the political panic that followed the Chinese balloon mess. Once Biden looked passive against Beijing, the government swung in the other direction.

Radar contacts, hobby balloons, and mystery specks in the sky suddenly drew military attention. Brig. Gen. Pat Ryder, then the Pentagon press secretary, said in 2023 that the military acted out of caution after the China incident.

Caution gets expensive when every floating object starts looking like a national emergency.

The Lake Huron case wasn't the only expensive overreaction. The Northern Illinois Bottlecap Balloon Brigade, an amateur radio and pico-balloon hobby group, reported that one of its small research balloons went missing around the same time U.S. forces shot down an object over Alaska. From NIBBB:

There has been particular interest in one of our pico balloons, one that transmits call sign K9YO. As noted on our “Locate and Track” page and blog, the last transmission from that balloon received and reported to the WSPR system was on February 11, 2023, and indicated that balloon was near Hagemeister Island, off the southwest corner of Alaska. Since we have not found a transmission from that balloon since that time, we have declared it “Missing In Action”, as we have with previous flights. At that time, K9YO had circumnavigated the globe 6 times and was nearing the completion of a 7th lap. Unfortunately, that’s where the factual information on its location ends.

At that time and as we often do, we used NOAA’s HYSPLIT model to predict where the balloon may go from there. (The graphical output of that model can also be seen on the “Locate and Track”.) It’s important to note that this is a model, the output of which is dependent on the quality of the inputs we provide and predicted weather information. There are plenty of instances in our own experience where the model inaccurately predicted the path. Therefore, using that model output as a sole means of asserting the balloon’s position at a point in time is not supported.

Additionally, it is not unusual for significant periods of time to elapse between received transmissions. This is due to a variety of factors. At the latitude of K9YO’s flight, available sunlight to illuminate the solar panels is a big one. To account for this factor, we’ve experimented with a variety of solar panel configurations. Since it was launched on October 10, 2022, there have been several periods, one as long as 30 days, in which we did not receive a transmission from pico balloon K9YO.

As has been widely reported, no part of the object shot down by the US Air Force jet over the Yukon territory has been recovered. Until that happens and that object is confirmed to be an identifiable pico balloon, any assertions or claims that our balloon was involved in that incident are not supported by facts.

Hobbyists questioned whether a missile had been used against a tiny balloon worth about $12. Officials never fully settled the matter in public, which only made the episode look worse.

Washington had just spent days explaining restraint against China, and then couldn't clearly explain what it had just shot down.

The balloon incident remains a perfect microcosm of the Biden administration's years in office. He wanted the theater of command without the timing that makes command credible.

China's balloon got time, altitude, and a national tour, while a Boy Scouts balloon got a half-million-dollar missile.

Biden's team didn't look tough; it looked rattled, late, and eager to prove a point after the critical moment had passed. China even warned Biden, from the Associated Press:

China responded that it reserved the right to “take further actions” and criticized the U.S. for “an obvious overreaction and a serious violation of international practice.”

In its statement Sunday, China’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs said that “China will resolutely uphold the relevant company’s legitimate rights and interests, and at the same time reserving the right to take further actions in response.” China’s Ministry of Defense echoed the statement later in the day, saying it “reserves the right to take necessary measures to deal with similar situations.”

Nothing like a strongly worded memo.

Americans don't expect perfection from any president, but they do expect judgment. Biden's balloon fiasco showed the cost of poor judgment in plain view, first through delay, then through overkill.

It's a disturbing image, but I can't help but imagine Biden running around the White House wearing robes and sandals while carrying a scepter, yelling, “Off with their head!”

Or, more accurately, “Somebody please give me a balloon to play with!”

The country watched a real surveillance platform float across the map, then watched harmless objects get treated like enemy aircraft. In the end, Biden's “Don't” doctrine found its most decisive victory against a balloon that kids built.

https://pjmedia.com/david-manney/2026/06/06/the-chinese-spy-balloon-drifted-but-the-boy-scout-balloon-got-smoked-n4953681?utm_source=pjmediavip&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=nl_pm