By Frank Miele
Steve Bannon, host of “War Room,” often says that “Elections have consequences, and stolen elections have catastrophic consequences.”
If you wanted to prove the truth of that dictum, you could look at the reddest of red states — Montana — where the people are suffering under a number of policies that either originate with the Biden White House or pay homage to it.
Exhibit No. 1 is the rape of a young woman in Missoula, Montana. That would always be a tragedy, but in this case it is an entirely avoidable tragedy — because the accused assailant is an Afghan refugee.
Zabihullah Mohmand, 19, has been charged with sexually assaulting the 18-year-old woman. Mohmand is reportedly one of the Afghans airlifted out of Kabul in the final days of the chaotic withdrawal of U.S.forces, and like most of those “refugees,” he had no reported connection to
Bottom line: This victim’s life has been irrevocably changed because of President Biden’s failure in Afghanistan.
Montana Gov. Greg Gianforte, who originally supported the relocation of 75 Afghan refugees to Missoula for “humanitarian” reasons, has now woke up and is demanding that the Biden administration not send any more unvetted refugees into the state.
“This situation and others across the country raise serious concerns about whether the Biden administration is meeting its obligations to fully vet Afghans prior to resettlement,” Gianforte said. “I’m calling on President Biden to immediately halt resettlements to Montana until federal agencies provide me with adequate assurance that Afghans coming to Montana are fully-vetted in accordance with federal law.”
Apparently, Mohmand entered the U.S. with immigration parole, which grants him a work permit known as an employment authorization document (EAD). Even after he was charged with rape, the U.S. authorities refused to withdraw the work permit.
Robert Law of the Center for Immigration Studies, reports that “DHS sources tell me that the Biden political leadership team has decided that they will not revoke Mohmand’s EAD at this time. This is an absolutely baffling, and indefensible, decision.”
Let’s face it. The decision to allow unvetted refugees from the lawless Afghan war zone to settle across the country was already an “absolutely baffling, and indefensible, decision.” Stolen elections have catastrophic consequences.
Exhibit No. 2 is the letter written by Acting U.S Attorney for Montana earlier this month to local prosecutors reminding them that a variety of federal charges can be brought against Montana moms and dads who rattle the cages of local school boards.
Leif Johnson wasn’t working in a vacuum. He was just responding in a particularly fawning and feckless manner to the policy of his boss, U.S. Attorney General Merrick Garland, who sent out a now infamous Oct. 4 memo siccing the FBI on parents who were engaging in “harassment, intimidation and threats of violence” against school administrators, school boards and teachers.
But remember, this is Montana! We don’t excuse threats of violence, but we also don’t have a problem speaking our minds. And we don’t like Washington bureaucrats telling us how to run our schools. Broadwater County Attorney Cory Swanson spoke for all of us when he wrote:
“Parents have a right to direct the upbringing and education of their children. That is not a right granted by the government, that is a right granted by God. If parents have concerns that a school is imposing illegal or unworkable COVID restrictions, transgender mandates, or Critical Race Theory, upon their children, the parents have a right to speak up and get involved. Local control and parental involvement always produce the best educational environment for kids. The federal government has no right to stifle dissent by threatening parents as domestic terrorists or interstate criminals.”
It is hard to believe that anyone feels differently, but Merrick Garland may not have gotten the message. He was still defending his anti-parent memo in a hearing before the U.S. Senate earlier this week. And so far as we know, President Joe Biden is perfectly happy with his attorney general.
He’s also delighted with his Director of Homeland Security, Alejandro Mayorkas, who is responsible for turning the southern border into an open spigot of drugs, crime and cheap labor. Montanans, again, aren’t so happy. Like Steve Bannon says, “every state is now a border state,” and the problems caused by the unrestricted flow of new residents across the southern border have hit Montana big time.
But that’s not even the worst thing that Mayorkas has done to Montana. Having an even bigger impact on our state than the open southern border is the absurd policy of closing the border with Canada for months and months due to a hysterical reaction to Covid. Exhibit No. 3!
State officials have begged and pleaded with the administration to re-open the border because trade and tourism across the border is vital to the economies of both countries. Yet even after Canada opened its border to Americans, the U.S. continued to act like a nervous Nellie, continually pushing the date for re-opening the border into the future. The current target date is Nov. 8, but I’ll believe it when I see it, and I wouldn’t be surprised if a spike in Covid rates closes the border again within weeks — if it even opens at all.
You can bet that if Donald Trump were still president, none of these absurd policies would be in place today. So yeah, “stolen elections have catastrophic consequences.”
MY NEW BOOK EXPLORES “WHAT MATTERS MOST”
Heartland Diary is solely operated by Frank Miele, the retired editor of the Daily Inter Lake in Kalispell, Montana. My new book is “What Matters Most: God, Country, Family and Friends” and is a collection of personal essays that transcend politics. The title says it all. My earlier books in the Heartland Diary series include “How We Got Here: The Left’s Assault on the Constitution,” “The Media Matrix: What if everything you know is fake?” and the “Why We Needed Trump” trilogy. Part 1 is subtitled “Bush’s Global Failure: Half Right.” Part 2 is “Obama’s Fundamental Transformation: Far Left.” Part 3 is “Trump’s American Vision: Just Right.” As an Amazon Associate, I may earn referral fees for qualifying purchases through links on my website. If you enjoy reading my commentary, I hope you will SUBSCRIBE to www.HeartlandDiaryUSA.com by leaving your email address on the home page.