Good Morning, and welcome to the Friday get-together. It’s Friday, Nov. 28, 2025, the first day of your post-Thanksgiving diet. That quip, alas, will be the limit of my humorous comments today, I think.
Sorry, dear reader, but frankly, I’m not in the mood, and you’ll see why as we go on.
Today in history
1520: Portuguese navigator Ferdinand Magellan begins crossing the Pacific Ocean.
1919: American-born Lady Nancy Astor is elected as the first female member of the British House of Commons.
1967: First radio pulsar observed.
1964: Mariner 4 launched, becoming the first probe to send pictures of another planet (Mars) back to Earth.
Birthdays today include Jon Stewart, Friedrich Engels, Randy Newman, and Barry Gordy.
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As I write this, I’m listening to at least three different traffic accidents unfolding on the police scanner. They are the result of the snow piling up here in western New York State. Nothing tragic, apparently, since no ambulances are rolling on these incidents. Welcome to northeast driving, post-Thanksgiving.
I can tell you, as someone who has driven more miles backward than most of you have driven forward, that accidents like that occur for the most part because of people not considering the consequences of failing to allow for conditions. In this case, they were likely driving too fast for the weather conditions.
The thing is, people keep doing that. And so, the body shops, the tow truck companies, and, alas, the ambulance companies and hospitals all get extra business. File this under “Things we never seem to learn”.
Other matters: It is with a grimace that I note the passing of one of the two National Guardsmen shot near the White House the other day. Our own Catherine Salgado sets this one up for us:
During the disastrous Afghanistan withdrawal, the Biden administration left thousands of Americans and allies stranded while allowing in massive hordes of barely vetted Afghanis. Melugin said, “Per multiple federal law enforcement sources, the suspect in custody for the shooting of two National Guard soldiers in DC is an Afghan national who entered the U.S. on 9/8/2021 as part of the Biden admin’s Operation Allies Welcome in the aftermath of the US withdrawal from Afghanistan.”
But the Afghan is no longer legally allowed to be here. “I’m told his permission to be in the U.S. expired in September of this year, and he is now in the country illegally,” Melugin added.
The New York Post fills in the gaps:
The Afghan national accused of shooting two National Guardsmen in a possible terror attack near the White House Wednesday was granted asylum this year — after entering the US through a disastrous Biden-era program.
Rahmanullah Lakanwal, 29, arrived in the US through Operation Allies Welcome, the botched 2021 Afghanistan withdrawal plan that allowed roughly 90,000 Afghans to obtain Special Immigration Visas under the Biden Administration, sources said.
Initial reports suggested Rahmanullah Lakanwal was living in the country illegally after overstaying his visa. However, a Trump admin official confirmed to Reuters that Lakanwal applied for asylum in December 2024 and was approved on April 23 of this year — and had no known criminal history.
Sadly, one of the two Guardsmen has now died. President Trump announced the passing:
.@POTUS announces that U.S. Army Specialist Sarah Beckstrom of Summersville, West Virginia, one of the National Guardsmen savagely attacked yesterday in Washington, D.C., has just passed away.
May God be with her family 🙏 pic.twitter.com/BEbAOxmJme
— Rapid Response 47 (@RapidResponse47) November 27, 2025
I hear that the other guardsman is still in critical condition. If you’re of a mind to pray about such things, I urge you to do so.
Attacks like this keep happening for the most part because of people failing to allow for conditions. In this case, we’re talking about how we failed to allow for the condition that someone has been steeped in a culture — namely, Islam — that does not share our values. Rather, we imported him into this land of milk and honey because of the very values that Islam is against.
Thing is, we keep doing this. File under “Things we never seem to learn.” (You knew I was leading to something, right?)
It should be noted that the shooter was living in Bellingham, Wash. Washington Gov. Bob Ferguson came up with this last August:
We are not bending the knee.
My response to AG Bondi and President Trump. pic.twitter.com/DT9XvTO26F
— Governor Bob Ferguson (@GovBobFerguson) August 25, 2025
Gee, that aged well, didn’t it? Ya know, I can’t help but wonder what he would have to say to Sarah Beckstrom’s family. I doubt he’d have the courage to say anything at all.
With Sarah’s passing, the death penalty is now on the table, if the comments of U.S. attorney for the District of Columbia, are of any account. Pirro discussed it even before we knew Sarah wasn’t going to make it.
But consequences for the people in Biden’s administration who let this guy into the country on the strength of their “diversity” arguments? Nah. They won’t even get a slap on the wrist.
And this keeps happening.
Related: More on the Sedition Six
One of the things about governing effectively is having to make hard choices. We Americans have been governed in large part for the last 100 years by people who make the easy choices. It’s the easiest thing in the world to let everybody into the country, on the idea that all cultures are equal, and that everyone wants to live as we in the West do. That’s particularly true when the ones making those choices benefit greatly in terms of political power from such moves. Don’t think for a moment that the number of illegals coming into this country under Biden has nothing to do with Democrats retaining power by sheer numbers from the census.
It’s also the easiest path to ignore when that philosophy is responsible for such events as this. I can pretty much guarantee you that the Democrats will be attempting to sweep this one under the rug, as they invariably have in the past.
Do I believe that this attack was planned by some centralized group? No, I don’t. I believe that this is a case of the attacker’s cultural values overriding the kindness shown to him, as so often happens. This is a direct result of bad policy, policy that does not consider the consequences of failing to allow for conditions — in this case, totally incompatible differences in cultural values.
Democrats keep benefiting from making themselves out to be so very compassionate. Meanwhile, citizens keep losing their lives as a direct result of that misapplied (and I believe mislabeled) compassion.
And it keeps happening. Over and over again.
If I sound angry, good. That is exactly as I intend. Yes, I’m more than a little annoyed about all of this. The question before us is: When do we attain a critical mass of anger so as to overturn such policies as led to this?
(Sigh.) Rest in peace, Sarah.
Be safe today, my friends. I’ll see you here tomorrow.
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