Howdy All, a few Interesting Items for your information. Enjoy –
In this issue –
1. Flags
2. Flare
3. Butker
4. Elections
5. Trump
6. Iran
7. Scheffler
1. Flags. Ah, summertime in Alaska, where the days here in ANC are 18+30 hours long, planting is in full swing, tourists and their land yachts are out in force, and our Self-Selected Masters in the National Parks Service (NPS) are feeling their oats in their (hopefully) last summer under the Dementia Hitler regime. In today’s episode, the NPS Superintendent at Denali, Brooke Merrell, yet another Biden DEI hire, told a construction crew repairing road damage due to a landslide they must remove an American flag mounted on one of their vehicles. This took place a week ago. Since then, the story finally got out and things heated up nicely over the course of last week, up to and including a letter from US Senator Dan Sullivan demanding she immediately and completely roll back her diktat. The rest of our congressional delegation, led by senior US Senator Lisa Murkowski was silent, likely because this wasn’t a women’s issue. Our congress critter, democrat Mary Peltola was likewise unable to participate in the discussion. Alaska is one of the more pro-military states in the union, with vets and active duty comprising one of the largest percentages of any state. Alaskans, for their part planned a protest to the park, complete with more flags than you can imagine. That protest has been going on over the course of the weekend with everyone having fun. Park employees demanded Alaska Troopers protect them from protesters. The Troopers were not particularly worried, rolling their eyes at the demand. FBI, busily hunting down and arresting septuagenarian Republicans protesting at abortion clinics and the remaining few participants at the Jan 6 protest, have not yet shown up to orchestrate another riot, though I expect this to be on their radar. Yet. Interestingly, a large American flag flies at the Eielson Visitor Center inside the park. No current photo of the visitor center is available as the road has been blocked by a landslide. Flags are important symbols, which is why everyone tries to come up with one. It is why the left demands the right to torch an American flag as a protest, a constitutional right they currently hold. It is also why they try to classify torching a BLM or LGBTQWTF flag as a hate crime. It is why they do everything possible to fly their flags in place of ours, something Legal Insurrection picked up on in a piece today, where The Barrington (RI) Veteran’s Council resigned en masse over the Barrington Town Council’s insistence to fly a BLM flag over the local War Memorial. The left has been described as a shark, something that needs to keep moving forward. If it ever stops, it dies.
2. Flare. A fairly substantial solar flare a week ago spit out a coronal mass ejection (CME) that hit Earth three days later causing a geomagnetic storm. The charged particles caused aurora visible in a substantial part of the continental US. This was the largest, most intense solar flare since 2001. That CME did not hit the earth. The previous most intense geomagnetic storm took place in Mar 1989. That one, caused by a smaller flare, disrupted electrical transmission, causing a nine-hour blackout of Hydro Quebec’s electrical transmission, essentially blacking out the province. Last week’s storm was more intense than the 1989 storm, though no electrical outages were reported. CME plasmas cause electrical disruption by inducing current along transmission lines. It works a lot like a linear electric motor or generator. One of the endless predicted lurking, imminent disasters has been concern of damage that a massive solar flare, CME and geomagnetic storm will do to the electric grid. If the CME is too powerful, creating a geomagnetic storm that is too intense, then the lights will go out, perhaps for a long time, depending on what gets fried. The worst one of these events ever observed and recorded was the Carrington event of 1859. This was the first observable flare. That flare spit out a CME that hit earth. That CME changed the way telegraphs worked, creating current along the lines that allowed messages to be sent without using batteries. It impacted almost half of the telegraph stations in the US. Aurora was visible in low latitudes in both hemispheres. There was a second flare of similar power with CME and geomagnetic storm May 1921. Hardening systems against natural disasters is an expensive and thankless task, especially when the things we are hardening are legacy systems in operation for decades. However, some of that hardening has been done, which looks like there has been a bit of progress over the decades. Not bad news at all. Progress, what a concept.
3. Butker. The saga of Kansas City Chiefs kicker Harrison Butker, who gave a graduation speech at Benedictine College in Atchison, KS, continued last week. Benedictine is a Catholic college and Butker is a committed, practicing Catholic. Match made in heaven, right? Not so fast, as Butker committed truth in public, rejecting the LGBTQWTF grooming, and embracing traditional roles for men and women. The worst thing he did (according to his critics) was remind the ladies that their most rewarding future would be as mothers. Most of us who are fathers would tend to agree with a similar view of fatherhood. The cowardly weasels at the NFL immediately reminded everyone his opinions didn’t represent the official position of the NFL. Of course it doesn’t, for this wasn’t NFL Commissioner or any of his minions speaking. Butker also spoke for himself rather than for the league or his team. Teammates were generally supportive, as was his coach. That support will continue until he misses a couple extra points this fall. Funniest reaction was a city of Kansas City social media employee who doxed Butker, posting where he lived on the city’s web site. He was fired a couple days later. Missouri Attorney General is looking into civil rights charges based on violation of freedom of religion. In the modern world, you can have your own opinion, though you can never express it publicly unless it a lefty opinion.
4. Elections. Ever wonder why the drumbeat over democrats flipping control of the House this summer went? Me too. Apparently, when the story doesn’t fit the narrative, it is no longer worthy of reporting. Last week we saw the difference between a Republican and a RINO. In the Republican world, Cali Assembly member Vince Fong won a special election to replace former Speaker Kevin McCarthy. Fong was his handpicked candidate and won the election 60 – 40%. Fong’s Assembly seat will open up and require another special election to fill it. The win puts Fong on track to win a full term in November. Contrast McCarthy’s action with that of Wisconsin’s Mike Gallagher, who carefully timed his resignation from the House, leaving on April 24. That timing was intended to inflict the most possible damage to Republicans in WI. The April 24 date requires not only one, but two special elections be called, both on the same day as the primary in Aug and the general election in Nov. The same congressional seat will be showing up on two ballots. No word on what happens if he wins on one ballot and loses on the other. Had Gallagher resigned after he decided to do so any time before April 24, a quick special election could have been called to fill the seat. Gallagher had a couple easy choices before him, an early resignation or sticking around through the end of his term. He chose neither. He is moving to a position with defense contractor Palantir. They need to be careful putting a snake like this on their payroll.
5. Trump. Multiple Trump stories this week as we await his Stormy Daniels case going to the jury. Note that Judge Marchan is rewriting the law so that prosecutors can get a conviction even if they do not prove every element of the crime charged. That by itself ought to both get a quick conviction, but also a near immediate successful appeal. With that in mind ….
- Dementia Hitler is poised to use Trump’s conviction as a campaign talking point. He has already started referring to Trump as a convicted felon. While it would be a mistake for his campaign and other democrat campaign organs to use in the upcoming months, I think the pushback will be somewhere on the thermonuclear scale. Their problem is that I don’t think they will be able to stop Biden from gleefully talking about it, laughing about it, doing his very best in your face about it. In some ways, it looks like WH staff has given up on trying to handle Biden, likely due to angry reactions from his dementia riddled carcass.
- One of the things you end up with in oldsters (speaking as one here), is that we tend to circle back to those things that we are most comfortable with. This includes favorite stories, favorite forms of entertainment, favorite ways of dealing with things, etc. It is exponentially worse with dementia, and the list of things you circle back to gets smaller as the condition progresses. This may be the reason that Biden invariably circles back to race bating every single chance he gets. This explains his horrific commencement speech at Morehouse College in Atlanta. Biden’s very being is steeped in race baiting. He is good at it. He does it all the time. And always will.
- Turns out that Attorney General Merrick Garland approved armed FBI agents in their raid of Mar-a-Lago last year. The excuse given for their being armed is that this is standard, they are always armed in any raid. From here, it looks like they were creating conditions that could trigger a blue-on-blue firefight with equally well armed Secret Service agents. Supposedly both sides negotiated who was going to be doing what. Trump picked up on the threat and accused both Biden and Garland of wanting to kill him, something they both vehemently denied. Only question is how many armed FBI agents investigated the cocaine found in the WH last year?
- Final Trump story was his rally in the Bronx. Today/s Bronx is not Archie Bunker’s Bronx, today with over 50% Latino, over 30% black and the rest some combination of everybody else. It is one of the reasons they are now represented by AOC. Trump holds a rally. Over 25,000 show up, a small crowd by normal Trump rally standards, but huge for a Republican running for president in NYC. I think the last Republican who actively campaigned in the Bronx was Reagan. Both Trump and the crowd had a great time creating some consternation for AOC.
6. Iran. Iran lost its President and Foreign Minister in a helicopter crash a week ago. The helo was one of a flight of three in a remote part of Iran. The flight attempted to fly through terrain with fog in the area. Two other helos turned back and survived (awful formation discipline). The crash sets up an interesting succession fight as next in line is a blood relative of the current Ayatollah. Nothing like installing a little religious monarchy after tossing the previous secular one. Raisi and six others died in the crash. One observer claims that there is a second boom (aircraft back end) in crash site photos, suggesting the accident was a midair. I have no additional confirmation. Following the crash, there were widespread condolences expressed for the passing of the Butcher of Tehran. Raisi earned the name with his harsh crackdowns on dissidents over the 35 years, and the use of mass executions and torture aimed at enemies of the regime. Looks like he earned his nickname.
7. Scheffler. Louisville police arrested PGA golfer Scottie Scheffler a week ago. Scheffler was trying to get into the country club where the PGA Championship was being held. There was an early morning fatal accident. Police tied up traffic. It was dark and raining. Sheffler claims to have mistook Louisville cops for event security and drove on. He was stopped, handcuffed, arrested, and taken into custody. He will be arraigned in a couple weeks. The story gets interesting in the reaction of the arresting officer, who seemed to clang hard over into “you in a heap ‘o trouble, boy” mode. You southern readers know what I mean. He did not have his body camera turned on, and claimed to have been dragged by Sheffler’s vehicle for a while after he grabbed it. Other video released by Louisville police does not seem to corroborate his version of events as yet. Sheffler was released, got to the course in time, and shot a decent round, though he did not win the tournament. As of this writing, sounds like Sheffler has done the right thing – hiring a good lawyer and shutting up completely. My guess is that charges will eventually be dropped. There have been some unflattering things released about the arresting officer, but I have heard enough cop-bashing over the last couple decades to think the appropriate response is to simply wait and see what else gets released to the public. We are in the fog of war with this arrest. Let’s see how it all plays out
More later –
- AG