Howdy All, a few Interesting Items for your information. Enjoy –
In this issue –
1. Kamala
2. Rallies
3. FBI
4. Act Blue
5. Crowdstrike
6. Glock
7. SpaceX
8. Botanists
9. Nantucket
1. Kamala. As of this writing, it looks like Kamala Harris will be the democrat nominee for president. Now that she it, buckle up, for it is going to be a real ride, one Our Side Must be ready for.
- Kamala now has the top line democrat persuaders working for her. This is why she has hit most of the right notes during her campaign rollout. They gave her all the right things to say, the most persuasive arguments, and the very best ways to needle Trump and hopefully trigger a reaction. So far, he hasn’t played, opting to keep his powder dry. The is why she and the rest of the democrat amen chorus adopted the term “weird” over the weekend. “Weird” is a high caliber persuasion term, created and used not unlike what “dark” was during the 2016 campaign. It is aimed at young women online, as it is their common response to slap anything down they don’t want to deal with or don’t like. Happily, it can be used by both sides, making it an appropriate response to democrat claims of stealing democracy or any of the hundred other lies they have been telling, are telling, and will be telling during this campaign.
- The media is now in full brainwashing mode. This includes memory-holing Kamala’s history. First up was her appointment as border czar which the media claims never happened despite 30,000+ articles celebrating her appointment. The brainwashing is powerful, sufficiently effective that it has managed to raise her favorability by 6-8% in a week. It is this brainwashing that is the biggest threat to Trump’s election bid. At the same time as the brainwashing, the Censorship Industrial Complex is back at it, in full and complete operation, censoring all things favorable to Trump, conservatives and Republicans.
- Despite all the positives rolling in her direction, Kamala is still Kamala, and has shown up drunk at campaign stops at least five times over the course of the week. She also participated in the years-long lie about Joe Biden’s health, something that will be difficult to explain or forget. She still likes poking the bear, last week noting that as a prosecutor, she knows what kind of man Donald Trump is. She also gleefully demanded Trump go ahead with the previously scheduled debate with Biden with her substituting for Biden. Trump’s response was to opine that he didn’t know who the democrat nominee was and would wait until democrats settled on a ticket.
- The funniest event last week was a parody Kamala campaign commercial. It was a deep fake using what appears to be very good AI to marry her voice, words and video. And if the democrats decide to lie about everything all the time (remember that Biden ran on the Fine People hoax and has been basing all his policies on hoaxes over the last 5 years), it looks like Our Side is not beyond lying all the time too. Awful way to level the playing field, but sometimes you have to play the hand you are dealt.
2. Rallies. Last week’s first example of federal election interference was a Secret Service attempt to shut down all Trump outdoor rallies using the excuse that they couldn’t provide sufficient protection, “suggesting” he no longer hold them. In response, Trump held a couple highly successful indoor rallies while publicly complaining about the suggestion. He was also smart enough to praise individual Secret Service officers while continuing to blast its leadership. Back-channel pushback must have been significant as by week’s end, the Secret Service relented and announced they would be supporting outdoor rallies. Trump’s response was to announce a rally in Butler, PA, the location where he was shot. Secret Service Director Cheatle resigned earlier in the week, which surprises me a bit, as I figured she would stick it out.
3. FBI. Second example of election interference was FBI Director Wray in front of congress opining that Trump was not hit by a bullet, but shrapnel from either the bullet or glass shattered during the assassination attempt. Wray did not offer his opinion in response to any question from a congress critter, opting to pull the pin and toss that little grenade into the discussion. The media instantly picked his claim up and ran with it for a couple days feeding in nicely to the Blue Anon worldview. Only took the FBI 24 hours to officially state that Trump indeed had been hit by a bullet. Note that this is a sneaky, very effective attack on Trump, as it intentionally minimizes the assassination attempt and his taking a bullet.
4. Act Blue. Democrat fund raising platform Act Blue raised over $121 million last week, most of them in small caliber donations, something leftist media is gleefully reporting as evidence of Kamala’s popularity. Act Blue is owned and operated by the DNC and is the national fundraising powerhouse in the political world. Like all things democrat, there are some (many) oddities associated with Act Blue that are on the sketchy side. For example, there have been claims that they launder campaign donations through elderly who don’t participate in the political wars. The game is to find a name and assign them credit for hundreds to many tens of thousands of small dollar donations to democrat candidates in those names. When confronted by investigative reporters (the feds aren’t much interested in these claims for some reason), the donors all deny they’ve made donations. Act Blue has come under increasing congressional scrutiny over the last couple election cycles. Leftist media uniformly denies any subterfuge. There is at least one Ohio legislator out there claiming that over 60% of Act Blue donations come from China, which would be no surprise.
5. CrowdStrike. CrowdStrike is a cybersecurity company founded in 2011. Over the years they have drifted into the democrat orbit, most (in)famously inspecting the various “Russian” hacks of the DNC in the 2016 election cycle. Their expertise is hacking investigations and anti-hacking software. Their Falcon antivirus package started selling in 2013 and is used worldwide. Antivirus is a fairly serious software package, as in a lot of ways it sits low in the boot level of a system startup and controls what is going on. This means it needs to play well with whatever else is going on in the system. They pushed an update to their worldwide customer base on July 19. This update contained a bug that bricked a large number of Windows computers worldwide. As of this writing, some of them are still down. Particularly hard hit were the airlines. The only survivor initially was Southwest which used ancient Win 3.1 / 95 for its scheduling system. While CrowdStrike was quickly able to modify the update, pushing it to a bunch of dead machines is a problematic exercise. The update bricked 8.5 million WinTel machines. Crowdstrike is offering gift cards for those affected.
6. Glock. Chairman James Comer of the House Oversight Committee is in a fight with Stefanie Feldman, Director of the White House Office of Gun Violence Prevention. She apparently has been working with anti-gun groups such as Everytown for Gun Safety targeting Glock. She is also actively withholding information on the collaboration from congress. Looks like collusion between the WH, Everytown, other gun control groups, and the city of Chicago bringing lawsuit(s) against Glock. The lawsuits claim an illegal switch (likely a trigger mod) turns the semi-auto into a full auto. The goal is to sue Glock into oblivion over an illegal modification of their firearms. WH officials reportedly met with Glock unofficially claiming they are responsible for the illegal mods and demanding redesign of their firearms. This argument is playing out in social media with Everytown’s president claiming Glock is stonewalling their demands. The WH pushed back against Comer claiming he was in the pocket of the gun lobby. Note the illegal aftermarket products are largely manufactured in China and imported into the US. Looks like the WH teamed with Chicago to file the lawsuit, anti-gun lawfare aimed at a lawful American company whose products are being modified with illegal Chinese parts.
7. SpaceX. SpaceX returned to flight over the weekend after a two weeklong break with two launches within four hours of one another. Both Starlink launches were successful. The problem turned out to be a bleed line from the liquid oxygen tank to a sensor on the engine. The line was clamped improperly and vibrated loose, opening the leak. SpaceX determined the sensor was redundant and removed it and the bleed line from currently manufactured second stage engines. The line and sensor will no longer be added to future engines. The leak led to a hard start and loss of control during the second burn of the flight. Satellites were deployed but in lower-than-normal orbits and will need to be replaced. SpaceX also conducted a static test of all six engines of the Startship upper stage preparatory to a launch attempt in a week or so. The break in launch cadence for SpaceX backed up their flow by perhaps six launches, one of them manned.
8. Botanists. Last week’s exercise in the Woke Mind Virus was a vote by the International Botanical Congress to change the names of over 300 plants, fungi and algae because the current names are racially offensive. The name changes will impact species names with the word “caffra”, an apartheid-era racial slur used against black people in southern Africa. Basically, they will be dropping the ‘c’. Happily, the vote was closer than I expected, 315 – 205. Unhappily, it did pass. The botanists are not the only ones traveling the path of increasing silliness, as the ornithologists in the American Ornithological Society last year decide to change offensive common English names of birds named after people. The zoologists have yet to weigh in, though I expect they will not be far behind. Couple the silly season with the Woke Mind Virus and you can do a lot of damage to formerly respected institutions. When you are busily shooting yourself in the foot, try to remember there are only so many toes to shoot off. .
9. Nantucket. Our final story has been underway for a couple weeks. It involves destruction of an offshore wind turbine in Nantucket July 13 and the chunks of foam and fiberglass from the destroyed blades washing up on the beach, closing them. Remember that Nantucket is the same part of the world as the fictional Jaws village was located. Summer is very important in that part of the world and towns make a lot (most?) of their yearly revenue catering to tourists. In the accident, a turbine threw a blade and shut down. The blade shattered spreading foam and fiberglass far and wide into the water. The farm was greenlit by Biden’s Department of the Interior in May 2021. It represents perhaps 1/37 of all offshore wind the regime wants online by 2030. It was billed as the first large scale offshore wind project in the US. The failure shut down miles of beach. Cleanup crews have collected six truckloads of trash with more still washing up onshore. Opponents to the farm claim that it could cost the Nantucket tourist industry over $800 million over the next 30 years, a number that appears to be overwrought. Note that the entire farm originally cost $4 billion. The blade came apart less than three years after it was installed. There was no adverse weather associated with the failure.
More later –
- AG