Howdy All, a few Interesting Items for your information. Enjoy –
In this issue –
1. Assassination
2. SpaceX
3. Sotomayor
4. Brinton
5. Britain
6. France
7. Iran
1. Assassination. A crazed lefty took a shot at President Trump Saturday afternoon at a rally in PA. As of this writing, we are completely in the fog of war where few things are certain other than President Trump was hit in the ear, one other person in the crowd near him killed, and two others reportedly in critical condition. The shooter was shot perhaps 20 seconds after taking the first shot. Things that we know include the following:
- The shot was 130 yards from the rooftop of a building overlooking the rally. Several members of the crowd reportedly saw the shooter crawling across the roof with a rifle and reported it to law enforcement and Secret Service. Unknown at this time their reaction to the warning.
- For his part, President Trump reportedly has a hole in his right ear. He went down and defiantly stood back up, fist in the air, yelling “Fight!” He reprises Teddy Roosevelt, shot during a speech during the 1912 presidential campaign.
- The shooter may or may not be a 20-year-old, son of a local therapist who used his father’s rifle. The FBI and Secret Service both promise to investigate fully, though there are already claims the FBI is lying about what they know. It is a real sadness that we have law enforcement agencies and an (In)Justice Department we can’t trust anymore. I would take everything they say with a very large caliber grain of salt.
- The democrats and their propaganda arm completely owns this shooting for their incessant and near continuous comparisons of Trump to Hitler and his supporters as Nazis over the last 9 years since he came down the escalator in 2015. Hitler is supposedly the most evil, wicked human who ever lived, and if you have the chance to remove him before he and his supporters destroy the nation, you morally and ethically must do it. Democrat and their media propagandists set this fire, threw gasoline on it for years and are busily tossing lit matches on it, essentially murder by proxy. Scott Adams was right in his observation before the 2020 election that if Biden won, Republicans and Trump supporters would be hunted. And we are.
- There were a couple claims by those claiming experience in the sniper world that one of the things shooters look for on distance shots is something to tell them what the wind is doing. There was a large American Flag over Trump as he spoke that shouldn’t have been there had the DEI hires in today’s Secret Service been doing their jobs.
- Speaking of the Secret Service, it is going to get new leadership sooner rather than later as its priorities have changed from protecting the president to pumping up DEI numbers. Its current head, Kimberly Cheatle, sworn in Sept 2022, is highly interested in pumping up the diversity numbers to 30% female recruits by 2030. By definition, if you are chasing diversity numbers, you are guaranteed to move your organization quickly to incompetence. She was hired into the Secret Service from PepsiCo, prompting an incorrect (but funny) Elon Musk tweet that the only thing she ever protected before being hired by the Secret Service was Cheetos. To be fair, she only did that for a little while as she had spent 27 years in the Secret Service before going to PepsiCo. I do expect her to be fired. I also expect the DEI push to be summarily stopped before someone gets killed. There will be significant criticism of the Secret Service before this is all over.
- Elon Musk is all over this. In addition to his Tweet on Cheatle, he reported that two people with firearms were detained on their way to his Tesla plant in Texas over the last 8 months. Clearly the hatred campaign by democrats and the media against Musk is working.
- One of the things Our Side is going to have to figure out how to do is break the brainwashing of the left done by democrats and the media. This has turned perhaps a quarter of their side into stark raving lunatics. My Lovely Lady reads the WSJ online site on a regular basis, mostly for the comments. Comments after the shooting blew up, with thousands on each article. She says perhaps 30% of them were some version of “… it was Trump’s fault”, essentially the old rape defense, claiming that the provocatively dressed woman trigger the rapist. People who actually believe this was Trump’s fault are brainwashed and need to be responded to.
- Brainwashing is a persuasion technique done with persuasion tools with predictable results. What can be inflicted can also be reversed. One of the reasons I focus on persuasion these days is to acquaint the reader with the tools and the playing field. Make no mistake that democrats and the media know what they are doing. Proof of this is that the Biden campaign pulled ads following the shooting. They were likely some form of their endless Hitler / Nazi ads. MSNBC pulled their opinion people for several days, likely for the same reason. They know what they did and are now pretending to be shocked, simply shocked at the outcome following years of irresponsible actions.
- Final reminder is regardless of what has happened and what is going to happen, our only defense is to elect Trump. This is the only way this stops. The left is now cornered and will fight like cornered rats because their side has told them their lives are at stake. Our lives on the right have been at stake for some time, so welcome to the party, pal. This isn’t over. It has only begun. And it will get worse. If Our Side needs to double down on anything, it is to make sure Trump is elected and will have majorities in both houses of congress to work with (as opposed to against). The left will pull out all the stops including election fraud to make sure they don’t lose. Think cornered, feral rats and you will have the right perspective.
2. SpaceX. SpaceX suffered its first operational launch failure after over 300 successful launches last week. The engine on the second stage of a Starlink launch out of Vandenberg failed when it restarted to raise orbital perigee. Satellites were successfully released but are in too low of an orbit for onboard thrusters to insert into operational orbits. They will reenter and burn up over the course of the next several months. Video of the failure is below. Second stage Merlin Vacuum (MVAC) engine normally operates 2+30 – 8+30 after launch. This starts 13+00 into the video. The leak appeared to begin about a minute after the MVAC was lit, inflating the mylar skirt around the plumbing. There was also what may have been a plume visible. As the leak progressed, the mylar ruptured 4+10 after launch. Ice chunks started separating from the plumbing section 4+25. This continued until shutdown. Visible ice built up on one view and continued through the rest of the first burn. Note that none of this has ever been seen on any previous SpaceX second stage operation. The engine was successfully shut down and experienced what SpaceX calls a Rapid Unscheduled Disassembly (RUD) when it was restarted. Interestingly, it was not a catastrophic failure, as the satellites were successfully released. Our Good Friends in the FAA promised to halt all subsequent SpaceX launches until the accident investigation was complete, which is the same thing SpaceX is going to do. SpaceX has another 40 launches scheduled for the rest of the year so it is incumbent on them getting this right. Note that this failure also removes safety margin for the pair of Starliner astronauts currently stranded at ISS due to thruster problems, as Dragon was a possibility for alternate transportation. The leak appears to have been in the liquid oxygen (LOX) plumbing, though SpaceX has not released any analysis as yet. Final observation is that SpaceX builds tough equipment. The second stage operated throughout the leak and did not come apart until the restart. Even that failure did not damage the payload on top of the second stage.
3. Sotomayor. Last week’s other exercise in being careful what you wish for was Justice Sotomayor’s security detail shooting a man attempting a carjacking near her home. The perp got out of a van, pulled a gun on the security detail in a vehicle at 1 AM. Officers shot four times. The van left and the perp was taken to the hospital where he is still alive despite being shot in the mouth. There is no indication that Sotomayor was intentionally targeted. The irony of this is that Sotomayor is one of the most virulent anti-gunners currently on SCOTUS. Firearms for me but not for thee.
4. Brinton. This week’s example of dual standards of justice comes courtesy of Sam Brinton, one of the regime’s trans players. He is an MIT nuclear engineering graduate who was put in charge of nuclear waste disposal for a while. He is also (in)famous for wearing women’s clothing and stealing multiple bags at airport baggage claim. He was seen afterwards wearing clothing from those bags prompting one victim, a fashion designer, who pressed charges against him after seeing photos of him in her creations. At least he has good taste. Brinton will undergo mental health treatment, write a letter of apology, and complete 50 hours of community service. At least he didn’t wander around the capitol taking selfies.
5. Britain. It is election season. Two recent elections in Europe could have gone better. First up are the parliamentary elections in Great Britain. Conservatives, who had been in charge for the last 14 years as expected went down in flames, with Labor winning the majority of seats. Conservatives lost over 200 seats, though Labor received nearly 600,000 fewer votes than they did in 2019 when Labor suffered its worst defeat since 1935. The Brits didn’t elect Labor because they love Labor’s socialism. Rather, they pointedly rejected the conservatives because they refused to be conservative. Energy, immigration and Brexit were among the largest reasons for that rejection. Nigel Farage’s new Reform party picked up 5 seats. The Muslim pro-Gaza candidates also picked up 4 seats. Labor holds a majority for the time being but not much popular support.
6. France. In France, we also had the left win parliamentary elections, though the underlying politics are different. In runoffs a week ago, Marie LePen’s National Rally party got the most votes but ended up with the third most seats. President Macron called snap elections when it became apparent National Rally was about to supplant his party. The initial round went very well for Le Pen. In the two weeks between the first round and runoffs, Macron pulled over 200 of his candidates, tossing seats to the far-left New Popular Front alliance of communists, socialists, and greens. This worked for this election but sufficiently split the vote so that no major party has sufficient seats to form a governing majority in parliament. National Rally continues to build its brand every election and did so this time around too. Using Biden’s lawfare example, a French prosecutor announced an investigation into Le Pen for campaign finance violations. What a surprise (/sarc).
7. Iran. In our final election story, Iran also held elections. Their system is one democrats here in the US are trying to adopt, a system in which only candidates approved by the Ayatollahs (there, democrats here) are allowed on the ballot (Mark Elias, this means you). Public response to their election? Stay home in droves. The regime reported a record low turnout of around 40% in the election a week ago. Some reports of near empty voting stations and local numbers suggest that the actual turnout was much lower. This is the second presidential election in a row with record low turnout. Only candidates loyal to the Ayatollahs are allowed on the ballot.
More later –
- AG