Howdy All, a few Interesting Items for your information. Enjoy –
In this issue –
1. Rescissions
2 Musk
3. Drones
4. Agroterrorism
5. Isaacman
6. Boulder
1. Rescissions. Round 2 of the budget wars is underway, as the Big Beautiful Bill (BBB) is soon to be followed by a $9.4 billion rescission package out of the House. If it passes, this will claw back previously approved spending. Looks like most of the cuts are from USAID with the rest from various development assistance, economic support and Corporation of Public Broadcasting (PBS / NPR) slush funds. This legislation is a test. It is only a test to see if the fervor for budget cutting is as strong as some of us on the political right would like and more importantly, some of the budget hawks in congress demand it be.
- The process for rescission was created by congress in the Congressional Budget and Impoundment Control Act of 1974. The Wiki claims that it was widely used 1974 – 2000 when it fell into disuse. President Trump attempted to revive it in 2018, but the proposed legislation that passed the House in a tight vote, losing in the Senate 48 – 50. Note that rescissions only require 51 votes to pass and are not subject to filibuster. There is a 45-day window for delaying budget authority. This window was locked into law by the 1987 Balanced Budget Act which limited the ability of an administration to repeatedly submit rescission legislation for the same or similar spending.
- The interesting thing here is the 45-day window, for properly timed rescission legislation cannot wrap around the end of the Fiscal Year (FY) and spend last year’s money next FY. This gives the president the ability to not spend to the appropriated maximum, propose a rescission package on Aug 18, and have the cuts go into effect Oct 1, the beginning of the new FY. It is referred to in some places as a “pocket rescission,” similar to a pocket veto. Sounds like this is what Trump is planning on doing. It should be an exciting fall.
- The BBB is a tax cut and spending bill. CBO scoring on it, as usual, is garbage, for no tax cut has ever cost money. They have always brought in additional revenue as the tax cuts grow the non-government part of the economy, something never accounted for by the green eyeshade bean counters of the CBO.
- This where Elon Musk has missed the connection, as all DOGE cuts are outside the purview of the BBB and will be attempted in the rescission package. I believe this is the subject of current ongoing discussions between Musk and the Trump WH staff, particularly Stephen Miller.
- The Trump team is of the opinion that the rescission process is unconstitutional, something the democrat majority in congress passed in response to Nixon’s attempts at rescinding spending. Nixon’s rescissions is one of the reasons congress was impeaching him. Trump is going to rescind spending and then dare both congress and the courts to do something about it. It will be the major issue in 2026.
2. Musk. This is where things got ugly last week, as Musk and Trump went beak to beak for a few days, much to the delight of the media, democrats and their fellow sycophants. Musk expressed concern at inadequate budget cuts and didn’t think he was taken seriously so he upped the ante and got everyone’s attention. Even Alaska’s very own Lisa Murkowski, who’s case of Orange Man Bad makes Morning Joe appear to be Trump cheerleaders, is now making noises about supporting both the BBB and additional budget cuts. She is up for reelection in 2028.
- One of the things that makes Musk successful is his willingness to take on what to most of us would seem to be an insane amount of risk. This may very well be a product of his acknowledged presence somewhere on the Autism spectrum and the occasional Manic tendency. In this exchange, he did not think people were listening to him. Now they are. Gleeful democrats need to be careful embracing Musk and his free campaign money, as that money will be used to elect budget hawks, which democrats aren’t.
- The other thing about Musk is that he runs a very lean machine and he runs it with near dictatorial control with enthusiastic support of his people. The photo of the SpaceX Starship team at Boca Chica below is an example:
- The Starship team down there is around 500 people. I expect the photo is most of them. Imagine that. A team of 500 is going to get us to Mars. Total SpaceX employment is around 13,000. Contrast that with NASA currently around 19,000. You can argue that SpaceX is getting a lot more out of its employees than NASA. Example two comes from his purchase of Twitter, where he fired upwards of 80% of the employees and ended up with a better service and better product, even making a profit.
- Governments are used by both parties as patronage and election machines, where they use taxpayer money to hire and contract people who will vote for them. They are paid and retained by taxpayer money. They wield power spending taxpayer dollars. They use those dollars to write rules, regulations and laws that target and control political opponents and people who disagree with “thems what have the power.” Breaking that Gordian Knot is a tough road, one Trump is bound and determined to do.
- My experience is that when something is too arcane, too convoluted, too complex to understand, that complexity is intentional, if for no other reason than to simply keep the heathens in the general public from figuring out the embedded corruption. And there is a lot of corruption after the O’Bama / Biden years. While there was probably a lot of corruption before then, it was O’Bama that institutionalized that corruption and used the power of the federal government law enforcement apparat to protect and defend it. This is a systems problem. It is a known problem, one that Trump and his team aim to address. It is up to the rest of us, Musk included, to give them a sufficiently large and like-minded majority in both houses of congress to make that permanent system change.
3. Drones. Last week’s entry into the El Stupido Maximo competition was a Ukrainian drone attack inside Russia. Dones were supposedly smuggled into Russia inside over the road trailers. The trailers were staged near air bases where they were opened and the drones launched. Sounds like they were mostly flown rather than autonomous. Most of them were armed with something in the neighborhood of a hand grenade caliber weapons, which poked holes in large military aircraft targeted on the ramps. Note that aircraft are generally stored with completely full fuel tanks so as to mitigate condensation. If Russian aviation fuel is manufactured to the same high standard (/sarc) as the natural gas they used to ship through the Nordstream pipelines, water in the fuel is a big problem. As usual, both sides lied about the military impact. It was either a Great Strategic Victory or a minor irritant. That being said, it is difficult to decide who benefits from the attack, as it did not inflict any significant damage on Russian military power. OTOH, it was yet another reminder that the Ukrainians are ready, willing and able to strike deep within Russia itself. It is also a reminder to those of us here in the US what the CCP can do with the farmland they have been buying here in the US near military installations. At the time of the attack, Russia and Ukraine officials were meeting in Turkey on so called peace talks, arguing details of prisoner exchanges. As of this writing, it appears neither side has suffered sufficient pain and cost to push them to sue for peace, so the years-long war drags on another week – month – year or more without resolution. Wars like this are really good testing grounds for equipment, weapons and tactics. The CCP is using Russia as its proxy, primarily for drone warfare. The EU is attempting to use Ukraine as its proxy now that the US has learned everything it needs to know, and Trump is off doing other things. Such a waste, as neither side appears capable of changing the outcome any significant way from its current state. Zelensky continues to look like he is unable to accept a peace. I have no idea what Putin is doing or why he continues to fight, though he may very well have the same problem as Zelensky.
4. Agroterrorism. As a reminder of the threat that the CCP poses to the US, a pair of Chinese nationals were arrested and charged with conspiracy, fraud and smuggling in their attempt to import a deadly fungus into the US. The Fusarium Graminearum fungus is classified as a potential agroterrorism weapon. It targets wheat, barley, maize (corn) and rice. It is active worldwide and responsible for billions of dollars in economic losses yearly. If ingested, it can cause vomiting, liver damage and reproductive defects. Once loose, fungus are notoriously difficult to eradicate. The woman conducted government funded research on the weapon in China. Her boyfriend works at a university that does research on the same fungus. The woman is a proud, loyal member of the CCP. We caught two. How many more are there?
5. Isaacman. The Trump WH pulled the nomination of Jaren Isaacman for NASA administrator. This was not a controversial nomination, as he was sailing through the process and expected to receive at least 70 votes to confirm. Trump announced on Truth Social that the nomination was pulled after “a thorough review of prior associations.” I am not sure that I believe that particular line, as Isaacman was a big donor to various democrat candidates over the years, yet Trump has a pair of actual democrat presidential candidates working in his cabinet – Tulsi Gabbard and RFK, Jr. Other speculation includes insufficient support for upcoming NASA budget cuts, expected reprioritization of spending and goals, and the impending (at the time) war of words with Elon Musk last week. My guess is that it was more budget related than anything else. Make no mistake, NASA is going to get its priorities significantly changed. Ownership of the manned side is going to be entirely handed off to the commercial sector. This includes planetary and lunar exploration. NASA will purchase tickets. The money pit that is SLS will be cancelled despite the best effort of senate Republicans to save it. Earth observation science, long corrupted by the greens since at least the Clinton – Gore years will mostly be commercialized. The argument will be over what is to be done with actual exploration and hard sciences? My guess is that the actual mix will be a combination of grants and contracts with NASA owning very little in the end. The same is likely to happen with aerospace technology. Huge money disasters like Mars Sample Return will likely be done commercially, perhaps as soon as Musk’s first manned landing on Mars in 4-5 years. Astronomy will be done in a different way. Rather than an endless string of Hubble repairs, we now have the capability of flying a similar piece of glass much cheaper. Make the beasts expendable. Make them commercial. Build a lot of them. Throw them away after a couple years, especially if launch becomes cheap (Starship). Cheap launch will also improve the ability to repair and refurbish on orbit. There will be a lot of caterwauling on the upcoming NASA budget. But the restructure is long past due and will give us a much better and more capable product.
6. Boulder. An Egyptian who overstayed his visa decided to murder as many “Zionists” as humanly possible in Boulder last week. The group was holding a quiet protest calling for release of Jewish hostages taken by Hamas Oct 7, 2023. The perp has been planning this for a while, initially trying to purchase firearms. That purchase was denied due to him being an illegal, so he built a homemade flame thrower and brought along over 15 Molotov cocktails. Over 15 suffered burns, some of them severe. The perp was arrested. So was his family, also illegal, who had been watching him plan this for over a year. Of course, local lefties found a federal judge who ordered their deportation stayed for at least a little while. The Biden administration allowed this group to remain in the US and refused to deport them once they found he had overstayed their visas.
More later –
- AG