Howdy All, a few Interesting Items for your information. Enjoy –
In this issue –
1. Riots
2 Padilla
3. SCOTUS
4. Patel
5. iSpace
6. Reactors
7. Hogg
1. Riots. The 2025 Summer of Love riots kicked off in LA a week ago, with looting, general mayhem, and all the standard photo-op mongering one would expect from the riot for pay crowd. They even torched a few Waymo autonomous vehicles which prompted Waymo and other autonomous vehicle companies to pull out of LA. Trump wasted little time calling up the National Guard to quell the riots. He also called up a few Marines to protect federal buildings in LA. Of course, Cali Governor Newsom managed to find a democrat federal judge to second guess the president. That decision was overturned upon appeal in a near record two hours pending a hearing this week. What else happened?
- To me, the most impressive difference between the riots this time around and those of 2020 was the public reaction, assuming that the events were orchestrated, led by professionals, with specialized riot gear (shields, masks and signs) provided in advance. The goal of these riots is to generate a single video of someone in authority rearranging body parts of a rioters. The paid (and trained) professional rioters are very good at inflaming the crowd and sending their foot soldiers (not the pros) into harm’s way to receive the tender loving care from already irritated law enforcement that the pros spun up. This would then be their photo op. Their problem are that the photos so far are highly supportive of the position of both local law enforcement and Trump. One example would be a masked rioter on a motorcycle with a Mexican flag. Another would be a video of a smirking white guy with a man bun looming over a black woman trying to get to work, refusing to get out of her way. This one took place in NYC. That’s some great persuasion.
- The next near instantaneous response on Our Side to the protests was to figure out who is paying for them. At first blush, most if not all money is coming out of government funded NGOs, with the state of California donating some $76 million to an outfit that calls itself the Coalition for Humane Immigrant Rights. It is an LA-based organization founded in 1986. F—k ICE packages including goggles, facemasks, gloves and phone numbers for “jail support” were being handed out in LA by an outfit calling itself Operation Healthy Hearts. Data Republican has been particularly busy demonstrating NGO participation in planned nefarious activities.
- FBI and DoJ claim to be investigating the puppet masters behind the riots. We will see how far they get. There is a somewhat fine line to be traveled here. Protests are fine and should be celebrated to some level, though I tire of the street theater. But when the protests turn into wanton mayhem executed by BLM, Occupy Wall Street, AntiFa, Hamas supporters, etc, over the years, that crosses the line into criminality, especially when that mayhem is executed against the citizens and property of blue cities. Once the protesters break anything or hurt anyone, or cost anybody money (and time is indeed money), they and their backers need to be prosecuted to the full extent of the law. This is what criminal RICO was created for. Democrats and the DC Circuit spent four long years making an example of everyone who protested on Jan 6 or outside any random aborto-clinic. Now that democrats set that precedent, it is long past time to force them to play under their new rules. Make it loud, public, and very, very painful.
- One related note. The reason last weekend’s protests were called No Kings was because nobody on the left knows what an oligarch (their favorite anti-Trump epithet over the last 6 months) is. So they pivoted on a dime and changed the name of the orchestrated protest.
2. Padilla. Speaking of theater kids, Senior US Senator from Cali, Alex Padilla decided to attend a Kristi Noem press conference on the LA riots Thursday. He entered the room as the briefing started, rushed the lectern while demanding she answer his questions, was stopped by Secret Service, eventually forced out of the room, put on the ground and handcuffed. Only then did he identify himself as a US Senator, but by then, he had put hands on law enforcement, and they ignored everything he had to say afterwards. Note the heightened response. For the last 8 years, it has been open season on Republicans by the left. Trump himself was the target of at least two assassination attempts last summer. One of them nearly worked. Padilla is a big, boisterous boy, who was ignoring what law enforcement told him to do. For my money, they were gentle. But he got his photo op, with democrats shocked, simply shocked at the reaction. A few brane damaged Republicans like Alaska’s senior US Senator Lisa Murkowski played along, likewise shocked, simply shocked at the rough treatment. We will see if he is arrested and charged like the congress critter last month outside the ICE operation in NJ. If not, he should be. At best, Padilla should be charged, tried, and convicted, along with censured and removed from the US Senate. He will likely skate this time around. As the democrats ratchet up the violence, somewhere along the line, someone is going to get badly, badly hurt, something that will “surprise” them, but at least they will have their sound bite.
3. SCOTUS. 10 days ago, SCOTUS handed down six surprising opinions. The surprise was that five of them were unanimous and the sixth was 8-1, all in what would seem to be a conservative direction. Three of the cases were relatively obscure. The 8-1 case involved class action certification without injury. It was tossed over a Kavanaugh dissent. The other two were about foreign sovereign immunity v personal jurisdiction and protecting the finality of judgments. Both were 9-0 with Alito writing the opinions.
- The other three were also 9-0 opinions, all written by liberal justices, prompting some speculation as to what sort of game is Justice Kagan playing here? Each opinion was written by one of the lefty judges. All opinions were founded in originalism rather than the standard “living constitution” word salad we get out of these justices on a regular basis. Do they now agree with originalism? Unlikely. It is far more likely that Kagan, one of the smarter lefties, is orchestrating a strategy. The next time conservatives blast any of the three of them for their next awful opinion, Kagan will point to these three opinions as example of their fair mindedness.
- Smith & Wesson Brands had the government of Mexico suing US firearms manufacturers for firearms Mexican cartels used to commit crimes. This was yet another way to sneak around the Protection of Lawful Commerce in Arms Act passed by congress to cut off lawsuits against firearms manufactures should those firearms be used to commit a crime. Kagan wrote the opinion that summarily tossed the case.
- In Catholic Charities Bureau, the state of Wisconsin interpreted the religious organization exemption on unemployment compensation on the grounds that Cathole Charities weren’t religious enough because they did not proselytize and were happy to serve non-Catholics. The approach attempted to play favorites between various religious charities based on theological principles on how to perform good works. Sotomayor wrote the 9-0 opinion in support of Catholic Charities.
- In Ames v Ohio Department of Youth Services, the unanimous court ruled that white men and white women have the same right to file reverse discrimination lawsuits as any minority group. Discrimination against whites does not require any additional proof. Justice Brown Jackson wrote this opinion.
4. Patel. Just so you know that Noem was not the only target of the left last week, FBI Director Kash Patel announced during a Joe Rogan interview that his home had been swatted. The FBI did not respond to requests for comment on the matter. I would think calling in a SWAT on the FBI Director’s home is a rather poor lifestyle choice.
5. iSpace. The Japanese commercial iSpace Resilience lander did not survive a hard landing on the moon last week. While it is likely mostly intact, it hit hard enough that it was damaged to the point that all communication was lost after touchdown. This is iSpace second attempt at a commercial lunar landing, the first failed in 2023 when the radar altimeter lost lock during approach after the lander passed over a cliff. Like the first mission, this one was stuffed full of commercial payloads, including a small rover. It was a tech demo intended to test reliable transportation and data services from the moon. It was launched six months ago and took an extended, low energy path to the moon in order to save fuel. Likewise, the approach and landing was also designed to save fuel, to the point where the approach angle was very low, with the plan to turn the lander vertical at the last minute. Communication was lost some 105 seconds before landing and the craft was eventually listed as lost. The laser rangefinder experienced some sort of delay while measuring the distance from the surface. iSpace will make a third attempt in a year or two. The commercial guys are going to lead us to the moon.
6. Reactors. One of the really smart things the Trump administration is doing is pushing the use of small nuclear reactors. The vehicle is to start installing them at military installations so as to make them less dependent on whatever is happening outside the main gate. Eielson here in Alaska is on that list, with the first machine scheduled to come online sometime in 2027. Now, this predates the current Trump administration, with initial legislation passed as part of the National Defense Authorization Act (DoD budget) of 2019 during the first Trump term. Alaska’s senior US Senator Lisa Murkowski is taking full credit for its approval and installation. The machine itself should be capable of up to 5 MW, capable of powering both Eielson and Wainright along with the ballistic missile defense installation up there. Should this be successful, I could envision another 3-4 of these at other military bases in Alaska. The Eielson reactor looks to be the leading edge of multiple reactors at military installations if the Trump administration has anything to say about it. The new machines will be Generation III+ (GenIII+), GenIV, small modular reactors (SMRs), microreactors, stationary and mobile reactors. A Trump Executive Order directs the Army Secretary to establish a program to use micro reactors for both operational and installation energy. The Navy has led the DoD nuclear business for over half a century. Looks like the rest of the services are about to get into the act. It’s about time.
7. Hogg. Democrats invalidated February’s election for Vice Chair and removed anti-gun activist David Hogg from DNC leadership. This is yet another example how easily democrats change election rules and results when it looks like they are about to lose political power. Hogg was one of the survivors of the mass school shooting at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School Feb 2018. He quickly became the face of the anti-gun left and was publicly active for years afterwards. His time as DNC Vice Chair was loud and tumultuous. He most famously called to primary long serving democrat candidates in safe congressional seats. This didn’t go around well with the rest of the criminal enterprise, so they concocted a reason to remove him. He chose not to fight that removal and will return to grifting for money. As much as you (and I) may dislike Hogg, he did have a few things going for him. First, he appeared to be a straight young man, which are few and far between in the democrat party these days. His mistakes appear to be based on inexperience (young and dumb). Most importantly, he appears to have some persuasion skills, not unlike what we saw out of AOC in the beginning of her congressional career. AOC’s advisor at that time left, and so did her formidable persuasion skills. From here, it appears that Hogg’s skills are organic, and he is learning. He is not yet politically formidable but may end up getting there once he gets a bit more experience. Watch this guy. He may end up being as dangerous as Fetterman is turning out to be.
More later –
- AG