Howdy All, a few Interesting Items for your information. Enjoy –
In this issue –
1. Charlie
2. Stabbing
3. Jobs
4. Electors
5. Alligator
6. Drugs
7. Kaine
1. Charlie. After the political assassination of Charlie Kirk, I am in a frame of mind I haven’t been in since I watched the towers come down and the Pentagon burn 24 years ago. Admiral Yamamoto said it best following the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor: “I fear all we have done is to awaken a sleeping giant and fill him with a terrible resolve.” The political left for over 15 years (the Age of O’Bama) has gloried in cancellation, political violence, and generally putting their large caliber thumbs on people who don’t agree with them. They reject major parts of the founding documents of this nation starting with the Declaration of Independence and the Bill of Rights. Constitutional rights of free speech, religion, property, and firearms are among the first to go. I think the time for dialogue with the left is over, at least for a while. I don’t think they realize or appreciate what they have triggered. Charlie Kirk was all about debate, and he was murdered for it. Kurt Schlichter has long observed that the left is not going to enjoy living under their new rules. I think we are on the doorstep of doing to the political left in this nation what we did to the Islamists worldwide following 9-11. It won’t be pretty. It won’t be easy. And I don’t think it will be particularly bloody. I am a fan of two Kipling poems from 110+ years ago. Both are cautionary tales. The Gods of the Copybook Headings is the first. Second is Beginnings, which more closely describes the times we are now in. I hope the left enjoys their new world. I don’t and won’t but will do my level best to dismantle it down to the foundations and then sow salt on the ground afterwards. From the Kipling Society, the original The Beginnings, 1917:
It was not part of their blood,
It came to them very late
With long arrears to make good,
When the English began to hate.
They were not easily moved,
They were icy-willing to wait
Till every count should be proved,
Ere the English began to hate.
Their voices were even and low,
Their eyes were level and straight.
There was neither sign nor show,
When the English began to hate.
It was not preached to the crowd,
It was not taught by the State.
No man spoke it aloud,
When the English began to hate.
It was not suddenly bred,
It will not swiftly abate,
Through the chill years ahead,
When Time shall count from the date
That the English began to hate.
2. Stabbing. Second story from last week actually took place Aug 22 in Charlotte, NC as a mentally ill criminal murdered a young Ukrainian refugee on light rail. The attack was unprovoked, deadly, and watched by the other passengers on the train who did nothing to stop it, nothing to apprehend the perp, and nothing to assist the victim afterwards. Was race a factor in the attack? You bet your bippy. The perp was black as were the other passengers in that part of the car. The victim wasn’t. The entire attack was captured by surveillance video complete with the perp dripping blood as he walked off the train chortling about getting that white b@#$h. He was later arrested, as he had been 14 previous times. If the assault took place Aug 22, why did it take 10 – 14 days for the video to be released to the public? You need look no farther than the woke mess that Charlotte has become under democrat mayor Vi Lyles since 2017 and the radical city council that works in concert with her. They have managed to install in Charlotte all the standard democrat pathologies of soft on crime, police bashing, violent criminals released (like this perp) to re-offend, coddling homelessness and public insanity, and a spiking crime rate. Think of the disaster LA Mayor Karen Bass can turn LA into after another couple terms in office and you will be close. Lyles and the city council actively fought release of the video so as to successfully get through a local primary last Tuesday. Among other things on the ballot was a 1% increase in city taxes specifically for light rail expansion expected to bring in over $25 billion of federal $$$ for the same group of woke clowns to play with assuming anyone wants to ride on it after this attack. The most recent release of the perp was done by a magistrate who also owns a treatment center for mentally ill patients. She released the perp to get treatment, sort of using public safety to ensure her bottom line continues to grow. Last week, DoJ announced they would be prosecuting the perp under federal law that allows federal prosecution of people who commit criminal acts on transportation funded by the feds. This is done under a 1991 change to federal code. Lyles won her primary last week. Several members of the city council were challenged by black democrats interested in things other than living in a criminal cesspool. Don’t know how any of them did.
3. Jobs. Another poor jobs report had the media and democrats pointing their righteous fingers at the Trump administration, charging him with malfeasance. The economy supposedly added only 22,000 jobs in August. The bad news is that in any other world, this is a really anemic number. The good news is that it puts further pressure on the fed to cut interest rates, something they are expected to at least consider this month. These numbers were generated under Trump’s new Bureau of Labor Statistics nominee, who is being fought tooth and nail by senate democrats as they slow-roll thousands of other Trump nominations. A deeper look at the numbers is in order. First and most importantly is the number of illegals who self-deported so far, estimated at 1.6 million so far. At the same rate, that will approach 2.4 million by year’s end. Secondly, about 200,000 federal employees have left public employment in the first half of 2025. Another 100.000 are expected by year’s end. Add to that another 70,000 retirements from federal public service in the first half of 2025. At the same rate, that will be around 100,000 total by year’s end. I do not expect the federal positions to be refilled. I expect they will be eliminated as Trump continues to downsize. The jobs previously held by illegals are likely a mix of low to high end jobs, so there will be a mix of everything from automation for the low end to increased employment for high end US citizens for the high end jobs. Working the other direction is the penetration of AI into the workplace. I have seen a few things that claim entry level jobs (programming, for instance) are starting to dry up. Don’t know if I believe that as yet, but offer it as a data point or something to watch. But at the top level, if you have 2.4 million people already left the country, some percentage of those jobs will be open and in need of filling. The total number of jobs for feds, say 400,000 by year end, are all going away. These are high end, high paying positions. It might be that the Trump economy is doing exactly what it is intended to be doing, and the total number of jobs ought not to be a surprise. The mitigating fact is that all these numbers are likely garbage, and we won’t know for years precisely what is going on.
4. Electors. Finally, some good news out of Michigan. A Whitmer-appointed state judge dismissed a state lawfare case against 25 Republican alternate Electors Sept 9. These people were charged with fraud after signing a certificate falsely claiming that Trump won the 2020 election in MI. The 15 alternate Electors and their backups were all charged with making false claims and dragged through the state courts for years in another example of the process being the punishment. Alternate Electors have a long history in the US in contested elections. It is up to congress to decide which slate to seat, and which slate to count. MI Attorney General Nessel, who brought the charges was unexpectedly upset at the dismissal. The judge dismissed because there was insufficient evidence for criminal intent, which is the same defense every single Republican hunted down following the Jan 6 protest had, not that it mattered to Biden’s (In)Justice Department. There is still a fake elector case going on in Arizona.
5. Alligator. A federal appeals court stayed an O’Bama judge order to shut down Alligator Alcatraz on environmental grounds last week. The O’Bama judge was pretty cute in her order, ordering fencing, lighting, and generators be removed and only current detainees allowed in the facility. Her excuse was that the facility threatened a sensitive wetland, and it would reverse billions of dollars spent in environmental restoration. Her problem is that the Dade Collier Training and Transition Airport is still owned and operated by the State of Florida. Federal ownership, which gives her jurisdiction, simply doesn’t exist (yet). The facility was started in 1968 as an SST hub in south Florida. After the SST was cancelled, it was never developed into an active airport but had a nice 10,000+ foot long runway and enough concrete to support operations. It was turned into a training facility for general aviation and has been well used for nearly 50 years. The most recent traffic count I could find was 2017 or so, when it got over 14,000 aircraft operations (takeoffs, landings, low approaches). Essentially, the greens and their seeing eye judge are pretending this facility was never used and any current or future use will do grievous harm to the wildlife. The appeals court understood that this was an active facility used for a half century before being partly converted into its new use.
6. Drugs. The Trump administration deployed forces in Caribbean north of Venezuela as they increase military pressure on the narco-terrorist state Chavez, Maduro and the Cubans have managed to turn Venezuela into. The first action was the destruction of a powerboat carrying drugs in international waters on Sept 2. The boat and its operators were identified as Tren de Aragua. There were 11 on the boat. It was hit and its operators and crew killed. In response, Venezuela sent a pair of F-16s over one of the US destroyers in a show of force. Venezuela purchased a squadron’s worth of the jets in the 1980s. How many of them are still operational is anyone’s guess. I would expect the next airshow to be splashed from the air either by NAVAIR or weapons on whatever they get close to. Nothing like killing cartel members during an export run to get their attention. The action was not without its detractors, as Senator Rand Paul opined on Meet the Press that this was an illegal act. Sometimes Paul spends too much time channeling his Inner Libertarian and forgets existing federal law.
7. Klaine. Every now and then, we are reminded we dodged a real bullet by not elevating a democrat to president or VP. Last week’s participant was Senator Tim Kaine (D, VA), Hilly’s VP running mate in 2016. Kaine sits on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. During a hearing, questioning Riley Barns, Trump nominee for Assistant Secretary of State for democracy, human rights and labor, Barnes was asked where those rights come from. He channeled the Declaration of Independence, one of the two founding documents of the Republic, noting they come God, our Creator, not from laws or our governments. Kaine immediately took exception, calling the response troubling, comparing that viewpoint with the theocratic government of Iran, which also believes rights come from a creator. This idiot has apparently killed too many brain cells over the years to remember the foundation of what he swore an oath to uphold. Yes, we dodged a bullet.
More later –
- AG