Howdy All, a few Interesting Items for your information. Enjoy –
In this issue –
1. Venezuela
2. Indiana
3. Bondi
4. Somalis
5. Senate
6. Reiner
7. Soyuz
1. Venezuela. As Trump increased the pressure on Venezuela strongman Maduro last week, there were several incidents. First and most importantly, his nationwide address.
- Trump asked for time to address the nation Weds, Dec 17. The media dropped everything, expecting it to be a declaration of war against Venezuela following seizure of an oil tanker. It wasn’t. Instead, Trump pivoted smartly and launched into a 20-minute defense of his economic approach with an emphasis on the economy getting better, all news nobody in the media outside FNC or the talk shows were covering. The notion that he pulled a bait and switch on the media demonstrates masterful manipulation of everything they think they are and are doing.
- As I noted last week, the US seized a Venezuelan oil tanker on its way to Cuba Dec 10. This was a two-fer, damaging both the Venezuelan and Cuban economy. Shortly afterwards, he announced a blockade of Venezuela, normally an Act of War, something that seemed to escape the notice of the Sedition 6 and their media cheerleaders. As of this writing, the US seized a second and perhaps a third tanker over the weekend. For its part, the Maduro regime is trying to coordinate Chinese / Russian protection for the oil exports. So far, neither seems to want to participate in the festivities, something that may or may not last. Given the length of the logistics chain, my guess is that their interest in belling this particular cat is not high.
- Why is Trump doing this? In addition to all the obvious reasons connected to pressuring the narco – terrorist state that Maduro runs, there is the possibility that Sidney Powell’s Kraken has shaken off the mud it was buried under and is rising above water level. I have seen a bit of traffic that suggests that the Chavez – Maduro regime has their grimy little fingers in the Smartmatic world, with the ability to diddle elections in up to 70 nations for a price. Do I believe it? Nope, once burned, twice shy. OTOH, it never pays to ignore the allegations either. If we take down a narco – terrorist state that is waging war on the US with WMD (fentanyl), and that also crashes a possible election fraud vector, is that a Bad Thing?
- Regardless of your opinion of Powell’s Kraken, one basic question remains: Exactly why do we need voting machines? What, if anything do they improve? Note that they were pushed by the intel community as a vehicle for government change during the Cold War, something they were designed to do. Question is why use them here unless regime change is also on the table? Everywhere that uses voting machines take longer to produce results than those using paper ballots. They all have problems producing ballots for recounts. Audits are never possible. And there is always an excuse for odd results. Every single one of these is a Red Flag. Or should be.
2. Indiana. The Indiana senate Dec 11 rejected a redistricting effort that would redistrict two democrat districts in the state out of existence. In the vote, 21 Republican senators crossed the aisle to vote with 10 democrats to defeat the effort. The vote was a surprise and as of this writing I have not yet found out why it unfolded as it did. The Usual Suspects trotted out rationale including constitutional principles, national Republican (Trump administration) interference, constituent feedback, opposition to Gerrymandering, intimidation and threats, other than the last two, none of which I believe. Whatever happened, it is personal, local, and will guarantee a festive Republican primary season this year. Congratulations guys. You really showed them (/sarc).
3. Bondi. A father – son team committed a terrorist mass shooting at Bondi Beach in Sydney Australia a week ago. The members of the Religion of Endless Outrage managed to kill 15 and injure another 40. The 50-year-old father immigrated from India. His 24-year-old son was born in Oz. The pair spent a month in the Philippines in Nov likely training for the murders. The immigrant and his son managed to get their hot little hands on a bolt action rifle, a shotgun, sufficient ammunition, and enough material to build multiple pipe bombs which were used in the attack. At least four people tried to stop the shooting. The first three died of their wounds. The fourth survived being shot by police after disarming the son. Police stopped and detained 7 others four days after the attack. These appear to be part of a second round of attacks. The Prime Minister, a typical pandering lefty, immediately started prattling on about more and better gun control laws, which was laughed at by the general public. Oz already has one of the strictest gun control laws in the western world. It worked well enough to disarm the public and allow these clowns to go through may cycles of shoot, reload, and shoot again during the attack. Perhaps a better approach would be to simply stop importing people who hate you, which should start with followers of Mohammed.
4. Somalis. As more facts trickle out of the Somali infestation in Minneapolis, we are starting to get a view, however limited, of the larger problem. One view is that the Somalis are simply practicing their native heritage, piracy, best memorialized in the 2013 Tom Hanks movie Captain Phillips about a Somali team grabbing a cargo ship. First story comes out of MN via 2020 census data showing that 81% of Somali born households were on one or more forms of welfare. This includes 27% on cash welfare, 54% on food stamps (SNAP), and 73% on Medicaid. This compares poorly with native born Americans in MN, with only 21% on one or more forms of welfare. The Somali population in MN is entirely a government artifact, growing from zero in 1990 to over 80,000 in 2020. Nearly every Somali household with children is on some sort of welfare. Making it worse, the newly imported population is also refusing to assimilate, particularly making little to no attempt to learn English. Current Somalia GDP is in the neighborhood of $12 – 14 billion 2024 / 2025 (estimated). The fraud committed by these 80,000 is ballooning past $8 billion and may end up double that amount, making fraud committed by these “guests” in the neighborhood of the entire GDP of the homeland. Apparently, piracy is an international pursuit.
5. Senate. There are two changes that Republicans in the senate need to make. I mentioned the silent filibuster before. This is the modern innovation used and abused by democrats that fell out of the change in senate rules that reset cloture for filibusters from two thirds to 60 votes. The same change allowed a single senator to signal (or threaten) a filibuster, stopping all action until a cloture vote was held. Senators no longer need to stand up and run their mouths in public and on TV for hours to days. This innovation has allowed democrats to abuse the process over the two Trump terms. Shut down the silent filibuster and this foolishness will mostly end. If the opposition wants to talk a while, let them. The other form of abuse is the blue slip process. Blue slip is a tradition that allows home state senators to block nominations. This was typically used on judicial nominations, allowing blue states to block conservative judges. During the Trump administration, it is being used to block appointment of federal prosecutors, which has been the hangup in prosecuting both James Comey and Letitia James for lying to congress and mortgage fraud respectively. The acting prosecutor brings charges, the case goes to trial, and an enterprising federal judge throws the case out because the prosecutor was never confirmed by the senate. In these blue districts, the more times you attempt to bring charges, the easier it is for the defense team to cry political prosecution which in turn makes it harder to send these miscreants to jail. Funny this never seems to be a problem for democrat prosecutors engaged in anti-Trump lawfare. The Blue Slip tradition was used by senate democrats to hold judicial vacancies open at the end of Trump’s first term, allowing Biden to fill the positions with his radicals. It is being used again for the same reason. Senate Republicans need to get off the dime and end both of these. Tradition means little when one side absolutely refuse to play by the rules. It is time for senate Republicans to start playing the game by the democrat’s new rules.
6. Reiner. In one of the sadder bits of news last week, Actor / Director / Producer Rob Reiner and his wife were murdered by Riner’s estranged son. The wife survived long enough to finger the son for cutting their throats. The son, who was in and out of rehab for a raging drug habit for years was quickly arrested. Reiner was among the most vocal anti-Trump members of the Hollywood elite, participating in and leading multiple efforts since 2017 to remove Trump from office. Trump responded to the murders mourning the deaths but reminding one and all what Reiner had personally done over the years using the phrase terminal TDS in his post on X / Twitter. This shocked, simply shocked all the Usual Suspects who had the opening they so desperately needed to say Bad Things about Trump. Both the deaths and Trump’s response are sad events. But if you are in the business of spending years gleefully kicking someone publicly over political disagreements, don’t be surprised if they don’t remember you less than fondly when you are gone.
7. Soyuz. I mentioned this accident a week or two ago. With additional information, it looks like the Russians suffered a bout of launch fever which ended up damaging its only operable Soyuz launch pad. While there is not a lot of information out of the Russians of the nature of the failure, it appears a mobile platform necessary to erect and prepare the rocket for launch was supposed to be retracted out of the way of the exhaust plume from the first stage during launch. After multiple failed attempts, the platform was moved as far out of the way as possible, which was not far enough. It was never locked into its stowed position. This failure normally means that something significant structural member is bent. The pressure to launch was sufficient that the leadership felt compelled to launch, which is what they ended up doing. It may take the Russians two years to repair this unless they find an alternative approach, something SpaceX has demonstrated regularly; current Russian space program? Not so much. SpaceX has agreed to fly additional cargo and manned flights to make up for the Russian inability to launch missions to ISS. Launch fever in the rocket world works a lot like get-home-it is in the aviation world, enticing someone who ought to know better to go for it without everything being as it should for the planned flight. NASA most infamously did this with Challenger, launching big solid rockets a full 30° F colder than any big solid rocket had ever been launched before (a Titan-34D out of Vandenberg at 57° F). Space is a tough business, even tougher when you do stupid things.
More later –
- AG