Howdy All, a few Interesting Items for your information. Enjoy –
In this issue –
1. Minneapolis
2. Lunar Base
3. SAVE
4. Zohran
5. TrumpRx
6. Endangerment
7. Maps
8. Trans
1. Minneapolis. The heat turned down significantly in Minneapolis over the course of the last two weeks as Tom Homan’s ICE mostly decreased its enhanced presence in the city. Homan announced the drawdown toward week’s end along with reporting 4,000 illegals arrested and removed from the streets. Why did this happen? When Homan was first appointed to oversee operations, he went to Minesota and met with Governor Walz and Mayor Frey. Actual details of the meetings were unclear, though in both cases, obstruction at the state and local level appeared to decrease. Walz even rolled out the National Guard for a time. Neither politician admitted any change in policy, though the hate ICE rhetoric did seem to decrease a notch or two. At the same time, both puffed themselves up with statements to the media, similar to that of a bully that just got popped in the mouth. No report on any meeting between Homan and intransigent state Attorney General Keith Ellison. From here, it does appear that state and local law enforcement are (however grudgingly) now cooperating with ICE, handing over known illegals in jail rather than releasing them into the wild without notice, which all by itself turns down the temperature several notches. If the illegals are handed off rather than released, ICE does not need nearly the muscular presence necessary, which in turn gives the NGO and billionaire funded protests an excuse to crank up the violence they had at the height of the festivities. Good job to all involved. Where to next?
2. Lunar Base. Speaking of pivots, Elon Musk announced that SpaceX was going to prioritize building a sustainable lunar base as their first off-planet goal, a self-growing city on the moon in less than 10 years. The lunar base temporarily replaces Mars as their immediate goal. The change in focus is more in line with how SpaceX does business (rapid launch, fail, fix, try it again) than a Mars colonization tied today to a 26-month Hohman Transfer launch window.
- It only takes two days to get to the moon, and everything you learn how to do on the way to the moon, on the moon, and with the moon is immediately applicable to Mars except for the current 6–9-month flight time each way. SpaceX covered most of its plans in an Oct 30, 2025, update. Musk figures that the self-sustaining, growing lunar city can be done in in less than a decade, while it will take twice that long to do the same thing on Mars.
- Musk previously announced plans to build an orbital constellation of data center satellites. As an aside, I remain skeptical about the necessity for massive data centers, as Jay Valentine’s Fractal Computing distributed architecture may end up doing the same thing to massive data centers for AI that the Salk Polio vax did to the growing iron lung industry. I have also read enough apocalyptic SciFi over the years that I am uncomfortable with building an AI, connecting it to unlimited energy, materials, encouraging it to grow without limits and the ability to turn it off.
- Musk ties the orbital AI data center into the lunar base proposal by dusting off the half-century old O’Neill High Frontier plan to lift material off the lunar surface and build solar power satellites with the material. Unclear whether raw material or complete data center satellites will be launched by lunar surface mass drivers. Either would work.
- In choosing this direction, Musk and SpaceX announced they are going to the moon regardless of what NASA / Artemis or Jeff Bezos’ Blue Origin is planning on doing, though SpaceX will continue to be an integral part of Artemis, providing a lunar lander.
- Building this sort of thing on the moon requires all the expertise and new equipment necessary to go to Mars, particularly an operable Starship 4, on orbit refueling, the use of extraterrestrial materials, the use of extraterrestrial ice, and long-term human activity in low gravity (zero to 1/6th G). There are serious health impacts of long-term exposure to low gravity fields. It may very well turn out that artificial gravity (usually a spinning spacecraft) is necessary to mitigate the health risks.
- The delay in the focus on Mars may allow sufficient time to develop a nuclear rocket and / or space nuclear reactor. Nuclear rocket performance is high enough to significantly decrease reliance on low energy transfer trajectories. At the same time, a fully functional, growing lunar base will set the stage for industrial capture and use of earth crossing asteroids and comets, both of which are high in ice content. All in all, I like this pivot a lot. Should be fun to watch or participate in.
3. SAVE. The House passed the current version of the SAVE Act 218 – 213 last week with one Republican voting against and one democrat voting for. It is on its way to the US Senate where it currently has at least 43 co-sponsors. Senator Fetterman is expected to support it while Senator Murkowski is expected not to. Senator Mike Lee claims it already has 50 votes in the senate.
- The Act only applies to elections with candidates for federal office on the ballot. Among other things, it requires proof of citizenship to vote, bans or strictly limits mail-in voting, requires purging of non-citizens for voting rolls, require an overhaul of online registration to meet new federal requirements, impose criminal penalties for assisting someone to vote without documentation, and require state voting lists to be submitted to DHS for comparison with their lists.
- Both parties are in high dudgeon over the legislation, with democrats in full race baiting, Jim Crow (and who else would know what constitutes Jim Crow other than democrats?), and nuclear winter mode. Republicans are in full if this doesn’t pass, we will lose the country mode. Both are overblown.
- Alaska senior US Senator Lisa Murkowski made an absolute fool of herself last week, something getting increasingly difficult for her to do, opining that the legislation is an unwarranted and unconstitutional federal intrusion into state election laws. This ignores very clear language in the Constitution that allows congress to do precisely that in federal elections. She went on to rewrite her voting history, hoping her constituents would forget that she was the only Republican to vote for Nancy Pelosi’s attempt to federalize all elections at all levels nationwide in 2021. We here in Alaska haven’t forgotten (yet).
- Where does this go next? As it is not a budget bill and democrats are expected to filibuster, expect 60 votes necessary to pass it in the senate. In order to get it passed. Senate Majority Leader John Thune will have to nuke the silent filibuster, something he has refused so far to do, and force democrats into an old fashioned run your mouth filibuster, on an issue with 70 – 80% support across all demographics.
4. Zohran. One added comment on NYC Mayor Zohran Mamdani allowing homeless to freeze to death on sidewalks rather than forcing them into shelters. I incorrectly described what he was doing as compassion as a socialist. Ran across an alternate explanation that I offer for your consideration. Mamdani did not show himself as a compassionate socialist. Rather, he demonstrated that he is little more than a doctrinaire Muslim, which has no problem with any Infidel assuming room temperature simply because they are Infidel. CAIR reportedly trained hundreds of putative candidates for state and local elections. A bunch of them are running this cycle, one to oppose Karen Bass for LA Mayor. Be careful what you vote for, as one of the tenants of Islam is that you can lie to Infidel about anything at any time.
5. TrumpRx. As part of the ongoing effort to make drugs more affordable, the WH launched the official TrumpRx web site Feb 6. The WH secured reduced drug prices by negotiating Most Favored Nation deals with 14 major pharmaceutical companies Sept – Dec last year. Five of them currently offer prescription discounts on the web site. These are the first five he reached an agreement with. Unlike the early O’BamaCare website, this one does appear to initially work. The problem for years was that drug companies were charging lower prices for drugs sold overseas than they were over here. That ended worldwide, with American customers getting costs no higher than any drug is sold overseas for, a change in the pharmaceutical business model that shook it to its foundation. In return, Trump supports wider sale of GLP-1 weight loss drug sales, a huge and growing market at prices a quarter or more of what is currently being charged.
6. Endangerment. EPA Administrator Lee Zeldin repealed the O’Bama-era endangerment finding that classified CO2 as a pollutant, allowing the EPA to regulate its emissions nationwide. This piece of regulatory sleight of hand was the foundation for every single environmental regulation of emissions written since Dec 2009, 16 awful, expensive, fraudulent years, costing over a trillion dollars of needless regulatory impact. The endangerment finding has been in the heart of spiking energy costs, vehicle prices, literally anything and everything that uses electricity or burns fuel for any purpose. Next on the hit parade would be a repeal of the 2007 Massachusetts v EPA which allowed EPA to regulate emissions from vehicles and power plants. Unless this disappears, the next democrat regime will simply reinstate the endangerment finding. This is a great first step. Time to lock it in via legislation that will prohibit the EPA from regulating CO2 emissions.
7. Maps. Bad news in the redistricting wars and a lesson for conservatives: The courts will allow any redistricting map to be drawn as long as it confers political advantage. They will not allow those maps to be drawn for racial advantage, an opinion we may very well see out of SCOTUS in the Louisiana redistricting case this summer. When your veto proof Republican legislative majority refuses to draw new maps because it is not playing nicely with democrats (Republican senate majority in Indiana, you know who you are), democrats will prepare their new maps and shove them down your throats nanoseconds after grabbing their new majority in any state after any election. These maps are done, ready to go, and the software is relatively easy and quick to use. So, be ready, the sharks are circling. It is time Our Side plays the new game by their new rules.
8. Trans. When you pander to mental illness, teens with raging hormones, by pumping them full of more and different raging hormones, top it off with medical mutilation, and promises that the malpractice will make everything better, do you actually expect the kid to get better? In recent years, this is the formula for mass shootings in public schools. The most recent of these took place in Tumbler Ridge, BC, a remote mining town. The guy transitioning to a gal started by killing his mother and 11-year-old stepbrother, and moved on to the secondary school, killing six and wounding another 25 before taking his own life. Note that all of this took place in Canada, currently with some really harsh gun control laws which apparently work just as poorly up there as they do down here. Media and Canadian government fell all over themselves attempting to call him by his newly preferred pronouns. How well did that work?
More later –
- AG