Howdy All, a few Interesting Items for your information. Enjoy –
In this issue –
1. EV Compact
2. Iran
3. Refunds
4. Swalwell
5. Ballroom
6. FACE
1. EV Compact. One of the smarmier little election frauds in process is the notion that any state can simply pass legislation to pledge their electoral votes, regardless of the outcome in the state, to the winner of the popular vote, something known at the National Popular Vote Interstate Compact. As of today, there are 19 signatories, 18 states plus DC, with the White Witch Spamberger led democrat junta in VA being the most recent signatory last week. The action triggered the predictable Black Pill missives from Our Side, starting with we are all gonna die and getting worse. Problem is, both the democrats pushing this garbage and the Black Pilled conservatives are doing little more than playing to their audience.
- How so? First, I do agree that such a compact between 20-25 states is a dangerous thing, but not for the reason those on Our Side claim. An Interstate Compact has no ability to amend the US Constitution It is, rather an agreement between the states to do something or another. Think water rights along a common river on the border and you will get the idea. States agree on something, propose it to congress, which decides to either approve or reject. Further, such a compact needs to be then signed by the President, something not possible under this one, though with a democrat congress and president, sadly would be. If such an idiotic approach was possible, why didn’t the Confederates use it to protect slavery? Answer: because it was too stupid to try.
- At the conclusion of the 2024 presidential election, the National Popular Vote Interstate Compact had 18 blue states plus the District of Columbia, 208 Electoral votes pledged to the popular vote winner in that election, which ended up as Donald J Trump. Yet every single one of these blue states sent in electoral vote delegations pledged to Kamala Harris, who did not win the popular vote pledged to the popular vote winner, Donald Trump. Not a single one of them were either asked nor had to explain why their Electoral Votes went to Harris rather than to Trump.
- The short form of the argument is that nothing in the constitution allows amendment via the state compact route. I earlier acknowledged that this effort is dangerous, as it further disenfranchises voters from the outcome. When your vote and your wishes don’t matter, as they wouldn’t to the losers on the side of the Compact that did not win the national popular vote, why vote? Which may be the greater goal of democrats.
- Should that happen, what do you clowns on the left think the reaction on the political right is going to be? We already got an infinitesimal taste of that reaction on Jan 6, 2021, an unarmed reaction worried that the election had been stolen respectfully asking congress to take a second look. Pelosi and Shumer chose another, more destructive path. What do you think is going to happen when an election is actually stolen in plain sight of the entire nation via a national compact? OTOH, maybe that is the reaction they really want. Be careful of wanting things, as you might end up getting what you want, though not in the way you want or expect them.
- There are a couple of existing tools built into the system that can respond to this foolishness. The first and most important is that congress can pick and choose which EV delegations to seat in the Electoral College. Similarly, legislatures which choose those delegations can send delegations that do not mirror the national popular vote, rather mirroring the actual statewide vote for president. And they can do this in real time.
- SCOTUS can, but ultimately shouldn’t get involved, as this battle ought to be fought in congress on Jan 6 when the Electoral College is convened.
2. Iran. We are in the end game of the war with Iran. Trump executed a strategic masterstroke last week, grabbing the IRGC’s final weapon, shutting down traffic through the Strait of Hormuz and turning it against Iran via a blockade of all inbound / outbound traffic. This effectively strangles their economy, as nothing will be shipped out of Kharg Island. Over time, it will also strangle Iran’s oil and natural gas sector, as active wells will need to be shut down because there is no place to store the new oil. Petroleum is all about maintaining the flow, with storage and refining sized based on a daily flow of crude. Once the wells are shut down, some of them won’t be able to reopen to produce again without something done to make the flow resume. The longer the blockade continues, the longer it will take to resume production.
- The US also reestablished traffic through the Strait for a few days until the IRGC started taking pot shots at traffic, something they weren’t supposed to be doing. It is unclear whether this was intentional IRGC-wide or actions by True Believers executing their own personal DIP (Die in Place) mission.
- There have been a few ships carrying Iranian cargo attempt to run the blockade. One took fire over the weekend, with a hole blown in its engine room. The US Marines now control the ship.
- Trump last week announced that Iran agreed to all US conditions and that the war was over. He even claimed to be considering traveling to Islamabad, Pakistan for the final round of peace talks, which may or may not take place. This is classic Trump negotiating, announcing the agreement, the end of the war prematurely to leverage an agreement from Iran before they are ready for one. The IRGC / Basij know this. Worse (or better, because it makes them predictable) it means their goal remains the same as it has been for the last couple months, to extend the festivities until US political will runs out, something everyone on every side knows and understands.
- The agreement also includes transfer of enriched uranium, all 460 kg of it. If the Iranian negotiators were showing off before the war, they will have a prove it problem. One writer noted last week that US nuclear experts want to take a close look at the enriched uranium to determine where it came from. Apparently, there are fingerprints left by processing techniques that identify the source of the material, which is most likely China, Russia, North Korea or Pakistan. We might discover some US fingerprints pointing back at the O’Bama regime.
- It is unclear at this point whether that meeting will even happen, with Iranians being Iranians. It is also unclear how much sway the remaining IRGC / Basij bitter enders have on the civilian government. They may be the only remaining power left or they may be a loose collection of bitter enders, similar to Japanese soldiers hiding on Pacific Islands still fighting days to years after the Japanese surrender in 1945. I think the real answer is somewhere between the two possibilities. Sadly, we have no good feel as to how big their threat remains.
- One of the things a cease fire allows CENTCOM and Israel do is compile a new target list. All they have to do is look for digging around Iran, and with the number of surveillance assets coupled with complete control of airspace over Iran, I expect they are doing precisely that. I also expect Mossad to be building a second target list of IRGC / Basij cells for future (or current) attention.
3. Refunds. Last Wednesday was tax day, the first one following passage of the Big Beautiful Bill last year. Average refund this year was $3,400, with seniors getting over $6,000 via the end of taxation of Social Security. All that money is now hitting bank accounts for those who file online. For those that don’t, it will take a while to cut the checks. For those who pay estimated taxes, the refund shows up as no requirement to write checks for a quarter or two. Want to juice the economy? I can think of no better way than to put thousands of unexpected dollars of taxpayer’s own money back into their bank accounts. Someone would almost think the timing was planned this way.
4. Swalwell. It only took a week, the political hit job on California’s leading democrat gubernatorial candidate Eric Swalwell. The initial round of hit pieces was published around Feb 10. The orchestrated Me-Too outrage loop ramped up nicely. By midweek, he suspended his campaign for governor. By Friday, he resigned from the House. The allegations were similar to those against Bill Cosby, the use of roofies in drinks to knock out women and have sex with them, old fashioned date rape. Swalwell was one of the democrats designated liars, leading the anti-Trump jihad for Nancy Pelosi, who elevated him from a city council member in northern California to the national stage in congress. His first congressional race was against a multiple term democrat that Pelosi wanted out of her way. After being elected, Swalwell became a Pelosi hit man, a role he relished. His problem was that like Biden, he was no longer useful in democrat endless quest to gain and increase their political power. He decided to enter the Cali race to replace Gavin Newsom as governor. In Cali’s system, all candidates run in a jungle primary with the top two making the runoff. Leading this time around is Republican Steve Hilton with 22%, Swalwell next at 18% with a second Republican right on his heels. Democrats couldn’t stand two Republicans to be on the ballot for governor in November, so they took him out via manufactured political hit. Swalwell’s problems with women were well known in the political world but acceptable as long as he was useful. His resignation also prompted a Republican congress critter with girlfriend problems (she committed suicide) to similarly resign, retaining the slim Republican majority in congress. There are some residual ripples from this affair, as one of Swalwell’s buds on his womanizing trips was Ruben Gallego (D, AZ) who is now a US Senator. He has some ‘splaning to do. Gallego remains useful to democrats today. How long that lasts is anyone’s guess.
5. Ballroom. I wrote about this a week ago, with the first round of lawfare against the Trump WH ballroom. Round two continued last week. At the end of round one, a DC Circuit lifted the initial injunction against construction on national security grounds (the bunker being built under it) and sent it back to the trial court. Last week’s round 2 began with Judge Leon, being such a good steward of all things legal that he decided to dabble in construction, issuing a second injunction a couple days later, approving construction of the bunker and halting all other construction pending trial. While logical, this does get the federal judiciary into the construction business, something I didn’t think was on their list of assigned responsibilities. The Trump administration went right back to the DC Circuit with an appeal. It took less than a day for them to release the hold, likely because the National Trust for Historic Preservation lacks standing to even file the lawsuit, something Judge Leon should have figured out.
6. FACE. The drip, drip, drip of evidence on corruption of the Biden Merrick Garland Do(In)Justice continues. Last week’s edition detailed how they systematically targeted pro-life activists for FACE Act prosecutions, often at the behest of Planned Parenthood. Must be a good deal, having the entire law enforcement apparatus of the US government at your beck and call to use against your political enemies. The Trump DoJ issued a 900-page report supported by over 700,000 internal DoJ records detailing how the Biden – Garland DoJ used biased enforcement, demands for harsh sentencing, aggressive arrest tactics, and collaborated with pro-abortion groups for surveillance, arrests, prosecution and sentencing, topping it all with a healthy load of anti-religious bias in statements and actions. The left rails incessantly about fascism but seems to practice it every chance they get.
More later –
- AG