Howdy All, a few Interesting Items for your information. Enjoy –
In this issue –
1. Mail-in
2. Map
3. Hysteria
4. Clancy
5. Weapons
6. Collapse
7. DOGE
8. Costco
9. Yucking
1. Mail-in. We’ll start this week with a couple lawfare losses (alliteration anyone?) connected with Trump EO 14399, Ensuring Citizenship Verification and Integrity in Federal Elections. The 7-2 SCOTUS opinion relied on the rule change being too close to the 2026 Midterms, though the dissent by Alito and Thomas noted that problem was entirely due to lawfare by the states suing the change and in turn intentionally delaying it. Justice Kavanaugh once again gave the Trump administration a path forward to locking this approach in stone, one I expect him to take. As a result, the rule is on hold pending future judicial action, and the 2026 midterms are no longer in play. Still, we have at least 3 SCOTUS Justices (Kavanaugh, Alito and Thomas) ready, willing and able to support the anti-mail-in ballot EO, which are three more than we started with. Where does this go next? While it is a defeat, it did at least prep the battlefield for 2028, and I expect the Trump administration to take another bite at the apple in the next few months regardless of what happens in November so as to have this settled law by Election Day 2028, making it a rather nice Pyrrhic victory for the left. Two of the supportive Justices apparently read the amicus briefs from the red state testifying that implementing this change was somewhere between easy to already done.
2. Map. The next story is ugly, with the MO Supreme Court weighing in against the new reapportionment map a couple weeks ago after the state primary conducted under the new map. Lawfare continued after MO redistricted its congressional map Sept 2025. Lawfare hit the fan, with the left demanding a referendum on the new map Dec 2025. Their attempt was rejected by the Secretary of State. Proponents took their case to the courts, winning a unanimous MO Supreme Court opinion to throw out the new map Sept 3, after the state primary including candidates for federal office were already elected. SCOTUS Sept 10 refused to grant a state judge’s order upholding the new map, essentially overturning the legislature’s new map and invalidating the primary election results. Note that this is a very important result, with two Supreme courts, that of the State of Missouri and SCOTUS itself ready, willing and able to toss the results of a properly held statewide election based on a lawsuit. Keep that result in mind the next time these clowns try to tell you they simply can’t do this in the next democrat election fraud discovery.
3. Hysteria. And here we are again, considering the positives and negatives of military-grade AI in the complete absence of any data pro or con. The absence should tell all of us that this is little more than a persuasion op rather than anything real, though in this world persuasion is as real as anything else, especially if it works. As discussed last week, the opposition is foreign funded, with the op complete astroturf, orchestrated as a vehicle to sow doubt and discontent over here. Sadly, it’s worked pretty well to the point where democrats just selected opposition to datacenters at their top Nov 2026 campaign issue, which may mean they think affordability has won the day and are now using their Next Big Thing. The ever (un)reliable O’Bama climbed out from underneath his rock, and issued the order to putative House Speaker Hakeem Jefferies to bring legislation to regulate AI to the House floor should they grab a majority in November. I can’t think of a better way to lose the AI race than to put this group of idiots, congress or some future democrat regime in the WH in charge of regulating it. The Federalist’s Millie Hemingway on Fox News Sunday made the case that the AI hysteria is a typical Washington DC op by the insiders, a vehicle to allow regulatory capture of AI. The six or seven top AI companies are massively aligned with democrats. The only one that isn’t is xAI, with Musk. The democrats as usual want to make sure they have control for a post-Trump environment so they can restart the censorship regime, control and keep everyone out of public discourse for decades to come.
4. Clancy. I thought I said most of the important things to say about the Clancy mistrial last week. Silly me. Apparently wasn’t hardly started. The question arises: what happens to Clancy should she not be convicted of murdering her kiddos, goes to some asylum, and is released a couple years later? What options are there for the father, or for that matter, the rest of society? As it turns out, not only are there options, but those options ensure the deed doesn’t take place again the next time mommy has a sad. Sarah Hoyt wrote a piece exploring who gets to kill kids entitled The Mommy Standard, chronicling changing in who is in charge of the continuing life of kiddos. As we’ve seen here in the US in the half century between Roe and Dobbs, putting Mom completely in charge of the continuing life of kiddos without any participation by Dad who ends up paying for whatever decision Mom makes, is a recipe for disaster. Kids, family and homes are destroyed as thoroughly as anything LBJ did with The Great Society. If the decision involves three people, Mom, Dad and the kiddos, then these decisions must include three people, with someone speaking for the kiddo (extended family, perhaps, if the justice system is suspect or thoroughly anti-male like the Family Courts). It is important to note that the men are in the process of making their decision, with young men opting out of marriage in increasingly worrisome numbers. What do fathers do when their wives start killing their kids without judicial punishment? The Vigilance Committees really got the attention of local and state governance. The possibility exists for men to take matters in their own hands in increasing numbers against women if the justice system and juries don’t start taking this seriously.
5. Weapons. Jeff Childers in Coffee and COVID wrote a couple pieces last week suggesting we might have seen the first kinetic enemy action in orbit. I poked around the community a bit and did not get any verification or even a comment, so it might be better to treat the first part of the following as either wishful thinking or low grade SciFi. The story began Sept 11 (an auspicious date) with a WSJ story linking Chinese satellite imagery to an Iranian missile strike on Jordan that killed three US troops July 17. Iran obtained the photos from someone in or connected to China, launched the missiles, flew the strike, and gleefully published post-strike photos. US officials were silent, though they had already sanctioned three Chinese satellite companies in May for making imagery available to Iran. The next event had China reporting their Yaogan-50 reconnaissance satellite had broken up in orbit somewhere around July 20 in an anomalous event. The satellite was in a retrograde orbit, some 6 months after launch. There are at least 47 fragments now being tracked. Altitude is high enough that it will take centuries for the debris to deorbit. The second piece of this story comes via Childers two days later, quoting Air Force Secretary Meink Monday, Sept 14 revealing that Space Force has space control weapons in orbit today. This is an acknowledgement that the US has offensive capabilities currently operating in space today. Interesting timing, that. Meink revealed the capability during a speech at the Air Force Association’s Air, Space and Cyber conference Sept 14. Nice satellite you guys have there. Would be a shame if anything happened to it. Message sent. We will see if it is received. Note that offensive anti-satellite weapons are not all that difficult. Satellites are notoriously fragile, being sufficiently light weight to launch into orbit. You can take one out with a properly placed sounding rocket and a bucket of 10-penny nails. All the satellite has to do is intersect the static cloud of nails at orbital velocity and it shreds itself. Doing it without anyone watching is something else entirely.
6. Collapse. President Trump is among other things, a builder. He knows how to replace, repair, and improve buildings, venues, and places that people gather. And he’s pretty good at it. The latest target is the Kenned Center for the Performing Arts, which suffered a partial ceiling collapse over its Grand Foyer early Sept. No workers or guests were injured in the collapse. In response, Commerce Secretary Lutnick called for a shutdown of the Center. The current board blames past leadership for decades of neglect and deferred maintenance. Timing of this may be fortuitous, as the Center is in sufficient financial difficulty that it is weeks away from not being able to support payroll or routine maintenance contracts. The Center has been yet another flashpoint in ongoing anti-Trump lawfare following the Board decision to rename it into the Trump Center for the Performing Arts. The predictable lawsuit hit the predictable DC federal judge who issued the predictable ruling May and again in Sept that only Congress has the authority to rename the Center. Norm Eisen, who has been at the heart of the anti-Trump lawfare wars was one of the lawyers involved in the lawsuit. The rulings are currently being appealed. Closing the Center is now tied up in the ongoing lawfare, with the WH hinting that it will remain closed until the lawsuits are resolved. This was enough to trigger protests against a Trump attempt to tear the building down over the weekend. Theater kids gotta theater kid.
7. DOGE. In the swamp, no good deed goes unpunished. Last week’s reminder concerned FBI agents who tried to open a criminal investigation into Elon Musk. The vehicle was a DOGE e-mail asking federal employees what they accomplished at work, reporting 5 things they did at work the last week. The excuse for the investigation was that Musk used a non-government system (X / Twitter) for official purposes (Musk was head of DOGE at the time), potentially increasing income for himself. The agents laid it on pretty thick, comparing the Musk action with Hilly’s misuse of a private e-mail server for government business. Note that none of these clowns lifted a finger or said a word against Hilly for anything associated with her e-mail server, but pretend to be shocked, simply shocked at Musk. Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Grassley released a tranche of internal FBI e-mails 2017 – 2025 as part of their Crossfire Hurricane investigation. The same group of politicized FBI agents who were involved in the Russiagate hoax were in the process of turning their anti-Trump weapons on Musk for daring to go after the permanent bureaucracy. Three FBI agents were involved. Gounaud and Giardina were fired by FBI Director Patel in August over political weaponization accusations. The third, Thibault was also part of the e-mail discussion.
8. Costco. At first glance, it appeared that Costco got itself involved in battlespace preparation for the November midterms as they announced an increase in their 10-quart box of synthetic oil. The price increase also placed fleet limits on how much oil could be purchased at any one time. Cost added about $20 to a case they used to sell in the mid-$30s. There are a couple ways to manufacture synthetics. One is to use natural gas. The other is to use Group III base oils (which apparently Costco uses), which are a product of the refining process. The action may or may not reflect actual price increases on the front end. Costco usually plays things reasonably straight, though they tend to lean on the woke side of the world, so my guess is that they were playing it pretty straight. The media, OTOH, is beating the anti-Trump horse for all its worth.
9. Yucking. It turns out that NYC Mayor Mamdani ignored calls to not attend the 9-11 ceremony Friday week. He had a pretty good time yucking it up with AOC as the names of the fallen were read. Disrespectful. Certainly, though not in the way you would expect. Mamdani and AOC are both telling us that they just don’t care what anyone else thinks of them or their actions. They think they have won and it doesn’t matter what any of the rest of us think about it because we can’t touch them. Time to remind them otherwise. If their competence could only match their arrogance, they might get some real useful work done for their constituents. As it doesn’t, they are typical libs, only capable of destruction, which is what the Red – Green Alliance seems to be all about.
More later –
- AG