Howdy All, a few Interesting Items for your information. Enjoy –
In this issue –
1. Jasmine
2. EU Fine
3. Lawsuit
4. Cosmonaut
5. Venezuela
6. Raccoons
7. CAFÉ
8. Gun Sales
1. Jasmine. Much laughter out of Texas Republicans gleeful that they believe they’ve tricked congress critter Jasmine Crockett (D, Houston) to run for US Senate against incumbent John Cornyn next year. Crockett took the bait and other democrats are in the process of dropping out of the race, freeing her to spend all her resources bashing Republicans. Warning to gleeful Republicans: be careful what you wish for.
- Crockett is rumored to be tossing her name out so as to parlay the run into a lucrative media career. Problem is: What if she isn’t? What if she is serious about being a US Senator? While she is subject of much ridicule on the right for her antics, her issues, and her way of presenting her message, whatever you might think, she is effective in her own way. And we really don’t want any more effective democrats in higher office. We really don’t. The Texas race will be run on wall-to-wall Trump bashing woven into endless race baiting. Her name is already well known, so she won’t have to spend a lot of money introducing herself. All she has to do is turn out democrats.
- For his part, Cornyn is currently polling third in a crowded primary field behind Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton. Paxton is despised by Texas RINOs who have spent years trying to destroy him and his political career. Cornyn turns off many in the MAGA world mostly for turning into the consummate swampy DC insider. His dalliance with gun control in the 2022 Bipartisan Safer Communities Act embraced red flag laws on a nationwide basis. Realizing his mistake, he is back at the gun control apple this year with an attempt to force nationwide acceptance of concealed carry similar to how states recognize driver’s licenses from other states. We will see if it works.
- In embracing Crockett, Texas Republicans and national party idiots are making the same mistake that democrats and media did in 2015 with Trump. At the time, they decided he was the worst possible Republican candidate and did everything humanly possible to ensure he got the 2016 nomination. This included perhaps a billion dollars of free media exposure. Whatever we may think about Crockett, she does have game in the persuasion world, not unlike AOC.
- History is littered with parties who elevate people or ballot propositions that they believe will never be elected or passed and being surprised. The 16th Amendment (Income Tax) was passed in 1909 mostly because the Republican majority in congress believed the states would never ratify it. Only took the states four years to ratify it. The amendment was in response to SCOTUS opinions holding income taxes unconstitutional.
- Another example here in Anchorage in 2003. The incumbent Republican Mayor George Wuerch was being challenged by a former Republican Mayor Rick Mystrom. Wuerch encouraged Begich, a former popular former Assembly member who had unsuccessfully run for mayor twice. Wuerch’s thinking was apparently that Begich would split Mystrom’s vote. To compound the problem, a democrat majority on the Assembly conveniently changed the definition of a win that avoids a runoff from 50%+1 to 45%+1. Begich avoided runoff by 19 votes out of over 63,500 cast. After two terms in office, he parlayed his win in 2003 into a win for US Senator from Alaska, defeating Ted Stevens in 2008 and serving one term in office. Begich was one of the 60-vote democrat majority in the Senate who helped pass O’BamaCare in 2010.
- Bottom line here is that elections are important. Never, ever get too cute and make it easier for the Other Side to win despite how funny it may seem at the time.
2. EU Fine. The EU cranked up the war on Elon Musk 10 days ago with a $140 million fine of X / Twitter for violating the EU Digital Services Act. The claim is that the blue checkmark verification system misled users, X / Twitter did not provide requested data to researchers and did not set up an advertising repository to the satisfaction of the EU mandarins. The fine marks the first fine levied under the new law. Apparently other social media companies have rolled belly up and are complying with EU demands. The EU probe into X / Twitter conveniently began in Dec 2023 when Musk backed Trump and worked in his administration for several months in 2025. The EU gives X / Twitter 60 days to develop solutions and 90 days to implement changes demanded. If he does not comply, there will be additional fines. Expect future fines on X / Twitter to include claims of illegal content, election disinformation, and use of Community Notes, all of which have ongoing investigations. The EU is currently targeting other US social media companies with investigations and demands for compliance with their censorship regime. These include Apple, Google, and Meta. Apple and Meta have already been fined under digital antitrust rules. Google and Apple have been fined under competition law. The WH and State Department are already fully engaged in this. I do not think the EU realizes the scope of the inbound response they are about to receive from bear they are currently poking.
3. Lawsuits. Federal lawsuits are flying back and forth between blue states and the Trump administration. Topics include but are not limited to a DoJ lawsuit against 6 blue states who refuse to hand over their voter registration lists for analysis. The states include CA, MI, MN, NY, NH and PA. DoJ previously sued OR and ME asking for the same information. 7 of the 8 states have democrat governors. MN has also been sued for its sanctuary policies that protect criminal illegal aliens. Multiple lawsuits are flying in the sanctuary world as the Trump administration cuts off funding for cities and states that embrace the notion of sanctuary for illegals. In November, two dozen blue states and DC feud Department of Education over a rule change to the Public Service Loan Forgiveness student debt relief program. In essence, organizations engaged in unlawful activities are no longer eligible for the taxpayer funded program. Unlawful activities include supporting terrorism, aiding and abetting illegal immigration, engaging in child sex changes and child trafficking. The blue states believe these are fine, positive lifestyle choices. 22 blue states filed a lawsuit in July over a provision in the Big Beautiful Bill that defunds Planned Parenthood. Finally, 25 states sued the feds during the shutdown to force release of SNAP funds.
4. Cosmonaut. In a blast from the past, a Russian cosmonaut was removed from the recent SpaceX Crew 12 mission to ISS. He was accused of compromising US National Security attempting to access sensitive information of US International Traffic in Arms Regulations (ITAR). He apparently used his smart phone to photograph SpaceX documentation and export the classified back home. The cosmonaut was removed 75 days before launch. He is something of a heavy hitter in the Russian space program who already made one trip onboard Dragon. Russians just gotta Russian showing no understanding that they are dealing with a commercial enterprise in SpaceX that will sell them any and everything they want especially since Falcon9 and Dragon are already old tech, in the process of being replaced by whatever Starship ends up being.
5. Venezuela. President Trump upped the ante against both Venezuela and Cuba last week seizing an oil tanker full of Venezuelan oil on its way to Cuba. Cuba has long provided the muscle for Chavezista control of Venezuela since Hugo Chavez was elected El Presidente in 1998. The oil is provided by the regime in return for continued Castro muscle and secret service “expertise.” The oil tanker nicely raises the stakes, as it is a large caliber economic shot across the bow to both Cuba and its Venezuelan mini-me. While Trump has admitted a few conversations with Maduro, who is most certainly telling him whatever he wants to hear, at this point, Maduro is dead man walking. There are a couple things going on here. First, and most importantly, Trump is actively destroying the Maduro regime economically, which his chosen battlefield. Second, and perhaps more importantly, it appears that Sidney Powell’s Kraken Venezuela connection to the 2020 election fraud might have actually existed via government to Smartmatic connections, connections which were known to the Trump campaign in 2024 and actively disrupted to ensure his election. Depending on whose BS reports you believe, they have been active in stealing elections in 70 countries. Whatever that number may be, I expect it is a nonzero number and the CIA is involved.
6. Raccoons. Domestication is defined as the long-term genetic adaptation of wild animals to human control and use, mutual benefit, through selective breeding for desirable traits, resulting in inherited changes in behavior and form. The long-term process typically takes thousands to tens of thousands of years. Today, dogs and cats (companionship), cattle, sheep, pigs (food and labor), horses and donkeys (work and transport), and chickens, ducks and geese (food) are considered domesticated. We have raccoons, ferrets and mink, foxes currently in process. Raccoons are in the early stages of self-domestication. Ferrets and minks are in the early for pest control and fur. Foxes are being bred similarly to dog domestication. A final group of animals are in the early stages of domestication. These include capybaras, wallabies, servals and genets. Generally, any animal to be domesticated needs to have fast growth, the ability to breed in captivity, adaptability, herd mentality and a plant-based diet (at least in part). It appears that raccoons have decided to be next on the list.
7. CAFÉ. In the next round of his war against madcap environmentalism, President Trump rolled back the Biden Corporate Average Fuel (CAFÉ) standards that increased vehicle prices and all but legislated ICE powered vehicles illegal by legislative fiat. The Biden numbers required all vehicles to average 50.4 miles per gallon (mpg) by 2031 models. Trump rolled that back to 34.5 mpg. He also reclassified popular crossovers and small SUVs as passenger cars rather than light trucks, easing standards. The action works nicely by pushing the affordability noodle, as every single CAFÉ standard increase over the last half century has made vehicles more expensive and less safe. We will hope manufacturers have sufficient time to produce enough vehicles and create the customer base under the new standards to render new BS numbers from the next democrat congress or administration irrelevant. While I am not overly irritated by this, even though I summarily reject the notion that the feds set MPG standards for vehicles, I will take this as a qualified win, at least for now. It is a small step in the right direction, toward whatever the marketplace might finally come up with, as the new Trump standards seem to actually comply with whatever congress passed into federal law rather than whatever the green fever swampy grifters might have come up with in the interim.
8. Gun Sales. Nothing like electing a democrat as governor and a murderous democrat as state Attorney General to convince the populace to arm themselves. While NCIS background checks performed during firearms purchases and transfers are recently down about 13% compared to last year, they are spiking in Virgina which just elected a democrat governor, Attorney General, and majority in the state assembly, a combination that guarantees more expansive, stupid and unconstitutional gun control laws. Virginia was in the top five nationwide in NCIS background checks and NICS checks on the transfer of long guns last year. While democrats have withheld introduction of their gun grabbing agenda in the legislature for a couple months, everyone in the state knows it is coming and what it will mean. Appears they are getting ready.
More later –
- AG