Wednesday July 29 Update

(Getting a bit lengthy so I'll pop this one out.)

Iran Update: The Reality

Rarely has the phrase "same old, same old" applied more aptly than to the current snafu in Iran. They agree to meet, Trump reports progress, remains hopeful and says a deal is around the corner, then Iran declares it agrees with nothing and goes back to bombing Hormuz. To which Trump reiterates Armageddon is coming and resume strikes.

All with no hint of real progress toward an acceptable end in sight.

It is clear to most, even if Trump and Vance won't admit it, that the current regime intends to hold on forever. To better understand this mentality one need only go back a short way in history.

After the overthrow of the Shah and the chaos with the US hostage crisis, Saddam Hussein perceived a leadership crisis. He invaded Iran in 1980 thinking they were "easy pickins". He was dead wrong. A grueling 8 year war ensued. The Ayatollah created the Sacred Defense to mobilize Iranians to resist the invaders.

Neither side won, Iraq did not overtake Iran and the experience shaped Iran's current policy..."Survival is Success". The Supreme Leader shifted focus from Iraq to Israel and the US. He urged Iranians to sacrifice to resist American-Israeli aggression. For a while it worked but when the sacrifice evolved from challenging to unbearable the protests began.

As reported there have been multiple efforts to influence then overthrow the current regime. The latest being the most extreme. None have succeeded - obviously. In the meantime the Mullahs and IRGC has welded together a formidable axis of resistance. Including Yemen, Hezbollah , Gaza, much of Iraq, and, of course, Russia and China.

The strategy? Survive...for it is tantamount to success. As Henry Kissinger once said, "The guerilla wins if he does not lose."

Yet Another Reason Iran Won't Quit

Iran is expected to receive within weeks a first shipment of up to 400 Chinese-made shoulder-fired air-defense missile launchers as it rebuilds its defenses amid war with the United States.

The purchase, valued at $60-70 million, is one of Tehran’s efforts to strengthen its short-range air ‌defenses since the outbreak of its war with the U.S. and Israel exposed gaps in Iran’s ability to protect military sites and strategic infrastructure. The contract covers the purchase of between 300 and 400 man-portable air defense systems (MANPADS), including Chinese-made QW-12 and FN-16 missiles,

Untangling the Munitions Crisis

The Trump Administration is leaky. There are factions, let's call them "restrainers", who oppose the fundamental policy that having started this conflict we must finish it. By finish is meant, at the very least, ensuring Iran never has access to nuclear weapons or the ability to deliver them long range.

One of the justifications from those who wish to "cut and run" is that munitions are running short and, thereby, make us vulnerable to other enemies in the short term.

Upon perusal of a number of sources, here is what we found.

1. Much of the media coverage—presumably guided by figures such as Undersecretary of Defense for Policy Elbridge Colby—is intentionally conflating “munitions” with “air defense munitions,” used to defend against drones and ballistic missiles.

2. Of these “key munitions,” the Tomahawk, JASSM (Joint Air-to-Surface Standoff Missile), and PrSM (Precision Strike Missile) are all high-end standoff (i.e., offensive) weapons, for which the United States has plentiful cheaper substitutes.

3. The concern is specifically with high-end air defense munitions such as the Patriot, THAAD (Terminal High Altitude Area Defense), and SM-6 (the Standard Missile 6, used to defend ships from missiles and drones).

4. However, none of these shortages precludes further operations against Iran. In U.S. military doctrine, air defense is not intended to provide an indefinite shield against drone and missile strikes.  The purpose of air defenses is to protect U.S. and allied forces long enough to suppress and destroy the enemy’s launch capability.

5. What is true is that munitions shortages can make combat operations riskier. The United States and Israel definitely still have the capacity to conduct operations, but they’re going to have to get in a little closer using things like small-diameter bombs, JDAMs, and glide bombs.

6. The United States still has a lot of munitions available, but they definitely will have to be a little bit more judicious, perhaps, in how they execute and plan operations.

7. Bottom line...the United States has enough missiles to continue fighting this war under any plausible scenario.

Finish the job, President Trump. Doing it on our timetable is fine but get it done.

NB: This analysis IN NO WAY mitigates the need for robust military upgrades.

Campaign Financing Refresher

In November midterm elections will occur that will determine the balance of power for the remainder of Trump's term in office. As recited ad nauseum this is a critical inflection point. Polls are hugely unflattering to the current Administration. Sufficient seats are in play that Republicans conceivably could lose both the House and the Senate. Impeachment attempts will surely follow. Regardless of their success, the Trump agenda will stall out, that is for sure.

Thought it might be timely to refresh how campaign financing works.

• Candidates can contribute unlimited amounts of their own money.

• Individuals are limited to donations of $3500 to a specific candidate.

• Corporations, unions, foreigners and government contractors are forbidden from donating to individual candidates.

• Political Action Committees can contribute directly but with limits.

• Non profits (called Dark $) can contribute...which bring us to the 800 pound gorilla in the room

• SUPER PACs to which billionaires can donate unlimited funds. The only catch is they cannot direct to individual candidates or parties. What they can do is decide how those funds are used - canvassing, voter outreach, TV, radio, mailers, etc.

Don't have to be a neurosurgeon to find the loopholes in this arrangement.

The BIG CYCLE

Historians have noted that right around 250-300 years many empires started to show their age. The Ting, Ming, Romanov dynasties and the Dutch and British empires all seemed to lose steam and regress right around that timeframe. Maybe that was coincidence or maybe it was complacency.

As we look at America on our 250th, alarm bells are surely sounding - loudly. We face a foreboding confluence that does not portend well for the "last great hope of mankind." Included are massive social unrest, dysfunctional government, growing income inequality (deserved or otherwise), infiltration by illegal immigrants (although stymied at least for now), huge national debt with no end in sight, interest costs on government borrowing through the moon, runaway entitlements, underfunded military...what did I leave out?

Then, of course, there's our enemies. Powers that seek our destruction and world domination. China leads the pact with its seemingly inexhaustive ability to fund technology, its military and foreign alliances. Sure, it's to the detriment of the Chinese people, but, what are they going to do about it? They have no elections and they have no guns.

Our formidable "To Fix" list faces a great conundrum. The government is growing broke at the moment it needs to invest with both hands in the military and AI. This dilemma is compounded by the fact our elected leaders can't agree on the time of day.

For sure, life is cycles. Big and small. Is the 250 curse around the corner for the US of A?

Out of curiosity...does anyone sleep better at night imagining the Democrats will do a better job of confronting these challenges?

Tip of the Iceberg in the Garden State

New Jersey officials disclosed that a software error at the state's motor vehicle agency mistakenly registered approximately 6,600 non-U.S. citizens to vote during 2023–2024.

The Colossus of Waste, Fraud and Abuse is...

Simple. Medicare and Medicaid but mostly Medicaid. Medicare is, of course, health care for the elderly funded by contributions over a lifetime of work and payroll deductions. Medicaid is health care for the economically challenged. Funded by taxpaying citizens. Both fall under the responsibility of the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid known as CMS. CMS is a federal agency currently headed by Dr. Mehmet Oz.

Virtually every incidence of fraud being reported these days involves Medicare or Medicaid but mostly Medicaid. Elon Musk and DOGE warned us.

Upon returning to office, President Donald Trump made rooting out waste, fraud and abuse a hallmark of his administration. Early in that effort, Elon Musk remarked that the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) was "where the big money fraud is happening." He was right.

The nucleus of the fraud is not, however, the federal agency. Administration and reimbursements from Medicare and Medicaid involve a joint partnership between state and federal government. It is the states who are responsible for making sure the rules for eligibility and reimbursement are followed.

Which clearly they are not.

There are several reasons:

1. Each year each state receives money from the federal CMS fund. The amount is based largely on the previous year's expenditures. The more you spend this year, the more you get next year.

2. By doling out illegal payments to constituencies (e.g., Somalis) politicians in charge can secure voting blocks.

3. No one is watching. Federal oversight got whacked under Biden. Humongous anomalies and giant spikes are ignored at state levels so incumbents can stay in power.

Human nature is predictable. Whenever government creates a system involving hundreds of billions of dollars, services that are difficult to measure, and payment models that reward volume, some people will exploit it.

Government works best when its rules reward responsibility rather than dependency, accountability rather than complacency and results rather than spending. In theory only, we know this, because few examples of government efficacy are found. Nonetheless, if we want to reduce Medicaid waste, fraud and abuse, we must build a system with incentives that DEMAND integrity. Not just by design but by enforcement.

Oh yeah...and another thing. Violators, both those who steal and those who look the other way, must be fined $ ka-trillions and sent to jail for a long, long time. Boom.

You'll Never Hear Him Say...Sorry

Guess who's being "outed". Fauci the Fraud.

You remember him. As head of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID)—and the government’s leading authority during the Covid crisis—Fauci led the call for lockdowns and school closures. Wrong. He said that it was “extremely unlikely” that people who had been vaccinated could transmit the virus to others. Wrong. He said that children as young as 2 should wear masks. Wrong. He argued that the virus had emerged from a “wet market” in Wuhan, China and shut down any suggestion that it could have resulted from a leak in a laboratory. Wrong. He lied about the Wuhan Lab and its role as the source. He lied about the role of "science" in his instructions for dealing with the pandemic. And, most egregiously, he lied about necessary measures that he knew had no foundation.

As for those who disagreed, Fauci had an astonishingly arrogant response: “They are really criticizing science because I represent science.”

In the lead up to Wednesday's Senate interrogation of Fauci, 1,141 pages of his diary were released. They are replete with self adulation and references to his "fame".

It is a deeply embarrassing document, but also an important one, because it opens a window into the striking contrast between what Fauci was saying privately and what he was telling the American people throughout the pandemic. It also paints a picture of a mainstream media complicit in passing along Fauci’s untruths, with nary a skeptical note.

In the diary, Mr. Tony meticulously documents his own rising fame in the early months of the pandemic and, in doing so, reveals why he believed himself to be beyond reproach. He notes that Julia Roberts and Stephen Curry wanted to shake his hand. People applauded him when he walked into a restaurant. Important people wanted his advice.

Here is a typical entry, this one from March 1, 2020:

Got call at home this a.m. from Governor Andrew Cuomo (NY) asking advice on how he should handle the COVID-19 situation in NYC. Had long conversation in which he stressed a few times how much his father and mother loved me and used to tell Chris and Andrew how much they respected me and how proud they were that I was an Italian-American.

Here’s another he wrote five months later, at the height of the panic over the pandemic:

Big front-page article about me appeared in The Washington Post. Very flattering. The situation with my national and international fame is explosive and really unimaginable. It is not hyperbole to say that today I am the most famous and talked-about person . . . in the world.

WTF - while thousands, no millions were infected and dying.

The damage that this egotistical fake helped perpetrate can never be calculated. And he was Biden's right hand

man. This guy's hubris could make Obama blush. Nah.

Just another example, by the way, of where "All the News Unfit to Print" (NYT) got it soooo wrong.

Data Center Phobia

Another leftwing ruse fueled by bad PR and unwise behavior.

Until three months ago, Box Elder County, in northwest Utah, was one of America’s quieter places, with a handful of small towns spread across 6,700 square miles abutting the Great Salt Lake.

Then, in late April, the investor Kevin O’Leary showed up and announced that one of his companies, O’Leary Digital, was going to spend up to $100 billion to build a data center the likes of which the world has never seen—40,000 acres worth—in an unincorporated portion of the county.

It would be hard to imagine a better spot for a huge data center. Project Stratos, as it’s being called, will be far from the nearest town. If it emits noise, no one will hear it. It will be cooled using recycled water via a “closed loop” system, instead of diverting water from the nearby communities. It plans to pipe in natural gas for energy—instead of pulling from the electric grid—and it signed an agreement to pay an estimated $30 million in annual taxes, money to “support schools, emergency services, and local infrastructure.

Similarly, last week we reported on the DC planned for Shackleford County, TX. It will increase local revenues by a factor of 2900% (30 times).

Then there's the case of...Richland Parish in Louisiana. Meta wanted to build a 4 million square-foot data center in the parish—but it didn’t hide its involvement behind a developer. Instead, a Meta representative negotiated the deal. Because everyone knew Meta was behind the data center, the cost of the land was higher than if it had been bought without divulging the owner. But that higher cost lowered the level of suspicion.

Meta and the parish negotiated a deal that made both parties happy.

Meta got the zoning change it needed for the land it wanted to buy. It agreed to $1 billion worth of infrastructure improvements in the parish, and expects to hire 1,000 people. Perhaps best of all, it agreed to contribute one percent of the cost of all construction materials to the county in annual payments. The first such payment amounted to $22 million, which allowed the county to give its teacher bonuses of up to $50,000. A local school official was quoted as saying: “It’s life-altering for our teachers and their families, and it’s transforming our schools. Meta’s investment has made Richland Parish a destination for education as well as industry.”

Data centers are inevitable. In the same way that oil rigs, telephone poles, and cell towers were inevitable—technology the country couldn’t do without. There is simply no getting around the importance of data centers to America’s future. What we call “the cloud” is nothing more than the accumulation of data centers.

It is likely much of the anti-data center harangue is being funded by foreign money...read China. Nothing the Chicoms would like more than to forge ahead on AI by throwing a monkey wrench in ours.

But tech companies bear significant blame as well. Poor communications, lousy PR and heavy-handed behavior. Storming communities with their "deep pockets hammer". A Big FU if you will.

Now the Trump mandate that DC builders must be responsible for their own resources - power and water helps. But simply paying for them doesn't prevent shortages. A much better job must be done of

• Proving we have no choice but to lead in AI.

• Demonstrating that, not only will each DC pay for the resources they use, but usage will not starve either residents or businesses.

• MOST IMPORTANTLY...Showing how DC can enrich communities.

  
  

Remember when fracking was a no no? Now it is the cornerstone of our energy dominance. Oh yeah...most of the resistance and bad PR concerning fracking came from states where no fracking could ever be done.

Everyone will be a lot better off if Blue State governors spent their time negotiating instead of obstructing. The

dummies...

Maybe Woke Ain't Dead

ESPN just released a documentary about the WNBA. Called "Life in the W". Focused on three "stars". Guess who isn't one of them? Initials...CC.

ESPN won't say why.

Why Movies and Reading are on the Way Out

Hardly the only reason but one. In 2025, Americans placed roughly $166 billion in bets on sporting events. That’s more than the entire U.S. movie, music, book, and museum industries generated in revenue combined.

Talk about a Mismatch

Ukraine continues to hold it own against Russia. But really it's not just Russia. It's Russia, North Korea, Iran and, of course, China.

The population of Ukraine is 40 million. The combined population of its aforementioned adversaries is 1.8 billion.

Laughs

He has delusions of adequacy.

A boy asked his father how stars "die". The father answered..."Usually an overdose, my son."

He had no enemies but he was intensely disliked by his friends.