Israel states that one third of Iran's ballistic missile launch capability has been destroyed

 It took Israel just two days to get control of the skies over Western Iran. With that accomplished, destroying the rest of the launchers should come more easily.

 

 

 

Low-inertia renewable energy systems are prone to blackouts such as in Spain in April because they cannot maintain stable frequencies in the absence of high-inertia fossil fuel, hydro, and nuclear energy systems

 The Physics Behind the Spanish Blackout: Madrid knew solar and wind power were unreliable but pressed ahead anyway.

When a grid failure plunged 55 million people in Spain and Portugal into darkness at the end of April, it should have been a wake-up call on green energy. Climate activists promised that solar and wind power were the future of cheap, dependable electricity. The massive half-day blackout shows otherwise. The nature of solar and wind generation makes grids that rely on them more prone to collapse—an issue that’s particularly expensive to ameliorate. ...

Grids need to stay on a very stable frequency—generally 50 Hertz in Europe—or else you get blackouts. Fossil-fuel, hydro and nuclear generation all solve this problem naturally because they generate energy by powering massive spinning turbines. The inertia of these heavy rotating masses resists changes in speed and hence frequency, so that when sudden demand swings would otherwise drop or hike grid frequency, the turbines work as immense buffers. But wind and solar don’t power such heavy turbines to generate energy. It’s possible to make up for this with cutting-edge technology such as advanced inverters or synthetic inertia. But many solar and wind farms haven’t undergone these expensive upgrades. If a grid dominated by those two power sources gets off frequency, a blackout is more likely than in a system that relies on other energy sources. ...

Just a week prior to the blackout, Spain bragged that for the first time, renewables delivered 100% of its electricity, though only for a period of minutes around 11:15 a.m. When it collapsed, the Iberian grid was powered by 74% renewable energy, with 55% coming from solar. It went down under the bright noon sun. When the Iberian grid frequency started faltering on April 28, the grid’s high proportion of solar and wind generation couldn’t stabilize it. This isn’t speculation; it’s physics. As the electricity supply across Spain collapsed, Portugal was pulled along, because the two countries are tightly interconnected through the Iberian electricity network. ...

Ah, so Republican pinhead Joe Concha thinks a Democrat win in 2026 would be a loss lol

Joe Concha never really does get to his point in this column, but he does spread a lot of nincompoopery about like so much manure on a field.

This is the guy who masked himself and his kids while outdoors during COVID-19 because his wife is a doctor and told him he had to, which is very amusing given Joe's interest in Democrats' inability to "connect" with young men.

Joe Concha lives in an imaginary world of fanciful creation and takes his marching orders, repeating stupid.

Trump's mandate, for example, "the greatest verdict in history" he says, in 2024 was actually smaller than W's in 2004.

Even Jimmy Carter's was bigger in 1976 than Trump's was in 2024.

Core pce inflation released this past week came in at 2.52%, not 2.1% as Joe says. Joe wouldn't know core if he ate an apple.

Just 49.6% had full time jobs in April 2025 vs. 50.4% in April 2023, 0.8 points lower than two years ago.

Also two years ago, unemployment was 0.8 points lower at 3.4% than Joe Concha's current "historically low" level, again having touched a level under Joe Biden not seen since May 1969.

Joe stealing glory from Joe. Tut-tut.

Democrats may have had trouble connecting with young men in 2024, but the Biden administration really did drop the bigger ball of communicating its record of historically low unemployment. The Wall Street Journal trumpeted it for them in 2023, but you'd hardly remember the fact.

Meanwhile Joe Concha's "respected" GDPNow model got 1Q2025 GDP wrong by 2.4 points lol.

With an actual negative print now at -0.2% for the first quarter, the set-up for a dead cat bounce in 2Q would seem obvious.

But you never know with Trump in charge, and for my money you have to bet against Mr. Unpredictable. 

If Jonathan Swift were here, he might say that it is the Republicans who are led by a changeable female mind, not the Democrats, which may be why Joe Concha likes him so:

The current of a female mind stops thus,

and turns with ev'ry wind;

Thus whirling round, together draws

Fools, fops, and rakes, for chaff and straws.

 

 

Dems Winning 2026 Midterm May Be Kiss of Death

Joe Concha, Washington Examiner

 

... after the votes were counted on Nov. 5, Trump won the greatest verdict in history by capturing the popular vote over former Vice President Kamala Harris while winning every swing state. ...

 

The core inflation numbers released this week show it at just 2.1%. . ..

 

Unemployment is historically low at 4.2%, with private sector jobs soaring. ... 

GDP is expected to grow at 3.8% in the second quarter, according to the respected Federal Reserve Bank of Atlanta. ...

 

 

 

 

The Golden Age isn't AAA

 

Trump's tariffs will bankrupt thousands of American businesses and millions will be unemployed as a result

 So says Ryan Petersen, founder and CEO of Flexport, in The Wall Street Journal, here:

... If the tariffs on Chinese goods continue at this rate, he says, thousands of American companies will fail and millions of employees will lose their jobs. ...

When the pandemic clogged up supply chains, he rented a boat so he could tour the Port of Long Beach, Calif., and see the bottlenecks for himself.

When he’s not cruising around ports for information, he’s getting it directly from his company’s 13,000 customers. They are companies that sell electronics, furniture, clothing, toys, diapers, pet feeders—basically everything. He makes it a priority to talk with as many of them as he possibly can. ...

This past week, he traveled from San Francisco to Washington, D.C., where he spent two days meeting with government officials to make the case that tariffs pose an existential threat to his customers. ...

A Trump-appointed judge has ordered another Venezuelan wrongly deported to El Salvador returned to the United States

 ... U.S. District Judge Stephanie A. Gallagher in Baltimore on Wednesday ruled that removing him without a chance to complete his asylum petition or challenge his deportation violated the settlement agreement. Cristian, and any other person who had been removed in violation of the settlement agreement, should be returned, she said. ...

More.

Nauguration lol, because it's the weekend help

 From Ken Griffin to ROBINHOOD: Donors Who Funded nauguration Revealed...

Wanting to capture power is about the least conservative thing about today's right wing

 More recently, far-right writers like Curtis Yarvin, who’s influenced Vice President JD Vance, have talked about how to capture power through a culture war. “This war is not fought with bombs and bullets, or even laws and judges,” Yarvin wrote in 2022. “This war is fought with books and films and plays and poems. It is still a savage war!”

Here.

As if power were an object outside oneself, a thing to be grasped, as opposed to something one already possessed in one's very self.

This objectification of power as outside oneself is a confession of weakness, a sign of spiritual decadence. 

Power in one's self is expressed as self-mastery and contentment. That kind of power, subjective power, radiates outward and masters its environment naturally. It doesn't need to run for office, or want to.

There is a dearth of such individuals in the country now, which is the actual problem, not that the minority which still exists doesn't rule.

Generally speaking you cannot impose virtue from the outside and make it stick. You have to change yourself.

Conservatives are stuck on a derivative. Culture is downstream from the cult. They need to swim upstream and find it.

Car manufacturing jobs, so-called good jobs, already don't pay enough to enable these Detroit auto workers to buy their own homes and have families, and they fear layoffs because of the tariffs

 The Wall Street Journal doesn't mention it here.

This guy's been working for the company for 10 years and he's still renting.

... Daniel Campbell, who maneuvers steel auto parts around a Stellantis factory north of Detroit, says he and many of his colleagues are worried about layoffs.

“I’m scared,” he said from his brick bungalow on the west side of Detroit, which he rents with two roommates. “We’re complaining about gas and eggs now. Who is going to be able to buy these cars that are already $80,000, and then you make it $90,000?”

The 46-year-old UAW member, who makes about $30 an hour, and one of his roommates have talked about trimming their spending, including eating out less and cutting clothing and electronics purchases. 

“There’s going to come a time where we’re not going to be able to go and spend,” he said. 

 At work, the assembly lines have been running faster in recent weeks as Stellantis has tried to stockpile parts ahead of the tariffs, Campbell said. He and his co-workers are running out of room to store the parts. ...

Marine Le Pen sentenced to jail in France, barred from running for office in 2027

 Marine Le Pen Sentenced to Prison, Banned From Next Elections Over Embezzlement

... Judges handed down a sentence Monday that bars Le Pen from seeking public office for the next five years, upending France’s political order and thrusting her far-right party into limbo. Le Pen also received a four-year prison sentence, half of which was suspended. The ruling takes Le Pen out of contention for the 2027 race, when President Emmanuel Macron finishes his second and final term and she was expected to be the front-runner. ...

Former S&P sovereign bond unit executive who participated in the Obama era 2011 credit downgrade basically calls Trump's America a banana republic, and DOGE not a proper government department

 WSJ: What about DOGE’s accessing the Treasury Department’s payment system?

Kraemer: We don’t have all the details of what they took and on what basis. It seems highly irregular. People from a department, which is not even a proper government department, that have gone and gotten access to data, that we have to assume is quite, I should say sensitive, which doesn’t belong in the hands of unelected individuals. 

WSJ: Have you ever seen anything like this before?

Kraemer: Yes, I think I have seen this. Regimes that don’t respect checks and balances. But they tend to be more in the emerging markets. This is exactly what sets rich and poor countries apart, right? It’s the qualities of institutions, the rule of law, the transparency of decision-making. 

So have I seen this? Yes. But have I seen it in an advanced economy, in an OECD member country? No, I have not.

The whole thing is here.

Obama appointed judge, Paul Engelmayer, issues sweeping order banning Musk and his allies from accessing the US Department of Treasury payments system

 Federal Judge Blocks Elon Musk’s DOGE From Treasury System: Order requires those who have accessed payment records without proper security clearance to destroy them

A federal judge in New York temporarily restricted the ability of Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency to access the Treasury Department payment system, saying that doing so was necessary to prevent the potential disclosure of sensitive and confidential information. 

The early Saturday order by Judge Paul Engelmayer, an Obama appointee, precludes officials without proper background checks and security clearances from accessing the payment system through at least next Friday, including political appointees and special government appointees. It also orders any prohibited person who has had access to the records since President Trump’s inauguration to destroy them. The judge set a hearing for Friday.

Some 19 blue-state attorneys general filed the case Friday evening, saying that Musk’s DOGE initiative risks interference with the payment of funds appropriated by Congress. 

Engelmayer said the states were likely to win on arguments that the Trump administration exceeded its authority in allowing broader access to the payment system. He also said the states faced irreparable harm without court intervention for now, including “the heightened risk that the systems in question will be more vulnerable than before to hacking.” ...

Well thank God.

None of these people have security clearances. The say so of President Trump is not a security clearance.

A Democrat moves to the center: Ritchie Torres (NY-15) calls out AOC (NY-14) and Governor Hochul

 Here:

“I’m a controversial figure in Democratic politics,” he says. His affection for the Jewish state makes him “particularly radioactive to the far left. There’s no issue on which I face more hate, harassment, and even death threats.” Mr. Torres says there is “a deep strain of antisemitism on the far left.” Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, who represents the neighboring 14th District, has repeatedly accused Israel of “genocide.” ... On Jan. 16, two days after Gov. Kathy Hochul delivered her State of the State address, Mr. Torres accused her of failing to support the state’s Jews. “Antisemitic hate crimes have risen to historic highs in New York,” he tweeted. “Yet when I searched the Governor’s State of the State for the word ‘antisemitism,’ nothing came up.” He tells me the next day that “the governor had a 140-page policy document and there was not a single mention of antisemitism. Never mind that Jews are the target of more hate crimes than everyone else combined. None of that mattered to her.”

 

Pete Hegseth reportedly has had episodes of drinking to the point of passing out

 

 I get the drinking too much until you barf. I mean, that's pretty much been Freshman Life 101 forever and a day. Pete was a freshman in college in 1999-2000.

But it takes a special kind of excess to drink until you pass out.

Is it true? 

Who knows.

One incident was allegedly in 2013, when he was about 32, at which time he had earned an MA from Harvard. Another was when he was about 28, in 2009, when his first marriage ended. That's a long time after graduating from Princeton University in 2003.

The precise timeline is uncertain because his birth year isn't precisely known, and the new revelations come from a former sister in law, married to Pete's brother from 2011-2019, who can't remember the dates exactly.

Anyway, I don't get why the new SECDEF absolutely, positively must be this guy, with all this sooty baggage. No one is that indispensable.

From The Wall Street Journal here:

Pete Hegseth, President Trump’s pick to run the Pentagon, regularly abused alcohol to the point that he passed out at family gatherings, and once needed to be dragged out of a strip club while in uniform, according to an ex-relative’s account of his behavior that was given to U.S. lawmakers and reviewed by The Wall Street Journal.

The sworn statement, submitted in response to a request from Sen. Jack Reed of Rhode Island, the top Democrat on the Senate Armed Services Committee, was signed by Hegseth’s former sister-in-law, Danielle Hegseth. It states that she was with Hegseth when he passed out from drunkenness in the bathroom of a bar in Minneapolis in about 2013. It also describes another night, when she said Hegseth drank so much at a restaurant in Minneapolis that the Uber driver had to pull over on Interstate 94 so he could throw up.

In her sworn statement, Danielle Hegseth said she personally observed erratic and aggressive behavior by Hegseth, witnessing him abusing alcohol multiple times over the years. One Christmas in 2008 or 2009, he drank so much that he threw up and passed out, she said. ...

Neither of these guys won a tectonic election: I can't believe we're still talking about this

 

49.71%

50.73%

Oh, we'll have to wait . . . for pigs to fly

Inflation impact on low income households is more like 6.3% when weighing necessities higher, says retail expert Howard Jackson

The Wall Street Journal reports here, also saying low income wage growth now lags everyone else's:

 Howard Jackson, president of retail-focused firm HSA Consulting, estimates that inflation has actually averaged about 6.3% over the past 12 months for low-income households. Jackson said this estimate adjusts the consumer-price-index basket to weigh necessities—such as rent, utilities and food—higher than things they tend to spend less on, such as cars, furniture, clothes and consumer electronics. His estimate considers what items constitute the food basket, based on surveys of low-income consumers. “If you don’t have much money, you keep your pair of jeans a lot longer. Those are the purchases that get deferred,” Jackson said.

OMG, the NY Post/Karol Markowicz comparison of Pete Hegseth to Brett Kavanaugh is completely wrong, and now Pete Hegseth goes there to defend himself

 Where else? but in The Wall Street Journal here:

Like veterans returning from any war, we drank beers to manage the reality of what we had faced. But we never did anything improper, and we treated everyone with respect.

 

DeSantis is far and away better for DOD than Pete Hegseth, but it would be a step down for the governor, and a minefield which could blow up his chances for 2028, if he still has any

 Trump Mulls Replacing Pete Hegseth With Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis

Beside all that, Trump is just poaching again. 

Florida still needs Ron DeSantis, especially to appoint the replacement for the already poached Senator Marco Rubio. One bad decision leads to another.

Can't Trump find anyone else? Isn't this just more evidence of how few quality people find serving in this lame duck presidency an attractive prospect?

Ron DeSantis should also think long and hard about having to defend everything Trump for four years, quite apart from defending the United States, if he's still serious about a 2028 run. He ran against Trump in the primaries, after all, for reasons.

I think this story is more of a trial balloon, an advertisement: "Hey out there! Anyone interested in the job? Help! I gotta get rid of Pete! Please step up!"

The Wall Street Journal: Trump is leading Harris among whites by 22 points, among seniors by 8 points

The late swing among older and white voters jumps out in the Emerson College poll. On Aug. 15, less than a month after she became the Democratic nominee, Ms. Harris trailed Mr. Trump by 12 points among white voters and was tied with him among all voters 60 or older. Since then, these voters have fled from Ms. Harris. By Oct. 26, Mr. Trump led by 22 points among whites and 8 points among seniors. ... 

 

Prejudice can’t explain older whites’ recent flight from Ms. Harris, since she was already a black woman in August, when many more of them supported her. ...

 

Losing older whites is politically painful, since they tend to turn out at a high rate. They’re also overrepresented in key states like Wisconsin and Michigan.

More.

Kamala Harris is keeping quiet about climate change because the so-called Inflation Reduction Act's climate provisions are going to screw America good and hard for decades, to the tune of $3 trillion

 The climate policies she would offer promise huge costs for negligible benefits. It’d be one thing to ask for sacrifices that could save the planet. But even at a whopping official price tag of $369 billion over 10 years, the Inflation Reduction Act’s climate measures as written were likely to lower the projected global temperature in 2100 by less than 0.03 degree Fahrenheit. In reality, the IRA has turned out to be an even rawer deal. The cost has rapidly ballooned to somewhere north of $3 trillion over 30 to 40 years, even as emission cuts have been slower and smaller than predicted. No wonder Ms. Harris isn’t trumpeting it.

-- Bjorn Lomborg, here 

 

Kamala Harris was the tie-breaking vote in the US Senate twice to advance the bill into law.