… that a ban on medical transition treatment for children is constitutional.
Sanity prevails, along the usual lines.
2020 election fraud, revisited
My position on the 2020 election fraud allegations has long been that we will never know for sure what occurred and to what extent, but that the extensive mail-in balloting created the opportunity and that the motive was certainly there.
Now, four and a half years later, we have this news (which never would have come out without the election of Trump and the changing of the leadership of the FBI, as well as GOP control of the Senate):
FBI Director Kash Patel on Monday evening turned over to Congress an intelligence report raising concerns that China had mass-produced fake U.S. driver’s licenses to carry out a scheme to hijack the 2020 election with fake mail-in ballots for Democrat Joe Biden.
The newly declassified intelligence reports from August 2020 weren’t corroborated or fully investigated and instead were recalled from intelligence agencies at about the time that then-FBI Director Chris Wray testified there were no known plots of foreign interference ahead of the 2020 election in which Biden defeated Donald Trump, officials told Just the News.
The new documents were turned over to Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Chuck Grassley, R-Iowa …
Officials who have seen the documents told Just the News the FBI had a relatively new confidential source who provided information in summer 2020 that the Chinese government was manufacturing and exporting fake U.S. driver’s licenses as part of a plot to create voter identities for Chinese residents living in the United States so they could vote with fake mail-in ballots. …
They also said the intelligence report was recalled within a few weeks and the allegations never fully investigated, on the grounds that the source needed to be re-interviewed.
But, in fact, another agency, U.S. Customs and Border Protection, had intercepted nearly 20,000 fake licenses around the time the intelligence came in a possible corroboration of the report, officials said.
More here:
China had collected private US user data from millions of TikTok accounts, to include name, ID and address, which would allow the Chinese government to use real US persons’ information to create the fraudulent driver’s license. The fraudulent driver’s licenses were to include true ID number and true address of US citizens, making them difficult to detect. China planned to use the fraudulent driver’s licenses to account for tens of thousands of mail-in votes.
We don’t know how many such fake votes actually were recorded. What we do know is that – and I know I repeat myself – the expansion of mail-in voting gave them a golden opportunity for such a fraud scheme, as well as other schemes by other groups we might know nothing about. Mail-in voting is inherently insecure and very stringent safeguards must be in place to use it widely, and such safeguards were not in place in the US in 2020 (or now, for that matter).
NOTE: I’ve written many previous posts on the subject of vote security – for example, this and this.
Decision time in Iran: what now?
There are a great many decisions to be made about Iran – by Trump, Netanyahu and his associates, Khamenei, and the Iranian people. In the case of Khamenei, it may be a Biden-esque situation in that the man is 86 years old and perhaps not quite all there:
Israeli source confirms the report from Iran International that has obtained information from a Western intelligence source, according to which Khamenei has been removed from making key decisions due to his poor mental state, and military commanders are hiding the reality of the war from him in order to manage his mental state.
Trump has to decide whether to intervene to damage the underground nuclear site Fordow, by using bunker busters or whatever method is deemed best. Netanyahu likewise, if Israel has an alternative way of destroying or disabling the facility. Both have to decide whether the goal is regime change and also if they will be assassinating Khamenei himself. They also have to consider who or what would replace the mullahtocracy and how to try to make sure something worse won’t take its place. And the Iranian people will need to decide how far they will go to make regime change happen and to install a better government.
Khamenei – or whoever is really in charge – does have the option of unconditional surrender. I can’t imagine that happening, though. It’s almost a cliche to say that theirs is a death cult, and that’s why I very much doubt that surrender will be happening unless the clerics in charge are all killed and someone more secular makes the decision.
In case you’re not aware of the belief system that motivates the mullahs to wish death to Israel and the US, please watch this (I’ve cued up a 2-minute segment that’s relevant):
See also here under the heading “The conquering of Israel.” See also this description of the mullahs’ belief system involving the return of the Mahdi:
Still alive, the 1,155 year-old Muhammad al-Mahdi is patiently biding his time to return and usher in the takeover of the Muslim — and eventually entire — world.
While such traditions may seem harmless enough, Mahdism poses a serious, though vastly overlooked, threat to international security, primarily because its current articulation in Iran requires its adherents to take “proactive” steps to help usher in the Mahdi — most notably by initiating an “apocalyptic” showdown with the “greater” and “lesser” satans, namely, America and Israel. …
In 2015, Mehdi Taeb, a leading cleric and brother of Hossein Taeb, the head of the IRGC’s Intelligence Organization, made clear how they are to “pave the way.” In a speech, he called on IRGC members to “remove the obstacles to the emergence of the Imam of the Age, the most important of which is the existence of the usurper regime of Israel.”
Meanwhile, is this a threat the Iranians can carry out, or is it mere bluster?:
Despite being absolutely routed so far in its war against Israel, what’s left of Iran’s top-level leadership is now threatening a “surprise tonight the world will remember for centuries.” Accompanying that state-run media announcement was a video …
The implication isn’t exactly subtle. Iran is now claiming it has a nuclear weapon to launch at Israel or U.S. positions in the Middle East.
Meanwhile, the Shah’s son has this to say:
… Reza Pahlavi, the exiled crown prince of Iran, says now is the “best opportunity” for the Iranian people to “finally overcome this regime and get rid of it.”
I think he’s right. But will they take the opportunity, and by what method?
On a personal note: I continue to be surprised at how many people thought that Trump would go “Obama lite” in Iran and negotiate an Iran deal that wasn’t much tougher than the previous one. I never thought that, and I think those who did think it underestimated Trump significantly.
Open thread 6/18/2025
Musical prodigies are astounding. This girl is five years old:
Israel continues to pound Iran
I don’t think Iran expected this, but it should have. Israel has capacities that till now it hasn’t fully used – but the Israelis are plenty motivated to not only end Iran’s nuclear program but to end its present regime. The question of what comes after will have to wait; the answer is unknown.
It’s of particular interest that much of the world seems to be content to let Israel do this – especially the Arab world, most of which considers Iran the enemy.
Here’s a good summary of what’s occurred so far in the five days of war. Here’s an article (hat tip: commenter “physicsguy”) on Iran’s built-to-be-unreachable Fordow nuclear site:
“For Fordow to be taken out by a bomb from the sky, the only country in the world that has that bomb is the United States. And that’s a decision the United States has to take, whether or not it chooses to actually pursue that course,” Leiter said. But, he added, that wasn’t the only option: “There are other ways of dealing with Fordow.”
Destroying Fordow from the air would be almost impossible for Israel, according to a March report from the UK-based Royal United Services Institute (RUSI) think tank and would require significant firepower and assistance from the United States.
It would not even be reachable by the US’ GBU-57 massive ordnance penetrator bombs, which only reach about 60 meters deep, according to the RUSI report. And the GBU-57 can only be delivered by US Air Force B-2 stealth bombers, something Israel doesn’t have – even if the US would give it the bombs.
“Even the GBU-57/B would likely require multiple impacts at the same aiming point to have a good chance of penetrating the facility,” said the report.
Everything is on the table. Iran and its leaders – the ones who remain alive – are very very vulnerable right now. And Trump delivers a message to the people of Tehran: get out of town. We have no beef with you.
Tucker Carlson and company are displeased with Trump, who is not listening to them
I’ve read for quite a while that Tucker Carlson and his anti-Israel wing have a lot of influence on Trump.
I never thought that was the case. It has always seemed to me that Trump’s approval of Israel, although not kneejerk and automatic, is nevertheless solid.
So this seems correct to me – Carlson didn’t “lose” Trump; he never had him:
The other big loser in this struggle is a “woke right” faction of the conservative movement in the United States that opposes Israel and has been fervently opposed to any action to stop Iran from gaining nuclear weapons. More to the point, this rag-tag group of talk-show hosts, right-wing influencers and social-media gurus who can’t seem to mention Israel without betraying their antisemitic tendencies has lost President Donald Trump.
Or to be more precise, they never really had him. …
The most prominent of these voices on the right is former Fox News host Tucker Carlson, whose shows and posts on the X platform reach many millions of people. As I’ve noted previously, Carlson is adamant about his distaste for Israel and his willingness to shill for the Iranian regime as well as its ally Qatar. …
As polls have consistently shown, Republicans and conservatives overwhelmingly support Israel, even as Democrats and the political left have abandoned it. Yet Carlson and his woke right acolytes, imitators and supporters are certain that Trump will lose his MAGA supporters if he continues to support Israel and doesn’t pursue a policy of appeasing Iran. However, as Trump said in an interview in The Atlantic, he’s the one who decides how to define “America First,” not Carlson and the trolls he platforms or plays to via the Internet.
What’s up with Carlson? Perhaps he’s getting money from those sources, which would be the simplest explanation. But I don’t think that’s it. I think his anti-Israel stance is both a niche position that gets him a following and a lot of clicks from a certain segment of the right and distinguishes him as the star of that group, and a natural continuation of positions he’s always held.
I’ve never been a big TV news watcher, but there was a time many years ago when I did watch it with at least some regularity. I haven’t watched it for years, but I stopped watching Carlson long before I stopped the rest of it. The reason was that he was terrible on foreign policy questions. Here’s what I wrote about Carlson in September of 2024, and it represents what I’d been thinking for many years:
… I got to the point long ago of not being able to stomach Carlson or his guests when they talk about anything foreign-policy related. I long ago decided he was basically Pat Buchanan on steroids, and although I suppose now and then Carlson gets something right (particularly if he’s talking about domestic issues), on foreign affairs he’s been spending a great deal of time giving a platform to people who are wrong. And it’s a big platform because he has a huge following.
Carlson basically represents the views one can often see at The American Conservative, which is a publication founded by Buchanan himself in 2002. Just as an example of what I mean, today the American Conservative website highlighted this article entitled “Zionism Is Not an American Principle: It is time to put some daylight between American policy and Israeli actions.” Here’s an excerpt, to give you an idea of some of the flavor:
In the short term, President Donald Trump must resist entrapment in Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s war of choice, continue to make (likely futile) attempts at negotiations, and defend the safety of U.S. soldiers caught in the middle—preferably by funneling them out of the region entirely. In the bigger picture, the United States must begin the process of separating fervent Zionism from its policymaking institutions.
War of choice. The author elucidates what he means:
Israel’s behavior is anathema to any kind of morality or human decency. From its numerous wars of aggression and territorial expansion, to its racialist laws, to the forced expulsion of hundreds of thousands of people from their ancestral homes and their continued debasement under a brutal military occupation (which has lasted longer than the Soviet occupation of Eastern Europe), to its war of annihilation on Gaza, including the purposeful targeting of civilians and children—this is not a government that can be reasoned with.
There it is: the complete leftist line merged with the acceptance of Hamas propaganda. “Conservative”? Hardly. The principles involved are these: (1) anything that anyone we call “neocon” is in favor of, we oppose (2) Jews are neocons; neocons are Jews (3) therefore Israel is the worst of all.
You can see American Conservative’s coverage of Tucker Carlson here; it seems to be a love fest.
Trump is a good deal less enamored:
“Well, considering that I’m the one that developed ‘America First,’ and considering that the term wasn’t used until I came along, I think I’m the one that decides that,” Trump told Scherer. “For those people who say they want peace — you can’t have peace if Iran has a nuclear weapon. So for all of those wonderful people who don’t want to do anything about Iran having a nuclear weapon—that’s not peace.”
Trump also referred to Carlson on Truth Social as “kooky.” I’d say that’s being kind – as well as retro.
USAID corruption scheme: it was good while it lasted …
… and this particular one lasted a long long time:
Four men, including a government contracting officer for the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) and three owners and presidents of companies, have pleaded guilty for their roles in a decade-long bribery scheme involving at least 14 prime contracts worth over $550 million in U.S. taxpayer dollars.
Roderick Watson, 57, of Woodstock, Maryland, who worked as a USAID contracting officer, pleaded guilty to bribery of a public official;
Walter Barnes, 46, of Potomac, Maryland, who was the owner and president of PM Consulting Group LLC doing business as Vistant (Vistant), a certified small business under the U.S. Small Business Administration (SBA) 8(a) contracting program, pleaded guilty to conspiracy to commit bribery of a public official and securities fraud;
Darryl Britt, 64, of Myakka City, Florida, who was the owner and president of Apprio, Inc. (Apprio), a certified small business under the SBA 8(a) contracting program, pleaded guilty to conspiracy to commit bribery of a public official; and
Paul Young, 62, of Columbia, Maryland, who was the president of a subcontractor to Vistant and Apprio, pleaded guilty to conspiracy to commit bribery of a public official.
“Watson exploited his position at USAID to line his pockets with bribes in exchange for more than $550 million in contracts. While he helped three company owners and presidents bypass the fair bidding process, he was showered with cash and lavish gifts,” said Chief Guy Ficco of IRS Criminal Investigation (IRS-CI). “Through its financial crime investigations, IRS-CI works to protect taxpayer dollars and ensure government funds are awarded based on merit — not corruption. In close coordination with our law enforcement partners, IRS-CI helped put an end to their greed and criminal conduct. Now, Watson and his co-conspirators will face justice.” …
During the scheme, Britt and Barnes paid bribes to Watson that were often concealed by passing them through Young, who was the president of another subcontractor to Apprio and Vistant. … The bribes were also often concealed through electronic bank transfers falsely listing Watson on payroll, incorporated shell companies, and false invoices. Watson is alleged to have received bribes valued at more than approximately $1 million as part of the scheme.
I doubt this is an isolated case.
Is anyone on earth surprised by this? I doubt it.
And yet, most people have had no opportunity to be either surprised or unsurprised, because the story is hardly being covered. Oh, the NY Post has a piece: see this. But I haven’t been able to get any links to the case through the NY Times, the WaPo, CNN, CBS, or ABC. Even Fox News is only covering it as a local story, as far as I can tell: see this. The local Baltimore paper covers it, too: see this.
This is obviously a national story of no small importance, and it should be receiving wide national coverage. It’s also completely obvious that if there was an angle in it that could hurt Trump, it would be front-page news at all those outlets. Sometimes they get their talking points, and sometimes they get their “keep your mouth shut” points.
Open thread 6/17/2025
Seen recently on a walk:
Teacher’s union head Randi Weingarten resigns from the DNC
Raise your hand if you knew Weingarten was on the DNC in the first place. I certainly didn’t. But she’s apparently been a member of that group for 23 years. That’s a while.
Her stated reason for leaving:
Among those dissatisfied with Hogg’s departure and Martin’s leadership are Randi Weingarten, president of the 1.8-million-member American Federation of Teachers, and Lee Saunders, president of the American Federation of State, County, and Municipal Employees, which represents approximately 1.4 million workers.
Their dissatisfaction ran so deep that both have severed long-standing ties with the DNC. In a letter to Martin dated June 5 and received on Sunday, Weingarten informed him she was declining his offer to be reappointed to the Committee.
She wrote, “While I am proud to be a Democrat, I appear to be out of step with the leadership you are forging, and I do not want to be the one who keeps questioning why we are not enlarging our tent.”
You’re not enlarging your tent because your party has moved way to the left of most Americans – a position you yourself hold, so I’m not sure what your proposal for Democrat tent expansion would be.
The UN’s role in Israel’s attack on Iran
I don’t think much of this author’s observations on Trump, and I think he somewhat overstates the influence of the UN in the matter, but the following part is nevertheless intriguing and I would guess mainly correct:
One person is responsible for Israel’s attack on Iran: Rafael Mariano Grossi, the Argentine director general of the International Atomic Energy Agency, IAEA, since December 2019. …
From the start, Grossi’s investigations in Iran focused on the country’s vast effort to “enrich” uranium, to increase the proportion of radioactive U-235. Some energy reactors can operate with zero enrichment by using heavy water moderators, while others work very well with 3-4% enrichment, or a maximum of 5% of U-235.
Because the infrastructure needed to enrich uranium is extremely expensive, only a handful of the 31 countries that operate nuclear reactors have ever tried it themselves. Most simply buy it from the cheapest source, often Russia as well France, the UK and Kazakhstan.
But Iran was adding more and more centrifuges in increasingly vast facilities at enormous expense, which made no sense at all if the aim was to generate energy. The IAEA has inspectors who dutifully investigate nuclear installations — or rather those voluntarily shown to them. But they can only ask to visit nuclear installations that show up in freely available satellite photography. There was one in Iran that Grossi wanted to visit starting very early in his tenure: Parchin, some 15 miles south-east of Tehran. But his requests were persistently refused. Previous IAEA chiefs would have moved on to other things, but for Grossi it was the turning point: he had found the place where Iran was preparing to shape uranium and assemble its nuclear weapons.
From then on, his reports made it increasingly clear that Iran’s enormous expenditures, on some of the largest nuclear installations in the world, meant that it was after nuclear weapons as soon as possible.
The premise of the article is that this caused Israel to act. But I have a sneaking suspicion Israel knew it before Grossi did. However, I still find it of interest that the IAEA recently came out publicly this past Thursday with the news that Iran was going nuclear:
The U.N. nuclear watchdog’s board of governors on Thursday formally found that Iran isn’t complying with its nuclear obligations for the first time in 20 years, a move that could lead to further tensions and set in motion an effort to restore United Nations sanctions on Tehran later this year. …
According to the draft resolution, “Iran’s many failures to uphold its obligations since 2019 to provide the Agency with full and timely cooperation regarding undeclared nuclear material and activities at multiple undeclared locations in Iran … constitutes non-compliance with its obligations under its Safeguards Agreement.”
That article was written on Thursday, before Israel’s war on Iran began.
Israel continues to pound Iran
Israel is not fooling around this time:
Israel on Sunday attacked dozens of sites in Iran — including energy sites, radar systems, and ballistic missiles and their launchers — and killed Iran’s top intelligence officers on the third day of its ongoing campaign against the Islamic Republic’s nuclear and ballistic missile programs.
The Israel Defense Forces also bombed an Iranian refueling plane at Mashhad Airport in northeast Iran, some 2,300 kilometers (1,430 miles) from Israel, marking what it said was the most distant strike since the beginning of the operation.
And early Monday morning, the army said it struck surface-to-surface missile launch sites in central Iran …
In an earlier statement, [IDF Chief of Staff] Zamir said the Air Force was striking Iran’s “infrastructure and nuclear program in a precise and extensive manner, beyond what the enemy anticipated.”
Beyond what the enemy anticipated is probably the understatement of the year. Much more information at the link about what was destroyed. And you can find a great many more details at this link.
One of the many targets has been the Iranian intelligence community. Seems that Iranian intelligence wasn’t all that good:
Israel may have succeeded in eliminating almost the entire top intelligence commander of the Iranian regime, Israeli news outlets say.
Mohammad Kazemi, head of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) intelligence organization, and his second-in-command, Hassan Mohaghegh, were killed in an Israeli strike on their command center, initial reports suggest.
As has been the case in Gaza, Israel has been warning Iranian civilians to get out of the way:
Israel has issued an “urgent warning to Iranian citizens” to evacuate areas close to military sites after fresh exchanges of strikes between the two countries overnight raised fears of further escalation.
It appears that Iran has no ability whatsoever at this point to defend itself against Israeli bombing.
Vance Boelter, the Minnesota killer, taken into custody
He was taken alive, which surprises me:
Vance Boelter was arrested Sunday evening in a field near Green Isle in Ramsey County, only about nine miles away from one of the shootings. Boelter was wearing dark clothing, had a backpack, and was seen near a home. He began running towards the woods and later gave up. The Ramsey County Sheriff’s Office confirmed the arrest in a Facebook post along with a picture of Boelter in custody-
“The face of evil. After relentless and determined police work, the killer is now in custody. Thanks to the dedication of multiple agencies working together along with support from the community, justice is one step closer.“
The police know more about his motives than we’ve heard so far – or may ever hear – because they have found some of his writings. My sense is that he fits the pattern of recent assassins, which is that his politics don’t fit neatly into any category, and he’s just a strange guy who snapped for some reason. Apparently he’s anti-abortion, but being anti-abortion doesn’t mean a person goes on a killing spree in the wee hours of the morning.
It’s good that they caught him, and I bet a lot of Minnesota politicians are breathing easier as a result.
ADDENDUM:
Much more about Boelner’s supposed hit list can be found here.