Random News and Notes 13 June

Let’s start with the elephant in the room. Israel hit Iran overnight and caused massive damage to the Iranian military – both the leadership personnel and the infrastructure – took out some of the top nuclear scientists and did untold damage to the image of the Ayatollahs.

Previous strikes had taken out most of the Iranian air defense capability. While much of this is unconfirmed there are reports that most of the senior military leadership has been taken out. The killing of IRGC (Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps) leader Hossein Salami has been confirmed.

The strikes also hit most if not all of the Iranian nuclear sites. The facility at Natanz was hard hit.

While details are a bit sparse, it looks like Israel built missile and drone ‘bases’ in Iran. The execution looks very similar to the Ukrainian attack on Russian strategic aviation last week. Those ‘bases’ were used in addition to traditional air strikes.

Israel says they have plans to continue this attack for another 14 days.

Look for a more in-depth article about this developing story over the weekend.

This next piece involves two politicians from my home state of NY. Rep Elise Stefanik absolutely demolishes Governor Kathy Hochul during a House hearing on sanctuary state policies. Hochul is completely unprepared for the hearing and Stefanik takes advantage of that fact.

This exchange is going to be a campaign ad for Elise when she begins her run for Governor in New York later this year.

California Senator Alex Padilla pulled a publicity stunt yesterday. He stormed a Kristi Noem presser. He can be seen on video – handily taken by one of his staffers – rushing the podium and shouting questions without identifying himself. Security, it’s not completely clear if they were USSS, FBI or DHS agents, grabbed Padilla, pushed him out of the room, took him to the floor and cuffed him up.

I want to be perfectly clear here, a sitting US Senator rushed the podium, did not identify himself and was not wearing his Senate security pin. He was treated just like anyone else who did the same would have been treated. It may have been more gentle than If you or I had done the same.

California Governor Hair Gel sued the Trump administration over the decision to and execution of the President federalizing the CA National Guard in response to the LA riots. Well Gel had good news – for a minute – and bad news.

That TRO lasted a bit more than two hours. A three judge panel of the 9th Circuit stayed the circuit judge’s order pending a hearing in the appeals court. That hearing is scheduled for noon on Tuesday 17 June.