Random News and Notes 17 June
We’re kicking off today’s news roundup with a funny story out of Kentucky. Jonathan Mason of Murray, KY decided to get back at a bar he’d been banned from entering by releasing a raccoon into the premises. You read that correctly, he let a raccoon loose in a bar.
Mason was arrested and charged with Assault 2nd Degree, Criminal Trespassing 3rd Degree, Resisting Arrest, and Failure of Owner to Maintain Required Insurance 1st Offense; he was held in the Calloway County Jail.
I opened the last Friday Fun with a humorous post about raccoons from the OK Dept. of Wildlife Conservation. But if I’m honest, ‘coons can be pretty fucking mean. That this one only bit one person is kind of a miracle. God knows someone throws me into a strange situation like that I’m biting someone too. . .
I thought for a minute something serious was going to happen in the Israel-Iran conflict last night. A ton of US aerial refueling assets were winging their way to Europe and other points east all day yesterday. Then around 1930, President Trump announced his abrupt departure from the G7 meetings in Kananaskis, Alberta. Part of that announcement was the fact he wanted the National Security Council assembled for his return.
Seems it was a head fake though. There hasn’t been any reported US activity in the region as of this writing. Now, before any of you get your panties in a twist over this, any US involvement in the Israel-Iran conflict will be limited to exactly one munition and one mission set. That munition is the GBU-57a MOP – the worlds largest and most powerful bunker buster bomb – and the mission set is the destruction of the Fordow nuclear facility. Why not give that bomb to Israel you might ask. Well that answer is pretty simple; the MOP weighs some 30,000 pounds and can only be dropped from the B-2 Spirit bomber.
Israel has neutralized the entire Iranian air defense network. They were flying daylight raids yesterday with F-15 and F-16 aircraft, not F-35s.
Here is a(n incomplete) list of all the Iranian figures that have met Allah since the start of open hostilities. Keep in mind, these are only the confirmed dead, the actual list is likely very much longer and more comprehensive. From the military side:
- Major General Hossein Salami – Commander-in-Chief of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC).
- Major General Mohammad Bagheri – Chief of Staff of the Iranian Armed Forces.
- Major General Gholam Ali Rashid – Commander of the Khatam al-Anbiya Central Headquarters.
- Brigadier General Amir Ali Hajizadeh – Commander of the IRGC Aerospace Force.
- General Gholamreza Mehrabi – Deputy Intelligence Chief of the Iranian Armed Forces.
- General Mehdi Rabbani – Deputy Commander of Operations for the Iranian Armed Forces.
- General Davood Sheikhian – Commander of Air Defense.
- General Khosro Hassani – Deputy Intelligence Chief of the IRGC Aerospace Unit.
- General Mohammad Kazemi – Head of the Intelligence Organization of the IRGC.
- General Hassan Mohaqiq – Deputy to General Kazemi, IRGC Intelligence.
- Brigadier General Hamid Vahedi – Commander-in-Chief of the Iranian Air Force (IRIAF).
There are many other reports out there that up to 20 additional senior level commanders have been taken off the board.
On the Nuclear side the list is just as impressive. At least these six are confirmed as getting their 72 goats err virgins.
- Fereydoon Abbasi – Former head of Iran’s Atomic Energy Organization.
- Mohammad Mehdi Tehranchi – Theoretical physicist and president of the Islamic Azad University, accused by Israel of involvement in Iran’s nuclear weapons program.
- Abdulhamid Minouchehr – Head of nuclear engineering at Shahid Beheshti University.
- Ahmad Reza Zolfaghari – Nuclear engineering professor at Shahid Beheshti University.
- Amirhossein Feqhi (or Seyed Amir Hossein Feqhi) – Nuclear professor at Shahid Beheshti University and deputy head of the Atomic Energy Organization of Iran.
- Motallebzadeh (or Akbar Motalei Zadeh) – Chemical engineer, named in some reports as a nuclear scientist.
It’s been widely reported that another 6-8 scientists engaged in Irans nuclear program have gotten whacked since Friday. That is probably a bigger deal than the room temperature military commanders.
Why? Because that brainpower is irreplaceable.
. . . That site has been destroyed. Without it and sufficient quantities of this uranium metal, there’s no bomb — unless Iran has another site or can rebuild it quickly. I don’t think they do or can.
Israel has eliminated 14 nuclear weapons scientists. This is almost all of the weapons scientists they had on their strike list. This is like eliminating Oppenheimer and his top team before the Trinity Test in June 1945. Can the site be rebuilt? Can the weapons scientists be replaced? Yes — but this is a serious blow to the nuclear weaponization program of the regime.
There are also credible reports that the enrichment facility at Natanz has imploded.
There was an ICE raid at a meat packing plant in Omaha Nebraska. Some 76 individuals were arrested by ICE at the Glen Valley Foods facility. It was the largest immigration raid in Nebraska history.
It seems that in the days after the raid, the waiting room at the hiring office has been packed with applicants looking for work.
While I am not a fan by any stretch, I thought I needed to add this note to today’s RNN. Televangelist Jimmy Swaggart is fighting for his life today. Swaggart, 90, was hospitalized in critical condition after suffering an unspecified cardiac event.
At his peak in the mid-1980s, Swaggart was the country’s top-rated TV preacher. His services were broadcast to over 2 million households.
“Gold Bar” Bob Menendez reports to prison today to begin his sentence. Menendez was convicted of extortion, conspiracy, obstruction of justice and acting as a foreign agent.He took gold bars, cash and a Mercedes from New Jersey businessmen representing foreign countries.
He was sentenced to 11 years for his crimes. Good luck in prison Bob, don’t drop the soap.
A former Coast Guard officer has been arrested and charged with making threats against the President. Peter Stinson served as an officer in the United States Coast Guard from 1988 to 2021.
Stinson allegedly made graphic threats against Trump involving guns, poisoning and even knives on multiple social media platforms.
