Random News and Notes 29 August

On this date:

• 70 AD – The Temple in Jerusalem burns after a 9 month Roman siege.
• 1526 – Ottoman Suleiman the Magnificent crushes a Hungarian army under Lewis II at the Battle of Mohacs.
• 1533 – In Peru, the Inca chief Atahualpa is executed by orders of Francisco Pizarro, although the chief had already paid his ransom.
• 1776 – General George Washington retreats during the night from Long Island to New York City.
• 1786 – More than 500 armed farmers and Revolutionary War veterans upset at the state government’s failure to provide debt relief block access to a county court in Northampton, Massachusetts. The uprising marks the start of Shays’ Rebellion.
• 1862 – General John Pope‘s army is defeated by a smaller Confederate force at the Second Battle of Bull Run.
• 1911 – Ishi is found wandering and starving near Oroville CA. Ishi – called the last wild Indian – was the last member of a band of Indians known as the Yahi. He was also one of the only Indians who had not had contact with Whites at that point.

• 1942 – The American Red Cross announces that Japan has refused to allow safe conduct for the passage of ships with supplies for American prisoners of war.
• 1945 – U.S. airborne troops are landed in transport planes at Atsugi airfield, southwest of Tokyo, beginning the occupation of Japan.
• 1949 – USSR explodes its first atomic bomb, “First Lightning.”
• 1950 – International Olympic Committee votes to allow West Germany and Japan to compete in 1952 games.
• 1952 – In the largest bombing raid of the Korean War, 1,403 planes of the Far East Air Force bomb Pyongyang, North Korea.
• 1957 – US Congress passes Civil Rights Act of 1957 after Strom Thurmond (Sen-D-SC) ends 24-hour filibuster, the longest in Senate history, against the bill.
• 1960 – US U-2 spy plane spots SAM (surface-to-air) missile launch pads in Cuba.
• 1964 – Mickey Mantle ties Babe Ruth’s career strikeout record (1,330).
• 1965 – Astronauts L. Gordon Cooper Jr. and Charles “Pete” Conrad Jr complete 120 Earth orbits in Gemini 5, marking the first time the US set an international duration record for a manned space mission.
• 1970 – 23 Native American activists climbs to the top of Mount Rushmore in South Dakota. Renaming the landmark Crazy Horse Mountain, in honor of the Lakota Sioux leader who famously resisted white Americans’ incursions into the area, the protesters are there to reclaim land they believe to be rightfully theirs under the 1868 Treaty of Fort Laramie, which guaranteed Indigenous people the right to all of Western South Dakota. The occupation will last for two months
• 1977 – Lou Brock (St Louis Cardinals) breaks Ty Cobb’s 49-year-old career stolen bases record at 893.
• 1991 – USSR’s parliament suspends Communist Party activities in the wake of a failed coup.
• 1995 – NATO launches Operation Deliberate Force against Bosnian Serb forces.
• 2005 – Hurricane Katrina makes landfall in Louisiana. The category 3 storm brought sustained winds of 145 miles per hour, which cut power lines and destroyed homes. It became the most destructive hurricane in US history. In all, it is believed that the hurricane caused more than 1,800 deaths and up to $150 billion in damages.

We start the news in the SOUTHCOM AO, where the Navy blew up a cartel mother ship. The vessel served as a floating refueling station for go-fast boats extending drug trafficking ranges far from shore. The vessel had previously been sanctioned by the U.S. Treasury and tied to Ecuador’s Los Choneros narco-terrorist group.

Marines from the San Antonio boarded and cleared the vessel without incident before transferring those on board to Ecuadorian partner forces. The ship was then used for target practice by the Navy and sent to Davy Jones’ locker.

A truck carrying about 1,400 cases of Pabst Blue Ribbon and 200 cases of Old Milwaukee non-alcoholic beer vanished from an Anheuser-Busch distribution center in Montclair California yesterday. The cargo is worth around $45,000 and was supposed to be headed for San Diego.

I mean, why? Must be a hipster criminal gang. Anyway, police are probing the theft alongside two similar cargo hits that same day.

President Trump announced an agreement with Venezuela’s interim President Delcy Rodriguez securing majority U.S. control of more than 65 billion barrels of oil through a partnership with private business, directed by Secretary of State Marco Rubio and Secretary of War Pete Hegseth. The agreement targets 17 strategic oil fields expected to attract nearly $100 billion in private investment, aiming to revive Venezuela’s deteriorated energy sector and secure additional crude for U.S. refineries while generating over $209 billion in tax revenue for Caracas.

Honestly, I wonder why this announcement took so long. I was – and still am – of the opinion that the moves in Venezuela had a broader import in the Trump foreign policy. Maduro was a bad guy and deserved to be taken out if for no other reason than he was the head of the Cartel de los Soles, but there was always something more. With this new agreement, the US now controls 7% of the proven oil reserves world wide.

These deals will lower fuel prices here in the US and oil prices world wide.

There are a couple of immigration – specifically H-1B visa – related notes today. First, a Department of Homeland Security proposal cleared White House review to eliminate the 60-day grace period for H-1B workers after employment ends, tying their status more strictly to active jobs. That means anyone here on an H-1B visa loses their status the day they get fired and have to leave immediately. Under current law, if they overstay, they are not eligible for a new visa for several years.

In the second story, there are rules under review regarding spouse visa holders ability to work. An executive order created the H4 EAD( H1B spouse) work visa and the Trump admin is contemplating terminating it.

I have to ask, why did it take so long?