Wednesday items
No single big item, but a lot of small ones.
First up, senior Minnesota US attorneys, even a few appointed by President Trump, have resigned in the face of DOJ demands that they investigate the late Ms. Becca Good of ICE shooting fame.
Veteran prosecutor Joseph Thompson, who was previously appointed by Donald Trump to serve as Minnesota’s acting U.S. attorney and first assistant U.S. attorney, had overseen a sprawling fraud investigation at the center of the president’s surge of federal law enforcement officers in the state.
Thompson is among at least four career prosecutors who quit Tuesday.
Think these state attorneys are all Biden holdovers? Think again. The administration has been busy.
Last year, roughly 10,000 attorneys worked across the Justice Department and its components, including the FBI.
But the Trump administration has fired, forced out or offered buyouts to roughly 5,500 attorneys and other Justice Department employees, according to Justice Connection, an advocacy group that has tracked departures.
Of course, there have been issues with some of the appointments, and several high-profile cases have been rejected because some of the US attorneys were improperly appointed.
In totally unrelated news, the Army has selected 9 base to get “microreactors” for power generation. They each generate around 20Mw of power.
They differ from Small Modular Reactors (SMRs), which range from 20 to 300 megawatts, and are designed to be portable, with some able to be hauled by a semi tractor-trailer.
My, how times have changed when a reactor is small enough to be trucked. Might note – Ft. Greely, the subject of my Saturday 10 January column here at TAH was one of the Army bases that had an early nuclear power plant installed in 1960 which ran until 1972.
Maybe a little bigger?
On the other side of the world, China says a massive solar plant it has will be able to generate 7 gigawatts of power – this year. It’s intended to be even larger.
The Three Gorges Kubuqi Solar Park has been under construction since 2022, blanketing an Inner Mongolian desert in panels. It already has over five gigawatts of capacity installed.
Very impressive… but for comparison:
The Three Gorges Kubuqi Solar Park, due to be completed in 2030, will be 250 miles long, three miles wide, and will be able to generate 100 gigawatts of clean energy. TCD
That’s 750 square MILES of solar panels, about three times the size of Ft. Bragg. Bet they aren’t able to fit THEM on a truck.
And, the consequences of contradicting the President are swift. Remember the other day when I mentioned that Exxon said they thought investing in Venezuelan oil would be a mistake? The President was asked about that Sunday:
Trump hesitated, saying he wouldn’t disclose details before taking public aim at one company in particular: “I didn’t like Exxon’s response. You know, we have so many that wanted – I’d probably be inclined to keep Exxon out. I didn’t like their response. They’re playing too cute.”
Sounds like both Exxon and Trump are on the same page.
Gonna close with a Wisconsin fella who must have set an alcohol record.
Officials found the vehicle and conducted a traffic stop on US Highway 10 near County Road A, with deputies stating they could smell a strong odor of alcohol and other signs of intoxication coming from the 41-year-old driver.
This isn’t the driver’s first rodeo. He had a revoked license, was supposed to have had a sobriety interlock installed (which he didn’t) and having a previous Operating While Intoxicated conviction, his allowable blood alcohol was .02. He was a leetle bit higher:
A preliminary breath test found the driver to have an alcohol concentration of .427. Following a previous arrest for OWI, deputies say the driver was to have a .02 restriction, making him 21x the legal limit
Go big or go home. 21 times the limit HAS to be a record.
“First up, senior Minnesota US attorneys, even a few appointed by President Trump, have resigned in the face of DOJ demands that they investigate the late Ms. Becca Good of ICE shooting fame.”
I think you forgot to use the word “allegedly”.
Because there seems to be a bit of contention on that issue:
“Dhillon tells me that 3 people applied for early retirement the day BEFORE the shooting. They gave notice weeks before.
The fourth person mentioned in the story put in for retirement in early December, a month before the incident took place.”
Does put a different spin on it.
How do you do PoPo math? Is drunk driving something like .008? Isn’t 8% represented as .08? And isn’t .08% the same thing as .08 / 100 or 8 10ths of 1 percent?
I am confused about how this drunkard is still alive with .427 and wondering if some decimal withcraft might be more like .0427.
It’s probably just a matter of phrasing when they write down 0.0X percent. To the right of the decimal place is 10th, 100ths, then thousandths, etc.
What is the volume related to, decaliters, liters or some other measure of blood?
From what I’ve read, it might be accurate…. they’re professionals up there in Wisconsin 🙂
So I have heard! Same with Michigan and Minnesota
The .08 level is a LEGAL PRESUMPTIVE definition of intoxication. That is set primarily by some extensive case law and statutes from a ways back. Some folks can be absolutely hammered at .02 and others “appear” to be sober at .15. I have seen both of those. The DUI / OWI statutes have a clause indicating impaired “to the slightest degree”. That means you can have a successful prosecution for DUI / OWI with a lower BA test, be it breath of blood test. The highest BA I personally have seen was a .38 and the dude was unable to stand up straight, much less walk the heel to toe test or much of anything else.
In training we were told that a BA of .50 is normally a fatal dose of alcohol. I have to think there are some long term drunks (alcoholics) who have dallied at that level a time or two.
Not that far back. The .08 was standardized in 2003 from federal legislation in 2000 requiring all states to adopt this measure. This was pushed hard by the NTSB who demanded an even lower level for commercial and passenger vehicle drivers. The various organizations such as MADD were very vocal and supportive.
It is interesting to note that DUI deaths have held steady since the mid 90s despite a dramatic increase in the number of miles driven in the US annually.
Blood alcohol is expressed as grams per 100 milliliters of blood (gm/100ml). A reading of.08 is the DUI minimum. is .8 grams of alcohol per 100 milliliters of blood. one milliliter of blood weighs about a gram as it has a density similar to water (for those not familiar with the metric system, everything is based upon measurements of naturally occurring elements, most often water, instead of random whimsy).
The minimum amount that is fatal without any contributing circumstances such as other drug use and underlying medical conditions is .30. That is generally where most hospitals will admit people and put them on watch, although policies vary.
The world record for highest BAC 1.37% or 13.74 grams of alcohol per 100 milliliters in a man from Poland who survived. In 99.9999% of the population this amount would be fatal.
A severe alcoholic who drinks every day a reading of .25-.40 is not abnormal. The person may even appear to function relatively normally at .25, especially if they have been drinking for a long time. Once you start getting over .5 organs will start shutting down and the person will very likely become unconscious, even if they are a severe alcoholic.
7 GW is a lot of juice. That is enough to run the entire states of Maine and Vermont with some left over.
The Mongolian Desert was practically devoid of life. The solar panels are helping bring more there. By reducing the amount of water lost to the atmosphere and reducing temperature extremes it makes conditions more favorable to microbial and plant life. It is a good experiment about how we may eventually colonize other planets.
NAL,
I was thinking just the opposite, that whatever land is under the solar cell farm would become barren and dry due to blockage of sun and (any) rain.
Time will tell….that is, if the CCP allows any outside scientists/observers to come in and inspect.
Possibly infer (future) soil conditions from satellite pics of dust storms?
Maybe keep an eye on the WUWT climate site (https://wattsupwiththat.com/)
A little info on some similar departures. Saw this last night.
https://twitchy.com/justmindy/2026/01/13/shipwrecked-has-the-real-story-behind-civil-rights-resignations-n2423892
When do microreactors become small enough and cheap enough to buy one for my back yard/neighborhood? With (annual?) reactor cartridge replacement?
Mr. Fusion is already in the works.
Super misleading story there. Almost everything about it is wrong. The original source article is conveniently behind a NYT paywall and they are quite well know for their flexibility with the truth now.
Joseph H. Thompson was previously an acting US Attorney and currently is a fraud prosecutor who was the prosecutor for some of the fraud committed by the Somali fraud businesses. Lawyers don’t investigate much on their own.
Except that the US Attorney doesn’t investigate Federal Agent involved shootings. In fact they don’t investigate crimes at all on their own, they coordinate investigations with the appropriate agencies (FBI, DEA, ATF) for prosecution when the cases are presented to them. That they would stick their nose into an ongoing investigation defies common sense and common practice. That someone would quit over them NOT breaking protocol is absurd.