News broke a few hours ago that the helicopter carrying Iranian president Ebrahim Raisi and his foreign minister, Hossein Amirabdollahian, has crashed in the mountainous, wooded terrain of Eastern Azerbaijan, with a search ongoing for the crash site.

Sometimes bad things happen, but when the President of Iran’s helicopter crashes, and his foreign minister was on the copter, too, one wonders if it's more than coincidence. People are already wondering whether this was an accident or something more.

It’s no secret that Iran is a worldwide state funder of terrorism. Along with Qatar, it’s the money behind both Hezbollah and Hamas, which are fighting Israel from the East and the North. Violence in the Middle East would be dramatically diminished if Iran’s bankroll were cut off. The same is true for the military support it provides in terms of weapons, training, and strategy.

But it’s not just Israel that’s a target of Iranian malevolence. Since 1979, Iran’s battle cry has been “Death to America.” The official government policy is that it is in an existential war with the United States. Israel is the “Little Satan,” while America is the “Great Satan.”

Strategic sealift is an essential element of the U.S. military’s logistics system. Sealift provides weaponry, fuel, ammunition, and other support needed for warfighting on the battlefield. Roughly 90% of all needed supplies and equipment travel by sea.

There is no viable alternative to sea transport. The distances are too great and the vast tonnages of military weapons and support equipment dictate transportation by sea. What is logistics, and why is it important? Let’s hear from some historical figures on the importance of logistics:

“Logistics [is] … as vital to military success as daily food is to daily work.” —Rear Admiral Alfred Thayer Mahan (USN)

“Amateurs worry about strategy. Dilettantes worry about tactics. Professionals worry about logistics.” —Unknown

“You will not find it difficult to prove that battles, campaigns, and even wars have been won or lost primarily because of logistics.” —General Dwight D. Eisenhower

“I don’t know what the hell this logistics is that [Gen.] Marshall is always talking about, but I want some of it.” —Admiral E.J. King (USN)

“My logisticians are a humorless lot. … They know if my campaign fails, they are the first ones I will slay.” —Alexander the Great

All humor aside, the importance of sea transport of our military assets to war cannot be overemphasized.

None of the five civil and criminal cases currently lodged against former President Donald Trump have ever had merit. They were all predicated on using the law to injure his re-election candidacy—given a widespread derangement syndrome among the left and a fear they cannot entrust a Trump/Biden election to the people.

These criminal and civil trials are merely the continuation of extra-legal efforts of the last eight years to destroy a presidential candidate in lieu of opposing him in transparent elections.

As such, the current lawfare joins the Mueller investigation of the Russian-collusion hoax. It is a continuation of the laptop disinformation caper and the “51 intelligence authorities” who lied about its Russian origins.

It logically follows from the two impeachments, the Senate trial of Trump as a private citizen, and states’ efforts to remove him from their ballots.

The E. Jean Carroll case, the Alvin Bragg, Letitia James, and Fani Willis local and state trials, and the Smith federal indictment share various embarrassments.

Do any of the Democrats engaged in lawfare against President Trump read the news about leftists south of the border who do the same things they are doing?

Maybe Panama's election a week ago would be useful for them to know.

The parallels here are quite striking. A former president who brought prosperity to his country through conservative and free market values from 2009 to 2014, Ricardo Martinelli, was running for a non-consecutive term as president.

The left, which took power after him, made a hash of the economy, and turned Panama into an illegal alien superhighway, leaving voters with only the memory of how good things were during Martinelli's administration.

The Associated Press seemed to think the voters remembered….

Frédéric Bastiat in his book The Law distinguishes between profit and plunder.

Profit is financial gain earned through industrious behavior. Business owners make a profit by selling products at a greater amount than what it costs to produce that product.

Plunder, by contrast, is the theft of property through nonvoluntary means, such as theft, coercion, or fraud.

Bastiat noted that while most plunder is illegal, there remains one major exception: the state.

All plunder is an act of aggression against someone else’s natural rights, hence why it is morally wrong.

Regular plunder is a tough business, even for delinquent thieves. There is risk involved in robbing or defrauding someone, leading to no return on the effort of the thief.

There is also the issue of the victim or potential victims of plunder being more aware of and resistant to future attempts at plunder.

Despite the inclinations of a few thieves toward high-risk, high-reward plunder, most thieves prey upon the vulnerable.

I was in Barbados earlier this year. During our tour, the guide proudly boasted that Barbados’s all-female government had mandated that the whole island will go completely solar by 2035 or something.

I commented to my companion that this seemed like an idiotic idea for a nation that lives in a hurricane zone.

Well, my prediction about combining wind zones and solar panels came true, although not in Barbados (yet) but in India.

The Lokmat Times has the story:  “A summer storm on Tuesday….