READER FAVORITE: G Gradual Men’s Sweatpants with Zipper Pockets. #CommissionEarned
February 3, 2025
WINNING: Donald Trump statement.
I just spoke with President Claudia Sheinbaum of Mexico. It was a very friendly conversation wherein she agreed to immediately supply 10,000 Mexican Soldiers on the Border separating Mexico and the United States. These soldiers will be specifically designated to stop the flow of fentanyl, and illegal migrants into our Country. We further agreed to immediately pause the anticipated tariffs for a one month period during which we will have negotiations headed by Secretary of State Marco Rubio, Secretary of Treasury Scott Bessent, and Secretary of Commerce Howard Lutnick, and high-level Representatives of Mexico. I look forward to participating in those negotiations, with President Sheinbaum, as we attempt to achieve a “deal” between our two Countries.
Tariffs are Trump’s way of wielding the power of the American consumer to protect America’s interests. The intent wasn’t to start a trade war but to curtail the cartels’ drug war on the US.
So far, so good. Now let’s see what Canada does.
THE NEW SPACE RACE: Safety panel urges NASA to reassess Artemis mission objectives to reduce risk.
A safety panel is calling on NASA to reassess to plans for upcoming Artemis missions, arguing that the agency is packing too many objectives into each mission.
At a Jan. 30 public meeting of the Aerospace Safety Advisory Panel (ASAP), members reiterated past concerns about the number of first-time objectives planned for Artemis 3, the first crewed lunar landing of the overall campaign, and later missions.
“Each first milestone carries its own individual risk and, as these risks are compounded and aggregated, it only increases the overall risk posture for any individual flight mission,” said Bill Bray, a member of the panel. “It really begs the question, is it time for the agency to reassess the current mission objectives and its approach for Artemis 3 and beyond, with the goal to better balance the risks across all those flight tests?”
ASAP has previously expressed its concerns about the number of firsts on Artemis 3, such as in its most recent annual report released in early 2024. That report listed 13 separate firsts for the mission, mostly tied to the Starship lunar lander and new spacesuits being developed by Axiom Space.
That list has only grown since then, he noted, with changes to the heat shield for Orion. NASA announced in December that it would reformulate the Avcoat material used in the heat shield for Artemis 3 and later missions to prevent the heat shield erosion seen on the Artemis 1 reentry.
Those concerns extend beyond Artemis 3, Bray said, with later missions incorporating the lunar Gateway, the Blue Moon crewed lunar lander and a lunar rover. “Each of these elements under development and delivery requires a near-perfect program execution across a complex set of tests and milestones and, frankly, there’s very little room for failure.”
Problems with a single key element, he concluded, “will result in continued launch delays and an irregular and erratic cadence of mission flights,” an issue ASAP has also previously raised. It also creates “an increased risk posture” for Artemis missions.
Getting rid of SLS and the Lunar Gateway would remove a lot of complexity and cost but would also increase reliance on Starship — which isn’t yet ready to go.
GOD FORBID THAT THE PEOPLE WHO WRITE THE CHECKS HAVE ANY INFLUENCE: Bigwig academics lament donor influence, Trump at U. Pennsylvania forum: ‘We are on the front lines of a war against civil society by the new administration.’ Well. “Civil society” isn’t what a bunch of disconnected elites want to do with other people’s money.
IT’S COMPLICATED: The Dirty Truth Behind Bill Kristol’s ‘Private’ Funding.
I FEEL LIKE THE PROPAGANDA PEOPLE AREN’T EVEN TRYING ANYMORE:
"Hunger in America" is simply not a very plausible storyline given "weight in America." https://t.co/jxZpfeRdss
— Wilfred Reilly (@wil_da_beast630) February 2, 2025
BADLY BEHAVED GUESTS SHOULD BE SHOWN THE DOOR, FORCIBLY IF NEEDED:
NOW: Anti-ICE protesters are blocking both sides of the 101 Freeway near the Alameda Street exit in DTLA. The CHP has since closed that portion of the freeway. Read more: https://t.co/K60ImdzmDi pic.twitter.com/iO5ARSTyTL
— KTLA (@KTLA) February 2, 2025
They don’t seem to understand that the rules have changed and, most importantly, the Trump administration is depriving their enabling NGOs of oxygen.
BE PREPARED TO CHARGE THEM WITH INSURRECTION IF THEY STEP OUT OF LINE:
FBI agents are “in panic” and are planning a protest tomorrow 🤣 pic.twitter.com/V6toP5ppIG
— ALX 🇺🇸 (@alx) February 3, 2025
Related:
Are they going to have their matching outfits and faces covered, too? pic.twitter.com/5hDVKXR2Wd
— Reese (@twoshepherds) February 3, 2025
I’M ENJOYING THIS:
Who’s ready for another exciting week in the Golden Era? pic.twitter.com/LoWQNpiJea
— Benny Johnson (@bennyjohnson) February 3, 2025
KRUISER’S MORNING BRIEFING: Good News — Dems Prove They Learned Nothing From 2024 Election. “It’s true that the Dems are commies now, but most of them like to be coy about it. The Democratic-Farmer-Labor Party is one big communist freak flag-flying festival. Once the word ‘labor’ is added to a political party’s name, Karl Marx is allowed a play date in Hell.”
SPACE: Watch Rocket Lab launch 5 ‘Internet of Things’ satellites to orbit today. It’s sked for 3:43 PM ET today.
OK, CHIEF: The DNC’s outgoing chair says Democrats should have stuck with Joe Biden in 2024.
In an interview with The Associated Press, Jaime Harrison reflected on why his party lost to Donald Trump and what might have happened had then-Vice President Kamala Harris had more time to campaign after Biden ended his reelection bid following a disastrous debate performance.
He also offered advice to his eventual successor, who will be chosen Saturday. The next DNC chair, Harrison said, needs to insist that the party not be a “rubber stamp” to its presidential candidate.
Here are excerpts from that conversation:
Why did Harris and Democrats lose the White House?
HARRISON: “I don’t know that there’s one answer. A lot of people like to come up with things, and they say it’s the economy. Well, it could have been a part of it. I think every state had their own little nuance. In Michigan, the Palestinian issue played something there.”
“The gap in which she lost wasn’t huge, but when you add up little pockets where it’s, some people because of Gaza, some people because of the economy, some people because she was a woman. And I think in many of those states, those little nicks here and there added up to how she lost in some of those states.”
Message: A vacant-eyed, mouth-breathing Biden is still a better candidate than Harris.
I wonder how Harris and her people are responding to that message.
UPDATE (FROM GLENN):
Nobody elected the staff that operated Joe Biden like an animatronic puppet for the last 4 years while he wrecked the country so i'm not sure the "nobody elected Elon" criticism really has legs. https://t.co/xFDyJ6NTw1
— Matt Whitlock (@mattdizwhitlock) February 3, 2025
THE RESISTANCE IS MOBILIZING:
“There’s no deep state.” https://t.co/V65BUEGJXS
— Randy Barnett (@RandyEBarnett) February 3, 2025
HE’S NOT WRONG:
Democratic Party officials have been so immersed in this warped mentality and cartoonish HR jargon for so long that they have completely lost the ability to perceive how bizarre and gross it sounds to people who aren't drowning in it: https://t.co/AqbaTz2Gev
— Glenn Greenwald (@ggreenwald) February 2, 2025
CHANGE:
WINNING:
USAID notice instructs staffers not to go to agency headquarters Monday, after Musk said Trump agreed to shut it down
– AP
— Gunther Eagleman™ (@GuntherEagleman) February 3, 2025
UPDATE: Just Like That: USAID Is (Mostly) Dead. “As a practical matter, as long as the president can get DOGE to go through the books it will be hard to revive the agency in its current form because, simply put, it is corrupt to the core. . . . You may think of foreign aid in terms of keeping the poorest of the poor from dying horrible deaths, but the meat and potatoes of USAID is extending the tendrils of power for the transnational elite and funding political operations. The censorship-industrial complex depended almost entirely on this slush fund.”
FOLLOW THE MONEY:
Never deleting this app pic.twitter.com/SsfLTCssx3
— Jeff Carlson (@themarketswork) February 3, 2025
IT’S ONLY FOOD: UK Climate Alarmists Plan to Seize Swathes of Farmland.
VINAY PRASAD: Randomize NIH grant giving.
You submit your grant and they hire someone to handle your section. They find three people to review it. Ideally, they pick people who have no idea what you are doing or why it is important, and are not as successful as you, so they can hate read your proposal. If, despite that, they give you a good score, you might be discussed at study section.
The study section assembles scientists to discuss your grant. As kids who were picked last in kindergarten basketball, they focus on the minutiae. They love to nitpick small things. If someone on study section doesn’t like you, they can tank you. In contrast, if someone loves you, they can’t really single handedly fund you.
You might wonder if study section leaders are the best scientists. Rest assured. They aren’t. They are typically mid career, mediocre scientists. (This is not just a joke, data support this claim see www.drvinayprasad.com). They rarely have written extremely influential papers. . . .
Given that the current system is onerous and likely flawed, you would imagine that NIH leadership has repeatedly tested whether the current method is superior than say a modified lottery, aka having an initial screen and then randomly giving out the money.
Of course not. Self important people giving out someone else’s money rarely study their own processes. If study sections are no better than lottery, that would mean a lot of NIH study section officers would no longer need to work hard from home half the day, freeing up money for one more grant.
Given that the purpose of a system is what it does, the purpose of the NIH is to centralize control of scientific research under a federal bureaucracy, not to produce the best or most innovative science.
LIGHTNING DEAL: Stud Finder Wall Scanner. CommissionEarned
JEFFREY CARTER: The Tariff Game. “Every Democrat took to X and said, Trump campaigned on ending inflation but tariffs are going to increase inflation. I knew Democrats couldn’t grasp economic concepts before, but now they are full-throated in their ignorance.”
Plus: “The way $DOGE is working, they are uncovering billions and billions of government largesse and waste. We will see budget cuts in the 20% of the budget that is discretionary. Interestingly, if we spent at 2019 levels and took in taxes as we did in 2023, the US Budget would be in surplus and we’d be paying debt down. Ending 100% of all payments to NGOs is a fantastic idea. We will save trillions. . . . Trump is getting a lot of stuff done that people in the US have wanted en masse for years. Who hasn’t heard a liberal or a conservative say they want good government? Who hasn’t heard someone say they want to eliminate waste? All the crying you hear today is from people actually seeing waste get eliminated.”
But read the whole thing.
CHANGE: Meta Plans to Leave Delaware, Reincorporate in Texas.
Social media giant Meta, parent company of Facebook, has been in talks with Texas about reincorporating in that state and pulling out of Delaware.
The move by Meta would mirror Elon Musk’s decision earlier this year to move multiple companies out of Delaware, The Wall Street Journal reported Friday.
Meta will keep its headquarters in Silicon Valley, California, regardless, according to the report.
A Meta spokesperson told AFP he could not confirm the Journal report but added the company had no plans to move its headquarters.
Musk moved SpaceX’s incorporation from Delaware to Texas in February, after a Delaware judge invalidated his $56 billion compensation plan at Tesla.
Musk also reincorporated Tesla to Texas and startup Neuralink to Nevada.
Delaware used to be business-friendly and reaped the benefits. Now they reap the whirlwind.
NGOs AS MONEY LAUNDRIES:
I spent today tracing some of these USAID dollars and they're all tangled up with former political appointees, prominent Democrats, and establishment GOP: https://t.co/i4Ibfm6SL1
— DataRepublican (small r) (@DataRepublican) February 1, 2025
HAHA, WELL PUT:
To Announce They’ve Given Up Completely, DNC Selects David Hogg As Vice Chair https://t.co/m1BN1Vvbxm pic.twitter.com/tDZ8AKXJkS
— The Babylon Bee (@TheBabylonBee) February 2, 2025