October 14, 2024

EXPAND BOCA CHICA, BUG OUT OF CALIFORNIA: California officials reject more SpaceX rocket launches, with some citing Musk’s X posts.

The plan to increase the number of rocket blasts into space up to 50 a year was rejected by the California Coastal Commission on Thursday despite assurances from Space Force and Air Force officials that they would increase efforts to monitor the effects that rocket launches have on nearby wildlife.

The military also vowed to mitigate the reach of sonic booms that often span across 100 miles of coastline, an issue that has caused controversy.

Members of the California Coastal Commission commended Space Force and Air Force representatives for reaching an agreement, but some cited their concerns about Musk, the owner of SpaceX, before rejecting the plan.

Among the issues raised were Musk’s decision to insert himself in the presidential race, his spreading of conspiracy theories, the labor record of his companies and derogatory comments he has made about the transgender community.

“We’re dealing with a company, the head of which has aggressively injected himself into the presidential race,” commission Chair Caryl Hart said.

The California Coastal Commission denied the request for explicitly political reasons.

Posted at 7:32 am by Stephen Green

HYPOCRISY IS THE TRIBUTE THAT VICE PAYS TO VIRTUE:

Posted at 7:10 am by Glenn Reynolds

October 13, 2024

OPEN THREAD: Ring out the weekend.

Posted at 9:30 pm by Glenn Reynolds

WHY ON EARTH IS THE HOUSE OF STEPHANOPOULOS PRO-VENEZUELAN GANGS? J.D. Vance Destroys ABC News Anchor for Downplaying Immigrant Gang Violence.

I can’t imagine George’s former(?) boss agreeing with this policy:

As we’ve noted before, Bill’s clip from 1995, and other past clips from Democrat grandees such as Chuck Schumer, Harry Reid, and Barack Obama with similar messages should be running in Trump adds with an “I’m Donald Trump, and I approve this message” tag tacked on.

UPDATE:

More: The guild protects its own:

Posted at 8:14 pm by Ed Driscoll

HMM: Third Trump assassination attempt thwarted when armed man arrested outside Coachella rally, sheriff says. “The suspect — identified as 49-year-old Las Vegas resident Vem Miller — was caught at a checkpoint about a quarter-mile from the rally with fake VIP passes to the rally and fake press passes — as well as unregistered weapons, including a loaded shotgun, a handgun and a high-capacity magazine, according to the Riverside County sheriff’s office.”

Posted at 6:40 pm by Glenn Reynolds

“CAN I GET ME A HUNTING LICENSE HERE?” THE NEXT GENERATION: Hunters laugh off the Harris-Walz campaign effort to win their vote.

Avid outdoorsmen are slamming a new political coalition formed by the Harris-Walz campaign aimed at winning their vote in the 2024 presidential election.

“Hunters and anglers want to support Harris-Walz as much as the fish and game want to be eaten,” one Maryland-based hunter who recently bagged a state record bear chuckled to The Spectator.

Governor Tim Walz kicked off the “Hunters and Anglers for Harris-Walz” group on Friday with an article placed in Outdoor Life magazine. The coalition is described as “a new national organizing program to engage, mobilize a broad coalition of sportspeople, conservationists and rural and gun violence prevention voters in key states across the country.” They will have a national organizing call next week, but the campaign has not indicated which prominent hunters and anglers will be a part of the coalition.

Some hunters and anglers are already reacting negatively to the campaign’s plan, pointing out that Harris and Walz have supported gun control measures and that the Biden-Harris administration has made life more difficult for hunters and anglers.

Gabriella Hoffman, the director of the Center for Energy and Conservation at Independent Women’s Forum and host of the District of Conservation podcast, quipped that “No $40 camo hat will convince most sportsmen and women that Harris-Walz represents them.”

But then, maybe it’s not intended to:

In any case, Kamala’s outreach to men may have just been derailed by Gwen Walz’s schoolmarm hectoring to Kamala’s base:

Exit quote: “What the heck? Too much of the fumes from those burning tires during the riots? Maybe she should have closed the windows.”

Posted at 5:14 pm by Ed Driscoll

BILL WHITTLE: It worked. We’re going to Mars.

Posted at 3:42 pm by Stephen Green

SOMETIMES THE LEFT HAND DOESN’T KNOW WHAT THE FAR LEFT HAND IS DOING: Tensions rise between Harris and Biden teams as election nears.

The relationship between Kamala Harris‘ team and Joe Biden‘s White House has been increasingly fraught in the final weeks before Election Day, 10 people familiar with the situation tell Axios.

Why it matters: Biden’s team wants Harris to win the election, but many senior Biden aides remain wounded by the president being pushed out of his re-election bid and are still adjusting to being in a supporting role on the campaign trail.

  • “They’re too much in their feelings,” one close Harris ally said of the president’s team — a sentiment shared even by some White House aides.

Driving the news: Some on the Harris team say that top White House aides aren’t sufficiently coordinating Biden’s messaging and schedule to align with what’s best for the vice president’s campaign.

  • Biden gave an impromptu press conference in the White House briefing room Friday just as Harris was about to do an event in Michigan, ensuring that her event would get less TV coverage than it otherwise would have.

  • Earlier in the week, Harris criticized Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis (R) for not taking her call about the recent hurricanes, only for Biden to praise DeSantis soon after for being “gracious” and “cooperative.” (A person familiar with the situation told Axios that Biden hadn’t been briefed on Harris’ comments.)

  • Biden has been eager to boast about a robust jobs report, helping to end the strike by the longshoremen’s union and other perceived victories recently. Harris has been trying to focus on voters’ pocketbook concerns, including inflation.

  • One person involved with Harris’ campaign told Axios: “The White House is lacking someone in the room thinking first and foremost about how things would affect the campaign.”

Dr. Jill, channeling Edith Wilson, smiles.

Posted at 2:45 pm by Ed Driscoll

DON’T GET COCKY:  The feeling may not last, but right now it does not seem impossible that the GOP will gain possession of  the White House and the Senate, and also retain the House of Representatives.  If so, I hope somebody on the Hill remembers my “Agenda for Congress” written two years ago.  These situations do not come around all that often (and they may to come around this time).  Still, the only way to take advantage of them is to be ready BEFORE they become established facts.

Posted at 2:29 pm by Gail Heriot

DELETE THIS MESSAGE: Review: The Message by Ta-Nehisi Coates.

The scandal of the book—and the reason Tony Dokoupil of CBS wasn’t simply justified in challenging Coates in a recent interview but had a duty to challenge him—is that Coates never mentions Palestinian terrorism. An unobservant or gullible person could read The Message and have no idea that the Israeli soldiers’ vigilance is a consequence of Palestinians’ notable tendency to lunge at Jews with knives, self-detonate in crowded areas, and otherwise maim and murder innocents. Coates doesn’t mention the Hamas attacks of October 7, 2023, or any other act of Palestinian terrorism. Nor does he wonder why, although more than two million Arabs are citizens of Israel, few if any Jews are citizens of Arab countries.

With The Message, Ta-Nehisi Coates has become a clownish, postmodern Walter Duranty. Duranty, recall, was the prize-winning Moscow bureau chief of the New York Times who deliberately misled the American public about Soviet crimes. Only Coates isn’t misleading anybody. And Duranty, for all his sins, could write.

Basil Fawlty smiles — finally someone took his advice: “Just don’t mention the war.”

Posted at 2:14 pm by Ed Driscoll