SPACE: Blue Origin to ramp up New Shepard tests. “After completing two successful flights of its New Shepard suborbital vehicle in two months, Blue Origin plans to increase the frequency of future test flights, with dozens more planned before the company is ready to start flying people.”
Archive for 2016
January 26, 2016
DONALD TRUMP SAYS HE’LL SKIP THURSDAY’S DEBATES. “This follows a dispute where Trump requested that Fox remove moderator Megyn Kelly from the event, which the network refused to do.”
IF THEY ARE, THEIR WOUNDS ARE ENTIRELY SELF-INFLICTED: Is Twitter doomed?
Curiously though, CTL-F “Milo” brings up zero results.
NOTHING TO SEE HERE, MOVE ALONG: FBI thwarts mass shooting at Milwaukee Masonic Temple.
Samy Mohamed Hamzeh, 23, has been charged with possessing machine guns and a silencer. Despite indications of an attempted act of terrorism, Hamzeh is not charged with any terrorism counts. He appeared in federal court in Milwaukee Tuesday and remains in custody.
“We are Muslims, defending Muslim religion, we are on our own, my dear, we have organized our own group,” Hamzeh said, according to the criminal complaint, later adding “And we will eliminate everyone” as he described in detail how he and others would attack the temple.
Boy, I’m glad we got rid of that dumb cowboy Bush, who got all the Muslims riled up with his Texas bigotry.
TESTOSTERONE AND TRAINING: “Best known for building bodybuilders’ biceps, the sex hormone plays a crucial role in endurance sports as well, and training can affect levels in some surprising ways.”
AT AMAZON, 60% off Valentine’s Day Jewelry Gifts.
HOW BUSH’S REJECTION OF TED CRUZ set him on his path:
In a never-before-reported meeting in Bush’s Dallas office, Cruz began to outline his 2012 campaign playbook for the former president, according to people familiar with the conversation. Cruz explained how he would consolidate conservatives yearning for a political outsider, how he would outflank the front-runner on the right, how he would proudly carry the mantle of the ascendant tea party to victory over entrenched elites.
It was impressive foreshadowing. But Bush cut Cruz off before he could finish.
“I guess you don’t want my support,” Bush interrupted. “Ted, what the hell do you think I am?”
Well, the Bushes are the Establishment and they know it.
ACTUALLY, YOU CAN BUY ALL THREE FOR LESS THAN A MILLION: A Hard Look at the Three Fastest Cars for Less than $1 Million.
OH, THAT’S JUST FREAKIN’ GREAT: Two Cases Suggest Zika Virus Could Be Spread Through Sex.
Plus: “In the United States, C.D.C. experts have said they expect the disease to follow the same pattern as dengue: limited outbreaks in hot, wet regions including Florida and other states along the Gulf Coast and Hawaii, where the yellow fever mosquito, Aedes aegypti, is common. They hope that aggressive mosquito control will contain the infection.”
FORBES: CLINTON AND SANDERS PROPOSE HIGHEST CAPITAL GAINS TAX RATE IN HISTORY.
If there was a prize for the most complex capital gains tax platform, it would assuredly be awarded to Hillary Clinton. She proposes many new capital gains rates than today, based on the duration one owns an asset sold and one’s income the year of the sale.
By contrast, the Sanders plan on capital gains is pretty simple. All households above a small exemption have to pay a 2.2% tax to help pay for his “Medicare for All” single payer socialized healthcare system. This effectively makes the 3.8% surtax a 6% surtax for families making at least $250,000 per year.
If a household makes more than $250,000 per year (where most gains occur), it pays ordinary income tax on its capital gains, plus the 6% surtax. Sanders raises the top statutory income tax rate to 54%. Add in the surtax, and you’re at a 60% top capital gains rate.
Each plan would result in a very large increase in the capital gains top rate. According to the Tax Policy Center, the highest this rate ever got was just under 40% in the late 1970s, which precipitated the supply side revolution and the Reagan tax cuts.
Glenn likes to say that Atlas Shrugged has been a how-to manual for the Obama Administration, but Clinton and Sanders are looking to the Malaise Era for their inspiration.
So where’s our Reagan?
GOP ESTABLISHMENT “PEER PRESSURE” ISN’T WORKING: A new Washington Post/ABC poll shows that Trump is enjoying a growing lead, his support is strong and stable with likely GOP primary voters/caucus-goers, and he is now deemed “acceptable” as a candidate by two-thirds of Republicans.
The poll also finds no sign that Trump’s support wavers among the Republicans who are most likely to attend primaries and caucuses, which are typically low-turnout contests. Trump’s 16-point advantage among all registered Republican voters is similar to his lead among Republicans who say they are certain to vote, report voting in 2012 Republican contests or are following the race “very closely.”
Although there was resistance to his candidacy at the beginning, Trump now is broadly acceptable to GOP voters. About 2 of 3 Republicans say they would find him acceptable as their nominee, a percentage almost identical to Cruz’s and Rubio’s. Rubio is seen as the least unacceptable, followed by Cruz, Carson and then Trump. Only about half of Republicans say Christie and Bush are acceptable, and Bush has the highest “unacceptable” percentage at 45. . . .
The new Post-ABC survey suggests that a sizable majority of Republicans believe that whatever happens in those early states, Trump will emerge with the nomination — a dramatic shift from when he first entered the race in June to mixed reviews and overcame widespread unfavorable impressions among GOP voters before his campaign launched. Today, more than 6 in 10 Republicans say Trump is most likely to win the nomination, up from 4 in 10 in the late fall.
Trump leads among nearly all demographic groups, including a narrow advantage among white evangelical Christians, a key target of the Cruz campaign. Trump’s strongest support comes from those with incomes below $50,000. Previous surveys showed Trump with significantly more support among those lacking a college degree, compared with those who have graduated from college. The new survey finds no significant difference. . . .
On a wide range of issues and candidate attributes, Trump dominates his rivals. Majorities of Republicans say he has the best chance of getting elected president and is most likely to bring needed change to Washington. More than a third say he is closest to them on issues. He and Carson are seen as the most honest of the GOP candidates, while Trump and Cruz are seen as having the best personality and temperament to serve as president.
So apparently, the GOPe talking point that I’ve heard repeatedly in the last week or so–that Trump may be leading in Iowa but his supporters are political neophytes who are less likely to “turn out” to a long, drawn out caucus event— is not panning out in the polls. Likewise, the GOPe’s elitist attempt to brandish Trump supporters as xenophobic/racist, uneducated, low-information voters who aren’t “really” Republican is not merely overtly insulting to the GOP itself, but utterly wrong. According to a new CNN/ORC poll released today:
[Trump] leads among both men and women, younger and older voters, white evangelicals, conservatives and both self-identified Republicans and independents who lean toward the party.
There are two subgroups where Trump’s lead is less dominant: college graduates and tea party supporters. Even among those groups, however, he remains at the head of the pack. Among those holding degrees, 26% back Trump, 20% Cruz, and tea party supporters split 37% for Trump, 34% for Cruz.
In fact, when I dug deeper into this CNN/ORC poll, I found several potential headlines that CNN would never report. The most surprising one, to me, was that Trump’s lead among GOP women is substantial, with 37% likely to vote for Trump, with the next closest candidates being Ted Cruz with 21 percent, and Marco Rubio with 11 percent. Perhaps more importantly, when asked to describe how they would feel if Trump were the GOP nominee, 42 percent of GOP women said they would be “enthusiastic” (the highest ranking), versus only 39 percent of GOP men.
As for voters’ age, Trump’s lead over Cruz is larger with younger voters than older ones. Among poll participants age 50-64, Trump leads Cruz 43 to 20 percent, whereas among those age 65 and older, Trump’s lead over Cruz fell, 38 versus 25 percent.
Regarding income, Trump’s support among the “over $50K” income group (42 percent) is virtually the same as among the “under 50k” group (43 percent). Trump also leads among college grads, with 26 percent supporting him versus Cruz, who has 20 percent of college grads’ support, and Carson, who garners 12 percent of the likely GOP college grad voters.
So apparently, Trump has strong support among younger, highly educated, high-income, and female GOP voters. Who knew? Apparently, not the GOPe.
RELATED: James Taranto discusses the social-acceptability bias with respect to Trump: “I don’t know anybody who supports him.”
I LOVE IT, AND I LOVE THE VIDEO AND MUSIC, TOO: Give The Gift Of Amazon Prime.
J. CHRISTIAN ADAMS: Ted Cruz Best Choice to End Lawlessness at Justice Department. “It’s easy to assume Trump’s bombast and authoritarian nature would enable him to reverse quickly the policies of the last seven years at Justice. But such a belief in Trump is mistaken, and understandable, when you have never served as a federal employee inside the leviathan.”
UPDATE: Bad link before. It’s fixed now. Sorry!
WHY TRUMP TOPS THE POLLS: Lawsuits Claim Disney Colluded to Replace U.S. Workers With Immigrants.
SEEN ON FACEBOOK:
I DUNNO, I THINK CAPT. KIRK, WILL RIKER, AND HAN SOLO MIGHT FIND THIS RESEARCH QUITE VALUABLE: Feds Spend $80,000 to See What Effect Spaceflight Has on Herpes.
WELL, YES: Space junk accidents could trigger armed conflict, study finds.
Here’s a piece that Rob Merges and I wrote for the Environmental Law Reporter a while back. And here’s a piece I wrote for Popular Mechanics on space weaponry.
GIVE A LITTLE, TAKE A LITTLE:
● Connie St Louis Apologises to Milo Yiannopoulos After Claiming He Called for an Assassination on TV.
—Headline, Breitbart.com, today.
● CORRECTION: Our morning lead was a link to a story on the BBC Magazine by Michael Goldfarb. This is not the Founder of the Washington Free Beacon, but a different individual. Breitbart News Executive Chairman Stephen K. Bannon and Editor-in-Chief Alexander Marlow accept responsibility for this mistake and apologize to Michael and the staff of the Free Beacon.
—Subhead, Breitbart.com today, added to story titled “Michael Goldfarb: Trump is the Politics of ‘Fear, Paranoia, Nativism,’” which first ran yesterday.
MATTHEW YGLESIAS (DEMOCRAT-GE): Bernie Sanders has the most realistic plan to boost wages and job creation.
Well, that’s what Matt says.
CBS ADMITS TO EPIC FAIL AS DEMOCRATIC OPERATIVES WITH BYLINES: Americans hate the U.S. government more than ever.
Which is an amazing headline to find at CBS, considering its entire journalistic operation over the last 60 years has been to condition Americans to love Big Brother, and to destroy the reputations of the wreckers and subversives who would prevent them from doing so.
21st CENTURY RELATIONSHIPS:
The article mentioned in the above tweet can be found here — its last tip on “the eight biggest Tinder profile crimes” is perhaps the most important of all.