IMPRESSIVE:
If you’re tempted to lose faith in humanity, watch this: A sea of Brazilians gather in support of free speech after the banning of 𝕏 in that country. The human spirit longs for freedom. pic.twitter.com/3uiSe56ort
— Charlie Kirk (@charliekirk11) September 8, 2024
UPDATE (FROM GLENN):
Compare and contrast:
One of the most powerful acts of a courageous people is refusing to be part of a lie. https://t.co/2rH4IGJDWW
— Dan Crenshaw (@DanCrenshawTX) September 8, 2024
TO BE FAIR, ECONOMISTS HAVE CORRECTLY PREDICTED SEVEN OF THE LAST FIVE RECESSIONS: A recession indicator with a perfect track record has started flashing this week.
Meanwhile, Janet Yellen is still hopeful for a “soft landing” but most Americans might wonder, “A soft landing from what?”
ANALYSIS: FALSE.
A member of Iran's parliament admitted that Russia has received Iranian ballistic missiles to use in attacks on Ukraine. When asked about potential sanctions for sending missiles to Russia, he responded, "It can't get worse. We provide missiles to Hezbollah, Hamas, and Hashd… pic.twitter.com/4EPXb1MMY1
— NOELREPORTS 🇪🇺 🇺🇦 (@NOELreports) September 8, 2024
There was a time — from roughly 2017 through Jan. 20, 2021 — when Iran was too heavily sanctioned to get into this kind of mischief.
FLORIDA MAN FRIDAY [VIP]: Urine for a Real Treat This Week. “It’s time for your much-needed break from the serious news, and this week we have Florida’s weirdest doctor, the Mystery Surfer, and a Kentucky family just discovered something scarier than murder hornets.”
HMM: The surprising reason city dwellers are becoming infertile – and it’s not stress. “New data show that dirty air is linked to lower fertility in men, while noisy traffic may harm the fertility of women.”
Cities are certainly cleaner than they were a century ago and I’m not sure they’re much louder than they used to be, so I suspect there’s a deeper root cause.
I’M NOT AT ALL SURPRISED: Growing Body of Evidence That Phone Bans in Class Can Make a Big Difference in Student Performance.
UNEXPECTED HEADLINES: Scientists use food dye found in Doritos to make see-through mice.
Scientists have discovered a surprisingly simple way to potentially peer inside the body, using a common yellow food dye found in Doritos to create see-through mice.
In a series of experiments that could have been plucked from the pages of science fiction, researchers at Stanford University massaged a solution containing tartrazine, the chemical found in the food dye known as “yellow No. 5,” onto the stomachs, scalps and hind legs of mice. About five minutes later, the opaque skin of the mice transformed temporarily into a living window, revealing branching blood vessels, muscle fibers and contractions of the gut, they reported Thursday in the journal Science.
These results may sound like magic, but they are grounded in the basic science of optics — and are a major step forward in the long quest to see what’s beneath the surface of bodies without using a scalpel.
“You could see through the mouse. I’ve been working in optics for 30 years, and I thought that result was jaw-dropping,” said Adam Wax, a program officer who specializes in biophotonics at the National Science Foundation, one of the funders of the research.
Who had “Mad Scientist with Army of Invisible Mice” on their 2024 Bingo card?
THERE ARE SEEMINGLY TOO MANY OF THESE ORGANIZATIONS TO KEEP TRACK OF, WHICH IS EXACTLY THE POINT:
Just about EVERY Chinese organization in the US with focus on “protecting Chinese American’s rights” is a CCP puppet. @apa_justice is one of those. Here is their Sept meeting agenda. As you can see, their focus is #CCPChina , not America. They need to register as a foreign agent. pic.twitter.com/rqZ2V6aOYT
— Bin Xie__The Great Translation Movement (@bxieus) September 6, 2024
YEAH, SHE WANTS TO WIN: There’s a Method to Kamala Harris’s Flip-Flop Madness.
Related (From Ed): Ruy Teixeira on The Rise of Vince Lombardi Democrats:
As legendary football coach Vince Lombardi famously said: “Winning isn’t everything—it’s the only thing.” That might well serve as the slogan of today’s Democrats as they enthusiastically line up behind the newly-minted presidential candidacy of Kamala Harris. Doubts about Harris’s political history and positions, what she really stands for, what she might actually do if she is elected—all have been completely submerged to the sacred goal of beating Donald Trump.
I’m not sure about the analogy — Lombardi was a brilliant coach, and Kamala is a less than brilliant politician — but she could still very much collect the Super Bowl ring in November.
SHE’LL DO AS SHE’S TOLD: Mark Cuban warns taxing unrealized gains will ‘kill the stock market,’ insists Harris won’t actually do it.
“Don’t worry, she’s lying,” is a helluva sales pitch.
EVERYTHING IS GOING SWIMMINGLY: The August Jobs Report Is Bad, July’s Decline Far Worse Than Reported.
CHANGE: VW Has “One, Maybe Two Years” To Save Brand, Finance Boss Warns.
Antlitz explained to those present that the European car market had contracted since the pandemic and was unlikely to return to heady pre-Covid levels any time soon, Reuters reports. That drop in demand – and slower than anticipated EV take-up – means VW will sell around 500,000 fewer cars in a year, and gives it a maximum of two years to cut output and reduced costs to steady the ship.
Earlier this week VW informed its works council of plans to shutter two plants. They would be the first time the automaker has closed a factory in its entire history. One of the plants would be a carmaking facility and the other a parts plant, The Guardian says.
VW’s employees in Germany are naturally furious about the closure talk, and the IG Metall union has not ruled out strike action. But Europe isn’t the only region causing VW a headache.
“There are no more cheques coming from China,” Reuters reports CEO Oliver Blume telling those at the Wolfsburg meeting, a reference to VW’s struggles to compete with increasingly competent and well-priced rival EVs in the Asian country that was once a cash cow for Wolfsburg. But Blume insisted that a few job losses today could prevent a ton more tomorrow.
By the time China is done adapting or stealing Western tech and then selling it back to us at a discount, will the West on balance have made any money in China?
THE NEW SPACE RACE: Life On A Jupiter Moon? NASA And SpaceX Confirm Launch Plans — What To Know.
NASA and SpaceX have announced that their Europa Clipper mission, which will help planetary scientists determine if Europa could support life, will launch on Thursday, Oct. 10.
The mission will launch on a SpaceX Falcon Heavy rocket from Launch Complex 39A at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida, NASA confirmed in an email to media.
Europa—the fourth largest of Jupiter’s 79 moons—has intrigued scientists since a liquid ocean was discovered beneath its icy shell.
The Europa Clipper mission will help scientists determine if Europa, one of Jupiter’s icy moons, could support life. It will reach the Jupiter system in April 2030 and will spend four years studying Europa during at least 32 close flybys. It will photograph the moon’s icy surface in high resolution during each pass.
The largest spacecraft NASA has ever developed for a planetary mission, Clipper is about 16 feet tall and 100 feet wide—roughly the size of a basketball court—primarily thanks to its massive solar arrays.
Flybyes are fine. Just attempt no landing there.
HE LIKES HER… LAUGH? Vladimir Putin and Liz Cheney Endorse Kamala Harris and Other Never-Trump Insanity.
DEEP DIVE: Slow Burn: How Starliner’s crewed test flight went awry.
The future of Starliner after CFT is unclear. NASA said it would wait until after the spacecraft landed in early September to determine next steps. That included whether Boeing would have to perform another test flight, with or without astronauts on board, before NASA would certify it for flying astronauts.
Boeing, in quarterly earnings reports published July 31, revealed it took another charge against earnings of $125 million in the second quarter related to Starliner, citing delays in completing the CFT mission. The company has recorded about $1.6 billion in losses on Starliner throughout the program, mostly since a flawed initial uncrewed test flight in late 2019.
Those losses, likely to grow significantly in the aftermath of CFT, have raised questions about the company’s commitment to the program. Nelson said he spoke with Kelly Ortberg, Boeing’s new chief executive, and got assurances that the company would continue with Starliner.
“He expressed to me an intention that they will continue to work the problems once Starliner is back safely,” Nelson said of his conversation with Ortberg. However, Nelson said later there was no discussion about Boeing’s financial commitment, including a willingness to fly another test flight on its own dime. “It did not come up, nor would it have been appropriate.”
Asked at the briefing how certain he was Starliner would fly astronauts again, Nelson replied simply, “100%.”
It sure would be nice to have a backup for SpaceX’s Crew Dragon — Crew Dragon was originally supposed to be the backup for Starliner — but with so much uncertainty and so much red ink, the discussions within Boeing must be heated.
Related: Boeing Starliner hatch closed, setting stage for unpiloted return to Earth Friday.
DON’T GET COCKY: Election ‘Nostradamus’ Predicts Kamala Victory, but There’s a HUGE Problem. “Earlier this year, Lichtman’s model predicted that Joe Biden would win reelection, too.”
HMM: Ukraine’s top commander defends Kursk offensive.
Syrskyi told CNN’s Christiane Amanpour that the Kursk operation “reduced the threat of an enemy offensive” and prevented a Russian attack, saying Moscow had amassed tens of thousands of troops in the region, including experienced airborne ones.
He also said that Ukrainian forces have stalled the Russian advance in eastern Ukraine, including around the strategic railroad town of Pokrovsk.
“Over the last six days the enemy hasn’t advanced a single meter in the Pokrovsk direction. In other words, our strategy is working,” he said. “We’ve taken away their ability to maneuver and to deploy their reinforcement forces from other directions … and this weakening has definitely been felt in other areas.”
ISW, which relies on open sources of information, reported Thursday that Russia was making modest advances in the direction of Pokrovsk.
Whatever you want to call Kyiv’s Kursk operation, it remains up in the air whether it will prove to be a benefit or a blunder.
KRUISER’S MORNING BRIEFING: All of This Hunter Biden Stuff Might Have Been Helpful Four Years Ago. “I used the word ‘might’ in the headline because there is a very good chance that the Hunter Biden laptop October surprise wouldn’t have meant a thing because of something you all know I despise: early voting.”
JOBS: Private sector tallies lowest monthly job gain since January 2021. “ADP’s National Employment Report for August showed 99,000 jobs were added in the month, well below economists estimates for 145,000 and fewer than the 122,000 jobs added in July. The August data marked the fifth straight month payroll additions had slowed from the month prior.”
ONE MINUTE INTO THE FUTURE: Click Here to Read Kamala Harris’s Next Flip-Flop Before It Even Happens!
SHE’D DO IT, TOO: Brazil is showing a Harris administration how to de-platform Twitter/X.
In 2021, Oliver Darcy, then of CNN, wrote, “TV providers should not escape scrutiny for distributing disinformation.” Tim Walz, Kamala Harris’s pick for vice president, told MSNBC that “hate speech” and “disinformation” are not legally protected speech. Walz, in an appearance with MSNBC’s Joy Reid, said, “I think we need to push back on this. There’s no guarantee to free speech on misinformation or hate speech, and especially around our democracy.”
In 2019, as part of her far-left campaign push, Kamala Harris told CNN’s Jake Tapper that Twitter should take action to ban Donald Trump, which they eventually did. In a speech to the NAACP in 2019, Harris told a crowd that she would direct her DoJ and law enforcement to “counter this extremism. We will hold social media platforms accountable for the hate infiltrating their platforms. Because they have a responsibility to help fight against this threat to our democracy.” She continued, “If you act as a megaphone for disinformation or cyber warfare, if you don’t police your platform, we are going to hold you accountable as a community.”
Such action, of course, would be wildly unconstitutional — and it’s not the only time Harris has threatened social media companies over her own empowered definition of hate speech and disinformation. Nothing suggests Harris has backed off this stance.
You can bet that the Harris campaign is studying how the executive order in Brazil is playing out, because it is a blueprint for a Harris DoJ to pursue action against X and Elon Musk in America.
Related: Stand Up America! This Is What Will Happen if Kamala Harris Wins, Part 1: Free Speech Is Toast.
JUSTICE STILL NOT SERVED: Teacher Who Won Court Battle after Refusing COVID Vaccine is Barred from School.
The court found the New York City Department of Education (DOE) wrongfully denied Halkias’ request for a religious exemption from taking the vaccine, deeming the decision “arbitrary and capricious.”
On August 1, the judge ordered Halkias to be reinstated with back pay.
But when she arrived at PS-85 in Long Island City for teacher orientation, she was told that there was “nothing” for her at the school.
“I’m not a criminal, and yet they are making me feel like I’m breaking the law,” she said.
The principal reportedly told Halkias that she had received no instructions to reinstate her, and there was no position available for her at the school.
“I went today for work, and I was told that there was nothing for me,” Halkias told the Post on Tuesday.
“The principal said that she had no directions given to her about my case, there was no position for me, and I couldn’t get a time card because I’m not officially in the system.”
Halkias’ attorney, James Mermigis, expressed frustration over the DOE’s actions.
He said that there might be financial motives at play, noting that Halkias was earning a substantial salary of $128,000, and was just six months away from reaching full retirement benefits
I suppose that’s one way for New York to chip away at its pension crisis — but hardly a decent or just way.
InstaPundit is a participant in the Amazon Services LLC Associates Program, an affiliate advertising program designed to provide a means for sites to earn advertising fees by advertising and linking to Amazon.com.