CHARLES LIPSON: Ginsburg’s Death and the Dangerous Politics Ahead.

The Democrats’ immediate demand is for Ginsburg’s seat to be left vacant until a new Senate and president can fill it. Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer made that demand Friday night, shortly after Ginsburg’s death was announced. All other Democrats will follow. They will pointedly add that the Republicans, who controlled in the Senate in 2016, refused to give Merrick Garland a hearing or vote after President Obama nominated him to fill Scalia’s seat. Republicans said then that nine months was too close to the election. It would be grossly unfair, Democrats say, for those same Republicans to move forward with their own nomination now.

McConnell has already rejected that argument, promising to fill every vacancy on every federal court during the current Congress. He is saying that the current situation is different since the presidency and Senate are now controlled by the same party. He will quote Democrats’ statements in 2016, when they insisted on voting immediately to fill the Supreme Court vacancy.

All of them are hypocrites. They have flipped their positions, and their justifications (then and now) are nothing more than cloaks for political advantage. They don’t care about consistency or even logic. They are fighting to win control of the Supreme Court and defeat the other side in November. They will say whatever helps their cause and hope voters forget whatever they said last time.

That last part will be pretty easy with the Infotainment industry providing 24/7 air cover.

AND THAT WOULD WORK, HOW, EXACTLY? Pelosi Doesn’t Rule Out Using Impeachment to Block Trump’s SCOTUS Nomination.

HARDBALL: Ted Cruz Explains Perfectly Why RBG’s Seat Must Be Filled Before the Election.

YOU’RE GONNA NEED A BIGGER BLOG: Here Are Biden’s Biggest Lies From His CNN Town Hall.

IT’S ALMOST AS THOUGH PARENTS ARE PEOPLE: Teachers say some parents drink, smoke, and appear half-dressed in online classroom.

PJ MEDIA’S MEGAN FOX IS LIVE on News Radio 570 WSYR.

WHY NOT TAKE A BREAK FROM THE SERIOUS NEWS FOR A FEW MINUTES? Florida Man Friday: I’m Begging You to Never Pose as a Cop and Pull Over a Cop (Again).

GOOD: Charges Dropped For FL Man Who Pulled Gun On Protesters.

GRIEVANCE CULTURE, UNLEASHED: Alleged stabber shouted ‘Black Lives Matter’ during random attack in Colorado.

DAVID HARSANYI: Why Trump’s Mideast Peace Deals Matter.

Earlier this month, the Palestinians, who had held veto power over Arab foreign policy for years, demand nothing less than a full condemnation of the Israel-UAE normalization. The Arab League gave them nothing.

Instead, a couple of weeks later, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel, Foreign Minister Sheikh Abdullah bin Zayed Al Nahyan of the United Arab Emirates, and Foreign Minister Abdullatif Al Zayani of Bahrain all came to Washington to sign the Abraham Accords, in which all three promised to “to take the necessary steps to prevent any terrorist or hostile activities against each other on or from their respective territories, as well as deny any support for such activities abroad or allowing such support on or from their respective territories.”

It takes only a rudimentary knowledge of modern Middle East history to comprehend the immense changes going on in the region — and yet this seems lost on many contemporary journalists.

It isn’t lost on them. It’s that our infotainment industry is dominated almost entirely by Democratic operatives with bylines who choose to bury anything good Trump has accomplished.

SAY ANYTHING: Biden Flip-Flops (Again) to Support Banning Fracking Again.

POSTMODERN MURDER: Patient dies after ransomware attack reroutes her to remote hospital. “German authorities are investigating the unknown perpetrators on suspicion of negligent manslaughter, the Associated Press, German news outlet NTV, and others reported on Thursday. The event under investigation occurred last Friday when the unidentified woman was turned away from Duesseldorf University Hospital because a ransomware attack hampered its ability to operate normally. The woman was rushed to a hospital about 20 miles away, resulting in about a one-hour delay in treatment. She died.”

HMM: When It Comes To Military Launches, SpaceX May No Longer Be The Low-Cost Provider.

Along the way to its breakthrough win with the Space Force on August 7, something curious happened in the way SpaceX priced its services. The price for using its Falcon Heavy vehicle more than doubled from what Musk originally claimed would be the maximum cost.

In 2018 he said the rocket would cost no more than $150 million to loft heavy payloads into orbit. But the award SpaceX received for a single mission in the first year of Phase Two was $316 million. That’s quite an increase.

In fact, it’s such a hefty price-tag that SpaceX is getting almost as much money for a single Falcon Heavy mission as the $337 million ULA is getting for two missions. We don’t know details about the missions because they’re all secret, but industry insiders say that all three payloads are sizable, and headed for geosynchronous orbit.

It isn’t clear how this remarkable disparity in pricing came about. ULA bid a new launch vehicle called Vulcan Centaur that is said to be more efficient than its legacy Atlas and Delta rockets. SpaceX bid the same Falcon Heavy vehicle that in 2018 was priced at $130 million to loft another classified mission into orbit.

So how did the price-tag on a Falcon Heavy mission get from $130 million to $316 million? Darned if I know. I asked SpaceX for an explanation, but so far I haven’t heard back.

Very strange, all the way around.

CHRISTIAN TOTO: It’s Official: Chris Rock Threw Jimmy Fallon Under Cancel Culture Bus.

DEMAGOGUE: Biden Blames Trump for COVID Lockdowns: ‘You Lost Your Freedom Because He Didn’t Act.’

VODKAPUNDIT PRESENTS YOUR DAILY INSANITY WRAP: Your Racist Lawnmowing Has Got to Stop.

Insanity Wrap needs to know: Is there anything that isn’t racist?

Answer: Certainly not you, racist.

Before we get to the sordid details, a quick preview of today’s Wrap.

• Dogs, lawns, Beethoven… all racist.
• Steelers center Maurkice Pouncey has your Daily Dose of Sanity.
• Protesting, Chicken Dance-style.

And so much more at the link, you’d have to be crazy to miss it.

YA THINK? Suppressing fires has failed. Here’s what California needs to do instead.

There’s an overwhelming to-do list. But one of the clearest conclusions, as experts have been saying for years, is that California must begin to work with fires, not just fight them. That means reversing a century of US fire suppression policies and relying far more on deliberate, prescribed burns to clear out the vegetation that builds up into giant piles of fuel.

Such practices “don’t prevent wildfires,” says Crystal Kolden, an assistant professor at the University of California, Merced focused on fire and land management. “But it breaks up the landscape, so that when wildfires do occur, they’re much less severe, they’re much smaller, and when they occur around communities, they’re much easier to control.”

Plus: “That will require sweeping regulatory reforms, and tons of money.”

Maybe California should also try not chasing off their tax base.

SMART: White House Chief Of Staff Suggests Taking ‘Your Cameras’ To D.C. Airport, Snapping Pictures Of Lawmakers Heading Home Without Passing COVID-19 Relief Bill.

KRUISER’S MORNING BRIEF: CNN Forum Throws Nothing But Softballs and Pathetic Biden Strikes Out Anyway.

Another on-brand topic here is the thorough awfulness of the American mainstream political media. Wanted in all fifty states for the murder of ethical journalism, the MSM is once again working overtime to help get a Democratic presidential candidate elected despite said candidate’s myriad flaws.

At the beginning of the month I wrote that I didn’t think that the media could prop up Joe Biden until the election.

I may have underestimated the hacks who pollute the MSM.

Democratic operatives with bylines.

OH: French cop kicks and stamps on British man’s head as he is arrested for ‘not wearing a face mask and possessing a knife’ at train station.

HA, HA, VERY FUNNY… WAIT, YOU’RE SERIOUS? ‘Come Back So We Can Tax You,’ New York City Begs Departed Residents. “New York City Comptroller Scott Stringer warned the Big Apple’s wealthy residents Tuesday they are likely to face higher taxes to cover this year’s $4.2 billion deficit resulting from state and local overspending and incompetence driving away their rich tax base.”

“Bad luck.”

MIDDLE EAST PEACE: US to declare ‘snapback’ of UN sanctions on Iran.

Abrams told reporters Wednesday that all U.N. sanctions would “snap back” at 8 p.m. EDT on Saturday.

But the other members of the U.N. Security Council, including U.S. allies, have objected to the move. A wholesale rejection of the U.S. position could push the Trump administration, which has already withdrawn from multiple U.N. agencies, organizations and treaties, further away from the international community.

Trump plans to address Iran in a speech to the General Assembly on Tuesday as the world body prepares to celebrate its 75th anniversary at a coronavirus-restricted General Assembly session next week. Officials say he will also touch on his brokering of agreements for Israel and the United Arab Emirates and Bahrain to normalize relations in part to solidify a regional bulwark against Iran.

But the other parties to the nuclear deal — Britain, China, France, Germany and Russia and most of the U.N. Security Council have said they do not believe the United States can reimpose the U.N. sanctions, saying the U.S. lost its legal standing to act on sanctions when Trump withdrew from the nuclear accord in 2018.

The U.S. argues it retains the right to enact the “snapback” of sanctions because the council resolution that endorsed the deal refers to it as a participant.

“It’s like pulling a trigger and no bullet comes out,” a senior U.N. Security Council diplomat said on condition of anonymity. “There will be no snapback, the sanctions will remain suspended, the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA nuclear deal) will remain in place.”

I said years ago, back when John Kerry was lying about how sanctions could be made to snap back, that it would be difficult or impossible to drag the Security Council along once they’d gotten a taste of Iranian oil.

TO THE TEETH: U.S. pushes arms sales surge to Taiwan, needling China.

Pursuing seven sales at once is a rare departure from years of precedent in which U.S. military sales to the island were spaced out and carefully calibrated to minimize tensions with Beijing.

But the Trump administration has become more aggressive with China in 2020 and the sales would land as relations between Beijing and Washington are at their lowest point in decades over accusations of spying, a lingering trade war and disputes about the spread of the novel coronavirus.

At the same time Taiwan’s desire to buy weapons increased after President Tsai Ing-wen was re-elected here in January and has made strengthening Taiwan’s defenses a top priority.

Maybe what the Republic of China on Taiwan really needs is a couple squadrons of F-35s.

ACTUALLY, I’M NOT ALL THAT SHOCKED: ‘The Vow’ – Shocking HBO Doc Reveals NXIVM Sex Cult’s Links to Extreme Trump Derangement Syndrome.

OVER AT VODKAPUNDIT I HAVE SOME EDUCATED CONJECTURE ON WHAT THE TOP-SECRET NEW STEALTH FIGHTER WILL AND WON’T BE: New Stealth Fighter 6th-Gen Prototype Flies in Record Time, Invisible and Deadly.