Author Archive: Stephen Green

WE GOT BEAT IN THE FIELD:

THE NEW SPACE RACE: Astronauts stranded in space after their capsule is struck by mystery object.

Wang Jie, Chen Zhongrui and Chen Dong, who were part of the Shenzhou-20 space mission, flew to the Tiangong space station in April.

They were expected to return yesterday after a six-month mission, and the Shenzhou-21 crew, who were sent to replace them, had already arrived on the weekend.

The China Manned Space Agency said: ‘The Shenzhou-20 crewed spacecraft is suspected to have been struck by a small piece of orbital debris, and assessment of the impact and associated risks is currently underway.

‘To ensure the health and safety of the astronauts and the successful completion of the mission, it has been decided that the originally planned return of Shenzhou-20 on November 5 will be postponed.’

The two crews remain on board Tiangong. A risk assessment is currently underway.

Godspeed.

THIS IS A REAL PROBLEM:

More:

COMMIES NEED TO BE THE ONLY ONE WITH GUNS: Mamdani May Be the Most Anti-Gun Mayor in New York City’s History. “The anti-gun media has constantly tried to stamp-out those who support the Second Amendment. Their only problem has been finding the right sources. However, once Mamdani is sworn in as Mayor, the media’s wait is over. Mamdani will become a loud national anti-gun voice.”

HOMESCHOOL: Maryland school district asks 11-year-olds to define trans terms like ‘gender expression’ and ‘sex assigned at birth.’

The worksheet, revealed by the group Defending Education, defined “gender identity” as referring “to a person’s internal sense of being male, female, or transgender… How you feel. Girl, boy, both or neither.” The definition for “transgender” read: “When your gender identity (how you feel) is different than what doctors/midwives assigned to you when you were born…”

The matching definition for “sex assigned at birth” stated, “when a baby is born, a doctor or midwife looks at the baby’s body/anatomy and says they are a girl, boy, or intersex.”

The lesson was part of a “family life” instruction conducted last month for middle school students in the district, ages 11-12.

The revelation of this lesson comes despite the fact that Montgomery County Public Schools has faced scrutiny recently for its emphasis on radical gender and LGBT ideology.

Groomers gotta groom.

JAMIE K WILSON: The Shape of Joy: How Beauty Once Defined Us and Can Define Us Again. “Beneath the practicality lies something cultural. The old exuberance came from confidence, a belief that life was good and getting better, that the future belonged to the brave and the inventive. Today’s restraint comes from anxiety. We design for safety, not splendor; for approval, not expression. The boldness that once marked prosperity has been replaced by a kind of managerial caution. Our world looks the way it feels: competent, optimized, and joyless.”

SCHUMER SHUTDOWN UPDATE: U.S. will reduce airline traffic by 10% at 40 locations beginning Friday due to shutdown.

Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy and FAA Administrator Bryan Bedford said the federal government would reduce airline traffic by 10% at 40 locations beginning on Friday if the shutdown continues. The reductions are aimed at reducing the stress on air traffic controllers who have continued to work without pay.

“We’ve identified 40 high-traffic-environment markets,” Bedford said, adding that the list would be released later. “We have decided that a 10% reduction in scheduled capacity would be appropriate to continue to take the pressure off of our controllers. And as we continue to see staffing triggers, there will be additional measures that will be taken in those specific markets.”

Bedford said the reductions are being driven by “issues of fatigue that our flight controllers are experiencing,” as evidenced by “voluntary safety disclosure reports coming in from commercial air transport pilots.” Those reports have allowed regulators to focus on throttling traffic on specific markets, and not the country as a whole, Bedford said.

For now, that is.

VENEZUELAN MISSILE CRISIS: Moscow Just Gave Venezuela Air Defenses, Not Ruling Out Strike Missiles.

A high-ranking Russian lawmaker claims his government recently sent Venezuela air defense systems and could provide ballistic and cruise missiles in the future. The comments, to an official Russian media outlet, are a response to the ongoing buildup of U.S. forces in the region aimed at narco-traffickers and Venezuelan dictator Nicolas Maduro. Meanwhile, the U.S. Navy aircraft carrier USS Gerald R. Ford is now in the Atlantic, heading for the Caribbean, which you can read more about later in this story. You can catch up with our latest coverage of the Caribbean situation in our story here.

“Russian Pantsir-S1 and Buk-M2E systems were just recently delivered to Caracas by Il-76 transport aircraft,” Alexei Zhuravlev, First Deputy Chairman of the State Duma Defense Committee, told Gazeta.Ru earlier this week.

“Russia is actually one of Venezuela’s key military-technical partners; we supply the country with virtually the entire range of weapons, from small arms to aircraft,” Zhuravlev added. “Russian Su-30MK2 fighters are the backbone of the Venezuelan Air Force, making it one of the most powerful air powers in the region. The delivery of several S-300VM (Antey-2500) battalions has significantly strengthened the country’s ability to protect important installations from air attacks.”

The delivery of Pantsir-S1 systems would appear to be a new development; however, without visual proof, we cannot independently verify Zhuravlev’s claim.

Previously: Kerry Makes It Official: ‘Era of Monroe Doctrine Is Over.’

While surely many of our troubles long predate the Obama administration, I can’t think of one his administration didn’t make worse.

CIVIL RIGHTS UPDATE: Trump’s DOJ Moves to Back Second Amendment Rights in the Courts.

More recently, Pirro has determined another D.C. firearms statute can’t be reconciled with the Second Amendment: the city’s blanket ban on possession of so-called large capacity feeding devices. This statute arbitrarily limits the capacity of a firearm magazine to 10 rounds or fewer, well below the factory-specified capacity for many common guns.

Last month, the United States filed a motion to vacate an appellant’s conviction under D.C. Code §7-2506.01(b) for possession of a large capacity feeding device. According to the filing, it is “the United States’s view that a complete ban on large capacity ammunition feeding devices as defined in D.C. Code § 7-2506.01(b) cannot survive constitutional scrutiny,” and, “As a result, the United States is not prosecuting violations of §7-2506.01(b) …” The filing further acknowledged the Department of Justice’s past defense of the statute but noted it “has changed its position as to the validity of the statute under the Second Amendment.”

If this keeps up, Trump 47 will go down as the most 2nd Amendment-friendly administration since… I don’t even know when.

WALTER RUSSELL MEAD: Trump’s New World Order.

While the storm Mr. Trump unleashes is chaotic, there is a certain logic to his path. He really does believe that the U.S. is in trouble. From his perspective, stupid Democratic and Republican policies since the end of the Cold War have left the country divided and exposed to dangers overseas. A poorly designed globalization strategy hollowed out the middle class, gutted the defense industrial base, and fueled China’s rise. Clueless elites alienated Americans in pursuit of nonsensical utopian goals. An incompetent American foreign-policy cadre failed to win wars, advance democracy or build peace.

That leaves Mr. Trump with a difficult task. On the one hand, decades of failure, foolishness and shortsighted elite greed have eroded the trust between Americans and the political and administrative mandarins. On the other, the immense efforts required to address the internal challenges and the external threats to the U.S. can be mobilized only on the basis of renewed trust between the national government and the public at large.

Setting the domestic agenda aside, to build that trust and public support for the global struggle, Mr. Trump needs to educate his base without directly challenging some of their core beliefs. Venezuela is a godsend from this point of view. As a leading source of both drugs and illegal migrants, it represents the kind of threat that the Trump base most worries about. And even most isolationists applaud strong American action in the Western Hemisphere.

Those who still think of Mr. Trump as a restrainer or isolationist should watch his “60 Minutes” interview. This president isn’t retreating from the world. He aims to reshape it.

Read the whole thing.

ONE HUNDRED MILLION BROKEN EGGS, AND NOT A SINGLE OMELETTE:

CONTRITION?

The apology only counts if it’s as public as the offense.

Finally, here’s a reminder that whatever infighting is going on between conservatives and Groypers, it’s been going on a lot longer than conservatives even noticed.

REGIME CHANGE? Trump Weighs Options, and Risks, for Attacks on Venezuela. “President Trump has yet to make a decision about how or even whether to proceed. Officials said he was reluctant to approve operations that may place American troops at risk or could turn into an embarrassing failure. But many of his senior advisers are pressing for one of the most aggressive options: ousting Mr. Maduro from power.”