THE NEW SPACE RACE: Does anyone actually want to win the medium-lift race in the United States?
SpaceX already won the race with Falcon 9, but is retiring that workhorse to focus on super-heavy lift with Starship.
Author Archive: Stephen Green
October 21, 2026
YES:
My take on the Nathan Fielder Elizabeth Holmes documentary is that a film that gets Generation Z to be more critical of the media they consume and aware the ways in which supposed documentaries can manipulate them is performing an enormous public service.
— Zack Stentz (@MuseZack) October 20, 2026
From the replies: “Every generation can benefit from this type of media literacy.”
HARDBALL: Trump administration withholds $1.2 billion in federal Medicaid funding from California.
“I’ll make this announcement today on behalf of Secretary [Robert F.] Kennedy, Health and Human Services, that we are going to defer $1.2 billion more dollars from California,” Oz told reporters at the White House on Tuesday. “They just got the note, and we’re doing that because the growth of personal care services in California, just that one little area where you’re paying someone to carry groceries upstairs for your mom, which many of you would carry groceries upstairs for your mom for free, I would think.”
Oz added that California’s approval of Medicaid-covered personal care services has grown by 24% in the last three years.
“That is twice the rate of every other state average in the country, impossible for us to understand how that could be so,” he said. “So we’re taking major action in California again – $1.2 billion deferred in their Medicaid payments directed to personal care services.”
We used to just call that “helping out,” and, yeah, we did that for mom for free.
REQUIRED READING: The Last Gate.
THE LAST GATE
You may be wondering why there has been a full on attack against the War Department the past couple of years. Coupled with disturbing reports of communists planning some form of uprising, and the picture becomes clearer. Let's break it down so you can remain… https://t.co/NrKjfC8bo1
— InfantryDort (@infantrydort) October 19, 2026
Key bit:
If the Secretary of War is weak and the generals begin deciding for themselves which lawful presidential orders deserve obedience, then the republic has a problem far bigger than whoever is SECWAR.
At that point, the uniform is no longer serving the Constitution through civilian command. It’s becoming its own political authority. That’s what every red revolution wants.
That’s how republics die from the inside. Not always with gunfire. Sometimes with memos, hesitation, professional pressure, and men convincing themselves that disobedience is virtue.
And do read the whole thing.
VENEZUELA: María Corina Machado Has a Message for Midterm Voters. “She said that in the end, dignity comes from honest, productive ideas and effort. She also said that ultimately, she has trust in the voters in the United States.”
October 20, 2026
SARAH HOYT’S SHOCKED FACE LEFT EARLY TODAY:
#BREAKING: DNA report says Ilhan Omar and her ex-husband are siblings; Biden DOJ refused to act.
— Insider Wire (@InsiderWire) October 20, 2026
SHOT: F-22 Pilot Directs CCA in Flight as ‘Airborne QB.’
The human F-22 pilot acted as an “airborne quarterback” for the YFQ-44 drone by sending it high-level tactical directives, according to the Air Force statement. The YFQ-44’s on-board autonomy software then interpreted and carried out those orders in real time to carry out “dynamic flight maneuvers and simulated combat tasks,” the statement reads.
Anduril Industries, the manufacturer of the Fury, said in follow-up statements that the flight took place out of Edwards Air Force Base, Calif., during the week of Oct. 5.
Mark Shushnar, Anduril’s vice president of autonomous airpower, said the Fury and F-22 both took off at Edwards, and then joined up midair. The Raptor pilot then sent an updated mission plan to the Fury CCA using a tactical data link, “commanding Fury through operationally relevant maneuvers from the cockpit of the crewed quarterback” fighter.
For this demonstration, the F-22 was controlling a single YFQ-44A. But the Air Force’s plan is to eventually have each fighter pilot capable of controlling multiple CCAs as a formation—extending the service’s combat mass and reach.
Very cool stuff, but here’s the chaser: World’s fastest AI-powered racing drone outflies the best human pilots.
The human QB will likely do less and less until he’s replaced, too — no matter how often certain folks insist on keeping a human in the loop.
WELL, GOOD:
"If foreign courts decide to… try and get in our way, there will be a point at which we have to accept that we won't be able to recover that money.”
Ofcom admits defeat in the 4chan case. https://t.co/3afeqTiibN
— Preston Byrne (@prestonjbyrne) October 20, 2026
Britain’s Ofcom is just another way to spell Minitrue.
STALINESQUE:
You are an elected official. You made a public statement encouraging members of the Armed Forces to defy lawful orders.
You chose to run for office and subject yourself to that scrutiny.
What you are proposing, on the other hand, is a legal/political vendetta against persons… https://t.co/yTZbjXPGzx
— Shipwreckedcrew (@shipwreckedcrew) October 20, 2026
“You’re a disgrace — and I suspect your comments will haunt the rest of your political career. You’ve likely put a ceiling on any ability you might have had to climb higher.”
MORE NUKES IS GOOD NUKES: Amazon to fund 12 small nuclear reactors at former Indiana coal plant.
Amazon is funding development of a proposed 960-megawatt nuclear plant in Indiana and would be the first customer to buy its power, the companies announced Monday. Utility company American Electric Power (AEP) would operate the plant. X-energy, which designs small modular nuclear reactors and went public in April, would supply the reactors.
The new power plant would consist of 12 Xe-100 small modular reactors and be located on the site of a demolished coal power plant just south of Terre Haute. The deal is the second commercial agreement between Amazon and X-energy, and it’s three times larger than the first, which was announced two years ago.
Amazon has invested heavily in X-energy, leading a $700 million Series C-1 round in October 2024. The two companies have said they ultimately plan to build 5 gigawatts of new nuclear generating capacity in the U.S. by 2039.
Faster, please.
WHAT A GUY:
25 Years ago today I was honored to perform "Superman" at Paul McCartney's Concert for NY, surrounded by @FDNY heroes, at MSG.
On 9/9/26 I was again deeply honored to perform at the @FDNY 25 year Memorial Ceremony in Staten Island. My remarks and performance. #NeverForget 🇺🇸❤️ pic.twitter.com/AdfNLCT4CA
— John Ondrasik (@johnondrasik) October 20, 2026
Still sounds great, too.
NARRATIVES DON’T ESTABLISH THEMSELVES, YOU KNOW:
Spoiler: His mom had him in the car when she tried to run over the cops.
Weird how you’d have no indication of this from the headline. https://t.co/Y4FLzadAQK
— Kurt Schlichter (@KurtSchlichter) October 20, 2026
THE ENEMIES WITHIN: Iran, China, and Cuba are directing protests inside America.
The Network Contagion Research Institute, whose work in these areas has been indispensable for years, recently published another groundbreaking study that blows the lid off how this foreign network operates.
The report indicates that an Iranian influence node that takes orders from the Islamic Republic regime, the House of Latin America, conducts what NCRI calls “high-impact domestic U.S. influence operations.”
“For nearly two decades,” NCRI says, HOLA “has functioned as a primary bridge between the Iranian regime, Latin American socialist governments, and U.S. anti-war coalitions, with its American-based operatives acting as undeclared agents of a foreign government on U.S. soil.”
It gets much worse. HOLA, it says, “has now formally merged with Neville Roy Singham’s Chinese Communist Party-linked Tricontinental network to form a unified Iran-China operation targeting the United States from the south.”
Much more at the link.
MORE POWER? ON TAP:
Elon just confirmed they’re pushing Raptor thrust toward 330–335 metric tons.
That puts Super Heavy at roughly 10,000 tons of thrust at liftoff. About three times Saturn V.
22 million pounds of thrust from one vehicle. And they’re still iterating.
This is the kind of scaling… pic.twitter.com/xb3HQuSft6
— X Ethan (@XEthanai) October 19, 2026
THAT’S GONNA LEAVE A MARK:
Savage take. https://t.co/V4xrMEeaj9
— Wilfred Reilly (@wil_da_beast630) October 20, 2026
UPDATE: Sorry, but X’s autotranslate feature is so smooth that I don’t always notice — but which X doesn’t do for embeds. So here’s the English translation from the original Portuguese: “Europe will be destroyed by women who project onto those animals the motherhood that belonged to the children they aborted.”
THE FIRST HIT IS FREE: China defends DeepSeek after US ban of its AI from government systems.
The agencies should remove DeepSeek and its affiliated products, as well as third party products and services developed using DeepSeek, from their IT systems, the Department of Homeland Security said in a notice made public on Monday.
The department’s order, dating back to late July, also blocks civilian agencies from procuring DeepSeek products and services. DeepSeek is one of China’s leading and best-known AI companies and its open-source models are widely available in countries including the United States. They are mostly free to use.
The notice in the Federal Register alleges that DeepSeek’s models “present multiple threat vectors.” It said concerns include that its servers are located in China and that Chinese authorities’ could potentially access private company infrastructure and sensitive U.S. data.
DeepSeek looks like a great way for Beijing to engage in espionage and IP theft with the victims doing all the work.
CHANGE YOU CAN BELIEVE IN:
We've gone from cans having over a year wait & fingerprint requirements
to
getting a silencer free with an optics purchase
And y'all are talking about staying home in November. We've never been so back. pic.twitter.com/W2NjvqZJj5
— Louis vil LeGun (@LouisvilleGun) October 20, 2026
From the replies: “Prices haven’t come down. I guess demand has skyrocketed.”
I know this isn’t easy, but give it time.
NOW THAT WOULD BE A CRIME: Did Ilhan Omar’s Husband Sell Empty Barrels of Wine?
HOW ABOUT AMERICANS WHO ARE STILL KIDS AT HEART? Elon Musk says he’s giving SpaceX stock to every kid in America.
Kids will soon have a financial interest in the future of space.
“Next year, I will give one of my SpaceX (SPCX) shares to every kid in America. This will be the first of many,” SpaceX founder and CEO Elon Musk said in an X post on Monday.
Musk didn’t specify an age range for the proposed gift, but a Bloomberg report indicated he could use Trump Accounts as the vehicle for his stock donations.
What a guy.
GO FIGURE:
Netflix is firing all of its top creative leadership after their strategy of make every character gay and trans and every white person black failed to produce strong subscriber growth.
— Clay Travis (@ClayTravis) October 20, 2026
It’s been a long time since I looked at the “Netflix Original” tag without suspicion.