READINESS: Army halts tactical UAS competition without clear plan forward.

“It’s not that we don’t want a Future Tactical UAS. It’s just the one that was being developed didn’t meet our needs,” Army Vice Chief of Staff Gen. James Mingus told reporters at the Army Aviation Association of America’s annual conference.

As part of a larger directive issued by Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth to make major changes to structure, formations and programs, the Army decided to cancel the FTUAS program just as two vendors had just wrapped up a competitive flight demonstration phase.

“There’s a misnomer of, ‘We’ve killed FTUAS,’” Mingus said. “We still need short, medium, long-range unmanned systems that can sense, they can see, they can extend the network, they can kill, they’re kinetic, they’re [electronic warfare], they do all those things and so we’re still going to invest in systems like that.”

The decision comes after the Army approved just one year ago the characteristics it wants in an FTUAS and awarding contracts to two teams competing to build the drone.

More from X: “It’s official: The US Army has fewer drones than we had 3 years ago.”

NIMBY: Has the Trump Administration Found a Country to Take Gazans?

MAKE AMERICA FLORIDA:

Florida now has a $1.7 trillion economy under Gov DeSantis.

Florida is #1 economy in the nation for the 2nd year in a row, per US News.

Florida has added 3.6 million new biz formations since 2019.

All while running a surplus.

Amazing what great executive leadership can do. https://t.co/ck1n1hXYEY

— Jordan Schachtel (@JordanSchachtel) May 16, 2025

“Surplus,” Washington, did you see that part?

THE NEW SPACE RACE: US FAA approves license modifications for SpaceX Starship Flight 9 mission.

The Federal Aviation Administration on Thursday said it approved license modifications for the SpaceX Starship Flight 9 mission, but did not immediately allow it to fly.

SpaceX will not be allowed to launch until the FAA either closes its Starship Flight 8 investigation or makes a return to flight determination, the FAA added.

Let’s get this done.

IT’S TIME FOR VICTORIA TAFT’S West Coast, Messed Coast™: Relying on the Kindness of Criminals Is No Way to Be a Cop, Lady. “I never thought of Huntington Beach as being a gangland or that the leader of the Sinaloa cartel would be living in comfort near the state capital in Oregon, but here we are.”

BUILT TO LAST: NASA Revives Voyager Thrusters ‘Considered Dead’ for 20 Years. “NASA’s engineers revived a set of thrusters on board the Voyager 1 spacecraft to use as backup while the mission goes offline for ongoing upgrades to a radio antenna used to communicate with deep space missions, the space agency revealed this week. Voyager’s primary roll thrusters had stopped working in 2004 after losing power in two small internal heaters, but the team managed to restart the thrusters while the spacecraft cruises through interstellar space at a distance of 15.14 billion miles away (24.4 billion kilometers).”

SCOTT PINSKER: Liberals Are on the Verge of a Major PR Pivot. And Their Next Target Will NOT Be Trump. “Over the past two weeks, there’s been a national PR shift: The Democratic Party has turned on Joe Biden.”

NIFTY: US Ally Revives Aircraft Carrier Plan Amid North Korea Threat. “The South Korean military will move forward with its aircraft carrier project after making modifications, newspaper The Chosun Daily reported on Monday. The original plan called for the construction of a 30,000-ton vessel equipped with F-35B stealth fighter jets. Under the revised project, the proposed aircraft carrier will be transformed into a ‘multifunctional unmanned combat force command ship,’ capable of carrying dozens of drones for a range of missions, including combat, self-detonation, surveillance and reconnaissance.”

FLORIDA MAN FRIDAY [VIP]: Marlboro Man Thought He Was Usain Bolt. “It’s time for your much-needed break from the serious news, and this week, we learn what happens very quickly when a smoker tries to outrun police, why you shouldn’t replace your license plate with a piece of cardboard that says ‘PRIVATE,’ and Britain’s delusional depths.”

DATA REPUBLICAN APPEARS TO BE UNSTOPPABLE:

🔥💥 EXPOSED: Soros, the Deep State & the Shadow Network 💥🔥

Today, I launched a powerful new tool that indexes the National Endowment for Democracy journal… and here's what it uncovers:

🔍 Dozen-plus Open Society Foundation staff, funded by George Soros, are writing in a… https://t.co/MkndenLwOk pic.twitter.com/oKckP86B32

— DataRepublican (small r) (@DataRepublican) May 16, 2025

Full text:

Today, I launched a powerful new tool that indexes the National Endowment for Democracy journal… and here’s what it uncovers:

🔍 Dozen-plus Open Society Foundation staff, funded by George Soros, are writing in a U.S. government-backed journal.

🇺🇸 That journal is part of our taxpayer-funded National Endowment for Democracy, a quasi-government operation tied to foreign “democracy” missions- and Congress sits on its board.

No conspiracy theories. This is hard data.

📎 This proves Soros and our intelligence apparatus are deeply intertwined.

You can sift through the data yourself, right here.

I DON’T DOUBT THEIR SINCERITY BUT PUTIN SO FAR HAS BEEN GIVEN LITTLE REASON TO COOPERATE: Rubio and Trump: This Is the ‘Only Way’ to End the War in Ukraine. “Yeah, it’s my assessment and I think it’s the President’s assessment. By the way, I think he said publicly today that the only way we’re going to have a breakthrough here – nothing is going to happen at this point – given everything we know, after months of working on this, nothing is going to happen until President Trump sits across the table from Vladimir Putin and puts it on the line and puts it on the table. I think that’s the only chance we have at peace at this point given everything we’ve seen over the last few weeks. There’s been talks, there’s been negotiations, there’s been trips and meetings. But in the end, I think we’ve reached the conclusion, and rightfully so, as the President has, that the only way this is going to happen – if it has a chance to happen, the only way it happens is – is the President directly engages with Vladimir Putin.”

UNEXPECTEDLY: California’s Adam Schiff Has Picked Up Dianne Feinstein’s Ban-The-Guns Torch. “Sen. Schiff introduced S. 1531, the Assault Weapon Ban of 2025, and made the announcement through a video he posted to social media. Usurpingly, his claims about the previous federal ban are false. His video message immediately received a brutal Community Note, tagging the first-term senator’s message as ‘incorrect.’ Companion legislation was also introduced in the House of Representatives by Congresswoman Lucy McBath (D-Ga.) as H.R. 3115, with the same title.”

FRIDAY AT 3PM EASTERN: ‘Five O’Clock Somewhere’ 5th Anniversary Extravaganza.

CHRIS QUEEN: Progressive Christianity Watch: Preaching Anything but the Gospel.

I DUNNO, I’M ENJOYING IT: Democrat Men Are Trying To Fake Masculinity And It’s Painful To Watch.

Among the ways Democrats are trying to stop hemorrhaging men voters is apparently by elevating guys who exhibit some comically stereotypical sense of “masculinity,” but who otherwise champion all the effete Democrat policies that the party loves and real men hate. Who knows! Maybe it’ll work!

Three such strapping lads come to mind of late, first and foremost being David Hogg, the lithe twink who is currently a vice chairman of the Democrat National Committee. (Though, some party officials are challenging his election on the grounds that he’s not DEI eligible — he’s apparently not gay). In an interview last week on HBO’s Real Time with Bill Maher, Hogg proposed that Democrats are losing the support of young men, who “would rather vote for somebody who, even if they don’t completely agree with, they don’t feel judged by, than somebody who they do agree with, that they feel like they have to walk on eggshells around constantly because they’re going to be judged or ostracized or excommunicated.” He said young people more generally “should be able to focus on what young people should be focused on, which is how to get laid and how to go and have fun.”

True, Democrats have long-since been the party of nags, their chief mascots being perpetually offended black women — the “heart” and “backbone” of the Democrat Party — and “transgenders” forcing ladies to shave their scrotums. But Hogg’s assertion that men and young voters would be far more susceptible to the Democrat platform if party leaders were a little less menstrual ignores the problem: The two go hand in hand.

Exit quote: “The things Democrats want aren’t popular, so there is no natural appeal among the people who advocate for them; there is only admonishing and lecturing into compliance.”

GOOD LORD: Canada’s Peanut the Squirrel Moment. “Not long after Judicial Watch exposed New York bureaucrats’ disturbing plan to seize and kill Mark Longo’s pets, Peanut the Squirrel and Free the Raccoon, Canada is looking to outdo New York in killing beloved pets for no good reason.”

“MR. GORBACHEV, TEAR DOWN THIS WALL” SEEMS LIKE AN AWFULLY LONG TIME AGO:

So after the implementation of exit-taxes by many European countries, dissuading people from leaving, Germany is now the first to give people exit-bans, effectively preventing them from leaving.

You don't need a crystal ball to see where this is going. The borders will be closed…

— Dries Van Langenhove (@DVanLangenhove) May 16, 2025

DECOUPLING: What’s the Real Story on Trump’s ‘Deal’ with China?

Remember four years ago, during what they named “the supply chain crisis,” when Chairman Xi Jinping kept shutting down whole cities for a month at a time, allegedly due to COVID-19 outbreaks? Huge manufacturing centers like Shanghai and Shenzhen, Wuhan and Chengdu were locked down, with manufacturing and shipping banned, in some cases multiple times.

Because of those distant lockdowns, our American automakers were shut down, too — not of their own choice, but because a vehicle that’s 95% finished still can’t roll off the lot if it’s waiting for a dashboard, or a starter, or a printed circuit board to be shipped from a city that’s been frozen by a distant dictator.

People started to realize then that it wasn’t just American retailers that are too dependent on China; it’s American manufacturers as well. But the Biden-Harris regime tamped down such talk and blamed the containership lines or the seaports, saying the problem was unorganized transportation. The political party that had long been bankrolled by Chinese interests could never allow the message to stand that America is dangerously addicted to Chinese components.

That mistake won’t happen this time. The Trump-Vance administration is making sure Americans understand that our industrial dependence on China isn’t healthy. It may have taken a month of 145% punitive tariffs to drive home the point, but now it’s undeniable.

What if it weren’t a tariff that we could just turn on and off at will? What if the holdup were a Chinese blockade, or another series of Chinese urban lockdowns? Or the worst of all: What if the holdup were a shooting war?

Read the whole thing.

DAVID MANNEY: Si Vis Pacem: The Fear That Keeps Tyrants Awake

OH, CANADA: ‘If we’re going to play the independence game, we play to win’: Derek Fildebrandt on Alberta separatism.

On last night’s episode of The Ezra Levant Show, Derek Fildebrandt from the Western Standard discussed Alberta’s rising independence movement as separatist sentiment heats up following another Liberal victory in the federal election.

Fildebrandt explained that while some people in the province want to use the idea of independence simply as a tool in negotiations with the federal government, he doesn’t believe in that approach.

“Some in Alberta want to use it as leverage, I think that’s a failing strategy. If we’re going to play the independence game, we play to win because we want an independent country,” he said.

The Western Standard publisher also discussed whether he sees Alberta’s current independence movement as “revolutionary.”

“I think if we do achieve independence, then retroactively we get to call this a revolutionary period. If we don’t, then perhaps not,” he said.

Fildebrandt went on: “But Alberta and Saskatchewan — there is something very different happening right now. And no one’s talking about a radically new form of government, it’s in large measure keeping our form of government, keeping our institutions, but decentralizing them from a distant imperial government in Ottawa and repatriating the constitution to a local level.”

We should try more of that here in the US.

KRUISER’S MORNING BRIEFING: James Comey Has Crawled Out of His Hole to Stink Up the Place. “It’s sad what depths those afflicted with TDS will sink to. The former head of the FBI is now a garden variety lunatic social media troll, and completely comfortable with egging on violence against President Trump. This is a 64-year-old man we’re talking about, not some Adderall-ridden kid in his 20s.”

DEI HIRE:

No way Ketanji Brown Jackson is actually this clueless

But she is… pic.twitter.com/ougPMKCeOw

— Jack Poso 🇺🇸 (@JackPosobiec) May 16, 2025

WAIT… THIS IS CNN? From free planes to crypto meme coins, Democrats seize on Trump’s deals to raise corruption concerns.

CNN just went with a “Democrats Seize!” angle on a Trump “corruption” report? Really?

Next thing you know, they’ll have Democrats pouncing.

MAYBE THROW IN A 5AM RAID FOR GOOD MEASURE: Tulsi Gabbard Calls for Jailing Former FBI Director for Suggested Death Threat Against President Trump

SO NOW THEY’LL ASK:

Brutal.

Hakeem Jeffries gets pressed for two straight minutes about covering up Biden's decline and refuses to answer a single question.

"Why should voters trust Democrats when it's clear so many in your party went to great lengths to keep Biden's condition hidden from the… pic.twitter.com/36xVucjysw

— Kyle Martinsen (@KyleMartinsen_) May 14, 2025