KRUISER’S MORNING BRIEFING: A Whole Lotta MAGA Goin’ On. “Not only did the inauguration of President Donald Trump live up to my high expectations, it greatly exceeded them. I woke up yesterday filled with kid-on-Christmas-morning energy, as I suspect many of you did. Never mind that I didn’t sleep well, the nation was finally going to be rid of them.”
Author Archive: Stephen Green
January 21, 2025
THE NEW SPACE RACE: China performs high altitude reusable rocket test with uncertain outcome.
A Chinese state-owned company performed a rocket flight aimed at testing reentry and landing burns late Saturday without announcing the outcome.
The Longxing-2 test article lifted off at around 10:00 p.m. Eastern, Jan. 18 (0300 UTC, Jan. 19) from a makeshift launch area near Haiyang, Shandong province.
Longxing-2 is thought to be a test article for the Long March 12A reusable launcher being developed by the Shanghai Academy of Spaceflight Technology (SAST). The rocket was designed to replicate the first stage of a reusable flight, reaching around 75 kilometers before performing a reentry burn and making a powered descent and splashdown into the Yellow Sea.
Amateur footage captured from near the launch area showed the rocket rise very slowly from the tower and perform an ascent phase with no apparent anomalies. The test was intended to build on a successful 12-kilometer-altitude vertical takeoff, vertical landing (VTVL) test performed in June 2024.
SAST published results and footage from the June test, but has so far remained silent on the 75-km attempt, being yet to publish any results or details of the flight more than 24 hours after liftoff. The lack of official updates raises questions about the success of the test, which could indicate challenges during reentry or landing phases.
Not only is space hard but reusable vehicles are even harder — and commies generally don’t stay mum when there’s a public relations coup to be had.
PUTIN’S STUPID WAR: Russian Mobilization and Force Generation Efforts. “Russian volunteer military detachments continue efforts to boost manpower by recruiting women into the Russian Armed Forces. Former Roscosmos (Russian space agency) head and Zaporizhia Oblast occupation senator Dmitry Rogozin reported on January 19 that the Russian BARS-Sarmat Detachment (Russian Combat Army Reserve) is recruiting specialists and unskilled men and women from across Russia to participate in combat operations in Ukraine. The post follows recent Russian promotional activities highlighting the recruitment of Russian women to various combat units in the Russian Armed Forces.”
Much more at the link. I’d just add that it’s one thing to give women combat roles when the Nazis are at the gates of Moscow, and quite another to try and take one more ruined little settlement in Ukraine.
That the US Army has done the same is a peacetime extravagance that I hope we’ll ditch sooner rather than later.
It’ll be nice for everyone involved now that we have a peacemaker back in the White House.
IT FEELS PRETTY DAMN GOOD: ‘This Is What Victory Feels Like!’ Musk Gives Epic Victory Speech.
January 20, 2025
THIS IS (STILL) CNN:
Very bold of CNN to insinuate the richest man in the world did a Nazi salute just three days after the network lost a bombshell defamation suit. https://t.co/TygcjLOORL
— Andrew Kerr (@AndrewKerrNC) January 20, 2025
I guess the jury should have added another zero or two or three to the damages awarded in the previous defamation lawsuit.
UPDATE (FROM GLENN):
I shouldn’t cuss, but fuck you, we’re not doing this anymore. https://t.co/ZcRg1IKckS
— Mary Katharine Ham (@mkhammer) January 20, 2025
I mean, even the NeverTrumpers aren’t buying it.
The thing at the 55 second mark, where he grabs his chest and says "my heart goes out to you" is supposed to be a deliberate Nazi salute? Sorry, not buying it. https://t.co/AMV138Oq02
— Jonah Goldberg (@JonahDispatch) January 20, 2025
Thought: This was bait so Elon can sue a lot of people for libel and bankrupt them. But hey, you’d have to be super rich and super smart to set a trap like that. . .
MORE:
The media: We don’t know why we aren’t trusted anymore
Also the media: Come spend the next 27 days with us pretending Elon did a Nazi salute
— Not the Bee (@Not_the_Bee) January 20, 2025
THE NEEDS OF THE PARTY ARE SUBJECT TO CHANGE, COMRADE:
Two weeks ago, Joe Biden awarded Liz Cheney with the Presidential Citizens Medal.
Today, Joe Biden preemptively pardoned Liz Cheney.
How does one receive the nation's second highest civilian honor AND a pardon?
— Lance Gooden (@Lancegooden) January 20, 2025
And with that, I get to retire that headline for at least the next four years — at least when it comes to the White House.
THERE’S A NEW SHERIFF IN TOWN:
JUST ANNOUNCED THE DEPARTMENT OF JUSTICE IS DROPPING MY JANUARY 6 CASE!!!!!!
4 YEAR AND 4 DAYS IN THE GULAG WITHOUT A TRIAL
IM FINALLY COMING HOME!!!! GOD BE MAGNIFIED!!!
MOUNTAINS DO REALLY MOVE IN JESUS NAME!!!
— Jake Lang – January 6 Political Prisoner 🇺🇸 (@JakeLangJ6) January 20, 2025
Much more like this, please. And how about an investigation into those who denied Jake’s — and many others’ — right to a speedy trial?
BILL WHITTLE’S HOT MIC: “In a crisp, pointed, accusatory, ambitious, bold, stirring, decisive and occasionally even poetic speech, Donald J Trump, 47th President of the United States of America, delivers his remarkable Second Inaugural, and Hot Mic host Bill Whittle is there for the play-by-play.”
Good stuff as usual from Bill.
WHOSE GEAR IS IT, ANYWAY? Camera owner asks Canon, skies: Why is it $5/month for webcam software?
“Software development isn’t free, and I’m happy to pay for software I use regularly,” Zipp writes. “However, Canon is a hardware company, not a software company, and they should—due to the lack of standards—provide software that allows you to use their cameras as intended. Aside from development costs, there’s no justification for a subscription model, particularly from a company earning nearly $3 billion in profit.”
Zipp’s pointed complaint made the front page of Hacker News, where commenters immediately got sidetracked into a discussion of UK tariff laws on video equipment, sneakers, cookies, and ethanol. But further in, recommendations appear for the open source Magic Lantern camera add-on software, or possibly CHDK (Canon Hack Development Kit) firmware. Whether or not Zipp can better use his camera as a webcam is somewhat beside the point, or at least the point he’s making.
This from the comments was both crude and on the money: “If you charge a subscription for stuff that uses local hardware and doesn’t need to talk to cloud services or anything else that costs the purveyor money, you’re a f***ing piece of s*** and should be ostracized.”
MAYBE THE MOST CONSEQUENTIAL THING TRUMP SAID IN AN IMPRESSIVE INAUGURAL ADDRESS: We’re Going to Mars, and We’re Bringing the Stars and Stripes With Us.
BUT WILL THEY THROW THEIR SUPPORT BEHIND ANYONE COMPETENT? Even Hollywood is turning on LA Mayor Karen Bass.
After her election as mayor of Los Angeles in 2022, Karen Bass was a heroine of California’s Left. A former backer of Fidel Castro, she decisively defeated billionaire businessman Rick Caruso, who spent more than $100 million to try and defeat her. With a struggling economy, rising crime, and a high cost of living, Bass’s election seemed to confirm LA’s final transition from a place of political diversity to a single-party city dominated by a well-organised Left and funders from the public unions.
Now, though, Bass “is a dead woman walking”, as a union organiser friend told me this week. The revelations of incompetence, poor planning, and awful communication, combined with the fact that the LA mayor was partying in Ghana when wildfires started in her city, have worked against her, and yesterday angry protestors gathered outside her home. Some charges made by Donald Trump and Elon Musk tying the disaster to DEI and climate policies are exaggerated. But Bass’s lack of interest in public safety mirrors the new progressive script which prioritises “social justice” over actual justice, racial quotas over merit, and climate alarmism over common sense.
Naturally, Bass, Governor Gavin Newsom and their media supporters reject conservatives’ accusations of incompetence. They say opponents are using the fires as a political “piñata”, and blame the damage on climate change. Yet Steven Koonin, a respected physicist and advisor in the Obama administration, has argued that the real responsibility lies with a slew of bad policies which left the city unprepared for the scale of the disaster. Fires have been a regular feature of life here in Southern California for at least 20 million years. Given recent weather conditions, the city should have known what was coming.
Please take note that it takes longer than 20 million years for lefties to learn anything.
I’D SAY, “FASTER, PLEASE,” BUT HEADS ARE ALREADY SPINNING: Trump Is Getting Us Out of the Paris Climate Accords Again.
THERE’S A NEW SHERIFF IN TOWN: This is the new White House landing page.
WHAT COULD POSSIBLY GO WRONG? America Just Kinda, Sorta Banned Cigarettes. “Today, regulators at the FDA announced that they are pushing forward with a rule that would dramatically limit how much nicotine can go in a cigarette. The average cigarette nowadays is estimated to have roughly 17 milligrams of the drug. Under the new regulation, that would fall to less than one milligram. If enacted—still a big if—it would decimate the demand for cigarettes more effectively than any public-service announcement ever could.”
THAT’S RICH, COMING FROM THE FIVE MILLION DOLLAR MAN:
Jake Tapper: “We’re about to enter an era of deepfakes and all sorts of misinformation”pic.twitter.com/tfjinWSMO3
— Defiant L’s (@DefiantLs) January 20, 2025
A court of law determined that CNN is disinformation.
INDEED:
What if the Chinese government built a giant tower at their DC Embassy & collected info on US citizens while broadcasting commie propaganda?
We could make them take that down
Right? pic.twitter.com/P1LnYKwjaZ— Jim Hanson (@JimHansonDC) January 19, 2025
TikTok is a tool of a hostile foreign power.
AMERICA’S NEWSPAPER OF RECORD:
— The Babylon Bee (@TheBabylonBee) January 20, 2025
UNEXPECTED HEADLINES: Assassination of an escort leads to miniskirt ban in world’s least popular parliament.
Detectives immediately knew they were dealing with a professional hit. The criminals had riddled the taxi with some 40 bullets, yet stole nothing from the dying driver and passenger.
But what puzzled them was the identity of the victim of the ferocious attack in the centre of Lima, Peru’s chaotic capital, last December. That passenger, Andrea Vidal, 27, was a slim, photogenic lawyer and former congressional aide.
By the time she succumbed to her injuries in intensive care one week later, investigators had begun to unearth a scandal shocking even by the rock-bottom standards of the Andean nation’s ethically-challenged Congress – a prostitution ring allegedly operating within the legislative palace itself.
Politicians initially sought to ignore the mushrooming scandal, which Ms Vidal, who was part of the ring, had reportedly been on the point of revealing when she was killed.
But public pressure finally forced them to act. Last week, they banned female aides from wearing miniskirts and shorts.
Well, that ought to solve the problem.
OUR NEW NORM IS “ANYTHING GOES:”
The fact that Fauci's pardon specifically and explicitly addresses his Covid-related offenses, while being backdated to 2014—the year the gain-of-function ban took effect, which Fauci circumvented by outsourcing experiments to China—speaks volumes as to what this is really about. pic.twitter.com/rRI4fXsx5E
— Hans Mahncke (@HansMahncke) January 20, 2025
THE WHOLE PJ CREW IS LIVEBLOGGING: Inauguration of Donald J. Trump, 47th President of the United States.
FER CRYIN’ OUT LOUD: Trump ‘Transition Official’ Says All the Gazans Really Need Is ‘a Sense of Hope.’ Really?
Trump’s biggest weakness might be how small the pool is of good hires. But this one has got to go.
ONE LAST FU ON HIS WAY OUT THE DOOR: “FOR ANY NONVIOLENT OFFENSES against the United States which they may have committed or taken part in during the period from January I, 2014, through the date of this pardon.”
The whole damnable family.
Related:
Got any follow up comment Ruth? https://t.co/sIElHsNVda
— Jeff Carlson (@themarketswork) January 20, 2025
THE EV BUBBLE CONTINUES TO DEFLATE: Canoo Inc. Announces Chapter 7 Bankruptcy Filing. “Despite being American-made, successfully delivering to such esteemed organizations as NASA, the Department of Defense (“DOD”), The United States Postal Service (“USPS”), the State of Oklahoma and having agreements with Walmart and others, Canoo has unfortunately been unable to secure financial support from the U.S. Department of Energy’s (“DOE”) Loan Program Office. Recently, the company’s executives were in discussions with foreign sources of capital. In light of the fact that these efforts were unsuccessful, the Board has made the difficult decision to file for insolvency.”
Judging by the press release, the company’s business model was to get government loans to finance the production of EVs for purchase by governments.