THE NEW SPACE RACE: Private Japanese rocket explodes after liftoff in its 2nd launch failure of 2024.

Space One was aiming to be the first private Japanese company to put a satellite into orbit with the Kairos 2 rocket, but it was not to be. After taking off around 11 a.m. local time today from Space Port Kii in Kushimoto, Wakayama Prefecture, the 59-foot-tall (18 meters) rocket began tumbling.

Space One terminated the flight some three minutes into the flight at an altitude of 62 miles (100 kilometers) after detecting anomalies in the rocket’s first-stage engines and trajectory. The rocket was carrying five satellites developed by Japanese commercial firms, high school students and a Taiwanese company.
…
Space One’s Kairos rocket features three solid-fuel stages and a liquid propellant upper stage. It was designed to carry payloads up to 550 pounds (250 kilograms) into low Earth orbit, filling a gap in Japan’s current competitiveness in the space launch market.

That’s a tough market with SpaceX doing ridesharing missions.

KRUISER: Trump Derangement Syndrome Meltdown of the Week — We’re Back, Baby!

WINNING: Invasive ‘murder hornets’ are wiped out in the US, officials say.

BATTLE OF THE BULGE: 80th Anniversary.

I HOPE HIS PLUS-ONE IS THE CHAINSAW: Argentinian President Javier Milei plans to attend Trump inauguration.

MEANWHILE, OVER AT VODKAPUNDIT [VIP]: Everything You Ever Wanted to Know About the Drone Scare (But Were Afraid to Look up and See).

VIP members asked for longer essays and I’ve been happy to oblige.

K-12 IMPLOSION UPDATE: Teens are doing less homework, earning higher grades. “Test scores are down for ‘Covid kids,’ but grades are up.”

KILL THE BILL: Johnson’s Massive CR Extends Censorship Entity’s Life.

KILL THE BILL:

There are two provisions buried in the CR that Congress is trying to slip by.

A pay increase for members of Congress from $174,000 to $243,000 per year.

Also, members of Congress are receiving an opt out from being required to use Obamacare pic.twitter.com/kWvwAgx0GD

— Wall Street Mav (@WallStreetMav) December 18, 2024

However much contempt you have for Congress, it isn’t enough.

I’M SHOCKED THAT COLORADO DIDN’T EVEN MAKE THE TOP FIVE: And the Award for the State With the Worst Drivers in the Nation Goes To…

WINNING: American Airlines Agrees to End Illegal Discrimination in Hiring, Recruiting, and Employment Practices Following AFL’s Civil Rights Complaint.

Last week, the Department of Labor’s Office of Federal Contract Compliance Programs (OFCCP) notified America First Legal (AFL) that American Airlines has agreed to abandon the discriminatory employment practices AFL outlined in its federal civil rights complaint against the company. The airline acknowledged that recruiting and hiring based on Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI) violates federal laws and equal employment opportunities.

On January 17, 2024, AFL filed a complaint against American Airlines with the OFCCP, requesting an immediate investigation into the airline for non-compliance with federal contracting requirements. Despite receiving over $140 million in federal government contracts since 2008 and promising in accordance with Executive Order 11246 that it will not discriminate in hiring, promotion, or employee training because of race, color, religion, sex, or national origin, American Airlines has explicitly engaged in race and sex discrimination in hiring programs, Cadet Academy recruitment, and promotional processes.

On December 13, 2024, the OFCCP held an informal compliance conference with American Airlines in accordance with 41 CFR §60-1.24 (c) (2) to address the allegations detailed in AFL’s complaint. OFCCP’s investigation indicated a violation of the equal opportunity clause, requiring a compliance conference with American Airlines to resolve the matter. Following the compliance conference with OFCCP, American Airlines acknowledged and agreed to end its illegal race and sex-based discrimination in hiring and promotional practices.

The part where it’s illegal seems like kind of a big deal.

WELL, THEY ASKED FOR THEM: You’re Not Going to Believe How Many Illegal Aliens Reside in Sanctuary Cities. “Although there is much imprecision in the data, the bottom line is that close to eight million illegal aliens, equaling 56 percent of the estimated nationwide total, live in sanctuary jurisdictions.”

Ought to make them easier to find.

BILL WHITTLE: Crazy Joe’s Discount Pardon Warehouse.

GOOD LORD: Migrant Sexually Assaults ‘Severely’ Disabled Man in Mall Bathroom (With an Extra Sadistic Twist).

DISPATCHES FROM WEIMAR AMERICA: 41 percent of young voters find killing of UnitedHealthcare CEO acceptable.

ENDORSED: KBJ Should Follow Her Dream and Leave SCOTUS for Broadway.

I’VE SEEN THE LOCKDOWNS AND THE DAMAGE DONE:

Really important, deeply researched new @BrookingsInst paper showing that the huge 2020-2022 homicide surge began in April 2020, before the Floyd murder and unrest weeks later, suggesting that pandemic stress and closures played a major role, even before onset of "Floyd effect." pic.twitter.com/ThVLwwQy65

— Alec MacGillis (@AlecMacGillis) December 17, 2024

Full Brookings study here.

YOU DON’T SAY: Economist: Government Spending Spurred Inflation.

WOEING: Boeing’s Failed Plea Deal: What Happens Next. “Months after the Department of Justice (DOJ) offered Boeing a plea deal to avoid criminal fraud charges, a U.S. judge threw a curveball in the case, rejecting the deal after taking issue with a ‘diversity and inclusion’ provision in selecting a monitor to supervise the company’s safety practices, along with how the court would participate in that process.”

More:

O’Connor wrote in a Dec. 5 order that he had concerns about a diversity and inclusion provision in Boeing’s plea deal with the DOJ. He targeted a single sentence in the plea agreement that referenced the DOJ’s diversity policy in selecting an independent monitor to monitor Boeing’s safety compliance practices.

“In a case of this magnitude, it is in the utmost interest of justice that the public is confident this monitor selection is done based solely on competency,” O’Connor wrote. “The parties’ DEI efforts only serve to undermine this confidence in the Government and Boeing’s ethics and anti-fraud efforts.”

Shawn Pruchnicki, aviation safety expert and assistant professor at Ohio State University’s Center for Aviation Studies, said the monitor had an “amazingly important task” of supervising the company’s safety compliance practices.

“I stand fully behind [diversity], but I think many of us in aerospace and certainly in aviation, just like we do on the flight deck … we want someone who is qualified, that can meet the same requirements that we get,” Pruchnicki told The Epoch Times.

You can stand behind DEI or you can stand behind merit but you can’t stand behind both. And if you aren’t standing behind merit, you certainly aren’t promoting safety.

KRUISER’S MORNING BRIEFING: Congress Wants Taxpayers to Pick Up More Soap in the Prison Shower. “It would be easy to frame this as solely a post-election revenge play on the part of Schumer and the Dems, but we all know that Republicans are a big part of the problem.”

UNEXPECTEDLY:

Bluesky's activity continues to decline. Down ~5 million total likes and ~2 million posts per day since the beginning of December. Total number of accounts followed per day has decreased by ~500k.

(per Bluesky's API) pic.twitter.com/91HYnHee8z

— Tony Kinnett (@TheTonus) December 17, 2024

X is fun again. BlueSky was taken over by the same kinds of people who ruined Twitter in the first place. The results speak for themselves.

Previously: Allow Me to Enlighten You About Your Social Media Problem, Prole.

ROBERT SPENCER: They Seem to Have Finally Finished Counting Votes, and Yes, It’s Fishy.

NOTHING TO SEE HERE, MOVE ALONG: Biden advisors used insecure pseudonymous email accounts to brief him on sensitive foreign policy.

New email records released by the National Archives show then-Vice President Joe Biden was briefed about sensitive foreign policy matters by then-advisor Antony Blinken on his private email account, including details about a failed North Korean missile launch.

Joe Biden, now president, first faced scrutiny about potential private accounts after emails contained on Hunter Biden’s infamous laptop showed the then-vice president in the Obama administration was using an email address with a pseudonym to communicate about business and official matters with his son, other family members, and senior staff.

One new email, part of several batches released by the National Archives pursuant to a Freedom of Information Act lawsuit shows that in the hours following a North Korean missile launch in April 2012, Blinken—who was then Biden’s national security advisor—sent a message to the vice president’s private email account “” with details about the sensitive national security matter.

Google — at the very least — was reading Biden’s emails.

FROM HER ROLE AS EDITH WILSON? Jill Biden Announces She’s Retiring — and the Punchline Writes Itself.

HISTORY: German Archaeological Find Sheds Light on Christianity’s Spread Into Europe. “Incredibly, the text represents the oldest known evidence of Christianity north of the Alps, dating back to between 230 and 270 AD, scientists say.”