MEANWHILE, OVER AT VODKAPUNDIT [VIP]: Somebody Needs to Sanction Biden for His Support of Terrorism.

THE NEW SPACE RACE: Boeing files notice to lay off more than 100 employees in Huntsville, Alabama. “Local media outlet WHNT said Boeing, which employs more than 3,000 people in Huntsville, planned to cut jobs because of delays related to the SLS Artemis mission, with NASA reportedly pushing back its Artemis II and III launches.”

KRUISER’S MORNING BRIEFING: Netanyahu Is a Magnifying Glass on Biden’s Pathetic Weakness. “We can blame age-related dementia all we want, but Joe Biden would have been a weak president even if his last brain cells hadn’t taken a permanent vacation. The predictable by-product of the leader of the world’s lone (for the moment) superpower being weak is that the worst people in the world find new ways to be awful.”

GOOD: $1 million for boys kicked out of high school for greenface photo. “Two 14-year-old boys were kicked out of their Catholic high school in 2020, because a three-year-old photo of them in green acne masks was interpreted as ‘blackface.’ The day before, they’d posted a photo in a white acne mask.”

VICTORIA TAFT: Just One More Thing, Stormy: Do You Know Anything About Trump’s Business Records? “Before she sashayed from the courtroom, Daniels was asked what might be the most important question of the trial. It came two hours into her second day of testimony. The question had to do with why everyone was gathered in court.”

BRITAIN: Mass migration not delivering economic benefits, study finds.

Mass migration has not delivered significant GDP growth per capita for the United Kingdom, but it has increased strain on the country, according to a new study.

While illegal immigration recently hit record highs in the United States, legal immigration poses a significant issue for the U.K., where legal migration levels are more than 25 times the level of illegal levels, according to a report Wednesday from the Centre for Policy Studies, a U.K. think tank and advocacy group.

The percentage of foreign-born people in the U.K. nearly doubled over two decades, with 9% of the population being foreign-born in 2001 to 17% in 2021, which is even higher than the U.S., where 14% of people are foreign-born.

Additionally, the United Kingdom has seen 10 million people move to the U.K. and 6.3 million leave since 2010, resulting in an additional 3.7 million new migrants.

While the study acknowledges that “correlation is not causation,” but states that a “country with more people in it will normally have a higher GDP because there are more workers,” and the increase in migration has coincided with a large decline in GDP per capita growth.

Ayn Rand pointed out 60 years ago that you can have mass immigration or a generous welfare state but you can’t have both — at least not for long.

POST-CHRISTIAN BRITAIN ISN’T WORKING OUT VERY WELL: Scottish Leftists Disparage a Rising Political Star Because of Her Christian Faith.

UNTIL THE NEXT ONE: Joe Biden Tells His Biggest Whopper About Inflation Yet.

FASTER? PLEASE! NASA’s Proposed Plasma Rocket Would Get Us to Mars in 2 Months.

WHAT WOULD WE DO WITHOUT EXPERTS? Expert: Federal Reserve Enables Gov’t Financial Irresponsibility, Massive Debt.

HEADLINE OF THE DAY: WaPo Carries Water for Biden on Border Crisis, Spills Most of It.

SOME PARTS OF AMERICA STILL WORK: SpaceX breaks Space Shuttle pad record with Falcon 9 Starlink mission. “With a Wednesday afternoon launch, SpaceX’s Falcon family of rockets exceeded the total number of Space Shuttle missions from historic Launch Complex 39A at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center. The combination of Falcon 9 and Falcon Heavy rocket launches passed the total number of shuttle flights seen at that pad.”

The Space Shuttle flew for 30 years. The first Falcon 9 was launched in 2010 and has made 329 successful launches compared to the Shuttle’s 133.

KEVIN DOWNEY JR: Ignore the Shocking Number of Rapes Committed by ‘Newcomers’ or You’ll Be Punished, You Bigot.

EVERYTHING IS GOING SWIMMINGLY: Gen-Zers Slide Deeper Into Debt As Bidenomics Failure Crushes America’s Future Leaders. “Besides the vast majority of the working poor slammed by Bidenomics, as noted by McDonald’s, Starbucks, and Tyson Foods executives in earnings calls in recent weeks, Gen-Zers have been very vocal about a shit economy they were given after taking out $100,000 in college loans.”

FASCISM, STRAIGHT UP: We’re Only Just Beginning to Understand the Extent of Biden’s Censorship Regime.

THE US NAVY USED TO SELL ITS USED SHIPS TO THIRD-WORLD NATIONS: US Navy looks to buy foreign, used ships.

MEANWHILE, OVER AT VODKAPUNDIT: It’s Official: Rep. Jamaal Bowman Is an Even Bigger Loon Than You Thought. “Aside from CIA time travel, secret frequencies, and alien technology — plus his previously known predilection for terrorists, antisemites, and democratic socialism — Bowman seems like a perfectly reasonable fellow.”

THE FUTURE BELONGS TO THOSE WHO SHOW UP: East Asia’s Coming Population Collapse.

In the decades immediately ahead, East Asia will experience perhaps the modern world’s most dramatic demographic shift. All of the region’s main states—China, Japan, South Korea, and Taiwan—are about to enter into an era of depopulation, in which they will age dramatically and lose millions of people. According to projections from the Population Division of the UN Department of Economic Social Affairs, China’s and Japan’s populations are set to fall by eight percent and 18 percent, respectively, between 2020 and 2050. South Korea’s population is poised to shrink by 12 percent. And Taiwan’s will go down by an estimated eight percent. The U.S. population, by contrast, is on track to increase by 12 percent.

People—human numbers and the potential they embody—are essential to state power. All else being equal, countries with more people have more workers, bigger economies, and a larger pool of potential soldiers. As a result, growing countries find it much easier to augment power and extend influence abroad. Shrinking ones, by contrast, struggle to maintain their sway.

Automation and AI will blunt the edge that sheer size usually provides but, by how much, no one knows.

HEH: Chicago Mayor’s Attempt to Hide Illegal Aliens Before the DNC Convention Didn’t Go Well.

COMPETITION: Applebee’s owner Dine Brands wants to steal fast-food customers with its deals.

As consumers pull back their restaurant spending, Applebee’s and IHOP are fighting against a larger group of rivals than usual for a smaller pool of customers. Dine Brands CEO John Peyton said full-service restaurants, fast-food chains and even eating at home are all competing for diners’ dollars.

To rise above the competition, Applebee’s has been leaning into value with a slate of promotions that includes the return of Dollaritas, which makes Peyton confident that it can beat out the fast-food chains vying for its customers.

“The Whole Lotta Burger for $9.99 — if you can have our burger for $10, which is great quality, abundant and eat in our restaurant, in our experience, why would you eat a $10 burger out of a paper bag in your car?” he told CNBC.

Unless time is an issue, it’s silly for me to do drive-thru when for just a few extra dollars, I can get a friendly waitress, a better burger, and a beer instead of a Coke.

ANALYSIS: TRUE. Milei Is Absolutely Killing It in Argentina. “Milei’s results speak for themselves. There’s a lesson there for any Republican bold enough to learn it.”

DOUBLING DOWN ON STUPID: President Biden Is Ready to Use the SPR Again If Needed.

President Biden will use crude oil from the strategic petroleum reserve should the need arise, energy adviser Amos Hochstein has said, noting there was enough oil in the reserve.

“We have been replenishing into the SPR for the last several months. I think we have sufficient supply in the SPR to address any kind of concern in the economy if we need it,” Hochstein said, speaking at the Milken Institute Global Conference, as quoted by Reuters.

The U.S. saw the stockpiles of crude oil in the SPR fall from 638 million barrels at President Joe Biden’s inauguration to just 347 million barrels by the summer of 2023 as the administration tried to bring down gasoline prices for consumers by releasing over 180 million barrels from the SPR.

Funny, but prices are still up since Biden was sworn in.

Also:

President Trump wanted to refill our Strategic Petroleum Reserve when oil was $24/barrel, but Democrats blocked him.

Now, taxpayers will be forced to refill it at nearly TRIPLE the cost.

— Jim Banks (@RepJimBanks) October 20, 2022

Fill’er up isn’t going to happen so long as Joe Biden is (ostensibly) in charge.

KRUISER’S MORNING BRIEFING: Weird — I Did Have ‘RFK Jr Brain Worm’ on My Bingo Card. “Look, there are a zillion things from RFK Jr.’s past that could be dredged up for hit piece fodder. The guy is a bit of an oddball, even for a Kennedy. This is probably one of the milder stories that anybody doing oppo research on him could find.”

ANALYSIS: TRUE.

Why, you may ask, are the campus and other protesters inspired to protest in increasing numbers, and with greater violence and aggressiveness?

The answer is that the protesters believe their protests are working.

When @POTUS Biden withholds weapons from @Israel a few weeks… https://t.co/9lsXKI1joN

— Bill Ackman (@BillAckman) May 8, 2024

Everybody knows that Joe Biden’s “Don’t” is just his opening bargaining position and that he’ll give it up at the slightest sign of resistance.

THEY ALWAYS WERE: Biden Regime Makes It Unmistakable: We’re On Hamas’ Side Now.