ROB HENDERSON: Two Murders — and the Cost of Luxury Beliefs.

Luxury beliefs can stem from malice, good intentions, or outright naivete.

But the individuals who hold those beliefs, the people who wield the most influence in policy and culture, are often sheltered when their preferences are implemented.

Some online commenters have said that my luxury beliefs thesis is undermined by these tragic events, because the victims were affluent and influential—and they still suffered the consequences of their beliefs.

But the fact remains that poor people are far more likely to be victims of violent crime. For every upper-middle-class person killed, 20 poor people you never hear about are assaulted and murdered. You just never hear about them. They don’t get identified by name in the media. Their stories don’t get told.

According to the U.S. Census Bureau, the poorest Americans are seven times more likely to be victims of robbery, seven times more likely to be victims of aggravated assault, and twenty times more likely to be victims of sexual assault than Americans who earn more than $75,000. One 2004 study found that people in areas where over 20 percent of inhabitants live in poverty are more than 100 times more likely to be murdered than people in areas where less than 10 percent of residents live in poverty.

Expressing a luxury belief is a manifestation of cultural capital, a signal of one’s fortunate economic circumstances.

Right up until it isn’t.

And do read the whole thing.

AND THEY ARE NOT SPECTACULAR: Yes, Dead Voters Are Real.

THE NEW SPACE RACE: SpaceX’s Starship has ‘decent chance’ of success on upcoming flight, Elon Musk says.

Flight 2, as Musk calls the upcoming Starship launch, will include key changes SpaceX recently implemented to Starship. For example: The company aims to “hot stage” the system, meaning that Starship will light its second-stage engines before the vehicle’s two stages have fully separated.

While the Soviet Union made use of hot staging before, Musk said it’s the first time SpaceX will attempt it. “I’d say that’s the riskiest part of the flight,” he said. “If the engines light and the ship doesn’t blow itself up during staging, then I think we’ve got a decent chance of reaching orbit.”

Presuming that happens according to plan, Starship will make less than a complete orbit of Earth and splash down in the Pacific off the coast of Hawaii, he said. The next key test in-flight will be the heat shield, so far untested.

“We think it will work, but we aren’t sure if it will work,” Musk said of the heat shield. “So if it doesn’t work, we want it to not work over the Pacific — which is a large body of water with almost no people on it.”

But: “While SpaceX said it has implemented all 57 actions required for the next flight and completed its investigation, the FAA has not yet awarded a license for the second launch.”

THE PRESIDENT WHO IS SUPPOSED TO HAVE SAID THAT THE CHIEF JUSTICE “HAS HIS OPINION, NOW LET HIM ENFORCE IT” WAS ALSO A DEMOCRAT: A Threat to Democracy? Biden Defies the Supreme Court Again.

EXCELLENCE IN EDUCATION: Texas tracks for equity: ‘I didn’t know honors existed.’

California progressives are eliminating advanced math in middle school in the name of equity. In Texas, equity means expanding access to advanced math, writes Talia Richman on the Hechinger Report. In Dallas, all students with above-average math scores are placed on the honors track in sixth grade. Students who don’t want the challenge must opt out.

Dallas nearly doubled enrollment in Algebra I in eighth grade from, 2018 to 2022, and students are far more racially diverse.

Tha Cung, an immigrant from Myanmar, had been in classes for English learners. “I didn’t know ‘honors’ even existed,” he said. His fifth-grade scores put him in advanced math in sixth grade.

Exit quote: “Tha Cung is now an eighth grader enrolled in Algebra I, writes Richman. ‘My mom told me that I could be anything,’ Tha, 13, said. ‘So I chose engineer.'”

KRUISER’S MORNING BRIEFING: Warm, Fuzzy, ‘Unifier’ Trump Is Totally Weirding Me Out. “Trump’s combativeness is his biggest selling point to me. I’m not ready for him to put on a cardigan and relax into fireside chat mode. As I wrote at the beginning of year, I want him to go full scorched earth if he gets another shot at the White House.”

FIRE THEM ALL: California Teachers’ Union Threatens Strike for Free Yoga and Homeless Camps.

HMM: Democrats have relied on one company’s tools to power campaigns. They’re now facing a possible collapse.

NGP VAN provides tools used by Democrats, from the White House to local school boards, to raise money and mobilize voters. But with new management in recent years, it has been stripping its operations to the bare bones.

The potential decline of these tools — which have given Democrats a significant technology edge over Republicans over the past few cycles — would be so threatening to operations that a handful of top Democratic digital firms recently called a roughly hourlong Zoom meeting with leadership of the company to seek answers. Among their demands: reassurance that NGP VAN wouldn’t dismantle one of its top products, an online organizing and fundraising tool called ActionKit. Without it, Democrats worried about their prospects during the 2024 cycle and beyond.

“I’m hoping that I’m wrong, that we’re all wrong, that everyone’s fine,” said a former NGP VAN employee, granted anonymity to speak candidly about their former employer. “But this could mean something really bad for 2024.”

The alarm relayed on the call reflected a larger concern: that the Democratic Party has grown too dependent on a small handful of companies to carry the bulk of its campaign operations.

The GOP for years had the technological edge, starting with direct mail and ending around the time Big Tech went all-in with Barack Obama.

If they want it back, they’re going to have to fight for it, rather than just gloat when a Democrat-connected firm or two collapses.

IT WOULD EASILY BE HIS MOST ENTERTAINING SHOW SINCE THE APPRENTICE: Trump Would Accept House Speakership… But There’s a Catch.

ALLIES: U.S. F-16 fighter jet shoots down an armed Turkish drone over Syria.

The shoot down came after repeated communications to stay away from U.S. ground troops near al Hasakah in northeastern Syria. This is believed to be the first time the U.S. has shot down a drone from Turkey, a NATO ally.

The Pentagon called the incident “regrettable” but said no U.S. forces were injured and there are no indications Turkey intended to target U.S. forces.

“It’s regrettable when you have two NATO allies and there’s an incident like this,” Pentagon spokesperson Brig. Gen. Patrick Ryder told reporters Thursday.

Like everything else in the Middle East, it’s complicated.

EXCLUSIVE: FBI Whistleblower ’Vindicated’ by Exposure of FBI Targeting MAGA.

DOG PEOPLE, UNITE: Biden ‘Kicks, Punches’ His Dogs.

I’m a dog person. My wife is so much of a dog person that the first big test of our budding relationship was when she looked me square in the eye and asked if I was a dog person. I should add that this was maybe 40 minutes into our first date. Two decades later, our two sons are dog people and dote on all three of our dogs, all the time.

Back in the day when dog food had to be cooked at home, my dad — then 10-year-old Steve Sr. — refused to serve his Boxer, Chris, any food that Dad hadn’t first tasted himself. I didn’t believe Dad when he told me that story many years ago, but my grandfather (also a dog person) confirmed it.

So it’s with outrage and trembling hands that I’m writing this report.

More at the link.

VODKAPUNDIT PRESENTS YOUR WEEKLY INSANITY WRAP [VIP]: Here’s How Hollywood Can Lose Millions on a Hit Movie. “Hollywood looks like it will make big bank on ‘The Exorcist: Believer’ and still end up deep in the red — thanks to this one crazy trick. That’s the lead crazy on today’s Insanity Wrap, an entire week’s worth of the best bad news.”

Plus:

• A dramatic school library pr0n reading by Sara Gonzales.
• This week’s Brief Moment of Sanity is so brief you might have already missed it.
• The video from our southern border that explains Biden’s backflip.

So much more at the link, you’d have to be crazy to miss it.

ONE MUST HAVE A HEART OF STONE NOT TO LAUGH: Andrea Mitchell Is Really Upset That Pelosi Got Booted From Her Office. “Has Mitchell heard of the concept of sowing and reaping? Because it was Pelosi who sowed the seeds of getting herself kicked to the curb. Besides, I don’t think appeals to tradition are very powerful when it was Democrats who busted tradition and helped nuke a sitting Speaker for the first time in American history.”

PUBLIC SAFETY, YOU’RE DOING IT WRONG: D’oh! Critic of Atlanta’s Public Safety Training Center Finds Himself on the Wrong Side of the Law.

THE FIX WAS IN: Days after Joe Biden became president, his DOJ sought briefing on Hunter criminal case, memos show.

The request for the briefing escaped public and media notice for two years and is now the earliest known evidence of intervention by Biden DOJ officials into the Hunter Biden case. It comes only weeks after reports disclosed that Associate Deputy Attorney General Bradley Weinsheimer had contact with Hunter Biden’s attorneys in May during the effort to negotiate a now-abandoned plea deal that would have spared Hunter Biden prison time on tax evasion and gun charges.

Hunter Biden has since been charged with three gun felonies and remains under investigation for other potential offenses after a federal judge rejected his plea deal. Biden has pleaded “Not Guilty” to those charges.

The new revelation — contained in documents that Ziegler and Shapley turned over during their whistleblower cooperation with the House Ways and Means Committee — is certain to heighten concerns among congressional investigators who are suspicious of Garland’s claims that his his [sic] DOJ kept hands off of the Hunter Biden probe and left all decisions to Weiss’ office.

Read the whole thing.

DOGS TEND TO TAKE AFTER THEIR OWNERS: Leaked Photos Show Biden’s Dog Commander Biting White House Staffer.

Update: This just crossed my desk.

BREAKING.🚨

Report surfaces Joe Biden "punches and kicks his dogs," amid Commander's removal from White House for biting Secret Service agents https://t.co/aDrrLycdOk

— Kyle Becker (@kylenabecker) October 5, 2023

Developing, as they say…

EXCLUSIVE: School Districts With DEI Officers See Worse Black, Hispanic Learning Loss and Secretive Transgender Policies.

BLUE CITY BLUES: ‘Your Call Cannot Be Completed as Dialed.’ Portland Asks Residents Not to Call 911.

SANCTUARY CITY: Texas Gov. Abbott has sent at least 2,400 migrants to Denver since May.

Denver said Monday that it was experiencing an “unprecedented increase” in migrant arrivals, with an average of 300 migrants arriving every day.

This was up from the 125 arrivals seen daily in mid-September.

“Two weeks ago, we were seeing 100, 125 people per day,” Denver Human Services Jon Ewing told FOX31’s Nicole Fierro. “We’re close to 300 people a day now. Yesterday alone, we received nine buses from Texas. That’s unheard of.”

The reported increase came days after Texas Gov. Greg Abbott announced that the state had sent over 2,400 migrants to Denver since May 18, when 41 migrants were dropped off at Civic Center Park.

2,400 illegals in five months in Denver is a crisis. 2,400 illegals in parts of Texas is Tuesday.

THIS IS NOT THE FUTURE I WAS HOPING FOR: AI-dolatry: A Church in Texas Holds Completely Bot-Generated Service.

THIS IS FINE: U.S. Government Debt Grows by $275 Billion in One Day. “For macro analyst Lyn Alden, the aforementioned numbers haven’t been seen in nearly 80 years. ‘Most developed countries including the United States face public debt levels relative to GDP that haven’t been seen since the 1940s,’ she told Decrypt, explaining the link between these levels and interest rates.”

The difference is that in the ’40s, we were fighting a war that we were determined to win as quickly as possible. After doing that, we began to pay down the debt incurred by wartime spending.

Now? There’s no excuse and no plan for getting back to sane levels of spending and borrowing.

ASHLEY MCCULLY: ‘Breast Is Best’ and Other Lies.

You would be hard-pressed to find a mother today who has not been bombarded with the phrase Breast is Best! From the moment a healthcare provider gets involved in her pregnancy, the assumption is a mother will breastfeed her baby. Formula is a choice — if she doesn’t want to bond with her baby or give her child their best chance at optimal development or shed those pesky postpartum pounds.

Formula shaming is real, but so is breastfeeding derision. Mothers who are able to nurse their children will be cooed and fawned over — as long as they do so invisibly. Breast is Best! until someone sees it, and then it’s disgusting and offensive.

Women have silently battled these contradicting expectations, along with all of the other mayhem that accompanies having a newborn — postpartum depression, hair loss, tidal waves of hormones, exhaustion, and all kinds of fluids. But here comes a transgender person being praised for unnaturally doing what women are naturally expected to do.

Understanding this hypocritical cycle brings us back to the why: why is the CDC in the business of “chestfeeding” guidance in the first place?

Read the whole thing.

DISPATCHES FROM THE BLUE ZONES: Alderman, residents upset over plan to house migrants in Chicago park field house.

As CBS 2’s Shardaa Gray reported, Ald. Chris Taliaferro (29th) held a meeting Tuesday night to address the news he says he himself only recently learned about.

The alderman is upset, and some Galewood residents are livid, about the plan to use the fieldhouse at Amundsen Park, 6200 W. Bloomingdale Ave., as a migrant shelter.

Taliaferro said the Mayor’s office told him four days ago this was happening, whether he and his constituents liked it or not.

“I told them right away that I objected to it, because there had been no community engagement,” Taliaferro said, “and the response given to me was, ‘You’re getting it.'”

The Chicago Park District building was used for senior programs and sports events. He said the Mayor’s office said all park programs would be canceled.

“They said this is happening whether you object to it or not, and this is happening whether your community objects to it or not,” said Ald. Taliaferro.

So a lot like life in Texas or Arizona then.

MEANWHILE, OVER AT VODKAPUNDIT: White House In FULL PANIC MODE Over Border Crisis (And You Won’t Believe What Happens Next).