STAY SAFE:
The United States has urged its citizens in Iran to leave the country immediately. In the advisory, immediate departure is listed as the top recommended action. The notice also warns that airlines continue to cancel flights to and from Iran. #Iran pic.twitter.com/1DctRkmnt9
— NOELREPORTS 🇪🇺 🇺🇦 (@NOELreports) February 6, 2026
“FINALLY,” INDEED: NASA finally acknowledges the elephant in the room with the SLS rocket.
The reality, which Isaacman knows full well, and which almost everyone else in the industry recognizes, is that the SLS rocket is dead hardware walking. The Trump administration would like to fly the rocket just two more times, culminating in the Artemis III human landing on the Moon. Congress has passed legislation mandating a fourth and fifth launch of the SLS vehicle.
However, one gets the sense that this battle is not yet fully formed, and the outcome will depend on hiccups like Monday’s aborted test; the ongoing performance of the rocket in flight; and how quickly SpaceX’s Starship and Blue Origin’s New Glenn vehicle make advancements toward reliability. Both of these private rockets are moving at light speed relative to NASA’s Slow Launch System.
During the news conference, I asked about this low flight rate and the challenge of managing a complex rocket that will never be more than anything but an experimental system. The answer from NASA’s top civil servant, Amit Kshatriya, was eye-opening.
“You know, you’re right, the flight rate—three years is a long time between the first and second,” NASA’s associate administrator said. “It is going to be experimental, because of going to the Moon in this configuration, with the energies we’re dealing with. And every time we do it these are very bespoke components, they’re in many cases made by incredible craftsmen. … It’s the first time this particular machine has borne witness to cryogens, and how it breathes, and how it vents, and how it wants to leak is something we have to characterize. And so every time we do it, we’re going to have to do that separately.”
Good lord. We really could have used a WickWick Event before the first one ever flew.
IT’S GOOD TO BE THE NOMENKLATURA: Pressley Waves Away Questions After Wealth Explodes by Millions.
WHAT IS A WOMAN?
New definition for women just dropped y'all.
Men, have you told the Partner With Eggs in your life how much you appreciate her? pic.twitter.com/M50icu8VB2
— The Heretical Liberal 🇨🇦 (@Rob_ThaBuilder) February 5, 2026
HE REALLY COUNTED COUP, TOOK A SCALP OR TWO: Tomahawked: Bessent Flips the Tables on Sen. Warren Over Affordability.
CAN YOU HEAR ME NOW? NASA changes its mind, will allow Artemis astronauts to take iPhones to the Moon.
On Wednesday night, NASA Administrator Jared Isaacman revealed that the Crew-12 and Artemis II astronauts will be allowed to bring iPhones and other modern smartphones into orbit and beyond.
“NASA astronauts will soon fly with the latest smartphones, beginning with Crew-12 and Artemis II,” Isaacman wrote on X. “We are giving our crews the tools to capture special moments for their families and share inspiring images and video with the world.”
NASA astronauts have long captured amazing photos from the space station, but having a smartphone on hand will open up a world of video possibilities. This will likely be especially useful when astronauts are conducting an experiment or looking outside a window and see an interesting, transient phenomenon.
“Can you hear me now?” is a joke, but only until SpaceX builds out Lunar Starlink.
BUT WAIT, THERE’S MORE: Shamwow Guy Drops White-Hot 30-Second Spot for His Congressional Campaign.
AND TRUMP IS PRETTY MUCH ALL THAT STANDS BETWEEN IT AND US HERE: The West’s forbidden truth: Ethnic cleansing is now official policy.
When a dictator in a distant, war-torn nation announces a plan to shrink an ethnic group inside his borders, the Western world erupts. Anchors denounce it. Newspapers detail the plight of the targeted people. Sanctions follow. Diplomats whisper about regime change. The moral verdict arrives quickly, and it arrives correctly: ethnic cleansing.
Yet Western leaders now make a parallel declaration in a cleaner suit. Their countries, they insist, have grown “too white.” The white population must fall. The electorate must change. No denunciations follow. No sanctions arrive. Corporate press treats the project as enlightened policy. A global consensus that once claimed to oppose ethnic cleansing now tolerates it — provided the target is white people in Western nations.
French writer Renaud Camus gave us the “Great Replacement.” For years, polite society treated the phrase as radioactive. Say it on television and you became a pariah. Post it online and platforms erased you. That taboo held only as long as people could be bullied into denying what they could see.
The concept’s explanatory power proved stronger than the gatekeepers. Major conservative outlets now discuss replacement openly. YouTube will still attach warnings to videos that mention it, yet the subject refuses to disappear because the policy keeps showing up in schools, boardrooms, and border statistics.
Read the whole thing.
BECAUSE OF COURSE: Riot-Torn Minneapolis Nominated for Nobel Peace Prize.
VIDEO: Will Someone Please Tell Us Where We Can Get One of These Handguns? No, Really. “You’ll no longer sell handguns that can be converted into semi-automatic machines able to fire 1,200 rounds a minute. Not here, not in New York.” — New York Governor Kathy Hochul
I CAN’T REMEMBER THE LAST TIME I EVEN CONSIDERED USING IT: Before Google, Before Wikipedia, There Was the CIA’s World Factbook — and Now It’s Going Away
And it used to be a go-to reference.
THAT SIMPLE, YES:
FLASHBACK: In July of 2024, Democrats were knee deep in their own delusions, and Vance said something that scarred them permanently:
"We really need to be really ruthless when it comes to the exercise of power."
"If we're going to actually really effect real change in the… pic.twitter.com/BArrz5ygoE
— Gunther Eagleman™ (@GuntherEagleman) February 5, 2026
EUROTRASH SAYS WHAT? The Hague Thinks People Have Too Much Stuff.
Which brings me to this interesting item I got in an email today, and that the city of The Hague itself is just so proud of they are fit to bust a button.
To me, as an American, it’s just one more intrusive, creepy example of the European tendency to want to control every facet of the lives of their citizens.
Of course, they all start out as ‘suggestions,’ gentle scoldings about ‘too much of this or that,’ behavior modification nudges, and a snappy techno-term accompanied by agencies set up by the government, local or otherwise, to show the populace how to follow these lifestyle hints properly.
And the next thing you know, you’re counting toilet paper squares and flushes.
Inevitably, that’s how these things go.
This sounds nosy, but harmless, right?
The proper way to treat a nosy busybody is to slam the door in their face. For a first offense, that is.
EW: Gavin and Vogue Mag, Sittin’ in a Tree, K-I-S-S-I-N-G… “He’s ’embarrassingly handsome.’ He’s ‘lithe, ardent, energetic.’ He is ‘at ease with his own eminence.’ This sounds like the writing of a sixteen-year-old girl in the full-tilt grip of a crush for the ages, you know, the true and eternal love that no one else in the world has ever experienced and that you couldn’t possibly understand, but it’s actually Maya Singer, an apparent adult who is a contributing editor at Vogue magazine.”
Perhaps one of the more curious responses to Mussolini was the manner in which so many women reporters were taken in by the swashbuckling glamor of the Italian dictator. It is, at first glance, rather ironical that women would respond to a man who had contempt (albeit political, not physical) for the female sex. As he candidly told Emil Ludwig, women must always be the underlings, lest their trivial hearts of milk unman the will to power and produce a “matriarchy.” Yet the Italian maestro was shrewd enough to wear a different mask when confronting the opposite sex. In 1923, whether by coincidence or design, the International Suffrage Alliance convened in Rome. Mussolini’s hypocritical support for the feminist cause did much to endear the “amazons of the press” to his regime. His appearance at the convention hall was described rapturously (“graceful, extremely quick … great charm and radiance”) by the novelist Frances Parkinson Keyes, who was brought to tears of joy upon his entrance. When he told the convention that he would grant the vote to Italian women (within a short time he was to make Italy’s franchise worthless) the audience was ecstatic. Fascist supporters made much of the rising status of women in Italy, and Italian officials made life easier for women journalists, all of which paid handsome news dividends. Women reporters, generally concentrated on Mussolini’s personality and physical features, and those who met him personally showed a tendency to melt under his charm. “I was entirely disarmed by his personality,” said the wife of one correspondent. “Expecting to meet a cold, dispassionate, overbearing person, I was arrested by a certain wistful quality in his expression—the expression of a man who is very human.” The Byronic magnetism of Mussolini was as irresistible as the pagentry of the marching fascisti. The response of Ida Tarbell, who called Mussolini “a despot with a dimple” and described how he “kissed my hand in the gallant Italian fashion,” was typical of the many female writers who were graced by a personal interview with the Blackshirt Valentino. Perhaps Alice Rohe had the last word when one of his sex scandals made the papers: “Il Duce knows how to get what he wants from women, whether it is a grand passion or a grand propaganda.”
Nothing changes.
MORE LIKE THIS, PLEASE: ‘There’ll Be Consequences’: Trump WH Warns Defense Contractors.
While the president loves a booming market, Trump has grown frustrated with prime defense contractors – heavy-weight companies with direct Pentagon contracts and Fortune 500 valuations – rewarding shareholders rather than reinvesting profits into their manufacturing capacity even as they fall behind in the delivery of weapons and systems.
“This situation,” Trump wrote in a TruthSocial post, “will no longer be allowed or tolerated!” He then issued an executive order that threatens to limit dividends, stock buybacks, and CEO pay.
One month later, the stock price of all five of the prime defense contractors – Boeing, General Dynamics, Lockheed Martin, Northrop Grumman, and RTX – have all rebounded. None, however, have made new commitments on paying dividends, and just one company, Northrop Grumman, manufacturer of the new B-21 Stealth Bomber, has publicly announced that they plan to pause stock buybacks.
But that does not mean Trump isn’t getting his way. The saber-rattling seems to be working. Defense contractors are expected to increase reinvestment, spending capital on their own manufacturing capacity, by more than a third this year.
Nope, still not sick of all the winning.
IT’S MY THURSDAY ESSAY FOR VIP SUBSCRIBERS: One Pill, One Boy, 118 Months — an Entirely True Tall Tale.
LAUGHING WOLF ON ARTEMIS II: I’m actually hoping the upcoming mission slips not just to March, but into April.
First, Congress mandated out-of-date tech and other delights to keep certain companies and production lines open (and donations to politicians flowing). Old tech is not necessarily bad: I almost got to co-pilot a Ford Tri-Motor once (lost out to someone with a bit more seniority) and it was a fun and amazing flight. It works, but no one is trying to repurpose the Ford into a hypersonic aircraft, which is not a bad analogy for all the Shuttle-derived tech required by Congress for Artemis.
Second, there have been issues identified — and fixed in record time. Sorry, having worked at NASA as a contractor I’m not fully buying it. If I haven’t already done so, remind me to tell you about how a NASA safety fix that wasn’t tested ended the first tethered satellite system mission pretty much at the start. Short version is that I wouldn’t ride in that capsule. Your mileage may vary.
Third, the tech involved does not do well with cold weather launches. Challenger.
I feel better with Isaacman calling the shots — better, but not great.
AND NOW YOU KNOW… THE REST OF THE STORY:
A federal judge who authored a piece in the Atlantic claiming that he was resigning from the federal bench because of the Trump White House's "assault on the rule of law" was under investigation for misconduct at the time of his resignation.
"The order did not provide details… https://t.co/9WzT460gJB pic.twitter.com/rvqDW9UBrG
— Wesley Yang (@wesyang) February 5, 2026
Sounds more like the rule of law was coming for the judge.
WOW: What One Australian Teen Did to Save His Family Is Superhuman. “A 13-year-old boy from Australia has gone viral after a superhuman display of heroics rescued his family after they drifted out to sea. And this is one of a million reasons why you won’t catch this writer out on the ocean or any other large body of water. That, and an irrational fear of giant squid. I don’t care what anyone says, the kraken is real.”
I don’t know about the kraken, but I sometimes miss living by the ocean.
RESPECTS, REALLY? It’s Time to Pay Our Last Respects to The Washington Post.
The body count is over 300 employees, a third of the Post’s workforce. Its books section is gone. Its international reporting will wither and likely die. And, as a point of personal privilege, the Post’s legendary sports section will evaporate. In my daily sportswriting days, there was no better or more talented crew to hang with at various events. I remember at the 1988 Olympics in Seoul, I decided one day to write a column on water polo, of which I knew nothing. About five minutes after I sat down, the late Ken Denlinger of the Post sat down next to me. “So,” he said, “what’s going on in the game?” How in the hell do I know, I answered. “Well,” he said, “you’ve been here longer than me. You’re the veteran.” If there’s anything about those days that I miss, it’s the camaraderie of the press box, and it was always a party when the Post gang was there—Tom Boswell at the baseball games, Mike Wilbon and the late John Feinstein at some basketball arena or another, the great Sally Jenkins anywhere.
Ominously, and vaguely, Murray said that the revamped Post will consist of efforts that “will be focused on covering politics and government, and the paper will also prioritize coverage of nationals news and features topics like science, health, medicine, technology, climate, and business.”
Instead of respects, how about a little more mockery?
Hear me out on this: rebrand as an alt weekly distributed free at vinyl record stores and laundromats https://t.co/bq00D5bIrK
— David Burge (@iowahawkblog) February 4, 2026
Plus: “I just gotta say it’s truly amazing how journalists can grovel for their jobs while effortlessly maintaining their condescension.”
Update: RB nailed it, too. I’m usually sympathetic to people getting laid off, but not this crew.
After reading all the comments from the WashPo "journalists" who got canned today, and after much reflection, I've changed my mind.
They should have fired everyone.
These people are fucking insufferable.
— RBe (@RBPundit) February 4, 2026
KRUISER’S MORNING BRIEFING: Village Idiot Karen Bass Fudged Palisades Fire Report to Save Herself. “Bass not only ordered changes in the report in an attempt to change the narrative, but she also lied about having done so. As always with this nightmare saga, it gets worse.”
CIVIL RIGHTS UPDATE: CA ended non-resident carry ban, now will pay challengers’ lawyers $128K.
The deal comes four months after Gov. Gavin Newsom signed into law a new gun law, known as AB 1078, which explicitly granted non-Californians the right to apply for a license to conceal and carry firearms in California, formally ending a longstanding ban.
However, the passage of that law only came after Bonta spent nearly two years in court attempting to defend the ban against legal challenges – a defense that continued up until the moment California lawmakers formally changed the law.
Those challenges were launched in 2023 by a coalition of Second Amendment rights groups and other organizations representing gun owners in California and elsewhere in the U.S.
Winning.
ICYMI, IT’S NEWSOM’S IDEA OF A WIN: High-Speed Rail Sort-Of Almost Nearly Ready to Connect Madera to… More Cows
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