I PULLED MY OLDEST OUT OF CUB SCOUTS BECAUSE OF THIS STUFF, NEVER HAD MY YOUNGEST START: War Department Says Scouting America Must Reform, Reject DEI.
Author Archive: Stephen Green
February 3, 2026
OPENAI, YOU HAVE A PROBLEM: Buddy, Can You Spare $50 Billion?
GOOD: JP Morgan Finally Backs Down, Agrees to Reverse Discriminatory Anti-Gun Business Practices.
That’s a welcome reversal of policy after NSSF met with JPMorgan Chase officials to work to end the discriminatory policy. It’s also the most recent of the big banks, including Bank of America and Citigroup that have shifted banking service policies that previously froze out members of the firearm industry.
Chase Business Banking CEO Ben Walter has issued a letter acknowledging the old banking playbook is no longer sustainable. NSSF is encouraged by the development and like the others, is taking a “Trust, but verify” approach.
For years, lawful firearm and ammunition businesses have faced a quiet but very real threat: being choked off from routine financial services, not because of objective risk, but because of cultural and political animus.
The tactics have been familiar — account closures without meaningful explanation, shifting “policy” justifications, even the catch-all “reputational risk” euphemism used to deny service to constitutionally protected commerce.
Break up the giants and empower local and regional banks. “Too big to fail” too often becomes “Big enough to be a bully.”
ANALYSIS: TRUE. Voter ID Isn’t Racist — Democrats’ Arguments Against It Are.
YOU DON’T SAY: Power grid watchdog warns that over-reliance on wind and solar will make winter blackouts likely.
“The overall resource adequacy outlook for the North American BPS is worsening: In the 2025 LTRA [long-term reliability assessment], NERC finds that 13 of 23 assessment areas face resource adequacy challenges over the next 10 years,” the North American Electric Reliability Corporation (NERC) report states.
During January’s Winter Storm Fern, many parts of the U.S. grid neared the point where demand exceeded supply. If the grid continues to shut down fossil-fuel generation and tries to meet demand with intermittent wind and solar, according to NERC, more Americans will face blackouts when demand is high.
As electricity demand grows, including data centers, the nation’s grid is relying on intermittent wind and solar resources to meet that growing demand, NERC explains, while plants running on reliable coal and natural gas are slated for retirement over the next five years. “The continuing shift in the resource mix toward weather-dependent resources and less fuel diversity increases risks of supply shortfalls during winter months,” NERC warns.
There’s no reason for a country this rich to suffer electricity shortages, unless the authorities want people to suffer.
SCOTT PINSKER: The Worldwide Humiliation of Bill Gates: From Tech God to Global Embarrassment
To be fair, I’m not certain how recent the humiliation part is.
Bill Gates in a 'sexy' pose, 1983 pic.twitter.com/TXG8VJMNh2
— Engelbert Heta (@SparshSrivast14) February 2, 2024
NOTHING TO SEE HERE, MOVE ALONG: Over 100 mortar shells found in UNRWA bags in Gaza.
IDF troops located and destroyed a cache of more than 100 mortar shells during mop-up operations on the Israeli side of the Gaza ceasefire line, the military says.
According to the IDF, the 110 mortars, several rockets, and other military equipment were stored inside repurposed UNRWA bags.
The cache was located by troops of the 7th Armored Brigade, who are stationed on the eastern side of the Yellow Line in the southern Gaza Strip.
UNRWA is a wholly owned subsidiary of Hamas.
YES, HE WAS THAT GUY:
Are you the guy who sent pallets of cash to Iran to fund their nuclear weapons program? https://t.co/offITVusJD
— James Woods (@RealJamesWoods) February 3, 2026
And Obama sent the money in cash to skirt sanctions.
NOTHING TO SEE HERE, MOVE ALONG: Oscar-nominated Iranian screenwriter arrested in Tehran after condemning Khamenei.
One of the Oscar-nominated screenwriters of the Iranian drama, “It Was Just an Accident” was arrested yesterday in Tehran just weeks before the Academy Awards.
Representatives for the film say that Mehdi Mahmoudian was arrested Saturday.
No details on the charges against Mahmoudian were available. But his arrest came just days after Mahmoudian and 16 others signed a statement condemning Islamic Republic leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei and the regime’s violent crackdown on demonstrators.
Hollywood is too busy patting itself on the back at various awards shows for meaningless virtue signaling about ICE and “stolen lands” to notice.
GOODER AND HARDER, NEW YORK: New York Released Almost 7,000 Criminal Illegal Aliens. “New York released almost 7,000 criminal illegal aliens last year as a result of sanctuary policies, rewarding killers, rapists, robbers, and burglars while defying Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE).”
REAL MONEY: Medi-Cal spends $608M monthly on cooking, cleaning home services, even for illegal immigrants. “These services are part of a federally-and-state-funded program called In-Home Supportive Services, which was designed to get people assistance at home without having to move to an expensive facility. But the program has grown so rapidly that it is responsible for 41% of job gains in California since January 2019, when Gov. Gavin Newsom took office.”
Nope, nothing fishy about that.
More here: 18 Percent of Fed-Funded Home Health Care Is in Los Angeles County, and Fraud Is Rampant.
THIS IS NO TIME TO GO ALL WOBBLY: More Than 60% Of Midterm Voters Support Deporting Illegal Immigrants, Poll Finds.
Cygnal’s memo reports that 73% of likely midterm voters say entering the United States without legal permission constitutes breaking the law, a view shared by 82% of swing voters, 70% of independents, and 99% of Republicans, while only 48% of Democrats agree.
The firm argues that this baseline perception shapes attitudes toward enforcement, with 61% of voters supporting deportation of people in the country illegally, including 64% of swing voters and 59% of independents. Democrats break sharply in the opposite direction, with 67% opposing deportation.
According to the survey, 54% of midterm voters back ICE’s enforcement role, compared with 59% of swing voters, 52% of independents, and 94% of Republicans. Democrats again diverge, with 81% opposing ICE enforcement. Cygnal notes that 58% of voters oppose defunding ICE, including 66% of swing voters and 92% of Republicans, while 68% of Democrats support defunding the agency.
The firm says Democrats begin with a D+4 advantage on the generic ballot among all midterm voters, but that margin disappears when voters are told Democrats want to defund ICE, shifting the race to R+0.
Pound that message home for the next 10 months.
DECLINE IS A CHOICE:
Germans did this because of Fukushima. There was this collective psychosis at the time, even though it was an extremely unlikely cascade of events and only one person died years later. But that’s what psychosis does, you shut out all reason and barrel ahead with pure stupidity. https://t.co/WDKDVwFZ7u
— Hans Mahncke (@HansMahncke) February 2, 2026
KRUISER’S MORNING BRIEFING: Hide Your Bunnies — Marjorie Taylor Greene Is Now MAGA’s Crazy Ex. “Internecine squabbles are nothing unusual in the Republican Party; we’re not a single-brained organism like the Democrats, after all. Greene’s foot-stomping might have been less irritating and more understandable had she not played a very whiny victim card when she announced her resignation.”
THE NEW SPACE RACE: Unable to tame hydrogen leaks, NASA delays launch of Artemis II until March.
The launch of NASA’s Artemis II mission, the first flight of astronauts to the Moon in more than 53 years, will have to wait another month after a fueling test Monday uncovered hydrogen leaks in the connection between the rocket and its launch platform at Kennedy Space Center in Florida.
“Engineers pushed through several challenges during the two-day test and met many of the planned objectives,” NASA said in a statement following the conclusion of the mock countdown, or Wet Dress Rehearsal (WDR), early Tuesday morning. “To allow teams to review data and conduct a second Wet Dress Rehearsal, NASA now will target March as the earliest possible launch opportunity for the flight test.”
The practice countdown was designed to identify problems and provide NASA an opportunity to fix them before launch. Most importantly, the test revealed NASA still has not fully resolved recurring hydrogen leaks that delayed the launch of the unpiloted Artemis I test flight by several months in 2022. Artemis I finally launched successfully after engineers revised their hydrogen loading procedures to overcome the leak.
…
The leak appeared in the same location it did during the Artemis I launch campaign nearly three years ago.
Space is hard, problems crop up — but hopefully not the same problem, one mission after the other.
THE MORE THINGS CHANGE…:
White progressive rediscovers slavery from first principles https://t.co/XY7f8UAaZQ
— Lauren Chen (@TheLaurenChen) February 2, 2026
Glenn sent me this one, and I had to double- and triple-check to make sure it wasn’t a parody.
And the replies… well, just click and enjoy.
NICE: Manufacturing Activity Returns to Expansion in January.
The ISM (Institute for Supply Management) Manufacturing PMI entered expansion territory in January, registering 52.6%. This figure is a 4.7-point increase compared to December’s seasonally adjusted reading and the first time manufacturing activity has expanded since February 2025.
“In January, U.S. manufacturing activity returned to expansion territory, with improvements in all five subindexes that make up the PMI (new orders, production, employment, supplier deliveries and inventories),” says Susan Spence, chair of the ISM’s manufacturing business survey committee. A reading below 50% represents contraction.
The new orders index entered expansion territory last month, growing 9.7 points from 47.4% in December to 57.1% in January. The production index is growing at a faster rate, registering 55.9% in January, 5.2 points higher than December’s 50.7%.
Those are good numbers, needless to say.
February 2, 2026
THE NEW SPACE RACE:
Artemis II: NASA blog post: "Teams have stopped the flow of liquid hydrogen through the tail service mast umbilical interface into the core stage after leak concentrations exceeded allowable limits. Stopping the flow allows engineers to perform troubleshooting procedures that… pic.twitter.com/MLGNBNVJzS
— William Harwood (@cbs_spacenews) February 2, 2026
Developing…
GLOBAL WARMING UPDATE: Myrtle Beach Polar Plunge canceled due to winter weather.