Author Archive: Stephen Green
July 20, 2022
DE-DOLLARIZATION: Turkey Looks to Ditch Dollar in Payments for Russian Energy. “Turkish officials say the nations are considering using lira.”
OOPS: Russia shoots down their own advanced jet just weeks after delivery.
Russia took delivery on a handful of advanced Su-34M fighter bombers late last month, and one has already been shot down over Ukraine. It wasn’t Ukrainian forces who managed to down the twin-seat jet, however… It was Russia’s own air defenses.
Over the weekend, video emerged of Russian forces downing a jet operating over Eastern Ukraine, though at the time, it was unclear exactly what type of aircraft they had intercepted. The footage was uploaded to Telegram by a Russian war correspondent with a history of being sanctioned by foreign nations for spreading disinformation and propaganda on behalf of Moscow.
It wasn’t long before the wreckage of the aircraft was located, and upon inspection, it soon became apparent that it was actually one of just ten or fewer Su-34Ms in existence, with a registration number of RF-95890.
It’s war. These things happen. But I can’t help but note that these nine or ten of Russia’s most advanced fighter-bombers are variations on a 1990 design based on the Su-27 airframe that first flew in 1977.
KRUISER’S MORNING BRIEFING: More Tragic Consequences of Democrats’ Open Borders Folly. “If we’re ever going to effectively push back against the false narrative, more Republican politicians are going to have to do the same.”
KATIE PAVLICH: Biden Energy Advisor Makes Revealing Comments While Discussing Gas Prices on CNN. “During his remarks, Hochstein said the White House does not want oil and gas companies embarking on new projects and that they are working to accelerate the current, extremely painful and unaffordable transition to alternative energy.”
FOLLOW THE MONEY: Semiconductor Update. “So who expects to earn immediate gains from the taxpayers subsidizing semiconductors? Would you believe Nancy Pelosi?”
WOW: SpaceX is now launching 10 rockets for every one by its main competitor.
But this year, SpaceX has taken its cadence to another level, with a mix of payloads including its Starlink satellites, crew and cargo missions for NASA, Department of Defense missions, and commercial satellites. As of Monday, the Falcon 9 rocket has launched every 6.4 days this year and has lofted nearly 300,000 kg into low Earth orbit. This is considerably more than every other country and company in the world combined. Two more Starlink launches are likely this week.
SpaceX has also continued to push the boundaries of reuse. In the last month, the company flew three different first stages on its 13th flights. SpaceX officials say they have gathered enough data about reusing these first-stage cores that, for now, there seem to be no showstoppers to preclude flying many more missions each.
To put this cadence into perspective, consider the flight rate of SpaceX’s main US-based competitor, United Launch Alliance. Counting both its Delta and Atlas fleets, ULA launched its last 31 rockets from March 19, 2017, to the present day. That’s a cadence of one launch every 64 days.
Actually, SpaceX has launched about the same number of rockets that ULA has during those two timeframes. They’ve just launched each one a bunch more times.
July 19, 2022
IN THE IMMORTAL WORDS OF GLORIA GAYNOR, I WILL SURVIVE: Beer could help you survive a heatwave, doctors say.
YUCK: Bacterial and fungal isolation from face masks under the COVID-19 pandemic. “In this study, we demonstrated the associations between several factors and microbial contaminations of face masks commonly used worldwide during the COVID-19 pandemic. Although some of our findings were what we had anticipated, there were several unpredicted findings, which need to be addressed as essential hygiene issues.”
BLUE STATE BLUES: Citadel Flees Illinois for the Sunshine State.
It’s a familiar story by now. Firms from San Francisco and New York have been steadily making the move south over the last two years. Blue states had imagined that they held businesses hostage, that these firms could simply not pick up and move. The pandemic proved them wrong. A recent Wall Street Journal article highlighted how red states have “won” the post-pandemic economy. “Remote work allowed many workers to move to red states, not because of political preferences, but for financial and lifestyle reasons—cheaper housing, better weather, less traffic and lower taxes, the analysts said.”
But those political preferences do matter. We don’t have the data to tell whether politics play a role in people making these moves, but it’s hard not to suspect that it figures into the equation. Normalcy during Covid was clearly a draw. Florida had famously reopened, under the leadership of Governor Ron DeSantis, far earlier than any of the blue states. Much of life had returned to normal there, and companies followed their employees as they sought out that freedom. With this migration has come a serious shift in the state’s politics. Previously a purple state, Florida has moved solidly into the red column. In March, Fox News reported “registered Republican voters now outnumber Democrats by over 100,000 for the first time in the state’s history.”
Crime as a factor is also under-examined. It’s not that there is no crime in Florida in general, or in Miami specifically. Of course there is. But there is a seriousness to Florida’s response that simply doesn’t exist in Illinois, New York, or California. While Pritzker talks about fantasy proposals, which likely wouldn’t stop the Chicago bloodshed anyway, Governor DeSantis is focusing on crime-fighting, hiring away out-of-state officers, and raising police pay across the board.
Plus: “DeSantis, for all the 2024 speculation about his candidacy, is also not trotting around New Hampshire complimenting their root vegetables. He is laser-focused on making Florida better.”
IT ISN’T AN INSURRECTION WHEN THEY DO IT: Charges Dropped Against Colbert Staffers Who Illegally Entered Capitol Building.
YOU DON’T SAY: Former Treasury Secretary Says Fed ‘Lost Its Way’ Focusing on Social Justice Instead of Inflation.
Larry Summers, who served as treasury secretary under President Bill Clinton, has said the Federal Reserve failed to anticipate current inflation levels and that price increases can only be arrested by “dislocation” of the economy.
“Frankly, I think in 2021, our central bank lost its way,” Summers said in a July 15 interview with Bloomberg’s “Wall Street Week,” adding that central bankers were more concerned about the environment and social justice than about inflation, which they “confidently dismissed” as transitory.
“Our central bank let us down quite badly, and as a consequence, they find themselves in a very, very difficult position, not least because they don’t have the credibility that they once enjoyed, given their repeated poor forecasting record,” Summers said.
The Fed is hardly alone among our institutions that sold their credibility cheap.
WITH NOTES FROM OUR OWN PAULA BOLYARD: Read the Full 77-Page Uvalde School Shooting Preliminary Report Here.
WHO WATCHES THE WATCHERS? How the Left Hopes to Seize Control of Local Election Offices.
Two big money liberal operations, ready to spend $80 million each, are trying to determine who controls elections and how in the years ahead.
“The overall objective of the political left is to change the way you conduct overall elections,” Jason Snead, executive director of the Honest Elections Project, which advocates clean elections, told The Daily Signal.
One of the two liberal groups, Run for Something, is a political action committee founded by a former Hillary Clinton campaign staffer. In the spring, Run for Something established its Clerk Work project with the goal of electing clerks, election supervisors, registrars, recorders, and other local officials charged with running elections.
The PAC says it will promote thousands of election administrators in the years ahead. But for 2022, it reports endorsing 11 candidates competing in races in California, Colorado, Illinois, Missouri, Nevada, North Carolina, and Tennessee.
Local election clerks generally are empowered to interpret and enforce state election regulations. They often have discretion on matters such as whether to count absentee ballots that come in after Election Day, how strictly to enforce voter ID or signature-matching requirements, and how closely poll watchers may monitor the ballot counting on Election Day.
Where is the Right on this?
RABBI MICHAEL BARCLAY: An Open Letter to Alan Dershowitz. “You have recently been experiencing the vitriol of the left and cancel culture in your home of Martha’s Vineyard, and it is profoundly sad that you are being degraded by your local community members. But if we are honest, you should not be surprised by this development. As long as you were a champion for their causes, you were a celebrity. But you are now realizing what many of us ‘former Democrats’ have sadly already experienced in recent years: the Democratic party is currently controlled by an extremist faction that not only allows but encourages behavior that is disgusting and repulsive to any human being of ethics.”
NOTHING TO SEE HERE, MOVE ALONG: Dem Staffers Unionize, Citing Poor Pay and Pervasive Sexual Harassment.
A VERY PUBLIC EDUCATION: Colorado report outlines pandemic impacts on students heading to college. “The rate at which Colorado students are going to college right out of high school has dipped, and those who do go are less prepared.”
VODKAPUNDIT PRESENTS YOUR WEEKLY INSANITY WRAP: Yeah, Rachel Levine Is Totally Coming for Your Kids. “Assistant Health Secretary Rachel Levine’s desire to ’empower’ kids to permanently alter their bodies is the big crazy on Insanity Wrap, an entire week’s worth of lefty nuttiness wrapped up in one easy-to-swallow medicated news capsule.”
Plus:
- Let’s talk dirty about clean solar
- Another Babylon Bee prophecy made real
- Welcome to Biden Falls, Delaware
So much more at the link, you’d have to be crazy to miss it.