October 30, 2026

CHANGE?

Posted at 9:24 am by Stephen Green

KRUISER’S MORNING BRIEFING: NYT — Yeah, Obama Totally Knew About Omar’s Immigration Incest. “The New York Times usually only trots out the unnamed ‘officials’ when it wants to run a hit piece on Trump. That throws an interesting twist into this convoluted story. Yeah, it’s big news that the Obama DOJ was onto Omar’s brotherwife immigration scam, but the fact that The New York Times is the news organization informing us of that fact brings up more than a few questions.”

Posted at 9:09 am by Stephen Green

WHAT’S THIS, A BABY BOOM AMONG HILL AIDES? Could very well be, judging from the latest Hill Staff Views post on HillFaith. Given the average age of Hill staffers is 27, could this mean a new Baby Boomer generation is coming into focus?

Posted at 8:59 am by Mark Tapscott

AND YOU CAN TELL THE TROOPS LOVE HIM FOR IT.

Posted at 8:45 am by Glenn Reynolds

OH MY: Hegseth firing Sylvia isn’t office politics — he smoked out a wartime mole.

The explosive fallout dominating today’s news cycle over War Secretary Pete Hegseth’s firing of Army Lt. Gen. Brett Sylvia — the Pentagon’s top military planner accused of leaking classified information related to the Iran war — proves that internal subversion remains an active threat to national security. According to reports breaking on Fox News, Sylvia was ousted after failing three polygraph examinations concerning unauthorized disclosures to reporters.

The timing of this rapidly unfolding development could not be more dangerous. With the critical midterm elections days away and President Donald Trump openly weighing whether to resume major military operations or broker a peace deal, the alleged leaking of classified strategic options directly undercuts the commander in chief at the exact moment he needs total operational cohesion.

This institutional resistance is a chronic affliction of the modern executive branch, long utilized by disgruntled bureaucrats to sabotage the agendas of duly elected presidents.

It’s been more than 30 years since Col. David Hackworth wrote “Nuke the Pentagon” for Playboy, and it’s still a great idea.

Posted at 8:38 am by Stephen Green

GREAT MOMENTS IN PRIORITIES:

UPDATE (FROM GLENN):

Yes, she really said that.

Posted at 8:35 am by Ed Driscoll

VLADIMIR PUTIN CALLED AND TOLD LULA TO DIAL IT BACK A FEW NOTCHES:

 

Posted at 8:22 am by Ed Driscoll

CORN, POPPED:

UPDATE (FROM GLENN):

Posted at 8:22 am by Stephen Green

“DO YOU REALIZE THAT EVERY YOUNG PERSON IN THIS ROOM IS A TRAGEDY TO SOME FAMILY OR OTHER?”

(Classical reference in headline.)

Posted at 7:45 am by Ed Driscoll

THE NEW SPACE RACE: SpaceX no longer needs NASA, and that’s a problem for America’s space agency.

The signs point to at least a partial breakup. Consider the following data points:

  • SpaceX has told NASA it will stop flying Crew Dragon, the space agency’s only reliable astronaut transportation to the International Space Station, by or before 2030. Shotwell said in September that NASA should rely instead on Boeing for astronaut transportation. “We’re just gonna let them have some business,” she said of Boeing. “They should fly their capsule. The government paid a lot of money for that.” As a result, NASA is investing more in Boeing.
  • Ars reported in October that SpaceX had stopped selling commercial launches on the Falcon 9 rocket for missions after the year 2028.
  • SpaceX may also still stop flying Falcon 9 for NASA missions. In late October, during a meeting of NASA’s Safety Advisory Panel, Kent Rominger said if the US Deorbit Vehicle (a modified Dragon spacecraft) launches to the International Space Station after 2030, “it may require” a rocket other than the Falcon 9.
  • Politico reported last week that SpaceX told the US Space Force it would not bid on three new launch contracts in the late 2020s that would have gone above and beyond its existing commitments to the US military.
  • SpaceX previously provided “Rough Order of Magnitude” estimates, or ROMs, for launch costs to US companies building small landers for NASA’s Moon Base as part of the Commercial Lunar Payload Services program. But according to three sources, SpaceX recently told these lunar companies they will not provide launch services.

    • To be clear, SpaceX is still fulfilling its existing contracts with NASA, the US Space Force, and other government entities. And it continues to do so at a lower cost and generally higher level of reliability than pretty much anyone else.

    But the company is no longer signing many large new contracts for spaceflight services, at least in the traditional launch and in-space flight domains.

    A longer article, but I found it well worth my time.

    Previously: How in the Actual Hell Can We Be Running Out of Space Rockets?

    Posted at 7:36 am by Stephen Green

    THE NEXT SPACE RACE:

    Posted at 7:20 am by Stephen Green

    CHOOSE WISELY ON TUESDAY:

    Posted at 7:14 am by Ed Driscoll

    COMMAND PROBLEMS:

    Posted at 7:00 am by Glenn Reynolds

    WHILE UNPACKING BOXES, I’VE BEEN LISTENING MY WAY THROUGH JIMMY AIKEN’S BACK LIST:  Who or what in bob’s name is Jimmy Aiken? you ask. Glad you did. He has a podcast. If you’re a Catholic or even vaguely interested in Catholicism, you might like his apologetics podcasts, as they’ve managed to teach me stuff I’d somehow never stumbled upon. But I really like Jimmy Aiken’s mysterious world which careens all over weirdness from aliens to strange events to near death experiences to…. well. All sorts of strange stuff.  So, just for the heck of it, here’s one of the episodes (and trust me, no, it’s not actually stupid):  Can Aura Cameras Photograph Your Soul? Science & Faith Investigate – Jimmy Akin’s Mysterious World.

    Posted at 6:57 am by Sarah Hoyt