April 13, 2026

THIS IS THE MORAL STRUCTURE OF HIS PARTY:

Posted at 8:00 am by Glenn Reynolds

DON’T ASK HER TOUGH QUESTIONS, SHE’LL JUST CACKLE AND CHANGE THE SUBJECT:

Posted at 7:56 am by Glenn Reynolds

VICHA RATANAPAKDEE’S KILLER SHOULD BE IN PRISON:  One of my favorite tech titans–Garry Tan–writes here about one of the reasons Grandpa Vicha’s vicious killer Antoine Watson walked free:  The organizations that led the “Stop AAPI Hate” campaigns a few years back (and purported to represent the Asian American community on crime issues) were left-wingers–like the ridiculous “Chinese for Affirmative Action”– with a deep belief in the progressive “deincarceration” agenda.  They liked to complain about crime (especially “hate crime”), but they didn’t really want to do anything about it other than make money off it and force law-abiding citizens to sit through tedious “anti-hate training.”  I wrote about the same issue here.

Posted at 7:54 am by Gail Heriot

WELL, TRUMP DID JUST KNEECAP A COMPETITOR:

Posted at 7:47 am by Stephen Green

THE NEW SPACE RACE: The Artemis II mission has ended. Where does NASA go from here?

The biggest questions for Artemis III and Artemis IV involve the development of lunar landers by SpaceX and Blue Origin.

Ars recently interviewed NASA’s chief of exploration, Lori Glaze, and she said both companies are making a “real commitment” toward meeting NASA’s needs. But both companies have a long way to go from the prototype hardware they’re currently testing to specialized landers capable of safely landing on (and taking off from) the Moon.

Even for Artemis III, a simpler mission closer to Earth, there are serious challenges. SpaceX and Blue Origin must go through NASA’s extensive “human rating” process for their Starship and Blue Moon vehicles, respectively, before they can approach and dock with Orion.

Also, it is non-trivial for SpaceX and Blue Origin to integrate with Orion, which has fairly strict limits for thermal management and other issues. Even ensuring roughly equivalent cabin pressures between two vehicles is a significant task. Completing all of this within the next 12 to 18 months will be a difficult hill to climb.

Then, for Artemis IV, there are even greater hurdles. For SpaceX, the company must test and then become efficient at refueling Starship in low-Earth orbit for a trip to the Moon, and back. And Blue Origin, which has very limited experience in spaceflight operations, must develop a more capable version of its Blue Moon Mk. 1 lander, which is itself untested.

Both companies must also learn to operate in lunar orbit, and master landing their vehicles on the Moon and then subsequently lifting them off from the lunar surface.

There is no question that lunar lander readiness is the longest pole for both Artemis III and Artemis IV.

Starship development has been in a bit of a lull, but this looks promising:

“The best part is no part.”

Posted at 7:32 am by Stephen Green

JUST ASSUME EVERYTHING FROM THEM IS A LIE AND YOU WON’T GO FAR WRONG:

Posted at 7:30 am by Glenn Reynolds

THANKS TO EVERYONE WHO SENT EMAIL MESSAGES ON SATURDAY TO DEFEAT THE NEW ACA7:  If you didn’t see my post on Saturday and would like to help me out by sending an quick email to 10 California state senators opposing ACA7, you can still access that post here.  There were several incorrect email addresses in my post on Saturday morning, but they have since been fixed.

I have a second request for those of you who are on Twitter/X.   I need my last four tweets/posts to be “liked” and “re-tweeted/reposted” as many times as possible.  Unfortunately, my tech skill leave something to be desired, and I have forgotten how to embed things, so all I can do is link to them.

Here they are:  Tweet #1, Tweet #2, Tweet #3, and Tweet #4.  (If you’re interested in my issues and want to follow me while you’re at it, that would be swell too.)

Loyal Instapundit readers may recall that I asked you to do this two years ago too, and it worked splendidly.  It was hugely important in showing the California legislators who were tagged that ACA7 was going to face stiff opposition.  These days Twitter/X works a little differently.  Elon Musk’s reforms were actually good, but they make it impossible to bury the tagged persons in little alerts in quite the same way.  Even so, getting a large number of “likes” and “re-tweets/re-posts” will be a big help.

For those of you who just woke up and have no idea what I’m taking about, here is the description, I gave of ACA7 in an earlier post:

THEY’RE BAAAACK!! AND NOW THEY WANT TO DISCRIMINATE BY RACE IN STUDENT FINANCIAL AID!!:  Legislators in the California Assembly are at it again—trying to gut Proposition 209, the history-making ballot initiative that amended the state constitution in 1996 to ban state-sponsored preferential treatment on the basis of race, sex, or ethnicity.  And I literally mean “history-making.”  Paul Johnson’s History of the American People tells the story of America from the late 15th century to the end of the 20th.  Somehow (bless him) he found a wee bit of room to discuss Prop 209.  As the co-chair of that 1996 campaign, I’m darn proud of that.

This is the third time in six years that the Cal Legislature has moved to gut Prop 209’s ban on affirmative-action preferences.  In 2020, the Legislature put a referendum on the ballot to repeal Prop 209 entirely.  But it was THUMPINGLY defeated—over 57% of voters said NO—even though YES Campaign spent 14 times more than we did.  (I’m proud of having co-chaired that campaign too.)  In 2024, the Assembly approved a trickier version that would have empowered the governor to make an unlimited number of EXCEPTIONS to Prop 209.  But that version never made it past the Senate. Cooler heads prevailed there—largely because we descended on their offices, held rallies, and buried them in letters, emails, and tweets.

But they just can’t stop.  The newest effort would exempt public education from Prop 209’s coverage.  Given the Supreme Court’s 2023 decision in the Harvard case, this bill does not try to exempt admissions in higher education.  But it exempts everything else.  The big-ticket items would be (1) discrimination in admission to programs for gifted and talented students at the Kindergarten-12th grade level; (2) discrimination funding of K-12 schools based on the racial composition of the students there; and (3) discrimination in financial aid in higher education.

I am confident ACA7 can be defeated in the Senate if we make enough noise.  Given what happened in 2020, they would have to be very silly to want to put this turkey on the ballot.  We will probably win at the ballot box (as we did in 2020).  Even if we don’t, any program established under ACA7 will likely be defeated in court.  And the Trump Administration will undertake to cut off the federal funding of California’s public universities and schools under Title VI.  All we have to do is remind the California Senate of that over and over again until it finally sinks in.

Posted at 7:27 am by Gail Heriot

NOAH SMITH IS ONE OF THOSE ENGAGEMENT FARMERS I USUALLY TRY TO AVOID:

Posted at 7:16 am by Stephen Green

AS USUAL IF YOU IGNORE THE NEWS YOU ARE UNINFORMED, IF YOU FOLLOW THE NEWS YOU ARE MISINFORMED:

Posted at 7:03 am by Glenn Reynolds