September 23, 2026

THE NEW SPACE RACE:

More:

• Isaacman showed a dark silhouette resembling a next-generation SR-71 Blackbird while discussing ‘radical airframe and engine designs’

• When asked if the image was the Blackbird, he responded: “You sure that’s the Blackbird?”

• NASA will soon be ‘flying once again as high and as fast as we have from decades past, and then even more’

• He criticized NASA being forced to spend its aeronautics budget subsidizing 40-year-old contractor engines instead of pushing technological boundaries

NASA’s job from the start was supposed to be the latter, not the former, of that last item.

Posted at 11:26 am by Stephen Green

CLEANUP ON AISLE 44: JD Vance’s Anti-Fraud Task Force to Boot More Than Half a Million Americans From Obamacare.

It is the largest purges of the insurance exchange since President Donald Trump’s administration began tackling fraud last year, the outlet noted.

The task force said eliminating the subsidies for the allegedly fraudulent enrollees would save an estimated $2.2 billion in taxpayer dollars.

The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, headed by administrator Mehmet Oz, was also expected to cut off hundreds of brokers and agents who get paid each time they sign up a new enrollee for government health insurance, The Journal reported.

Officials said 40 insurance agents and brokers were responsible for creating 50,000 fake accounts at a cost of $45 million — and CMS had already axed 66 agnets from its system.

Incentivize fraud, get more fraud — which seems to have been baked into ObamaCare from the start.

Posted at 10:40 am by Stephen Green

COMMUNITY NOTES FOR THE WIN:

Trump can’t do it all himself, Sen. Thune.

Posted at 10:24 am by Stephen Green

THAT’S (D)IFFERENT BECAUSE SHUT UP:

Posted at 9:22 am by Stephen Green

KRUISER’S MORNING BRIEFING: It’s a Shame Trump Couldn’t Shut Down the UN for Good. “Leftists the world over — especially American Coastal Media Bubble™ types — insist that the UN is the linchpin of global community and understanding. These are the same people who believe that stuff from the government is ‘free,’ so they’re idiots and not to be taken seriously.”

Posted at 9:07 am by Stephen Green

HOW TO SUBVERT SUBVERSION WITH YURI BEZMENOV: Beware of CCP Unrestricted Warfare.

The supreme art of war is to subdue the enemy without fighting. If one party is at war with another, and the other party does not realize it is at war, the party who knows it’s at war almost always has the advantage and usually wins. Sun Tzu tried to warn us.

The CCP is conducting unrestricted warfare against America. Similar to the KGB’s ideological subversion campaigns that the real Yuri Bezmenov dissected, this doctrine encompasses many fronts that are unnoticeable to the untrained eye. No other country comes close to coordinating this much intentional damage across psychological, chemical, and technological methods.

Most Americans have no idea it is happening because the media and politicians from both parties are complicit.

Read the whole thing.

Posted at 8:36 am by Stephen Green

I CAN’T SPARE THIS MAN, HE FIGHTS:

Posted at 8:30 am by Glenn Reynolds

HOCHUL OFFICIALLY RECOGNIZES THE OBVIOUS ONLY AFTER DOING THE DAMAGE:

Posted at 8:20 am by Stephen Green

THINGS ARE NOT GOING WELL NORTH OF THE BORDER:

Answer: “FBI 2025 data: estimated 14,085 total murders, firearms used in 72.3% (~10,183 gun homicides). Canada Health 2024 MAID: 16,499 (newest full official). Per capita: US (~342M pop) ~3.0/100k. Canada (~41.5M) ~39.8/100k.”” (Emphasis added, because holy crap.)

Posted at 7:57 am by Glenn Reynolds

WELL, WHY DIDN’T HE DO ANYTHING? Every teacher is saying, ‘How did he graduate? He didn’t do anything.’

South Carolina is trying to raise expectations. A new state law bans schools from setting “grade floors,” which set a minimum of 40 or 50 out of 100 instead of zero, even if no work is turned in. The idea is to persuade students who get a slow start not to give up on a passing grade.

But students have figured out they can pass with very little work, says Patrick Kelly, director of governmental affairs with the Palmetto State Teachers Association and a high school history teacher.

“At any high school graduation, I promise you, there will be a child who walks across the stage where every teacher in the room is going to go, ‘Wait, how did they graduate? They didn’t do anything,’” said Kelly.

Texas passed a similar law in 2009, writes Gilreath.

The South Carolina law also states that students must turn in missing assignments before they become eligible for credit-recovery programs, which let them make up classes they failed, often via online worksheets.

That could raise dropout rates says, Susan Stevens, assistant superintendent for school leadership in Greenville County, which set a grade floor more than a decade ago. The district will rethink how to support students at risk of failure.

If they haven’t successfully completed the work, how have they done anything but fail?

Posted at 7:34 am by Stephen Green

THE AMEN CHORUS OF NON-THINKERS IS THE REAL PROBLEM:

Posted at 7:22 am by Stephen Green

TWENTY MINUTES INTO THE FUTURE: What a Limited Russian Incursion Into Estonia Might Look Like: A Narva Scenario.

Too much of the European defense discourse today focuses on options that would amount to escalation, particularly long-range strike, rather than on rapidly developing the kinds of symmetrical capabilities that Ukrainian forces have, although there are European efforts along those lines, to be sure.  NATO member states must internalize the reality that, unattractive as escalation scenarios are to Putin, they are likely to be much more challenging for NATO states themselves from a political perspective.  Russian cognitive warfare efforts will go all out to dissuade one or more states from voting to support long-range strikes into or air campaigns against Russian territory in such a scenario, and NATO should not rely on winning those fights in every member capital.  The ability to defend against low-level scenarios such as those described above with tactical capabilities whose use does not require either the mobilization or the permission of the entire alliance is an essential component of deterrence as well as of defeat mechanisms.

But NATO must also internalize the challenges of moving such tactical capabilities to forward positions after the Russians have initiated attacks at a moment of their choosing.  Russian drone units are highly effective at interdicting ground lines of communication unless their own operators can be regularly and rapidly located and eliminated.  Front line states must not only rapidly field their own drone and counter-drone capabilities, but must also deploy them to their borders even in the face of the inevitable Russian accusations of NATO aggression and threat.

NATO must deter and, if necessary, defeat a limited Russian incursion such as this one at both the political and the military levels.  If military conditions are properly set and necessary preparations are made in advance, then success in the political arena becomes much more likely.  Clear statements that NATO will honor its defense commitments even against such limited attacks are needed, but so are clear preparations to do so at levels that do not impose massive political costs and risks on the alliance.

Earlier: Uh-Oh: BBC features white male soldier in warning about impending war.

Posted at 7:14 am by Ed Driscoll