July 24, 2024

OPEN THREAD: Hump Day.

Posted at 9:30 pm by Glenn Reynolds

THE NEW SPACE RACE: SaxaVord prepares for first orbital launch. “A spaceport in the Shetland Islands expects to soon be ready to host the first vertical orbital launch from U.K. soil. In a presentation at the Farnborough International Airshow here July 23, Scott Hammond, deputy chief executive and operations director of SaxaVord Spaceport, said he expected the spaceport to receive the last of the licenses from U.K. regulators in September needed to host the inaugural launch of Rocket Factory Augsburg’s RFA ONE rocket there.”

Posted at 9:00 pm by Glenn Reynolds

NEW CATCHPHRASE FOR KAMALA HARRIS: “Selected, not elected.” She got no votes for the Democratic nomination. The Democrats will be putting forward someone no Democrats voted for in the primary, all while talking about “our democracy.”

Posted at 8:25 pm by Glenn Reynolds

WELL, BIDEN ISN’T RESIGNING, BUT HE’S GIVING WHAT LOOKS LIKE A CAMPAIGN SPEECH — FOR HIS NEXT 6 MONTHS IN OFFICE. It would help if he could speak like a normal person. His voice sounds weird and his enunciation is off. And his condemnation of extremism and violence would play better if angry mobs of terrorist sympathizers hadn’t invaded the Capitol and burned American flags while desecrating monuments around Washington.

It would be nice if we had a president who would protect our monuments.

UPDATE: Jesse Watters’ sum-up: “Damage control for a failed presidency.”

Posted at 8:07 pm by Glenn Reynolds

NEXT THEY’LL TELL US THAT OIL CAN BE PRODUCED ABIOTICALLY: Mysterious ‘Dark Oxygen’ Discovered at Bottom of Ocean Stuns Scientists. “Chugging quietly away in the dark depths of Earth’s ocean floors, a spontaneous chemical reaction is unobtrusively creating oxygen, all without the involvement of life. This unexpected discovery upends the long-standing consensus that it takes photosynthesizing organisms to produce the oxygen we need to breathe.”

Posted at 8:00 pm by Glenn Reynolds

WILL JOE BIDEN RESIGN TONIGHT? “Do I want him to resign? Do you? I don’t know how bad he is right now, and I don’t know if Kamala Harris is ready to jump into the job at the same time she’s got to hit the ground running as the candidate in a big time crunch. I don’t know which way puts our country and the world in the most danger. And maybe you’re also concerned with whether one party or the other has a better chance of winning in November if Kamala Harris ascends to the presidency right away.”

My first thought abut tonight’s address is that he was going to resign, so Kamala could run as an incumbent. My second thought was that he wouldn’t resign, because then Kamala couldn’t run on being the first black woman president.

Posted at 7:50 pm by Glenn Reynolds

GOOD START FOR KAMALA’S CAMPAIGN:

Insurrection!

Posted at 7:33 pm by Glenn Reynolds

DISPATCHES FROM THE POLITBURO: Biden ‘absolutely’ sharp enough for second term, no ‘coverup’ of mental decline, White House insists.

White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre insisted Wednesday that President Biden remains sharp as a tack and “absolutely” could serve another four-year term — stunning journalists at her first briefing since Biden dropped his re-election campaign over concerns about his mental acuity.

“Look, he didn’t step down from campaigning or from running because he didn’t believe he can serve in a second term. That is not why,” Jean-Pierre claimed to the incredulity of the press corps.

The press secretary said the 81-year-old president’s decision to drop out Sunday and endorse Vice President Kamala Harris, 59, was in the “best interest” of the country and the Democratic Party and that viewers should “stay tuned” for a fuller explanation from Biden in an 8 p.m. Oval Office address on Wednesday.

“So today, the president believes that he is capable, fully capable of serving in the office that he currently has now and for the next 4.5 years if he wanted to?” an Associated Press journalist asked Jean-Pierre.

“Absolutely,” she said.

Honestly, I’m quite certain that Armando Iannucci didn’t intend for the Death of Stalin to be a how-to guide for the transparent and orderly transition of power in one of the world’s most powerful nations.

Posted at 5:30 pm by Ed Driscoll

MICHAEL OREN: Netanyahu’s Visit Is a Test for the Democrats*.

Sitting before the cameras with Netanyahu, Biden will have the opportunity to prove that he is still competent enough to complete his term. He can rebuff those calling on him to resign and allow Kamala Harris to run as an incumbent.

Should he receive Netanyahu, as planned, at Mar-a-Lago, Trump can smooth over his differences with him and reinforce the Republicans’ claim to be the true pro-Israel party.

Netanyahu’s most impactful meeting, though, will be with Harris. It will showcase her as a statesperson capable of interacting with a formidable foreign leader. It will facilitate her necessary movement from the progressive left to the moderate center. Ironically, one of Netanyahu’s most outspoken critics in Washington stands to benefit substantially from his visit.

The New York Times was wrong and so, too, was the State Department’s Office of the Chief of Protocol, which apparently failed to give Netanyahu a respectable welcome. No matter. His time in Washington will be nevertheless noteworthy and perhaps even fateful.

* One they’re already failing very badly. Harris was addressing the Zeta Phi Beta Sorority in Indianapolis instead of at Netanyahu’s speech, and as America’s Newspaper of Record notes, even more radical Dems are using it as a way to once again champion their preferred pronouns:

Meanwhile, the Democrats’ base demonstrate their tolerance of diversity, America’s traditions, peace on earth, and goodwill to their fellow man: Terrorist Protesters Storm Union Station in DC and Burn American Flags.

Naturally Harris will receive no questions about this from the DNC-MSM, once again moving in lockstep to advance her coronation.

Posted at 5:14 pm by Ed Driscoll

ENTHUSIASM RUNS WILD:

Posted at 4:47 pm by Glenn Reynolds

FLORIDA DEM. LIKENS CALLING VICE PRESIDENT KAMALA HARRIS A ‘DEI HIRE’ TO USING THE N-WORD:

A Florida Congressman has slammed his Tennessee Republican counterpart for calling Kamala Harris a ‘DEI hire’ – saying he might as well have used the N-word.

Maxwell Frost, 27, erupted in fury after Representative Tim Burchett insisting on CNN that the vice president was not the Democratic candidate based on merit.

‘They want to call her a DEI president, or a DEI candidate. She has more experience than Trump and J.D. Vance combined, times a million, right?’ he told CNN’s Jim Acosta Tuesday.

‘She worked at the state level, she was the attorney general, she was vice president, she was a senator representing one of the largest states in the entire country.

‘And so these are just racist dog whistles. Whenever you hear DEI, I want you to think about the N-word. I want you to think about racial slurs. That’s what they actually mean,’ he concluded.

I too am shocked by Joe Biden’s long history of trafficking in racist dog whistles:

Posted at 4:34 pm by Ed Driscoll

LIFE IN 2024:

Posted at 4:34 pm by Glenn Reynolds