Back in March, Senator Bob Menendez who is under investigation for corruption, said he would not seek reelection in November. In May, Menendez got a bit more specific and said that he would not seek the…

On January 19th, 2024, the Japanese Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA) successfully landed its Smart Lander for Investigating Moon (SLIM) on the lunar surface. In so doing, JAXA became the fifth national space agency to achieve a soft landing on the Moon – after NASA, the Soviet space program (Interkosmos), the European Space Agency, and the China National Space Agency (CNSA). SLIM has since experienced some technical difficulties, which included upending shortly after landing, and had to be temporarily shut down after experiencing power problems when its first lunar night began. On the Moon, the day/night cycle lasts fourteen days at a time, which has a drastic effect on missions that rely on solar panels. Nevertheless, SLIM managed to reorient its panels and recharge itself and has survived three consecutive lunar nights since it landed. However, when another lunar night began on May 27th, JAXA announced that they had failed to establish communications with the lander. As a result, all science operations were terminated while mission controllers attempt to reestablish communications, which could happen later this month. As JAXA stated via its official X account (formerly Twitter): “We tried again on the night of the 27th, but there was no response from #SLIM. As the sun went down around SLIM on the night of the 27th, it became impossible to generate electricity, so unfortunately this month’s operation will end. Thank you very much for the overwhelming support you have shown us since our post the day before.” 27??????????????????#SLIM ???????????????27??????SLIM??????????????????????? ?????????????????????????????????????????????????????#JAXA— ????????SLIM (@SLIM_JAXA) May 28, 2024 JAXA further indicated that the command transmission to restore communication was performed using an “unplanned ground station antenna” and with the cooperation of JAXA’s tracking network.” They also indicated that they plan to try reestablishing communications once the current lunar night ends later this month – at which point, they expect the lander will be recharged. “The power was turned off overnight, so we hope that the whole system will be reset and restarted,” they wrote. The SLIM mission also carried two rovers, which separated from it in lunar orbit and landed independently on the same day. Known as the Lunar Excursion Vehicle-1 and -2 (LEV-1 and LEV-2), these rovers are the first Japanese robotic missions to traverse and explore the lunar surface. According to JAXA, LEV-1 is the world’s first “hopping exploration rover” while LEV-2 is the world’s smallest and lightest. During the four months since they landed, LEV-1 has measure the local temperatures, topography, and taken images. The rovers can conduct operations autonomously and transmit data to Earth directly without assistance from the lander. As such, JAXA’s mission controllers are still likely to hear from LEV-1 and LEV-2 while attempting to restore communications with SLIM. Further Reading: Twitter.com The post Japan’s Lunar Lander Fails to Check-in appeared first on Universe Today.

The following article, Marjorie Taylor Greene Calls For NO Federal Funding To New York Over Soviet-Style Trump Conviction, was first published on Conservative Firing Line. (Natural News) Congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Greene, R-Ga., on Saturday called for New York to receive no federal funding due to the recent conviction of former President Donald Trump. (Article by Charlotte Hazard republished from JustTheNews.com) “NO Federal funding to New York!” Greene wrote on the social media platform, X.  “I’m calling for it!!! New York needs to drop … Continue reading Marjorie Taylor Greene Calls For NO Federal Funding To New York Over Soviet-Style Trump Conviction ...

Ibram X. Kendi, one of the premier philosopher-kings of 2020’s “racial reckoning,” is now facing a reckoning of his own. Or at least, that’s the title of today’s lengthy New York Times magazine profile of Kendi’s fall from grace (“Ibram X. Kendi Faces a Reckoning of His Own”). In reality, Kendi’s faux-intellectual hustle has been mired by controversies, snags, and setbacks for years; if papers like the Times only appear to have noticed now, it’s because raising certain nuanced, moderate “concerns” about the vast constellation of post-Black Lives Matter dogmas has suddenly been greenlit by the priesthood of acceptable opinion. The Times piece runs through a long recitation of Kendi’s struggles: After becoming a “household name” with the publication of his bestselling book How to Be an Antiracist in 2019 — and founding his lavishly funded “Center for Antiracist Research” at Boston University amid the 2020 protests — Kendi is facing a “backlash.” The Times reports: Books of his have been banned from schools in some districts, and his name is a kind of profanity among conservatives who believe racism is mostly a problem of the past. Though legions of readers continue to celebrate Kendi as a courageous and groundbreaking thinker, for many others he has become a symbol of everything that’s wrong in racial discourse today. Even many allies in the fight for racial justice dismiss his brand of antiracism as unworkable, wrongheaded or counterproductive. In September, Kendi was forced to make the “painful decision” to lay off half the staff at the Center for Antiracist Research. The public fallout was mired in allegations of corruption, misuse of funds, and numerous reports from employees of the center — hardly right-wingers themselves — that Kendi’s leadership style was controlling and abusive. While these revelations and the implosion of the center institutionalized the collapse of Kendi’s public brand, his actual ideas had discredited themselves long before — at least, to anyone with the capacity for basic critical thought. Even by the standards of left-wing “anti-racism” theory, his clumsy ideological justifications for the doctrine he became best known for — that any and all disparities are ipso facto proof of discrimination, and thus, effectively everything is racist — were pathetic, at times even seemingly half-hearted. (One got the sense, from reading Kendi, that he begins at the most convenient conclusions and reasons backward to find his arguments from there). Kendi’s conclusions were the same conclusions that every political theory, tract, and program offered by the DEI regime arrives at: That black people — “people of color” more broadly, but particularly black people — simply can’t be held accountable for anything they do wrong, that their problems are entirely society’s fault, and that society must therefore reallocate near-infinite resources (preferably lifted directly from the pockets of white people) to lavish blacks with new privileges, programs, and set-asides, above and beyond the already absurd trillions of dollars that America (and particularly white America) has redirected towards its black minority already over the past 50 years. Never mind the fact that, as David Horowitz noted back in 2001, “Reparations to blacks [] have already been paid”: Since the passage of the Civil Rights Acts and the advent of the Great Society in 1965, trillions of dollars in transfer payments have been made to African-Americans in the form of welfare benefits and racial preferences (in contracts, job placements and educational admissions) — all under the rationale of redressing historic racial grievances. That continues to this day via the welfare system, which is, in its practical effect, a massive ongoing racial redistribution machine, in which blacks get out far more than they pay in, and whites pay in far more than they get out — a sort of perpetual form of reparations. None of that, of course, is enough for people like Kendi, because people like Kendi’s paychecks — and in a more fundamental sense, their ethnic interest — depend on extracting ever-greater concessions, handouts, and goodies from the seemingly bottomless fountain of white guilt. What readers must understand about ethno-narcissists like Kendi is that all ideologies and doctrines are but a means to an end. In the view of Kendi and his peers, what is good for blacks is good, and what is bad for blacks is bad. This is, fundamentally, the singular lens by which they evaluate all public policy. We owe Kendi a debt of gratitude for his unusually candid expression of this view, as well for the broader incompetence that led to the very public collapse of his brief-but-substantial empire. If nothing else, it reveals what all this “diversity, equity, and inclusion” business was always about. Lurking beneath the hastily constructed rhetorical window dressing, layered under the talk of “justice” and “atoning for past wrongs,” is the base, raw pursuit of a specific group interest — even if those interests come at the expense of society writ large. The post Death of a Race Hustler appeared first on The American Spectator | USA News and Politics.

California has reached a point where it is, on a fundamental level, fiscally unsound. The budget deficit — which by one estimate amounts to $73 billion — is not the result of an off year that happened to generate lower revenues. No, this is a structural problem. The disparity between tax revenues and spending is so vast that the entire system — celebrated by liberals as a model of progressive governance — is a house of cards. And it was all built by Gov. Gavin Newsom, who chose extravagant progressive policies over maintaining a sustainable budget. The insane overspending began the day Newsom took office on Jan. 7, 2019. At the time, radicals at the state Capitol were eager to create the progressive utopia they had long envisioned but had been unable to achieve under former Gov. Jerry Brown, who prioritized fiscal restraint. In his inaugural address, Newsom made it clear that he would depart from Brown’s approach and pursue the realization of the progressive vision. “We will be prudent stewards of taxpayer dollars, pay down debts, and meet our future obligations,” he said. “But let me be clear: We will be bold. We will aim high, and we will work like hell to get there.” (READ MORE: Newsom Believes the Globe Is Getting Hotter Even as California Freezes) As his governorship began, Newsom revealed just how bold he would be. Leading up to his inaugural address, Newsom promised that he would provide all Californians with two free years of college and toss a couple billion extra toward early childhood programs. Then, in his first policy move, Newsom announced that he would extend free healthcare coverage to illegal immigrants until they reached the age of 26. (In a sign of how far to the left Democrats were on the issue of immigration at that time, Newsom pledged in his address to make California a “sanctuary to all who seek it.” Later, Newsom would extend free healthcare coverage to all illegal immigrants.) Lavish spending might have initially pleased Newsom’s constituencies and endeared him to radical California Democrats, but it has led him to a day of reckoning. Those who once loved him because he rained money on them are now turning against him as he implements cuts to their programs. (READ MORE: Newsom Picks Pontificating Over Governing) The rift was made evident in May when the California Teachers Association, a stalwart Newsom ally that has benefited handsomely from its tight relationship with the governor, released an advertisement that bordered on an attack against him. “Tell lawmakers and Governor Newsom to pass a state budget that protects public schools for our students and communities,” said the ad. The union invested an unknown amount to broadcast these ads on television in California. Additionally, the group’s president, David Goldberg, publicly opposed Newsom’s plan to use an accounting maneuver to maintain school budgets, a tactic that would nullify Newsom’s guarantees on education funding in future years. It was a shocking turn of events, as the union has donated hundreds of thousands to Newsom. In this case, the harsh tactics proved successful. Politico reported last week that Newsom and the California Teachers Association had come to an agreement that would guarantee additional billions in education spending increases in coming years. Planned Parenthood in CA is deeply disappointed by the proposal in @CAgovernor’s May Revise that will jeopardize access to not just sexual and reproductive care but quality, affordable health care across the board for the nearly 15 million Californians who rely on Medi-Cal. — Jodi Hicks (@jodihicks) May 10, 2024 In a perhaps even more surprising falling out, Planned Parenthood — which has also benefited enormously under Newsom’s governorship — has also turned against him. The president of Planned Parenthood Affiliates of California, Jodi Hicks, blasted Newsom in a series of posts on X last month over healthcare funding decreases the governor announced in his May revisal of the state budget. “Planned Parenthood in CA is deeply disappointed by the proposal in @CAgovernor’s May Revise that will jeopardize access to not just sexual and reproductive care but quality, affordable health care across the board for the nearly 15 million Californians who rely on Medi-Cal,” said Hicks. Such comments are far removed from the tight relationship the abortion group previously had with Newsom, who in 2019 doubled the state’s spending on “reproductive health” from $50 million to $100 million, a significant amount of which went to Planned Parenthood. In another example of progressive discontent, a number of healthcare groups held a press conference last week to criticize the governor over his decision to cut home care for elderly illegal immigrants. The group, the California Pan-Ethnic Health Network, said it was “unconscionable to eliminate In-Home Supportive Services for undocumented Californians.” It additionally accused Newsom of balancing the budget “on the backs of poor people of color.” More anger has emerged over Newsom’s proposal to cut $300 million from public health services. And yet more infuriation has come from the University of California and California State University, which are facing a combined $200 million cut — even though Newsom promised them funding increases. Hundreds of millions in cuts to addressing homelessness have others up in arms; one homelessness nonprofit executive said those cuts affect “funding sources that the most vulnerable Californians rely upon.” In short, one constituency after another is erupting in anger upon learning that funding the state never really could afford will no longer be doled out to them. The constitutional deadline for passing a new state budget, June 15, rapidly approaches. In the meantime, Newsom will continue to face this barrage of anger. This discontent will be how California liberals will remember Newsom’s governorship. Instead of fulfilling their idealistic dreams, it has amounted to broken promises and a broken system. READ MORE: The Problem for Newsom’s Aspirations: California’s Impending $73 Billion Fiscal Disaster The post Gavin Newsom Is Not Having a Good Time appeared first on The American Spectator | USA News and Politics.

The Search for Reagan By Craig Shirley (Post Hill Press, 336 pages, $29) It was 20 years ago today, June 5, 2004, that Ronald Reagan passed away. I remember where I was when I heard the news. Many of you might remember where you were as well. No, it wasn’t akin to where you were when you first heard of the Kennedy assassination. That was a shock, whereas Reagan’s death was long expected. It had been almost 10 years since his Nov. 5, 1994, letter informing his fellow Americans that he had Alzheimer’s disease. By June 2004, he had hung on longer than almost anyone expected — to the point that he had become history’s longest living former president when he died at age 93. What was akin to the Kennedy assassination was the extraordinary national remembrance, an outpouring of affection that left many liberals stunned, though it was no surprise to the tens of millions who twice elected Reagan in landslides in 1980 and 1984. Reagan’s reelection 20 years earlier was incredible: he took 49 of 50 states and the Electoral College by a margin of 525 to 13. I could go on and on about the week that followed Ronald Reagan’s death, especially the moving memorial service at the National Cathedral in Washington, D.C., on June 11, 2004. What recently took me back to that service is Craig Shirley’s new book, The Search for Reagan. Craig and I have written more books on Reagan than any other biographers, with well over a dozen books between us. We’re both often asked if we’ve hit the limit on what there is to write about Reagan. The answer is most assuredly no, especially given that leftists have never stopped trashing the man and always open a new front for us to defend him against yet another sleazy, unsubstantiated attack.  In this book, Craig Shirley addresses some of those attacks. He provides an eclectic survey of various Reagan-related topics, issues, persons, ranging from his time at the Screen Actors Guild and as governor of California to figures such as former Pennsylvania Sen. Richard Schweiker, Supreme Court Justice Sandra Day O’Connor, House Speaker Tip O’Neill, Soviet Union leader Mikhail Gorbachev, and even Illinois Rep. Dan “Rosty” Rostenkowski. The book includes a nice foreword from Mark Levin, who, like Shirley, started his storied career in the conservative movement by working in President Reagan’s administration.  Reviewing a book like this in under 1,500 words isn’t easy, but two things jumped out that particularly struck me and are worthy of your attention: 1) that funeral service at the National Cathedral and 2) Shirley’s chapter on President Reagan and AIDS. I’ll hit the latter first and circle back to the second. Among the nastiest, stupidest attacks on Reagan from the Left is the outrageous assertion that he did nothing about the AIDS (Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndrome) crisis that emerged in the 1980s. Shirley puts it this way: “The false narrative—promulgated by his political enemies—was that Ronald Reagan did nothing in the face of the AIDS crisis and coldly let hundreds of thousands of gay men die needlessly.” As Shirley retorts, this claim “is untrue,” a “fabrication made up out of whole cloth.” Shirley walks through how this fabrication developed, including the misinformation in an insidious docudrama aired on Showtime. He also succinctly shows how and why this is false. Among other reasons: “At Reagan’s direction, the government spent untold amounts of money communicating with the American people generally and gay men specifically how to practice safe sex.”  I lived through the 1980s — it was my teen and high school and college years — and I remember this very well, and especially how liberals lampooned the “safe sex” campaigns. It wasn’t what they wanted to hear, nor do. Many of them reading now will rage that such money spent was naively ineffective, and will want to assert that nothing else was done. But of course, that’s not true. As Shirley documents, Reagan in 1985 told a reporter: “Including what we have in the budget for ’86, it will amount to over a half a billion dollars that we have provided for research on AIDS, in addition to what I’m sure other medical groups are doing. And we have $100 million in the budget this year; it’ll be $126 million next year. So, this is a top priority with us. Yes, there’s no question about the seriousness of this and the need to find an answer.” Reagan knew those numbers off the top of his head. He knew plenty of people from Hollywood who were homosexual and even had AIDS, including fellow actor Rock Hudson. The vast majority of Americans didn’t know anyone who had the disease, but Ronald Reagan did. His administration focused on prevention, transmission, and research on vaccines and drugs to manage or possibly even find a cure for AIDS. It was a central priority for his FDA and Surgeon General Dr. C. Everett Koop. Craig Shirley notes that the Reagan administration’s AIDS funding requests to Congress went from $8 million in 1982 to $26.5 million in 1983 — a 300 percent-plus increase in one year. Congress raised the amount to $44 million, from which it essentially doubled each year thereafter throughout the Reagan presidency. That was a huge amount of money back then, especially for a disease that only a tiny percentage of Americans acquired.  Craig Shirley’s short but powerful chapter ought to be required reading for anyone with an opinion on Reagan and AIDS, especially for Leftists looking to smear Reagan on the issue. Unfortunately, many of the smearers likely will not bother, given that their goal is less to learn the truth than to slime Ronald Reagan. On the plus side, the vast majority of Americans looked at Ronald Reagan with a more open mind. That was how he ended up winning 49 of 50 states. They knew this was a good man and a great president. They felt that way all the way until Reagan’s death in June 2004. When death came for Reagan, they came out in droves to pay their respects in California and Washington. That brings me back to that service for Reagan at the National Cathedral. Craig Shirley puts that National Cathedral service in further context by commenting on the Washington funeral services for other notable figures, which he notes often became uncouth occurrences for Washington’s hoity-toity to slap backs, shake hands, give air kisses, exchange business cards, and look for important people to suck up to. He recounted the tragic death of Barbara Olson on September 11, 2001 — a woman very close to The American Spectator and to its founder, R. Emmett Tyrrell, Jr. (Olson actually introduced Bob and his wife Jeanne, and was the maid of honor in their wedding. Our magazine has a Barbara Olson award for courageous journalism.) Shirley also recounted how the “beautiful people” in Washington gathered for the funeral of longtime Washington Post editor Ben Bradlee, which was “actually the social event of the season,” and was, like a Georgetown cocktail party, covered with great glee in the Post’s silly Style section. Shirley also remarked upon President Bill Clinton’s disgraceful behavior at the funeral of his secretary of commerce, Ron Brown. “At the Washington funeral, Bill Clinton was observed by television cameras laughing afterwards when decorum dictated a modicum of grief and remembrance,” writes Shirley, correctly. “Instead, Clinton was having a ‘heigh-ho’ time, right up until he spotted the camera spotting him, immediately turned his smile into a frown, and instantly went into his act, pretending to be sad and thoughtful.” That is indeed precisely what happened. It was the juvenile Boy Clinton at his worst. All of which was a complete contrast to the Ronald Reagan remembrance at the National Cathedral on June 11, 2004. This was a deeply moving experience, which I would encourage you to watch online if you’ve never seen it before. Shirley notes that Washington’s “swank” and “tony” did attempt to turn the event into party, but were thwarted by the serious Reaganites and international dignitaries who came to that cathedral to mourn and pay their respects. I watched the event live and provided coverage for the Associated Press radio network. I recall most vividly glimpsing Reagan’s closest aide and my close friend, William P. Clark, sitting in one of the pews in tears. Clark (I was his biographer) called me immediately after the event and said, “I tried to keep it together, Paul. I tried to stay composed. But when [Irish tenor] Ronan Tynan starting singing ‘Ave Maria,’ I just lost it. I didn’t expect that.” Many Americans had the same reaction. They loved Ronald Reagan. They — many of them Democrats — wish we had a Ronald Reagan right now. Kudos to Craig Shirley for his ongoing work in keeping Reagan’s memory alive and reminding us again and again of the man’s contributions. READ MORE: Reagan Remembered Reagan’s Conservatism Is Worth Another Look The post Countering the Criticisms Aimed at Ronald Reagan appeared first on The American Spectator | USA News and Politics.