Monthly Archives: September 2026

Crocodile Tears

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Journalism organizations that heretofore pooled resources in order to cover Presidential events that occurred in venues lacking space for all of the journalists have chosen to refuse to cover President Donald Trump’s (R) small-venue events in response to Trump’s decision to bar three of their number from the White House press pool over those three’s dishonest reporting on administration matters. (Notice that: the bar is over dishonest news reporting, not over opinionating and commentary, as the pressmen have been arguing, thereby demonstrating the reporting dishonesty being sanctioned.)

“The public has a vital interest in receiving accurate, independent information about its government. No administration should restrict a news organization because it objects to its reporting,” the pool members, FOX News Media, ABC News, CBS News, CNN, and NBC News, said in a joint statement.

That’s just it, though. CNN‘s, MS NOW‘s, and Politico‘s news reporting has long been dishonest, and they’re not alone; they’re just the most egregious. That dishonesty begins with refusing to report all of the news—all of the facts underlying a news story—which is nothing more than lying by omission. This is a technique the broadcast outlets use especially broadly (viz., spiking the Hunter Biden laptop revelations of the New York Post). The outlets’ dishonesty extends to writing/broadcasting unattributed rumors—sourced to “anonymous,” or to “officials familiar,” even to mere “persons familiar.” That leaves us in their revered public with no means to check on those sources in order to evaluate for ourselves those sources’ qualifications on the subject matter, much less their actual presence in the alleged discussions. We can’t even evaluate whether those sources actually exist or if they do whether their claims are being accurately reported.

Overarching all of that is my long-standing question. Years ago, editors required at least two on-the-record sources to corroborate anonymously sourced claims. Journalists have long since walked away from that requirement, raising the obvious question: what concrete, measurable, publicly accessible standard of journalistic integrity do today’s journalists use instead?

Journalists’ silence on that question is a loud, clear answer.

In the end, Trump is right: journalists have no intrinsic right to enter the White House. They have all kinds of sources and means of ferreting out news regarding the administration and its doings without being inside an office building, however big a deal the building might be. If nothing else, they can interact with their anonymous sources and officials/persons familiar as those folks come and go from the office building.

Consolidate!?

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Iran’s terrorist satrap Houthis have seized a critical island in the Red Sea allowing them—and so Iran—to control traffic through the Red Sea. Matthew Continentti, who should know better, thinks the appropriate response by the Trump administration includes

bring[ing] the Saudis, Israelis, and Emiratis together to prevent the Houthis from consolidating their position.

Stern finger-wagging and harsh words by this coalition won’t accomplish anything beyond emphasizing the perception of Iran’s opponents as paper kittens.

What really needs to be done is to get Saudi Arabia and Jordan—which has as much interest in a free-sailing Red Sea as the Saudis and Emiratis—to commit their ground troops, under American air cover, to run the Houthis back off that island. That’s the only “prevent them from consolidating” that has any value.

The parallel step—not “next step” as Continetti characterizes it—is to allow[] the US military to finish its target list from Operation Epic Fury, adding if missing from that target list communications networks, transportation hubs, state institutions, and symbols of the regime.

Half measures not only don’t cut it, they run up costs in friendly treasure and blood. And that’s immoral as well as politically stupid.

Cislunar Isn’t Enough

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Joint Chiefs of Staff General Dan Caine is advising/warning of the need for the US to be prepared to fight in the region of the moon.

At a conference at the Air and Space Forces Association, Caine said that

American troops need to prepare for combat not only in Earth’s orbit but around the moon….

And that

the US military should adapt now so it “is prepared to fight, endure, and win…from the seabed to cislunar space.

That’s good, but it doesn’t go far enough. We need to be able to fight and win on the surface of the moon, also, and we need to seize the even higher ground of the Martian surface and the volume of space around it, which includes Mars’ moons and their potential for to serve as bases and launchers.

The region around the moon must also include—and we must explicitly seize for our exclusive military use—the Lagrange points of the Earth-moon system. These points are areas well separated spatially from the moon where the gravitational forces of Earth and the moon are balanced so that objects can sit there stably without needing to expend energy to remain in place.

The Earth-moon Lagrange points include two in the moon’s orbit roughly 60 degrees in front of and behind the moon, a third just beyond the moon on the Earth-moon line, a fourth on the same line but between the moon and Earth, and a fifth on the same line but on the far side of Earth from the moon.

Those Lagrange points, as stable as they are, also are important economically since refiners and factories would be stable there.

One more item: communication lags between Earth and the moon, and especially between Earth and Mars, are such that real time, active control from Earth of our defensive systems there would be impractical. That puts a premium on active, military-tailored AI being in place to exercise tactical and immediate control over our systems there within strategic parameters transmitted to them from DoD here on the ground. That puts a premium on putting a low lid on efforts to overregulate AI innovations.

An Excellent Opportunity in the Offing

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The Bank of England is keeping its benchmark interest rates unchanged for the time being, and it says it’s changing the way it would change the way it reduces its holdings of government bonds at a time when gilt yields have risen to multidecade highs, including pausing auctions of those bonds until next year.

The BOE is doing this in part because gilt yields are at multidecade highs. Those highs also mean that the market prices for the gilts are at multidecade lows. Which creates the opportunity.

Instead of pausing its auctions, or perhaps in conjunction with them, the BOE might take advantage of those near historic low prices and buy back a passel (to use the technical term) of the gilts, particularly those with the longest time yet remaining to maturity, and retire them.

Of course, that would have its maximum effect only if the British government were to get its fiscal house in order and cut out its addiction to spending like there’s no tomorrow, which there won’t be if the government doesn’t. That, though, is another story.

A Faux Angst

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There is growing upset over the CDC having not yet opened its ordering process for States to order “their” supplies of Wuhan Virus vaccines for children.

It’s a falsely created upset. Leave aside the minor matter that it’s difficult to predict when the right time in the year is to administer a Covid booster shot, former CDC leaders said.

Reasonably healthy children, even sick ones with comorbidities extant, don’t need vaccine: between about six months old and pubescence, they are already immune to the virus. Before six months, their immune systems are not established, so the vaccine would do those babies no good, and it could be dangerous for them.

Here, though, is this, from Dr Demetre Daskalakis, formerly in charge of overseeing CDC’s immunization efforts:

Even if there’s a little delay, that’s creating a disparity[.]

It’s not fair. The angst has nothing to do with any actual need, only to do with equity. Some who don’t need the vaccine are getting it, so everyone who doesn’t need the vaccine should get it.