Today we remember those who died on 9-11-2001 and their families. Never forget.

SpaceX cannot fly its groundbreaking Starship rocket until November at least, according to a blog post by the company.

According to the company, obtaining government paperwork to license a rocket launch takes longer than designing and building the actual hardware. They received a launch license date estimate of late November from the FAA, which is more than two months later than the previously communicated mid-September date. SpaceX claims this delay is not based on new safety concerns but on what they call "superfluous environmental analysis."

SpaceX faces government harassment on multiple fronts, such as the impact of splashdown of rocket stages on marine life (!), and noise complaints related to the sonic booms of the rockets (!!). SpaceX must also take onerous measures relating to its impact on protected bird species in the area (!!!).

SpaceX criticizes the current regulatory environment, stating that the licensing process has been "repeatedly derailed by issues ranging from the frivolous to the patently absurd." They argue that some roadblocks are driven by "false and misleading reporting" and "bad-faith hysterics from online detractors or special interest groups."

As the astrophysicist and popular science commentator Peter Hague put it, “I've always resisted the idea that federal agencies are intentionally sabotaging SpaceX, but given how much good faith engagement the company had with state and federal agencies prior to getting rug pulled like this, things do look a bit [suspect].”

It's hard to say what's going on here, whether it's run-of-the-mill government incompetence or retribution against Musk for endorsing Donald Trump for President, or some combination of both (most likely). Either, obviously, would be a scandal. 

We recall a discussion a few days ago with a policy staffer where we were talking about how conservatives love to say platitudes about crazy “regulations” hampering businesses, but rarely go into the practical detail of which regulations make life impossible for businessmen and how. Well, we would say this is a really good (and infuriating) example.

Policy News You Need To Know

#AILuddism – Speaking of anti-technology attitudes—but this time from an unexpected corner. We have to inaugurate a new hashtag here, which we feel we may need more of in the future. We all know how the Luddites, workers in 18th century Britain, smashed the first steam-powered looms to protest the impact of new technology on their jobs. Have you ever heard of a luddite computer programmer? And yet, here we are. You may not have heard of the website StackOverflow. If so, you're not a programmer. Because to a programmer, StackOverflow is second only to the Bible. It's the most popular question-and-answer site for programmers and over the years through programmers answering each other's technical questions on its forums, it has built into perhaps the world's greatest database of programming knowledge. Well, StackOverflow just signed a new partnership with OpenAI, giving them access to their content. It doesn't take a PhD in computer science from MIT to see that training a powerful AI on all this content would make it an even more powerful rival to existing programmers. And so in response, a lot of anti-AI programmers are going back to their answers on StackOverflow and either deleting them or deliberately inserting errors, Ars Technica reports. Just like the Luddites, they are destroying their own breadwinner in protest against new technology. Interesting times.

#SeptemberCR – Speaker Johnson has said he's going to attach the SAVE Act to the September CR. Senate leadership doesn't want it. Which means there's going to be a big fight. Are conservatives willing to shut down the government in an election year? Stay tuned...

#Immigration – Chris Rufo's new investigative reporting project already has a major scoop. If you follow right-wing news, you may have seen how Venezuelan gangs have taken over parts of the quiet city of Aurora, CO and are terrorizing citizens. With his colleague Christina Buttons, Rufo has discovered evidence that “the Biden-Harris Administration subsidized the Venezuelan migrants who took over the apartments in Aurora, Colorado, through a funnel of government agencies and left-wing NGOs.” Writes Rufo: “The story begins in 2021, when the Biden–Harris administration signed the American Rescue Plan Act into law, allocating $3.8 billion to Colorado. The City of Denver drew on this reservoir of funds to launch its migrant resettlement and housing program. The city, in turn, funneled more than $5 million to two left-wing NGOs, ViVe Wellness and Papagayo, to secure housing for thousands of Venezuelan migrants. These organizations are run by Yoli Casas and Marielena Suarez, two Venezuelan immigrants who do not appear to have previous experience in large-scale migrant resettlement. Much of this funding was directly tied to ARPA, through the Migrant Support Grant program. Yoli Casas, who runs ViVe Wellness, said that the flow of government funds was so abundant, she was writing thousands of checks to pay for migrants. She claimed to have written $350,000 in checks in a single week—all heavily subsidized by taxpayers.” We have to write something no one has to write: a government should not give the appearance that it is deliberately hostile to its native population. This is enraging, and there's much more. Here's the full report, at City Journal.

#EnergyPolicy – Writes energy expert Alex Epstein: “Myth: Kamala Harris used to be for banning fracking, but now she supports fracking. Truth: Kamala Harris is still for banning fracking—because she is still for the net-zero agenda that requires banning fracking along with all other fossil fuel activities.” More here.

#Politics – Echelon Insights, the polling firm of the excellent Patrick Ruffini, has a new survey out identifying what he calls “political tribes.” Ruffini's great insight is to not just break down voters into simplistic categories like Republican/Democrat/Independent or demographic categories, but by ideological alignment. This is particularly valuable in a time of ideological flux and perhaps realignment as we are in right now. Writes Ruffini: “We ran a cluster analysis to show how voters grouped based on  26 questions about society, economics, and trust in institutions. The output reveals the nature of party coalitions.” With this process, he has identified eight political tribes: MAGA Conservatives, Reagan Conservatives, Right-Leaning Populists, Big Government Populists, Apolitical Moderates, Disillusioned and Diverse, Liberal Patriots, and Staunch Progressives. It's all fascinating and insightful and here's the whole thing.

#Chyna – The House just passed the DHS Restrictions on Confucius Institutes and Chinese Entities of Concern Act, limiting taxpayer funds to universities that work with Confucius Institutes. Confucius Institutes are Chinese government bodies which ostensibly work on cultural exchange, but have been linked to espionage and intimidation of dissidents against the Chinese government abroad, such as Taiwanese and Falun Gong activists.

#History – Funny and interesting from historian Josh McCabe: “Republicans have been advocating tariffs to fund social spending for over a century. It was part of the political deal that brought us America’s first welfare state program: civil war pensions.”