Private Space: Billionaire Richard Branson flew to the edge of space yesterday with a crew of two and three other passengers, winning the billionaire space race.

  Amazon’s Jeff Bezos heads for the stars in 10 days. Tesla’s Elon Musk also has plans.

  What NASA did for Tang, Branson and company claim they want to do for private space exploration and exploitation. In effect, what the nobles do will improve the lives of the little people. But our friend Mike McEwan sent a note saying, “As the 1% goes up to space, let’s hope nothing trickles down ..”

  The benefits of private space travel are debatable. Rick Tumlinson writes for Space.com that, “What some characterize as the in your face waste of money better spent on their own versions of public service, we see as a significant investment in the one area of human endeavor that has the possibility of helping solve a host of human problems, ranging from the intangibles of inspiration to the very real effects of human industry on the Earth.”

  While acknowledging the “massively over-bloated egos involved here,”

Tumlinson says, “They are investing in a better future. They are developing systems and technologies to break us out of the cage of gravity and allow us to open this little backwater of a planet to the rest of the universe.”

  From a practical standpoint, Branson did no more than duplicate the first suborbital space flight of astronaut Alan Shephard in 1961.

  Columnist Michael Hiltzik counters for The LA Times that manned space flight is a waste of time and we’re never moving to Mars. “Answers to global warming and disease are still much more accessible than fleeing Earth for space,” he says. “The dream of interplanetary travel and colonization is the dream of schoolchildren, and it’s time that the billionaires grew up.”

I, Donald: Donald Trump delivered a nearly 90-minute speech last night to the  Conservative Political Action Conference in Dallas, denouncing radical leftists, Marxists, Democrats, and critical race theory while claiming to be the best president the US ever had.

  He said, “With the help of everyone here today, we will defeat the radical left, the socialists, Marxists, and the critical race theorists. Whoever thought would be even using that term. We will secure our borders. We will stop left wing cancel culture. We will restore free speech and fair elections, and we will make America great again. It’s very simple. Very simple.”

  He didn’t say he’s  running for president again … everything but.

  In recent weeks a theory has been circulating the Trump will return to office as soon as next month. MyPillow CEO Mike Lindell and the lawyer Sidney Powell have been spreading the word.

  Over the weekend CPAC attendees were handed a card outlining a 7-point-plan to reinstate Trump as president “in days, not years.” The card came from an organization called Patriots SOAR.

   In short, the Patriots SOAR plan involves “exposing” the corruption of Speaker Nancy Pelosi, removing her, then electing Donald Trump as Speaker of the House. Interestingly, the law doesn’t say the Speaker needs to be a member of Congress, but every one of them has been. 

  Forget that detail for a moment. The plan would then call for Trump as Speaker to organize the impeachment and removal of President Biden and Vice President Harris. Then, as second in line to the Presidency after the vice president, Trump would ascend once again to the Oval Office. 

The Haiti Mystery: The motive for the assassination last week of Haitian President Jovenel Moïse remains somewhat of a mystery, but fingers are now being pointed at Florida-based doctor, Christian Emmanuel Sanon, who may have plotted to assume the presidency.

  The mystery here is that no one made moves to immediately take power and the hit squad comprised mostly of Columbians did virtually nothing to escape the country.

  Haiti’s national police chief, Léon Charles, said that Dr. Sanon “arrived by private plane in June with political objectives and contacted a private security firm to recruit the people who committed this act.” The firm, he said, was a Venezuelan security company based in the United States. 

  Investigators say they found evidence at Sanon’s home, including weapons and a Drug Enforcement Administration Cap. The killers had posed as DEA agents.

The Spin Rack: Three men and a woman were arrested at a Denver hotel Friday night after a hotel employee tipped off the police about a large stash of guns and ammunition in an 8th floor room. The hotel is near Coors Field, where the MLB All-Star Game is being held this week and police said they may have stopped a potential mass shooting. — The number of confirmed dead in the Surfside, Florida condominium attack is now 90 and 31 people are still missing. — The fencing put up around the US Capitol after the January 6^th insurrection is being taken down. 

The Sports Beatup: Dustin Poirier broke the left ankle of Conor McGregor Saturday night in the Ultimate Fighting Championships in Las Vegas, knocking him out of the fight. 

  Ultimate fighting has few prohibitions; no head butts, no eye gouging, biting, spitting or “fish hooking,” hooking your fingers in an opponent’s mouth or other orifice. There are other no-no’s, but it’s legal to break a guy’s leg.

  Asked whether McGregor’s injury took anything away from his victory, Poirier said without sympathy, “Nah, I beat the guy.”

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