Nor am I alone is wanting the damn bill repealed: Support for the repeal of ObamaCare remains at 60%.
Repeal the damn bill! Health plans for high-risk patients under ObamaCare are attracting fewer customers while costing far more than expected. Key quote:
Last spring, the Medicare program’s chief actuary predicted that 375,000 people would sign up by the end of 2010. In early November, the Health and Human Services Department reported that just 8,000 people had enrolled.
Power grab! FCC votes 3-2 to regulate the internet via net neutrality.
Today’s announcement by the Obama administration of their choice for NASA’s new chief scientist, Waleed Abdalati, reveals once again how much climate research guides their thinking, not space exploration. Key quote:
His research has focused on the study of polar ice cover using satellite and airborne instruments. He has led or participated in nine field and airborne campaigns in the Arctic and the Antarctic.
This is not a criticism of Dr. Abdalati. His research interests, however, make very clear where the Obama administration really wants NASA to look: down at the Earth instead of up beyond Earth orbit.
The Wall Street Journal has pulled the highlights from today’s ruling against Obamacare. Key quote from the ruling:
“The unchecked expansion of congressional power to the limits suggested by the Minimum Essential Coverage Provision would invite unbridled exercise of federal police powers.”
The Obama administration’s $30 billion cash pledge at last year’s climate summit is in doubt.
Not only do I think this is good, I continue to wonder how any administration (not just Obama’s) can make such a pledge in the first place, considering the fact that under our Constitution all such allocations must first be approved by Congress.
This must not happen! There are hints that the White House is asking the lame-duck Congress for the authority to transfer appropriations from one account to another, without Congressional approval. As Ed Morrissey notes
[This request] all but demands a blank check from Congress as a budget plan and ends their ability to direct funding as it sees fit. It’s a carte blanche for runaway executive power. Senate Republicans must pledge to filibuster any budget with that kind of authority built into it. In fact, every member of Congress should protest this demand to surrender the Constitutional prerogative of budgeting and the check on power it represents. Otherwise, they will consign the people’s branch to a mere rubber stamp for executive whims.
Sadly, the pigs appear to be winning. Obama’s deficit commission has failed to pass its recommendations.
White House initiates a study on whether astronaut corps should be trimmed.
This story is more evidence that I was right when I said Obama was lying when he claimed he loved manned spaceflight. If he was serious about sending humans to asteroids and beyond, he wouldn’t be so eager to find ways to shrink the astronaut corp.
Update: I should emphasize that I am not criticizing the idea of trimming the astronaut corp. I just want it clear that Barack Obama is clearly not a supporter of manned space, and that I believe his proposals (the commercial space subsidies) are merely window-dressing to placate his opponents while he dismantles the program.
The space war continues to heat up again. In a hearing today in the Senate, several senators complained loudly that NASA isn’t implementing the details of the September authorization act.
What clowns. These same senators haven’t provided NASA (or anyone) with a budget. They have also given NASA an authorization bill that does not provide the agency with enough money while simultaneously demanding that things be done faster. And they’ve done this at a time the federal government is almost bankrupt. Moreover, the bill requires that NASA build things that the Obama administration doesn’t want to build (though in truth, the Obama administration itself is so confused that no one, including them, knows what they are going to do).
All in all, the whole thing is a mess.
As I’ve said earlier, it’s all pork. Even if NASA gets the money laid out in the authorization bill, it will accomplish nothing except spread some cash around to several congressional districts. Nothing will get built. And in the process of sending that money to new aerospace companies NASA will do much to squelch their creativity and innovation.
Better to cut it all, and let the aerospace industry sink or swim on its own. It will almost certainly do better that the government at this point. In fact, how could it do worse?
The space war over NASA continues. NASA’s human spaceflight program is “adrift,” according to John Karas, the general manager of Lockheed Martin’s human space flight division. Key quote:
“Everybody’s arguing, debating. We are in this giant storm with no direction, and more than likely we’re gonna get hit with more waves of money cuts. So we have to have some future plan here; some future direction — or we’re just going to get capsized,” he said.
The use of the word “adrift” is ironic, as this was the very word that President Obama used to describe NASA’s state shortly after taking office. It seems to me, however, that under Obama things are far more confused and chaotic then they ever were under Bush.
Will the squealing never stop? The National Space Society has called on Congress to fully fund NASA, as per the authorization bill passed in September, even though the money doesn’t exist, and even if it did exist the amount authorized is insufficient anyway to accomplish what it is intended.
It appears the squealing is working: Obama’s deficit commission on balancing the U.S. budget appears gridlocked, and is not expected to approve any budget-cutting plan when it votes on Wednesday.
Jeff Foust has noticed that the Obama’s deficit commission has rewritten its recommendation that the NASA subsidies to commercial space be cut. The rewrite doesn’t really change the recommendation. Instead, it merely corrects the language to more accurately describe the subsidy program.
Sarah Palin comments on the Obama administration’s policies towards NASA.
What Obama fails to understand.
Am I clairvoyant? Clark Lindsey notes how Obama’s National Commission on Fiscal Responsibility and Reform is recommending a $1.2 billion cut from NASA’s private commercial space budget.
The EPA is being sued by oil and grocery organizations over its decision to allow more corn-based ethanol in gasoline. Too bad the EPA didn’t listen to environmental organizations like Greenpeace, who say ethanol in gasoline is bad for the environment.
Enviromental regulation takes another hit! The EPA policy chief most in favor of heavy regulation has stepped down.
Want to find out how polarized our county is? Then wear this shirt (which can be purchased here) and watch the reaction.
How do I know this? Well, yesterday on my flight home from California after giving a lecture to the Orange County section of the American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics, I tried it. Nor was this the first time I’ve worn this shirt and seen the reactions. People always seem to notice it, often doing a doubletake because at first they think it is the Obama image with the word “Hope” underneath. Then they realize what it really is, and either laugh in amusement or frown in annoyance.
Yesterday was no different. As I stepped out of the elevator and into the lobby of my California hotel, I passed a woman whose eyes immediately widened when she saw the shirt, and then scowled as she walked past. Then, I went into a local Subway to pick up something to eat during the long flight home. The woman who made my sub as well as the clerk who took my cash both looked at my shirt and glowered. Though they did nothing outright rude, I really think they would have preferred to tell me to leave and not sell me my sub.
At the airport things were interestingly different. Two guys in front of me on line to check bags immediately wanted to know where they could buy the shirt. Then, on the airplane, a steward as well as the passenger sitting next to me asked me the same question. When I said I’d forward them the webpage if they’d give me their email addresses, they all complied eagerly. The steward then went out of his way for the rest of the flight to make sure I was happy, to which I remain grateful.
Though I do find these reactions both amusing and intriguing, I also find them disturbing. How can a free nation survive if people get so emotional over something so silly as a t-shirt?
You can’t put lipstick on this pig! AARP, which backed healthcare reform because it thought it would lower costs, has announced that due to healthcare reform it will raise the premiums its employee pay by 8 to 13 percent. Meanwhile, privacy advocates are raising alarms about the federal health database being set up under the healthcare bill.
From the Huntsville Times: NASA could be in a budget limbo for months as a result of Tuesday’s election.
A deluge of new regulations by the EPA threatens to reduce the American capacity to produce electricity by over seven percent.
Saving NASA from the Obama science fair. Key quote:
In place of a plan crafted by his predecessor which might have one day carried astronauts to Mars, Mr. Obama has proposed a science fair that literally goes nowhere.
Hasn’t someone already said this, at great length, more than a few times?
Link fixed! Sorry about that.
Let’s take a trip into the future, looking past Tuesday’s midterm election.
For the sake of argument, let’s assume that, come Tuesday, the Republicans take both houses, in a stunning landslide not seen in more than a century. Let’s also assume that the changes in Congress are going to point decidedly away from the recent liberal policies of large government (by both parties). Instead, every indication suggests that the new Congress will lean heavily towards a return to the principles of small government, low taxes, and less regulation.
These assumptions are not unreasonable. Not only do the polls indicate that one or both of the houses of Congress will switch from Democratic to Republican control, the numerous and unexpected primary upsets of established incumbents from both parties — as well the many protests over the past year by large numbers of ordinary citizens — make it clear that the public is not interested in half measures. Come January, the tone and direction of Congress is going to undergo a shocking change.
Anyway, based on these assumptions, we should then expect next year’s Congress to propose unprecedented cuts to the federal budget, including the elimination of many hallowed programs. The recent calls to defund NPR and the Corporation for Public Broadcastings are only one example.
When Congress attempts this, however, the vested interests that have depended on this funding for decades are not going to take the cuts lightly. Or to put it more bluntly, they are going to squeal like pigs, throwing temper tantrums so loud and insane that they will make the complaints of a typical three-year-old seem truly statesman-like. And they will do so in the hope that they will garner sympathy and support from the general voting public, thereby making the cuts difficult to carry out.
The real question then is not whether the new Congress will propose the cuts required to bring the federal government under control, but whether they, as well as the public, will have the courage to follow through, to defy the howls from these spoiled brats, and do what must be done. » Read more
These politicians are such jerks! A family in Rhode Island put together a fancy “Dinner with Obama” to raise money for Democrats. Obama arrives, collects the money, and then skips out before dinner. And why couldn’t Obama stay? This is what he said, just before everyone else sat down to eat,
“I’ve got to go home to tuck in the girls and walk the dog and scoop the poop,”
This bill is going to dog the Democrats who voted for it for years: A new study says the cost of the healthcare bill’s subsidies will far exceed Congressional Budget Office estimates.
Watch this so-called panel of expects on MSNBC as they desperately try to figure out why why women play such a large part in the tea party movement. Totally baffled, the best these out-of-touch “gurus” can come up with is “taxes” and “women pay the family bills.”
Putting aside their blatent bigotry (“Women as we all know are smarter than men.”) and childishly shallow generalizations (“Something about finding a voice.”), these empty headed fools, emblematic of most modern elite intellectuals, can’t see the obvious elephant in the room.
It’s the out-of-control government spending, stupid! On Monday the Treasury Department released numbers showing that since Barack Obama took office just two years ago, the debt of the federal government rose by $3 trillion.
This graph, courtesy of Gateway Pundit, gives some context to the increase in the debt:
Spending was horrible under George Bush. The public was worried about it. Now spending has gone insane under President Obama, and the public is more than worried, the public is outraged and spitting nails. That these elites don’t see this either means they are incredibly stupid, or they want the country to collapse in a sea of debt. In either case, they shouldn’t have the jobs they do.
More criticism of NASA administrator Charles Bolden emerges as he heads to China. Key quote:
Since taking charge of NASA in July 2009, the 64-year-old Bolden has visited 14 countries and has been missing at critical moments. Last year, he skipped one of the first shuttle flights under his watch to visit Japan and most recently was on a trip to Europe and the Middle East when the U.S. House nearly defeated the NASA vision endorsed by the Obama administration. “How about saving the manned space program — in America?” said U.S. Rep. John Culberson (R-Texas).
According to this Nature article, competing political interests spell a troubled future for NASA, despite Obama’s signing of the authorization bill on Monday. Didn’t someone already predict this, months ago?
