Year: 2017

Judge comes down hard on IRS for its harassment of conservatives

9:58 pm

Still working for the Democratic Party, with Trump’s approval! A judge has come down hard on the IRS in its stonewalling related to lawsuits and investigations of its harassment of conservative groups during Barack Obama’s administration.

A federal judge on Thursday ordered the IRS to name the specific employees the agency blames for targeting tea party groups for intrusive scrutiny and said the government must prove it has ceased the targeting.

Judge Reggie B. Walton also said the IRS must explain the reasons for the delays for 38 groups that are part of a lawsuit in the District of Columbia, where they are still looking for a full accounting of their treatment. Judge Walton approved another round of limited discovery in the case and laid out six questions that the IRS must answer, including the employees’ names, why the groups were targeted and how the IRS has tried to prevent a repeat.

The IRS has until October 16 to compile. The article notes a more significant aspect of this continuing scandal: Why hasn’t “drain the swamp” Trump done anything to clean house at the IRS? Why has he allowed the IRS to continue its stonewalling? And why hasn’t he fired IRS head John Koskinen, who has clearly obstructed the investigations, lied to Congress, and even worked to have evidence destroyed?

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Indicted Democratic IT staffers suspected of selling sensitive info to hostile foreign governments

9:20 pm

Update on Democratic IT scandal: Investigators now suspect that the computer staffers, hired by numerous Democratic legislators (most notably former party head Debbie Wasserman Schultz) and already indicted for bank fraud, might have stolen and sold sensitive data to hostile foreign governments.

Investigators now suspect that sensitive US government data — possibly including classified information — could have been compromised and may have been sold to hostile foreign governments that could use it to blackmail members of Congress or even put their lives at risk. “This is a massive, massive scandal,” a senior US official familiar with the widening probe told The Post.

Alarm bells went off in April 2016 when computer security officials in the House reported “irregularities” in computer equipment purchasing. An internal investigation revealed the theft of hundreds of thousands of dollars in government property, and evidence pointed to five IT staffers and the Democratic Congress members’ offices that employed them. The evidence was turned over to the House inspector general, who found so much “smoke” that she recommended a criminal probe, sources say. The case was turned over to Capitol Police in October.

When the suspected IT workers couldn’t produce the missing invoiced equipment, sources say, they were removed from working on the computer network in early February.

During the probe, investigators found valuable government data that is believed to have been taken from the network and placed on offsite servers, setting off more alarms. Some 80 offices were potentially compromised.

Wasserman Schultz is especially suspect here. While every other Democratic lawmaker fired these IT staffers months ago, Wasserman Schultz kept them on her payroll (though they had lost security clearance and could do no work for her) and has gone out of her way to hinder the investigations.

Note that this is real scandal, involving actual indictments, the misuse of sensitive government data by foreign nationals of countries not friendly to the United States, and the possibly blackmailing of elected officials. Too bad our insane media today is trapped in a bubble and can no longer see a scoop, even when it is forced down their throats.

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Local officials deny pro-Trump group rally permit

8:50 pm

Fascist California: Citing safety concerns local officials in the town of Upland, California have denied a permit for a pro-Trump rally.

An ACT for America rally was being planned for Sept. 9 in Upland at the Madonna of the Trail, according to a Facebook post. The location of the rally, which now says “Inland Empire ((somewhere))” was changed Friday after a top Upland official made it clear a permit for the rally would be denied.

It is part of “America First” rallies being held nationwide that day. “This event will be in dedication to all first responders and national security. We appreciate all the hard work our men and woman of service has provided for our protection. As Americans we are giving thanks for protecting our beautiful country,” the Facebook description stated. [emphasis mine]

These officials are essentially endorsing the heckler’s veto, and I bet they are doing it because they agree with the fascist leftwing brownshirts that are attacking conservatives nationwide in order to silence them.

In other words, the first amendment no longer exists in California. Be warned if you go there to protest or speak any conservative ideas. You will either find government officials working to squelch your right to speak, or they will look away (as they did in Berkeley) when thugs move in to beat you up.

Let me add this question: Since when did Americans need permission from government officials to protest?

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At Zion on the way to the eclipse

8:32 pm

At Zion

As I have mentioned several times on my radio appearances with John Batchelor, Diane and I today began a two week trip to Glacier National Park followed by several days at Capital
Reef. The trip’s date however was pinned to Monday’s eclipse, with the plan being that we are stopping in Idaho Falls on the way up to Glacier to see it.

Today Diane and I drove from Tucson to a hotel right outside Zion National Park. This was not in my original plans, but when I realized the drive to Idaho from Tucson would be more than 15 hours, I looked to see if there was a nice place midway that we could also do some sightseeing. To my delight I discovered that Zion was perfectly positioned, and that there was a La Quinta hotel at its entrance that I could book practically free by using the points I had accumulated by staying at this chain previously. We had been to Zion previously, but it had been a number of years, and this would give us a chance to do a quick extra sightseeing trip.

After we checked in around 4:30 pm, we ate dinner, then took the shuttle bus into the park. The picture on the right above was taken from a short trail at the Court of the Patriarchs bus stop, up to a look out. When I saw the sun eclipsed in this manner by one of Zion’s many pinnacles, I thought this to be a very appropriate picture for the trip. The picture below is the main view from the lookout of the three pinnacles dubbed Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, from left to right. We didn’t see much as we didn’t have much time, but still, the place remains as beautiful as ever.

Tomorrow we head up to Idaho Falls.

Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob peaks in ZionA

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How To Know You’re In a Mass Hysteria Bubble

8:53 am

Link here. Scott Adams, creator of Dilbert, provides a very cogent analysis of the insanity of the liberal Democratic mindset today. His description of the event that triggered this hysteria is right on the money

On November 8th of 2016, half the country learned that everything they believed to be both true and obvious turned out to be wrong. The people who thought Trump had no chance of winning were under the impression they were smart people who understood their country, and politics, and how things work in general. When Trump won, they learned they were wrong. They were so very wrong that they reflexively (because this is how all brains work) rewrote the scripts they were seeing in their minds until it all made sense again. The wrong-about-everything crowd decided that the only way their world made sense, with their egos intact, is that either the Russians helped Trump win or there are far more racists in the country than they imagined, and he is their king. Those were the seeds of the two mass hysterias we witness today.

Trump supporters experienced no trigger event for cognitive dissonance when Trump won. Their worldview was confirmed by observed events.

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Read it all to find out if you are in the bubble or not.

Posted north of Phoenix.

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SpaceX postpones Mars Dragon missions

9:55 pm

Based on statements from one NASA official, it appears that SpaceX has put its plans to fly a Dragon capsule to Mars on “the back burner.”

Jim Green, head of NASA’s planetary science division, told Spaceflight Now in an interview that SpaceX has told the agency that it has “put Red Dragon back on the back burner.”

“We’re available to talk to Elon when he’s ready to talk to us … and we’re not pushing him in any way,” Green said. “It’s really up to him. Through the Space Act Agreement, we’d agreed to navigate to Mars, get him to the top of the atmosphere, and then it was up to him to land. That’s a pretty good deal, I think.”

It is my impression that, because NASA has forced SpaceX to give up on propulsive landing of its Dragon manned capsules, the company cannot afford to invest the time and money on it themselves, and thus do not have a method yet for landing a Dragon on Mars. Thus, they must postpone this program.

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To protect students from eclipse some schools will close Monday, or will keep their students indoors

9:54 am

The coming dark age: Fearful of the thunder gods, some school administrators have decided to close their schools or to keep their students indoors so they can’t see the eclipse on Monday.

CBS Miami reports some local schools in South Florida are giving kids an excused absence or even the day off to enjoy the eclipse, while others have decided to keep students inside for their safety.

The Scottsdale Unified School District in Arizona decided it was just too dangerous to let kids view the eclipse, especially after some reports of fake eclipse glasses on the market that might put eyes at risk, CBS Phoenix affiliate KPHO reports. “So without us being able to control the equipment that’s being used, if it’s donated or something, and also when you’re talking about a large amount of children it’s also very difficult to convince all of the kids to not look up. That’s not to say our kids won’t be very well behaved but if there’s even a question that there could be something unsafe, Scottsdale’s not going to take the chance,” said Erin Helm with Scottsdale Unified.

The quote is from the second link above. The first link describes the decision of Ohio schools to close.

It is horrifying that there are school officials out there who would actually act to prevent children from experiencing the eclipse out of fear. Kids are smart enough to know not to look at the Sun, if you tell them not to. And it is the responsibility of the school to provide them the right kinds of eclipse glasses, which do not cost a lot and can easily be purchased.

In fact, it is revealing that the schools doing this are all public schools, and thus provides more evidence that the public schools might be the worst place to send kids to get educated.

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“One of the greatest discoveries of the century is based on these things and we don’t even know what they are, really.”

9:42 am

The uncertainty of science: New research suggests that astronomers have little understanding of the supernovae that they use to estimate the distance to most galaxies, estimates they then used to discover dark energy as well as measure the universe’s expansion rate.

The exploding stars known as type Ia supernovae are so consistently bright that astronomers refer to them as standard candles — beacons that are used to measure vast cosmological distances. But these cosmic mileposts may not be so uniform. A new study finds evidence that the supernovae can arise by two different processes, adding to lingering suspicions that standard candles aren’t so standard after all.

The findings, which have been posted on the arXiv preprint server and accepted for publication in the Astrophysical Journal, could help astronomers to calibrate measurements of the Universe’s expansion. Tracking type Ia supernovae showed that the Universe is expanding at an ever-increasing rate, and helped to prove the existence of dark energy — advances that secured the 2011 Nobel Prize in Physics.

The fact that scientists don’t fully understand these cosmological tools is embarrassing, says the latest study’s lead author, Griffin Hosseinzadeh, an astronomer at the University of California, Santa Barbara. “One of the greatest discoveries of the century is based on these things and we don’t even know what they are, really.”

The key to understanding this situation is to maintain a healthy skepticism about any cosmological theory or discovery, no matter how enthusiastically touted by the press and astronomers. The good astronomers do not push these theories with great enthusiasm as they know the feet of clay on which they stand. The bad ones try to use the ignorant mainstream press to garner attention, and thus funding.

For the past two decades the good astronomers have been diligently checking and rechecking the data and the supernovae used to discover dark energy. Up to now this checking seems to still suggest the universe’s expansion is accelerating on large scales. At the same time, our knowledge of supernovae remains sketchy, and thus no one should assume we understand the universe’s expansion rate with any confidence.

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ULA’s Atlas 5 successfully launches NASA communications satellite

9:26 am

Capitalism in space: ULA this morning successfully launched NASA TDRS-M communications satellite, following a several week delay caused by an accident during satellite preparation that forced the replacement of the satellite’s antenna.

This was ULA’s fifth launch for 2017, which is behind the once-a-month pace they have maintained for the previous five years.

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